Evidence, please?

I spend a fair bit of time asking myself the question: Am I crazy?

I mean, without really wanting to do so, I seem to have landed on a fringe view within our culture, which is not a comfortable place for me in a social sense. I don’t love it. The easiest—seemingly most likely—explanation for the glaring mismatch is that I’m the one off kilter.

My statement: Modernity (even if defining starting 10,000 years ago) is a short-lived phase that will self-terminate—likely starting this century.

Common response: That’s crazy. Just look around you! We’ve created a new normal. Humans have transcended the bounds of nature—no longer mere animals. Ingenuity has unlimited potential, and we’re really on our way now. This changes everything, and we will never lose our technological mastery, now that we have found it. Modernity is our destiny—and kind-of the whole point of it all.  It’s what makes us truly human.

But let’s look at evidence: like evidence that modernity is a new normal that can go on at least as long as our species is around (relevant timescales are 10^6±1 years, or a million years plus-or-minus an order of magnitude).

What’s that? Zero evidence? Of course we can’t know. The future is not kind enough to present evidence to the present. Hmmm—maybe that’s because we’re so mean to the future, frantically robbing its lives of Earth’s bounty and biodiversity.

The basic observation that we can receive no evidence from the future cuts both ways, of course. I have no future evidence that modernity will begin shutting down within a century.

However, we are not completely in the dark, here. We know some things (see my previous post on things about which I can be relatively certain).  As obvious illustrations, we can be super-confident that day will follow night in a consistent cycle throughout our lives, that we will each die someday, and that the sun will render Earth uninhabitable on its way to spending its fuel.  In a similar fashion, we can lay claim to a host of other near-certainties even without evidence from the future.

Near-certainties

What do I think we can say about modernity with a reasonable degree of confidence?

1. Modernity is a very new phenomenon on this planet: nothing of its kind has happened before.
2. Even extending the boundary of modernity to a 10,000 year run since agriculture began, its duration is exceedingly short on evolutionary timescales—even compared to our species’ existence of 250–300 kyr, which itself is short compared to many species’ lifetimes (i.e., modernity is uncharacteristic of humans).
3. The present hyper-active mode, characterized by science, is just 400 years old, and the industrial/fossil-fuel age is less than 200: a mere flash, contextually.
4. Modernity relies on non-renewable resources dredged out of the depths that are not integrated into ecological cycles and often create unprecedented ecological harm—the full extent of which we can’t possibly yet know. Even traditional agriculture chews up land on thousand-year timescales (much faster these days)—besides setting up ecological disconnection and objectification, money and capitalism, toxic social hierarchies and power concentrations, and human-supremacist religious and political regimes.  For many materials, the prospect of depletion has become apparent after only a century or even decades of intense exploitation. The notion of maintaining current practices on millennium timescales is unsupported conjecture.  Today’s practices and material profile represent a one-time stunt.
5. We have loads of evidence for rapidly declining ecological health, in virtually every measure. Accelerating biodiversity loss rates are consistent with the initiation of a sixth mass extinction. Modernity has every appearance of being grossly unsustainable.
6. We’re sitting on such a glaring lack of evidence for other technological civilizations beyond Earth that it borders on evidence of there not being any (or at least rare in space and time: far short of a vibrant galactic civilization bombarding us with advertisements).

Maximum Likelihood

Taken together, the default position really ought to be that modernity is fleeting. The statements above would have to be flipped in order to offer a reassuring basis for modernity’s staying-power. A betting person would not be foolish to put a timescale on the reversal of fortunes that is commensurate with the time to get to this point: reverting to non-industrial form within a couple centuries, and wiped clean in 10,000 years or so. A more aggressive bettor would recognize that it usually takes far less time to knock something down than it does to build it up—especially when Earth is exhausted from the mayhem, unable to tolerate what it did for thousands of years leading up until now.

I guess what I’m saying here is: it’s not a 50/50 proposition lacking any context, where every gut-reaction opinion has equal value (consider: is it a 50/50 guess whether daylight will return tomorrow?). The burden of proof would seem to rest quite heavily on any person making the wild assertion that modernity is here as long as we wish it to be, barring only technological annihilation (i.e., too much technological success in the form of nuclear Armageddon or Matrix/Terminator style machine takeover; the latter “fantasy,” by the way, betrays the deepest ecological ignorance). As permanent as it may seem, observing modernity in full swing out the window is a very weak (transient) form of evidence, given adequate temporal perspective.

When someone huffs that we’re not going back to the Stone Age, is the reaction based on evidence, or on a universally supported/obvious-to-all model (like day following night), or on unexamined beliefs and emotion? To be clear, I’m not saying that the Stone Age is definitely where we’re going (some things have changed since then). But I cannot justify dismissing, out of hand, outcomes bearing a “lithic” flavor.

