[deMolay]

A true story of 3 teenagers who just survived 50 days adrift in a small open boat in the Pacific. With only a few coconuts, one sea bird and water caught on a tarp. Amazing. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11836284

[sparky]

.
The classic
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aron_Ralston"


...How bad do you want to make it ?

In the death camp , those who lost the will to live would simply collapse in a matter of days

[mos6507]

I think the tactics that are used for surviving a short-term crisis like being stuck on a lifeboat or in the woods are kind of apples and oranges vs. surviving the long descent. The reason is that if you're stuck in the woods or whatever, you KNOW that civilization is out there. You just have to survive long enough to get back to BAU. With doom, BAU is going away. Certainly amidst the long descent people will deal with short-term crises, the power going out, periodic shortages, natural disasters due to climate change, but the larger picture is one of the world as you know it going away chunk by chunk for the rest of your life. There's nothing really to hope for anymore other than to muddle through the protracted bottleneck. That's much harder to cope with psychologically. It's a continual process of grieving.

[vtsnowedin]

"A continual process of grieving" will lead some to an early grave. Those that stop crying over what was and is no more will suck it up and start tackling the problems of finding alternatives to cheap liquid fuel you pump out of the ground. Time wasted grieving and crying is just that ,"time wasted." Time will be in short supply because you will no longer have all those "time saving gadgets" that our oil based economy have given us.

[Ludi]

"A continual process of grieving" will lead some to an early grave. Those that stop crying over what was and is no more will suck it up and start tackling the problems of finding alternatives to cheap liquid fuel you pump out of the ground. Time wasted grieving and crying is just that ,"time wasted."

Yeah, I don't see anything useful or helpful about getting stuck in grief. I guess the more you have the more you will miss it, so maybe people higher up the economic ladder have more to cry about. Not sure. All I know is, if I were as doomy as some folks here, I would have killed myself by now. I can't afford to dwell on the unpleasant beyond a certain point. I don't see any benefit in it, however "realistic" it might be. If that means I exist in a happy dreamworld of pink unicorns, that's fine. At least it helps me get up in the morning to go dig rocks out of the garden.

[pup55]

Someone taught these kids some basic survival skills.....

What three fatass American 14 year olds would you set loose in a boat for 50 days, without a play station, without the internet, and expect to make it. They would have started to whine after the first 45 minutes....

I think I told you a few years ago I coached 12-13 year old soccer.... coed... we had a couple of girls and mostly boys. About half the team could literally not do two laps of the field without vomiting......

[vtsnowedin]

I think the tactics that are used for surviving a short-term crisis like being stuck on a lifeboat or in the woods are kind of apples and oranges vs. surviving the long descent. The reason is that if you're stuck in the woods or whatever, you KNOW that civilization is out there. You just have to survive long enough to get back to BAU. With doom, BAU is going away. ...
...
.

That is a very good point MOS. Even the navy Seals expect the helicopters to pick them up at the end of the mission.
Post cliff I think that the goal people will try to reach will be the next spring.
If you never see a glimmer of better times ahead you will get discouraged but let the snow go off and the fiddle heads pop up etc. and you can start over and vow to do better then last year.

[sparky]

.
Mos , the trick is to decrease one expectation of " back home "
no need for civilization , the village will do just fine .
It's the strongest unit of survival ,often based on the family and friends , the only people who really care if you live or die as an individual
"The reason is that if you're stuck in the woods or whatever, you KNOW that civilization is out there. You just have to survive long enough to get back to BAU "
P.S.
I'm not too sharp sometimes , what is BAU ?

[Tanada]

.
Mos , the trick is to decrease one expectation of " back home "
no need for civilization , the village will do just fine .
It's the strongest unit of survival ,often based on the family and friends , the only people who really care if you live or die as an individual
"The reason is that if you're stuck in the woods or whatever, you KNOW that civilization is out there. You just have to survive long enough to get back to BAU "
P.S.
I'm not too sharp sometimes , what is BAU ?

BAU= Business As Usual!

I agree with what you posted sparky, civilization is mostly in our own heads anyhow, if we focus on the smaller scale and look towards 'getting home' we have a better chance of staying motivated.

