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What Will It Really Take to Avoid Collapse?
Fifteen thousand scientists have issued a dire warning to humanity about impending collapse but virtually no-one takes notice. Ultimately, our global systems, which are designed for perpetual growth, need to be fundamentally restructured to avoid the worst-case outcome.
For a moment, the most important news in the entire world flashed across the media like a shooting star in the night sky. Then it was gone. Last month, over fifteen thousand scientists from 184 countries issued a dire warning to humanity. Because of our overconsumption of the world’s resources, they declared, we are facing “widespread misery and catastrophic biodiversity loss.” They warned that time is running out: “Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory.”
This is not the first such notice. Twenty-five years ago, in 1992, 1,700 scientists (including the majority of living Nobel laureates) sent a similarly worded warning to governmental leaders around the world. In ringing tones, they called for a recognition of the earth’s fragility and a new ethic arising from the realization that “we all have but one lifeboat.”
This second warning contains a series of charts showing how utterly the world’s leaders ignored what they were told twenty-five years earlier. Whether it’s CO2 emissions, temperature change, ocean dead zones, freshwater resources, vertebrate species, or total forest cover, the grim charts virtually all point in the same dismal direction, indicating continued momentum toward doomsday. The chart for marine catch shows something even scarier: in 1996, the catch peaked at 130 million tonnes and in spite of massively increased industrial fishing, it’s been declining ever since—a harbinger of the kind of overshoot that unsustainable exploitation threatens across the board.
Along with their warning, the scientists list a dozen or so examples of the kind of actions that could turn humanity’s trajectory around. These include indisputably necessary strategies such as halting the conversion of native habitats into farmland; restoring and rewilding ecologies; phasing out fossil fuel subsidies; and promoting dietary shifts toward plant-based foods. With the future of humanity at stake, why aren’t we already doing these things? What will it really take for our civilization to change course and save itself from destruction?
Ignoring climate breakdown
We can begin to answer that simply by looking at the media’s reception to this warning. With fifteen thousand scientists—including Jane Goodall, E. O. Wilson, and James Hansen—declaring a potential catastrophe at hand, you might think this would make headlines everywhere. Think again. While it led to a few short articles in select publications around the world, with the one commendable exception of CNN, it was virtually ignored by American mainstream media.
This should hardly come as a surprise. In fact, global climate breakdown—perhaps the greatest existential threat faced by our civilization—is barely considered newsworthy on American television. In 2016, the hottest year on record, when the Paris agreement was signed and presidential candidates held widely differing opinions on climate change, the entire year’s climate coverage by all network news services in the U.S. amounted to less than an hour: a paltry 50 minutes, representing a 66% drop from the previous year.
How could that be? One reason is that, as a result of decades of massive industry consolidation, the U.S. media is controlled by a few large corporations. Like all shareholder-owned companies, their overriding concern is making profits, in this case from advertising dollars. The news services, once considered a hallowed responsibility administered for the public good, have been reduced to just another profit center—and it was decided that climate change news isn’t good for advertising revenue, especially since a big chunk of that comes from the fossil fuel and agribusiness companies responsible for much of the problem.
The largest Ponzi scheme in history
Which leads us to some of the underlying structural changes that need to occur if human civilization is to avoid collapse. The fundamental problem is brutally simple: our world system is based on the premise of perpetual growth in consumption, which puts it on a collision course with the natural world. Either the global system has to be restructured, or we are headed for a catastrophe of immense proportions that has never been experienced in human history. However, the transnational corporations largely responsible for driving this trajectory are structurally designed to prevent the global changes that need to take place.
Something that is only dimly understood outside financial circles is that the vast bulk of the wealth enjoyed by the global elite is based on a fabrication: a belief in the future growth in earnings that corporations will deliver. For example, the current P/E ratio of the S&P 500 is about 23, which means that investors are valuing companies at twenty-three times their earnings for this year. Another way of looking at it is that less than 5% of the wealth enjoyed by investors relates to current activity; the rest is based on the dream of future growth.
Historically, investors have been richly rewarded for this dream. The world’s economic output is roughly twenty times greater than it was in 1950, and market valuations have increased accordingly. But this is the same growth that is driving our civilization to collapse. Today’s market values are based on a belief that the world’s economic output will triple from its current level by 2060. That implies three times as much pillaging of the world’s resources than the rate that has led to the scientists’ dire warning to humanity. Something has to give.
