There's fast eddy again using another comments section to try and drive traffic to his own web site.
.
There loads of evidence online for one to link to if they were genuinely debating, but you are not even debating anyone just throwing-up your link without even a word at every comment you disagree with, like you are above debating with the little people - yours is the first and last word. You've done this here and in a number of other comment sections. Like your site is so fucking good that no words are necessary you can just pull your link out like it's a weapon and that instantly ends any and all debate.
What you are doing is the same thing that bible thumpers do - throw chapter and verse in people's faces - John 3:16......." HA! that totally proves I'm right"
What surprises me is how any blog owner lets you get away with it. Perhaps it's out of pity?
A secondary reason is because I enjoy taunting the retarded morons who live in DelusiSTAN by shoving these truths in front of their brain dead faces....
Look at the reaction to this truth by HS... anger... this is typical of a retard... when faced with a truth they double down ... and they hurl insults ... when they could instead ... change their minds... and always be right ... like I am https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/wanna-be-right-all-of-the-time/
Frankly, I'm getting tired of this doom and gloom pessimism. I get the logic and the data, but what's the point of regurgitating that? Are we supposed to off ourselves preemptively?
When I was a teenager, I defected from a totalitarian country westward. I had no idea whatsoever where I was going and what was in store for me on the way and once I'd get there. So, I took it one thing at a time, and lo and behold, nearly a half century later, I'm alive and kicking, having relocated my ass multiple times since then, when things began to go south.
I like the attitude of guys like Simon Michaux. Maybe Nate Hagens too. Positive, optimistic. Focused on finding a way, making things possible.
This we're fucked and that's all there's to it is too much. What's the point?
Truth is a much bigger concept than hurt feelings or hopium needs. Hagens in particular is a merchant of misplaced hopium. There is no need for a “point” - we are all going to live within the inherited realities of our lives, having only the slightest ability to adjust to their negative permutations. What’s not to love?
Truth? What's the truth? You possess the truth? Where did you get this hurt feelings And hopium? Hopium implies that things will turn for the better without an effort on your part. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about not succumbing to the opposite - hopeless pessimism and masochistic gloom.
For the truth, look at what The Honest Sorcerer and Jasmine have written here. Is there some objection you have to what he and she wrote about the human predicament? Then state what your objection is, which might have some validity, otherwise you are pounding the keys in frustration over what must be hurt feelings and need for hopium.
You are right that “hopeless pessimism and masochistic gloom” are not generally great party starters, but unlike others even here, I don’t think individual renunciations of inherited fossil fuel slavery amount to much. This is all much bigger than Substack statements or complaints, but other humans in history have faced defeat and impending collapse and kept on with determination to live within difficult realities. People with terminal diagnoses; people in outgunned and outmatched war enclaves; people dropping out of institutions like the church or its secular variant higher ed; desperate migrants; etc.
The Second World War is not applicable to today; fossil fuels led the way out from 1,200 calories per person in Germany to today’s fossil fuel overshoot. There is nothing on the horizon to replace them, nor the socio-political means to enforce the illusion of degrowth.
You're funny. All of you idiots are so predictable. You despise and ridicule the sheeple out there because they've fallen for this bullshit, that bullshit, or some other bullshit and you think yourself smart because you saw through it. Maybe you did, to an extent. But then you turn around and engage in phantasmagorical conjectures, such as that the covid shots are supposed to kill off the entire human population.
The only problem with your theory is that it ain't materializing. People are not dying off en masse. Oh yeah, you'll say that it's coming, you'll see! Well, there is always a chance that you're right, but more likely not. If "they" wanted to kill off people, they'd figure out something much less obvious, they're not that stupid. They could add something to existing fuckccines. There is zero data showing that fuckccines are the kill shots paranoid twits of your ilk claim.
Your problem is that you've conjured up one scenario how things will go down, have echo-chamber cemented it in your inflexible skull, and now are parroting the same fucking thing over and fucking over like a fucking broken record.
Will the energy situation tip over ... ? Like over-fucking-night, meaning that no truck will come to your hood supermarket in the morning? Probably not. It's much more likely that things will happen gradually and people, or at least some, will have time to adjust and adapt, or at least to an extent.
We are not close to fucking anything. Try to control your fucking paranoia, man. Hydrocarbons might be past peak production, but there's shitloads of the stuff. It sure won't run out in a matter of years.
Will humanity be able to steer through this and how? I don't fucking know. What I know, though, that it's worth trying ... as opposed to idly yapping about no hope, the darkest possible scenarios, and forthcoming extinction.
Shut the f up. You don't have the truth. You've conjured up a psychotically masochistic vision of the future, one of the worst possible alternatives. There are other possibilities.
You've lived your life in the part of the world that has enjoyed the most luxurious (in material terms) lifestyle in history. You're scared shitless that you might no have that since you'd be unable to survive in anything else. Well, guess fucking what - humans not only survived in much much less luxurious conditions in past, but they're surviving in conditions like that even today, as we speak.
So, shove your alleged truth up your ass. It's your fucking truth, not THE truth.
FE, you were entertaining too on Our Finite World. But you dismiss too many reasoned arguments by just saying 'not possible' instead of debating back.
Have you moved to W. Australia yet from Queenstown, N.Z.? You were planning that, I assumed it was so as to observe events from a distance. W.A. must be the most isolated province on the planet apart from Antarctica.
That is true only to a point. Coming up with yet another angle on how things are fucked up has its limits. At some point, you have to start doing something. Unless you're a masochist and enjoy conjuring up one doomsday scenario after another.
Doing what? It's the wealthy and the oil and gas industries causing this🤦♀️ You going to fight them? I'm pretty sure you're not courageous enough to do so🤣
Yeah, sure. The bad the THEM are doing it to the POOR YOU.
You don't use oil in your life, right. You and everybody else are completely innocent as regards what all of us have been doing all our lives - profiting from hydrocarbons like there was no tomorrow.
Fight them? Like fight for what? To stop extracting oil? To extract more of it? Boggles the ol' mind ... !
Most people have optimism bias and choose wilful ignorence. Realists thus sound like pessimists to them. It’s very difficult to get through to them. The wall of denial is impenetrable. A growing swath of literrature explores this irrational, maladaptive behaviour.
I’m happy for you and your escape, but the anecdote is unrelated and irrelevant to the issue at hand.
The point is, like Nata also says, to transition to a simpler life as painlessly as possible. Fwiw, I have heard all his episodes and afaik he offers no solution to the predicament: he’s just trying to educate his fellow humans, hoping more people will embrace the challenge of mitigating the consequences.
Frankly, I'm getting tired of this hope and faith optimism. I get the feelings and emotions, but the point, Paul, is to prepare people for the impending collapse. No, we're not supposed to off ourselves preemptively, as we're already doing that by continuing business as usual; we're supposed to implement planetary hospice.
When you were a teenager, the world was a lot different than it is now. Now, all countries are totalitarian in a way that Sheldon Wolin calls inverted totalitarianism. Now, we have plenty of ideas about where we are going and what is in store for us on the way and once we get there. Now, we need to take everything, everywhere, all at once, and lo and behold, nearly half a century later, we may still be alive and kicking, having to avoid the extinction of our species multiple times when things begin to go south.
I like the attitude of guys like Guy McPherson. Maybe Michael Ruppert, too. Evidentiary, realistic. Focused on finding the truth, making things tangible.
This we're not fucked, and that's all there is to it, is too much. What's the point?
There have been floods where I live. Some people have lost their homes. Some died. All the houses that got destroyed were in a flood zone. Build your house on a hill. Build a levee. The town next to where my partner lives has dug a canal that bypasses the built-up area - no damage during a recent flooding.
Do what? I don't fucking know! Think of something. If you can't, shut the fuck up, maybe somebody else can.
How do you adapt? By changing your ways based on the circumstances. All you doomster whiners reject that out of hand. For you, this luxurious industrial civilization is the only viable option and extinction is the only alternative. Well, guess fucking what, there are lots of other ways in which critters can live, including humans, and I'm fairly confident that that's exactly what they're gonna do. They'll adapt and go on, in one way or another, while you'll be long extinct, since you obviously can't wait for that to fucking happen.
Do you know all the causes of the tragedy Valencia event? Have you seen the amount of soil degradation inflicted upon these lands over the last decades? Here in southern Spain, we have been ignoring nature constraints for far too long already, and this is one of its symptons. I don't want to downplay the magnitude of the event, as the flood was the largest since some decades, but at the same time, we have so much room for improvement.
I get your point, Jasmine; all is lost, collapse is ongoing, and life on Earth would be "better" without us. Well, that might be true, but Paul has a point as well, and it is about what do we do with that information. Why not try to adapt, change our way of life, our narratives, starting with ourselves, and do what we know deep inside that is morally good?
What would be better, to live as monsters, powerless cataclisms-bringers that do nothing but behole the collapse-, or, yeah, name it fools if you like, knowing we at least tried our best given the circunstances? Mind you, the latter does not have to be painful; in my experience -at least- it's the opposite. And it's not about sacrificing ourselves in a futile quest, but finding our rightful place as a part of this planet.
It's almost Over...I recommend bucket listing just did another month in japan typing this while on a homeward bound flight...time is very short...tick...tock
How the decline of civilization will affect us personally is anyone's guess. Catastrophes happen to other people while our lives continue as usual. John Michael Greer has posited the scenario of a slow decline, where there is bad news here and there, but not everywhere all at once.
When individual suffering is too great, the individual commits suicide. Problem > solution, predicament > outcome. Until then, we wing it.
At 57 I don't get depressed by doom and gloom. It's not like I'm immortal.
When my health begins to fail is when my depression will set in.
Interesting point. Neither Simon Michaux or Nate Hagens have actual solutions to the problems that they point out though, despite trying their best to come up with some. In terms of this article, I don#t think it's saying that we're fucked, simply that civilisation as we know it has hit (or is about to hit) its limits. I think the quote you begin with is quite apt. It doesn't prevent the collapse (or the great simplification, as Nate refers to it), but simply says that we'll work something out as a response. The article mentions that population decline will be the route out of this, and I don't think that's in any way doom-mongering or pessimism, just stating a fact. Is there something virtuous or desirable about a large, or growing, population? Or just something that is or isn't? I think the future is bright. We live on a beautiful planet, with everything we need in nature. I don't believe that a collapsing (or shrinking) civilisation in line with material access has to be seen as a bad thing, despite our religious belief in "growth" and "progress", which are largely nebulous concepts. I suspect many people are beginning to awaken to the limitations of our rational materialism, and are perhaps tired of the constant chase for things and stuff. I certainly am. That's not coming from a place of nihilism either, simply acceptance and intrigue in the life ahead. That things are going to be different is not a measure of fucked or unfucked, just observation. Our technologies are all predicated on the system we live in and its beliefs. That they might fritter away and die is of no great consequence, we may come up with some better. Not necessarily fancier, more "advanced", but perhaps more meaningful, more beautiful, more loving.
In terms of regurgitating the data, I think it's absolutely essential. If I talk to my family or colleagues about peak materials or metacrises, they simply laugh it off because nobody is talking about it. It's certainly not mainstream knowledge, and certainly not seen as imperative right now. That's not because of not wanting to be pessimistic, either, it's that the people in power, and their media, won't talk about it.
As to progress, I guess you have to remember how it (must have) started. The fucking Cro-Magnon man (BTW, my family has a house in the area where they lived, Les Eyzies, worse comes to worst we'll go back to the caves there, ha!) was tires of hauling shit and invented the wheel and from there it went on and on. It's kinda got out of hand now, but some degree of 'progress' is desirable, if humans are to remain human. Just saying so that we don't let the pendulum swing too far the other way and reject stuff that's good.
Regurgitating vis-a-vis people unaware, or ignorant, of these problems is good, preaching to the choir, combined with masochistic wallowing in how shitty things will be, ain't.
But as I said, I appreciate your comment. We're on the same page.
I guess what I'm after is that people now have a chance to shape the future, come up with a new raison d'etre, a new vision, since - as you say - many are realizing the detrimental nature of consumerism, including the fact that it doesn't make anybody any happier. That's what I like about Hagens - he projects that spirit. Simon Michaux is proposing some solutions, more along the lines of the availability of energy and minerals.
