Peak Oil: Empty Promises

26 Comments on "Peak Oil: Empty Promises"

rockman on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 10:01 am 



Not a bad piece but: “The realities and limits to future production will make their appearance no matter how diligent the efforts of some to prevent, deny, or hide those eventualities.”. Again this obsessive focus on production rates. The “realities and limits” have been slapping the global economies upside their heads for a number of years now. It’s called $90+/bbl oil. No amount of spin can hide such a very visible reality.

It isn’t about “future well-being”…it’s about current well-being.

Northwest Resident on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 10:48 am 



“at some point there will be an inevitable reckoning”

I wonder when that will be?

My first wife did a great job of making me think that our relationship was solid, that she loved me and cared about my welfare. Then one day, she pulled the plug and I discovered that she was a psychotic bitch masquerading as a normal person who had planned her “exit strategy” for some time. Going from “everything is fine and happy” to “I’m totally screwed” in a 24-hour period was devastating. It left a deep scar on my psyche and changed my outlook on life. I wonder what the effect will be on all the millions of believers in the “happy narratives” when they wake up one morning and find out that the government and TPTB have been lying and pretending all along, and that the happy narratives were only meant to fool and distract them from the actual grim realities? I wonder if those people will be as emotionally devastated as I was, and I suspect that they will be, only, more so. As heart-wrenching as it was for me, at least I had the ability and the means to rebound and reestablish myself. Somehow, I don’t think the millions of believers in happy narratives will have that option when BAU comes crashing down, dragging the Big Happy Illusion down with it. For those people, the pain and the fear and dread will be a very tough pill to swallow, more than most of them will be able to handle I suspect. That’s why those of us who have already faced up to the grim realities of our approaching future need to be prepared, because the time is approaching when desperation and insanity will sweep over this country and the whole world like a tidal wave of ravenous starving rats. Hard times are definitely coming our way. If you don’t feel it coming, and if you’re still a believer in the “happy narratives”, then I pity you because your happiness and your reality will be mercilessly crushed.

Davy on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 12:53 pm 



NR, great analogy and I went through a similar situation with my first wife. She screwed me good and it was premeditated. She took my daughter back to Spain and then did everything she could to estrange us. NR, do you think maybe when one gets the screw job like we did it changes one to a doomer and a prepper? We both seem to be generally on the same wavelength in this regard. Your comment is spot on with people living their lives in the basic comforts of BAU and soon to be thrown under the bus. Even those people not part of the privileged class and even those who are struggling are doing well compared to what will await us all when there is food insecurity, fuel shortages, and a dysfunctional grid. We are talking hunger, being hot or cold, sick with no medicine, no work, unsafe water, and a multitude of other examples of carrying capacity overshoot and dysfunction. Even many in the third world living near, at, or below poverty are doing great compared to what is coming. The relativity of the decline of each of our lives will be a shock. The very rich have the farthest to fall. It will be interesting to see how all those wealth-ies adjust to bread and water. I have no allusions myself of how hard it will be for me. I am enjoying life. I eat well, travel occasionally, and buy what I need. I have purposeful work and comfortable cabin to live in. All this will change soon and I think about this daily. You should too friends.

Northwest Resident on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 1:35 pm 



Davy asked: “…do you think maybe when one gets the screw job like we did it changes one to a doomer and a prepper?”

Well, it didn’t for me, because it was still 14 years into the future (last year) when I suddenly sniffed the air and realized that big changes were on the way. But what it did do, perhaps, was to inoculate me to some degree against the emotional shock of total loss and ultimate betrayal. And maybe without that inoculation, I would never have been psychologically capable of facing up to the reality of the world we are heading into. Still, when I realized the consequences of peak oil and the coming crash, the emotional impact on me was intense — fear, sadness, gripping tension. How much worse would it have been I wonder if I hadn’t already been pre-conditioned to accept and deal with loss of all that I held dear? Hard to imagine. And Davy, I really feel for you knowing that your x-wife tried to turn your daughter against you — just the fact that she was taken from you back to Spain is a real heartbreaker. My x-wife has done everything to destroy my relationship with my son, but she has not entirely succeeded. My son shows the emotional damage though. I have been to child psychologists and they assure me that there is a nearly 100% possibility that my son will “turn out okay” on the emotional level, given that I have remained dedicated and always there for him and staying active in his life. But back to the analogy — indeed, the masses are totally unaware of the loss and the total destruction of their realities that is coming on fast. People who lose everything are apt to DO anything. Add hunger, starvation and gut-level desperation to that and we must realize that the potential for life to become really nasty is all too real. So we prep, and we dig our foxholes, and we wait for the shit to hit the fan. At least we have already dealt with a large part of the loss on an emotional level already, which gives us a huge one-up on those that haven’t.

rockman on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 2:11 pm 



Damn, boys…I’m seeing a trend here. I have a very similar story to yours. Makes you wonder if that’s a prerequisite for hanging out at a site like this. LOL. Unfortunately this isn’t the first time I was led down a seemingly rosy path. The first time I was just 18 and the “bitch” was the US govt. And that’s all I have to say about that. LOL.

