A reader passed this on for comment. NASA funded a study that is yet another Marxist-slanted product that says civilization will collapse because of the unequal distribution of wealth and the exploitation of natural resources. It is interesting that they state that “the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history.”
I have been working on a book that covers this subject of the Rise and Fall of Civilization through the centuries with just a few chapters left to complete. As the reader says “Of course their other conclusions look to be a combination of their Marxist view of the world mixed with a little Al Gore environmentalism.”
I cannot disagree. There is no such period of “equal wealth” distribution in history for even under Communism the elite enjoyed a plush life hidden from view. Capital concentrates among individuals and nations and always has – sorry that is how it works whether you like it or not. We all cannot have a trade surplus.
So I really do not see how these people create studies other than always trying to explain everything from one point of view kind of like all you have is a hammer so everything looks like a nail. We are not out of resources NEVER WILL. Just for the record, we will move to the next energy source ONLY when we do start to run out of oil and gas making it more expensive to cause other available sources to come on-line. We have solar energy panels everywhere and they came ONLY into investigation because of OPEC in the 1970s. As energy rose in price, then wind generators came on-line.
There is a perpetual magnetic engine that generates electricity to restart and while they run it refuels the battery so plug-it-in once and you are good to go. There was an inventor who came to me to try to take it public. The auto-companies all offered to but it but they wanted to stick on the shelf. He wanted to see it produced.
We only use the electric portion of the electromagnetic wave function for general society. While we are exploring lasers, magnetic engines await us in the future. As for food, well Malthus got everyone to believe in the doom from over-population and he has been off by a few hundred years. Don’t worry, disease creates new viruses to reduce population as part of the natural process and then we love to kill each other in war to thin the herd. There are always counter-trends to help the cycle.
Whaling was the energy source for oil lamps. Then crude oil replaced hunting whales for energy. This is the natural process of Creative Destruction. The new technology annihilates the old. We no longer harvest whales to read at night. This is a functional realism that matters not the innovation. The Internet is wiping out newspapers, books, and retail stores, just as the combustion engine wiped out farm labor as tractors replaced hundreds of people and the railroad introduced competition giving birth to mail order – the first catalog produced by Sears.
This is an ongoing evolution within society. The Dark Ages are created by government trying to take all the wealth from people. So if civilization will collapse into a Dark Age it will not be because of an unfairness of wealth, but because of tyranny as it always has since government NEVER creates the wealth of a nation – they consume it.
