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Still need proof that society won't handle depletion well?

General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.

Still need proof that society won't handle depletion well?

Unread postby GHung » Sat 23 Apr 2016, 23:25:33

Creatures of habit in an overly-complex society - Hard core change bamboozles middle-class mother....

This is as real as it gets. A friend of our daughter uses her smartphone for therapy and posts to Facebook because her supermarket rearranged the isles. Think folks like this are ready for the real clusterfuck?
(a little comic relief on a slow weekend :-D )

Suburbs, north of Atlanta - consumer hell. Imagine dropping a peak-everything bomb on someone like this:

https://video-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hvide ... e=571C5EDC
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Re: Still need proof that society won't handle depletion wel

Unread postby onlooker » Sun 24 Apr 2016, 03:54:28

I think this topic particularly pertains to the US where we have been so spoiled and with our innate sense of entitlement. But it can be also applicable to all fairly affluent areas around the world, as people live there almost completely reliant on the grid and a dependable energy source.
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Re: Still need proof that society won't handle depletion wel

Unread postby Peak_Yeast » Sun 24 Apr 2016, 04:36:02

Says "URL expired" to me :-(
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Re: Still need proof that society won't handle depletion wel

Unread postby Rod_Cloutier » Sun 24 Apr 2016, 16:59:04

I also couldn't read the link. I was just at the local dollar store today to buy some batteries and a young heavily tattooed couple were discussing in hushed tones about 'How expensive everything was becoming'

Hyperinflation collapse, here it comes
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Re: Still need proof that society won't handle depletion wel

Unread postby GHung » Sun 24 Apr 2016, 17:24:38

The link works fine for me (using Firefox). I think Woe (Whoa?) Susanne is great, but definitely stressed by modern suburban life. My point is that folks like this take for granted, and are fully adapted to, dealing with complexities as they are. If rearranging the grocery store shelf throws her such a curve ball, how will she react when many of those shelves are bare, or her selection is greatly limited? How will a society, used to so many choices, indeed, spoiled by highly functional supply chains, cope when those supply chains break down? How will our rather extreme sense of entitlement clash with contraction?
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Re: Still need proof that society won't handle depletion wel

Unread postby Newfie » Sun 24 Apr 2016, 22:31:13

Some will adapt, many won't. Selection of the fittest.

Can't open your link but we went to a small country restaurant/bait shop this am for the breakfast buffet. A small deal. But some early 40ish guy and his wife come in. He's a very rotund fellow. When we left he was well into his second heaping plate of everything. How is he gonna cope?

Just walk through any urban core Walmart and ask How they gonna cope? Or just stand on a big city corner at 9:00am and look around at all the nice young successful folks in their natty clothes rushing around and ask How th gonna cope?

Hell I have no idea how I'm gonna cope. If it goes down quick it's gonna be ugly and a lot of latent traits will reemerge, nasty latent traits.
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Re: Still need proof that society won't handle depletion wel

Unread postby Newfie » Mon 25 Apr 2016, 07:32:01

That probably describes where we are at about now. I don think it goes very far into the future as we continue down the spiral.

At some point it will be more like Lagos or Bangaladesh.

And the they will be something different than they are today.

And so forth down the spiral as depletion sets in.
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Re: Still need proof that society won't handle depletion wel

Unread postby onlooker » Mon 25 Apr 2016, 07:40:24

True, I am starting to think that depletion combined with climate change effects and other economic factors will make the collapse proceed quite swiftly. We may wake up one day and yes we are suddenly like Bangladesh if not worse.
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Re: Still need proof that society won't handle depletion wel

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Mon 25 Apr 2016, 08:30:36

I wish the conversation would avoid generalizations. "Collapse" means whatever a person thinks it means...which makes it essentially meaningless. The quality of life in the future US will hinge on very few factors. The biggest being unemployment and the income levels of those still employed. And lastly the govt revenue stream which will be needed to deal with those first two factors. IMHO everything else assumes a minor role. Climate change will eventually impact many. But nothing on the order of a new accumulation of another 25 million unemployed or 200+ million earning significantly less then the previous generations. And with that the govt efforts to deal with those problems in the face of lower revenue brought on by those same conditions.
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Re: Still need proof that society won't handle depletion wel

Unread postby GHung » Mon 25 Apr 2016, 08:53:06

Rockman said; "I wish the conversation would avoid generalizations. "Collapse" means whatever a person thinks it means...which makes it essentially meaningless...."

Yeah, Rock, I generally use "contraction", especially when referring to the trend that I expect first-world economies are (or will be) on. I expect a gradual erosion of services, infrastructure, and availability of goods as contraction ensues. Of course, we'll 'rearrange the shelves' to try and maintain an air of abundance and prosperity.
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Re: Still need proof that society won't handle depletion wel

Unread postby Tanada » Mon 25 Apr 2016, 08:56:35

Newfie wrote:Some will adapt, many won't. Selection of the fittest.

Can't open your link but we went to a small country restaurant/bait shop this am for the breakfast buffet. A small deal. But some early 40ish guy and his wife come in. He's a very rotund fellow. When we left he was well into his second heaping plate of everything. How is he gonna cope?

Just walk through any urban core Walmart and ask How they gonna cope? Or just stand on a big city corner at 9:00am and look around at all the nice young successful folks in their natty clothes rushing around and ask How th gonna cope?

Hell I have no idea how I'm gonna cope. If it goes down quick it's gonna be ugly and a lot of latent traits will reemerge, nasty latent traits.


