Evolution of Doomerism

Pops · Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 1:58 pm Post subject: Re: Evolution of Doomerism

We’ve changed our lives completely, PO and the housing bubble in CA was the prompt but the urge had always been there. Sitting on the porch in Missouri a couple weeks ago looking at our little farm I felt fairly optimistic.

But being back in Central CA last week for a funeral was scary. The difference there in just 3 years is amazing. Trying to keep people from committing suicide at my expense on I-5 or going down a familiar little country road and finding miles of new tract houses and huge shopping centers plopped down for no apparent reason in the middle of the most productive cropland in the world was quite disconcerting.

I had become somewhat complacent, due I think, to our slightly less dependant new life.

After that trip I’ve had a relapse of the Dooms and will be working a little harder.
_________________
Make a plan and work it:

vfr · Tar Sands Joined: Dec 31, 2007 Posts: 95

Yea, very easy to be a doom and gloomer when you life is engrossed with such preparations.

When I first realized how PO would change the world I was depressed as hell. Then I adapted to it within a week or so and beagn work to change the spects of my life that could be changed.

Have come to accept PO and live my life pretty much as normal - but still work on preparedness almost every day in some fashion.

Sometimes we jump the gun with survival mania and do it in an unbalanced way.

The way I work my survival preparedness is to do the footwork, prepare, educate and hold it on the back burner unless needed. Until that need, I just live life the best I can.

Without that mindset one cannot be at peace with life, as we are always looking for doom and gloom every day...every hour...every minute. And some survivalists seem to be disappointed if the don't get disaster!

Take care,

V (Male)

Agnostic Freethinker
Practical Philosopher
Futurist
Urban Homesteader

Dan_Browne · Coal Joined: Feb 08, 2008 Posts: 16

My problem is the opposite.
I read the original article in Scientific American in 1997 and thought "yeah right, who cares 2030 is 30 years away".

So I basically had the concept in the back of my mind but I ignored it and bought myself an SUV.

It wasn't until 2003 and the gulf war that I started to wonder.
At that point I considered myself pretty smart because I knew about peak oil for six years already so I decided to do a bit of googling.

I found www.dieoff.com

I was floored and have been in an up and down denial acceptance despair cycle pretty much ever since.

It's difficult to get my brain to override the gut-wrenching fear I sometimes feel because I'm not yet convinced it's going to be a slow decline.

I think it *could* be a slow decline if we all do everything just right.
Since there are many differences of opinion, however, I doubt that we *will* do everything right and will require to be coerced.
Hell, I *KNOW* about peak oil and I won't give up my car unless I am forced.

The only consolation I have is that I have concluded after five years of solid googling that we're not facing a dieoff down to the olduvai gorge unless we fight a nuclear war.
And even if we do fight a nuclear war it's not the end of technical civilization unless they take out the few places that are sustainable also.

The most likely scenario I see is a relatively fast grinding 1930s style depression but with hyperinflation instead where the population of most of the first world is ground down to third world levels and stay there for at least a generation.
At the end of it if we haven't fought nuclear wars over it I think we climb back up out of the hole with a mass-transit oriented electricity based economy with only say 10% of the cars we have now. I suspect that we may see a decent sized drop in the population too during this period but I think it will be from poor health and alcohol, among other things, rather than a death by zombie hordes (though I don't rule that out entirely).

But personally I fear a nuclear war the most and I can't rationally assign it a zero probability either.

Cloud9 · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jul 26, 2006 Posts: 1043

Anything is possible but most things are not probable. Be mindful of the exits, but enjoy the party.

alokin · Intermediate Crude Joined: Aug 24, 2007 Posts: 799

I was always worried about climate change environmental issues etc. It was not until last year maybe September when I got aware of PO.
My reaction was far too much reading on hte internet, which still persists, which led yet to a neglecting of my garden.
I monitored the oil price every day etc.
It's a bit like sitting on a packed suitcase - and nothing happens.
Or nearly nothing.
As PO has so much influence on our live and decisions on job houses are different with PO we all want to look in the future. But we can't.

You can prepare, but only within your means and abilities. It makes no sense buying a big garden when you hate gardening, you're better off learning something practical.

The bad thing with PO is that I really spend too much time reading and reading

mos6507 · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 7:48 am Post subject: Re: Evolution of Doomerism

I was in Disneyland on Saturday and if anything will yank your life away from despair, it's seeing a theme park filled to the brim. The future is still the future. Sometimes you spend so much time waiting for the other shoe to drop that you don't take the time to appreciate what you still have.