[mos6507]

Thought experiment.

If you were around back at a pivotal point in human development, let's say the dawn of agriculture, and you knew where it was going to lead, but you knew it was going to take thousands of years to get to the cliff, what would you do?

My point is, how near does a die off have to be in order to give a damn? Catton wrote his book in 1980, so he's "known" there would be a die off for close to thirty years, and it's probably likely to happen after he's dead.

A lot of what goes on here is an attempt to date the day of reckoning for the human race, and to then get freaked out or relieved as that theoretical date gets revised.

If you knew for a fact that die off would not occur for another 50 years, would you abandon your preps and just enjoy the fruits of modern life for the remainder of your days? Does it require an imminent existential threat to force behavioral changes? Is change a matter of self preservation or doing one's little part for the health of the planet?

We like to take credit for being ahead of the curve of the rest of the human race, but how many of us would have built earthships right after Hubbert's paper was published, when even the peak of US production was decades away?

[ohanian]

You are sick.

What you are saying is that THE END does not matter as you as you do not have to experience it.

So why worry, either you will experience it or you won't. You can't change it.

[korosten]

I think this is a very good question! (I don't understand the OP comment that this should be sick???)

If PO was 100 years away, I think I have to admit that I would probably not do any preps. I might still consider building a low energy house, but more because it makes sense anyway. But if PO was 100 years away, I would probably think/hope that someone somewhere will have found a solution until then and not worry about it.

I think it is in the human nature to value the short term much higher than the long term. There is even a scientific experiment that shows that the "value" of long term events decline exponentially in our brains. So we value things that happen in the next few seconds much more than things that happen in an hour or a week later etc. That's why I think it is so extremely difficult to plan long term.

Even if we knew PO would happen in 100 hears, it is so much more "important" to us to drive the car *now* and to get that new plasma TV this week and not worry about what happens in 100 years.

[wisconsin_cur]

I am only able to make the preparations that I am because of skills and attitudes which I caught from the people who raised me. Even if I knew events would take place after my time on earth it would still be important to live and raise my children and be a resource to neighbors in order that those skills and attitudes were available for others to carry into the future, when the collapse would take place.

I have an obligation to those whom I have sired and all who will follow after them to, as much as I am able, equip them with the skills necessary to navigate the future in a sustainable way. I can not control what they do with that gift but I am obligated to do the giving. And the giving cannot be separated from living a certain kind of life. That is the life I am moving toward today.

[kpeavey]

Most people look out for #1 and try not to step in #2. The nature of man is to look out for his immediate needs first, without regard for future generations. The future is not written in stone. Someone will think of something if the problem is big enough.

The question is one of selfishness vs responsibility. Is the greater priority serving the species or serving the family? History shows us that the family is the concern. We don't even look out for our neighbors. The species is on its own. The earth will look out for the species, allowing it to flourish or handling a population with various checks.

What would I do with knowledge of the future at the start of agriculture? I'd probably do exactly as they did back then. Rape the fields until they no longer produced, then move on to greener pastures. A cold winter and food on the table supercedes a dieoff.

---
One of my favorite quotes, don't remember who said it:
Ontogeny begets philogeny.

[galacticsurfer]

This is the wisdom of God. Say you are an immortal Guru in a cave. You meditate and occasionally wander amongst men as it pleases you and teach some in secret. However you never want to interfere. People have to decide for themselves what they do (Star Trek's first imperative). This rule is so important to observe as people will not trust something they did not learn the hard way by themselves.

So the trajectory of history is fairly immutable. Barring the asteroid hitting us we spread out and destroy everything, barring the realization of the situation in a lucid moment.

We could not just stop people at any point, by jumping in our time machine, from developing themselves. They would find one technology or toher or some way to get what they want somehow. Some speculate of an earlier global culture between the ice ages with Atlantis and lemuria, etc. before the waters rolled over them and they ran to higher land with their clothes on their backs. They supposedly had high tech of a different sort. Maybe this sort of thing really is cyclical.