Have any of you read Lone Survivor? It is the story of a US Navy Seal who was severely wounded, surrounded and captured, who none the less survived. People can live through amazing levels of trauma and stay sane, and as long as you have your wits about you the next challenge is able to be worked upon. In the long run death will take us all, but there is little reason to stop evading him if you keep your wits.

[diemos]

In the long run death will take us all, but there is little reason to stop evading him if you keep your wits.

This topic reminded me of an analysis of the science fiction novel, "The Mote in God's Eye" that I had read. Excerpt below: http://home.tiac.net/~cri/2006/mote.html

What we have is a philosophical concept personified and converted into an archetype. What makes Crazy Eddie even more fascinating is that it is an alien archetype. For those who haven't read the book, some quote:

"When a city has grown so overlarge and crowded that it is in immediate danger of collapse ... when food and clean water flow into the city at a rate just sufficient to feed every mouth, and every hand must work constantly to keep it that way ... when all transportation is involved in moving vital supplies, and none is left over to move people out of the city should the need arise ... then it is that Crazy Eddie leads the movers of garbage out on strike for better working conditions."

"It was not part of his nature to wish for what could not be, but he hoped that the efforts to breed a more stable Mediator would succeed; it was difficult to work with creatures who might suddenly see an unreal universe and make judgements based on it. The pattern was always the same. First they wished for the impossible. Then they worked toward it, still knowing it to be impossible. Finally they acted as if the impossible could be achieved, and let that unreality influence every act."

The Moties' problem is one of the great problems of life - there are situations that are fundamentally unacceptable and fundamentally unavoidable, and what do you do about it. In the long run death provides a solution to the problems of life, but "final solution" is of no value to the living. For a species, for life itself, there is another long term solution - wait and endure, for all sets of conditions are transient, no situation really lasts forever. For life as a whole this is valid wisdom, and living beings have it built into their very biochemistry - live and endure, regardless.

While it is true that life is a series of frustrations, and it is true that death always comes at the end, it is also true that there are acceptable and unacceptable situations. One of the favorite experiment of experimental psychologists, for a while, was to put animals in unacceptable situations for a while and see what happened. A typical sort of thing was a situation in which the animal could only get food by exposing itself to an electric shock. The usual result was various sorts of insanity and neurosis.

One possible type of reaction to this sort of situation is withdrawal. For some types of life and in some situations that can be a sane reaction - tuck yourself in and hide yourself away until the bad things go away. In many situation it is and obvious mistake and therefore not sane, but that doesn't matter to life. All life demands is that you do something - if the sane answers don't work, try the insane ones, for you must do something, even if it is no more than hibernating.

Another answer, presumably the "sane" one, is fatalism. The food is there; you need it. The shock is there; it is unavoidable. Therefore go get the food and ignore the shock as best you can. The trouble with this reaction is that it is enormously difficult for very good reasons. Pain signals and avoidance syndromes are built into life for very good reasons. Electric shocks are bad for you; open wounds are bad for you; starvation is bad for you. It is good to avoid things that are bad for you. For you these bad things may be unavoidable; nevertheless life demands that you attempt to avoid them or suffer. Fatalism is never totally possible - it is something that life does not allow to the limit. To life as a whole, all problems do have answers, and all problems can be solved or avoided. That doesn't help you - your problems may be insoluble. But, as a living being, you must play by the rules of life, even if they demand the impossible.

The usual answer is an erratic neurosis. One puts off going for the food for as long as possible, and then makes a mad dash for it. This doesn't work. One invents ways of pretending that the shock won't be there. This doesn't work. One tries to find ways to adapt to the shock so that it is endurable. This doesn't work. If the animal has any intelligence it invents "magical" ways to control the appearance of the shock. These don't work. Nothing works.

Nonetheless it has to keep trying, and it does keep trying to avoid the shocks, even though nothing works. In the meantime it's behavior pattern becomes neurotic, even outside the area having to do with getting food. This is not unreasonable; neurotic behavior tends to spread from one area of life to all areas of life.

