[crapattack]

Doly wrote:

Option 1: Convince yourself that you'll be fine. Go for the available treatment with all the faith in the world, and refuse to contemplate the possibility of dying.

Option 2: Convince yourself that you're going to die anyway, whatever you do. Refuse all treatment on that grounds. Prepare your will and leave your business in order for when you die.

Option 3: Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Go for all the available treatment, even stuff that only mitigates symptoms. At the same time, prepare your will and leave your business in order in case you die anyway.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')ost people will agree that option 3 is the most reasonable.

[Wrencher]

I guess that mitigation is fine, once the herd realizes that things are going to change - and that they have no options as to keeping the status quo and had darn well better come up with 'Plan B'. It will be good to have had the 'experts' crank all the numbers and be able to have a path for the polititians to follow. But unitl that time there won't be much in the way of action except individually. I would like to blame the polititians as much as I can, but really the problem is that there is no public support for any real change - even as small as better EPA milage ratings. I can think of no better way of getting into a fight out here (Utah) than suggesting that in a year or two gas might be $5 gallon, and that it would be better for us all if it became more expensive sooner than later. Yikes!! We don't have to keep Peak Oil information from the vast majority of people - they won't see it coming until the roof collapses onto them. And they won't because they don't want to belive it. And, like CA says, they have hope and belive that the 'experts' will have a painless way out of this.

In the mean time - the time that really matters individually, and to our families - well, I think that we are pretty much on our own to craft our own mitigation plans. And if by our actions, a few more people will stop and listen, then so much the better.

So besides a fireplace insert, and bolstering the food storage, I am planing to put up a solar hot air collector and a solar greehouse this year. Sort of my NY resolutions. And hopefully this activity will spark some questions and give me an opening to tell a littlle of this amazing story when a sincere question is asked.

[abbcampbell]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('crapattack', ']')

I wasn't aware you needed to be an expert to have an option on a forum such as this abbcampbell. I have a graduate level degree in Psychology, and I'm learning all I can about PO, but I don't know if you would consider me an expert on this topic. I doubt it and I don't feel like one in any case.

[Wrencher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AmericanEmpire', ' ')If it really all falls apart in the next couple of years there's not really that much chance that people are gonna be able to become self sufficient in that amount of time.

[AmericanEmpire]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nd they won't because they don't want to belive it.

[abbcampbell]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AmericanEmpire', ' ') A good portion of the people that new the old ways are dead and gone. You got people now that have been supported by machines their whole life.

[Mesuge]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AmericanEmpire', ' ') I have told peak oil to several people who have said that if thats really true they would just rather die than have to go back to living like that.

[crapattack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')mericanEmpire wrote:
I have told peak oil to several people who have said that if thats really true they would just rather die than have to go back to living like that.

[Jake_old]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('crapattack', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')mericanEmpire wrote:
I have told peak oil to several people who have said that if thats really true they would just rather die than have to go back to living like that.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RedJake', '
')When you look at it, the ratio of happy to miserable people is pretty similar from rich to poor nation.

[Jake_old]

yes that was me, don't know what happened there!

Edit: erm...below that is.

[RedJake_gst1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', '
')
This is a consequence of a known psychological fact: It isn't our current situation what makes us happy or unhappy, it's the transitions. If we feel like our situation is improving, we are happy. If we feel it's worsening, we are unhappy. If it's stable, we are content (unless it's stable and not providing our basic needs).

The transition to a post peak oil is going to make a whole lot of people very unhappy.

[crapattack]

I read somewhere that this idea of happiness is actually pretty new. Back in the day they didn't even have a concept for it. I guess you got up in the morning and that was just your day whatever came. People must have felt happy or sad, but maybe they didn't have an idea of their life as being one thing or another. Now we have this expectation that we should be happy, and if we're not something is wrong.

[Wrencher]

I don't know if this actually has to do with being happy - probably - but I have found a lot of applicability in Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. When I was unemployeed, I really, really wanted a job - any job.... then I wanted one that was not so dirty, then one more interesting..... and so it goes. By knocking us all down a few pegs on the hierarchy of needs list, we might learn to be happier on a different level - more Waldenesque if you will.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_h ... y_of_needs