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.
Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 8:22 am Post subject: Being a happy doomer
A 'doomer' is someone who is sure peak oil is happening now and that it will turn everything upside down. The world economy which is like the reason de essance of life is going to collapse, imagine that. Its all over for getting rich and living the dream lifestyle. Mass unemployment, resource wars. Add to that global warming and terrorism a lot of thinking people are doomers because they can see it all happening. Many people would call this being Fark
The trick is to move beyond the fear stage, which seems like is being carefully crafted by some unseen malevolent force to make people wish the ground would swallow them up. While the easily led will be carried over the edge others will see opportunity for creating a new and better way of life. The start of this I think is going to be the UK thats arrogant thing to say but people who know me know how arrogant I am. I can't help being right in everything I say. Like the US will take down Iran, they surely will. Like there will be a sea of rebellion at the moment the governments try anything repressive on us which they will
What all this is getting at is that knowing the implications for peak oil only means the collapse of the current way of life. Beyond it is the next stage of rebuilding. If you don't believe in a next stage then you die with the old system and thats very scary and as a belief system holds little attraction to me. Instead I'm going to embrace being in the midst of an opportunity. Holding this view right now will make you seem a bit crazy but that can't be helped and you'll be proved right in the end.
Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 8:46 am Post subject: Re: Being a happy doomer
yepyepyep.
I'm not afraid at all, just uneasy with the uncertainties.
Because I've been living subsistence style for two decades, I easily jumped aboard the doomer bandwagon. I can understand why most people are running away from acknowledging this: they're hanging on, white-knuckled, to the old ways, or the about-to-become-obsolete ways.
I can't wait for the traffic noise to cease.
I can't wait to see horses and wagons on the roads.
I can't wait to have lots of cheap labor during hay season.
I can't wait to have people lining up for milk and eggs here.
Etc. _________________ "By the time individuals discover that remaining resources will not be adequate for the next generation, the next generation has already been born. " David Price
Joined: Jun 03, 2005 Posts: 217 Location: New Jersey
Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 3:53 pm Post subject: Re: Being a happy doomer
I hesitate because of the environment. I just can't accept that we will be stupid enough to burn enough carbon to kill the planet. But ....
And, I want to advocate for those "dumb beasts under our dominion," as H. G. Wells put it. We are here on this planet to be its protector and its champion, not its destroyer. If our transition involves killing off lots of species, well, that is not acceptable. We were given a boatload of species to enjoy on this planet, a fabulous, luxurious diversity. That is our wealth, our enjoyment, our destiny. We all go forward together.
Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 5:15 pm Post subject: Re: Being a happy doomer
killJOY wrote:
Because I've been living subsistence style for two decades, I easily jumped aboard the doomer bandwagon. I can understand why most people are running away from acknowledging this: they're hanging on, white-knuckled, to the old ways, or the about-to-become-obsolete ways.
Or maybe you are hanging on white knuckled to your ways and wanting desperately to look at a streem of starving corporate goons and pull a Limbaugh, saying "See, I told you so"
On buddy of mine sees the Doomer mindset as wish fulfilment. Of course you will be one of the 10% who live and you can stand on the pile of dead bodies and laugh at all the fools who never listened to you.
Another thinks it is a human desire to have the ultimate proof of being right. Sort of, we told you about the economy but you never listened. now you see we were right and you are starving.
Joined: Sep 06, 2004 Posts: 5315 Location: Smalltown New Zealand
Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 5:20 pm Post subject: Re: Being a happy doomer
I look forward to the end of the rat-race, how is it that with all our energy, knowledge and population, we now have to run faster, work longer, both partners working to make ends meet?
Joined: Jun 25, 2005 Posts: 280 Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 11:00 pm Post subject: Re: Being a happy doomer
I started thinking about peak oil about six years ago. For some reason there were a lot of dead animals on the road. Every morning on my way to work I'd see dead racoons, possums, robins, crows, you name it. Not just one or two, but many.
I like animals, and one morning I was driving, and I thought: "F**k, this is terrible, I can hardly wait until the world runs out of oil, I won't have to commute sixty miles a day, and the rest of these zombies won't be running over everything in sight." This led to: "I wonder when that will be?"
