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Future Shock - The Unsustainable Often Ends Abruptly
Submitted by Adam Taggart via Peak Prosperity,
Here at the penultimate chapter of The Crash Course, everything we've learned comes together into a single narrow range of time we'll call the twenty-teens.
What this chapter offers is a comprehensive view of how all of our problems are actually interrelated and need to be viewed as such, or solutions will continue to elude us.
Each of the many key trends and threats mentioned earlier in The Crash Course will take many years, if not several decades, to address. And yet, we find them all parked directly in front of us without any serious national discussion or planning.
With every passing day we squander precious time while the problems grow larger and more costly, if not thoroughly intractable. Buying time, as the central bankers and politicians the world-over have opted to do, is not a strategy. Simply hoping for better times has a much different probability for success than having a well thought-out plan. The mark of a mature adult is someone who can manage complexity and plan ahead. The same description applies to an entire society. Here at Peak Prosperity, our opinion is that with precious few exceptions, the current political and corporate leadership of this country are not adequately managing the complexity of the situation. And they are not planning ahead.
Simply put: We've lived well beyond our economic, energetic and ecological budgets. It's time to change that.
It is time, to return to living within our means. We need to set priorities, set budgets, and stick to both.
If we do, the next generations following us will have opportunity to pursue, as well as a plan and a narrative that makes sense and into which they fit, and which seems prudent and rational. If we don't, they simply won't.
And you? If you haven’t already, you need to begin to embrace the possibility that the road to the future will not be straight and smooth; it may take a few twists and turns and end up somewhere unexpected. You happen to be alive at one of the most interesting points in human history – a time when a great shift will occur. This can be frightening or it can be exhilarating. And that choice is yours.
The full suite of chapters in this new Crash Course series can be found at www.peakprosperity.com/crashcourse
And for those who have yet to view it, be sure to watch the 'Accelerated' Crash Course -- the under-1-hour condensation of the new 4.5-hour series. It's a great vehicle for introducing new eyes to this material.
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MOAR stack'en and pack'en
Peak prosperity = perpetual couch serfing
USA's Constitutional Republic remains healthy.
USSA is an Autocratic Fascist State.
The best thing people can do is learn gardening. There is a ton of resources out there. Libraries in some areas hold free workshops and seed giveaways. A lot of colleges that have agriculture/farming/gardening programs also offer workshops, some are free and some cost money.
-John
http://www.naturecoastpermaculture.com
The best thing people can do is learn distilling. There is a ton of resources out there. Libraries in some areas hold free workshops and giveaways. A lot of colleges that have moon shine programs also offer workshops, some are free and some cost money.
-Headbanger
http://www.coppermoonshinestills.com/index.html
Mmmm. Nothing like the beauty of raw copper in a functional form - now that's precious metal! Our Alembic still is one of my family's most beloved preps.
http://www.copper-alembic.com/ns/category.php?id_category=1
mm, learn cornering. and get small bills. In fact, there's really no point unless you join the army, you really could suck it for a drill seargent. But odds are it's still pointless unless you are young, and strong.
The best thing people can do is learn Mandarin. There is a ton of Chinese out there. Libraries in some areas hold free workshops and giveaways, but theres nothing like good old cultural submersion. A lot of colleges have young Chinese that come from rich, well to do families who are likely already but definitely going to be buying up American infrastructure and implementing reeducation in FEMA workshops. Freedom isn't free, it costs blood.
- Hawkey
http://nypost.com/2013/12/15/why-are-we-letting-china-buy-american-compa...
The best thing people can do is learn Mexican-style Spanish. There is a ton of Mexicans out there. Libraries in some areas hold free workshops and giveaways, but theres nothing like good old cultural submersion. A lot of colleges have young Mexicans that come from poor, poverty-stricken families who are likely already buying up American infrastructure and implementing reeducation in FEMA workshops. Freedom isn't free, it costs blood.
http://www.today.com/video/today/55969538
All those "The best thing people can do is" suggestions are too much effort to me. I prefer to sit on the couch and watch Teevee until the SHTF.
The best thing people can do is learn their favorite religion of choice. There are a ton of people out there and they all want what you have (and will kill you for it). Because on a long enough timeline.....
The best thing for people to do is perfect yheir hunting or sex skills. Either way you'll be in demand.
The best thing for people to do is perfect yheir hunting or sex skills. Either way you'll be in demand.
The Spanish speakers will migrate South once the electricity goes out and the full effect of a North American Winter hits. The Chinese will huddle in Kalifornia and call it a win.
The best thing people can do is buy productive acreage in a close knit community that resides in a state with seasons, learn to work that land, keep some stock animals and make very good friends with their neighbors.
And learn to reload.
Just go "ALL IN" and start a fucking Rambo school.
that NY Post article's tone is eerily similar to Belarus and a host of other countries wanting capital controls in and out the country.
Why China buying American companies? Because they aren't dumb. You think they want to be holding the hot potato that is the USD when the music stops? Hell no, they're converting their paper assets into hard assets. Productive companies with technology and know-how.