So that’s what many of us here are: a band of burned out brothers? Misery loving company? Guys no one will communicate with except other guys like us? LOL.

Northwest Resident on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 2:29 pm 



rockman — It may be that I got the big shaft once upon a time, but I am anything but bitter or burned out from it — just hardened to withstand similar circumstances. On the whole, I’m still a very outgoing, friendly, and sociable person who loves a good party and/or hanging out with intelligent conversationalists. Actually, that is what I like about this site — lots of intelligent and knowledgeable people here discussing topics that are really interesting to me — your comments definitely included. But I do think you have a point. It sounds like some of us have been in the pressure cooker of life before, more so than others, and can relate better as a result.

MSN fanboy on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 2:51 pm 



The pressure cooker of life. I got screwed also.

I was raising three children i believed were mine.

Imagine that conversation, while coming home from work finding your wife screwing your sons (whos not yours son) primary school teacher.

I suppose this site is a support group lol

NR is correct though, “hardened to withstand similar circumstances”

Still

I never wish to live that day again. Maybe it made me cynical lol

Hiruit Nguyse on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 3:57 pm 



To break up the monotony here a bit….Never Been Married, Never Will. I have never met a Happily Married Man in my life.

As a single dude, I could tell back in ’05 when I first started reading about peak oil and global warming, that these 2 issues were going to be ‘too big’.

So yes, it is possible to become a doomer without being screwed yourself in the process. I could always take a look around at other peoples failed marriages and draw conclusions without having to re-invent the wheel myself.

Northwest Resident on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 4:35 pm 



Monotony? What monotony?! I find this subject matter and the comments fascinating — except for yours, of course. What? Never been married? Never been screwed over by someone you loved and trusted? Dude, you just haven’t experienced life yet. If you move fast, you still have time to get married, buy a house, have a couple of kids and lose it all in a long expensive tortuous divorce. Intense suffering awaits you! Don’t miss out on this opportunity to build character and test your will to live while you still have time.

Craig Ruchman on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 6:22 pm 



“I was raising three children I believed were mine.” I never married because I looked hard at what my male friends are going through when the knot unravels. Time and again the story is the same. Family law is outrageously biased against men in that it creates a winner takes all as in when one country loses a war against another. Sadly, because of the way the law is written, it’s the children that are used as a weapon against you.
Just for the record, it was men who liberated women by building power plants that took fossil fuel energy to run electric appliances, ending the six hour job of washing cloths by hand. The last 50+ years of car based suburbia that helped foster feminism is a short exception to the last 5,000 years. If peak oil plays out without an energy replacement, then men will find themselves being needed again as protector: The old world with men and women in opposite but complimentary roles. Maybe then, I will take a second look at marriage.

Davy on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 6:36 pm 



Hir, I got a hell of a screw job but it was worth it being with her for several years. She was a exceptional woman physically and mentally. I learned allot from the experience. I had a fairy tale life in Spain in the mid 80’s. It fell apart when we came to America. Sophisticated European women do not belong in the American Midwest. Hir, you will find life is a journey and sometimes there is serendipity.

rockman on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 6:47 pm 



NR – This has gotten kind of funny in a sad way. LOL. Like you I’m not the least bit bitter. And it’s not so much acceptance but just happy I cheated fate. I figure my last 40 years or so are just lagniappe. A S La term for that something extra you get that wouldn’t normally happen. So the good and bad of life I’ve gone thru the last 4 decades is still better then the alternative outcome.

So maybe we should turn the discussion back to a lighter subject…like the end of life as we know it. LOL.

Hiruit Nguyse on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 8:39 pm 



NORTHWEST (and all!)

Have a house and 140 acres paid for free and clear in my own name, Have money (and gold) Unbanked, food on the table, A well, a Creek, A spring, Orchards, Vegetables, Dogs that love me, Birds that serenade me, Peace and Quiet, and I even keep an old sock right by the bed for those moments of intimacy.

