K-dog

Too Smart For Our Own Good

k-dog, Sunday May 20, 2012

I have a new book and am very pleased with it. The title is the same as this article's and Craig Dilworth is the author. The book took a while to get because it was shipped from Rome, Italy. The book being pricey, caused me to search on-line for the best price and of several used copies available the second cheapest was still forty bucks more than what I paid for mine. I got mine for twelve bucks shipped and it was the one furthest away.

While waiting several weeks for it to arrive I and found ordered and read a copy of "Earth Abides" by George R Stewart. "Earth Abides" was a great book and I finished it off in just a day. Three hundred thirty seven pages of action packed adventure it presented a very interesting exposition of what might happen if the human race died out to a small number of survivors. The book while fiction speculates on an imaginary future from a realistic point of view. It is a masterpiece but certainly not everyone's cup of tea. While the book is old it is timely.

"To Smart For Our Own Good" is a different kind of book. It is one hundred percent deeply footnoted science. I am currently on page 142 of 454 and after page 454 follows; there is a glossary, notes, references, and an index. I'm reading this book slow and carefully making sure to understand everything before I move on. I commit to a minimum of 15 pages a day and I am ahead of schedule having been at it four days, on and off.

I'm enjoying the book as if it were fiction because it answers so many questions I have been wondering about. Like many others I have pondered why national leaders and society as a whole ignore signs which to intelligent people clearly indicate the immanent downfall of civilization if ignored.

Everything done in modern society depends on fossil fuels. It is not simply the convenience of easy motoring and low prices we loose as stocks dwindle and disappear. It has become necessary for sustenance and survival and when it is gone, we die because nothing has been done to prepare for the inevitable future. Without fossil fuels we loose food shelter clothing and social order.

Food travels hundreds and thousands of miles to get to your plate. It is all grown using insecticides and fertilizers that are produced from fossil fuels. Shelter depends on fossil fuels for heating and building materials are all produced using fossil fuels. Clothing is mostly made in factories thousands of miles away with local alternatives being few and far between. All factories use fossil fuels and on inspection the exceptions prove the rule, special cases. Clothing materials are the product of agriculture which depends on fossil fuels or is made from fossil fuels directly using synthetic fabrics.

The loss of fossil fuels is going to be a shock to modern society that more severe than the consequences of global warming and the consequences will be upon us very soon. The severity of this issue has been known by thousands of people for many years now but it is one which gets next to zero press or serious discussion outside circles aware of the problem.

For those aware of the dilemma the situation is both fascinating frustrating and until now somewhat inexplicable, "To Smart For Our Own Good" changes this.

I know I will not find answers to all my questions in this book but it is going a long way in filling in the blanks. It is gratifying yet disturbing to find that my ideas have a sound scientific basis. So far I have not found anything in the book which is inconsistent with my understanding of the world but the ideas presented in the book are developed with more depth than a single person could unless they were totally dedicated to writing a book about it as Craig Dilworth has brilliantly done.

This book is required reading for serious members of the Sustainable Canine Party but of course it's won't be everyone's cup of tea.

For thousands of years human culture developed ways of living and using the world's resources in ways which by evolutionary principles guaranteed group survival. Key to the growth of culture was technology and when the going got tough new technology provided the answer.

With each misfortune technology advanced and with the passage of time we became dependent on technology itself for survival. We are now too overpopulated to endure its loss. Without technology the world starves. Without energy to fuel our technology we die. This book explains how it happened and by understanding how it happened militant canines will now know what to do to save their souls, their pups, and the world.

The situation is that dire. The principles presented in "To Smart For Our Own Good" are the founding principles of the Sustainable Canine Party. I am delighted to discover that someone has advanced the ideas of the Sustainable Canine Party beyond what I can do working alone by myself.

One speculation I've reached from reading the book is as economic conditions worsen and life becomes more difficult crowded living conditions may suddenly become major irritants. It turns out that people are unique in the animal kingdom in that we tolerate crowding so long as essential needs are met. Territorial behaviors will limit population growth in other animals before overpopulation actually occurs and essential needs may not actually become threatened. This situation is not true of humans and my speculation is that overpopulation will suddenly become 'noticed' and all sorts of social mayhem will result as essential needs are no longer able to be satisfied. I hope I'm wrong and we come together as a pack to put things right.

Comments are not working yet though I have made good progress and it is on the way. Below are 'fake comments' from the above books.

6 Comments

And eventually" said Em who sometimes showed discerning logic, "there'll just be two great strong rats left to fight it out --- (like what was it) the Kilkenny cats?" Ish explained that before such a fate ensued the rats would have become so scarce that they would again have begun to forage upon other sources of food.

As regards the sharing of meat, C. B. Stanford points out that meat eating itself is a learned tradition among chimps as well as baboons. Chimpanzees and capuchins (New World monkeys) are active and strategic meat sharers. In the case of chimps, where the males sometimes brutalize the females to mate, meat performs the same function.

If I read the books, could I make them light again?" Ish felt a sudden intoxication of pleasure, and immediately after it a sense of fear. This must not go too fast! "Well, Joey, I don't know," he said, trying to speak with unconcern. "Maybe you could, maybe not. Things like that take time, and a lot of people working together. You've got to go slow.

Perhaps the most important book I read was Malthus's 'Principle of population. ... It was the first book I had yet read treating of any of the problems of philosophical biology, and its main principle remained with me as a permanent possession, and twenty years later gave me the long-sought clue to the effective agent in the evolution of organic species. (Wallace 1905)

Now it would never be the same again. Ish did not like to think of what had happened, and when he did think of it, he felt a little sick, physically. Perhaps, if it had not been for George's solidity, they could never have gone through with it finally. George with his practical skill had knotted the rope and set the ladder.

In the case where population is growing and ecological equilibrium is lacking, the increased exploitation afforded by technology typically provides a surplus, which allows renewed population growth.

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