[skyemoor]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'I') can't help feeling that we're about to experience more than we can handle. I don't know when but I'm not real confident. The rat race has bred people who will lose their minds when reality takes it's toll.

[LadyRuby]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', 'T')he vast majority of your fellow humans are selfish & shallow, and won't hesitate to exploit you given the chance. A small minority of folks think bigger thoughts, and lead truly community-oriented lives.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', '
')What would we reap otherwise?

[Liamj]

Am scared too, but don't think humans are so uniformly shortsighted as Aaron: yes when hunger dominates daily life, but thats a long way from here for us and 'hopefully' theres a good number of nasty surprises/wakeup calls between now and then. If only people didn't have such narrow limits of whats conceivable/acceptable.

[dunewalker]

Based on my observations in PO.com, I'd credit Aaron with a good deal more foresight, wisdom & perception of humanity than many other participants here.

[turmoil]

Aaron speaks for many of us here who know a little history, that it repeats itself, and why it repeats itself. It's not about self-fulfillment, but more about diversification. I'll be pleasantly suprised if by 2050 (I'll be 66 years old if I'm alive) there's enough oil, coal, natural gas, uranium, fertile land, water, and sun screen to keep a billion people alive.

Welcome to the real world assholes...i mean my fellow monkeys.

[Vexed]

I'm not standing at the edge of the abyss like Aaron.

Nor am I all that scared of the future; no matter how many reasons there are to fear.

In my heart of hearts, I only feel a deepening curiousity.

How will we extricate ourselves from this convergence of storms?

Its really quite interesting stuff.

[turmoil]

Well put vexed. I often stay up at night just thinking about the transformation that's about to take place. It's true that necessity is the mother of invention. But our minds have been clouded, like the sky after an asteroid impact.

[Ayoob]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('skyemoor', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', '
')I didn't design the system folks... just making observations.

[Ayoob]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')And the Victor gets to rear spoiled brats, who over-reach and collapse the despotism" ?

[Aaron]

To those who think my view is underestimating humanity...

This is my greatest fear. That I have underestimated mankind. We may be capable of much greater evil than I anticipate. But a guy can hope can't he?

The vast majority of people learn little from the lessons of history... as evidenced by some of these responses.

What's so amazing about this anyway?

Scarcity begets poverty.

Poverty begets conflict.

It's a least as old as bacteria... we fight. We compete for resources.

Guns germs & steel.

I always find it funny, how much some of you object when I point out the potential for war in this situation. But not a word when Simmons's says we will be facing a similar situation to WWII.

Exactly what do you think he means?

This analogy extends not only to our fellow humans, but well beyond our myopic grasp of life. Many of the people here endlessly speculate on ways to continue our insane growth experiment at any cost. Which begs the question... Just what is man's greatest failure?

Ourselves, or our planet?

For most of us; we pampered elite, it is tempting to believe in civilized cooperation leading to a solution.

The truth is that we elite enjoy our prosperity at the expense of countless millions upon millions of our fellows we have seized our wealth from.

When the circus arrives in town, it's easy to become trapped by the notion that the fine fairground we see before us, is all there is. In reality though, it means that the circus just left some other town beyond the horizon.

When times are hard... table manors change.

So what do we do about it?

I have no idea...

That's why I'm here. To build awareness and contemplate the future & our role in it.

And the first step in awareness is the understanding of how we got here in the first place.

And where we are heading...

(And kudos to those of you with the metal to attempt to insult me personally in this thread. You're gonna need it I think)

But no amount of cute little comments & jabs at the messenger, change the evidence history presents...

Want to know when the majority of people cooperate?

When someone or something forces them to do so.

[Wildwell]

info is the key

[Ludi]

I guess I'm still somewhat confused about your comments toward ecovillages, Aaron. Are you trying to discourage people from forming communities? Do you think individuals working alone will be more successful? Why do you hate ecovillagers so much? As one of the biggest boosters of intentional communities here on the board, and a big flaming eco-fairy, I'm really curious to know why you despise my type so much.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I') guess I'm still somewhat confused about your comments toward ecovillages, Aaron. Are you trying to discourage people from forming communities? Do you think individuals working alone will be more successful? Why do you hate ecovillagers so much? As one of the biggest boosters of intentional communities here on the board, and a big flaming eco-fairy, I'm really curious to know why you despise my type so much.

[spudbuddy]

"What logic is there in GWB saying "The terrorists hate us because of our freedoms.", and then proceeding to eliminate the freedoms that the terrorists "hate us" for? Seems like nothing but capitulation to the globalist agenda to me."

Right up there with "The American way of life is not negotiable!"
whoo

I suppose black left-behinds in New Orleans are living the American way of life?
I gather that you can find this "way of life" alive and well and living in the heart of Harlem? South side of Chicago? Watts? East LA? The Navaho four corners? etc.

