I think this is the beginnings of an economy based on perpetual growth and fossil fuel energy running headlong into geological energy constraints. Basically I see an undulatory downward path for the rest of my life. From here out, I think any rallies in our economic condition are going to be met with spiking commodity prices that knock us right back down.
Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 6535 Location: Rural Virginia
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 8:32 pm Post subject: Why Are We So Obsessed with the Future?
One way or another, many of us spend huge gobs of our time and energies on the future. Thinking about, talking about, and often actively planning for, Collapse in all its kaleidoscopic potential manifestations.
The future. What is it, really? Can you touch it . . . ever? Can you draw a single breath in it?
Will it ever get here?
Or is it an evil Pied Piper, ever coaxing us away from the chance to live fully now? _________________ "Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog
"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother
Joined: May 13, 2005 Posts: 3028 Location: The Urban Village
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 8:57 pm Post subject: Re: Why Are We So Obsessed with the Future?
psycho-temporal balance --> remember and learn from the past but don't live in it, cherish and enjoy the present but don't be consumed by it, be hopeful and respectful of the future but don't obsessively fret about it.
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 9:10 pm Post subject: Re: Why Are We So Obsessed with the Future?
Heineken wrote:
Or is it an evil Pied Piper, ever coaxing us away from the chance to live fully now?
Perhaps it puts the events of the present in context - and, so far as it makes us appreciate the here and now, it may be that our contemplation of the future causes us to live more fully today. _________________ Dieoff. Fun to watch. Better with hot buttered popcorn!
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 9:22 pm Post subject: Re: Why Are We So Obsessed with the Future?
If you know a bit about the future, you can plan. I like planning. We have all the oil we need for next winter, and have next year's wood drying. Even if TSHTF, we're good until the winter of 2010. It also allows us to be strategic. I know that the old saying, man plans and god laughs could be true, but I like having reasonable certainty that what I am planning could be a very good move. It's like finding a racing form from the future. Unfortunately, with the peak oil form most of the horses will die long before they get to the finish line, but at least we know which ones to bet on.
For example we installed a back up solar light system. It may come in very handy if Duncan turns out to be right. That was a longshot which can pay off handsomely if we are without power.
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 9:23 pm Post subject: Re: Why Are We So Obsessed with the Future?
Heineken wrote:
The future. What is it, really? Can you touch it . . . ever? Can you draw a single breath in it?
No kids, huh? I look the future full in the face every day. It gives me hugs, it tells me secrets. I hear it laughing, I hold it upside down and hear it laugh more. I watch it grow. I brought the future into the world. I would give my life to protect it.
I see the future at my kids' school. Hundreds of happy shining little faces of the future. I see the future when I plant a tree. A soft, fragile little green sprig of the future.
My job is to protect my little piece of the future from the rest of the future. I read this site everyday to know what I'm up against.
Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 6535 Location: Rural Virginia
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 9:48 pm Post subject: Re: Why Are We So Obsessed with the Future?
Some primitive societies we are destroying, or have destroyed, such as those of Micronesia, have no word for "future." Temporal concepts aren't part of their vocabulary, or their thinking. In many of these cultures, life was reputed to be idyllic, or at least idyllic compared with ours. _________________ "Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog
"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother
Joined: Dec 26, 2006 Posts: 286 Location: Eastern Washington
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 10:00 pm Post subject: Re: Why Are We So Obsessed with the Future?
Quote:
No kids, huh? I look the future full in the face every day. It gives me hugs, it tells me secrets. I hear it laughing, I hold it upside down and hear it laugh more. I watch it grow. I brought the future into the world. I would give my life to protect it.
I see the future at my kids' school. Hundreds of happy shining little faces of the future. I see the future when I plant a tree. A soft, fragile little green sprig of the future.
My job is to protect my little piece of the future from the rest of the future. I read this site everyday to know what I'm up against.
Some of us have made the choice not to have children. What the hell was your reason to procreate? Socrates spoke about the ego of mankind and the desire to live 'eternally' through his offspring. I thought it was a nice fluff for the basic human condition.
If you're truly worried about our global predicament please don't breed.
Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 6535 Location: Rural Virginia
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 10:06 pm Post subject: Re: Why Are We So Obsessed with the Future?
Although I love children, when I see them I no longer see the future. _________________ "Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog
"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 11:16 pm Post subject: Re: Why Are We So Obsessed with the Future?
Highly intelligent people are future-oriented and have a longer time-horizon.
Quote:
The only alternative to hunting for surviving the winter is food storage, which can be shown to be more common in cold climates. Successfully storing food calls for the ability to defer gratification, the ability to imagine winter conditions when times are warm, and simple quantitative skills to manage the accumulation and consumption of stores. Thus, the need for storage should select for intelligence (Miller 1991). Storage also leads to a settled lifestyle which leads to the use of more artifacts.
Source
Quote:
The psychologist Walter Mischel demonstrated this racial difference clearly in a 1961 study. He offered black and white children the choice between a small candy bar immediately or a larger candy bar a week hence. The black children were so much more likely than whites to ask for the smaller candy bar that Mischel deemed significance tests superfluous. He concluded, in the blunt language that his day still allowed, “Negroes are impulsive, indulge themselves, settle for next to nothing if they can get it right away, do not work or wait for bigger things in the future.”
