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What if all the forces that we see converging do not succeed in upsetting the apple cart? And we see only a slow attrition in reference to the environment or our standard of living.

I bring this up because most of us are carrying around with us personal narratives, regardless of where we fall on the political spectrum, that something has got to give and we orbit around this thought as it dominates our world view.

And just what if it doesn't happen? Take a moment and reach into the future and see yourself as an old man or woman looking back on your life and seeing the arch of history quite shallow and uneventful. With no real resolution to the issues we discuss here.

Sit for a moment in that space as an elder looking back. Look at the balance between the moments you lived fully and the moments you fretted over all the threats.

Was it worth it?

It's hard to tell when you're still feeling the consequences of both externalities and personal choices linked to subjective ideas of mitigation. IMO fretting can only go on for so long before you decide on some plan of action or to ignore the source of your anxiety. You'll just drive yourself crazy otherwise.

So, I guess I'll say it was worth it on one level because I actually decided to act on a plan of action. Whether it's fruitful or not isn't necessarily the point.

We are in the middle of an unprecedented heatwave here in Central Europe, probably the highest sustained temperatures in at least a few hundred years. I'm definitely not worried about a slow attrition... together with a full-blown civil war in a neighbouring country (Ukraine) and crowds of climate refugees piling up in another one (Hungary), it feels more like being at the tipping point of a rollercoaster ride.

I think it is pretty natural for each generation, each person, to think we are the apex. We each are the center of our own conscious universe after all. No real surprise we would expect the climax to occur during our lifetime. In that sense I'm pretty sure most folks look back and are surprised that things didn't change all that much or in the direction they had hoped or feared.


The more interesting thing I think is in regard to the forum, the media we're using generally, which has enabled such a diversity of debate. After 16k and whatever posts I find that what has changed the most for me personally is my confidence in my own knee-jerk opinion and certainty that things will change in a certain way. A regular guy, who reflects at all, simply can't pontificate endlessly and retain an inflated sense of his own infallibility.

I've tried to play the devil's advocate here from time to time ;^)
I've probably railed more against implacable opinion and absolutism than anything else. The thing that sets me off every time is when folks say "the fact is..." when it demonstrably isn't, which is a good portion of the time. But, turns out that the illusion of factual insight that was just as often wrong as right were my own!

Cherry-Pick Pie gets old after a while. I believe I am less convinced of anything, more surprised at everything, more open to evidence that contradicts my gut reactions than I ever have been. What could be better?



So was the fretting, observing, debating, reading, writing and yes, cherry-picking, more or less worthwhile than "living fully"? I guess I have to ask the definition. What might I have been doing with my brain at 4:30am otherwise? To me PO.com is kind of an ongoing mind massage, vocabulary exercise, and virtual barroom brain brawl all rolled into one.

I don't fret, I watch, continue to learn, mature, and hope to be a wise elder someday. Day-to-day life poses challenges and those come and go like waves (ie. marriage and kids). I hope to gain the same peace there that I have with the future - whatever it does or does not bring.

For some of us, me, being the old man looking back isn't a far off event.

Yes, I's surprised at the resilience of the system.

But I don't that that's a good thing, just pushing the roller coaster higher before the fall.

Maybe I'll never see it, pretty sure my kids will.

In the meantime our preps have been about the boat and having a vacation/bug out place. They are things we are interested in and enjoy in their own right. I've been a lucky man.

Strummer wrote:We are in the middle of an unprecedented heatwave here in Central Europe, probably the highest sustained temperatures in at least a few hundred years. I'm definitely not worried about a slow attrition... together with a full-blown civil war in a neighbouring country (Ukraine) and crowds of climate refugees piling up in another one (Hungary), it feels more like being at the tipping point of a rollercoaster ride.

Nuclear weapons and the globalization of trade have made nations less likely to battle each other the past 50 years- so, from a historical standpoint it seems like we are in a calm phase. But history never stays calm forever- eventually the tensions build to a point of no return. I think the stuff Strummer mentions above is the build up of that tension- like plates under a rift pushing harder and harder.

I do not see a gradual withering away without a bang or two- violent swings of history may be tamed but they are never defeated. I hope I am wrong- my heart would be very heavy to see a major conflict arise.

Some real possibilities I see:

1. The fall of the EU (70%) and radical right governments rising in reaction to immigrant invasion (80%)

2. Serious Mideast war between Iran and SA (40%)- possibly nuclear

3. Massive economic collapse in the US due to a Greek style loans/deficit spending spree that leads to insolvency- this will provoke a worldwide depression, riots, etc. (90%).

