by theluckycountry » Sun 15 Jun 2025, 16:10:11
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he crisis faced by this civilization is multifaceted, ranging from the depletion of cheap easy-to-get resources to ecological collapse and climate change — all eventually due to overshoot. While the fact that this civilization is wholly unsustainable starts to gain traction, there is still a great deal of denial when it comes to the heartfelt acceptance of the decline which logically follows… Not to mention admitting the fact that collapse is already well-underway for decades now.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-165859704Denial, it's the most basic human response to bad news, so much so that reams of books have been written on the subject.
The five stages of grief, often referred to by the acronym DABDA, are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.What is not obvious to the average TV head though, is that it's possible to get trapped in one of these stages, for years! I saw it in a Woman once, trapped in the Denial stage after her husband, whom she loved deeply, was killed before her very eyes. I met her 2 years later and she still saw him from time to time standing on the roadside as she drove. She couldn't let go, couldn't move on.
I think another stage could be inserted in with Denial, Delusion. Delusion leads on from denial and is a lot easier to deal with than the subsequent emotional transitions, which are, just normal healthy ways of coping with a tragedy. Many people faced with the collapse of our industrial way of life have slipped into delusion, skipping the intermediate steps and totally shunning the last, acceptance. They are off dreaming of Mar's bases and a world where robots scurry around doing all our mundane work like in a scene from the movie "irobot" with Will Smith.
Evidence for this is scant, but a robot vacuum in the home is typically enough to convince them the transition is coming. How such a world could even exist without abundant cheap fossil fuels doesn't come into it for them. Other delusions, alternate energy systems are touted as the fix for that. These people have looked at the reality of PeakOil and simply couldn't accept it, choosing instead a techno dream which has given them freedom to keep borrowing money and buying expensive techno toys. They never question where this money is coming from either, it's just a magic money tree that now exists and will always exist, totally divorced from the reality their parents faced, even when oil was cheap and built the amazing culture they finally enjoyed.
But a robot vacuum cleaner is no good if you don't have a home and a hi-tech car is no use if the roads are riddled with potholes. I'm old enough to remember when roads and bridges were all in good repair and home ownership was real and meant paying off the home, not borrowing against it to fund holidays and cars. In a real sense we are living on borrowed time, borrowed from the future as far as all this debt is concerned. To cut through delusion is hard, especially if you have embraced it to maximum potential, gone all in with EV and crypto, alternate energy and AI etc. But one simple reality check anyone can do is to look around the World, and their own nation, and ask themselves, are things on the ground getting better as the years pass, or getting worse? Are the bills getting cheaper or more expensive? Are the vast networks we have built to service us becoming more reliable or less reliable?
Honestly answering these questions will give an open minded person a good reality check.
We're 17 years past the peak now and the 3rd World is going hungry and dark. We'll be next, we're well on the way in fact.
Bit late for that eh boomer.