What good is a used up world?

[Stravo]

There's a lyric from a song by Sting that goes
"Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the earth
Better to be poor than a fat man in the eye of a needle
And as these words were spoken I swore I hear
The old man laughing
'What good is a used up world and how could it be
Worth having"

As I am listening to this song on my way into work it got me thinking of something that had been bugging me on and off for some time. I remember growing up and never really feeling like the world was getting less abundant, sure we had ads with the crying Indian about pollution but nothing that actually directly impacted me as a child.

Now that I have children I see all the recycling that's being done, all the environmental impacts, the climate change going on around me and it makes me wonder what kind of world are my kids going to be in when I'm gone or they are adults?

Before I left here on my sabbatical I remember a raging debate going on about Peak Oil and the oil prices that were skyrocketing and how that sent us into a frenzy with the inevitable rise in price for everything else. Of course now with the worst economy in generations there are other things to worry about but that only exaserbates the issues. You see because if you look at what caused that collapse you start getting into the murky world of derivatives and other weird market devices that makes you realize America no longer makes anything. We push around paper, we provide financial services and we trade in these bogus market gimicks like derivatives and when the party is over and people finally realize there is this whole economy based on things that cannot be accurately assesed or valued you have to imagine economically things might get even worse.

So with all this doom and gloom in mind it makes me wonder have we reached a point where our world may no longer provide a brighter future for our kids and descendants than it did for us? Are we looking at some (unexagerated) bladerunner like world where the climate sucks, everything is recycled and the haves look down at the have nots from their giant skyscrapers. Will homes and apartments start looking like Bruce Willis' apartment in The Fifth Element because we're running out of places to live or can't afford the bigger places?

It's not to say "hey the future sucks" but just a serious meditation on what we're leaving for our kids or whether we're just looking at things through a glass too darkly and it may not be as bad as we think. Maybe the future will just be different not worse or darker. Or perhaps what's happening is our kids (and to some extent us) are going to end up paying for the party thrown in the last 100 years of industrialization and consumerism.

What do you fine folks think, in particular parents who are raising kids and looking ahead to what might be waiting for them 40-50 years from now. I'm not pessimistic, just concerned.

[Darth Wong]

Before I left here on my sabbatical I remember a raging debate going on about Peak Oil and the oil prices that were skyrocketing and how that sent us into a frenzy with the inevitable rise in price for everything else. Of course now with the worst economy in generations there are other things to worry about but that only exaserbates the issues. You see because if you look at what caused that collapse you start getting into the murky world of derivatives and other weird market devices that makes you realize America no longer makes anything. We push around paper, we provide financial services and we trade in these bogus market gimicks like derivatives and when the party is over and people finally realize there is this whole economy based on things that cannot be accurately assesed or valued you have to imagine economically things might get even worse.

Unfortunately, people are still reluctant to realize that the party is over, and that it should ideally never have begun in the first place. Debt-fuelled growth is such an obviously foolish idea, and yet everyone seemed to think it was great as long as it lasted. A lot of people still hope to get back on that wagon.

So with all this doom and gloom in mind it makes me wonder have we reached a point where our world may no longer provide a brighter future for our kids and descendants than it did for us? Are we looking at some (unexagerated) bladerunner like world where the climate sucks, everything is recycled and the haves look down at the have nots from their giant skyscrapers. Will homes and apartments start looking like Bruce Willis' apartment in The Fifth Element because we're running out of places to live or can't afford the bigger places?

I wouldn't push it that far. There's still plenty of wealth in America, but it's distributed in a perverse way. So much of it is in the hands of bankers and financiers: people who are essentially nothing more than middle-men rather than value-added manufacturers or service providers.

Bill Gates may have invented predatory computer standards abuse, but he was an example of a value-added industry. Microsoft, whether you love 'em or hate 'em, created a value-added product. But what does a bank create? They lend you money, find creative ways to trick you into taking on more debt than you can handle, etc. That's not value-added work; that's just parasitic. And yet, there are hedge fund managers whose wealth approaches that of the aforementioned Mr. Gates. We may need bankers, in the same sense that we need lawyers and politicians and police officers (not that I'm trying to lump all these professions together in any other way), but they're not value-added workers.

