[Tyler_JC]

The following is a list of all of the irrational optimists on this forum:

BiGG (soon to be BANNED)
DriveElectric/JayHMorrison (BANNED)
Dezakin
Ibon
Ailrickson (BANNED, I don't actually know what this guy's story is)
Lorenzo

The more reasoned optimists:
JohnDenver
FatherOfTwo
Dan
JohnMarkos
Jaymax
EnergySpin (maybe)
Pops (maybe)


And of this list, no moderators...but we already have a thread on that.

If you want to be added to the list of forum optimists, please indicate so in your response. I'm trying to get a headcount for the number of optimists left on the site. It seems like we have fewer optimists than before. But that might just be a result of changing conditions. ($60 a barrel oil is hurting the optimist case)

[johnmarkos]

I consider myself an optimist.

John

[Jaymax]

I get accused of being an optimist (hell, I even got accused of being another BiGG). Where's the boundary between optimism and pessimism?

--J

[DomusAlbion]

I’m moderately optimistic about my own future but not so optimistic about the majority of the world including a lot of the people on the PO board. When confronted by the idea of Peak Oil and the inevitable consequences, my wife and I took concrete action to mitigate the consequences to us and our family. Of course only time till tell if our decisions were sound.

Most of the people whose posts I’ve read here seem to be doing a lot of talking about and around Peak Oil and possible positive actions but not much else. Then there are the hopelessly doomed mental attitudes that I see exhibited here. People in this mental state are already defeated and will likely crumble to dust in the face of real hardship.

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')nergySpin (maybe)

[lapulapu]

I'm an optimist. My experience is that most people are caring/sharing (look at this forum!) and would be welling to work together and help each other in times of crisis. But I also have experience with the laws of averages, and in any bio-social system of material size, the laws of averages will said that some organism will find a 'adaptive niche' in living/taking off another organism - examples of parasitic existence abound in the natural world.

I would assume following a "being a wolf in a herd of sheep" adaptive strategies would continue as a part of human social behavior in the post-PO. That's just observation of the laws of averages, not "doomer", and it would be just more stressful to have to deal with 'wolves' at the same time that I have to make a major lifestyle change - IMHO

[eastbay]

I'm an optimist for the health of the Earth. I'm optimistic that the human die-off will reduce human populations to a more reasonable and sustainable post PO level; maybe something on the order of 2% of today's population.

I'm optimistic nature will prevail. I'm optimistic that the horrific ecological disaster resulting from cheap-energy driven humanities brief, devastating and disgusting rampage of destruction will soon end and will be, in time, repaired.

So call me an optimist too!

Call me a 'reasoned' optimist.

[LadyRuby]

I thought I'd be on the optimists list, too. I guess I'm an optimistic doomer. And I'm totally biased but I think this board REALLY needs some optimistic doomers!

[Tyler_JC]

"I'm optimistic about the future health of the earth" is not being an optimist. Sorry Eastbay, a mass dieoff is considered pessimistic by this thread. (I'm in the pessimist camp)

I'm using the term optimistic as the public would call optimisitc.

JohnDenver is an optimist because he believes that when this is all said and done, humanity will continue its path of progress.

Ludi is a pessimist because she (he?) believes that when this is finished, humanity will be living a greatly reduced lifestyle.

DomusAlbion, I have read many of your posts and I don't think you qualify as an optimist. (unless I'm misreading it)

[Tyler_JC]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergySpin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')nergySpin (maybe)

[eastbay]

"I'm optimistic about the future health of the earth" is not being an optimist. Sorry Eastbay, a mass dieoff is considered pessimistic by this thread. (I'm in the pessimist camp)

Tyler_JC,

No problem, ok, I'll play along with that.... but on this thread only!!

[MD]

Definitely an optimist

[Hawkcreek]

--

[gego]

I am an optimist. I think that my grandchildren, my children, and my wife and I will survive the next 50 years, except for death from old age; at least we will not die from the lack of water, food, shelter, and likely not from social breakdown violence.

However, I don't think that 80% of the rest of the world will so survive.

The laws of nature stack the odds against the overwhelming majority, simply because the human population is statistically out on a limb. The long term trend places the "mean" of human population at close to 1 billion. It is impossible to exist for any significant time with human population numbers beyond the third standard deviation. All statistical series return to the mean after venturing out to the third standard deviation netherland, and in fact overshoot, so maybe 500,000 in not out of the question.

I would not need to have ever heard of "peak oil" and I could have reached the conclusion that the human population was destined to snap back to 1 billion in the near future. Peal oil just explains the trigger event that will set off the implosion.

Those Pollyanna's among you will always convince yourselves that this catastrophy cannot happen. Just about every day someone posts the "salvation". Nobody believes it will happen to you.

Unless you insure as much as you can that you will have food, water, shelter, defense and some basic self health care over the next 50 years, then you probably one of the Titanic swimmers, and not on a life boat.

[drew]

I've got to sit with the optimists too, although just barely. I pray we have some form of soft landing instead of arrmagedon. Who can tell, it's just a crap shoot.

Drew

[RonMN]

Funny...i always took Pops as a doomer with his best smiley face showing (which is really the best a man can do).

Me...i'm no optimist! But that's not because of PO...it's because of how people will react to it...what they will do...i find truely frightening! (IMHO)

[Graeme]

I am an optimist because I believe in the ingenuity and adaptibility of the human race. Although there will be difficulties, I think the doomers will be proved wrong.

[PenultimateManStanding]

I'm an optimist on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, a doomer on Tuesdays and Thursdays and weekends. That makes me a optimistic doomer or maybe a doomed optimist. Seriously though, I just can't make up my mind and don't feel like there's any way to know.

[bart]

I'm a "reasonable optimist" by your definition, since I seem to agree with Pops, John Markos, etc.

I am optimistic that we'll make the transition to a low-energy way of life. But like all historical reality, the picture will be marked by bravery and delusion, generosity and short-sightedness.

I'm not optimistic about being able to maintain the consumerist, growth culture of the last 100 years. Which is just as well.

In general, I have an optimistic temperament. Thirty years ago, I went through some bad times and all the decades since have felt like a gift.

[seahorse]

I'm optimistic about my life. I'm more worried about getting it in a car wreck or concerned with all the shit they put in my diet coke. At least I can pronounce and spell oil, but I can't pronounce or spell anything on the ingredients or warnings on my diet coke. Hopefully, peak production is near on the diet drinks. I need forced demand destruction to have any personal salvation.

What concerns me with your "optimist list" is the fatality rate, or I mean "ban rate" of the optimists that you listed - you should have called it the obituaries.

I kind of miss old Jay Morrison, and I think BIGG adds a lot to the discussions here - hopefully his opinions make it out of ICU. Anyone offended by these optimist is way to sensitive. There is never any need to cuss or make personal attacks, in person, or especially on the net.