Wars are simply a product of over population. When humans were below carrying capacity at well under 35,000,000 worldwide, there was no need to fight other tribes as it was easy enough to relocate to where more resources were. We were nomads anyway, so the concept of moving your tribe around was quite normal.
Once humans became fixed in place, exceeding local carrying capacity, wars were inevitable.
It is logical to think that wars will only end once human population reverts to just under carrying capacity. Which is also inevitable.
i do not know it anymore now first it was collapse because we run out of food minerals and crude oil than it would by collapse but with a whimper instead of a bang because of fertility now it is again a resource/war collapse ?
Club of Rome predicted that collapse would NOT come from running out of resources. It would come from pollution (e.g. CO2, endocrine disruptors and foreverchemicals). I think they were right.
Population growth is coming to a standstill now, only still happening in so-called "developing" countries. According to a projection of the LANCET by 2100 there will only still be a handfull of countries with a population surplus. Such projections do not take into consideration what happens now with sperm and testosterone: both go down the drain and so go birth-rates. I am writing about this on my substack.
so it is not economy collapse just fewer birth's and elderly humans who will die that competed life i was hoping that i would see prof ugo bardi's report on the club of rome website that he spoke of it would appear 12 june 2025 but it never came it was also of the end of overpopulation
You have suggested Ugo, that "...nobody could imagine that the descent would be accompanied by the burst of war madness we are seeing today." However, written by Ophuls, the "Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity" in 1977, infers militarism and fascism emerge from resource constraints and economic decline - that politics is an emergent property of energy/resource availability.
Military expenses without a war is just socialism for wealthy, today military expenses are quite more a mixed thing, as we are seeing with Israel and Russia is that self restrains are gone between nations and peer are not interested in policing any kind of order, so nations are living with jungle law dominated by animal spirits: the only law is comparative military strength (in full spectrum dominance prospective) but also linked to the personal interest of inner decision makers that perceive that any damage to their country almost surely will not impact them as INDIVIDUAL (ex. individual gains could be monetized and hidden).
War, probably, in itself is not worth today, territorial gains and resources are meaningless without a growing population (expanding consumer base) and extremely costly in terms of resources (net gain probably negative) and manpower (consumer base) so any logical reason is marginal at best, emotional victories and propaganda gains could still be positive gains. Individually, it is possible to have net gains in wars that are a net loss for a country in every conceivable way, the total annihilation in a thermonuclear war could be a gain for a psychopath or a megalomanic personality! (Pol Pot rule - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot)
Europe preparing for war is almost a natural outcome of ongoing active war in Ukraine and growing tension in Balkan and North Africa, active shooting at the border and total incapacity of international law to find a solution with other possible hot points intensifying in a region that is almost totally energy dependent on import....
I always very much admired the short essay "The fate of empires" by Sir John Glubb Pascha who explains how every empire is doomed after one or a few centuries. Its free to read here: https://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf
but is it collapse because of war or collapse by running out of food,resources/minerals,coal,crude oil or natural gas or fertility decline ? if it is because of war it is most likely (region collapse)
I will answer your question in that last sentence, Ugo. Probably yes. But I remember the old adage that partially explains the dynamic you described for Rome. "Soldiers eat first."
the late Swami Sivananda (MD) wrote that "humans are the sporting lapdogs of passions and emotions", the foundation of the "compulsive buying based on advertising" consumer economy.
Those having followed reviews of military products will have discovered a comparable behavior in the military economy (So EU militaries continue to buy US crap despite the evidence of its inferiority).
The only possible (not scientifically proven yet) exception to this compulsive behavior is "restraint": the realization that unless there's an acute biological need, no direct action is needed (time to reflect & contemplate). However this possible exception has been the key for "success in yoga" and similar practices for ages, only to be diluted, watered down and worse, perverted by the so called "elites" of those eras, knowing those practices on a large scale would eliminate their power to command and send millions to their death on the battlefield.
All organisms strive to dissipate as much power as possible — the Maximum Power Principle, pioneered by Alfred Lotka and formalized by Howard Odum.
Of course, the means of dissipating this power matters to individuals, but it doesn't matter in the aggregate whether that power is dissipated in constructive or destructive activities.
At least, in the aggregate. Many of us strive to have our basic needs met while dissipating as little power as possible, going so far as to refuse to procreate or to participate in the greater economy.
Will depend where you are I guess. The Assyrians went down rather suddenly and the others didn't bother with the place much after that, what with the sand and all. North America could be interesting I suppose. They had an Arcadian streak once. Who knows if a civilisation might arise in regrown forests fed with restored chestnut trees, furnished with black walnut, perhaps even libraries?