As these dollars return, inflation will take off.
Yes America, we've sold our country to the Chinese for plastic trinkets (hmmm... history does indeed repeat itself)
Learn Chinese? Whatever for?
You show em how to pound spikes into the rails and then shoot the first one who gives you the googly eye. The rest of em will figger it out right quick.
Already there Headbanger....
The best thing people can do is learn.
My hat's off to those with fun hobbies and useful skills; however if you're looking at distilling as an income source post rule-of-law, there will probably be >5% of the population that feels the same way, and the spirits will flow like wine.
There may be a sweet-spot when you'll do very well, but distilling really isn't rocket science and at some point market saturation will prevail. FWIW I don't think TEOTWAWKI will be a frat party, and significant/regular consumption of booze will be survival-negative.
Be helpful if the other guys are drinking and you're not.
Omg not peak booze!! Best be selling it and not drink up the product
Just made a codensor for a friend in miss. Hadn't made one in 30 yrs
time is the best teacher. and time will teach our next generation too.
Ah, dude -
We are Out of Time - the clock may have been stopped, reality suspended, but trust in physics;
Time Marches On
Q: What is the last thing that goes through a bug's mind when it hits a windshield?
A: Its butt.
We are living during the brief period of time between the head hitting the windshield and the butt catching up.
We still got 2 more years before the butt leaves the whitehouse.
They may vary a bit in style, but in substance the butt never leaves the White House.
When the next US president intoduces his bright new administrative team, you can bet that a smiling face from Goldman standing somewhere near the newly-annointed sock-puppet.
The BUTT stops here.
...and another BUTT moves in (regardless of Political bent).
Peak Prosperity = fuckers who can't do more than pander to doom-porn addicts and sell them more salacious shit over the interwebs.
Get a fucking job already.
Hmmm...that's very cogent, and well supported argument you've put forth.
Where I was focussing on the data about how the mess is entirely unsustainable and the implications thereof, you cut right through all of that to the very heart of the matter.
It was all just doom porn created to sell shit. Bravo! Well played.
Screw the data and the actual messge! We can safely ignore anything that makes us personally uncomfortable by simply using your one easy trick; project our own inability to process difficult material onto the bearers of the message. Why hasn't anybody else thought of this 'shoot the messenger' tactic before?
You need a dose of Hayek. The line in the article about how the top leaders are not planning well enough, not coping with the complexity, is a forehead slap inducing one. Central planning does not work because it can't. And control freaks are going to control freak because they are made that way. It's wise to thwart them early and often.
When that's all you know that's all you do....
Be controlling (i.e. tyrannical)?
Seems like more than the normal amount of trolls commenting on this article today, trying to lead astray commentary / blog / opinions and provide distraction.
" If you haven’t already, you need to begin to embrace the possibility that the road to the future will not be straight and smooth; it may take a few twists and turns and end up somewhere unexpected. You happen to be alive at one of the most interesting points in human history – a time when a great shift will occur. This can be frightening or it can be exhilarating. And that choice is yours."
Yours, you can do it, you can do the thing that hasn't been done, you can win the thing that hasn't been won, you can be the person that hasn't been been...Just subscribe to the rest of the chapters. Pay us now and the interwebs will bow at your feet....
What a crock---
"If you can fill the unforgiving minute, with sixty seconds worth of distance run(and subscribe to our Chapters) than yours is the world and everything within it, and what is more, You'll be a man my son..."
Just fill in your email address and ten of your closest contacts, and give us your approximate net worth.
Leave him alone, if he's a redneck AND a hippy, he has to be very confused.
Earth! I knew I had that wrong. So here it is--enjoy. The last stanza of If, by Kipling.
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!When it does end-we're all looking at the BIGGEST "one-off" of all human history. It literally is right around the corner.
The signs are the debt load-and the crumbling of dystopian, centralized, hierarchical control structures; these structures all rely on the derivative house of cards.
The establishment of networking cultural constraints in their place is what transpires when the financial derivative bomb detonates.
Which in the absence of the equivalent of "free energy" is imminent, regardless of the war-meme propaganda spewing from the West.
the prospects terrify the triple-alphabet control freak puppets and their DC-NY-London handlers
We've lived well beyond our economic, energetic and ecological budgets
How about unlimited manipulation of markets, currency printing, captured regulators, unlimited spying, compromised politicians, poisoned food(GMOs) and water(fluoride is a neurotoxin per the Lancet), lying media, militarized police, unending wars and infinite debt?
We exceeded our corruption budgets decades ago. Now it is institutionalized in the land of the free.
That's just them trying to extend the status quo. The problem is, we cannot sustain it, so instead of a transition period that we should have been going through, shit is going to brake violently.
There's no chance of TPTB even taking their foot off the gas, let alone hitting the brakes.
One day, in the not too distant future, the wheels will come off the system we suffer under.
