[MonteQuest]

For those who are wondering where this flurry of new threads is coming from: these are reposts of threads I wrote as far back as 2004. They were lost in a forum upgrade.

MQ

[timmac]

So why don't you post new info instead of regurgitating old ones.

[Hoops_Mckann]

2004 is when i started reading as a guest and started to "look around". Back in 04', the S&P at levels seen last spring/fall were not imagined by the status quo, only by some of he realists that post (and used to post) here.

[MonteQuest]

So why don't you post new info instead of regurgitating old ones.

I have. And more new threads to come.

[Carlhole]

So why don't you post new info instead of regurgitating old ones.

I have. And more new threads to come.

You are not saying anything new. It's all the same stuff.

[mos6507]

You are not saying anything new. It's all the same stuff.

This is what I feel we've learned about collapse in the last 5 years:

1) Global warming is a lot worse than anyone's worst nightmares, and denial runs thicker than ever.
2) We now have seen demand destruction in action. The steady upward pressure on consumption will not be the straight line we originally thought.
3) Similar to 2), the oil market is influenced by commodity speculators and the health of the greater economy. The Oil Drum's simplistic supply/demand graphs just doesn't reflect this complexity. Simplistic doomsaying predictions (cough --- Matt Simmons) should be taken with a grain of salt.
4) Don't underestimate the surprising resilience of BAU. We have a long way to go still before zombie hordes, jackboot thugs and FEMA coffins, pandemic die-offs, etc... This may be Great Depression 2.0, but we still have our XBOX 360s, iPhones, Big Macs, and flat screen TVs. There may be a breaking point somewhere, but it's probably not going to be as quick and dramatic as people think, and if it is, it will be primarily due to dollar collapse, not peak oil, overshoot, global warming, etc...
5) We can have mainstream coverage of collapse issues (Collapse, Earth 2100, Incredible Journey of Crude, etc...) and still never hit critical mass on public awareness or governmental interest.
6) Don't completely rule out unexpected boons in the energy sector that could push back the day of reckoning a bit (shale gas, EESTOR, etc...)

[the48thronin]

You are not saying anything new. It's all the same stuff.

This is what I feel we've learned about collapse in the last 5 years:

1) Global warming is a lot worse than anyone's worst nightmares, and denial runs thicker than ever.
2) We now have seen demand destruction in action. The steady upward pressure on consumption will not be the straight line we originally thought.
3) Similar to 2), the oil market is influenced by commodity speculators and the health of the greater economy. The Oil Drum's simplistic supply/demand graphs just doesn't reflect this complexity. Simplistic doomsaying predictions (cough --- Matt Simmons) should be taken with a grain of salt.
4) Don't underestimate the surprising resilience of BAU. We have a long way to go still before zombie hordes, jackboot thugs and FEMA coffins, pandemic die-offs, etc... This may be Great Depression 2.0, but we still have our XBOX 360s, iPhones, Big Macs, and flat screen TVs. There may be a breaking point somewhere, but it's probably not going to be as quick and dramatic as people think, and if it is, it will be primarily due to dollar collapse, not peak oil, overshoot, global warming, etc...
5) We can have mainstream coverage of collapse issues (Collapse, Earth 2100, Incredible Journey of Crude, etc...) and still never hit critical mass on public awareness or governmental interest.
6) Don't completely rule out unexpected boons in the energy sector that could push back the day of reckoning a bit (shale gas, EESTOR, etc...)

You left out and coincidentally display in your post the most important thing we DID NOT learn..

When viewing reality through the lens of preconceived outcome, all facts irrelevant to that preconceived outcome are false indicators or unimportant... Self justification of our agendas still rules our impressions and responses...

[mos6507]

Self justification of our agendas still rules our impressions and responses...

Exactly. We are left with nothing but flawed educated guesses about the street-level-view of how collapse will play out to guide our future planning.

You name any high-profile prognosticator, and I'll highlight some bad Chicken Little style calls. Kunstler, Simmons, Orlov, all of them. All we really know with any confidence is the general trend downward. We can't really see every twist and turn. Last spring I was all but convinced the dollar would collapse. It's obviously still looming, but who the hell knows when that shoe is gonna drop? Chris Martenson can write 1,000 page essays and at the end of the day I don't think he really knows. What about the massive bodycount some people expected from swine-flu, either because it was supposed to be some kind of nefarious depopulation scheme by TPTB or our foolish hubris would not prevent Gaia from settling the score of overshoot? It's getting kind of late for the bodycount stats to really add up. What about Iran Cable Cut(TM)? The denial from the sheeple is only matched by the arrogance that some doomers have when it comes to reading tea leaves and jumping the gun on proclamations of TSHTF.

I was really well on my way to Roccman bunker style thinking on the runup of oil prices in 2008. Now, so much water is under the bridge that I think I have a much more moderate perspective on the near future (by doomer standards). This tendency we have to try to search for black swan events is a real trap. They will happen when they happen.

[rangerone314]

You left out and coincidentally display in your post the most important thing we DID NOT learn..

When viewing reality through the lens of preconceived outcome, all facts irrelevant to that preconceived outcome are false indicators or unimportant... Self justification of our agendas still rules our impressions and responses...

+1

Exactly, hence my old tagline: An ideology is by definition not a search for TRUTH-but a search for PROOF that its point of view is right.

An ideology is just a collection of agendas...

[Sixstrings]

It doesn't bother me, but some people get annoyed if one poster has too many threads that show up in the "last 24 hours" search.

One thing you may want to do is put these in like one a day.

[MonteQuest]

All we really know with any confidence is the general trend downward.

Yes. And all I have strived to do is help explain the parameters, laws, and ecological limits which must govern our decisions, as we face the downward slope of Hubbert's curve.

[MonteQuest]

It doesn't bother me, but some people get annoyed if one poster has too many threads that show up in the "last 24 hours" search.

One thing you may want to do is put these in like one a day.

That's why I posted this thread to explain.