[mos6507]

Yesterday I "came out" to my sister over the phone regarding peak oil. Well, I came out about 75% of the way. I didn't hit her with a lot of peak oil or overshoot data. I just kind of exposed her to the tip of the iceberg. But I let her know that I thought the sh*t will hit the fan within 5 years. The surprising thing to me is I think she feels the same way, although I think she is more into the environmental and 2012 stuff than peakoil. She even says she has a friend who is an uberdoomer who is doing preps.

I told her I wanted to get a large suburban lot further west from Boston and provide a sustainable example to the neighbors as the crash progresses as a way to avoid a zombie horde scenario. But she seems to think it's a lost cause and that if I stay in the suburbs I should have a gun because I'm going to have to pick off the neighbors. She suggested I move to Vermont or Maine instead.

This is really the opening of what will surely be several more heart to hearts with my sister between now and when I finally buy a property. Now that the cat's out of the bag I am going to have to do a braindump of more of the data so she can reevaluate her future scenarios. But I guess it's heartening to think I'm not necessarily crazy here, that this isn't such a fringe vision of the future. I wish that were the case as I could sit on the fence a little bit longer instead of feeling pressured to put up or shut up.

She told me to write off my mom and dad which I find very hard to do. I originally intended to have "the talk" with them around now but with oil dropping, I don't feel the timing is right anymore. But certainly when I make my housing decision next year it will become clear to everyone what I'm up to.

I'd like to hear more stories about others "coming out" with the relatives and how receptive they've been.

[Daniel_Plainview]

I plan on coming out to my family on Christmas, when I will have a captive audience of all my siblings and close relatives. My sales pitch will include a video & slide-show presentation, featuring Matt Simmons, Robert Hirsch, and Richard Heinberg. Lots of charts and graphs, too.

I'm tired of being the only doomer in my family, and I will work actively to induct others into my doomerism.

If I ruin their holidays in the process, then so be it.

[Ludi]

My sister had a nervous breakdown after I told her. I'm not kidding. She was so worried by it, it triggered a serious manic episode and she became psychotic and was hospitalized. It may have been a coincidence and probably something else would have triggered her illness. I still feel horribly guilty about it, feeling it was my fault to have introduced her to such stressful information. She's been in and out of the hospital ever since.

I have not attempted to discuss it with my dad and stepmom, nor will I, ever.

[cualcrees]

I've come out to both my mom and dad; my mom mostly understands it, but she gets really worried and doesn't want to think or talk about it, however, she believes it and she's doing some preps. My dad, on the other hand, kind off dismissed it right out the bat and gave me a "we'll find something or other to avoid it" type of answer.
I haven´t said anything to my sis, is she I fear the most coming out to; I'm waiting for the right time to tell her. I believe she'll say something like "Pleaseee, come on, nothing's gonna happen!" and write me off as just crazy. She also has a 4 year old, and I think that would make it harder for her to accept it. But who knows, she might surprise me!

[mos6507]

I figure if I'm going to eventually build out a doomstead I need to know if any of my family members are going to wind up there, so I can scale the house and the property accordingly. If I can get them aboard now then maybe I can get more of a pool together to build a compound rather than it being all on my shoulders financially. A nightmare scenario would be for me to only have a big enough place to support me and my daughter and be faced with "lifeboat ethics" when they come knocking on my door.

[pedalling_faster]

She told me to write off my mom and dad which I find very hard to do. I originally intended to have "the talk" with them around now but with oil dropping, I don't feel the timing is right anymore. But certainly when I make my housing decision next year it will become clear to everyone what I'm up to.
I'd like to hear more stories about others "coming out" with the relatives and how receptive they've been.

i guess by "write them off" you mean, not bother trying to explain.

i think it's always worth a shot, like "would you like to talk about * ?"

& if a relative has already indicated they're not interested, for example "why are you always talking about bad news ?", a comment i got from my older brother when i sent him a copy of the Hirsch report, then, why waste prep time knocking one's head against the wall ?

the best explanation i've seen recently of our situation (Peak Oil, the economic situation, etc.) is at Chris Martenson's website & presentation, "Crash Course"

[mos6507]

i guess by "write them off" you mean, not bother trying to explain.

I've already tried to broach the topic. My dad sells cars for a living. He should know what's going on. I just haven't gotten around to the die-off part before they start to shrug it off. My parents kind of have ADD. They are too nose to the grindstone with their work and the series of errands in their daily routine to stop and think about anything that's going on outside of their microcosm. They totally do not see the forest through the trees. They are more concerned with twisting my arm to convince me into staying in a yuppie suburban area for the sake of my daughter's school system. There is a streak of elitism there.

