[ennui2]

Greer still advertises his Long Descent book. If he now thinks the timeline is off, he should somehow fess up to it. Again, if someone can cite him where he specifically addresses his conscious shift from a long-descent narrative of centuries to more of a medium-descent of decades, I'd like to see it. He writes so voluminously that for all I know, it's buried in there.

He's also apt to split hairs in order to avoid admitting he's wrong, so in this case, I'm sure he'd say that he still believes in a long descent but people will be living at an almost steady-state 3rd world lifestyle at mid-century out 200-300 years hence. You can play rhetorical games like that all you want but it doesn't wash with me. If we're down to 3rd world conditions in the us by mid century then people will surely all be dead where it's currently like that now. And long-descent shouldn't involve massive 3rd world die-off by mid-century.

I think part of the reason for the switch isn't his concern about AGW, but his increasingly Orlov-like "end of US hegemony" talking points. In other words, it's more of a mega-financial-bubble bursting than an ecological or energy shortage issue. This allows him to whip up his fans with plenty of anti-establishment rhetoric at a time when oil is still pretty cheap. If you give people a group they can point their fingers at and be angry about, you're guaranteed an audience, and even though he makes few public appearances, he does seem to like surrounding himself with online fans.

[onlooker]

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-04-30/the-death-of-the-internet-a-pre-mortem

"If you’re like most Americans in 2065, you live in Third World conditions without regular access to electricity or running water,"

In Greer's the Long Descent, he envisioned a multi-century play-out of limits to growth that roughly paralleled the fall of the Roman Empire. In his blog he tended to downplay the impact of AGW. Now he is envisioning 3rd world conditions will settle into the US is only 50 years.

I used to think he was one of the most measured thinkers on the subject but I think he just blew his credibility out of the water by shifting the goalposts like this. His whole schtick is that he writes reams and reams of paragraphs to defend his positions, but then to shift them on a dime like this proves that all his talking points are really just intellectual filler and he's just making a wild guess like everyone else.

I do not think that being wrong in terms of time frame discredits someone conversely admitting mistake (s) is a sign of mental integrity. I have read some of his posts and he seems quite clear and cogent in his arguments of the flaws and doomerish aspects of our civilization. I think he may be guilty of what many are of and that is underestimating the severity and speed of the ecological crisis now upon and approaching us. It is a subject that requires some expertise to fully comprehend. What is more all the conventional pundits and media sources have consistently downplayed and under-reported this fore-mentioned crisis. Well now it is the 800 pound Gorilla standing beside us. So we all are now noticing it including Greer.

[ralfy]

About the timeline, the comparison between forecasts from the past and historical data made in a study reported here might be considered:

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

[Pops]

There are only a limited number of the direction prognostications can go aren't there?

Either forecasts become ever more dire to continue eliciting the same amount of attention (Simmons, Rupert, probably Greer)

Or the forecasters simply disappear as previous forecast fail to materialize (Lots and Lots of early BBS "Doomers", Y2k'ers, militia-survivalist types)

Or they just keep making the same prediction and moving the due date or criteria (GoldBugs, Wing-Nut-Reactionaries, Civil Libertarians, Luddites, Eco-Warriors, Peakers, Doom-Of-The-Month Clubers)

[onlooker]

Yes, some like Ruppert was way out there. His demise supposedly at his own hands kind of validates that. Y2K was overstated. So yes much of forecasting doom you can take with a grain of salt. Especially economic demise has been way off. In particular of the US. One guy stood out Larouche. I think he even ran for president. So timelines I do not put much stock in. However, the general undercurrent of doom does not seem misplaced. the trends all lead down the road of doom.

[Ibon]

Correcting imbalances is a nice neutral way to view the consequences coming up. What spells doom for some may be opportunity for others, particularly if you are member of an oppressed species.

The term doom is far too human centric.

[jesus_of_suburbia]

Correcting imbalances is a nice neutral way to view the consequences coming up. What spells doom for some may be opportunity for others, particularly if you are member of an oppressed species.

The term doom is far too human centric.

People that say things like this never seem too eager to volunteer themselves or their loved ones.

[onlooker]

In defense of Ibon he simply wants to clarify whose doom are we talking about.

[jesus_of_suburbia]

I understand that, however, trying to repackage it in that matter is just kind of silly. It's irritating to hear someone try to put a positive spin on it. I personally don't care if it's a boon to other species, nor do I think the people who may suffer as a result of it in the future.

