[WildRose]

"A lot of younger people are renting homes together to cut costs, or two young families could buy a house together. "

This is actually illegal in my city. We're working to change that.

Hi dohboi. In your city, can two siblings buy a house together? Or is it illegal if those siblings have spouses and/or children? Regarding renting, four unrelated adults, for example, can't rent a home together?

[onlooker]

I know where I come from NY city, all types of exotic living arrangements are prevalent. Mostly, they involve stuffing as many people as possible into small quarters. Obviously, illegal but nevertheless very prevalent. Basically about supply/demand and the profit motive

[Newfie]

Interesting thread.

I doubt that the system is in any danger of it being collapsed by any number of us. Even if this movement were very successful there are billions of folks in other countries just waiting to fill our consumer shoes.

That said..... I wholly endorse the idea of simple living for ones personal health and happiness. I think Carinke's items listed above are as good a start as any.

But you have to realize just how rigged the system is to keep us in. 401k, Social Security, Medicare, health insurance attached to employment. In the USA achieving freedom means foregoing security. Not arguing against it, just trying to lay out the barriers. Sure some do it, but they have a certain personal tolerance for risk beyond what most of us can stomach.

Yet there are ways to do it by steps, achieving a little here and there so that we are individually more resilient, flexible, and free.

[Newfie]

Onlooker,
Just being crammed into a small space in itself is nothing unless you gain something from it. Are they saving money? Does it allow them to escape wage slavery? Are they prepared to live like that at 65?

Nothing wrong with it, but it needs to fit into a larger plan or its just making yourself a chicken in a coop.

[dohboi]

WR, I don't remember all the exact details, but there are severe limits on how many unrelated people can live in the same domicile. Probably if all the people are related, even through marriage, it would be alright, but I haven't looked at all the small print, recently.

My city is Minneapolis, MN, by the way. I'm sure anyone who want to can dig around and find this ordinance on the city's website, if they want to.

[onlooker]

Onlooker,
Just being crammed into a small space in itself is nothing unless you gain something from it. Are they saving money? Does it allow them to escape wage slavery? Are they prepared to live like that at 65?

Nothing wrong with it, but it needs to fit into a larger plan or its just making yourself a chicken in a coop.

Actually, Newf those people are just trying to survive in the here and now probably not thinking too much of the future

[Cog]

Doomers=Death cult. Lets crash the global economy and kill billions but lets not say that directly. You want to help out on over-population and a negative impact on the environment, stop eating.

[dohboi]

Ah, what a breath of fresh air!! Cog is back, and one of the first things he does is violate the Code of Conduct. What a joy!

the-peakoil-com-code-of-conduct-t40311.html

3.1.9

[GHung]

Doomers=Death cult. Lets crash the global economy and kill billions but lets not say that directly. You want to help out on over-population and a negative impact on the environment, stop eating.

Cornucopian Consumers = Extinction Cult. You want to make sure our grandkids have any chance of a life worth living, reduce your own impacts and don't support the mass-extinction culture.

[onlooker]

Doomers=Death cult. Lets crash the global economy and kill billions but lets not say that directly. You want to help out on over-population and a negative impact on the environment, stop eating.

I think you have us confused with some other people. We are trying to avert the premature death of billions.
Cheers

[Outcast_Searcher]

O_S said;

"I respectfully don't think this kind of behavior will realistically crash the system, though. I think the system is far more flexible and durable and adaptable than the "fast crash" crowd gives it credit for. I also don't think a 5% downturn would do it, and if you got 10% of folks to cooperate and lower consumption/spending by half over time, that's what you'd get -- IF you could stop the global population from growing (and good luck with that)."

The combination of contraction-promoting proceses will have knock-on effects. As few as 5% 'pre-collapsniks', people like us that have had it with BAU, along with a growing number of involuntary recruits will send the overall industrial project into a death spiral.

So I think where we disagree is magnitude. Where do you come up with 5% reduction in economic activity over time (everyone won't do this at once clearly) will crash the entire system?

Why couldn't it be 20%? Or even 40% if it's somewhat gradual? People doing this will clearly be reducing their debt, BTW.

I think we can put some parameters on this. Clearly 100% will do it, by definition. 2% wont. (We had about a 2% global reduction in the 2008-9 crash, rapidly and involuntarily. It was scary and crashed the stock markets about 40%. People were worried about a possible depression. But all it caused was a deep recession, and some scaling back.) And for most people, more than perhaps 30%, or 50% at most would induce real hardship (hunger, lack of heat/cooling, transport, medical care, etc.) And people aren't going to do THAT en masse, unless they have no choice.

Do you have anything more than a gut feel that 5% would do it? (And complaining about things like "all the debt" doesn't come close to justifying 5%, without real specifics as to how/why the dominos would fall).

[Cog]

Doomers=Death cult. Lets crash the global economy and kill billions but lets not say that directly. You want to help out on over-population and a negative impact on the environment, stop eating.

I think you have us confused with some other people. We are trying to avert the premature death of billions.
Cheers

The title of the thread is Lets Crash the Global Economic System. What exactly do you think that would result in?

[GHung]

O_S said;

"I respectfully don't think this kind of behavior will realistically crash the system, though. I think the system is far more flexible and durable and adaptable than the "fast crash" crowd gives it credit for. I also don't think a 5% downturn would do it, and if you got 10% of folks to cooperate and lower consumption/spending by half over time, that's what you'd get -- IF you could stop the global population from growing (and good luck with that)."

