[sparky]

.
@ lore , hardly a deer in the headlights ,
Ive been in riotous crowds with Molotov cocktails were being thrown about .
once was in a attempted revolution ,
had to put up with the police forces of half a dozen repressive places
and find myself in the best , safest country in the world .

Just assume my mind is set on surviving , as for technology and the fate of whoever
tough luck , nature doesn't take prisonners

[ralfy]

If "civilization" refers to a middle class lifestyle, i.e., earning $10 to $20 a day or more to buy all sorts of consumer goods and assets, then that can collapse faster than one expects due to combinations of predicaments, particularly the weakening of a JIT global system.

Perhaps the Feasta article about complexity shared in this thread or in another might help.

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('diemos', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('~Mark~M~', '
')If we take all the general population, collapse may be gradual, dollar by dollar, person by person. Real collapse would be failure of large social and technological systems.

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('diemos', 'Y')ou're never going to go to bed one night and then wake up to find Mad Max outside your door.

[SeaGypsy]

Pstar- think you misplaced credit- it's the new guy/ gal- 'step back'.
Edit oops post- rushing reading sorry P. Where is the damned delete button?

[Newfie]

......because it is a slow leak. Then "bang-bang."

I still don't think our leaders, I don't believe in TPTB cartel, understand the issue.

Try to put yourself in a Captains shoes, think of the Concordia. Nice evening, good friends, good wine, pretty girl by your side. You re the Master and Commander. You do a little something special, shave the shore a bit too close. Bang- bang!

Within a half hour or so you have to utterly readjust to a new world of your own making. Hear the flooding reports from underlings, of a different ethnic background, trust what they are saying, understand the ship is lost, your career is gone, you will be savaged and disgraced. Yet with this swirl in your head stay present to the moment and maneuver the ship, with its dying power and momentum, onto yet another reef, where it can die allowing people to live.

Truly a monumental mental and emotional metamorphasis to make in about 2 hours, from king to jester while remaking in charge. Yet he has trained his whole life to first avoid this dilemia and failing that to react properly.

How many of our MBA business leaders or lawyer politicians have the same training? To avoid hazards and then react correctly in times of stress?

I suspect none. Yet they have the wheel and are shouting orders. I think they are every bit as clueless, and perhaps moreso than joe 6 pack. There is even some research to that effect.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', '.').....because it is a slow leak. Then "bang-bang."

I still don't think our leaders, I don't believe in TPTB cartel, understand the issue.

Try to put yourself in a Captains shoes, think of the Concordia. Nice evening, good friends, good wine, pretty girl by your side. You re the Master and Commander. You do a little something special, shave the shore a bit too close. Bang- bang!

Within a half hour or so you have to utterly readjust to a new world of your own making. Hear the flooding reports from underlings, of a different ethnic background, trust what they are saying, understand the ship is lost, your career is gone, you will be savaged and disgraced. Yet with this swirl in your head stay present to the moment and maneuver the ship, with its dying power and momentum, onto yet another reef, where it can die allowing people to live.

Truly a monumental mental and emotional metamorphasis to make in about 2 hours, from king to jester while remaking in charge. Yet he has trained his whole life to first avoid this dilemia and failing that to react properly.

How many of our MBA business leaders or lawyer politicians have the same training? To avoid hazards and then react correctly in times of stress?

I suspect none. Yet they have the wheel and are shouting orders. I think they are every bit as clueless, and perhaps moreso than joe 6 pack. There is even some research to that effect.

[Newfie]

John Galt?

[careinke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'J')ohn Galt?

[Beery1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sparky', 'h')ad to put up with the police forces of half a dozen repressive places
and find myself in the best , safest country in the world .

[SeaGypsy]

Can't totally let that one slide. We aren't a prison, haven't been for well over 100 years. Only bankrupts and court ordered persons are not allowed to run off anywhere. I reckon we are generally a heck of a lot more traveled than the average yank; certainly a lot more aware of geography, not so much on history. In over 2 million km travelling here I've been breath tested about 10 times and never had a cop pull a gun on me or pull my car apart looking for drugs or guns. In many ways we are less of a police state than the USA. For a big place we are very safe. Aboriginals are their own worst enemy- that is the truth however un PC that seems and I am the opposite of your towny 6 pack redneck who has never met an aboriginal- many of whom would say the opposite (currently we spend about $2 billion a year on special 'support' for just 50 odd thousand aboriginals just in the NT alone. We have one of the most serious attempts in the world going on to preserve indigenous languages. We have one of the few best medical systems in the world, same with social security. We have snow in the mountains for several months a year and every climate from maritime to monsoonal. My wife is a minority, so I think I would hear about it if she was being in any way abused- she hasn't been. Our cities are extremely multi ethnic, multicultural and safe unless you are drunk in the night club districts around closing time or involved in big time drug dealing. We have the world's highest per capita permanent resettlement program for UNHCR refugees. There is open dissent and comparable tolerance levels to anywhere else in the world. We have some of the highest wages in the world, with a base wage about double the USA's. We have many of the world's largest nature reserves, National Parks. We haven't had a mass shooting in over 15 years. We have never had a successful terrorist attack. Our murder rate is 1/4 that in the USA.

