Here is Part 2 in a series of conversations with my friend Daniel Schmachtenberger. It’s great to learn in real time with someone looking at the challenge our civilization faces – with a completely different background but similar ethos. It’s like playing an insight slot machine in real time. (Part 1: here)

In this episode we take a deeper dive into organizational structures of civilization, including maximum power, energy and ‘hyper agents’. We’re building towards a concluding framework on what key essentials will be necessary for our culture to ‘bend not break’ in coming decades. I hope you enjoy it and it kickstarts similar thinking/conversations in your own network(s).

Show Notes

00:45: Daniel’s website and other works
https://civilizationemerging.com/about/
https://consilienceproject.org/
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/05-daniel-schmactenberger

2:30: Nate’s work on Macro-issues
https://read.realityblind.world/view/975731937/i/
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/animations
Economics for the Future – Beyond the Superorganism

2:45: Daniel’s work on micro-issues
https://civilizationemerging.com/

09:36: Surplus and financial representations of it
https://read.realityblind.world/view/975731937/165/

011:31: Exponential growth obligation
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/economic-growth/506423/

11:55: Jevons paradox
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox#:~:text=In%20economics%2C%20the%20Jevons%20paradox,rises%20due%20to%20increasing%20demand.

11:16: Global GDP and energy coupling
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0164733

13:09: 18% of electricity goes towards the cloud and servers
https://www.governing.com/next/the-battle-over-technology-and-energy-consumption.html
https://scmresearch.org/2018/09/28/the-supply-chain-of-a-computer/

16:31: What is money
https://read.realityblind.world/view/975731937/212/

20:07: 2-3% GDP growth expectation
https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption

22:06: The digital economy still requires materials
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y

22:51: Average american consumes 57 barrel oil equivalents of fossil fuels/yr + 17 barrels of oil equivalents in stuff bought from oversea countries. 
http://www.ejolt.org/2012/12/human-energy-use-endosomatic-exosomatic/

23:59: GINI Coefficient
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient

24:27: India coal consumption up 29%
https://www.deccanherald.com/national/indias-coal-output-up-29-to-6658-mt-in-april-1108069.html

25:26: Inequalities in climate effects
https://www.un.org/esa/desa/papers/2017/wp152_2017.pdf

27:56: 93% of heat absorbed by oceans
https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/ocean-warming#:~:text=The%20Fifth%20Assessment%20Report%20published,causing%20ocean%20temperatures%20to%20rise.

29:25: Aza Raskin – Earth Species Project
https://www.earthspecies.org/about

31:40: Marvin Harris
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marvin-Harris

34:20: Tech is value affect
https://slate.com/technology/2015/03/how-technology-is-changing-our-choices-and-values.html

37:06: Agriculture provided a huge surplus of energy – primarily due to the plow
http://www.dandebat.dk/eng-klima7.htm
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10818-013-9156-6

37:54: The plow pushed for the end of Animism – which was once universal
https://www.cmu.ca/faculty/gmatties/lynnwhiterootsofcrisis.pdf

40:50: David Graeber
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Graeber

41:45: Dunbar number
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2021.0158#:~:text=’Dunbar’s%20number’%20is%20the%20notion,other%20individuals%20in%20the%20group.

42:25: The printing press and the protestant revolution
https://historyatnormandale.wordpress.com/2016/12/15/the-printing-press-and-the-protestant-reformation/

47:22: Maximum power principle
https://read.realityblind.world/view/388478403/170/

47:45: Kleiber’s law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiber%27s_law
https://read.realityblind.world/view/975731937/198/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLGDJFGAmic

59:43: Alfred Lotka The Law of Evolution as a Maximal Principle
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41447607

55:46: Multipolar trap
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

1:05:45: Losing 1-2% of insect biomass/year
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/2/e2023989118

1:09:34: Large percentage of men have Ghengis Khan’s Y chromosome
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/1-in-200-men-direct-descendants-of-genghis-khan

1:13:26: Ooda Loop
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop

1:16:51: Systems
https://read.realityblind.world/view/975731937/9/

1:32:56: Dopamine and delayed gratification
https://read.realityblind.world/view/975731937/59/
https://read.realityblind.world/view/975731937/96/

1:37:37 Peter Thiel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel

1:38:16: Metcalfe’s law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law

1:39:52: Saudi aramco.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1068803/saudi-arabia-total-assets-of-saudi-aramco/#:~:text=The%20total%20value%20of%20assets,according%20to%20its%20credit%20rating.

1:40:22: There is a finite amount of atoms (copper) 
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921344913002127

1:45:15: As energy gets more expensive, everything gets more expensive
https://read.realityblind.world/view/975731937/218/

1:49:54: 19 terawatt society
https://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/current_world_energy_consumption