Likely since humans have figured out the difference between past and future, we have predicted the end of the planet. We still do. Some scenarios include magnetic shits or asteroids. Life happens. Now, under Paradox2140, however, humans can include a capacity never before available: complete global self-destruction. Cheers!
Within 50–70 years of discovering the power of E=MC2, dominant cultures figured out how to build weapons that could wipe human life from the planet for hundreds of thousands of years. We have not been here before.

Make Sure the Kids Are Armed Too!

Thank the Industrial Revolution for bringing us to this place. Hold your rants against machines, or questions about my Luddite nature. Industrialism did not come with an instruction manual. No one knew that overly cheap, carbon-based energy would help us set off a population time-bomb now exacerbating climate-change. When it comes to technology of the type introduced within a brief sliver of time since the 18th Century, humanity holds no experience. Without realizing the ramifications, history handed lethal weapons to pubescent teens without guidance or instruction. Oops.
Take this not as criticism. Industrialism arrived on the heels of centuries long European competition for sometimes sporadic resources. The idea of empire had been around since Babylon. The confluence of technology and 19th Century imperialism created a global dash for resources the bled into 1893Neptune-Pluto2384, container of Paradox2140:Progress. Our natural collective instincts seem to inspire short-term exploitation of resources. Cultures, on which our modern lives now grow, once accustomed to famine and epidemic, now must see centuries into the future. Part of what makes Paradox2140:Progress a paradox is that we began using dangerously inexpensive energy before we knew the down-the-line costs. We are cursed with the trajectory that easy petroleum and coal launched. The only way to correct that choice is with time-machine. Even if we magically discover carbon fuel replacement tomorrow, the impact will be felt for centuries.

A World Beyond Imagination

A world that imagined mechanical, Newtonian physics could not imagine one the one of quantum mechanics. We are left with Paradox of Progress, the reality we now deal with. No culture in history has faced the complexities of our times; none has come close to our educational capacity, literacy and technical prowess. We have no choice but to make it up as we go along.

We have not been here before.

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1. 1 A Reliable Midpoint
2. 2 Why Plan Ahead?

A Reliable Midpoint

Few can doubt the next opposition of Uranus-Pluto, circa 2045, will accompany one of those moments noted as special in human history. The last four associate to Copernicus’ Revolutions, the Age of Reason, the French Revolution and Planck/Einstein theories.

So why bring 2045 up now, 35 years away? Takes time to plan a revolution. Be certain, here. I am not calling for one, I simply expect one, of some sort to manifest. Of course, some will correctly reply that the episodes involving physics of the last opposition, 1902–1905 were revolutions of a different support, but that would forget the 1905 Russian Revolution, the Young Turks and the general unrest surrounding labor and class issues that partially inspired World War I.

2045, by falling into this sequence, and by the virtue of its coming so near to so many global “deadlines” (surrounding food, climate, habitat and demographics) fits the description of significant shift of direction in history.

Why Plan Ahead?

This quote from CIA World Factbook gives one idea of the challenges the United States faces:

“The onrush of technology largely explains the gradual development of a “two-tier labor market” in which those at the bottom lack the education and the professional/technical skills of those at the top and, more and more, fail to get comparable pay raises, health insurance coverage, and other benefits. Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households. The war in March-April 2003 between a US-led coalition and Iraq, and the subsequent occupation of Iraq, required major shifts in national resources to the military. Soaring oil prices between 2005 and the first half of 2008 threatened inflation and unemployment, as higher gasoline prices ate into consumers’ budgets. Imported oil accounts for about two-thirds of US consumption. Long-term problems include inadequate investment in economic infrastructure, rapidly rising medical and pension costs of an aging population, sizable trade and budget deficits, and stagnation of family income in the lower economic groups.
The World Factbook:United States

Why did the economy collapse in 2008? Because from the 1980s a good portion of homeowners around the world financed their lives on credit. The choice has much to do with ‘practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20%’. The wealth imbalance, about equal to that before the Great Depression, grows wider, yet only gets mentioned as a tertiary cause; far from having a solution, we do not yet know the problem. Good luck getting the political class to acknowledge. So, after watching the problem grow for thirty-five years, why should we think we can solve in the next? Or more positively phrased: how do solve the problem in that time? And yes, the US is not the entire planet, but its military and economy still dwarf the rest, so its trajectory affects all. Besides, many issues now face us all in a globalized world.

