[Narz]

End of Life as We Know It I'll define as any (or many) of the following :

(1) Electric grid failures thruout the country lasting a week or more (non-natural disaster related)

(2) Unemployment up 100% or more thruout the country. Crime up 100% or more thruout the country over the previous year.

(3) Food interruptions frequent, often lasting a week or more. Lots of hoarding. Water interruptions frequent as well. Again, non-natural disaster related.

(4) The general populace scared, willing to accept curfews, rationing (fuel obviously but also food, potentially water), increasing restrictions on every aspect of our lives. Politicians, newscasters, religion, etc. come up w/ all sorts of explanations & scapegoats but increasingly people start to wonder if it really will "go back to normal".

[roccman]

Next Wednesday was not on this list...

[Narz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('roccman', 'N')ext Wednesday was not on this list...

[Narz]

12 voters so far. Talk to me. As they said in school (perhaps the best thing they told you in school) - explain your answer.

[SpringCreekFarm]

I can see that, as of this writing, I'm in the majority who said after 2011. I base my answer on pure speculation, like everyone else. From what I've learned on this board, the plateau that we're riding on right now will have run it's course by then and after that all desperate measures will have been put in to full swing. That is truly when we'll see HUGE problems around the world and life as we know it will change forever. I'm not sure how to put it in any better words than that because to try and speculate further is like writing fiction.

There very well may be a nuclear exchange in the world that will just fuck us all and all my preparations might have been better spent playing music in the bars and trying to get laid like the good old days.

We've had doomer threads come and go here and I"m ususally the one that refuses to buy into them because of my own, very fortunate situation. However, truth be told, I accept that I just my very well be in denial and I'll be one of the first to go. I don't know. Because I don't know, I'll still keep smiling and working away here.

If it's one thing this site has given me, it's the ability to accept my own fate and yet, strengthen my hope that I'll be able to pull my family through this.

[pedalling_faster]

whoever started this thread probably still has a job & food & a place to stay.

we had a large EOLAWKI in 2001.

Iraq has been having an EOLAWKI from 2003-2007, or during the entire term of Bush41-Clinton-Bush43, depending on how you measure it. i helped a Kurdish IT guy in 1997, he had an EOLAWKI experience because he provided computer support for a "team of American film-makers". he ended up on Saddam's blacklist and they chose to airlift him out.

for the people who live in largely foreclosed neighborhoods, such as in Cleveland, they are having an EOLAWKI experience right now.

for much of the world's population, their entire lives have been EOLAWKI experiences.

better stop there.

[topcat]

Chose 09-10.

I am mostly worried about the credit/financial problems that are surfacing. What we are seeing could easily be the tip of the iceberg. When the ship hits the berg (SHTB) next year, it will head for davie jones's locker and make 09 unpleasant.

[Narz]

pedalling_faster, yeah, I meant in the United States/Western Europe, the elite nations basically. I should have specified this (and usually do in these types of polls).

[Ayoob]

For a second I thought this was going to be The End Of Los Angeles As We Know It.

The correct term is TEOTWAKI, pronounced Tay Oh Twack Eee.

[Pixie]

I put 2016 to 2025. Massive power outages are already part of life as we know it. We will adjust to expensive fuel for several years. OPEC and Russia, et. al. will continue pushing to maintain their production, and those of us in the First World will continue to buy their product for another decade at least. It will take a while, I believe, before production really nose dives, and we will not see any of these major disruptions until the system can not compensate anymore.

[TamaraC]

I'm figuring roughly 2010 - 2012 depending on the rate of collapse of the ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic, as these events, along with forecasted drought in the Great Plains states will result in widespread food insecurity and possibly increased demand for oil to transport food.

I expect we'll be pretty deep into an "ordinary recession" by summer though, so my family's own TEOTWAWKI will probably hit around June or July, when the government contract he's working on ends and he's no longer indispensable.

We are already making arrangements with his parents (who have land) for the eventuality, paying down debts, and looking at employment in more stable circumstances. If I thought we had more time, I would enter a grad program in sustainable development out here in DC and study urban permaculture. (I'm good at standardized tests, so grad schools court me constantly to get their averages up.)

Tamara
in Maryland

[katkinkate]

Every day sees 'the end of life as we know it' for someone. I actually picked 9-10 years. Not because I know anything specific, just because America is the core of the problem: economically, in energy use and politically, and I think TPTB in America would be trying to keep things going for another year at least. Until the next presidential election, so that when everything collapses around their ears, the next president (probably a democrat) will get all the blame, thus setting the scene for Republicans to take power again later when things have shaken out a bit and people know more about what the future will bring.

[Tyler_JC]

I am highly skeptical of the people who believe in week long blackouts across the entire country by next year.

If you had made this poll in 2005, people would have assumed that $100 oil would mean economic depression and lights out for the entire planet.

It's incredible how adaptive people can be.

I vote after 2025.

However, crime could easily double within the next couple of years. Unemployment could easily hit 10% at the height of this coming recession.

But water shortages that aren't drought related? Curfews? Not for a while (if ever)

[KillTheHumans]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'I') am highly skeptical of the people who believe in week long blackouts across the entire country by next year.

[Tyler_JC]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KillTheHumans', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'I') am highly skeptical of the people who believe in week long blackouts across the entire country by next year.

[culicomorpha]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', '
')And that's the whole point.

Life is always the status quo. Change is gradual.

[Tyler_JC]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('culicomorpha', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', '
')And that's the whole point.

Life is always the status quo. Change is gradual.

[billg]

I'll have to go with 2009 since my new phone # just happens to end in 2009. 22 degrees C in the Arctic last summer has convinced me that the end is nigh.

[Nicholai]

Last January I went through, what some may consider, a 'school version' of a nervous breakdown. I had absolutely no ambition to do any work or be creative...I became the colour gray. This was all due to reading 'Heat' by George Monbiot, I didn't even know about peak oil at the time!

My English teacher sat me down one day and we had a long discussion. He said he was worried that I would become an alcoholic and drop out of school. I asked him how many copies of Shakespeare he had and how long they would burn for in a standard sized wood stove. He didn't appreciate the joke.

I don't want to make any specific predictions. We all know things aren't going to get better and that's the most important thing. After 2010, things will become much more apparent.

[medicvet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')y great nephews and nieces will assume that trains and boats are the only form of inexpensive long distance transportation, that snow south of Pennsylvania is a myth, and that a Cheeto is a male version of that African great cat that died out ages