[AdamB]

Any thoughts on this? The natural result of conservatism that comes with age? The natural hope that comes with youth?

The question seems a natural one, because running throughout most peaker/doomer/neo-malthusian/luddite fantasy scenarios is the constant comparison to what could be called the good ol' days (be it their youth, or just yesterday) as compared to the horrors they concoct for what will happen tomorrow.

[Shaved Monkey]

Plenty of young permies who subscribe to the limits of exponential growth on a finite planet scenario

[asg70]

Older people are:

1) more nostalgic
2) more cynical
3) more fixated with death, and as their own death approaches, it's romantic to think everyone else goes with them
4) have accumualted enough net-worth to be in a position to unplug and live a back-to-the-land lifestyle

[KaiserJeep]

The way I see it, many older folks have accumulated enough life experience and lost enough of their youthful ideals to be grounded in reality.

All of us understand resource peaks, I believe. Some of us understand that the cost of energy in a post FF age will make everything more expensive. Some of those with this knowledge are acting to preserve lifestyle, and some are not.

[AdamB]

Plenty of young permies who subscribe to the limits of exponential growth on a finite planet scenario

And where might they hang out? Places like Facebook, resilience.org, here, reddit, all seem to have demographics biased towards old farts.

[Ibon]

Plenty of young permies who subscribe to the limits of exponential growth on a finite planet scenario

And where might they hang out? Places like Facebook, resilience.org, here, reddit, all seem to have demographics biased towards old farts.

And if "they" are not "hanging out" in digital media how would you know?

There is a bias in your statement that maybe many of you here have failed to consider. Your assumption is that digital venues are the default cultural conduit that everyone uses. Those who no longer channel their social requirements through digital media are not known to you as an entity so you assume they just don't exist. Maybe there are many more out there than you realize.

In my view an integral part of cultural adaptation to any post peak oil world is putting your organic relationships back in the forefront. The adaptation specifically rejects digital social venues recognizing them as part of the dysfunction.

This is why the only real motivation I have in posting any more is to remind everyone here about this very point. Recognize digital venues as toxic and false replacements of real organic relationships.
Recognize them for the complete waste of time. Be honest, are any of you really getting any valuable information here or is this just the place you come with your coffee in the morning to escape in your own private world?

[Newfie]

I’ve been a Malthusian as long as I can remember. Seriously, back in grade school it struck me there were too many people. When I got to see cities and industrial pollution that sense got support from my observations.

I also believe that many more folks understand we are coming to a huge die-off than openly discuss it. Many never discuss it who will grudgeingly acknowledge it, and then move on to polite conversation.

I think you are correct it’s mostly an older phenomenon. Something we come to gradually.

[Outcast_Searcher]

If this bias exists (I'm not yet convinced it is a strong one), a very simple idea might explain it.

Nostalgia.

As one get's older, the world is certainly DIFFERENT, and at an accelerating pace.

As one gets older, generally, embracing that change, and especially that rate of change is FAR less of a universally good thing (if my experience, and my reading on the subject, is any reflection on reality).

For example, just last night while I was looking for something "different" to watch and perusing my old videos, I noticed my old VCR tapes, which I'll hate to throw out once my last VCR/DVD hybrid machine gives out, but I'll also loathe the relative cost and inconvenience of getting another VCR machine. Hell, I am now dreading the day when one can no longer get DVD's of shows/movies one wants (which is already occurring re streaming popularity for modern shows). At least DVD's can be played when I want, vs. streaming which may or may not be available for show X at time T.

Now, add seemingly most things to media viewing, and it's not hard, IMO, to understand why older people experience generally stronger and stronger nostalgia for things that have become hard to access.

Maybe it's good that everything dies. If humans lived for tens of thousands of years, it's not hard to imagine various people:

1). Sitting in their caves and railing at the modern technology of grass huts.

2). Being angry about the amount of their inflation increase on their government dole check, even while they squat in their caves.

3). Expand this to MANY examples.

[Plantagenet]

There is a time and place for optimism and a time and place for pessimism.


—Mark Twain.



Personally, I am optimistic about some things and pessimistic about others, and meh about things that aren't worth considering. Taking it all together, I consider myself a REALIST:



Cheers!

[vtsnowedin]

We seasoned citizens have had the optimism and naivety of our youth beaten out of us by the trials of life so can come to terms with the limits to humanity and our own lives.The young will be brought to the same conclusions in their own time.

[onlooker]

I don't ascribe to all these discussions being centered on bias or emotional perspective. I think most of us here are here because we recognize how out of balance our ways of living and numbers are with the natural world around us and that this cannot be sustained for much longer

[Ibon]

I don't ascribe to all these discussions being centered on bias or emotional perspective. I think most of us here are here because we recognize how out of balance our ways of living and numbers are with the natural world around us and that this cannot be sustained for much longer

Let me be blunt. Then why the hell are you wasting your time on this forum? If the problem as you say is being out of balance with the natural world than why are you choosing to be in a digital world?