[ralfy]

There are only a limited number of the direction prognostications can go aren't there?

Either forecasts become ever more dire to continue eliciting the same amount of attention (Simmons, Rupert, probably Greer)

Or the forecasters simply disappear as previous forecast fail to materialize (Lots and Lots of early BBS "Doomers", Y2k'ers, militia-survivalist types)

Or they just keep making the same prediction and moving the due date or criteria (GoldBugs, Wing-Nut-Reactionaries, Civil Libertarians, Luddites, Eco-Warriors, Peakers, Doom-Of-The-Month Clubers)

Another way is to consider multiple predicaments (peak oil, environmental damage and global warming, and financial crises), as seen in the article shared in my earlier post.

[Loki]

Greer still advertises his Long Descent book. If he now thinks the timeline is off, he should somehow fess up to it. Again, if someone can cite him where he specifically addresses his conscious shift from a long-descent narrative of centuries to more of a medium-descent of decades, I'd like to see it. He writes so voluminously that for all I know, it's buried in there.

I've listened to a lot of interviews with the guy, but I haven't read any of his books, and only read maybe a third of his blog posts, but even so I've long been under the impression that he doesn't wholly subscribe to his own "long descent" thesis.

To take but one example, back when Ebola was still in the news he was entertaining scenarios where it wiped out a substantial portion of the human population and collapsed the global economy. Something so hyperbolic and exceptionally improbable would not be put forth by a "moderate doomer," to coin a rather odd, self-contradictory term.

His whole schtick is contrarianism, he takes a stance contrary to both doomers and cornucopians to come off as a reasonable moderate, but when you actually read what he says about the near term future, he's a fast collapse doomer down to his bones. He will protest this, of course, but that's just more contrarianism. By fast crash I don't mean next month or next year, but in the next decade or three.

Like most doomers, they think that the bottleneck will happen in their lifetime (Wikipedia says Greer was born in 1962). Not likely, unless you live in an already teetering basket case (parts of sub-Saharan Africa, etc.). Even the author of the "long descent" thesis falls into this trap.

I used to think this myself, but for us first worlders, a slow economic grind down is far more likely. If the US experiencing Romanian living standards by mid century constitutes "doom," call me a doomer LOL

Greer is probably right that in, say 200-300 years, the Star Trek techno-utopian fantasies will be proven wrong once and for all, and what remains of H. sapiens will be scratching a living together at a vastly lower material living standard on a FUBAR'd planet. But none of us writing bullshit on the internet in 2015 will be around to see it.

[dashster]

My problem in this thread is with JMG. He delivered his "long descent" narrative with a sense of absolute certainty that he was correct, and he would bitch-slap dissenters in the blog comments to the point of censorship if they tried to explain how maybe it won't turn out that way.

I agree, he does speak with cock-surety and scoffs at or talks down to any different opinions.

[Ibon]

I understand that, however, trying to repackage it in that matter is just kind of silly. It's irritating to hear someone try to put a positive spin on it. I personally don't care if it's a boon to other species, nor do I think the people who may suffer as a result of it in the future.

It's not silly nor is it putting a positive spin on it if you are a non human species about to recolonize former human landscapes once the foot print of humans on the planet starts to recede. This will be a great opportunity for many species.

[ennui2]

Two points here.

Ibon is not nearly as brazen as Montequest was. While I kind of take issue with him coining a term "kudzu ape" I have no doubt that Ibon is a human being and has feelings (like when he posted a personal photo of himself recently next to his pickup truck).

Montequest, on the other hand, was kind of emotionally repressed. He found it almost impossible to express himself in the first person. He hid behind boilerplate quotes from Catton and Bartlett. So he just seemed more like a bot than a real person. He would reveal what he did for a living or some of his pet projects like making raised beds, but he NEVER admitted to any emotional anguish over doom. Only when he was boxed into a corner and had to cop to some situation with his ailing mom, and then he disappeared for like a year because it got too personal.

I don't necessarily expect this site to be a support network, and at times it actually has served the opposite purpose, brushing up with people who were keyed into doom but seemingly wired the totally opposite way that I am, but I just want to know they're human.

So I know Ibon is human even though sometimes his writing style does get a little biblical and 3rd person.

Second thing is about timeline...

