[Bas]

is it?

[seldom_seen]

I think the school of hard knocks will be running the class from here on out.

PS: 12 monkeys, that's a good one. I love Terry Gilliam flicks.

[Blueberry]

None of us have the power to do more than we can do.

In times of crisis, we can help the sick, children, our families, ourselves -- those who need us.

Nothing more, nothing less.

[Cobra_Strike]

I would think it is going to be easier, ask people later this summer...plant a seed of doubt. 4$ gasoline will make most people flinch.

There is not much that can be done to fix the situation, however much can be done to save an individual. Assuming that only a few are actively working to help themselves.

[gg3]

How'bout this:

Save the ones close to you, and those nearby who at least understand what's going on.

As for the ones who are actively contributing to the problem and are committed to positions that make it worse: just smile and nod politely, and let them Darwinize themselves. Don't even tell them they're heading for the cliff. The world is overpopulated anyway.

In fact I would say that anything we can do to get overconsumers and overpopulators to cull themselves voluntarily, is probably a good thing. Like overpopulated deer who come up to your house to nibble the shrubbery without realizing they are about to end up on your dinner table: at least they had a good ride right up to the end.

[Roy]

gg3 wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'o')w'bout this:

Save the ones close to you, and those nearby who at least understand what's going on.

As for the ones who are actively contributing to the problem and are committed to positions that make it worse: just smile and nod politely, and let them Darwinize themselves. Don't even tell them they're heading for the cliff. The world is overpopulated anyway.

In fact I would say that anything we can do to get overconsumers and overpopulators to cull themselves voluntarily, is probably a good thing. Like overpopulated deer who come up to your house to nibble the shrubbery without realizing they are about to end up on your dinner table: at least they had a good ride right up to the end.

[some_guy282]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Roy', 'W')hat he said...

[JohnLudi]

I hate to hijack a thread with my own crap...but this really seems like a good thread to post this bit on.

I started a blog on my MySpace music page ( http://myspace.com/johnludi ) as part of my ongoing crusade to raise awareness of all things potentially clamitous (but Peak Oil has been my main focus for quite a while) and then dropped it after about 5 postings as it has really hit me recently how truely unconcerned the general public are about anything more impacting than Brittney's rehab.

The following is my last post on there.

Thought you'd all get a kick out of it.


"The Pessimist's Pen-04/09/07

Near as I can figure, there are two types of people in the world: the Realists and the Denialists. The Realists are the ones who will look unflinchingly at whatever facts life shoves in front of them and make an assessment that bespeaks of at least some attempt at self-honesty (whatever that assessment may end up being).

The Realists are the minority.

The Denialists will basically cope with unpleasant facts by burying them under platitudes and rationalizations and hubris. They live by the notion that there is no problem so large that you can't run away from it.

The Denialists are the majority.

(Which one are you, by the way? Hmmmmm?)

There is a train headed our way and we are all chained to the tracks. That train is pretty damn long, moving damn fast and when it hits it will hit with massive force. Kaboom! The train has all these cars attached labeled "Global Warming", "Peak Oil", "Peak Natural Gas", "Peak Water", "Peak Coal", "Topsoil Degradation", etc., and the closer it comes, the more cars you can see.

Now you and everyone else on the planet are standing chained on the tracks as that train approaches faster and faster. If you are a Realist, you are one of those people who are facing the train as it barrels down on you and everyone you know. You have seen that train for years. You've known it's coming for a long time now. Perhaps, like myself, you have spent time, effort, energy and money trying to get the others near you on the tracks to realize that they are indeed standing on the tracks in the first place (let alone getting them to notice the train).

There was a time, years ago, when you and the other Realists spent all of your time and energy shouting warnings at the Denialists. The train kept getting closer and closer and you felt that if you could only get enough of the Denialists to turn around and face that train, you would have a force large and strong enough to pull the track apart…to avoid what, years ago, was not inevitable. But they just sat there on the tracks, ignoring you. They were too busy entertaining themselves to pay heed.

Now it's too late…you and the others out there screaming in the wilderness are playing your one-note symphony to an empty house. No one cares. The die is cast. All over but the shouting.

I started making music when I was 12…around 30 years ago. I did this for SOME of the usual reasons: attention, ego-gratification, the notion that musicians get laid more often than accountants…and the love of music itself.

But there was another reason…a big reason.

I wanted to wake people up. I wanted to change the world. Make it a better place. It sounds trite to most people's cynical ears these days, but it's true. I did.

When I was young…really young…I started to ask the "Big" questions…and I started to notice that things did not "feel" right in the world…that things were somehow awry. I read and read and read as much as I could and realized that the world was not as it should be and that the logical conclusion to our collective behavior was, in all probability, a catastrophic conclusion. It seemed perfectly logical to me, and not an observation based upon emotion (though I did find my own conclusions alarming), but upon the mere observation of facts.

I understood this before I hit puberty. It got me into a lot of trouble. It still does. There are things you just don't TALK about.

