Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:18 pm Post subject: Re: The awesome excitement of total collapse
Our situation will deteriorate, but I don't see collapse happening for a while yet. It will get progressively worse and worse. Here in the US it is starting as a relentless inflation for the things us little people buy, while the value of houses drops and we get paid less and less due to budget cuts and a slowdown in business.
A collapse would be so much more dramatic and fun than this.
This is going to really stink. _________________ Deep in the mud and slime of things, even there, something sings.
Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:31 pm Post subject: Re: The awesome excitement of total collapse
threadbear wrote:
The only concern I have is for people who are living in areas occupied by seriously dumb fu**ers, who will select themselves out of the gene pool, by reacting in a predictably retarded way to extreme stress.
Do I feel sorry for these people? Ummm....not really, because many of them are mean, as well as stupid. But I derive no glee from imagining them suffer, though I do think the world will be a better place without them.
A caveat here--I don't actually think that many people meet this criteria. A lot of people are simply dumbed down by popular culture and will be forced to change in an economically constrained environment.
I see poverty and involuntary constraints on spending as the only way out of the mess we're in. It gives me both hope and dread. That's almost dictionary definition of the term, "excitement."
I second your thoughts. What keeps me from becoming a real doomer is the hope that survival instinct will force most people of all demographics to secure their basic needs by working for the continuity of the society as a whole. Hunger is a major motivation to wise up and cooperate. _________________ "A devastating error is to set up a political system based on [individual] desire... the best dictatorship would be one where the government prevents any economical growth."
"Only scarcity and effort make life worth living."
-Pentti Linkola
Joined: Mar 18, 2006 Posts: 1211 Location: Last outpost of Civilisation
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 7:47 pm Post subject: Re: The awesome excitement of total collapse
Heineken wrote:
JPL, am I mistaken, or has not your view darkened considerably over the past few years?
Can't say I blame you.
I suspect your 50-year timespan is on the long side, but I sure as hell hope you're right.
Oops I think I'm in touch with my 'inner doomer' right now. Probably pull out of it soon enough (grin).
50 years is roughly the time since the book Silent Spring first alerted the world to what could happen if we continued to treat the planet like a bottomless dustbin. Based on track record, it's going to take at least another 50 to really get a low-ecological-impact society up & rolling.
So that's where I get my timescale from. I'll just take out the self-indulgent bit & clarify why I find this depressing.
My view is NOT that we have 50 years of civilisation before a crash, rather we probably have 50 more years of mexican stand-off against reality before a flood of 'Silent Springs' FORCE us to accept the truth.
This truth being, that there is nothing civilised, nothing nice about the way we are currently trashing the place. To some of us it already causes immense pain.
But like I said earlier, that 'some of us' figure is probably about 10% of the people here. The rest still treat the running-out of liquid fuels as fundamentally a 'bad' thing. They would rather fight the inevitable than face it.
And that, my friends, is what may well cause your 'die-off'. The concept that Peak Oil is somehow a problem that needs solving, rather than a solution that should be embraced.
Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 4:03 pm Post subject: Re: The awesome excitement of total collapse
I tend towards the doom side myself, and my wife rolls her eyes at me when I start talking.
Your comment though regarding 50years before a more sustainable culture starts to roll is way overly optimistic. In order for our "civilization" to collapse that far that quickly it would have to do so in an extremely sudden manner. I'm not disputing that it will do so, but your suggestion that in 50 years things will have recovered enough to start putting things back together again is too hopeful.
With the type of collapse implied I would suggest that at a minimum 100 years will have to pass before any communities are stable again.
That's not to say there won't be pockets of stability, I certainly plan to be one of those, but they will be relying on historical knowledge and skills. My outlook is to become a repository of skills and memory from which new structures may grow. I won't be a part of that new grow though, I'm far too steeped in this world and my reflexes will always tend towards repeating what was. I can only hope to provide a safe haven from which something better might develop.
I tend to look at it as similar to the task of raising a child. The very best thing to do is as little as possible, but provide an undeniable sense of love and security. _________________ Gravity is not a force, it is a boundary layer.
Everything is coincident.
Love: the state of suspended anticipation.
To get any appreciable distance from the Earth in
a sensible amount of time, you must lie.
