[Newfie]

We have always been a country of different folks who had a hard time getting along. Look at Rhode Island. Puritans would prision and flail Quakers. Franklin had to argue with Quakers to support defending other settlers. Not to mention the civil war. So we have always had strife. Various little rebellions.

The last 70 or so years have been a bit differnt. WWII, integration of the military, civil rights movement gave us hope that we could overcome these inherit difficulties.

Doesn't seem to be going so well today. But it has been worse, and there is fall we can do about it outside of living the life we admire. For perspective we are lots better off than Yugoslavia, Syria, Libia and a whole host of other countries.

The "news" sells hype, adrenaline. Not that one should go asleep, situational awareness is good. But that also entails accurate diagnosois of the threat.

[Pops]

same story different thread...
We may be getting dumber, I don't know but there has always been a anti-educational bias in certain quarters, just ain't manly to be too smart. Over the years various of my homies with tans to their shirt collars called me "perfesser" or some such. Regardless that some had more college than me.

The problem isn't so much lack of education but lack of work without it.

but on topic... I can't come up with nuthin...

[Ibon]

The aging infrastructure of industrial civilization that wont be replaced because of energy constraints moving forward is really a metaphor for ones body. We age and our joints get old just like aging bridges and our ability to rejuvenate declines with age. The EROEI of you and I goes down with age as calories eaten translate to less net available energy to do useful work. At some critical point our bodies collapse and we die.

Maybe all this worrying at the end of the day about systemic global problems is really just a projection of our fear of our own mortality that we just project on to civilization at large.

The sun rises, the morning is still, the night chorus of crickets and frogs replaced with the morning song of birds life. All of this worrying? Over what?

If you truly internalize the futility of worrying over the inevitable outcome of your mortality then you really can just drop it. It is thoroughly waste of time. Same applies to our industrial civilization. They are mirrors of each other.