It's not to say "hey the future sucks" but just a serious meditation on what we're leaving for our kids or whether we're just looking at things through a glass too darkly and it may not be as bad as we think. Maybe the future will just be different not worse or darker. Or perhaps what's happening is our kids (and to some extent us) are going to end up paying for the party thrown in the last 100 years of industrialization and consumerism.

If you can break Americans of this collective notion that wealth redistribution is unspeakably evil, you might be able to help things. Right now, we have an American wealthy class which is defining new ways to enjoy its leisure time, an American middle class which is over-working itself to early graves while neglecting family and marriage and personal growth, and an American poor class which is only marginally better off than slaves. And for some reason, all three of those classes think it would be wrong to try to do anything about this.

What do you fine folks think, in particular parents who are raising kids and looking ahead to what might be waiting for them 40-50 years from now. I'm not pessimistic, just concerned.

To be quite honest, I expect things to get worse even though they don't really have to, because I have lost what little faith I had in the American electorate. Watching them turn on Barack Obama during this ridiculous health care debate, watching them eat up right-wing talking points like candy, watching health-care reform turn into a corporate hand-out ... it's killed any vestigial faith I might have had in the American voter. I consider the average American voter to be a complete blithering idiot who can be easily led around by the nose, by anyone who knows the right buzzwords. Therefore, I expect a continuation of bad choices.

All I can say is that you can only try to make sure your own kids are prepared for the future. Make sure they're well-educated, financially knowledgeable, and able to stay ahead of the tidal wave of economic inequity for at least one more generation. What more can one man do?

[Admiral Valdemar]

As I am listening to this song on my way into work it got me thinking of something that had been bugging me on and off for some time. I remember growing up and never really feeling like the world was getting less abundant, sure we had ads with the crying Indian about pollution but nothing that actually directly impacted me as a child.

Now that I have children I see all the recycling that's being done, all the environmental impacts, the climate change going on around me and it makes me wonder what kind of world are my kids going to be in when I'm gone or they are adults?

My eyes were only opened fully to this whole thing back in 2007, actually, by idle research after aerius made a post relating to Colin Campbell's blog on PO. I think I can safely say that my outlook on life has radically changed since that time as I read more and more on the subjects I felt the media were glossing over, and which are infinitely more pressing than Pop Idol or who we should elect next.

Before I left here on my sabbatical I remember a raging debate going on about Peak Oil and the oil prices that were skyrocketing and how that sent us into a frenzy with the inevitable rise in price for everything else. Of course now with the worst economy in generations there are other things to worry about but that only exaserbates the issues. You see because if you look at what caused that collapse you start getting into the murky world of derivatives and other weird market devices that makes you realize America no longer makes anything. We push around paper, we provide financial services and we trade in these bogus market gimicks like derivatives and when the party is over and people finally realize there is this whole economy based on things that cannot be accurately assesed or valued you have to imagine economically things might get even worse.

I think you need to look at John Williams' excellent Shadow Stats pages (I also hear he does awesome orchestral scores...). They show what many probably already had an inkling of over the years: that your income has been eroded over the last several decades. Back in the '50s, the US made much of what it used, ran a large surplus in trade, had a gold backed currency and no debt. A family could have a decent house, car and 2.4 children going to good schools, with just one working parent, while the other (typically the wife), kept home affairs in order. Contrast that to today, where even with two parents working full time, credit cards and loans are a fact of life.

So with all this doom and gloom in mind it makes me wonder have we reached a point where our world may no longer provide a brighter future for our kids and descendants than it did for us? Are we looking at some (unexagerated) bladerunner like world where the climate sucks, everything is recycled and the haves look down at the have nots from their giant skyscrapers. Will homes and apartments start looking like Bruce Willis' apartment in The Fifth Element because we're running out of places to live or can't afford the bigger places?