We have been solving the problem since we put that first seed in the ground...making the problem worse...there are no more solutions...now we pay a horrifying price
Really, eh. What's soon? Like in five fucking minutes? Somehow I don't think so. Is extinction imminent, whatever imminent means in your psychotically masochistic head? Dunno. Don't give a fuck. I'll keep living my life the way I have thus far and try to adapt as I've always done. We'll see what happens.
If you wanna make yourself extinct - since it seems to be your sole preoccupation - be my fucking guest.
How do Michaux and Hagens make things possible? If you think that it's possible to continue our technological industrial global civilisation for ever, can you explain how? Michaux explained why the transition is impossible and so wants to reconstruct civilisation in a way that is still unsustainable but might last a little longer, with a vastly reduced population, somehow. These aren't solutions, they are grasping at straws. Unless Michaux and Hagens can explain how to make civilisation sustainable. I'm not holding my breath for a solution, even though I'd welcome it.
If you're implicitly telling me that you have and want to follow by recounting what an experience it was, I'm not interested. Find yourself an interlocutor who is at least as fucked up in the head as you, ideally more, and you can discuss this issue till the fucking pigs come home.
How about if you speak for yourself once? Follow whoever wherever the fuck you want and worry not about others. Try to fathom that there are people who don't need to follow anbody anywgere.
Sorry, but it's not up to others to self censor so you don't get upset. You came here willingly and you have already mentioned where you can find people who will give you a positive, optimistic version (of reality) focused on finding a way to?? sugarcoat Overshoot predicaments, AKA magical thinking, bargaining and negotiating with reality.
Overshoot-collapse predicaments and consequences are a very upsetting topics and I've been negatively effected by it at times and I have seen others become angry and nihilistic over a period of time learning about them. It's a reality that cannot be changed, but as with all things you can change how and how much you view reality. Have you ever considered taking a break from all collapse & Overshoot related sites? I have taken 2 breaks - one that was 8 months long, with almost no internet at all. The other break was from visiting any doomy sites and headlines which was at 13 months then Covid hit. Both were effective and I used the time to learn how not to care/carry so much.
I've debated with many people and many times the person (almost always liberals) I'm debating will accuse me of "being negative" and/or finger wag at me for "not being helpful" as if these are serious debating points when what they are is an admission that they have none. Optimism for optimism's sake has infected western society and it used junk, pop psychology and people like Oprah to indoctrinate society. If you pay attention you will see the "you're just being negative" and "you're not being helpful" BS lines used by many people to shut down someone presenting evidence they do not want to see or hear.
Paul says, look in the mirror.
~~~~~~~~~~
*Climbing The Ladder of Awareness*
When it comes to our understanding of the unfolding global crisis, each of us seems to fit somewhere along a continuum of awareness that can be roughly divided into five stages:
1 - Dead asleep. At this stage there seem to be no fundamental problems, just some shortcomings in human organization, behaviour and morality that can be fixed with the proper attention to rule-making. People at this stage tend to live their lives happily, with occasional outbursts of annoyance around election times or the quarterly corporate earnings seasons.
2 - Awareness of one fundamental problem. Whether it's Climate Change, overpopulation, Peak Oil, chemical pollution, oceanic over-fishing, biodiversity loss, corporatism, economic instability or sociopolitical injustice, one problem seems to engage the attention completely. People at this stage tend to become ardent activists for their chosen cause. They tend to be very vocal about their personal issue, and blind to any others.
3 - Awareness of many problems. As people let in more evidence from different domains, the awareness of complexity begins to grow. At this point a person worries about the prioritization of problems in terms of their immediacy and degree of impact. People at this stage may become reluctant to acknowledge new problems - for example, someone who is committed to fighting for social justice and against climate change may not recognize the problem of resource depletion. They may feel that the problem space is already complex enough, and the addition of any new concerns will only dilute the effort that needs to be focused on solving the "highest priority" problem.
4 - Awareness of the interconnections between the many problems. The realization that a solution in one domain may worsen a problem in another marks the beginning of large-scale system-level thinking. It also marks the transition from thinking of the situation in terms of a set of problems to thinking of it in terms of a predicament. At this point the possibility that there may not be a solution begins to raise its head.
People who arrive at this stage tend to withdraw into tight circles of like-minded individuals in order to trade insights and deepen their understanding of what's going on. These circles are necessarily small, both because personal dialogue is essential for this depth of exploration, and because there just aren't very many people who have arrived at this level of understanding.
5 - Awareness that the predicament encompasses all aspects of life. This includes everything we do, how we do it, our relationships with each other, as well as our treatment of the rest of the biosphere and the physical planet. With this realization, the floodgates open, and no problem is exempt from consideration or acceptance. The very concept of a "Solution" is seen through, and cast aside as a waste of effort.
For those who arrive at Stage 5 there is a real risk that depression will set in. After all, we've learned throughout our lives that our hope for tomorrow lies in our ability to solve problems today. When no amount of human cleverness appears able to solve our predicament the possibility of hope can vanish like a the light of a candle flame, to be replaced by the suffocating darkness of despair.
How people cope with despair is of course deeply personal, but it seems to me there are two general routes people take to reconcile themselves with the situation. These are not mutually exclusive, and most of us will operate out of some mix of the two. I identify them here as general tendencies, because people seem to be drawn more to one or the other. I call them the outer path and the inner path.
Blame is another thing/phase newer Doomers experience and some get stuck there:( . As far as I'm concerned there is no blame. It's you, it's me, it's the MPP.
*The purpose of life is to disperse energy*
The truly dangerous ideas in science tend to be those that threaten the collective ego of humanity and knock us further off our pedestal of centrality. The Copernican Revolution abruptly dislodged humans from the center of the universe. The Darwinian Revolution yanked Homo sapiens from the pinnacle of life. Today another menacing revolution sits at the horizon of knowledge, patiently awaiting broad realization by the same egotistical species.
The dangerous idea is this: the purpose of life is to disperse energy.
Many of us are at least somewhat familiar with the second law of thermodynamics, the unwavering propensity of energy to disperse and, in doing so, transition from high quality to low quality forms. More generally, as stated by ecologist Eric Schneider, "nature abhors a gradient," where a gradient is simply a difference over a distance — for example, in temperature or pressure. Open physical systems — including those of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere — all embody this law, being driven by the dispersal of energy, particularly the flow of heat, continually attempting to achieve equilibrium. Phenomena as diverse as lithospheric plate motions, the northward flow of the Gulf Stream, and occurrence of deadly hurricanes are all examples of second law manifestations.
There is growing evidence that life, the biosphere, is no different. It has often been said the life's complexity contravenes the second law, indicating the work either of a deity or some unknown natural process, depending on one's bias. Yet the evolution of life and the dynamics of ecosystems obey the second law mandate, functioning in large part to dissipate energy. They do so not by burning brightly and disappearing, like a fire torching a forest, but through stable metabolic cycles that store chemical energy and continually reduce the solar gradient. Photosynthetic plants, bacteria, and algae capture energy from the sun and form the core of all food webs.
Virtually all organisms, including humans, are, in a real sense, sunlight transmogrified, temporary waypoints in the flow of energy. Ecological succession, viewed from a thermodynamic perspective, is a process that maximizes the capture and degradation of energy. Similarly, the tendency for life to become more complex over the past 3.5 billion years (as well as the overall increase in biomass and organismal diversity through time) is not due simply to natural selection, as most evolutionists still argue, but also to nature's "efforts" to grab more and more of the sun's flow. The slow burn that characterizes life enables ecological systems to persist over deep time, changing in response to external and internal perturbations.
Ecology has been summarized by the pithy statement, "energy flows, matter cycles. " Yet this maxim applies equally to complex systems in the non-living world; indeed it literally unites the biosphere with the physical realm. More and more, it appears that complex, cycling, swirling systems of matter have a natural tendency to emerge in the face of energy gradients. This recurrent phenomenon may even have been the driving force behind life's origins.
This idea is not new, and is certainly not mine. Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger was one of the first to articulate the hypothesis, as part of his famous "What is Life" lectures in Dublin in 1943. More recently, Jeffrey Wicken, Harold Morowitz, Eric Schneider and others have taken this concept considerably further, buoyed by results from a range of studies, particularly within ecology. Schneider and Dorian Sagan provide an excellent summary of this hypothesis in their recent book, "Into the Cool".
The Physics of Life (ft. It's Okay to be Smart & PBS Eons!)
"Our universe is prone to increasing disorder and chaos. So how did it generate the extreme complexity we see in life? Actually, the laws of physics themselves may demand it."
Why you'd implicitly assume unawareness on my part of much of what you say, physical realities, blah blah blah, I understand not.
Just like it's not up to others to self-sensor, it's not up to me to self-censor. I'll say whatever the fuck I want and if it makes you upset don't read it. Simple.
Perhaps Paul doesn't have progeny. Perhaps his ethos doesn't include seeking to minimize suffering of humans and other species going forward. The familiar retort of suggesting suicide is BS. I've interacted with Nate H. for well over a decade, and with Simon for around 5 years. They are younger than many who've been working on this for half a century or longer. Limits to Growth was done in '72. Key to changing systemic behavior is increasing understanding by as many of us as possible. The likelihood of reaching critical mass is tiny, so Nate's method is a bit like Don Quixote. Individuals, though, can alter expectations and seek more resilient ways of living, IF they grasp the futility of continuing with BAU. Misplaced optimism is escapism.
Perhaps you should refrain from making ad hominem assumptions and focus on the subject matter.
Yes, Hagens is a Don Quixote, not to mention that his approach is exceedingly complex, which is rather paradoxical from somebody who's preaching simplification. The vast majority of people wouldn't have the first clue what the fuck Nate is talking about. Simon Michaux is right on point, my kind of guy. Acknowledges the problem, but looks for solutions. One of my students is a high-placed official at the environment ministry. I've discussed this stuff with her and she says that they're well aware of it. They're trying second- or third-best solutions. Maybe something will stick.
It doesn't matter where he would or will be. What matters is the attitude. Let's try this, let's try that. We'll see. Maybe something sticks. Better than sit on your ass and drown yourself in pessimistic shite.
I'm not drowning myself in anything. But since your little feelings are being hurt, why don't you unsubscribe?
For example, I stopped listening to Nate Hagens after his content became repetitive. It was time to move on.
Your comments on this article are a disgrace. Is this how you converse in real life?
Not everyone shares your perspective, you dumb ass. Not everyone interprets this article as you do. So take your "can-do" attitude and your projection and piss off.
She is quite high, actually, certainly higher than you. And FYI, the discussion was about solutions to energy, resources, and ecology, not the injections. Try not to mix apples with oranges.
An idiot that took the injections, as all idiots in any minister did, is just a parroting monkey in regards with all matters. So the fact that a parroting monkey is "higher up" than me, whatever you think that proves, doesn't mean that the parroting monkey knows anything about energy, resources or anything else for that matter. Or that it can form through reasoning any ideas of its own.
The only one mixing apples and oranges around here is you.
Actually, it's ministry, not minister, but you're close enough.
I don't know how fucked up my student is or how many injections of what she's taken, and I don't give a flying fuck. I was only mentioning her to illustrate what people working for the government know and how they think.
As to who is or isn't an idiot, you haven't said a pertinent thing thus far, so I have no choice but inform you that the idiot is you.
You can "inform" me of whatever you want clown, or correct spelling mistakes coming from a non native speaker, if that is what makes you think you are superior, but the only idiot here is you. Climate change is a scam, war in Ukraine is a scam, israel commits genocide, the elections are fake, covid was a scam etc and who ever believes anything else or anything writen in limits to growth is an idiot of first class. Their models didn't actually come to pass. The collapse should have happened a while ago. Yet the idiotic you still believes that fakery.
If you enjoyed the lies in limits to growth and support their agenda, you can always get the next booster. Sont be shy. It's safe and very very effective. What do you think the purpose of the injections was?
To begin with, kindly shove the insinuation that I got myself boosted back into your asshole. Merci d'avance.
What do I think the purpose of the injections was? Frankly, I have no idea. I've researched extensively everything about convid, participated and even helped organized workshops with all sorts of dissident experts, you name it. I know everything about PCR tests, the no-virus theory, this and that and the other fucking thing too. Ditto the fuckccines. Still, I have no idea.