The Moties are in just such a box. They must breed. They must overbreed until overpopulation destroys their civilization and brings about another collapse. And there is no way out. The result is a necessary cultural and biological fatalism that is never quite totally accepted. Crazy Eddie always tries to find a way out of the trap and he never succeeds. Never.

To the Moties we are all Crazy Eddies. We insist that problems do all have solutions. Actually we also have the same problem. As intelligent beings we know that we are going to die some day. As living beings, this is unacceptable - death is never a totally acceptable solution to the problems of life, no matter how unavoidable. Religion is one of our Crazy Eddie solutions to this problem.

But for the rest, we feel that problems have solutions. This is not a universal belief, to be sure. There is a good deal of fatalism in the world, and probably always will be. Towards the end of the book, the Moties quote and old story from Herodotus:

"Once there was a thief who was to be executed. As he was taken away he made a bargain with the king: In one year he would teach the king's favorite horse to sing hymns."

"The other prisoners watched the thief singing to the horse and laughed. 'You will not succeed,' they told him. 'No one can.' To which the thief replied, 'I have a year, and who knows what will happen in that time. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die. And perhaps the horse will learn to sing.'"

[sparky]

didn't red the Lone Survivor ,
I would agree that surviving often is by focusing on getting out or hanging in

a stubborn streak does help

Sometime people wonder if the today's young ones are capable of such fortitude
probably .. yes , most would eventually come good , necessity is a tough teacher

[mos6507]

This topic reminded me of an analysis of the science fiction novel, "The Mote in God's Eye" that I had read. Excerpt below: http://home.tiac.net/~cri/2006/mote.html

That's great stuff. One of the best contributions to this site in a long long time. Thanks.

[Ibon]

I think the tactics that are used for surviving a short-term crisis like being stuck on a lifeboat or in the woods are kind of apples and oranges vs. surviving the long descent. The reason is that if you're stuck in the woods or whatever, you KNOW that civilization is out there. You just have to survive long enough to get back to BAU. With doom, BAU is going away. Certainly amidst the long descent people will deal with short-term crises, the power going out, periodic shortages, natural disasters due to climate change, but the larger picture is one of the world as you know it going away chunk by chunk for the rest of your life. There's nothing really to hope for anymore other than to muddle through the protracted bottleneck. That's much harder to cope with psychologically. It's a continual process of grieving.

This is really a good point. ..Related to this is to beware of the group mind out there that affects us all. 6 years ago these peak oil pioneers where all into the doom meme. Today even joe six pack is talking about the house of cards about to fall. There is a powerful meme out there about being close to a tipping point. Even if most don't understand the complexity of resource depletione etc. I am increasingly hearing this topic coming up during small talk with strangers or at thanksgiving dinners with family.

So where does the group mind go once a destabilizing event confirms the doom meme? Once BAU is not the saviour we are trying to get back (the helicopter that will lift us from the lifeboat) but is recognized as hopelessly dead what then happens to the group mind?

I predict that is when we see the doomer sentiment and denial sentiment we see in society at large shift over to action. Reason to be optimistic. This is also the reason I secretely (or not so secretely )celebrate instability over resilience. WE need to break the status quo to break the group mind that collectively holds us back.

[mos6507]

I think once everybody's a doomer it could make matters worse.

There is already a cambrian explosion of alternative ideologies going on, and they aren't all wise and constructive. The Tea Party is just the opening wave of this. Just as you see different schools of thoughts in doomers, so shall it be with Joe Public if and when doom (not just financial doom) becomes mainstream. As BAU collapses everybody will factionalize into camps and it will be very unstable as each -ism will see the only path to appease the gods requiring everyone else to walk in time.

I mean, I already have this sense of an all-or-nothing attitude in myself. This is what radicalism is all about. I check those feelings so I don't go blowing up a dam ala Derrick Jensen, but that's pretty much where we are. Together we fall, but divided we fall INTO THE ABYSS . We're on a precipice in which the only commonality will be that only sweeping and radical change will help. And so we will witness an all out tug of war to go in this or that direction. The scramble. The chicken running with its head cut off.