So I became a musician with the intent that I could communicate my observations to a large audience that would actually LISTEN and respond in a positive and proactive way. I thought I could start a fire of illumination that would join all the other fires that have been started by all the other like souls out there, and by God we would have a REVOLUTION! We would see what our habits and lifestyles and addictions and materialism and greed have done and we would all just STOP! We would find a way to live in balance with the world we live on…and the only one we will probably ever know.

It didn't work, obviously.

Historically, artists who have tried to make a difference in that way have either been ignored or co-opted…bought off. Me, I was ignored. I was probably lucky.

I will continue to be lucky in that way no matter how many albums I put out, I suspect.

A lot of people have been exposed to my songs over the years. I know I've had a positive effect on some stray individuals here and there, maybe gotten a few people to think FOR THEMSELVES just a bit more than they would have if I had not goaded them into it…but for every one person who heard what I had to say and decided to look within and evaluate the meaning of their own lives and not just become another mindless CONSUMER feeding at the hog trough of destiny…there have been hundreds who just decided to "buy the package" nonetheless. Some of them are some of my close friends. And some of these friends are starting to realize that the future might look more like John Ludi's worst nightmare then their most favorite happy dream.

Yeah, I know, people have their own lives to lead and their own mistakes to make and it's not my place to change anyone but myself. I get that. And I have never had any particular agenda beyond making people more aware of the world around them and the things that influence their behavior and choices, the biological and cultural voices that tell them to be like everyone else and get with the program…the formerly "safe" program that has been written for you by those people living on top of that hill, staring down on the masses as they chew the cud. Snickering at how easy it is to get you all to jump when they want you to jump.

But I share a planet with the Denialists…and if I can't get off of it, I have got to do what I can, as an artist of conscience.

That, in a nutshell, is how I always felt.

But it started to change a while back. I've started to give up, finally. I've gone from "change the world" to "prepare for the inevitable". And I'm starting to think that I really need to focus on only the Realists.

It's too late for the rest of you. You are all about to be hopelessly f**ked by global circumstances that you may never understand. When it hits you, you will have the breath sucked out of you…and you won't know why…you'll blame terrorists or unions or liberals or conservatives or Jews or immigrants or frigging sunspots, for all I know. You won't blame yourselves. Nope…

I think the icing on the cake for me was the 2004 election. I knew that even though it was probably just as stolen as the previous one, it was probably not stolen by much. That really depressed me. That really helped to extinguished the last embers of my hope. After 4 years of our countries affairs being so chronically mismanaged by a blatantly stunted and idiotic sociopath and his equally transparent neocon cronies, a significant amount of people who all have something resembling a forebrain actually voted for him again. Bipedal beings with opposable thumbs did this. Not that Kerry made me all that giddy with the promise of a bright future, but I would have voted for a can of tuna or a halogen lamp before I voted for Bush, and the fact that so many did meant one of two things to me:

Either (A): Americans are pathologically stupid and have no idea what's good for themselves and all you have to do is wear a cowboy hat and pretend not to be a rich frat boy and you can get elected, or (B): there exists in all of us an urge for self-annihilation that expresses itself (amongst other ways) in the electing of insane child-men whose reign generally involves a horrors and body counts in one way or another.

(To be honest, I think it's both...and a lot more than that, actually. I think human nature is a deeply flawed thing and we can only handle so much civilization before we self-destruct. I think we are designed to only climb so far before we fall. History has proven this time and again.)

So current events and my observations have led me to a conclusion: we probably deserve what's coming…let it come. It's our own fault. We did this to ourselves. "God" did not lead us to where we are today (though a stone-headed fundamentalistic belief in such is one of the hallmarks of many choice paths to doom). So bring it on…

Perhaps, metaphysically speaking, this is as it should be. Perhaps there is some wheel of karmic development that needs to pass through darkness and destruction as it turns and we all merely have to live through it and wait for more idyllic times. I'd like to think so. In fact, I'd like to think that this is the time where circumstances will separate the spiritual wheat from the chaff where humanity is concerned. I'd like to think that all the stupid and thoughtless Denialists will end up climbing up the karmic ladder again (preferably starting off in the form of garden slugs or beetles) and those of us who care about our evolution will ascend to some far more rarified realm.

God, I hope so.

But for now, I'm tired. So f**king tired. I have spent three quarters of my life trying to get the willfully blind to see and the willfully deaf to listen…for their own sake and the sake of their own futures. And they haven't. So to hell with it.

So I've decided that I'm not going to do this whole Pessimist's Pen deal, where I bring news to people who probably will never actually read it. What's the point? I'll be posting news stories on this stupid site that interest me from time to time, as well as updates on my own artistic activities, but I think it's just too late to try to spur people into action…for what action would I now spur anyone into taking? Buying florescent light bulbs? Driving hybrid cars?

Oh, please.

Unless we completely dismantle the infrastructure of our entire civilization and base the new infrastructure on renewables and we all collectively decide that the Earth can only support less than a billion people, tops, and we all act on it by bucking millions of years of primate evolution and stop breeding future soldiers for the coming global resource wars, we've pretty much had it!

Now, I may yet do something like a podcast that features the topics that interest me, but that podcast would be there to promote my own work as well…and I won't be doing that until I have finished at least one of the 2 albums I'm working on.