I can go where I want, when I want, and don’t have to crawl P-whipped to my old lady to find out if she is going to let them crawl out of their cage that afternoon or not. The Problems that I Don’t Have!

I have customers that rail and moan about things they want to do, but they are going to have to check it with (Peggy, Marsha, Mechelle, Wendy) first, and see if she approves. I love to see those types that get a piece on Friday night after they pay the bills, then are sitting on the pavement saturday morning.

The Problems I don’t Have! (reprise)

Now just think: I could give all that up to enjoy of life of screeching, hootin ‘n hollerin’, squalling and caterwauling, bitchin’ and moanin’, gripin’ and complainin’, hell raisin’, divorce, and all of that.

Who could resist?

Probably, if I had an iron ball and chain, I wouldn’t be able to spend as much free time studying Peak Oil and similar subjects.

The Problems I don’t Have!

HN

Hiruit Nguyse on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 8:42 pm 



I just realised, I could write a compendium on the Men I know, and their failed marriages. It is amazing how many times, I have seen that tiny little slit vacuum up an entire career, along with a life of earned assets.

Northwest Resident on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 9:31 pm 



Hiruit — In many ways I envy you and I have friends more or less in your same position — never married, never divorced, no children, no child support, ultimate freedom until the very end. But you know what, there are deep and meaningful lessons that I have experienced as a result of what I went through. I crawled out of the smoking ruins of my former life a stronger and better person in many ways. Suffering tests the soul, and I’ve had my share of it. Kind of like boot camp — I would never want to do it again, but I have to admit that it made me a stronger person.

Which gets back to the original point of my post, which wasn’t to elicit tears of sympathy, but to point out that most people in this world and certainly in this country are in the queue for a serious dose of loss, depression, fear, uncertainty and shattering of the reality that they hold near and dear. Like what I went through, and Davy, and rockman, and many others, but much worse.

Hey rockman — I hear you bro! I never heard that term before, but like you, I cheated death and the tax man and the financial vultures and the unemployment line and the poor house many times. That’s why I’m a really happy guy, just like you, despite all. And when that “end of life as we know it” descends upon us all and casts its dark shadow across the land, I’m sure that you and I will still be smiling, right to the very end.

Davy on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 11:21 pm 



Hir, a word on the subject of marriage from a doomer/prepper point of view. A wife or in my current case, significant other is a partner in the effort. Our survival is going to start with ourselves and our personal efforts but that is only the start of the whole process. The start of the process is now before the crisis. At that point it is OK to do it alone. Yet, for true survival we will have to have the family, tribe, and community effort for long term sustainability and resilience of the survival effort. I feel like I am a lone wolf in the doomer/prepper effort in my own situation with my family and tribe (extended family). They acknowledge my effort and respect it but are not actively engaged in the effort like me. My community is not organized around prepping for the end of BAU. Luckily for me it is a local that is prepared even though they are not orientated to doomer/prepper attitudes. It is just natural around here to scrap a living together. So, Hir, my point is a wife or significant other is the second step in the prep process. In that respect marriage and committed relationships do matter in a fundamental way. Kids will also matter in the future when we go local and back to the land as we must. We must return to the land to feed ourselves. It takes family and communities to make farms work.

Hiruit Nguyse on Wed, 10th Sep 2014 12:31 am 



DAVY;

Channelling a bit of Orlov, and Foss there. Cooperative Community…Yes!

Unfortunately, although I am set OK for myself compared to my local countrymen, I live in an area where such relationships are scarce, and do not consider myself to be surrounded by “wife material” The general plan of this area is:

Drop out of school by 9th grade.

For Girls: pregnant by 14 -16

For Boys: Jail by 14 – 16

No birth control possible (jeebus loves the embryo).

Limited education provides for limited job opportunities. Food Stamps Number 1! A covering of Tattoos from head to toe insures limited contact with the upper echelon as well.

Four or 5 kids by 25 is normal.

Life includes renting a 70’s model trailer…but I know also persons living in ambulances and campers. When the hard realities of Peak Oil hit like a brick, then the SNAP cards will no longer work over at the Dollar Genera. Entertainment is often Crack, Meth, Liquor, Incidental Pregnancy, Pouring money into trucks on stilts.

For your interest: My region has 95 Baptist churches, and NO fukin Secondary Education (college, etc). I was on School Digger the other night (just for fun) and found that all of our schools have a maximum 3 star rating, and most have only a 2 or 1. A slight few had a Zero Star rating. Of course these star ratings are discretionary (just what do all those stars mean anyways?!).

