[Mike Morin]

Thanks Ibon and Sixstrings for the perspective.

I don't worry about reducing automobile usage by 80% in the next twenty to forty years, I worry about the loss of quality of life that we now enjoy, if we don't do it in a planned manner and are reduced to such by poverty, because our environments are set up and around the automobile. Poverty in a walkable environment is tolerable. I already live something approaching those conditions. I have been very careful and somewhat fortunate to place myself in an environment and lifestyle where I can walk to get the things that I need. Such is a rare environment in the western part of the USA. I am poor by USA standards, but live a high quality of life in many respects. When the whole culture becomes poor and the goods and services aren't available, anywhere... no sense to worry about it. Up until now and now are the good old days.

I worry about the madness of those who will not understand and will not rationally adjust, those that will face poverty with violence, those that are and the increasingly amount who will be stranded. Many United Staters are a people of a violent psyche and as they get knocked out of their priviliged position, for which they feel much entitlement, there is a danger that the violence will begin manifesting itself more domestically rather than or should I say in addition to the preponderance of support and apathetic complicity with imperialist aggression overseas.

I try not to worry, because worry involves things that are beyond our control.

Having studied Environmental Studies, Regional and Resource Planning, Comparative Economic Systems, being a socialist since the age of 16, and earning a MBA degree, I thought myself to be in a unique position to be an effective social reformer. The mood swings between creative theory development and the lack of being able to realize success in implementation has been difficult. I keep reaching hopelessness only to gather my creative energies and reach out and hone my theory only to be beaten down into hopelessness by a "real world" that doesn't care about the rational, doesn't care about the needs of people relative to the way that resources are allocated and is very heartless and mindless towards the fate of the species.

Despite having plenty of historical perspective, I keep trying because I am committed to trying. That is what I do.

I enjoy the camaradarie of the "doomers" and the sense of humor that many bring to our collective condition. I enjoy doing this, writing, therefore I am very happy when participating in these forums.

At this point of my life the hardest thing to deal with is boredom and a feeling of no purpose. I know things will get harder. I don't worry because I know the coming societal poverty and the aging process are two things beyond my control. Also, when not engaged in activity (like this), the heaviness of the boredom and lack of purpose in life bogs me down. When I'm bogged down with depression, at least I don't worry.

This is probably more than you wanted to know about me, but I hope that this forum can be a locale of creative engagement. We probably, won't beat the peak oil problem, but maybe we can discover together ways to ease ourselves and others into the post-scarcity world.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
')
But, if Third World living ain't really so bad then what the heck are we all worried about then? When you break it down, this whole forum and all the Peak OIl anxiety is about the fear of losing our Western, first world way of life.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'I')s there Any Hope?

Check out the endless self-satisfied hubris of such cornucopians as yesplease, shortonbrains, and oily for an answer to that.

no there is no hope

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Mike Morin', '
')
At this point of my life the hardest thing to deal with is boredom and a feeling of no purpose. I know things will get harder. I don't worry because I know the coming societal poverty and the aging process are two things beyond my control. Also, when not engaged in activity (like this), the heaviness of the boredom and lack of purpose in life bogs me down. When I'm bogged down with depression, at least I don't worry.

[virgincrude]

It seems to me that hopelessness is akin to narcisism in that you reach that state by focussing only on your own perception of reality. Once you are in that state of hopelessness all attempts to show you an alternative scenario, some other perspective, are systematically rejected with explanations which reinforce your own perception and hopelessness. What this adds up to paradoxically, is that you are hopeless and remain hopeless, because you prefer it that way.

Categorising those who live in homesteads and permaculture communes as 'romantics' is an indication of this self-reinforcing and self-justifying hopelessness. American Exceptionalism is deeply, and in most individuals permanently ingrained in your psyche, and this adds a lot to your insistence in seeing the world only in terms of 'quality of life' 'consumerism' and 'goods and services'.

