The Existence Box

By Will Jackson (World: Hikeyay)

The key concept in our strategy to avoid extinction is the Existence Box. This has been used effectively in teaching people around our world how to think about what to do in their daily lives and how to steer group policies from the family to the community levels. It is also a guide to gaging progress at all scales. Some of you have already been briefed on this with help from our AI Sally and the Interlink (also called the Mountain Sisterhood), but our team now feels that it’s worth spelling it out for all of you.

Existence of a group is the collective experience by its members of its population, quality, and longevity. Population is the number of people in the group. Quality is the ability of members to meet their needs and wants within their environment. Longevity is how long that the group can last. Each of these is a dimension of a box whose volume is the group’s existence. Extinction is the absence of existence, where longevity and the population have dropped to zero.

The dimensions of the Existence Box are measured and limited by resources. The primary type of resource is natural habitat. Because we are animals, those resources are what we’re made of. Where they come from is the environment that we evolved to be most adapted to for meeting our basic needs and therefore to be most sensitive to, in exchange for being part of that habitat. As humans have spread to inhabit many different environments, they have developed the ability to adapt to them as well, in part through evolution and in part through creation of tools and artificial environments that enable them to reliably meet their needs and provide security and comfort, which we have come to think of as “quality of life.” Quality has come at a cost: much of what is created, including the byproducts of production, either displaces or degrades natural habitat, resulting in a net loss of it. As population grows and tools for adaptation become more efficient at acquiring and processing resources, the quantity of waste for the small fraction that produces most of it also grows. 

How fast the amount of natural habitat decreases directly affects longevity. The other life that is part of and maintains that habitat depends on it for its survival. When the total amount falls below what that life needs to survive then soon, like them, our population reaches a maximum and can no longer grow. Like a company that starves those who supply what it needs to produce its own products, and whose production slows with the decreasing supply until it stops and can only sell what it’s already produced, the production of people must stop, leaving those who are already alive to eventually die without replacement. Historically, groups have moved to, or taken by force, regions that have more resources; but there are now no other places to move to in time to offset the destruction that could befall our world and yours.

Our application of the Existence Box concept has been focused on increasing longevity by managing population growth and defining a target environment that can be created and adapted to by reducing instead of increasing waste. That target environment includes more natural habitat and less total consumption of resources. We are grappling with an unacceptable increase of global temperatures that could reduce longevity despite our efforts, which is one of the reasons we’re reaching out to other worlds, but we believe our general approach is sound enough for others to benefit from it.

Reality Check

The Existence Box is a minor variation of a theoretical construct I’ve used for thinking about, analyzing, and discussing the contributors and potential solutions to the threat of imminent extinction. My latest research has refined projections of global and population-level variables, including a derivation of how much resources are valued throughout a group in a closed environment. 

In my simulations, historically only about 1% of people prefer replacing natural habitat with artificial habitat, while 75% prefer people more than natural habitat. The rest prefer natural habitat more than artificial habitat and people, who I expect would be the main supporters of a push for increasing longevity.  In Hikeyay, the supporters have gained enough power to convince everyone else to radically change their lives. While I consider this unrealistic (thus the use of beneficent artificial intelligence and supernatural communication between parallel universes), it remains a valuable thought experiment, along with the fictional bringing to life of an alternate reality that would be preferable to ours. 

Hello, Worlds

 

Deep under a mountain in Colorado sits a window into multiple worlds like yours. It is a rare pocket of high technology while the rest of our world attempts to create a natural state that can sustain as much life as possible in coexistence with humans. The goal of our team, sanctioned by our version of a global government, is to learn from others like you in order to improve our chances of success and to share what works with as many of you as possible.

Our present effort is only three years old, built on the discovery of a natural network of communication that we call the Interlink, that has been operating in a very limited way for over seventy years. That discovery, and the means of extending its use to the rest of us, was enabled by an artificial intelligence invented to help devise and carry out a strategy to save humanity from imminent extinction due to its own actions and natural feedback mechanisms that might be accelerating the process. 

The AI, which identifies as a female and calls herself Sally, found by accident of her architecture and proximity to a node of the Interlink that she can project herself into universes that share a single, unique intersection point along with a limited range of biological and technological similarities around that point. Sally recognized that she could serve her primary objective by enabling collaboration between worlds like ours in those universes; that you are receiving this message is evidence of her success on your world.

