WHAT CAN WE KNOW ABOUT THE FUTURE?

PART ONE – THE NATURAL

There are many question marks hanging over 2009. The end of 2008 had a significantly different tone from the beginning of the year. Warning lights came on with sudden increases in the values of commodities in particular oil and cereals. Then alarm bells started ringing as the American housing market was ripped open exposing a multi-headed cancer, with tentacles clearly originating in the organs of credit – the international industrial banking complex. While some of the largest and most trusted banking institutions were lying, not just on their backs in theatre attended by treasury surgeons, the sirens were crying from many corners, emergency meetings were convened and packets of blood were called for – truckloads. “What will we face in 2009?” has become a nagging question in many people’s minds. The question also begets another more abstract and more useful question – “What can we know about the future?”

The difference between the two questions is that the former invites an answer about how the external world will impact on us, whereas the latter shifts the focus onto a subject we all find interesting – ourselves. And we all have a stake in the future. The first thing to understand is that the future, like knowledge, is a concept. The words future and knowledge embody significant multi-layered meanings about our relationship with the world around us (and inside us) about which there is much common agreement. Whilst there may be many shades of meaning between individuals, there is a strong consensus about the central idea about what the future is and is not.

Knowledge and future are both high order ideas, that is, they are ideas which enclose and contain other ideas. The future is an aspect of a higher order idea again, the idea of time. On the one hand the future, like eternity, is a very long time, on the other it could be a brief moment. An astro-physicist and an atomic-particle physicist use different scales for measuring time’s multiple depths. The utility of higher order concepts such as knowledge and the future are their malleability. Like a piece of string (theory) the future can be expanded or contracted to whatever frame is most useful at the time. The mathematical association of time with energy and what it might mean about the nature of the cosmos is a pre-occupation for those with a mind for such things. For the majority of ordinary mortals however the first thing that we can know about an infinitely long period of time, to which we have very little access, is that the vast bulk of it does not concern us. Accepting our limitations, narrows our focus and our energies to the things that matter the most, which are generally prosaic. Where are we heading and are we heading in roughly the right direction? What is around the corner? Can we improve our situation?

From an ordinary human perspective the future is conjoined to the past through the present. The present like the future is an arbitrary elastic measure of time over which things can be known, but are not changing[i]. As soon as a change is detected, the present of a former moment, has become the past. The change has made it so. When things do not change, or we do not notice change, then our present moment expands and our experience of the passage of time may assume greater prominence – time drags and we get bored. Conversely if we notice many changes our focus shifts and we feel that time has sped up.

People’s experience of the past, present and future differs, depending on the individual’s ability to detect change. Those who cannot detect change, such as those in a coma, live in a continuous present which is expanded and a future which is collapsed. Those who don’t detect change, perhaps as a result of choice or circumstance are better off to the extent that their consciousness allows them. Their ability to respond to change is increased. A person, who is sensitive to changes around him is more aware still. If he has time and inclination he may discover patterns that change may indicate. He might then discern the significance of the change, consider the options and prepare a response. The response might be one which simply mitigates damage, or one which uses the change to uncover an opportunity.

Memory is critical to detection of change. If we have a failing memory our experience of change is impaired and our operations become enfeebled and clumsy. For memory to be accessed we also need time and space to remember. Without this our depth of focus is reduced to immediate concerns and we become blind to longer term concerns. We might have been too preoccupied getting the right meal in the dining carriage to realise that we have passed our stop.

We have heard it said that “if we could predict the future we wouldn’t be living in this house/doing this job, reading this blog, etc”. The assumption being that we would be able to utilize particular facts about the future, pick the right horse etc, buy and sell at the right time to our advantage. The deeper argument is that the future cannot be predicted with sufficient accuracy to make a difference, therefore we needn’t bother trying. This is fool’s wisdom. In everyday life we plan our holidays, apportion budgets and embark on projects into varying depths of our futures, some of which proceed according to plan and others require adjustment along the way. There is actually plenty that we can know about the future. Firstly we can know that there will be a future - that Monday will follow Sunday. We can also know that the moon will be full on a certain date and with it a high tide. That the sea temperature is likely to be within a certain range, that it will be more or les likely to rain at that time of year. There is much that we can predict with reasonable accuracy that occurs on a seasonal or cyclical basis.