Edit: My brother says to me when I disucss the whole PO topic with him always "in 50 years", in other words he shoves it mentally out into the future so as not to create a sense of panic. He has done energy prep like the neighbours due to summer high prices and potential future high oil prices. I think most people just react to the moment. Habits are formed culturally for people say in storage of foods for winter andplanting according to season. The fossil fuels were liek heroin. Once you get hooked on non-renewable energy sources you rationalize it and bulild a life on it. If I had my druthers we would not have found oil or coal and the whole global system would be 1500s style now but once we found it and now it will be soon gone. So we go back to some past but with a bad conscience and lots of useless abstract knowledge like Einstein's theory that are useless at lower levels of culture and energy use.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kpeavey', '
')What would I do with knowledge of the future at the start of agriculture? I'd probably do exactly as they did back then. Rape the fields until they no longer produced, then move on to greener pastures. A cold winter and food on the table supercedes a dieoff.

[Arsenal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', 'I') am only able to make the preparations that I am because of skills and attitudes which I caught from the people who raised me. Even if I knew events would take place after my time on earth it would still be important to live and raise my children and be a resource to neighbors in order that those skills and attitudes were available for others to carry into the future, when the collapse would take place.

I have an obligation to those whom I have sired and all who will follow after them to, as much as I am able, equip them with the skills necessary to navigate the future in a sustainable way. I can not control what they do with that gift but I am obligated to do the giving. And the giving cannot be separated from living a certain kind of life. That is the life I am moving toward today.

[Nike62]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'M')y point is, how near does a die off have to be in order to give a damn?

[Snowstorm]

The problem of being on a unsustainable and destructive trajectory are real no matter how many years away it is, although the strategies to deal with it are certainly different, so it does matter how many years away it is. If I knew we were a century away from a real crisis, I would still be trying my best to live more sustainably and work for change. An unhealthy relationship between humanity and the life of the biosphere is just that however close to the point of crisis we are. It probably wouldn't be as close to the front of my mind if it were 100 years away as imminent, however, but that doesn't mean that timescale shouldn't be considered.

As for human nature to look at the immediate first, I am in complete agreement that is the case, but that doesn't mean we don't have the ability to also consider farther down the line. Our cultural propaganda feeds off the tendency to only think in the immediate, just notice all those car ads that say no payments for a year or so. We're the culture of the immediate, but there's also examples of cultures that reinforce long-term thinking, thinking to the seventh generation was the ideal of some native tribes. The British used to plant oak groves for the purpose of growing the best wood for shipbuilding, the planters of these trees wouldn't see them reach maturity but planted them for the empire. While I'm not an advocate of empire building and imperialism, we could use the same mindset that they planted those oaks in focused to a sustainable future.

[Commanding_Heights]

I think there are two things that motivate people:

Fear and Greed.

For me I would/will continue trying to move towards a lower consumption and more self sufficient lifestyle. The reason being, I have a child who I love very much. My fear is leaving him behind in a state that he will not be able to cope with upcoming events.

This could also be linked to some deep seeded survival trait that greedily wants to see my seed passed on.

With that being said I think it really comes down to a persons personal situation. If they don't have a need to be greedy or fearful of the future that will come to pass (after they are gone) then they are going to care a lot less.

[VMarcHart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'I')f you knew for a fact die off would not occur for another 50 years, would you abandon your preps and just enjoy the fruits of modern life for the remainder of your days?

[Serial_Worrier]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'I')f you knew for a fact die off would not occur for another 50 years, would you abandon your preps and just enjoy the fruits of modern life for the remainder of your days?

[VMarcHart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Serial_Worrier', 'T')he world population will peak at 9billion then decline.

[ohanian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Serial_Worrier', 'T')he world population will peak at 9 billion then decline. There is no physical way with peak oil, peak fertilizer, peak farm land that can support more than that. Oh and peak water will rear it's ugly head a lot sooner then 9billion, probably in 10 years.