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Should we change what we're doing?

What's on your mind?
General interest discussions, not necessarily related to depletion.
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Re: Should we change what we're doing?

Unread postby Heineken » Tue 06 Nov 2007, 23:14:08

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'D')ivide PFTF forum into smaller forums that are more specific


Isn't it already? Food, shelter, etc.
"Actually, humans died out long ago."
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"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
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Re: Should we change what we're doing?

Unread postby Heineken » Wed 07 Nov 2007, 01:36:55

Although I agree with elements of your post, I don't agree that PO.com is chock-full of loonies cheering doom. There are a few of those everywhere, of course, but they do not characterize this site. Most of the members are pretty balanced in their views, and that's one of the things that attracts me to this place.
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Re: Should we change what we're doing?

Unread postby mercurygirl » Thu 08 Nov 2007, 02:24:14

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'I') wonder how truly independent any of us can be. That really is the crux of it.


That really is it. The point is, we can't. Awhile ago, I said that here we have our own little microcosm. PO.com is supposed to be about the problem confronting all of us and even here, we're all over the map. That, I contend, is not a bad thing. When I think over my life, even the people and things I don't like have been very important and even helpful, and what's more, inescapable. That is so for everyone, if they're honest with themselves.

I recently read a short article by Derrick Jensen called "Beyond Hope". I think many here would enjoy it, see here: Link

What we have here is a karass. Everyone must go read Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle" asap! Pathos and humor, he got it a long time ago, bless him. A quote from here:Link

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'k')arass

A group of people who, unbeknownst to them, are collectively doing God's will in carrying out a specific, common, task. A karass is driven forward in time and space by tension within the karass.


Substitue what you will for the word God. So to answer the op, no, don't change a thing! :lol:
Last edited by mercurygirl on Thu 08 Nov 2007, 03:19:35, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Should we change what we're doing?

Unread postby thuja » Thu 08 Nov 2007, 02:41:47

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'D')ivide PFTF forum into smaller forums that are more specific


Isn't it already? Food, shelter, etc.


No- those aren't forums- they are threads...

A thread with the title "food production"?

My god- I could have 8 million separate conversations about aspects of that subject. A thread generally implies that you are focussing on one theme and hashing it out...

But a forum entitled Food production? That would allow for numerous threads under the banner of food production. Or a forum called Guns and Ammo? Or a forum called Alternative Energy? Or a forum called Community PLanning? And on and on-

This gets back to my beef of "lumping" instead of "dividing". Am I the only one who is annoyed by a thread on a massive subject such as biofuels becoming one amazingly long merged thread with a variety of different conversations happening as one long sprawling mess?

Put me in the "I hate lumping" category at PO.com.
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Re: Should we change what we're doing?

Unread postby seldom_seen » Thu 08 Nov 2007, 04:45:28

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'I') wonder how truly independent any of us can be. That really is the crux of it. When society collapses and a chicken scratches you and that little scratch suddenly becomes terribly infected and you urgently need an antibiotic that's no longer available, what then?

That is an interesting question.

My answer would be, what did people do before we had all the "stuff" we have now? They would use some sort of plant or animal type remedy, maybe a shaman would do his thing. If none of that worked, they might just die. That's what peak oil comes down to for a lot of people. Facing their own death, their own mortality.

In the west, the topic of death is taboo, and you can extend that equation to the topic of peak oil. Peak oil means the possibility of death for you, or your family, or your entire civilization. Hence, it is mainly a taboo subject.

Our current civilization has an obsession with the quantification of human life. In the gross number of human bodies produced, and with the effort of extending the lifespan of those bodies to the maximum length at all costs. We are all conditioned to believe that our goal is to live as long as possible, and that we should all expect to be happily retired in Florida, drinking OJ and playing shuffleboard in our "golden years." Living off social security benefits and fat pension checks.

The important thing to realize though is the emphasis is always on the future. Led along like a donkey with a carrot extended out in front of its head. You've got to get good grades, so you can get in to a good college, so you can get a good job, so you have an excellent retirement package, so you can get great medical care. So you can end up dead as a door knob six feet under in the ground.

