Executive Summary

• The boom in fossil energy has allowed us to enjoy a stability that we may not be able to maintain in the future
• As society erodes, power concentrates in those intent on grabbing it
• Nurturing cultural capital is key to maintaining freedom and fairness
• Strategies for reducing your risk to societal breakdown

If you have not yet read Part 1: Rising Police Aggression A Telling Indicator Of Our Societal Decline available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

Now we need to prepare those people who live in borderline uncivilized nations, which include the US, Mexico, much of South America, and a few European nations for what is coming next.

Ask yourself this: If tensions are this bad now, while relatively abundant resources exist, how bad do you think they’ll get during the next economic downturn or financial crisis?

One of the core predicaments is that the future simply cannot be more wonderful than the past in terms of ease of life and living standards. The pie is no longer growing like it used to, and someday it will begin to shrink.

My Monkey Brain

I have a confession to make. I react strongly to injustice. It simply makes my blood boil. Writing this article has been one of my less fun adventures in a while because of all the horrible injustices I had to wade through to assemble it.

For a long time I thought that my angry reaction to injustice had to do with old childhood slights around unequal Christmas gifts or something, but I’ve since learned it’s a more primal reaction than that.

Or perhaps I should say primate reaction.

Watch how Capuchin monkeys react an unfair situation and if you are like me, you’ll recognize a bit of yourself in there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKhAd0Tyny0

Okay, I admit that video cracks me up.

But is also makes me realize that both the perception and reality of justice (and fairness) are very important things in life. For some reason they are wired into our monkey brains, probably as a means of establishing and maintaining social order.