Source
This all probably explains the dearth of Black people on this website, and the preponderance of Whites.
Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 2:01 am Post subject: Re: Why Are We So Obsessed with the Future?
Quote:
This all probably explains the dearth of Black people on this website, and the preponderance of Whites.
"Come over to the Dark Side, Luke!" Are you serious? Walter Mischel's findings are not credible, as the study was predicated on a high degree of trust between the subject and the researcher. Given that Walter Mischel was white, that trust was evidently not there. Blind Freddy could have worked that one out...Ever heard of a bird in the hand?
As for a dearth of blacks on this site, how the hell would you know?
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3873 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 2:12 am Post subject: Re: Why Are We So Obsessed with the Future?
Heineken wrote:
One way or another, many of us spend huge gobs of our time and energies on the future. Thinking about, talking about, and often actively planning for, Collapse in all its kaleidoscopic potential manifestations.
The future. What is it, really? Can you touch it . . . ever? Can you draw a single breath in it?
Will it ever get here?
Or is it an evil Pied Piper, ever coaxing us away from the chance to live fully now?
Psychologically people live in one of three times, past, present or future. Almost all the time you spend thinking is about either the past (gosh that was fun....can't beleive I did that....) or the future (she's hot, hope she is a fun date.....when this stock sells I am going to be rich....) because we find those kind of thought interesting. People who live in the present tend to be people whose lives are at risk if they let their minds wander and their attention drift, police/firefighters/military/Air Traffic Controllers etcettera. Focusing on the here and now this instant present, well thats boring isn't it? _________________ Always appeal to a man's enlightened self interest, you can trust him to look out for himself honestly, It's when you appeal to his Honor or the Common Good that he stops paying attention.
Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 3:03 am Post subject: Re: Why Are We So Obsessed with the Future?
Rogozhin wrote:
Quote:
No kids, huh? I look the future full in the face every day. It gives me hugs, it tells me secrets. I hear it laughing, I hold it upside down and hear it laugh more. I watch it grow. I brought the future into the world. I would give my life to protect it.
I see the future at my kids' school. Hundreds of happy shining little faces of the future. I see the future when I plant a tree. A soft, fragile little green sprig of the future.
My job is to protect my little piece of the future from the rest of the future. I read this site everyday to know what I'm up against.
Some of us have made the choice not to have children. What the hell was your reason to procreate? Socrates spoke about the ego of mankind and the desire to live 'eternally' through his offspring. I thought it was a nice fluff for the basic human condition.
If you're truly worried about our global predicament please don't breed.
Rogo
Of course the childless condemning those of us with children is kindof like a celibate giving sex advice.
Save the planet by not breeding? Sounds like you want a pristine earth with no human inhabitants (if we were all as righteous as you and had no children). That is just the same sort of stupid fundamentalism that leads others to blow up themselves up while taking out as many others as possible. They got their dream of a perfect caliphate, you got a dream of an earth without we ugly primates, both are self righteous both condemn those who disagree.
You can have your self-righteousness, I'll keep my kids and maybe even have a few more to boot. _________________ “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”
Joined: Dec 06, 2005 Posts: 872 Location: Stopped at the border.
Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 3:14 am Post subject: Re: Why Are We So Obsessed with the Future?
I was thinking about this very question the other day. I know that I spend way too much time thinking about doom than I ought. I manage to angle it into so many of my private thoughts and public utterances. Aside from the dysfunctional family stuff, which does have a big impact along the lines of not trusting others (no, I wasn't abused) I have to say the Cold War had the biggest impact on me. I was born at the wrong time. I matured in the malaise that came post 'duck and cover' and before the Ronnie Raygun boom. I was deeply impressed by all of the edge of doom rhetoric that flourished when I was a kid.
From the start I believed that the 90's market was doomed to crash and thus missed out on the greatest bull market in history. There wasn't a lot of 'can do' going on either around me or in the culture. As a consequence neither 'busting ass' nor hope are very deeply imbedded in me.
It is funny about hope because deep down I do believe that, inspite of the quite reasonable doom, we will solve this. No, I don't know how. Neither do I believe that the whole world will succeed in getting there. Maybe I am just looking for proof that if you do well and are good you will receive your just reward. Certainly not much about life has proven that to me so far. _________________ "Hope encourages men to take risks; men in a strong position may follow her without ruin, if not without loss. But when they stake all that they have to the last coin (for she is a spendthrift), she reveals her real self in the hour of failure."
Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 3:34 am Post subject: Re: Why Are We So Obsessed with the Future?
wisconsin_cur wrote:
Save the planet by not breeding? Sounds like you want a pristine earth with no human inhabitants (if we were all as righteous as you and had no children). That is just the same sort of stupid fundamentalism that leads others to blow up themselves up while taking out as many others as possible. They got their dream of a perfect caliphate, you got a dream of an earth without we ugly primates, both are self righteous both condemn those who disagree.
You can have your self-righteousness, I'll keep my kids and maybe even have a few more to boot.
I still don't know how a peak-oil believer could have children. You would have to be insane.
It's like, if your house was about to collapse, would you invite some guests into your house??
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