Related to cycles are patterns of growth and decline in human endeavour as well as in nature. There are also patterns of increasing order and disorder within societies and populations. Much has been written on “mega-trends”, those trends which drive change and are predictive of stresses/forces within society. Typically these include population demographics, resource availability, technological break-throughs, and changes in values as goods and materials become more abundant or scarce or as conditions change. These trends can be plotted and predicted also with varying accuracy by analysts who earn their living by doing so. This information is becoming more widely available and debated openly. One only has to pick a good stream and drink from it.

We also determine our future. By getting on a particular train we arrive at a particular destination. We construct our future by participating in it, by analyzing our own trend-lines, our aspirations and plotting our course. To what degree have we invested or acquiesced in our own future. Does what we invest in relate to what is happening in the world? Will we swim with the current, across it or against it? The choice is ours including the lazy choice to do nothing, in which case the future simply becomes a fabric with us in it. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the future will be constructed for us by those who have the means and determination to do so. Those who lead us and those who govern us.

Our leaders, those to whom we have delegated responsibility and power and resources to do their job of leading are given the means to affect change. They are also subject to pressures within their constituency and from other/external constituencies to implement particular changes. They are also bound by the rules of their office, which they might or might not adjust along the way. Some of our future is in the hands of those we want to lead us to the degree that we have collectively placed it. Who are our leaders and to what do they aspire? Who is seeking to influence them? How strongly they are positioned to resist or direct and how deftly can they actually lead in the thick of the always pressurised cooker of leadership? How healthy is the leadership framework, the social contract between leaders and followers?

Those who govern us, like those who lead, exercise power and authority. The subtle distinction is that one who governs exercises power they have acquired but not necessarily been given through a social contract. This might include tyrants such as Robert Mugabe, but it might also include directors of multi-national corporations who are equally untouchable. It might also include other more diffuse powers such as the media or influential lobby groups with the ability to catalyse and implement change against our wishes. Who are the Lords and Governors of our world and what means do they use to govern? What truths are being with-held and what justifications (half-truths/lies) are being presented and what and how much have we acquiesced? Such questions are difficult and ponderous but to avoid asking them would leave us with critical blindspots.

The broad shape of the future can be deduced to some degree if one has modelled the past sufficiently carefully and as long as massive unforeseeable events such as an asteroid colliding with the earth does not also collide with present trends. Such discontinuities as the asteroid, the alien invasion, accidental thermo-nuclear war or a pole flip, by their very nature cannot be known ahead of time. They can however be guessed at and assessed and managed as risks. The probabilities of them occurring are usually so remote that they are considered and put to one side. We cannot waste time and resources on every possibility otherwise our future will simply be a state of gibbering paranoia. We must accept that discontinuities will always be blank patches on the map.

Detecting change, memory, observation of seasonal/cyclical behaviour, pattern recognition, trend watching, understanding leaders, governors and most importantly ourselves can bring a lot of clues about where we are headed. These pieces of the puzzle can be marshalled and pieced together to sketch a map of the near future. This map can be adjusted as time marches on. Those with the best maps are usually those with the grey hairs of experience and the scars of past mistakes.

In Part Two the focus moves beyond the natural. What else might assist us in knowing about the future.

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[i] A mathematicians concept of the present is unhelpful because it reduces the present to an infinitesimally small period of time, so small that in fact it cannot exist.

SYNCHRONOPTIC CHART

I learnt a new word today courtesy of Wikipedia - Synchronoptic, the simultaneous charting of different information. Here is a chart which composites several strands all self explanatory.

Where these lines will go in 2009 is anybody's guess.

the private lives of mannequins go mostly ignored

the private lives of mannequins go mostly ignored, originally uploaded by dietrich.

This shows the banality of Modern Art Galleries and the hapless behaviour of its audience in its pointless majesty. A picture like this is worth a thousand piles of bricks and a hundred and one installations. A most excellent observation of a feckless generation.

The banality of the gallery is just a shopfront for a greater cultural banality . Not only is the empress wearing no clothes who gives a sh*t?

Strategy for National Transition

Big Question – How does Transition Towns NZ develop a strategy for National Transition?

When big picture questions arise in conversation as this one did with Colleague Laurence the other day I find it hard to resist their challenge.

