Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Joined: Jun 13, 2005 Posts: 1206 Location: Western US
Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 7:07 am Post subject: Looking at the world through grey-colored glasses
I used to dream about someday living in a house or condo with a water view. Now I see the world through grey-colored glasses. I'm not exactly depressed, but I see a large ship and I wonder how that thing's going to run as fuel gets increasingly scarce and expensive. I drive along a 6-lane suburban road and wonder if someday that road will be a huge bicycle facility. It all just smacks me in the face. What were we thinking, building this entire infrastructure that relies on finite supplies of fossil fuels???
Joined: May 14, 2005 Posts: 2123 Location: Along the banks of the muddy Mississippi
Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 7:16 am Post subject: Re: Looking at the world through grey-colored glasses
LadyRuby wrote:
What were we thinking, building this entire infrastructure that relies on finite supplies of fossil fuels???
I don't think we had a master plan, LadyRuby. I believe our ancestors innocently created a beast many centuries ago which perpetuates itself by continuously expanding until (as we are about to see) there is nothing left to devour.
For what it's worth, you are not alone in wearing the grey-colored glasses. _________________ “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.” (Ted Perry)
Joined: Sep 28, 2004 Posts: 216 Location: Hillsboro, West Virginia
Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 7:43 am Post subject: Re: Looking at the world through grey-colored glasses
TheTurtle wrote:
LadyRuby wrote:
What were we thinking, building this entire infrastructure that relies on finite supplies of fossil fuels???
I don't think we had a master plan, LadyRuby. I believe our ancestors innocently created a beast many centuries ago which perpetuates itself by continuously expanding until (as we are about to see) there is nothing left to devour.
For what it's worth, you are not alone in wearing the grey-colored glasses.
Some ancestors were more innocent than others. The beast of an economic system that has led to the Peak Oil disaster was impelled by the nature of the money system that the international bankers tricked everyone else into accepting. When your money system is essentially a legalized counterfeiting operation, with money being created from nothing (which ought to define counterfeiting), and aggravated by interest charges that can never be paid because all the money in circulation is principal, and the aim of which is to endebt the whole world so that the bankers can foreclose on everyone and control everything, then one of two things will happen. Either the bankers will die immediately, or the world will die a few generations later.
Joined: Mar 18, 2005 Posts: 2691 Location: Minnesota
Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 9:55 am Post subject:
I have to admit i have those grey glasses on as well. What else can you think when you're talking with a friend & realize you're talking to a walking corpse? Friends & family wont lift a finger to protect themselves & I certainly don't have the resources to save them all single-handedly.
I find it difficult to speak at a family gathering when they're all talking about the addition they're adding on their home, or new SUV they just "bought" (up to their eyeballs in debt).
It's only 80 degrees outside & my sis can't figure out why i don't have the AC on...i tell her i'm teaching myself.
It looks to me like it's an all out sprint to the bitter end...and i think it's really gonna be BITTER!
Joined: Sep 28, 2004 Posts: 216 Location: Hillsboro, West Virginia
Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 10:40 am Post subject:
RonMN wrote:
I have to admit i have those grey glasses on as well. What else can you think when you're talking with a friend & realize you're talking to a walking corpse? Friends & family wont lift a finger to protect themselves & I certainly don't have the resources to save them all single-handedly.
I find it difficult to speak at a family gathering when they're all talking about the addition they're adding on their home, or new SUV they just "bought" (up to their eyeballs in debt).
It's only 80 degrees outside & my sis can't figure out why i don't have the AC on...i tell her i'm teaching myself.
It looks to me like it's an all out sprint to the bitter end...and i think it's really gonna be BITTER!
Yep, that's natural selection up close. You've figured out how to adapt, but certain friends of yours haven't. They regard your adaptation as an amusing eccentricity. By the time they figure out that you were right to adapt as you did, it will be too late for them.
We can't all survive the end of industrial civilization. There will be food only for one out of every ten or twenty now living. The mathematics of the situation are clear, and there is only one right answer: most will starve. As you said, you can't save all your friends single-handedly. Since they won't adapt, it's probably time to recognize that you and they have become essentially different sorts of creature, and, being different, it may be time to part company.
