Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

[aedens]

The complexity is real as the efforts to control since they do not value Life as we understand it in
other areas. I seen a list as valid as they implode zones to get control and feed off what can survive.
They know exactly what and how to destroy minds. The middle kingdom is utilizing a control measure
to assert and shore up the insurance sector survival and we understand that move here. I regard your incremental study
as we cover more than some and a lot more than many. Best regards in this Hour we are in.
The profligate waste we witness is not to be underestimated as they dilute the Letter and the Book
to the Harbingers events that are as real as the indifference and vapid disregard that brings it.
Chaos Agents and their Brokers are as real as the Apathy that supports it.

[Higgenbotham]

First, though, I need to say a few more words about Jim Sinclair since it ties in with dark age theory.

Jim Sinclair is a descendant of the family that ran the House of Seligman, which was one of the main banking houses in America along with the House of Morgan, the House of Rothschild, Jay Cooke and a few others. These were among the major US banking houses of the 1800s and early 1900s. Sinclair's father was an associate of the legendary trader Jesse Livermore and Sinclair himself helped unwind the Hunt Brothers' silver position when they ran into trouble, as well as working with other well known traders.

In dark age theory, I've said many times that late 2011 represented a cut point where the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bankers established the certainty of a new dark age by their actions. I also said that the descent into a new dark age could potentially be milder than a normal non dark age crisis period because more would be borrowed from the future to forestall the collapse. At this point, I would be remiss not to say that many other things I predicted were wrong or at best early. Which gets back to the main reasons for this post.

The banking houses mentioned were most powerful when Western Civilization was on the steep ascent. This I would estimate to be from the 1800s until approximately 1914. After that, until about 1973 let's say, there was sort of a topping process in Western Civilization where some aspects were getting better and some worse. For what was getting worse, for example, Barbara Tuchman discussed some of that in The Proud Tower and I've linked to an interview from her many years ago in a different area of this forum.

So 1914 was the start of World War I and 1973 was the Arab oil embargo. I used those 2 dates instead of my usual 1971 to illustrate something. Just prior to those 2 dates something important happened in banking. In 1913 the Federal Reserve was created and in 1971 the international gold window was shut. During that time period, the baton was passed from the old banking houses to the Federal Reserve and the modern banking houses such as Goldman Sachs.

During the passing of this baton and after, many have speculated that the power of the old banking houses remained but it was secret and went underground. This power does not remain. The heirs have remained and their power has dissipated little by little. Jim Sinclair was one of those heirs.

After 1971, Western Civilization transitioned into the maintenance phase. During the maintenance phase there was a slow decline but at the same time there were a lot of resources that were in reserve that could be used to help prop things up. For example, the middle class only needed one job at 40 hours per week to support a family in 1971. During the maintenance phase, the hours required to support a middle class family at the same level as in 1971 were increased to approximately 120. All the while, this increase was sold as a good thing, for example, by saying that women were now "liberated".

Getting back to the descendants of the banking houses that ruled the world during the ascent of Western Civilization, throughout both of these time periods of 1913 to 1971 and 1971 to 2011, I think the heirs could fairly well understand economic and investment cycles. Despite the fact that the afore-mentioned phase changes took away their ruling power and transferred it to the managerial class, they were still able to navigate in this environment, albeit not at the center of it.

But during the transition that happened in 2011 or thereabouts, you will find a whole lot of untimely predictions from Jim Sinclair. He said the dollar would crash. He said the world financial system was on the brink of collapse. I would put forth that Jim didn't suddenly get addicted to drugs, end up with Alzheimer's, or something similar to that. What happened was the world transitioned into a new dark age and Jim and the other descendants of the banking houses that used to rule the world lost their bearings. What they were taught about market timing and what worked in markets by their fathers and grandfathers no longer worked.

Also, of the remnants of the Rothschilds who remain in financial businesses, they operate on a small scale, eschewing modern complex financial instruments. After the 2008 debacle, one of them commented that not much happened to their investments because they don't get involved in opaque investments, or something to that effect. By small, I mean small on the scale of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, or some of the other high tech and investment titans, but not small by our standards. The big money is now in high tech and the intersection of high tech and finance, and the remnants of the old banking families don't operate there.

