Although your scenario has people living as "paupers", I really only think a slight attitude adjustment is necessary for all Americans to continue living perfectly happy, fulfilling lives without all the bells and whistles that the industrialized consumer economy has to offer.
Though I firmly believe life expectancy has increased soley due to advancements in the medical field. Better sanitation, antibiotics, and technology like MRI's and CAT scans to detect illness in the early stages are the bigest reasons why we live longer now.
In the less mobile future I can see those thousands of towns no more than two days wagon (or electric car) ride apart once again become populated and the little cobbler shops returning right along with Charley’s Hardware.
We will need to downscale everything, especially agriculture. It will be one of the first systems to fall apart in a world of higher-priced and less reliably available energy, and when it goes down people are really going to suffer.
MonteQuest wrote:Expect large-scale unemployment and a drastic drop in wages. In China today, $5/hr in a factory is about average. Get used to the idea.
Grond wrote:What I see happening now is 1% of the population controlling 99% of the wealth, and therefore resources. Overcoming that hurdle will be the hardest part. As cheap oil become extremely expensive oil, I believe we will see a world where 1% of the population still live morbidly "obese" lives while 99% of the population starves to death, or the equivilant. or more to the point, I see 1% of the population directing 99% of the population into Total War while they sit in their ivory towers
fred2 wrote:
I would think it the other way round. Increased food production, locally, will become very important. Expect government to have increased control of oil, artificially adjusting prices so that agriculture is both (a) subsidised, and (b) gets enough of the stuff.
MonteQuest wrote:fred2 wrote:
I would think it the other way round. Increased food production, locally, will become very important. Expect government to have increased control of oil, artificially adjusting prices so that agriculture is both (a) subsidised, and (b) gets enough of the stuff.
You are going to have to change your mindset. Words like increase, growth, expand, subsidies, artifical, golbal, big, are going to have to be replaced with decrease, stable, contract, renewable, true cost, balanced, small, local and sustainable. This isn't about using technology to "fix". The trends of technology are what has gotten us to where we are..in a hell-of-a-fix.
fred2 wrote:In the initial stages we can expect governments to try to implement reductions in oil consumption through taxation; taxing motor fuel much more harshly will push people to truly focus on increasing MPG. And if that doesnt work, yes, rationing. Expect large taxes on civil aviation fuel. A lot of aviation is pure leisure and could easily be dumped...
MonteQuest wrote:In the less mobile future I can see those thousands of towns no more than two days wagon (or electric car) ride apart once again become populated and the little cobbler shops returning right along with Charley’s Hardware.
Yes! I have 212 acres in NW Missouri. When I was a child there were several surrounding little towns with Charley's Hardware, Joe's Grocery, and Bart's Tavern. Now, about the only thing remaining is the truck scales and the elevator. Many of the old brick buildings still stand on the abandoned main streets; the elaborate hand-painted glass windows covered in dust from ages gone by. In some places, you can buy almost the whole town just for the back taxes!
Hawkcreek wrote:Don't know how I missed this thread till now. It is a good one.
I just wanted to add that I think in a lot of cases, having more "stuff", is just a filler for not having enough "connections". Most of us used to have connections to that "little man" Alan is talking about. We saw him every day, and in a lot of cases, he was us (probably not proper grammar). I can remember pumping gas and washing windshields for the same old folks at the gas station in my old home town. They knew my name, said good morning, and smiled. When they didn't smile, I wondered what was wrong. When I graduated from high school, some of them were smiling at me when I walked past with my diploma (probably amazed that I made it).
Our lifestyle has taken most of these connnections from us. Even worse, our strongest connections - to our own families - have been weakened to the breaking point ---- past the breaking point in many cases. We don't have time any more. That is the most valuable thing that the politicians, corporations, and constant advertisement propaganda have stolen from us. In the pursuit of low quality toys, we have enslaved ourselves.
It may take a total breakdown in society just so we can have enough time to smile at one another again.
Beyond those exchanges, if someone had a bad year with drought or lost his cattle to bandits, it was a matter of honour that everyone well off would chip in to get him back on his feet, with no question of recompense later. . . An axiom of the tribe was,
"The poor man shames us all."
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