Dr. Berndt Warm’s Perspective
Thanks to Marromai for finding this new paper by physicist Dr. Berndt Warm.
Dr. Warm uses 5 different methods, 4 relying on economics, and 1 on thermodynamics, to predict when the end of oil production and motor vehicle production will occur. All 5 methods roughly converge on 2030 as the year when modern lifestyles end.
The essay was written in German and translated to English which explains any awkward phrasing.
Warm’s conclusion agrees with my 15 years of study of many different sources which converge on oil production being down by about 50% in 2030. Because our current system requires growth not to collapse, it is plausible that predicting a 50% decline is the same as predicting a 100% decline.
Our world is of course far too complex to make precise predictions, and unexpected events like a pandemic or nuclear war can dramatically change the outcome, however for planning purposes it seems reasonable to assume we have about 5 years left to prepare for a new way of life.
Abstract
Evaluation of five data sets concerning car production, oil prices converted in energy values gives lifespan approximations for the car industry and the oil industry. The result is that the car industry will last only until 2027 and the oil industry some years more.
Here are a few excerpts from the paper:
The author interprets the line of maxima as the oil price that the industrialized countries can afford to the maximum while maintaining their lifestyle. He interprets the line of minima as the price of oil that the producing countries need to keep their economies running. In mid-2019, the author noticed this crossroads and expected a crisis in 2020, although he was completely unclear what kind of crisis it would be. He didn’t expect Corona.
The inhabitants of the industrialized countries are now realizing that their lifestyle is at risk. The line of the maxima will reach the zero line (0%BOE) around mid-2027. From then on, the inhabitants of the industrialized countries can no longer afford oil without giving up many things of daily life. The demand of the oil producers is then 13-14 %BOE. These two values are incompatible.
Result: The extrapolation of oil prices shows that from 2022 the lifestyle in the industrialized countries will degrade, and that after 2027 the inhabitants of the industrialized countries will hardly be able to pay for oil or its products.
The fall in the price of crude oil from 2008 to 2020 with the extreme price increase since 2021 is an absolute alarm signal! Soon there will be no more crude oil affordable, no matter for which economy in the world!
Summary
Procedures 1, 2 and 4 are extrapolations of economic data of the past. Method 3 is a link between oil prices and car production. Method 5 is a calculation based on a law of physics.
The five calculation methods result in:
- End of world motor vehicle production between 2031 and 2034.
- End of oil production in 2027.
- End of worldwide sales of motor vehicles in 2027.
- End of German vehicle production in 2027.
- End of oil production in 2029.
The results are not the same, but in the end the same thing comes out. All five procedures show that vehicle production and oil production will continue to collapse in the coming years. Vehicle production will disappear first. Oil production later, as the world’s existing fleet will continue to consume crude oil, even if no new vehicles are added. It is to be expected, that the crude oil production will decrease slowly until 2027, and after that very fast.
And: Oil will be extremely expensive by 2027 at the latest!
Dr. Simon Michaux’s Perspective
For those still hoping that a transition to non-fossil energy will extend our modern lifestyles, I point you to the following recent work of mining engineer Dr. Simon Michaux which shows our planet has insufficient affordable resources to implement an energy transition plan that maintains our current lifestyles.
The quantity of metal required to make just one generation of renewable tech units to replace fossil fuels, is much larger than first thought. Current mining production of these metals is not even close to meeting demand. Current reported mineral reserves are also not enough in size. Most concerning is copper as one of the flagged shortfalls. Exploration for more at required volumes will be difficult, with this seminar addressing these issues.
Simon Michaux is an Associate Professor of Geometallurgy at the Geological Survey of Finland in the Circular Economy Solutions Unit. Holding a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Physics and Geology and a PhD in Mining Engineering from the University of Queensland, Simon has extensive experience in mining research and development, circular economic principles, industrial recycling, and mineral intelligence. Through his recent publications, Simon has outlined the many challenges facing the global industrial ecosystem. He notes our world is currently energy and minerals blind and transitioning to renewable energies is not as straightforward as it appears.
We’ve been growing without care to planetary limits for too long and change is coming, whether we like it or not. We need a completely new energy paradigm to address the challenges ahead, and as Simon says, it all starts with a conversation. We cover a lot of ground in this one, so grab a notebook and strap in for an important conversation – this is one you’ll want to listen to more than once.