The "quality of life" is simply not a value (in fact life is not a value). It's just a cliche to sell you a vacation package, new appliance or electronic gadget. We live in, on, around and are dependent on a machine based logic. The blueprints of this machine are fundamentally flawed in all aspects. I couldn't over emphasize that enough. It's like a plane that can't fly. It only looks good on paper.

What if you only live to 14, or 23, or 37? What if you die at 48 instead of 81? Did you fail? In the context of the machine, you failed. You were supposed to live to 112 and appear on CNN. In reality though, you didn't fail. You emerged from the earth, did your thing and returned to the earth, just like a wave washing up on a beach.

When the machine inevitably cracks and crumbles, and grinds to a halt. Which is currently happening right now before our eyes. The children of the machine will be left naked, under the burning sun, with nothing to cling to. They will have to die, without dying. As what they thought was "their world" is no more. It was never real to begin with. It was just a lot of bright flashing lights and noise.

So when you're out there with your chicken scratch and infection and no antibiotics. Fear not, you can't prepare for every circumstance. If you did have gas, and a car and a hospital, you might get killed by a drunk driver on the way in, or pick up an incurable staph infection in the waiting room.
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Re: Should we change what we're doing?

Unread postby Heineken » Thu 08 Nov 2007, 09:02:52

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'D')ivide PFTF forum into smaller forums that are more specific


Isn't it already? Food, shelter, etc.


No- those aren't forums- they are threads...

A thread with the title "food production"?

My god- I could have 8 million separate conversations about aspects of that subject. A thread generally implies that you are focussing on one theme and hashing it out...

But a forum entitled Food production? That would allow for numerous threads under the banner of food production. Or a forum called Guns and Ammo? Or a forum called Alternative Energy? Or a forum called Community PLanning? And on and on-

This gets back to my beef of "lumping" instead of "dividing". Am I the only one who is annoyed by a thread on a massive subject such as biofuels becoming one amazingly long merged thread with a variety of different conversations happening as one long sprawling mess?

Put me in the "I hate lumping" category at PO.com.


I understand the difference between a forum and a thread, Thuja. My point was that there is already a place for discussing food production, and within it for discussing goats, gardening, etc.

I hear what you're saying, but if you follow your logic out to its conclusion, you end up with millions of forums instead of millions of threads. I'm not sure that constitutes an improvement.

Also, if you divide something up too finely, you may not get much of a conversation going. The more specific a subject becomes, the smaller the population of interested discussants. There are, after all, only so many members.

There is one situation that arises that sometimes seriously annoys me. That's when I start a thread that I consider sufficiently unique to stand on its own, but it gets "lumped" anyway in some existing, often gigantic thread. It then loses its identity and tends not to generate the discussion that might otherwise have happened. This is an issue of moderator judgment.

Also, I do think there should be a few more forums for a few really big subjects, like global warming. I find it irritating that there is still no global warming forum. However, the site managers are, I suspect, trying to keep the focus on PO as much as possible. Global warming threads are categorized in the Environment forum because global warming is considered an environmental side-effect of energy use.

Basically I'm torn between what you're suggesting and the system as it stands. It seems to work, for the most part. I've witnessed too many "updates" and "revisions" that made things worse rather than better.

My guess is that the really old posts don't get read much anyway, so it doesn't matter if there are a string of 20,000 of them before you get to the more recent stuff. The search function can be used if you're doing research on something specific.
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"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
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Re: Should we change what we're doing?

Unread postby SpringCreekFarm » Thu 08 Nov 2007, 10:32:41

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SpringCreekFarm', 'O')ur preparations are not in vain unless you've decided to prepare only to lessen the harsh effects of peak oil. If you happen to like being independent from the sheeple society, then the preparation thing serves both your desire to live a happy independent life with the benefit of a softer landing. If doom is on the horizon then I'm gonna go out happily tending my homestead.


SpringCreek, my own preparations have tended to make me more of a doomer, not less. I started "getting back to the land" in 1983, and everything I've done since then has been a lesson in the extreme difficulties of achieving true (as opposed to partial or illusory) independence from stores, dentists, the Grid, and yer friendly neighborhood Exxon. In my case, part of the difficulty has been the need to make compromises with the people in my life, and the fact that those people have their own priorities or limitations that preclude their pitching in. So it's really just me. On top of that, though, are the many huge obstacles I've described elsewhere (like Japanese beetles).


