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Re: On the fast track to doom

Unread postby onlooker » Thu 14 Jun 2018, 17:44:44

I thought I would include this as it captures the inner struggle of finding our way in these uncertain times:
"by Phil Rockstroh
·
To paraphrase Rainer Maria Rilke: All human beings have a letter written inside their heart and if you don't live the life your heart yearns to live, you won't be allowed to read this letter before you die ... Thus, one might infer: There exist, across the land, dead-letter offices, vast and cavernous, where our mail awaits, unopened and unread.
Thus one of the prevailing miseries of our era is: The denizens of the late capitalist/consumer paradigm have agendas -- as opposed to lives.
We must begin to grasp the unsettling knowledge that the things we, as a people, inflict upon the world -- we will inflict upon ourselves. It is imperative that we start to ask this question: When so many external and internal forces work to thwart, degrade, and destroy our essential selves -- hence the world -- what agency can help to restore us?
Therefore, I'm calling you out -- the hidden side of our collective character -- right here, right now. Show us who you are: reveal to us your blank face, in all its banal symmetry and finally, and at long last -- give us an accounting of yourself.
I'm not naive. I realize you feel you're under no obligation to do so. You feel no more need to explain your actions than does Death itself.
Although you have many faces, deep down, we know who you are: You're a clean-shaven lobbyist, a sharp-elbow careerist, a public relations expert, a land-decimating real estate developer, a rent-inflating landlord, a cunning advertising executive, a weapons designing technocrat, a pentagon planner -- you're the jerk-rocket driving the SUV who is perpetually tailing my ass in traffic, you're my blank-faced, next-door neighbor, lacquering his hybrid lawn in insoluble pesticides. -- In short, you're all the quotidian and respectable -- therefore -- highly deceptive faces of Death. You are the bland, murder's countenance of empire.
How do I reach you -- by what means can I beseech you to cease the madness?
You name the place where I can confront you: On a thronging sidewalk on Fifth Avenue, during evening rush, as we're brushed and buffeted by the squalid grace of crowds. Perhaps, you might take the barstool next to mine and speak too loudly in my ear, jabbing my chest with your bony index finger to punctuate the pointless palaver of your self-justifying lies. How about: Let's take a cross-country drive, you and I, and see the fever dream of our sick nation unfurl before us through the dusty windshield of a grasshopper green, 1975 AMC Gremlin ... so that we might have time to talk this all through.
Because, I want you to realized this: There are hidden reservoirs of hope within us: reservoirs as boundless as the reach of your ruthlessness. These waters are as deep and potent as you are, at present, shallow and shameless. Yet, they're inaccessible to you -- as long as you insist your drink of choice will continue to be oil and blood, mixed with the runoff of melting Arctic glaciers.
What you do not know is this: From these inner reservoirs emerge rivers of renewal that run between all of those who turn away from the dry, dead landscape of your lies.
Streams of inspiration and renewal silently flow between those who have glimpsed this: That each generation must struggle against the soulless seekers of absolute power, that each era is a wasteland, that every person learns life is unfair, yet the waters of imagination remain -- thus one's tongue need not wither to cynical dust.
Empires rise and fall, but imagination remains, flowing through time and place, bearing all things to the sea and back again, perpetually returning, bringing new life to the dry, dead land, slaking our thirst, cleansing our wounds, delivering to us the strength to make and remake the world anew, and, at day's end, lulling us to restful sleep to the timeless cadences of its ceaseless currents."
"We are mortal beings doomed to die
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Re: On the fast track to doom

Unread postby ralfy » Fri 15 Jun 2018, 01:21:43

I suppose one way of looking at this is that in order for telecomm executives and their families to travel more, then they have to earn more. In order to earn more, they have to manufacture and sell more telecomm equipment and electronic devices. That means more resources will be needed to manufacture more products, and more consumers will have to earn more in order to buy them. Some of those places where more natural resources may be obtained to manufacture more goods to be sold as part of earnings are the same exotic places which may be visited using those earnings. And the effects of pollution caused by the manufacture and use of products ultimately have an effect on the same places.
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Re: On the fast track to doom