For me, the wider picture of why and how we got ourselves into this peculiar situation, provides some answers which can also point to some solutions. And yes, I blame it all on politics. I believe humanity has an infinite capacity for stupidity, in fact I think it has been proven without a doubt, but I also believe humans have the capacity to evolve out of this spiral of stupidity and learn and educate ourselves how to avoid it:
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2007/09/207797.php

Read this study of Political Ponerology and you'll have the answer as to how come history at least rhymes, and how come cultures the world over follow the same patterns of rise-prosperity-decline and always with the same divisions between those who work and those who get rich and rule. Recognise, isolate and get rid of this pattern and, with or without, solar, wind, free energy or fossil fuels, the world will become a better place. in other words, there is hope but perhaps not where you expect to find it.

[Sixstrings]

You know, I think what worries me most is that our very culture is fundamentally screwed up. There's a reason why so many people have to medicate themselves into oblivion these days, be it Prozac, Xanax, television, weed or alcohol.

The drugs in particular really bother me. "Better living through chemistry" is a sham, they're all just band-aids that don't last. How many kids these days are on ADHD drugs? There's an unexplained explosion in autism rates. I'm telling you, something's wrong with our culture.

There's an ad on TV for one of the newer bipolar meds, I forget the name. The ad is targeted toward people with depression, and the line goes "if your anti-depressant is still not enough, consider adding ___." I have to really laugh at that one -- big pharma is actually pushing anti-psychotics on the sheeple now.

Even in the best of scenarios, where peak oil doesn't crash everything down, I shudder to think of what the prescription drug scene will look like in another ten or twenty years. How bizarre it is that novels like "A Brave New World" and "1984" have truly come to pass.

My other big worry, assuming a peak oil societal collapse, is totalitarian government. That has to be the worst kind of poverty of all, the ultimate poverty of self-determination, speech, and thought.

So Mike, I understand your feelings of hopelessness. What I've been doing to combat that is just try to enjoy the simple things more. Things that don't involve consumerism. Since joining this forum, I've taken up some hobbies (like cooking from scratch and fishing) that I've never made time for before.

And these little hobbies of mine aren't big things, to be sure, but I really do get fired up over learning new skills that are practical and have tangible meaning. I saw a story on Drudge about another E Coli outbreak, this time with Nestle Toll House cookie dough. I had to chuckle at that, as for many years I was a cookie-holic with that pre-packed dough. Not anymore, been making my own from scratch now for the last year.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
')
But, if Third World living ain't really so bad then what the heck are we all worried about then? When you break it down, this whole forum and all the Peak OIl anxiety is about the fear of losing our Western, first world way of life.

[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'I')f you're talking about sparing humanity a die off, I think we're beyond hope. Some groups somewhere are going to get the short end of the stick once oil prices skyrocket permanently, which wil linvariably happen before the world is ready for it. Maybe the culling won't be that severe, but to think that nobody will see their deaths hastened by oil depletion is unrealistic. So you have to lower your expectations for what can be done to mitigate peak oil. The world as we know it will not be maintained. The only hope can come at a more localized level. For instance, asking the question: "can the US be saved"? or "Can my state be saved?" and move on down through the county, city, block, and individual doomstead. And by saved I just mean the bare essentials of life to be preserved, not that life could remain as luxuriant as it does today. I wish those who are working towards ecotopia the best, but I'm not counting on any of that to scale out. It's just too little too late, but I'd be glad to be proven wrong.

[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
')Ok, so you seem to be arguing that the Third World isn't quite as grim as I make it out to be. And, I'd wager you're right -- you can't miss the riches you never had, after all. All people really need is food and community, not plasma TV's.

But, if Third World living ain't really so bad then what the heck are we all worried about then? When you break it down, this whole forum and all the Peak OIl anxiety is about the fear of losing our Western, first world way of life.

[virgincrude]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rangerone314', 'T')he question I want to know the answer to, is how expensive will food get? Also if we keep the same political setup we have now, where the have's get to lubricate the political machinery will money, then it seems obvious the rich will have forces at their disposal to ensure that not only will they eat well but they will continue driving their expensive cars and continue their expensive ways while other Americans starve to death.

