There are some unpleasant predictions for human civilization this century.
See Losing Our Energy Slaves a 10 minute movie which suggests that 8 -10 billion people will die of starvation and conflict by the end of this century - that includes most of our children!!!
As an alternative to this bleak outlook SKIL has designed a sustainable non injury producing civilization. See SKIL Note 100 -- What does a sustainable civilization look like.
While this civilization is computationally viable, today's normal behavior will not transition us to it or maintain it after any miraculous transition. Normal human behavior will have to be constrained by an expanded social contract. Some of these expansions have been derived in a working paper
Unwinding the Human Predicament and are outlined below:
a) Civil control over annual number of global births to establish a sustainable global population.
i) universal reversible human sterility.
ii) birth lottery -- to determine who has children.
iii) birth incentives -- ensures that all the birth permits are used successfully.
b) Human activities limited to designated areas
i) prevents human use of the commons allocated to nature.
ii) prevents energy density dilution.
(a portion of each person's energy allocation goes to schools and hospitals and
if people spread out too much the quality of the hospital suffers.
c) Controls on human use of a redefined commons
i) all earth resources held in common ownership of all species, over all time periods.
ii) no private ownership of earth's resources
iii) equal allocations to each living person
iv) exclusive use of parts of the commons through annual lease plus one time recycling fees
1) cap consumption of renewables below the natural renewing rates.
2) Cap leases of non renewables to initial stockpiles plus embedded in infrastructure
(initial content from scavenging the old civilization.)
3) no use of exhaustible non renewables
d) Limits on conflict
i) maintenance of minimum (high level) of support for each person
ii) limits on stratification of wellbeing
(dilution of wealth at death)
(monetary units KWH tokens issued with expropriation dates.)
The dinner question:
Can these social contract expansions
maintain sustainability within a civilization? |
