[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'I') don't even remember what Greer's message was in that post (and I did read the entire painful thing along with the comments) Something about him, Greer, being smarter than everyone?)

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')there are a hell of a lot of folks out there quietly going about their own transitions without the need of defining this as some community movement.

[Rod_Cloutier]

I personally love reading Greer's clear and concise writing. He is knowledgeable and can easily quote historical references to give his ideas merit.

I also agree, however, that peakoil.com will never amount to a political movement of any kind. At its best it is a par-excellant source for news on the internet, at a middle ground it is a testing ground for new ideas to get them out in the public domain to see how others will react. At worst you need look no further than all the anti-semetic, racist, neo-nazi, and complaining posters on this board, to see that peakoil.com is gradually becoming another minor hate literature site.

I was thinking of even changeing my home page to zerohedge, because most of the news stories here now are just copies of the original articles from zerohedge. Peakoil.com was the #1 source of uncensored internet news a few years back, I will still visit every day, however that title of #1 source of uncensored revevant news now clearly risides with zerohedge.

Mos, google Greer on youtube he has a few good video presentations there as well! I also wouldn't say this wasn't Greer's greatest post, I'm sure he'll have far better surprises for us in the future.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', ' ') Just people reacting like lower animals to immediate stimuli without any long-term vision whatsoever.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')there are a hell of a lot of folks out there quietly going about their own transitions without the need of defining this as some community movement.

[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')there are a hell of a lot of folks out there quietly going about their own transitions without the need of defining this as some community movement.

[thuja]

Greer has helped outine the unfolding transformation taking place as we exit the oil age. He does it in a way that is not too bombastic and over the top as other prognosticators such as Rupert, Savinar and Kunstler. He may get a little verbose and arcane at tmes, but he's one of the most level headed out there.

For me this site has always been great on two levels. On one leve, it has helped me to see what a collosal mess we've gotten ouselves into and to debate the best ways of perrsonally and collectively dealing with this shit storm.

And on another level it has spurred me to make practical and tangible changes to my life as my small way to mitigate. So..buying silver, starting a farmers market, getting chicend, uber gardening, getting solar panels, a solar hot water system, etc....oh and enjoying the shit out of relatively cheap and available oil for as long as I can.

So narcisism...of course. That and the selfish desire to insulate ourselves as well as possible from tshtf is why many of us are here.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'G')reer has helped outine the unfolding transformation taking place as we exit the oil age. He does it in a way that is not too bombastic and over the top as other prognosticators such as Rupert, Savinar and Kunstler. He may get a little verbose and arcane at tmes, but he's one of the most level headed out there.

[Loki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'G')reer has helped outine the unfolding transformation taking place as we exit the oil age. He does it in a way that is not too bombastic and over the top as other prognosticators such as Rupert, Savinar and Kunstler. He may get a little verbose and arcane at tmes, but he's one of the most level headed out there.

[Loki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'T')his comes partially from the venue of communication via blogs and internet. I am down to no more than 30 minutes a day for this type of activity. The more time you spend in the world of the practical application and out doors the more these debates appear totally irrelevant.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '
')Why not to allow enlightened parts of society to make though bottleneck, make some lip service to ethics by attempting to educate others and write off majority who don't listen?

[evilgenius]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')Pointless sand box narcissism.

[ennui2]

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015- ... pre-mortem

"If you’re like most Americans in 2065, you live in Third World conditions without regular access to electricity or running water,"

In Greer's the Long Descent, he envisioned a multi-century play-out of limits to growth that roughly paralleled the fall of the Roman Empire. In his blog he tended to downplay the impact of AGW. Now he is envisioning 3rd world conditions will settle into the US is only 50 years.