Whether what's on the other side of a big correction may, or may not, better, who knows.
Best to be somewhat prepared, physically and mentally, even if the worst doesn't happen.
If anything, they're going to mash down on the gas even harder in desperation. They're driving towards a solid wall of granite saying "Gotta keep it going! Gotta keep it going! GOTTA KEEP IT GOING!"
Psychopathic thinking, which tells them that they are untouchable, special and deserving of all they can take. Like that scene in the first Matric film, they don't see any granite wall, just more oppportunities for their never-ending greed to fulfill itself... but like any addiction, they're never satisfied.... that 'hunger' always remains as the 'high' wears off like a quick cumshot. Gotta move up the chakras for 'satisfaction', which is why these psychos make perfect tools for the SG types pulling their strings.... as they don't have any 'upper' chakras... just an empty hole to constantly fill.... no matter what... perfect tools for those that do have an upper level of greed, but as always, if the tool gets too 'needy', it's best replaced.
TPTB are riding a tiger, and they know it. They'll hang on as long as possible as they know that when they fall off they will be savaged.
Desperate men do desperate things - plan accordingly.
Revolution, Evolution or Revolutionary Evolution?Convolution
Stacking is fine but is meaningless without Brass & Lead.
Molon Labe
You forgot the primers, bullet lube, gas checks, sizing, crimping, casting & every other fucking die, melting pots, relaoding presses, scale, hand book,
Oh.. and GUNS!
In other words complex and currently global supply chains need to be up and running.
All of that can be homemade by someone with the proper skills and tools....
Fresh out of bat guano around here. I'm not on that planet where Kirk found carbon, potassium nitrate, and sulfur, and very strong tubing in ready forms in walking distance from where he needed all that to make a gun to kill a Gorn.
Longbows and lots of arrows.
You can make 'em yourself (a very enjoyable hobby, IMHO) and in some circumstances you can retrieve your ammunition.
Or not.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Traditional-Bowyers-Bible-Volume/dp/1585740853
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyzNIa-U5Nc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6uFAv9L734
https://braintan.com/tanown/index.htm
etc...
Save the lead for two legged critters. When everybody else has run out, you'll be in a very good spot.
Do you make 'em, Vaq?
You may find this interesting.
http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/
I'm in the process of learning. I did a simple board bow just to learn tillering, then cracked another on the tillering block. I've been having hell getting a long enough stave to build a long bow for myself. I draw ~31 1/2" so I need a long peice of wood. I might have to go up to the mountains and look for some oak, as that's the most common suitable wood in the mountains around here. I now feel confident that I can make one that shoots fairly decent now with what I've learned and the mistakes that I've made. I'm still going to go longer than I need to just to give me some wiggle room.
The other thing is that when I shoot my old Bear Kodiak Hunter, it feels like I'm shooting a kid's bow. I want something that can fling an arrow a lot harder.
I have a 60lb recurve that I bought a while back - sends an arrow off quite nicely.
I've built a couple of oak longbows that worked and one that failed spectacularly during tillering - first one came in very light - about #28 @ 28" - looks good but not what I'd call a success. Second was Osage - the one that broke. Third is back to oak - #45 @ 28. I've got a maple holmegaard on the go at the moment (trying for #50 - #55) and an oak & glass limbed takedown (similar weight target). Do my own arrows and strings too. Great hobby.
When the weather sucks you can make equipment.
When it doesn't you can use it. (Use it when the weather sucks, if you had to)
I'd like to try shooting a compound, just for having done so, but I like the simplicity of traditional bows.
LOL, I just roughed out a holmegaard on the bandsaw. Another board bow. I'm going to get it glued up tonight. I'll probably get it floor tillered and fit the handle to my hand. I've gotta wait until that glue is fully set to get it on the tillering block though. I'm making this one very long at 80" with a stiff center and the long narrow but thick tips at 8". I should get ~25" of working limb per side. My goal is to be able to fling a 650gr+ arrow at over 200fps. It should be doable with my draw length, even if everything isn't perfect.
My old Bear is a good bow, but it's 45#@28, or somewhere between 53# and 55# at my draw length. Even when I haven't shot it for a year, I can pick it up, go out and shoot for 2 hours straight. (Not very well after that long of not shooting it, but not because I get tired.) While it's not going to break, I do get a bit of finger pinch from it too.
When you pick up a compound that is fully set up and tuned, it's almost like shooting a rifle. A lot of the newer ones have cams so narrow that if you twist the string, you'll derail the string, possibly doing all sorts of bad shit to the bow and you, so you don't have a choice with regards to using a mechanical release. You get peep sights and a trigger. I did shoot a bare bones (no sights) Viper back when they were the hottest thing on the market. No sights, but everything was lined up so well on the bow that I knew I was going to hit what I was aiming at before I touched it off. Quiet as fuck with no string silencers too. It was pretty slick, but I'd rather shoot a rifle or a traditional bow.
I've made a few bows, over time, and I would recommend to use Taxus. It has to be old, too. You will be amazed.
