[Realist]

Excellent summary of how trust, law, money and scale of government are related. Very cogent. The basis of a complex society is available energy of course. I happen to agree that we are heading toward decreasing energy availability. Our society will change. The emperium, desperate to maintain control and power, will tax and abscond as long as they can.

Socially, I find certain comments interesting. Women’s roles changing?…everyone’s role will change. I like the way James Kunstler puts it…in a scarce energy world, reverting to old roles will pretty much not even be questioned. Men are more suited to hard manual labor…women to other roles. But all will be forced to work.
“Compassionate” Certainly we all strive for that personal quality. But our complex society has made this term into something of a “high level” activity and quality…something completely dependent on massive energy consumption. It seems that community based “compassion” is very similar to Nichole’s description of trust. It starts small and becomes “something a little bit different at the large scale. It can only be excercised at the large scale in an affluent, energy or resource consuming society. This will largely not be the case in at least a portion of the transitional future.
Other comments indicate concern about our potential to lose our “cultural progress.” This concern is legitimate as much of our “cultural progress” is based on affluence…ultimately based on imperial exploitation (and/or cheap energy). I would submit that cultural progress is a relative term that will ultimately lose importance in a scarce energy world.

Thank you for your excellent insight, Nichole.

[Author]

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