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 16, 2008 1:12 am Post subject: Re: To educate sheeple or not educate sheeple...
Here we are in the 21st century. We have all this amazing technology and access to virtually every piece of information. Just name any topic and in less then an hour I can dig up thousands of pages of information on the internet. Texts, charts, photos, videos, etc.
10 years ago I would have never imagined that I will be able to find massive websites and forums, on a small hobby of mine: Exploring abandoned railroads.
And with all this kind of information at our fingertips here we are debating and expressing oppinions on how to share this information to our fellow people. THIS IS the root of our problems and this WILL BE what will bring us to an end. SHEEPLE. Not oil depletion, not global warming or something else, but the very large masses of sheeple that inhabit the planet, and refuse to accept a basic idea: We can't do whatever we want and live in an irresponsable way, and aswer any issue with "THEY will think of something". The "THEY" people are us. And guess what? We are busy doing *other* things then saving them and finding a solution to maintain a totally reckless lifestyle.
When I first learned about PeakOil, I came to this website. I hadn't expressed any oppinion that is true or not. I just did my homework.
Just like with every issue that shows up in my life. I dig up information, go through it, and try and draw a conclusion.
In the past weeks I used a pretty strong argument when presenting PeakOil to someone:
"Why would BIG companies like Exxon, Chevron, etc ... spend huge amounts of money to insert advertisements in major media, about the environment, conserving energy, etc? Why not just advertise their products?" _________________ capitalism *is* fun | crude oil price
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 2:27 pm Post subject: Re: To educate sheeple or not educate sheeple...
VMarcHart wrote:
natts wrote:
allenwrench wrote:
I am very grateful for someone telling me about PO... How do you feel about educating the sheeple?
I feel the same way, I'm glad someone told me about PO and I wish I could tell everyoneI know about it.
Evidently the 3 of us are thankful for some third party education. I guess that answers the initial question of this thread. Do educate!
Although its frustrating out there IRL to educate the Sheeple, just what exactly is this board about anyhow? Its an education forum for Sheeple.
I guess once you join such a board as this and actively participate, you graduate from being one of the Sheeple to being one of the Enlightened. So as the board membership grows, you successfully transform more Sheeple into the Enlightened
Alhough my IRL friends know that I am convinced LAWKI is coming to an end, mostly they tolerate this as one of my idiosyncracies. They prefer not to dwell on the possibilities of DOOM. Does this mean I should write them off when TSHTF?
At some point here reality will come and hit my friends over the head with a sledghammer. Although when that time comes I am sure to say "I told you so", I will TRY not to say that in too deprecating a fashion
Meanwhile, if you are the only person in your family or group of loved ones who is one of the Enlightened, remember as you make your preparations its not just you who you are trying to save here, its THEM also. Would you really want to survive alone in some cabin in the wilderness while all your friends and family get sucked down the toilet of Peak Oil?
A Doom Movie, "The Day After Tomorrow" had as its Tag Line, "Save as Many as You Can". You CANNOT save them all. In a Tsunami, a mother holds two children in her grasp, but in doing so she cannot swim and they all will drown. She has to let one of them go, a choice has to be made and its none too easy to make. However, I think each person tries to save at least one other person if possible, because otherwise you are left alone, and human beings don't reproduce if they are alone.
There is an economic and cultural Tsunami coming here, I think everyone on this board sees that, although there are differences in opinion on how it plays out. Regardless of the precise nature of how you think it spins down, if you care about others you will try to educate them until it is no longer possible for you to do that, and that only comes when you yourself have drowned. Prepare to save yourself first, but prepare also to try to save others when TSHTF. Save as many as you can.
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 5:38 pm Post subject: Re: To educate sheeple or not educate sheeple...
Well I wouldn't go as far as calling ourselves the enlightened. I've been looking at peak oil for a good few years now, but there are still so many unknowns. Hard crash, plateau, slippery slope you call it. Better informed than most would be a more fitting description than enlightened.
Should we try to pass that we know on to others? - I think so. If someone did not write an obscure post about someone called Hubbert I would not have caught on.
But not at all costs. Talking about peakoil has a tendency of making someone impopular. You might be considered just a bit too radical by your boss to make that promotion. It might upsets some of your friends or family, and erode their willingness to help you.