In the future, their interests and yours will clash. They will want you to hold them all above the flood as it sweeps the Unprepared away, and you won't be able to do it. If you try, you'll be swept away with them. And because you Adapted, you deserve to have your chance of surviving without being burdened by other people's poor choices.
They had available to them all the information that you had. They had, pretty much, the same chance to prepare as you did. You chose wisely; they chose foolishly. You'd do yourself an injustice by trying to help them, come the Crash. You do them no injustice by refusing them the charity that they ask for, but which you can't afford.
Joined: Jun 08, 2005 Posts: 329 Location: Cascadia
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 12:39 pm Post subject:
I've been looking at the world through those same glasses. My wife talks to me about the fact that I've always wanted a power boat, then I remember. Then, I think that a pickup truck would sure make things easier, then I remember. etc.... etc....
I was putting an empty pop bottle into our recycle bin. I thought about that bottle and how useful it might be in a few decades.
I was at the mall with my wife over the weekend. It seemed like a cruel joke.
Joined: Jun 06, 2005 Posts: 16 Location: Louisville, Kentucky USA
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 1:26 pm Post subject:
Quote:
I was putting an empty pop bottle into our recycle bin. I thought about that bottle and how useful it might be in a few decades.
Yeah, I think about that all of the time when recycling spaghetti sauce jars with lids, etc. Unfortunately I just don't have the space to keep many of them. I have stocked up quite a bit on plastic yogurt containers. I find them especially useful for storing small parts and screws for the restoration of my '70 Saab. I would never have bought that car had I known about the immediacy Peak Oil but unfortunately by the time I became aware it the car was sitting on jackstands in my garage half apart. I like to think of it as my swan song with my car hobby, and I'm only 25.
Sometimes I wish that I had never found out about Peak Oil because it really does put a damper on most things. I think I'm transitioning from the panic to the action stages, though I still am sort of spinning my wheels. I find myself brooding over what seemed like once-practical purchases like buying a microwave cart from Target. Would that money be better spent on other supplies? What supplies exactly? Flying in an airplane, which has always made me nervous, now seems truly magical, especially knowing that it soon will probably not be possible, at least not for anyone except the wealthy. Over a month ago I was flying and looking down at the ground in awe of how fossil fuels have allowed us to change the landscape and make long journeys so quickly. And then there's sprawl, something which has always kind of disgusted me, but now it looks nightmarish knowing how we are just speeding towards the wall at full throttle. Finally, my knowledge of Peak Oil is putting a strain on my relationship, I'm getting married in less than a month and my fiancee and I now each have a different version of the future in our heads, she agrees that P.O. is a problem but I think she has been unable to really wrap her head around what it means.
_________________ "Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows"
-Leonard Cohen
Joined: Jun 12, 2005 Posts: 4189 Location: 1st territorial capitol of AZ
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 11:38 pm Post subject:
I've been thinking about stuff as I throw it away for years, some paper, I think Gosh that's good for lighting a fire, for kindling, and here I am just tossing it out. A jar, I think, In some 3rd world country this would be prized, and used, as a container.
All this useable stuff and we throw it away, because our culture is based on that.
I was up in the "wine country" on the weekend, and the "main drags" of Napa and Calistoga are just open-air malls, and most of the stores full of the most useless, fatuous junk I've ever seen. And so much of it faux-antique junk made by slave child labor in some 3rd world country.
Pablo: A pickup truck may well be USEFUL post-peak. If it's well-built, has manual transmission, and can be converted to run on biofuels. (Don't laugh--I read a story today that the G8 leaders are gonna be squired around in cars that run ON STRAW! Ironic, eh?) It can move a lot of things--needed supplies for communities, and such. It can carry a lot of people--hey, small-scale mass transit! Easier to get to the fields by truck than by foot, or even horse & cart. . .and, hey, can hold the harvest and get it back to the storage bins/barns/silos! Just be sure it has the stuff to cover rugged terrain--land, and deteriorating roads!
Now, more than ever, we have to think outside of the box for a post-peak world. Motor vehicles will decline rapidly in number, obviously. But vehicles aren't gonna completely vanish from the face of the Earth overnight, either. The smart preparer will have something well-engineered, relatively easy to fix with make-shift parts, have (or know someone who has) some mechanical know-how, and the vehicle will be USEFUL to a post-peak world. Something like, well, a well-built pickup truck. Ask people who've had (and usefully used) pickups forever what you should be looking for. Find a good deal. Learn some mechanics. Make things WORK for a post-peak era!
