Global Collapse

Through most of history until the invention of the railroad, most people lived and died within a few miles of where they were born, even Nomads.  Sailors travel ed far, but it wasn't a very pleasant life for most.

If people did travel, it was generally a once in a lifetime pilgrimmage or migration.  Even today, people in 3rd world countries generally spend their whole life in a home village.  Long and EZ travel around is an artifact of high energy consumption we can no longer afford.

This is not good or bad, it just is the way it is.  Live with it.

RE

Well, we can afford the energy consumption to travel around as anyone at the Las Vegas airport could attest. Or all the others around international airports globally. And car travel seems to be quite normal nowadays as well. So that appears to be what folks are living with.

American driving mileage tops pre-pandemic levels in March

Quote from: FarmGirl on March 05, 2023, 04:58:55 pm

Quote from: RE on March 05, 2023, 12:00:21 am

Through most of history until the invention of the railroad, most people lived and died within a few miles of where they were born, even Nomads.  Sailors travel ed far, but it wasn't a very pleasant life for most.

If people did travel, it was generally a once in a lifetime pilgrimmage or migration.  Even today, people in 3rd world countries generally spend their whole life in a home village.  Long and EZ travel around is an artifact of high energy consumption we can no longer afford.

This is not good or bad, it just is the way it is.  Live with it.

RE

Well, we can afford the energy consumption to travel around as anyone at the Las Vegas airport could attest. Or all the others around international airports globally. And car travel seems to be quite normal nowadays as well. So that appears to be what folks are living with.

American driving mileage tops pre-pandemic levels in March

So if people are  traveling around now as much as before Covid, your argument is that travel is not being restricted.  So what's the problem?

RE

No problem. Just noting that EZ travel is ongoing and affordable enough to be..ongoing.

Calling anything that is going on today a collapse is being dramatic. The high inflation and the cost of living has put a squeeze on the living standards but life remains the same (more or less). When collapse comes... It will be a paradigm shift that will be clear to everyone. We are not at that point yet. My expectation is a slow, but steady decline in living standards for the rest of this decade provided there is no energy crunch (big assumption perhaps). What will change things - in my opinion - is when we get an energy crunch. When it becomes clear that total energy production is on the decline then the financial and economic system is likely to breakdown. We have not arrived at that point though so we will muddle through with some semblance of BAU.

Repeating myself? Sure and I am preaching to the choir but sometimes it is worth repeating statements for clarity

Calling anything that is going on today a collapse is being dramatic.

Sure. But isn't that the point? If we don't have a real collapse to talk about, we hyperventilate ourselves into pretending there is one. I mentioned elsewhere that personal doom is far more likely to arrive for those of us on the forum than a real collapse to humans in general.

When collapse comes... It will be a paradigm shift that will be clear to everyone.

Of course. But in the meantime, isn't it reasonable to enjoy pretending otherwise, like a big thought experiment? Collapse is quite reasonably defined as a nice 15-20% population reduction across a wide area in a short period of time, say, like a year or two?

We are not at that point yet. My expectation is a slow, but steady decline in living standards for the rest of this decade provided there is no energy crunch (big assumption perhaps). What will change things - in my opinion - is when we get an energy crunch. When it becomes clear that total energy production is on the decline then the financial and economic system is likely to breakdown. We have not arrived at that point though so we will muddle through with some semblance of BAU.

Sounds pretty reasonable. But slow spindowns aren't doom, or entertaining internet conversation.

Repeating myself? Sure and I am preaching to the choir but sometimes it is worth repeating statements for clarity

No need to take all the fun out of it. But otherwise everything you've said is completely reasonable.

Quote from: RE on March 06, 2023, 04:45:09 pm

Quote from: FarmGirl on March 06, 2023, 04:09:00 pm

No problem. Just noting that EZ travel is ongoing and affordable enough to be..ongoing.

So why did you comment that people were being kept locked down to 15 minutes travel?

I don't believe I did. The 15 minute thing is some sort of conspiracy, but it isn't worth taking seriously any more than some of the other conspiracy stuff floating around.

As you said above RE, "long and EZ travel is an artifact of abundant energy we can no longer afford".. or something to that effect.

I was quite clear on what I said about planned 15 minute cities, beginning with Oxfordshire. There's no reason to assign that with gulf of Tonkin, JFK, moon landing, WMD and the  porsche carerra and emergency number nutjob hoaxster terror list.

Look at the airport, people still fly so it's BAU. I checked flights last night to attend a funeral in my home town, booking a week ahead. About 700$ EACH WAY. When I last travelled the same trip in 2019 I might have had change from 500$ for a RETURN ticket. Air travel for the middle class becoming out of reach.

We have talked a lot about there being no way the current number of cars can all be replaced with EV travelling the same miles even once, let alone every few years (battery metals and energy grid limitation). 15 minute cities seem a hell of a lot like a bait and switch to reality replacing that promise. You have no need to WALK more than 15 minutes from home and will be fined if your car is detected doing it. That city planning is there in black and white, like so many declassified documents detailing operations you should scoff at if we apply a ward-off word to it. So if you really want to travel further in that bright future, apply to drive a soylent green truck.