Categorically no. You need energy for those kind of settlements. We will not be making large, futuristic if horribly depressing metropolises in the future. The construction industry is on its knees as it is, trying desperately to justify building anything to avoid going bankrupt. Even in China, a bubble is growing regarding property.

Rest assured, McMansions are a blip that will soon be wiped out from the buying prospects of people in the near future. Not that I could ever afford such a thing anyway, nor many I know who aren't exactly working a McJob either.

It's not to say "hey the future sucks" but just a serious meditation on what we're leaving for our kids or whether we're just looking at things through a glass too darkly and it may not be as bad as we think. Maybe the future will just be different not worse or darker. Or perhaps what's happening is our kids (and to some extent us) are going to end up paying for the party thrown in the last 100 years of industrialization and consumerism.

What do you fine folks think, in particular parents who are raising kids and looking ahead to what might be waiting for them 40-50 years from now. I'm not pessimistic, just concerned.

A correction is inevitable. Today, oil is hitting a 17 month high. The cycle has started again, even if the "green shoots" from the US are baloney (jobs figures and consumer confidence have been horribly misrepresented, but the media knows these lies will help the markets anyway and most people won't dig through the stats to see what's up), as soon as the global economy starts shifting up a gear, then energy will immediately come down hard on consumers. Petrol prices in the UK are at all time highs, and this is with oil nowhere near the 2008 price spike peak.

My cynicism stems not just from PO, though, but the overall complexity of our predicament (not a problem, because problems can be solved). We have an exergy crisis rapidly emerging; ecological decline, ignoring climate change which I don't see as anywhere near a major threat right now without clathrates bubbling up from the ocean en masse, is to carrying on at a terrific pace. Populations are just too big, the people too stuck in BAU and the entitlement generation will not listen to people who say we need to change. Even the PO closed door meeting held by the UK government last month didn't once rule out the idea that economic growth is over as far as we know it.

It's kind've like The Sixth Sense. People see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear. They're walking around like ghosts, oblivious to the fact that this way of life is ending. It lasted a good three centuries, but I'm afraid it was a blip compared to the thousands of years of documented human history.

As they say, the party's over. Your children will live a markedly different life to what you or your parents did. How you approach this future is up to you, but I would not expect it to be like the past, though that's no reason to just give up either. Societies have always reached a peak in complexity and collapsed eventually, but that's no reason to accept it and just end it all now.

[Darth Wong]

Back in the '50s, the US made much of what it used, ran a large surplus in trade, had a gold backed currency and no debt. A family could have a decent house, car and 2.4 children going to good schools, with just one working parent, while the other (typically the wife), kept home affairs in order. Contrast that to today, where even with two parents working full time, credit cards and loans are a fact of life.

The stupid thing is that we could still have that, if people were willing to be content with the same relatively modest houses and lifestyles they had in the 1950s. People spend money on themselves today in a way that would have been unthinkable for the middle class 50 years ago. Everyone wants a mansion. Everyone wants a fleet of cars. Everyone wants to vacation to Hawaii every year. And instead of simply saying "well, that's for the rich, and we're just modest hard-working middle class folk", they say "goddammit, there must be a way for me to have this!"

[Admiral Valdemar]

The stupid thing is that we could still have that, if people were willing to be content with the same relatively modest houses and lifestyles they had in the 1950s. People spend money on themselves today in a way that would have been unthinkable for the middle class 50 years ago. Everyone wants a mansion. Everyone wants a fleet of cars. Everyone wants to vacation to Hawaii every year. And instead of simply saying "well, that's for the rich, and we're just modest hard-working middle class folk", they say "goddammit, there must be a way for me to have this!"

That's the worst thing of it. Nothing I have ever discussed on these matters, from finance to energy to the environment, have ever been without solutions. Renewable energy/nuclear; better education on money matters and for women regarding sex education to help with large families; a basket of currencies tied to real value of some form and much lower fractional reserve ratios with more stringent conditions for making shit up with derivatives. For the same reason we don't have people clamping down on the rich abusing their power and influence, we get this game going on and on. Because one day, just maybe, you too may get to live the American Dream and be the rich person who society might try and clamp down on and get to pay for the rest of society's improvement. It's just basic selfishness with a strong hint of wilful ignorance.

