26: Civilization and Self-Reliance

Survive the Economic Collapse by Piero San Giorgio Trying to salvage western civilization is a talking point for many on the right. However, this defense and support of civilization ignores the fact that civilization is the problem. Survive the Economic Collapse I recently found a series of videos about a new view on civilization by Jim Penman. Jim suggests that to save western civilization we need to look at the biological markers that create civilization and use them to create civilizations that are immune to decline. He calls this idea, Biohistory. You can see the videos here. Penman gathers a group of traits prevalent in early civilizations, like harsh and early education of children, sexual restrictions, a distrust of luxury and calls them C. He gathers together other masculine traits, and describes them as V. These two forces C and V are the traits of humans that produce civilization. Penman's hypothesis is that if we can control these two forces, perhaps decline in empires and civilizations can be abated. His view while interesting suffers from a flawed premise, namely that civilization is the best way for humans to organize. There is no evidence to suggest that civilization is the best way for humans to live and quite a lot of evidence that it is not. Civilizations fail because they are unnatural and unsustainable. For example, The current economic system in the west is doomed to fail. The combination of debt and debased fiat currency has ensured there is no escape from collapse. The wealth of the modern world is a ruse. On top of that the real precursor to civilization, agriculture is also unsustainable. Peak oil is also an issue although hotly debated Outside of these issues is the main unsustainable issue. Civilization makes people miserable So the driving issue with these efforts to save the west or avert decline is that we are fighting to save a system that destroys the planet and makes us miserable.

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26: Civilization and Self-Reliance is an episode from Barbarian Radio by Barbarian Radio.

This episode is 48:25 long.

This episode was published on Jul 22, 2018.

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