Floating Ideas

A metaphorical musing of Titanic proportions

Last week, the wonderful Julian Cribb posted a comment on my discussion of one of his books. He bemoaned the lack of action on the plethora of disasters bearing down upon humankind, and said:

My only request is that we not to dally too long arguing over the 'status quo' items, or the collapse of civilisation and our own possible extinction become inevitable. Keep focus on what has to be done to save ourselves - and forget about rearranging the Titanic's deckchairs!

That simple closing statement inspired a potentially useful allegory for the state of our Modern Techno-Industrial (MTI) society. I made a few more casual references, but decided to explore it fully in its own essay.

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The Status Quo

At the outset of the twentieth century, accessible and luxurious transatlantic travel represented one of the pinnacle achievements of the Second Industrial (or ‘Technological’) Revolution. Immediately prior to World War I, whole nations were in competition to claim top dog position in the lucrative mass transit of thousands of people between the Old World and the New. The global war that followed took that kind of hubris to the battlefield, but just before that, one incident in particular stands out. That incident brings to mind an interesting way to encapsulate our present-day predicament, more than a century later…

The RMS Titanic was built by the White Star Line in 1912. As the largest ship of its time, it was built to epitomize luxury and generate serious corporate profit. The Modern Techno-Industrial (MTI) economy is designed and managed for maximum growth and maximum profit, with a claim that everyone will achieve better lifestyles and well-being.

On its first and last voyage, the humans aboard consisted of 324 First Class passengers, 284 Second Class, and 709 Third Class, about 885 crew, and others, for a total of 2,224 people. Not all participants in the MTI economy are equivalent. They have different levels of wealth, different privileges, and different vulnerabilities to environmental shocks.

The luxurious amenities available to the First Class passengers were phenomenal. And even the Third Class accommodations were better than what could be found on other ships. While the world’s richest people have inconceivable wealth, MTI society has generally improved the objective standard of living for most of the world’s population.

Titanic had a lifeboat capacity of about 1,178, which was a third of the ship’s capacity, and enough for only half of those onboard for the maiden voyage, but was still equipped according to the law. This was not considered a concern, since the claims were that, because of technology, the ship was unsinkable. In terms of critical resources, while it may feel like we are doing okay, globally there are nowhere near enough critical resources to sustain the status quo of the planetary population in our future. Even though these predictions of future resource scarcity are well-known to science, the persistent belief is that technology will always somehow save the day.

The Titanic was steaming towards New York at top speed. Fast crossing times and meeting schedule goals were the captain’s top priority. Increases in productivity, efficiency, and consumption are considered pivotal goals of our leaders and industries.

There were clear warnings transmitted to the captain of drifting icebergs in the area. He ignored them, and did not reduce speed. The warnings that our economic growth cannot continue and that we are barreling towards imminent disasters have been sounded for decades, if not centuries. However, the exponential curves continue to streak upwards.

The Polycrisis

Not many people (nor the passengers at the time) know that ten days before Titanic departed for America, the coal in her forward bunker spontaneously combusted, causing a fire which burned for days into the voyage. In fact, it was only extinguished on the day the ship hit the iceberg. Such coal fires were not entirely unexpected in steamships of the period, and were thought to be manageable. Climate change is not our only threat - it might not even be the most imminent. (Dare I say: it might just be the tip of the iceberg?) Our civilization is also facing the collapse of our world order on the precipice of nuclear war, unregulated explosions of untested technology, new pandemics, a mass extinction, toxic chemical pollution, food insecurity, overpopulation, and rampantly pervasive misinformation.

In addition to a coal bunker fire, our present global polycrisis would be more akin to a massive passenger ship sailing into a iceberg field combined with a superstorm hurricane forecast, on its maiden voyage with a never-before-tested automatic steering and throttle mechanism, carrying tanker-loads of weaponized nitroglycerin, experiencing a novel smallpox outbreak and violent conflict between starboard and port-side passengers, while a lack of food in the pantry has resulted in the chefs supplementing the ground beef with whatever they can scrape off in the bilge. Furthermore, the crew are mostly aware of these problems, but determined to suppress all relevant information, and act as if nothing is wrong.

Now, imagine that our ship’s Second Class passengers include meteorologists, infectious disease experts, seasoned northern mariners, and shipbuilding engineers, all of whom were telling the captain to reduce speed, alter course, or even turn around and return to Ireland. I suspect that, as it was for RMS Titanic, such warnings would have been ignored - as indeed they mostly are today. This is especially true when the White Star Line and the First Class passengers are categorically insisting that the planned course be pursued at top speed.