All of this, really, could have been solved with education. A person is smart, but people are stupid, right? Make the people not stupid. Tell them that they don't need to buy tat from China that they'll only throw away. They don't have to have a credit card to afford an SUV, nor even do they need that SUV if they realise a people carrier is better for all. Working 60+ hours to pay off debts on a house way too big for you is retarded. A single species CAN affect a whole planetary ecosystem. No, you don't need to use women as baby factories to bolster your gene pool.

I know that a lot of these issues were often pointed out with Sikon when he was still posting. However, he never factored in the human condition. It's all very well to say we have more energy coming at us from the sun than we'll ever need, or that we don't have to have constant growth for an economy to work. At the end of the day, though, the theory is going to hit that unpleasant fact that humans are involved, and humans are corruptible and easily influenced. You can't get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it, and so that applies to people who want a suburban home and all the trimmings.

I think my general view can be summed up by the link in my signature. Humans can just be that fucking stupid, and every move to improve the world is always linked, inevitably, with "But does this allow what we're doing now to carry on?".

[The Romulan Republic]

There's a lyric from a song by Sting that goes
"Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the earth
Better to be poor than a fat man in the eye of a needle
And as these words were spoken I swore I hear
The old man laughing
'What good is a used up world and how could it be
Worth having"

As I am listening to this song on my way into work it got me thinking of something that had been bugging me on and off for some time. I remember growing up and never really feeling like the world was getting less abundant, sure we had ads with the crying Indian about pollution but nothing that actually directly impacted me as a child.

Now that I have children I see all the recycling that's being done, all the environmental impacts, the climate change going on around me and it makes me wonder what kind of world are my kids going to be in when I'm gone or they are adults?

Before I left here on my sabbatical I remember a raging debate going on about Peak Oil and the oil prices that were skyrocketing and how that sent us into a frenzy with the inevitable rise in price for everything else. Of course now with the worst economy in generations there are other things to worry about but that only exaserbates the issues. You see because if you look at what caused that collapse you start getting into the murky world of derivatives and other weird market devices that makes you realize America no longer makes anything. We push around paper, we provide financial services and we trade in these bogus market gimicks like derivatives and when the party is over and people finally realize there is this whole economy based on things that cannot be accurately assesed or valued you have to imagine economically things might get even worse.

So with all this doom and gloom in mind it makes me wonder have we reached a point where our world may no longer provide a brighter future for our kids and descendants than it did for us? Are we looking at some (unexagerated) bladerunner like world where the climate sucks, everything is recycled and the haves look down at the have nots from their giant skyscrapers. Will homes and apartments start looking like Bruce Willis' apartment in The Fifth Element because we're running out of places to live or can't afford the bigger places?

It's not to say "hey the future sucks" but just a serious meditation on what we're leaving for our kids or whether we're just looking at things through a glass too darkly and it may not be as bad as we think. Maybe the future will just be different not worse or darker. Or perhaps what's happening is our kids (and to some extent us) are going to end up paying for the party thrown in the last 100 years of industrialization and consumerism.

What do you fine folks think, in particular parents who are raising kids and looking ahead to what might be waiting for them 40-50 years from now. I'm not pessimistic, just concerned.

I think that things will get worse before they get better, but I'm not as pessimistic as Darth Wong seems to be, for a couple of reasons.

First, because while progress is slow (with health care for example), it is gradually happening. Secondly, because the conservatism and fundamentalism that plays a major role in hindering progress on these issues is predominantly found in the older generations. If young people made a radical shift towards fundamentalism, then I'd be scared, but for now, I'm cautiously optimistic.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I think that things will get worse before they get better, but I'm not as pessimistic as Darth Wong seems to be, for a couple of reasons.

