[weirdo27]

Im just saying what if the downfall of society never happens for like a 125 years or a 100 years or 70 years. Maybe a few big recessions but nothing killer. I know oil peaking is a fact but what if after that we switch to coal gasification and exhaust every bit of resources we have on this planet even more to keep our society going the way it is now?

[OilBurner]

You mean if we avoid issues of over-population: water shortages, loss of top-soil and climate change? And we don't blow each other up, and manage to integrate China and India into the developed world on coal gasification etc?

Then it's Star Trek time baby!

You'd have to be a stubborn cornucopian to be that optimistic though...

[thuja]

Sweet!

[Kaare_Mai]

I would love to live in a Star Trek world, so please let all those problems be solved in the next 5 years okay!

[Raxozanne]

It sounds like someone needs to watch Dr. Barletts video on exponential growth...

here

[gego]

What if Kate Winslet knocked on my door and led me up to my bedroom?

I estimate my changes of having that fantacy happen are about the same as your fantacy that modern society will live long and prosper.

[gnm]

Yup. Nothing like Bartlett's video to throw a big wet smelly burlap blanket on your dilithium crystals...


-G

[Kaare_Mai]

So im not the only one here to enjoy Star Trek ay?

We will just absorb the exponential growth and use it as fuel for the Quantum-slip drive... problem solved!

[Dukat_Reloaded]

I like startrek as well as many other scifis. Lately I have been watching the new series of battlestar gallactica. It is very good, but the first season was very boring I almost gave up on it until I began watching the second season. I'm trying to kick the scifi habbit, I was not ment to watch any this year but I only watch 1-2 hours per week which is not to much of a time waster for me. I do not think society will collapse because after katernia and rita, it showed me how robust the USA is. All through last year I was thinking the USA was weak and like the straw that breaks the donkeys back, I thought any little thing would blow it up, then the hurricanes came and it showed to me how strong the US is. We are living the best time in history, it can either get better or worse down the track but I do not believe in collapse of civlization. I personally don't care what happens, I wouldn't mind living in a technological future haven or living as a survalist, both are appealing, right now I'm saving alot of money and investing it mainly into the precious metals so 5-10 years down the road, I will beable to choose what I'm going to do depending on which direction the world is heading. I do not expect precious metals to keep performing like they have done lately, but pecious metals are safer than cash, I would hate to have worked for 10 years and see my bank account hyperinflate away, so is the reason for me to buy precious metals.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('weirdo27', '.')..what if the downfall of society never happens for like a 125 years or a 100 years or 70 years...

[weirdo27]

lol thats funny u made me sound stupid for even considering the idea oilburner. America does have the largest stock of coal than any other country on this planet We could hold our own. Indian and China are messing everything up... I dont want to starve to death....

OH yeah i mentioned this to my economics teacher about how the oil industry can barely hold its own as it is right now how is it gonna hold since china and india are entering into the richness of the black stuff? Didn't have an answer

[FairMaiden]

What happens?

We live happily ever after in our big suburban homes commuting to and from work in our comfortable cars!

The reality is that there are always going to be cycles - here in the 80s we had high inflation, high employement and the housing market was in the pooper. Those were difficult times. Not as difficult as the possiblity of PO...but still, there are ebbs and flows. Sometimes they are bigger than other times. PO could be one of the biggest flows we've seen in history. I doubt its going to happen all at once tho.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ElijahJones', '.')..Iran is one of the last. Its time to knock the treehouse down...

[SeasonOfPain]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kaare_Mai', 'I') would love to live in a Star Trek world, so please let all those problems be solved in the next 5 years okay!

[NeoPeasant]

After a self-imposed austerity plan to learn to live comfortably well below my current means and become non auto dependant and debt free, the failure of society to collapse would just mean 10 years early retirement and freedom from wage slavery for me.

I suspect that "retirement" may be imposed on me anyway by coming economic conditions.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ElijahJones', ' ')This is a completely inhumane option so I chose the preservation of the one country that has stood as a beacon of freedom for the last 200 years and thats us.

[Cran]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his is a completely inhumane option so I chose the preservation of the one country that has stood as a beacon of freedom for the last 200 years and thats us

[RacerJace]

I think we have been very fortunate to have become anything more than amoebas and bacteria. On a universal scale we are so so lucky to be on the only inhabitable planet within hundreds of thousands of light years (known planetary systems in the galaxy). Our little blue green marble is balanced just so in orbital distance from the sun, tilt and spin and with its own single moon so that life as we know it has evolved in a great but delicate living breathing ecosystem.

We have had the odds stacked in our favour big time since we discovered the power of oil. Those odds are beginning to turn the other way and we are going to have to really fight for our survival, and I mean fight on all fronts; from your local neighbourhood to what ever the superpowers dish out on a global scale. The living breathing system has a virus (humans) and it getting out of balance.

I used to fantasise about living in a the star trek like world. We have actually made some progress towards it. Quantum teleportation has been physically proven to be possible on a limited communications level. All that is required now is to develop the technology to make it reliable and enable humans or any matter to be scanned, digitised, communicated and recreated at the other location (and presumably destroyed at the source). Google "quantum teleportation" and you'll find heaps of articles on it if you haven't already done so.

I just hope there will be enough resources and geniuses left in some pockets of the world to make the breakthrough some time in the not too distant future. I know being able to teleport would largely solve our transport problems but just think of the potential hazard of flash crowds (ref Larry Niven).

.