Are you an optimist or a pessimist?

hope_full · Heavy Crude Joined: May 27, 2008 Posts: 225

This is a serious question. I consider myself to be quite the optimist in every way and yet I hear folks on these forums using the word "doomers" to describe themselves.

I'm not a doomer. In fact, I'm one of the most optimistic people I know, but as a student of history, the most optimistic bend I can put on this Peak Oil problem is that we'll have a soft landing.

I've done a lot of reading on the topic and I don't know how any well-read, independent thinker can think that we're not going to run out of oil - at some point in the not-so-terribly distant future.

So, am I the only starry-eyed optimist here? Generally speaking, do your friends tell you you're an optimist or a pessimist? Or maybe you're an optimist on everything *but* peak oil???

HF

vision-master

Both - at the same time.

kellan1776 · Coal Joined: May 16, 2008 Posts: 14

I am an optimist and believe in the resilancy of the planet and of human kind. However I also believe that history is cyclical, and as a result I hope not to find myself on the downward slope like many individuals have had to live through in the past 3k years.

dunewalker

Kingcoal

Will we survive? Yes. Will we have to change? Yes. Will change come easily? NO. Does that make me an optimist or doomer?

IMO, I'm an optimist because I think that we will survive. However, the realist in me understands that there will be a lot of strife. Things will get bad, very bad, before they turn around. For one, I don't see how we can maintain a population of 6.7 billion people when unemployment is the norm. The only way we can maintain this population level is with a vastly reduced standard of living. Eating a good meal everyday, staying warm and dry, will become the new standard of luxury. Employment will be a luxury also. Without the feedstock for our economy (oil), employment will become directly tied to the effort of providing necessities. I'm not say that everyone will be working in the fields producing grain, I'm just saying that your sales job at Penny's or your lawn care business or your managerial job at xyz widget company probably wont exist in the future. Shopping malls will be deserted as the consumer based economy evaporates. Consumerism will die as we know it, returning to what it once was; an activity reserved for the rich and powerful. The worldwide jobs program we currently have courtesy of cheap oil will die. There is no other outcome, IMO. Right now, millions around the world are put to work manufacturing stuff that we buy with borrowed money. That borrowed money is based on cheap oil. As oil skyrockets, that machine grinds to a halt, no matter how cheap the labor is - the raw material will simply be to expensive and precious to waste on anything else but providing necessities. The common Joe will probably be receiving government aid just to stay alive and that aid will come with a huge price in terms of personal freedom.

That's my optimistic assessment.
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"That's the problem with mercy, kid... It just ain't professional" - Fast Eddie, The Color of Money

grampybone · Tar Sands Joined: May 31, 2008 Posts: 82

Things that I have control over makes me optimistic in the outcome.

Things like peakoil, and the stupidity of alot of Americans, lead me to be pessimistic. We are doomed.

dinopello

I'm an optimist, but I'm not an idiot.

hope_full · Heavy Crude Joined: May 27, 2008 Posts: 225

I phrased my statement poorly. Let me try that again. I agree that running OUT of oil is not the biggest problem in our immediate future. but I believe that the ever-increasing cost of oil is going to wreak havoc with our "house of cards" American economy.

However, the primary question on this post is, do you - generally - consider yourself to be an optimist or a pessimist? Because this board seems like a curious place for an optimist (is the oil tank half full or half empty??), yet here I am, reading everything I can get my eyeballs on and trying to figure out how to prepare for whatever lies ahead. That doesn't sound like optimistic behavior!

HF

Aaron

The center cannot hold.

Things fall apart.
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"When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F Roberts.

Praise HawkMan

Ludi

I'm a happy doomer! Smile

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No original ideas are contained in this post.

taizy8 · Last edited by taizy8 on Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:53 pm; edited 1 time in total

I can be both.....

to be productive I need optimism and hope .... so I try to keep pessimism in control .....being aware and knowledgeable without freaking out too much.
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live simply so that others may simply live

mos6507

I think living with the knowledge of peakoil (or environmental collapse on top) is kind of like knowing you have cancer. There is always a chance you can beat it, but the odds are heavily stacked against you. Meanwhile, you have to make the most of the time you have left before the symptoms start to kick in. So a certain amount of active denial is necessary just to keep functioning.

AnIowan

Between Mos and Dinopello, that about sums it up for me.

I know things will happen, bad things, things I really have not want to imagine, but have to because I need those images to stay focused on what needs to happen.

However, I have a beautiful wife, two incredible daughters, and cannot get need to be the best husband/father I can for them. Part of that, is working on helping all of them understand what will be happening, and how we as a family can plan for it together.

My daughters will help with the gardens, with picking veggies, chores with animals. Wife and I will work together to build some movable chicken coops, fencing in various parts of our land, and keeping ourselves grounded.

I'm pessimistic as to where humans will eventually land, however, I'm optimistic (as one can be I guess) on how preps will make my family better over all.

We all die, but it's how we've lived that makes all the difference.

DoomWarrior

Golgo13 · Heavy Crude Joined: Dec 13, 2004 Posts: 217

I think that billions of people will have to pursue alternative options as costs of living become physically/economically impossible and the earth will return to a sustable carrying capacity for humans.

Is that optimistic or pessimistic?