every story is a degrowth story

For February, the Contraptions Book club is reading Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires by David Chaffetz, to be discussed the week of February 24. The chat thread is open for early comments. Three big, unmanaged forces of destruction and creation are irrupting into ...

docs.google.com

RelatedHighlights

Heroism is a ridiculous basis for running a world. Main character energy is narrative fossil fuel.

every story is a degrowth story

LLeo Guinan

But a perfect basis for running a life. Such is the edge to balance

Many people who don’t survive the Beowulf arc

every story is a degrowth story

LLeo Guinan

Nobody survives the Beowulf arc

So this is not going to be fun 13 years, but it’s not going to be entirely bleak either.

every story is a degrowth story

LLeo Guinan

This is a very bleak look at things, and I believe won’t age well. I predict that most of his biggest concerns will be alleviated in the next 2-3 years, because if we don’t, I think we won’t make it past those

By the simplification-as-collapse theory, good futures, ones worth working for, are by definition going to be too complex to be legible before we’ve actually lived through them. If you tell your story in a powerful, inspiring, coherent way that millions resonate with, and cannot see in what way your story invisibly features degrowth and collapse, y... See more

every story is a degrowth story

LLeo Guinan

Ok, I think I see where he’s going. But I think there’s also a possibility of a counter narrative that can re-write the degrowth one in terms of growth.

Paladin saves the world? Degrowth story.

Barbarian masculine energy saves the world? Degrowth story.

Enlightened sexless bureaucracy saves the world? Degrowth story.

Nurturing feminine energy saves the world? Degrowth story.

Unbridled technological acceleration saves the world? Degrowth story.

Unbridled GDP growth saves the world? Degrowth story.

Saintly

every story is a degrowth story

LLeo Guinan

These I agree are degrowth stories.

I think the connection he’s making is to the book, so that the loss of complexity in society leaves people feeling lost and unvalued, and that leads to societal collapse.

What if we don’t tie society to complexity?

Collapsed states are simpler states, so anyone working towards a simpler state — and anyone telling an intelligible tale is doing precisely that — is working towards a collapse. The failure of a world begins with a failure of the imagination to comprehend increased complexity, and an urge to retreat to greater simplicity.

every story is a degrowth story

LLeo Guinan

I don’t think this is necessarily degrowth, it’s compression. This feels like simplicity is a return to understanding of what’s valuable after building on top of it. It’s the flower budding, blooming, wilting, and blooming again. It’s cyclical and growth oriented, because uncapped growth is deadly to the environment and will be rejected.