Yew family.
Slow growing.
Should make a fine bow!
Fencing pliers work great for snatching wheel weights off of miscellaneous vehicles.
Stacking, brass and lead is meaningless without corn, wheat, soybeans, and a little pork, for protein.
Weeding is good for the soul.
Stacking Brass and Lead means you do not have to concern yourself of being without corn, wheat, soybeans and pork. There will be plenty of folks who stacked those for you and haven't a clue how
to keep a brass and lead stacker from taking it at will.
Beware barfing unicorn, I will be there to help protect our neighborhood corn stackers.
Do what you think best, but dying ain't much of a living, boy.
Also, store lots of salt for preserving zombie meat
Just throw some lye on'em in the pit.
You wouldn't want to eat zombie meat anyway... might catch sump'in.
I can assure everyone that whomever decides its 'low hanging fruit' to come after any (mythical) Au & Ag which may or may not be in my perimeter will END ABRUPTLY while facing the business end of my Christmas present.
HO - HO - HO
So that begs the question; just where does the low-hanging fruit live and ripen ???
Is it downtown, with tall buildings for distance from harm, or the gated community, or the close-in 'burbs ???
Or is the grass greener in outer surburbia; Tinley Park, Malls and all - or a dwelling in a nearby farm community or a rural residence with few neighbors. Or a compound deep in the woods at the end of a logging trail ?
Happy New Year - make lots of noise.
56% of the population lives within 100 miles a coast (any coast) and they will all be hungry and thirsty, could be worthwhile to let the bodies pile up at the property line. I live a 1000 miles inland in an agricultural area so I won't have to kill as many and no, I won't be alone.
What a waste. That's the fat of the land piling up out there. Protein too.
I live about 450 miles from the coast. In my immediate vicinity, things could get dicey, but I have a few locations in mind along with routes to them that don't involve a lot of main roads. I have water with or without electricity where I am though. It just depends on convincing farmers and ranchers that it is better to support the locals than it is to have the locals wanting to slit their throats in desperation while we figure out how we are going to set up trade.
"just where does the low-hanging fruit live and ripen?"
I'm equal opportunity... So in the spirit of democracy, if you're interested in finding out the answer to that question for yourself, suit yourself up, cinch your bootstraps, & take your chances at it.
You gots HOs for Christmas?
I'm always a little nervous in the winter when we're in the city for work. In the summer we're at the retreat, so we don't needto worry a bug-out plan.
The answer is simpler than Taggart seems to imply: a return to sound money. Until that happens whatever is done to combat DC and the banksters is pizzing into the wind.
Invest in domestic producers. When the global economy comes back into balance (it will), it will be domestic producers, who've suffered from 3 decades of Banksters trying to extend the financial asset ponzi via the consumption ponzi, who win big. The disconnect between value creation and value capture will close, via stable transition (financial assets repricing in real/gold terms) or violently, with wealth being redistributed through the inheritance tax paid by those who have been running the financial asset ponzi for decades and in some cases centuries.
Better to tax the dead than the living.
It's even better yet to lay the tax burden on the very young. What the heck, why not just keep dumping the debt on the unborn like we're now doing?
''It is time, to return to living within our means. We need to set priorities, set budgets, and stick to both.''
if we tried to live within our means the whole system will crash.......its going to crash anyways....we cannot unfuck ourselves as we are already fucked
''once that first fateful step is made by using interest bearing credit, the death certificate can be printed, with only the date to be applied at the appropriate time.'' B9K9
Sounds like a good moment for a crisis to rally the people behind centrally planned emergency management. Top men will see things through, once planning is adequately centralized and all resources are made available to them.
ANNOUNCER: "It's time for...."
Phillip Dru, Administrator
http://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/House_Philip_Dru_Administrator.pdf
Once the trucks stop running, it will be similar to trying to live on the moon... Have you thanked a trucker lately?...
Does not hijacking them count?
if everyone suddenly decided to live within their means, the economy would instantly crash
Sounds like a chicken and egg conundrum. If they do not start living within their means, the economy will crash and everyone will have to start living within their means.
Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.
http://youtu.be/IaHa-6fTkBg
Rather like the Parable of the Turkey -
Born into luxury, offered food, water, shelter, and a perfect climate from earliest memory on. Safe behind a fence and under continuous watchful eyes concerned only with safety. Mobility limited perhaps, but it's a welcome tradeoff against attack by fox or other foe.
And then, one day in November, just like JFK, it all ends suddenly, without any warning whatsoever.
Be Prepared.
They couldn't abide JFK's tax cutting staunchly anti-communist patriotic ways.
Apparently they thought JFKs plan was a turkey...
I like Chris Martinsen's presentations.
A lot to think about.
My complaint is that he is still under the impression that there is something "National". There is nothing national only nation-state.
