[I_Like_Plants]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('grabby', 'N')ice choice, redwoods, safe place, beautiful, I wish you well, we may see you later when we venture out after things have settles down. South from Oregon is the first place I would have traveled to visit. Seattle/tacoma/Portland is going to be too warm.

I would drill two or three hand pump wells one with power and two with hand pumps, the old kind. Because you arent going to drill them later. Hide one in a redwood stump (drill through the stump would be excellent. hide your radio wrapped in aluminum foil then a paper bag then a metal box so it will run later. There will be ham radio people who will survive.

[I_Like_Plants]

Yes, everyone's so hung up on having electricity, how horrible would it be if we lived the way Thomas Edison or Nikola Tesla did growing up? The only electricity they had in their lives was in the telegraph, run from batteries brewed up in jars and kept at each station. And you didn't have the telegraph in your house, it was at the local Western Union or at the train station. Or at the newspaper office, which is why a lot of papers still have the name Telegraph in their name now. It meant they got the news quick.

If you have to feed yourself and your family, do tons of farm work, will it really be worth it to put a ton of time and energy into an electrical system, or after a while are you going to just going to say to heck with it and live with candles and the sun like in the old days? I see us gradually going back to that.

[DavidFolks]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'y')ou treat 'alternatives' as if they are consumer items. We are not talking about recyclable batteries. Wind farms, solar hydro and tidal systems, nuclear power, all depend on an electrical grid that is very very taxed as is. Expect more blackouts this summer. Your 'alternatives' would simply require re-mapping the entire infrastructure. It was designed and built around abundant cheap petroleum not electricity.

Once again read the Hirsch report before you ask me to read your bland, happy-faced assurances that reasonable and intelligent people acting in good faith will see us through. That is a bunch of cornucopian pap. There is little evidence for it.

[DavidFolks]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Robert L. Hirsch, The Inevitable Peaking of
World Oil Production', '
')Concluding Remarks

Over the past century, world economic development has been
fundamentally shaped by the availability of abundant, low-cost oil. Previous
energy transitions (wood to coal, coal to oil, etc.) were gradual and
evolutionary; oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary.
The world has never faced a problem like this. Without massive
mitigation at least a decade before the fact, the problem will be pervasive
and long lasting.
Oil peaking represents a liquid fuels problem, not an “energy crisis” in
the sense that term has been used. Accordingly, mitigation of declining
world oil production must be narrowly focused, at least in the near-term.
A number of technologies are currently available for immediate
implementation once there is the requisite determination to act.
Governments worldwide will have to take the initiative on a timely basis,
and it may already be too late to avoid considerable discomfort or worse.
Countries that dawdle will suffer from lost opportunities, because in every
crisis, there are always opportunities for those that act decisively.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DavidFolks', 'O')f course I treat 'alternatives' as if they were consumer items. I live in north america, and anything I do here has to work within the economic frame that exists.

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DavidFolks', '
')So don't dawdle, and act decisively. There has never been a government that survived without the support of its citizenry. It is up to the people to make the difference, and to compel their governments to act.

[eastbay]

Assuming it were possible. Which I don't. The Soviets tried to create the New Soviet Man, one who was socialist to the bones - and they failed. China tried much the same. They failed. Pol Pot tried. He failed.


Of course it isn't possible, but someone will try and when they do very few will remember the previous failed attempts. Ask a group of typical high school kids about Pol Pot or Stalin and you'll see what I mean.

Public opinion is much like clay and can be shaped in just about any manner as long as the primary distributors of propaganda (mass media) are controlled by a single entity controlled by (or controlling) the PTB. Sound familiar?? The PRC, USSR, Cuba, USA all have (or had) this machine in place already. Venezuela is coming along this path nicely too as well as many other nations for which a list is quite long and getting longer.

I suspect we'll be taking another stab at this New Man nonsense fairly soon as a means to try to control central power during the descent.

[Ludi]

This point can't be emphasized strongly enough - any viable solution HAS to work with us as we are, and not depend on us suddenly becoming virtuous.


Can one effectively sell consumer alternatives to people by implying they are not "good men" if they don't invest in these alternatives? Maybe, but certainly not in the way it is being presented here. Maybe with a big fat advertising budget. I don't know if foresight has ever been something one could sell. There needs to be a present benefit to a product if one is to be easily sold on it.


What is the present benefit of consumer alternatives?

[I_Like_Plants]

We're pretty damned virtuous in our natural habitat - that of the hunter-gatherer.

Since going back to that will require a complete collapse, I guess all we can do is do all we can to bring on a fast, and thorough, collapse.

[eastbay]

I guess all we can do is do all we can to bring on a fast, and ...

ILP, you just did something incredible!! You connected 17 one syllable words in that one single sentence. I would never have guessed that was possible at all. I believe it may very well be an all-time record on this site... in fact, it may be an all-time record in the use of the english language!

Congratulations!!!

[I_Like_Plants]

"thorough" has 2 syllables. Although in American, it's often pronounced "thro"

[DavidFolks]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'T')hat's interesting, because I don't treat alternatives as consumer items. I treat alternatives as knowledge and inexpensive useful things people can make for themselves or buy relatively cheaply (now). Survival should not be sold to people, it seems to me (naive rosy-colored person that I am), but should be given freely.

[Twilight]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'A')fter the economy hits the skids and we lose our jobs, how will we buy your alternatives when we can't even pay the grid electric bill anymore?

These are basic, day to day, nuts and bolts questions which have nothing to do with being "a good man" or whatever.

How do we pay for it?

A simple question.

[Ludi]

Thanks David for your response. I've found no consumer alternatives which are as affordable as a small handful of books. No one is paying me to share the information I've learned from the books or from my own experience. I'm paying to share this information (I suppose, in a sense, paying to give something away). Do you see the point I'm trying to make? I have paid for something (information) which I'm now giving away.


Whatever it is you are selling, I hope you are more successful at selling it in "real life" than you have been here. I haven't found your sales pitch to be at all compelling or encouraging, to be honest. So, I have to say, so far, you haven't demonstrated that whatever alternative you're selling fills a need better than, say, fruit trees, which is what I spend my "discretionary funds" on.

[eastbay]

'Thorough' would have made 18 words. Still 17 in a row is quite impressive.

[DavidFolks]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '
')Whatever it is you are selling, I hope you are more successful at selling it in "real life" than you have been here. I haven't found your sales pitch to be at all compelling or encouraging, to be honest.

[I_Like_Plants]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', ''')Thorough' would have made 18 words. Still 17 in a row is quite impressive.

[Pops]

I guess I range all over the 3 categories you mentioned in your original post.

I recall you said that people here generally dismiss or attack ideas different than there own or requiring skills, knowledge, interest and assets outside their ability.

That doesn’t seem too unusual if one is familiar with the human race.

Jack sells cold-blood
Ludi sells permaculture
Gg3 sells collectivism
Thuja sells urban transition
I sell rural
Others sell alt. energy, global warming, politics, yadda, yadda.*

To think that we would be a homogenous cult is to hope for exactly the opposite of what you seem to be looking. The fact there is no consensus here underscores the fact there is no one answer - but perhaps if we try there are many.

As you said: "If we employ enough incremental changes…"

As you can see, many here are doing exactly that - just don’t think those changes will all be the same or we will agree on the perfect path because we are not all capable of walking a single path.

We are each payin’ our money an’ takin’ our chances…



* Sorry if I misrepresented what anyone is selling.