Author
Kraev Igor
Kraev Igor
Why We Get Tired - and Then Go to War (2025)
Energy and Debt: Why War Is Not Politics, but Biophysics
Статья на русском языке по этой ссылке
1. Introduction: Where War Begins
War rarely arrives without warning. Even when conflicts appear to erupt over borders, ideologies, or ambitions, their true origins lie deeper - where a fundamental balance has already been disrupted. This balance is not monetary or political, but energetic. The way human beings manage their energy - physical, emotional, and mental - determines not only individual survival but the condition of society as a whole.
When a majority of people live in a state of chronic energy deficit, an invisible burden begins to accumulate - what we may call "debt." Eventually, this debt becomes too great to service. At that point, a discharge becomes inevitable. Sometimes this manifests as bankruptcy. Sometimes as revolution. Most often - as war.
When a majority of people live in a state of chronic energy deficit, an invisible burden begins to accumulate - what we may call "debt." Eventually, this debt becomes too great to service. At that point, a discharge becomes inevitable. Sometimes this manifests as bankruptcy. Sometimes as revolution. Most often - as war.
2. Three Modes of Existence: The Anatomy of Human Energy
a) Passive Consumption
At rest, the human body consumes roughly 100 watts (used here for proportional illustration). This suffices for breathing, maintaining body temperature, and minimal functions. But such a life is not viable - humans still require food, shelter, movement, meaning. If a person produces nothing, they must survive on energy borrowed from others. This is energetic parasitism.
Its social counterpart is dependency, serfdom, and class structures where one group lives at the expense of another. Such arrangements are inherently unstable - borrowed energy is always finite, and the credit of trust eventually runs out.
Its social counterpart is dependency, serfdom, and class structures where one group lives at the expense of another. Such arrangements are inherently unstable - borrowed energy is always finite, and the credit of trust eventually runs out.
b) Overexertion: Dying at Work
In the second scenario, a person works to exhaustion - expending 1000 watts daily, yet generating only 500 - 800. Their resources deplete faster than they regenerate. They live in the negative - physically, psychologically, materially.
Millions live this way: in poverty, burnout, and emotional exhaustion. This is the model of "working to survive." It is disguised as "diligence" and "responsibility," but in reality it is a slow form of self-destruction.
Millions live this way: in poverty, burnout, and emotional exhaustion. This is the model of "working to survive." It is disguised as "diligence" and "responsibility," but in reality it is a slow form of self-destruction.
c) Energetic Balance: Is It Possible to Live in the Positive?
The ideal regime is when a person, expending 400 - 500 watts, produces 500 - 600. They retain surplus energy - for recovery, for creativity, for love. This is the model of sustainability. Yet it is available to few; it requires an environment of support rather than exploitation.
Such a state is attainable under conditions of honest economics, equitable resource distribution, health-conscious policies, and limits on labor. It is not a utopia, but a question of design - an engineering challenge.
Such a state is attainable under conditions of honest economics, equitable resource distribution, health-conscious policies, and limits on labor. It is not a utopia, but a question of design - an engineering challenge.
3. When Energy Falls Short, Debt Appears
Anything a person cannot supply through their own energy must be borrowed. Sometimes from banks. More often - from the body, from time, from loved ones, from the future. This is how debt arises.
Debt is a symptom of systemic error. It occurs when we live beyond our means - not in currency, but in watts.
We take on mortgages - but repay not only in money, but in stress, insomnia, and missed childhoods of our children.
We overwork - and pay not just with time, but with health and a loss of meaning.
We endure injustice - and the debt accumulates at the level of entire nations.
Debt is a symptom of systemic error. It occurs when we live beyond our means - not in currency, but in watts.
We take on mortgages - but repay not only in money, but in stress, insomnia, and missed childhoods of our children.
We overwork - and pay not just with time, but with health and a loss of meaning.
We endure injustice - and the debt accumulates at the level of entire nations.
4. Cycles of Peace and War: Energy Abhors a Vacuum
In War Cycles, Peace Cycles, Richard Kelly Hoskins describes a pattern: when commodity prices rise, war ensues; when they fall, peace follows. But commodities are a proxy for energy. Conflict erupts when a society has nothing left to give in repayment.
War is an act of ultimate compensation. A reset. When payment is no longer possible, appropriation begins - of land, of labor, of life.
War cycles are not the product of malevolent leaders, but the consequence of chronic energetic imbalance among the masses. People grow tired of living in the negative. They grow tired of enduring.
A stable peace is possible only through the regulation of labor.
War is an act of ultimate compensation. A reset. When payment is no longer possible, appropriation begins - of land, of labor, of life.
War cycles are not the product of malevolent leaders, but the consequence of chronic energetic imbalance among the masses. People grow tired of living in the negative. They grow tired of enduring.
A stable peace is possible only through the regulation of labor.
5. Breaking the Cycle: Energy → Debt → Conflict
To exit the closed loop of energy → debt → conflict, one thing is essential: the regulation of human energy.
If a person cannot live without exhaustion, society itself will not survive. It will rupture - internally (through illness and breakdown) or externally (through revolt and war).
- Work must have limits - biological and moral.
- Rest must be inviolable.
If a person cannot live without exhaustion, society itself will not survive. It will rupture - internally (through illness and breakdown) or externally (through revolt and war).
6. Conclusion: Do Not Overload the Human Being - They Are the Battery of Civilization
The human body is not an abstraction. It is a biological battery through which the entire economy flows. When it is overdrawn, not only the individual breaks down - the system does too. We cannot build a sustainable civilization while living in energetic deficit. Peace is not a treaty between states. Peace is a treaty within each human being: how much can I give without destroying myself?