Unread postby onlooker » Fri 15 Jun 2018, 01:51:50

Simply put too many people alive and too many people living as hyper consumers/polluters within the modern industrial complex
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Re: On the fast track to doom

Unread postby Newfie » Sat 16 Jun 2018, 18:58:37

A view on China’s increasing naval power and strategy.

http://gcaptain.com/top-us-naval-analys ... ith-china/
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Re: On the fast track to doom

Unread postby onlooker » Mon 23 Jul 2018, 09:16:07

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... are_btn_fb
Earth's resources consumed in ever greater destructive volumes
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Re: On the fast track to doom

Unread postby onlooker » Mon 23 Jul 2018, 09:34:53

https://gritpost.com/humans-extinct-climate-change/
Top Climate Scientist: Humans Will Go Extinct if We Don’t Fix Climate Change by 2023
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Re: On the fast track to doom

Unread postby GHung » Mon 23 Jul 2018, 09:37:25

With leaders like this, we may not have to worry much about ongoing resource depletion.

To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS! Trump tweet, 7-22-18
Blessed are the Meek, for they shall inherit nothing but their Souls. - Anonymous Ghung Person
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Re: On the fast track to doom

Unread postby Cog » Mon 23 Jul 2018, 11:15:00

Almost the exact same phraseology he used on North Korea. We didn't go to war with them either. In fact, there has been no nuclear or long range missile tests from North Korea for eight months.
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Re: On the fast track to doom

Unread postby JuanP » Mon 23 Jul 2018, 11:27:12

Trump is hard to believe. I admit I dislike Hillary even more, but I don't think someone like Trump should be in such a powerful position. His governing by reflexive tweeting is completely infantile. I really like Tulsi Gabbard and I wish she was the US President. It seems every US President is worse than the one before, so I am not optimistic about the next one, but, could we fare any worse? Of course, I am not singling the USA, this deteriorating trend is global and almost universal. I respect Putin and Xi; I think they are good presidents.

I know that many people, particularly in the USA and the West, are very strong believers in Democracy, but I no longer believe in it. How can I believe in a political system that puts people like Reagan, the Bushes, Clinton, Obama, and Trump in the White house? And they are not alone, the world is full of horrible, democratically elected, political leaders. Humanity needs new, better political systems.
Last edited by JuanP on Mon 23 Jul 2018, 11:38:12, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: On the fast track to doom

Unread postby dohboi » Mon 23 Jul 2018, 11:28:41

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ve-volumes

Earth Overshoot Day falls on 1 August this year - marking the point at which consumption exceeds the capacity of nature to regenerate


The day of reckoning is moving nearer, according to Mathis Wackernagel, chief executive and co-founder of Global Footprint Network.

“Our current economies are running a Ponzi scheme with our planet,” he said. “We are borrowing the Earth’s future resources to operate our economies in the present. Like any Ponzi scheme, this works for some time. But as nations, companies, or households dig themselves deeper and deeper into debt, they eventually fall apart.”

....the overall trend is of costs increasingly being paid by planetary support systems.

Separate scientific studies over the past year has revealed a third of land is now acutely degraded, while tropical forests have become a source rather than a sink of carbon. Scientists have also raised the alarm about increasingly erratic weather, particularly in the Arctic, and worrying declines in populations of bees and other insect pollinators, which are essential for crops.



"You can deny environmental calamity – until you check the facts"
George Monbiot
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Re: On the fast track to doom

Unread postby Newfie » Mon 23 Jul 2018, 11:40:25

JuanP wrote:Trump is hard to believe. I admit I dislike Hillary even more, but I don't think someone like Trump should be in such a powerful position. His governing by reflexive tweeting is completely infantile. I really like Tulsi Gabbard and I wish she was the US President. It seems every US President is worse than the one before, so I am not optimistic about the next one, but, could we fare any worse? Of course, I am not singling the USA, this deteriorating trend is global and almost universal. I respect Putin and Xi; I think they are good presidents.