[Higgenbotham]

The previous post with the mentioning of the gold window being closed and the unleashing of opaque investment products which resulted as a consequence - at the same time the US entered the maintenance phase of a declining civilization on or around 1971 - got me to thinking about other things that were unleashed previously and accelerated around that time. For example, the production and dumping of plastics, pesticides, degradation of soils, offshoring of US manufacturing, and other things that have been mentioned separately here but may have been at least partially a consequence of the gold window being shut. That leads to a concept known as the great acceleration, which is something I only vaguely recall reading about. My question to AI then became: When did the negative effects of the great acceleration start to outweigh the positive effects?

As a caveat, since this isn't something I'm intimately familiar with, I can't comment on the conclusions of AI but the fact-based reporting of the conclusions of others that it uncovered might be useful as a starting point, and that is what most of its response was about.

When did the negative effects of the great acceleration start to outweigh the positive effects?

AI Overview

From an Earth System science and ecological economics perspective, the negative planetary impacts of the Great Acceleration are generally argued to have begun seriously overtaking its socioeconomic benefits between 1970 and 1980.

While the Great Acceleration dramatically elevated global living standards, life expectancy, and wealth starting in 1950, several historical and environmental thresholds indicate that the scales tipped later in the 20th century:

The Ecological Footprint Crossing (c. 1970s): According to data from the Global Footprint Network, the mid-1970s was the precise point where humanity’s total ecological footprint surpassed the Earth's annual biocapacity. At this moment, human consumption moved into an ongoing "ecological deficit."

The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) Peak (c. 1978): Economists use the GPI to measure economic growth adjusted for environmental degradation, pollution, and social costs. Studies consistently show that while global GDP per capita continued to surge throughout the 20th century, global GPI peaked and began to permanently decline around 1978, indicating that further economic expansion started costing society more than it produced.

Fossil Fuel Emissions Dominance (1978): Prior to the late 1970s, the majority of historical man-made carbon emissions came from land-use changes like agriculture. In 1978, cumulative emissions from burning fossil fuels officially surpassed land-use emissions, solidifying a trajectory of rapid climate destabilization.

The "Danger Zone" Inflection (1980s): By the 1980s, the delayed feedback loops of the post-WWII boom manifested as undeniable global crises, such as the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole and a sharp, continuous upward shift in mean global temperatures.

[Higgenbotham]

From Google AI:

Do Samo Burja and Higgenbotham from Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel share a similar view regarding the end of industrial civilization and the fact that an information age has not happened?

Yes, Samo Burja and the anonymous intellectual behind Dark Age Hovel (often associated with traditionalist, neo-reactionary, or "bronze age" critiques) share striking alignment in their diagnoses. Both argue that the Industrial Revolution essentially stopped before completion and that we have not entered an information age.

Both thinkers share the view that our current society is stagnant rather than progressing.

The End of Industrial Civilization

Samo Burja: The sociologist and founder of Bismarck Analysis argues in his essay, The End of Industrial Society, that industrialization exhausted its social innovations before completing the transformation of society. He contends that we are living in the lingering, entropic aftermath of a halted Industrial Revolution, marked by lost foundational knowledge.

Dark Age Hovel: The author of Dark Age Hovel shares this perspective, viewing our contemporary era as a late-stage industrial society where technological momentum is stalling and civilization is degrading or in "slow collapse" .

The Myth of the Information Age

Samo Burja: Burja directly challenges the idea that we live in a novel "Information Age." He notes that current digital infrastructure and the "Internet of Things" have failed to introduce the fundamentally new "social technologies" required to elevate civilization beyond the Industrial era.

Dark Age Hovel: This author similarly critiques modern tech, viewing digital devices and the internet as surface-level symptoms of a deeply stagnant system rather than a true leap into a new historical epoch.

Both conclude that instead of moving forward, we are living in a "post-industrial" trap, where institutional decay prevents us from capitalizing on the raw technological power we inherited from the past.

I'll try to wade through this AI slop and list the claims it is making. After addressing each claim, I will then answer the question: What is your view regarding the end of industrial civilization and the fact that an information age has not happened?

1. The Industrial Revolution essentially stopped before completion.

2. We have not entered an information age.

3. Our current society is stagnant rather than progressing.

4. Industrialization exhausted its social innovations before completing the transformation of society.

5. We are living in the lingering, entropic aftermath of a halted Industrial Revolution, marked by lost foundational knowledge.

