[onlooker]

Well as per the title of this thread, I am interested in everyone's opinion about how do you see things unfolding over the next 10 years or so. I speak in a holistic sense, in every aspect meaning political, social, economic and environmentally. I placed this thread in this forum because of the multi-disciplinarian nature of this question. I am seeing things really beginning to accelerate on the downward spiral trajectory. I expect the whole Middle East to continue to unravel and mass migration to continue. Europe at some point will get very uptight and attempt some sort of fortifications, walls, military use etc. Economically, it seems quite possible now that things will also unravel as oil and it's price really begin to bite the entire world economy. Debt and stock market instabilities should also exacerbate a downward spiral for economies and stock exchanges. I do not see the EU remaining viable as it is. Rather a few of the potent countries will remain allied loosely and the rest will be left stranded. I expect wider and greater mass protests even as governments tighten control and exert their power. Kind of like an immovable object meets an irresistible force. Environmentally, I expect more extreme weather events to manifest themselves and possibly create crippling droughts or floods that will decimate crop lands and serve as catalyst for further migrations and refugees. So all in all we will be lucky to avoid a full force collapse within the next 10 years after that all bets are off and who knows what calamities await then.

[Cog]

I expect you to fund my social security 10 years from now.

[onlooker]

I expect you to fund my social security 10 years from now.

In your dreams haha

[ralfy]

This might also help:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... g-collapse

[onlooker]

This might also help:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... g-collapse

Thanks Ralphy. Yes LTG was certainly utilizing advanced modeling methods and their results are sound and logical. We are in fact nearing what the very limits expressed in this study. It is inevitable as we live on a planet with limited resources and limited ability to handle waste, so eventually we were bound to reach these limits.

[dolanbaker]

The short answer, an economic meltdown is baked in unless there are major changes in how the financial system functions. As it stands, it requires infinite growth to self sustain itself, like a parasite requires a healthy host, the financial sector requires a healthy economy (growing at at least 2% a year).

That isn't happening any more!

Globally, as onlooker has said, those trends of instability will continue to ramp up, unless contained, have a real risk of destabilizing Europe.

With peak oil, improved efficiency & price rationing plus a bit of economic instability will prevent any shortages in the medium term while global slowly production trends downwards.

[Pops]

It's funny, I've always tried to be open minded and fight my knee-jerking toward doom - no use blowing $1000 on nitro wheat berries on some doom fantasy if it's just fantasy. 10 years ago I was fulfilling a lifelong dream of bugging out to the sticks, my situation allowed me to scoff at most doom scenarios; I'd already collapsed so ...

Today I am less exposed to debt than 15 years ago but in most other ways I'm just as exposed to any glitch in the system as anyone else not to mention living the postindustrial life thanks to recombinant DNA technology! Point being, most of us will bend our opinions into pretzels in order to avoid cognitive dissonance and to fit around whatever situation we find ourselves, I'm no different.

Having said all that...

Just as much as I thought 15 years ago that screwy banking was jiggering up the economy*, causing the CA real estate boom to heat up rather than cool down and would eventually overheat, I'm pretty sure now that screwy us.gov and china.com jiggering is causing other, equally warped behavior.

One effect of China Planning was the commodity bubble of the oughts, the over-investment into filling the bubble and the resultant crash in prices. Ditto the deregulation that allowed banks to go nuts and sell any loan to anyone because they were going to pass it along anyway.

Then of course the big bailout to save all the gamblers ...


That's from a gold bug but seems about right...

For a while I didn't think that pulling out a big rescue plan was bad, that is what .gov is for after all. But the now the lifejacket has turned into an island that skyscrapers are built on, LTO oil wells fracked in, stock market wagers made against...

Not sure how to get out from under all that debt - at least as much, if not higher than '29; when we aren't allowing at least some of the bad debt to clear. All I can think is it will all "clear" in a big whoosh...




*(I didn't know the why or how but I knew that RE loan brokers should probably be inquiring whether borrowers actually had jobs and how much they paid)

[Plantagenet]

IMHO, sometime in the next ten years --- perhaps in the next year or two --- we'll have another major global economic downturn. The global economy is tottering and shuddering right now and the global economy is going to go down again. Recessions tend to recur every 5-10 years, and we're about due.

Recovery will likely be more difficult then the post-2009 recovery because central banks have already cut their interest rates to near zero, and QE doesn't pack the same punch it did in 2009.

One thing that might help the economy get going again is the collapse in oil prices. It will be a lot easier to get capitalism going again if oil is $40/bbl then if its $140 bbl.

