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Taming the Apocalypse
After the resources that enabled industrial civilisation are depleted, only culture and biology will remain to sustain us.
The might of Babylon was built upon a handful of domesticated crops and livestock, brought into symbiosis with humans through the actions of long forgotten peasants. Today, at the peak of the industrial era, people have a priceless opportunity to forge relationships with a whole new range of living organisms. The nature of those species will determine the shape of the civilisations that rise on the far side of tomorrow.
"Taming the Apocalypse" explores the long rise of humanity and agriculture, and suggests practical approaches that people everywhere can use to create new symbiotic relationships with organisms across the entire tree of life.
The might of Babylon was built upon a handful of domesticated crops and livestock, brought into symbiosis with humans through the actions of long forgotten peasants. Today, at the peak of the industrial era, people have a priceless opportunity to forge relationships with a whole new range of living organisms. The nature of those species will determine the shape of the civilisations that rise on the far side of tomorrow.
"Taming the Apocalypse" explores the long rise of humanity and agriculture, and suggests practical approaches that people everywhere can use to create new symbiotic relationships with organisms across the entire tree of life.
129 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 28, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 7, 2024
Taming the Apocalypse is a self-explanatory title to a book about utilising modern and old knowledge to develope a frame work of action that can be used to overcome the boundaries of industrial collapse for life to continue and flourish. There are methods suited for rich families all the way to car park sleepers. Beyond a consumer review, if you care about the future of life and want to put a hand in shaping its outcome I suggest getting your hands on this ebook as soon as possible. The big picture thinking and methodology that can be absorbed with attentive and thoughtful reading is invaluable for undertaking any such an endeavour. Whether it's about how we're going to feed ourselves or how we're going to create hyper complexity like that from which we have made with tractors and vaccines, I suggest you pick it up.
In review, Taming the Apocalypse is a charming read about humanity on the edge between annihilation and evolution. It was a fairly quick read for me and I suspect that it could be read in a day by an average book consumer with time to cook dinner.
It incorporates stories and sayings, new and old, grafted with academic biology and historical facts. Animal and plant names are consistently accompanied with their scientific counterpart, and many enlightening patterns from history insert themselves so often that it seems as if they are mere filler. Assuredly they are not. Though this may seem intimidating it is written in plain english, with the general ideas being fairly easy to follow outside of the more technical details. I found that there was bit too much repetition in some places as well as a bit too much of the use of "will you be the one?" style sentences, and my only change would be to tidy up examples which have identical descriptions into one shared example and to relax on the call to the reader till the end as it would increase the excitement and wonder which I found the ending invoked. But that's just personal nit picking on my behalf, and I suspect it was hard to hold back on the book in those terms as the sheer amount of knowledge and epic implications of the tasks set out by the book could barely be contained within such a slim read. In spite of that, the book still manages to hold it all together quite miraculously. For such a small book, it expands to create a rather large mental world.
One thing I especially appreciated from this book was that there wasn't any holding back when it came to the harsher side of our future. Noting on problems like the large impossibility to feed 8 billion people within a century before the depletion of industrial resources, to the extinction of diversity due to their excessive use of said resources, this book does not shy away from the more frightening truths of our future. Instead it faces harsh facts with acceptance and peace, ready to make a mature and concerted effort to overcome these sheer cliff like obstacles.
I do find that certain ideas were portrayed with a very intense light (like that used on surgery table), and that sometimes it makes certain ideas become more fatalistic than they are from my conception of them. But, on the other hand that incredible scrutiny is probably why this book is so informationaly dense and nutritious, and I am of the belief it is one of the few lenses that actually allows us to confront things that we believe are flexible (say, how much food we can continue to produce) that are fairly rigid at present, which this book does a tremendous job of taking down.
Regardless, even if you have no interest in making a big impact I would still recommend you read this book as it will give you grounded, useful knowledge and let you appreciate the importance of our lives. I would also suggest you do some horizontal gene transfer and share it with your friends, because if that leads to even one of them trying the methods outlined within, the impact that could have may change our future forever.
In review, Taming the Apocalypse is a charming read about humanity on the edge between annihilation and evolution. It was a fairly quick read for me and I suspect that it could be read in a day by an average book consumer with time to cook dinner.
