[AZpeaker]

Hi Strato,

Go Away to Schoo!!!!!

Pros

1. Make many new friends. Survival post peak will depend on your having a huge network of people to call on to give you good advice and help you in ways you can not imagine now.

2. You will have a degree that will give you a leg up before total societal collapse.

3. Exposure to many ways of thinking about life and material that you don't have at your disposal at home.

4. Exposure to many more people one of which could be your partner in life.

5. Living on your own!

Cons

1. Family will be far away.

2. Friends will live without you. However, friends that are friends now will be friends when and if you return.

3. Living on your own!

5 to 3

Good Luck.

[entropyfails]

Perhaps I can lend some contrarian advice that may wet your noodle for a while.

Whatever choice you make, it will be the wrong one!

As you mentioned, everyone seems to have an opinion on what you do and they exert pressure for you to do it. Obviously, they don't know what the hell they are talking about. That you can recognize this means you have taken an important step.

The next step is to realize the exact same reasoning applies to you. We perceive ourselves as imperfect actors in an imperfect world. These perceived imperfections come out of a lack of perfect understanding of our world due to our finite and limited nature. Because of this, any choice you make will end up closing off other and better choices that you could have made if you did have "perfect knowledge." You will always make the wrong choice.

Peak oil, habitat loss, global warming, and species extinction serve as warnings to us that civilization is nearing the final steps of eating the entire world. But the people of civilization, like your parents for example, keep on trying to sell you more of the same. Have you considered why they do this? It can only be because they feel living "exactly like us" is the "only way to live." They are convinced they have the "true way" and if only everyone lived in the exact same manner, everything would work out. Well that didn't work last year and it obviously won't work next year. You realize this, so kudos to you.

But you must remember that you were raised by these people to have the same belief set. Even if you can see beyond their worldview, you'll just end up replacing their system with a different, equally wrong, system of your own. Perhaps if you can blow out the idea of finding a "correct way to live" out of your mind, you may find the path of the living.

To survive, however, you'll need to find a way from swimming from the sinking boat of civilized existence to the shores of the free and sustainable. So you should find a group of like-minded people who find a way of making a living together and supporting each other. Once you have found the tribe you wish to help move to sustainability, then you can use your skills and talents to get there. Having schooled knowledge will obviously help in that endeavor.

So if you choose school, you may miss a chance to form a strong tribe of people to weather the storm. If you do not go to school, you will DEPRIVE your tribe of an educated member and thus lowering the chances you'll end up making it through these hard times. It's a Catch-22.

Good luck, we all will need it.

[PenultimateManStanding]

well there you go kid, if you are still reading this: you either go join some weird cult or stick your head in the oven. some choice, huh?!

[ThePostman]

Simple decision, if the folks are picking up the tab, take it. You'll learn a lot at college, especially how to drink like a fish. Don't underestimate this skill in a post PO world, no better way to deal with a cruel reality than to pretend it doesn't exist.