The combination of contraction-promoting proceses will have knock-on effects. As few as 5% 'pre-collapsniks', people like us that have had it with BAU, along with a growing number of involuntary recruits will send the overall industrial project into a death spiral.

So I think where we disagree is magnitude. Where do you come up with 5% reduction in economic activity over time (everyone won't do this at once clearly) will crash the entire system?

Why couldn't it be 20%? Or even 40% if it's somewhat gradual? People doing this will clearly be reducing their debt, BTW.

I think we can put some parameters on this. Clearly 100% will do it, by definition. 2% wont. (We had about a 2% global reduction in the 2008-9 crash, rapidly and involuntarily. It was scary and crashed the stock markets about 40%. People were worried about a possible depression. But all it caused was a deep recession, and some scaling back.) And for most people, more than perhaps 30%, or 50% at most would induce real hardship (hunger, lack of heat/cooling, transport, medical care, etc.) And people aren't going to do THAT en masse, unless they have no choice.

Do you have anything more than a gut feel that 5% would do it? (And complaining about things like "all the debt" doesn't come close to justifying 5%, without real specifics as to how/why the dominos would fall).

I said that " The combination of contraction-promoting proceses will have knock-on effects." Maybe you missed that. I grabbed onto 5% because it was mentioned upthread. I don't know what percentage of people dropping out of the all-in consumer culture will be affective at causing terminal decline, or what that decline curve will be. I do know a number of people who have grown tired of BAU and are moving on to something different and less supportive of growth. It's clear that the few percent drop in consumption during the recession had a larger effect than many expected, and it has taken huge injections of capital to achieve a very modest return to growth. Many of those bills remain on the books. These things lead me to believe that our systems aren't as resilient as some hope. Our financial systems are highly leveraged, one way or another, even as our input/output systems become more stressed.

There are also undeniable signs of stress among consumers, especially in the US (witness this election) and I think more folks are discovering that consumerism is hard work, and the rewards just aren't worth it, despite what they're told on TV. To that point, many folks are finding it convenient to skip the commercials; rejecting their consumer programming. What effect could that have over time? Many are also shopping online rather than browsing the stores with all of their enticements. To what effect?

Predicting the behavior of hyper-complex systems is nearly impossible. Predicting trends, not so much. Ultimately, anti-growth factors, whether cultural or forced, will be hard to ignore by an economy that has had little success in bringing back growth levels of the past. A small percent of the population rejecting consumerism and unnecessary consumption is just another straw on that camels back.

[GHung]

Cog said; "The title of the thread is Lets Crash the Global Economic System. What exactly do you think that would result in?"

Pretty much the same things. At least those who decide to reduce their support of consumerism will be ahead of this unavoidable transition. "Collapse now and avoid the rush", and all that.

Think of it like lancing a boil before it erupts into an incurable infection.

[Cog]

You think you will survive a crash of the global economic system because you are a prepper? LOL that is the funniest thing I've read on this board for eons.

I'm not dismissing prepping. I am one myself. But I don't fool myself into believing I'm going to survive a global crash.

[GHung]

You think you will survive a crash of the global economic system because you are a prepper? LOL that is the funniest thing I've read on this board for eons.

I'm not dismissing prepping. I am one myself. But I don't fool myself into believing I'm going to survive a global crash.

I think I'll have a better chance, but that's not the point. It's about not being complicit. It's about acceptance and the peace it brings; something that seems foreign to you. Funny you think that's funny. Anyway, I have grandkids and I don't want them to grow up to be sociopaths, or to think that they have the right to consume things at an unprecedented rate; things their grandkids will need just to survive.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Predicting the behavior of hyper-complex systems is nearly impossible. Predicting trends, not so much.

This is pretty amusing, coming from the fast crash doomer crowd. The cornies and the moderates have been saying all along, that the trend toward slow growth favored by the system is likely to continue for a long time.

And month after month, year after year, the constant alarmist cries for short term crashes of the system have been proven wrong, again and again.

So why are your intuitions about feedbacks, small percentages being enough, etc. to crash the whole system to be believed any more than all the other assertions over the history of short-term-crashism (for want of a better name)?

[onlooker]

Doomers=Death cult. Lets crash the global economy and kill billions but lets not say that directly. You want to help out on over-population and a negative impact on the environment, stop eating.

I think you have us confused with some other people. We are trying to avert the premature death of billions.
Cheers

The title of the thread is Lets Crash the Global Economic System. What exactly do you think that would result in?

At least some of us would have a fighting chance. Not so with a dead Earth

[Newfie]

Cog,
Your assessment is correct, crashing the system will kill billions of folks. NOT crashing the system will also kill billions, and I can't see any scenario where not crashing the system kills fewer.

Kinda like this election, two horrid choices.

That's why my post above is more about personal freedom and happiness in the here and now. If that leads to crashing the system, so be it. I do think it somewhat improves my chances for survival and perhaps my kids, if I can ever get them to listen.

[Hawkcreek]

You think you will survive a crash of the global economic system because you are a prepper? LOL that is the funniest thing I've read on this board for eons.

I'm not dismissing prepping. I am one myself. But I don't fool myself into believing I'm going to survive a global crash.

You must think that prepping improves your chances of surviving a crash, or why do it? I would be willing to bet a million dollars that none of us on this forum lives forever, but like Ghung says - why not try to leave a better world for our grandkids?
That probably means a fast crash is better than a slow crash, if you look at it in the view of how much damage we will do, and how many resources we will sacrifice to the gods of corporate culture, if left to BAU.