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1. 1 Establishing a Baseline
2. 2 Measuring Against the Standard
3. 3 The Results Are In!
4. 3.1 Examples
5. 3.2 Resources
6. 4 Your Turn

Establishing a Baseline

Paradox2140 seeks to establish a baseline, a foundation based on the issues we face and the mood of the public. i.e, the motivation and ability to recognize problems and, in turn, address them. Since this publication now seeks to discuss the rest of the 21st Century in depth, beginning at this baseline proves paramount. In short: How is that Progress thing working for you?

Measuring Against the Standard

At this point Paradox2140 assumes Resources, Science & Technology, One World, Sustainability, Information Overload and New Morality as categorical paradoxes that make up the greater one of Progress. Please know that I will likely add seventh paradox: Corporatism. Since Paradox2140 is open-ended, it is subject to revision; nonetheless, readers should trust that most of the paradoxes will remain as they are.

The Results Are In!

This post intends to provide a brief report and update such over time. Detailed discussion will appear here and there. Overall, societies ability to recognize the paradox has a long way to go. Ways to address some of the issues appear from time to time, but the need to integrate changes lacks a cohesive plane, a view that sees the many crisis we face as part of one big problem, rather than many disconnected little (0r not so little ones). To be sure, society may never recognize the meta-issues, yet go on to address them. On the other hand, having the capacity see the issue and not address, would seem like folly.

Examples

Sustainability

Sustainability includes the categories of Consumerism and Infrastructure. Every culture on the planet must now balance the need for a consumer economy against the impact mass consumerism demands. As bad as the Gulf Oil volcano turned out, one of the most disheartening showed that all the oil lost made up a few days of US consumption, if that . Infrastructure needs have grown more complex as they have grown more global. Day-to-day transactions now require satellites. Yet asking about infrastructure plans for the next decade, next century or half-century would produce blank stares. I believe this ‘short-termism’ as a myopia modern societies desperately need to address. The consequences of our decisions now have decades-long, if not centuries long consequences–nuclear waste is just one of many industrial consequences conveniently ignored in pursuit of immediate profit–should not the structure that carries our decisions also include a long-term view.

Resources

Energy sources contribute greatly to the Paradox of Progress, though other resources, such as human efforts and water also require our attention. Cheap energy, or more precisely, mis-priced energy stands as one of our greatest paradoxes, and, perhaps, the one most difficult to address. The problem of underpricing energy–if we factor in the full costs, from cultural displacement to environmental impact, the true costs are quite higher than the price listed at the pump–goes back to the sources of discovery. Oil and coal both looked like practically free energy in comparison to previous forms of converting resources into effort. Now, however, even when we know the costs, the will to honestly assess how much energy actually costs over the long and short term does not even rate discussion in many cases.

Your Turn

Has the above inspired your thoughts on how society addresses the paradoxes of Sustainability, One World, New Morality, Science & Technology, Resources and Information Overload. Do any cultures even come close to addressing any paradox? Do you think any paradox is closer to recognition? Can any society reach the self-awareness to honestly discuss the true sources of its problems? Please use comments, below, or post to the wall of Measuring History of Facebook

.The Long Run

Paradox2140:Progress covers 1893Neptune-Pluto2384, the Neptune-Pluto wave that spans 1893 to 2384. Measuring History will use the centuries for intelligent revision.

A Many Part Essay Comparing the Two Periods

For obvious reasons, I will leave the comparisons between the early 1930s and 2008–2012 to others who have already performed the task. From the beginning, I can tell you that both times, like any, are different. However, enough similarities exist and the line from the first event to the next displaying so many connections, the effort has to be pursued. Keep in mind that the essay means to present an overall picture, showing how one period connects to the other, rather than a side-by-side comparison.