If my life depended on giving an answer, I'd say that the purpose of the fuckccines was psychological, as was the whole convid shit. To put people on a short leash, to make them accept orders from the authorities. My guess would be that the fuckccines are completely innocuous, there probably nothing in them. The adverse effects are either played up or caused by some impurities.
Try to use your brain for once - if they wanted to kill off people through fuckccines, why would they go to such lengths as organizing convid? They could have simply put something into existing fuckccines, something people willingly take, without rising any suspicion.
When they rolled out the shots, people were saying that the jabbed would be disintegrating at the molecular level in a few months, blah blah blah. None of that happened. Likewise, euromomo shows no excess mortality. So now you're gonna say that the whatever the nefarious purpose of the shots is will kick in at a later time. Well, maybe. Or big shit.
Wow. You must be so smart. Figuring out the covid scam just to fall for the one immediately following it, the big climate change hoax. You are a special kind of idiot and my assumption that you got the injections stands to reason. Mostly non idiots avoided it and you are not one.
As for the lethality of the shots, who cares. The idiots that took it, and you definitely look and act like one, can always be ridiculed and frightened about the potential deadly effects.
NOW, you smart ass think they are not lethal. Put your arm where your mouth is clown. Go take the first shot.
If you like shoving things into your asshole, that doesn't mean everyone does. You homos and pedos are really sick individuals and your reveal yourself really quickly when one pays attention.
As for your "super uber smart deduction" that they could have used the existing vaccines, ofc they couldn't. Not everyone is so idiotic to take them. Plenty that never get injected with anything else got the injections under durress.
BTW, the limits to growth makes pretty good sense to me. It certainly holds water in the physical sense. Infinite expansion in a closed system is not a possibility. The limits as such are debatable, but limits do exist.
Anything can be used to push an agenda, but it doesn't mean that the thing at issue is invalid in itself.
Given the nature of the last week and today's holiday, I was already having trouble sleeping. This not what the voters elected. The picture of the ruins of some civilization somewhere with the comment "Ever notice that so many ruins are surrounded by desert? provoked me to consider this fact: the modern world survives on the idea of the economies of scale and we are stuck with the arithmetic -- how much iron ore, coal, and chemical additives does it to build a wind tower, or a nuclear reactor or an electric truck? How many more do we need? How much raw material is available? Hpw long until we are shit out of luck?
President Trump is like Yul Brynner's Pharoah saying after every command "As it was said so let it be written, so as it is written, let it be done." Until the computers blink off because the nuclear power plant that was supposed to carry the load for the nation's capital melted down and is heading at the speed of well electrons eating layers of shielding for the earth's core.
Good old Percy Bysshe Shelley put it well.
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
We humans are now 3,000 times (not "doubled or quadrupled") more numerous than were our last ecologically balanced and self-sustaining migratory Hunter-Gatherer/pastoralist ancestors just a few thousand years ago. Population 10Kya approximately 5M worldwide. These ancestral clans/bands had all the components of "civilization" you described, but used the available natural resources and endured extreme climate changes, which we may well not do. The 200+ painted caves in the south of France and Pyrenees during the last iceage 22-16 kya are to this art lover's old eyes the most beautiful ever created by human hands. Pessimism? A recent PEW survey found that 47% of Americans 18-50 have chosen NOT to have children, which is the ONLY solution to our massive overpopulation/overconsumption problem that only a complete fool would deny, and, yet, 200,000 net more children are brought into this dying world daily.
I published a book in 2018, which Stanford offers online for free as a PDF, "Stress R Us", and which reviews in detail the human overcrowding health consequences, and they are many. We spend $4T a year in the US just to cling to our lives. The migration crises and wars worldwide are ALL the result of massive overpopulation/overconsumption, but were migration not allowed, long evolved physiological population regulation mechanisms would kick-in and stabilize our numbers and consumption.
This well written essay by "B", whoever the hell "B" may be, is accurate, mostly, and much appreciated, inspite of trolls like "Paul". Want the truth about the extent of climate collapse? Go to C3S (EU) and sign-up for free, especially their "Climate Pulse" page. All of the corporate sponsored IPCC and other misleading sites should be ignored. The truth is far, far worse than "pessimistic". Still want to bring another innocent life into being at this late date in our collapsing biosphere, just to celebrate his/her 23rd BD in a 6 degC hothouse earth? Have a blessed day, one and all. Gregg
Don't you worry. The large majority of the illegals pouring through the south border has decided to have plenty of children. Soon you'll be a minority in your own country. Great inheritance for your children who will get slaughtered.
I'm mostly with you, Gregg. Bill Rees's optimistic number is 1B max given present conditions. As non-renewable resources are exhausted, and toxicity continues growing in water, soils, air, food chain, stresses increase steadily. Hans Selye saw this decades ago in his General Adaptation Syndrome. (GAS) Jack Alpert (skil.org)
As to choosing to have kids, it is likely that half are unintended from what I've read. Free will is vastly overrated! Baggage from heredity (genes, epigenetic RNA, viruses, microbiome, etc. are all physical and embodied. Cumulative effects from experience since conception, ditto. Conscious choice is fettered when individuals encounter the present (also physical) We make many decisions daily, but 'free' is a relative term.
Empowering women, fighting patriarchy in religions and societal norms, and making contraception free or very cheap are systemic moves which would likely reduce births and suffering of humans and other species. Unfortunately people like Musk are trying the opposite.
Thanks for the reply, Steven. I am a great fan of Hans Selye and his Institute in Montreal. I owned and read the 1,000+ pg. "Stress", and it played a prominent role in "Stress R Us". However, the animal crowding researchers work and a lifetime treating human "stress diseases" completed the circle. The English psychologist Jeffrey Gray, PhD, was the first in his 1971 "The Psychology of Fear and Stress" to suggest that stress "has the function of restraining or reducing population density when it gets too high". However, in Selye's iconic 1936 letter in Lancet, he noted that the overactive stress response of the GAS reduced the pituitary output of sex hormones as it increased cortisol levels from ADHD increase. You may wish to read my "Stress R Us" at Stanford for extensive details. Have a blessed day, Gregg
Read your book? Why? Get this through your head - people need less complexity, less yapping about bullshit, less effort to try to dissect and analyze the world, with the implicit idea that by understanding it, they'll be able to conquer and control it.
People need to simplify, re-learn to live in harmony with nature, which includes us. Intuitively and without trying to fuck with it.
"our last ecologically balanced and self-sustaining migratory Hunter-Gatherer/pastoralist ancestors" ?
They were migrating precisely because they were NOT ecologically balanced. They never were. They always had to go a bit further to avoid local overshoot. And that's how humanity spread throughout the world.
Only when there is no place left to go and some populations had to settle for very ressource-poor environment (ice pack, desert, equatorial forest) do they try to get ecologically balanced to avoid starving every couple of generations.
And, given the natural fluctuation of ressources, they are not even succeeding all the time. Hence the very low population density and the apparent abundance they enjoy during good times.
Ecological balance was expressed by their migratory lifeway. Your understanding of the concept of ecological balance need some fine tuning. Large territories were needed, transitory though they were, to provide the necessary sustenance and these butted up against one another, so population regulation was built-in, so unlike our massively overpopulated and over consuming megalopolises. Your argument is a tautology, contradicts itself. Have a blessed day.
"Ecological balance was expressed by their migratory lifeway."
I think you're wrong. They moved away because they had to (and I'm not talking here about migrations in the sense of following game or herding cattle back and forth from seasonal pastures)
No, sooner or later, all along human history, there were too many people at the same place and some had to go. Or die.
But thinking otherwise, like there was some lost Golden Age of ecological balance, is indeed so much more romantic...
In reports and discussions about global crises, human inhabitants of Earth are commonly referred to as ‘our’ population (meaning the global population), or ‘our’ civilisation. Nevertheless, there are almost 200 countries in the world, each with varying population numbers, population densities, fertility rates, consumption levels, and life expectancies, many of them constituting distinct civilisation models.
Ecological Overshoot:
The idea that the environment is a singular universal concept, is a mind construct – a sort of chimera that disappears when approached with critical thinking. There are indeed many local environmental crises, but none of them encompass the entire globe all at once.
The continual creation of crises through global thinking leads to centralised and collectivised conceptual mental frameworks that, upon objective analyses, are mostly chimeras and mirages.
Overpopulation:
Some counties are underpopulated while others are overpopulated. Nevertheless, a prevailing and widespread belief is that there are too many people in the world, leading many to conclude that there is a worldwide overpopulation crisis.
Similar to climate and environmental issues, overpopulation is primarily a preoccupation of the developed world projected onto the rest of the world. This stems mainly from centralised thinking. The truth is that many countries have low population densities combined with sufficient resources and food production capacities, which would make them relatively self sufficient.
Global vs Local Crises:
Centralised mindsets frame all of the world’s local issues as universal problems that should be managed centrally, preferably through global policymaking. Such thinking leads to the mental ownership of the entire world’s problems due discounting boundaries between nations, countries, and continents, with the prolific use of the word ‘our’ being a case in point.
Where there are real (local) crises, there are usually local governments, institutions, and people already in charge of resolving them. Environmental, climate, population, and food issues have always been local, municipal, provincial, or national in scope before being conceptually turned into planetary issues as a result of (excessive) global thinking.
It is not that 'global civilisation' is in overshoot - as there's no such thing (there are many civilisations) - it's that First World's Western civilisation (the model based on globalisation), is in overshoot, because of it's over-consumption (per capita) of resources and materials that are sourced mainly externally from peripheral zones and faraway places.
Conclusion:
The bottom-line is that the only real global crisis is (will soon be) a global energy crisis - none of the other issues constitute global crises in a true sense. Another growing global crisis is expanding war, which is as a result of the growing energy crisis.
For many of the above points comprehensively argued, please see:
Pollution of the atmosphere, including GHGs, nanoplastics, other nano/micro particulates, harmful chemicals, etc. isn't restricted to local and national areas. These are found in the most remote polar regions, and on top of high mountain ranges, with fallout affecting soils, lakes, rivers, food chains everywhere. Cleaning up locally can help, but it keeps coming as human activity expands. When energy truly reverses, INvoluntary Simplicity will slow and eventually reverse that trend.
Second, Consider that the low throughput (energy-matter) by those in poorer countries is not voluntary. They seek the maximum consumption level possible given their buying power and natural endowment. Many in the 'rich' countries have small families (or go childless) so they can live a richer material life with traveling, fashions, cars, nice homes, etc. To whatever extent saved money, real estate including large ranches/farms/forests, jewelry, art... owned by the rich is redistributed, latent consumption would become immediate. The properties would be sold to the highest bidders, with the sellers increasing their buying power. As most poor need better nutrition, shelters, clothing, health care, dentistry, etc. who can blame them! Social Justice would speed the time to system breakdown.
In answer to your question, "Can we escape our predicament?", then the answer for Western civilisation and populations is no, because the foundation of every part of our social and technological structure is the energy intensity of fossil fuels surplus (the useful energy remaining after you find it, get it out, process it, transport it and use it for useful work). And most Western people will not go quietly, but will fight like rats in a cage to try to keep what they have.
If the 'predicament' is the survival of the human race, then there are many parts of the world that already survive without cars, computers, electric lights, and feed themselves by subsistence agriculture and fishing - if there are to be survivors, it will probably be them because they don't need to prepare for collapse, they just need to adapt to it. Even for them, their numbers will probably be much reduced.
But if the predicament is me or you surviving for our own lifetimes, then it seems mostly down to some awareness, some preparation, and a hell of a lot of luck, for example not to be in a car stuck in traffic in Valencia, or not to be in that airplane struck by lightning that plummets 5,000 ft into a mountain.
Awareness of what? Well, obviously don't be the trans guy in a MAGA rally in Kentucky, but also don't be the person with all your savings in crypto, and don't live in a flood zone or hurricane alley in a mobile home, or a wood frame house with plastic siding, or...... well you get my drift.
And preparedness? Here's Lesson 1. Turn off your electric at the meter for a week, and see how you get on. Then think about everything else you rely on.
Plan for your own lifetime to live the life you want as best you can whilst minimising the personal risks. No point worrying about a future beyond your expected life. No point worrying about what is happening elsewhere unless it affects you or your people.
If you have kids, try talking to them but understand they have their own ideas, their own lives and they'll make their own decisions, good or bad.
