Reply #14: Well, I come from a stock of hard-core Western atheist intellectuals

[GliderGuider]

So my knowledge of Buddhism is mostly leftover hippy Zen from my ditchweed days. All I really know is that if we don't figure out right smartly that everything is connected we'll never be able to put together a satisfying short- or long-term existence on this planet.

I've also been thinking about fatalism since you mentioned it yesterday. I'm often accused of it, and I'm trying to figure out what the word means in relation to how I perceive and respond to the world. One needs to be very careful not to confuse a simple acceptance of limits with fatalism. IMO the acceptance is a recognition, while fatalism describes one possible response.

For example, I recognize that all energy sources likely to be available to humanity in the future will exhibit declining EROEI, and that this sounds a death knell for many of the civilizing structures we have created. Some people regard my disinclination to fight with Mother Nature over that issue as fatalistic. I don't see it that way, though. If I were to choose to simply do nothing whatever in the face of that recognition that would be a fatalistic response. The equation has two terms, however, "energy" and "civilization". I choose to accept the "energy" term as given, but respond actively on the "civilization" side of the equation.

It works like this. If we won't have enough energy to preserve our current civilization we can either try to increase the energy available or change our expectations of civilization. Accepting that there are limits on energy doesn't shut us out of the solution space, it just means that we are constrained to the possible - changing the path of civilization. That's the approach I've adopted, so I reject the charge of fatalism out of hand.