The Really Big Picture

As the diagrams show. The main reason for comparison comes from how similar configurations, Saturn-Uranus-Pluto T-squares, appeared during both financial crisises. The first of such, circa 1930, includes the Uranus-Pluto wave, 1849Uranus-Pluto1966, bringing events near 1849 into the picture. Importantly, this wave began under the previous Neptune-Pluto wave, 1399Neptune-Pluto1892, when cultures shifted from medieval to modern practices and viewpoints. That the lead-up to the Great Depression follows the path of the last Uranus-Pluto wave of the previous Neptune-Pluto hints that some of the financial distress of that period relates to that transition. The Great Depression of the 1930s was the first globalized depression, one totally related to the full industrialization of the planet. Just as significantly, that 1966Uranus-Pluto2100 is the first Uranus-Pluto wave of 1893Neptune-Pluto2384, suggests it comes with different concerns. Specifically, the previous Neptune-Pluto wave contained the Paradox of Secularism, where Church reform, unleashed secularism as a modus operandi. 1893Neptune-Pluto2384, on the other hand, deals with the Paradox of Progress. This latter characteristic appears as more obvious–the 2008-? Great Recession clearly has obvious ties to the Progress and its ramifications. Conversely, the 1930s episode seems more connected to 1850s type issues of nationalism and ‘iron and blood’ industrialism, than the slicker, more financial-services causes of the 2008 collapse.  The difference shows up repeatedly thoughout this comparison.

The Big Picture: 1848–2102

Because the 1930 T-square includes 1849Uranus-Pluto1966 and the 2010, 1966Uranus-Pluto2100 the range our survey ties the 1850s to the early 22nd Century. The list shows all of the periods, hinting at why and how the times are similar, yet different.

1930 T-square

• 1849Uranus-Pluto1965
• 1897Saturn-Uranus1942
• 1915Saturn-Pluto1947

2010 T-square

• 1966Uranus-Pluto2100
• 1989Saturn-Uranus2032
• 1983Saturn-Pluto2020

As you may have guessed, both periods classify as turning points, a nexus of longer and shorter-term influences coming together to create an event with its own momentum. I have already presented From Revolution to Protest, about 1966Uranus-Pluto2100. Expect more posts on the other waves from various perspectives. By the end, the reader will gain greater perspective that will lead to greater understanding of each time.

Contents

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1. 1 1966Uranus-Pluto2100
2. 1.1 Quick, Make Up Your Mind
3. 1.2 That 360°/0° Thing.
4. 2 Rockets, the New Rail Roads
5. 2.1 The Future's Not So Clean Any More
6. 2.2 1792, 1902, 2045

1966Uranus-Pluto2100

The 1960s featured rockets. Rocket cars. Nuclear Rockets. Rockets to the Moon. Rockets were nothing new, but ones festooned with electronics, were. Rockets turned into guided missiles, transforming space, time and diplomacy. Fast was in. Slow was off the table.

Quick, Make Up Your Mind

People didn’t notice it then, but the ‘Instant’ world began in the 1960s. Instant Coffee, Instant Pictures, Instant Sex. Since then, Instant has only gotten faster (but instant coffee still sucks). The king of Instant, the Internet (actually packet technology, which also powers cellular networks), was invented in the 1960s because of what might happen when nations fire rockets at each other. But Instant did another thing: it turned news into history. No longer did people wait a few days for news; reports came hourly, now minute to minute.

Cue: “We just saw history here, today, Ladies and Gentlemen. Now, to our reporter on the street for an instant reaction.“
“Excuse me Ms./Mr. Public could you tell me how you feel about the history we witnessed today?”

That’s what began as 1966Uranus-Pluto2100 did. Instant culture. Instant immersed culture. Rockets. Satellites. Electronics. All now part of a growing network. Aerospace. Many of the components had been around for a bit, but how to use them, how to combine them changed. Forever. Uranus-Pluto is like that.

That 360°/0° Thing.

1966Uranus-0°-Pluto2100 can also be read 1849Uranus–360°–Pluto1965. The end shapes the beginning. The path along the quadrature alignments from 1849, to 1874, 1902, 1930 and 1965 brought us from rail roads and telegraphs, through telephones and automobiles, to airplanes and mass-production, to nuclear technology and rockets.

Networks of steel and wire, lead to ones of steel and more wire, to ones through the air, both physical and virtual. Along with these accompanying changes appeared. The distance between field and table decreased dramatically, in time, altering all sorts of equations. The same technology that sent freight and people down rails also powered machines on the farm.

People’s lives began to revolve more around machines than farms, changing the focus on where to live. Better to live in the city, near the factory. So your family moves there, along with the shops, the offices and schools. Since you won’t need the many hands needed on a farm, you will have fewer children, also better for city living. Women live healthier lives, with more free time. To get away from the factory, some of the children learn mathematics, law, even the arts.