"We've lived well beyond our economic, energetic and ecological budgets"
Somehow, every time I read another piece of 'doom' by Chris Martenson (PhD, & all that...) my $$$Fear Porn alarm goes off... Not that he doesn't make salient points, but my sensors are 'twitchy' to say the least, whenever I read economic fear-porn that somehow always manages to slip 'ecology' into the conversation. 'Ecology' of course being 'code' for 'the Environemnt', which is in turn, code for 'sustainability', which is in turn, code for 'overuse', which in turn, is code for 'overpopulation', which, finally, is code for 'population reduction'.
Call it what you will, but this 'non-PhD' smells a rat every time I read his shit. And an 'Elitist' rat, at that...
That's a rather remarkable (il)logic chain you've come up with there, Consuclo -
Almost as overpowering as the smell of bullshit on your post.
The "environment" I guess is every cubic millimeter that's outside a human body, dwelling, or vehicle. It is a comprehensively retarded and revealing definition all at once. With those who wear us out with its overuse, however, you get the feeling the definition is even worse. They treat the cubic millimeters that are occupied by the bodies and possessions of very numerous outgroup humans as being bits of environment that are contaminated and in dire need of clean up.
good news, we so lucky.
Sorry Chris but a crisis is the only way forward. The voluntary acceptance of pain is something no population will plan for. The loss of wealth that must occur can only come about 'by accident'.
After that, then yes, a better plan can eventually put into motion.
The day is coming when the elites, the bankers and their allies, will know that the barbarians are at the gates, and their reign is at an end. Do they really believe that the masses will tolerate their oppression for long? The pit they are digging for the masses will receive them. They should know this, they should have learned from history. They will learn that they were fighting against God. He laughs at them, He see that their day is coming, He is in control.
"He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want. Rob not the poor, because he is poor: neither oppress the afflicted in the gate: For the LORD will plead their cause, and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them." Proverbs 22.
I used to think like you, Lynn, but now I've lost hope and see the masses as opified assholes that greedily waste their lives. When they pull the plug the greedy assholes will likely grovel to their masters so to be able to still watch football on Sunadys.
And especially to watch Kardashian's ass.
That's what America lives for these days --
A glimpse of Kardashian's ass.
Fools, all.
Methinks he doth protest too much.
I don't belive the climate chaos hype. The climate will always been in flux.
you had me until you started spewing the global warming montra... pollution yes... global warming is just a f cking therory....
So you're stacking, have beans and bullets, all that good stuff but to merely survive in a manly way isn't going to get you many of the nice goodies in life you really don't have to give up. But you need to get with it to have it as soon as your ground isn't too frozen. Standard apple trees take a minimum of 3 years and often 5 years to start bearing. Semi dwarf trees about 2-3 years. Nut trees take as much as 10 years to bear. Do you know how to prune? Do you know how to graft? Propagate plants? Do you even know what kind of soil you have? What will grow in it and what will you do to keep the soil healthy? I also notice the costs of fruit and nut trees, berry bushes are getting beyond my modest means. So what if you don't use all that produce? Lots of people need it right now and there are calls out for surplus crops, urban bee keepers and those experienced with large animals. Do you know about guerilla gardening? Do you know how to find and use natural remeddies? Just in case you think you're ready....
You are a right pompous, egotistical ass.
Just sashay right in here with your BS orchard knowledge and lord it over us all.
What a prick,
Kiss off and go lick your own nuts.
If you still can.
Here's a thrifty tip from your old fence contractor.
Go into the older areas of a city near you and drive up and down the alleys. You'll find all sorts of fruit trees growing outside of the back yard fences that you can grab for free.
sugar & salt were valued commodities in the last depression, and will be in the next.
Actually, I do...and a whole lotta other stuff, too.
http://ruralretreatdesign.info/
Wow, a balanced view of climate change. Who would've thunk it possible?
https://sites.google.com/site/climatesensitivity/
Government intervention explained...
http://www.globaldeflationnews.com/jaguar-inflation-a-laymans-explanatio...
The ruling classes have a plan for the future: for them to survive through the majority of the human population being mass murdered. Anyone who thinks they could be prepared for that seems irrationally optimistic.
What have the ruling classes actually been doing?
Backing up debt slavery with wars based on deceit.
There was never any "beginning" to that. Instead, the same basic social systems based on backing lies with violence have been growing at an exponential rate. In the 21st Century, the two most important events, so far, were that the ruling classes staged the events on 9/11/2001, as an inside job, false flag attack, in order to start genocidal wars, and prepare to impose democidal martial law. Furthermore, those 9/11 events also became the conditions and justification for blowing the financial bubbles that burst in the financial crises in 2008, which were also inside jobs.
While I think everything stated in Chris Martenson's Crash Course is correct enough, on the level that it is presented, he is implicitly a believer in Hanlon's Razor, that the ruling classes are apparently incompetent, when they are actually more malicious than is possible to fully comprehend. There are two different levels of conclusions that follow from not being as naive and Pollyannaish as Chris Martenson appears to be.