Like any Ponzi scheme, this global growth frenzy is based on maintaining the illusion for as long as possible. Once it becomes clear that this rate of growth is truly unsustainable, the whole house of cards will come tumbling down. We saw in the 2008 financial meltdown a relatively limited dress rehearsal for what a full-scale financial collapse would look like.
This is what the global power brokers don’t want anyone to think about. It’s ultimately why the media obsesses with Donald Trump’s latest tweets rather than the devastation caused by climate breakdown-induced hurricanes. Like passengers moving deckchairs on the Titanic, much of the world’s population has been hypnotized by a daily onslaught of celebrity spats and political feuds—anything to avoid the realization that we are all heading for collapse in order to keep the affluent in luxury. It is a testament to their success so far that, in the words of Slavoj Žižek, it is “easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.”
Imagining the end of capitalism
However, the only thing that will truly avert collapse will be a radical restructuring of the economic system that is driving us ever more rapidly to that precipice. This will only come about when enough of us are ready to jettison the consumer values that pervasive mainstream culture foists on us. In their place, we need to find other sources for meaning in our lives: growing the quality of our experiences rather than our consumption, building our communities together, and reconnecting with the natural world.
On that basis, we’ll be better equipped to join in the struggle to save humanity—and the rest of the earth—from the plundering envisaged by the perpetual growth frenzy of global corporate capitalism. There are plenty of alternative paths available to us—we just don’t hear about them because they never get the media’s attention. Most Americans, for example, are completely unaware that the little country of Costa Rica, with a GDP per capita less than one-fifth of the U.S., boasts a higher average life expectancy and enjoys far higher levels of wellbeing—while producing 99% of its electricity from renewable sources.
There is valuable work being done around the world in visualizing a future based on different principles than the current Ponzi scheme. Well-developed plans to avert climate breakdown include a state-by-state and nation-by-nation pathway to reach 100% renewable energy by 2050, and a Climate Mobilization Victory Plan to restructure the U.S. economy in a manner similar to what FDR accomplished after Pearl Harbor.
There are radically different ways for a society to function effectively that could apply to nations around the world if given half a chance. A flourishing future might involve more cooperative ventures, protection and expansion of the commons, and enhanced global governance with strict penalties for those who destroy ecological wellbeing. Collapse isn’t the only future in store for humanity—it’s merely the one we’re headed for unless and until we change course. Since the mainstream media isn’t going to get the word out, it has to be up to each of us who cares about the future of the human race. So, let’s get to it.
————————————————————————————
Jeremy Lent is author of The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, which investigates how different cultures have made sense of the universe and how their underlying values have changed the course of history. He is founder of the nonprofit Liology Institute, dedicated to fostering a sustainable worldview. More info: jeremylent.com.
156 Comments on "What Will It Really Take to Avoid Collapse?"
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 12:17 pm
Like I’ve said probably a hundred times here before:
Move as far away from densely populated areas as possible. Get involved at a small local community level. And learn how to ‘grow’ your own food.
We’ve done all of the above, and much more. While I have no doubts that we would run into pitfalls along the way, we have a strong support group of like minded individuals here, that we have already spent a great deal of time with, discussing, and planning for any and all future considerations. The biggest most obvious hurdle, would be climate change. The forests are already showing signs of distress. The glaciers are retreating at an unprecedented rate, and even the wildlife are showing signs of decline.
Boat on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 1:51 pm
None of you have an inside track as to what will happen over the next 100 years. When you pull out your prediction drawer all that’s left is an untidy collection of bad management choices.
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 2:17 pm
I was involved at a high level with disaster planning, mitigation, and management Boat. While you would be correct, it is not possible to plan for all scenarios, the only bad management choice, would be not to plan at all. That would be stupid.
onlooker on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 2:18 pm
Yes nobody can accurately predict the future Boat. But one can form an educated guess. One can also practice living life consistent with being cautious and anticipating and providing for possible negative events
onlooker on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 3:16 pm
This is what we are facing Boat. That tells me that Collapse is our most plausible future
https://kevinhester.live/2017/08/08/the-myth-of-human-progress-and-the-collapse-of-complex-societies-chris-hedges/
The Myth of Human Progress and the Collapse of Complex Societies. Chris Hedges.
