Part I -- Views for the human predicament 1.0.0

Soon after puberty, each person is faced with predicaments; obtain food, clothing, and shelter or perish. Find a mate or end a gene line. Launch your kids or they flounder. Overcome the economic cycles or lose wellbeing.

At a more abstract level, humankind must find an alternative energy source to fossil oil or the industrial engine will stop. Stop poisoning the environment or it won't support you.

These may seem like a full complement of predicaments, however, in the essays that follow I will describe one more facet of our predicament – one I feel is the grand daddy of them all, manage social conflict or collapse civilization.

If collapse means most of the seven billion people on earth will die and the remaining remnant will live pre industrial lifestyles, this last predicament is worthy of our attention. If it could happen in our child’s lifetime it requires our immediate attention and becomes our foremost responsibility.

Therefore, in Part 1 of this book, I do the math and create the scenarios that move the concept of civilization collapse from what may appear as my fantasy into the reader's reality.

I describe how our civilization only precariously supports seven billion people. How its collapse would diminish this support. What processes move civilization towards collapse. And dynamically how this collapse unfolds.