[roccman]

Ok - so the die off brought about by resource depletion/wars/desease/famine/global warming/dimming could cause 6 Billion (or more) to perish soon (under 15 years).

Chances of you or I surviving are 1 in 11 at 6.6 Billion current population....statistically speaking

If you believe you would survive the die off are you in denial??

If however you believe there is nothing that can be done are you a defeatest?

I do not think you can be both.

But hey...what do I know.

[Jack]

I think the numbers need to be a bit more fine-grained.

Let us suppose we have a sample of healthy, highly trained, motivated, young individuals in one sample. In another, we have elderly alzheimer's patients with severe heart disease.

Will they experience equivalent mortality under specified conditions? Probably not.

Likewise, if food prices double, will everyone experience similar problems in obtaining the commodity? Again, probably not.

So, I would contend that nothing can be done about the overall die-off; however, one can modify the probability of one's own demise. Likewise, a community or nation can do so. The only problem is...while it is not a true zero-sum game, it approaches it.

[NeoPeasant]

Just remember that the odds of you ever having been born in the first place without the hydrocarbon glut would have probably been only about 1 in 11.

[TreebeardsUncle]

Don't think the number that will die off is that high so suppose that would put me in the denial/optomist camp.
g

[Nicholai]

I'm young, decently educated and my parents have no mortgage. I'm healthy and, most importantly, a fast runner. I should be alright.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'I') think the numbers need to be a bit more fine-grained.

Let us suppose we have a sample of healthy, highly trained, motivated, young individuals in one sample. In another, we have elderly alzheimer's patients with severe heart disease.

Will they experience equivalent mortality under specified conditions? Probably not.

Likewise, if food prices double, will everyone experience similar problems in obtaining the commodity? Again, probably not.

So, I would contend that nothing can be done about the overall die-off; however, one can modify the probability of one's own demise. Likewise, a community or nation can do so. The only problem is...while it is not a true zero-sum game, it approaches it.

[Bas]

Good one Rocc, I was thinking of starting a similar but slightly different thread. In this case I think I would be neither in denial or defeatist. I do think there remains a lot of things to be done to avert a large scale die off that would also hit the West. I also think that a smaller die-off within 30 years (instead of 15) would be more likely, and not so much in the developed world. As for defeatism, I don't think that my chances would be very good in your 1 in 11 example, if those numbers were to materialize in my own country. I guess if it would be a worldwide number and the number for the state I live in would be more like 1 in 3 or so my chances would be a lot better.

So I guess I'm neither a defeatist nor in denial, or a little of both; can't really agree on your premises on which you based your question though.

PS I believe I mixed up defeatism and denial here......or did you? ; )

[Heineken]

Roccman, with all due respect to your Hammerness, I don't see the "point" of the poll question. Also, the specifics you pose seem too arbitrary and extreme.

As Bas notes, most people would tend to fall somewhere in between these extremes of opinion. Even I, a hard-core doomer, might think I'd have at least a chance to survive 15 more years. But you haven't provided an option for the middle-grounders. That forces people into categories they don't really belong to, or forces them not to vote at all.

Finally, the poll question doesn't stand well on its own. It may be hard to understand what you mean without reading your opening post. But some impulsive types may go ahead and vote anyway before reading your explanation.

[Ludi]

I'm totally in denial. I'm convinced I'm a goner when tough times come, but still, I've been called "in denial." So it must be true, right?

[Grifter]

I'm in denial because I think I'll make it?

I like soup, and bread. Whats the problem?

[Tanada]

I beleive there is nothing I can do personally to stop the big crunch so I am a defeatist, but I am trying to convince people locally to prepare so I am a denialist????

[roccman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', 'G')ood one Rocc, I was thinking of starting a similar but slightly different thread.

[Bas]

I would like to put it like this:

I believe and do not deny that Peakoil/Climate Change/ Die off are very real but also that there are very real possibilities for humanity as a whole to succesfully mitigate if we work together and are prepared to sacrifice. In this case we might be able to stop global warming and population growth in the long term, without a big die off.

If we go on the path of total world war, we will see a big die off relatively soon, and climate change will hardly matter after that though it might not be so bad as in my medium scenario:

We will have limited war, because of that we won't invest in measures to limit climate change in the long term because of lack of funds/political will in a split world and we'll see a long lasting but relatively slow die off beginning later than in the "total war" scenario.

Now if you think there is nothing we as humans can/will do to mitigate any of the 3 issues than you probably are a "holy" believer in the "total war" scenario, or at least something approximating it; I would call this defeatist (eventhough you might not be defeatist in your own life preparing for it etc.)

Now I do believe there is a lot that can be done to mitigate the consequences of global warming in the long term (that we can do in the short to medium term), peakoil in the short to medium term and things that can be done to avoid a large scale die off in the medium to long term. But all those things require political will and cooperation on a global scale, and I'm therefor not sure we will actually do those things that need to be done. Maybe they will be done too late, or only partly; either way I do see a lot of possibilities that can make a difference and I'll do my best in my own little way to push for the realization of those possibilities in mitigation and political will is paramount in this. So therefor I don't consider myself a defeatist or doomer defeatist as I'd like to call it, (rather I'd like to call myself a doomer..hmmmm...relativisionist )

[roccman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', 'M')aybe they will be done too late, or only partly; either way I do see a lot of possibilities that can make a difference and I'll do my best in my own little way to push for the realization of those possibilities in mitigation and political will is paramount in this. So therefor I don't consider myself a defeatist or doomer defeatist as I'd like to call it, (rather I'd like to call myself a doomer..hmmmm...relativisionist )

[Ludi]

It's not so much that humans are hard-wired to cheat as that our society rewards cheaters. In other, more closely knit societies, cheating behavior gets weeded out pretty fast because there is no reward.

[SpringCreekFarm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'I') beleive there is nothing I can do personally to stop the big crunch so I am a defeatist, but I am trying to convince people locally to prepare so I am a denialist????

[Dezakin]

Well theres nothing I can do to convince people that their pet apocalypse scenario is fantasyland garbage and in twenty years they'll just be old, paranoid weirdos, so I guess I'd be a defeatist.

[muon]

Most people won't die of peak oil. They'll die of illness, hunger, war etc. They won't be likely to see peak oil as a causative effect any more than someone in Sudan or Somalia blames their death on them having less oil than the USA. People may see that the world around them is changing, but they're more likely to scapegoat other groups of people or their governments than to put it down to peak oil - you can't hit back at peak oil anyway, there'd be no point for them to hold that to 'blame'. Maybe people here are different, but that is how I see the outside world perceiving what is likely to happen in the future.

We see things skewed. If you're in a poor African country with no healthcare are you not already experiencing a 'die-off'? Hasn't that been the fact of human - and all - life since life evolved? But we think we are different, we see things in terms of a few decades if we're older, less than that if we're younger and we don't expect the world we live in to substantially change except for the better. But our beliefs are an illusion, reality is coming to swipe us in the face whether we like it or not. Most won't like it.

Instead of considering how we would handle a die-off, why aren't we considering how we handle 'life'? That is the ultimate causative effect of any coming 'die-off', it's not oil, it's US.