John Michael Greer's blog

The end of the age of cheap abundant energy is likely to be the end of the age in which science functions as a force for economic expansion. Science has gotten pretty close to its natural limits as a method of knowledge. (more)

Complex societies cycle back and forth between building up, or anabolism, and breaking down, or catabolism. It's possible at this point to provide a fairly exact date for the onset of catabolic collapse in the United States of America. (more)

In a contracting economy, it becomes easier to notice that the less you need, the less vulnerable you are, and the more you can get done of whatever it is that you want to do. Not many people learn this lesson during times of material abundance, but in the world after abundance, it's hard to think of a lesson that deserves more careful attention. (more)

Economic abstractions keep functioning only so long as actual goods and services exist to be bought and sold. The movement toward abstraction goes so far that the concrete realities are neglected. In the end the realities trickle away unnoticed, until a shock of some kind strikes the tower of abstractions built atop the void the realities once filled, and the whole structure tumbles to the ground. (more)

Since peak oil was predicted in 1956, the prospect of any constructive response has grown steadily more distant. Neither political reform nor withdrawing to mountain hideaways are viable responses to our predicament. Is it too late to negotiate the collapse of fossil-fueled civilization? (more)