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 4:00 pm
Boat has been around long enough to know better onlooker. He is wilfully ignorant of reality, and a perfect example of a product of the culture that Hedges describes below.
“Those who speak truth are marginalised and ignored, dismissed as pessimists in a culture that prides itself on a child like optimism, at the expense of reality.”
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 4:24 pm
Gregt
You opted out of life because you panicked and didn’t realize that any attempts at prepping or homesteading are futile. You have two choices post collapse Greg..One you can hit the road and keep moving and fighting and stealing and foraging along the way. Based on the logic that you can run but you can’t hide…Two you can go into a bunker to live until the die off is over and come out as long as the nuke plants never melt down. Those are your only two ways to go…
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 4:27 pm
Gregt
The reason you plan and prepp is because it makes you feel good on the inside. Not because its rational or well thought out. And idiot could tell you that without the rule of law in place and a prosperous society. The goons will take whatever you got. Once they see smoke coming from your prepper chimney they will know there is food, water and most likely woman their. And they are to want all three…And they will be armed as well and without compassion.
JuanP on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 5:22 pm
“Collapse isn’t the only future in store for humanity—it’s merely the one we’re headed for unless and until we change course.”
We can’t change course. We evolved to do what we are doing; it is our nature. We will keep breeding uncontrollably and destroying the biosphere for as long as we exist. Today we caused more damage than ever before but tomorrow we will cause even more. Things are getting worse,not better, and no scientific discoveries or technological applications make any positive difference. The more we learn the higher our capacity to breed, consume, destroy, and pollute.
Makati1 on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 5:47 pm
Greg, MM keeps that school boy attitude that he knows everything and therefore does not need advice or more education. He denies that a long life equals survival skills and education not found in reports or surveys. And denies that there are other ways to prep than those he decides are appropriate. His two posts to you are proof. “…any attempts at prepping or homesteading are futile.”
He does not consider the option of community as possible. That is the one that will work, as you have said, and the one we are pursuing here also. Why do Americans all assume that the rest of the world is like the US, just with less ‘stuff’? Cultures are totally different here as I am sure they are where you live. People are different, less greedy. A lack of American’s travel experience, I guess.
If he reads this, I suspect he will give his usual schoolboy reply. His fixation on raping ‘women’ in many of his posts tells me he is very young and deprived. He doesn’t even suspect what his replies tell us about his personality and intelligence. Both negative.
Makati1 on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 5:58 pm
Juan, You are correct, of course. Humans are not going to change a million years of evolution just because we are smart enough to see what we are doing to the planet and ourselves. We evolved to survive. That means breeding to the limits of resources to consume. Had we been confined to just the food limits, we would never have gotten to these huge numbers, but we were intelligent (?) enough to find new ways to consume even more (FFs). That was our downfall and it is too late to prevent our extinction, or even the suffering to come.
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 6:46 pm
“You opted out of life because you panicked and didn’t realize that any attempts at prepping or homesteading are futile.”
In reality, I’m finally living my life, with nobody to tell me where to go, or what to do. Loving every minute of it. I should have done this 30 years ago.
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 7:03 pm
GregT and Madkat
Notice Madkat didn’t refute my argument he just went into insults about my credibility. If you think community is enough to survive then go become a homesteader in a place like Syria..See how long it takes for your community to break down. And turn on each other. look what happened to the Domer party they killed their own family members and ate them to survive. And I am not obsessed with rape I am just telling it like it is..When the goons takeover your farm they will take your farmer daughter as well…And she will do whatever it takes to stay alive…She will tell them to stick it in any hole they like as much as they want…JUST FEED ME!
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 7:24 pm
You’re delusional MM. You need psychiatric help buddy.
Makati1 on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 7:25 pm
MM, maybe you need to reread what I said. I said your ideas were bullshit. Now, go back and prove me wrong.
No, MM, you are telling it how YOU assume it will be from your boyish inexperience. THAT is not reality. You have nothing to base your assertions on. No real experience with other customs and places. Certainly no intelligent thought, just parroting the usual US MSM bullshit and fantasy movies from Hollywood.
You are obsessed with sex. Go back and read your many previous posts. Rape and screwing is in most of them about collapse. Threats to do it to my daughters, other’s wives, etc. If you tried to do that to my daughter, you would be kneed in the balls and be a eunuch for the rest of your life, IF you survived.
You live in a fantasy world, MM. Come and live in the real world, if you dare.