Joined: Mar 18, 2006 Posts: 1211 Location: Last outpost of Civilisation
Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 7:25 pm Post subject: Re: The awesome excitement of total collapse
RdSnt wrote:
I tend towards the doom side myself, and my wife rolls her eyes at me when I start talking.
Your comment though regarding 50years before a more sustainable culture starts to roll is way overly optimistic. In order for our "civilization" to collapse that far that quickly it would have to do so in an extremely sudden manner. I'm not disputing that it will do so, but your suggestion that in 50 years things will have recovered enough to start putting things back together again is too hopeful.
With the type of collapse implied I would suggest that at a minimum 100 years will have to pass before any communities are stable again.
That's not to say there won't be pockets of stability, I certainly plan to be one of those, but they will be relying on historical knowledge and skills. My outlook is to become a repository of skills and memory from which new structures may grow. I won't be a part of that new grow though, I'm far too steeped in this world and my reflexes will always tend towards repeating what was. I can only hope to provide a safe haven from which something better might develop.
I tend to look at it as similar to the task of raising a child. The very best thing to do is as little as possible, but provide an undeniable sense of love and security.
I've said it here before & I will say it again. Our civilisation has ALREADY collapsed.
Ours is no longer a civilized society - a civilized social order would have taken steps by now to ensure it's own survival. It hasn't, so it won't - QED. There are other examples I could bring to the table but it would take several pages so I won't.
So, in this context, there is nothing to rebuild. If it takes 50, or - as you say - 100 years to do things a different way, what's the hurry anyhow? If you take an honest look around you, which parts of our little friend below do you really want to preserve - 'for our children's future'?
Joined: Oct 17, 2007 Posts: 114 Location: New of Zealand
Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 6:08 pm Post subject: Re: The awesome excitement of total collapse
I get excited because I'm fed up of the daily grind. Driving to a pointless job with zero satisfaction, in mad rush-hour traffic. And I am forced to do this in today's society to live comfortably.
We didn't evolve as to sit in front of computer screens (I work in IT). The population is educated and brainwashed into this lifestyle and I hope a collapse of systems will at least spark some sort of change for the better.
I may not survive myself but its better then sitting on my arse doing nothing for 50 more years.
Its like a thunderstorm heading your way when your kid. Exciting!
Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:18 pm Post subject: Re: The awesome excitement of total collapse
I'm not at all excited about a time that involves the misery and suffering of billions of people. Moreover, I have a lot invested in our current societal paradigm in terms of time and resources. I currently lead a semi-prosperous and happy lifestyle that I would like to maintain. The best bet is for us to transition gracefully into a lower energy state through gradual population reduction complemented by a less materialistic economic model(Neo-Feudal, Socialist, Mercantile) along with technological streamlining of our industrial base.
Joined: Aug 03, 2007 Posts: 3740 Location: Boston Suburbs
Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 7:18 pm Post subject: Re: The awesome excitement of total collapse
JPL wrote:
And that, my friends, is what may well cause your 'die-off'. The concept that Peak Oil is somehow a problem that needs solving, rather than a solution that should be embraced.
I agree with you that PO is a blessing in disguise in some respects, but it's hard to feel that way if it means the only way we're going to start ramping up renewables is when the invisible hand is already actively correcting overshoot.
Joined: Aug 03, 2007 Posts: 3740 Location: Boston Suburbs
Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 7:24 pm Post subject: Re: The awesome excitement of total collapse
s0cks wrote:
I get excited because I'm fed up of the daily grind. Driving to a pointless job with zero satisfaction, in mad rush-hour traffic. And I am forced to do this in today's society to live comfortably.
I hear you, but you aren't "forced" to do anything. There are still ways to survive in the US without rush hour traffic and being chained to a computer. You just have to set some priorities. Everything in life is a series of tradeoffs.
Joined: May 14, 2005 Posts: 2123 Location: Along the banks of the muddy Mississippi
Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 7:42 pm Post subject: Re: The awesome excitement of total collapse
JPL wrote:
This truth being, that there is nothing civilised, nothing nice about the way we are currently trashing the place. To some of us it already causes immense pain.
But like I said earlier, that 'some of us' figure is probably about 10% of the people here. The rest still treat the running-out of liquid fuels as fundamentally a 'bad' thing. They would rather fight the inevitable than face it.
And that, my friends, is what may well cause your 'die-off'. The concept that Peak Oil is somehow a problem that needs solving, rather than a solution that should be embraced.