Not to be funny, but if he keeps his head down and doesn't get unlucky he will last a lot longer than the skinny runner types who think they will rule the collapse. A lot of those type A runner skinny bunch are going to anger someone who will in a general chaos scenario take their revenge upon them. The first thing that happens when the social order breaks down and the law enforcement can no longer maintain the peace is the angry folks either individually or in a group enact their own form of justice on those they see as being a problem, or often enough just those who have offended them in some way. Petty bureaucrat wouldn't give you a permit to put solar panels up and now your freezer full of protein is rotting because grid power has failed? The mature way of dealing with it is to throw a block party and make good use of the protein before it goes to waste. The unhinged way to deal with it is to seek out that petty bureaucrat and 'make them pay'.

While it might be stretching things to say the meek shall inherit the Earth, people who are somewhat humble and who work well with others will do a lot better than those who go around making other people angry at them all the time.
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One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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Re: Still need proof that society won't handle depletion wel

Unread postby Newfie » Mon 25 Apr 2016, 09:04:49

Tanda,
No clue what you read in my post for I pretty much agree.


Rocman,
I agree that e definitions as fuzzy at best. That includes not only COLLAPSE but also the TIMELINE and DEPLETION.

I can see someone considering Earths waning ability to sink carbon as a depletion.

That said, over a 200 year time span I think your statements are very optimistic. No clue of your time span.
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Re: Still need proof that society won't handle depletion wel

Unread postby GHung » Mon 25 Apr 2016, 09:27:53

Tanada said; "While it might be stretching things to say the meek shall inherit the Earth, people who are somewhat humble and who work well with others will do a lot better than those who go around making other people angry at them all the time."

For years, Greer has used the example of Medieval Monks. They lived humble lifestyles, produced most of what they needed, didn't piss people off, made good beer, and didn't have much else anybody wanted..
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Re: Still need proof that society won't handle depletion wel

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Mon 25 Apr 2016, 10:06:14

Ghung - "...and didn't have much else anybody wanted." And therein exists the problem, eh? Despite the right wing dribble the victims of most thefts are not the wealthy but the relatively poor. So even if one has very little (even less than the “next guy”) it doesn’t mean they won’t have something taken by that next guy. Even in the last few hundred years we have countless examples of the strong (or at least stronger) taking from the weaker. Big examples: slavery and Native American people. But lots of smaller examples including many that are “legal”: eminent domain, foreclosures, social security, etc. Easy to support some of those efforts…if you’re on the receiving end.

As far as the police/govt protecting individuals in a future “contracted” economy how could one expect that to happen if it isn’t happening today? The honest police will clearly point out their primary duty is to solve crimes after they are committed…not stop them. Fear of punishment appears to have no positive effect on crime today as witnessed by our huge prison population.

One can cloak the reality in softer phrases such as “competition dynamics”, “income redistribution”, etc. But in the end it all means the same: those with the ability (legal or otherwise) will claim resources as they become less available to the masses. Which, when you look back over history, really isn’t a new dynamic but just a continuation of how mankind has dealt with most of it resource problems in the past.
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Re: Still need proof that society won't handle depletion wel

Unread postby onlooker » Mon 25 Apr 2016, 10:20:32

But in the end it all means the same: those with the ability (legal or otherwise) will claim resources as they become less available to the masses. Which, when you look back over history, really isn’t a new dynamic but just a continuation of how mankind has dealt with most of it resource problems in the past.

Yes, that has been the case far too often in our history. :(
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Re: Still need proof that society won't handle depletion wel

Unread postby GHung » Mon 25 Apr 2016, 10:24:44

Good points, Rock. Maybe we should send it to Greer. Good thing guns are relatively cheap these days. I know fairly poor folks who, in my area, usually have guns. At that point it becomes a risk vs benefits equation, eh? I expect it'll be the folks living on the golf course up the road that'll have to worry more than the poor farmer over the ridge, initially at least. They'll already be suffering terribly because their favorite brand of tea is no longer on the store shelves 8O
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Re: Still need proof that society won't handle depletion wel

Unread postby Timo » Mon 25 Apr 2016, 10:25:51

Newfie wrote:Some will adapt, many won't. Selection of the fittest.

Can't open your link but we went to a small country restaurant/bait shop this am for the breakfast buffet. A small deal. But some early 40ish guy and his wife come in. He's a very rotund fellow. When we left he was well into his second heaping plate of everything. How is he gonna cope?

Just walk through any urban core Walmart and ask How they gonna cope? Or just stand on a big city corner at 9:00am and look around at all the nice young successful folks in their natty clothes rushing around and ask How th gonna cope?

Hell I have no idea how I'm gonna cope. If it goes down quick it's gonna be ugly and a lot of latent traits will reemerge, nasty latent traits.

Newfie, you left out a critical element of this story. Combining the references to a small country restaurant and a bait shop with a breakfast buffet leaves WAY too much to the imagination. Please tell me you went there for a normal HUMAN FOOD breakfast buffet, and not the buffet that the fishies would enjoy.

Or, that you went there for bait, and not for breakfast. Just thinking about the mere possibility that you ate bait for breakfast vastly changes my perception of the kind of person you actually are. Bait for breakfast? Well, i suppose.

If you have gills.

What did the very rotund fellow eat?
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Re: Still need proof that society won't handle depletion wel

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Mon 25 Apr 2016, 10:42:19

Ghung - Just some simple facts: the vast majority of folks being killed are civilians killing civilians. We don't need to be judgmental and try to break it down by crook or victim. Last might a 16 yo girl in Houston stabbed her brother to death supposedly defending her mother from him. Again let's not worry about the details of what is or isn't justified: doesn't change the body count. And as bad as the stats might seem most folks are still going to die of "natural causes". But that’s today…we have a long way to go before such violence becomes the norm. But clearly the potential is there…just need enough “contraction” for the new norm to develop. LOL.
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