An essay concerning energy and conflict.

Two friends of mine sitting around the fire suggested, one of them that sugar is the cause of conflict, and the other that oil was. What follows are my thoughts concerning their perspectives.

On the face of it, both claims are obviously contingent, for conflict, human or otherwise, personal or on grand scale, quite clearly predates both the first refinements of sugar and the first institutional usage of oil. However it occurs to me that sugar and texas tea both have one obvious similarity, profound energy density, perhaps it is not the substance itself, but this property which they were reaching for through their respective examples?

One gallon of gasoline contains 31,000 calories (technically kilo-calories, but it is the american convention, from dietary precedent, to call these 'calories') the amount of chemical energy for a grown worker to labor for 10 days, or longer if lean. It is this very energy density that all modern life and convenience (for the first world) is built. Even the mighty hydro-electric projects of the last hundred years have been built on this initial energy investment. The fate of wars and people is tied to their positioning in the harvesting and processing of this life-blood of civilization; for this reason oil has been at the heart of many of the worlds recent conflicts, either in fighting for oil, or for resources made useful by the infrastructure powered by robbing the graves of the past life upon the earth. Empires rise and fall in the struggle for this great power source, and conflict between competing interests is necessary to determine the course of this flow of energy from the earths distant past into our present.

One pound of sugar contains 1733 calories, making it a powerful and quick to digest energy source which the human body is programed to seek as fuel, our entire sense of sweetness an intricate instrument for finding and consuming this precious fuel. Our desire for sugar is no surprising thing, but of course the sugar of today is not like the sweet berries that Socrates suggested we have as our dessert (The Republic). In nature sugar is only rarely encountered in even a relatively condensed form. Syrup is, as a rule, boiled down from great quantities of more watery natural sources. Honey (1376 calories per pound) is only stored in density by the work of bees, themselves powered by the rich feed of flower nectar, a gift of sugar richer and more precious then almost any other in nature. Sweet fruits, even very sweet ones, are still largely water and still rich in fiber and other substances. Put simply, the human body, until a century ago, had never a reason to adjust itself for digesting the density of sugar that is in the modern diet, and as all chemicals do change behavior it should not be surprising that sugar be connected to depression and interpersonal conflict around that fine fire nights ago.

Though are the reasons the same? In the case of oil civilization has transformed itself into a machine for the rapid consumption and destruction of our planets one vast carbon energy reserves, though this intricate machine, complete with an order of intelligence of its own, does not turn the energy of oil to the betterment of man kind, but to using man as a means to its own end, the satisfaction of its own energy addiction. But in the case of sugar, human conflict and depression are not means to the acqusition of more sugar (addiction though there may be) but are results of the havoc wrecked upon our body by sugar itself. For many other animals live peacefully (to a degree) on diets as sweet as Man's has become, many fruit eating beasts, as example; and Fat, which is denser in energy still, does not seem to be as destructive to human health as his cloying kin, fat can cause many health problems, but not with the acuteness of sugar. Civilization is a beast that is hyper adapted to consume oil and fossil energy, and Man a creature still struggling to maintain the insulin levels needed to save himself from his diet.

How long can any engine run on fuel which burns too hot for it?