[Jacksoncage]

This one goes out to the doomer camp:

We're all pretty well screwed, right? Oil is peaking, and no alternatives can possibly replace it on such a scale. Industrial civilization will collapse; global anarchy will ensue as countries struggle to find oil, and people struggle to find food. All hell is going to break loose over the next 20 years.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the people here are a cross-section of society : old, young, rich, poor, all colors, all cultures, all religions, and various nationalities. As such, there are many here that have money to buy land, but there are others who don't. Those few who do possess the liquid assets are less likely to have enough money to buy land and actually use it to sustain their wellbeing for them and their families. I am easily one of these people, being of a lower-middle class family. This is a question to those people who cannot afford their land or cannot independently sustain themselves. If the next 20 years are going to be as rough as you say they will, and most of humanity is going to die off within the next 50, what keeps you going? Do you honestly believe that the global catastrophe will somehow bypass you?

What's the point in living if you think the future will be a living hell? Or do you have some doubts as to whether or not you are right, so you're simply waiting it out to see if this catastrophe does come to pass? Basically, are you just sticking around to see if you (and all doomers) are full of it or not?

If you submit that civilization will end soon and most of humanity will die, then you must be humble enough to realize that there's a hell of a chance of you dying too.

NOTE: Ask yourselves some tough questions:If I truly believe that civilization will collapse and most of my friends, family and likely myself will die, why do I continue on? Am I to believe that this "crisis" will bypass me, or do I doubt all these prognostications on the inside and am willing to "wait it all out"?

{edited by MQ to remove disruptive content}

[willjones4]

These thoughts have often fed upon my mind. I, too, am from a lower middle class strata. I have no doubt that things will continue to get harder for people in my situation. However, I also know that my existence is all I have and that when I die I cease to exist. Therefore it is hardwired into the core of my brain to survive at all cost. Those costs may escalate but so, too, will my desire to survive. Its gonna get ugly but nonexistance is the only other choice and that is against all that we are. I think there will be a great many surprises in the coming times. One of them may be that people like myself find themselves servants/defenders of the wealthy or members of roving bands that prey on them. Who knows. We'll live however we can and then we'll die.

[paoniapbud]

It will be tough yes, but many people will find a way to survive. Just because people call themselves doomers(I do) it doesn't necessarily mean that they think the end will come to all civilization. I think our WAY of life is doomed. Our bloated, suicidal, hit the brick wall lifestyles are doomed.

So if you are asking me if I should kill my way of life I will tell you that I'm like most everyone else: Getting in while the getting is good. I want all of the vacations, weekend trips, new mountain bikes, etc. that I can fit in while I can. Unsustainable you may say? Well yes, and so is nearly everyone's lifestyle on PO.com. Yes, even solar house people living in the desert have unsustainable lifestyles. Eventually those solar panels do go bad!

[rwwff]

I think I kinda qualify as a long term doomer. I don't believe in crashing economies right after peak, but that doesn't change the awareness of overshoot and its consequences. (see population reduction threads).

So why continue, why try to survive?

A population bottleneck is a lottery that you can impact with skill; and the prize is blood immortality. Every one of us, sitting, reading, and eating here, carry the "blood" of just a very few people who made it through the previous bottleneck. They are alive in us; they are physically immortal. If the bottleneck of the post oil world is brutal enough, powerful enough; you to may achieve that status of immortal.

cue music..
roll stills

It is the True Game of survivor.

cue drums.

Real answer..

The purpose of life is to see your child(ren) prosper; whatever that happens to mean in their time. To take joy in their successes, and comfort them when they fail; so that they can do the same when it is their time.

[rogerhb]

1. The survival gene is very strong, species that don't have it don't tend to, er, survive.

2. We are all going to die anyway, the trick to life is postponing the final day.

3. Having a family means you take responsibility for them, so even if you think things are dire, you still carry on.

4. Not being a religious person there is no afterlife promising to make everything easier, this is all we have.

5. I'm just very curious as to what will happen next.

[paoniapbud]

I'm the opposite. No or fewer children, fewer liabilities.

[Graeme]

Jacksoncage, I started a "suicide" thread sometime ago. You might like to look at the comments there especially the initial article I posted about this:

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic16393.html

The article by Florida State University Bright-Burton Professor of Psychology Thomas Joiner says that community involvement and family are important.

BTW, We are far from "screwed" as you put it. A lot of people are working hard to change our energy sources from fossil fuels to renewables. Change is happening but it will take some time before we are totally weaned off oil. Just have a look around this board. Not everybody is pessimistic about our future. Just hang in there and don't despair.

[Jacksoncage]

Hey buddy, I don't subscribe to the doomer viewpoint at all. This seems to be a dangerous proclamation on this board, as the ire of every doomer/"realist" is drawn upon almost anyone who doesn't agree with the lockstep rank-and-file doomer ideology.

It should be noted that I tried my best to illustrate the doomer viewpoint without being cartoonish or insulting. But I, however am not a doomer. I haven't been for quite some time.

I have good reason to not be one as well. My family has a history in the oil industry on my dad's side, and my mom comes from a long line of environmentalists and alternative energy activists. An odd pairing, to be sure, but it gives me reasons daily to be optimistic.

[Graeme]

Good for you. Sorry I misunderstood. But there are people lurking and posting on this board who are feeling depressed about the propect of anarchy in our society. I was trying to reach those people.

[MattSavinar]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', 'G')ood for you. Sorry I misunderstood. But there are people lurking and posting on this board who are feeling depressed about the propect of anarchy in our society. I was trying to reach those people.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jacksoncage', '
')
NOTE: Ask yourselves some tough questions: if I truly believe that civilization will collapse and most of my friends, family and likely myself will die, why do I continue on? Am I to believe that this "crisis" will bypass me, or do I doubt all these prognostications on the inside and am willing to "wait it all out"?