I just now read this, but all I can say is bless you, JP. This is exactly spot on. It hurts me when I see people on these forums act as though peak oil is just a minor inconvenience in their happy lives of consumption rather than realizing that it is merely a symptom of a paradigm gone from bad to very bad. _________________ “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: Mar 18, 2006 Posts: 1211 Location: Last outpost of Civilisation
Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 7:41 pm Post subject: Re: The awesome excitement of total collapse
TheTurtle wrote:
JPL wrote:
This truth being, that there is nothing civilised, nothing nice about the way we are currently trashing the place. To some of us it already causes immense pain.
But like I said earlier, that 'some of us' figure is probably about 10% of the people here. The rest still treat the running-out of liquid fuels as fundamentally a 'bad' thing. They would rather fight the inevitable than face it.
And that, my friends, is what may well cause your 'die-off'. The concept that Peak Oil is somehow a problem that needs solving, rather than a solution that should be embraced.
I just now read this, but all I can say is bless you, JP. This is exactly spot on. It hurts me when I see people on these forums act as though peak oil is just a minor inconvenience in their happy lives of consumption rather than realizing that it is merely a symptom of a paradigm gone from bad to very bad.
Thanks, Turtle
I would also add that I think that a lot of people here use the term 'Peak Oil' as a 'socially acceptable' dressing for a load of ideas that they really can't cope with 'in the raw' as it were.
But we move on, as we must (grin). The future is as yet, an un-claimed land.
Joined: Mar 18, 2006 Posts: 1211 Location: Last outpost of Civilisation
Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 8:00 pm Post subject: Re: The awesome excitement of total collapse
mos6507 wrote:
JPL wrote:
And that, my friends, is what may well cause your 'die-off'. The concept that Peak Oil is somehow a problem that needs solving, rather than a solution that should be embraced.
I agree with you that PO is a blessing in disguise in some respects, but it's hard to feel that way if it means the only way we're going to start ramping up renewables is when the invisible hand is already actively correcting overshoot.
There is nothing to fear about a life without electricity. We have had several thousand years of civilisation & only in the last 80 so has this little gimmick been widely available. It's not 'essential'. Why do you think it is???
Joined: Nov 25, 2006 Posts: 1443 Location: Columbia, South Carolina
Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 8:57 pm Post subject: Re: The awesome excitement of total collapse
JPL, I feel your pain & your disgust w/ many aspects of modern human behavior & culture but I think you're throwing the baby out w/ the bathwater if you think everything was hunky dory before. Look at the way humans treated each other during the middle ages, even after the "renaissance". We've come a long way. Now one of the main things people bitch about is that our society is too "P.C.".
Granted people are working in sweatshops, medicating themselves (drink, drugs, food, TV, Internet, whatever) to attempt to deal w/ their isolation & disappointment but I don't think the answer is in the past. If it was we wouldn't have created this. We can recreate things w/ the wisdom we have now as well as some of the wisdom we've lost along the way. _________________ My PO Amazon store (shameless plug).
Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 1:17 am Post subject: Re: The awesome excitement of total collapse
threadbear wrote:
A confession:
Three nights ago, my husband and I lit a fire in the fireplace in the bedroom, turned out all the lights, slowly took our clothes off and slid under the covers. Then we turned the dial on the radio to Coast to Coast with Ian Punnett, and giggled like schoolchildren, as economists rattled off their predictions for 2008. It was awful, yet strangely exciting.
I should be sad, freaked out, worried for people, including myself, and how do I feel-- Like I've just taken a bracing cold shower, exhilerated....alive!
How sick in the head am I?
This is extremely disturbing. Treating a period of potentially great hardship as something "exciting" only works when the bad consequences doesn't happen to you. Imagine having to cram your entire family into a tiny room of bunk beds because that's all you can afford. Imagine, for a moment, having to choose between buying food for your kids or having heat on during the dead of winter. Think about what it would feel like to see your parents succumb to illness due to the lack of medical care, and not have the means to do anything about it? How about having to sell yourself(or perhaps your daughter?) off as escorts to make money so that your husband could have medicine? Not quite so exciting is it?
The truly disturbing thing is that the hard choices I mentioned is actually being forced upon more and more people, all of them living within a 10 mile radius of my home.
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