Whatever is going to happen; unless someone comes up with a cold fusion reactor which runs on cough syrup, there's hard times coming. Being in social isolation will not help you.
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 1:43 am Post subject: Re: To educate sheeple or not educate sheeple...
But have you considered what happens once you save them?
Let's assume the doomeristic scenario.
The sh*t hits the fan, the world goes down the toilet and you save your entire bunch of friends.
What will they do?
Will they become aware, and try to build up a small community, or they will just burn through your supplies, extending their lifestyle a bit, at your expense?
When I try to educate people, I use a very soft approach. I usually tell them that energy is an issue, and it will be a bigger issue, and our current way of life won't be easy to maintain. This won't work aswell.
I suggest you *save* people with whom you have been through hardship and can be counted on. Regardless if they are PO aware or not.
When I was in the 9th grade, we went camping with the entire class in the mountains. We were 10 miles in the middle of nowhere on a mountain top. It was all great until the girls decided to use the soap to wash their hands in the only water spring available on that 10 mile radius. We ran out of water, it was 6 PM in the evening, and the weather was very warm. We had about a half a gallon of clean water.
It was a real nice real life experience of what happens and who's who in an extreme situation.
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 3:33 am Post subject: Re: To educate sheeple or not educate sheeple...
mrobert wrote:
But have you considered what happens once you save them? Let's assume the doomeristic scenario. The sh*t hits the fan, the world goes down the toilet and you save your entire bunch of friends.
What will they do? Will they become aware, and try to build up a small community, or they will just burn through your supplies, extending their lifestyle a bit, at your expense?
Well, the reason I chose to move to where I did was in large part to put myself in the right type of community where people do have some clue about survival, even without being convinced about Peak Oil and the Doom Scenarios we discuss here.
I live about as far out on the periphery of human civilization as you can GET and still have an internet connection People here all hunt and fish, everybody owns a gun, and there are not that many of us, relatively speaking of course. In terms of population density, in about 100,000 square miles there are only about 60,000 people living.
The community is already HERE. It already EXISTS. These folks just don't want to believe LAWKI is coming to an end, and they won't believe it until they get hit over the head by a sledgehammer. Which will at some point happen, I just can' t predict exactly WHEN it will happen. 2 years ago I thought by now we would already be in the deep doo-doo, but those plucky guys at the Fed and the US Treasury seem to come up with ever more creative ways all the time to put off the inevitable
I have over a year's worth of food, most of my friends think this is ridiculous but most of them also have freezers full after hunting and fishing season is done. I expect to share what I have in an effort to help as many as I can; I also expect they will be helping me as well. NONE of us here will survive if we don't come together.
There are not so many in this area that we cannot make the land provide to a reasonable extent. I do not know if its enough to support all 60,000, but if need be I am prepared to call it a day in the effort to save some of the children in my community, if that is what it takes. I live a good life, I do the kind of work I love doing and its the people I work with and the children I serve that makes such a life rewarding, not the money. I live on very little, I have my whole life. I in fact spend more these days than I ever did just because I think the currency is going to be worthless and I spend it down to buy things I think will help in an economy where money doesn't buy what you need.
Some folks here are trying to build artificial survival communities separate from the actual community they live in. Maybe they will succeed, I wish them luck in the endeavor, but its not my paradigm. I chose a community already extant that has what I perceive are the necessary ingredients for a wholistic form of survival. Lots of land and a low population. Good Natural Resources. Abundant Hunting and Fishing. Whether the people will pull together or fall apart when TSHTF is an open question, but I won't go down without a fight for my commmunity, that is for sure. I will need the help of my friends to make it work, they haven't really thought about it all that much but I have, and when the time comes that will be a big factor in making it work.
I know I cannot save them all. I may myself be one of the first to go. I will however do my best to educate them and help them before that happens. Its how I lived my life to this point, and I see no reason I should quit just because Big Oil came to rule the world and sucked the life out of people in the process.
