[lentilsmine]

Well, I have to say I'm new to the boards and I've indeed got into prepping a little late. The more news I read and the more puzzle pieces from that news stream fall into place very close to what people have predicted, the more sense of urgency I get. A lot of the people I've been talking to lately have a sense of urgency even if they don't know what it's about. People feel like something is up and it is big. I hesitantly bring up the topic in a roundabout way to some of my smarter friends and instead of brushing it off or laughing, they immediately engage me in "what if" type discussions.

The thing is, a big part of me wants to see the collapse of "society" as we know it in America happen, and soon. I've figured out why, at least partially. I wasn't raised in suburbs, really, and I've never lived exactly in the suburbs, but if I didn't keep my mouth shut so well (except in online forums) I would practically personify post-postmodern anomie and alienation. Like any other American that isn't already living on the street, I am materially very invested in society in its current form. However, my emotional investment in American "society" is hovering near absolute zero. I believe it is an empty, hollow sham, rotten at the core, and a big part of me wants to see it implode. Please, bring it on. Let's go. It's time for a complete reboot of this unrecoverable cloning factory of future sociopaths and people whose entire existence is predicated on their next upload of pictures to MySpace, growing up in vast tract housing fields which remind me of nothing so much as the embryo farms in the bloody Matrix movies.

I'll be the first to admit that the transition is going suck big-time for a lot of innocent people, and it'll suck for me, and I'll probably change my mind about wanting it to get here NOW, and I'll look back on this desire of mine with an appropriately horrified grimace. If it gets as bad as it might, I'll very likely end up dead along with a lot of the rest. I'm not a fighter and I never have been. But all that's irrelevant because it hasn't happened yet.

Like I said, I'm materially invested in society to a great degree. I enjoy quite a bit of creature comforts, abundant food, relative health, luxuries and entertainment and all manner of trinkets. But my emotional and spiritual investment in society is almost nil. A significant portion of what little investment I do have is because society occasionally produces great music and good TV that make me feel something other than empty for a little while, or comfort me when I am feeling that way. Beyond that and the standard conditioning to obey social norms like not hurting others and not stealing -- and deeply, honestly NOT wanting to hurt others, despite my preparatory "metals investing" in copper coated lead -- and beyond a great and almost entirely unmet need to connect with other people, there's ... nothing.

Actually, I have less than no emotional investment in society. A sort of negative charge of resentment and disappointment, and bewildered lack of understanding of why it has to be this way. Fortunately for everybody else, I guess, this negative maelstrom just turns inward on myself most of the time. My rage at a system that I feel -- rationally and justifiably or not -- has cheated me and millions of others, left us behind, utterly ignored us, dumped us on the side of the road like trash ... well, it poisons only me. I'm not going to blow up any federal buildings like some other poisoned people have. But that doesn't mean the affected part of me doesn't want to see them and everything else reduced to rubble.

There's a little part of me that believes, perhaps foolishly, that when presented with the unescapable choice of connecting with people and forging some common bonds to survive, or starving or being killed by the total animals roaming the streets or dragged off to the supposed FEMA camps, I'll make a choice. And if I'm lucky and choose wisely my life will actually improve because at least I'm doing something other than just existing, dissipating energy alone in my little box. I just won't have the option of rotting with absolutely no purpose like so many people do these days, and because of that my existence will be more meaningful.

Don't get me wrong. The part of me that remains untainted still has a majority vote. I, as a person, as myself, don't want millions of people to die as a result of the vast swaths of culturally bankrupt suburbs deservedly turning into an abandoned wasteland. I just want to find some community and find somebody to pair off with and devote myself to and build a little life with, maybe not a life of great overarching meaning but a life that's meaningful to me and those I care about. That's all I've ever wanted. Something that, by its very nature, affirms a reason to live and therefore bleeds away all the "BUT WHAT ABOUT ME?" with an answer I can gladly accept.