Abstract thought and art and music challenge previous limits. Newtonian Physics, mechanical and causal, gives way to Quantum Physics, where different states can exist simultaneously in different locations! And because we could see abstractly, we could see atoms. Well, at least we could see how they moved. And, then we learned how to split them! So when we blew stuff up, it stayed blew up. We also used it as a new way to heat up water. So the 360°/0° thing applies here because all those things happened during the last Uranus-Pluto wave; all those things occurred between 1849 and 1965; the past that shapes the future.

Rockets, the New Rail Roads

At 1711Uranus-270°-Pluto1848, near 1821, experimentation with rail roads began. After 1849Uranus-0°-Pluto, near 1848, rail roads, literally, became part of the landscape. Near 1849Uranus-270°-Pluto1965, circa 1929, Goddard began rocket experiments that lead to the moon landing.

Space rockets improve all the time, but their launch no longer is a big tourist attraction. We note their departure like we do a passing train. Whatever rockets evolve into by 2100, we have already begun down that path. We have already seen how the Internet change from its Morse Code-like beginning to its more useful telephone offshoot, more instant lives, even more instantly.

The Future's Not So Clean Any More

We need remember that Rachel Carson’ s Silent Spring just preceded the 1965 Uranus-Pluto conjunction, with a message equally as worrisome as the “Bomb”. Industry that exploded from 1850 on, came with dirty side-effects growing in proportion to the its influence on culture. Since her message ignited awareness, our capacity to spoil the environment grows. We literally have changed the weather, for decades, probably centuries. Meanwhile, we demand more resources, so we can grow more populous and demanding.

Pollution is no longer local; China’s smog is also California’s. British Petroleum’s negligence is Louisiana’s nightmare. Jetsons cartoons now come with a Surgeon Generals warning. The future is loaded down with carbon. The past shapes the future.

1792, 1902, 2045

The next Uranus-Pluto turning point comes near the opposition of 2045. These oppositions do not subtly arrive and disappear into history. Remember 1792 for being close to the French Revolution, the American Constitution, the final split of Poland and a dramatic shift toward industry. 1902 features planes, radios, air conditioning, imperial battles, strikes and revolutions. along with the avant garde, and the abstract. The turn of the century clearly departs from the past.
~2045 will likely amaze in ways both challenging and awesome. The children who barely knew what a land-line was will hit middle-age, just as many demographic timelines reach critical junctures. Population will close on 9–10 Billion, just as our oceans may run out of fish. We could be closer to 400 than 350.

Whatever decisions made or delayed regarding energy sources circa 2010 will show consequence at this time. At this point, since most cultures defer attention to these matters, and given the history of Uranus-Pluto oppositions, this astrologer suspects upheavals a long the line of Paradox2140:Progress . I wonder how much Louisiana Light Crude will haunt the Gulf of Mexico?

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Contents

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Different Paths, Same Result

Please watch the embedded video and compare to Paradox2140:Progress. Both reach the same conclusions via different paths. I also included Empathic Civilization video as part of the embed, because it too asks the same questions and provides answers.

Who Dictates Morality in Morality in the post-Modern World, and Why?

My friend, Mara Segal, and I discuss the question, linked above (scroll down to find). Pardox2140:Progress is open-ended, meant to engender questions that can lead to solutions. The back and forth between Mara represents that intention.

While you are there, please  join Measuring History on Facebook.

Ostensibly, this post speaks to BP’s homicides and ecocide in the Gulf of Mexico, but as is typical of my style, one thought leads to a thousand others.

Peak Oil enters somewhere in an equation when a corporation so recklessly ignored the safety of its workers, its own fiscal health and the life of the Gulf of Mexico. Even it does not factor in, our reliance on overly cheap energy created the foundation of the ongoing disaster, one that points to another Paradox of Progress, or as I call it, Paradox2140. The Economist’s Energy in, energy out succinctly defines the challenge.

