[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '
')This form of connecting the dots is just as flawed as the lines on Glenn Beck's blackboard. Don't start selectively filtering the data to back up your belief system. Be willing to admit that the world has more moving parts than just oil prices.

[jmnemonic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'w')e are facing a convergence of tipping points

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')verpopulation

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jmnemonic', ' ')It is the fact that we do not know how to *control* our population. If a disease suddenly wiped out 99% of our species, we'd then be able to have lots of 'robust growth' again. But because the underlying problem would still exist (no clue how to voluntarily control our population), we'd be right back where we are now; it'd just be a matter of time and reproduction.

[Rod_Cloutier]

I often wonder how growth was possible in the first place? Assuming humanity survives at some level how will the survivors comprehend our society, how we grew it and how we crashed?

I read the book 'The blind watchmaker' recently, about the history of evolution. Its going to be the same with us, we are and always have been a part of the equation- that's how we got here.

Evolution has shaped us, punished deviations from sustainability, crashed great civilizations that exceeded ecological capacities. It is going to happen again. John Michael Greer wrote in his book the 'Ecotechnic Society' that our modern technological society is but the 1st technic society. After the crash other technic societies will rebuild, crash, rebuild, crash and so forth.

We are part of nature and this is how nature works, it is how we evolved in the past from small furry creatures living in the mud, to large superpredators with giant brains. Providing we don't extinct ourselves entirely, which is unlikely, it would be interesting to come back in a million years to see what the survivors evolved into. But of course we can't.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')u]Evolution has shaped us, punished deviations from sustainability, crashed great civilizations that exceeded ecological capacities.

[Revi]

We have been around about 100 thousand years as Homo Sapiens. I think we have a little longer, but it could be that we extinct ourselves. We have been about the same for our whole run. We exploit resources and then move on to new ones. I'm sure that the people who lived off of mammoths never expected them to run out. They had houses made of mammoth tusks. Their whole economy ran off of mammoth. How could they run out?

I saw a large oil rig being built in Portland, Maine and I thought that there were probably people in that same spot 10,000 years ago hunting mammoth, preparing to get the last of them. I'll bet they thought that getting those last mammoth would revive the economy that they were used to. That oil rig was going off the coast of Brasil. We all think it will keep us in business as usual. They have a lot of oil, don't they?

We are opportunists. Cro-magnon man or whatever we are is always looking for the next opportunity. We may need to evolve. I don't think this place will wipe us out, but we could have a serious culling coming soon.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e may need to evolve.

[Revi]

I think the mind altering drugs got us in the mess we're in. We may need to get off of a few things (like oil) in order to get ourselves back on track.

The recession cycles seem to be up, but mostly down lately. The average person is paying over $3 a gallon for gas, but still seems clueless as to why they are broke even as they drive their Avalanches and full size pickups around. We need to be re-educated how to be poor people again. We need to figure out how to live on much less, and soon.

[jmnemonic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'W')e may need to get off of a few things (like oil) in order to get ourselves back on track.

[diemos]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jmnemonic', 'w')hy are we here? What is our purpose? What do we wish to achieve as a species?

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('diemos', '
')Eat, shit, fuck, sleep, acquire higher status than our neighbors.

[bratticus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('diemos', '
')Eat, shit, fuck, sleep, acquire higher status than our neighbors.

[Revi]

We may have a purpose. Maybe those few of us who know about this peak oil thing have a purpose. We are like the people on the top of the mountain that see what's coming. Unfortunately nobody back down in town seems to care. Maybe our purpose is to let a few people know, and try to help out when it hits.

Who knows? I think we may have a purpose. There is meaning in existence, maybe as a witness to what's happening.

We may be the ones who help out our little neighborhoods, households, or whatever. There has to be a reason why we know this stuff, in my opinion.

[vision-master]

Dolores Cannon - Convoluted Universe

[bratticus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]‘Peak Demand,’ Yes, But Not the Nice Kind -- Why There Will Be No Recovery
By Chris Nelder
Friday, March 5th, 2010

... skip ...

As I explained in “Investment Themes for the Next Decade,” the new normal will be cycles of bumping our heads against the supply ceiling, falling dazed to the floor, rising back to our knees, then finally standing, only to bump our heads against the ceiling once more.

... skip ...

I have joked on Twitter that I’m expecting an “M-shaped recovery,” where we’re now on the second hump. A more accurate image is slow strangulation.

... snip ...

[Revi]

That Chris Nelder article was excellent. We're going to be living like the Chinese soon enough. We need to get around on a scooter and eat a lot of rice and beans. The rest of the world has done that for years. I did it for a couple of years in Central America. I guess we can do it again. I'll start to look around for a good bean pot.

[Ibon]

My daughter asked me to pick up a book that her highschool teacher asked her class to read over the holidays. Deep Economy by Bill McKibben. "The wealth of Communities and the Durable Future"

Revi, you believe that we must have a purpose with this knowledge we have. I agree. We do. If it is possible that in the midst of so much despair out there that there is a high school teacher in this country assigning books like this to their students then there is your answer.

[Ibon]

Want some harsh reality? There is some major cognitive dissonance out there in the peak oil aware collective. From our pioneer understanding of peak oil we all agree on the unsustainable nature of the status quo. We furthermore understand that the status quo is entrenched and in denial and that consequences are coming that will make this denial impossible any longer. BUT then we despair when we read and experience in our own lives the economic decline and recession.

Isn't the cognitive dissonance glaring when we whine and despair about the hopeless decline?

Isn't the decline that we fear and whine about the very catalyst that we all understand to be necessary to break the status quo's denial?

That begs the question then why we are not celebrating the decline if we truly truly want to see our country and all nations move toward transition.

I have a theory about this reason why. Those of us who were pioneers about understanding peak oil felt that this knowledge somehow made us exempt and immunized to the consequences. That we were different from the sheeples and that our transition through our knowledge would caste some halo of enlightenment around us making this transition painless....

Sorry folks. We all suffer in this transition. If you are willing to look into the mirror over your despairing reaction to the decline of the US economy (the source of the global consumer dream) than you will have to peel back the layers, the veneer of all the lip service you have paid to being peak oil aware and ready for the transition and stare straight into the part of you that is, like the sheeples out there, a product of our times. Deep deep down there under all the progressive politically correct talk and planning and discourse is a still entrenched product of the oil age not really wanting to let go of all the comforts and security that you have been raised under.

Pull down your pants and bend over and humble yourselves with the masses around you and accept the SPANKING that is your due just like everyone else who will have to suffer this transition.

[bratticus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'T')hat begs the question