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 7:42 pm
Madkat and Greg
You have nothing to base your assertions on.
I showed you four peer reviewed scientific studies authored by top experts to base my assertions on. And once the economy collapse we go back to the stone ages again. And during the stone ages around 10 -20 percent of all humans died at the hands of other humans. And that was before they even had guns and switchblades..The collapse will be the worst catastrophe in the history of mankind..Nothing will ever,come even close. I am talking about every corporation and every social program going bankrupt at once. I am talking about people eating people. All I know is you will wish you were never even born…Madkat all of your experience was erased by you inhaling lead in your gasoline for decades and your IQ going into permanent decline.
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 7:51 pm
“I showed you four peer reviewed scientific studies authored by top experts to base my assertions on.”
You are completely delusional.
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 7:53 pm
And in serious need of psychological intervention.
Get help.
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 7:57 pm
GregT and Madkat
Can you show me any study or evidence that after an economic collapse small communities will be able to withstand a total break down of society? I have given you four studies that prove my case beyond any reasonable doubts. You both have submitted zero evidence….Therefore you have no reason to believe what you do..Its pure wishful thinking..
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 7:59 pm
“I have given you four studies that prove my case beyond any reasonable doubts.”
You have done nothing of the sort.
More delusions.
Apneaman on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 8:19 pm
Jakarta Is Sinking So Fast, It Could End Up Underwater
“A tsunami of human-made troubles in the Indonesian capital poses an imminent threat to the city’s survival. And it has to deal with mounting threats from climate change.”
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/21/world/asia/jakarta-sinking-climate.html
Apneaman on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 8:21 pm
Baked Alaska: 49th state is having an insanely warm December
“Freakishly warm conditions, compared to normal, are happening all over the state. The snowpack and sea ice conditions are out of sorts. And people don’t like it.
Fairbanks, Anchorage and Juneau, as well as many remote towns, are having their warmest December on record so far, according to Brian Brettschneider, a climatologist based in Anchorage.
In Fairbanks, temperatures have averaged an incredible 20 degrees above normal.”
http://wapo.st/2BkOC9D
Apneaman on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 8:27 pm
Penrith Sydney records the highest December temps on record with a maximum of 44.1C on Tuesday as Australian mercury surges upwards.
“A golfer in his 60s has died after collapsing in the heat in Sydney’s south, as the city swelters through tops of 40C.”
http://www.thebigwobble.org/2017/12/penrith-sydney-records-highest-december.html
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 8:59 pm
Greg Stop lying….
NASA Study: Industrial Civilization is Headed for Irreversible Collapse (Motesharrei, 2014)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914000615
The Royal Society: Study, Now for the First Time A Global Collapse Appears Likely (Ehrlich, 2013)
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1754/20122845
Study: Limits to Growth was Right. Research Shows We’re Nearing Global Collapse (Turner, 2014)
http://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/MSSI-ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf
Study: Financial System Supply-Chain Cross-Contagion: in Global Systemic Collapse (Korowicz, 2012)
http://www.feasta.org/2012/06/17/trade-off-financial-system-supply-chain-cross-contagion-a-study-in-global-systemic-collapse/
German Military (leaked) Peak Oil study concludes: oil is used in the production of 95% of all industrial goods, so a shortage of oil would collapse the world economy & world governments
https://www.permaculture.org.au/files/Peak%20Oil_Study%20EN.pdf
Ill be waiting for your studies Greg…LOL
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:00 pm
Greg
There are five studies authored by top experts…Like I said I back my shit the fuck up…You are all hat and no cattle…
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:02 pm
You are in dire need of psychological help MM.
You are not playing with a full deck.
Apneaman on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:02 pm
Australia’s Hot Ocean Blob Fuels Record Heat, Extreme Weather, Risk to Coral Reefs
“Between Australia and New Zealand there’s a kind of climate change fed thing on the prowl in the off-shore waters. It takes the form of an angry layer of far warmer than normal surface water. And it’s been lurking around since late November.”