First, because while progress is slow (with health care for example), it is gradually happening. Secondly, because the conservatism and fundamentalism that plays a major role in hindering progress on these issues is predominantly found in the older generations. If young people made a radical shift towards fundamentalism, then I'd be scared, but for now, I'm cautiously optimistic.

The issues we're talking about aren't just home politics, or geo-politics. They're simple physical limits, and the economy is bumping against them. It's the first time a society on Earth has had this problem manifest at such a complex scale, fuelled mainly by the one true religion: consumerism. Edward Bernays and his ilk have a lot to answer for, as do the likes of Greenspan (some would even criticise Borlaug for bringing about our rapid growth).

[Darth Fanboy]

Now that I have children I see all the recycling that's being done, all the environmental impacts, the climate change going on around me and it makes me wonder what kind of world are my kids going to be in when I'm gone or they are adults?

Anytime I hear about an endangered animal that has gone extinct it's just another reminder that a lot of things are going wrong. BUT, being defeatist and wallowing in misery over the sad state of affairs in the world is not going to make any progress towards protecting what is left. Sure efforts to be green and less energy-consuming are too little too late in some instances but that most certainly does not mean we can't find ways to protect what we have left. Not just FOR the next generation, but to provide a better example than our generation and others prior.

There are lots of reasons to be pissed off and even depressed about what humans have done to all life on Earth, including our own species, but that should just strengthen your resolve to try and correct those mistakes to the best of your ability. Being a parent I imagine is an even greater motivator if your aspiration is to help shape the best possible environment for your kids as possible.

[The Romulan Republic]

Admiral Valdemar, I'm not denying for a moment that there are simple limits to the resources available on Earth and so forth, but any attempt to address this problem is hindered by nationalism, religious fundamentalism, conservatism, and so forth. As those ideologies lose popularity, it will become easier to address the issues in an open, honest, and effective manner.

I really do believe that the problem is first and foremost one of education, not technology or economics. We can reduce consumption, pass new regulations, develop alternative energy sources, and even harvest resources from other planets in the long term, provided enough people understand the need to do so.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Admiral Valdemar, I'm not denying for a moment that there are simple limits to the resources available on Earth and so forth, but any attempt to address this problem is hindered by nationalism, religious fundamentalism, conservatism, and so forth. As those ideologies lose popularity, it will become easier to address the issues in an open, honest, and effective manner.

I really do believe that the problem is first and foremost one of education, not technology or economics. We can reduce consumption, pass new regulations, develop alternative energy sources, and even harvest resources from other planets in the long term, provided enough people understand the need to do so.

You have more faith than I do. If you can see nationalism (something on the rise in Europe), religious fundamentalism and general corruption fading to nothing in the next decade, well, I welcome it. But they won't. And by the time these ideologues die off, it'll be too late. In point of fact, it's too late for energy as it is, though if we work hard (and I mean in the way that totally flies against BAU right now), then we may avert a terrible climatic shift and more mass extinctions.

Einstein said that the solutions to our problems can't come from the thinking that brought about such problems in the first place. So long as people with a special interest in the status quo exist in power, so too will this buggered system.

[Darth Wong]

I really do believe that the problem is first and foremost one of education ...

Meanwhile, in other news, textbooks across the nation are being re-written to favour the Texas Board of Education's right-wing agenda.

[Kanastrous]

I listen to quite a bit of right-wing talk radio at work (we all have our personal preferred flavor of masochism...) and what's remarkable is the degree to which some conservatalkers have conflated lifestyle with patriotic identity: it's not that the host in question prefers driving his own car about to taking public transit, it's that it's un-American to take a train or subway. By driving your car, you're placing yourself in the sequence of patriots and freedom-loving people who took on the British at Lexington and Concord, and promulgated the Bill of Rights, and, well, you get the idea. Forget land-of-the-free-and-home-of-the-brave - if you drive something huge, live in something exponentially huger and refuse to accommodate the notion that any resource is finite, well, that's the ultimate expression of patriotism, for these types.

And, more important, their listeners.