Most Old houses are either abandoned or being torn down to make room for gas stations or trailer parks. Most large property ownership is within the domain of large timber concerns, with the proletariat huddled up by the side of the potholled roads waiting for Jeebus on a treeles quarter acre or less of red mud.

Local land consists of slash pine, Kudzu, Privet Hedge, Wisteria, Halls Honeysuckle, Mimosa and a general clusterfuk of destruction that resembles Nagasaki after the blast.

This cycle of allowing slash pine to grow about 20 years, prior to clear-cutting to turn it into toilet paper continues ad nauseum. Additionally, clear cut land consisting of former Old Homesteads often has the topsoil scraped away, and then that is sold, leaving a huge hole of Red Podzol in its wake (which will not support plant life, and consequently washes away into ruts).

The local Child Molester statistics are about 10 times the national average….one out of every 53 citizens locally is a registered offender.

So as you can see, I have it incredibly well off compared to my confederates. I assume that when the hard part of the Long Emergency (JHK) really hits, I will be killed, put into a pot, and served for lunch. Until that time, I am cautious about whom I have contact with, and appreciate each day as if it were my last.

I suffer no delusions about seeing resilience and back-to-the-land cooperation a’la Orlov/Foss in my area. We have some of the highest Per Capita prison population in the nation.

Few persons locally, will ever have the resource base or discretionary income to even consider prepping. Life is ‘to the moment’, and that often includes whether the power is being cut off this afternoon or not, or whether there is enough gas in the truck to get over to Grannies to see if she has any jailhouse dinners in the freezer.

Many young persons enter the court system by 14, and never leave it until death. I am currently befriending a 21 year old boy with 3 kids by 3 different girls. He lives in an old U_Haul van behind a tattoo parlour. I am trying to help him get out of the court system, and point him in the direction of independence….something he has never known. His father used to rape his mother while he and his baby brother hid behind the sofa. This young man grew up watching his mother being raped on the living room floor nightly by his father. His same father raped his older sister as well as his niece when the girls were only about 12-13 years old. This young fella entered the court system at 14 as a result of attempting to escape his homelife. Hopefully, I can instil a bit of useful knowledge into this boy about the future.

As you can see, I have a lot on my plate without taking on a wife. I usually hire out about 16K worth of work a year around here just to put food in young mens pockets. That is more than twice what I actually choose to live on.

OK ‘Nuff for now!

HN

Hiruit Nguyse on Wed, 10th Sep 2014 12:38 am 



I failed to mention that ‘Generation Facebook” (generation wastebook) no longer possess the Independence Skills of our forbearer’s did I?

Keeping seeds, crop rotation, gathering firewood (from what trees) there are none!)…these are all mysteries to Youth of Today.

Beery on Wed, 10th Sep 2014 1:49 am 



Hiruit Nguyse wrote:
“…I have never met a Happily Married Man in my life.”

Now you’ve met me. Happily married for 25 years.

I think it’s funny that so many guys are so willing to admit their relationship failures. But avoiding relationships because the only guys you know can’t handle it – that’s pretty fricken pathetic.

Let’s face facts – most guys can’t stick a relationship because they have a sense of entitlement a mile wide. They think the sun shines out of their own arseholes. Losing that attitude is a prerequisite for a healthy relationship, but most guys would prefer to keep the attitude, lose the woman and blame her for it.

Hiruit Nguyse on Wed, 10th Sep 2014 3:06 am 



Beery, I avoid it primarily because I am content. Just plain and simple content and happy. I just don’t see the rationale in entangling yourself into a legally binding contract with another person for the rest of your life, just to satisfy some archaic societal norm, no more than I want to be legally bound to an old car for the rest of my life.

Marriage, generally is an obsolete notion, bound in fundamentalist religion. I’m not even sure that humans are wired to mate for life, perhaps some are. Personally, I avoid those type relationships because I don’t Want them….much like I avoid other things in life that I don’t want (rap music, NASCAR, a truck that gets 6mpg) and instead migrate towards the things I do want (gardens, Lathe, Books).

While I don’t Want it, Lots of guys on here wanted it, but later found out (to quote Mr. Spock) that “Wanting is sometimes better than Having”. Or as JHK once said: People don’t always get what they want, but sometimes they get what they Deserve.

Gloria Steinem didn’t want it either. She didn’t marry until she was 66, but instead chose her ‘family’ as she personally defined it based on her own objectives, not some pre-supposed societal definition. Such is the way I choose my family also. At any time my healthy relationship is with whomever I can help in any capacity I am able to.

