[Ibon]

What if all the forces that we see converging do not succeed in upsetting the apple cart? And we see only a slow attrition in reference to the environment or our standard of living.

I bring this up because most of us are carrying around with us personal narratives, regardless of where we fall on the political spectrum, that something has got to give and we orbit around this thought as it dominates our world view.

And just what if it doesn't happen? Take a moment and reach into the future and see yourself as an old man or woman looking back on your life and seeing the arch of history quite shallow and uneventful. With no real resolution to the issues we discuss here.

Sit for a moment in that space as an elder looking back. Look at the balance between the moments you lived fully and the moments you fretted over all the threats.

Was it worth it?

[davep]

It's hard to tell when you're still feeling the consequences of both externalities and personal choices linked to subjective ideas of mitigation. IMO fretting can only go on for so long before you decide on some plan of action or to ignore the source of your anxiety. You'll just drive yourself crazy otherwise.

So, I guess I'll say it was worth it on one level because I actually decided to act on a plan of action. Whether it's fruitful or not isn't necessarily the point.

[Strummer]

We are in the middle of an unprecedented heatwave here in Central Europe, probably the highest sustained temperatures in at least a few hundred years. I'm definitely not worried about a slow attrition... together with a full-blown civil war in a neighbouring country (Ukraine) and crowds of climate refugees piling up in another one (Hungary), it feels more like being at the tipping point of a rollercoaster ride.

[Pops]

I think it is pretty natural for each generation, each person, to think we are the apex. We each are the center of our own conscious universe after all. No real surprise we would expect the climax to occur during our lifetime. In that sense I'm pretty sure most folks look back and are surprised that things didn't change all that much or in the direction they had hoped or feared.


The more interesting thing I think is in regard to the forum, the media we're using generally, which has enabled such a diversity of debate. After 16k and whatever posts I find that what has changed the most for me personally is my confidence in my own knee-jerk opinion and certainty that things will change in a certain way. A regular guy, who reflects at all, simply can't pontificate endlessly and retain an inflated sense of his own infallibility.

I've tried to play the devil's advocate here from time to time ;^)
I've probably railed more against implacable opinion and absolutism than anything else. The thing that sets me off every time is when folks say "the fact is..." when it demonstrably isn't, which is a good portion of the time. But, turns out that the illusion of factual insight that was just as often wrong as right were my own!

Cherry-Pick Pie gets old after a while. I believe I am less convinced of anything, more surprised at everything, more open to evidence that contradicts my gut reactions than I ever have been. What could be better?



So was the fretting, observing, debating, reading, writing and yes, cherry-picking, more or less worthwhile than "living fully"? I guess I have to ask the definition. What might I have been doing with my brain at 4:30am otherwise? To me PO.com is kind of an ongoing mind massage, vocabulary exercise, and virtual barroom brain brawl all rolled into one.

[GoghGoner]

I don't fret, I watch, continue to learn, mature, and hope to be a wise elder someday. Day-to-day life poses challenges and those come and go like waves (ie. marriage and kids). I hope to gain the same peace there that I have with the future - whatever it does or does not bring.

[Newfie]

For some of us, me, being the old man looking back isn't a far off event.

Yes, I's surprised at the resilience of the system.

But I don't that that's a good thing, just pushing the roller coaster higher before the fall.

Maybe I'll never see it, pretty sure my kids will.

In the meantime our preps have been about the boat and having a vacation/bug out place. They are things we are interested in and enjoy in their own right. I've been a lucky man.

[C8]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Strummer', 'W')e are in the middle of an unprecedented heatwave here in Central Europe, probably the highest sustained temperatures in at least a few hundred years. I'm definitely not worried about a slow attrition... together with a full-blown civil war in a neighbouring country (Ukraine) and crowds of climate refugees piling up in another one (Hungary), it feels more like being at the tipping point of a rollercoaster ride.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'I') think it is pretty natural for each generation, each person, to think we are the apex. We each are the center of our own conscious universe after all. No real surprise we would expect the climax to occur during our lifetime. In that sense I'm pretty sure most folks look back and are surprised that things didn't change all that much or in the direction they had hoped or feared.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GoghGoner', 'I') don't fret, I watch, continue to learn, mature, and hope to be a wise elder someday. Day-to-day life poses challenges and those come and go like waves (ie. marriage and kids). I hope to gain the same peace there that I have with the future - whatever it does or does not bring.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'H')oards of African and Central Americans surging north to escape AGW/post-peak agriculture dieoff. Very soon. Hardly even tomorrow. It has begun and the clock will not run backwards.

