[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '
')physics hasn't stopped with Einstein. Why must you be so ridgid in your thinking?

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '
')I'd ask one question and if honest, I think the majority of both peakers and deniers would say that their conclusions regarding PO (overpopulation,environmental decline, GW, etc) did not develop over time and research but were pretty "instinctive" upon first exposure. For myself, I took to PO like a tar-ball to a sandy beach! My version of doom is moderate simply because I know I don't have perfect knowledge and that my view is influenced by my belief humans are not good stewards and will take the easiest route regardless of consequences.

[mos6507]

If you were convinced of overpopulation in 1957, how long did you think it would be before we started to pay the price, and what did that knowledge do to alter your own life path?

If someone knows we're gonna kill the planet, but isn't going to see it, what motivation is there for him to think, feel, or do anything different from if he didn't know we're gonna kill the planet? Even if he conceded that his consumptive (and reproductive) habits may be a small contributing factor, can we really expect him to avoid tragedy of the commons? It certainly wasn't true in the 10,000 year runup to today. It's only when we can see doom breathing down our necks that we start to "come to Jesus" so to speak, because we're worried about our own hides.

[Newfie]

Well, I don't really know what brought that up in me and clearly it was some psychological stimulus, not my considered opinion on the science and the facts. I mean, I was 7 or 8 right? But I think I do have a disposition to hear that message.

So I thought I was messed up in the head and tried hard to "right think" for a long time. Ya know what? Maybe I was messed up in the head. Surly I am willing to hear a message that most of the herd will not. Did I take the red pill early? Or am I just out of harmony with the herd? I don't know.

In any case I see no point in trying to defend a 2nd graders opinion. I am just pointing out that there is something "different" in my early childhood experience that MAY have left me more vulnerable/open to hearing a different message latter.

But, since you asked, I never really wanted children. I thought that if anything I would adopt. My wives had different ideas and well....I've got 4 kids. I love them all. Which is very different from planning. Life happens, adapt.

And, despite my strong feelings about over-population, and my conviction that it will be our downfall, I can see no reason to argue someone out of having kids if that is what they want. But that is another topic.

So back to kool-aid. Yeah I believe in Kool-aid, I think I am a poster child for kool-aid. We all are. I'm just telling my story. What's yours?

[vision-master]

Peak Oil will be just a bump in the road.....

Cold Fusion More than Junk Science 60minutes 9-4-19 1 of 2

Cold Fusion More than Junk Science 60minutes 9-4-19 2 of 2

[Outcast_Searcher]

Cold Fusion. Again?

As soon as there are CONSISTENTLY REPLICABLE results, then maybe there's something to look at.

And by the way, if this includes some energy bond of palladium, have you noticed how expensive an ounce of palladium is lately? So unless you have some "magical Palladium recharger" thing that takes less energy than you get out, even if this did turn out to be real -- would it ever be economic?

We might as well expect Jesus or Allah or fairies or unicorns to produce the energy we need.

[Newfie]

Cold Fusion = Cool Aid

Totally appropriate to this thread!

[Ludi]

Is it kool-aid to believe we're all going to be dead in a decade?

Or is it kool-aid not to believe it?

Apparently there are hordes of human locusts/cannibals wandering western Australia, Brazil, and Pakistan, devouring everything in their path. Or is that kool-aid?

Very rational-seeming people promote this stuff as happening "right now."

[mos6507]

I'm reminded of Peak Shrink's recent article where she tries to debunk Maslow's Heirarchy of needs.

This raises my hackles. It's hard to explain why that is, because on the surface, I agree with her premise. Yes, we need to redefine happiness. Yes, we have to learn to be happy with less. But I guess why I see something like that as "kool-aid" is that I really sense an overriding wishful-thinking subtext, which is that doom will somehow bottom out at something other than a malthusian die-off. But people like her or Sharon Astyk can't just come out and say we're gonna have a malthusian die-off because it makes anything you do in the interim seem pointless. So you kind of have to lie about what our chances are, and that's something I can't stand. I think that's why I've kind of withdrawn from the Transition movement to think this over because I feel like I'd have to lie about what I think is looming ahead for us, just to inspire people to do anything but eat drink and be merry.

