[Rod_Cloutier]

Right now on Youtube Chris Martensen, John Michael Greer, Howard Kunster, Dimtry Orlov and a new fellow named Frank Morris are engaged in a very engaging discussing (live) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOTtA4kKaVA

(At the 10 minute break for intermission)

[AdamB]

Great whats? Arguably Martenson is the only one who even had a career worth mentioning, yet he fell for peak oil just the rest of these bloggers and collapse groupies.

[onlooker]

Cassandras, just checked the number of views 168. Not too many heeding what is approaching even on this site, maybe because
https://www.sott.net/article/345907-90- ... ive-future
90% of people don't want to know about a negative future
So are we here an exception to the rule?

[onlooker]

Yes onlooker, we are a miniscule exception. The rest would rather wallow in those other ginned up threats. Take your pick . . . dems, repubs, russians or terrorists. Anything but the truth.

Amen to that P

[asg70]

So are we here an exception to the rule?

Isn't that the main driver for believing in all sorts of bunk? The feeling of smug superiority?

I would get off that kick if I were you.

[onlooker]

So are we here an exception to the rule?

Isn't that the main driver for believing in all sorts of bunk? The feeling of smug superiority?

I would get off that kick if I were you.

Wish that was true Asg, really do

[Rod_Cloutier]

90% of people don't want to know about a negative future

That's a scary article. If everyone told the truth about everything, and if secrecy was more or less eliminated, our society would likely function much better.

There is so much secrecy, so many lies and half-truths out there that it makes it impossible to have a flawless model of what truth actually is.

I think without lies, secrecy, intentional campaigns to distort facts and so forth; then people would have been able to make better decisions and we wouldn't be in such a sad state of affairs as a species now.

If I knew the future, I would want to know it. To shower a loved one with gifts and your time when you know they are going to pass. Cherish a special heirloom before it is destroyed by the tornado. Empty my bucket list while I still have time as death approaches.

The list goes on and on, who does want truth? Truth=Love=God.

(I feel sad for the 90%)

[onlooker]

[(I feel sad for the 90%)

Yeah, Rod, ignorance is bliss until reality bites you in the behind

[sparky]

.
AdamB , mocking the failed predictions of peak oil is just fine ,
it doesn't change a thing about it's eventual inevitability
airplanes do not refute gravity

[onlooker]

I watched some of this discussion, nothing particularly new, but some lucid talk from these lucid thinkers is appreciated. Was struck by the observation that one can do everything possible to prepare but if you break down emotionally, it would all be for naught

[Ibon]

Was struck by the observation that one can do everything possible to prepare but if you break down emotionally, it would all be for naught

That is what all these great doomer prophets have in common, having to constantly check their mental health. Empathy is required to understand this so let's put ourselves in the shoes of a Greer, Heinrich, Martenson, or a Kunstler. They have made somewhat a profession of being "Nostradamus Sages" of whats coming our way. This requires them to diligently be on top of all the instabilities. Furthermore, all their groupies on social media or audiences when they give talks come up to them with this huge pent up need to express their own insights on the decline of industrial civilization. This is the soup they cook and simmer day in and day out.

The identify themselves and are identified by their followers as experts in the decline of civilization.

Those of you with empathy skills, put yourselves in their shoes day in and day out staying fixed on this genre of being prophets of the decline of civilization. Year in and year out.

I can't think of a worse set of parameters to be identified with.

I wish them all the best in their brave and brilliant insights. Very early on they could at least consider the possibility that they were ahead of the curve and able to give fair warning to those who would listen. You just simply can't keep up this idea that you are ahead of the curve when decades go by and no curves have come to vindicate or confirm their prophecies.

I used to consider Greer and Heinrich as brilliant mentors of sorts.

I can't get through a paragraph of their readings these days without getting distracted or falling asleep. Kind of like old dusty furniture.

[onlooker]

Kind of like us here Ibon uh. But, like all Cassandras of past and present one cannot but reflect what if our species would have accepted and acted upon these warnings , would the sorry state of human civilization be such? Maybe instead of seeing these "prophets" as pathetic doomsayers maybe we can at least applaud them for continuing unflinchingly to sound the alarm about our collective trajectory. And with regard to curves, well I am not sure we can say they did not transpire. Human population has continued its prolific increase , energy and other resources are becoming scarcer and more difficult to obtain. many countries are in a dismal state economically, socially and environmentally. So maybe we have not yet reached the total downfall of civilization but signs are becoming ever more resounding that this time is approaching. So, I empathize with these thinkers as I too stay firm in sounding alarms so we can at least know what is approaching and prepare in whatever way we can

[SeaGypsy]

Some of us felt the way these guys feel since we were little kids. I certainly did, by grade 2, 7 years old, I was sure we are living in an illusion, Rome before the fall. By 17 i was damn sure it would be over by time I was 30. Im nearly 50 now, only beginning to accept the possibility my entire life may occur within the petro- era. It's weird, i haven't come to terms with it yet, maybe i never will, because the fundamental thngs haven't changed, it is still Rome before the fall, just my life is shorter than my perception of the state of the world.

[Ibon]

Yes many of us had an intuition of Koyaanisqatsi way back when we were children.
We carried this knowledge already as young adults, we carry it today and we will take this to our grave. I know I will.

There is no real evangelism though associated with this knowledge. Onlooker mentioned the importance of the torch these prophets carry. I have come to the conclusion that this is not a knowledge that has the power to convert. You either intuitively know this or not.

