As always throughout his book, whenever analyzing the past and the events of the past, the focus quickly transfers to the future. When discussing the interaction between the Neanderthal and the Homo Sapiens, the transition immediately goes to looking into the past and in understanding that the human individual is sometimes unlikely to make any compromises in his search for progress. One can also better understand the ruthlessness of the human specie and understand the risk to which other species can be subjected to.
The look in the past also gives very obvious and interesting aspects of civilizations that disappeared because of reasons we may encounter in the future for our own civilization. The Sumerians, for example, disappeared because they had consumed all the resources that were supporting their civilization. One can obviously wonder whether this is not something that could also occur in our own times. With progress, often additional dangers appear and, as the author mentions, the key is often in the rhythm and way with which progress appears and develops: "the devil here is in the scale: a good bang can be useful; a better bang can end the world"
Other civilizations, like the Egyptian one, have, in Wright's opinion, had the capacity to regenerate its environment, both because of a more moderate growth and because of the environment itself. Today, this seems almost impossible, both because of the rhythm of the destruction done to the environment and because of the demographic growth, with the numbers surpassing 6 billion inhabitants.
One of the most concerning problems that Wright identifies is the fact that globalization has made the entire world interconnected. While this has become a mantra of liberal economists, Wright supports the idea that globalization and liberalization will, in fact, increase the rhythm in which the destruction occurs, mainly because the globalized world will mean that problems in one part of the world will immediately impact and be felt in any of the other places of the world to which the respective one is connected and to which...
As such, he mentions Joseph Tainter who notes that "collapse, if and when it comes again, will this time be global. ... World civilization will disintegrate as a whole"
As mentioned, the argument follows the historical line in tacitly emphasizing that the human society today needs to learn from the errors of the past and that it needs to monitor and understand why other civilizations failed in order to be able to defend itself from the potential errors that would bring it the same type of downfall. At the same time, the approach needs to be a long-term approach, one that focuses on future consequences as well as on the present evolutions.
The focus on the future will need to rebalance the development of the human society with the rational consumption of resources and, further more, the development of the society and demographics growth with the way this impacts the environment and causes harm to the supporting nature.
a) Mr. Wright, your approach seems to be that civilizations, at some point, disappear because of the excesses, especially in terms of resource consumption, that these civilizations go through. Does it not seem more logical to believe that these civilizations, in fact, do not necessarily disappear, but rather transform themselves in the subsequent civilizations? Many of the civilizations of Antiquity seemed to follow that scenario (Rome, Ancient Greece, Egypt, China). In that sense, would it not be more logical that this is what will happen with our civilization as well, simply transform into a new and improved society?
b) Mr. Wright, throughout your book you have failed to discuss whether the expansion in outer space can be a solution to the decreasing volume of resources on Earth? Can we believe that, at some point, progress will actually save the human civilization?
Bibliography
1. Wright, Ronald. A Short History of Progress. Toronto: Anansi. 2004
Wright, Ronald. A Short History of Progress. Toronto: Anansi. 2004
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
