Here's Why the Powerdown will be a Blessing in Disguise...

[mmasters]

Added to my sig.

[pstarr]

I don't understand. I assume you assume post-powerdown we won't have computers or corporations, and so our genetic predilections will somehow save? Or kill us?

[mmasters]

I don't understand. I assume you assume post-powerdown we won't have computers or corporations, and so our genetic predilections will somehow save? Or kill us?

Nope, the powerdown will ultimately force the populace as a whole away from computers and corporations as a way of life and push more people back to the land, to get their hands dirty, use ingenuity. This is more the type of life natural selection chose us all for, not the one of working as a drone in a cube at a terminal. That way of life people aren't designed for generally speaking so when it begins to fail it will be a blessing in disguise.

[MD]

We weren't built to be Borg, in other words.

[wisconsin_cur]

Yet so many people leave the fields and the farms the moment they get the opportunity. Yet I know so many old men who, when they were young men, fled the farm and thank God everyday saying. "the worse day in the office is better than the best day in the field."

I suppose we also did not evolve for birth control so it will be good that it goes away.

Or the internal combustion engine (which I thank God for every time I speed through an oak log in a small fraction of the time that I could with a hand saw.

Of course, we did not evolve with steel either so there goes that hand saw.

I'm all for looking on the bright side and I do think that powerdown can be managed in such a way that we keep some of the good of the power up but I don't think the evolution argument works. I've found that most unhappy people are fundamentally unhappy. some will find themselves in work they see as more meaningful but for many if the office is drudgery the potato patch will be even more so; especially if they are not competent at it.

Power down will, intrinsically, just be a powerdown. Whether it makes your life more or less miserable will depend upon what you do with it, when you start to adapt, your personality and (to a large extent) luck.

[nobodypanic]

romantic nonsense aside, powerdown will likely equal misery for billions.

PS: if there's a bottleneck, you will not survive.

[Cloud9]

Creeping decay will mark power down punctuated with moments of systemic collapse. Should the lights go it will be game over for millions. If the system shuts down, I have a life expectancy of 90 days. That’s when the meds run out.

[mmasters]

romantic nonsense aside, powerdown will likely equal misery for billions.

However they'll be equipped genetically to handle it.

PS: if there's a bottleneck, you will not survive.

I think Nuclear War for the past generation was a much more real threat than any perfect storm of events leading to a significant bottleneck. Of course there will be a bottleneck at some point and we need that to happen to get on track with a plan B like a natural gas based transportation system and digging deeper into alternative technology.

[mmasters]

Creeping decay will mark power down punctuated with moments of systemic collapse. Should the lights go it will be game over for millions. If the system shuts down, I have a life expectancy of 90 days. That’s when the meds run out.

This kind of doom and gloom thinking contributed to the premature death of my mother, it's not wise to do. Things will work out, it may not be pretty but the show will go on for at least a few more generations.

[Cloud9]

This was a pretty good series on post peak world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jericho_(TV_series )