by BigTex » Fri 04 Apr 2008, 23:54:18
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gandalf_the_White', 'I') had no idea that a post like this would garner 1200 views in a week. And the replies run the gamut.
I think that some of us actually don't care what happens in the future as long as society as we know goes up in flames. I rarely see any akcnowledgement of the possiblity of mitigating through alternative energies. I have no illusions that we are going to solve the problem, but every once in a while I get the feeling that some here feel like mitigation might leave the PTB in the place they have been in since the robber barrens.
How many of you will admit that you have this attitude and would care to discuss how prevalent it is among your friends? The attitude I mean is basically the anarchists manifesto.
I read a very interesting book the other day called the The Forager's Guide. As I read this I was able to make a pretty accurate assessment of how hard it would without competition to actually live off the land up here as a hunter gatherer, and brothers and sisters it would be alot of work, and that is just thinking about food. Please imagine if the grid [I mean that generally not just the electric grid] goes down. I could find myself living nearby to 700,000 people who suddenly have to scratch a living from the land within 100 miles of my home [estimated from the densityin the region.] If the trucks ever stop rolling I'm telling you all the truth I am going to plan on taking my family and heading to the remotest areas I can find on the planet.
It just hits me hard when I see hearts that 'appear' so hard as to actually think that hard crash is desireable. I could easily see every edible plant and animal population in the state gone within two years. What's left to eat then?
It is time to advocate for alternatives strongly in my opinion. Trust me the PTB will not be able to keep everything the way they want to even without a total collapse. People with malevolent attitudes, as I have said before, will probably find themselves on the short end of along rope, as groups everywhere try to maintain their sanity and safety in a world that is increasingly out of control. That is in a worse case scenario.
We still have a chance to find something less extreme, or at least to set the stage for renewal after the expected world dictatorship rises out of the last gasp of the owners to turn us all into soilent green
Sorry guys I had to get little mixed humor in there.
I happen to know that I live next to one of the most profound wind power resources in the world that is only being utilized at about .1% of it's potential. It could easily support a wind to hydrogen economy for every citizen within 200 miles. What a great dream, unless you are an anti-establishment person in which case even that shining future for about a million people is to be resisted.
Guess what the major roadblocks are? The greenies don't want to see one more dead bat! It doesn't matter that no endagnered species has endagered habitat in the area, you just simply can't tolerate the death of one bat. And yet these same purists drink the tap water, and use their electric computers to write opposition papers to one of the most amazing possible futures for thie region.
I find that type of extremism to actually be more like a sociopathic expression. Eveywhere on the fringe are the radicals. The middle has to stand up and raise it's voice now.
But oh yeah I forgot. Because the oil companies and others in charge (who are expected to tell us of the impending oil depletion issues) refuse to broker the needed change there is no political support among the people of the state for the type of massive investment in wind that is actually needed here.
I am going to at least try to change that. Does anyone here have similar issues in there area?
Gandalf, I think you are raising the issue of separating "the thing" from our perception of "the thing."
For example, UFOs may or may not be visitors from another planet, but to study the phenomenon, you really have to study the PSYCHOLOGY of UFOS along with the actual evidence of their existence.
It's the same with peak oil and mitigation strategies. To understand what's really going on, you have to study the reality of peak oil, overall resource depletion, overpopulation, etc., but you ALSO have to study the PSYCHOLOGY of these future states that we think about so much, because that is what is really more interesting (same with UFOs).
Do people WANT the world to collapse? Some do, others don't. Many will say they do, but really don't. The real source of the emotion is not a preoccupation with doom, it's the accumulation of fatigue at how STUPID political, religious and other leaders can be. This entire problem was created by people. It's not like an asteroid hit the earth or something. And even though we created the problem, no one even seems to want to acknowledge it exists, much less talk about what to do about it.
It is this strange current reality that I think makes a lot of people feel that the world couldn't be worse if we just crashed and started over with some other form of civilization, one that wasn't so damn greedy and neurotic.
My company started a "sustainability" program. I looked into some of what the program involves and a few of the great ideas were:
1. print fewer emails
2. use a ceramic coffe cup instead of styrofoam
These things won't hurt, but the scope of the problems we are facing in the next few decades are just so much larger than printing fewer emails and drinking out of a ceramic cup that it's laughable.
As I looked at the list of what the sustainability program is going to be encouraging, I wondered if the people who put the program together really have any clue about some of the larger forces at work. I may buy a copy of "Overshoot" for all of them. That ought to get their attention.
