Planetary Collapse and The Web of Convenience

Disenchantment and the Bitter Seeds of Nihilism: Part One

The Paradox of Our Time

Numerous commentators and writers (so-called collapsologists) – many of whom can be found on Substack¹ – are intent on forecasting the inexorable decline and fall of global civilisation. And rightly so, because our condition is perilous, and we are at this moment in the foothills of gradual – and probably irreversible – collapse: environmental, societal, moral and political. And yet, while the Anthropocene trundles towards its terminus, very little seems to be happening in response. During the coronavirus epidemic, global governmental intervention was swift and unequivocal; we were alerted to the severity of the situation through the actions of the state. By that token, the inertia shown by government to imminent planetary catastrophe suggests there’s actually nothing to worry about. Everything must, after all, be fine. At least, this is the lie we tell ourselves, even though the perceptible background unease in the world whispers a different story.

Liberal Fatalism

This is the paradox of our time: the fact that the problems confronting us are too large and complex to solve, and therefore nothing is done to address them. This ‘Knowledge-Inaction Paradox’ is in reality a paralysis, because our existential challenges are vast: global warming and sea level rise; biodiversity loss and habitat destruction, wildlife trafficking and overexploitation; pollution; deforestation and rainforest dieback; soil fertility collapse; ocean degradation and acidification; resource depletion; and so on. These are intractable – and interconnected – problems. Civilisation is the proverbial oil tanker unable to avoid the oncoming iceberg because of its size and inertia. And this inaction is broadly perceived as a kind of fatalism. We have no points of reference with which to contextualize and comprehend what is happening so, to insulate ourselves, we either ignore our condition – a position that will become increasingly untenable – or we translate the apparent fatalism into an emerging nihilism; because if nothing has meaning, events such as biosphere collapse are neither good nor bad, but simply brute fact.

It begs the question: is the dire situation we now find ourselves in as a species inevitable? Could our collective fate have unfurled differently?

We are, to some extent, cursed by biology; our paltry lifespans result in relatively short-termist – and sometimes fatal – approaches to problem solving. It is a flaw described by the Principle of Least Effort, which proposes that humans tend to choose the most convenient and least exacting methods available. Optimal solutions are sacrificed in favour of those that are most convenient, even though they may seem irrational or self-destructive in the long term. Just one example is ammonium nitrate fertiliser, developed by Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch in the early 20^th century. On one hand, the farming efficiencies it enabled resulted in significantly improved crop yields; some estimates suggest that three billion humans are alive today thanks to the Haber-Bosch innovation. On the other, traditional nutrient systems such as crop and livestock rotation were abandoned, and soil fertility began to collapse (see the Dust Bowl in the US Midwest for its consequences.) UK forecasts now suggest a total eradication of soil fertility could occur within 20-30 years. The Haber-Bosch model of intensive farming gained traction because it was convenient; it required far less effort on the part of the farmer compared to traditional approaches. And, of course, it was profitable – in the short term at least.²

Technological Determinism

The unintended consequences arising from the Principle of Least Effort have been worsened by technology, which amplifies the impact of our ill-considered solutions. Of course, technological advancements in and of themselves are neither good nor bad. Ethics only come into play when technology intersects with society. But we can argue convincingly that our world is technologically deterministic; in other words, although not all technologies gain traction, those that do will become the primary drivers and definers of social change, cultural values and human behaviour. Two very obvious examples spring to mind: the large-scale introduction of manufacturing technologies in the Industrial Revolution, the consequences of which were explicitly linked to child exploitation, the dismantling of rural communities and their attendant traditions, mass urbanisation, an estrangement from Nature, and a general disenchantment: it laid the foundations for modern, globalist consumer society (to be fair, it also drove social mobility, an expansion of public education and a flurry of social reform.) The second is the Internet, which needs no introduction; it has unquestionably revolutionized virtually every aspect of modern life.