As usual Heineken, great reply. I know what you mean about other people in your life. You mentioned before that you are looking after one or more parents and that is very honourable. I just finished up my duties in that dept. when my dad passed away last January. Before that it was my grandfather and before that it was my mom who spent 23 years in a nursing home. I often felt that my purpose in life was to look after those that came before me. It has only been since my dad's passing that I have been able to fully engage in my homesteader dream.

I may be in denial in some way, but I am not from the doomer camp. People around the world have been resilient and made do with much less and that is what keeps me going. I also like being independent from mainstream society so that is key to the driving force behind my aspirations, not peak oil. I'm not running from peak oil / climate change, I'm hoping to take it on and go out in a blaze of glory just doing what I love. See what I mean?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') wonder how truly independent any of us can be. That really is the crux of it. When society collapses and a chicken scratches you and that little scratch suddenly becomes terribly infected and you urgently need an antibiotic that's no longer available, what then?


You were the person that enlightened me on the obvious notion that we all have to die some day and to be at peace with that whether it comes sooner or later. I'm ok with that especially after watching my mom suffer all those years. I used to wish she would pass sooner than later.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') do my country thing because I love it, not because I think it will save me. I might even die sooner because some of my outdoor activities are fairly dangerous and I have no health insurance, one detail among the many that have turned me into a fuckin' rabid radical.


This is what I said earlier that it is not in vain if it brings you short term happiness and peace of mind. In the long term we all die but in the short term it is what we make of it.
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Re: Should we change what we're doing?

Unread postby Heineken » Thu 08 Nov 2007, 12:28:32

Super comments, SCF. I am far more in agreement with you than I am in disagreement. I'm a doomer and you're not, but so what.

Helping to take care of my sick old parents is the hardest thing I've ever done, and it's likely to get worse before it gets better. They have very difficult personalities (my Dad has some dementia along with PTSD; my Mom is just impossible) and that only compounds my woes.

I know you've been there, so I need say no more.
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Re: Should we change what we're doing?

Unread postby Pops » Thu 08 Nov 2007, 14:10:53

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'A') thread with the title "food production"?

I couldn’t find a thread with the title Food Production

But from Shanny's Index I did find:

Food Production and Preservation
Food Production - Aquaculture

Food Production – Gardening, General

Food Production - Goats & Sheep

Food Production - Greenhouses

Food Production - Pests and Disease

Food Production - Poultry (was Backyard Chickens)

Food Production - Rabbits

Food Production - Trees

Food Preservation - General

Food Preservation – Canning

Food Preservation – Pickling/Drying/Smoking
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.
-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)
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Re: Should we change what we're doing?

Unread postby thuja » Thu 08 Nov 2007, 16:24:24

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'A') thread with the title "food production"?

I couldn’t find a thread with the title Food Production

But from Shanny's Index I did find:

Food Production and Preservation
Food Production - Aquaculture

Food Production – Gardening, General

Food Production - Goats & Sheep

Food Production - Greenhouses

Food Production - Pests and Disease

Food Production - Poultry (was Backyard Chickens)

Food Production - Rabbits

Food Production - Trees

Food Preservation - General

Food Preservation – Canning

Food Preservation – Pickling/Drying/Smoking


Sorry- I meant to say Food Production- Gardening, General- Again- so many places to go there that its hard to keep a single conversation on one topic...

But anyways...I really am going to stop now- I've said my piece- and I am just one person with one beef, and I'm done with whining. Again thank you thank you thank you...
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Re: Should we change what we're doing?

Unread postby Pops » Thu 08 Nov 2007, 17:18:10

It ain’t whining if you have the idea of changing the world and I'm pretty sure you have the best interests of PO.com in mind..

Keep it up...

and Thank You.
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.
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Re: Should we change what we're doing?

Unread postby bodigami » Thu 08 Nov 2007, 17:30:04

IMO, what this site needs for noobs is an introductory wiki to PO... blogs like "Life after the Oil Crash" are too long for some to read. An organized wiki can be more effective.
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Re: Should we change what we're doing?

Unread postby Pops » Thu 08 Nov 2007, 17:44:14

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'P')lease contribute!

Step up or…


:razz:
:-D
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