[SeaGypsy]

Thermodynamically appropriate... interesting terminology.

Funny of the dozens of multi decade established 'intentional communities' in this region, the only one which comes anywhere near being self sufficient is run by the much tainted Hare Krsna mob. 900 hectares of prime ag land certainly helps, along with a pyramid authority structure and strong donor ethos among the many who work off-site. WWOOF is their labor base- with between 30 and 60 people working half time hours for keep. Communal food, what's grown on site and brought in, communal meal preparation for the 150-200 people on site, car pooling for off site workers.

The anti- structure consensus style communities tend to devolve into social security dependence, selfish lifestyles, like suburbia in the bush without the competition to consume so much. Almost no substantial food production, with the exception of in season fruits planted many years ago by the founding idealists.

If I somehow had a major economic windfall one thing I would love to do is tour the US with a focus on intentional communities. It seems from a distance that the work ethic being stronger there and perhaps a more militia oriented organizational structure in parts may make for a more resilient independence in the long run.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '
')
I tell you this with absolute certainty: the rate of change is accelerating, not slowing. Some of you already want to hide from this, it would seem.

[SeaGypsy]

A good jolt of DMT and KJ would never again mention willingly travelling to the void

[KaiserJeep]

I did go to college and I did experiment with drugs - in the 1970's, and that is all I will say.

As for technology imperiling or saving the planet, let me say I place no credence in either man-caused Climate Change nor in any attempts at Engineering a solution. Sorry, but there is a problem of scale - and we don't have either the raw materials or the energy to effect planetary changes.

The damage done by humans is that of causing the extinction of many species. Everything from shooting passenger pigeons to fungal plagues that kill amphibians to taking multiple whales for whale oil. You could take an estimate of the number of plant and animal species on the Earth, divide by the average number of extinctions per year, and arrive at an estimate of when only man and his food species will survive.

What you call the "Overshoot Predator" and I call the Earthly Apocalypse will be IMHO a few hundred to a few thousand years when the remaining humans are pillaging the Earth in an effort to survive. But we will retain our hard-won technology, and at some point, a space habitat will be a cleaner, healthier, and more desirable place to live.

If you want to talk about geological time spans, that is how long it takes for evolution to make changes to a species. There were two species of hominids that are believed to have interbred with Cro-Magnon's to produce modern man, they are the Neanderthals and the Denisovans. The three species mixed some 30,000 to 50,000 years ago. There may have been three distinct species plus hybrids simultaneously in existence. Then the late Pleistocene Ice Age thinned the human herd down to perhaps as few as 35,000 hominids, as late as 15,000 years ago.

I'll not venture any guesses on that scale of years. But the fate of the Earth and the human species will be determined within say 2000 years.

[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '
')
I'm still scratching my head. It's not like anybody is in charge of the world and making bad decisions about which economic system we will choose.

[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '
')I will not dispute that need or the form it takes. Personally I do not think that the nature of man changes other than by the slow actions of evolution. I do not believe that man has changed to any appreciable extent in the century or century-and-a-half it took to build a society based upon dense hydrocarbon energy. I don't believe that we will evolve out of our problems, either. We will use our lately-acquired technology to save ourselves, but exactly what form that salvation takes is debatable.

I don't think mankind will learn to run Spaceship Earth. I don't think that the unknown captain of that spaceship is a deity called Gaia, either. I think we will flee the sinking Earth in the same way that passengers fled the HMS Titanic - in lifeboats. Those passengers that remained aboard that sinking ship did not die immediately, either. But ultimately those that did leave lived longer.

I get my own personal inspiration from vacationing in the wilderness, and feel at peace when the works of man are no longer in sight. This used to take the form of a strenuous backpacking expedition, nowadays it is days of peacefully prepping a Jeep Wrangler for comfortable back-country camping. Then dropping a fly or a spinning lure into a lake or stream completes the experience. If a fish is hooked, I am blessed with a fresh dinner.

Perhaps we are not so different, after all.

[SeaGypsy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'I')Then the late Pleistocene Ice Age thinned the human herd down to perhaps as few as 35,000 hominids, as late as 15,000 years ago.

[KaiserJeep]

We are quibbling over details again. Let me summarize my views again:

The nature of mankind during the "Long Emergency" to come will not change to any appreciable extent. We will still be separated into insular tribes divided from one another by national borders and barriers of language, culture, and ethnicity. The human race has not measurably changed in that period we call "recorded history", and we have less than that amount of time before oil, gas, and coal are depleted.

