Ugo Bardi is a scientist and philosopher who teaches physical chemistry at the University of Florence, Italy. He writes the blog 'The Seneca Effect," where he explores the mechanisms and effects of collapse. [ Ссылка ]

"Collapses are not a bug, but a feature of the way the universe functions and we have to live with them," Ugo says. He has been studying collapse — principally of oil supplies — for decades, as a member of the Club of Rome, sponsors of the classic 'The Limits to Growth.' [ Ссылка ]

WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT
The Russian invasion of Ukraine poses an acute threat to Western Europe, Ugo says. The breakdown of global systems of commerce and transportation threaten an economic collapse:

"I think the worst place to be in the world is Western Europe and the worst place in Western Europe is Italy and the worst place in Italy is Florence. This is unfortunately a city of zombies because most people here make a living out of tourism and we lost most of the foreign tourists. So it's going to be a collapse. Florence is facing an economic collapse, a bad one.

"Italy is a transformation economy. We have industries and agriculture, but we need to import commodities like energy, minerals, metals, and fertilizers. There is a working industry which transforms these commodities which are imported from abroad, then they are turned into finished products and sold, and that's the way Italy survives."

In his study of collapse, Ugo identifies the human response to events as the precipitating factor:

"We are surrounded by by things which keep changing and sometimes they change very rapidly. When they change very rapidly. they take human beings by surprise. Human beings react in ways which are unexpected and strange."

Ugo laments the destruction of cultural links between Europe and Russia, caused by the war:

"From the cultural viewpoint it's terrible, because by all means Russia is a European country. They think they're Chinese sometimes but they are European. What Russia did for the European culture is a large contribution. Now it's been destroyed, eliminated, demonized! In Europe we cannot anymore play Tchaikovsky, we cannot read anymore Dostoevsky."

He suspects that forces beyond normal human agency may be at play:

"Really something evil, something that I cannot explain... Maybe there is a reason, but this goes beyond what simple human beings could do, through an evil force which is devouring people's brain. Maybe they really have a monster inside here [in their head] and that makes them do the worst things. Demons are all in our heads. The very meaning of demon is "a force" in Greek. "Daemon" is something of a force that you cannot control. We use this term as if there were really devils with horns and a tail, but really it is in our heads, and that's why you see the rise of the demons in our world."

ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION
With the war in Ukraine, Ugo has turned his thoughts to the decision-making processes of great states. In his recent post "The World as a Chess Game. Is it Being Played by Masters or by Idiots?" ([ Ссылка ]), Ugo posits five possible models to explain the behavior of our leaders:

"1. The government is genuinely worried about a serious threat to society and is acting to counter it on the basis of the available knowledge.

"2. The government is led by one or more psychopaths and/or narcissists who operate to aggrandize their personal power. They surround themselves with yes-men and the resulting 'groupthink' leads to all sorts of disasters.

"3. The key members of the government have been corrupted by economic interest groups who push for wasteful and dangerous actions in order to obtain large profits.

"4. As in the previous case, the key members of the government have been corrupted, but in this case by an external power that uses them to ruin the country in military or economic terms, or both.

"5. The souls and the brains of the top-level people in the government have been eaten by Chthonic deities or other demonic entities. These entities use the human members of the government as avatars with the objective of destroying the country and killing as many innocent people as possible."

We will discuss these possibilities in the light of recent events. Please join us!

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