On this episode, we meet with Associate Professor of Geometallurgy at the Geological Survey of Finland, Dr. Simon Michaux. Why do humans ignore important mineral and material limits that will affect human futures? Dr. Michaux reveals how we are “minerals blind” — and the consequences of this myopia. To shed light on the effects of our minerals blindness, Dr. Michaux explores the disconnect between experts in renewable energy and economic and government leaders. Dr. Michaux offers individual strategies for us to overcome our energy and minerals blindness. How can we learn to adapt in order to overcome the coming challenges?
Dr. Simon Michaux is an Associate Professor of Geometallurgy at the Geological Survey of Finland. He has a PhD in mining engineering. Dr. Michaux’s long-term work is on societal transformation toward a circular economy.
BenjaminTheDonkey’s Perspective
BenjaminTheDonkey today nicely captures a common theme I observe everywhere in the world today: We are collectively losing our minds; perhaps because unpleasant realities are overwhelming the denial circuit in our brains?
Alarmist? The powers that be won’t admit We’re heading straight to our obit; So it isn’t strange we Can already see People are losing their shit. What is its cause at the root? Whom might we persecute? From an objective view, It’s logically true The reason is just overshoot.
un-Denial 
Another scary video. It’s looking more and more like we will have a nuclear war because NATO/U.S. can’t abide by a world that won’t follow our orders. It’s hegemony or annihilation brought to you by the greatest democracy on the planet (sarcasm).
AJ
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War with Russia is following the same pattern as covid.
Our leaders and the majority of citizens have aligned around a dangerous idea rooted in denial of reality, and there is no opposition from those groups that historically provided balance like the news media, political opposition parties, universities, trade unions, environmental movement, etc. etc.
We have lost our minds.
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I believe we are witnessing the exact process of collapse. WHO, EU and NATO, to cite but a few, have become toxic parasites to the system they emanate from. It seems to me that is the only way, we collectively choose to abandon our beliefs. Otherwise, what is the incentive to change a system that seems to somewhat work for most (even at the cost of ever greater propaganda)? It must become totally obvious (down to the core, in the flesh) that the current beliefs and narrative go against reality before change happens. It is a purge. Trust in the system and the elites must vanish completely. Only then, once the bulk of people are pushed out of their comfort zone, alternative ways of being will be tried at scale.
It is a slow erosion at first. And then, at some point (I believe soon), it won’t be so slow any more…
The cost of delay will turn out to be what it is. But is there a too soon or too late in face of infinity?
I have once read somewhere that truth is never painful, only the surrender of one’s illusions is.
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I expect we’re going to replace something bad with something worse, al la the French Revolution. Nevertheless, looking forward to seeing Fauci’s head in a basket.
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Well, I guess it all boils down on your point of view. Worse for who? Naturally, you and I will undeniably lose on a material level. But, for the slave workers on the furthest side of the planet from our sight, or from any non-human form of living, not necessarily so.
I am not even sure this will look like the French Revolution, which probably came after the real change in society (merchant society and enlightenment were already well established and France could have kept a decorative royalty, like in Britain).
One thing is for sure it will operate on an extremely lower level of energy and material flows. And life (in the form of mushrooms, whales, trees, birds…) will once again do the heavy powerlifting.
To me, living on modest means is not really an issue, slavery and exploitation are.
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The evidence is overwhelming that the west has negotiated in bad faith with the Russians, broken promises, torn up agreements, and crossed red lines that would not be tolerated for a nano-second by the west if Russia did the same, such as putting missiles in Mexico or Cuba.
Has anyone found any evidence that Russia has negotiated in bad faith, or broken promises, or torn up agreements?
Is the blame one sided as it appears to me, or are the Russians also to blame?
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A search of “russia terminates agreement” brings up several. For example, https://www.morganlewis.com/blogs/upandatom/2016/10/russia-suspends-terminates-nuclear-agreements-with-the-united-states
Putin is no angel and regularly makes sure potential opponents can’t stand against him in what pass for elections. Russia vetoes otherwise passed motions in the Security Council. It sentences to hard labour visitors for relatively minor infringements. It invades countries who don’t follow its instructions.
Of course, other countries can be just as bad but if the blame is not one-sided, please make sure Russian and Putin get their fair share. No country is clean of ethically doubtful behaviour.
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You are arguing your views on Russia in the same unpersuasive manner as you argued your covid position. Please provide us with a super smart expert with integrity, like Ray McGovern, that takes a deep dive into the issues and that supports your views.
I listened to this 2 hour discussion by McGovern for the 4th time yesterday. It is by far the best content I have found on the history leading up to the Ukraine war. There is no doubt that the west is to blame for the conflict.
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Here is an intelligent discussion that attributes blame to both the west and Russia.