[Ferretlover]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('virgincrude', ' ')Big Pharma does not seek to cure you. It seeks to enrol you as a customer and use you as their guinea pig for the testing of their products. Profit comes first. And last.

[hardtootell-2]

On the subject of hope- I offer this observation. Overpopulation is IMHO the root cause of most of our woes-present and future.

We have the technology to prevent the problems it causes. We have had it for decades. The various forms of birth control are highly effective, inexpensive and humane, when used properly.

For cultural and political reasons we cannot and will not deal with this issue although there is no technological barrier.

Unless we do so, I am not hopeful.

[AgentR]

If one considers the situation that we find ourselves in, you end up being forced to embrace one of two possibilities. Either you assert some as of yet unrealized technological advancement that grants yet another exponential increase in the amount of energy and wealth humans can utilize; or you assert that the oil/fission age really is and was the last large scale advancement humans will have, and that we are now much closer to the end of the run, than the beginning.

When I look at this, I think, ok, energy derived from nuclear fusion would be the next logical step forward. When I think of the physics of the thing, I get this gut gnawing sense that fusion simply can not be viable on a scale less than that of a small star. I come to the conclusion, that all the remaining steps up the ladder simply out scale us.

Having thus discarded the first notion, I am left with contemplating the result of the second alternative... the thought of approaching 10 billion people trapped beneath the slope of a rapidly depleting supply of the resource they used to attain those numbers in the first place. What happens in a 10 billion human world that can only produce a bare minimal diet for 2 billion?

That is where I think we are headed.
Doesn't leave much room for hope.

[AgentR]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Mike Morin', 'L')et's discuss why there is no hope, only doom. Let's discuss if that is the only possible outcome.

It is only human to try to cling to hope.

[mos6507]

In other words, treat life like you've just been told you have terminal cancer.

Just assume you now have maybe 10-20 years left tops, and most of the end of it will be spent just barely hanging on as your quality of life degrades to shit. What we have today, despite the depression, is about as good as it is gonna get. Under what circumstances do you want to face that future?

I've done a really bad job of getting beyond the diagnosis, myself. Over the last couple years I've seen myself increasingly wallowing in depression as I hang out on sites like this rather than getting out and smelling the roses. All my hobbies have taken a backseat to jonesing on doom all the waking hours of the day and it's not very productive. I mean, do you really want to look back at the final years of BAU and regret that you wasted it by sitting in front of a computer?

[Plantagenet]

So stop whining and get back out there and keep fighting.


There's nothing gained by whining, and you're not that kind of stuff;
You're a fighter from way back, and you won't take a rebuff;
Your trouble is that you don't know when you have had enough --
Don't give in.

--Robert Service

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'I')n other words, treat life like you've just been told you have terminal cancer.

Just assume you now have maybe 10-20 years left tops, and most of the end of it will be spent just barely hanging on as your quality of life degrades to shit. What we have today, despite the depression, is about as good as it is gonna get. Under what circumstances do you want to face that future?

I've done a really bad job of getting beyond the diagnosis, myself. Over the last couple years I've seen myself increasingly wallowing in depression as I hang out on sites like this rather than getting out and smelling the roses. All my hobbies have taken a backseat to jonesing on doom all the waking hours of the day and it's not very productive. I mean, do you really want to look back at the final years of BAU and regret that you wasted it by sitting in front of a computer?

[WhatMeWorry]

Throw in Climate Change and I feel very much like Mike. It's good (sad) to know I'm not alone as a 50 YO depressed guy. Great thread and comments by all. thx

[AgentR]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'I') think what it comes down to is that THERE IS MONEY TO BE MADE ON PEAK OIL DOOM. The authors of books, online course promoters, and website hosts who profit with ads all have an interest in scaring the crap out of people. What they don't seem to have any interest in is helping folks to keep Peak Oil Doom in perspective.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
')we must recognize the rational fact that peak oil collapse HAS NOT happened as yet.