Addressing individual symptoms of ecological overshoot (along with threats of nuclear conflict and harmful technologies) is good work. Extinguishing the fire in the coal bunker had to be done - there are theories that it might have contributed to the disaster. If disease broke out on board, we know that infection rates are much worse on crowded ships (and in our globe-trotting MTI society), so of course we would attempt to treat people and lessen the spread. Theoretically, we could also add more lookouts, and (in our scenario) decide to dump the nitroglycerin overboard. (And, no doubt, there will be others who are rearranging the deck chairs.)

Still, if we are not addressing the whole idea of where the ship is headed and why, we may still be facing a catastrophe. Even if news of the predicament slipped out, what could anyone do? A full-scale mutiny might indeed alter the ship’s destiny. But how do you coordinate all those passengers when deliberate misinformation and restricted deck access is keeping them apart in their own echo chambers? Remember, the vast majority of the populous steerage passengers remain very much focused on their dreams of a new life of wealth in America.

So what do we do?

Recognizing the Real Problem

We know that we only have one finite planet. In this metaphor, the Titanic does not represent planet Earth - it represents one model for how we live on planet Earth. The value system upon which that MTI economic model is founded is one where success is exclusively measured by number. More income, more viewers, more likes, more votes, more sales, more profit, more ownership, more virtual wealth. Wealth which can be created (and the whole system gamed) by math alone. And since such numbers can always be doubled, there is no maximum - no concept of sufficiency (and thus, no concept of contentment). An iceberg is not the real problem - especially in the polycrisis that we find ourselves in right now; it is simply the mechanism that might tip the first domino.

Some people will claim that all lifeforms (including humans) are biologically programmed to pursue More. That is an incomplete portrayal of the truth. The most applicable science is that of the Maximum Power Principle (MPP), which is indeed a valid attribute of life as we know it. However, as with everything else observable in the ‘natural’ world, the MPP operates in a world of natural value systems, which are qualitative, fully incorporating concepts of sufficiency and operating in a world where feedback systems have evolved over millions of years. A species will maximize the use of available energy, but each individual is limited in how much they can actually consume.

Qualitative values (such as hunger, justice, beauty, self-preservation, joy, awe, and compassion) are still with us - like the MPP, they’re hardwired - but humans (and humans alone) have invented number-based values and created a society that gives these new intrinsically insatiable quantitative values precedence over all else. That is the ship that most of society is riding on - one that, by unintentional design, is doomed.

It is almost impossible to turn that ship around because of what I call the Value Change Conundrum, which states:

“You won’t change your predominant value system from number-based to qualitative until you see the benefits of doing so. But because the benefits in the two value systems are polar opposites, you won’t see the benefits of changing until you are already using the new value system. [See more explanation.]

One very unfortunate theory is that the only way out of this conundrum is for the number-based value system to fail so dramatically, on every possible scale, that its all-pervasive unquestioned precedence is finally rejected.”

We are rapidly approaching that point, where it will become clear to everyone that the prevailing narrative is false - the model of infinite growth is not unsinkable, the paper wealth of the First Class passengers and dreamed wealth waiting in the New World is ultimately inconsequential, and, despite the best of intentions, the White Star Line was programmed to invest in the wrong values. More is not ALWAYS Better.

Still, when that model hits the iceberg (as is inevitable at our current speed and direction), I choose to believe that it is possible for the survivors to eventually turn to different models and different ways of navigation.

Do I suggest that there’s nothing to be done right now - that we must simply wait until after the impact? Not at all. Nor am I suggesting that I have the solution. I don’t. I’m not looking for the solution. I’m looking for the meaning - the whole point of everything that led to where we are now. I’m looking for better understanding, and a strategy that we might hang our fate on.

One time-tested and proven heuristic is to hope for the best and plan for the worst. Let’s assume, for a moment, that no amount of pleading or uncoordinated passenger action is going to substantially alter the fate of RMS Modern Techno-Industrial Society. Even when the iceberg is spotted, it might be too late to reduce speed or alter course. The goal of the species, then, is to ensure that there are survivors, and that they don’t repeat the same mistakes. Metaphorically, groups of passengers can undertake their own lifeboat drills, gather life jackets and survival suits. They can scour the ship for more potential flotation devices; if they are really industrious, they can recruit some crew members to help them assemble more makeshift lifeboats.

Improving the fate of everyone on board is going to require serious cooperation and collaboration. Everyone will have to see the same priorities. However, we may have to accept the fact that such consensus is only going to happen AFTER the iceberg is hit, but before the ship starts actually sinking. In other words, some form of collapse might have to happen first.

I don’t know what that iceberg will be. Hints abound in our daily news. Will it be followed by chaos and anarchy? Mass conflict? Death and destruction? Hell on Earth? Yes, very likely “(e) All of the above.” Their levels will mainly depend on how much we anticipate the impact, study the root causes ahead of time, and take a value systems approach to our preparations and response. Our Titanic problem, after all, is truly a Value Crisis.