Environment & Energy
In reply to the discussion: Stewart Brand: Why Environmentalists Must Accept Nuclear [View all]GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Their continued existence says nothing about how a high-energy culture develops. I claim that the presence of high-density, high-quality energy sources and the means to exploit them them, fundamentally, involuntarily and forever changes the course of human social development.
Human society naturally evolves to make maximum use of the energy. This is why the global community can't (not won't but actually can't) ever go back to H-G social systems or values so long as high-density energy remains to be used. We can take cues from them for our personal values and the creation of small tribalesque groups within the bosom of Mother Culture, but such changes cannot and will not flow out into culture-at-large. The core natural principle governing the evolution of self-organizing systems fully guarantees it.