MTI Society

Modern Techno-Industrial (MTI) society is the current dominant form of human civilisation, characterised by large-scale use of fossil fuels, industrial production, global trade, and deep economic inequality.

Human exceptionalism

MTI society rests on a foundational construct the papers call human exceptionalism — the belief that humanity is not part of nature and is thus exempt from natural laws such as density-dependent population regulation. Were humanity observing this pattern of population regulation in any other species, the limiting role of food, water and material availability would be considered obvious; MTI society's reticence to apply the same framework to itself is, the authors argue, itself revealing. Acknowledging resource limits would also require acknowledging gross inequality, and in turn structural change to economy and society.

The Maximum Power Principle and top-heavy structure

Selfish accumulation within MTI civilisation reflects the Maximum Power Principle: systems that structure themselves to maximise energy appropriation and most efficiently transform captured energy into self-maintenance, growth and reproduction tend to "succeed." This produces a literal power imbalance in which those who control disproportionate energy flows rise to the top, and the resulting top-heavy, unequal social structure — reinforced by patriarchal, capitalist, industrial and colonialist institutions — persists because institutions only regulate behaviour so long as doing so poses no existential threat to the status quo (institutional path dependence).

See also

Human Behavioural Crisis · Maximum Power Principle · Ecological Overshoot · Exosomatic Energy