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Page added on December 27, 2018
The Dark Places of the Future
Over most of the last decade now, I’ve watched celebrations of the New Year become more and more muted, and I think it’s far more likely than not that this trend will continue when 2018 gets hauled off to the glue factory a little less than a week from now. No doubt plenty of people will be glad to see it go, but any enthusiasm engendered by that departure will be mixed with, if not swamped by, uncomfortable thoughts about what 2019 will bring in its place.
Those worries are by no means pointless. Despite the claims still retailed by the increasingly ragged chorus of believers in perpetual progress, industrial civilization is no longer progressing. Rather, it’s slipping bit by bit down the trajectory I’ve titled the Long Descent—the process, averaging one to three centuries in length, by which every previous human civilization has ended in a dark age. That’s not something that can be stopped or reversed; it unfolds from conflicts hardwired into the basic ecological and economic structures of civilization; several familiar milestones are already past, others are coming into sight on the road ahead, and one implication of that reality is that the rest of your life, dear reader, will be spent in a civilization in decline.
That doesn’t mean we face a future of unrelieved gloom. Decline is a chaotic process; losses in one place or decade are routinely balanced by partial recoveries in a different place or a different decade, and it’s also quite common for conditions to improve significantly for the poor and the working classes while they decline drastically for those who are used to living higher on the hog—the rich, yes, but also the middle and upper middle classes, which flourish mightily on the extreme complexity of a civilization at zenith and then end up twisting in the wind as economic and social simplification render their skills unnecessary.
Social historians have been pointing out for years that as Rome fell, those of the working poor who were able to stay out of the way when barbarian armies came through saw significant improvement in their standards of living, while the senatorial and equestrian classes found themselves plunged into poverty. The same process is arguably under way now, as real estate prices and other vehicles for the wealth of the well-to-do plunge in value while employment booms at the bottom of the job pyramid. There are plenty of factors feeding into that dramatic shift; the Trump administration’s tariff and immigration policies have given a hefty push to changes already being driven by the twilight of US global hegemony and the insidious decline in net energy from fossil fuels.
Will it continue in something like a linear fashion? Almost certainly not—but I suspect that one way or another, things are going to move that way just a little more often than not over the years and decades and centuries to come. In the decades immediately ahead, for example, those young people who let themselves be talked into seeking a university education are far more often than not going to end up much less economically comfortable than those who ignore the conventional wisdom and go for trade schools and apprenticeships instead; those who focus on trying to get rich by speculation are going to do worse than those who focus on trying to make a living by producing goods and services themselves, and so on.
That is to say, many of the comfortable assumptions on which our chattering classes base their notions of the future passed their pull dates quite some time ago, and are beginning to smell decidedly overripe. With that in mind, it’s time to revisit a venerable tradition on my blogs, review my predictions from a year ago, and offer predictions about the year about to begin.
You can find last year’s predictions here. For some reason I didn’t do as I’ve habitually done in past years, and finish up the post with a paragraph summarizing my predictions. Thus I’ll take them one at a time.
“My first prediction for the new year, therefore, is that one of the biggest stories of the year will be an event that nobody has predicted.” That was a direct hit. The black swan in question? North Korea’s dramatic reversal of decades of military confrontation, and the opening up of prospects for an enduring peace in that end of east Asia. Nobody, but nobody, predicted that. It’s a huge shift, not least because Russian railway engineers are now busy making plans to extend the Trans-Siberian Railroad south through the Korean peninsula to South Korea’s booming ports, opening up the Pacific basin to year-round trade with Russia and its central Asian allies.
“The Democratic dream of a sweeping midterm victory that will leave Trump paralyzed in 2019 and 2020 will almost certainly go whistling down the wind.” The Democrats did better than I expected, but not well enough to matter. While they took the House, Trump tightened his control on the Senate, giving him much more leeway in appointing cabinet officials and Federal judges, and impeachment doesn’t mean a thing unless 2/3 of the Senate votes to convict, so he’s safe for the next two years. (Claims by Democrats to the contrary show an astonishing ignorance of the basic principles of US constitutional law.) His dismissal of Attorney General Sessions and his sharp U-turn on the Syrian war aren’t the acts of a president without options—quite the contrary, he’s clearly been emboldened by the change in the Senate.
“The US is trying to carry out that most difficult of military operations, a staged retreat through hostile territory… expect the US to bluster and threaten in an attempt to win breathing room for its retreat from empire.” There’s been plenty of that over the last year, with saber rattling and occasional petulant bursts of missiles aimed at nations too poorly defended to shoot back. The troop withdrawals took longer to start than I expected, but they’re under way, so that one was another hit.
“Expect the rise and fall of speculative bubbles to be a constant feature of the business pages all year.” Check. That one really was shooting fish in a barrel.
“Meanwhile, outside the narrowing circle of the official economy, the United States is rapidly becoming a Third World nation in which off-book employment and subsistence economics are becoming increasingly the norm. I don’t expect any significant change in that picture this year, just a continuation of vapid cheerleading from the media and increasingly grim conditions in the real world.” That one I missed completely. My assumption was that it would take a couple of years of sensible tariffs and enforcement of the immigration laws to cause a significant upturn in the working class end of the job market, and I was quite wrong. The expansion of working class jobs is still geographically patchy and fragile, but it’s significant, and if it continues, a great many imbalances in our economic life may be able to right themselves.
“We’re going to see more big storms, more big floods, more big fires, and the streets of Miami Beach and a hundred other low-lying coastal communities will fill a little deeper with salt water every time they get a high tide and an onshore wind, but nothing’s going to be done about it.” That was another easy call, and of course it was quite correct.
There were a few other stray predictions in there, but those were the important ones. By and large, despite one partial miss and one major miss, I think I did fairly well.
So what can we expect over the twelve months that will begin shortly? One thing, I think, we can be sure of. You know the great changes that so many people are hoping for—political, economic, cultural, ecological, spiritual, and so on? They’re not going to happen in 2019.
A year from now, we’re not going to look back on 2019 as the year when Trump was driven from office and everything became either wonderful or horrible, depending on your political prejudices. It won’t have been the year that the economy rolled over and died, or the year when either the political correctness of the Left or the patriotic correctness of the Right finally swept all before it. It won’t have been the year when we finally started to solve the problem of climate change, nor will it have been the year when Gaia put on her hobnailed boots and gave our species the stomping we arguably deserve. As for the leap to a new level of consciousness that’s been pulling a no-show since long before December 21, 2012 became just another day—well, let’s just say that if you hold your breath waiting for that, you’re going to turn very blue indeed.
As 2019 winds up a year from now, furthermore, the dollar and the Euro will still have value, there will still be products on the shelves of your local grocery, gasoline-powered automobiles will still be lurching wastefully down the streets, airliners will still be rumbling even more wastefully through the skies, and more Americans will be concerned with the outcome of the upcoming Super Bowl game than with the subjects this blog discusses. I can say that with perfect confidence, and not just because I’ve been right every other time I’ve predicted it.
The thing that people most often miss when they climb aboard the bandwagon of pop-culture futurology is the pace of historic change. One of the really serious downsides of the way that history is taught in today’s schools, especially but not only in the United States, is that the bite-sized overviews of entire eras that get passed on to students make history seem a lot faster than it is, and the habit of imposing judgments in hindsight hides the sheer obscurity of historical change. Were I to have the task of designing a history curriculum for schoolchildren, I’d take the number of weeks in a school year, subtract one at the beginning and one at the end, and select one year in history to study in each of the others—and not the big important years, either.
This week, let’s say, the year we’re studying is 1763; since this is an American history class, we’re going to immerse ourselves in what people were talking about, what they were reading, what they thought was important, what daily life was like for them, in the American colonies that year. The students would learn to recite a lesson from a hornbook, lunch on hasty pudding and succotash, take in articles extracted from the newspapers of the day, and in a couple of dozen other ways get a sense of what life was actually like in the colonies just over a decade before the Revolution broke out—and it would waste the entire experience to highlight everything that led to the Revolution, or to whatever other big issue we in 2019 consider important.
In 1763 people weren’t bracing themselves for the Revolution—the thought of rebelling against King George was on no one’s mind yet. Other issues, most of them completely forgotten today, occupied the minds of the colonists just then, and the thought that they were living in the run-up to one of the few really world-shaking eras of social change in modern history would not have occurred to them at all. That’s an awareness worth cultivating. One of the core points of the study of history is to help us realize that the past really is a foreign country, and it exists in its own right, not just as a prelude to here and now.
In exactly the same way, if a school somewhere in North America in the year 2234 happens to use the kind of curriculum I’ve just sketched out, and 2018 is one of the years that’s chosen for a week’s intensive study, the teacher will have to make sure to present 2018 as it was, without slanting the presentation so that it highlights the issues that would shake North America and the world in the great convulsions of the mid-2020s. We don’t know what those issues are yet, and so the hypothetical students in 2234 would listen instead to the political posturings of utterly forgotten figures named Trump and Pelosi, giggle at the quaintness of programs on a simulated television screen, try to figure out why people liked fast-food hamburgers, and try to get as close as they could to our experience of 2018—an experience that includes, as a central feature, the fact that the world doesn’t change as fast as we like to think it does, and we don’t actually know which way it’s going.
So the first thing we know about 2019 is that it’s going to look a lot like 2018. It’s possible to draw some straightforward conclusions from that. The ecological news from 2019, for example, is going to be consistently bad. We can expect more big storms, more big fires, more big floods. The economic burden from weather-related disasters is going to keep ratcheting up, and Federal disaster relief funds and insurance payouts are going to cover less of it. Whatever areas take the brunt of the coming year’s climate disasters can count on the same mix of short-term obsessive attention from the media, followed by long-term neglect and partial abandonment, that’s become standard in the wake of climate disasters in the US for more than a decade.
If the area where you live draws the short straw, and you happen to be among the survivors, you’ll get to see some eye-opening sights. If you don’t, don’t expect the media to cover it at all. Meanwhile the Left will continue to insist in ringing tones that someone else, somewhere else, ought to stop burning carbon so they can keep living their current lifestyles, and the Right will keep on scrunching its eyes shut, plugging its ears with its fingers, and insisting that climate change will go away if they just disbelieve in it hard enough. That is to say, nothing will be done.
In the same way, the great divide between Left and Right will continue to form a chasm across the heart of American society, across which not even the simplest message can be communicated without distortion. The mainstream Left will continue to demand the policies of free trade and open borders that, not coincidentally, provide the privileged among them with ultracheap consumer goods and inexpensive nannies. The insurgent populist Right will continue to demand the policies of trade barriers and strictly enforced immigration laws that, also not coincidentally, are driving the current boom in US manufacturing, with its attendant profits for the rich and jobs for the flyover-state working classes.
In a functioning democracy, the two sides would hammer out some kind of compromise that allows them both to get the things they most want. Unfortunately, we don’t happen to have a functioning democracy right now. Both sides act as though the only acceptable outcome is that they get everything they want and the other side gets nothing, and try to wrap the realities of naked self-interest in the unconvincing garb of moral posturing. Until both sides grow up a little and shed the toddler-habit of throwing tantrums when they don’t get what they want, politics in the US will remain hopelessly dysfunctional.
Another thing that will continue in 2019 is the ongoing decline in US global hegemony. As the US dollar loses its status as the world’s reserve currency, and more and more nations arrange to handle mutual trade in their own currencies, the arrangements that have allowed the US to print money at will to cover its soaring debts will become increasingly problematic. I don’t expect the US to be forced to choose between default and hyperinflation next year, or any time in the next few years; that’s coming, but we have a way to go before it comes knocking on the door. At the same time, I expect issues surrounding the US national debt to heat up in 2019, and the US and global economy will be in for some rough sledding for that reason among others.
Trump’s decision to bring US troops home from Syria and begin a serious drawdown from Afghanistan was as overdue as it was necessary. As US hegemony slips away, one of the essential tasks of American statecraft involves walking back unsustainable commitments around the world, leaving Eurasia and Africa to manage their own affairs, and establishing more sustainable relationships with the nations in the US “near abroad.” An end to US military adventurism in the Middle East and improved relations with Mexico are crucial steps along that path, and it’s to the Trump administration’s credit that several movements toward both these goals have been taken in 2018, but much more needs to be done. Whether that will happen in 2019 is impossible to say at this point. The sooner it happens, the less traumatic the transition to a post-imperial America will be.
The economy? A very mixed bag. As I write this, stock markets worldwide have had a very bad month or so, real estate prices in a great many overpriced markets have hit the skids, and a range of other measures that show how much excess cash has piled up in the speculative end of the economy are looking decidedly thin and weak just now. To borrow a bit of jargon, economic shifts are usually overdetermined—that means they have more causes driving them than are actually necessary to get the effect—but one neglected factor that I think is feeding into the current slumps is a rebalancing of wealth back to the productive sectors of the US economy.
For decades now, soaring stock prices and equally rosy valuations for other speculative assets have happened in tandem with serious economic distress for the majority of Americans. That was anything but accidental: a galaxy of government policies, free-trade agreements and the tacit acceptance of unlimited illegal immigration among them, forced down working-class wages in the US to near-starvation levels while channeling increased profits to the investing classes. Now that a number of those policies have been reversed, wealth is beginning to flow back into the productive economy, and the speculative economy is losing air as a result.
I expect to hear from a great many pundits, and plenty of people with investments as well, that this means a new Great Depression, if not the end of the world. Popular though that claim will no doubt be, my best guess is that it’s quite wrong. Just as the stock market soared to unimaginable levels while millions of working class Americans struggled to get by, stock market prices and other asset values can lurch and stumble back down to something like their historic range, while millions of working class Americans cash their paychecks every Friday afternoon and wonder what all the fuss is about. I’m not certain this is going to happen—the investment classes have a lot of clout, and will doubtless try everything they can think of to shove the pain off onto somebody else—but at this point I think it’s far and away the most likely outcome.
Will unexpected events grab a share of the headlines in 2019? No doubt some will. The future has plenty of dark places where not even the outlines of events to come can be seen. Those of my readers who want to insist that those dark places contain whatever drastic reversal of current trends they most want to hope for, though, are going to face the same disappointment this year that they’ve faced year after weary year in the past. The world doesn’t change as fast as we like to think it does, and we don’t actually know which way it’s going: keep those things in mind, and you’re a good deal less likely to be blindsided by the year ahead.
*************************
Two brief announcements before we close. First of all, I’m delighted to announce that the first two volumes of The Weird of Hali, my epic fantasy with tentacles, are now available in paperback as well as ebook formats. A fantasy series that stands H.P. Lovecraft on his head, with the tentacled Great Old Ones revealed as the old gods of Nature and those supposedly sinister multiethnic cultists as the good guys after all, may seem worlds away from the issues discussed in this blog, but sometimes fiction’s the best way to talk about certain far from fictional issues. Interested? You can order copies of The Weird of Hali: Innsmouth and its sequel, The Weird of Hali: Kingsport, by slithering over here and here.
Second, it’s been over a year and a half since I last took a break from blogging, and it’s time to put my feet up for a month and catch my breath. There will be no posts on this blog in the month of January 2019; expect the first post of the new year on February 6th. See you then!
Ecosophia by John Michael Greer
70 Comments on "The Dark Places of the Future"
makati1 on Thu, 27th Dec 2018 6:28 pm
Being deployed in 2019: “Russia’s Hypersonic Glider Can Travel At 19,000 MPH”
“There’s almost no missile that can shoot it down at such speeds.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-27/russias-hypersonic-glider-can-travel-19000mph-deputy-pm
Slip slidin’…
I AM THE MOB on Thu, 27th Dec 2018 6:34 pm
What Populists Do to Democracies
According to our research, populist governments have deepened corruption, eroded individual rights, and inflicted serious damage on democratic institutions.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/hard-data-populism-bolsonaro-trump/578878/
Now watch clogg will shoot the messenger (ad hom fallacy)
Duncan Idaho on Thu, 27th Dec 2018 6:40 pm
Not bad writing for a English Major.
Now, it might be a little more complex.
But, it might be the best a Archdruid could do.
“John Michael Greer is Past Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America , current head of the Druidical Order of the Golden Dawn”
twocats on Thu, 27th Dec 2018 8:20 pm
america is slowly devolving into a pure death cult – with less and less cognitive dissonance between that and the fading “everything is awesome” consumer culture. One either of suicide and despondence or rage and immolation.
Trump fans are just ahead of the curve. The Joker is winning in this timeline.
asg70 on Thu, 27th Dec 2018 8:26 pm
“First of all, I’m delighted to announce that the first two volumes of The Weird of Hali, my epic fantasy with tentacles, are now available in paperback”
^^^ Where Greer’s real priorities are these days. Doom ain’t comin’ fast enough.
makati1 on Thu, 27th Dec 2018 9:08 pm
For your weekend reading pleasure:
“The Federal Reserve Is A Suicide Bomber With A Deeper Agenda”
As I have been saying, the leveling of the Us is deliberate, not accidental. This could be the last crash before the final collapse.
“… the central banks are motivated by ideological zealotry with the core purpose of total global centralization of economic and political power into the hands of a select group of elitists….the most effective weapon at the disposal of the globalists and their central banking counterparts is engineered economic crisis — a weapon that can, if allowed, destroy entire civilizations almost as fast as a nuclear war, while still keeping most of the expensive infrastructure intact….economic crisis is also a weapon that can influence a population to embrace even greater enslavement while viewing their slave masters as saviors rather than villains.”
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/the-federal-reserve-is-a-suicide-bomber-with-a-deeper-agenda_12272018
“The U.S. economy today is just as expendable as any other economy the banks have destroyed in the past. It is not special….the Fed DOES NOT CARE about propping up the U.S. economy…the Fed is working towards an ideological end game of global centralization; this means one economy, one currency and eventually one world government (a plan which has been openly admitted to by globalists in the past). It has no loyalty to the U.S. system, and it will destroy the U.S. system if it must to achieve this prize.”
The Great Leveling is well under way. What will 2019 bring? More of the same, I think. Slip slidin’…
Darrell Cloud on Thu, 27th Dec 2018 9:25 pm
I suggest we keep hedging our bets. Black swans can pop up any time. Rapid declines have occurred in the past. If the EBT cards are not funded in January, the FSA may sack D.C.
makati1 on Thu, 27th Dec 2018 9:44 pm
asg70, doom and nuclear war novels are not new. I’m currently reading some of my old paperbacks written in the 50s and 60s that revolve around a nuclear war in the Us and Europe. Of course, the Ruskies are the enemy, but nothing has changes otherwise. Interesting that the attitude of most Americans have not changed since then, “It can’t happen here”. LOL
Cloggie on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 4:08 am
I like reading greers blogs however I differ a bit on the timing of the collapse he seems to think it will drag on awhile with slow steps down to our ultimate demise. I’m more a fast crash kind of guy it will be done and dusted in a few years . At best 10years if none of all the other predicaments come home to roost
Cloggie on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 4:20 am
I didn’t write the previous post. Mobster clown did.
What Populists Do to Democracies
According to our research, populist governments have deepened corruption, eroded individual rights, and inflicted serious damage on democratic institutions.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/hard-data-populism-bolsonaro-trump/578878/
Now watch clogg will shoot the messenger (ad hom fallacy)
Hahaha, article written by a (((Yascha Mounk))), a “German” who admitted he went to the US because Germans never accepted him as one of them.lol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yascha_Mounk
I’m sure Yascha is an honest broker of the truth! Seriously, he admits that libtard times are over
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674976825
“We can no longer assume that liberal democracy is the wave of the future… This splendid book is an invaluable contribution to the debate about what ails democracy, and what can be done about it.”
Nothing can be done about it, Yascha (nice German name.lol). The kosher post-1945 West is over, USSR-1991-style. Good riddance to you!
Cloggie on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 4:41 am
A word of advice from someone in the know such as myself is to dump your shares especially if you have any in the renewable sector. Next year will be a bloodbath cut your losses while they still have some sort of value and don’t say I didn’t warn you
Davy on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 6:04 am
The Long Descent is still on target but whether we hit that point of phase change where water starts turning to steam is debatable. We are in the boil phase where noise and turbulence is present but no vigorous boiling except near the source of heat. We are near this point of change everywhere both physically and with the systematic side of networks and economies. When you live near boundaries of change then you are always at risk of triggering catastrophic change. We know often it is the weakest link that can force this bifurcation. It is multiple converging changes working in that direction making any effort to arrest a dangerous bifurcating change hopeless. It is more about a red queen marathon. Currently the system functions. We are every year more characterized by a brittle climax system with little room for constructive change. Niches are taken with location and economic positions. Population growth is forcing migrations from places of hardship to places of affluence. Economies are fighting for market share in a zero sum game of decline. We have not blown each other up yet but we continue to malinvest in huge amounts of military hardware when vital investments could be made elsewhere. The social fabric is fraying with haves and have nots but also with political and ideological power struggles. Yet, there is no civil war in the places that matter. The major powers of the world and their people are stuck with an increasingly captive situation of a late term civilization living close to rapid uncontrolled decline yet still growing and adapting.
This is a process of change with destructive change every year gaining. There is a foundation built on fossil fuels, financialization, industrialization, and mobility. The problem is net energy is in decline with affordability. Financialization has become parasitic and dysfunctional. Oversized financial markets with distorted price discovery of rate repression and the artificial easing of liquidity based on goal seeking of affluence instead of real productive affluence has now become a force of destructive change. We are still plenty mobile and producing fantastic tech. Efficiency efforts are strong in places. Knowledge accumulation is huge with the digital age. Yet, the base is now corrupted with irrational policy. Networks are increasingly dysfunctional. Economic rot is now propagating through poor investments based on unrealistic expectations. This is the boil and anywhere in this process catastrophic change is potential. This process nonetheless is functional with decaying growth. The 1st world 3rd world divide is increasing both across and within economies. All this as the planetary system of climate, ecosystems, and the web of life is in decline and localized failure. We likely can inhabit this undulating plateau of decline and growth in a generalized decline for years if we avoid destroying ourselves. We have the world’s last superpower winding down its empire as other regional powers enhance their new found strengths but this is not the 19th and 20th century of competing hegemonic powers. We are now all codependents which so far has limited the competitive efforts of this epic power struggle. If this breaks down into generalized conflict the system will not hold. This is both military and with trade.
That is the bigger world we live in but for you the individual there is your world within this world. You can find a niche and you can experience constructive change within this generalized decline of destructive change. You can adjust to this new reality and feed off the resulting stream of affluence to leave this world with no future. This is about a judo of using this world to leave it. There will be no transcendence of the collapse process but there can be adaptation to this process in a position of strength allowing mitigation of the risks. You can collapse in place and live differently. You can live with less of what does not matter and use that dividend to invest in what will give you strength and wisdom. The wisdom will not make you rich just guide you away from the cliff. This means a tough stoic road away from the dopamine trail of consumerism but you must also utilize our consumeristic feast to invest in a new lifestyle of wisdom. Remember you can’t leave this sinking ship but you can position yourself for its descent. The biggest change you can make is with attitudes and lifestyles but this is also the hardest because you must navigate a myth based narrative of growth and human exceptionalism which is flawed and dying. Everyone around you is pissed off faithful follower of a de facto religion of unnatural prosperity that is now being delegitimized. I am talking about the 1BIL in the world of course. Many are already an economic and social subspecies of the prosperous 21 century man but they still are coveting affluence so that is the other issue. Increasingly even the adapted prosperity you find will be under threat from a teaming horde of disenfranchised. This will call for a tough skin. How much can you help others and how much can you protect yourself and significant others? Tradeoff will be everywhere in this process. Pitfalls and loss around every corner. Increasingly luck of place and time will factor in with the situation of living in a late term declining civilization. This is why now is the time to clear out the deadwood and get focused. Inner strength is needed. Realistic goals and expectations will guide you away from the siren song of a false plenty. 2019 likely is a pivotal year for many of the rich but not so much for those already struggling. Safety nets are failing but not failed. We are spending our future so don’t expect a retirement expect to be working until you can’t and hopefully you will have someone to care for you when you can’t. This is about positioning and strength training. It is about learning skills and shedding bad behavior. It is about leaving a lifestyle and building on a new one. It is not about transcendence but it is a transformation. You will sink along with the ship but with the right attitude and in the right place. Learn to triage and salvage to create a hybrid world of a BAUite and an awakened one. Find meaning in acts of kindness to nature. Fix your little place forget fixing the world. The world is no longer fixable.
Cloggie on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 6:15 am
You wouldn’t belive it but I’ve just been handed a book by ugo bardi about the seneca cliff. Interesting reading
I won’t say anymore till I read the whole thing. Will keep you posted
Fat bastard on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 6:29 am
OMG this has to be the worlds most boringest website I just stumbled on it and nearly fell asleep .
Cloggie on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 6:51 am
Check out Rice Farmers latest blog not many positives you can get from those head lines.
Cloggie on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 7:00 am
Shizzer Davy even thought you and I are on the same page that is one heck of a long rant . Ain’t nobody got time for dat ! Keep it short and sweet son
Davy on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 7:25 am
It is funny how dirty juan legitimized the identity theft and sock puppeteering since his board insanity that started in July and went downhill since. Now we have JuanP and or MOB destroying any intellectual merit this forum once had. This place is now barely of use. The topic remains important but the contributions that once added value are for the most part gone. I am sticking around because this may change. In the meantime fuck you juanp and MOB. I rarely use the f word but you two bottom dwelling lunatics are disgusting examples of trash and noise. I hope the both of you rot in the hell of your own making. Again fuck you and your mother that bore you.
Cloggie on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 7:35 am
Don’t be like that Davy I mean you no harm I’m just saying you might want to keep the posts a bit shorter thats all no need for the vitrio. l Otherwise it’s all good relax
JuanP on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 9:45 am
I haven’t even posted a comment on this thread yet, Exceptionalist! I think you are projecting again! ROFLMFAO!
JuanP on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 9:52 am
When you are projecting lying projections then you say things like I do. I am a friggen loon and proud of it. Get used to it exceptionalist. I am going down with the ship
Sissyfuss on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 9:54 am
The insanity of our times is reflected authentically in the growing insanity of the interactions on this website. We are devolving as a species as is our biosphere as a working, life giving system. The land of milk and honey is not possible without abundant grasses and bees. It is becoming the land of microplastics and fracking fluids.
Duncan Idaho on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 10:26 am
“In society where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles.
Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.”
— Guy Debord, La société du spectacle
deadly on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 11:04 am
I Am The Slob has flown over the cuckoo’s nest.
Needs a lobotomy before the end of the day.
I’d rather have a bottle in front of me instead of a frontal lobotomy.
Prepare to die. About the only prepping left to do.
shortonoil on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 11:24 am
“Next year will be a bloodbath cut your losses while they still have some sort of value and don’t say I didn’t warn you”
Well; you didn’t warn anyone because no one pays any attention to you!
Definition: a “doomer”; any bipedal animal with a functioning brain.
The Golden Dawn; the Arch-druid is a warlock. Someone that is worth listening too.
Davy Word Salad on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 11:53 am
Davy on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 6:04 am
Davy Identity Theft on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 11:55 am
JuanP on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 9:52 am
More Davy Projections on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 11:57 am
I am a friggen loon and proud of it. Get used to it. I am going down with the ship
Cloggie on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 3:39 pm
The German language media outlet of the empire of former fame, to its horror, has to admit the new reality:
http://www.spiegel.de/plus/usa-die-alte-weltordnung-ist-tot-kommentar-a-00000000-0002-0001-0000-000161577191
America is seriously retreating from hegemony. The old order no longer exists.
Der Spiegel adds: “You aren’t going to like what comes after America”, sang Leonard Cohen.
Me: the Cohen’s of this world would never say anything else, because it is their system that is going down the drain, like their other system, the USSR.
Dutch doc about the end of the American Dream:
https://youtu.be/T9fgfTv-YDs
Europe, take over.
Dredd on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 5:55 pm
“sometimes fiction’s the best way to talk about certain far from fictional issues” – J.M. Greer
Tru dat.
So is science friction (A Tale of Two Glaciers).
Cloggie on Fri, 28th Dec 2018 7:05 pm
Wind energy in Europe 2030:
https://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/files/library/publications/reports/EWEA-Wind-energy-scenarios-2030.pdf
The European wind energy industry expects that by 2030, 320 GW wind power will be installed.
Note that current average electricity consumption in the EU is 300 GW and that large turbines have a capacity factor of ca. 65%, that would mean that by 2030, 200 GW will be produced by wind, or 66%.
EWEA’s new Central Scenario expects 320 GW of wind energy capacity to be installed in the EU in 2030, 254 GW of onshore wind and 66 GW of offshore wind. That would be more than twice as much as the installed capacity in 2014 (129 GW) and an increase
of two thirds from the expected capacity installed in 2020 (192 GW).
Wind energy will produce 778 TWh
of electricity, equal to 24.4% of the EU’s electricity demand. The wind energy industry will provide over 334,000 direct and indirect jobs in the EU and wind energy installations in 2030 will be worth €474 bn.
The 96,000 wind turbines installed on land and in the sea will avoid the emission of 436 million of tonnes (Mt) of CO2.
EWEA’s Low Scenario only foresees 251 GW of wind energy installations, 22% lower than in the Central Scenario, equal to meet 19% of EU electricity demand in 2030. Such level of installations would mean 307,000 jobs in the wind energy sector, €367 bn worth of investments, 339 Mt of CO2 emissions avoided and 76,000 wind turbines installed and connected to the grid in 2030.
The High Scenario expects 392 GW installed in 2030, 23% higher than in the Central Scenario, equal to meet 31% of EU electricity demand. 366,000 jobs will be generated, as well as €591 bn of investments, 554 Mt of CO2 emissions would be avoided and 114,000 wind turbines generating electricity in the EU would be installed.
makati1 on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 12:19 am
Davy thinks quantity equals quality. Especially when he doesn’t even bother to comment on why his rant is meaningful. The sentences run together, no paragraphs to separate thoughts. Poor punctuation. A 3rd grader could plagiarizer better then he does. But that is about his mental level and maturity. Not that I read all of them. I don’t. Not even part of them.
BTW: We are having a monsoon storm here that has lasted for over three days now. Had a 19 hour electric outage and the cell phone system was down for a few hours. Good practice for the coming SHTF events. We get to see the possible shortcomings in our preps. Not many now. We seem to be covered. And the temps are still in the 70s. ^_^
Anonymouse on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 2:21 am
I didn’t know the exceptionaltard was still cranking out those cut-and-paste turdfests of his. I mean, he has been working I AM THE DAVYTURD sock pretty hard lately after all, where does he find the time?
Oh, wait, cutting an pasting someone else thoughts takes even less time than posting as a nearly brain-dead sock. Nevermind.
Ill just wait here while dumbass sputters out one of his many stock replies, usually something involving X-boxes, being irrelevant, how the gang-bangers are all beaten and on the run, or maybe something involving China.
Cloggie on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 3:21 am
Talking about dark places of the future… take China.
Der Spiegel is a leftist NWO-rag. But they make one exception for Jan Fleischauer, who is allowed to ventilate light-weight right-wing opinions. This week he does so about China:
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/china-politik-wo-donald-trump-recht-hat-a-1245569.html
“Where Trump is right”
First he begins to excuse himself, namely for having the nerve to give the Trumpster right in one aspect: his attitude towards China.
China is dangerous in Fleischauer’s opinion. And he couldn’t be more right. According to Fleischauer, Russia in comparison is a Kindergarten. Yes it is an autocracy-lite, but at least Russia has elections, an opposition that is not in jail, they have internet.
China in contrast is hardcore authoritarian-nationalist and has the ambition to become the #1 power in the world. And the means to do so. Opposition doesn’t exist. If you are lucky, the government ignores you. Everything in China is subordinated to the state, that is officially communist, but in reality a authoritarian-capitalist-nationalist dictatorship.
In international relations, they politely nod, but in reality do what they want and ignore agreements. And they are biding their time.
Fleischauer backs Trump in his opposition to China. “One day we will be grateful to Trump”. Fleischauer denounces Merkel in her hard attitude towards Russia and the US and soft stance towards China. It should be the other way around. According to Fleischauer are the US the only ones who can stop China (I politely disagree, PBM could do that too, but that’s a bridge too far for Fleischauer, for the moment).
Davy on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 4:45 am
“Davy thinks quantity equals quality.”
Billy this is the type of article that calls for more than a one liner which is generally all we get out of you unless you are talking yourself up.
“Especially when he doesn’t even bother to comment on why his rant is meaningful.”
My comment is on topic and if you think it is not then show and tell stupid. You are the king of off topic as is the case on this feed.
“The sentences run together, no paragraphs to separate thoughts.”
There are 3 paragraphs to separate different topics.
“Poor punctuation.”
I am here to offer people something to think about and try to be on topic. You would not understand that because you are generally always off topic. I am not an English major and I don’t pretend to be a writer. We are here to exchange ideas not to impress people with our writing skills. You on the other hand say very little and your writing skills are subpar.
“A 3rd grader could plagiarizer better then he does.”
Sure billy, I can ususally tell when I have said something good because it draws an unfavorable comment from you. BTW it is “than” not “then”
“But that is about his mental level and maturity. Not that I read all of them. I don’t. Not even part of them.”
You read everything I say because I have put you in your place. Most all of your extremist distorted comments are moderated and if need be neutered. I have made your stay here hell and it will continue. I don’t do the mindless harassment like JuanP. I moderate you with ideas and debate. You generally lose because you are not that smart but think you are. Most of your comments are based on how they support your agenda not the truth.
Davy on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 4:48 am
“Ill just wait here while dumbass sputters out one of his many stock replies”
LOL, you just told on yourself anon. You are just here to game. You have nothing to contribute. There are no ideas in your pervert head. You, JuanP, and billy are the dregs of this site.
Davy on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 4:51 am
Did you read this from your buddy neder billy, juanP, anon?
“China in contrast is hardcore authoritarian-nationalist and has the ambition to become the #1 power in the world. And the means to do so. Opposition doesn’t exist. If you are lucky, the government ignores you. Everything in China is subordinated to the state, that is officially communist, but in reality a authoritarian-capitalist-nationalist dictatorship.”
Sunspot on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 5:04 am
Reading comments on this site is as interesting as watching 5-year-olds arguing over a lollipop.
Here’s the future – Global Temps will skyrocket when the new El Nino polishes off what’s left of the arctic ice, allowing massive methane releases. When it gets too hot to grow food on the planet anymore, we will all die.
Sorry to bring reality to the discussion. You may resume throwing feces at each other now…
Davy on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 5:29 am
Sunspot is another stupid sock. When is the identity theft going to start out of our board clown?
makati1 on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 5:40 am
Davy:
Do you actually believe that saying someone else is lying makes it so?
Do you actually believe half the bullshit you profess to?
Do you actually believe that you are not more of a slave to the state then the Chinese are?
Do you actually believe that anyone here gives a shit what you think?
If you believe the above, it just proves you are delusional.
Davy on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 5:51 am
“Davy: Do you actually believe that saying someone else is lying makes it so?”
Come on billy, explain yourself stupid or are you just upset I neutered you? You have to elaborate or you are a giving away the reality that you were called out and look like shit.
“Do you actually believe half the bullshit you profess to?”
What Bull shit billy? Another example of the anger over being neutered. Try harder to defend yourself.
“Do you actually believe that you are not more of a slave to the state then the Chinese are?”
You are a slave to a small social security check billy. Have you ever thought about that? Your above question is meaningless with broad conjectures.
“Do you actually believe that anyone here gives a shit what you think?”
AH, you do or you would not have commented. You are so hilarious saying you don’t read what I say but then reading everything I say. I love toying with you. You said nothing in this comment with ideas backing up a debate point. Typical billy talking out his ass after being moderated.
“If you believe the above, it just proves you are delusional.”
I wish I had a quarter for every time I put you in your place and you howl delusional! Lol.
makati1 on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 5:58 am
Perhaps it is time for Americans to get a refresher course in what M.A.D. means. What those faded yellow and black radiation shelter signs were posted for? What ‘Duck and Cover’ means?
https://www.globalresearch.ca/facing-nuclear-reality-35-years-after-the-day-after/5664181
In the 50s and 60s, the US would have had an hour or more to prepare when Russian missiles were fired. Today it is a few minutes. There are no fallout shelters in America except those of prepers. There are in Russia.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/ways-russia-telling-people-prepare-war/story?id=42800992 (2016)
https://www.rt.com/usa/america-prepared-nuclear-strike/ (2010)
Propaganda? Will you bet YOUR life on it?
makati1 on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 5:59 am
Go talk to your goats, Davy, they might give a damn, I don’t.
Davy on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 6:28 am
“Go talk to your goats, Davy, they might give a damn, I don’t.”
This is your real story billy makati
Translation: I read everything davy says. It matters and I do care because he makes me look like shit any time I attack him. I always talk about his goats but then act like I have a farm. I talk about a subsistence farm as if I am a farmer but then I have a fantasy farm I visit and watch poor Filipinos work. I am basically an old washed up man who ran away from his family to a cheap 3rd world country so I can live within the budget of my small social security check. I come here because I am alone with few real friends anymore. I share a home with others where I have a small room. That is my life but I pretend here that I am an expert with my hand on the heartbeat of Asia. I advertise myself like a phony politician to people here that I am strong, happy, and healthy. I made the right choice and you made the wrong choice is my sermon. The reality is I am preaching this because my life is a series of failures and now I have reached the end of the line. It won’t be long before I am shipped back to the states for assisted care in some government run nursing home. The family has no time for me. I deserted them and they have already told me to stop the message of American doom I constantly preach.
I AM THE MOB on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 6:37 am
Russian oil peak in 2020 -Russian Government
https://ria.ru/20181228/1548875074.html?fbclid=IwAR3Glixofx1Mr4WCrfCTZ9On1fb-3j_QEC6VZKKhqlVS8Pg13q-Ik-wzMcc
Sorry Europe and Asia!
I AM THE MOB on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 6:41 am
The cold war could only be played to a tie..but this time around thanks to NATO and US missile defense systems surrounding Russia..The US can play this to a win..
All we need is a false flag to get this party started! Maybe a plan will get shot down, or maybe a ship will get sunk like in Vietnam..Either way its coming..
Davy on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 6:41 am
Good Morning People-
Sunspot is just another cock in a sock…..
Brothers and sisters, pump-up the volume, pump-up the volume, dance, dance.
I love listening to this song when my ebony twink is painting my toenails.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9gOQgfPW4Y
makati1 on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 6:50 am
JuanP please stop this shit. Why do you insist on destroying the integrity of this board? What is wrong with your personality that you do this day in and day out? Why not make a comment that says something?
Anonymouse on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 8:19 am
I would say ‘nice try’ dumbass, if you were worthy of such a comment, or possessed the minimal intelligence required to make your ham-fisted attempt to pass yourself off as Mak, giving Juan a hard time, even a little bit credible.
Except you are not, and you do not.
Its easy to tell when it is you or I AM THE DAVYTURD, as neither of your ‘personalities’ such as they, are remotely funny, or believable.
You should have used your, uh, ‘admin’ sock. Why? Because even though you totally suck pretending to be ‘admin’ as well, you suck even more ass when you try pretending to be Mak.
Dumbass.
I AM THE MOB on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 8:40 am
What’s even more alarming is that some countries in the EU are on the verge of recession even with negative interest rates at the ECB and 2.6 trillion euros of new money injected into the economy.
Davy on Sat, 29th Dec 2018 8:48 am
Anon, anythingnthatmgets your panties dripping works for me. Let’s see it has been months since you contributed scumbag