How did we get here?

Some notes on where we are, and ideas on how to avoid going down with the ship.

Protesters are tear-gassed by the California National Guard. Photo from News Nine.

For the first time since 1965, the National Guard has been called out in response to protests, against the desire of the Guard’s nominal commander, the governor of the state.

The last time, President Johnson called up the National Guard in Alabama, against the wishes of Governor George Wallace, in order to protect protesters, who were marching in support of the civil rights of people of colour.

This time, the current administration called up the California National Guard without even consulting Governor Gavin Newsom, to suppress protests against the President’s anti-immigration policies, as ICE raided workplaces, seeking people of colour who weren’t carrying a US passport.

See the difference?

We have now entered the terminal decline of the United States of America, which Chris Hedges says is the “rule of the idiots”, a common trait of civilizations in terminal decline.

There are three types of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who look up, wide-eyed, and say, “What happened?” I think most Americans are in the latter category.

To better understand this, we have to go back a ways — some ~7,000 years.

By most evidence, prior to that time, humans lived in groups of no more than about ~150 people, which is the number that British anthropologist Robin Dunbar asserted was the maximum number of people that one could maintain personal relations with.

You knew everyone you routinely came in contact with. You may have lived your entire life without contacting anyone outside your tribe. Yea, there were skirmishes between tribes, but these were largely performative, and were rarely fatal. Worst was being banned from your tribe, which was effectively a death sentence.

Humans were truly free then, although they may not even thought of the concept, because they had never known rulers or “power over”. Most anthropologists think early humans used a form of elder-led consensus, where elders presented ideas for the tribe to consider, based on their wisdom and experience. This is hardly a human invention, and social creatures as simple as bees and ants follow a similar process.

The beginning of the “need” for freedom was likely the rise of grain agriculture, which seems to have arisen at about the same time in at least three places: wheat in Mesopotamia, rice in the Orient, and corn in Mesoamerica.

This broke our ~293,000-year intimate relationship with food and the turn of the seasons.

Prior to grain agriculture, if we were hungry, we found some nearby food. We did this in our tribes of ~150 or so, in which no one had anything they could really "hold over" others.

For the first time in human history, food in the form of grain survived a turn of the seasons. It allowed storage, hoarding, and withholding. It resulted in social stratification, hierarchy, power-over, and rulers. It created both riches and poverty.

This is the first archeological record of grand structures, such as pyramids and stately buildings — further evidence of “power over”. It took coercion to build the Great Pyrimids. These were not people who could simply go out and hunt or gather some food!

“Give us this day our daily bread” is biblical, and everyone understands it well. It means someone is capable of giving us something we need to live — or capable of not giving it.

"If we can control fuel we can control the masses; if we can control food we can control individuals." — Henry Kissinger

Grain agriculture invented freedom — the ability to control your own food source. It may have also invented "need" and "want" as well as “rich” and “poor”.

In stark contrast, a great civilization rose up about the same time in present-day British Columbia, based on hazelnuts. It appears to have been centred near the town of Hazelton, where botanists have long puzzled at the huge diversity of hazelnut species, many of them apparently from far away. Humans transplanted hazelnuts from all across British Columbia here!

It’s hard to research and document, because the hazelnut civilization left no grand monuments like the early grain cultures did. Without refrigeration, hazelnuts go rancid in well under a year. It was impossible to hoard and withhold them.

“[Ishmael] There's only one way you can force people to accept an intolerable lifestyle.

[Julie] Yea. You have to lock up the food.” — Daniel Quinn, The Teachings That Came Before & After Ishmael, p181

I'm not big on hope, viewing it as the irrational idea that some desire will be fulfilled without our own participation. But I do see seeds of hope in our current situation.

As fossil sunlight declines, so will complexity, including technology. Before we fire-monkeys became addicted to fossil sunlight, it took a dozen or more people working the land to support just one in the city. Today, each farmer supports about ~700 people in cities.

If something cannot continue, it will not continue.

As civilization breaks down, there may well be room for small, agrarian communities of under ~150 to survive and thrive. But you can't wait until the last minute to divorce civilization!

First, grow food. As much as possible in your situation. Sprouts on an apartment window sill. Scarlet runners on an apartment balcony. Potatoes on a city lot. Replace acres of suburban lawn with food.

Then, find others of like mind, and form a community of mutual support, preferably far from population centres. Within such a group, you may find that you've lost the need for "freedom". Perhaps you’ll never use that word again.

And you’ll leave no pyramids behind.