What are the Deep PoD for a Sustainable Civilization

[Kerney]

Let's face it, most people acknowledge it is quite possible we are headed toward our own extinction or at least a collapse. I'll save the odds for a thread in current events.

My question is what deep values/and technology could be different that would put an industrialized society in a better position to survive long term after an industrial revolution than otl. Hypothetically, what would it take or could make a difference? For example, would a tl with more successful merchant republics like Carthage or Venice as the standard image of 'success' be in a better shape than the 'Roman' model of big Empires or wanna be Empires? Would say more adoption of Incan textile technology make a difference? How about an industrial revolution with a lower population base? Maybe a religion with a more positive views natural world would work say a hypothetical Daoist Jihad (please go with the mental image not the literal suggestion)?

I am not talking could reasonably come up with and not advocating values. Just because I could picture a theoretical civilization which would be okay with eugenics and slavery but willing to go to war over soil erosion or toxic dumping doesn't mean we're advocating slavery and eugenics.

Basically, what would it take and what deep history can we change which reach a Goldilocks zone for a believably sustainable civilization?

 

[Comte de Dordogne]

That this band of bipedal, violent apes never leaves East Africa.

 

[Dagoth Ur]

That this band of bipedal, violent apes never leaves East Africa.

This is really the only answer. Success of modes of society are their own justification. The systems which enable us to exploit the planet more efficiently by necessity are the ones which end up defeating all others. Before post-scarcity (if such a thing is possible) any possible rational or conservationist will of those in power will be cast aside by the lower classes who will, harnessing the new exploitative methods, destroy the old elites. That's why corporations are so good at pretending they care about the environment. It looks good while not even doing anything, this doubly improving profits.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

This is really the only answer. Success of modes of society are their own justification. The systems which enable us to exploit the planet more efficiently by necessity are the ones which end up defeating all others. Before post-scarcity (if such a thing is possible) any possible rational or conservationist will of those in power will be cast aside by the lower classes who will, harnessing the new exploitative methods, destroy the old elites. That's why corporations are so good at pretending they care about the environment. It looks good while not even doing anything, this doubly improving profits.

Not necessarily. E.g., when someone presented the Roman Emperor Vespasian with a device to move large blocks of stone more efficiently, he had it destroyed on the grounds that it would reduce the amount of employment available to the poor. During the early modern period, lots of the resistance to technological or agricultural advancements came from the lower classes, who were being put out of their jobs or losing the grazing land which they needed to feed themselves. And of course, plenty of societies have lasted for centuries or millennia without much in the way of technological advancement.

 

[Dagoth Ur]

Not necessarily. E.g., when someone presented the Roman Emperor Vespasian with a device to move large blocks of stone more efficiently, he had it destroyed on the grounds that it would reduce the amount of employment available to the poor. During the early modern period, lots of the resistance to technological or agricultural advancements came from the lower classes, who were being put out of their jobs or losing the grazing land which they needed to feed themselves. And of course, plenty of societies have lasted for centuries or millennia without much in the way of technological advancement.

Our views aren't mutually exclusive. I never said the lower classes will always adapt to the most efficient methods. Only that they will use them in violation of law if their life is made worse by the upper classes NOT using those methods. In these cases the people's lives were made worse by technology (no work = no pay = no food, or factories = more labor in dirty conditions indoors, etc.) so naturally they opposed it.
I also never said societies can't last forever without advancement. But once advancement is discovered or introduced, the society will adapt or be destroyed or absorbed.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Let's face it, most people acknowledge it is quite possible we are headed toward our own extinction or at least a collapse. I'll save the odds for a thread in current events.

My question is what deep values/and technology could be different that would put an industrialized society in a better position to survive long term after an industrial revolution than otl. Hypothetically, what would it take or could make a difference? For example, would a tl with more successful merchant republics like Carthage or Venice as the standard image of 'success' be in a better shape than the 'Roman' model of big Empires or wanna be Empires? Would say more adoption of Incan textile technology make a difference? How about an industrial revolution with a lower population base? Maybe a religion with a more positive views natural world would work say a hypothetical Daoist Jihad (please go with the mental image not the literal suggestion)?

I am not talking could reasonably come up with and not advocating values. Just because I could picture a theoretical civilization which would be okay with eugenics and slavery but willing to go to war over soil erosion or toxic dumping doesn't mean we're advocating slavery and eugenics.