Just get your self into the best place you can think of to provide you with YOUR best life for your remaining years. And only you can work out what those wants and needs are likely to be.
Doing nothing is a choice too, but one where you rely entirely on luck. Not my choice, but each to their own, and you certainly wouldn't be the only one.
If you want hope, then the best I can assure you of is the planet will survive, life on it will almost certainly survive, most of the changes we envisage; 4*C hotter, more deserts, more storms, higher sea levels, etc. have all happened before, and before humans, but humans' ancestors were around then and survived.
In answer to your question, "Can we escape our predicament?", then the answer for Western civilisation and populations is no, because the foundation of every part of our social and technological structure is the energy intensity of fossil fuels surplus (the useful energy remaining after you find it, get it out, process it, transport it and use it for useful work). And most Western people will not go quietly, but will fight like rats in a cage to try to keep what they have.
If the 'predicament' is the survival of the human race, then there are many parts of the world that already survive without cars, computers, electric lights, and feed themselves by subsistence agriculture and fishing - if there are to be survivors, it will probably be them because they don't need to prepare for collapse, they just need to adapt to it. Even for them, their numbers will probably be much reduced.
But if the predicament is me or you surviving for our own lifetimes, then it seems mostly down to some awareness, some preparation, and a hell of a lot of luck, for example not to be in a car stuck in traffic in Valencia, or not to be in that airplane struck by lightning that plummets 5,000 ft into a mountain.
Awareness of what? Well, obviously don't be the trans guy in a MAGA rally in Kentucky, but also don't be the person with all your savings in crypto, and don't live in a flood zone, or hurricane alley, or close to a forest that might burn, in a mobile home, or a wood frame house with plastic siding, or...... well you get my drift.
And preparedness? Here's Lesson 1. Turn off your electric at the meter for a week, and see how you get on. Then think about everything else you rely on.
Plan for your own lifetime to live the life you want as best you can whilst minimising the personal risks. No point worrying about a future beyond your expected life. No point worrying about what is happening elsewhere unless it affects you or your people.
If you have kids, try talking to them but understand they have their own ideas, their own lives and they'll make their own decisions, good or bad.
Just get your self into the best place you can think of to provide you with YOUR best life for your remaining years. And only you can work out what those wants and needs are likely to be.
Doing nothing is a choice too, but one where you rely entirely on luck. Not my choice, but each to their own, and you certainly wouldn't be the only one.
If you want hope, then the best I can assure you of is the planet will survive, life on it will almost certainly survive, most of the changes we envisage; 4*C hotter, more deserts, more storms, higher sea levels, etc. have all happened before, and before humans, but humans' ancestors were around then and survived.
Another good summary of the predicament. Thanks. I wonder if you could comment (or prepare a post) on the hopium argument that we only 'need' to replace 1/3 of our current primary energy use with "renewables" because so much energy is simply lost as heat from our current energy system. Given the range of high heat industrial processes that don't have viable "electrical" replacements (at least ones that make sense) it just seems silly. It would be nice if you (Honest Sorcerer) could put an engineering worldview on that. If hypothetically we had the time (i.e. before the diesel supply gets thoroughly squeezed) it seems geology and physics will trump any attempt to achieve this....
I once read an article about how to overcome a seemingly unsolvable, terminal situation, such as a severe or fatal disease. The trick is that one should at all times at every moment harbor the conviction that from now on, things will start to get better. Even if they're not, even if you're getting more sick, you should maintain that optimist and believe that from now on, you'll be on the mend. Optimism has a strong healing power and this is your only chance to make it anyway. If you succumb to your affliction, you're as good as dead.
Why not transpose that idea to the civilizational problems humankind is, or will be, facing, eh? Sure, looking from within the realm of our civilization, all the gizmos, gadgets, luxuries, and treats we have, the future looks grim. Sure, there are too many of us assholes, and all of us want more of that shiny shit. Clearly impossible.
We have two options. Either whine about how things won't be the way they used to be, how we're fucked, how we're going extinct, blah blah blah. That way, extinct we'll go for sure. Like a person who gives up the fight with a disease. The alternative is to look to the future, look for opportunities, ways to formulate an alternative existence, find something different.
Does the latter guarantee success? Fuck., no. Does the former guarantee the extinction all you doomsters wish for so keenly? Fuck, yes. Guess what, I'm going with the latter.
But what about a third option that would be clinking to false hopes instead of taking the good and hard decisions ?
Because this is mostly what we did so far. We do need to avoid your first option. I agree with that. But are not following the second one...
(To continue with you metaphor, I guess that faced with terminal illness, at one point, someone should stop thinking some miracle cure will come his way and start thinking about going to the notary to draw up his will...)
There are a lot of option and we shall see what happens.
The world is just starting to turn itself upside down, inside out, and there will be massive developments. Ultimately, people are not as fucking stupid as they appear, and they will make do. Or will be made do. Lots of things might become irrelevant, such as the whole global Northwest and its ways.
My analogy wasn't about drawing up the will, but about maintaining an optimistic stance, at all times, no matter how shitty things are, even if they're getting worse.
The subject is not humanity but the industrial civilization.
So yes, hopefully (and even if it's not 100% sure) humanity will make do. And, yes, as nobody knows what will happen, there still some hope.
But, as much as we enjoy it and would like to see it keep going for ever, this industrial civilization and the way it works is doomed. And this what this essay is all about. Not the total disparition of mankind.
I don't enjoy it. Not in its present state. Maybe some aspects of it, but not the fact that purpose of just about everything has swung so far the other way that everything is inverted. I'll be glad to see the back of it.
Frankly, I find it puzzling how people can whine about the detrimental aspects of this civilization and the impending collapse thereof at the same time. Shouldn't they be rejoicing that this whole fucking circus will finally go down the tubes? Albeit with a bit of a splash?
"Enjoying it" not in the sense that you like it. And least every aspect of it. "Enjoying it" as, obviously, we both have the technical possibility to talk together wherever we are on this planet. With all the energy, technology, wealth and free time needed to do so.
And I'm definitely not whining about its collapse. I know it cannot go on for ever. I understand why. So I regret it because I'm quite convinced whatever will comes next will not get better for quite a few people.
Of course, life has always been hard for some people. Not everybody enjoyed industrialism the way others had the chance to. And still, every single country on the face of earth saw its population increase during the last centuries or decades. Everyone of them. That means everywhere, conditions improved and parents saw less of their kids die from disease, starvation, violence and so on. Life was still hard for many. But not has hard as it used to be.
And it's about to be reverted. That's the splash you're talking about.
And still, it doesn't mean no joy at all will be permitted. That what's hope is about.
Alright then. Yeah, I enjoy some stuff like the next guy. I like driving, communicating with guys all over the world is great, other things too. There were times in my life though when I had absolute shit and I was just as happy.
They say that people who suffer a grave injury and become wheelchair-bound eventually, not after too long, regain the same level of happiness they had before. It will be like that with the demise of this shitcilization too. It's all in the head. People who are fucked up therein will remain so, others will go on and be happy with whatever life they have.
Now I know we you drop a touch of hopium in your articles...this one has not of that and look at how the barnyard animals react...they lose their minds
I really wonder what is the proportion of people who choose not to have kids because they fear they will not have the ressources to raise them properly and the proportion of people who consider that raising kids will prevent them to fully enjoy all the wealth they have (both options being not totally incompatible btw).
But if it's mostly the second option, it means that if people get poorer, they might have more kids again. However difficult and short their lives may be in the deteriorating situation.
So I'm no so sure this decline of population will be that peaceful as there is a good chance it will be the product of increasing death rate instead of diminishing birth rate...
Whoever "Paul" is, the reason you're so upset is that thinking about harsh truths needs to happen at a social level in addition to the level of the individual, and yet the society we all inhabit is increasingly incapable of acting as a society in almost any respect, let alone concretely analysing and then solving its problems. It's a society of alienated individuals who can only cooperate with each other on a very partial and stunted, not to mention antagonistic, basis. So even though you can understand all these problems as an individual, there is no way for you to act on that understanding, because it's not possible for you - as an individual - to act. Only the totality of human individuals acting together will have any chance of bringing about change, yet that is not happening because we live in a self-contradictory social system that is simultaneously 1> complex and global in terms of how it functions and sustains itself 2> very fragmented and localised (or individualised) in terms of how its constituent parts interact with each other and the system as a whole. It's an impossible situation, which is why we're all here talking about collapse. It is totally, fundamentally, unsustainable.
But where is the hope in what I said? Certainly not in positing some fantasy about the current system "somehow" continuing to exist as before if "we" just do a bit of restructuring or scaling down without fundamentally altering the way it works, i.e, how and why people do what they do. So what then?
My personal view is very similar to Mr B's but with one, very fundamental difference. Society is not a "system" in the way your computer or an anthill is a system. It's made up of thinking and feeling people. Individual humans, unlike ants or transistors, know how the system they live in works. They consciously reproduces its logic. And the logic of the system itself emerges out of the conscious life activity of individual humans and how they relate to each other.
As the crisis/collapse of this system accelerates and worsens, people will adapt to it. But that adaptation will not be mechanical or passive. It won't just be limited to having fewer kids or buying fewer clothes. Because even those things will not really solve anything, and things will keep getting worse despite those things. Humans are not just adaptive, we're also creative. Sure, a lot of people will only look out for themselves or their own country/group, following the logic of this contradictory globalized system of locally and individually motivated humans. But that isn't going to work and people will realize that soon enough, and then they'll try something else.
What that "something else" is, I don't know. It's impossible for me as an individual to figure out what a radical social transformation looks like. The answer is has to come out of the actual process itself, comprising the thoughts and actions of billions of people. But whatever it ends up being must involve cooperation and coordination on a global scale but without the antagonisms that are inherently tied up with the current globalised system. At a certain point, the great masses of people can and will reject the logic of a social system that wants to hurt and kill them, and that social system will be too crisis-ridden and dysfunctional to even partially address their needs, as it has been able to in the past. And that point lies somewhere in this decade, or the next, or the one after that.
...None of which is to say we'll succeed in building and sustaining a non-antagonistic global society, but it's the only alternative.
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/the-three-pillars-of-bullshit
There's fast eddy again using another comments section to try and drive traffic to his own web site.
.
There loads of evidence online for one to link to if they were genuinely debating, but you are not even debating anyone just throwing-up your link without even a word at every comment you disagree with, like you are above debating with the little people - yours is the first and last word. You've done this here and in a number of other comment sections. Like your site is so fucking good that no words are necessary you can just pull your link out like it's a weapon and that instantly ends any and all debate.
What you are doing is the same thing that bible thumpers do - throw chapter and verse in people's faces - John 3:16......." HA! that totally proves I'm right"
What surprises me is how any blog owner lets you get away with it. Perhaps it's out of pity?
Here's a tip ... I don't give a f789 how many people sign up to my SS... and I ain't doing it for money cuz you cannot pay to read.
The main reason I maintain a SS is so that I can have an easy to reference database of truths so that I do not have to rewrite this stuff over and over when I am dealing with https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/humans-barnyard-animals-and-circus/
A secondary reason is because I enjoy taunting the retarded morons who live in DelusiSTAN by shoving these truths in front of their brain dead faces....
Look at the reaction to this truth by HS... anger... this is typical of a retard... when faced with a truth they double down ... and they hurl insults ... when they could instead ... change their minds... and always be right ... like I am https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/wanna-be-right-all-of-the-time/
"What are we gonna do? Don't know. We'll think of something."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiZ8D9akdV4
Frankly, I'm getting tired of this doom and gloom pessimism. I get the logic and the data, but what's the point of regurgitating that? Are we supposed to off ourselves preemptively?
When I was a teenager, I defected from a totalitarian country westward. I had no idea whatsoever where I was going and what was in store for me on the way and once I'd get there. So, I took it one thing at a time, and lo and behold, nearly a half century later, I'm alive and kicking, having relocated my ass multiple times since then, when things began to go south.
I like the attitude of guys like Simon Michaux. Maybe Nate Hagens too. Positive, optimistic. Focused on finding a way, making things possible.
This we're fucked and that's all there's to it is too much. What's the point?
Truth is a much bigger concept than hurt feelings or hopium needs. Hagens in particular is a merchant of misplaced hopium. There is no need for a “point” - we are all going to live within the inherited realities of our lives, having only the slightest ability to adjust to their negative permutations. What’s not to love?