“The price of energy is the most critical price of any commodity for industrialised societies. Currently, and for the period of industrialism, oil has provided us with a cheap and abundant supply. The price of almost every other commodity relies upon it. A rise in oil prices will obviously result in higher prices at the pumps for consumers, but the consequences of that pale in comparison to the rise in prices for businesses, and the associated cost rises for all products which they produce. Modern agriculture makes heavy use of oil, as Heinberg explains:

‘Traditional forms of agriculture produced a small solar-energy surplus: each pound of food contained somewhat more stored energy from sunlight than humans, often with the help of animals, had to expend in growing it… Today, from farm to plate… a typical food item may embody input energy between four and several hundred times its food energy. This energy deficit can only be maintained because of the availability of cheap fossil fuels.” ‘(Heinberg, 2003: 175)
The Party’s Over: oil war and the fate of industrial societies

Why Cheap Energy is Paradoxical

The above quotes do not require much discussion: population growth since about 1900, exponential and still growing, continues to depend on overly cheap energy. Most troubling about this  equation revolves around the fact that when our population peaks to about 9 billion people around 2050, we still need to find the land and, most importantly, energy sources in cost equal to the last century.

Hopefully, knowing the full extent of the problem will inspire the solutions to solve it.

David Brooks Unravels Our Complex World

In Drilling for Certainty, David Brooks lights up the tree in regard to what we face now through the 24th Century. Progress, particularly secular based Progress challenges us to level of paradox. Paradox moves past irony, implying a question that may not present a clear answer, yet trap the participants into always facing the query. ‘Let’s Make A Deal, the Sisyphus Version’. The Deepwater Horizon Disaster demonstrates paradox in action.

Addicted to Comfort

We take progress for granted, expecting it always to provide an answer. We rarely think little of it, in general, except noting that, yes, the technology gets better all the time. This irony hints at the many avenues it leads down. Secular-based progress, born of the Reformation, via the French and Industrial Revolution, puts us in the middle of paradox that, like other Neptune-Pluto paradoxes, will take centuries to play out.

Out of those events rose the greatest rate of change over the widest geographical area in human history. What changed, and its scale, overwhelms the mind. From about 1820 to 1950, human speed jumped from about 35km/hr to one and a half times the speed of sound; letters have gone from delivery in weeks to instantaneous; by 1900, not only had a clear map of the planet emerged, but transportation and machines ranged across all of it. By 1970, we literally reached the moon.

Progress depends on and influences many interconnected elements of modern culture

Progress implies a promise. All will improve, especially through science & technology. David Brooks and Paradox2140 warn against taking progress for granted. Deepwater Horizon provides streaming evidence.

Our dependence on oil, a main ingredient of Progress, can have ugly consequences.

Paradox2140 divides into obvious categories: Sustainability, Science & Technology, Resources, New Morality, One World and Information Overload. I think the Gulf disasters bats .1000 here.

Secularly-based progress rides the coattails of science & technology. Should we accept their promise without question?

Each category has subcategories, for instance, Energy Sources, Infrastructure, Supply Chains and Ecological Integrity under Sustainability; Transnationals, One Atmosphere and No Going Back are just two under One World. The diagrams show other obvious connections.

A Process Begins

Every 495-year Neptune-Pluto period contains a paradox. Ours is Progress.

Paradox2140 gets its name because 2140 appears at the midpoint of the 1893Neptune-Pluto2384 Wave. Midpoints act like an on/off switch. How we react to progress will change dramatically from checkpoint to checkpoint along this wave, but still hold to its theme. The decisions we make now will show up then.

Defining Progress is the first step–you have to know what the problem is before you can address it. Deepwater Horizon points to the consequence of ignoring paradox.

Modern Life is Hard

Progress offers some the most comforts ever available . Many a middle-class family enjoys more than royals ever could. Instant entertainment, wide culinary choices and relative fear from sudden death, to name a few. But Progress also helps us threaten our environment more severely and permanently than ever before. Until the present Neptune-Pluto wave that began in 1893 end of time scenarios had us at the mercy of nature. Now nature and, ironically, our lives, is at the mercy of human progress.

Talk about paradox!

The planetary  configurations above look similar, but are different. At the same time, the two periods show clear connection to each other both through history and through the similarities between the outer planets.

Setting Future Foundations

I’m going to jump right to the conclusion. We are at a crossroads that sets a foundation for the future. All history does that, but some periods stick out as turning points.

Of course, all history connects, but this map helps show the connections  from beginning to end.