The first level is where one attempts to understand the degree to the death control systems are actually based on the maximum possible deceits. The War on Drugs and the War on Terror were both deliberately started by the ruling classes, as wars based on deceits, that would become vicious spirals of self-fulfilling prophesies, which would ensure that society as a whole would have more organized crime and worse terrorism, which would enable more debt slavery. Those fit into a much longer historical pattern of similar methods whereby the ruling classes have controlled those they ruled over, through systems of lies backed by violence. The ruling classes are not preparing for anything else but much more of the same thing. Meanwhile, the fish is rotting from the head to the tail, and the lower levels of society are similarly thoroughly corrupted and crazy. There are no sane ways to be prepared for the coming psychotic breakdowns and rampant runaway criminal insanities that are developing at an exponentially accelerating rate, due to society being controlled by systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence. There are no sane ways to fight wars, nor fight violent revolutions, after the development of weapons of mass destruction. I am not asserting I have any facile solutions, but rather, merely emphasizing that the problems ARE globalized systems of electronic monkey money, whose frauds are backed up by the force of apes with atomic bombs.
The second level is go on through the first level, to consider how and why we have actually ended up with social systems where governments are the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals. To do that requires moving past reliance upon false fundamental dichotomies and their related impossible ideals. Militarism, or the ideology of the murder system, is the supreme ideology. Our basic problems are that our death control systems have developed to be done through the maximum possible deceits, and those are headed towards psychotic breakdowns. Although that may well probably get so bad that there will be no ways to survive through that (and most of the ways that people think they are preparing to survive that shall likely end up making things worse, rather than better, since there will simply be more weapons and ammunition, inside of systems where there is already an insane overkill potential), the theoretical solutions to all of the problems listed by Martenson are, by definition, necessarily death controls.
It was always impossible for exponential growth to be endless. The actual growth of social pyramid systems was based on the exponential growth of systems of backing up lies with violence, which became more sophisticated as systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, in which our political economy was built on a foundation of enforced frauds. Chris Martenson superficially presents those facts, but he skims across them with a kind of naive assessment that those things were the result of incompetence, rather than malice.
To combine the first and second levels, to attempt to achieve some synthesis of those two perceptions, the real future will primarily be directed by the agenda of the rulings classes being to deliberately drive conditions towards resulting in the mass murders of the majority of the population, while the only genuinely better resolutions of the deeper problems would also require different systems of death controls.
Our economy was directed by fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems, through which "money" made out of nothing "paid" for strip-mining the natural resources of the planet as fast as possible. That boom is going to be followed by the biggest bust there has ever been. The most probable future will be that the human population will crash, as all the factors correctly identified by Chris Martenson will pile up on top of each other at the same time.
Since the world was always controlled by systems of lies backed by violence, and that got worse, faster, at an exponential rate, the most likely futures are ones in which there are crazy collapses into chaos, in which there are every kind of possible conditions whereby the final result in a massive die-off the human population, as well as way more mass extinctions of other species. However, IF one is finally more realistic about that, then the only genuinely better possible solutions at this time would be better death controls.
It is absolutely impossible for the previous exponential growth of the human population and total human activities to continue to endlessly grow at an exponential rate. By definition, what will stop that from happening is some form or another of death controls. The main ones that are most likely are those situations set up by the ruling classes, in order to attempt to keep their debt slavery systems going with more wars based on deceits. That is, more genocidal wars abroad, and more democidal martial law at home.
In my view, we are faced with a double whammy problem, which is due to the ruling classes operating the death controls through the maximum possible deceits, while the controlled opposition groups continue to operate within the same frame of reference, also based on deceitful attitudes towards the death controls. Chris Martenson is a typical example of the kind of controlled opposition to the established system which is appears incredibly naive about how evil the ruling classes actually are, and what their covert agenda therefore is, which is the only thing that they have actually prepared for, namely promote more wars based on deceits, along with preparing for more fascist police state democidal martial law, which they are hoping will enable them to survive through the times when their debt slavery systems have generated numbers which have become such impossible debt insanities, that those systems must collapse into chaos, and thereby provoke death insanities.
My view is that through the processes of those death insanities, due to the psychotic breakdowns of the established systems based on being able to back up lies with violence, the only genuinely possible better resolutions would require attempting to enable enough people who survived through those processes to then be able to develop better death controls, which were not so totally deceitful, but rather became more scientific, in the sense of being able to make greater uses of information, enabling higher consciousness about those death control systems.
I continue to find it ironic that Chris Martenson uses the phrase "Crash Course" meaning to try to learn about the real problems more quickly, while what I see in the phrase "Crash Course" is that is what the human species, along with most of the other life forms on the planet, are on at the present time, due to human civilizations being controlled by systems of backing up lies with violence, that have enabled people to develop attitudes of evil deliberate ignorance.