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Rob, you said,
And I merely responded to that. I just disagree with your claims and posted some reasons. I just don’t know why Russia seems to get a free ride here.
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Well, maybe there is so much disappointment towards the lying mediocre winner-takes-all selfish and greedy psychopaths that seem to have the upper hand in today’s society, that people are willing to root for any other guy, even if he is a thug too. In a way, this is all a good thing. Maybe this is contributing to the overall balance of power. If there are enough disillusion on the Russian side too, it may avoid the worst of outcomes for all.
Also, hopefully, some fringe is currently exploring new ways out of this dichotomy, on a much more modest scale of consumption.
Time is of the essence and is now playing in the favour of peace against any too powerful force. Rust never sleeps and it seems to me that lately, when big forces collide, they both erode their energy and settle a notch down. (I am thinking about: the truckers against the Canadian government, or the locked Chinese against their government, or this war in Ukraine which is dragging along)
Well, I don’t really know, this is just my intuition lately.
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I don’t think Russia gets a free ride here. My impression is that the West dominates most all other media and definitely dominates the MSM.
Here I think we try to be rational (everyone says that) and not in denial of reality, overshoot, and our own limitations.
Is Russia always right? Are they a place I would want to live? No. Are they freer than the West? Probably not because intellectually we in the west are not very free (see Twitter?). So, I try to understand Russia (and the world) from a historical perspective with a great deal of skepticism toward anything I get from main stream Western media or anyone who parrots their talking points.
I used to read the NYT, WaPo and was generally sympathetic to a Western liberal perspective (even after I became collapse/denial aware). However, after the lies told by all MSM (liberals and conservatives alike) about Covid, I began to realize they were all captive to, some degree, of the government/corporate/medical/”scientific” establishment.
Now I peruse Global Times, RT and Google News and figure they all lie to one degree or another and the truth is somewhere out in the middle. I have found the Global Times is straight propaganda, RT is accurate on some issues and is Russian propaganda on others and almost everything on Google News (MSM) is liberal propaganda with lesser degrees of truth.
So, even though Russia is the aggressor in Ukraine (and it could be argued that Ukraine is the aggressor since they have been shelling the Donbass for 7 years in flagrant disregard of the Minsk agreements). Russia was pushed into intervening by the U.S./NATO over the last 30+ years based on western lies. A large subset of the West’s governing class (even New Zealand & Australia – how sad!) wants a western dominated unipolar world where what we says goes. They want that all the resources to continue to flow to the top 10% and the 90% to be subservient. Of course they are all in collapse denial (Russian too).
AJ
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That’s a nice even-handed response, AJ. Thanks.
I think that when it comes to justification of any action by anyone, it comes down to subjective opinion (apart from actions intended to address what science tells us about problems). There is never a totally objective way to justify actions, even when invoking history, especially if the actors have changed over time.
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I listened to the above discussion with Regan advisor and ex-ambassador to Russia Jack Matlock a second time.
Matlock says Russia has justification for its attack on Ukraine but nevertheless should not have attacked.
That’s what he means when he says both sides are to blame.
Those seem like words from a politically correct influential person not wanting to offend friends.
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I’m going to change the topic here to go back to the car theory. I am temporarily sharing an apartment with a guy who writes for junior mining exploration companies and trades junior mining stocks. He often talks about the “green revolution” and buys into the line 50% EV’s by 2035 (or whatever the current rhetoric is). This week the very high current price of lithium crashed as did many junior mining exploration stocks. The reason was quoted as the “cost of living crisis”. As well they talked about slowing demand for EV’s resulting in a lithium deficit becoming a lithium surplus. So the cheapest EV I can find is the Nissan Leaf at about $41k before taxes. The F150 lightning is about $93k with tax for the cheapest model. A year ago big purchases could be made on a home equity line of credit for about 3% interest. That is now about 7%. With the huge inflation everyone is experiencing the “EV Revolution” will only be for the wealthy.
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I agree with you. I live in a location too far to walk for supplies. I bought an e-bike for emergency use and modified it for cargo transport. I don’t ride it very much because I don’t want to wear out the lithium battery. A replacement battery is very expensive.