It incorporates stories and sayings, new and old, grafted with academic biology and historical facts. Animal and plant names are consistently accompanied with their scientific counterpart, and many enlightening patterns from history insert themselves so often that it seems as if they are mere filler. Assuredly they are not. Though this may seem intimidating it is written in plain english, with the general ideas being fairly easy to follow outside of the more technical details. I found that there was bit too much repetition in some places as well as a bit too much of the use of "will you be the one?" style sentences, and my only change would be to tidy up examples which have identical descriptions into one shared example and to relax on the call to the reader till the end as it would increase the excitement and wonder which I found the ending invoked. But that's just personal nit picking on my behalf, and I suspect it was hard to hold back on the book in those terms as the sheer amount of knowledge and epic implications of the tasks set out by the book could barely be contained within such a slim read. In spite of that, the book still manages to hold it all together quite miraculously. For such a small book, it expands to create a rather large mental world.
One thing I especially appreciated from this book was that there wasn't any holding back when it came to the harsher side of our future. Noting on problems like the large impossibility to feed 8 billion people within a century before the depletion of industrial resources, to the extinction of diversity due to their excessive use of said resources, this book does not shy away from the more frightening truths of our future. Instead it faces harsh facts with acceptance and peace, ready to make a mature and concerted effort to overcome these sheer cliff like obstacles.
I do find that certain ideas were portrayed with a very intense light (like that used on surgery table), and that sometimes it makes certain ideas become more fatalistic than they are from my conception of them. But, on the other hand that incredible scrutiny is probably why this book is so informationaly dense and nutritious, and I am of the belief it is one of the few lenses that actually allows us to confront things that we believe are flexible (say, how much food we can continue to produce) that are fairly rigid at present, which this book does a tremendous job of taking down.
Regardless, even if you have no interest in making a big impact I would still recommend you read this book as it will give you grounded, useful knowledge and let you appreciate the importance of our lives. I would also suggest you do some horizontal gene transfer and share it with your friends, because if that leads to even one of them trying the methods outlined within, the impact that could have may change our future forever.
April 1, 2025
The writing is on the wall. Our massive industrial society, engorged on fossil fuels, is nearing its end. Hopes for new sources of "clean energy" or "renewable resources" that will keep us on our trajectory of exponential growth seem more fanciful by the day. Dreams of space colonization blind us to the realities we confront here on earth. This book is Dr. Simonsen's sober, realistic appraisal of the situation, and his optimistic vision of a shared future for humanity we can start building today.
The title, "Taming the Apocalypse" refers to our best path forward: extending our ancient and formidable animal and plant husbandry skills to the rest of nature, and even to ourselves. Rather than continuing our adversarial relationship with the planet, he proposes that we work closely with other living things, molding them toward a symbiotic existence with us, for our mutual benefit and survival. Not "back to nature" so much as "forward with nature."
He reviews the strong case for hybridization (rather than incremental change) as a major impulsive force in the evolution of new lifeforms, especially in periods of rapid environmental change, and shows how we've used it (along with selective breeding) to create nearly all our domestic strains of plants, animals, fungi, and microbes.
He also points out that most of the creatures we depend on today for food or labor were domesticated without any knowledge of biology, much less access to high-tech gene-splicing labs. There's no reason to believe we couldn't pick up this husbandry process again, and move it forward, no matter what conditions we find ourselves in. No electricity, cars, or computers required. (However, he does suggest that we take advantage of our current access to global communications and transportation technologies, and get started right now!)
Dr. Simonsen devotes an entire section of the book to specific examples of past hybridization and breeding projects, and gives specific suggestions for future directions of experimentation. He progresses in an orderly fashion through the various kingdoms and phyla of life, discussing species that seem to be just on the cusp of forming a tighter symbiosis with mankind, and making specific suggestions as to how one might go about encouraging that progress. He also includes stories of his own farm projects for inspiration. Throughout, he stresses the importance of using techniques that will yield the most genetically diverse, well-adapted local strains (landraces) that require the least possible input in order to thrive.
Overall, this was a tremendously inspiring book, based on good science and practical thinking. It contains a great set of resources and suggestions for getting started. I've already started a breeding project in my yard, and joined a few online sites dedicated to seed-sharing, breeding advice, and meeting like minded individuals. In addition, I've found Shane Simonsen's other projects (podcast, blog, novels) to be treasure troves of information and inspiration.
As the industrial age ends, we'll say goodbye to effortless access to food and energy, and the endless cheap dopamine hits of junk food, social media, and the internet; but that doesn't mean giving up on a future of infinite human possibility.
