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Outcast, if you can detach yourself a moment from focusing on timelines and failed predictions, can you appreciate the weight of available data and facts that lend creedence to a true disaster unfolding. It is as others have said NOT an event but an unfolding process. Kaiser is right the preliminary stages of Collapse began already. You could say as early as 10K years ago with the advent of agriculture.

The point is that while predictions may be repeatedly wrong, that does not nullify the underlying soundness of the data and extropolations from that data that can be reached

So, we have been collapsing for ten thousand years? Woe is us. That steamroller of doom will be catching us any day now.

The point is that while predictions may be repeatedly wrong, that does not nullify the underlying soundness of the data and extrapolations from that data that can be reached

And a broken watch is correct twice a day, a blind pig sometimes will actually find an acorn. If one waits long enough almost anything and everything will happen. The whole point of predictions is the timeline, if you can't get that right then the entire effort is pretty much worthless IMO.

onlooker wrote:The point is that while predictions may be repeatedly wrong, that does not nullify the underlying soundness of the data and extropolations from that data that can be reached

Nonsense, like most of your other economic opinions. Pretending one can be repeatedly (basically constantly) wrong for years and even decades, but that one's underlying premise is "sound" is pretty much loony bin territory.

I disagree Outcast.

Humans have a terrible time dealing with time. Experts get ahead of themselves when they make firm predictions but it does not mean the underlying premise is wrong.

If someone knew me when I was a senior in high school they might likely, and with good reason, have predicted I would die by 30. I’m 67 and still kicking, but die I will, unfortunately.

It’s like that with CC and the consequences of over population, and our financial system. The fundamentals can be thwarted for some period and folks are silly to make firm predictions. But the water will rise, population will decline, the bubble will bust, and the sun will rise.

Outcast_Searcher wrote:

onlooker wrote:The point is that while predictions may be repeatedly wrong, that does not nullify the underlying soundness of the data and extropolations from that data that can be reached

Nonsense, like most of your other economic opinions. Pretending one can be repeatedly (basically constantly) wrong for years and even decades, but that one's underlying premise is "sound" is pretty much loony bin territory.

How about centuries or millennium. I am thinking of religions. Most humans do choose to believe in bullshit actually.

Ibon wrote:

Outcast_Searcher wrote:

onlooker wrote:The point is that while predictions may be repeatedly wrong, that does not nullify the underlying soundness of the data and extropolations from that data that can be reached

Nonsense, like most of your other economic opinions. Pretending one can be repeatedly (basically constantly) wrong for years and even decades, but that one's underlying premise is "sound" is pretty much loony bin territory.

How about centuries or millennium. I am thinking of religions. Most humans do choose to believe in bullshit actually.

Completely fair point.

I was focusing on the actual Cassandra fast crash doomer short term prediction BS that I have personally witnessed here and in general since 1985ish, when I started paying attention.

Personification of Gaia and worshipping it has no more validity than the various religions that you despise Ibon.

Newfie wrote:I disagree Outcast.

Humans have a terrible time dealing with time. Experts get ahead of themselves when they make firm predictions but it does not mean the underlying premise is wrong.

Humans have a terrible time dealing with almost everything, re the future. And the longer the term, the worse it gets. Example: how terrible people are generally about properly preparing for retirement, even though if people live long enough, it's a certainty they'll need savings to live decently in their old age.

This is why science is so much better to use as a tool than intuition or wishful thinking. I'm not willing to turn back the clock on that just because science has flaws.

Economics, whether the doomers like it or not, is the best science we have on understanding wealth, prosperity, and how behavior influences that.

And, as I've said before, I'm actually a pessimist in the long term. I'm objecting to the constant predictions of near term doom re seemingly every Cassandra story/blog fast crash doomers can find, which are nonsense given the timeframe of the predictions. And then it's just repeat and repeat, no matter how often they're wrong.

That's a MUCH different thing, IMO, than someone (like me) concerned about the long term effects of BAU growth, ignoring AGW, etc. -- but willing to try to look at economics objectively and see the reality that the long term problems don't mean short (or even intermediate) term economic doom is in our face (endlessly).

In that light we are saying much the same thing.

I don’t put much stock in economics, at least not the pap we the people are fed to believe about how well the “system” works.

Newfie wrote:In that light we are saying much the same thing.

I don’t put much stock in economics, at least not the pap we the people are fed to believe about how well the “system” works.

The system is highly chaotic. How could it be otherwise if billions of relatively free (and often irrational) people are allowed to exercise choice?

The "system" overall, re BAU is a total mess and unsustainable.

So you don't believe in, say, GDP figures portraying economic health? Or you think they're relatively myopic because they ignore many of the basic underlying problems?

I suspect that overall, we aren't that far apart even if we differ greatly on some of the details. (It's too bad that so many folks want to go to Def. Con. 1 over various details -- life is too short!)

Jobs report better than expected. I guess that BAU has some more distance to go. LOL.

These are not the salad days for fast crash doomers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/busi ... eport.html


■ 223,000 jobs were added last month. Wall Street economists had expected an increase of about 190,000, according to Bloomberg.

■ The unemployment rate was 3.8 percent, down from 3.9 percent in April and the lowest since early 2000.
■ Average earnings rose by 8 cents an hour and are up 2.7 percent over the past year.
The Takeaway

The American economy roared into overdrive last month, delivering the strongest job gains since February. The report underscored other recent signs of strength, like robust personal income and spending data reported earlier this week. The unemployment rate for May was at lows not seen since the heady days of the dot-com bubble.

Black unemployment is the lowest ever. Not just for this president's term but EVER. But Trump is literally Hitler and wants to put blacks in the gas chamber. Or so I have been told right here on this board.

Has it occurred to anybody else that having a POTUS who has an obvious case of foot-in-mouth disease, and who allows his animal nature to hang out in view of everyone, rather than concealing his faults and thoughts and activities, is not necessarily a bad thing?

It is completely possible that all presidents were just as nauseating as Donald Trump, and that they concealed this from us, and surrounded themselves with people who were also busily concealing their true animal natures. Isn't that even worse?

Oddly enough a former office mate of mine, decided to leave the corporate world, mostly so that work would not interfere with his consumption of alcohol in any amount at any time. His substitute for work was day trading, which he pursued for two online hours a day five days a week. He made trades online after watching his regular couple of programs on a couple of business channels.

His income exceeded mine after a while. Then his liver gave out, and I lost track of him, after advising him to switch to weed and eat it rather than smoke it.