energy limits (physical and mental)

The recent provocations by Burton and Hanson have both raised interesting
questions at the outer limits of the WSN list.

Burton's proposal is seemingly reasonable, but fails to take into account
the organizational nature of the list.  Most of us are in the academic
world.  We are here for various reasons, but our being here means that we
are pursuing careers.  We have chosen not to make changing society our
main goal.  We enjoy the freedom to think and write about what we want,
and do not like collective projects that we are not in charge of.  The
academic world is basically anarchic (yes, meant pejoratively, apologies
to the syndicalists).  A common project such as the one Burton proposes
could never be imposed on the list, or agreed on by the list, no matter
how noble the intention.  (Notice the main reaction:  none.)  We forge on,
inefficiently, unwilling to give up our personal niches.

Hanson's challenge incorporates the same dilemma (we can't and won't ever
agree on anything, including entropic doom), and adds another:  if the
situation is as hopeless as he claims, why bother to talk about it at all?
The best we can do is to incorporate the projections of environmental
collapse into our strivings (however circumscribed), and not put it on the
back burner after every pressing social identity has filled the agenda.
If we are genetically programmed to multiply and crash, then there is no
point in pointing that out. 

The rise of the environmental movement and concern for other species seems
to me to indicate the operation of a very promising negative feedback
loop.  It doesn't seem nearly strong enough, but there is a shred of hope
that it can be strengthened.  Again, if hope and "the indomitable human
spirit" are merely part of our genetic programming (see "The Spirit In the
Gene," Morrison, Cornell, 99), then we might as well do what we enjoy in
our time remaining.  

[As for me, I find Jay Hanson's diatribes against mainstream economics
tremendously amusing as well as right on target, on a par with Samir
Amin's latest, ("The Spectre of Capitalism", MRP).  If you don't like
Hanson, then by all means read Herman Daly:  "Steady State Economics,"
"Beyond Growth."  If you're going to kill the messenger it'll take a
while, there are quite a few.]

I don't expect much, but I agree with the thrust of both of these
provocations.  Burton is right to be frustrated that this list could be
much more useful, and Hanson is surely right that much of what we do is
whistling past the graveyard, not just ours but that of all the
species now perishing due to human overshoot.  Arguing about sociobiology
is a convenient way to avoid the issue, and for that reason the defenders
of WSN orthodoxy have a lot more to answer for than their challengers.


Richard Hutchinson
Weber State University