I think this is the beginnings of an economy based on perpetual growth and fossil fuel energy running headlong into geological energy constraints. Basically I see an undulatory downward path for the rest of my life. From here out, I think any rallies in our economic condition are going to be met with spiking commodity prices that knock us right back down.
I doubt filmmaking will be around in a low energy future. The skills I'd acquire as a filmmaker would be useless come post peak. In that sense I feel as if I'm wasting my time, even though I'm doing something I love.
Don't give this up.
I'm a filmmaker too and I don't plan on giving this up anytime soon. I'm trying to simplify my life and get rid of any superfluous material items and spending habits. I'm keeping my video cameras though.
Sure the massive global oil infrastructure is in for some tough times ahead and it will change the way we all live our lives, but for years to come people will find creative ways to power their Tee Vees and computers.
The economy will become localized and people will still need to be entertained and educated via photographic and video arts. Your skills may become even more important in the future than now.
Furthermore, use your video camera to document this amazing period of human history, and as a way to make sense of it all through the lense of your camera.
Accept Death, You seem to be doing a number of sensible things, chief among them, reflecting on your own reflections. Most people don't know how to think, what to think about, much less why they should. Your satisfaction with life will be in inverse proportion to your suffering as a kid. What you learned through depression, early on, usually unfolds slowly for others and is spread over a lifetime, a subtle eroding, a grinding down, that is probably worse.
You got the necessary life credits from the college of hard knocks early, and you will be FINE and the way you're thinking is necessary and wise. You're just way ahead of the crowd.
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13064 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Mon May 09, 2005 2:47 pm Post subject:
If you think things are going to get rotten down the road, all the more reason to do what you enjoy now. So go do the film thing. I work in the film industry for my living, and figure my work will go away some day sooner or later, but that doesn't keep me from enjoying the jobs now.
Joined: Apr 20, 2005 Posts: 44 Location: Durango CO, USA
Posted: Mon May 09, 2005 8:38 pm Post subject:
I grew up in the Sixties when the overshadowing apocalypse was nuclear war. I remember the neighbors grimly building and stocking fallout shelters in the backyard in 1964 (Goldwater was running for president). That was really a disheartening dread to confront on a daily basis, because there seemed so little you could do about it personally. So you turned aside into escapism (I think a whole generation did. Look at our movies. All special effects). Peak Oil seems like a much more healthy dread, psychologically. The issues are mostly practical and the kind of practical, like hunger and energy and social organization, that the human brain is well-evolved to deal with. It is not like worrying how to dodge a wave of gamma rays in a random microsecond. Maybe you won't actually survive, but it seems like a fairer challenge.
Joined: Feb 01, 2005 Posts: 197 Location: Southern Ontario
Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 8:16 am Post subject:
The topic does get very repititious as one poster stated previously. Knowledge of PO has affected the decisions I make about my life in a positive way. I've gone back to school and plan on continuing my education in a field related to PO and the solution of it's problems. I don't expect to be a Hubbard but maybe I can make a difference. If peak oil repercussions come in a big way before I finish studying (which it will because I will always study), then oh well. I hope to at least finish a degree before I can no longer afford to study, or the system simply isn't there. I think trying to change the enormous amount of energy that I have devoted to peak oil knowledge into something positive is the most mentally healty thing I can do.
I think that we're still languishing in doomsday escapism, only it's become so normalized that we no longer see it as "escapism" but just everyday life. I'd argue the fact that peak oil is a more "fair challenge" is all the more reason to be concerned. With nuclear holocaust, there wasn't a lot you could do, other than build a fallout shelter, stack supplies and twiddle your thumbs waiting for the siren. Peak oil is the kind of threat that requires work, and a fundamental lifestyle change, which although more fair, is going to be a lot more difficult, especially for a generation so used to an escapist lifestyle. I was born in 1983, all I've never seen anything resembling a real economic depression. It's always been progress, progress, progress as technology makes our lives easier and easier. Because of this I've noticed a sense of complacency in my peers and to some extent myself, cynical as I am. Even as I look over the facts and sit here typing this message, I find it hard to believe we are going back to the stone age. I just can't wrap my mind around it, and until it starts really happening, I doubt I will (even if it is happening, I may not believe it!).