My overall thesis then is that human short-termism (enshrined in the Principle of Least Effort), coupled with technological determinism, have in partnership led to the conditions of our current situation. Together, they have woven what might be called a ‘web of convenience’ – a pervasive, completely artificial barrier insulating us from the perceived hardships of life but, in reality, fomenting ennui, disconnection, vacuity, rootlessness, incomprehension, narcissism and, ultimately, nihilism. In a previous post I explored how we humans are not mere meat-puppets, but beings intersected by multiple networks extending across time, space, species, and dimensions. The so-called ‘web of wyrd’ is one such network; the sum total of every event contributing to our individual existence. The web of convenience is another: a layer on top of consensus reality that actively seeks to misdirect our attention from our true state of affairs, while simultaneously exacerbating it. It pampers us with trinkets, trivia and indulgences while nudging us even closer to the precipice upon which we already teeter.

The Web of Convenience

Within the web of convenience surface values are of primary concern; human agency is illusory and limited only to consumer choice; everything is commodified, productised and acausal, in the sense of being detached from its source and possessing no narrative; Nature is abstracted and remote. Within the web of convenience, every node seeks maximum convenience for itself, but is ultimately in service to the consumer. Within the web, everything must and will be sacrificed to ensure the web’s persistence, because there is no upper limit to the possibilities of convenience. Within the web, there is no concept of past or future, only an ever-present insatiable now.

In the web, a snack eaten in two minutes can justifiably be wrapped in plastic packaging with a decomposition-time of 80 years, because it is convenient.

In the web, millions of sentient farm animals can justifiably be required to suffer in tethered, barren facilities for the duration of their short and painful lives, because it is convenient.

In the web, cheap garments made by child victims of forced labour can justifiably be purchased, worn once, and then discarded, because it is convenient.

You know the web of convenience because we all – you, and I, and the majority of the West, if not the human population of the world at large – live within it. It is Faustian pact foisted upon us, from which there is no escape.

To maintain the web, which is ever-increasing in size and complexity, vast amounts of resource are unnecessarily expended. In fact, resource extraction has more than tripled since 1970.³ In the same period, one third of the planet’s natural wealth has been lost. Of all the materials consumed during this century, more than half were consumed in the last 25 years, 30% by the US alone.⁴ So much exploitation for such trivial gains.

The web therefore sustains the quality of life we enjoy in the West. But it is an aberration. You may think your life is okay, but not exceptional. In reality, it is probably as good as things are ever going to get for humans over the entire arc of our existence as a species. The profligacy and over-consumption required by the web of convenience is utterly unsustainable and, relatively soon, it will begin to fray and snap, despite efforts to the contrary. Slowly, our quality of life will degrade. Most of the commentaries I have read suggest 2050 as a rough date when inevitable collapse becomes widespread.

Consequences

So, back to my original question: is the dire situation we now find ourselves in as inevitable? Is it just another looming trough in the cycle of civilisational rise-and-fall? Or could it have been avoided? Something we no longer have access to in the West is the ancestral network (arguably prevented by the web of convenience) – a means of transcending the limitations of our short lifespans by accessing the deep wisdom of those who are far longer lived. A highly developed ancestor cult, or an animistic tradition, would yield similar outcomes: both require a condition of humility before Nature, a negotiation with incorporeal intelligences, and an acknowledgement that their ‘long sight’ is essential in avoiding flawed short-termist decision-making. But that is not our legacy.

Should we instead look to other, more antagonistic, forces for motives? Have we been manipulated by Archontic entities or Dark Gods, beings hungry for our enslavement or destruction, who have architected the faceless, impersonal, chaotic world we now inhabit? We think we have become godlike because we believe we possess powers of creation and destruction. But perhaps we are, as a species, fundamentally ignorant and in need of gnosis. These are questions for another day.

To fully understand the consequences of our predicament, we need to consider the fates of those downstream of our dis-eased world; Gen Alpha and the future generations whose inheritance is a planet on its knees. We’ll explore this topic next because, as mentioned earlier, the logical response to decades of indolence and equivocation when faced with looming catastrophe is withdrawal, cynicism, misanthropy, and nihilism. This is the realm of extreme existential bleakness, a network of desolation.

1. You may have your preferred collapsologists. Some of my recommendations include:

2. English Pastoral by James Rebanks explores the tensions between traditional and modern farming practices

3. See https://friendsoftheearth.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/overconsumption.pdf

4. See https://pubs.usgs.gov/annrev/ar-23-107/aerdocnew.pdf