I used to think he was one of the most measured thinkers on the subject but I think he just blew his credibility out of the water by shifting the goalposts like this. His whole schtick is that he writes reams and reams of paragraphs to defend his positions, but then to shift them on a dime like this proves that all his talking points are really just intellectual filler and he's just making a wild guess like everyone else.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ennui2', 'h')ttp://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-04-30/the-death-of-the-internet-a-pre-mortem

"If you’re like most Americans in 2065, you live in Third World conditions without regular access to electricity or running water,"

In Greer's the Long Descent, he envisioned a multi-century play-out of limits to growth that roughly paralleled the fall of the Roman Empire. In his blog he tended to downplay the impact of AGW. Now he is envisioning 3rd world conditions will settle into the US is only 50 years.

I used to think he was one of the most measured thinkers on the subject but I think he just blew his credibility out of the water by shifting the goalposts like this. His whole schtick is that he writes reams and reams of paragraphs to defend his positions, but then to shift them on a dime like this proves that all his talking points are really just intellectual filler and he's just making a wild guess like everyone else.

[Paulo1]

@ ennui2,

I would somewhat agree with you but now I am not sure. Not that Greer's arguments convince me by themselves, but this past week a few things have sealed it for me.

Yesterday, while waiting for the oven to heat up I flipped on CNN. There was Obama, giving a speech as usual full of 'folks', platitudes, and 'how all of us need to do something'. He alluded to CEOs in his audience and dropped their company names. I realized at that time there is no plan or hope in hell to ever get these unemployed multitudes working in today's moribund economy. It cannot happen. There simply is nothing to do. Literally.

The trajectory of FF growth has slowed, much like a fly ball in a baseball game, and the trajectory/ball has just started to plummet towards an empty field. The news shows blocks of cities that already look third world, and would be if it were not for the fear of the firearms already in use and the rapid mobilization possible through social media. To say the USA is sitting on a tinderbox is putting it lightly. Yesterday, an arrest was made in Baltimore and a gun was dropped which then discharged. The city lay poised on the edge of recurring violence. It took minutes.

So, people wait for the calendar to recharge their EBT card and wait some more. The food choices are bad, and there is nothing to do but 'hang'. There will be no magic Frigidaire company or tool and die outfit coming along to set up shop and start training 'folks' to assemble or fabricate. No, they are already set up in their spanking new factories in Thailand or Viet Nam where the people are hungrier, smaller, harder working, polite, and thankful to work Sundays or night shift at straight time. The straight time is at some low percentage of what would be expected in North America. In this race for the bottom the folks of NA buy their efforts at the local WalMart because they cannot afford to shop anywhere else and the downward spiral continues. The waiting time is paid for by a Govt borrowing money for section 8 housing projects, EBT cards, and proposed free college for angry young 'folks' unable to form a coherent thought in a sentence.

Think of the 'no go' neighbourhoods in so many US cities. Then start multiplying. This borrowed money to placate and stifle bitterness cannot continue forever.

War is the usual solution, but I don't think anyone would buy in unless there was some horrifying strike on 'The Homeland". (I feel like puking to use that phrase but such are the times.....) What would it take to mobilize these 'folks' into a common and productive purpose? Your guess is as good as anyones, but I do know this, the answer won't be magically found in 2016.

To quote the infamous George W and redirect his meaning.....“If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down,”

Well, there isn't any money, there are no cheap energy tricks/sources remaining to find and the people have guns and nothing but time on their hands. Greer is probably underestimating his projection. It all depends on where you are standing.

[evilgenius]

I don't know if it's possible, but there ought to be an effort to understand the other forces besides fossil fuel decline which are playing into the morass. Technology is actually responsible for a lot of the unemployment, as fewer people are needed to make anything. Of course people in countries where the situation is worse will work more cheaply. Perhaps we ought to recognize how much of that is the result of both a technological and managerial structure that can adapt to varying degrees of worker knowledge and still produce output at a high level. The obvious question is not, "why don't we make anything in the US anymore?' The obvious question is, "when will we cease to make anything and have self-driven machines do everything for us?" This is the kind of new normal that, if the ramifications of it are not addressed as we build the structure of our financial, educational and business systems, we will wind up with a third world and a first world right next to each other, and nothing to fill the gap. This is the kind of new normal that could accelerate John Michael Greer's heretofore drawn out timeline, not necessarily fossil fuels. Until he changed paths Greer used to say that fossil fuels would gradually fade, amongst a backdrop of predictable wars and societal upheavals.

