ENDGAME - so what's it about?

This book attempts to make the case that "civilization" as a concept is evil and unsustainable, and will ultimately destroy the planet and all the other "non-human" inhabitants along with our human selves... To make the case requires 20 (yes, twenty) premises... Anything that requires 20 anythings can never be easy to understand (or as my instructor informed our class when learning to disable the ejection seat in the F4-D Phantom, that anything that requires 10 safety pins can never REALLY be safe); but regardless, for this review, I'll boil them down to what appears to be the essential points:

• People need resources to survive (food, air, water, etc) and those things come from the environment you live in... The "land base"
• When you concentrate too many people into an area where they no longer can get their stuff from the environment they live in, they go abroad to get stuff, and they take it by force... Our ability to get resources depends on a willingness to use violence to get them
• Humans have some kind of growth death wish where if "you ain't growing, your dying" and they are consuming all available resources all over the planet and eventually we are going to overshoot our ability to continue to consume and then its really going to hit the fan...

Interspersed throughout is a bunch of stuff on how people are evil, "they" (note: "they" are generally assumed to be corporations and politicians as far as I can tell) are only interested in economics and increasing their own power and consumption, and so on and so on, and oh by the way, WON'T SOMEONE BLOW UP A DAMN DAM! I think Derrick is inclined to do it, but as he informs us, a) he doesn't really know how and b) he might get caught and thrown in the clink by the damn industrialists; so its kind of a non-starter for him...

He also has some folks he likes, including all manner of fishes and beasts, as well as "indigenous people" whom I presume are not like "normal" people in some important way that I've still not fathomed yet.

But anyway, he basically points out the obvious fact given current course and speed we are going not be able to "sustain" our current mode of living as it is powered by cheap and abundant fuels that are being drained from the planet at an alarming pace and in our quest to burn and destroy all the available fuel, we are laying waste to the planet, ourselves, and the non-human co-habitants that are along for the ride. He then spends the bulk of the book shooting down any alternative other than "taking down" civilization. He fully acknowledges that this also means having a few billion less people running around, and that's OK as given the lack of sustainability of the current models, its going to happen anyway. You want to get there the easy way or the hard way? And oh by the way, WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE BLOW UP A DAM!

Enough for now, you basically have the outline of the book above, and I must now go help my 16 year old daughter with her Chemistry so as she can get out of high school someday, and perhaps with enough sense to go out and help with this whole civilization thing...

ENDGAME... The Problem with Civilization

Before I start my stunningly critical analysis of this quite interesting book, a few pointers for those who might be interested in reading it themselves. The following link contains some marketing stuff on the book: http://www.endgamethebook.org/

For a guy who thinks that civilization is destroying the planet and that we all need to go back to subsistence farming and hunting/gathering, Derrick Jensen has quite the sophisticated marketing site, as well as a rather lengthy book containing, I'm sure you'll be shocked, paper. I do wonder if he knows where the paper got sourced, but it appears pretty conventional to me.

Anyway, I don't particularly want to reveal my biases just yet as despite the evident cynicism, I actually think this guy makes some rather interesting and important points. Points that cause one to ponder concepts like God and infinity and whether or not Toyotas really could have emerged from a giant explosion of all the material in the universe.

So if you don't decide to buy this book, stay tuned and I'll fill you in ...

More About Me?

I figured I'd put a little more biographical stuff on here for future readers to know who they are dealing with... Who am I anyway? I am a white male from a fairly conventional background. Mom was East German and came over the wall in Berlin, emigrated to the west as a teenager, met my wild and crazy GI dad and before you know it, had me, got a start on my brother and then moved back to the states courtesy of Uncle Sam...