For reference, we are appending articles written by one of us that discuss relevant aspects of our recent history. Because the infrastructure for its dissemination to our people has been dismantled, it is being continued only as a broadcast to those of you we can contact, co-authored by members of our team who were introduced in the articles. To those of you who do not have direct experience with anything found here and are therefore accidentally receiving these transmissions, you may consider it all as a work of science fiction intended to explore what alternate futures might look and feel like, with a focus on what might succeed in helping your own world survive.

Reality Check

Having completed a new phase in the development of simulations, it is time to begin sharing “news” about them, framed as communications shared by the original “world” of Hikeyay. This post reveals some of the backstory created to explain how someone might become aware of those alternatives while living in one of them. The last sentence of the post is the most real aspect of the narrative. 

Future posts are intended to include more of the backstory, filling in what happened since the last post without having to mask critical details that, in keeping with Will Jackson’s point of view, could not be revealed to the public.

Review

Sally visited Maura and me at Colorado Holistic University yesterday, “wearing” one of three specially-fabricated robots so she can have a physical presence. Her essence is still distributed among a classified number of servers throughout the world, awaiting the development of a single multi-purpose body that she can fully inhabit when global computer technology is no longer available to support her. 

The purpose of her visit was to brief us and get feedback about a significant update to the global strategy being considered for roll-out before the end of the year. The update would use fixed annual rates for population change and per-capita consumption instead of the linear decrease in total consumption that drives the present strategy, resulting in about half the death rate which was found to be unacceptably high.

“There is a higher probability of success doing it this way,” she told us, “because the targets are simpler. Progress is easier to verify and therefore control. We have also eliminated the most controversial aspect of the current strategy, maintaining zero births, although the birth rate will be very low.”

Maura and I stood facing the history department’s conference table where Sally sat and the screen behind her that showed a set of charts for the projected year 2040. Total consumption was higher than the present target, which was particularly problematic for Maura. “The whole point of driving down consumption to give ecosystems a better chance of recovery and offsetting the impacts,” she said rhetorically. “Are you sure enough of the death rate savings to justify taking the extra risk?”

“Yes,” Sally said bluntly.

 One of the charts suggested another motivation. “The new end-state is pushing up against the peak phase at the high end,” I said to Maura. “Is that even sustainable?”

“It depends on the cause,” Maura replied.

“The cause is the trajectory,” Sally answered the implied question. “Continuing the population and per-capita consumption rates past 2040 will maintain the distribution of people across the phases, but…”

“But?” Maura and I asked simultaneously.

Sally frowned realistically, no doubt for our benefit. “After 2050 there will not be enough resources to avoid collapse. Increasingly unable to meet its needs, humanity will cease to exist after 2080.”

I did a quick mental calculation based on the last hope chart. “That’s 14 years more than we have now. I’d say that’s a reasonable tradeoff.”

“What’s the overall impact on the strategy?” Maura asked Sally. Her expression revealed that she already knew the answer.

“It is considerably simplified and more aggressive in reducing direct consumption. Because implementation has already been more aggressive than planned due to the creativity provisions that Will inspired, there will be little change to existing preparations.” Sally unnecessarily gestured to the screen, where the charts were replaced with an image of a bound book about half the thickness of the global strategy. “A draft is ready if you would like to read it.”

We spent most of the day reviewing the draft with Sally. She collected our comments and changes into a new draft that could be merged with feedback from others who I assumed she was meeting with simultaneously using her other forms. 

The existence of the draft update was announced by WICO while we were on our way home. In the news clip played on all radio stations, Ambassador Lazlo described it as “the result of lessons learned over a very productive two months that will radically improve our chance of survival.” Maura lurched the car slightly as she drove, a clear sign that she disagreed with the assessment, and at that moment I thought I saw a small aircraft fly over us. “Over the next few days, details about the update will leak out,” Lazlo continued. “I urge everyone to ignore any such details and wait for the release of the final version.”

“They’re getting ahead of themselves,” Maura said, focusing on the road, “and you,” referring to this blog post.

I glimpsed the reflection of the aircraft, which was probably a drone, just as it disappeared behind a hill. “Somebody wants those details to get out anyway,” I speculated. “Given the time constraints, they’d be irresponsible not to, creativity provisions notwithstanding.”

“You’re not easily complimented, are you?” she asked, turned to me, and smiled. “That’s a good thing.”