Quote from: Phil Potts on March 12, 2023, 03:32:39 pm

I was quite clear on what I said about planned 15 minute cities, beginning with Oxfordshire. There's no reason to assign that with gulf of Tonkin, JFK, moon landing, WMD and the  porsche carerra and emergency number nutjob hoaxster terror list.

I'm glad it wasn't me mentioning it. And you are right, I wouldn't confuse what some think is modern urban planning with any of the nutster stuff so common in the collapse-o-sphere.


Yes we are nutters, nothing to see here.. but don't close the file yet if there's no activity.

Quote from: Phil Potts

So if you really want to travel further in that bright future, apply to drive a soylent green truck.

That seemed to be the idea after the 2005 peak oil as well, the American draft, 9/11 to cause WTC7 to fall down because of the super secret papers about peak oil stored there, everyone walking if not starving as they fled the cities, etc etc.

I'm with monsta on not wanting to confuse a real collapse with run of the mill economic decline, inflation, wars flowing from authoritarian leaders wanting old territory back, the occasional volcano going off, what 6 years past peak oil looks like (as we are 5 now and it just doesn't seem to have much bite), the climate changing some more, etc etc. I'm sure everyone here knows the drill.

And maybe those with EVs won't have to drive a soylent green truck as long as their solar panels keep working to fuel the EV?

Nobody ever predicted a mass die off due to peak oil a few yrs ago that I know of, like almost nobody said the volcano would do more than what we woke up to hear it had already done.

Naturally 5 yrs past a rough peak oil  is no different to  being 5 miles past the half mark on your fuel gauge, if you made 100 years/miles on your first half tank. So you have discussion of signposts on the road to collapse confused with your paymasters promising a threatened extinction if we did not surrender all our freedom a few years ago. Treating a fatality rate of one in a thousand as though it was one in ten or more like the black death. The TV threatened collapse by your standard, not me.

Be afraid anyway. Oswald acted alone and watch the film in reverse. Thousands of architects, engineers, demo experts are nutjobs. We could go to the moon 50 yrs ago and not now. We admit starting decades long wars twice on false pretenses, but this time it's an authoritarian wanting territory back, not us doing another colorevolution and waging proxy/covert war with a country that has the remaining oil and gas we need to get control of.

I'm all for people working out their own EV solutions powered by home solar and I'm really impressed with my new compact AGM deep cycles. But realistically it can't be done for every current motorist on earth, not even once. I also have said for a very long time that public transport should be a lot better and cheaper, as one person moving one or two tons in traffic for an hour or more every day is not sustainable. However people in a high density podplex in a 15 min city don't have individual roof space like a house in the suburbs. Surrendering your freedom in them also makes dealing with useless eater problems a lot simpler.

Quote from: Phil Potts on March 14, 2023, 01:09:49 am

Nobody ever predicted a mass die off due to peak oil a few yrs ago that I know of, like almost nobody said the volcano would do more than what we woke up to hear it had already done.

What! Where were you doing the peak oil heyday? I mean, dieoff and MZBs were the rage, and this was what we had to look forward to. Claimed by a quite famous and often cited peak oiler. What I find somewhat amusing is that some places did get $7/gal fuel and it didn't stop people from buying those silly 8' tall monster trucks.

Quote from: Phil Potts

Naturally 5 yrs past a rough peak oil  is no different to  being 5 miles past the half mark on your fuel gauge, if you made 100 years/miles on your first half tank.

Again, where were you when this was happening? Permanent rolling blackouts in North America in 2008, because of lack of natural gas. A good one, right? But peak oil, here is Bartlett reading this stuff to congress critters! From the same guy who wrote the cataclysmic stuff in the caption! It was all quite terrifying.

Scary enugh that Eddie the dentist ran out and bought himself that cool doomstead to hide from the ravening hordes that were expected to inundate the place where his nice house was. RE had that cool RV to run and hide in, Matt Savinar, the guy who wrote that thing up above, he took to growing tomatoes in window boxes...and had a bug out bag to run from San Fran when the time came. Never mentioned how he was going to carry the tomatoes along when he did it, but it seemed to make him feel prepared for the horrors he expected. Or maybe he was just going to dodge that American draft that peak oil was supposed to cause? 

Quote from: Phil Potts

Be afraid anyway.

Now that is good advice. Living one's life in fear is a good thing. Until all the things you feared are revealed over the years and decades as nothing to fear, and instead of dying young in gun battles with the zombies and dying and starving suburbanites you find yourself old with diabetes and bum OEM parts and have a stroke instead. Yeah...living in fear...maybe not such a good idea, in terms of overall life happiness?

Quote from: Phil Potts

However people in a high density podplex in a 15 min city don't have individual roof space like a house in the suburbs. Surrendering your freedom in them also makes dealing with useless eater problems a lot simpler.