Had an uneventful childhood other than the fact that I managed to get started on the baby making stuff at the ripe old age of 18, but by then I had already enlisted in the ILLINOIS AIR NATIONAL GUARD as an Analog Flight Simulator Maintenance Specialist. Bottom-line, I worked on tube computers made sometime before Bardeen invented the transistor... The military eventually figured out that flight simulators don't fly and decided we should be replaced by civilian contractors thus freeing up those of us in uniform for "war skills." Having recently graduated from college (University of Illinois, 1987) I found a new unit in Massachusetts in Wellesley practicing a little known art referred to as "combat communications." I cross trained to become a Wideband Maintenance Specialist, or "radio repair man and microwave tower putter upper." Being in the Air Force, I was greatly surprised to find all we had available to us in this job were trucks and M-16's and jack hammers for driving stakes to hold up the towers, but lest I start complaining, let's just say we spent a lot of time mucking around in the mud, not "up up and away."

Simultaneously with all that, I was also building a career as a HARDWARE ENGINEER with Digital Equipment Corporation, working under the Ken Olsen, soon to be Robert Palmer era doing hardware logic and timing stuff... Eventually got into realtime software consulting for DoD contractors while at DEC, then software development process consulting, and finally travel burn-out... Went from there to RALSTON PURINA COMPANY, to become an Information Technology guy... Or as I like to say, a computer guy in a dog food company... They pumped me full of management and people training, most of which didn't stick, so I moved to TEXAS and became a product manager for BMC SOFTWARE, or as I like to say, a computer guy working for a computer company. Much happier place to be...

Personally, I was up to SIX kids by the time I got to TEXAS, but by then was also "single" and fancy free, when I ran into the love of my life, got married AGAIN and picked another four kids... As of this post, the age range goes from 10 to 25, so we really only have about 6 to worry about on an active basis, but whose counting...

As far as what I like to read... Mostly history, and to me history is about war and politics, so lots of biographies and such. Being born in Germany with my mom being full blooded German, I have a lot of WWII books and have bunch of material on Hitler and Goering and those clowns. Also a big interest in the Civil War and just other generally interesting things like the Transcontinental Railroad, Teddy Roosevelt, The history of Palestine and Iraq, The Paul Bremner book, and on and on... Currently reading ENDGAME as I mentioned before... I tend to be a pretty hard-core conservative (with gay friends and stuff, so its OK), so this is not on my normal reading list, but I have to admit I'm probably not the kind of guy you'll find in most republican coffee clubs.

And to add some additional color, based on some past relationships I have been exposed to EVERY wacko-religious cult and doctrinal permutation I think that exists, so while I don't buy into any of it, I have observed this stuff up close and personal, so some of that may bleed into my rants...

Oh well, enough for tonight... I have to pay some bills or they will turn off my lights, and then the ENDGAME may indeed be coming for me, so let's leave it there for now...

Comment back if questions and take it easy...

So Watts the Cost?

Speaking of the end of oil and energy and all that doom and gloom stuff, I would be remiss in not pointing out that there is hope. At http://www.wattsthecost.com/ we find a new blog devoted to trying to figure out how much power all that stuff you forget to turn off is dragging from the grid... The author tells me he intends to put a database filled with various reports from folks on how much power various devices consume and see what kind of info they can develop about how to save money simply by knowing what your stuff is drawing and doing like my dad always told me... Turn off the lights! Interesting? You tell me!

Hello Blog World...

Well, I just had to delete my hello world blog because I read the Ad-sense terms and conditions and find that I was in non-compliance before I even started! So I must go back to the drawing board... (*wink wink nudge nudge*)

But that disclaimer in place, my hope in this blog is to rant and fume on topics I find interesting. What do I find interesting, wondering readers might want to know? Well, that's the point now isn't it. I think I'll start with stuff I'm reading... Which tends to be either history or political stuff... Right now its political, so I'll start with musings about the book ENDGAME by Derrick Jensen, some whacked out eco-terrorist as far as I can tell... But that said, he makes some very interesting points, so we'll have some fun with it...

More later, but drop me a line and I hope that in our quest for things interesting, we get to know each other!