A Short Course in Comprehensive Thinking – Part 16 – Energy and the Epochs of the Human Journey

Where it all comes together

I am currently reading a book, The Human Planet, which is surprisingly similar to my essays (1, 2) on energy and the human journey. Of course, energy is a central theme of that book, as the universe is energy, which I have written on plenty. The authors noted that slavery’s end in the West coincided with the spread of coal-powered factories, as renting people became cheaper than owning them. So, there are plenty of overlaps with my work. They got some things wrong (vaccines had nothing to do with the conquest of infectious disease), but I can’t help but learn something new from a work like that. The Human Planet is relatively comprehensive, and it had an Epochal framework to a degree, but I have never seen a book like that that even hinted at the Fifth Epoch, as virtually all intellectuals are blinded by the deceptions of our time.

The authors wrote that without coal and England’s plundering of North America, it was likely impossible for England to industrialize, and I agree. The authors realize that we are quickly running out of fossil fuels and other resources (we may be near “Peak Phosphorus,” and there is no substitute for it), and they sketch “Race of the Catastrophes” scenarios that are unfolding. They acknowledge that humanity stands on the edge of the abyss, we could cause a mass extinction that takes humanity with it, and the book ends with the idea that maybe we will avert the catastrophe, just barely.

Works such as The Human Planet never mention global elites and global rackets, the idea that all politicians are puppets, including the American president, and other ideas that mainstream intellectuals rarely touch. The technologies that my friend saw are outside the universe of the possible for nearly all intellectuals. This is why scientists and intellectuals will be little help, if any, for making the Fifth Epoch arrive.

Any comprehensive view of the human journey has to make energy the dominant dynamic. Developing our big brains was all about energy. All of the vaunted early tools of the human line were about improving the caloric intake. The interplay of energy, intelligence, and tools has defined the human journey.

Each Epoch gained new levels of energy consumption, which increased the human population and raised humanity’s standard of living. Without those new energy levels, the subsequent Epochs could not have happened. Each Epoch was less violent and more humane than what came before. A new energy source, which has been kept hidden from humanity, can usher humanity into a scarcely imaginable Epoch of abundance, in which humanity and Earth will be healed. That is where all comprehensive thought comes together, and everything else is trivial. That is where my focus has been since the 1980s.

I have more to write about thinking comprehensively, but manifesting the Fifth Epoch is my end game.