[ennui2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onlooker', '
')the question of what is the right way to prepare for doom is like asking what is the right way for a human to live.

[Ibon]

I pretty much share Newfie's reasons.

I am deeply curious how humans will move through the epic and historical event of the upcoming confrontation with the consequences of human overshoot. I like bouncing these ideas and thoughts around with others who share his fascination. I recognize my bias and my wishes and I also recognize that they are ultimately irrelevant.

Teasing out all the forces and the interplay between them that spans culture, biology, ecology, human psychology, energy issues, morals, inertia, economics, climate change, peak oil, etc.

No primal scream here.

[onlooker]

In the end I think we can all agree that partly we are here because it is interesting. To the contrary, we probably would not be here. I also like the camaraderie and hearing the viewpoints of certain posters.

[Ibon]

In a clinical way that the topic is fascinating we can remain unattached during discussions and try to be objective. All of us know however that ultimately this is an existential dilemma for our species that is multi-generational in how it will unfold. The existential nature of human overshoot gives it a center of gravity that always succeeds in drawing me in. I cannot easily remove myself from its gravity as I orbit around and around this topic in my daily musings.

But we live not in a big macro world but in the micro details of our day to day lives. Some choose to stay in the myopic world of the micro here and now like little mice chasing crumbs and avoiding owls. Others like the view from more lofty perches observing the macro forces at play. More like a falcon.

Most of us however are a combination of both mouse and falcon. At times we view these topics like a predator and at times we are myopic and fearful like a mouse.

Who isn't an amalgam of both to varying degrees?

[JV153]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ennui2', 'T')he flipside is (as Cypher said so well in The Matrix) that ignorance is bliss.

[Timo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', 'N')ewfie, no disagreements with you, but I was mostly making that point rhetorically. Mostly, anyway, though I'm well aware of the twisted turns the brain can take when it starts going down a suicidal path. Maybe I should have distinguished "voluntary" from "consciously."

But, when you get right down to it, there is so much involuntary and subconscious BS going on in the brain when someone makes THAT decision. BS is a rhetorical reference, too. Nothing BS about it, actually.

As for us here at PO, sure. Most of us get it. We're here voluntarily, everyone except for Lore, anyway. We're in a very small, very insignificant minority who, to varying degrees, understand that the train has already left the station. Some of us are still trying chase it down the tarmac to climb aboard, while others of us are simply waving goodbye.

Others who get it are busy making their own modes of transport to get off this effing planet to blow up thermonukes over the Martian poles to create an atmosphere to geo-engineer a climate suitable for a 2nd summer home, complete with an electric powerwall, and falcon-wing doors. And Bernie will be the benevolent emperor.

WOW! That was some good stuff! I want more!!!

[Newfie]

Funny, I've never known someone being accidentally or deliberately killed by guns. My father in law was accidentally shot with a 22 as a kid in Germany in about the early 30's, but it was only a surface wound. He did get shot three times in the war but that doesn't count I presume. I have known people to shoot themselves. Quite successfully.

[Timo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'F')unny, I've never known someone being accidentally or deliberately killed by guns. My father in law was accidentally shot with a 22 as a kid in Germany in about the early 30's, but it was only a surface wound. He did get shot three times in the war but that doesn't count I presume. I have known people to shoot themselves. Quite successfully.

[Newfie]

I presume you were saying you knew people who were shot deliberately or accidentally in civilian life.

War is state sanctioned murder. That is a different matter.

If you can't tell the difference in your neighborhood you should move. From the sounds of your experience that may be the case. Very different where I grew up and where I live.

[ennui2]

I can feel the topic drifting by the minute. Attitudes about guns are a separate issue.

[Timo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ennui2', 'I') can feel the topic drifting by the minute. Attitudes about guns are a separate issue.

[Newfie]

Right o!

Difficult concept to introduce here. Is grief cumulative? If so should we not try to minimize grief?

If s should we not desire all things that minimize grief, total grief?

If so we should welcome collapse, limiting population. Better to have 6 billion die now than 11 billion in the future?

[Timo]

"Better" is difficult to qualify. Think of Pol Pot and Hitler. They obviously thought the world would be a better place with the systematic extermination of millions of people.

I think the crux of your question should be shifted to the means of population reduction, rather than the end result of population reduction. End result, for planetary survival, at least, would be good. How to get there? There are countless means to that end that I find unconscionable. That is the very problem that absolutely no world leader is willing to discuss, with the lone exception of China, and even they have reversed their one-child policy.

Is it a hill we're climbing, or is it a valley we're falling into?

[ennui2]

"Better to have 6 billion die now than 11 billion in the future?"

How does a sentiment like that go beyond an academic thought experiment and be actually applied in the real world? The answer is...it doesn't. No politician will sell mass genocide as a proactive ecological solution, and Hitler and Pol Pot didn't pursue genocide for that purpose.

I mean, there's a reason Hugo Drax is seen as a super-villain. It's because only a cartoonish figure like that would ever be able to transform the planet the way he tried to do in Moonraker.

[Newfie]

Yet it is the question implied in the title of the thread.

Is it better to have room now (killing 6 billion) or doom later, killing more.

[SeaGypsy]

Onlooker, you seem to have misconstrued my post about professional help. I stated a fact- there are no long term posters here who let their lives be known here- who have not made substantial life changes based around their perceptions of outcomes from the themes of doom- peak oil AGW etc. Mosennui actually went on about doomsteading himself for years on here, apparently giving up when he couldn't convince his aging parents to sell up, reinvest & move. He left that chapter out of his summary, because he has become what he was mocking & trying to get away from a few years ago- a self justified dweeb stuck in a boring job in a city in a megalopolis he has no control over, utterly mainstream lifestyle setting a wonderful example of normal for his daughter. He also believes in ultradoom- no survivors but perhaps cockroaches- the blackest doom vision in existence- yet simultaneous sanctimonious blurbing is his forte. Hates me for driving a truck lol!

[ennui2]

SeaGypsy, if you don't like me, use the ignore feature. I've got you on ignore already and this is one of the few posts I've unhidden in a long while, only to remind me why I ignored you in the first place.

[ennui2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'Y')et it is the question implied in the title of the thread.
Is it better to have room now (killing 6 billion) or doom later, killing more.

[SeaGypsy]

No wonder you ignore me, I see through your self contradiction, seamless rebirth etc. I have 2 young daughters, under 7. A bunch of us have kids in their 20's & a few at least have grandchildren. I can think of maybe 3-4 here with no offspring.

[ennui2]

Drag your young kids out into the Zika virus mosquito coast for all I care. You do what you want and I'll do likewise, and if despite sticking my neck out and sharing my deliberation you'd rather respond by sitting back and taking pot-shots, then so be it. The influence of some random internet poster doesn't weigh heavily, especially someone who probably comes from a completely different cultural background, different value-system, etc...