Only the Ecological/Climate systems are physical.

If we'd always measured things from a purely physical perspective (ecology, not economic theories of "wealth" and money) then we might have created an actual sustainable society.

Granted, those ideological systems may have arisen from something "natural" in our heads (economic theory as a rationalization of evolutionary imperatives that we later attached names, numbers, and "consumer" desires too) but I think the only real "end game" will be the natural one, the same that has crushed all exponentially growing innovative species throughout Earth's history. Intelligence, at least our sort of human intelligence, doesn't make us exceptional animals.

We may have some success fiddling with our ideologies to improve our immediate situation so the economic and "resource" end games don't happen quite so soon, and we can do this because these ideologies were always disconnected from the natural environment; never "laws" of nature. But things like the amount of greenhouse gases in the air, the sea level, the size of a storm surge in a hurricane, the amount of water available for crops, those are all cold hard numbers. Therefore it will be the ecological consequences of our growth that end this civilization no matter what ideological madness survivors might attribute the collapse to.

I've been preoccupied for a while now with trying to figure out how we got the way we are and whether there's anything in our makeup that might help to lead us out of the morass we've stumbled into. It's interesting that others are exploring the same dark byways. Nuclear war with the Chinese and the Russians is the best I've come up with so far. As a strategy for saving western civ, that's rather a tough sell. Our best hope is probably the total collapse of the global economy within 10 years. That seems like a real possibility, particularly if we get a nudge from climate change, but I don't think we can depend on it. That's a solid book list he's put together. I've read several of his authors, but none of the books cited.

it will take some time to study and ponder.

K&R

At the link is a bounty of books for my wish list. Beside Amazon, do you know of an online source for multiple purchases at a time, of 'alternative reading', that will ship international? Or shall I start googling. Thanks in advance.

Especially for rare, old or out of print stuff they've come through for me in the past.

http://www.abebooks.com/