[AgentR11]

The acceptance phase seems to be strongly supporting the cold/dark portions of my inner dialog. It really is mentally jarring as it lines up next to a life that is without a doubt more comfortable, easy, convenient, worry-free and pleasant than almost every human in history has been able to experience. Hard to reconcile. Dipping bread in cinnamon/sugar/butter, drinking coffee shipped from overseas, while asking philosophical questions about why I've put thousands of handgun rounds downrange, trained enough that my knuckles are all scarred, and there's a permanent pommel callus on my left palm... Why should an expensive spotting scope rest next to a generic assortment of sql, c++, and OS/CPU reference manuals? Why do links to the current php online reference line up right below links to climate, drought, and planting schedules on my bookmarks list?

When folks could indulge in a little fast-crash thought, you could assume an event that would nudge the full extended family, and a simple "come on down" or "I'll come fetch you tomorrow" would solve the familial diaspora problem. Even being slow crash, I'd hoped there would be noticeable inflection points; something that would flag a time to get out of Dodge. But even that isn't happening. I think the darkness comes from Accepting that there will be no "moment"; that the restriction of resources will gradually and brutally eat relatives; and eat them in a way that it'll be almost impossible to help them regain what they most certainly will still desperately want to regain, while also making it impossible for them to see an alternate Way.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'I')s it mentally healthy to have your psyche remain engaged in Intractable, entrenched and unresolvable...

[ObiWan]

PO.com has changed because reality took out the really cool parts people were interested in.

"Rule number one for post-peak... Anything that moves gets shot."

what-is-moral-behavior-both-pre-post-peak-t1903.html

Slow crashing in the current sense hasn't been discredited by reality yet. Unless one accepts that slow crashing in the current sense is really no different than the claims of Ehrlich, in which case slow crashing hasn't worked out very well either, unless "slow" means multi-century. And that would make perfect sense, and would encompass Malthusian claims as well. But as soon as the Roman claims of slow crash come up, well, now we are forced to consider millennia slow crashing.

My sense is that our children, those of whom are also pessimists, will have their own spin on this in due time. And recognizing this itself is part of why PO.com has changed, for those who knew about PO but decided to have kids anyway because, lets face it, odds are they didn't believe their own press.

[dorlomin]

Hiya Shorty, hiya pal.

[ObiWan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dorlomin', 'H')iya Shorty, hiya pal.

[dorlomin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ObiWan', ' ')Others have used that term in what appears to be in a semi-friendly fashion. Apparently he/she was also a friendly, happy go lucky sort with exceptional critical thinking and analysis skills, if my opinions are being confused with them?

[ObiWan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dorlomin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ObiWan', ' ')Others have used that term in what appears to be in a semi-friendly fashion. Apparently he/she was also a friendly, happy go lucky sort with exceptional critical thinking and analysis skills, if my opinions are being confused with them?

[dorlomin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ObiWan', '.')..

[ObiWan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dorlomin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ObiWan', '.')..

[dorlomin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ObiWan', 'P')eople have been calling me shorty, not Bruce_S. Bruce_S I can find, but you are the first to mention it. I am looking for shorty. And what does working out have to do with any of this? I created ObiWan, not someone else.

[ObiWan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dorlomin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ObiWan', 'P')eople have been calling me shorty, not Bruce_S. Bruce_S I can find, but you are the first to mention it. I am looking for shorty. And what does working out have to do with any of this? I created ObiWan, not someone else.

[Heineken]

Are you the guy with the bra on his head?

[ObiWan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'A')re you the guy with the bra on his head?

[evilgenius]

Yeah, and the slow crash paradigm will win out here until the next war! Or not, depending upon whether this place really has changed. I think this remains a diverse site. When something happens out there radically inventive as well as crazily inventive people tend to both come here. The 'slow crash' mentality may not necessarily be what most of you are labeling it. It may simply be what flexibility looks like in the absence of a disaster.

[SeaGypsy]

Very well said Evil.
To my way of thinking the IT factor (creative drive and endeavour on a personal level) is having a magnified effect as growth bashes it's head to death against the ceiling of resource constraints, most notably peak oil. Some (if not many) are finding diverse emergent opportunities which either were not there before peak, or have predictably grown while conventional opportunities dry up.

This and yes it all is a mirage of sorts.
The magic of debt and the lie of return to growth will keep the can kicking game going until exactly this happens:

ELM continues to rip holes in oil producer's bottom lines to the point where SA is in absolute turmoil and revolution. At this point All Hell Breaks Loose.

For those who wish to study the mechanics of the actual end of the world as we know it, study ELM and look at recent political history in exporting countries under the lense of their current and ongoing trades accounts. Renationalisation under the forces of ELM, destruction of stable government under collapsing deficits and highly individualised politicly aware populations.

TEOTWAWKI will begin in the ME, be driven by political collapse driven by ELM, nurtured by paranoid nationalist military governments and most likely blasted into full blown reality with another false flag number courtesy of Israel and her big buddy, in what will amount to a mirage under which the super rich sail off to their islands in the sun as totalitarian military governments spend the next 1000 years attempting to replace capitalism.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('evilgenius', 'T')he 'slow crash' mentality may not necessarily be what most of you are labeling it. It may simply be what flexibility looks like in the absence of a disaster.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Keith_McClary', '
')
These changes are the "low hanging fruit" of conservation and energy efficiency. When will we run out of that?

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 't')he basic needs of survival from a purely energy perspective are not under any significant threat this century.

[SeaGypsy]

Part of the 'surplus' is human.
Look at what is happening now in NE Africa compared to what happened in previous famines. The world has already changed to one where millions dieing in regional waves is becoming part of what happens, with efforts at propping up the starving reduced to marginal, virtually token efforts.
How long before Americans/ Australians/ Europeans/ Japanese etc. etc. become 'surplus' is more direct to the audience for this site.