[DesuMaiden]

I believe doomerism is illogical and based on too little empirical evidence. I am studying psychology right now, and one of the most important lessons in psychology is that correlation doesn't imply causation. For example, Michael Ruppert says that when oil became ubiquitous human population started to increase rapidly. And Michael Ruppert makes it sound like oil becoming ubiquitous was the cause of the rapid population increase. But there Is actually very little evidence for this causation and effect relationship.What I am saying is that oil did not cause the human population to rapidly grow.

So there must be another cause to the rapid increase in population during the past 100-200 years. Or perhaps oil was only one factor that caused the rapid increase in population. Since oil did not cause the rapid increase in population, removing oil from the world economy might not cause the population to decrease. Perhaps the world isn't overpopulated?

Either way, I stopped being a doomer. I believe the world will significantly change when peak oil happens, but it is not like the end of the world.

[Subjectivist]

De Nile, not just a river in Africa...

[Pops]

Surpluses from industry and FFs allowed us more leisure time to investigate things like germ theory, plant genetics, tool improvements. That led us to discover this-n-that, which caused the mortality rate to fall faster than the birth rate, which caused the population to increase.

My opinion is, consideration of the weaknesses of the current system is just good old fashioned pragmatism; shit happens, so being totally unprepared for a glitch is foolish. How prepared a person decides to become depends on how much they worry, the more worry, the more they might want to do to ease their mind.

Paraphrasing Yogi, the hardest thing to predict is the future, so better to hedge whatever bet..

[Apneaman]

I have heard it before from burnt out Doomers. It's an understandable emotional position to relieve severe and often debilitating anxiety that can effect your whole life. I have heard many doomers comment on how it destroyed otherwise stable relationships. If you can't change the facts then change your mind. Apes do it all the time. It's normal and is an adaptive behavior for individuals. Unfortunately, it is maladaptive for techno industrial carbon man. Your study of psychology must surely have convinced you that our technological evolution has out stripped our psychological/emotional evolution by orders of magnitude. A lizard brained ape with nukes. Of course you're forgetting that no population can increase without food energy, so you need to address how such increases for that came about - look to the Haber–Bosch process - 7 plus billion is impossible without it. I empathise with you, but if you're going to put it out there....................

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process

[Pops]

I think if a person can't bring themselves to do anything proactively in the face of possibly profound change I'm not sure what benefit there is to sitting and fretting - or tapping out endless streams of death watch posts.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DesuMaiden', 'P')erhaps the world isn't overpopulated?

[hvacman]

Welcome back, DM.

While studying psychology, be sure to read some of the works of Dr. Viktor Frankl, the 20th century's most influential psychiatrist not named Freud or Jung. He demonstrated both through his teachings and his life how to not be a doomer in the face of "doom". Here is one of his quotes - it sounds a lot like the journey of change you have been on...

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

[jesus_of_suburbia]

I can tell you from first-hand experience, and being someone of similar age, that adopting the doomer mindset led me to rush into a lot of decisions out of fear that the end was looming. There are some things I missed out on and deeply regret as a result of that thinking. I'm not in denial about the potential for some bad things to happen this century. However, since I don't know the timing of these events and how they will affect me personally, it doesn't make sense to dwell on and freak out about the future.

[Strummer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'e')very time people thought the planet was "overpopulated," some new food and energy advances came along

[tom_s2]

Desu, good for you. You figured it out and moved on. Some people take decades to do that, and some people never do.

I've been observing doomsday groups of various kinds for a long time now, as a weird interest. I've known some people who were so mired in unfalsifiable thinking that they prepared for doomsday, over and over again, for 30+ years. Some people on this board have been preparing over and over again for 10+ years.

You figured it out and moved on fairly quickly. Good for you.

-Tom S

[davep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('tom_s2', 'D')esu, good for you. You figured it out and moved on. Some people take decades to do that, and some people never do.

I've been observing doomsday groups of various kinds for a long time now, as a weird interest. I've known some people who were so mired in unfalsifiable thinking that they prepared for doomsday, over and over again, for 30+ years. Some people on this board have been preparing over and over again for 10+ years.

You figured it out and moved on fairly quickly. Good for you.

-Tom S

[GregT]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('tom_s2', 'D')esu, good for you. You figured it out and moved on. Some people take decades to do that, and some people never do.

I've been observing doomsday groups of various kinds for a long time now, as a weird interest. I've known some people who were so mired in unfalsifiable thinking that they prepared for doomsday, over and over again, for 30+ years. Some people on this board have been preparing over and over again for 10+ years.

You figured it out and moved on fairly quickly. Good for you.

-Tom S

[GHung]

What is "doomerism" anyway? Just another label, IMO. On the other hand, if one thinks that planetary systems can continue to support an ever-growing human population without severe consequences to quality of life (ours and other species) and that the unquestionable die-off of other species as a result of human behavior doesn't matter, I submit one is an utter fool in denial. The real question is: are humans in a state of overshoot relative to their environment and, if so, what can/will they do about it? So far, collectively, they haven't done a damn thing. What will be the consequences of that?

There are plenty of examples in history and nature of populations exceeding the carrying capacity of their environment. Therein lies the answer.

This time it's global.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Strummer', 'E')xcept for quite a lot of cases when no advances came along and millions of people died.

You seem to be suffering from a very strong case of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias.

[GHung]

Gosh, Six.... Transition to what? Where will the energy and resources to implement that transition come from? And, since virtually all of our activities so far have resulted in further degradation of our environment, how do we transition in a manner that doesn't further reduce the carrying capacity of said environment? As I've always said, some (a lot) of forcing will be required, and environmental forcing doesn't bode well for a small planet of 7+ billion humans.

The math seems pretty simple: Too many humans; not enough planet, especially when the vast majority of those humans continue to work the problem in the wrong direction.

[GregT]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'H')omo sapiens is so crafty it can live just about any extreme environment, with stone age tech that is still ingenious -- from the walrus bone snow goggles of inuit, to the robes of Bedouins that function as air conditioning in the scorching hottest desert on earth.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GHung', 'G')osh, Six.... Transition to what? Where will the energy and resources to implement that transition come from? And, since virtually all of our activities so far have resulted in further degradation of our environment, how do we transition in a manner that doesn't further reduce the carrying capacity of said environment?

[GregT]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '[')b]Musk is really right on these big issues and they all tie together:

EV's + batteries + solar + space development to branch us off the planet.