[onlooker]

I feel Ibon's critique is as much against others here as against me. So, though this topic continues from prior discussions , it deserves to be updated. Why as Ibon asks do we remain here rehashing these stale topics ? Frankly I remain here to share and view, the progression and denouement of modern industrial civilization and our dominance on this planet. Like someone who chronicles some incident in history. Call it a morbid fascination if you will. These events transcend my meager short existence on this planet and so hold sway over my imagination and curiosity. I may die before the more extreme events happen anyway.

[ROCKMAN]

You guys are way overthinking this. Why? The good die young, I know that's true because I heard it in a song.

[Ibon]

It was Pops a couple of years ago that posted that he came to the conclusion that po.com was a social media site as much as having any practical applications to adaptation to future constraints due to fossil fuel depletion.

If indeed many of you come here more for social reasons, requiring the interchange with like minded souls around the topic of peak oil and a suite of other constraints caused by human overshoot, then recognize that your reason for being here is less about information and more about aligning with a tribe.

If it is about aligning with the tribe then ask yourself why do you choose the ersatz of a digital tribe over an organic person or peoples. If your answer is that your existing organic tribe doesn't want to discuss these topics then you have to consider to change your organic tribe
or pull way back in obsessing about peak oil and human overshoot since on some level it is anti-social for the majority of folks.

Since many of you can't leave the topic alone and feel no respect or recognition from your organic community this leaves you the only option of this site and others as a substitute.

In other words, you are using this site as a substitute to something that isn't working in your organic social life.

Hmmmm... you really have to think about that.

[Ibon]

To add to the last post, many of us think that we are ahead of the curve in having the smarts and courage to address and discuss a topic most are in denial over.

This is actually an arrogant position. It is not smart or ahead of the curve or even intelligent to discuss and obsess on this topic. It is nothing more than substituting an ersatz digital community for deficiencies in your organic social life.

[AdamB]

Plenty of young permies who subscribe to the limits of exponential growth on a finite planet scenario

And where might they hang out? Places like Facebook, resilience.org, here, reddit, all seem to have demographics biased towards old farts.

And if "they" are not "hanging out" in digital media how would you know?

I probably wouldn't. Maybe no one would. Except...when the folks interested in social media run around interviewing and fawning over someone doing their permaculture, or prepping or doomstead building or whatever, they don't appear to fall on the young side of the spectrum either.

There is a bias in your statement that maybe many of you here have failed to consider. Your assumption is that digital venues are the default cultural conduit that everyone uses. Those who no longer channel their social requirements through digital media are not known to you as an entity so you assume they just don't exist. Maybe there are many more out there than you realize.

Could be. Hence the question. Have YOU seen hordes of 20 somethings all grouping up, sort of like the Farm, except the modern version, and without the motivation to do this kind of activity just so they can sit around and be potheads?

Be honest, are any of you really getting any valuable information here or is this just the place you come with your coffee in the morning to escape in your own private world?

I happily read the posted news on about a daily basis, and on occasion it allows me to find something that I wouldn't during my normal daily reading diet. Slanted, suffering the same bias you mention based on who is sending along news links, but that is okay because it still have a flavor. And that flavor isn't as doomy as it once was. I assume this is for obvious reasons, and if I stick around long enough, I assume the pendulum will swing the other way through the next price/supply/demand cycle.

[KaiserJeep]

I'm not going to argue abouit whether PeakOil is a digital tribe or social group or whatever. Frankly, I do not think that it matters a lot, because the group dynamics of 21st century US citizens do not resemble those of other countries or time periods. It is a matter of culture and they pretty much all are unique.

However, a fundamental change in the way humans interact came about with the various digital media. I have said before and really believe that in the last 25 years, humans have culturally hybridized with machines. We are functionally a different species than we used to be, surprisingly so. I believe Ibon has come to the same realization. The difference between him and me is that he is uneasy with the nature and depth of the difference, and I am not. Nor am I a Doomer, I do not believe that we will ever lose access to the network. I believe it will further permutate the world around us, and extend itself into space - and pretty much every resource we have will be accessed and controlled via this network.

My kid has spent much more of her life immersed in the network, and is more accepting than me even. Her husband is a super geek, a gamer, an IT professional, a software guy, totally immersed and comfortable in the digital world. My Grandkids will likely never know a world without being connected to it via mobile devices.

Time marches on. My Great Grandkids, should I ever see any, are as likely to dismay their parents as any other generation. It is a constant, this degree of change. Cultural evolution is very fast compared to physical evolution, and I'm OK with that.

[Zarquon]

"What are peakers/doomers/neo-malthusians usually older?"

I'll give you a clue: which group of people has far too much time on their hands?

<runs away to hide under a rock>

[vtsnowedin]

"What are peakers/doomers/neo-malthusians usually older?"

I'll give you a clue: which group of people has far too much time on their hands?

<runs away to hide under a rock>

You better find a big rock you little whipper snapper.