From his
“Peak Civilization”: The Fall of the Roman Empire :
As things stands, we seem to be blithely following the same path that the Roman Empire followed. Our leaders are unable to understand complex systems and continue to implement solutions that worsen the problem. As the wise druid was trying to tell to Marcus Aurelius, building walls to keep the barbarians out was a loss of resources that was worse than useless. But I can see the politicians of the time running on a platform that said, “Keep the barbarians out! More walls to defend the empire”. It is the same for us. Tell a politician that we are in trouble with crude oil and he/she will immediately say “drill deeper!” or “drill, baby, drill!” Negative feedback kills. ...
we are going where the laws of physics are taking us. A world with less crude oil, or with no crude oil at all, cannot be the same world we are used to, but it doesn’t need to be the Middle Ages again.