The title, "Taming the Apocalypse" refers to our best path forward: extending our ancient and formidable animal and plant husbandry skills to the rest of nature, and even to ourselves. Rather than continuing our adversarial relationship with the planet, he proposes that we work closely with other living things, molding them toward a symbiotic existence with us, for our mutual benefit and survival. Not "back to nature" so much as "forward with nature."
He reviews the strong case for hybridization (rather than incremental change) as a major impulsive force in the evolution of new lifeforms, especially in periods of rapid environmental change, and shows how we've used it (along with selective breeding) to create nearly all our domestic strains of plants, animals, fungi, and microbes.
He also points out that most of the creatures we depend on today for food or labor were domesticated without any knowledge of biology, much less access to high-tech gene-splicing labs. There's no reason to believe we couldn't pick up this husbandry process again, and move it forward, no matter what conditions we find ourselves in. No electricity, cars, or computers required. (However, he does suggest that we take advantage of our current access to global communications and transportation technologies, and get started right now!)
Dr. Simonsen devotes an entire section of the book to specific examples of past hybridization and breeding projects, and gives specific suggestions for future directions of experimentation. He progresses in an orderly fashion through the various kingdoms and phyla of life, discussing species that seem to be just on the cusp of forming a tighter symbiosis with mankind, and making specific suggestions as to how one might go about encouraging that progress. He also includes stories of his own farm projects for inspiration. Throughout, he stresses the importance of using techniques that will yield the most genetically diverse, well-adapted local strains (landraces) that require the least possible input in order to thrive.
Overall, this was a tremendously inspiring book, based on good science and practical thinking. It contains a great set of resources and suggestions for getting started. I've already started a breeding project in my yard, and joined a few online sites dedicated to seed-sharing, breeding advice, and meeting like minded individuals. In addition, I've found Shane Simonsen's other projects (podcast, blog, novels) to be treasure troves of information and inspiration.
As the industrial age ends, we'll say goodbye to effortless access to food and energy, and the endless cheap dopamine hits of junk food, social media, and the internet; but that doesn't mean giving up on a future of infinite human possibility.
June 6, 2024
This book is aimed at an audience which has already been primed with concern about the feasibility of continuing industrial civilization. However, it doesn't fall into either of the obnoxious opposing beliefs of tech-bro space regimes or primitivism, it charts a different path. Shane's grand narrative like that of the Fight Like An Animal podcast is one in which humanity becomes a universal symbiont utilizing biological processes rather than fossil fuels or extractive economies. A compelling future in which we do not sacrifice our agency to capitalism nor pretend as if the agency we have accumulated through the introduction of language and abstract thought should be discarded for the sake of a 'pure' ecology. Rather, biological symbiosis is the path forward for our species and the only way we will be able to sustain some social complexity as we drain the limited free energy from which industrial society is based on.
Shane makes a compelling point that now is a good time to experiment with the domestication and genetic tweaking of various animals, microbes, and plants to help soften the blow that will take place as we learn that we cannot dump harder to acquire energy sources into monocrops and vulnerable food production. Shane provides a guide on different potential research projects one could look into, the first and most important being finding new staple high energy crops adapted to the bioregion they will be consumed in. Shane has more ideas from the necessary and practical to quite imaginative. It is refreshing to find other people that are justifiably concerned about the reckless path we are being forced down by our current institutions but who bring our attention to research projects that stand to benefit everybody rather than taking the more common individualistic ego driven approach. The fact is we have some agency in mitigating things to come and I am grateful that this book showed me some ideas for building up resilience in the coming generation. I have always had interest in biology but never did much tangible work in that field outside of high school classes and podcasts. Nonetheless, this book has gotten the wheels turning in my head and this may just lead me down a path of trying some of these projects or at the least talking about their importance for generations to come. And no you won't need massive institutions to back your research, just time for trial and error.
I suppose my only real critique is that while biological history has shown that prior lifeforms have also grown past their limits Shane simultaneously acknowledges we have greater agency to pick our path than these other lifeforms had. Therefore, it is a real tragedy we are on this high speed vehicle barreling towards a cliff, as this was a historical contingency played out by a not-so-inevitable victory of hierarchical power structures.