Cognitive Limits

Where is the evidence or historical insinuation to support the belief that modernity is here to stay? Is longevity a default position just because it’s really hard to work out how exactly modernity—so firmly entrenched and familiar—would go away? If so, why would we bind ourselves to limited imagination? One relevant question: do such statements of confidence in modernity’s staying-power tend to come from the least or the most ecologically ignorant among us? Realize that brains are not masters of reality, and no human knows more about ecology than they don’t know (i.e., we’re all ignorant, dog).

Brains are evolved, intricate meat-organs capable of cognition and forming mental-model shortcuts of the world that are generally very useful within their evolutionary contexts—thus their presence. But as crafty as they are at convincing themselves they have things figured out, brains are only small and limited elements of a larger ecological reality that is indifferent to mammalian neural musings.

In the case of not having a model for how modernity falls apart, the fact that an individual’s brain can’t expand to incorporate unfamiliar contexts, connections, and interdependencies—or entertain unprecedented developments—should in no way be taken as evidence or “proof” that modernity is compatible with ecological realities. One has nothing to do with the other.

Goes Both Ways?

I get that the tendency for some is to fling this right back at me. Maybe I lack the imagination to appreciate the ways in which unlimited human brain power can solve the expanding set of problems and keep modernity going/improving essentially indefinitely. This argument has a ring of inconsistency to it: brains are simultaneously acutely limited and infinitely capable. It reminds me of political arguments that paint an opponent as pathetically feeble while also being all-powerful manipulators behind the scenes. The real story is usually one of competition between varying degrees of incompetence, with a bit of luck thrown in.

Breaking the false symmetry in our case is the simple fact that I don’t put much stock in what imaginations concoct within brains—whatever the direction. No amount of imagining stops us from being animals who must breathe, drink, eat, poop, and die. We are biological beings evolved into an ecological reality, and are only here because humans worked for millions of years within a greater ecological context—one that continues to (grudgingly?) support us for the time being. The imaginings of brains, however, are not required to apprehend anything about the degree to which we are tethered to ecological health. No amount of imagining—mine or anyone else’s—will erase biophysical realities, many aspects of which are often obscured from view.

This is part of why my position may be so alien to the modernity-booster brain. It is unthinkable—heretical, even—that one would dismiss mental capabilities across the board. Yet, that’s exactly what I am using my brain to do: to insult itself in a most unconventional way.

So, I don’t need to (and can’t) understand exactly the road modernity will take in its failure, or to waste time fantasizing about how we’ll overcome the mounting challenges. It is enough to appreciate that artificial systems that are not folded into reciprocal ecological relationships will therefore receive no ecological support, will tend to degrade ecological health (dealing in “weird,” harmful materials that life cannot process), therefore leaving the beings who brought it about unsupported and unable to continue existing in that mode. Notably, we lack evidence to the contrary, and assertions that we’ll work things out come off as unhinged and desperate grasps, in this light.

In other words, modernity is fundamentally incompatible with ecology. It is not of ecological origin, does not play by ecological rules, has not been vetted to coexist ecologically for any relevant stretch of time, and is actively dismembering the ecological foundation upon which modernity’s perpetrators are utterly dependent for their own lives. Given this, only compelling (but non-existent) evidence to the contrary should move us from the default view that modernity is a short-term stunt. To believe otherwise is to court annihilation, willfully dismissing numerous warnings.  It’s a Thelma-and-Louise mad dash for the cliff edge.  Maybe we’ll fly: our imaginations say it’s possible.

Lack of evidence therefore does not “go both ways,” in blindly symmetric fashion. It’s not “anyone’s guess” whether daylight returns tomorrow.  Let’s avoid false equivalency.

To the Faithful

Little of this bothers the true believer in modernity. But it is important to remember: any assessment by any human is taking place in a meat-brain that simply isn’t up to the task, and never will be. Techno-optimist musings tend to have a short temporal focus (decades, typically), leave out “irrelevant” ecology altogether, display other biophysical blind spots (inevitable for all of us), and amount to leaps of faith. Solutions look easier the narrower the focus and the greater the degree of ignorance—which will always be present in some substantial measure for any human or group of humans. It is often easy to spot deliberate efforts to narrow the scope so that solutions make sense. But doing so is tantamount to moving to a fantasy world where we can live happily ever after.  Deliberate decontextualization makes things simultaneously tractable and irrelevant.

Coming back to the charge that maybe it is I who lack the requisite imagination, I say: nobody is capable of deep-enough understanding to see the issue with crystal clarity. And that’s the thing: I’m not even trying to, as I believe it’s a fool’s errand. To me, the strongest argument involves the evidence we do and do not possess: we have solid evidence that humans can live in ecological context for millions of years, and zero evidence that modernity is anything but fleeting—backed by no shortage of evidence exposing modernity as a nightmarish, cancerous ecological smash-job, killing the host upon which it utterly depends.