“Back on November 30th, the blob contributed to an extreme rainfall event impacting Southeast Australia. One that dumped upwards of 10 inches or more in a rather short period. Since that time, South Australia has been seeing continued instances of extreme weather. Over recent days, towering supercell storms rocked Victoria with lightning, flash floods, damaging winds, and golf-ball sized hail. In Melbourne, a flood washed away a 40 foot section of a foot path. Meanwhile western parts of Sydney Australia were sweltering under record-shattering heat — with temperatures hitting a never before seen high of 111 F (44 C) on Tuesday, December 19th. Other regions experienced over 113 F (45 C) temperatures.”
https://robertscribbler.com/2017/12/21/australias-hot-ocean-blob-fuels-record-heat-extreme-weather-risk-to-coral-reefs/
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:05 pm
Exclusive: US making plans for ‘bloody nose’ military attack on North Korea
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/20/exclusive-us-making-plans-bloody-nose-military-attack-north/
Game on soon! Then we will invade and destroy China! Watch out Madkat the big bad wolf is coming to your town! LOL Thought you got away! LOL Well see about that!
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:09 pm
GregT
You are projecting. I made and argument and gave you several reasons to prove it. Ad hom attacks are childish and show your extreme lack of intelligence. Which makes sense preppers and homesteaders are almost all right wingers because right wingers are usually very dumb people.
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:10 pm
“Game on soon! Then we will invade and destroy China! Watch out Madkat the big bad wolf is coming to your town! LOL Thought you got away! LOL Well see about that!”
You are in dire need of serious psychological intervention MM.
Get help.
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:12 pm
Apemann
We are going to be running out of oil soon and headed into an economic catastrophe. You think I give a damn about the coral reefs in Australia? Are you an idiot? And what about the red tail foxes of Idaho apeman..What about those little fellas.I hope they pull threw….LOL
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:13 pm
“You are projecting. I made and argument and gave you several reasons to prove it.”
I have already told you at least five times now, that I have read all of those reports before.
Get help.
Makati1 on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:13 pm
Greg, he cannot think for himself. History proves that small independent communities survive quite well when the SHTF. He wants some paid for, peer reviewed, nonsense because he has no intelligence to think it out for himself.
You are correct. he is delusional and in need of serious help. Unfortunately, there are millions like him in the US that kneel to their ivory tower masters without a thought of their own. They are flipping burgers in McDonalds, if they have a job. I doubt he has even that.
Now most of them are in debt slavery for the rest of their lives and most have no real saleable, needed skills. Just a piece of paper saying they manged to stay sober and attend the minimum required classes to get it. Future cannon fodder, I’m sure.
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:16 pm
GregT
Objection..Logical fallacy. And stop trying to punish me for thought crime. Simply what I think. I might make fun of what you think and post sources to refute it. But at least I dont try to be an armchair doctor..You live in the woods with an old hairy wife. You are the last person who should be judging others. I am sorry you bugged out like a paranoid loon. I am sure many people think you are nuts..And they have a right to that belief based on your behavior of bugging out.
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:19 pm
Madkat I have a great job and I have always had good jobs my whole life..And I am only 30 so I consider myself very lucky..I was a state high school champion in chess. And i was the top salesperson for AT&T for two years in a row. A fortune ten company. They sent me on an all paid vacation even….Why dont you rip on the scientists who conducted those studies I posted. Notice you always have to turn everything around on me..And this is the first GLOBAL collapse in world history so nothing in the past is relevant. So sorry small group wont make it post collapse.
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:21 pm
More of the usual name calling, childish rhetoric, and delusional accusations.
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:25 pm
“Madkat I have a great job and I have always had good jobs my whole life..And I am only 30 so I consider myself very lucky..I was a state high school champion in chess. And i was the top salesperson for AT&T for two years in a row. A fortune ten company.”
With a resume like like, I never even would have considered you for an interview. Unimpressive.
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:33 pm
GregT
Unlike you I am a very open and tolerant person. And my mind changes with evidence. You just haven’t given me any. You are just asserting without proof that you and your set up will survive the collapse. IF you have no reasons to back up your beliefs than at least be honest and admit you have nothing but “faith” which is by definition believing in something without any proof…Hey I cant disprove a point of time ahead in the future that hasn’t happened. I can just submit several reasons for why its very unlikely to work out the way you imagine it.
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:34 pm
I know people who have all the will in the world. Who still can’t play good chess.
-Bobby Fischer
fmr-paultard on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:45 pm
interesting quote from bobby fischer genital farmer. eurotard has the will to establish supremacy through PBMB confederation. this is still in the works perpetually
Makati1 on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:50 pm
MM, Chess will not save your life in the collapse. Nor will your supposed degree or bragging. That last one will likely get you killed or, at least, knocked on your ass.