In fact, with an increasing percentage of the world's human inhabitants growing up in urban environments with only distant and abstract relationships with the natural world, this knowledge is growing dimmer every day. The light pollution in urban areas that obliterates the stars at night for most of the planets inhabitants is a perfect metaphor for this. Most of humanity lives a myopic relationship with technology that blinds them to the heavens that are putting on a nightly show of wonder and splendor.

I think my main issue at the moment is that many of us play a narrative in our heads regarding the greater decline of industrial civilization that goes something like this: We intuitively know the ultimate supremacy of mother nature, we intuitively know that the hubris of our species on the planet is only temporary, so we fill in the blanks by concluding that we are teetering on the edge of collapse and the great fall, that the overshoot predator is emerging any day now from the shadows, that the arsenal of consequences is like a fully loaded gun aimed at Kudzu Ape.

Malthus thought this. Catton thought so. Ehrlich thought this as well. And today we have modern peak oil prophets bringing forth the same story. But the great fall doesn't happen. Again and again it doesn't happen.

Our intuition knows what is out of balance and since we pay homage to our mother earth as the ultimate arbiter we too hastily conclude that the day of reckoning is just around the corner. But it isn't.

SeaGypsy, you mentioned at the end of your post that your life's time line is shorter than your perception of the world. I get this and it is true. And I fear it will continue to be true for generations.

The messiah is coming, Jesus will return, the rapture is just around the corner. How many religious movements have a central tenant that a great deity will come forth to restore balance to humans gone awry. Original sin and all that. My narrative of an Overshoot Predator was just another example of this.

Most of the malthusian prediction have failed because those of us who have the intuition of what is out of balance cling onto an internal narrative about an ultimate redemption much the same way that religions do in their central belief in god one day pressing the reset button on our collective sinful behavior. Malthusians, including many scientists, believe that god is nothing more than natural consequences coming home to roost.

The current manifestation of this belief is that modern humans have been given an extra long leash to run with made up of fossil fuels and technology and we are blindly running at full speed and at any second now that leash will go taught and yank us back.

And yet it doesn't.

Our narrative is the wrong narrative. These prophets are all full of shit. And so are we. There is no overshoot predator hanging on the sidelines. There is no ultimate redemption for our hubris. There is no great cosmic justice looming overhead ready to yank that chain on humanity.

This will go on still for hundreds of years. There is no narrative. It is all in our heads.

This is a bleak assessment . I feel like an environmental Frederich Nietzsche that has seen the light of a godless world. There is nothing real folks about being on the edge before a grand restoration of balance. It's only a narrative in our heads. And in the heads of those we consider prophets.

[SeaGypsy]

My elder daughter turns 8 this September- her mother (now thoroughly my ex) is a Christian materialist. I'm a Nietzschean fringe dweller. Anyway the daughter was going through huge existential angst last year- lots of questions on mortality, the meaning of life etc. As her mum is the religious nutter in the family i let her have a good long go at trying to satisfy our daughter's curiosity- to less than zero evail, it only got worse, to the point of her not sleeping, really starting to obsess over death. Eventually my wife was asking me to please try to help- to which i consented. It took me about 1 hour to cure. I opened a page on Facebook called 'Timewheel' which collates art- psychedelic art. We flicked through several hundred visuals- i did my best to answer her questions about the images, which boiled down to- "these are people showing their inner reality, their value. This is immortality- the art people create, is greater than the people who create it, yet it would not exist without them." That was 6 months ago, she is now studying science profusely, reading at what her school calls Z level- Adult. She's an awesome kid. She knows about Rome & the fall & peak everything as natural. She has become instead, interested in being human & what that really means in terms of knowledge & expression. I consider her one of the few sane people I know.

"One must give value to their existence by behaving as if one's very existence were a work of art." Friedrich Nietzsche.

[AdamB]

Our narrative is the wrong narrative. These prophets are all full of shit. And so are we. There is no overshoot predator hanging on the sidelines. There is no ultimate redemption for our hubris. There is no great cosmic justice looming overhead ready to yank that chain on humanity.

This will go on still for hundreds of years. There is no narrative. It is all in our heads.

This is a bleak assessment . I feel like an environmental Frederich Nietzsche that has seen the light of a godless world. There is nothing real folks about being on the edge before a grand restoration of balance. It's only a narrative in our heads. And in the heads of those we consider prophets.

I think folks like JD need canonized around here, based on an honest assessment of what has happened, like this. Everyone ever called a cornie or denier should be sent engraved apologies, and invited to come back with open arms, for knowing this before all others, for having the cajones to stand up and speak this truth, all the while the believers were just wanting to tear down anyone who didn't buy into their herdthink...now revealed. Those kinds of balls and brains are hard to find, harder yet is the acceptance that they were right, and after having been mostly driven off, they need invited back!

[evilgenius]

If you are a selfish driver you only increase your chances of dying on the road. You don't guarantee it. The reason for this is the same one that makes all doom predictions uncertain too, humans have the capacity to think on their feet. We can problem solve locally, within any crisis. We can turn what looked like a certain accident into a non-event. It isn't just the actions of the selfish one that carry this out, but those of everybody else each time the selfishness leads to another possible event. This doesn't mean that the selfishness doesn't increase the probability of an accident each time the selfish driver gets behind the wheel. It does. It helps that each instance is specific to itself. The only thing connecting them is the action of the selfish one. In the background lurks the potential resilience of the people surrounding that person. One day that may not show up, or be fast enough.