Truth? What's the truth? You possess the truth? Where did you get this hurt feelings And hopium? Hopium implies that things will turn for the better without an effort on your part. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about not succumbing to the opposite - hopeless pessimism and masochistic gloom.
For the truth, look at what The Honest Sorcerer and Jasmine have written here. Is there some objection you have to what he and she wrote about the human predicament? Then state what your objection is, which might have some validity, otherwise you are pounding the keys in frustration over what must be hurt feelings and need for hopium.
You are right that “hopeless pessimism and masochistic gloom” are not generally great party starters, but unlike others even here, I don’t think individual renunciations of inherited fossil fuel slavery amount to much. This is all much bigger than Substack statements or complaints, but other humans in history have faced defeat and impending collapse and kept on with determination to live within difficult realities. People with terminal diagnoses; people in outgunned and outmatched war enclaves; people dropping out of institutions like the church or its secular variant higher ed; desperate migrants; etc.
The Second World War is not applicable to today; fossil fuels led the way out from 1,200 calories per person in Germany to today’s fossil fuel overshoot. There is nothing on the horizon to replace them, nor the socio-political means to enforce the illusion of degrowth.
Funny how the clowns refuse to address the facts as presented here...they prefer anger
Bravo!!!
Unless you are delusional the default emotion should be despair
Speak for yourself. Despair and whine all you want. I'll do what I fucking want.
Shouldn't you be stacking ammo...why are you here...it's only driving you insane
You need to worry about your extinction not why somebody is here or there or what they're stacking ...
How many covid shots are you on
You're funny. All of you idiots are so predictable. You despise and ridicule the sheeple out there because they've fallen for this bullshit, that bullshit, or some other bullshit and you think yourself smart because you saw through it. Maybe you did, to an extent. But then you turn around and engage in phantasmagorical conjectures, such as that the covid shots are supposed to kill off the entire human population.
The only problem with your theory is that it ain't materializing. People are not dying off en masse. Oh yeah, you'll say that it's coming, you'll see! Well, there is always a chance that you're right, but more likely not. If "they" wanted to kill off people, they'd figure out something much less obvious, they're not that stupid. They could add something to existing fuckccines. There is zero data showing that fuckccines are the kill shots paranoid twits of your ilk claim.
It hasn't happened... yet.
Are you in a rush?
As long as it happens before the energy situation tips over and the global supply chains collapse - and 8B begin to starve.
We are close...
Your problem is that you've conjured up one scenario how things will go down, have echo-chamber cemented it in your inflexible skull, and now are parroting the same fucking thing over and fucking over like a fucking broken record.
Will the energy situation tip over ... ? Like over-fucking-night, meaning that no truck will come to your hood supermarket in the morning? Probably not. It's much more likely that things will happen gradually and people, or at least some, will have time to adjust and adapt, or at least to an extent.
We are not close to fucking anything. Try to control your fucking paranoia, man. Hydrocarbons might be past peak production, but there's shitloads of the stuff. It sure won't run out in a matter of years.
Will humanity be able to steer through this and how? I don't fucking know. What I know, though, that it's worth trying ... as opposed to idly yapping about no hope, the darkest possible scenarios, and forthcoming extinction.
Nobody likes the truth ... they get angry
Shut the f up. You don't have the truth. You've conjured up a psychotically masochistic vision of the future, one of the worst possible alternatives. There are other possibilities.
You've lived your life in the part of the world that has enjoyed the most luxurious (in material terms) lifestyle in history. You're scared shitless that you might no have that since you'd be unable to survive in anything else. Well, guess fucking what - humans not only survived in much much less luxurious conditions in past, but they're surviving in conditions like that even today, as we speak.
So, shove your alleged truth up your ass. It's your fucking truth, not THE truth.
I am ENTERTAINED
FE, you were entertaining too on Our Finite World. But you dismiss too many reasoned arguments by just saying 'not possible' instead of debating back.
Have you moved to W. Australia yet from Queenstown, N.Z.? You were planning that, I assumed it was so as to observe events from a distance. W.A. must be the most isolated province on the planet apart from Antarctica.
You have to acknowledge the level of the crisis in order to find solutions🤦♀️ And I expect nature will find its own solutions for us human parasites.
That is true only to a point. Coming up with yet another angle on how things are fucked up has its limits. At some point, you have to start doing something. Unless you're a masochist and enjoy conjuring up one doomsday scenario after another.
Doing what? It's the wealthy and the oil and gas industries causing this🤦♀️ You going to fight them? I'm pretty sure you're not courageous enough to do so🤣
Yeah, sure. The bad the THEM are doing it to the POOR YOU.
You don't use oil in your life, right. You and everybody else are completely innocent as regards what all of us have been doing all our lives - profiting from hydrocarbons like there was no tomorrow.
Fight them? Like fight for what? To stop extracting oil? To extract more of it? Boggles the ol' mind ... !
Doing what?
There are no solutions...this is an extinction event...tick tock...2025?
Most people have optimism bias and choose wilful ignorence. Realists thus sound like pessimists to them. It’s very difficult to get through to them. The wall of denial is impenetrable. A growing swath of literrature explores this irrational, maladaptive behaviour.
I’m happy for you and your escape, but the anecdote is unrelated and irrelevant to the issue at hand.
The point is, like Nata also says, to transition to a simpler life as painlessly as possible. Fwiw, I have heard all his episodes and afaik he offers no solution to the predicament: he’s just trying to educate his fellow humans, hoping more people will embrace the challenge of mitigating the consequences.
Dude, entropy is a thing🤦♀️
So?
Willful ignorance is part if the reason we're in this fucking nightmare. Look it up 🤦♀️
No...blame it on the finite nature of the planet and the burden of so called intelligence...
Duh...
Idiocracy
I see you hold a Delusistan passport
Wow....you are mentally ill...big time
Their optimism was fed to them by the ministry of truth ....https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/the-three-pillars-of-bullshit
"You can't stop what's coming. It ain't all waiting on you. That's vanity."
https://youtu.be/IvqLz9xcvGQ?si=MTKZF0K1X6KWlSg5
Frankly, I'm getting tired of this hope and faith optimism. I get the feelings and emotions, but the point, Paul, is to prepare people for the impending collapse. No, we're not supposed to off ourselves preemptively, as we're already doing that by continuing business as usual; we're supposed to implement planetary hospice.
When you were a teenager, the world was a lot different than it is now. Now, all countries are totalitarian in a way that Sheldon Wolin calls inverted totalitarianism. Now, we have plenty of ideas about where we are going and what is in store for us on the way and once we get there. Now, we need to take everything, everywhere, all at once, and lo and behold, nearly half a century later, we may still be alive and kicking, having to avoid the extinction of our species multiple times when things begin to go south.
I like the attitude of guys like Guy McPherson. Maybe Michael Ruppert, too. Evidentiary, realistic. Focused on finding the truth, making things tangible.
This we're not fucked, and that's all there is to it, is too much. What's the point?
The point is that this masochistic shit, this wallowing in how things are fucked up makes me wanna puke. It ain't over till it's over.
Talk to the people in Asheville, NC. Talk to the people in Valencia Spain.
The police are beating the people in Valencia. They're done talking.
I saw that🤬 ACAB!
There have been floods where I live. Some people have lost their homes. Some died. All the houses that got destroyed were in a flood zone. Build your house on a hill. Build a levee. The town next to where my partner lives has dug a canal that bypasses the built-up area - no damage during a recent flooding.
Gotta adapt. Whining will do shit.
Asheville and Chimney Rock, NC are fucking gone. Like wiped out. Look where they're located 🤦♀️ I'm blocking you now because you're a 🤡
Shit happens. Gotta start anew.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=mEPDw0BSl1E
Do what..adapt how
Do what? I don't fucking know! Think of something. If you can't, shut the fuck up, maybe somebody else can.
How do you adapt? By changing your ways based on the circumstances. All you doomster whiners reject that out of hand. For you, this luxurious industrial civilization is the only viable option and extinction is the only alternative. Well, guess fucking what, there are lots of other ways in which critters can live, including humans, and I'm fairly confident that that's exactly what they're gonna do. They'll adapt and go on, in one way or another, while you'll be long extinct, since you obviously can't wait for that to fucking happen.
Do you know all the causes of the tragedy Valencia event? Have you seen the amount of soil degradation inflicted upon these lands over the last decades? Here in southern Spain, we have been ignoring nature constraints for far too long already, and this is one of its symptons. I don't want to downplay the magnitude of the event, as the flood was the largest since some decades, but at the same time, we have so much room for improvement.
I get your point, Jasmine; all is lost, collapse is ongoing, and life on Earth would be "better" without us. Well, that might be true, but Paul has a point as well, and it is about what do we do with that information. Why not try to adapt, change our way of life, our narratives, starting with ourselves, and do what we know deep inside that is morally good?
What would be better, to live as monsters, powerless cataclisms-bringers that do nothing but behole the collapse-, or, yeah, name it fools if you like, knowing we at least tried our best given the circunstances? Mind you, the latter does not have to be painful; in my experience -at least- it's the opposite. And it's not about sacrificing ourselves in a futile quest, but finding our rightful place as a part of this planet.
🤣🤡🤣
The people who need to change their way of life are the WEALTHY 🤦♀️ Oh, and the US military industrial complex.
It's almost Over...I recommend bucket listing just did another month in japan typing this while on a homeward bound flight...time is very short...tick...tock
You're obviously too dim to realize I just echoed your comment back to you. Good luck out there.
I can hear the fat lady warming up
How the decline of civilization will affect us personally is anyone's guess. Catastrophes happen to other people while our lives continue as usual. John Michael Greer has posited the scenario of a slow decline, where there is bad news here and there, but not everywhere all at once.
When individual suffering is too great, the individual commits suicide. Problem > solution, predicament > outcome. Until then, we wing it.
At 57 I don't get depressed by doom and gloom. It's not like I'm immortal.
When my health begins to fail is when my depression will set in.
I'm aware of his catabolic collapse theory. Quite likely.
Interesting point. Neither Simon Michaux or Nate Hagens have actual solutions to the problems that they point out though, despite trying their best to come up with some. In terms of this article, I don#t think it's saying that we're fucked, simply that civilisation as we know it has hit (or is about to hit) its limits. I think the quote you begin with is quite apt. It doesn't prevent the collapse (or the great simplification, as Nate refers to it), but simply says that we'll work something out as a response. The article mentions that population decline will be the route out of this, and I don't think that's in any way doom-mongering or pessimism, just stating a fact. Is there something virtuous or desirable about a large, or growing, population? Or just something that is or isn't? I think the future is bright. We live on a beautiful planet, with everything we need in nature. I don't believe that a collapsing (or shrinking) civilisation in line with material access has to be seen as a bad thing, despite our religious belief in "growth" and "progress", which are largely nebulous concepts. I suspect many people are beginning to awaken to the limitations of our rational materialism, and are perhaps tired of the constant chase for things and stuff. I certainly am. That's not coming from a place of nihilism either, simply acceptance and intrigue in the life ahead. That things are going to be different is not a measure of fucked or unfucked, just observation. Our technologies are all predicated on the system we live in and its beliefs. That they might fritter away and die is of no great consequence, we may come up with some better. Not necessarily fancier, more "advanced", but perhaps more meaningful, more beautiful, more loving.
In terms of regurgitating the data, I think it's absolutely essential. If I talk to my family or colleagues about peak materials or metacrises, they simply laugh it off because nobody is talking about it. It's certainly not mainstream knowledge, and certainly not seen as imperative right now. That's not because of not wanting to be pessimistic, either, it's that the people in power, and their media, won't talk about it.
Good thinking, I agree.
As to progress, I guess you have to remember how it (must have) started. The fucking Cro-Magnon man (BTW, my family has a house in the area where they lived, Les Eyzies, worse comes to worst we'll go back to the caves there, ha!) was tires of hauling shit and invented the wheel and from there it went on and on. It's kinda got out of hand now, but some degree of 'progress' is desirable, if humans are to remain human. Just saying so that we don't let the pendulum swing too far the other way and reject stuff that's good.
Regurgitating vis-a-vis people unaware, or ignorant, of these problems is good, preaching to the choir, combined with masochistic wallowing in how shitty things will be, ain't.
But as I said, I appreciate your comment. We're on the same page.