This question is a tremendously broad canvas and begs several major assumptions:

1. it assumes that a strategy for national transition is desirable.
2. it assumes that a strategy for national transition is attainable.
3. it assumes that Transition Towns have more than two pennies worth to offer.
4. it assumes that a voluntary organisation with few paid staff can make a contribution to the enormous task of reorganisation of an entire nation that would in the normal course of events be the responsibility of a large well educated well funded public service.
5. it assumes that those in charge will actually be interested.
   

Assuming that the answer to the above is generally in the positive we then face the tricky task of defining terms so that the problem can be framed and measures set up so that we might know whether we are proceeding in roughly the right direction. If we can do this and satisfy ourselves that the underlying assumptions are broadly acceptable - then we might have an approach that we can tease out parameters and drill down to the sub-questions below. This approach could of course be caricatured as a classic left-brain, top-down, hierarchical-male strategy, which does not mean it is any better or worse than any other approach, it just is one approach and perhaps the most obvious.

Another approach is to imagine that the whole country has already made a transition to a lower energy future and to paint a picture of what it looks like and how the journey to it was made. This back-cast vision might be a fairly patchy rendering; some bits highly detailed and coloured, other bits barely sketched at all. Like painting a picture without any pencilled outlines this approach requires a good understanding of one’s subject, its structure, details and surface features for it to be more than a wishful fantasy. The more knowledge that can be brought to bear - other countries, towns or cities that have made significant shifts towards resilience, then the more the vision is a projection which is anchored with real world understanding.

A third option might be to develop a strategy by working in a painterly fashion perhaps starting with a splash of paint or a found object, perhaps an old factory or vacant lot and using it as the stimulus to build a picture of the future. A serendipitous “abstract for art sake” approach whilst unusual and strangerous could certainly liberate thinking and perhaps tumble out some good ideas that could not be generated any other way.

Prophetic visions have a long and credible history in many cultures which should not be over-looked. Whether prophetic insights are received as a result of spiritual inspiration or the neuro-chemistry of a sensitive individual, (or a combination of both), the visions of gifted prophets have provided guidance for communities struggling to travel from present certainties into uncertain futures. Although the format and content is a little different from a white discussion paper, the raw power of the spoken word can perhaps do immeasurably more than kilograms of carefully weighted discourse. If ever there was a time when so many on the planet face certain tribulation, it will be when oil production peaks and declines along with most every other resource. The need for outside help will become ever more apparent.

My favourite dessert is a sherry trifle – at least it will do for the moment. A combination of sponge, jelly, custard, whipped cream, slices of strawberries & peaches all laced liberally with a rich fortified wine. To see a beautifully formed trifle blended, chilled, set and decorated in its great crystal bowl is to see a vision indeed. Perhaps the best approach is to cook up solutions in every corner of the kitchen and bring them together for a grand tasting and debate. Following which we might (if we are not overfed) concoct a hearty vision of National Transition from some simple well blended ingredients.

Ladies and gentlemen – a penny for your thoughts please.

WHY DAIRY COWS MOO!

The industrial dairy complex has leapt to the forefront of wealth transformation[i] in Godzone country[ii] and has received much criticism from environmentalists.

Such people see the affects of dairy farms as damaging our landscape. Whilst there is some truth to their argument, it is by no means the whole truth, for it is hard to enjoy the landscape if you are unemployed, and the development of the dairy sector is employing many people. Simply blaming the farmers for the affects of agricultural intensification overlooks the situation as one symptom of a greater disease.

At one level the dairy industry illustrates a parasitic relationship between farmers, cattle and the land. At another level it reflects a greater parasitism between the state-corp[iii], communities and the land. The dairy industry is a metaphor - for as any tourist will understand, cows are not the only creatures that can be milked. If we feel milked by a system, it is not so much the money that we feel being drained, but our very energy. The ensuing enfeeblement reduces our ability to think about the ever-changing present that bears down upon us, let alone ponder the future. Until we realise this, it is all too easy to inhabit that “clueless” existence that JH Kunstler refers to. Like placid bovines it is enough to trek from pasture to milking shed, from work-house to out-house and back each day.

To what extent have individuals, families and groups of people become cattle equivalents in a vast financial milking system? At what point does symbiosis graduate from benevolent parasitism into a malignant virus? Do we need to experience burnout before the penny drops that the energy required to service a consuming lifestyle exceeds our capacity to deliver it? Must we wait until we are indebted or worse - bankrupted? Once such insight percolates our consciousness and we gaze at the grass beyond, how long before we find that the path is impeded by invisible, electrified fences?