I have this "scrapbook" of news items in my Facebook account that goes back over a year. These are just MSM articles talking about peakoil, overshoot, environmental collapse. If I were to do nothing but just rattle out the news source and the headlines it would be enough to make their heads spin. I mean, you kind of have to actively avoid the news not to at least start to worry about these issues.

[Ludi]

I figure if I'm going to eventually build out a doomstead I need to know if any of my family members are going to wind up there

I'm planning to take in any family members who need help in the future, even if they can't or won't help now.

[threadbear]

I remember when I came out to my pets that I was a homo sapiens. They were surprisingly accepting!

[dinopello]

I originally intended to have "the talk" with them around now but with oil dropping, I don't feel the timing is right anymore.

I think it is almost better to talk about these things during the pullbacks in prices. It's an opportunity to talk without seeming like you are the one reacting to current events. And when prices go back up you can say - remember our talk back when oil was $70?. You can also point out things that are going on - like the SPR. We stopped filling the SPR when prices went up - did we start filling it again? If not, this means during the next runnup, that will not be available to us. Kind of shows that as the ratchet on prices go up and down each time we are in a more precarious position.

[WildRose]

I remember when I came out to my pets that I was a homo sapiens. They were surprisingly accepting!

Oh, Threadbear!

So, how much of the bed do you get to sleep on?

[CarlinsDarlin]

Even if you think they won't accept what you're saying, talk anyway. They may blow you off, but eventually the seed you planted will sprout. I've been talking to family off and on for about the last four years. When I first started I was the nutcase doomer (even though I'm not terribly doomerish). Back then, nobody - and I mean NObody - in my family would listen to me. Now, as events unfold and more people are seeing the fragility of the system, they are more receptive. I am proud to say that now I know of an aunt and my brother who are on board. As time goes on, I expect more people to remember what I said, and begin preparing themselves. I just hope they don't wait until any preparation at all is impossible.
Kathy

[PrairieMule]

For me it was the opposite. My Dad started explaining things happening in offshore drilling community back to me back in the early 90's. Silent rumblings at the West Africa Drilling confences and such.

What he would tell me was "You will see the end of the oil age in your lifetime" and "People will screaming for oil soon.". It finally sunk in and I got pro active in 2003.

I have the most surreal converations of doom with my parents.

[Grifter]

The only person I ever talk about peakoil to is my dad. I have tried to talk about it with other people with absolutely zero success, in fact less than zero I guess.

My dad was amazed that the system had lasted as long as it had, and had expected the system to fail at any point since the early seventies, but at the time I taked about peak oil, he said he doubted that would be the trigger for the collapse of civilization.

I still think he's wrong lol

but I was very surprised to find out my dad was a doomer

[JJ]

I'm going to be fifty wednesday. Sis sent me a card (she's a millionaire),

Jay, I hope you have a great year! I hope you can appreciate all of the good things in your life despite the economic turmoil going on.
Your friends and family are very glad and grateful that your still here, still living and gardening and ranting!

Sheesh. Someone pet the puppy....

[StuckInPhilly]

I haven't tried really. My mother can't be reasoned with about anything and my father is very much invested in the "everyone is entitled to have a house with a big yard in the suburbs" mentality.
My brother has just adopted a baby with his wife so I am loathe to even think about mentioning such things to him.
One brother-in-law already knew about PO. This was largely because we shared an interest in new urbanism, I think.

I think I would rather admit a habit of necrophilia than mention PO to most people.

[mos6507]

the best explanation i've seen recently of our situation (Peak Oil, the economic situation, etc.) is at Chris Martenson's website & presentation, "Crash Course"

There is some good stuff there. This page is good. I'm waffling between stage 4 and 6. I think I'm done with denial although this oil pullback really is testing me. When I first discovered peakoil, I was with my mom and dad and I started reciting what I was reading from lastoilshock and they were trying to calm me down. At that time I had already gotten some money saved up and I told them I wanted to get a trimaran and bug out in the ocean during the dieoff like Noah. I think they just assumed that I had just freaked out about nothing because I stopped talking about it. But I was in a state of shock for days after that. Not that long ago I had a talk with my dad about oil prices and it was going in one ear and out the other. I was really trying to reach him and he wasn't listening. The thing is, when I talked to him about the country going into a depression and GM being on its last legs he was also dismissive. I guess nothing ever fazes him. The thing is, they've kind of mapped out the remainder of their life's trajectory and so they have this tunnel vision. They are going to do what they are going to do and it pretty much will take TSHTF for them to deviate from it.

[wisconsin_cur]

My mother has had a sense that something "ain't quite right" since the 70's. I got that from her.