America is dominated by two objectively absurd State Religions, its monetary system and national security. Both those, when examined, reveal that the monetary system is based on the maximum possible frauds, while the natural security system is based on the maximum possible deceits. Chris Martenson presents those problems as if they are due to collective incompetence, rather than due to organized crime at the highest levels, being as extremely malicious as they could possible be. Furthermore, virtually all of the publicly significant controlled opposition groups to those established systems still operate within the same basically fraudulent and deceitful frame of reference, because none of the publicly significant opposition groups goes through both the FIRST level, and the SECOND level, to arrive at proposing any genuine THIRD level of synthesis.
The first level of awareness is to perceive the degree to which the established systems operate by having ruling classes control those that they rule over through systems of lies backed by violence. The second level of awareness is to perceive that there are chronic political problems inherent in the nature of life, which have been made exponentially worse by the expedient sets of solutions to those problems developed by the social pyramid systems, in which there are tiny minorities specializing in being dishonest and violent, that control large majorities, that are thereby kept ignorant and afraid, as well as brainwashed to believe in the bullshit world view that the ruling classes have promoted through the controlled opposition groups.
Chris Martenson's "Crash Course" is a form of controlled opposition, by default, since he tends to deliberately ignore the ways in which the ruling classes have criminally insane plans, and that their real agenda for the future is already far advanced. Martenson keeps on discussing the problems as if there was merely incompetence, rather than malice, at the root of those problems. That approach also allows him to continue to act like other typical controlled opposition groups, in that he manages to NOT directly discuss the obvious conclusions to his presentations, which are that there are going to develop death insanity situations in the foreseeable future. Therefore, Chris Martenson is typical in the ways that he deliberately ignores the real issues of the death controls, on both the first and second levels, and therefore, never comes remotely close to any creative synthesis of a third level, that faces the facts that death controls systems exist and must exist, while the real problem is that those are actually being done through the maximum possible deceits, inside of situation where the ruling classes continue to carry out their covert agenda, while the majority of the population remains apparent obliviously of what that agenda actually means.
The thrust towards the future will primarily be the result of the ruling classes implementing their plans, which are more criminally insane and malicious than are possible to fully imagine. However, since the majority of people continue to not want to understand that, there does not seem to be any realistic ways to prevent that agenda from continuing to unfold. That is especially the case because virtually all of the controlled opposition groups continue to operate within the deceitful frame of reference, based upon the impossible ideals that there ought not be any death controls, or at least none that human beings are conscious of.
The idealized theoretical solutions that I propose are based on what may be considered as a sliding scale of political science fiction, into political fantasies, that the approaching times of death insanities may be able to be catalyzed and transformed to become genuinely more scientific, in the sense of making greater use of information, enabling higher consciousness about the death controls. That requires going through profound paradigm shifts, which are then better facing the first level of social facts, regarding how governments have becoming the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, which also allows for more of the second level of social facts, that there must necessarily be some death controls, especially as those become more and more imperative, at an exponentially increasing rate, as the exponential growth of strip-mining the planet's natural resources runs into real limits of diminishing returns from having done that.
Combined, the thesis is that the actual death controls are being done through the maximum possible deceits, while the antithesis is that there ought to not be any death controls, but yet, there must be, and those necessities are coming at us harder and faster, for all the reasons that the "Crash Course" correctly identified, which perhaps can go through some creative synthesis of better death controls, which take into consideration the real facts (most of which are deliberately denied or ignored) along with the theoretical imperatives, to possibly generate better death control systems, as an improved militarism, that then could back up an improved monetary system. That is what would be necessary for the human species in general, and Americans in particular, since, at present the American Dollar is the global reserve currency, backed by the American Military. Everyone ought to better understand, in order to perhaps survive through the transformations, which are surely approaching us more and more, faster and faster, for all the reasons summarized in the "Crash Course."
There has never been a need for any "crash course". It has all been written, long time ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth
The chapters three and four deal with the development of the worlds population.
The mortality rate will rise, due to lack of medical supply and emerging lack of food; soon it will outstrip the birthrate and choke economical growth off, which will result in steep decline of the worlds population. An effective date can not be told, and would be of little importance. The crucial point is, that this development will happen before 2100 with a one hundred percent certainty.
(Those of you who'd like to model the world's development themselves could use the "world 3" model on which "Limits to Growth" is based all by themselves. It is free and does run on "Vensim" simulation software. The free learner edition "Vensim PLE" is sufficient and if you download it directly from Ventana systems you can get "world 3" as an included example.)
Just to complement Radical's good work, not to disagree.
Yeah, Bearwagon, it seemed obvious common sense to me, when I first read the Limits To Growth book several decades ago. Our economic system was turning natural resources into garbage and pollution as fast as possible. We were not developing saner, sustainable economic activities that attempted to conserve and recycle as much as possible, instead, we were wasting things as fast as possible, in order to make "money" in ways which deliberately ignored the environment, while the economic activities were operating totally within a human dominated world, wherein the bullshit that people believed in was more important to them than the relatively more objective physical, biological and social facts.