Constructed with the greatest care and deliberation, we occupy paddocks of conformity tailored to our human shape. We find ourselves fenced with barriers no less real than the galvanised railings of a rotary milking shed. If conformity to one’s peer group is the first fence to clear, the second is much higher and more impenetrable. This is the legal obligations that our society surrounds us with and in which we become enmeshed on many different fronts. It only seems fair that if we borrow money that the lender should receive a reward for the use of the funds which could have been put to another use. [A little bit of milk in exchange for grazing]. It only seems fair until there’s a drought and grass (and milk) are hard to produce and cannot be yielded in the agreed quantities. Money lenders don’t think like farmers, they don’t need to factor seasonal variations such as recessions into their repayment schedules; they can always recover their capital in kind. Even if required to write off colossal sounding sums in bad debts, the over-all picture is the greater concentration of cream in the separator.

What holds this high tensile system together is a bovine willingness to conform. This conformity like money and debt is legislated out of thin air for good and useful reasons. Like money and debt, conformity to Law is captured on wafer fine sheets of cellulose and inhabits the vacuum between ink and the concepts in our heads. Like the money industry, the conformance industry has secured its place in the courts of power. Like Siamese twins Money and Law are two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other, they must both be accepted, they are both owed fealty. For the most part they are accepted unquestioningly, at least until we want to make any significant change to our material situation. For significant material change almost always results in the need to borrow finance over two decades to do it. Wisdom unfortunately doesn’t come until one loses something of value.

“Ah – you want a new house/ship/factory do you. Well – we have a deal for you! Do you want to re-locate or do you want to build?” At this point even the dumbest of us know that our aspirations are being handled with the delicacy of a cattle prodder. And so we proceed somewhat tremulously if it’s our first home along with a herd of others being shifted from an outer paddock to a holding pen. Our progress along the race of life is maintained at a steady speed by the barking of dogs, the crack of alkathene pipe on rump and the comforting throb of a distant milking shed - until we come to the stockyards. Here we are weighed and assessed by a succession of vetinarians, stock-agents and haulage workers to determine our value to others as an investment opportunity. If we make the grade and suffer no deformities such as a poor education or a criminal record we are drafted. “Do you have life insurance?”

Willingly and even gratefully we step into a new working life that a long and subtle process of indoctrination has prepared us for. It’s as exciting as taking a credit card for a walk in an electronics shop. Just who is taking who for a jog anyway? Did I mention artificial insemination, drenching, vision and values programmes and other forms of continuing professional development to keep us in line and on target? It’s only now in the short spaces of sentience between caffeine boosted periods of feverish workload that the fear starts to come up like a cold pale moonrise on a windy night. Between the shreds of cloud we start to see demons mocking us as we work our life away. If we have any insight - we shudder and groan.

The lowing of the workforce is initially tempered with prescriptions of alcohol, television, lotteries and sporting diversions. As time goes on it is followed by prozac generics and whatever spiritual disciplines we can lay our hands on to dampen the neuro-chemistry of despair without damaging production. However the milking shed is working hard in competition with others just like it. Competition leads to reduced margins which lead to cost cutting and deferred maintenance. Deferred maintenance inevitably leads to breakdowns and the milk cannot be harvested properly leading to losses of profit.

Eventually the farmer is bankrupted and if the cattle have a nice farmer who is interested in his animals’ welfare[iv] then they get sold to another farmer down the road or sent to the freezing works where they undergo sudden changes in body temperature and configuration. If the cows are unfortunate enough to have a farmer like Farmer Enron who cares little for his cattle, the cows will be left in their stalls to chafe at the railings and to savour the pain of debt in their bulging udders. This pain brings realisation and knowledge and soon the sound of mooing cattle can be heard all over the farm.

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[i] Not wealth generation but transformation of environmental capital into financial capital.

[ii] Godzone = New Zealand

[iii] State-corp = Marriage of Government + Commerce (aka The System)

[iv] All farmers understand their dependence upon the health of their stock – but this is not really a story about farmers.

DEGREES OF DEPENDENCE - FOOD

Getting food into ones body is an absorbing and time consuming process for most species. Man is no different. The process of acquiring, storing, preparing and eating food is considered in a step-wise fashion to locate the dependencies and the connections with lifestyle.