4. Mass food production decline and third world famine as economically strapped wealthier nations get donor fatigue and fight off invading boat people violently. Ever rising population virtually guarantees this as well as bloody (third world) wars and attempts at genocide. (97%)

Relative peace can't last forever- violent history never is totally defeated

Pops wrote:I think it is pretty natural for each generation, each person, to think we are the apex. We each are the center of our own conscious universe after all. No real surprise we would expect the climax to occur during our lifetime. In that sense I'm pretty sure most folks look back and are surprised that things didn't change all that much or in the direction they had hoped or feared.

Yeah, with prudent self reflection one should question whether it is a coincidence or not that this major inflection point for our species is happening exactly timed with ones biological life span.

The more interesting thing I think is in regard to the forum, the media we're using generally, which has enabled such a diversity of debate. After 16k and whatever posts I find that what has changed the most for me personally is my confidence in my own knee-jerk opinion and certainty that things will change in a certain way. A regular guy, who reflects at all, simply can't pontificate endlessly and retain an inflated sense of his own infallibility.

I've tried to play the devil's advocate here from time to time ;^)
I've probably railed more against implacable opinion and absolutism than anything else. The thing that sets me off every time is when folks say "the fact is..." when it demonstrably isn't, which is a good portion of the time. But, turns out that the illusion of factual insight that was just as often wrong as right were my own!

Cherry-Pick Pie gets old after a while. I believe I am less convinced of anything, more surprised at everything, more open to evidence that contradicts my gut reactions than I ever have been. What could be better?

How many wise scientists and sages have through the ages shared this sentiment that the more they learn the less they know and that with more experience one moves from certainty to uncertainty.

What might I have been doing with my brain at 4:30am otherwise? To me PO.com is kind of an ongoing mind massage, vocabulary exercise, and virtual barroom brain brawl all rolled into one.

This is it. A grand mystery, a grand glass bead game.

GoghGoner wrote:I don't fret, I watch, continue to learn, mature, and hope to be a wise elder someday. Day-to-day life poses challenges and those come and go like waves (ie. marriage and kids). I hope to gain the same peace there that I have with the future - whatever it does or does not bring.

Well said.

pstarr wrote:Hoards of African and Central Americans surging north to escape AGW/post-peak agriculture dieoff. Very soon. Hardly even tomorrow. It has begun and the clock will not run backwards.

I have been one of the most outspoken that events and consequences will be the catalysts that will move culture. This cultural movement may have its punctuated moments but it does not follow our generation. An analogy maybe that works is at the shore when the tide is coming in. Each breaking wave is a generation, it crests and breaks and fades into obsolescence but in and of itself it does not advance the tide. It is the series of breaking waves or generations that slowly move culture and the tide.

Maybe if we were a sentient Redwood Tree like the ones you have in your back yard Pstarr, we could actually see this narrative move through its stages within a life.

We also have to remember that those first 20 years of life is experienced more through the youthful vigor of the body and less from cerebral reason. It is only the middle ages that the mind reasons with the big picture, and then alas, once we gather all the parts and start to form a whole, senility and obsolescence creeps in.

Ibon wrote:We also have to remember that those first 20 years of ones life, we are experiencing life through the wisdom of youth that senses life through the body and less from cerebral reason. It is only the middle ages that the mind reasons with the big picture, and then alas, once we gather all the parts and start to form a whole, senility and obsolescence creeps in.

lay off the pipe Gandalf!

C8 wrote:

Ibon wrote:We also have to remember that those first 20 years of ones life, we are experiencing life through the wisdom of youth that senses life through the body and less from cerebral reason. It is only the middle ages that the mind reasons with the big picture, and then alas, once we gather all the parts and start to form a whole, senility and obsolescence creeps in.

lay off the pipe Gandalf!

Nothing esoteric here C8. I am right now sitting with my mother who was born in 1922. This comes just after visiting my two daughters who are in their young 20's. I watch now as one life fades into infantile simplicity as the young ones are still all gung ho into climbing peaks and challenging themselves physically.

Just to elaborate on my last post, we don't find 90 year olds posting here and not too many younger than 20. It is those middle ages that ponder what we discuss here and that lasts at most four to six decades. Culture does not significantly evolve within that short time period.

The only reason this merits comment and a thread is that sometimes we get so wrapped up in our own personal narratives that we start projecting them on to the current events around us and then go so far as to assume that reality will somehow conform to our own narrative and our own biological life span. I think I did this awhile back and I doubt seriously I am the only one.

Ibon wrote:Sit for a moment in that space as an elder looking back. Look at the balance between the moments you lived fully and the moments you fretted over all the threats.

Was it worth it?

In retrospect, I would have had sex with more ugly fat women.

Strummer wrote:We are in the middle of an unprecedented heatwave here in Central Europe, probably the highest sustained temperatures in at least a few hundred years. I'm definitely not worried about a slow attrition... together with a full-blown civil war in a neighbouring country (Ukraine) and crowds of climate refugees piling up in another one (Hungary), it feels more like being at the tipping point of a rollercoaster ride.