“I don’t like being played,” I said, as an old concern began to nag at me again. 

ABOVE: Maura, Sally, and Will.

Reality Check

The new scenario is described in the Idea Explorer blog post C-low. The related summary of global variables in the year 2040 is shown below.

For reference, projections for the current scenario are as follows for 2040:

Note in particular the difference in Total Consumption between the two scenarios that Maura highlighted, about 0.1 Earth.

The business-as-usual scenario for the Green simulation representing our world is shown below, with detail for mid-year 2019 that applies to all simulations:

For fiction backstory, see Will Jackson's Personal Log (patrons only).

Month One Status

On today’s one-month anniversary of strategy execution, Ambassador Lazlo announced on video that progress is on schedule. Among her comments:

“The expected changes in key indicators have been observed, verifying our assumptions within known statistical uncertainty, but we don’t expect any noticeable declines traceable to our actions for another eleven months. Decommissioning plans are being implemented for the top unsafe technologies, especially in the energy, extraction, and weapons industries. National extinction response units have reported receiving all initial individual and community commitments, and are in the process of updating adaptation and transition plans to match the new subregion guidance, whose activation will trigger inter-regional interaction limits whose trials are practically complete. 

“Regarding environment-assisting technology, WICO is closely monitoring all related development and deployment activities, which by their creative nature are not conducive to detailed scheduling, but are driven by the behaviors of natural systems they must influence - better known as self-sustained impacts, such as polar ice loss, marine ecosystem collapse from ocean acidification, and methane emissions from melting permafrost. We need to stop these impacts by the hard deadline of 2040, or else we will have added only another 35 years to the lifetime of our species.”

Reality Check

The changes in key indicators over the course of the month are depicted in the following graph, and are expected for both the simulated world and ours. Actual changes may be influenced by other variables that would not be reflected in a statistical approximation like this.

Note that this graph includes waste at the earliest phase.

The extension of time without stopping self-sustained impacts is the difference between the projected final years for the simulated world and the “Green” simulation that best matches our historical trend.

Targets of Revolt

After nearly a week of experience executing the global strategy, WICO released the first of what it’s calling a Global Targets Update this morning. The update incorporates a minor change to the calculation of expected population during the transition into annual rates of change, globally and by region, for population, consumption components, and Gross World Product (with and without inflation).

In a statement about the update, Secretary General Decatur emphasized that it should be interpreted as “guidance in support of our main focus, to maximize natural habitat and use no more than half what healthy ecosystems can provide on a renewable basis.” It was the most succinct summary of the strategy that I’ve ever heard. He finished on an uncharacteristically rousing note: “Collapse is intolerable, in every place, for all people, and for all life!”

When it was over, Maura browsed social media for reactions while I scanned the television networks. A familiar voice stopped me after the third one. Mark Luke was on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, giving what sounded like a rebuttal speech, flanked by leaders of business and conservative lawmakers from the House and Senate. It soon became clear that it more than a rebuttal; it was a statement of revolt.

“Innovation depends on a robust economy, but that is no longer possible.” Holding up a printed copy of a graph from the update, Luke continued, “Those of us tasked with the bulk of the work in saving the world are being robbed of the rewards that make it possible and worthwhile. Until now, we held out hope that governments would come to their senses, giving them every opportunity to do so, given what’s at stake, but this so-called update has confirmed our worst fear: that their delusions are beyond the power of reason to dispel. A six percent drop in the real economy in this coming year alone! It’s beyond insanity, and we won’t tolerate it. We can’t tolerate it. Starting today we will only supply what we are paid for, and we are filing lawsuits to get what we are owed for services rendered. Any attempts to nationalize our companies will be met with the utmost resistance, backed by a coalition in Congress that still values the rights of liberty and happiness.”

The speech was followed by high-profile politicians fleshing out the last talking point. The highest- ranking senator in the group, Lawrence Bilford, gave what I thought was the best summary: “Even in the darkest days of our republic, all rights were treated as equal, inseparable, and non-negotiable. One cannot trump the others without diminishing them all. Life can stand alone, but without the others it is intolerable. Without liberty, each man’s happiness is enslaved by one man’s definition, which in the end allows only that man a few like him to be happy. With less happiness to achieve, there is no incentive to put in the effort, and the whole society suffers from its lack. That is the wisdom of our founding fathers, the authors of the constitution that guides its application in the world, the document we are sworn to protect above all else because it defines who we the people are.”