Thanks Peace for pointing to William Catton; continuing industrial expansion is unsustainable and US per capita use of energy and materials has been well into overshoot in modern times. Despite being a relatively small minority of global population the US contributes very significantly to geological change and ecological damage, both likely irreversible and world-changing. Regional rates of change in the biosphere however are very uncertain. Dramatic disturbance and ecological loss it is thought will be 'normal', but where and when and 'how' may remain inherently unpredictable.
Ugo's pointing up the uncertainty of the consequences of this mad burst of war is very timely. Loss of an Empire, perhaps US hegemony for example, might happen a lot sooner than we think, altering regional trajectories and perhaps importantly global BAU, while still within the global LTG framework. Regarding the latter, it has been pointed out, importantly in my view, that scenarios based on data from prior BAU become unpredictable once the trajectories have peaked, and go into decline, as seems likely within a few decades or sooner. Uncertainty also applies to the slow progress of climate change already set in motion for the next centuries, although Hansen et al suggest formidable vey long term results in human terms could already be built into the pipeline. One hopes not.
Phillip, we're already at at least 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial times; here's David Spratt, climate scientist (author of the prescient Climate Code Red) to explain that 3 degrees is at most 35 years away and usually things happen faster than anticipated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flgq63f7TOc
Of course... climate impacts will increase... current BAU ensures positive feedback. The question in my mind, however, is what happens in the next 1-25 years? Will climate change of itself cause industrial BAU to change sufficiently dramatically (seems v. unlikely) or will parts of the globalised industrial system (i.e. BAU dependent on economic growth) degrade for other reasons? And in that case which regions will be more resilient, or not, in the face of such a lurch or step-down?
Peace (and our host), thanks for the conversation and for the link. FWIW I would v. much like 'the world' to deal with BAU / climate peacefully and effectively and soon. There is as you suggest a risk that climate change with 'existential' & 'abrupt' consequence could be with us already within the next 100 years. The one I am thinking of is loss of AMOC It gets a brief mention in the Breakthrough report. I hope the science survives sufficiently in the coming decade or so to be able to scale the risk and get attention for a coherent response.
Perhaps the report (a shorter Executive Summary is available) that McKinsey & Company still keeps on their website will be insightful. The path that the world is on seems to be Too Little Too Late, one of the scenarios developed by the Network for Greening Financial Systems (central banks and their directors; originated by G& Green Study Group of 2016) who give credit to the IAMC (Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium). There is No evidence that the world is spending 8 to 9% of total Global GDP on transitioning towards a carbon free economy; https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/sustainability/our-insights/the-net-zero-transition-what-it-would-cost-what-it-could-bring After you take a look at that report please take the time to revisit David Spratt's presentation linked in a comment above as he makes the case it is the tropics (very low latitudes) that will suffer unsurvivable extreme temperature day and will have to be depopulated (mass deatth zone? 2 billion clumate migrants that need to be resettled somewher welcoming?). He maintains AT MOST that is 35 years away as the global temperature rise is accelerating now.
I believe that wars and the necessary militarization they entail are much more ambivalent than that. As destructive as wars can be, they can also have a positive integration role on a longer term by bringing peace and uniting people and/or defending them against a common enemy.
It might be at least the case in half of the situations as many countries leaving at peace have their origins in smaller political units unified through armed conflicts. Is Pax Romana not a prime exemple, at least within its borders ? Or the unification of Italy a century and half ago ?
No civilization, no society, no country can thrive without being able to defend itself.
So the question might be more about the circonstances that bring the situation you are describing ? Turning the army and military apparatus from an asset to a liability ?
Wars are simply a product of over population. When humans were below carrying capacity at well under 35,000,000 worldwide, there was no need to fight other tribes as it was easy enough to relocate to where more resources were. We were nomads anyway, so the concept of moving your tribe around was quite normal.
Once humans became fixed in place, exceeding local carrying capacity, wars were inevitable.
It is logical to think that wars will only end once human population reverts to just under carrying capacity. Which is also inevitable.
i do not know it anymore now first it was collapse because we run out of food minerals and crude oil than it would by collapse but with a whimper instead of a bang because of fertility now it is again a resource/war collapse ?
Club of Rome predicted that collapse would NOT come from running out of resources. It would come from pollution (e.g. CO2, endocrine disruptors and foreverchemicals). I think they were right.
population is still growing and according to nafeez ahmed he expect global collapse in a few decades ?