[Jacksoncage]

Inflation will become endemic and a world depression will descend upon us. Every year, unrelentingly, we will require further efficiencies in our energy use; our slice of the pie will get smaller and smaller. Whole industries will disappear: motor racing, fast food, motels, private boats and airplanes, and all related industries. We will cut and pare and try to grow our way out of it under our current debt-based monetary system (since it is all we have) but it will not happen. People in Third World countries, like Mexico, will do the only human thing, the thing we all would do in their circumstances--try to get into countries they perceive have wealth and jobs and energy. We will see more imperialist adventures, and, it will add to U.S. isolation as we continue down the path of becoming a pariah nation.

"all we have"

"imperialist adventures"

"pariah nation"

I am sorry, but these are not the words of a moderate. You will probably openly admit that everything not science-related in the above passage are all left of center politically - which, by the way, wearing your political leanings on your shoulder hurts anyone's credibility when discussing science, as I'm sure you know. A moderate in the peak oil world you are not either, as you maintain that the population must decrease dramatically - people outside this site largely do not believe this is necessary (and no, I'm not talking about just POD). Quite honestly this passage merely reaffirms to me that doomerism is not a poison ideology to you:

At this point, depending on how seriously the human population has altered it's carrying capacity(as a die-off usually decimates the species environment), we will either adapt or we could die out altogether if alternative food-energy sources are not found and the environment restored. We wouldn't be the first large mammal or human to do so. If we reduce our consumption of energy(powerdown) so that we could meet demand with renewables, then we just might stabilize at a lower population level over time, by attrition, with minimal tragic die-off.

To me, you hold all the main tenets of doomerism to be true: die-off, wars for resources, a Greater Depression, etc. I simply believe it doesn't have to be that way and that a moderate would be a little more open-minded.

[MattSavinar]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jacksoncage', '
')NOTE: Ask yourself this:If I truly believe that civilization will collapse and most of my friends, family and likely myself will die, why do I continue on? Am I to believe that this "crisis" will bypass me, or do I doubt all these prognostications on the inside and am willing to "wait it all out"?

{edited by MQ to remove disruptive content}

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jacksoncage', ' ')To me, you hold all the main tenets of doomerism to be true: die-off, wars for resources, a Greater Depression, etc. I simply believe it doesn't have to be that way and that a moderate would be a little more open-minded.

[rwwff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jacksoncage', 'T')o me, you hold all the main tenets of doomerism to be true: die-off, wars for resources, a Greater Depression, etc. I simply believe it doesn't have to be that way and that a moderate would be a little more open-minded.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jacksoncage', ' ')A moderate in the peak oil world you are not either, as you maintain that the population must decrease dramatically - people outside this site largely do not believe this is necessary (and no, I'm not talking about just POD).

[Jacksoncage]

How many pyschology courses did you take in high school? College?

Matt, I've read your site. I've read thousands of sites related to peak oil, global warming and alternative energy. Some are blogs, some are activist sites, and others are the sites of AE/PO/GW-related companies.

I've spent the last four years reading up on all of these different topics. I read your book, Simmons' book, Yergin's book, even Jimmy Kunstler's, and as many others as I could. I even read Al Gore's latest.

I've come to a conclusion. There is jack-shit that I can do about any of this on a global scale. I am condemned to wait, and watch events unfold. I watch the news, I check the settled price of oil, and on my daily walks I see gas prices. I walk around town and see what folks are doing about them.

Every now and then I go the nearest major city and see what people are doing about them there.

And I must say, I walk away impressed. It isn't one singular thing that causes me to be optimistic, it's a constant flow of information and knowledge of my surroundings that tells me that people will adapt. There will be no singular, overnight, cataclysmic switch from oil. These things take time, money and ingenuity. It is often argued that humanity doesn't have much of the first. We shall see. It's fact that many don't personally have much of the second. Whether this becomes a pandemic in America also remains to be seen. It's a given that the third is abundant. We wouldn't have gotten where we are today without it. I remain optimistic, but cautious, having read all of the books I can on these topics which concern our future. Deletion and denial do not enter into my thought process.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jacksoncage', ' ')There is jack-shit that I can do about any of this on a global scale.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jacksoncage', ' ')These things take time, money and ingenuity. It is often argued that humanity doesn't have much of the first. We shall see. It's fact that many don't personally have much of the second. Whether this becomes a pandemic in America also remains to be seen. It's a given that the third is abundant. .

[gego]

You ask, "Why go on?" I say, "Why not?"

When the Titanic sank, the lifeboats were allocated mostly to the first class passengers, but some of the first class passengers went down with the ship and some of the other class passengers got on lifeboats.

We do not all have the same odds of survival, but we all have some odds. Just the fact that you were born shows that you once beat hugh odds against you. Think of all the other potential children that your parents could have had with the countless number of eggs your mother produced and the humongous number of sperm you dad produced. Hell, if your great grandmother would have had a headache on one fateful night your grandmother and mother and a bunch of other relatives would never have existed and neither would have you.

Why not replace your fear and desperation with excitement? Be excited that you get to be in the race. Be excited that you got to live through the peak time for the human race, and see all the worderful things that were invented. Maybe excitement will energize you to make some good decisions. (Some of the survivors of war will tell you that it was the most exciting time of their lives.)

Remember Shakespears line something to the effect that the agony is in the anticipation (talking about death). I look at it like this; I was dead before I was alive and it was a nonevent, so when I go back to being dead it is not bad, so why agonize in anticipation. The only time I can enjoy being alive is when I am alive, and the only time I can feel bad about death is when I am alive; my choice.