I do feel there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. My depression early on always stemmed from a nagging feeling that something beyond myself wasn't right; a lack of belonging to anything meaningful, a dead living environment, constant moving around, and a broken family structure amongst my clues. Our society as is has a lot of problems, which peak oil might force us to "correct". I'm not particularly worried about survival, as the screen name implies, no matter how bad things get it's going end up the same way with or without PO. The transitional period however, has me extremely concerned. I feel it is something me and my peers have not been adequately prepared for. I have no idea how we're going to deal with it. I'm worried about myself, and how I might deal. I feel as if life without PO was difficult enough. With it, there's almost a sense of "why bother?" If you could barely handle life with cheap free energy, you're completely screwed without it. Of course, it's the curiosity that keeps me going. Hopefully that will be enough if things get really hard.
Joined: Feb 01, 2005 Posts: 197 Location: Southern Ontario
Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 11:58 pm Post subject:
I am in complete agreement with you accept_death, and feel very much the same way. I don't think we're going back to the stone age, but am absolutely appalled at the behaviour I see around me.
When all of your peers are filling their life with gadgets and gismos and jumping on the popular culture band wagon in order to feel that their life has "meaning" I think it's hard to find it within yourself. If I was the type of guy to strap some "phat" rims to my "ride" and buy an expensive stereo for my car and get the biggest TV I could afford and relentlessly pursue all of those material things that people fill their lives with I think meaning would be hard to come by, as your life wastes away in your car with the rims and in frount of your big screen TV.
There's no connection with the environment whatsoever, which is like taking your existence out of context. I think the people who do live a lifestyle of consumption do so because of the disconnect, and are craving connections and meaning. Without waxing overly metaphysical, if you only live life once why would you want to waste it doing anything that is not a benefit to yourself or others? I just don't understand people who go through life with the blinders on.
There's no connection with the environment whatsoever, which is like taking your existence out of context. I think the people who do live a lifestyle of consumption do so because of the disconnect, and are craving connections and meaning. Without waxing overly metaphysical, if you only live life once why would you want to waste it doing anything that is not a benefit to yourself or others? I just don't understand people who go through life with the blinders on.
Now this is really headed somewhere good. I completely agree! The million dollar questions really are- Why do the majority of Americans choose to live such grossly overabundant lives? Why do so many people watch American Idol, Survivor, and the falaciously irrelevent others? How have we tricked ourselves into complacency under the illusion of materialisim? And why are ther so few of us who realize this?
I can't say I've always known this. I can say my life has directed me to this conclusion. I now believe it. And faced with realities of peak oil, it's becoming my unified mission.
What then, if anything, can we do to further our, more logical, way of thought? Oily- we see it the same? And Acceptdeath- your little background sounded kinda familiar, hang in there bro, I know what it's like. Come to find out, we aren't the only ones thinking like this. And to everyone else- we all need a head check, have you seen yours recently? _________________ remember-we don't inherit the earth from our parents, we lease it from our children
Joined: Dec 04, 2004 Posts: 2351 Location: perpetual state of exhaustion
Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 10:36 am Post subject:
Accept_death, I'd like you to know that you aren't the only depressed/ clinically depressed peaker, there are a few of us here. We each have found or started to focus on something we can do.
just because a film career doesn't seem to be very peak oil oriented it is still a valuable skill. Do what you love. Do what has meaning to you and make this path your own.
What I am doing and will do to prepare (or not) for peak oil may not be the same as you. but having woken up to the future (which I don't think will be quite stoneage) you have the chance to create a meaninful life
I'd like to point out that if TS truly HTF then we will need someone to tell the story of our lives, society, and give meaning to our end. As a bard with story telling skills you would be in great demand to ease the suffering and hard work of others.
This is also the path of the villiage wiseman and ambassador. Don't give up something that gives your life meaning, that's all there is to life.
