Guy McPherson's blog

Ramping up the Speculator

I'm going to ramp up the Speculator™ with this post, notwithstanding the pathetic failure of my short-term prediction for the week just ended. Seems all my wishful thinking won't push the teetering industrial economy over the cliff. I'm sure there's a lesson here, but -- in classic American style -- I'll pretend there's not.

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Marauding hordes require organization

Will we transform immediately and totally into ill-behaved rats, clustered in a cage without food? Perhaps, at least in the cages known as cities, particularly when the food runs out, along with the water. But people in the "tribes" known as neighborhoods and communities will try to get along, at least for a while, at least while we're all suffering more-or-less equally. Small communities will be particularly well-suited for the hard times ahead. The neighborhoods of suburbia, on the other hand, are particularly poorly suited for neighborly behavior of the Mr. Rogers kind. Indeed, sprawling American suburbs seem to have been designed specifically for anonymity and therefore uncaring, unfriendly neighbors.

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