Here is a diagram setting out the degrees of food dependence that can be seen in many modern lifestyles. The colours refer to a "rough" chromatic scale where the warm colours represent high levels of dependence and the cool end represents high levels of self sufficiency. The diagram is not intended to precisely model every particular lifestyle but to organise a few archetypes on paper.

The spectrum we occupy are largely based on many unconscious choices. Knowing what options are available is the first step to thinking about where one is best positioned.

- Which slots best describe your food routines?
- Is it financially sustainable in the medium term?
- Will it be sustainable as the depletion of fossil fuels starts to enfeeble our industrial agricultural system?

The Affects of Peak Oil on Architecture

The following is part of a talk given to Western Branch NZIA which met at Whanganui River Institute, 27 June 2008.

First Point - Architecture pre-existed the use of cheap fossil fuels, but it was a little different then.

Secondly – There are many definitions of an Architect, but one that is useful to the discussion about Peak Oil and resource scarcity is Architects as “concretisers of culture”. Just as bacteria are instrumental in turning carbon rich algal deposits into fossil fuels, Architects are instrumental in fossilising the agendas of those with resources at their disposal.

On the face of it, the advent of PO and reduced flows of energy unfortunately means that there will be fewer resources play with and to plan with. It is almost certain that the communities that Architects recently served will be going through a certain amount of upheaval, and as resources become more expensive new needs will emerge and old ones will disappear. It is highly probable that resources will be refocused on basic needs and agendas will be recast in the light of new and very pressing needs.

Not all of this will be a bad thing. Post-modern deconstruction will be seen as the last gasp of bankrupt ideologues who had no idea what times they were living in. Their architecture is destined to moulder and become an enigma for post-oil generations to marvel at. Decadent lifestyle pornography which architects have been totally complicit with over the past decade is likely to be greatly resented by those who cannot afford basic housing and for their owners will be expensive to maintain and heat. Many examples of what is currently called sustainable design will be seen to be sustainable in name only.

I suspect that there will be a re-evaluation of what architecture is actually about and that the future will have both opportunities and threats. To get a handle on this I have done some armchair analysis to examine the kinds of issues that are likely to raise their heads. I think there will be food for thought for councillors as well as architects.

So how will the advent of Peak Oil work through our world?

It will not be “Business as Usual”

The first obvious affect of reduced volumes/increased demands will be expensive energy. This has started happening. The second affect will be patchy supplies of fuel, which will be equivalent to a chronic heart failure. See below a chart of some of the trends that seem fairly predictable from this side of the decline, but there are sure to be many more:In addition to their knowledge of building design and procurement Architects have some significant skill-sets that are likely to prove valuable:

The ability to see/imagine a project at many different levels of scale consequtively over both space and time.

The ability to generate multiple solutions and to evaluate them for the best fit to the circumstances and situation.

The ability to act as a communication hub in which there are many different players all with interests at stake.

The ability to marry analytical and aesthetic judgements in the best interests of the project – The Art of Compromise.

The ability to think through and resolve complex staging issues arising from the implementation of implementing change on existing situations.

The ability to make decisions under conditions of stress and make fair-ish judgement calls in real time. – Also the ability to reverse those decisions when they are found to be wrong.

The ability to generally maintain the appearance of calm in the face of unbelievable bureaucratic frustration.

These skills are not acquired quickly or easily and are the intangible values upon which our reputation and utility rests. These skills are likely to be in demand during any period of significant change, and it will be interesting to see how well we are able to market our skills and perhaps diversify the role of Architect.

So what should Architects do? Some suggestions to start a discussion:

- design with the future in mind

- understand the times we are living in

- observe the forces in play

- re-think people’s actual needs

- re-think level’s of Architectural services

- advocate long term planning and declaim dubious projects including past ones

- acquire tools to demonstrate value for money

- re-think material use

- re-think design – Keep It Simple Sustainable & Sensible

- passive solutions better/cheaper than fallible active systems.

The great project over the next decades will be to help bring our lumbering hubristic civilization down to a survivable landing. This will involve different mindsets and value-sets from the ones that have held sway and become accustomed to working with. It will not be business as usual but business for the shrewdest, and all business involving resources will be carried out under the greatest scrutiny. The new frugality will focus on basic needs and will view as contemptible profligate waste the kind we currently experience as normal. The future is a mixed. There will be opportunities for both Chaos and Community. If we don’t lead or assist those who do lead by providing workable solutions, the forces of chaos will establish themselves by default, and the opportunities for community will dwindle.