[Heineken]

Thanks for the correction, Ludi. I'll admit I couldn't resist my little joke at Thuja's expense (sorry, Thuja).

I don't agree, though, that a population contraction would be as gentle as Thuja imagines. He gave the example of Russia. A contraction is under way there in large part because lifespans have dropped drastically, although perhaps for different reasons than would occur in a PO/GW world. Anyway, people there and in Eastern Europe are dying very prematurely on average.

Also, I do think many doomers tend to exclude themselves from dieoff, either publically or inwardly. I am thinking in particular of the "survivalist" subset of doomers, many of whom are represented among PO.com's membership.

Remember, very few doomers believe in total dieoff, so that leaves abundant wiggle room for individuals confronting it.

Age could be a factor. Young people think they will live forever, no matter what (which explains why they do such dangerous things). Old codgers, on the other hand, may start confusing their personal doom with the general one approaching.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'L')OL. I think you're talking at cross purposes. Thuja sees "population contraction" as people dying at a ripe old age but fewer people being born, therefore, the population will drop.

"Die-off" implies premature death.


I don't know why anyone would exclude themselves from doom. How can it be doom if it doesn't affect you personally? That's what makes it doom, isn't it? That it will affect us? That we ourselves will suffer or die?

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I') don't know why anyone would exclude themselves from doom. How can it be doom if it doesn't affect you personally? That's what makes it doom, isn't it? That it will affect us? That we ourselves will suffer or die?

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'L')OL. I think you're talking at cross purposes. Thuja sees "population contraction" as people dying at a ripe old age but fewer people being born, therefore, the population will drop.

"Die-off" implies premature death.


I don't know why anyone would exclude themselves from doom. How can it be doom if it doesn't affect you personally? That's what makes it doom, isn't it? That it will affect us? That we ourselves will suffer or die?

[roccman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', ' ')

Also, I do think many doomers tend to exclude themselves from dieoff, either publically or inwardly. I am thinking in particular of the "survivalist" subset of doomers, many of whom are represented among PO.com's membership.

[billp]

Perhaps no confusion?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')ld codgers, on the other hand, may start confusing their personal doom with the general one approaching.

[Heineken]

Roccman: Definitely. In fact, that'd be a good definition of "optimistic doomer." Someone who believes that doom will pass him by, for now, either by sheer luck or as a result of his preparations.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'I') don't believe population contraction is a scary or dangerous thing.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('coyote', ' ')

1. What is 'doom'?

[careinke]

Monte wrote

<b>To me, a doomer is someone who thinks that there is a technofix just around the corner that will allow us to continue our end run around nature's limiting laws. </b>

Monte RTFQ! The question was "What is doom?" Not "What is a doomer?"

Cliff (Start a revolution, grow a garden)

[coyote]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RdSnt', 'I')ndeed, doom would be the retreat of all our best efforts and knowledge.

[IslandCrow]

Early on in my time here, for one reason or another, I associated the the idea of 'doomer' with 'the Mad Max scenario'. That is a 'doomer' was someone who believed (even hoped for) a sudden and rapid collapse of industrial society.

Historically the situation in the Ukraine around the time of the Communist Revolution would met this definition of doom. Not only were the Reds fighting the Whites, but you had the Greens (Ukrainian nationalists) and the Black (Anarchists) all joining in. The later particularly went out of their way to attack unarmed communities. The result was a lot of deaths due to random violence, starvation (as all the differing armies took food and destroyed the farms - and this was in the 'bread-basket' of the Russian Empire) and disease.

While I believe that there will be pockets of doom in the coming years, I hope that many places will be able to navigate some sort of decent to a new level without total collapse of society.

Maybe part of my feeling of hope is that I have lived a number of year as a child, and 7 years as an adult in poor countries, and I know that society can function with a much much lower level of material input. More than once I have had to wonder whether the sense of 'doom' that is in some posts is a reaction to realising that we will have to live at a lot lower standard of living, and anything less than my current style of living would be 'doom'.

I believe that where I am currently based would have a good chance of navigating the post-Peak Oil situation and still remain a functioning society (albeit much poorer materially, and with much shorter life expectancies). I if lived else where I might be more 'doomerish', so because I have hope for my situation I am not a doomer (a rather self-centred definition I know).

Then there is the whole matter of Faith, which for me is very real and does 'colour' how I look at life! This probably more than anything else keeps me from being a doomer.

BTW. my spelling checker does not recognise 'doomer' as a valid word!

[skeptik]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('coyote', '
')1. What is 'doom'?