Reverse Engineer
Joined: May 26, 2008 Posts: 1190 Location: Chicago, IL
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 6:37 am Post subject: Re: To educate sheeple or not educate sheeple...
smiley wrote:
Well I wouldn't go as far as calling ourselves the enlightened. I've been looking at peak oil for a good few years now, but there are still so many unknowns. Hard crash, plateau, slippery slope you call it. Better informed than most would be a more fitting description than enlightened.
With all those and a million other unknowns, and with the questionable source of information, I wouldn't call us better informed than most, but rather just more engaged than others.
Joined: May 26, 2008 Posts: 1190 Location: Chicago, IL
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 6:47 am Post subject: Re: To educate sheeple or not educate sheeple...
mrobert wrote:
But have you considered what happens once you save them?
As rewarding as it is to participate positively in someone else's life, are you expecting someone will built a statue for you as the savior?
mrobert wrote:
When I was in the 9th grade, we went camping with the entire class in the mountains. We were 10 miles in the middle of nowhere on a mountain top. It was all great until the girls decided to use the soap to wash their hands in the only water spring available on that 10 mile radius. We ran out of water, it was 6 PM in the evening, and the weather was very warm. We had about a half a gallon of clean water. It was a real nice real life experience of what happens and who's who in an extreme situation.
Sorry, hardly a life and death situation. First, it was not the girls' fault, it was the adults' responsibility to ensure the kids don't run out of water. Second, you knew there was water just 2-3 hours down the hill. You never went to bed thirsty? I do everynight so I don't have to wake up to go to the bathroom. Sorry, very poor example of things going bad, and what does it have to do with educating others?
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 9:18 am Post subject: Re: To educate sheeple or not educate sheeple...
@VMarcHart: I don't expect anyone to build me a statue. That's not the point. Are you absolutely sure you want everyone to know that you are prepared? What is your guarantee that once TSHTF they won't just kill you and burn your gas supply in their SUV, eat up your food and move on to the next fool?
And offcourse, being at over 10 miles from any form of civilization when the night falls, with no water, is actually a FUN situation. Those 10 miles were at least 6 hours of hiking for any well trained person, to a mountain plateau on which we were. There was no 911 to dial, and I could blow a nuke there and nobody would notice that. It was in the middle of wilderness ... as wild as it gets and as remote as it gets. It wasn't an artificial forest near a resort. It was a secular forest, with bears, wolfs and snakes being something common. There were no adults ... just us, a bunch of teenagers. Water was EXACTLY 10 miles downhill in the village from where we started. Well ... ironically there was water at 2-3 hours downhill ... except that there a little obstacle, called a huge rock wall .
Observe this tiny image could google up: link We were on the plateau on the left side.
I haven't elaborated the entire situation we went through. Merely I was trying to point out the fact, that when TSHTF the people you once thought they were nice ... well ... they are not.
A good example of people worth saving, is the community where ReverseEngineer lives. I bet those people are not insurance agents driving Hummers. They will just continue their lives without the daily newspaper and afternoon ice cream _________________ capitalism *is* fun | crude oil price
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 1:40 pm Post subject: Re: To educate sheeple or not educate sheeple...
mrobert wrote:
A good example of people worth saving, is the community where ReverseEngineer lives. I bet those people are not insurance agents driving Hummers. They will just continue their lives without the daily newspaper and afternoon ice cream
I'd say we probably have fewer insurance agents per capita than most places, but this is not to say there isn't quite a bit of wastefulness in the community.
For one thing, really BIG SUVs are very popular around here, although you hear people complain about the price of gas they still are on the road driving them. Also lots of folks tooling around in 4-wheelers, which actually are the better choice for getting around economically, but once the gas station isn't being stocked, these toys are just more wasted plastic and metal.
Another huge waste is the fantastic amount of Vacation Homes built around here, now all with For Sale signs on them. These are mostly places built by the "I thought I was Rich" Insurance Agents and Stock Brokers on mortgages of their bright futures, now they are trying to divest themselves of the properties but nobody is buying and nobody can get new mortgages. Most of them are too big to heat effectively unless you moved maybe 20 people into one of them, which may at some point happen, but it won't be the people that took out mortgages to build the places, they don't actually live around here. The For Sale signs have now been up for so many months that they are starting to be exchanged for Auction Announcements.
