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Jack Alpert is director of Stanford Knowledge Integration Lab, a Lab which he started in 1978 at Stanford University. In 1992 the Lab left Stanford and became a non profit research foundation. The research focused on how people gather and process information to understand dynamic systems. Over the years the Lab has transitioned its focus to the relationship between human cognition and civilization viability. The current work is on discovering and implementing behavior that “changes our course” and creates a sustainable civilization. Mr. Alpert predicts that the human population will be reduced by 90 percent before the year 2100.

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About James Howard Kunstler

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James Howard Kunstler is the author of many books including (non-fiction) The Geography of Nowhere, The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition, Home from Nowhere, The Long Emergency and the four-book series of World Made By Hand novels, set in a post economic crash American future. His most recent book is Living in the Long Emergency; Global Crisis, the Failure of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing Us the Way Forward. Jim lives on a homestead in Washington County, New. York, where he tends his garden and communes with his chickens.

62 Responses to “KunstlerCast 303 — Jack Alpert on Unwinding the Human Predicament”

  1. Walter B April 30, 2018 at 11:20 am #

    Excellent discussion Jim. Scary to listen to engineers’ plans isn’t it? Scary because the right planning can certainly eliminate or at least mitigate pretty much all of the problems that plague human society – ah, but at what COST? Cost will always be the roadblock to Nirvana for perfection is NOT an element that can ever be in this plane of existence. Everything, all creatures, all things great and small, all of them start off, grow, age and then die and the cycle repeats. So I do not see mankind ever solving such great global issues, only screwing them up can be done. But such is life and we must enjoy what we can while we are here, including your excellent discussions. Thank you for bringing them to us once again.

    • Actually a close read merely reveals that Alperts calculations imply that it is the RATE and rate alone that leaves us at severe deficit.

      I.e., its already too late to avoid this fate. By the time we realize we need to change everything it will be far too late.

      Already I am guessing there is some suspicion in places that modernity will never get around to providing even water or reliable food let alone clean underwear and an air conditioner….

      About 100 million people. Another 500 million spend all day long looking for food and water.

      Turns out environmental scientists were right all along everything.

    • thenuttyneutron May 6, 2018 at 2:13 am #

      We have no one to blame but ourselves. This guy “gets it”. You must have a dense energy source that allows you to create massive amounts of entropy in order to sustain our world.

      1 J= 1 Kg*m^2/sec^2

      1 J/s= 1 watt = 1 Kg*m^2/s^3

      This is not fucking difficult to figure out or understand! Retards that don’t understand math, physics or engineering engaging in the political process has consequences that will result in a catastrophe for us all. There is no difference in my opinion between anti-nukes and the people that deny the existence of climate change. Both have no credentials to form an informed opinion.

      We developed the technology to move past fossil fuels in the 1950’s and 1960’s by harnessing the stored energy of heavy elements with breeder reactors. These reactors make more fuel than they consume simply by rearranging their nuclei to make more fissile fuel. Imagine how much synthetic oil would be possible with a cheap and copious stream of H2 gas from nuclear power and detritus using the Fischer-Tropes process! You would have all of the energy needs of humanity taken care of for the next 100,000 years at a minimum.

      Before another retard chimes in about nuclear waste, I suggest that they look at what the waste products would be for a modern high burn-up fission reactor. You use up almost all of the heavy elements and end up with a waste stream far smaller than what you get with today’s reactors and the waste decays away to levels less than the original tailings in about 100 years.

  2. DrGonzo April 30, 2018 at 9:58 pm #

    Right. Spread a virus that sterilizes everyone in the world, then sell permits for every child that may be born.

    Ahem. What could possibly go wrong with that plan?

    JHK, where in the world do you find these crackpots?

  3. S M Tenneshaw April 30, 2018 at 11:04 pm #

    The thread subhead promises “20 RESPONSES” but I only see two. Is that part of the predicament or part of the unwinding? Or part of the collapse?

  4. Georges1202 May 1, 2018 at 3:04 am #

    Sorry Jim, I simply cannot take seriously a ‘numbers guy’ who claims that 1 of 200 American were dying in auto accidents as a result of not having seat belts prior to 1968. Given that the US population was roughly 200 million back then it would mean a million deaths per year.

    Someone off by a factor of 40 on his numbers loses all credibility.

    • James Taylor May 1, 2018 at 7:00 am #

      He meant 1 in 200 people in an accident died.Whereas after seat belts it was 1 in 26000.

      • Georges1202 May 1, 2018 at 12:27 pm #

        I must have heard that wrong – my apologies to all.

        • Graycenphil May 3, 2018 at 5:37 pm #

          You heard it right; he said it wrong. I thin khe said an awful lot of wrong things.

  5. Dr. Dunkelweiss May 1, 2018 at 11:36 am #

    This guy does appear to be a bona fide crackpot. He is espousing the same population reduction plans as the globalists. In fact, he sound a lot like the commies in the Weather Underground who were hell bent on forcibly reducing the world’s population.

