by BigTex » Wed 22 Aug 2007, 18:08:04
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', 'I')t's an increasingly chaotic world, where truth is hidden by competing and conflicting agendas. The rich lord it over the poor and the strong inflict pain on the weak, but we're not giving up. You can beat us, insult us humiliate us, but we're not giving up.
"Die off" is a loaded term and defeatist. It helps nobody, but the oil companies, as it implies that it is hopeless to invest time or money into alternatives.
This is a core issue on this site, but people kind of dance around it. I'd like to see it addressed.
One way of shedding light on die off scenarios is to look at the last die off scenario the U.S. and world faced, which was the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918-1919. The U.S. saw around 675,000 people die and the world death toll was 20,000,000 or so. With a U.S. population at the time of around 55,000,000 and a world population of 1.8 billion during this time frame, an event of similar magnitude (based on current populations) would see around 3,500,000 dead in the U.S. and around 75,000,000 dead worldwide.
This would certainly feel like a die off.
What is interesting is that the impact of the 1918-1919 Flu Epidemic was to basically forget it ever happened.
People did not become hopeless. They did not lose the will to live. They buried the dead and kept on going.
PO is different, I suppose, in that any die off scenario would NOT give way to even greater growth in its aftermath, but I think it is worth noting that the last "die off" the world experienced does not appear to have done any permanent damage to the human spirit.
People talk about hard times in the future and what they might be like. Imagine for a moment that the same events that started in 1914 started in 1974. Here is what the timeline would look like:
1974: World War begins
1978: World War ends--9,000,000 dead
1978: International Flu Outbreak begins
1979: International Flu Outbreak ends--20,000,000 dead
1989: Worldwide Depression begins
1999: Worldwide Depression recovery begins
1999: Another World War begins
2005: World War ends--60,000,000 dead
In the scenario above, how much hope does 2005 appear to represent? Not much, yet 1945 was the beginning of a period of unmatched prosperity that has lasted, so far, for several decades.
Will PO represent a brick wall that we are simply going to slam into, or will it be like the Spanish Flu, a global depression and two world wars, which challenged humanity in unimaginable ways, but which we ultimately got through and found better days on the other side of the trauma?
All I'm suggesting is that if you had a crystal ball in 1910 that could only see up through 1945, it would be hard to reach any conclusion other than "we're screwed." Seeing the 1910-1990 period, however, would have given a person reason to be hopeful (and maybe even excited).
Today, PO crystal balls are forecasting similar "we're screwed" scenarios in the 2010-2045 period, but if you stretch that period out to, say, 2010-2090, it might look quite different.
What you focus on becomes your personal reality. Focus on the awful future long enough and it becomes your awful personal reality in the present.
Awful events needn't wreck a person's sense of hope and optimism, however. Anticipating awful events ought to be seen as an opportunity to plan, not as a reason to be hopeless. I believe this attitude is what gets you through hard times, and if you don't make it through the hard times, it allows you to face defeat knowing your spirit was never conquered. I have seen terminally ill people who met their illness with this kind of calm courage and it is inspiring; I have seen terminally ill people who met their illness with panic and fear and it is very sad to watch.
I think it is sage advice to resist fear and panic no matter what challenge you face. If it's PO with rapid die-off and accompanying climate change and other calamities leading to a cascade of wars, famine, pestilence and natural disasters.....just make sure your chinstrap is buckled.