I believe in a decade-long playout because of the limits-to-growth population and death-rate charts. These show the death-rate bottoming out and then sweeping upward within decades. The cause of that death-rate should be what's most important. Death rates don't just skyrocket like that and the population doesn't curve down into a negative if people are still rutting like rabbits unless something really 4-horseman is going on.

So that's where I parted company with his whole end-of-rome slow-crash hypothesis. The LTG chart may not look at first glance like a massive malthusian die-off, but for anyone who lives through it, that's what it's going to feel like is going on.

I've been accused by pstarr as being a technophile. Well, that means I also buy into the LTG algorithm, which over the course of 40 years has proven to be accurate. I have not actually deconstructed the algorithm, but it's a pretty awesome feat, let me tell you. It's true that Hubbert had a curve too, so it's always possible at some point something unpredictable will cause things to chart differently, but for now I think odds are good that we'll keep following the LTG chart.



You can see here that we're entering into a roughly 20 year period where population growth crests and then begins to fall. Within only 5 years the death rate will reverse itself. Instead of going down, it will go up. Why? Who knows. Could it be peak oil all by itself? Sure. Massive crop-failures? I don't know. Probably some combination of factors. I won't even say for certainty that the chart will keep tracking this way, but I'm expecting it to. And it's close enough now that we'll be able to validate the chart pretty well.

So we're talking about going from, I dunno, 8 billion down to the population at 1980 of 4.4 billion. That's almost a 50% die-off in less than a century. That's no Long Descent (TM).

You'll also see the birth rate start going up again even as the die off is accelerating. This is counter-intuitive. It's like our response to dying off is to just breed even MORE and thus cause more apocalyptic vying for resources. We'll just throw fuel to the fire.

[jesus_of_suburbia]

Montequest, on the other hand, was kind of emotionally repressed. He found it almost impossible to express himself in the first person. He hid behind boilerplate quotes from Catton and Bartlett. So he just seemed more like a bot than a real person. He would reveal what he did for a living or some of his pet projects like making raised beds, but he NEVER admitted to any emotional anguish over doom. Only when he was boxed into a corner and had to cop to some situation with his ailing mom, and then he disappeared for like a year because it got too personal.

I don't necessarily expect this site to be a support network, and at times it actually has served the opposite purpose, brushing up with people who were keyed into doom but seemingly wired the totally opposite way that I am, but I just want to know they're human.

What I will never understand are the people on this site who believe the future is more or less set in stone, yet spend so much effort and time trying to win an argument with people who don't. That's kind of how I viewed Monte, as someone who was way too committed to proving his internet opponents wrong. He's obviously very knowledgeable and probably a nice guy in the real world, but I really just never understood his or similar posters' motivations.

[ennui2]

In the grand scheme of things I think Planty's mission to make people hate Obama is more pathological than Monte's. At least Monte was trying to insert the overshoot meme into the world, which is useful. Causing people to hate someone who was elected president twice, won a Nobel, and will be out in favor of someone new is ultimately a wasteful distraction. When someone needs a whipping-boy like that it usually means there's some other psycholgical issue driving the vendetta. I think it all revolves around the Rev. Wright scandal, but Planty isn't in touch with himself enough to know why it is he has wasted thousands of man-hours on bashing Obama. You could probably power his own Alaskan town on the BTUs he's wasted on such a futile effort.

[ennui2]

You might also consider the folly of saying you're putting me on ignore and then proceeding to read through them all and continue responding. (usually with an ad hom and not a real rebuttal).

It reminds me of the quote from Howard Stern's Private Parts:

Researcher: 'The average radio listener listens for eighteen minutes. The average Howard Stern fan listens for - are you ready for this? - an hour and twenty minutes.'
Pig Vomit: 'How can that be?'
Researcher: 'Answer most commonly given? "I want to see what he'll say next."'
Pig Vomit: 'Okay, fine. But what about the people who hate Stern?'
Researcher: 'Good point. The average Stern hater listens for two and a half hours a day.'
Pig Vomit: 'But if they hate him, why do they listen?'
Researcher: 'Most common answer? "I want to see what he'll say next."'

At least I try to make a cogent argument. Planty is just trying to exercise his pathological vendetta to the point where DHS should probably have him on one of its watch-lists.

[Plantagenet]

... make people hate Obama ....

Hopefully you're not so stupid as to start hating Obama just because he gets criticized occasionally.

Relax ennui2y----no president is perfect and every president sometimes gets criticized.....it comes with the job.

Cheers!