[coyote]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'R')emember, very few doomers believe in total dieoff

[careinke]

1. What is Doom?

Doom is when your government can arrest you without due process. Doom is when there are resource wars. Doom is when people believe there are only two political parties worth counting. Doom is when the government regulates what you can or can’t put into your own body. Doom is when accumulating wealth is seen as evil, but over consumption is seen as patriotic. Doom is when the sheeple are too stupid to open their eyes and see what is going on around them. I guess we are already there.

Now if you asked for my definition of collapse or TEOTWAWKI. I would say when most people are unemployed in the traditional sense, the government no longer has control of the population, and mare people are dying than being born. I anticipate this happening in the next 5 to 10 years.

Am I a Doomer?

Yup

Why or why not?

Because I don’t think the sheeple will become aware of the problem before it is too late. Actually it is already too late. My hope is there are some lifeboats that survive the coming storm. If I am really lucky I may even be one of them.

Cliff (Start a revolution, grow a garden)

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('IslandCrow', 'H')istorically the situation in the Ukraine around the time of the Communist Revolution would met this definition of doom. Not only were the Reds fighting the Whites, but you had the Greens (Ukrainian nationalists) and the Black (Anarchists) all joining in. The later particularly went out of their way to attack unarmed communities. The result was a lot of deaths due to random violence, starvation (as all the differing armies took food and destroyed the farms - and this was in the 'bread-basket' of the Russian Empire) and disease.

While I believe that there will be pockets of doom in the coming years, I hope that many places will be able to navigate some sort of descent to a new level without total collapse of society.!

[Madpaddy]

Heineken wrote,

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'w')e face for the first time a global collapse---global doom.

[gg3]

Definition of doom: An impending global dark age consisting of spiraling decrease in accumulated knowledge, and spiraling increase in levels of violence.

Am I a doomer by that definition: Yup.

Why: Population overshoot necessarily leads to collapse. Dieoff is not a matter of masses of people just lying down and closing their eyes for the last time; it's messy and ugly, accompanied by much thrashing about. Clearly if the climate crisis goes on unabated for much longer, we're headed for an "evolutionary bottleneck event" that will make PO look like a picnic. But the loss of vast quantities of human DNA (a subset, large but none the less, of one species) hardly disturbs me as much as the loss of the rest of the ecosystems (including the projected extinctions of about 1/3 of species presently living), and the loss of the accumulated knowledge base, and the likely spiral of violence along the way.

What else:

How long have I been a doomer? Since the day GWB officially stole the election in 2000, when I said, "climate catastrophe here we come; game over, end of the world."

OTOH I'm with a group of smart, capable people, and we are planning to be in a place that is unlikely to be swept up in the dark age. (Loss of material conveniences does not qualify as "dark age," loss of knowledge & increase of violence does.) However, all "exemptions" from doom are probabilistic at best and I have no illusions about that and the related scenarios.

Meanwhile I keep plenty busy working at it as if the stuff I'm doing is going to matter at some level. Tonight (Tues night) I designed a human-powered small scale replacement for the Bobcat loader that has fewer moving parts than a bicycle (but more than a shovel:-). I figured out a clever solution for using simple leverage plus a few very basic control surfaces to lift a load higher than a plain lever alone would do. I expect to build the darn thing and use it in the process of building the community. I'm contemplating running a test on the use of pedal power to mix concrete: how long can a person in average condition keep that up before they have to take a break?.

I'm sitting here by the light of an LED lantern that runs for days on a recharge, writing this on a laptop measured at 35 watts. In the kitchen, the microwave is plugged into a Kill-A-Watt meter to measure 12 hours of power consumption in "standby" mode just to see how many watt-hours I'll save every month by putting it on a toggle switch and turning it off when not in use. After the microwave comes the clock-radio in my bedroom. The only thing aside from the fridge (which is of my own design also) that needs to be on most of the time is the PBX (communications system) but I'm thinking of ways to bypass that during nonbusiness hours.

Meanwhile some idiot in the suburbs just had another purely accidental baby, and thereby undid everything I could do in a lifetime's worth of conservation and inventing clever stuff. OTOH that's not an excuse to stop; nothing is an excuse to stop. All my clever stuff will serve those around me well, as we look back and forth between the lifeboat, the ship, and the iceberg.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', ' ')Monte RTFQ! The question was "What is doom?" Not "What is a doomer?"

[Madpaddy]

gg3,

Another excellent post as usual.

If you ever need a chief of security for that place you are always talking about I'ld love to be the guy. Hope you never have a need for it though.