So I leave you with this link to a piece that I think is a great way to get an overview of where I, and a great many others, think things may be going in as little as a year or so. It's a recent speech by James Howard Kunstler to the Commonwealth Club of California. I STRONGLY encourage you to listen to it. Once you get past Kunstlers snide and sarcastic delivery, you may hear the ominous strains of a dissonant future. It's up to you to decide what to do about it…I've got my own ass to cover.

http://globalpublicmedia.com/james_howa ... california
"

[TorrKing]

Can't, nor do I want to save people. The only reason why I tell anyone is that they will walk around after the crash and say: "How could Torjus know!"

This will boost my influence, and some people may even start believing that I have some sort of spiritual powers.

[halcyon]

Now?

Why not now?

There is not yesterday anymore.

Besides, NOBODY has a crystal ball.

Nobody knows the exact timing, shape and unfolding effects of the peak.

By this logic, it's anything from [useless, extremely highly useful] to spread the word.

You take you pick, but remember - it's all based on _belief_ rather than objective facts.

[IanC]

All Hail TORJUS!!! Prophet of the Oil Crash! Overlord from the socialist utopia! After he conquers the Finns and plunders The Kingdom of Nokia, may he point his longships toward our troubled land, using his mystic powers to rebuild our land, bringing free daycare centers, 2 year maternity leaves, and unlimited unemployment benefits!

-IanC

PS: could you come sooner?

[TorrKing]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('IanC', 'A')ll Hail TORJUS!!! Prophet of the Oil Crash! Overlord from the socialist utopia! After he conquers the Finns and plunders The Kingdom of Nokia, may he point his longships toward our troubled land, using his mystic powers to rebuild our land, bringing free daycare centers, 2 year maternity leaves, and unlimited unemployment benefits!

-IanC

PS: could you come sooner?

[simontay78]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnLudi', 'I') hate to hijack a thread with my own crap...but this really seems like a good thread to post this bit on.

I started a blog on my MySpace music page ( http://myspace.com/johnludi ) as part of my ongoing crusade to raise awareness of all things potentially clamitous (but Peak Oil has been my main focus for quite a while) and then dropped it after about 5 postings as it has really hit me recently how truely unconcerned the general public are about anything more impacting than Brittney's rehab.

[jdumars]

When I first learned of PO (2003), I did everything I could to try and share the information with people around me. I directed everyone I knew to Matt's site. Some people reacted very strongly, others less so. But the common thread above all else was this: inaction. As the situation has progressed, I have tried a few times to "spread the word" -- but to no avail. At some point I realized it was better for everyone NOT to know. This is partly for selfish reasons, but also because sometimes it's better to just let things unfold without intervention. Everything around us is completely unsustainable, even under the best of circumstances.

Another observation is that informing people of what is best for them is virtually impossible. 99.9% of everyone is so indoctrinated into the system that they will act against their own interests, and even fight vehemently to do so. For example, I tried foolishly to tell people how dangerous and damaging MSG is, and how it is largely responsible for the epidemic of obesity. Instead of considering it, people raised tons of objections, including ridiculous straw man arguments like "but Asians are all thin and eat tons of MSG." Critical thinking is an endangered species. So, telling someone about PO or anything else that requires them to change anything about themselves is useless. Change only happens if it is forced or brought about through spectacular means. The government knows this. The elite know this. And it is used to their advantage.

[keehah]

This is the thread I am needing right now. Thanks all.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')hange only happens if it is forced or brought about through spectacular means. The government knows this. The elite know this. And it is used to their advantage.

[killJOY]

"This is old song, that will not declare itself." (Wallace Stevens)

Me, too.


Just my students. It's going to be their world. I would like to be remembered as the one who opened their eyes.

A few friends.

I mostly keep my mouth shut now.


Ditto.

What he said.


"So it goes."

[MD]

I had lunch with a long-time friend the other day. I had him near tears. I think it was because he was buying the message, but it could possibly be that he felt bad for me.

[coyote]

I have gotten few people to even listen at all... and to this date I have been unable to convey the real import of the situation to a single person. Not one.

I've stopped trying, except for my girlfriend and a few very close friends. My energy is better spent on realizing my own plans -- which are reasonably on track, as long as TS doesn't HTF this year.

Two possibilities: either I am completely nuts, or the rest of the world is. I guess I'll find out.

[JPL]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnLudi', 'I') wanted to wake people up. I wanted to change the world. Make it a better place. It sounds trite to most people's cynical ears these days, but it's true. I did.

[SevenTen]

About one in fifty people will be receptive, if you don't expect to open someone's eyes in one conversation. It may take several conversations.

We need to lower our expectations.

It also helps if you:
* first work around the problem by dropping hints, don't open with "it's all over except for the crying"
* have your explanations down pat for the various denials encountered
* when you encounter denial, one sentence retorts almost always don't work
* are willing to give up and move on when someone is obviously unreceptive
* understand that the higher gas goes, the higher real inflation gets, the more receptive people will be
* understand that the collapse doesn't happen all at once, and even when things start to go south there are still preparations you can make

The majority of people will not ever see the problem, no matter what. You cannot worry about them.