I know that many people, particularly in the USA and the West, are very strong believers in Democracy, but I no longer believe in it. How can I believe in a political system that puts people like Reagan, the Bushes, Clinton, Obama, and Trump in the White house? And they are not alone, the world is full of horrible, democratically elected, political leaders. Humanity needs new, better political systems.


Juan,

I still have hopes he will crash the global economy sending us into a deep worldwide recession, closing factories, reducing emissions, initiating degrowth.

Just my Polyannic hope. :badgrin:
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Re: On the fast track to doom

Unread postby onlooker » Mon 23 Jul 2018, 11:43:45

Paul Ehrlich: 'Collapse of civilisation is a near certainty within decades'

I think he is being cautious with his timeline given his premature alarm over population in the 1960's

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018 ... ul-ehrlich
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Re: On the fast track to doom

Unread postby JuanP » Mon 23 Jul 2018, 11:57:19

Newfie, I think the global economy is overdue for a huge crisis, maybe the worst ever because of all that's been done to game the system since the last one. I often wonder when it will happen. It could happen before the next US presidential elections or later. I think Trump may get reelected if the crisis doesn't hit first, in which case it would most likely happen during his second term. I have to admit that I was completely blindsided by how long this "boom" has lasted, though, so I'm not making any bets.
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Re: On the fast track to doom

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Mon 23 Jul 2018, 12:45:30

pstarr wrote:Not Trump, but peak oil is crashing the global economy. Energy per capita continues to degrade.

Since the global economy has been continuously growing for over 9 years now, pretty tough to claim that it's crashing, much less that oil (which clearly isn't peaking -- at least not yet) is causing it. :roll:

And when stretching to try to find a statistic that makes things look worse (vs, say, that oil production grows meaningfully every year the GDP increases) -- be sure and not mention that the global energy intensity per unit of GDP hasn't been steadily decreasing AND is forecast to continue to steadily decrease in coming decades.

If things were really getting worse re available wealth and energy, then how could so many 3rd world folks be entering the middle class, and how could the economies continue to trend toward growth in the first world economies overall?

Answer: they couldn't, not year after year after year.

Just spouting the same nonsense over and over doesn't make it more true.

....

If that ever changes for more than a few years (i.e. longer than a perfectly normal recessionary cycle), THEN you might actually have something credible to talk about.

But like the ETP theory, it's all false claims.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: On the fast track to doom

Unread postby Newfie » Mon 23 Jul 2018, 15:10:48

JuanP wrote: I have to admit that I was completely blindsided by how long this "boom" has lasted, though, so I'm not making any bets.


You are not the only one.
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Re: On the fast track to doom

Unread postby Ibon » Mon 23 Jul 2018, 18:51:08

JuanP wrote: I think Trump may get reelected if the crisis doesn't hit first, in which case it would most likely happen during his second term.


This would be consistent with his history of bankruptcies.
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Re: On the fast track to doom

Unread postby Cog » Mon 23 Jul 2018, 19:41:42

Trump has personally never went bankrupt. He owns or is partial owner in over 500 businesses. He has filed corporate bankruptcy in only six. Three of which occurred during the Great Recession. Perhaps Ibon would care to share his personal business acumen with the rest of the class.

https://www.thoughtco.com/donald-trump- ... es-4152019

https://www.investopedia.com/updates/do ... companies/
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Re: On the fast track to doom

Unread postby JuanP » Mon 23 Jul 2018, 19:56:09

I just want to clarify that I don't think Trump is responsible for the coming economic crisis. I just think he is most likely going to be the guy sitting in the White House when the SHTF. No person can stop what's coming. And I don't know whether Trump will end up making things worse or better.
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