[Pretorian]

Oh please. Like Jack will have that month. Right now Jack can have some 60-70% chance to get wealthy and 30-40% chance to get retired at public cost- free healthcare included, just for dumping some unarmed harmless asshole to the sewery. Missing these multiple oportunities intentionally now, he prepares to fight an unknown number of armed to the teeth warlord-wannabees/traders/peasants/ets, knowing that if he loses once he will be raped and fed to the pigs/dogs/ants/younameit? Give me a fuckin* brake.

[Byron100]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', '
')You pays your money and you takes your chances. To each his own.

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', 'O')h please. Like Jack will have that month. Right now Jack can have some 60-70% chance to get wealthy and 30-40% chance to get retired at public cost- free healthcare included, just for dumping some unarmed harmless asshole to the sewery. Missing these multiple oportunities intentionally now, he prepares to fight an unknown number of armed to the teeth warlord-wannabees/traders/peasants/ets, knowing that if he loses once he will be raped and fed to the pigs/dogs/ants/younameit? Give me a fuckin* brake.

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Byron100', '
')But mark my words, it's gonna suck, and that smug sense of schadenfreude you enjoy so much will come back to bite you in the ass.

You'll see what I mean soon enough...

[Byron100]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', '
')But my "smug sense of schadenfreude" probably won't have any effect. Whether one weeps for Atlanta's troubles - as I sense you do - or ignores them, or mocks them, reality remains the same.

The problem, I suspect, is that the reality we have discussed for so many years is coming closer. The problem transitions from abstract discussion to real threat. There is emotional impact in such a move.
..........

[XOVERX]

I am 53.

My generation has failed America. My generation has failed the world. My generation has failed our children and our children's children -- all progeny of a planet that will too soon be lost, changed into something recognizable only in volumes of forgotten lore. My generation has failed our own meaningless lives, still shrouded in creature comforts too soon condemned to utter decay.

My generation should have found a way to warn America about the need to develop alternative energies. To use the then vast energy of oil to plan for its coming depletion. To develop strategies and technologies to sustain a reasonable degree of civilization. Of humanity. Jimmy Carter gave warning in the 1970s. But I laughed. I laughed out loud in my vain foolhardiness.

And now as I move toward the coming twilight of my existence, I have left my daughters "Peak Oil." The gift of death. A future of squandered and lost possibilities. Irreversible decline. The destruction of civilization. A world becoming fantasy, existing only in the dreams of those poor and pitiful survivors.

And so approaches the relentless decay. That daunting day. That day of reckoning that is so swiftly approaching. Closer and closer. Until that dread rumour becomes reality.

If only the 'long goodbye' were not so short.

[gnm]

The babies of the BOOM have sealed our DOOM.

-G

[Kingcoal]

Jack is an Evil Dark Lord (by his own admission,) however I like his honesty.

The average person these days passes a homeless wretch on the street and might drop a quarter his/her way. In the future, those same ordinary people, cold and hungry, will viscously kick the shit out of that homeless person and rob them of whatever valuables they might have. What the hell, their going to die anyway, why delay the inevitable? Want to see what people are really like? Put them out in the cold and starve them (and their kids) for a while. That's the future folks, be prepared to defend your little piece of the territory.

[Heineken]

Oh God, here we go with the generation-hating stuff again.

I'm a Boomer, but I don't accept any extra helping of blame. I've been a pinko environmentalist since I was about 11 years old.

I never bred, which is the biggest gift anyone can give.

As I see it, the blame is borne equally by all. Especially since the central problem is that there are simply too fucking many people.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'O')ne way people cope (have always coped) with extreme stress is humor. I suggest you find such a mechanism, or the coming troubles may overwhelm you.

[Byron100]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'O')ne way people cope (have always coped) with extreme stress is humor. I suggest you find such a mechanism, or the coming troubles may overwhelm you.

[gnm]

Well I wasn't meaning to point the finger of blame really I was just making a rhyming synopsis of Xoverx's post...

And any one individual could be exempt but the shoe still fit on the generation as a whole. It really _may_ have been the last chance to do something meaningful as far as changing the course of the Titanic.

-G

[timbo]

Unfortunately not only are there too many people but a lot of them think they can have whatever they want just by voting for it. It is this belief that makes so called democracies very bad at long term planning and action. Tell people that they have to cut back on everything and you are out of office.

I'm afraid this tragedy is going to have to play itself out in all its hideous glory. Even the relatively benign die-off scenarios like back to 2 billion people over 30 years require the death of 400,000 people every single day, or put another way depopulate New York city every twenty days.

Admittedly that is global and the worst of it will be borne in the third world to start out with. But as alluded to elsewhere in this post you can almost certainly expect the U.S.A to tear itself apart in a series of civil wars and unlike last time both sides will have nukes.

As for Australia probably civil war followed by invasion from Indonesia.

[PenultimateManStanding]

humor eh? So that's the key. OK, a ham sandwich walks into a bar and orders a beer, the bartender gives him a mean look and sez, "we don't serve food!" And guess what, before long, nobody will serve food and we'll all starve to death except the people eating feral pigs in Texas. howz that for a knee slapper.

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kingcoal', '
')
Just the erosion of government benefits will in itself, put millions of Americans who are now unproductive and parasitic, on the street to fend for themselves.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Byron100', 'W')ell, I would hope you have some insurance as well...it won't pay for the land, but at least you'd get cash for the two houses.

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Byron100', '
')This is the kind of thing that spells an end to this nation if things don't turn around pronto. If people no longer care about our fellow citizens, and are willing to let a whole metropolitan city die to follow some obscene law to "protect" two lowly mussels many hundreds of miles away, well, I suggest you take a nice, long look at the Stars and Stripes, maybe go to a baseball game and sing along with the national anthem, as you surely won't be able to do this for very much longer.

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'h')umor eh? So that's the key. OK, a ham sandwich walks into a bar and orders a beer, the bartender gives him a mean look and sez, "we don't serve food!" And guess what, before long, nobody will serve food and we'll all starve to death except the people eating feral pigs in Texas. howz that for a knee slapper.

[roccman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Byron100', '
')This is the kind of thing that spells an end to this nation if things don't turn around pronto. If people no longer care about our fellow citizens, and are willing to let a whole metropolitan city die to follow some obscene law to "protect" two lowly mussels many hundreds of miles away, well, I suggest you take a nice, long look at the Stars and Stripes, maybe go to a baseball game and sing along with the national anthem, as you surely won't be able to do this for very much longer.

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('roccman', '
')How does this reconcile with you being proud of america Jack?