[Darth Wong]

I listen to quite a bit of right-wing talk radio at work (we all have our personal preferred flavor of masochism...) and what's remarkable is the degree to which some conservatalkers have conflated lifestyle with patriotic identity: it's not that the host in question prefers driving his own car about to taking public transit, it's that it's un-American to take a train or subway. By driving your car, you're placing yourself in the sequence of patriots and freedom-loving people who took on the British at Lexington and Concord, and promulgated the Bill of Rights, and, well, you get the idea. Forget land-of-the-free-and-home-of-the-brave - if you drive something huge, live in something exponentially huger and refuse to accommodate the notion that any resource is finite, well, that's the ultimate expression of patriotism, for these types.

And, more important, their listeners.

That reminds me of a guest Stephen Colbert had on his show a long time ago, who wrote a book about masculinity. He gave examples of what it means to be a man, and it struck me that so many of them were just American cultural stereotypes. Eating steak, playing football, going to a rodeo ... all of it is just "being a stereotypical American". This kind of hyper-nationalism infects the way these people think about everything.

It's a good thing no one ever invented a distinctive American sexual position, or every American would feel compelled to use it.

[Kanastrous]

Lights out, missionary, three minutes start-to-finish and nobody particularly enjoys themselves. What comes to mind as 'distinctively American,' anyway.

Call it the 'Paul Revere.' That's patriotic...

[Admiral Valdemar]

That kind of thinking is rife in many countries. The idea that you're soft if you care for the environment or don't play sports, or that you're not helping your nation's economy by maxing out your credit card, is just another form of jingoistic sentiment for an age which sees lifestyle as a way of gauging patriotism.

Until you break down that stupid image problem, you'll run into a brick wall with any grand plans to change anything. And the people making money off this stuff aren't going to rollover and take it. Just look at how EVs were killed last decade before they even got off the ground, or how "climategate" has cast even more doubt on climate change as a real threat.

[Stravo]

Don't underestimate how hard it will be to get the developing world to play conservation. There is no escaping the general injustice and unfairness of telling the rest of the world that they now have to conserve and work with less when the West has been shitting all over that for a century and only now when we've royally screwed the pooch, got out rocks off and enjoyed the shit out of things are we going around piously telling other people who are just getting to the point where they can join the party too that it's over. America and Europe just took a shit in the pool and China pissed in the herb garden, we gotta go because the cops are on their way. Gee thanks.

[Admiral Valdemar]

It's not like the Western governments really have their own story straight either. Labour has pledged to cut emissions to meet EU targets for climate change, despite pushing for a third runway at Heathrow and expansions of ALL major airports in the near future. What's that? The biggest single polluter and major use of oil is air travel? But of course. We can't cut back on such a lucrative industry, even when paying lip service to climate goals.

Everyone else is the same. Sure, I'll cut back on shower time, or shop for more Fairtrade, carbon neutral produce, they say. I'll also keep taking those holidays abroad, buying consumer electronics annually because something newer is out, not because something is broken, and just generally keep up with the Joneses. Everyone wants to be seen to be doing something (if they're not totally apathetic or ignorant), while keeping on with what they always do. You can't have both. One of the reasons transport is in so much trouble is down to the thinking of what to run all our cars and trucks on when oil is ever more expensive. The thinking is not "How can we change the system to work better?", it's "How can we get some contrived situation to happen that will allow us to carry on as normal?". When you crunch the numbers, it's clear as crystal that not everyone can have a car and do the commute even an European does, nevermind an American. No one suggests better public transit, or working from home. They instead suggest bio-fuels, hydrogen or some other bullshit technological "solution".

People have a faith in technology being the answer to the point of absurdity, when the problem is lifestyles and our entire economic edifice.

Dr. Bartlett put it best when he said the greatest shortcoming of the human race was the inability of people to grasp the exponential function. You need to cut down consumption AND population growth, because one minus the other inevitably ends the same. And that goes double for finance too, which is well on the logarithmic curve as it is.