These are external changes and significant and accelerating. They are also destabilizing. Maybe the generation that follows the Millennials will be similar like the generation that went through the depression and WWII. Could be far worse actually. This will be their reality perhaps, lots of upheaval caused by the consequences of human overshoot. How much will this upset the "cultural BAU" apple cart? How really profound will we see the culture move in ones lifetime in response to these external consequences?

My 92 year old mother is a product of her generation. She grew up during the depression and WWII and witnessed in her lifetime profound changes in standard of living, technology, cultural values, etc. So much changed but one underlying trend stayed the same during her whole life and actually exponentially spread around the world; human population and consumption per capita.

The status quo has a huge inertia that will resist change. And this will collide with the trend of growth and consumption reversing. That will create conflict. That is certainly a dominant theme during the 21st century. But each life has its own inertia resistant to change based on the values each generation learned growing up.

We never really arrive at a collective light bulb moment, each generation is just an advancing wave that peters out before the next one comes. I am having a greater understanding of this myself which is what prompted me to start this thread

We never really arrive at a collective light bulb moment

I venture to say no such moment exists really objectively for any human being. We all are imprisoned within the sum of our experiences and the age of our earthly existence. Yet what nobody here is denying and can deny is that this is an exceptional period of time when all the foundations of civilization are being stressed and are at risk of being torn asunder. One way or the other things will change dramatically in our lifetime and certainly the younger folks lifetimes. So I think even as those of us older then let us say fifty are shocked by the trends we are seeing, those born recently are born into this reality so they may be less shocked. Yet the environmental trends should be shocking to all as we are forcing changes upon this Earth which are making it incompatible with life particularly higher life forms like us. So I for one realize with a good sense of certainty that human existence will be changing one way or the other radically within the next 50 years. Meaning from my current age of 53 to 103. Hey maybe I will be alive till then

When you watch your parents and in-laws die or become incapacitated by dementia, it does make you think about your future. In my case, it has made me save every dollar I possibly can so as not to be a burden on my children. It might even work if I live long enough.

I don't feel my outlook is too colored by my age. I have two young sons that I want to see enter a bright world (very desperately). It just seems like things are getting much worse no matter what perspective you take. About 5 years ago I was happier with the world: PO was coming undone as new FF tech released more energy, renewable prices were dropping, I was hopeful that the internet and smart phones were going to help meet peoples' needs in less materialistic ways and lower energy usage.

So many bad trends have emerged in the last 3 years that I cannot believe it:

1. The populations of violent, uneducated people are exploding in Africa, Middle East and Latin America and are beheading each other, wallowing in corruption unheard of in the West, and destroying their ecosystems

2. debt keeps rising out of control with entitlements that will sink developed nations. Populations just keep getting older, fatter and sicker- the specter of Greece looms everywhere

3. liberal identity politics has incited race strife and de-policing- which is leading to rising lawlessness and murder in cities. Everywhere there is an attack on the authority figures who make civilization possible

4. Developed nations lack the will to secure their borders from mass invasion from more violent third world people who commit crimes and sink the welfare state with burdens

5. Only token BS steps are made to address global warming while more and more droughts and fires rage- nobody is even slightly interested in research to remove CO2 so we get all these crappy plans to "reduce emissions" ignoring that feedback loops will not be slowed down one bit by these efforts

My view is not a projection of my personal age- the world really is declining rapidly, civilization is dying

C8, your talking points are good yet the overriding and overarching specter that looms over humanity is the intersecting trend lines of overpopulation and environmental degradation and collapse. Yes the chronic inequality of societies among each other and within is contributing to a greater lawlessness. Our economic system is fragile because it has been unreasonably constructed on a debt based system that presupposes abundance and we have already entered an age of scarcity and also it is extremely corrupt and unequal. So in staying with the OP, societies can be rearranged, retrofitted and retooled but what cannot be made whole again within periods relevant to humans is Earth's functioning life support systems which are rapidly declining. So this period of time to come promises change within human societies greater then any in the past and probably greater then any that will ever affect humans.

I am generally more upbeat apart from the climate and infinite growth mix. Whilst people lament the past, lets not forget that the recent golden past in say the deep south in America saw blacks swinging from the trees for mere transgressions and just a mere 2 decades ago, black progressives were being thrown out of windows in South Africa.

The new world is dispassionately profit driven....nothing now comes between a capitalist and his accumulation but profit and who can advance that for him. That is forcing us to get along together, to even live within the same borders....like the wheel which forced us to abandon narrow parochialism, capitalism is forcing us to coexist under modernity. So we need to be very careful that we do not confuse reactionary feelings with love of planet or the black man in grass skirts or environment...they are not. They are the yearnings for a very arbitrary past

The next step form here if we are to survive is to take the new humanity and circularise its resource use before the climate calls time on us.