So, I quickly extrapolated that oil production must rise to a peak then decline in any given oil field, it would not just be, and then not be, like turning off a tap. (I had never heard of Hubbert at that point, I was just feeling my way around the problem in my own mind.)
Then I started doing research in my spare time at my local library, and then finally I became an internet user, which really opened things up and led me to my present moderate doomerosity level.
Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 1:06 pm Post subject: Re: Being a happy doomer
I once heard that true optimism was not tra la la sunshine happy, but the belief that you can handle whatever life throws at you. I think of this as pragmatic optimism.
Quote:
I’m not sure what you call someone who thinks only the bad things and bad people will 'go away'.
Someone who thinks that their house could never burn down isn’t an optimist – they’re just stupid. The pragmatic (true) optimist is the one who buys a smoke detector and makes an escape plan because they believe there’s a way to get through it. After lurking here for quite a while, I’ve come to realize that some of the people who call themselves doomers actually fit into the pragmatic optimist category. You’re not kidding yourselves that life is going to go on as usual. But if you were true doomers, you’d believe in….well….doom – that no one and nothing is going to survive or that things will be so bleak that it’s not worth it to survive. An optimist prepares, a doomer sits back and waits for the end of the world. I mean, think about it – if you’re doing anything at all to prepare, then you must believe you have a chance. Otherwise, why do anything?
Quote:
If you don't believe in a next stage then you die with the old system and thats very scary and as a belief system holds little attraction to me. Instead I'm going to embrace being in the midst of an opportunity.
Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 7:25 pm Post subject: Re: Being a happy doomer
I suspect a lot of people struggle with "hope" in the face of all the bad news surrounding peak oil. But if you consider that almost ALL of the news these days (and for decades now) has been mostly doom-and-gloom, then you have to assess "what hope did people have, anyway?".
I struggled with this myself and have come to view this issue of our future as hopeful. Sure, I'm scared in some ways, but I'm a lot more hopeful then I used to be, because this really is an opportunity to change the present status-quo, which offered no hope, no future and no promise. I never was much interested in making lots of money and being a "somebody" anyway.
Peak is going to a great leveler (among most of us anway). Those that are already rich and powerful will very probably remain rich and powerful, but they will become less influential and significant then they are today (YES!). The rest of us will equalize out.
I suspect that local control will become tyrannical to some degree, in some areas, as a result of this "leveling". But if the people start working together (unlike today), I'm hopeful that this can be mitigated.
On the flip side, .gov will be less effective then ever, and that is a GOOD thing. _________________ SurvivalAcres Blog
Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 10:48 pm Post subject: Re: Being a happy doomer
Quote:
....which offered no hope, no future and no promise. I never was much interested in making lots of money and being a "somebody" anyway
I believe this is what many moderates/doomers feel when PO puts newly found realizations in their minds. I know my focus differs since learning about PO and my lifestyle changes have made me a happier person. It is a shame it is in preparation for a gloomy event (or series of).
Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 5:10 am Post subject: Re: Being a happy doomer
Actually, I've never been quite sure how much longer I could survive this society. So how long I can survive post-Peak kind of produces a "well, we'll see how this works out" reaction in me.
"Happy" to me is a relative term; I just try to appreciate the day I'm in; as for knowing what's coming, I'd rather know than not know. For someone like me, there isn't much more to it than that. I am a Christian, so I suppose I see it as, "if he wants me here during post-Peak, I'll be here." It's enough to live day-by-day. (Though I admit that much of my Christmas shopping is done already! )
Whether this makes me a doomer, a pragmatic doomer, a moderate doomer, a doomer of faith, or just a doomer misfit--how should I know?! Just learn what I can, do what I can, say and be what I can. What more is there to it than that?
Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 5:19 am Post subject: Re: Being a happy doomer
I know what you mean by being a happy doomer. If you don't fit very well in the current society, then the prospect of society collapsing doesn't look that terrible. One starts thinking: "Hey, maybe I'll be better at surviving post-peak than at succeeding in a capitalist world." I know I do feel like that.
Joined: Aug 14, 2005 Posts: 92 Location: Sydney, Australia
Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 11:31 pm Post subject: Re: Being a happy doomer
Doly, Savethehuman, I feel a bit like that too. I sort of feel like, with the need to survive in a capitalist world removed, maybe the artist and Earth-mother lying dormant inside me will have a chance to explore life.
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