[C8]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')We also have to remember that those first 20 years of ones life, we are experiencing life through the wisdom of youth that senses life through the body and less from cerebral reason. It is only the middle ages that the mind reasons with the big picture, and then alas, once we gather all the parts and start to form a whole, senility and obsolescence creeps in.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('C8', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')We also have to remember that those first 20 years of ones life, we are experiencing life through the wisdom of youth that senses life through the body and less from cerebral reason. It is only the middle ages that the mind reasons with the big picture, and then alas, once we gather all the parts and start to form a whole, senility and obsolescence creeps in.

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'S')it for a moment in that space as an elder looking back. Look at the balance between the moments you lived fully and the moments you fretted over all the threats.

Was it worth it?

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Strummer', 'W')e are in the middle of an unprecedented heatwave here in Central Europe, probably the highest sustained temperatures in at least a few hundred years. I'm definitely not worried about a slow attrition... together with a full-blown civil war in a neighbouring country (Ukraine) and crowds of climate refugees piling up in another one (Hungary), it feels more like being at the tipping point of a rollercoaster ride.

[onlooker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e never really arrive at a collective light bulb moment

[Cog]

When you watch your parents and in-laws die or become incapacitated by dementia, it does make you think about your future. In my case, it has made me save every dollar I possibly can so as not to be a burden on my children. It might even work if I live long enough.

[C8]

I don't feel my outlook is too colored by my age. I have two young sons that I want to see enter a bright world (very desperately). It just seems like things are getting much worse no matter what perspective you take. About 5 years ago I was happier with the world: PO was coming undone as new FF tech released more energy, renewable prices were dropping, I was hopeful that the internet and smart phones were going to help meet peoples' needs in less materialistic ways and lower energy usage.

So many bad trends have emerged in the last 3 years that I cannot believe it:

1. The populations of violent, uneducated people are exploding in Africa, Middle East and Latin America and are beheading each other, wallowing in corruption unheard of in the West, and destroying their ecosystems

2. debt keeps rising out of control with entitlements that will sink developed nations. Populations just keep getting older, fatter and sicker- the specter of Greece looms everywhere

3. liberal identity politics has incited race strife and de-policing- which is leading to rising lawlessness and murder in cities. Everywhere there is an attack on the authority figures who make civilization possible

4. Developed nations lack the will to secure their borders from mass invasion from more violent third world people who commit crimes and sink the welfare state with burdens

5. Only token BS steps are made to address global warming while more and more droughts and fires rage- nobody is even slightly interested in research to remove CO2 so we get all these crappy plans to "reduce emissions" ignoring that feedback loops will not be slowed down one bit by these efforts

My view is not a projection of my personal age- the world really is declining rapidly, civilization is dying

[onlooker]

C8, your talking points are good yet the overriding and overarching specter that looms over humanity is the intersecting trend lines of overpopulation and environmental degradation and collapse. Yes the chronic inequality of societies among each other and within is contributing to a greater lawlessness. Our economic system is fragile because it has been unreasonably constructed on a debt based system that presupposes abundance and we have already entered an age of scarcity and also it is extremely corrupt and unequal. So in staying with the OP, societies can be rearranged, retrofitted and retooled but what cannot be made whole again within periods relevant to humans is Earth's functioning life support systems which are rapidly declining. So this period of time to come promises change within human societies greater then any in the past and probably greater then any that will ever affect humans.

[americandream]

I am generally more upbeat apart from the climate and infinite growth mix. Whilst people lament the past, lets not forget that the recent golden past in say the deep south in America saw blacks swinging from the trees for mere transgressions and just a mere 2 decades ago, black progressives were being thrown out of windows in South Africa.

The new world is dispassionately profit driven....nothing now comes between a capitalist and his accumulation but profit and who can advance that for him. That is forcing us to get along together, to even live within the same borders....like the wheel which forced us to abandon narrow parochialism, capitalism is forcing us to coexist under modernity. So we need to be very careful that we do not confuse reactionary feelings with love of planet or the black man in grass skirts or environment...they are not. They are the yearnings for a very arbitrary past

The next step form here if we are to survive is to take the new humanity and circularise its resource use before the climate calls time on us.