Basically, what would it take and what deep history can we change which reach a Goldilocks zone for a believably sustainable civilization?

Some random thoughts:

(1) Valuing anti-fragility over efficiency (or at least having the balance being more towards the former than in OTL), especially through supporting localism over globalism. E.g., instead of making all the world's widgets in a few factories in China (and running the risk of screwing over the global widget-using population if that part of China suffers a national disaster, or a war breaks out, or a ship gets stuck in the Suez Canal, or...), have lots of smaller-scale widget factories spread throughout the world (which would mean fewer efficiencies of scale, but any individual factory going out of production would be less of an issue). This would both be good for the environment (less fuel expended transporting things around), and also mean that a collapse in one part of the globe would be less likely to affect the rest.

(2) More religious belief. If world religions make a point of caring for the environment, so much the better, but even comparatively less environmentalist religions still generally emphasise the ultimate vanity of worldly possessions. Hence a more religious world would probably be a less consumerist one, meaning fewer things get made, meaning less use of the earth's resources.

(3) More fatalism. If people think "You're going to face difficulties no matter what you do, so you should focus on making yourself content no matter what life throws at you rather than on changing your life circumstances," scientific advancement would probably be slower, meaning less industrialisation, smaller populations, etc.

(4) Related to (3), either slow down medical technology, or have some new disease develop which prevents the human population reaching OTL levels.

(5) Make fossil fuels more scarce (e.g., offshore drilling never being invented would mean that a significant portion of the world's oil is unreachable).

Probably some other things as well, but those are the ones that immediately spring to mind.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Our views aren't mutually exclusive. I never said the lower classes will always adapt to the most efficient methods. Only that they will use them in violation of law if their life is made worse by the upper classes NOT using those methods. In these cases the people's lives were made worse by technology (no work = no pay = no food, or factories = more labor in dirty conditions indoors, etc.) so naturally they opposed it.

If their lives are VISIBLY being made worse, sure. But many of the developments that made life better over the long term didn't obviously benefit ordinary people early on. E.g., field enclosures enabled the agricultural revolution, which enabled the industrial revolution and made famines significantly less likely, but for the first few generations its effects on ordinary people were almost entirely negative.

 

[Kerney]

Some random thoughts:

Thank you for some very thoughtful thoughts.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

How about an industrial revolution with a lower population base?

Funny you should mention that, because I was thinking about how an Industrial Revolution could take off without an Agricultural Revolution... Basically, farming is often quite seasonal work, with lots of labour during planting and harvesting and not as much at other times (which is why, for example, feudal lords could conscript peasants into their armies during the summer months without causing mass starvation). So maybe you could get a pattern of seasonal factory labour: people could work the farms during harvest and planting time, and work in the factories during the down periods; meanwhile, factories would operate at reduced capacity during sowing and harvesting, and at full capacity at other times. From the factory-owners' perspective, it would allow them to get a higher yearly production than otherwise; from the labourers' perspective, having two sources of income would obviously be good for them financially, and also help insulate them against bad harvests.

 

[Dagoth Ur]

If their lives are VISIBLY being made worse, sure. But many of the developments that made life better over the long term didn't obviously benefit ordinary people early on. E.g., field enclosures enabled the agricultural revolution, which enabled the industrial revolution and made famines significantly less likely, but for the first few generations its effects on ordinary people were almost entirely negative.

It can't have been so negative, or negative at all, if ordinary people acquiesced to it.

 

[Dominic]

The premise of this thread is deeply flawed. There is no evidence at all that we are headed towards a civilisational collapse, let alone an extinction. There is also no such thing as a genuinely "sustainable" civilisation in an entropic universe, at least in strict terms. A more sustainable civilisation than our own is certainly possible; ours is already considerably more sustainable that it was a decade ago. The way to achieve this appears to simply be to maintain a good level of wealth and education in a stable political environment over an extended period of time - most of the more sustainable states on Earth have simply been rich for quite a while, and have developed values that are able to look to the long term far more than societies for which basic prosperity is a slippery goal.