Most of my intellectual efforts since the 1970s have been directed to attempting to better understand why we were collectively behaving in criminally insane ways. However, the main thing I have discovered is that the more one learns, the worse it gets!
Messages regarding the limits to growth have been deliberately ignored as much as possible, and will probably continue to be ignored as much as possible, since changing things would require addressing the ways that the established systems of debt slavery, backed by wars based on deceits, are controlling civilization, which they can do because of the history of being able to back up deceits with destruction, which only cared about the short-term successes of continuing to be able to do that, while caring about the longer term consequences of doing that could not prevent it from continuing to happen.
Since systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, worked best in the short-term, nothing which would be more intelligent to do regarding the longer term has any practical ways to be implemented. The people who are the best professional liars and immaculate hypocrites have the most successful careers, whereby they accumulate the most social tokens of prestige and power, such as "money" within the fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems, that make that "money" out of nothing, which frauds are enforced in ways that the vast majority of people do not understand, because they do not want to understand, which therefore enables them to have attitudes of evil deliberate ignorance towards the degree to which MAD Money As Debt, backed by MAD Mutual Assured Destruction, is MADLY destroying the future of the human species.
We behave in ways which are based upon deliberately ignoring the basic laws of nature, as much as possible, while most people continue to believe in the biggest bullies' bullshit about all of that! People are successful within systems of organized lies operating robberies, which they perceive in as backwards of ways as possible. Therefore, we approach the limits to exponential growth with attitudes of evil deliberate ignorance, since everyone's lives were based on being socially successful to the degree that they were able to participate inside of the financial systems based on enforced frauds, by relatively accepting, adopting, and promoting that basically bullshit view of the world, that people were being "productive," when actually the production of destruction was controlling that "production," to be done in the most overall destructive ways possible!
Unless someone can point out to me a real shortfall in some components of production (especially in food production). I dont buy the idea of an economic crash.
What always happens is adjustments between those who actually control production resources and those who hold a slip representing the production.
And there are few kinds of slips. First are slips of debt, Seconds are slips of savings. and a whole list of paper slips.
And those holding the slips can get screwed. Some use force to ensure the validity of their slips. Some just lay down and die. Some work hard to repay the slips. Some simply declare bankruptcy and seek new slips.
The slips does not make an economy. The production does.
And the way I see it, any financial crisis will be short lived and life will go on. Just as Iran has done and Russia is now doing.
Fertilizers are mainly made using hydrocarbons from natural gas or *drumroll* oil. The fuel for machines used in food production derives from oil, too, not to mention transportation of the products. And there's only a finite amount of that stuff. That'll be the real shortfall you are looking out for ....
Soil erosion, desertification, depletion of marine foodstocks, etc as discussed in the IPCC's AR5 WG2. Mobs on the rampage, genocidal wars, death insanities as discussed by Radical Marijuana.
Way fewer humans, way more jellyfish, and then things could take a turn for the worse...
under a green sky
Canfield Oceans
People who are currently able, within the established systems, to have private yatchs, which they can be flown on and off of by their own private helicopters, do not seem to care much about how the ways that they made the "money" which enables them to do that may finally result in Canfield Oceans.
In the video embedded above, Martenson discusses how more than one of the problems may happen at the same time, while the more likely end game is that ALL those problems will be piling up on top of each other at the same time, multiplying their overall effects by orders of magnitude. I give Martensen more credit that most people whose material is published on Zero Hedge, in that he pays more attention to the relatively more objective environmental facts, rather that continues to operate WITHIN the almost totally bullshit world of human economics, wherein the basic laws of nature are deliberately ignored, in order to facilitate the continued operation of fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems.
Agreed RM, that's why I found the picture of the Arctic Methane Emergency Group (AMEG) polar bear sitting out front of the Paris pavilion in Peru so powerful. Not only is he being ignored in the picture, he is also being mostly ignored in his many press conferences he gave in Peru. The pressers tie the almost totally bullshit world of human economics to the emergency. AMEG was discussed at collapseofindustrialcivilization
And there is the connection with Evo Morales when he talks about markets/capitalism or the F'ing "Green Climate Fund"
Will the polar bear continue to be ignored in Paris? Probably, but anything could happen this year...
Yep, not only do the yatchers not care much, they likely believe they will somehow come out winners in the climate wars! They are doing it for their children!!!! *facepalm*
Nature bats last, it seems Mr MacPhearson isn't alone.
Thanks for the reply : )
"They are doing it for their children!!!! *facepalm*"
YES! The saying that "it is for the children" seems to always be the most egregious hypocrisy possible, across the broad range of every issue that one studies!
then the judge said to me "it's a good offer, you should take it, litigating ISN'T IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILDREN"
What a joke. The kids lived in the lap of luxury with my ex, opposite with me, but we did survive. Too many don't : (
Anyway, any thoughts on AMEG's focus on economics? Controlled opposition I guess.
"We live to survive our paradoxes!" - The Tragically Hip
MMT Bitchez.