[Darth Wong]

See this week's Quote of the Week. Nobody likes to recognize themselves as the problem. And that's the real issue; all through the economic meltdown people kept looking for a scapegoat, and there were certainly plenty of viable candidates, but ultimately the root problem is with all of us, and the way we live our lives.

[Admiral Valdemar]

If I had the money, I'd live off the grid, so to speak. I'd like to have a house that doesn't rely on utilities piped too it, and maybe a decent garden for growing stuff too. I'd have a small car like I do, but it'd be a PHEV, or at least a decent diesel.

But that stuff requires money. And I don't have that to really change my lifestyle beyond what I already have, which is renting, not relying on credit/living from paycheque-to-paycheque or even travelling abroad. What's the use if no one else at least takes some mitigating steps, though? Even those who recognise the system is broken are really not able to escape it (actually, even those with the means don't because of social stigma, as mentioned above), so it really is like sitting there pretending to enjoy yourself while your friend pushes harder on the accelerator to the car, hoping the bridge isn't out.

EDIT: I should add, the US is still way better off than most everyone else, even with the job losses still hurting. You've got an amazing game whereby you export debt... and import goods. For pieces of paper with "IOU" written on, you're getting oil, electronics, ores, food, cars, exotic foods. It couldn't be any more awesome a deal.

It's just a pity that when things really unwind, the US will get hit hard, since there is nothing but the reserve currency and threat of military action to keep things going. Economic and military clout are waning Stateside, so best to be prudent now while it's still possible (though not that anyone cares to take notice, since savings are at an all time low, debt an all time high).

[Kanastrous]

I'll admit that - while I don't exactly like it - recognizing that I'm the principle cause of some problem or other I'm having, is the first and most necessary step in solving it. I appreciate that realization because it puts most if not all of the power to solve said problem, in my own hands.

I would have guessed that most mentally healthy people would see it that way, but so what...I'm not an authority on what constitutes robust mental health...

[weemadando]

My wife and I are very keen to (when we can actually afford our own fucking home in Australia) make our home as "sustainable" as possible. We want to try and be fairly self-sufficient for things like water (so lots of rainwater tanks and grey-water recovery) and power (depending on where we are, this may be solar or small-scale wind turbines which are becoming more popular). This is of course on top of all of the food sustainability that you try for - having as much as possible grown by yourself.

In my "if I won the lottery" scenario, I would even look at trying to find an old watermill which could be restored to operation and adjoining croplands (in a decent rainfall area - like Tasmania)because I think that with a bit of good marketing you could really make a good living off selling an almost wholly traditional, "carbon neutral" (as much as I hate that term) flour, rolled oats etc. Plus, in the case of it all going tits up worldwide, then you have a great sustainable and tradeable resource combined with a bunch of great skills.

Really, I just want to make sure that my son is as educated and as informed as possible. I don't want the world to turn to shit, but really, I can see us in the west becoming a more selfish, insular and less and less secular shithole as time goes on. I just want to make sure, like any parent that they have the best chances and opportunities. And if that means that I have to sacrifice everything (including my morals - as Catholic Schools in Australia sure are cheap, but way better than the public system) to ensure he gets them then so be it.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I'll admit that - while I don't exactly like it - recognizing that I'm the principle cause of some problem or other I'm having, is the first and most necessary step in solving it. I appreciate that realization because it puts most if not all of the power to solve said problem, in my own hands.

I would have guessed that most mentally healthy people would see it that way, but so what...I'm not an authority on what constitutes robust mental health...

Solving the problem means several billion people dying off. I somehow don't see that particular issue coming to the front of the mind of most people.

[open_sketchbook]

Back in the '50s, the US made much of what it used, ran a large surplus in trade, had a gold backed currency and no debt. A family could have a decent house, car and 2.4 children going to good schools, with just one working parent, while the other (typically the wife), kept home affairs in order. Contrast that to today, where even with two parents working full time, credit cards and loans are a fact of life.