I guess what I'm after is that people now have a chance to shape the future, come up with a new raison d'etre, a new vision, since - as you say - many are realizing the detrimental nature of consumerism, including the fact that it doesn't make anybody any happier. That's what I like about Hagens - he projects that spirit. Simon Michaux is proposing some solutions, more along the lines of the availability of energy and minerals.
We have been solving the problem since we put that first seed in the ground...making the problem worse...there are no more solutions...now we pay a horrifying price
Hahaha...be tired all you want...you will soon be dead...extinction is imminent
Really, eh. What's soon? Like in five fucking minutes? Somehow I don't think so. Is extinction imminent, whatever imminent means in your psychotically masochistic head? Dunno. Don't give a fuck. I'll keep living my life the way I have thus far and try to adapt as I've always done. We'll see what happens.
If you wanna make yourself extinct - since it seems to be your sole preoccupation - be my fucking guest.
If HS is right...2026 ish
What would you say?
How do Michaux and Hagens make things possible? If you think that it's possible to continue our technological industrial global civilisation for ever, can you explain how? Michaux explained why the transition is impossible and so wants to reconstruct civilisation in a way that is still unsustainable but might last a little longer, with a vastly reduced population, somehow. These aren't solutions, they are grasping at straws. Unless Michaux and Hagens can explain how to make civilisation sustainable. I'm not holding my breath for a solution, even though I'd welcome it.
Have ever tried to fuck a pig?
If you're implicitly telling me that you have and want to follow by recounting what an experience it was, I'm not interested. Find yourself an interlocutor who is at least as fucked up in the head as you, ideally more, and you can discuss this issue till the fucking pigs come home.
Let's follow elon the clown to mars
Let's ... like us ...?
How about if you speak for yourself once? Follow whoever wherever the fuck you want and worry not about others. Try to fathom that there are people who don't need to follow anbody anywgere.
Sorry, but it's not up to others to self censor so you don't get upset. You came here willingly and you have already mentioned where you can find people who will give you a positive, optimistic version (of reality) focused on finding a way to?? sugarcoat Overshoot predicaments, AKA magical thinking, bargaining and negotiating with reality.
Overshoot-collapse predicaments and consequences are a very upsetting topics and I've been negatively effected by it at times and I have seen others become angry and nihilistic over a period of time learning about them. It's a reality that cannot be changed, but as with all things you can change how and how much you view reality. Have you ever considered taking a break from all collapse & Overshoot related sites? I have taken 2 breaks - one that was 8 months long, with almost no internet at all. The other break was from visiting any doomy sites and headlines which was at 13 months then Covid hit. Both were effective and I used the time to learn how not to care/carry so much.
I've debated with many people and many times the person (almost always liberals) I'm debating will accuse me of "being negative" and/or finger wag at me for "not being helpful" as if these are serious debating points when what they are is an admission that they have none. Optimism for optimism's sake has infected western society and it used junk, pop psychology and people like Oprah to indoctrinate society. If you pay attention you will see the "you're just being negative" and "you're not being helpful" BS lines used by many people to shut down someone presenting evidence they do not want to see or hear.
Paul says, look in the mirror.
~~~~~~~~~~
*Climbing The Ladder of Awareness*
When it comes to our understanding of the unfolding global crisis, each of us seems to fit somewhere along a continuum of awareness that can be roughly divided into five stages:
1 - Dead asleep. At this stage there seem to be no fundamental problems, just some shortcomings in human organization, behaviour and morality that can be fixed with the proper attention to rule-making. People at this stage tend to live their lives happily, with occasional outbursts of annoyance around election times or the quarterly corporate earnings seasons.
2 - Awareness of one fundamental problem. Whether it's Climate Change, overpopulation, Peak Oil, chemical pollution, oceanic over-fishing, biodiversity loss, corporatism, economic instability or sociopolitical injustice, one problem seems to engage the attention completely. People at this stage tend to become ardent activists for their chosen cause. They tend to be very vocal about their personal issue, and blind to any others.
3 - Awareness of many problems. As people let in more evidence from different domains, the awareness of complexity begins to grow. At this point a person worries about the prioritization of problems in terms of their immediacy and degree of impact. People at this stage may become reluctant to acknowledge new problems - for example, someone who is committed to fighting for social justice and against climate change may not recognize the problem of resource depletion. They may feel that the problem space is already complex enough, and the addition of any new concerns will only dilute the effort that needs to be focused on solving the "highest priority" problem.
4 - Awareness of the interconnections between the many problems. The realization that a solution in one domain may worsen a problem in another marks the beginning of large-scale system-level thinking. It also marks the transition from thinking of the situation in terms of a set of problems to thinking of it in terms of a predicament. At this point the possibility that there may not be a solution begins to raise its head.
People who arrive at this stage tend to withdraw into tight circles of like-minded individuals in order to trade insights and deepen their understanding of what's going on. These circles are necessarily small, both because personal dialogue is essential for this depth of exploration, and because there just aren't very many people who have arrived at this level of understanding.
5 - Awareness that the predicament encompasses all aspects of life. This includes everything we do, how we do it, our relationships with each other, as well as our treatment of the rest of the biosphere and the physical planet. With this realization, the floodgates open, and no problem is exempt from consideration or acceptance. The very concept of a "Solution" is seen through, and cast aside as a waste of effort.
For those who arrive at Stage 5 there is a real risk that depression will set in. After all, we've learned throughout our lives that our hope for tomorrow lies in our ability to solve problems today. When no amount of human cleverness appears able to solve our predicament the possibility of hope can vanish like a the light of a candle flame, to be replaced by the suffocating darkness of despair.
How people cope with despair is of course deeply personal, but it seems to me there are two general routes people take to reconcile themselves with the situation. These are not mutually exclusive, and most of us will operate out of some mix of the two. I identify them here as general tendencies, because people seem to be drawn more to one or the other. I call them the outer path and the inner path.
More
http://paulchefurka.ca/LadderOfAwareness.html
.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Blame is another thing/phase newer Doomers experience and some get stuck there:( . As far as I'm concerned there is no blame. It's you, it's me, it's the MPP.
*The purpose of life is to disperse energy*
The truly dangerous ideas in science tend to be those that threaten the collective ego of humanity and knock us further off our pedestal of centrality. The Copernican Revolution abruptly dislodged humans from the center of the universe. The Darwinian Revolution yanked Homo sapiens from the pinnacle of life. Today another menacing revolution sits at the horizon of knowledge, patiently awaiting broad realization by the same egotistical species.
The dangerous idea is this: the purpose of life is to disperse energy.
Many of us are at least somewhat familiar with the second law of thermodynamics, the unwavering propensity of energy to disperse and, in doing so, transition from high quality to low quality forms. More generally, as stated by ecologist Eric Schneider, "nature abhors a gradient," where a gradient is simply a difference over a distance — for example, in temperature or pressure. Open physical systems — including those of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere — all embody this law, being driven by the dispersal of energy, particularly the flow of heat, continually attempting to achieve equilibrium. Phenomena as diverse as lithospheric plate motions, the northward flow of the Gulf Stream, and occurrence of deadly hurricanes are all examples of second law manifestations.
There is growing evidence that life, the biosphere, is no different. It has often been said the life's complexity contravenes the second law, indicating the work either of a deity or some unknown natural process, depending on one's bias. Yet the evolution of life and the dynamics of ecosystems obey the second law mandate, functioning in large part to dissipate energy. They do so not by burning brightly and disappearing, like a fire torching a forest, but through stable metabolic cycles that store chemical energy and continually reduce the solar gradient. Photosynthetic plants, bacteria, and algae capture energy from the sun and form the core of all food webs.
Virtually all organisms, including humans, are, in a real sense, sunlight transmogrified, temporary waypoints in the flow of energy. Ecological succession, viewed from a thermodynamic perspective, is a process that maximizes the capture and degradation of energy. Similarly, the tendency for life to become more complex over the past 3.5 billion years (as well as the overall increase in biomass and organismal diversity through time) is not due simply to natural selection, as most evolutionists still argue, but also to nature's "efforts" to grab more and more of the sun's flow. The slow burn that characterizes life enables ecological systems to persist over deep time, changing in response to external and internal perturbations.
Ecology has been summarized by the pithy statement, "energy flows, matter cycles. " Yet this maxim applies equally to complex systems in the non-living world; indeed it literally unites the biosphere with the physical realm. More and more, it appears that complex, cycling, swirling systems of matter have a natural tendency to emerge in the face of energy gradients. This recurrent phenomenon may even have been the driving force behind life's origins.
This idea is not new, and is certainly not mine. Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger was one of the first to articulate the hypothesis, as part of his famous "What is Life" lectures in Dublin in 1943. More recently, Jeffrey Wicken, Harold Morowitz, Eric Schneider and others have taken this concept considerably further, buoyed by results from a range of studies, particularly within ecology. Schneider and Dorian Sagan provide an excellent summary of this hypothesis in their recent book, "Into the Cool".
https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10674
.
The Physics of Life (ft. It's Okay to be Smart & PBS Eons!)
"Our universe is prone to increasing disorder and chaos. So how did it generate the extreme complexity we see in life? Actually, the laws of physics themselves may demand it."
https://youtu.be/GcfLZSL7YGw
I see no difference between humans civilization and a beaver's damn. Both are perfectly natural and born of the earth. It could be no other way.
NATURE ABHORS A GRADIENT
Why you'd implicitly assume unawareness on my part of much of what you say, physical realities, blah blah blah, I understand not.
Just like it's not up to others to self-sensor, it's not up to me to self-censor. I'll say whatever the fuck I want and if it makes you upset don't read it. Simple.
Perhaps Paul doesn't have progeny. Perhaps his ethos doesn't include seeking to minimize suffering of humans and other species going forward. The familiar retort of suggesting suicide is BS. I've interacted with Nate H. for well over a decade, and with Simon for around 5 years. They are younger than many who've been working on this for half a century or longer. Limits to Growth was done in '72. Key to changing systemic behavior is increasing understanding by as many of us as possible. The likelihood of reaching critical mass is tiny, so Nate's method is a bit like Don Quixote. Individuals, though, can alter expectations and seek more resilient ways of living, IF they grasp the futility of continuing with BAU. Misplaced optimism is escapism.
Perhaps you should refrain from making ad hominem assumptions and focus on the subject matter.
Yes, Hagens is a Don Quixote, not to mention that his approach is exceedingly complex, which is rather paradoxical from somebody who's preaching simplification. The vast majority of people wouldn't have the first clue what the fuck Nate is talking about. Simon Michaux is right on point, my kind of guy. Acknowledges the problem, but looks for solutions. One of my students is a high-placed official at the environment ministry. I've discussed this stuff with her and she says that they're well aware of it. They're trying second- or third-best solutions. Maybe something will stick.
Without modular thorium reactors, where would Simon Michaux and his proposed purple transition be?
It doesn't matter where he would or will be. What matters is the attitude. Let's try this, let's try that. We'll see. Maybe something sticks. Better than sit on your ass and drown yourself in pessimistic shite.
I'm not drowning myself in anything. But since your little feelings are being hurt, why don't you unsubscribe?
For example, I stopped listening to Nate Hagens after his content became repetitive. It was time to move on.
Your comments on this article are a disgrace. Is this how you converse in real life?
Not everyone shares your perspective, you dumb ass. Not everyone interprets this article as you do. So take your "can-do" attitude and your projection and piss off.
If I were in a classroom, I'd have walked out.
One could drown booze and drugs if the negativity becomes too heavy
Accept reality
If there's something that needs to be accepted it's that reality is not what you've conjured up in your skull.
The injections will. Just that your friend in the minister is way down the hierarchy of psychos to be in the known.
She is quite high, actually, certainly higher than you. And FYI, the discussion was about solutions to energy, resources, and ecology, not the injections. Try not to mix apples with oranges.
An idiot that took the injections, as all idiots in any minister did, is just a parroting monkey in regards with all matters. So the fact that a parroting monkey is "higher up" than me, whatever you think that proves, doesn't mean that the parroting monkey knows anything about energy, resources or anything else for that matter. Or that it can form through reasoning any ideas of its own.
The only one mixing apples and oranges around here is you.
Actually, it's ministry, not minister, but you're close enough.
I don't know how fucked up my student is or how many injections of what she's taken, and I don't give a flying fuck. I was only mentioning her to illustrate what people working for the government know and how they think.