Well I've been thinking about it. Just to forget about it. Why, because PO is a geological event. Humans already have alternatives and wil produce more. Maybe the effect of PO will only be a small recession and that's it.
The hype is always better then the product.
So if that is true I should stop reading about PO. Thats besides my internet addiction!
Joined: Mar 29, 2005 Posts: 32 Location: Chicagoland
Posted: Sun May 15, 2005 10:09 am Post subject:
Um yeah, I just kinda forgot about peak oil. I saved the "devil's advocate thread on my computer, and whenever I get creeped out, i just read that. http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic2274.html
I try to focus on positive goals, such as getting laid before the world collapses in on itself, as some here predict.
If push comes to shove, my friends and I will stockpile Ramen noodles and tang and live in our high school (They're putting solar panels on it), and do nothing but play Counter-Strike for the rest of our lives. The human race is not going to end, and all civilizations do eventually collapse. but in the words of Louis XV, France (or the world) will survive for now, after me, the deluge.
And to stop myself from going around the internet, my nVidia firewall is usually set to "lockdown" hehehhe. _________________
"I believe totally in a capitalist system, I only wish that someone would try it."- Frank Lloyd Wright
Joined: Dec 08, 2004 Posts: 921 Location: 145'2"E 37'46"S
Posted: Mon May 16, 2005 4:03 am Post subject:
accept_death wrote:
... I'm worried about myself, and how I might deal. I feel as if life without PO was difficult enough. With it, there's almost a sense of "why bother?" If you could barely handle life with cheap free energy, you're completely screwed without it. ...
Ah, but it might work in exactly the opposite way.
Cheap energy has seen increasing numbers of humans doing very little to earn their basic keep, & so they've been spending their time inventing fabulous new ways to take power, gorge, & waste. We've been getting better & better at the these, and thats great for the $economy. That feedback loop entrenches particular mindsets (obedience to the boss/church/state, get more for me & mine), supports some behaviours over others (deceit, greed, cowardice) and has little room for other world views (just ask any First Nations).
People who happen to be born with a spine don't altogether fit in, and it'd be no surprise if they find the world depressing, mainstream culture shallow and manipulative etc. But they will, or might, fit into a world based on a lot less cheap energy and alot more selfreliance, community spirit and practical ambition.
I'm not saying all malcontents will prosper but i'm personally certain there'll be alot less nihilism, apathy and even rebellion once we're all weaned off oils teat (DTs will be something!).
Life is a balance of many things, and most important are the people around you, those that you love and trust. I have been increasingly neglecting this portion of the balance, and need to place new vigor into it. As a result, I am quitting PO.com.
I wish all of you the best of luck, I feel we are all going to need it.
ss signing off...
Life is a balance of many things, and most important are the people around you, those that you love and trust. I have been increasingly neglecting this portion of the balance, and need to place new vigor into it. As a result, I am quitting PO.com.
I wish all of you the best of luck, I feel we are all going to need it.
ss signing off...
I'm leaning the same way at this point. I've lost touch with many people I know. Either that, or our relationships have strained. I imagine my awareness of PO has a lot to do with that. It inspires a kind of "why put in the effort, what's the point?" additude. PO has also made me lose interest in film, which was once a great love of mine. I guess I always thought of it as modernism's true miracle, and it looks as if modernism is about to go out the window. So again, I say to myself, "why bother putting in the effort to watch/learn about films?"
It would all be different if PO awareness made me appreciate these things more, or got me to plan for the difficulties ahead, but that's not the case. I spend my time in isolation, wasting away with bitterness and anxiety, doing nothing to better my chances to deal with an economic crash/energy crisis. For the first time since high school I've been going through severe stages of depression. I feel as if I need to go back to doing the things I truly love; and in order to do that I may need to adopt the mind set "they'll think of something else!" If not, well, I guess we'll just have to deal with it as it comes. Even if that means "accepting" that time might be up a little sooner than anticipated... Not ready to sign off from PO.com yet, but I'm close. (heh, even though I just got here;o)
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