Let’s hope the bottle is uncapped.

I guess your a follower of John Muir too. Guy would suggest that our only hope is that we run out of oil sooner rather than later so I guess you will be brewing hootch for the VW as well as for keeping the local teens from looking at you and licking their chops.
It sounds like a start except for the cannibalism (but then the guard dogs have to eat).

As to leaders, remember 95% of the population are from elsewhere and most are closer to what you suggest than we are.

Michael Irving

If you collect hand tools and know how to use them, if you know how to grow food and can store it, if you can start a fire and dress a deer and dam a stream and keep a VW running and sail a barque and shoot a thief and don’t much mind cannibalism,
you’ll be just fine.
Oh, and can tell a good story, and play the bongos, and brew hootch. Those too.

In with the ‘teens!

Africa: Kemet/Ancient Egypt, Nubia

Ancient Near East: Mesopotamia/Sumer, Levant/Canaan, Elam, Minoan civilization, Indus Valley Civilization, Prehistoric Armenia, Helladic Greece, Classical Greece, Ancient China, Ancient Korea

New World: Caral of the Norte Chico, the oldest known civilization in the Western Hemisphere, Norte Chico, Caral, or Caral-Supe Civilization, Olmec, Toltec, Kingdom of Cusco/Inca Empire, Zapotec civilization

In reading your Dec. 11, 2008 blog post …again….today….in my files….was wondering, you said “indus civ will be the 23rd civ to hit the dust,,,,” …what are the other civs, their names, is there a website that lists them somehwere, wiki maybe?

thanks

danny bloom, the polar city guy
http://pcillu101.blogspot.com

I heard interesting interviews from Denmark during the Copenhagen debacle meetings. The Danish people responded to the “Arab Oil Crisis” of the 1970′s far differently than did the Americans (and much of Europe also did better than us). Among other things, the public agreed to very high rates of taxation to pay for infrastructure that would be energy efficient, renewable in use of energy, less and less dependent on fossil fuels, and socially beneficial to the overall public in terms of universal health care, universal higher eduction, etc.

By contrast, the American public treats taxes as repugnant, even while demanding freedom of choice to rwhich new way to rule and ruin the world, military interventions against all threats, real or perceived, and giveaways to the rich and famous. We eschew efficient governmen-oriented health insurance in favor of wasteful, greedy private insurance. Un-fricking-believable!

I really do not think most Americans can think straight. They vote against their best interests and are led like lemmings over the cliff by making choices that violate their own best interests and do so emphatically (remember the Town Hall grumbling sessions over health care “reform”?

No, America will get what it richly deserves.

We are in the late stages of capitalism. We are no longer manufacturing much of anything real except for hamburgers. Our biggest corporations make their fortunes now in financial manchinations, including the automotive industry, which for decades has made more money financing automobiles than manufacturing them, and now which is destined to build fewer and fewer new autos and trucks as financing dries upp and people can not afford to pay cash for their rides.

City and state governments are increasingly bankrupt and curtailing services. There is no hope of resurrecting the past services that many used to take for granted. It will only get worse. And it will cascade downwards relentlessly until collapse.

Yes, the powers that be will use any means necessary to prop up the system with baling wire and duct tape so that it will continue chugging along as long as possible. People will go to work as long as their jobs remain. They will buy and sell and a hollow economy will function for a while longer. But oil production will drop relentlessly. Wages will continue to drop over time. The jobless will increase and will become increasingly beligerant until poverty and indebtedness is made a crime and they can be literally locked away and thus silenced.

The young have no frame of reference for a return to what used to work. Young people working at McDonald’s can’t even make change without the machine telling them how to count out the balance due rather then the balance owed from the cash offered. People are beguiled by technology even as it strangles their brains into noodles.

“Science Friday” today celebrated the use of computer applications for field use in birding, as if having online field guides and electronic bird calls was the ultimate in ornithology! The same technology makes possible the exploitation of the resources on which all life depends, so the untold story is to use it and then lose it, because that is the way the real world works.

I think the thing to do is to try to squeeze all the pleasure out of life and the natural world as we can for as long as we can. Future generations of earthlings will not have the bounty we enjoy now. The young do not mourn what has already been lost because it is already forgotten.