As to who is or isn't an idiot, you haven't said a pertinent thing thus far, so I have no choice but inform you that the idiot is you.
You can "inform" me of whatever you want clown, or correct spelling mistakes coming from a non native speaker, if that is what makes you think you are superior, but the only idiot here is you. Climate change is a scam, war in Ukraine is a scam, israel commits genocide, the elections are fake, covid was a scam etc and who ever believes anything else or anything writen in limits to growth is an idiot of first class. Their models didn't actually come to pass. The collapse should have happened a while ago. Yet the idiotic you still believes that fakery.
If you enjoyed the lies in limits to growth and support their agenda, you can always get the next booster. Sont be shy. It's safe and very very effective. What do you think the purpose of the injections was?
To begin with, kindly shove the insinuation that I got myself boosted back into your asshole. Merci d'avance.
What do I think the purpose of the injections was? Frankly, I have no idea. I've researched extensively everything about convid, participated and even helped organized workshops with all sorts of dissident experts, you name it. I know everything about PCR tests, the no-virus theory, this and that and the other fucking thing too. Ditto the fuckccines. Still, I have no idea.
If my life depended on giving an answer, I'd say that the purpose of the fuckccines was psychological, as was the whole convid shit. To put people on a short leash, to make them accept orders from the authorities. My guess would be that the fuckccines are completely innocuous, there probably nothing in them. The adverse effects are either played up or caused by some impurities.
Try to use your brain for once - if they wanted to kill off people through fuckccines, why would they go to such lengths as organizing convid? They could have simply put something into existing fuckccines, something people willingly take, without rising any suspicion.
When they rolled out the shots, people were saying that the jabbed would be disintegrating at the molecular level in a few months, blah blah blah. None of that happened. Likewise, euromomo shows no excess mortality. So now you're gonna say that the whatever the nefarious purpose of the shots is will kick in at a later time. Well, maybe. Or big shit.
Beware of echo chambers ...
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/the-ultimate-extinction-plan-uep
Now that's dark!
Wow. You must be so smart. Figuring out the covid scam just to fall for the one immediately following it, the big climate change hoax. You are a special kind of idiot and my assumption that you got the injections stands to reason. Mostly non idiots avoided it and you are not one.
As for the lethality of the shots, who cares. The idiots that took it, and you definitely look and act like one, can always be ridiculed and frightened about the potential deadly effects.
NOW, you smart ass think they are not lethal. Put your arm where your mouth is clown. Go take the first shot.
If you like shoving things into your asshole, that doesn't mean everyone does. You homos and pedos are really sick individuals and your reveal yourself really quickly when one pays attention.
As for your "super uber smart deduction" that they could have used the existing vaccines, ofc they couldn't. Not everyone is so idiotic to take them. Plenty that never get injected with anything else got the injections under durress.
BTW, the limits to growth makes pretty good sense to me. It certainly holds water in the physical sense. Infinite expansion in a closed system is not a possibility. The limits as such are debatable, but limits do exist.
Anything can be used to push an agenda, but it doesn't mean that the thing at issue is invalid in itself.
Seems to me that you have a reasoning problem.
Try singing KOOMbaya
Given the nature of the last week and today's holiday, I was already having trouble sleeping. This not what the voters elected. The picture of the ruins of some civilization somewhere with the comment "Ever notice that so many ruins are surrounded by desert? provoked me to consider this fact: the modern world survives on the idea of the economies of scale and we are stuck with the arithmetic -- how much iron ore, coal, and chemical additives does it to build a wind tower, or a nuclear reactor or an electric truck? How many more do we need? How much raw material is available? Hpw long until we are shit out of luck?
President Trump is like Yul Brynner's Pharoah saying after every command "As it was said so let it be written, so as it is written, let it be done." Until the computers blink off because the nuclear power plant that was supposed to carry the load for the nation's capital melted down and is heading at the speed of well electrons eating layers of shielding for the earth's core.
Good old Percy Bysshe Shelley put it well.
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
If I remember correctly, a documentary claimed that stainless steel would be the last surviving artifact of modern civilization.
We humans are now 3,000 times (not "doubled or quadrupled") more numerous than were our last ecologically balanced and self-sustaining migratory Hunter-Gatherer/pastoralist ancestors just a few thousand years ago. Population 10Kya approximately 5M worldwide. These ancestral clans/bands had all the components of "civilization" you described, but used the available natural resources and endured extreme climate changes, which we may well not do. The 200+ painted caves in the south of France and Pyrenees during the last iceage 22-16 kya are to this art lover's old eyes the most beautiful ever created by human hands. Pessimism? A recent PEW survey found that 47% of Americans 18-50 have chosen NOT to have children, which is the ONLY solution to our massive overpopulation/overconsumption problem that only a complete fool would deny, and, yet, 200,000 net more children are brought into this dying world daily.
I published a book in 2018, which Stanford offers online for free as a PDF, "Stress R Us", and which reviews in detail the human overcrowding health consequences, and they are many. We spend $4T a year in the US just to cling to our lives. The migration crises and wars worldwide are ALL the result of massive overpopulation/overconsumption, but were migration not allowed, long evolved physiological population regulation mechanisms would kick-in and stabilize our numbers and consumption.
This well written essay by "B", whoever the hell "B" may be, is accurate, mostly, and much appreciated, inspite of trolls like "Paul". Want the truth about the extent of climate collapse? Go to C3S (EU) and sign-up for free, especially their "Climate Pulse" page. All of the corporate sponsored IPCC and other misleading sites should be ignored. The truth is far, far worse than "pessimistic". Still want to bring another innocent life into being at this late date in our collapsing biosphere, just to celebrate his/her 23rd BD in a 6 degC hothouse earth? Have a blessed day, one and all. Gregg
Don't you worry. The large majority of the illegals pouring through the south border has decided to have plenty of children. Soon you'll be a minority in your own country. Great inheritance for your children who will get slaughtered.
I'm mostly with you, Gregg. Bill Rees's optimistic number is 1B max given present conditions. As non-renewable resources are exhausted, and toxicity continues growing in water, soils, air, food chain, stresses increase steadily. Hans Selye saw this decades ago in his General Adaptation Syndrome. (GAS) Jack Alpert (skil.org)
As to choosing to have kids, it is likely that half are unintended from what I've read. Free will is vastly overrated! Baggage from heredity (genes, epigenetic RNA, viruses, microbiome, etc. are all physical and embodied. Cumulative effects from experience since conception, ditto. Conscious choice is fettered when individuals encounter the present (also physical) We make many decisions daily, but 'free' is a relative term.
Empowering women, fighting patriarchy in religions and societal norms, and making contraception free or very cheap are systemic moves which would likely reduce births and suffering of humans and other species. Unfortunately people like Musk are trying the opposite.
Thanks for the reply, Steven. I am a great fan of Hans Selye and his Institute in Montreal. I owned and read the 1,000+ pg. "Stress", and it played a prominent role in "Stress R Us". However, the animal crowding researchers work and a lifetime treating human "stress diseases" completed the circle. The English psychologist Jeffrey Gray, PhD, was the first in his 1971 "The Psychology of Fear and Stress" to suggest that stress "has the function of restraining or reducing population density when it gets too high". However, in Selye's iconic 1936 letter in Lancet, he noted that the overactive stress response of the GAS reduced the pituitary output of sex hormones as it increased cortisol levels from ADHD increase. You may wish to read my "Stress R Us" at Stanford for extensive details. Have a blessed day, Gregg
Read your book? Why? Get this through your head - people need less complexity, less yapping about bullshit, less effort to try to dissect and analyze the world, with the implicit idea that by understanding it, they'll be able to conquer and control it.
People need to simplify, re-learn to live in harmony with nature, which includes us. Intuitively and without trying to fuck with it.
The fact that a person offers a different viewpoint, which you're intellectually challenged self doesn't understand, doesn't make him a troll.
So, fuck you!
Hum...
"our last ecologically balanced and self-sustaining migratory Hunter-Gatherer/pastoralist ancestors" ?
They were migrating precisely because they were NOT ecologically balanced. They never were. They always had to go a bit further to avoid local overshoot. And that's how humanity spread throughout the world.
Only when there is no place left to go and some populations had to settle for very ressource-poor environment (ice pack, desert, equatorial forest) do they try to get ecologically balanced to avoid starving every couple of generations.
And, given the natural fluctuation of ressources, they are not even succeeding all the time. Hence the very low population density and the apparent abundance they enjoy during good times.
Ecological balance was expressed by their migratory lifeway. Your understanding of the concept of ecological balance need some fine tuning. Large territories were needed, transitory though they were, to provide the necessary sustenance and these butted up against one another, so population regulation was built-in, so unlike our massively overpopulated and over consuming megalopolises. Your argument is a tautology, contradicts itself. Have a blessed day.
"Ecological balance was expressed by their migratory lifeway."
I think you're wrong. They moved away because they had to (and I'm not talking here about migrations in the sense of following game or herding cattle back and forth from seasonal pastures)
No, sooner or later, all along human history, there were too many people at the same place and some had to go. Or die.
But thinking otherwise, like there was some lost Golden Age of ecological balance, is indeed so much more romantic...
Civilisation:
In reports and discussions about global crises, human inhabitants of Earth are commonly referred to as ‘our’ population (meaning the global population), or ‘our’ civilisation. Nevertheless, there are almost 200 countries in the world, each with varying population numbers, population densities, fertility rates, consumption levels, and life expectancies, many of them constituting distinct civilisation models.
Ecological Overshoot:
The idea that the environment is a singular universal concept, is a mind construct – a sort of chimera that disappears when approached with critical thinking. There are indeed many local environmental crises, but none of them encompass the entire globe all at once.
The continual creation of crises through global thinking leads to centralised and collectivised conceptual mental frameworks that, upon objective analyses, are mostly chimeras and mirages.
Overpopulation:
Some counties are underpopulated while others are overpopulated. Nevertheless, a prevailing and widespread belief is that there are too many people in the world, leading many to conclude that there is a worldwide overpopulation crisis.
Similar to climate and environmental issues, overpopulation is primarily a preoccupation of the developed world projected onto the rest of the world. This stems mainly from centralised thinking. The truth is that many countries have low population densities combined with sufficient resources and food production capacities, which would make them relatively self sufficient.
Global vs Local Crises:
Centralised mindsets frame all of the world’s local issues as universal problems that should be managed centrally, preferably through global policymaking. Such thinking leads to the mental ownership of the entire world’s problems due discounting boundaries between nations, countries, and continents, with the prolific use of the word ‘our’ being a case in point.
Where there are real (local) crises, there are usually local governments, institutions, and people already in charge of resolving them. Environmental, climate, population, and food issues have always been local, municipal, provincial, or national in scope before being conceptually turned into planetary issues as a result of (excessive) global thinking.
It is not that 'global civilisation' is in overshoot - as there's no such thing (there are many civilisations) - it's that First World's Western civilisation (the model based on globalisation), is in overshoot, because of it's over-consumption (per capita) of resources and materials that are sourced mainly externally from peripheral zones and faraway places.
Conclusion:
The bottom-line is that the only real global crisis is (will soon be) a global energy crisis - none of the other issues constitute global crises in a true sense. Another growing global crisis is expanding war, which is as a result of the growing energy crisis.
For many of the above points comprehensively argued, please see:
https://energyshifts.net/a-crisis-in-thinking-and-the-way-out/
Two points to consider:
Pollution of the atmosphere, including GHGs, nanoplastics, other nano/micro particulates, harmful chemicals, etc. isn't restricted to local and national areas. These are found in the most remote polar regions, and on top of high mountain ranges, with fallout affecting soils, lakes, rivers, food chains everywhere. Cleaning up locally can help, but it keeps coming as human activity expands. When energy truly reverses, INvoluntary Simplicity will slow and eventually reverse that trend.
Second, Consider that the low throughput (energy-matter) by those in poorer countries is not voluntary. They seek the maximum consumption level possible given their buying power and natural endowment. Many in the 'rich' countries have small families (or go childless) so they can live a richer material life with traveling, fashions, cars, nice homes, etc. To whatever extent saved money, real estate including large ranches/farms/forests, jewelry, art... owned by the rich is redistributed, latent consumption would become immediate. The properties would be sold to the highest bidders, with the sellers increasing their buying power. As most poor need better nutrition, shelters, clothing, health care, dentistry, etc. who can blame them! Social Justice would speed the time to system breakdown.