So the kool-aid thing with doomers is very much a matter of the white lie of hope that we need to get through each day, vs. the despair we feel when we rationally crunch the numbers.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '
')So the kool-aid thing with doomers is very much a matter of the white lie of hope that we need to get through each day, vs. the despair we feel when we rationally crunch the numbers.

[Newfie]

I really do believe that we ALL believe our own kool-aid, even you Ludi.

But in that there is a strain of hope, because you can choose your own flavor.

I am by nature pessimistic, I believe most of us here are, even the deniers. They are like closeted gays railing against gay porn (or preachers with hookers, or .....) They are locked into some role so far they don't realize who they really are, but are still fascinated by the spectacle.

We are all here because we have some strain of doomer kool-aid addiction, or else we wouldn't be here.

With rare exception, most folks here are simply doing the best they can to make sense of it and find a way forward.

Knowing, and accepting that you are drinking the kool-aid is admitting that you have some role in your mental health. And if you have some control then you can make some inprovement.

For me that has been to concentrate on trying to set things up so that we can survive a urban meltdown and also retain some joy in life.

I suspect that gardening has a similar role for some, or building machinery, or chicken coops, or whatever. Also, I've taken up welding, kinda makes me feel useful once again. So, I'm mixing my own kool-aid blend. Not great but drinkable, hoping to get better, the "secret recipe."

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', 'C')old Fusion. Again?

As soon as there are CONSISTENTLY REPLICABLE results, then maybe there's something to look at.

And by the way, if this includes some energy bond of palladium, have you noticed how expensive an ounce of palladium is lately? So unless you have some "magical Palladium recharger" thing that takes less energy than you get out, even if this did turn out to be real -- would it ever be economic?

We might as well expect Jesus or Allah or fairies or unicorns to produce the energy we need.

[pedalling_faster]

a lot of times the Kool-Aid people believe is what they have been taught.

for example, in the 1990's a Jewish historian named Walter Sanning published a book named "Dissolution of Eastern European Jewry". he did a study of census records and found that there were 3.5 million Jewish people in occupied Europe at he beginning of World War 2. this raised a fairly obvious question - how did WW2 Germany get ahold of 6 million Jewish people ?
http://www.amazon.com/Dissolution-Easte ... 0939484110

the end result was that the plaque at Auschwitz was revised, also in the 1990's, from "in memory of the 4 million who died", to "in memory of the 1 1/2 million who died" (to balance the math, the implication is that the 2 million Jewish persons who perished at WW2 Germany's hands did so outside of Auschwitz, at another location - not too controversial.)

however, the official figure for the Shoah is 6 million. every year, American teachers perform a form of strange child abuse by making American school-children contemplate a catastrophe that did not occur - as taught.

one other fact in the equation is the emigration rate of Jewish people to the United States just prior to the war and at the beginning of the war. historian George Armstrong puts this number at 3000 a day - a little over 1 million a year.

so where did WW2 Germany obtain the extra Jewish people to do the evil he is accused of ?

the other factor is the numbers of Jewish people who emigrated to Israel, as outlined in the book, "The Transfer Agreement" - by Edwin Black
http://www.transferagreement.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Transfer-Agreemen ... 0786708417

long story short, sometimes Americans believe a Kool-Aid because it was part of their indoctrination.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'l')ong story short, sometimes Americans believe a Kool-Aid because it was part of their indoctrination.

[FairMaiden]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '
')physics hasn't stopped with Einstein. Why must you be so ridgid in your thinking?

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FairMaiden', '
')I don't need to go off my opinion of his work - it's PEER reviewed

[vision-master]

moss is an ridged extremist doomer, who see's zero hope for humanity in the future, I'm just the opposite.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', 'm')oss is an ridged extremist doomer

[Puchica]

The argument against the Holocaust is a good example of how one can narrowly select statistics to obfuscate. Although the number of Jews in Europe is cited, the argument fails to take into acount that not all Jews killed in the Holocaust lived or died in Europe. Quite a number were killed in the Ukraine.

[FairMaiden]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FairMaiden', '
')I don't need to go off my opinion of his work - it's PEER reviewed