[Cog]

For the past 3 weeks since I've become aware of PO and its implications, I've been watching how this is handled politically. To be honest, threatening to sue OPEC and threats to take over the oil companies does not impress me. Why the hell don't politicians get this? I'm no genius but I have spent the last three weeks studying PO and now I'm getting a fair idea of just how bad this is all going to get for us. Do our politicians not understand that part of their job is to look at the long term?

Am I just hopelessly naive to think that a US President could not sit down with charts and graphs and explain this to the American people?Yeah, I understand that bad news doesn't exactly appeal to our psyche but this is about our survival as a nation, if not our survival as a species.
I sat down last week with a couple of engineers(civil) and invited them to google PO over the weekend and let me know Monday morning what they thought. They understood what we were up against on this and they were shaken by the knowledge much like I was.

So what is it going to take for the government to take this seriously, start making plans for transition to other energy sources, and quit feeding us the pablum that everything is A-OK?
I do realize that we may be doomed and we have waited too long to do anything helpful for our survival but I believe in making the effort and saving what we can.

My rant is over and I feel a little better now.

[Pops]

Yea it's cool Cog.

Politicians are political and reactionary by profession.

It's up to you I'm thinking.

Ask about what You can do....

[Cog]

Thanks for your reply. I'm doing as much as I can to be more self-sufficient. Storing food, planting gardens, learning some carpentry skills.

Its just frustrating me that if a bonehead like me can see what is going on, why can't our elected leaders see it and start some positive steps? Are we so wrapped up in our own self-comfort that we can't take the truth anymore?

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'A')re we so wrapped up in our own self-comfort that we can't take the truth anymore?

[BigTex]

Spend a little time studying our debt based monetary system and the amount of unfunded future liabilities the U.S. is going to have to deal with, and you'll get frustrated all over again.

Go back and read some of Jimmy Carter's speeches about energy and then reflect on the fact that 30 years have passed and we've done NOTHING, and you will get frustrated all over again.

Pretty soon, you will find yourself in a semi-agitated state at all times.

It can be very frustrating.

Try yoga. Or some relaxing music.

It's not pretty.
I'm an intelligent person, and I would like nothing more than to be talked out of some of this bad news. The problem is that once you become aware of it and it really begins to sink in, it goes from being one possible set of outcomes among many to a more or less inevitable conclusion to everything we as a species have been doing for the last 100 years or so.

The ultimate and perhaps darkest conclusion you may reach is that all of this was inevitable and could not have been prevented. Our intelligence simply got ahead of our enlightenment and the urge to conquer and consume has been driving the bus ever since.

Perhaps wisdom never really had a chance, and the experiment in higher consciousness that we represent from an evolutionary perspective may just be swept back into the entropy hopper and nature will start over with something else. Our level of higher consciousness may never again occur in nature, perhaps fundamentally because higher consciousness may be found to have limited survival value once a life form like ours escapes its habitat. Who knows how many times this has happened before?

It's interesting, too, to think how the various traditions of wisdom that we have seem to have the following things in common:
- an end of the world mythology
- a preference for turning away from greed, ambition, and animal desires
- a deep appreciation of nature and skepticism regarding the ability of humanity to improve upon what nature has created.

Perhaps these insights are more profound than we appreciate. What they may be telling us is that these things are fundamentally true, but that animal desire and abuse of nature are not the result of some supernatural force of evil, but rather they are evil because they create the conditions for the end of the world mythology to be fulfilled.

Wouldn't that be an interestingly pragmatic definition of evil--something that contributes to the extinction of the species.
Perhaps there is a real tragedy in human wisdom in that it identifies what we SHOULD do, but with the perhaps unconscious knowledge that we WON'T do these things, and thus will sow the seeds of our own demise.

Feel better?

[Cog]

Not really but I do appreciate your thinking about why what is going to happen to us might just be inevitable.

I think I'll take the wife and daughter for a walk around the neighborhood tonight. I'm not going to discuss PO. Just walk around.

[Homesteader]

Oh yeah Tex, I'm feeling a lot better.

Repeated retching sound comes from Homesteaders office.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'N')ot really but I do appreciate your thinking about why what is going to happen to us might just be inevitable.
I think I'll take the wife and daughter for a walk around the neighborhood tonight. I'm not going to discuss PO. Just walk around.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Homesteader', 'O')h yeah Tex, I'm feeling a lot better.

Repeated retching sound comes from Homesteaders office.

[biofuel13]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '
')Try yoga.

[PrairieMule]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'G')o back and read some of Jimmy Carter's speeches about energy and then reflect on the fact that 30 years have passed and we've done NOTHING, and you will get frustrated all over again.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'P')erhaps these insights are more profound than we appreciate. What they may be telling us is that these things are fundamentally true, but that animal desire and abuse of nature are not the result of some supernatural force of evil, but rather they are evil because they create the conditions for the end of the world mythology to be fulfilled.

[joeltrout]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrairieMule', '[')i]One of the visitors to Camp David last week put it this way: "We've got to stop crying and start sweating, stop talking and start walking, stop cursing and start praying. The strength we need will not come from the White House, but from every house in America.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/fil ... risis.html

[PrairieMule]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('joeltrout', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrairieMule', '[')i]One of the visitors to Camp David last week put it this way: "We've got to stop crying and start sweating, stop talking and start walking, stop cursing and start praying. The strength we need will not come from the White House, but from every house in America.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/fil ... risis.html

[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'I') think I'll take the wife and daughter for a walk around the neighborhood tonight. I'm not going to discuss PO. Just walk around.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'P')erhaps these insights are more profound than we appreciate. What they may be telling us is that these things are fundamentally true, but that animal desire and abuse of nature are not the result of some supernatural force of evil, but rather they are evil because they create the conditions for the end of the world mythology to be fulfilled.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')erhaps wisdom never really had a chance, and the experiment in higher consciousness that we represent from an evolutionary perspective may just be swept back into the entropy hopper and nature will start over with something else. Our level of higher consciousness may never again occur in nature, perhaps fundamentally because higher consciousness may be found to have limited survival value once a life form like ours escapes its habitat. Who knows how many times this has happened before?

[hardtootell]

You took the Red pill!
Gotta find what ever peace you can inside yourself...

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '
')That's a nice piece Ludi. Thanks for linking. He's making a lot of the same points, but with more finesse.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')erhaps wisdom never really had a chance, and the experiment in higher consciousness that we represent from an evolutionary perspective may just be swept back into the entropy hopper and nature will start over with something else. Our level of higher consciousness may never again occur in nature, perhaps fundamentally because higher consciousness may be found to have limited survival value once a life form like ours escapes its habitat. Who knows how many times this has happened before?