In answer to your question, "Can we escape our predicament?", then the answer for Western civilisation and populations is no, because the foundation of every part of our social and technological structure is the energy intensity of fossil fuels surplus (the useful energy remaining after you find it, get it out, process it, transport it and use it for useful work). And most Western people will not go quietly, but will fight like rats in a cage to try to keep what they have.
If the 'predicament' is the survival of the human race, then there are many parts of the world that already survive without cars, computers, electric lights, and feed themselves by subsistence agriculture and fishing - if there are to be survivors, it will probably be them because they don't need to prepare for collapse, they just need to adapt to it. Even for them, their numbers will probably be much reduced.
But if the predicament is me or you surviving for our own lifetimes, then it seems mostly down to some awareness, some preparation, and a hell of a lot of luck, for example not to be in a car stuck in traffic in Valencia, or not to be in that airplane struck by lightning that plummets 5,000 ft into a mountain.
Awareness of what? Well, obviously don't be the trans guy in a MAGA rally in Kentucky, but also don't be the person with all your savings in crypto, and don't live in a flood zone or hurricane alley in a mobile home, or a wood frame house with plastic siding, or...... well you get my drift.
And preparedness? Here's Lesson 1. Turn off your electric at the meter for a week, and see how you get on. Then think about everything else you rely on.
Plan for your own lifetime to live the life you want as best you can whilst minimising the personal risks. No point worrying about a future beyond your expected life. No point worrying about what is happening elsewhere unless it affects you or your people.
If you have kids, try talking to them but understand they have their own ideas, their own lives and they'll make their own decisions, good or bad.
Just get your self into the best place you can think of to provide you with YOUR best life for your remaining years. And only you can work out what those wants and needs are likely to be.
Doing nothing is a choice too, but one where you rely entirely on luck. Not my choice, but each to their own, and you certainly wouldn't be the only one.
If you want hope, then the best I can assure you of is the planet will survive, life on it will almost certainly survive, most of the changes we envisage; 4*C hotter, more deserts, more storms, higher sea levels, etc. have all happened before, and before humans, but humans' ancestors were around then and survived.
Best i can do.
Stil not blocked 4 degrees hotter my ass.
In answer to your question, "Can we escape our predicament?", then the answer for Western civilisation and populations is no, because the foundation of every part of our social and technological structure is the energy intensity of fossil fuels surplus (the useful energy remaining after you find it, get it out, process it, transport it and use it for useful work). And most Western people will not go quietly, but will fight like rats in a cage to try to keep what they have.
If the 'predicament' is the survival of the human race, then there are many parts of the world that already survive without cars, computers, electric lights, and feed themselves by subsistence agriculture and fishing - if there are to be survivors, it will probably be them because they don't need to prepare for collapse, they just need to adapt to it. Even for them, their numbers will probably be much reduced.
But if the predicament is me or you surviving for our own lifetimes, then it seems mostly down to some awareness, some preparation, and a hell of a lot of luck, for example not to be in a car stuck in traffic in Valencia, or not to be in that airplane struck by lightning that plummets 5,000 ft into a mountain.
Awareness of what? Well, obviously don't be the trans guy in a MAGA rally in Kentucky, but also don't be the person with all your savings in crypto, and don't live in a flood zone, or hurricane alley, or close to a forest that might burn, in a mobile home, or a wood frame house with plastic siding, or...... well you get my drift.
And preparedness? Here's Lesson 1. Turn off your electric at the meter for a week, and see how you get on. Then think about everything else you rely on.
Plan for your own lifetime to live the life you want as best you can whilst minimising the personal risks. No point worrying about a future beyond your expected life. No point worrying about what is happening elsewhere unless it affects you or your people.
If you have kids, try talking to them but understand they have their own ideas, their own lives and they'll make their own decisions, good or bad.
Just get your self into the best place you can think of to provide you with YOUR best life for your remaining years. And only you can work out what those wants and needs are likely to be.
Doing nothing is a choice too, but one where you rely entirely on luck. Not my choice, but each to their own, and you certainly wouldn't be the only one.
If you want hope, then the best I can assure you of is the planet will survive, life on it will almost certainly survive, most of the changes we envisage; 4*C hotter, more deserts, more storms, higher sea levels, etc. have all happened before, and before humans, but humans' ancestors were around then and survived.
Best i can do.
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/the-three-pillars-of-bullshit
B,
Looks like moderating comments is in order. Too bad, as it is time consuming.
Indeed they have made a huge effort to ensure the barnyard animals don't get spooked...https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/the-three-pillars-of-bullshit
Another good summary of the predicament. Thanks. I wonder if you could comment (or prepare a post) on the hopium argument that we only 'need' to replace 1/3 of our current primary energy use with "renewables" because so much energy is simply lost as heat from our current energy system. Given the range of high heat industrial processes that don't have viable "electrical" replacements (at least ones that make sense) it just seems silly. It would be nice if you (Honest Sorcerer) could put an engineering worldview on that. If hypothetically we had the time (i.e. before the diesel supply gets thoroughly squeezed) it seems geology and physics will trump any attempt to achieve this....
You asked if there is a way out. It seems that you explained there wasn't (and I agree) but didn't address the question directly.
I once read an article about how to overcome a seemingly unsolvable, terminal situation, such as a severe or fatal disease. The trick is that one should at all times at every moment harbor the conviction that from now on, things will start to get better. Even if they're not, even if you're getting more sick, you should maintain that optimist and believe that from now on, you'll be on the mend. Optimism has a strong healing power and this is your only chance to make it anyway. If you succumb to your affliction, you're as good as dead.
Why not transpose that idea to the civilizational problems humankind is, or will be, facing, eh? Sure, looking from within the realm of our civilization, all the gizmos, gadgets, luxuries, and treats we have, the future looks grim. Sure, there are too many of us assholes, and all of us want more of that shiny shit. Clearly impossible.
We have two options. Either whine about how things won't be the way they used to be, how we're fucked, how we're going extinct, blah blah blah. That way, extinct we'll go for sure. Like a person who gives up the fight with a disease. The alternative is to look to the future, look for opportunities, ways to formulate an alternative existence, find something different.
Does the latter guarantee success? Fuck., no. Does the former guarantee the extinction all you doomsters wish for so keenly? Fuck, yes. Guess what, I'm going with the latter.
How much time have you spent with patients in hospice?
But what about a third option that would be clinking to false hopes instead of taking the good and hard decisions ?
Because this is mostly what we did so far. We do need to avoid your first option. I agree with that. But are not following the second one...
(To continue with you metaphor, I guess that faced with terminal illness, at one point, someone should stop thinking some miracle cure will come his way and start thinking about going to the notary to draw up his will...)
There are a lot of option and we shall see what happens.
The world is just starting to turn itself upside down, inside out, and there will be massive developments. Ultimately, people are not as fucking stupid as they appear, and they will make do. Or will be made do. Lots of things might become irrelevant, such as the whole global Northwest and its ways.
My analogy wasn't about drawing up the will, but about maintaining an optimistic stance, at all times, no matter how shitty things are, even if they're getting worse.
It ain't over till it's over.
The subject is not humanity but the industrial civilization.
So yes, hopefully (and even if it's not 100% sure) humanity will make do. And, yes, as nobody knows what will happen, there still some hope.
But, as much as we enjoy it and would like to see it keep going for ever, this industrial civilization and the way it works is doomed. And this what this essay is all about. Not the total disparition of mankind.
I don't enjoy it. Not in its present state. Maybe some aspects of it, but not the fact that purpose of just about everything has swung so far the other way that everything is inverted. I'll be glad to see the back of it.
Frankly, I find it puzzling how people can whine about the detrimental aspects of this civilization and the impending collapse thereof at the same time. Shouldn't they be rejoicing that this whole fucking circus will finally go down the tubes? Albeit with a bit of a splash?
"Enjoying it" not in the sense that you like it. And least every aspect of it. "Enjoying it" as, obviously, we both have the technical possibility to talk together wherever we are on this planet. With all the energy, technology, wealth and free time needed to do so.
And I'm definitely not whining about its collapse. I know it cannot go on for ever. I understand why. So I regret it because I'm quite convinced whatever will comes next will not get better for quite a few people.
Of course, life has always been hard for some people. Not everybody enjoyed industrialism the way others had the chance to. And still, every single country on the face of earth saw its population increase during the last centuries or decades. Everyone of them. That means everywhere, conditions improved and parents saw less of their kids die from disease, starvation, violence and so on. Life was still hard for many. But not has hard as it used to be.
And it's about to be reverted. That's the splash you're talking about.
And still, it doesn't mean no joy at all will be permitted. That what's hope is about.
Alright then. Yeah, I enjoy some stuff like the next guy. I like driving, communicating with guys all over the world is great, other things too. There were times in my life though when I had absolute shit and I was just as happy.
They say that people who suffer a grave injury and become wheelchair-bound eventually, not after too long, regain the same level of happiness they had before. It will be like that with the demise of this shitcilization too. It's all in the head. People who are fucked up therein will remain so, others will go on and be happy with whatever life they have.
Now I know we you drop a touch of hopium in your articles...this one has not of that and look at how the barnyard animals react...they lose their minds
Hum...
I really wonder what is the proportion of people who choose not to have kids because they fear they will not have the ressources to raise them properly and the proportion of people who consider that raising kids will prevent them to fully enjoy all the wealth they have (both options being not totally incompatible btw).
But if it's mostly the second option, it means that if people get poorer, they might have more kids again. However difficult and short their lives may be in the deteriorating situation.
So I'm no so sure this decline of population will be that peaceful as there is a good chance it will be the product of increasing death rate instead of diminishing birth rate...
Whoever "Paul" is, the reason you're so upset is that thinking about harsh truths needs to happen at a social level in addition to the level of the individual, and yet the society we all inhabit is increasingly incapable of acting as a society in almost any respect, let alone concretely analysing and then solving its problems. It's a society of alienated individuals who can only cooperate with each other on a very partial and stunted, not to mention antagonistic, basis. So even though you can understand all these problems as an individual, there is no way for you to act on that understanding, because it's not possible for you - as an individual - to act. Only the totality of human individuals acting together will have any chance of bringing about change, yet that is not happening because we live in a self-contradictory social system that is simultaneously 1> complex and global in terms of how it functions and sustains itself 2> very fragmented and localised (or individualised) in terms of how its constituent parts interact with each other and the system as a whole. It's an impossible situation, which is why we're all here talking about collapse. It is totally, fundamentally, unsustainable.
But where is the hope in what I said? Certainly not in positing some fantasy about the current system "somehow" continuing to exist as before if "we" just do a bit of restructuring or scaling down without fundamentally altering the way it works, i.e, how and why people do what they do. So what then?
My personal view is very similar to Mr B's but with one, very fundamental difference. Society is not a "system" in the way your computer or an anthill is a system. It's made up of thinking and feeling people. Individual humans, unlike ants or transistors, know how the system they live in works. They consciously reproduces its logic. And the logic of the system itself emerges out of the conscious life activity of individual humans and how they relate to each other.
As the crisis/collapse of this system accelerates and worsens, people will adapt to it. But that adaptation will not be mechanical or passive. It won't just be limited to having fewer kids or buying fewer clothes. Because even those things will not really solve anything, and things will keep getting worse despite those things. Humans are not just adaptive, we're also creative. Sure, a lot of people will only look out for themselves or their own country/group, following the logic of this contradictory globalized system of locally and individually motivated humans. But that isn't going to work and people will realize that soon enough, and then they'll try something else.
What that "something else" is, I don't know. It's impossible for me as an individual to figure out what a radical social transformation looks like. The answer is has to come out of the actual process itself, comprising the thoughts and actions of billions of people. But whatever it ends up being must involve cooperation and coordination on a global scale but without the antagonisms that are inherently tied up with the current globalised system. At a certain point, the great masses of people can and will reject the logic of a social system that wants to hurt and kill them, and that social system will be too crisis-ridden and dysfunctional to even partially address their needs, as it has been able to in the past. And that point lies somewhere in this decade, or the next, or the one after that.
...None of which is to say we'll succeed in building and sustaining a non-antagonistic global society, but it's the only alternative.