It is entirely possible that human civilisation will suffer some serious hardship in the coming centuries, but unless some sort of runaway greenhouse effect occurs climate change is not going to topple technological civilisation no matter how many billions suffer unnecessarily. The chances of such a runaway seem fairly unlikely given the speed at which the world is now moving to adapt, though I'll freely admit to not being a climate scientist. So long as global civilisation is able to remain technological, it will eventually become reasonably sustainable - not that that guarantees that in the year 10 000 CE we don't all die after accidentally wrecking the biosphere somehow. Nothing lasts forever.

 

[Kerney]

Funny you should mention that, because I was thinking about how an Industrial Revolution could take off without an Agricultural Revolution... Basically, farming is often quite seasonal work, with lots of labour during planting and harvesting and not as much at other times (which is why, for example, feudal lords could conscript peasants into their armies during the summer months without causing mass starvation). So maybe you could get a pattern of seasonal factory labour: people could work the farms during harvest and planting time, and work in the factories during the down periods; meanwhile, factories would operate at reduced capacity during sowing and harvesting, and at full capacity at other times. From the factory-owners' perspective, it would allow them to get a higher yearly production than otherwise; from the labourers' perspective, having two sources of income would obviously be good for them financially, and also help insulate them against bad harvests.

I like this. Similarly, I was playing not with that, but a "Mongol Renaissance" where that nomadic society, with its gathered experts, create a nomadic industrial civilization.

The premise of this thread is deeply flawed. There is no evidence at all that we are headed towards a civilisational collapse, let alone an extinction. There is also no such thing as a genuinely "sustainable" civilisation in an entropic universe, at least in strict terms. A more sustainable civilisation than our own is certainly possible; ours is already considerably more sustainable that it was a decade ago. The way to achieve this appears to simply be to maintain a good level of wealth and education in a stable political environment over an extended period of time - most of the more sustainable states on Earth have simply been rich for quite a while, and have developed values that are able to look to the long term far more than societies for which basic prosperity is a slippery goal.

It is entirely possible that human civilisation will suffer some serious hardship in the coming centuries, but unless some sort of runaway greenhouse effect occurs climate change is not going to topple technological civilisation no matter how many billions suffer unnecessarily. The chances of such a runaway seem fairly unlikely given the speed at which the world is now moving to adapt, though I'll freely admit to not being a climate scientist. So long as global civilisation is able to remain technological, it will eventually become reasonably sustainable - not that that guarantees that in the year 10 000 CE we don't all die after accidentally wrecking the biosphere somehow. Nothing lasts forever.

I'm not going to argue because I stated that that belongs in current politics. I also didn't say forever, but sustainable as in the foreseeable future, something that most people consider to reasonably in doubt.

But I will point to Stanislav Petrov and suggest his commander filling out a different duty roster would be an easy PoD that would have led to either a civilizational collapse or extinction. Consider, that one piece of paperwork arguably is all that stood between us and a nuclear exchange, is evidence that our civilization has problems.

 

[Dominic]

But I will point to Stanislav Petrov and suggest his commander filling out a different duty roster would be an easy PoD that would have led to either a civilizational collapse or extinction. Consider, that one piece of paperwork arguably is all that stood between us and a nuclear exchange, is evidence that our civilization has problems.

This... would not have come close to extinction, and extremely unlikely to lead to civilisational collapse if we're talking about the entire species. Absolutely horrific by any standard, but not even close to ending human civilisation. I think you are underestimating how dug in our societies are.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

This... would not have come close to extinction, and extremely unlikely to lead to civilisational collapse if we're talking about the entire species. Absolutely horrific by any standard, but not even close to ending human civilisation. I think you are underestimating how dug in our societies are.

It wouldn't collapse every civilisation, but there's a good chance it would collapse at least American and Russian civilisations.

 

[Dagoth Ur]

It wouldn't collapse every civilisation, but there's a good chance it would collapse at least American and Russian civilisations.

It might collapse the nations, but not the civilizations. Even today if several nukes hit the US's largest cities AND their urban areas, assuming everyone in them is killed, that still leaves 85% or so of the population to survive and rebuild.

 

[Dominic]

It wouldn't collapse every civilisation, but there's a good chance it would collapse at least American and Russian civilisations.

That's right, along with quite a few others. Still a very long way short of knocking out the species though.

It might collapse the nations, but not the civilizations. Even today if several nukes hit the US's largest cities AND their urban areas, assuming everyone in them is killed, that still leaves 85% or so of the population to survive and rebuild.

A 1980's exchange would almost certainly be the permanent end of every NATO/WP state. Today's smaller arsenals... harder to guess.