--------------------------------

The ways things are playing out reminds me of what Dr. Colin Campbell predicted before he retired. Dr. Campbell said "peak oil" would produce high oil prices which would help cause economic slowdowns. The slowdowns would result in lower oil prices, which would let the economy get started again. Campbell predicted several cycles of this kind of thing superimposed on a gradual overall downward trend to the global economy.


Dr. Colin Campbell

[Plantagenet]

Plantagenet, good post. And I apologize for having just penned the following sarcastic dismissive tome (without having read the actual content of your post just above)

Peter --- I'm glad you admitted you didn't read my post before commenting on it.

I'm giving you an A for honesty. Combined with the F you get for zero reading comprehension, that gives you a passing grade of C.

Congrats! Honesty is good!

[Verysmall]

Hi

I believe the perfect storm that is coming is perfect because the following factors are all interrelated and amplifying each other to some sort of 'event' which won't be over quickly (nevertheless I tentatively label it an 'event')

1 - Rate of global population growth combined with consumption rates per capita of natural resources by peoples of the most developed economies.
2 - Fractional reserve banking paradigm and its relationship to the impossibility of perpetual global economic growth.
3 - Oil, gas, coal and other natural finite resources and the 'peak' curves for each
4 - Recording of prostitution as widely acceptable (porno->prostitute..... ography -> to record/publish)
5 - The consequences of these factors on the environment ; clathrate methane, CO2 , etc etc
6 - Our exponential behaviour - Jevans paradox ; that efficiency breeds more consumption rather than the savings it was invented for
7 - Our dependancy on 'objectivity' as an idea that 'gets us out of trouble' and the limits of science - particularly in relation to consciousness
8 - linked to (7) the fact that solutions are often the causes of bigger problems e.g. nuclear energy is a solution to energy needs but necessitated weapons with atom splitting capability.

Number 4 might seem incongruous but the prevalence of Recording of prostitution from Hardcore and illegal through to mainstream depictions of women in popular music videos is (IMHO) indicative of a civilisation which is alienated from its own humanity. It has only been able to get so alienated off the back of the riches of oil and the fractional reserve banking and how both these industries interplay with commerce in the widest sense -being able to buy our way out of the harsher realities of life gives us the time and space to become inhumane. When you're closer to your own life and death, you get on with others and are more humane because survival depends on it.

[davep]

I think prostitution will always be with us, so the question is do we outlaw it and make their lives precarious and dependent on pimps etc, or legalise it and allow those who enter into the profession of their own free will to do so without the risks inherent when it's illegal?

It seems a bit of an odd thing to include, if you ask me.

[Verysmall]

How I see that issue (number 4) interplaying with the others is complex but one example is the fact millions of children have access to the web and therefore easy access to very explicit material. Rates of pornography addiction are skyrocketing compared to the days before the internet was invented. Thus the alienation and social disintegration that comes as a result of children growing up into adults with warped morals and ideas about the opposite sex (and expectations of their own) merely adds to the number of unhelpful variables in the rest of the list(above). In a very simplified sense; millions of people like that will be more volatile emotionally when riots about other macroeconomic consequences happen (or a war) therefore the moral base of society is not in good shape to cope with the perfect storm thats coming. It would be hard enough were there far fewer porn addicts or addicts generally, but that's not the case.

On a related but slightly tangential note; I think the confluence of factors Ive outlined will begin to bite around 2020-2025. Before then , around 2017 the combination of higher interest rates (the Fed and world banks have been itching to raise them for nearly 10 years) coupled with rising oil prices (bouncing back, because of the peak oil 'truth', from the artificially low OPEC price fixing of the present time) will create a big pressure on mortgage repayments and domestic disposable income. The debt issue will resurface.
I hadn't heard of Dr Colin Campbell until I read his quote in the post above (plantaganet's post), but I very much concur with his analysis, though I think there will only be 2 or three dips and troughs before a big event like a war and/or some major rebalancing.One last question that is quite important; If the banks own the government, and the population (via debt,which is not 'real' money) - will we move towards countries governed by corporations overtly ? It's basically that now, but covertly via a facade of 'democracy' - if the choice comes between a board of directors or politicians running countries.....maybe that is the dividing line for civil unrest??

[Daddio7]

While my first wife was unwilling to fulfill my sexual fantasies after she left me for a young stud I realized she just want a better leading man. My second wife is more than willing .

[SeaGypsy]

What porn has to really do with any of the rest of it, I agree with Dave, it's not actually relevant, or prostitution. Porn does not mean prostitution, the Latin is from the word for dirt. Next this guy will be preaching the perfect Word.