It's just that every day, the possibility of that ever happening for me seems to get more remote. Most everyone I see seems like the walking dead anyway, whether it's the crying drunks on my bus to work in the morning, or the mystical people I sometimes pass in my job or my small group of friends with a seemingly happy relationship, or goals they've achieved or are achieving -- many of those blessed and cursed people are living on borrowed time anyway, so **** it, let's throw the switch now and just get it over with so at least I get to watch and say "I told you so" once before I perish -- or just maybe, so I get to finally find a niche for myself which means something, and which connects me to others.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm a small time poster child for the total emptiness of the American "dream," the American individual bootstrap lifestyle, and though I fully admit I'm more likely to end up dead or somehow enslaved in the process, I'm more than ready to roll the dice RIGHT NOW and see what comes of a social contraction that will force us to live, breathe, work and survive together ... or perish.

[Kristen]

I totally know what you mean. As I'm sitting here typing my thoughts, part of me wishes the lights would go out, the power gone. Life is so routine, it has become meaningless.

If something anarchic happened I would be set free from this bitter loneliness of watching the world turn to gray. I could roam the streets in excitement hanging on for my life. It would be the start of a new era. Something that I could be a bigger part of.

Life should be more qualitative vs quantitative. If I faced death, I would've gotten so much out of a few days a freedom it wouldn't matter much. Unfortunately, it's all slow motion here.

[lentilsmine]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kristen', 'L')ife should be more qualitative vs quantitative. If I faced death, I would've gotten so much out of a few days a freedom it wouldn't matter much. Unfortunately, it's all slow motion here.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lentilsmine', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kristen', 'L')ife should be more qualitative vs quantitative. If I faced death, I would've gotten so much out of a few days a freedom it wouldn't matter much. Unfortunately, it's all slow motion here.

[Ludi]

One could try living outside of the system to some degree (really, as much as you want). That way you don't have to wait for collapse to live a different way.

What is holding you back?

[Farknight]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') have a doomer friend who's far more unabashedly excited for the total collapse of "the system" than me, and also a bit more prone to the Male Paramilitary Fantasy -- but there's one point I believe from his ideas on the subject. When your ass is really, honestly on the line, and when you make it through, life feels a lot more immediate and meaningful. I think in a similar vein, when you've developed a little community and everybody's ass is on the line, and you make the harvest or otherwise do what it takes to survive and you survive together, it's infinitely more meaningful than all staying fat and alone in your little apartments eating supermarket food.

[BigTex]

Nice post Farknight.

[catbox]

"Do your best to prepare, enjoy what in this world makes you happy as much as possible and you will have lived better than 99% of our ancient ancestors."

Very well said!

While prepping, or simplifying as to live a better life and try survive what is coming....I learned to slow down and started noticing those little things I've missed for so many years. No reason to sit idle and wait for chaos to break out or the lights to go off when life still rolls on. Those who spend heaps of money in order to have fun, to be entertained, or buy their happiness....will having some major adjusting to do.

cb

[Cashmere]

Great thread. Excellent initial post, and some nice followups.

[alpha480v]

Good thread. Nice posts everyone!

[lentilsmine]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'A')lienation is very much a function of modern day capitalism in much the same way breathing is a function of living. It's what keeps us hooked into the whole paradigm of consumerism as we seek to escape the anomie of isolation and emotional bewilderment in the community of the mall. Sadly, I don't expect any of this to disappear any day soon.

[Artman12]

This thread is covering a lot of my thoughts also. I've been predicting and preparing for this for years and sometimes I question my judgment. I too, find it hard to wait for the world to catch up to my "reality". So to protect my sanity, I spend a lot of time reading current events and trying to gain insight as to where we might be in the collapse process.