There may be a lot of happily married men who are hitched to similarly unhappily married women (wives that have not yet red Betty Friedan), if you hadn’t considered that. Such marriages define most religious communities of the world (Islam in particular). A lifetime of scrubbing, scouring, bowing, raking, and scraping. I see those marriages around here also…particularly young girls with no financial opportunities, that are expected to carry an unwanted life to fruition as a result of a brief interlude with a guy, because Jeebus dictates it.

As much of a shock as this may be to your system, there are people out there that have no desire to be contractually bound in a ‘healthy relationship’ for the rest of their life! How utterly Unhealthy!

Even when I was in High School, other kids were getting knocked up right after graduation, and trying to figure out how they were going to hack it. As a young man I knew I was interested in chemistry, micromachining, the astrolabe, and NOT interested in marriage, babies, and healthy relationship slavery.

So calling someone fricken pathetic because you have chosen to wear those chains voluntarily, and they have not, is pretty fricken pathetic! Tell it to Dame Edna.

And although I don’t think that photoradiation emanates from my rectum, I actually don’t have to answer to anyone other than myself when I close that door. I definitely am not going to wussify my personal attitude to sop and slink around like Ned Flanders in some healthy relationship that I don’t even want in the first place. Please elaborate further on what Entitlement means to you BTW. All of our current living standards are due to some sense of entitlement based on nearly a century of cheap fossil fuel inputs.

Hell, dude, guys are marrying guys, and girls and marrying girls today! Sisters are doin’ it for themselves and Dudes are doin’ it for themselves also.

Deal with it.

HN

Ralph on Wed, 10th Sep 2014 6:25 am 



Well, to add a different tone to this thread, I am raising two kids who are not mine – or my wife’s. And we are married over 10 years now, although I delayed getting hitched until 41, and wife has been married before. My brother has been married 35+ years and my parents spend exactly 2/3 of a century together.

Marriage is a state of mind, not a piece of paper. It is an agreement to pool resources and balance wants and needs against the unknown future. The physical stuff helps but it is not primary.

Neither my wife or sister in law are exactly in prime condition…

JuanP on Wed, 10th Sep 2014 8:07 am 



Hir, I liked your comments and respect the choices you made.
When I was growing up I had three goals in life: to get out of my country, stay single, and never have children. I migrated in my teens, got married, and had a Vasectomy instead of children.
I have been very happy with my wife going on 26 years now, but she is an unusually wonderful human being, the living encarnation of peace, love, and generosity. I give her all the credit.
While I wouldn’t want to live my life without her, if you are happy and content as you are(and your life sounds fine for your surrounding environment), then you should stay like that.
Having a family is not for everyone, and in a collapsing world it may be better to be alone, even knowing that you couldn’t make it alone in the long run. Since you are aware of your diminished survival possibilities alone, I’d say you are making an informed choice, and it is your right to live your way.
Maybe you’ll fall head over heels in love like I did in time, you never know, I never wanted to. 🙂

Makati1 on Wed, 10th Sep 2014 9:52 am 



Marriage is a relic of the religions of the world. Today, in the West, and especially in the US, it is mostly a temporary arrangement, often broken when both realize that sex is not a good basis for marriage. Then lawyers and banks get involved. Sometimes, the poor choices of youth are expensive.

My marriage experience was ok, but not missed. I married at 29. Divorced at 58 (After my two daughters were on their own). And am happily living without female ‘companionship’ in a foreign country. I have some great friends here and I see my family every year when I visit the States. I am in daily contact on the internet. I helped my Ex raise her two by a previous marriage and my own two. We have 13 grand kids and 3 great grand kids last time I counted. For their sake, I hope my thoughts on the future don’t come true, but…

Adamra on Sun, 2nd Apr 2017 6:55 pm 



Rest In Peace Hiruit Nguyse 🙁

Apneaman on Sun, 2nd Apr 2017 8:29 pm 



Personally, I’m sick and tried of all the monkey people and their breeding like Cock A Roaches. All the property tax I paid to put these stupid rug rats through school while their parents get a better tax rate and even monthly “Baby Cheques”. Time to cull the herd don’t ya think? Inherent stupidity will do some of that, but we should do it based on IQ and that way I would be rid of the majority of loud, boring uninteresting, fucking retards and live out my Doom in silence. Those who can’t seem to comment on anything other than barrel counts (you know who you are) are among the most boring uninteresting and pointless.

Doug Stanhope On…Marriage, Gay and Otherwise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bmpf5-tuDEo

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