[Tanada]

Well as per the title of this thread, I am interested in everyone's opinion about how do you see things unfolding over the next 10 years or so. I speak in a holistic sense, in every aspect meaning political, social, economic and environmentally. I placed this thread in this forum because of the multi-disciplinarian nature of this question. I am seeing things really beginning to accelerate on the downward spiral trajectory. I expect the whole Middle East to continue to unravel and mass migration to continue. Europe at some point will get very uptight and attempt some sort of fortifications, walls, military use etc. Economically, it seems quite possible now that things will also unravel as oil and it's price really begin to bite the entire world economy. Debt and stock market instabilities should also exacerbate a downward spiral for economies and stock exchanges. I do not see the EU remaining viable as it is. Rather a few of the potent countries will remain allied loosely and the rest will be left stranded. I expect wider and greater mass protests even as governments tighten control and exert their power. Kind of like an immovable object meets an irresistible force. Environmentally, I expect more extreme weather events to manifest themselves and possibly create crippling droughts or floods that will decimate crop lands and serve as catalyst for further migrations and refugees. So all in all we will be lucky to avoid a full force collapse within the next 10 years after that all bets are off and who knows what calamities await then.

It is hard to make predictions, especially about the future!

I look back at some of my early posts from 2005 and see that I was wildly wrong about where the world is now ten years away. I think the advice of Robert Heinlein is pretty good, when predicting the future always predict the period after you will have died. If you turn out to be right you might be seen as a prophet, if you are wrong nobody will remember to chastise you about it.

I see strong historical trend line pointing to the decline and fall of the global civilization, followed by a dark age and a Renaissance. When does it start you ask? The decline has been under way since the early 1970's, you just do not notice it unless you look hard the same way you don't notice the air that you breath unless you think about it. When will it end? Well we could bounce back up if we made rational energy choices, but who really expects that any more?

The big fossil fuel extraction industries will use every method at their disposal to stay in business just as long as they possibly can, for that my friends is human nature. Our entire way of life is now dedicated to using fossil fuels in every way we can for every aspect we can figure out. When things go into the inevitable decline that will not be good for our culture, or for world civilization. We could go out with a bunch of World War III bangs, or just whimper into insignificance like Rome in the 400-600 AD period, but either way this civilization will decline and fall.

[Verysmall]

While my first wife was unwilling to fulfill my sexual fantasies after she left me for a young stud I realized she just want a better leading man. My second wife is more than willing .

What porn has to really do with any of the rest of it, I agree with Dave, it's not actually relevant, or prostitution. Porn does not mean prostitution, the Latin is from the word for dirt. Next this guy will be preaching the perfect Word.

Morons still thinking in straight lines, in ‘disciplines’ and paradigms. It’s precisely that blindness, that inability to see the interconnected nature of the variables which the Club of Rome (look it up yourself) described as the ‘predicament of mankind’. You see the ‘P_’ word and fixate about it without realising one inescapable truth; EVERYTHING is connected - ‘butterflies and tornadoes on the other side of the world’.
This thread began as an invitation to offer some interconnected variables and discuss them along with peak oil as contributing factors to the future path of mankind.
Your ignorance about the importance and value of sexuality, emotion and personal well being will make a few therapists and drug companies a dollar or two. Fools like you will never understand, so for your impotent sadness I will grace you with some wisdom; It’s people that got us here….Doh! Fundamentally , essentially , existentially, the root of the issue is in what makes us human ; consciousness, morality etc …..everything begins from there, because humans are the ones that brought about their own extinction ….what…did you think banking just arrived before we came down from the trees? or oil was pulled out of the ground by some fucking ghost?
I don’t know why I am wasting my time trying to point at the moon to people who ask where it is all night long, while refusing to open their eyes.

[Pops]

Let's not get off on the wrong foot, Very, save the ad homs for the anonymous comment boxes OK?

[Cog]

Maybe he is channeling AmericanDream.

[vtsnowedin]

Not being a religious man I am not against prostitution or pornography on moral grounds but there is the vexing problem of STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) of which there are many and the protection of the unknowing spouses that can receive them through their customer spouses.
And then there is the reality that many prostitutes are controlled by men that have addicted them to drugs and are in fact slaves. So to be for prostitution is to be for slavery.
And of course no one except the most perverted thinks it is OK to abuse a child to create child porn.
We had a case here locally last week where an Ivy league college professor who is a "married Gay" was found to have quite a bit of child porn on his computer. How can people that are presumed to be so intelligent actually be so stupid and perverted.
Yup it would be nice to have nice safe sex for a price between a willing seller and a willing buyer but I don't see how that can ever happen.
At any rate I expect the next ten years to be so tumultuous that the source and cost of your nooky will be the least of your worries.