Population growth is coming to a standstill now, only still happening in so-called "developing" countries. According to a projection of the LANCET by 2100 there will only still be a handfull of countries with a population surplus. Such projections do not take into consideration what happens now with sperm and testosterone: both go down the drain and so go birth-rates. I am writing about this on my substack.
so it is not economy collapse just fewer birth's and elderly humans who will die that competed life i was hoping that i would see prof ugo bardi's report on the club of rome website that he spoke of it would appear 12 june 2025 but it never came it was also of the end of overpopulation
Not only elderly will die, because collapse, climate extremes and insect decline will cause food shorateges and wars and this has already begun.
War is how humans do national debt-restructuring.
;-(
You have suggested Ugo, that "...nobody could imagine that the descent would be accompanied by the burst of war madness we are seeing today." However, written by Ophuls, the "Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity" in 1977, infers militarism and fascism emerge from resource constraints and economic decline - that politics is an emergent property of energy/resource availability.
Another exploit to keep the "robber barons" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist) ) going, Orwell seen something similar in 1984 but as the book is quite unlikely to happen as pictured in reality.
Military expenses without a war is just socialism for wealthy, today military expenses are quite more a mixed thing, as we are seeing with Israel and Russia is that self restrains are gone between nations and peer are not interested in policing any kind of order, so nations are living with jungle law dominated by animal spirits: the only law is comparative military strength (in full spectrum dominance prospective) but also linked to the personal interest of inner decision makers that perceive that any damage to their country almost surely will not impact them as INDIVIDUAL (ex. individual gains could be monetized and hidden).
War, probably, in itself is not worth today, territorial gains and resources are meaningless without a growing population (expanding consumer base) and extremely costly in terms of resources (net gain probably negative) and manpower (consumer base) so any logical reason is marginal at best, emotional victories and propaganda gains could still be positive gains. Individually, it is possible to have net gains in wars that are a net loss for a country in every conceivable way, the total annihilation in a thermonuclear war could be a gain for a psychopath or a megalomanic personality! (Pol Pot rule - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot)
Europe preparing for war is almost a natural outcome of ongoing active war in Ukraine and growing tension in Balkan and North Africa, active shooting at the border and total incapacity of international law to find a solution with other possible hot points intensifying in a region that is almost totally energy dependent on import....
Might make right, the new world supreme rule!
I always very much admired the short essay "The fate of empires" by Sir John Glubb Pascha who explains how every empire is doomed after one or a few centuries. Its free to read here: https://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf
but is it collapse because of war or collapse by running out of food,resources/minerals,coal,crude oil or natural gas or fertility decline ? if it is because of war it is most likely (region collapse)
Ugo Bardi: "Empires tend to collapse as a result of overspending on their military."
Yes, Sir, but the inflection point is when the debt service on the borrowing to pay for the military exceeds the expenditure on the military itself.
"We" are there...
I will answer your question in that last sentence, Ugo. Probably yes. But I remember the old adage that partially explains the dynamic you described for Rome. "Soldiers eat first."
Long before the scientific acknowledgement that "free will does not exist"
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2398369-why-free-will-doesnt-exist-according-to-robert-sapolsky/
the late Swami Sivananda (MD) wrote that "humans are the sporting lapdogs of passions and emotions", the foundation of the "compulsive buying based on advertising" consumer economy.
Those having followed reviews of military products will have discovered a comparable behavior in the military economy (So EU militaries continue to buy US crap despite the evidence of its inferiority).
The only possible (not scientifically proven yet) exception to this compulsive behavior is "restraint": the realization that unless there's an acute biological need, no direct action is needed (time to reflect & contemplate). However this possible exception has been the key for "success in yoga" and similar practices for ages, only to be diluted, watered down and worse, perverted by the so called "elites" of those eras, knowing those practices on a large scale would eliminate their power to command and send millions to their death on the battlefield.
All organisms strive to dissipate as much power as possible — the Maximum Power Principle, pioneered by Alfred Lotka and formalized by Howard Odum.
Of course, the means of dissipating this power matters to individuals, but it doesn't matter in the aggregate whether that power is dissipated in constructive or destructive activities.
At least, in the aggregate. Many of us strive to have our basic needs met while dissipating as little power as possible, going so far as to refuse to procreate or to participate in the greater economy.
But that makes us "losers" in the overall scheme.
Will depend where you are I guess. The Assyrians went down rather suddenly and the others didn't bother with the place much after that, what with the sand and all. North America could be interesting I suppose. They had an Arcadian streak once. Who knows if a civilisation might arise in regrown forests fed with restored chestnut trees, furnished with black walnut, perhaps even libraries?
