[lordoverhack]

I am getting tired of being the butt of jokes by my family and friends for being a doomsayer. They refuse to believe that we are not going to automagically recover. They believe the news reports every-time it claims that we have started a recovery. They won't look at the real information and they just laugh at me, and I am getting sick of it. I have printed off charts, with real hard data and they won't even look at it.

How do those of you who deal with this kind of reaction deal with all of the negativity?

[la2al2tex]

I'd rather they laugh at me than think I need counseling.

[JJ]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lordoverhack', 'I') am getting tired of being the butt of jokes by my family and friends for being a doomsayer. They refuse to believe that we are not going to automagically recover. They believe the news reports every-time it claims that we have started a recovery. They won't look at the real information and they just laugh at me, and I am getting sick of it. I have printed off charts, with real hard data and they won't even look at it.

How do those of you who deal with this kind of reaction deal with all of the negativity?

[gt1370a]

Jeez, I used to have problems like that about 5 years ago... man if they don't get it by now they are a lost cause.

[Ludi]

Nope. Lately family seem quite capable of talking about the current economic doom, anyway. I don't try to talk to them about the bigger DOOOM. That backfired horribly.

But I'm not very "negative". I'm usually quite perky and cheerful.

[patience]

I heard a few chuckles at my doomerism back a couple years ago. Now those people are VEWY, VEWY QUIET. Like my wife's cousin who got into flipping houses, and my mother in law who said he was so smart and I was in the wrong business, and the brother in law who got a real estate license and was going to retire easily on the proceeds, and my cousin who got into some franchise to be travel agent.

It's sorta like the guys at General Motors who said I was an idiot for quitting there in 1980. And the ones who told a friend of mine that he was an idiot for quitting GM in 1978 to work for for some nobody electronics firm in IDAHO (Hewlett-Packard). Or the local hardware store owner I told 2 years ago to get out of the mutual funds (I did, he didn't.)

What the clueless say is meaningless. What matters is being right. You will never have to tell them they were wrong. They will be kicking their own butts so hard that you won't need to.

OR. If they are really clueless, they will never figure it out, and tell you about how LUCKY you were to have done the right things. Really, now, why bother with these people? It's hard enough to do all the digging and ferretting out info, make the hard decisions, and mostly be a contrarian with regard to money. Why burden yourself with the opinions of the unaware?

[PrestonSturges]

A good contrarian makes a little money now and then bucking the trends. Sounds like you made some good calls.

[americandream]

We've cornucopian doomerists on here. Try figuring THAT one out!

[hillsidedigger]

No, I'm not laughed at but the adults ask that I do not tell the related children.

One of the brothers-in-law calls me Professor Gore, though.

[ian807]

Only for about 51 years or so.

[hardtootell-2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hillsidedigger', 'N')o, I'm not laughed at but the adults ask that I do not tell the related children.

[SeaGypsy]

Went through all that big time late 2007 warning all my friends and family to get out of stocks NOW only to be laughed at as the family paranoiac.
Now they ask me eanestly if I think the recovery is real.
I have too much to say about it so I say very little; mostly I tell them the long term trend will be downhill from here on despite what bumbs and bubbles along the way. I tell them it's because almost everything runs on oil and we are beginning to run out of it, just like I've told them for years. The difference now is that they believe me.

[kam3Oen]

I stopped talking about it with my family years ago. I explained it to every member of my [large] immediate family repeatedly for a few months, was completely rejected and made to feel like a lunatic, and than one day, I just stopped. I don't make comments when they're discussing the economy or gas prices, I don't say a word when they talk about their retirement plans or their jobs, I just keep it all to myself. When the day comes, my conscience will be clear.

[outcast]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lordoverhack', 'I') am getting tired of being the butt of jokes by my family and friends for being a doomsayer. They refuse to believe that we are not going to automagically recover. They believe the news reports every-time it claims that we have started a recovery. They won't look at the real information and they just laugh at me, and I am getting sick of it. I have printed off charts, with real hard data and they won't even look at it.

How do those of you who deal with this kind of reaction deal with all of the negativity?

[hardtootell-2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')How do those of you who deal with this kind of reaction deal with all of the negativity?

[Caffeine]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('outcast', '
')Considering that, with very few exceptions, doomsayers have a long history of being outrageously wrong they are right to laugh.

[SeaGypsy]

Whether one believes that collapse is inevitable the key issue is control.
The pursuit of Life as Usual by enough people leaves the likelyhood of complete loss of personal and societal control ever more likely.
Paradoxicly if it is lunacy which keeps people sane/ thereby allowing some measure of control to the individual and society (on the way down) this is the price we pay.
Without all the insane interventions over the last year, we would be staring a very insane reality in the face right now or more likely months ago. In this way one can find a basis for supporting the delusioned family members fantasy of 'recovery'. They are buying themselves and the rest of us time; for if the truth were widely known, our collective ability to have any control of outcomes will be history.
The least we owe to those we care about is an option when push comes to shove. Be the Noah of the family; if we are most blessed and have a slide rather than a cliff fall, we may become saviours to many we care about. If we can get a pool of resources devoted to this cause though our options increase and sooner.
I like the idea of being the one in the family who asks "What If?" and tries to approach the doom end of the spectrum of argument from the point of view of intelligence and keeping the bloodline going.
I don't expect any of them to change their lives but if I can get even a tithe of support from my city bound family members, that's a lot of acreage options.

[outcast]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Caffeine', 'O')ne doesn't have to be prescient to understand that collapse is a likely result of overexploitation of natural resoures, as well as the fact that so much of current human society is structured to use up those resources in an extremely wasteful fashion. The exact timing, of course, is another matter.

[ian807]

Nobody would be happier than I if my family's and friend's laughter was justified. Seriously, who wants to be right about something this? Not me.

My favorite outcome is that the economy recovers, we find a good safe cheap way to turn cellulose into oil that takes CO2 out of the air, global warming is stopped magically, and gradual population control halves the worlds population to 3 billion by 2100 and again to 1.5 billion by 2200.

And everyone loves everyone and sings Kumbaya. Jesus and the Maitreya Buddha return and do a great dance number. Lawyers, bankers and financiers get honest work as garbagemen. Rock and roll revives as a genre. Everyone in the world is well fed and has enough chocolate.

Sorry. Got carried away on that last bit. What was I saying?

[Kristen]

What you're speaking of is called negative dissonance. Basically when someone's belief system is challenged by a contradicting idea, they simply cannot intake the new information and freeze or make assanine jokes at your expense. Not too worry though. Insanity is sanity for the insane.