[Lore]

It's not coincidental that the exponential rise in human population coincides with the age of oil. The reset in population after we have depleted most all of the inexpensive fossil fuel resources that can be captured through mass industrialization will certainly be at a level commensurate with what can be pounded out by a few tribes that have rejiggered some of the mechanized skeletons of our past.

The survivors main problem is to overcome the crises coming at them from so many different converging future catastrophic events. Stripped of our once formidable technology it will be like taking a knife to a gun fight.

[ian807]

Humans are just nature's way of recycling organic chemicals back into the ecosystem (Sorry, feeling cynical today).

[SeaGypsy]

Biggest waster of compost ever. Flushing it out to sea or down the river all our lives then having our bodies burned because worms creep us out. How bizarre we are.

[DomusAlbion]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '.').. billions must die to live off the scraps we have left.

[dissident]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'Y')ou two moderators (DomusAlbion, and Tanada) seem to agree that our dismal future will look like The Hunger Games with a wealthy powerful class that controls legions of hungry obedient poor. I kind of lean toward a Mad Max scenerio of complete chaos and population dieoff. My future is more reasonable for many reasons. We are armed. We are angry (and many are suicidal, as per 'Arab Spring') we communicate, and we see what is coming. They will not set up camps. The guards will slink on home.

IMHO there will be many fewer of us in the future living simple lives, with less industrial civilization. The stylish world portrayed in The Hunger Games depends on cheap fuel. I see folks dressed like medieval serfs, picking through their neighbors' orifices for vermin, before things play out in another dictatorship. Those slick costumes require such a fantastically complex industrial infrastructure. Centralized food production/processing/distribution (and waste management) requires an intact transport and refrigeration infrastructure---which is failing as we speak in 3rd-world countries. So does tertiary oil production. Fracting is a incredibly complex operation. Chaos is the rule on the downslope.

[SeaGypsy]

As I just mentioned in the die-off thread, lack of anti-biotics is all it would take to transition to rapid die-off. I am with dissident and Pstarr on this, the elite wet dream concept of the future is as unrealistic as techtopia or the book of Revelations. However I don't doubt TPTB will try to manifest maintaining their status at any cost. I do doubt their ability in the long run to control what happens outside city gates.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'A')s I just mentioned in the die-off thread, lack of anti-biotics is all it would take to transition to rapid die-off. I am with dissident and Pstarr on this, the elite wet dream concept of the future is as unrealistic as techtopia or the book of Revelations. However I don't doubt TPTB will try to manifest maintaining their status at any cost. I do doubt their ability in the long run to control what happens outside city gates.

[John_A]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', 'I')t's not coincidental that the exponential rise in human population coincides with the age of oil.

[eastbay]

Yup, we'll use all of it. It's well underway, folks. The easy to get NG, coal and oil's nearly gone. So we've moved on to what's next on the list of what we can burn:

* We burn half the US corn production in America's cars.

* We've clearcut half of the Malaysian rainforests so palm oil plantations can grow green renewable fuel to burn in bio-diesel trucks and cars.

* We're setting fire to the Indonesian rainforests to clear that land so palm oil can be grown and burned in Europe's cars.

* We're clearcutting the Amazon to, you guessed correctly, grow sugar to make green biofuels for cars and trucks. (and to grow soy and raise cows and plant other food for us and the 80 million people annually added to humanity)

* We now pump unpronouceable chemicals into the ground everywhere to frac out the last of the hydrocarbons.

* We scrape the topsoil off Alberta, and we'll next move on to Colorado and everywhere else to get at and burn the bits of oil trapped in topsoil.

* We'll start some wars over a few islands in the China Sea in order to see who owns the oil there.

* We'll nuke and radiate the oceans with leaks from coastal atomic energy plants because burning coal is too costly.

* We've started wars in all sorts of Islamic countries so the Muslims know who's really boss over the oil under their lands.

* We're well on our way to killing all non-human life on the entire surface of the Earth so we can burn fossil fuel to make people fatter and lazier.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', 'Y')up, we'll use all of it. It's well underway, folks. The easy to get NG, coal and oil's nearly gone. So we've moved on to what's next on the list of what we can burn:

* We burn half the US corn production in America's cars.

* We've clearcut half of the Malaysian rainforests so palm oil plantations can grow green renewable fuel to burn in bio-diesel trucks and cars.

* We're setting fire to the Indonesian rainforests to clear that land so palm oil can be grown and burned in Europe's cars.

* We're clearcutting the Amazon to, you guessed correctly, grow sugar to make green biofuels for cars and trucks. (and to grow soy and raise cows and plant other food for us and the 80 million people annually added to humanity)

* We now pump unpronouceable chemicals into the ground everywhere to frac out the last of the hydrocarbons.

* We scrape the topsoil off Alberta, and we'll next move on to Colorado and everywhere else to get at and burn the bits of oil trapped in topsoil.

* We'll start some wars over a few islands in the China Sea in order to see who owns the oil there.

* We'll nuke and radiate the oceans with leaks from coastal atomic energy plants because burning coal is too costly.

* We've started wars in all sorts of Islamic countries so the Muslims know who's really boss over the oil under their lands.

* We're well on our way to killing all non-human life on the entire surface of the Earth so we can burn fossil fuel to make people fatter and lazier.

[Subjectivist]

The real legacy of humanity will be all the legacy of extinct species we are taking out of the ecosystem every day from no into the future.

[eastbay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Subjectivist', 'T')he real legacy of humanity will be all the legacy of extinct species we are taking out of the ecosystem every day from no into the future.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Subjectivist', 'T')he real legacy of humanity will be all the legacy of extinct species we are taking out of the ecosystem every day from no into the future.

[eastbay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'Y')es Ibon (and Eastbay), loss is truly tragic. But I have stopped mourning in part because of the work you do Ibon, and also my final trust in the power and resilience of nature. There have been dieoffs before and although innumerable species will be gone forever, others will come again. Also only humans feels our existential loss. Other species live with death everyday, and individual don't realize they are the last of their kind.