The stupid thing is that we could still have that, if people were willing to be content with the same relatively modest houses and lifestyles they had in the 1950s. People spend money on themselves today in a way that would have been unthinkable for the middle class 50 years ago. Everyone wants a mansion. Everyone wants a fleet of cars. Everyone wants to vacation to Hawaii every year. And instead of simply saying "well, that's for the rich, and we're just modest hard-working middle class folk", they say "goddammit, there must be a way for me to have this!"

I see this kind of thinking in my dad (who is quite conservative) a lot. He started up a small business with his brother twenty years ago and it's paid off in spades, but through a series of legal bullshit over my parent's divorce is basically being forcefully retired (with a pension most people would kill for). He's freaking out over this, even though the changes to our lifestyle pretty much amount to the elimination of some excess spending. I've come to realize recently the depth to which he associates wealth with success, and how different our outlooks are about it. I think that the basic mindset has become that wealth is success in and of itself, while actually putting that wealth to real purpose, and it's part of the reason for the problems. Middle-class people work their asses off to go up that income bracket, but don't actually need that extra money for anything and so spend it almost as an afterthought. We have four televisions in this house; including two in the same room. It's madness! And as things got "worse" my dad has been spending more and more, putting in a bar, a hot tube, taking my sister to Florida... like some kind of reflex, almost. "If I spend this money, I know it'll make me happy", completely failing to see that, well, he lives pretty much the ideal suburban life, and all this stuff is just clutter.

I don't really have a point to this, it just seems to illustrait what you're saying...

I'll admit that - while I don't exactly like it - recognizing that I'm the principle cause of some problem or other I'm having, is the first and most necessary step in solving it. I appreciate that realization because it puts most if not all of the power to solve said problem, in my own hands.

I would have guessed that most mentally healthy people would see it that way, but so what...I'm not an authority on what constitutes robust mental health...

Solving the problem means several billion people dying off. I somehow don't see that particular issue coming to the front of the mind of most people.

You sound like me when I'm depressed, knock that shit off. The Earth can sustain an awful lot more than we give it credit for, just not as much as we're chucking at it. We don't have to start killing people to turn this shit around, we just have to start living within our means and redistribute wealth on a local and global level and the population will fall and stablize on it's own through well-documented trends in the birth rates of developed countries. Killing a large percentage of the population will simply result in the survivors taking the dead people's shit as well; lower population, near-identical consumption, but now you've eliminated an unspecified number of people that could potentionally have helped through technological or social development.

If any large group of people needs to die to fix the world, it's the fucking corperate loan-sharks of modern banking.

[Admiral Valdemar]

You sound like me when I'm depressed, knock that shit off. The Earth can sustain an awful lot more than we give it credit for, just not as much as we're chucking at it.

Before the advent of cheap, abundant energy, the carrying capacity of the world was under one billion. Given the ecological harm being done now, even with some magical energy substitute for fossil fuels, it wouldn't change the game.

We don't have to start killing people to turn this shit around, we just have to start living within our means and redistribute wealth on a local and global level and the population will fall and stablize on it's own through well-documented trends in the birth rates of developed countries. Killing a large percentage of the population will simply result in the survivors taking the dead people's shit as well; lower population, near-identical consumption, but now you've eliminated an unspecified number of people that could potentionally have helped through technological or social development.

If any large group of people needs to die to fix the world, it's the fucking corperate loan-sharks of modern banking.

Who said anything about killing off people? Nature will do that whether we vouch for a voluntary decline or not, you can't escape Liebig's laws just because you've invented technology. It's already quite the everyday occurrence in Africa and parts of Asia and South America. We only don't think about that, because we accept it as just how life is there. It's when that kind of thing happens in first world nations, do we suddenly take notice. And given the impoverished numbers going up in the UK and US, it can be argued it's started in earnest.

But don't worry. Short of a nuclear war, the vast majority of those who will die off are in places most people can't even locate on the map. People who never really had a chance to live like you or me, but who still rely on the bounty of industrialisation and the green revolution and a sound environment to keep their subsistence life somewhat stable.

[Crom]

One thing that's hard for me is that we I start reading up on this kind of stuff, it's really hard for me to want to have kids.