The Demographics of Change

In the previous blog, I presented a portrait of our current societies that emphasized the omnipresence of orthodoxy. It seems slightly presumptuous to claim that we are moving, as a collective, away from the dominance of orthodox beliefs, given such a massive presence of orthodox thinking. On what evidence can such an argument be maintained?

I mentioned several phenomena that do not follow orthodox behaviors, but, with the exception of the internet, these phenomena have been around for hundreds, thousands, even millions of years. They did not prevent the development of huge collections of orthodox thinking before. On what basis can I affirm that they will have such an effect now?

The argument that leads, inevitably from my point of view, to such a conclusion is somewhat complex, but it is rooted in a very simple observation. Throughout most of human history, the population has been in accelerating expansion. Since the first cries of alarm raised in the 1950s, through books such as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and over the following decades, it has become clear to a large part of the world’s population that we, as a people, as part of a larger ecology, have been headed for serious trouble if this were to continue unchecked. Not only that, it was noted that the “crunch” would come all too quickly, given the fact that the exponential expansion was nearing the limits of the ability of the planet to support it.

The September 2005 edition of Scientific American was devoted to the observation, now confirmed by a growing number of studies, that this situation has changed. Although the rate of expansion has never been larger than now, the global rate is slowing for the first time in human history (with the possible exception of times such as the Great Plague in Middle Age Europe or other major diebacks).

This observation is, itself, somewhat paradoxical. The world’s population is increasingly concerned with the issue of environment change – the consequences of not having acted earlier to stem the impacts of human development on the environment. It is possible, perhaps even likely, that actions taken now will not be enough to prevent dramatic climate change. The statement that the world’s population growth has started to slow seems a small consolation for the developing catastrophe that is our relationship with the environment. It is a relief, perhaps, but no one is suggesting that we drop our guard, in this of all times.

On a second look, the change is not only a relief, but a suggestion that we, as a species, are perhaps finally taking our responsibility towards ourselves and our environment more seriously. If the tendency continues, we are on the road to a situation of sustainability.

It still, however, seems to be only a small blip on our radar screen.

However, as a scientist, I find I cannot accept such a lackadaisical reaction. I believe the consequences of this change in demographics to be profound. I believe this may prove to be the single, most important event to have occurred in recent, perhaps all human history.

Why?

Because the dynamics of a decreasing expansion rate are dramatically different than those of an increasing expansion rate. From a systems perspective, these correspond to entirely different system states. Just as the rapidly increasing expansion rate that characterized the twentieth century fed many different forms of dynamics, and all of these led to a worsening of the prognostics for long term human habitation of the planet, so a decreasing expansion rate entails a change in dynamics for a large number of secondary, but all important, processes. We are no longer in a divergent dyanamics, we are now functioning within a convergent dynamics.

And because we have never, as a species, experienced such a regime while the population is commensurate with the resource limits of the planet, with nowhere else to go. In former times, when life got difficult, or times troubled, one could move to a different place, outside the sphere of influence of the earlier location. This didn’t always solve the problem, but it was always a possibility for individuals or groups, and provided a way of siphoning off some of the sources of conflict and trouble. In our world today, there is nowhere on the planet one can go to, and escape the issues that are facing us. And our will and technologies are not advanced enough, yet, to support movement to other planets, or even to orbital stations.

As a people, as a species, we are in a “crucible”, a “nexus”, a “moment of transition”. The moment when a system changes from accelerating expansion, to braking expansion, is called the “critical point”. It is hard to observe, because the change is small and the expansion rate is high. But the system operates after the critical point in a way that is fundamentally different from how it operated before the critical point.

Humanity appears to have passed through its critical point, without hardly noticing it has done so. Human life, from here on in, will be different from what it has been. It will take time for the differences to manifest in a way that becomes obvious, but the change is no less profound for being invisible to us.