Flip:

Australia has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the world. We have a mainstream press dominated by our most famous ex- citizen- the American Rupert Murdoch, who seems to call the shots for the non internet savvy. We allow the richest .1% to accumulate wealth at an obscene rate. We aren't allowed to have pistols at home, or machine guns at all- unless we work for the Armed Forces. We even have to register compound bows. We need a license to go fishing and there are extremely strict laws on how much of what we are allowed to catch. Any boat with a motor must be registered (except for in the NT) as must all motorized vehicles over 200 watts in power. Our utility prices are in the top 10% or so in the world. Our real estate prices are an absolute rort, some of the most expensive in the world. Outside the market zones in capital cities food prices are among the most expensive. We have a food duopoly to a large extent with 2 companies utterly dominating the retail food market. These companies are allowed to monopolize whole regions of food production and pay a very small percentage of their retail to the farmers. Many of our farmers live on incomes similar to unemployment benefits and would be wiped out regularly without drought relief from the government. We have a Greens party with a dubious agenda who should have much more sway than they do- but for being undermined from within by people who can't grok the difference between someone who has been stuck in a refugee camp for a decade and someone who flew to Indonesia last week and paid a smuggler to get them here. We have a substantial Joe 6 pack population of shock jock fans who's mantra is "F*%k them- its all about me. We have one of the biggest whining never satisfied negative nelly ratios in the world.

Back on topic: Australia is one of the best countries in the world from a survivalist perspective. Outside the tiny capitals this is one of the least populated places in existence with some of the most abundant nature. We don't have any megalopolis such as in the NE USA or western Europe or many parts of Asia. We have meanwhile virtually total freedom to travel, to explore ourselves, our country and the world around us.

Of course Beery is correct there is no real 'best' and beauty is in the eye of the beholder- but it's pretty bloody good down here; you should come down and have a visit before it's only the elite can afford jet travel

[dolanbaker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ack on topic: Australia is one of the best countries in the world from a survivalist perspective. Outside the tiny capitals this is one of the least populated places in existence with some of the most abundant nature. We don't have any megalopolis such as in the NE USA or western Europe or many parts of Asia. We have meanwhile virtually total freedom to travel, to explore ourselves, our country and the world around us.

[SeaGypsy]

Sure, in the long run none of these borders will exist, they aren't policeable without massive amounts of cheap energy. Meanwhile there is a long way to go before that is of immediate concern. When it does happen- ouchy for the invaders! Hundred thousand plus salt water crocodiles, multiple species of poison jellyfish, bugs we call midges which are so tiny they get through most fabrics like they aren't even there and leave bites that itch so bad it's almost impossible to stop scratching them for days- short of almost cauterizing the spots, soil born staph type bacterium which get into any wound and lead to systemic toxicity in a few hours or days and still kill people even with anti-biotics, all of that before setting foot on dry land lol! Then- wild dogs roaming in packs which can go for weeks without water and stalk people until they can no longer keep them at bay, blackfellas and their less black mates with bush skills the best armies in the world send here to learn from, then the far less worrisome in reality- many poisonous snakes, spiders, ticks, leeches, giardia type bacterium in the waters, then the massive deserts which only local knowledge can enable survival in for more than a few days.

Believe it or not, a heck of a lot of Australians would love some northern neighbor to have a go at invading us- things are too nice here! We're bored- Bring it on!

[Keith_McClary]

Sustainability, astrobiology illuminate future of life in universe, civilization on Earth
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')uman-caused climate change, ocean acidification and species extinctions may eventually threaten the collapse of civilization, according to some scientists, while other people argue that for political or economic reasons we should allow industrial development to continue without restrictions.
In a new paper, two astrophysicists argue that these questions may soon be resolvable scientifically, thanks to new data about the Earth and about other planets in our galaxy, and by combining the earth-based science of sustainability with the space-oriented field of astrobiology.
"We have no idea how long a technological civilization like our own can last," says University of Rochester astrophysicist Adam Frank. "Is it 200 years, 500 years or 50,000 years? Answering this question is at the root of all our concerns about the sustainability of human society."
"Are we the first and only technologically-intensive civilization in the entire history of the universe?" asks Frank. "If not, shouldn't we stand to learn something from the past successes and failures of these other species?"
In their paper, which appears in the journal Anthropocene, Frank and co-author Woodruff Sullivan call for creation of a new research program to answer questions about humanity's future in the broadest astronomical context. The authors explain: "The point is to see that our current situation may, in some sense, be natural or at least a natural and generic consequence of certain evolutionary pathways."
...
Employing dynamical systems theory, the authors map out a strategy for modeling the trajectories of various SWEITs through their evolution. The authors show how the developmental paths should be strongly tied to interactions between the species and its host planet. As the species' population grows and its energy harvesting intensifies, for example, the composition of the planet and its atmosphere may become altered for long timescales.

[DesuMaiden]

The collapse will happen as soon as the price of oil becomes too expensive to afford