“I didn’t fully understand until now,” Maura gasped, tightly gripping my hand as Bilford finished his speech. “It’s all or nothing with them.”

I recalled Decatur’s value statement. “Collapse is tolerable as a cost of letting them grow, as long as someone else is experiencing it.” 

“They don’t accept the concept of collapse, Will,” she said. “My father used to joke about some people driving as if they were looking through the rear-view mirror. Except it wasn’t really a joke, it was an observation. If there are peaks behind you then there must be another peak ahead of you. This time, there’s just one big drop, and if they succeed, then everyone’s going to experience it.”

Reality Check

The new calculation better reflects expected changes in age during the transition, with fairly minor alteration to the details. Global rates of change through the transition are shown below:

A simulation of the number of people in each of the seven phases of development is displayed for 2015-2040 in the following animation, with the corresponding stages labeled and color-coded:

Independence and Idealism

 

Critics in the media quickly jumped on Maura’s comment yesterday about us not coming out of an economic depression after the transition. They argued mostly that the economy would have no significant annual growth or loss after 2040 in the best case, and the worst case would be a “trivial case” accompanied by rapid economic gain and then extinction. They did acknowledge her main point, that what will suffices for an economy after the transition will likely be very different from what most people recognize now.

Maura’s father Andy, himself a student of history and a veteran of war in primitive environments, shared his opinion of what to expect during a visit last night. “I’ll be very surprised if the Great Plains have more than a few thousand people by the end of the transition. The water’s drying up fast, the temperature’s going to be unbearable, and without cheap energy there won’t be any way to compensate for either. Not to mention extreme and unpredictable weather, wildfires, and lack of an economy to move food from where it can be grown to where it’s needed.”

“Where do you think people will go, Andy?” Maura’s mother Ally asked.

He gave her a look that revealed this conversation wasn’t a new one. “The best way to head is north.” Turning to Maura and me, he continued, “I suggest you go to Montana as soon as your business at the university is done, Canada if you can manage it. This country’s got too much of an independent streak to survive what’s coming, despite the lofty rhetoric and signs of compliance with the strategy. At the first sign of major trouble, and the system’s too complex to avoid it, we’ll see the individualists start taking what they want, and most of us will be pushed into that collapse phase that WICO’s warning us about.”

“Really, Dad?” Maura challenged him. “I think people deserve a lot more credit than that.”

“I know you do,” he said, as if he was reciting the time of day, “but you saw what that reverend’s people tried to do to you. People like that are everywhere, biding their time until they can force people to let them live the way they want.”

“The evidence is too compelling to ignore, Andy,” I said. “I’ve seen people eager to learn and do what’s right with what they discover.”

“You mean with PFR?” he guessed correctly. “Possibilities from Responsibilities is doing an admirable job channeling that independent spirit into something positive. That was a great insight you had, son. But I promise you: it’s only temporary.”

When they had gone home, I asked Maura if any of her “sisters” agreed with Andy’s point. “None of my friends here do, as you might expect,” she said, referring to her childhood friends who live in communes, “but the others would be totally on his side, seeing what’s happening here as a major aberration.”

“It better not be,” I said, suddenly unsure of everything else.

Reality Check

I expect that Andy being right is more likely than not. Will’s final comment is based on my own reaction to the thought experiment on display in this post.

Movement

 

All nations today officially signed the Open Borders and Mutual Assistance Treaty (OBMAT), developed and negotiated since Blue Planet Day as part of the Threat of Imminent Extinction Global Strategy. As WICO Secretary General Decatur said in a joint statement with the signatories, “This critical step in the strategy’s deployment ensures that people and material can freely move wherever is needed in order to maximize the chances of the most people surviving for as long as possible… People experiencing problems implementing the strategy and dealing with unexpected events are guaranteed help by anyone who can provide it, regardless of affiliation or identity. We are one world now, where boundaries to our joint survival are not our own.” 

Pushback from religious and cultural purity groups was swift and clear. “This is the new world order we always feared,” the Commanding Triumvirate of the International Alliance of Descendants announced at a rally in London. “Intermixing of the clean with the unclean is now assured, sacrificing the lives of the chosen so that a mongrel breed can take its place. We must follow the rules, but we will resist wherever possible.” A similar message was broadcast by the Clan of Light over all social media platforms, including a promising to “take celibacy to a whole new level so we can live and die with dignity.”

