[seahorse]

Two problems raised by the article, showers and cars, are easily solved.

(1) showers - go right now and buy a $10 solar camping shower from Wal-Mart;

(2) Car - too expensive to insure and maintain? sell and buy a moped. In Arkansas, at least, any motorized vehicle under 50cc does not have to be tagged, no insurance required, and no property tax paid on it, get about 100 mpg and go about 40-50 mph. Its common for people who lose their driver's licenses, like drunks, to go this route.

[mattduke]

link

[IgnoranceIsBliss]

I received a phone call the other night from a bill collector who was trying to reach one of my neighbors. The bill collector wanted me to put a note on this neighbor's door or something. They gave me the house # which was a few doors down from us. I think it's the guy who closed his pizza restaurant about a year ago. I was wondering what they were doing for money.

[Niagara]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('IgnoranceIsBliss', 'I') received a phone call the other night from a bill collector who was trying to reach one of my neighbors. The bill collector wanted me to put a note on this neighbor's door or something. They gave me the house # which was a few doors down from us. I think it's the guy who closed his pizza restaurant about a year ago. I was wondering what they were doing for money.

[Dreamtwister]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('IgnoranceIsBliss', 'I') received a phone call the other night from a bill collector who was trying to reach one of my neighbors. The bill collector wanted me to put a note on this neighbor's door or something. They gave me the house # which was a few doors down from us. I think it's the guy who closed his pizza restaurant about a year ago. I was wondering what they were doing for money.

[Minvaren]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dreamtwister', 'I') hope you told him to piss off. Forget tasteless, it was downright cowardly of him to ask you.

[IgnoranceIsBliss]

I'm 99.9% sure it was a bill collector, but when I asked them "Is this a debt collector?" the lady said "no".

It seems that they are pretty desperate to collect these days when they are calling house #'s all around the debtors!


I know these guys because we've also been getting recorded calls for some guy named "John Smith." So I have to call them & tell them that this is not the phone # for John Smith. I also got a call from a debt collector looking for someone with my same name. That guy was adamant that I owed $350 to the cell phone company. I finally convinced him that it wasn't me! Then I checked my credit report just to be safe.

[DJSNOLA]

Speaking of Identity theft. Id imagine the coming recession will create an enormous spike in ID theft. everyone here needs to keep an eye on their credit!

[blukatzen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mattduke', '[')url=http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE4AR60M20081128]link[/url]

[Cyrus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('blukatzen', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mattduke', '[')url=http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE4AR60M20081128]link[/url]

[blukatzen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cyrus', ' ')Good to see an somefrom from the Ill state here! Defitely hear you about the shopping devlopments that are built and sit empty. There are literally dozens in the Naperville area. Even the well established shopping centers have over 50% occupany rate.

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DJSNOLA', 'S')peaking of Identity theft. Id imagine the coming recession will create an enormous spike in ID theft. everyone here needs to keep an eye on their credit!

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dreamtwister', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('IgnoranceIsBliss', 'I') received a phone call the other night from a bill collector who was trying to reach one of my neighbors. The bill collector wanted me to put a note on this neighbor's door or something. They gave me the house # which was a few doors down from us. I think it's the guy who closed his pizza restaurant about a year ago. I was wondering what they were doing for money.

[yesplease]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('IgnoranceIsBliss', 'I')t seems that they are pretty desperate to collect these days when they are calling house #'s all around the debtors!

[Sixstrings]

All the talking we do about preps, with stores of rice and beans, and walking to work and giving up this and that luxury.. if the day comes that there really are food shortages, and it's full-on Doom, I just don't think it will be so glamorous as the novel "World Made by Hand."

I mean, we have all these modern conveniences for a reason. Fact is, subsistence level hard work pretty much sucks, and what we call Doomerism is what most of the world already lives in -- abject poverty.

If you want to see hunger and doom, go to places like North Korea, the slums of Brazil and India, or most of Africa. I don't think you'll find any sense of adventure in the way the hungry and poor live, their life just is what it is -- hard, painful, and short.

And so the paradox here is that while Doomers prep so enthusiastically for a third-world future, the people living in the third world today desperately dream to have all the common luxuries we in the first world enjoy -- thanks to the Age of Oil.

I guess my point here is that when / if the first world collapses, don't assume this new way of living will be "better" than the old. In fact, it will very likely be terrible. And this is why the mainstream isn't quick to jump on the Doom bandwagon.. it's not exactly a future many people want to contemplate.

[Plantagenet]

What a great post.

Hooray for your honesty.

+100

[heroineworshipper]

The appropriate question is "is US a fashionable spin on poverty"

Houses costing $1 million, prime rib costing $20,000, that's mere poverty. Getting eaten while checking the mail, being chased by legions of zombies, that's doom.

Well, maybe in another few million Google searches, we'll think doom is the new poverty.

[Thralen]

In my opinion Doomerism is not just putting a fashionable spin on poverty. Doomerism is the attempt to create a situation for yourself/your family/your community where should we be dropped to that abject level of poverty that you are talking about we are not forced to have the hard, painful, short life you mention. Doomerism is the attempt to learn and prepare to survive and, if not thrive, at least do well in such a lifestyle as you are mentioning.

Your biggest problem is that Doomerism does not mean the same thing to different people. If you ask 10 people on the board to define their idea of "Doomerism" I'd guess there are at least 8 different if not totally dissimilar answers. I'll start here, others feel free to chime in with their idea of Doomerism.

To me, Doomerism is, as mentioned above, the attempt to smooth out any transition from our current lifestyle to one that is far more commonly associated with the third world. With the proper preparation you go from things like trying to scratch a living in poor coil by poking holes in the ground with a stick to plant whatever seeds you can find to running a plow over amended soil that has different crops rotated through it to keep it fertile, being able to choose the types of things you want to grow by having the seeds in advance, being able to water the crop because you prepared and have a manual form of water retrieval as opposed to relying on electricity to pump it for you, etc... It is preparing and having medicines available or homeopathic alternatives for those medicines which go bad. It is knowledge, stores, skills and experience. So while it deals directly with a 'bad' thing (Doom ,or TEOTWAWKI) it is, in itself, a good thing. Learning, practicing, and experiencing those things which might potentially be necessary some day will keep those who have prepared from having a short, brutal, painfully shortened lifespan if and when doom of some sort strikes.

Ok, so I got a bit verbose there but I think I got my idea of it across, not a standard guns, gold, ammo reply (of which I am sure there will be a few) but...

Anyhow, to answer you: No, I do NOT think that Doomerism is just putting a fashionable spin on poverty.

Thralen

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', ' ')Fact is, subsistence level hard work pretty much sucks.