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    • shanec102 May 1, 2018 at 7:06 pm #

      James: You usually have the best guests. I am 20 min into this interview and i have heard some pretty far fetched claims. The youth are watching fox? (i dont think so, more like facebook, you tube, twitter…) I know no millennial’s that tune into fox on the reg. 1 in 200 chance of dying with out wearing a seat belt (that sounds very fishy.) if you dont get the polio vaccine you will get polio? In what year 1890, when gutters were filled with human and horse crap maybe. took him awhile to understand your medical racket reference. What decade is he living in?
      I will finish out the interview but I am reading some other posts that agree that this guy is off the mark consistently.

      Academia, proves once again, to be a magnet for high IQs gone wackadoodle in their own masturbatory delusions.

      • “The youth are watching fox? (i dont think so, more like facebook, you tube, twitter…)”

        In the larger context of what he meant (NBC vs. Fox) is the same thing as Fox vs. “facebook, you tube, twitter”

        The point is they believe something, but not apparently in listening to advice on how to save themselves from annihilation

  6. PeteAtomic May 2, 2018 at 3:03 pm #

    A virus that is inserted into an unwilling population on the hopes of sterility is a sure way to civil war and anarchy. The lack of understanding about human nature & basic human psychology is really quite astonishing by Mr. Alpert there. A complete non-starter, and absolutely nonsense as an idea. Interesting show, makes a person think– but, ain’t gonna work out this time LOL

  7. JackStraw May 3, 2018 at 8:48 am #

    Jack Alpert is what I would categorize as an extremely dangerous lunatic. Advocating for the murder of most of the people on the planet in such a methodical, calculated manner, is a sure sign of a very disturbed sociopath.

    This guy would have been a superstar in the Nazi regime, and yet he has the gall to criticize Trump.

    Kudos to Jim for calmly advocating for humanity and reason.

    • FincaInTheMountains May 3, 2018 at 1:04 pm #

      Jack Alpert is what I would categorize as an extremely dangerous lunatic

      Second that.

    • “Advocating for the murder of most of the people on the planet in such a methodical, calculated manner, is a sure sign of a very disturbed sociopath.”

      True… sterilization could obtain the same results within a generation. What do you think Straw?

  8. Pasco May 3, 2018 at 4:53 pm #

    The Hutus of Rwanda in the 90s had their own democratic solution, as did the Nazi party during the 30s. A certain plurality or majority forced the solution on the rest of society. These things have historical precedent.

    This interview seems eerily like the essays and papers of some early 20th century American thinkers right around the time coal started giving us affordability problems. It wasn’t until oil really came online (some would say FDR’s policies or WWII) that things went back to being good.

    I personally don’t think certain members of the powerful elite are going to give up their family lineage to give us all a fair shake on that lottery.

    With due respect to Dr Alpert, his solution doesn’t seem to fit the historical rhyme.

  9. Graycenphil May 3, 2018 at 6:16 pm #

    He seems to be pretty much wrong on every count here; I’m reallly not sure where the guy is coming from or how he qualifies for the podcast.

    It seems we have at least 100 years of fossil fuels left. Long before we run out of them, we will have switched to a better source of energy. Probably including wind and hydro.

    But his most ridiculous assumption is that people would somehow all agree to a reproduction lottery, with very few winners. If he actually believes that, I have to dismiss anything else the guy says.

    He might have gotten one thing right, when he said Jim has a very painful view of the world. Then again, maybe not.

  10. Bro Jobe May 4, 2018 at 1:52 pm #

    I don’t trust Engineers. They tend to apply systems thinking to problems with human variables, thus ignoring random events and deliberate illogical behavior.

    I don’t share the guest’s gloomy view, though I think the future will be significantly harder than the present, especially as our energy usage does not ramp down fast enough…and our delivery systems themselves remain amazingly fragile.

    Kunstler’s view of Magical Thinking as our driving force: Shale “Miracle” and money-for-nothing Finance better describe how we work than this guy’s models based on joules.

    Thus World Made By Hand seems a more likely outcome, or even George Stewart’s Earth Abides: the skills of our high-tech world are very, very fragile and one generation means the loss of vital knowledge.

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  11. Easyenergy May 10, 2018 at 10:07 pm #

    Disappointed by some of the comments as it clearly shows that some people aren’t getting reality even when it’s staring them in the face. Jack Alpert isn’t “advocating for murder”, he’s advocating for a fast reduction in the human population in as fair and humane way as possible. To say that Jack is “espousing … population reduction plans” is to ignore the fact that the population reduction is going to happen one way or another. Jack is well aware that if we don’t do this now the bulk of us humans will die in one of three ways – starvation, murder, or suicide. Do your research people, the time is very, very near.

    A big thank you to Jim for interviewing Mr. Alpert. I’ve been following Jack Alpert for a number of years and he’s a brilliant, analytical, forward thinking individual who is not afraid to call it the way it is. Well done.

  12. routersurfer July 8, 2018 at 7:48 pm #

    Jack has some ideas that many will find disturbing. So what. I have questions on his “fix” but will do a bit more reading first. I have found Jack to be very timely in responding to my questions and look forward to meeting him someday. As a child my father grew me a culture in a Petri dish…..a fast lesson in the limits of growth. I wonderful thought experiment this game of how does the age of oil end. One thing is sure. It will end. Pity (maybe) few of us will see the end.

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