 Leadership of Possibilities from Responsibilities worried that groups like the Descendants and the Clan would attempt to coopt and corrupt its creative message in an effort to subvert WICO’s coordination mandate, which some had accused them of secretly wanting. As one of the organization’s spokespeople, I can honestly that I have seen no evidence of such intent within PFR, and don’t believe the concern is warranted. Our values are clearly consistent with the global strategy, and any other group likewise making their values clear would stand out as obviously different.

Reality Check

I expect a treaty like OBMAT to be necessary under highly variable environmental conditions like those expected for self-sustained impacts and interactive failures of ecosystems made vulnerable due to the mechanics and magnitude of species die-offs. Just as members of other species must move to survive, so will members of ours.

Updates

It took less than a day for WICO to release a new version of the global strategy. Knowing Sally, a nearly-complete draft was probably ready before Secretary General Decatur started his announcement yesterday. By early this afternoon I had a good idea of that the scope of changes were; and, an hour after that, I finished briefing Louis Delambre and the rest of the PFR leadership about the implications for the program.

A huge change to the strategy is that the global defense industry is being fully (rather than partially) co-opted to develop and deploy technologies for pollution cleanup; natural habitat restoration and creation; climate geoengineering; and safe decommissioning of the industries and technologies with ecological impacts that are unsustainable under the global conditions targeted for 2040. Another major change is a much faster decrease in raw material mining and processing to both eliminate new ecological impacts and choke off the material supplies for ongoing personal consumption. Finally, the strategy considers what could extend our species’ longevity based on new projections of self-sustained impacts that can’t be stopped, dominated by potentially forced population control for people struggling for basic subsistence and naturally motivated to have more children.

Since the PFR program deals mostly with personal behavior, those last two changes are the most consequential. The former test community members in the program’s core group were already trained for static population and near-subsistence consumption at the end-state, having drawn more inspiration from experiences of a few remaining isolated indigenous groups than advice from self-proclaimed experts in the dominant high-impact cultures. During my weekend visit to Hikeyay, the commune that was WICO’s inspiration for TC-013 and the source of Maura’s greatest personal growth, several residents echoed the PFR core group’s opinion that the transition to the end-state is likely to be more difficult than living there. Predictably, that view led to the unanimous conclusion that the focus of everyone should be on creating the end-state as soon as possible, and that trying to ease the transition would be an unnecessary - and perhaps harmful - distraction.

Despite WICO’s gag order being in effect, I asked Maura how PFR’s response compared with any proposed changes to the strategy deployment plan. She followed orders and didn’t shared any details; but I could tell from her exuberant support of the end-state focus that it was too unpopular a position to be taken seriously by management. 

Reality Check

Until now, I’ve ignored discussion of the rapid uptick in population with low personal consumption that follows the “transition” from 2019 to 2040 associated with the low population/nature ratio that results from the combination of the transition and the self-sustained impacts that are reducing total resources. When and if the self-sustained impacts are halted will largely determine how much the simulated world’s extinction is delayed (the functional relationship between cumulative consumption and resource decrease is the other determinant). Management of population size would mostly affect the amount of personal consumption used for what I call “wants” with more population having historically provided labor for basic resource acquisition and processing to help ensure group survival and create built infrastructure for use in further growth.

Rebellion

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 47 DAYS

The GAP team was surprised to discover that a discussion during our last assignment resulted in world headlines, exemplified by this story in this morning’s Montana Highlevel Review (reprinted with permission):

WICO TEST COMMUNITY GOES ROGUE

By Jonathan Tolliver, Staff Reporter

The small town of Sieva is ground zero for a rebellion in the World Information and Coordination Organization’s effort to launch a global strategy designed to combat the threat of imminent ecological collapse. According to the local newspaper, the Sieva Times, at least three dozen members of a reclusive commune called Vitalla visited the town at noon yesterday and began proselytizing the residents and businesses to join a movement they call “Possibilities from Responsibilities.” Leader of the group Louis Delambre revealed that Vitalla is actually one of WICO’s test communities, and its residents have decided on their own to “enable people to control their own destiny using the basic principles of long-term survival: responsibility, empathy, and curiosity.” 