I get the criticism, though. Ever since JMG wrote that piece about how the US could lose one of its coastal wars, irritating his prior interpretation that the path included predictable bully wins war making, and almost immediately drop out of super power status he has been on a track to try to fast forward his timeline, I think. It wasn't the fascinating scenario of the conflict, and the potential for a US loss that was the problem. The problem was how, after having set us up to enjoy some war porn, he limited the set of results that such a loss could bring. He passed right over a whole host of responses both politicians and the people could make in the wake of such a thing. In short, he only brought up the scenario to set up his own world to follow it, then tried to say it was the most likely. Populations don't react that way, however. They tend to try to believe and do what they want to, even in the face of reality. This uncertainty of the political sea is something he didn't give enough credence to. Certainly he did not allow for American 'can do' solutions. But that's the problem with doomer porn, it leaves that kind of thing out, almost from the beginning.

[AgentR11]

I've posted my little friend above several times. The economy feels, as you note, "moribund"... but its not. *NOW* is normal, and is the normal as it has been since WWII. What happened in 1990-2000 is what was messed up. Someone blew a bubble. A really, really big bubble, based upon probably the largest equity market that has ever existed. During that bubble, all that cash had to go somewhere, and it went to employ folks who never should have considered being part of the full time labor for wage system, all in the quest to create "revenue" (as opposed to real value and cash profit). Well, the bubble popped, and the cash that paid those wages ceased to exist, and so those jobs that added next to nothing to the productive economy, ceased to exist.

They will *not* be coming back. And that is a good thing. The economy we have now, is GOOD. The economy in 2000 was just plain stupid.

oh.. and btw.. Obama still sucks, and even sucking as much as he does, Hillary isn't even worthy of tying his shoe laces! Sanders might be worthy enough to polish his shoes... but I doubt it.

HA!

[evilgenius]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', '[')img]http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?g=16oM[/img]

I've posted my little friend above several times. The economy feels, as you note, "moribund"... but its not. *NOW* is normal, and is the normal as it has been since WWII. What happened in 1990-2000 is what was messed up. Someone blew a bubble. A really, really big bubble, based upon probably the largest equity market that has ever existed. During that bubble, all that cash had to go somewhere, and it went to employ folks who never should have considered being part of the full time labor for wage system, all in the quest to create "revenue" (as opposed to real value and cash profit). Well, the bubble popped, and the cash that paid those wages ceased to exist, and so those jobs that added next to nothing to the productive economy, ceased to exist.

They will *not* be coming back. And that is a good thing. The economy we have now, is GOOD. The economy in 2000 was just plain stupid.

oh.. and btw.. Obama still sucks, and even sucking as much as he does, Hillary isn't even worthy of tying his shoe laces! Sanders might be worthy enough to polish his shoes... but I doubt it.

HA!

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('evilgenius', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', '[')img]http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?g=16oM[/img]

[ennui2]

I don't see how Obama has anything to do with this thread. (How happy I'll be when he's out of office so he doesn't keep cropping into all these discussions as everyone's chosen whipping-boy.)

My problem in this thread is with JMG. He delivered his "long descent" narrative with a sense of absolute certainty that he was correct, and he would bitch-slap dissenters in the blog comments to the point of censorship if they tried to explain how maybe it won't turn out that way.

But to ret-con his predictions from 200-300 years down to 50 is a pretty big flip-flop and unless someone can share any sort of blog post where he cops to his bad call, I'd say he shot his credibility to hell.

If you want to qualify your predictions by saying they're subject to change, by all means. But to deliver your predictions as if your data is infallible and then change your predictions just makes you look like you're manufacturing them out of thin air.

JMG is very good at making a cogent-sounding argument but that's really all it is, it has all the trappings of a good argument, but it is not nearly as iron clad as he thinks it is. His utter arrogance in his own correctness is his worst enemy.