What Have I Been Reading and Watching
Posted on 2026-01-08 14:30 in blog • Written by Arno Peters
Articles I have read
From: un-Denial by Rob Mielcarski
The Cactus Lens: A Clearer View
Until recently there have been 3 main lenses through which to view our overshoot predicament: debt, energy, and ecology.
Each lens exposes a different aspect of the picture, but not the complete picture.
Each lens focusses on different threats, with different time frames, and different consequences, and each lens suggests a different optimal response.
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Hideaway, a frequent contributor at un-Denial, Peak Oil Barrel, Our Finite World and other sites, recently introduced a new lens we have named cactus [CACTUS = Complexity Accelerated Collapse of a Thermodynamically Unsustainable System], which focusses on all non-renewable resources and the complexity required to extract them.
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With the introduction of the cactus lens, it is now in the best short term interests of all groups: countries, leaders, and citizens, for awareness to be as widespread as possible.
Given the cumulative constraints we have discussed—the fast biophysical collapse (5-10 years to hit the Net Energy Cliff), the collapse cascade (financial failure leading to urban anarchy), and the permanent degradation of the ecological resource base—the likelihood of total human extinction is low, but the likelihood of civilization’s collapse and a severe, multi-century population bottleneck is nearly 100%.
The factors that prevent total extinction are the same factors that ensured the survival of small, isolated human populations throughout the last million years of Ice Ages.
By Hideaway: EROEI [Energy Returned on Energy Invested]
A few years ago, when I couldn’t get a mining project to work economically by using just renewables for the power source, despite the claims of “renewables” being the cheapest form of electricity, I knew I had to go and find out what I was missing. Using diesel to generate electricity at remote mine sites is extremely expensive, so if there was any truth in renewables being “cheaper”, it should be validated at remote mine sites.
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None of the new energy types, including nuclear give us anything like the 10-20 EROEI that’s needed for modern civilisation to operate, yet the older fossil fuel plants have given us a much higher numbers on average well in excess of what’s often cited as the required EROEI.
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I know my numbers and methodology are far from perfect, yet they seem a lot more honest in comparing differences between the various energy providers and clearly show we have trouble ahead as the older much higher EROEI type energy producers are rapidly declining. These older types, even in the fossil fuel domain, are clearly the most profitable ones, so humans being humans are likely to use these much faster than the newer more marginal energy sources.
From: Surplus Energy Economics by Tim Morgan
This, though, ignores critical leverage in the system. Most of the energy available to the economy – perhaps 95% in complex advanced economies, and 90% or so in emerging market countries – is required simply for system maintenance. It has to be devoted, not just to repairing and replacing infrastructures and productive capabilities, but also to the support of the population.
The West has long since passed the ECoE [Energy Cost of Energy] threshold beyond which growth becomes impossible, and the same is now happening in less complex, more ECoE-resilient EM [Emerging Markets] economies.
Beyond its sheer size, what’s truly fascinating about the mania for all things AI-related is the way in which it fuses together the monetary and technological delusions that support the claim of never-ending economic growth.
What we have been exploring here is a paradox that is no paradox at all. The world will keep setting new wealth records until the financial system collapses.
From: The Seneca Effect by Ugo Bardi
From Chaos to Control: Is the West Heading Toward a One-Party Future?
From: The Honest Sorcerer
How I Came To Believe That Civilization Is Unsustainable
Finding what follows depressing, discouraging or simply labeling it as ‘pessimistic’ is a normal human response. These feelings are a part of the long journey towards acceptance — and not a permanent state of mind. Once you come to terms with what I have to explain here, and find your inner peace again, you will be much more resilient to whatever hardship might come. While others will have to confront their shock and their deepest fears of an uncertain future when the first major crisis hits, you will already know what’s happening and why, and perhaps will have already developed plans and mental maps how to move on. Trust me, unless you live in a war-torn, heavily sanctioned, economically ruined country you have seen nothing so far… But do not let that fact stop you from appreciating that what ‘others’ are experiencing at the moment might come to theaters near you anytime soon.
It’s also worth noting that what we are going through as a society is perfectly normal. All civilizations follow a similar pattern of growth, stagnation and decline — ours is no exception. What sets us apart from the hundreds of other fallen societies is our knowledge and information about our predicament. We have developed a scientific understanding why civilizations collapse, what true sustainability is, and how we got further and further away from that. Unlike prophets of prior times, we now have solid evidence for trends clearly pointing in the wrong direction. What’s laid out here is thus not informed by vague prophecies or scriptures written thousands of years ago. Contrast that to our prevalent myth — an unshakeable belief in unending progress and growth on a finite planet — an unresolvable contradiction on its own.
From: Ecosophia by John Michael Greer
Situationism: The Road from Raswashingsputin
It’s when you put your awareness into action that you have to be careful. The evidence of history and my experience alike suggest that you can get away with an enormous amount provided that you do it quietly, don’t call attention to yourself, and avoid whatever activities panic the system into police-state actions. This is easiest to do if you’re alone. It’s not that difficult if it’s just you and a partner or spouse. As the number of people involve mounts up, so do the challenges, because anything that looks even remotely like the beginning of a mass movement will set off violent overreactions from the ruling elites.
From: The Whirl of ReOrientation by Mark McGrath
The 5T Protocol is a resource for pattern detection. It examines five elements in any narrative artifact:
- TERRAIN – What ground is being claimed? What moral or cultural authority is being invoked?
- TARGET – Who is being directly or indirectly attacked, undermined, or positioned as “the problem”?
- TONE – What emotional register is being used to claim the high ground, silence dissent, or confuse criticism with cruelty?
- TROPE – What culturally familiar scripts are activated to signal virtue or justify attack?
- TACTICS – What rhetorical tools are doing the dirty work? Are they logical? Fair? Or manipulative?
From: Sasha's Newsletter by Sasha Chapin
Sasha has written many interesting articles. I especially like his reflections on his meditation practice. I highly recommend sampling some of his work over on Substack.
Review: Meditation from Cold Start to Complete Mastery
[...] Mark says the reason you meditate is to take care of your ‘technical debt.’ This is something you have, you just don’t know it maybe. You should probably address it.
Once you’ve taken care of your technical debt, it’ll be easier to have a good life, which is what we’re aiming for ultimately.
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Mark is careful to point out that technical debt isn’t a bad thing. To lead a full life, you’ll need to overwhelm yourself, go beyond your capabilities, throw yourself into situations where your development will need to be skewed in one direction. That will create debt. However, too much debt, and you get stuck in your patterns permanently, living in a nest of fear-based conditioning, lost in a forest of mental representations of what you’re supposed to be afraid of.
With sufficient meditation, Mark says, you’ll get to a point where you can pay down ~all of your existing technical debt, and learn to pay off new debt quite fast, such that it never accrues too densely. He doesn’t say that meditation is unique in this ability; he points to good sleep, and excellent therapy, as other stuff that can pay it down to varying degrees. But he’s a fan of meditation as a method.
Direct link to the book: Meditation from Cold Start to Complete Mastery
On the Enneagram:
Videos I have watched
The Enneagram - a presentation by Richard Rohr