Pablo: A pickup truck may well be USEFUL post-peak. If it's well-built, has manual transmission, and can be converted to run on biofuels. (Don't laugh--I read a story today that the G8 leaders are gonna be squired around in cars that run ON STRAW! Ironic, eh?) It can move a lot of things--needed supplies for communities, and such. It can carry a lot of people--hey, small-scale mass transit! Easier to get to the fields by truck than by foot, or even horse & cart. . .and, hey, can hold the harvest and get it back to the storage bins/barns/silos! Just be sure it has the stuff to cover rugged terrain--land, and deteriorating roads!
Now, more than ever, we have to think outside of the box for a post-peak world. Motor vehicles will decline rapidly in number, obviously. But vehicles aren't gonna completely vanish from the face of the Earth overnight, either. The smart preparer will have something well-engineered, relatively easy to fix with make-shift parts, have (or know someone who has) some mechanical know-how, and the vehicle will be USEFUL to a post-peak world. Something like, well, a well-built pickup truck. Ask people who've had (and usefully used) pickups forever what you should be looking for. Find a good deal. Learn some mechanics. Make things WORK for a post-peak era!
Exactly, older carbureted trucks can run on wood even- see the post in the Energy Technology about the wood powered truck.
I've been thinking about stuff as I throw it away for years, some paper, I think Gosh that's good for lighting a fire, for kindling, and here I am just tossing it out. A jar, I think, In some 3rd world country this would be prized, and used, as a container.
All this useable stuff and we throw it away, because our culture is based on that.
I was up in the "wine country" on the weekend, and the "main drags" of Napa and Calistoga are just open-air malls, and most of the stores full of the most useless, fatuous junk I've ever seen. And so much of it faux-antique junk made by slave child labor in some 3rd world country.
Joined: Jan 29, 2005 Posts: 363 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 9:12 pm Post subject:
Yup, grey glasses here as well. But please, keep it up! If given a chance, you could even try to get your body trained for various conditions (warm, cold, wet, very dry) under physical strain and hunger and thirst for prolonged period. What matters most is that you're doing it not for yourself, but for those loved ones you're deciding to save when TSHTF -- especially those unable to understand why things are happening NOW, and will appreciate you for your efforts when they're mature enough years later. If. And when. they survive thanks to you.
I see dark corridors and dark buildings and skeletons, and dead people. I conditioning myself to look at people without a 2nd look -- the same thing I'd do when I sight a (hungry?) face at the end of my low-powered sniper scope and not hesitate (be it dig in or nomad style). I know the air-conditioning in this data center (50 degrees) is not going to be real. The food I eat is luxury, and I crave to prepare my own hunt to eat and store myself. I yearn to spend time away from the mundaneness of earning my pay at present times, to be able to again grow things from the ground. I crave for the long lonely miles of army scout travels in the hot tropical jungles in my younger days. Car skeletons, rusted buses, battleground deserted roads, cities devoid of present amenities (ala 12 monkeys).
I wonder if the grey glasses are the thing that cushion our psychological impact when we decide to quit the cities/suburbia? _________________ regards,
Rostov
"Some {} are more equal than others"
I work with children, and I look at them and shudder to think of the life they are inheriting.
I wonder if they'll be alive in 20 years, or struck down by some horrible disease like bird flu or the hanta virus or ebola. Or if they'll be hand hoeing some wealthy land owners fields somewhere for a share of the crops. I wonder what shoes and what clothes they'll be wearing. I wonder if they'll hate my generation (X) for being so extravagent and ignorant and arrogant. I wonder what the lives of their grandchildren will be like.
If I go to the mall, I see gluttony and it disgusts me. I drive home from work and pass thru suburbia and I see disaster. I watch the cars on the freeway and see death... like that scene in Terminator, you know the one, where the cars are dusty and filled with skeletons from a nuclear war? I see hundreds of people daily, and I think "FIVE IN SIX WILL STARVE" and I count the five unlucky souls unconciously....
Madison, you're overworrying. What are you going to do if only one in six people die, and you've been all this time seeing skeletons all over the place?
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