Shane makes a compelling point that now is a good time to experiment with the domestication and genetic tweaking of various animals, microbes, and plants to help soften the blow that will take place as we learn that we cannot dump harder to acquire energy sources into monocrops and vulnerable food production. Shane provides a guide on different potential research projects one could look into, the first and most important being finding new staple high energy crops adapted to the bioregion they will be consumed in. Shane has more ideas from the necessary and practical to quite imaginative. It is refreshing to find other people that are justifiably concerned about the reckless path we are being forced down by our current institutions but who bring our attention to research projects that stand to benefit everybody rather than taking the more common individualistic ego driven approach. The fact is we have some agency in mitigating things to come and I am grateful that this book showed me some ideas for building up resilience in the coming generation. I have always had interest in biology but never did much tangible work in that field outside of high school classes and podcasts. Nonetheless, this book has gotten the wheels turning in my head and this may just lead me down a path of trying some of these projects or at the least talking about their importance for generations to come. And no you won't need massive institutions to back your research, just time for trial and error.
I suppose my only real critique is that while biological history has shown that prior lifeforms have also grown past their limits Shane simultaneously acknowledges we have greater agency to pick our path than these other lifeforms had. Therefore, it is a real tragedy we are on this high speed vehicle barreling towards a cliff, as this was a historical contingency played out by a not-so-inevitable victory of hierarchical power structures.
October 28, 2024
Taming the Apocalypse is a very interesting discussion of the many potential possibilities for humanity's future that may arise from deepening our relationships with other species, including plants, animals, fungi and microbes. Shane Simonsen's background breeding plants (and some animals too) that can deal with minimal outside inputs gives the book a good practical grounding while also being highly speculative.
Taming the Apocalypse breaks completely out of the typical narratives regarding humanity's future. The mainstream ideas of progress may be an unsustainable dead end, but that doesn't mean that the future must be one of either doom or a copy of a past state of humanity. Breeding of plants, animals, fungi and microbes may still be in its infancy in the greater scheme of things. Future work in this direction could lead humanity into possibilities that will change things on the scale that domestication of grains and horses did in the past.
Taming the Apocalypse does a good job of relating these possibilities for the far future to our lives in the present. Shane's experience is invaluable for anyone pursuing or considering pursuing breeding work focusing on creating resilient systems reliant on fewer technological inputs. Fans of Joseph Lofthouse's landrace gardening methods will find more inspiration from Taming the Apocalypse.
Taming the Apocalypse breaks completely out of the typical narratives regarding humanity's future. The mainstream ideas of progress may be an unsustainable dead end, but that doesn't mean that the future must be one of either doom or a copy of a past state of humanity. Breeding of plants, animals, fungi and microbes may still be in its infancy in the greater scheme of things. Future work in this direction could lead humanity into possibilities that will change things on the scale that domestication of grains and horses did in the past.
Taming the Apocalypse does a good job of relating these possibilities for the far future to our lives in the present. Shane's experience is invaluable for anyone pursuing or considering pursuing breeding work focusing on creating resilient systems reliant on fewer technological inputs. Fans of Joseph Lofthouse's landrace gardening methods will find more inspiration from Taming the Apocalypse.
June 30, 2024
I greatly enjoyed this book! Shane sold me on his unique vision for the future and our individual role to play in it, giving me a totally new perspective. This book really isn’t like any other, and I was constantly stopping to make notes, research information, or just ponder over what I had read.
It’s a short and quick read that will make you wish it was a novel, but can totally change your sense of purpose and excitement about the possibilities that the future holds! I would recommend this to anyone with a few plants in their windowsill to professional botanists to master gardeners, they could all benefit from Shane’s insightful and inspiring perspective.
It’s a short and quick read that will make you wish it was a novel, but can totally change your sense of purpose and excitement about the possibilities that the future holds! I would recommend this to anyone with a few plants in their windowsill to professional botanists to master gardeners, they could all benefit from Shane’s insightful and inspiring perspective.
February 16, 2025
Highly recommended.
Every other book about the environmental crisis goes on and on about humanity’s harmful influence on the planet, and concludes with some vague hope that we will some day wake up and start respecting nature.
This is something different. Instead of telling us to refrain from following our instincts, Simonsen identifies precisely how to save humanity and the natural world, and precisely what it is that makes us worth saving.
Every other book about the environmental crisis goes on and on about humanity’s harmful influence on the planet, and concludes with some vague hope that we will some day wake up and start respecting nature.
This is something different. Instead of telling us to refrain from following our instincts, Simonsen identifies precisely how to save humanity and the natural world, and precisely what it is that makes us worth saving.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews