Are we ultimately doomed?

[Bill Hicks]

ok. let's take a vote. is it desirable to carry water on your shoulders? is it something you want to do?
is it something you want your children to do?

Um...maybe some will say yes, but not me. I'll match my record as a doomsayer with anyone...but I am in no way, shape or from looking forward to it. I read Kunstler's World Made by Hand, where he tried to portray a post collapse community where life actually wasn't too bad and all I could think was: that ain't for me even if I can't avoid it.

[AgentR11]

ok. let's take a vote. is it desirable to carry water on your shoulders? is it something you want to do?
is it something you want your children to do?

I wouldn't be distressed if my child carried water on her shoulders when she's older and caring for her family's needs. Still, its unlikely because of our region. Texas has no natural lakes, and few rivers that hold a decent amount of water in their natural configuration. Generally, we dig wells or capture rainwater if we aren't to rely on city water. Shallow water wells in Texas give pretty poor quality water, but deep ones are excellent. I grew up drinking unadulterated water from a deep well. Awesome stuff.

I suspect rainwater capture with big cisterns is more reliable going forward; which invariably would be tied to the house's indoor plumbing.

Basically, the question is moot for my part since there is no where to carry the water from for most Texans.

[AgentR11]

Do you have running water?
I just turn on the tap an it flows, no running at all..... lsol

As would happen with rainwater capture too. As happens with deep water wells. Its not possible here to carry water in buckets on shoulders; and there is also nothing evil or degrading about carrying water for your family.

The woman in the image is living at a sustainable, dignified level of human lifestyle.

Sweating a little will not kill you, I promise.

[patience]

Preston Sturges said:
"Wow social mobility. That door is being nailed shut and bricked over."

Only if you are allergic to mental effort and physical work. But yes, for the useless eaters in our society, I'd say they aren't upwardly mobile.

[vision-master]

“Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.”
Socrates

[Lore]

“Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.”
Socrates

Isn't that guy dead?

[dolanbaker]

“Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.”
Socrates

The modern version of that would be more like "worthless people live off the efforts of others while providing nothing in return", these people will be the first to suffer in any serious downturn.

A downturn so serious that the social welfare system is unable to provide for all.

I don't like the word collapse, as we still have several stages of decline to go through first.

[Bill Hicks]

“Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.”
Socrates

The modern version of that would be more like "worthless people live off the efforts of others while providing nothing in return", these people will be the first to suffer in any serious downturn.

Um...that would be Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bank of America and every trader on Wall Street, plus just about every damn CEO out there. Oh, and all of the "defense" contractors and every other deadbeat company that wouldn't be viable without government contracts. Put 'em all together and they suck a hell of a lot more wealth out of the body politic than do all those who receive entitlement payments put together. A trillion dollars a year are spent on war and empire, and dumped into the IMF to prop up the neoliberal, globalist economic system...all to keep the world a safe place for American parasite capitalists to make a buck.

Rant off.

[pstarr]

“Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.”
Socrates

The modern version of that would be more like "worthless people live off the efforts of others while providing nothing in return", these people will be the first to suffer in any serious downturn.

Um...that would be Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bank of America and every trader on Wall Street, plus just about every damn CEO out there. Oh, and all of the "defense" contractors and every other deadbeat company that wouldn't be viable without government contracts. Put 'em all together and they suck a hell of a lot more wealth out of the body politic than do all those who receive entitlement payments put together. A trillion dollars a year are spent on war and empire, and dumped into the IMF to prop up the neoliberal, globalist economic system...all to keep the world a safe place for American parasite capitalists to make a buck.

Rant off.

Please rant on and don't stop

[dolanbaker]

“Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.”
Socrates

The modern version of that would be more like "worthless people live off the efforts of others while providing nothing in return", these people will be the first to suffer in any serious downturn.

Um...that would be Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bank of America and every trader on Wall Street, plus just about every damn CEO out there. Oh, and all of the "defense" contractors and every other deadbeat company that wouldn't be viable without government contracts. Put 'em all together and they suck a hell of a lot more wealth out of the body politic than do all those who receive entitlement payments put together. A trillion dollars a year are spent on war and empire, and dumped into the IMF to prop up the neoliberal, globalist economic system...all to keep the world a safe place for American parasite capitalists to make a buck.

Rant off.

Please rant on and don't stop

Parasites will starve when their hosts get hungry, but they know not to starve the hosts to death as that would be suicidal - more likely, they'll fight amongst themselves (to the death) and the survivers will continue feeding.

[vision-master]

Poor ppl are used to living without, can you say the same for those rich suburban yippies?

[Pops]

I like the running water analogy, aqueducts were one of the things Six pointed to as making the Romans superior to later other "dark age" societies. The Romans used slaves to build public works for the upper classes and whatever leftovers went to the plebs (not all that advanced in my book but whatever) and still today "indoor plumbing" is a sigh of "Modernity".

Pipes + pressure = indoor plumbing, so in some low energy future would we all have to carry water? How far down do you go before you lose the tech to make pipes?

There are lots of ways to make pipe but how hard is it to make even the most used material we have today - PVC? I'm no chemist but Wkii says PVC was made at least twice in the 19th century and was made usable in the 1920s so the tech is pretty low - obviously you need feed stock but that can be ethanol, right? You also need the energy to make chlorine and complete the process, but like everything else, I assume people will pay the big bucks to have tap water instead of, say, black vinyl pants.

I see there is also a recycling process for PVC so worst case we can mine landfills for cast off raincoats. And of course copper and iron will be recycled for a long time yet.


We always make things either/or: either we have the free 8-head pulsating shower with unlimited hot water *plus steam* or we go extinct.

[pstarr]

Yes we are ultimately doomed.

C+C peaked in 2005 and the inexpensive petroleum is now gone. The rest is hard to get, either ultra deep water, shale, jojoba oil, or bifucated turkey guts (or something.)

Our complex industrial infrastructure was prototyped and developed, built-out and maintained while petroleum was cheap. We are now running on the rusting remnants of a complex system that is about to sputter and spark and clink and clank one more time before everything rusts out and goes bust.

[Bill Hicks]

Poor ppl are used to living without, can you say the same for those rich suburban yippies?

Very true. Mock the poor if you will, but they've always been poor and are unlikely to see much difference.

[nobodypanic]

“Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.”
Socrates

you realize socrates would likely consider you worthless too, right?

in fact, leaving the ancients aside, up until as recently as the 17th century wage earners (those that sell their labor) were considered unfree and unworthy of even having the franchise; they were lumped in with alms takers (beggars) in political theory. I am sure that covers about 99% of the people posting.

[Sixstrings]

I like the running water analogy, aqueducts were one of the things Six pointed to as making the Romans superior to later other "dark age" societies.

I got a bit off topic with the Roman stuff, thanks for indulging me. My main point is that as with those aquaducts, there could come a day when future Americans look up at a clover leaf highway interchange and wonder what the hell it was for.

Thinking about infrastructure..

You know Pops, a lot of our infrastructure sucks right now. There's a History channel series called "Crumbling of America" or something like that. The whole show is one guy going to all these roads, highways, and bridges and pointing out how shoddy they are and they're falling apart. Turns out a lot was built in the WWII years when materiel / labor were short and they're just shoddy. Even in the 60s and 70s a lot of bridges were badly built, part of the problem with this old stuff is they didn't intend for it to be used so long without being rebuilt. We see that over and over, even nuke plants -- they were built with an operational life, but why didn't anyone think about what happens *after* that?

At the end of the day.. Roman roads and aquaducts will stand long after the interstate overpasses have crumbled to dust.

[pstarr]

Six, that is what I was saying. For instance a single tractor-trailer truck does as much damage to road pavement as 9600 cars. (A GAO study assumed a fully loaded tractor-trailer at 80,000 pounds, and a typical passenger car at 4,000 pounds. That’s 20 times difference in weight, but the wear and tear caused by the truck is exponentially greater.) I used to live in Pennsylvania by Interstate 80. That is the main truck route into New York City and the Eastern Megalopolis. The road was dominated by big trucks night and day and was always under constant state of disrepair and maintenance.

I used to argue against the long-term viability of tar sands produced by heavy equipment. I reasoned that the super giant excavators, loaders, and trucks could only be built and maintained now, during a inexpensive-oil regime. When the cheap stuff is all gone it's won't be worth it (or perhaps even possible) to build-delivery-maintain those behemoths to the remote fields.

[GASMON]

Six, that is what I was saying. For instance a single tractor-trailer truck does as much damage to road pavement as 9600 cars. (A GAO study assumed a fully loaded tractor-trailer at 80,000 pounds, and a typical passenger car at 4,000 pounds. That’s 20 times difference in weight, but the wear and tear caused by the truck is exponentially greater.)

Correct. I remember a study into broken gas mains many years ago that stated HGV's (heavy goods vehicles - tractor trailers especially) was the root cause of small diameter cast iron gas main breakage.

Regarding old structures like bridges etc. A particular bridge nearby carries the London-Glasgow railway line over a road. It is a single tall arch, stone built on a skew angle. The skewed stonework is a work of art. It was built in 1835 for the local Wigan & Preston Railway. It now carries 140mph electric passenger trains and 85 mph 100 ton/car freight trains. It was recently water jet cleaned. Not a single crack, loose block etc. Some nearby "modern" concrete bridges built only 20-30 years ago are crumbling.

Gas

[pstarr]

Regarding old structures like bridges etc. A particular bridge nearby carries the London-Glasgow railway line over a road. It is a single tall arch, stone built on a skew angle. The skewed stonework is a work of art. It was built in 1835 for the local Wigan & Preston Railway. It now carries 140mph electric passenger trains and 85 mph 100 ton/car freight trains. It was recently water jet cleaned. Not a single crack, loose block etc. Some nearby "modern" concrete bridges built only 20-30 years ago are crumbling.

Gas

Is that the Skelton Bridge at Nether Poppleton?

[GASMON]

Is that the Skelton Bridge at Nether Poppleton?

No, though that one is also stone built. That one is on the London-Edinburgh line just north of York. Googled a picture



The one I refered to is similar, though one tall arch over a road, and at skew angle.

Gas