Anyhow, of those who live here all the time, for the most part they live the typical life of a modern Amerikan, they have their Big Screen TVs and the kids play on the Nintendo. Although they Hunt and Fish, its for sport more than susbsitence mostly, between the fuel used in the SUV and the cost of having the meat processed generally speaking you do as well buying the meat off the supermarket shelves these days. That will change though, the hunting will have to be done mostly on foot and the cost of processing the meat will be borne by Barter. There are a couple of good meat processing plants here that handle all the game, they do it more efficiently than an individual can and this little industry probably survives. So the hunter gives up a portion of his kill to the workers who process the meat, that is a typical work distribution in a tribal community.
At some point the TVs and the Nintendos will stop working, along with the Internet. They will be missed for a while, but the time they occupied in the lives of the children will be replaced by learning how to hunt and fish for survival, they will be out in the woods driving the game toward the hunters. Some will be lost to bears, so it goes. We aren't the only predators out there looking for food. The children will pull out the game, and so will the dogs. Dogsledding is still very popular around here of course as well, and the real sports legends are Susan Butcher and Martin Buser. If you haven't figured out where this is, you are pretty clueless, its the start point of the Iditarod.
To educate sheeple or not educate sheeple...that is the question? I am very grateful for someone telling me about PO, so I just return the favor and putting a few stickers on my car cost me almost nothing in money and no time to educate others. How do you feel about educating the sheeple?
I feel the same way, I'm glad someone told me about PO and I wish I could tell everyoneI know about it. But it has been REALLY HARD!! I feel awful, the only 1 that backs me up is my bf. and we have been telling our parents, brothers, sisters, friends about PO and sadly no one takes us serious. Some just say "everything is going to be okay" or "don't be so dramatic" (which really gets me mad) and the worse: No response, some just ignore us. yeah, sure, so did you see that tv show last night?
So I'm starting to feel like, even if I love this people, I'll just let them go to hell!! and probably end up going with them, cause I feel there's not much left 2 do.
_________________ "I'm 100% sure that unsustainable conspicuous consumption of natural basic resources will eventually lead to a proverbial hell on earth for those people who get stuck with the mismanagement mess of mankind not being stewards of the environment!"
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 8:35 pm Post subject: Re: To educate sheeple or not educate sheeple...
Besides the willful ignorance of Sheeple who do not want to believe LAWKI is coming to an end, there is another reason Peak Oilers have a tough time being beoieved by the Hoi Polloi. This is because Doomsday Prediction is an Inexact Science, and nobody does a real good job predicting EXACTLY when TSHTF.
Lets say you were a real prescient Peak Oiler, and 5 years ago you figured out the housing market was gonna crash. If you toldd your buddies to get out of the housing market or you yourself got out, you were an idiot and missed out on 4 years of profit taking.
Around the time Bear Stearns collapsed, I was about certain the Stock Market itself would be right behind it. This was my most Manic Phase in the last 4 years, I warned friends to be prepared for Marshall Law. No Stock Market Crash, no Marshall Law, my believability quotient after that was reduced significantly. LOL.
I still think I'm right about most things in the long term here, but actually putting your finger on "The Day the Music Died" is pretty hard to do, and certainly I have yet to read a realy accurate prediction here on the board as of yet. Lotta speculation, lot of analysis of fundamentals but the whole house of cards is so complicated predicting Zero Hour is about impossible.
Anyhow, I have mellowed some in predicting Immediate Doomsday. Every time I think its gone far enough that the system has to implode violently, somehow Ben and Henry magically whip up some new credit sheme to redistribute the risk up another level. Obviously this can;t go on forever, but since I can't pin down the exact Day and Time it will happen, its best to keep my mouth shut about this part of it
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 2:13 am Post subject: Re: To educate sheeple or not educate sheeple...
Totally agree with Reverse Engineer credibility becomes a problem if we try to be prescient. I know lawki is coming to an end, exactly when and how is pure speculation.
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:39 am Post subject: Re: To educate sheeple or not educate sheeple...
Credibility becomes a problem when someone doesn't know what martial law is and calls it Marshall law. _________________ A man should never wear a hat that has more character than he does.
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