Dreamtime Drift
Two weeks from now is the 15th anniversary of one of my most popular essays, “This is the Dreamtime”. If you squint, my position then seems similar to my current position on cultural drift. How did I get that close, yet still miss?
I noted that, compared to us, both our distant ancestors and descendants did/will live in much more fragmented worlds, with much slower growth and innovation, with incomes closer to subsistence and behavior closer to adaptive:
we have seen a remarkable demographic transition, wherein richer nations have fewer kids, but we already see contrarian subgroups like Hutterites … that grow much faster. … When our distant descendants think about our era … differences will loom large. … Our brief period of very rapid growth and discovery and our globally integrated economy and culture will be quite foreign to them. … [Other] differences will pale relative to one huge difference: our lives are far more dominated by consequential delusions: wildly false beliefs and non-adaptive values that matter. … Rich folks like us have larger buffers of wealth to cushion our mistakes; we can live happily and long even while acting on crazy beliefs.
I let myself be distracted with the issue of delusions. I did see big recent cuts in cultural variety and selection pressures, though I didn’t notice faster internal culture change. And I saw this as leading to less adaptive behavior now. But as I was comparing three eras, I didn’t think much about how the effects of this might change within our dreamtime era. Nor did I reflect much on just how hard and painful it might be to raise selection pressures, to return to adaptive behavior.
This seems to be a topic where people get close, but then feel that they are done, and just stop thinking. Something about it makes it hard to see one’s thoughts as incomplete, discouraging one from digging deeper.
I liked your dreamtime essay, but also felt very frightened by it. I also mentioned the parallels during the talk you gave. :)
It seems obvious that a return to poverty, or some other enforcing situation, is likely going to be very hard for many or most. Of course you're likely referring to lenghtened periods of stagnation and decline here as well.
In an other old post, I asked whether peak oil (including EROIs decreasing and increasingly advanced or costly technology required to reach or use reserves) might set a cap to growth. You replied that we're nowhere near absolute limits to growth.
I agree, but if humanity goes through a long decline accompanied by not having cheap, abundant, easy-to-use fossil fuels to boost the next growth spurt, might this not place an effective ceiling on growth, at worst? Given that selection pressures might not give enough time/focus/riches to develop alternative high-end technologies to achieve the same ends?
I'm not sure I understand what it is you believe now, which you didn't believe when you wrote the dreamtime.
Is this "the dreamtime will end even faster than you thought?" or "slower" or "something weirder happens?"