I only hope that when the grid goes down and life turns upside down for the myopic, that death will come quickly and painlessly for most of them. Maybe they will have a chance to send a final text “goodbye” to someone they love across the ether, but never met personally. It will be a fitting end to a losing way of life.

Stan Moore

I thought I enjoyed your last entry, but this one blows the other one away. I love the emotion and feel inspired to write . . . and even change some of my teaching habits (see, maybe we’re getting somewhere!).

Frankly, I’m delighted your cranky. If you weren’t cranky, I’d be worried – and I worry for those who are not concerned about our future. Of course, I hope you are not in a cranky mood all the time – it won’t be good for your mental health. Don’t give them an excuse to haul you away!

Anyway, I had a coworker refer to my generation as the ‘me’ generation. I was immediately insulted. WHAT? Not ME! After calming myself (or course I was only thinking and not reacting in this manner), I had to laugh. And I laughed when I read about the ‘me’ generation in this piece. We can’t live without technology, power, or all those delightful treasures. You want to talk about being cranky Guy?! It makes me cranky when I’m without electricity and/or my computer. I consider myself techibetic – and I need my insulin to keep me going. Sad, but true.

In my position, I teach students about technology and how to use it. They also create models as we learn about math and science concepts. We conduct many experiments throughout the year too. Sounds like fun right? It is – I have the coolest job on our dying planet! However, there is a moment when I wonder what’s going to happen when these students get into the real world. The ‘fun’ and learning in my classroom centers (for the most part) around teamwork. For more than half of the students, teamwork is a struggle. Simply sharing responsibilities is a burden. I’ve had students tell me “I don’t want to work with anyone, can I go on the computer?! It breaks my heart to think they’d rather give up then do the cool activities. Sigh. Is it the me generation Guy? Is it the lack of teaching our students how to work as team players? I now (because I realize that I need to step up and provide direction) make it a point to discuss teamwork every day for every class I see. Sometimes it just tips, sometimes ‘open forum’ or students role playing various situations.

As for leadership, we need to encourage our young friends to develop good moral character. Get past the ME phase – and yes, I want to believe it’s a phase! – be a team player, a listener . . .

Perhaps we really need character education courses – it’s the whole child we need to educate.

There must be an app. for that!

;-p

Thanks for letting me ramble Guy – it felt good.

Keep writing!

Your fan,

Nicky

In the movie “The Matrix” (which I’m presently enjoying for the umpteenth time), Agent Smith utters a profound insight to the captive Morpheus. To paraphrase, Smith concludes that our species is decidedly not mammalian as all other mammals on the planet attain some level of equilibrium with their environment while humans only multiply, decimating “local” resources, then expand into other regions to continue the destruction. Thus, “we” are more akin to a virus or the alien invaders of “Independence Day.” Too few realize the programming, or indoctrination, to which they’ve not only been subjected but been recruited to propagate and “develop.” More for me, less for you. Too bad for you, hurray for me. So “evolves” the culture of self-delusion and self-destruction. Too few recognize that they are aiding and abetting, via their “employment,” their own inevitable demise let alone that of their progeny and most other multi-cellular organisms.

The exponential function can not, will not, be denied! Perhaps most telling, the “masters of the universe” controlling the reins of finance and power seem to believe that their nefariously obtained wealth will somehow insulate and exclude them from this fate. This speaks less of “genius” and more of arrogant ignorance. The butterfly has flapped its wings and the mother-of-all-”storms” (and I’m not talking hurricanes or typhoons) IS on the horizon. All the belief, faith and optimism on the planet will not, can not, alter reality. The E.L.E. has begun and is ruthlessly accelerating and can not be ameliorated anymore than the Mt. Everest-sized asteroid penetrating the outer extent of our atmosphere. Like the planet, itself, nature will not “miss” us.

Like what I have said before, the political leaders will redirect the anger and outrage to other groups, while remaining safe and sound behind the smokescreen.

Germans were outraged when their country was economically ravaged. Hitler directed that anger to other nationalities, and made the German industrialists safe from the popular outrage. And, guess what, the industrialists eventually rode out Hitler as well and continued to prosper in postwar West Germany and now.

I do think that it’s beyond saving now; after a period of murder and madness, the group which created this mess will crawl out from their shelter and reimpose their control. After all only they have experience ruling others , and they know how to subjugate others for their gain.