When I stumbled onto the idea of peak oil while listening to the radio on a cross country trip I started to wed that intuition with facts.

Mom was rather sympathetic to my concerns and I am sure she drew some conclusions from some of the changes to our home and my library but when I told her she listened but was quite. I have since learned that she had learned to turn off that intuition of hers over the last 25 years or so and while she saw herself in my thoughts, believed it was a stage much like her own. That was about 2.5 years ago.

Now she is paying attention again. Now she thinks I may be right.

Similar story with my dad though he was never as doomy and has not moved so far in the "Cur is right" camp... but I have his ear. Both parents ask what I think is next... mom more directly than dad.

I have no siblings. Wife has no siblings.

In-laws are wrote off though I have in the back of my mind the possibility that mom-in-law could find her way up here in the conceptually distant future.

[hardtootell]

My sister had a nervous breakdown after I told her. I'm not kidding. She was so worried by it, it triggered a serious manic episode and she became psychotic and was hospitalized. It may have been a coincidence and probably something else would have triggered her illness. I still feel horribly guilty about it, feeling it was my fault to have introduced her to such stressful information. She's been in and out of the hospital ever since.

I have not attempted to discuss it with my dad and stepmom, nor will I, ever.

Wow Ludi- thats heavy. I'm sorry to hear that.
My story is also tragic.
My wife is still in a months long low level anxiety attack. She has become increasingly irrational. She blames me for PO problems. including the financial crisis. My inlaws don't know whether to have me committed or assasinated. Not that they understand 10% of PO and decline and won't listen either.

[lper100km]

I have decided to stop talking about PO and its ramifications, period. On the occasions that oil issues have surfaced, they get dismissed as a marketing problem, or a greedy trader’s problem, OPEC shenanigans, big oil taking us for a ride or some such. What puzzles me is that people can see intuitively that oil is a finite resource yet the corollaries of that realization are seemingly beyond their imagination or reasoning to figure out. There’s too much emotional reaction to, say issues like gasoline pricing. A big sigh of relief and a big ‘I told you so’ comes my way as the price falls. No use telling people that regardless of price, the stuff is still being sucked from the ground, burned up and never to be seen again.

There are plenty of “they” as in ‘they’ will find a new source of energy, or use coal, or go nuclear, or develop electric autos etc etc, all of which are presumed to enable our current life style to continue without pause. No one wants to hear about the energy density of gasoline compared to other possible, but unlikely fuels, or EROI, or battery limitations. But that’s now! It will be different (ie better) in the future. No one wants to hear about the current financial crisis impacting the future ability to create new infrastructure or even maintain existing infrastructure. It’s useless trying to explore the intricate co-dependent ways in which oil has permeated our lives and economy. No one really understands energy, energy generation and consumption, yet all are experts on what should happen. No one is knowledgeable of the physical sciences, yet are confident that ‘they’ will engineer a future breakthrough that will solve the problem. Somehow or other, life will go on, maybe with a few ups and downs, but with the unshakeable expectation of a steady beneficial increase in living standards.

There is absolutely no thought of preparation for a powerdown lifestyle. Prepare for what? Doomsday? Ha Ha Ha I bought a 5kg sealed bag of rice the other week and got the evil eye when I came home. ‘What’s this for? We don’t eat rice.’ The inoffensive best I could think of to say was some thing like ‘It was on sale and I thought it might be of use some day’. It’s on the top shelf in the pantry, out of sight, out of mind and that’s probably the best thing that could have happened to it. 5 measly kg!!

I am considered as the uber pessimist, although that is not my nature at all. (Why is realism seemingly always associated with pessimism?) I am also considered to be dogmatic (because I am not swayed from my message), unimaginative (ie I do not subscribe to the ‘they’ solution), have no faith (there’s that terrible word) in human ability, technology and the future, unappreciative of others ideas, and a know-it-all who has just been proven wrong to boot.

It is not possible to discuss the topic rationally. Within a few sentences, the voices get loud and louder as denial and reactive opposition quickly surface. Everyone reads the newspapers and watches the TV news. What do they not see? Clearly, no one wants to take time learn what’s going on around them and are too much taken up with the daily grind of earning a living and raising kids in the only way they know how. The rest is just background noise and too much overloads their capacity to handle it.

Anyway, I’m through with the familial attempts at discussion, though not my interest in PO. I was a child in the last depression and likely will pass from this world in the coming depression – hopefully not with the heat off, the lights out, the car on blocks and the zombie hordes rattling the door chain. (I have to live up to my pessimist status!) A certain unlooked for symmetry, wouldn’t you say?