[mark]

Last summer I made a bet with my younger brother who fancies himself quite the investor. It was a time when I was still awestruck with the overwhelming force that peak oil would exert on the world. Simmons was predicting a devastating winter with record natural gas prices and gas at $5.00/gal.

Ah, well, another lesson learned – be careful while you’re in the throes of new, seemingly world changing, information.

And while we’re still a couple of months from payoff, it doesn’t appear oil will reach $100.00/barrel this year. I have mixed feelings about that.

Sure, cheaper gas means less money each fill-up and more money for Walmart. But it also means the illusionary economy can keep chugging along – and with it, the despicable Bush criminal gang. It’s one reason I made the bet with certainty; the perfect storm of depleting natural resources, an economy based on the lie of infinite growth, a war-mad America bent on world domination, increasing sectarian violence worldwide – it seemed a no-brainer – and yet, what’s really happened?

Since I don’t watch television or read mainstream media, when I do, such as on my recent trip home to see the parents, life is truly shocking.

It’s all so normal.

If there is a world wide catastrophe in the making, you would never know it from the mainstream. Life goes on, just as it always has.

So what am I missing?

My own revelations have perched me far outside the norms of daily life. I now realize/believe that present day modern industrial life is doomed to failure. Everything we now take for granted will, someday, cease. Things that we deem important, things like a college education, good job, 401k, retirement, will soon disappear along with the orderly life of a material world. New age pretensions such as self-expression, lifestyle choices, self-empowerment and the emphasis on individual liberty will be replaced with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Our world is so out of balance, so far from the real life of connected human beings, so intensely delusional that those trapped within seem unable to escape.

But I was once one of those. I escaped. Or did I? Have I replaced one delusion for another?

I have to ask myself, “What do I know?” If I answer honestly, the answers have nothing to do with peak oil, energy depletion, economic reality, or climate conditions. So, I must conclude that I really don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know when peak will hit. I don’t know IF peak will hit. I don’t know if our fiat money will wither and die, or flourish and prosper. I don’t know if global warming is man-made or natural. In fact, most of what I don’t know I see others speak of so certainly– on all sides. I suspect they really don’t know either.

I’m left with the certainty of uncertainty. I don’t know and I don’t think anyone else does either. Life is that way, isn’t it? Would it really be any more enjoyable if we could somehow “see” the future? It is fun to speculate and I’ve enjoyed those on the board who, with much enthusiasm, proffer their prognostications, but it’s all in good fun, right?

So I’ll conclude this ramble with what I know. On second thought, I won’t. Any who chance to read this cannot know my certainty; will instead think it just more rambling. Each of us must make our own knowing; it’s what makes the world so unpredictable and so interesting. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else (well, for now anyway).

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mark', 'S')o what am I missing?

[lateStarter]

mark,

I don't know what you are missing. But, you do seem to sense that something is not quite right. When I go back to the US to visit my family, it is very stressful for me to see them continuing to walk in their 'consensus trance'. They are all building newer and bigger homes, buying new cars and constantly flying somewhere for a vacation (if your life is so great, why do you always need to go somewhere on vacation?)...

As suggested, keep your eyes open. The slight ratcheting up, day by day, will continue to take its toll...

[rwwff]

Things that are large have inertia.. they don't turn or crash quickly. The US, to its advantage has an enormous amount of inertia, if only because we do infact produce 7+ million barrels/day; and we do grow an enormous amount of grain.

It makes for poor fantasy, saying the US will take a good thirty years to start popping seams, and another thirty after that to see the undoing of the industrial behemoth; but I think that is the most likely of all possibilities. There will be many more Republican and Democratic criminal gangs to come before the really perturbing stuff gets going.

The question is... How does one best prepare the field to promote the success of their progeny in such a situation.

[FireJack]

Right now I think flucuations in production can be handled by reserves etc. Within the next 2 years once production begins to steadily decline I imagine prices will initually skyrocket once shortages occur then begin a slow steady increase.

The food situation is another concern, grain production has been short of world needs for years now, what will we do once excess supplies run out. Food prices will skyrocket etc. Then theres the natural gas issue.

[Carlhole]

No one knows the goddamn future! Fools.

[rwwff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', 'N')o one knows the goddamn future! Fools.

[TheTurtle]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', 'N')o one knows the goddamn future! Fools.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lateStarter', 'm')ark,

I don't know what you are missing. But, you do seem to sense that something is not quite right. When I go back to the US to visit my family, it is very stressful for me to see them continuing to walk in their 'consensus trance'. They are all building newer and bigger homes, buying new cars and constantly flying somewhere for a vacation (if your life is so great, why do you always need to go somewhere on vacation?)...

As suggested, keep your eyes open. The slight ratcheting up, day by day, will continue to take its toll...

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rwwff', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', 'N')o one knows the goddamn future! Fools.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', 'N')o one knows the goddamn future! Fools.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', 'N')o one knows the goddamn future! Fools.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', 'N')o one knows the goddamn future! Fools.

[davep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', 'N')o one knows the goddamn future! Fools.

[lateStarter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lateStarter', 'm')ark,

I don't know what you are missing. But, you do seem to sense that something is not quite right. When I go back to the US to visit my family, it is very stressful for me to see them continuing to walk in their 'consensus trance'. They are all building newer and bigger homes, buying new cars and constantly flying somewhere for a vacation (if your life is so great, why do you always need to go somewhere on vacation?)...

As suggested, keep your eyes open. The slight ratcheting up, day by day, will continue to take its toll...

[Heineken]

Interesting. I'm sure most of us would like to hear about how you accomplished this transition, and what your experience in Poland has been like thus far.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', 'N')o one knows the goddamn future! Fools.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mark', '
')
Who is John Galt?

[mark]

It’s been almost 40 years since I read Atlas Shrugged, so I may not remember correctly. What I recall is that “John Galt” chose to speed the process of decay begun by governmental types. That sometimes the best choice is to acquiesce to those you believe are headed down the wrong path in hopes that the outcome becomes obvious to all. Mistakes are rarely corrected because a better way is found before the collapse.

It took the madness of Bushco to so clearly define the psychotic nature of the neocons; only the most rigid ideologue still sees value in the war solution. That way lies madness but it took such a clear example as Bush to make it obvious to all(well, most).

I saw peak oil as the ultimate backstop to a world caught up in the madness of a disconnected, resource intense, failure bound paradigm. I see the problems facing us now as worldwide, requiring worldwide solutions – this is one we need to come together as a planet to solve. The old paradigm the Bush gang is living under is doomed to failure, let’s hope wiser minds prevail before time runs out on present day civilization.

(I’ve dashed this off without much time for rewrite – so if it’s not clear, I’ll do better with more time)

[Pops]

I always thought it funny how John Galt and his buddies ran off and started a commune in the mountains. Of course Rand stressed they were a little island of perfect capitalism each on their own small plot contributing to the group each in their own way, taking no more than they contributed.

Looked like an Eco-village to me tho ;^)

Anyway, after throwing out that little bucket of chum…
---

So Escaping the Matrix is accepting at face value all the various conspiracies/disasters/doom scenarios and timelines discussed here daily?

Since Armageddon hasn’t befallen us in the year you have been reading and waiting, it does not seem any surprise that you are disillusioned with your new matrix.

Trading one matrix (not as sexy but I think they used to call it a worldview) for another without looking at it critically isn’t really opening your eyes - it just means you are trading one packaged outlook for another.

That's my stab at Pops Psy for today