The concept of whether a belief in indefinite growth as a possible tragectory for human societies is “normal” offers little to people considering the issues.

You don’t have to look that far back in history to find examples of societal “norms” that are downright sociopathic. For all the problems of the developing world, life is much less cheap now, than any other time, anywhere

The US bombed civilian populations with napalm in the Vietnam War.

If anything, the forces of greed and self interest that lie behind the problems described in the article are timeless. The problem is that the human species has been so successful, and developed new technology, that there are new problems to go along.

Fundamentally, the most severe problems facing human populations have their roots in politics and culture, not resource constraints.

As I was thinking about what motivates the super rich to keep going with obtaining wealth far beyond their needs, I had a bit of an epiphany.

All people suffer from being vulnerable, by our nature, and assured of our own guaranteed destruction. To the extent that wealth creation and accumulation provide real, if marginal, improvements to our security, it’s not surprising that someone super rich would continue whole heartedly in one of the activities that actually does the increase security.

But since even the super rich are only a little bit more existentially secure than the rest of us, to stop with the process of wealth accumulation would deprive them of one of the few activities they have relied on to increase their sense of security. It would lead to a greater experience of their subjective personal powerlessness.

I also think, based on my own idle speculation, anecdotally, that more pronounced sociopathic behavioral traits are distributed among the population, across class.

Such traits provide an advantage to power seeking individuals, with talent, ambition, and cultural resources at their disposal. Hence, positions of power have an over representation of heartless, ruthless, greedy people in their ranks.

Such people, lacking in empathy and charity, once they reach positions of power, can distort the behavior of the institutions they control, leading to the kind depredations described in the original article.

The only hope against such people is that the mass of non-sociopathic individuals can weave supporting and countervailing structures.

If the societal institutions are strong enough, the talents of such driven people, with the “killer instinct” can be mitigated, and in some cases channeled into productive activities.

We see such sociopathic behavior from Trunp, big time. My fear right now is that in his wake, he is tearing at this social fabric, as an end in itself.

The people associated with him, the powerful republicans who populate Washington, are being”turned” by Trump, and are re-introducing and amplifying a “take no prisoners, scorched earth” approach to US politics.

Sean Spicer does not strike me, or probably anyone, as someone who would instinctively go on national TV, and spout obvious lies, in service of maintaining a corrupt politician. But that’s what he did.

I’m he’s asked himself many times, “what was I thinking?”