 

[Aluma]

There is also no such thing as a genuinely "sustainable" civilisation in an entropic universe

Not wanting to get off topic but I'm not so sure about that, like *if* a future civilisation could develope something like the Warp Drive wouldnt it be the equivalent of having a cheat code in this universe? If they can counter the ever increasing entropy by moving stuff FTL to sustain their society then they would be sustainable, assuming such a ASB-ish civilisation could exist.
Lots of ifs of course, but still.

 

[Kerney]

Thanks to Fabius Maximus for his thoughts. I'll throw in a few of mine. I am of course speaking in broad terms--

Large Scale Trends

Fewer large Empires as role models. In the West, on some level for the last 1500 years or so every King wanted to be like a Roman Emperor and the churches backed up Christ as King of the Universe, Joe as local king with Joe promoted as mini-Jesus. This is a broad generalization of course and it is tied to the Roman Empire incorporating Christianity (and I'm not dissing Christianity here, Confucianism and others committed the same sin).

What if every city-state wanted to be Carthage for the last 2000 years, with a more modest Empire but merchant wealth instead. What if Things and councils had relatively more power, and could tell a merchant house to play by local rules more often.

Smaller political structures theoretically mean the land is more valued. More often it meant to prepare for war, kill your neighbor and take his stuff. But sometimes, like in Tokugawa Japan, when violence was restrained, it meant taking care of what you have because you're not getting more. Develop industrialization under those circumstances and it might change things.

Mirco --Trends

New Eyes on Civilization-- There were times when a Civilization was taken over and usually they incorporated their barbarian conquerors. But this was not always the case. Just ask the Welsh. And there were a few times when the tech/culture bias was close to going the other way. But what if we had some weird combinations we didn't have OTL where some more communal values arose, say Iroquois constitutional law meets Norse Technology or something weird like that.

Different Pharmacology-- Our society approves of caffeine. But what if instead of caffeine you took a microdose of a hallucinogen like many workers in Silicon Valley do and that additional creativity encouraged interconnectivity and creativity. One of the reasons Nixon pushed LSD into scheduled substances is it created hippies (close to his words) while caffeine keeps people focused worker bees. Note some groups, like the Native American Church, use such substances to promote social cohesion and fight problems like alcoholism so it could be seen in a more conservative context.

On the other hand, what if we took the atl equivalent versions of big Pharma execs who've addicted millions to opioids and executed them and excluded them ideologically the same way we do Nazis. Turning people into drug addicts is seen on the same level of not cool as genocide.

 

[NotAMyth]

In my experience as an engineer and what little I've read of history, Innovation is never adopted based on how much efficiency it improves nor how much quality of life gets better.
Its adopted based on one consideration only- the cost of not adopting it is much higher than the cost of adopting it, within the foreseeable future.

Thee concept of sustainability cannot exist without a civilisation on the brink of overconsumption. Only when their unsustainability starts reflecting as a cost too high to pay, will anyone try and become sustainable.

I guess you need to have a terrible overconsumption related crisis to occur on a global scale which forces all civilisations to take a frugal approach towards future expansion of any kind. Like how all civilizations have the flood myth, maybe all will have a greater emphasis on the evils of greed, gluttony and list.

 

[Arkenfolm]

I think a lot of proposals in this thread would prevent the idea of a civilization needing to be sustainable in the first place since they'd never realistically industrialize. It could very well be the difference between a post-scarcity society and a society knocked into a post-apocalyptic "scavenger age" is that the post-scarcity society didn't blink when they approached the Great Filter.

Different Pharmacology-- Our society approves of caffeine. But what if instead of caffeine you took a microdose of a hallucinogen like many workers in Silicon Valley do and that additional creativity encouraged interconnectivity and creativity. One of the reasons Nixon pushed LSD into scheduled substances is it created hippies (close to his words) while caffeine keeps people focused worker bees. Note some groups, like the Native American Church, use such substances to promote social cohesion and fight problems like alcoholism so it could be seen in a more conservative context.

The majority of people don't need to be creative for society to function. People willing to work from sunup to sundown are the foundation of society, especially in decades and centuries past, and caffeine is great for making sure that works. I wouldn't be surprised if you had too many creative people you'd end up a greater amount of religious and ideological violence, like think the Taiping.