Do people actually live in a 15 minute city anywhere in the world right now, or is this all a future based sort of thing?

Why didn't you provide the rest of the article? It's just a waste of time  not analysing what anyone really says or why they say it.

 It says nothing about a die off. It talks about things that are happening.
There is no date so whatever the "heydey" you refer to is, it was prescient. You said you don't want to talk about hyperinflation anyway, as it's not collapse, so why do you bring out a prediction of hyperinflation? In any case, the attempt to discredit without providing any data or argument against, states that is the opinion of experts such as geologists. Not that any expert is needed to know you can't have infinite growth on a finite planet.

I read the whole letter to Congress and response of Congress circa 2005. It did not say anything about rolling blackouts in 2008 that I noticed. 

Being told to live in fear was specific to covid a few yrs ago as u said there was a warning of a die off a few yrs ago. What you woke up with instead of a plague of black death proportion is:
Giant increase in the money supply. Draconian permanent emergency powers. Labour shortage with huge excess mortality. Freezers full of foetuses.

As I mentioned at the start, the Pentagon is promising war with china by 2025. Taking on a population of 1.4 billion with a population about a quarter of that can't rely on just volunteers. Draft wouldnt be as great a means of depopulation as gender war and gender reassignment, but still helps.
Ukraine the opening pawn in ww3 is mobilizing at the same rate as previous world wars anyway. In 2015 they identified 6.5 military age men to draft with about half a million turning 18 annually.


What's the difference between Eddie, RE, Matt and Kovid  preparing for probable eventualities?



Fresh fruit and veg is becoming unavailable and unaffordable, as is meat for most people. Farmers are being paid not to farm, systematically shut down. Insect protein is touted as the future. Why not then keep a few tomato seeds in a bugout bag if you imagine an evacuation to be permanent.

I don't keep abreast of latest developments in the rollout of 15 min cities beginning with Oxfordshire. You don't start pushing or walking 5 miles past half a tank anyway. The planning is the fuel gauge working.

Why didn't you provide the rest of the article? It's just a waste of time  not analysing what anyone really says or why they say it.

Quite true. Here you go. I believe he put out a book as wel. Great fun he was.

I read the whole letter to Congress and response of Congress circa 2005. It did not say anything about rolling blackouts in 2008 that I noticed. 

Rolling permanent blackouts were Richard Duncan's schtick. A bit of an oxymoron I suppose. Originally they were starting in 2012, but he revised it to 2008 back in the Energy Bulletin days Here is the full article, with the cliff in 2008 on page 7.

Folks claimed where it was published is some anti-immigrant published by rascists rag. I have no opinion on the matter, I mean, it's the internet, people saying silly nonsense on it comes with the territory. Might even be why peak oil got such a foothold only after the internet arrived rather than took over everyone's fear space when it was being called earlier, but in science journals and whatnot.

As I mentioned at the start, the Pentagon is promising war with china by 2025.

Interesting. By any of the folks who told us Star Wars was going to stop Soviet nuclear weapons during Ronny's reign? Or who thought that the Afghans could defend themselves without Amiercan help?

What's the difference between Eddie, RE, Matt and Kovid  preparing for probable eventualities?

As prepping is personal, there is no difference. And probable eventualities...sure..but in who's lifetime? Ours? Or our childrens? Assuming they even want those buckets of beans, ammo or whatever else their parents squirreled away just in case. I figure the Mormons are preppers for a reason, and been at it far longer than modern doomers, reasonable, faith based justifications work better at keeping to the path better than anything. When doomers themselves give up, sell the hunting cabin, eat the buckets of beans and rice, the odds of the kids even inheriting something doomy is pretty slim.

Fresh fruit and veg is becoming unavailable and unaffordable, as is meat for most people. Farmers are being paid not to farm, systematically shut down. Insect protein is touted as the future. Why not then keep a few tomato seeds in a bugout bag if you imagine an evacuation to be permanent.

Sounds like a good idea. And it doesn't even need fresh fruit or veg becoming unaffordable, or meat. Is that happening where you live? We should ask RE how he is being treated, you would think if fresh vegetables and meat isn't available, folks who can't do anything about it would be the first to be deprived of it. Maybe he can chime in and let us know how the food is in his well priced rehab facility?

Other than obvious displaced homeless folks locally, I haven't seen anyone mentioning anything about insects for food or not finding fresh vegetables or meat at the store. Things are more expensive though, that is for sure, but across the board. Like the 70's. Some folks went for the end times then as well, the precious metal folks were going all bananas, buy gold! I remember the crash that followed, and then the go-go 80's.

I don't keep abreast of latest developments in the rollout of 15 min cities beginning with Oxfordshire. You don't start pushing or walking 5 miles past half a tank anyway. The planning is the fuel gauge working.

I'm not sure what the fuel tank reference means. I'll keep my eyes on Oxfordshire. That isn't in the States is it? Foriegners can really do weird things, the good news being there is no requirement a bad idea makes it Stateside.