Desertification could creep up to higher latitudes even in North America on an ever-warming planet. Read the chapter on Succession whereby the plague growth of a species changes the environment so it is not longer supportive but prepares it for the species that will succeed them; the landmark book is Overshoot by William R. Catton Jr: https://www.amazon.com/Overshoot-Ecological-Basis-Revolutionary-Change-ebook/dp/B00VVH4UGG?crid=3MJK2H57QA47I&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.0R2hFdW2e8Ts31NjRhRlRX7pFentcuYBk7OGYV1GiwquSy2iiihjhkeIaw7WKXrm.0Nd4qVxo1l-vkis4fkKtA-4Zs1B-FedzKtmXhXbO81s&dib_tag=se&keywords=overshoot+william+catton&qid=1750110344&sprefix=overshoot+ca%2Caps%2C134&sr=8-1
Thanks Peace for pointing to William Catton; continuing industrial expansion is unsustainable and US per capita use of energy and materials has been well into overshoot in modern times. Despite being a relatively small minority of global population the US contributes very significantly to geological change and ecological damage, both likely irreversible and world-changing. Regional rates of change in the biosphere however are very uncertain. Dramatic disturbance and ecological loss it is thought will be 'normal', but where and when and 'how' may remain inherently unpredictable.
Ugo's pointing up the uncertainty of the consequences of this mad burst of war is very timely. Loss of an Empire, perhaps US hegemony for example, might happen a lot sooner than we think, altering regional trajectories and perhaps importantly global BAU, while still within the global LTG framework. Regarding the latter, it has been pointed out, importantly in my view, that scenarios based on data from prior BAU become unpredictable once the trajectories have peaked, and go into decline, as seems likely within a few decades or sooner. Uncertainty also applies to the slow progress of climate change already set in motion for the next centuries, although Hansen et al suggest formidable vey long term results in human terms could already be built into the pipeline. One hopes not.
Phillip, we're already at at least 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial times; here's David Spratt, climate scientist (author of the prescient Climate Code Red) to explain that 3 degrees is at most 35 years away and usually things happen faster than anticipated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flgq63f7TOc
Peace, see additional comment I just inserted below.
Of course... climate impacts will increase... current BAU ensures positive feedback. The question in my mind, however, is what happens in the next 1-25 years? Will climate change of itself cause industrial BAU to change sufficiently dramatically (seems v. unlikely) or will parts of the globalised industrial system (i.e. BAU dependent on economic growth) degrade for other reasons? And in that case which regions will be more resilient, or not, in the face of such a lurch or step-down?
Peace (and our host), thanks for the conversation and for the link. FWIW I would v. much like 'the world' to deal with BAU / climate peacefully and effectively and soon. There is as you suggest a risk that climate change with 'existential' & 'abrupt' consequence could be with us already within the next 100 years. The one I am thinking of is loss of AMOC It gets a brief mention in the Breakthrough report. I hope the science survives sufficiently in the coming decade or so to be able to scale the risk and get attention for a coherent response.
Perhaps the report (a shorter Executive Summary is available) that McKinsey & Company still keeps on their website will be insightful. The path that the world is on seems to be Too Little Too Late, one of the scenarios developed by the Network for Greening Financial Systems (central banks and their directors; originated by G& Green Study Group of 2016) who give credit to the IAMC (Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium). There is No evidence that the world is spending 8 to 9% of total Global GDP on transitioning towards a carbon free economy; https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/sustainability/our-insights/the-net-zero-transition-what-it-would-cost-what-it-could-bring After you take a look at that report please take the time to revisit David Spratt's presentation linked in a comment above as he makes the case it is the tropics (very low latitudes) that will suffer unsurvivable extreme temperature day and will have to be depopulated (mass deatth zone? 2 billion clumate migrants that need to be resettled somewher welcoming?). He maintains AT MOST that is 35 years away as the global temperature rise is accelerating now.
Hum...
I believe that wars and the necessary militarization they entail are much more ambivalent than that. As destructive as wars can be, they can also have a positive integration role on a longer term by bringing peace and uniting people and/or defending them against a common enemy.
It might be at least the case in half of the situations as many countries leaving at peace have their origins in smaller political units unified through armed conflicts. Is Pax Romana not a prime exemple, at least within its borders ? Or the unification of Italy a century and half ago ?
No civilization, no society, no country can thrive without being able to defend itself.
So the question might be more about the circonstances that bring the situation you are describing ? Turning the army and military apparatus from an asset to a liability ?