Your lack of history education is very telling. There have been many collapse’ in the past just as bad as, or worse than, the one in progress today. Do you count the Black Plague as not a serious event? For the people that lived on the European continent, or traded with them, it certainly was. Yet communities survived by their skills and independence. Then there is the many famines and wars. But you would have no idea with your narrow education.
Only arrogant, immature people brag. It is a sign of insecurity. You have nothing of value, or needed skills, for any small community so you will be the one outside looking in.
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:51 pm
MM,
I have no need to prove anything to you. You will have to live with your own choices, and I will live with mine.
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:56 pm
Madkat
There has never been a total global collapse in world history ever. And there was always plenty of surplus resources to rebuild after different regions and civilizations before. This time its everyone on earth that is involved and we dont have enough resources to rebuild or start over etc…And all of your childish name calling is futile. I have submitted several reasons for why the collapse is coming and will be global. Meaning it will effect you and everyone on earth as well..I rest my case…
Makati1 on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:59 pm
BTW: The street people here play chess on the sidewalk, with the board drawn in chalk and using the cheapest plastic pieces. They are good players. I have watched them for hours. Some play for entertainment. Some play for money. All enjoy it for what it is, a game.
And yes, I play chess. I had a friend that was a Grandmaster. I played against him once. Obviously he won. but I learned a lot because he explained his moves as we played.
AND, he never even mentioned to anyone that he was a Grandmaster. I later found out from his wife that he played in international competition and often won, and his ranking.
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 9:59 pm
“I rest my case”
You are purely delusional, and don’t have the slightest clue as to what you are rambling on about.
Makati1 on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 10:05 pm
Narrow mined MM. The whole world was not as connected, but the situation was the same. Survive by the skills you have or die. Communities survived because they had a group of people with survival skills that were supportive of all, not just themselves. Community.
THAT will be the same situation when the SHTF and globalization slows/ends. If you cannot make it or grow it, or are a valued part of a community that can, you will do without and likely die. Same as in the ‘Dark Ages’. Nothing new in the world MM. But you have to have studied history to know that. Studied, not skimmed a book for tests.
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 10:39 pm
MM,
One simple question for you:
Do you believe that the collapse of modern industrial society, equates to the extinction of the human race?
Thanks. I rest MY case.
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 11:08 pm
Gregt
Yes I personally think this is a total extinction event. Due to hundreds of nuke plants that are going to melt down and explode radiation into the atmosphere. But I hold out hope that maybe some small tribes in places like the amazon rain forest or tribes in Africa might make it through. If not who really cares. The planet should still be around for billions of more years and life will evolve once again through natural selection. And even if it doesn’t the sun is going to explode in about a dozen billion years or so and that will the end forever…
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 11:23 pm
MM,
OK. If you promise to behave yourself, and play nice, then I’m willing to discuss.
How do you propose that an economic collapse scenario would lead to hundreds of nuke plants melting down?
What advantages do you believe that small tribal communities in Africa or the Amazon would have over other small communities elsewhere?
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 11:43 pm
GregT
Just for the record this question and topic seems to be the number one thing debated on all doomer blogs. Since most the people there believe collapse is imminent. The next question always is that if you think there will be any survivors and if so how many etc..I look at it like this. Our global economy is basically the software that runs our entire world. If the software crashes and burns. Then its lights out for global civilization. The same way its lights out for your laptop if windows crashes etc..When the economy collapses. It will cause every bank, every corporation, every government, every social program, to go bankrupt at once. When that happens people working the nuke plants will scramble home or to the grocery store once they get a call or text saying that supplies are running out and what has just happened. Their debit cards and credit cards will be worthless. Their retirement accounts all gone and vanished. And people are not that stupid. they will know this is the end of the world. And they will want to spend the last bits of time with their family. The workers of all business wont be worried about nuke plants melting down in a few days. They will be worried about where are they going to find some food to feed themselves and their families..It will be total chaos on earth and it will be every man for himself. I think if the nuke plants dont melt down and spray radiation everywhere. Then people in the amazon for example will survive because there are tribes living there now that have never been contacted by outside societies. They are purely living in another world and are totally self sufficient. And the climate is excellent so they dont have to worry about freezing to death and can hunt all year..Same with some places in Africa. Remote tribes wont have to worry about hoards of zombies rushing their visages..