John Q Public's current quality of life was built up over a long period of time. As new things and processes were added, the old ways were put aside and eventually forgotten. As a result, the general population lives a virtual existence in which food and toys come from the store and are obtained by obtaining digital credits for doing a job that is a small part of the overall chain of producing our needs. That kind of existence is fine as long as there is sufficient energy entering the system to maintain it. Unfortunately, in the real world, there isn't. A fact that is aggravated by greed and waste.

My thoughts are that the quality of life is in a slow decline but that there will be tripping points at which things suddenly degrade to a new lower level. Systems compensate for things until it is no longer possible, then they collapse and new paradigms forms. The cost of oil tripling since last year with gasoline only rising thirty or forty percent is an example of the system compensating.


I believe we are approaching one of those tripping points right now. That sometime, probably this year, there will be one or more quantum steps in our "standard of living". It won't be the end of the world or even the collapse of society (that comes later), but our lives will have to adjust significantly and our overall satisfaction with the world around us will be reduced.

[BigTex]

This discussion reminds me of a quote from M. King Hubbert that was in Heinberg's "The Party's Over":

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he world's present industrial civilization is handicapped by the coexistence of two universal, overlapping, and incompatible intellectual systems:

1. The accumulated knowledge of the last four centuries of the properties and interrelationships of matter and energy, and

2. The associated monetary culture which has evolved from folkways of prehistoric origin.

The first of these two systems has been responsible for the spectacular rise, principally during the last two centuries, of the present industrial system and is essential for its continuance.

The second, an inheritance from the pre-scientific past, operates by rules of its own having little in common with those of the matter-energy system. Nevertheless, the monetary system, by means of a loose coupling, exercises a general control over the matter-energy system upon which it is superimposed.

Despite their inherent incompatibilities, these two systems during the last two centuries have had one fundamental characteristic in common, namely exponential growth, which has made a reasonably stable coexistence possible. But, for various reasons, it is impossible for the matter-energy system to sustain exponential growth for more than a few tens of doublings, and this phase is by now almost over. The monetary system has no such constraints, and, according to one of its most fundamental rules, it must continue to grow by compound interest.

[ANewHuman]

{edited by Shannymara, please see PM}

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ANewHuman', 's')ince the only way this die off will occur is mostly through humans killing humans

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ANewHuman', '[')color=red]{edited by Shannymara}[/color]

[ANewHuman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'I')t's not the mods that have an issue with illegal forms of killing, it is the criminal law statutes and the law enforcement apparatus that enforces them.

Don't act like the Code of Conduct is this outrageous set of rules, and that we are out of line in asking members not to discuss illegal acts.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ANewHuman', 'W')ell as far as I'm aware it's legal to discuss illegal things, at least under certain provisos, in the united states where this server is based. But just because something is legal doesn't mean that people necessarily want it on their forum. If you want to be a moderator here doesn't it mean you support the CoC? You make it sound like moderators have their own beliefs besides the CoC, yet I'm pretty sure the moderators voted/had their say on the process. If your job was to "moderate" a forum under a set of rules I would have thought you supported those rules to be doing such a job, so you raise an interesting issue.

To me, and maybe I'm wrong, it seems anything illegal is allowed to be talked about here unless it's about killing, suicide, or some other "big" thing. Again, I'm not sure why there is a separation of some illegal things from others but I respected the moderators decisions and have moderated such behaviour. I didn't know you couldn't make a reference to current moderation policy though, so that's another thing I will have to learn to censor.

[Cashmere]

New Human, don't play hard to get.

It's not necessarily "legal" to talk about "illegal" things.

Conspiracy, by definition, can simply be talking. But you'll go to jail for it.

More than that, however, there is a Caesar's wife issue here.

This is a free board and one that I value immensely.

It's is flat out wrong to write something that could lead to any government inquiry, whether or not what you wrote was "legal".

Much like open carry is legal in my state.

But why would I walk into the local 7-11 with a gun strapped to my hip when I know that cops would be pulling in with weapons drawn within 5 minutes?

So I can point out to them how my behavior is, in fact, legal?