We will not magically become wiser or more environmentally conscious, we will still be squabbling over petty differences when the die-off begins. We will instead still be in acquisition mode for automobiles, central heating, mobile electronics, and other consumer goods. As these things become less affordable and food becomes more dear, we will complain and change politicians at every election if in a Democracy. In less fortunate places, gang warfare resumes and spreads, without benefit of a United Nations or a large and powerful nation like the USA to intervene.

In the USA and every other developed nation, we will finally be realizing how serious the situation is. The knowledge that each Forum member here at "Peak Oil" has today will finally be generally accepted by all. It will of course be too late to effect worldwide change. It was already too late in 1900 AD, and now there are something between 8 and 10 billion humans on the globe.

Then the hard times begin. Within a hundred years cannibalism is widespread. The slow decline of cultural norms and the agonizing forms that resource depletion imposes upon formerly comfortable lifestyles are recorded in bit-perfect digital storage.

The lucky ones with the opportunity to move into a clean and safe off-world colony do so. By then there will be precious little opportunity for such, because the original space pioneers will have their own culture, and their own population problems. But they will need laborers to build more space colonies. The new immigrants will be second class citizens.

You see? Things are not so different, after all.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'W')e are quibbling over details again. Let me summarize my views again:

The nature of mankind during the "Long Emergency" to come will not change to any appreciable extent. We will still be separated into insular tribes divided from one another by national borders and barriers of language, culture, and ethnicity. The human race has not measurably changed in that period we call "recorded history", and we have less than that amount of time before oil, gas, and coal are depleted.

We will not magically become wiser or more environmentally conscious, we will still be squabbling over petty differences when the die-off begins. We will instead still be in acquisition mode for automobiles, central heating, mobile electronics, and other consumer goods. As these things become less affordable and food becomes more dear, we will complain and change politicians at every election if in a Democracy. In less fortunate places, gang warfare resumes and spreads, without benefit of a United Nations or a large and powerful nation like the USA to intervene.

In the USA and every other developed nation, we will finally be realizing how serious the situation is. The knowledge that each Forum member here at "Peak Oil" has today will finally be generally accepted by all. It will of course be too late to effect worldwide change. It was already too late in 1900 AD, and now there are something between 8 and 10 billion humans on the globe.

Then the hard times begin. Within a hundred years cannibalism is widespread. The slow decline of cultural norms and the agonizing forms that resource depletion imposes upon formerly comfortable lifestyles are recorded in bit-perfect digital storage.

The lucky ones with the opportunity to move into a clean and safe off-world colony do so. By then there will be precious little opportunity for such, because the original space pioneers will have their own culture, and their own population problems. But they will need laborers to build more space colonies. The new immigrants will be second class citizens.

You see? Things are not so different, after all.

[KaiserJeep]

You are certainly welcome to any form of theology that comforts you. The situation is serious, and will cause discomfort for seniors like me, due to rising energy costs. The next generation faces more of that accompanied by increasing tax burdens. Their children are in actual peril.

I think I will take a page from pops, and leave my farm to the grandchildren. But my kid only just married and as yet I have none.

[SeaGypsy]

Most of us can't see too much difference between VM's Theology and your science fiction KJ.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '
')Doomers, religious nuts, and techtopians all share a common trait: the expectation that catastrophe, God, or Progress will take care of all our problems. I vote for catastrophe.

[vision-master]

Imagine the day when everyone can hold this crystal thingy in their hand and communicate with whoever they wish all over the world without 'big brother gatekeeper'. Direct connections....

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'M')ost of us can't see too much difference between VM's Theology and your science fiction KJ.

[Plantagenet]

By progress I don't mean techno-utopia or KJ's outer space colonies. I just mean steady grinding progress similar to what we've seen in the past.

landline phones become cell phones become smart phones....soon we'll have good wrist watch phones and google glasses and eventually tiny surgically implanted computers that will be with us (or will be us) constantly

Model Ts become chevys become toyotas become Teslas....soon we'll have smaller better faster cheaper electric cars, electric scooters, and maybe even some Elon Musk style hypertubes.

etc. etc.

OK....here goes the last one. Wood is replaced by peat is replaced by coal is replaced by oil is now being replaced by oil shale ......and in the future we'll rely mainly on NATURAL GAS.

It isn't utopia....but we'll continue to see a kind of progress.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'A')ll that would be required to start the next space race would be for NASA to report the discovery of a 500 ton gold asteroid. Then we would be stampeding into space, as once we stampeded into a harsh environment called the Yukon. A stampede that is still going on.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Beery1', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'S')aying someone is crazy is mildly insulting and should be avoided, by the same token using outright slurs or curse words should also be avoided.