And who the hell is GWB to figure out exactly why a terrorist hates?
Freedoms?
To consume the lion's share of the world's resources? To suck up third world debt and kick two thirds of the population of the planet around?

And just how "free" are most Americans anyway?
I don't suppose terrorists even notice freedoms in other parts of the world. They haven't caught on to how "free" they are down there in New Zealand, or perhaps Luxembourg, or maybe even Nova Scotia...

I noticed what happened to the "freedom" of dissent last election. Talk about hating freedom.

I suspect, rhetorically or otherwise, that the real "freedom" of this so-called American way of life resides somewhere in some gated community, having not a clue at all what is really happening across the nation.
Tsk tsk....the cost of gasoline is taking up another half percent of the petty cash piggie. What a shame.
(Where's a Mother Jones when we really need her?)
-or a Sojouner Truth, or a Joe Hill for that matter?

We have a lot of good people who would just love to re-build this country from the ground up, and do it right. But they can't. They'll be paying off their student loans until they're forty. Their reward then will be three and a half downsized Mcjobs...Starbucked forever!

The American way of greed is being preserved, all right.
GWB:
That "freedom" is hated a whole lot closer to home.

[JustinFrankl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('skyemoor', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', '
')I didn't design the system folks... just making observations.

[trespam]

Is something really big going to happen? Should we all be afraid? As a child of the nuclear age, with air raid sirens and duck-and-cover drills, climbing under my desk, I'd say that the fearful here are lacking in context.

Is gas getting more expensive? You bet. You poor kids. Sorry. Just the way it goes.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in "Fooled by Randomness: The hidden role of change in life and in the markets" says it quite well: people these days, particularly with the internet, are inundating themselves with useless information. I mean really. We've got Aaron trying to be a writer over at his blog blathering about neo-darwinism. If Kunslter is a second rate thinker--he is--what does that make the depletion blogspot? Third rate? Fourth.

This is my non-contribution for this week/month: everyone get the fuck away from your computers. And this comes from someone who has been on the internet longer than all of you. Seriously. I mentioned before. My first employer built and ran the original internet (ARPANET). I've been munging around the internet longer than most of you. And my advice: get away from it. Go do something real. Remember, a large number of postings here, and at other places, are by the people who have no lives. And probably not too much income. So they're using this as a filler. Filling the empty places. Communing.

Peak oil is real. But most of the blather of the second and third rate thinkers who are praised on this site isn't real. Go outside into your community. Do something.

Sorry for being so snide here. But someone has to. You guys are just so fucking pathetic sometimes.

[threadbear]

Penultimate, Do you have any plans in place in the event there is a rapid meltdown?

[Raxozanne]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JustinFrankl', '
')If Aaron were, in fact, "mentally ill", it has been the medical profession's modus operandi to assume the problem rests solely with Aaron, the individual. This is a peculiar type of widespread blindness of the medical profession to the thousands of external factors in his environment that influence his behavior and perceptions. The "solution" is to medicate, to add something else to the system that itself promotes the problem, rather than truly address the issues that affect behavior and mood.

If someone is, in fact, "clinically depressed", that is not the problem. It is an artifact (otherwise known as a "symptom") of the system in which that person resides, said artifact which is fed by its environment, which in turns feeds the environment. Addressing the issue of "depression", without also addressing the environments which feed it and are fed by it, is as much an exercise in folly as is modern economic theory.

[Schweinshaxe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('trespam', 'I')s something really big going to happen? Should we all be afraid? As a child of the nuclear age, with air raid sirens and duck-and-cover drills, climbing under my desk, I'd say that the fearful here are lacking in context.

Is gas getting more expensive? You bet. You poor kids. Sorry. Just the way it goes.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in "Fooled by Randomness: The hidden role of change in life and in the markets" says it quite well: people these days, particularly with the internet, are inundating themselves with useless information. I mean really. We've got Aaron trying to be a writer over at his blog blathering about neo-darwinism. If Kunslter is a second rate thinker--he is--what does that make the depletion blogspot? Third rate? Fourth.

This is my non-contribution for this week/month: everyone get the fuck away from your computers. And this comes from someone who has been on the internet longer than all of you. Seriously. I mentioned before. My first employer built and ran the original internet (ARPANET). I've been munging around the internet longer than most of you. And my advice: get away from it. Go do something real. Remember, a large number of postings here, and at other places, are by the people who have no lives. And probably not too much income. So they're using this as a filler. Filling the empty places. Communing.

Peak oil is real. But most of the blather of the second and third rate thinkers who are praised on this site isn't real. Go outside into your community. Do something.

Sorry for being so snide here. But someone has to. You guys are just so fucking pathetic sometimes.