6. Our contemporary era is a late-stage industrial society where technological momentum is stalling and civilization is degrading or in "slow collapse" .

7. Digital devices and the internet are surface-level symptoms of a deeply stagnant system rather than a true leap into a new historical epoch.

8. We are living in a "post-industrial" trap, where institutional decay prevents us from capitalizing on the raw technological power we inherited from the past.

[Higgenbotham]

1. The Industrial Revolution essentially stopped before completion.

This statement doesn't mean anything.

It's similar but not exactly the same as saying, "The AI bubble stopped before completion." No, it was completed when it stopped. "His life stopped before completion." No, his life was completed when it stopped. Human's can't and don't pre-ordain what form completion is supposed to take or when it is supposed to happen. We can only make a determination for some things that something has been completed when it stops according to agreed upon measurable metrics.

That can't be done for something like an Industrial Revolution.

I've never given any indication in this Dark Age Hovel as to what the completion of the Industrial Revolution "should" look like or what form it "should" take, or that it has any definitive completion at all according to any metric. The examples given above have metrics. A bubble can in retrospect assumed to have stopped when the price of the index reaches its apex and declines 20% or more from there or something similar to that. A life can be considered in retrospect to have stopped when the heart stops beating or something similar to that.

There is no agreed upon metric associated with a definitive time that can be used to determine when an Industrial Revolution stops.

[Higgenbotham]

2. We have not entered an information age.

This is correct, but incomplete. There needed to be an explanation from AI as to where the information age is at. We have an information age beginning to come into form. The outlines of it are here and tangible. It's not like nothing information age related exists.

It's similar to when the Romans had an industrial age coming into form but the primary civilizational mode and its structures and underpinnings were all set up for an agricultural age. Those underpinnings and structures had to be transformed over the coming centuries to make way for the industrial age.

We are still primarily in an industrial age and beginning to make a centuries long transition to get to an information age. In between, there will need to be a new dark age to get there.

[Higgenbotham]

3. Our current society is stagnant rather than progressing.

This statement doesn't adequately capture what has been described in this dark age hovel.

Most things are declining, a few things are progressing, and a few things are stagnant. Since the things that are declining have more current import than those that are progressing, on net our civilization is in slow decline. The things that have been declining have been emphasized almost exclusively because they are the things that currently matter.

The few things that are stagnant have been described that way - things such as wages, per capita energy use, and life expectancy are the ones that come to mind - with the expectation that they will start declining in the near future.

[Higgenbotham]

4. Industrialization exhausted its social innovations before completing the transformation of society.

Industrialization made use of the social innovations that preceded it and paved its way, meaning that the social innovations that preceded it as we came out of the dark age were acted upon to the extent that an Industrial Revolution could then take hold. Examples of some of the most important social innovations have been given - the Magna Carta (1215), gunpowder revolution (starting approximately 1300), and the printing press (1455).

The social innovations that will be necessary to transform society into an information age as we come out of the new dark age can't be anticipated or imagined at this time.

[Higgenbotham]

7. Digital devices and the internet are surface-level symptoms of a deeply stagnant system rather than a true leap into a new historical epoch.

No.

I've described this pretty extensively using the example of Boeing.

Digital devices are being used as demonstration cases within the industrial age paradigm. For example, in commercial aerospace, the big leap was getting to the point of the Boeing 747. It took 66 years from Kitty Hawk to the 747. Since then, it has been shown that we can add computer chips and code to what is essentially still a 747 with computer chips and code to get a 787. It took 42 years from the 747 to the 787.

Similarly with automobiles, farm equipment and other things. Of course, the engineers will argue otherwise and say those 42 years were full of great leaps.

It's not that doing such things are surface-level symptoms of a deeply stagnant system. It's that we are as yet unable to apply them in the paradigm where it will be the most transformative to apply them because we don't yet have the social innovations to do so.

Getting extra mpg and fewer emissions out of automobiles is a good demonstration case though.

There's a lot more that could be said but that's the general idea.

The surface level symptoms of a deeply stagnant system on the cusp of a new dark age are a decline in societal standards, the functional failure of government and lack of accountability, which will manifest as increased indebtedness, stagnant and declining life expectancy, dramatic fall in traditional military recruits, increase in disabilities, etc.

This has gotten tedious but I will try to write my own answer to the question that was posed to AI later.