Why doesn’t the ecological angle bother the modernity-adherent? I suspect it’s because such a person has effectively unlimited faith in human ingenuity. It’s Dunning-Kruger-adjacent: if our technology seems like miraculous magic to a person, it’s easier to imagine its power is unlimited, right?  For such folks, the fact that we presently live non-ecologically seems to be sufficient proof that it can be done. “We’ll just do more of the same, ever-better. Innovation will replace ecological function. We will synthesize the things we want and need. Wild biology will be obsolete. Other species have nothing to offer, unless we wish to use some in increasingly-engineered slave-form as a matter of our convenience.” Human Reich stuff! Total rejection of our ecological origins.  It is a lot like throwing a rock into the air, and—based on the fact that it’s still going up—making the bold claim that it will stay aloft as long as we wish, because we can trick our brains into imagining it being so.

I actually want you to do this mental exercise. Imagine throwing a rock up, and having it come to a stop near the apex of its trajectory, thereafter hovering as long as your imagination wishes it to do so. Douglas Adams would say that our imagined rocks hang in the sky “in much the same way that bricks don’t.” See how easy that was? I’ll bet your rock is still up there, gently bobbing around—perhaps making happy gurgling noises, now that it’s been suggested. Okay, so do you think you could go outside and realize that imagined scenario (extra points for gurgling)? Is imagining modernity to be possible as long as we wish—in blatant disregard of biophysical and ecological realities that we don’t and can’t fully grasp—really any different? Are our brain-imaginings reliable arbiters of reality?

Indeed, modernity-optimism strikes me as made-up fantasy—a sloppy extrapolation based on a temporary set of accelerating stunts that have us rapidly plummeting toward the ground, presenting a momentary illusion of flying. But, the faith that we are well-and-truly flying and can continue to do so as long as we wish is virtually unshakable for many among us—as shaky as it is, at its core.

In order to support the fantasy of long-lived modernity, one must be willing to quickly wave off many concerns, without supporting evidence or deep understanding. That’s how faith works: one must evasively short-circuit potentially terminal complications, often because they are unpleasant to consider.

My Diagnosis?

As I said at the beginning, I often ask myself if I am crazy—being so far out of alignment with respect to those around me. Here are my considerations and basis for diagnosis.

• Given that believers in long-lived modernity appear to take it as matter of faith and optimism—rejecting the alternative based largely on its perceived undesirability—is a significant red flag.
• Given that boosters favor the happy, less challenging story while I accept an outcome I don’t find personally appealing (as a product of modernity myself) speaks to the asymmetry: I’m not the one arguing for what I (or at least the pre-awareness version of myself) want to be true. It’s socially difficult and scary to confront the prospect of collapse. I was happier before, but the universe does not unfold according to my emotional state.
• Given the lack of acknowledgment that the ecological nosedive (sixth mass extinction) is well underway, is deadly serious, is our primary existential concern, and is happening because of modernity’s activities and scale (independent of power source) seems like an important foundational oversight.
• Given that others decide that I’m wrong without careful assessment of material requirements and consequences for many millennia (impossible to get right, in any case) makes their uncharted, wishful position easier for me to discount.
• Given the lack of evidence that modernity can run the marathon, it would seem foolish to assume so based on a fleeting and disastrous sprint.
• Given the biophysical limitations of the human brain, responding to “modernity can’t last” with “I don’t see why not” is not compelling: of course it’s hard to see why not, which is a huge part of the problem. Appealing to the symmetric flip side—that “I don’t see how modernity could last” is similarly unsupportable—is turning this serious topic into a decontextualized game of logic that sets aside mountains of relevant evidence. This is no game: context matters.
• Relatedly, given that the assumption of modernity’s permanence happens in individual meat-brains that are in no way equipped or qualified to make confident claims is very telling, to me.

To avoid misinterpretation, I also have a severely limited meat-brain like every other human. Part of the journey—perhaps the hardest part for members of our culture—is accepting this fact and dropping the pretense that we’ve got this thing under control, or that we ever can. Mental mastery is an illusion: a flattering story we tell ourselves. But that doesn’t render us completely incapacitated or prevent us from dimly appreciating the asymmetry and sensing modernity’s fundamental ecological incompatibility—even if not in full technicolor detail.

Anyhow, I think I’ll dismiss for now the notion that I’m the one who’s crazy…until tomorrow when I ask myself the question again. Are the modernity-boosters ever asking the same question of themselves, or are they heretical enough to dismiss humanity’s cognitive capabilities? I would guess it’s far less common—being more comfortably supported by prevailing cultural attitudes and market forces—which are, of course, other significant dimensions to the problem.