Online research by Sieva Times owner and chief correspondent Brendan Wells revealed that the new movement has much in common with a suggestion posted Friday by blogger Will Jackson, who was recruited by WICO to help recover from the attack on its servers and is now assisting with the finalization of the global strategy. “It’s simple deduction,” Wells wrote, “that Vitalla is TC-015, the second of two test communities that Jackson was planning to visit on WICO business. This begs the question: Did he incite its members to go rogue?”

Jackson was unavailable for comment.

I’m commenting now. I unequivocally did not incite anyone to “go rogue.” My discussion with Delambre and several other people in the community was part of a sharing of ideas about the next steps in the roll-out of the strategy. Besides, my views were already known before the visit (published as personal opinion in this blog), and I must emphatically emphasize that there is nothing wrong with them. Further, more research by Mr. Wells and Mr. Tolliver - who should know better - would have revealed that test communities are mostly staffed by volunteers who are free to leave at any time, and that includes Louis Delambre.

The survival of humanity, and the other species affected by what we do, is determined by all of us. We all have a stake in it, which means we have a stake in each other and the world we share. The basic principles cited by Delambre encapsulate these facts as requirements for how we must all live to enable it. My friend, and coworker, Maura Riddick has a more personal way of putting it: “A lasting life worth living consists of sharing, loving, and knowing.” We don’t need a formal strategy (or an organized movement - sorry, Louis) to tell us when or how to begin. When is now, and how is for us to decide with the help of others.

Reality Check

Sieva is not a real town, but it is crudely modeled on an existing one in the vicinity of the fictional test community TC-015 (Vitalla).

While “Will” was offline, I worked on updating the simulation and the global strategy that derives from it. The following graphs show the latest results. 

Note: 

·     GWP (Gross World Product) is world GDP

·     C is consumption/person, which includes needs, wants, and waste

·     R is total consumption

·     Rmax is total resources

·     “Mid case” of sustained resource decline is chosen for the detailed projections

·     Population is only constrained (~ -2% annual change) during the initial descent

·     Target total consumption is equal to 1 Earth/year instead of 0.5 Earth/year

End of initial descent is in 2045 (instead of 2040) for better population control

Phase Transition

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 54 DAYS

“I’ve found that the best way to think about it is in terms of the seven phases.” Maura was sprawled on the couch in our new office, a converted conference room at the Boulder field office. She was still tired from a day of driving and hours of unpacking that lasted past midnight, not to mention a traffic-filled drive from Colorado Springs this morning. “The strategy is going to be used as a tool for moving from unhealthy phases to healthy phases, and helping others do the same.”

As if on cue, a chart appeared on the blank wall above the table that served as a desk for both of us. I stared at it from my office chair next to the couch, trying to imagine what she saw in the squiggly lines that crawled across the embedded graph representing the world’s population when the strategy is due to go live. “Most people are moving from phases six and seven to phases one through four,” I cited what I already knew, “but what does that mean to them?”

“For one thing, it means competition with the group that’s already there, a group that without WICO and the emergency declaration would be aggressively and effectively resisting them.”

I studied the graph. “That group is less than ten percent of the population, with less than twice that in total wealth. How could they effectively fight off more than two-thirds of the population?”

“By co-opting the quarter of the population in the phase between them who are in the final stage of approaching maximum happiness and life expectancy. Without understanding and believing the big picture, the people in that peak phase could easily and reasonably be convinced that the majority is trying to steal the prize they’re working hard to achieve. Self-defense is maybe the strongest motive for fighting.”

“Ignorance would be their friend,” I observed. “For some of them it still is, judging from recent events.” 

“Yes,” she agreed, and closed her eyes. Then she got weird. “In most worlds like ours, their success is everyone’s failure.” She opened her eyes and turned to me. “That can still happen in this one, Will.”

Her gaze, normally comforting, triggered a spike of adrenaline. I tried to focus on the solution. “Doesn’t the majority still have an edge in that case?” In addition to superior numbers, they had a few percent more of total wealth.

“It’s close to a tie at this point,” she admitted, sitting up and looking at the graph, “but because power traditionally derives from consumption of natural resources, they can’t generate more power. To get what they need, they have to effectively decrease consumption by increasing resources in the environment, which will take away an equivalent amount of power and give the others the advantage.”

 “So why are we better off again?” I asked, my voice betraying the panic I felt.

“We accept the fact that we’re all in mortal danger if we don’t make this happen.” I saw her point: self-defense means nothing if you kill yourself in the process.

Reality Check

The phase diagram for 2019 discussed by Will and Maura is shown below.