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Steve Haddon's avatar

Brilliant post. Nailed it.

I have worked, for most of my life, in IT, and we have a term for this exact problem: "Analysis Paralysis". A failure to get things done, (actually, even started), because simple parameters, (like: what do we actually need; what's our budget), are not set.

And... when are people going to understand, we live on a planet of finite resources?

Pretty Prepared's avatar

Wow. What a brilliant piece of writing. Please fence me in.

Emelia's avatar

Loved this piece, we even saw it with the enhanced games, athletes given a full range of performance enhancers yet no one able to beat the records of Olympic athletes!

Ken Pentel's avatar

Thank you. From what I can tell, we no longer have a choice; the plateauing and decline of fossil carbon and experiencing biophysical limits is creating acute pressure. This pressure is amplifying some beautiful and ugly human behavior, yet mostly, we are no more than the biological expression born long before the evolution of humans.

Max's avatar

Excellent peak outside the box. I would write more, but experiencing writers block at the moment.

Rob Stewart's avatar

For a committed Catholic this argument makes complete sense. It is in respecting the fence that is the moral law that true freedom becomes possible. In this sense the truest fence is love. With great love comes great freedom because love becomes the guiding fence.

Stephen Gwynne's avatar

Not sure if I agree with the premise of this piece.

There are limits and there are fences in place which are epitomised by laws and regulations with these limits and fences usually well defined.

That said, the imposed limits and fences are always shifting or being ignored in the case of carbon emissions for example in order to allow for more economic expansion which of course is directly correlated with human population expansion which in theory isn't constrained by limits or fences other than occasional laws like China's one child policy or biophysical Malthusian type limits.

Arguably the one thing that has perhaps the least limits and fences is fixed capital formation which is perhaps is where this series is leading with capital formation largely driven by debt and equity alongside profits.

In this context, the limits and fences are determined by the Market and more importantly interest rates especially if capital formation cannot keep up with debt and equity issuance leading to inflation and higher risks of debt default which in turn can trigger a systematic financial crisis and severe economic contraction.

So rather than limitless freedom, our human systems are more like a finely tuned balancing act between competing interests with a systemically encoded presumption in favour of sustainable development especially when a national population is growing whether naturally or through immigration.

Reginald Duquesnoy's avatar

How about reading, or re-reading, Marx and Lenin for a slight... grasp of reality? We are all on Shuttle Columbia, while Elon is far up Uranus...

Andrés López-Varela's avatar

Interesting that a version of this very valid argument is what far-right, anti-immigrant, quasi-fascistic, northern hemisphere-types like to lean on to explain their world views.

Josy ⚖️ LED BY MULES 🪬's avatar

YO HOUSTON

We Have A FREEMASON PROBLEM!

And There Are INSANE Paedo Nazi Fascist Fuckwits With Spy Tech Trying To Take Over The Asylum Called GHETTO PLANET.

Is It An INSIDE JOB!!!!!?