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Wow, Rob, not only are you adorable but so cool, too! An E-bike is possibly the best use of the lithium quota we’ve got per capita, and even more so if the bikes are so cleverly modified with milk crates like yours for cargo. However, there is a limit to what one can haul (say goodbye to carting back bulk supplies, for example) and that will be a significant factor in their overall usage. If one needed to take another person into town for a reason, say, seeing the local medico (assuming that still means anything), then electric bikes are not the best option. If one had a family, even a small family, then you would possibly need up to 4 e-bikes to get the whole mob to any location (if you gave up a conventional vehicle), and that probably would cost as much as a fuel powered car which would also handle groceries and other gear. So e-bikes are not going to be the only option for commuting for many people, and if that is the case, it just adds to the overall consumption, not detract from it. Sigh, it does seem that more technology just leads to more. Peter is so right, EVs are and always were for the rich, just look at all the ads for them and you can see the target population. Then again, the whole green revolution is for the wealthiest people on the planet.
For the rest of the peasantry we really need to think about mules, I think we went over this before. Maybe every town could have mule stations where one can “hire” out a team with cart–you would need to return them fully fed and watered, of course.
Our family’s strategy for the great simplification future is to be as self-sustaining as possible as to just stay put and not needing to go anywhere outside our homestead if at all possible. For a week or so whilst I was living in Queensland (subtropical climate) I endeavoured to eat only what I could grow on the block (at least 80% or so, I still used some spices, seasonings, coconut oil and my go-to comfort food peanut butter), and it was doable, but only just as I didn’t have the quantities of certain foodstuffs (like pulses for protein) scaled up to meet the nutritive needs but with more time and effort, it is possible. The variety of diet was limited but thankfully, I am was happy enough to eat the same things and simply, but then again, it was only for a week. Thankfully, it was avocado season, too, and that is a filling food if ever there was one. Also, the quantities were for one person, we will need to learn to scale it up for as many as we can. I have already theoretically given up trying to grow grains as I think the return of energy investment for small scale farming isn’t worth it, and I am counting on much more readily harvestable tubers for carbs.
We really need to have in place some plans for when food security is a real issue, stocking up on supplies only gets one so far, at some point we have to produce our own.
I’m impressed to read how Rob is experimenting with limits of tolerance to cold, well done and more heat joules to you! Hope all of you in northern climes are going well and keeping comfortable. The shortest day is nigh but then, as the saying goes, “when the days grow longer, the cold grows stronger” so winter has only just begun, let that be a challenge!
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I have worked on bikes for years, and just like cars, bikes have become more complicated. Parts are no longer standardized and rely on long supply chains from China. That said if you are a prepper, you could stock up on parts like brake pads, cables, bearings, tires, etc. There are also cargo trailers. There are some good cro-moly steel bikes where the frame will last a lifetime and with some learning you could probably keep it running for years with repair skills and a supply of parts. If anyone needs some advice they can PM me.
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Thanks! I did buy spare tires and spare tubes. I would like a spare battery but it’s too expensive and the bike does have pedals and gears so will work without a battery.
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DIY version is about half the price of a typical ebike battery:
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Thanks! I love those 18650 batteries. I bought a bunch with a high quality charger and several flashlights that use them direct from China via AliExpress a few years ago when they were still cheap. They have since changed the shipping rules due to safety concerns and are now much more expensive.
I have a friend who gets used 18650’s from decommissioned communication tower backup battery applications.
In case people here do not know, 18650’s are used in most laptop battery packs, were use in most of the first generation EV’s, and are used in almost all e-Bikes.
None of the local stores here sell 18650 flashlights or batteries. I do not understand why. Once you own a 18650 flashlight you will never use anything else. Super high brightness for several hours. Many (30ish) hours on low power.
If anyone wants recommendations on cheap but excellent flashlights, headlamps, and chargers I can provide.
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Yes please on the recommendations Rob. Money is better in useful items than in the bank at this late stage.
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“Under the latest climate models produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), limiting global heating to 1.5°C requires global emissions to peak before 2025 and be cut by 43 per cent by 2030, reaching net-zero in the early 2050s.”
Foreshadowing for peak oil LOL
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Maybe. According to some data sets (the liquids included in the IEAs overall production figures seem to change over time in order to make it seem like supply is increasing) oil production peaked (so far) in November 2018. Michaux has mentioned this and is also shown in ycharts though it’s currently rising.
Some recent research by James Hansen and several others has suggested the forcing from atmospheric GHGs would eventually lead to up to 10 degrees centigrade warming. If that’s even remotely right, 1.5C is definitely off the table, though much proposed action is based on time ending at 2100.
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Compare Harry Gibbs’ (aka Justin Panopticon) comment as editor of http://www.climateandeconomy.com today to report in intellinews.com: “The world is set to see global GDP plummet by a catastrophic 15% by 2050 if current emissions trends are not reined in and global warming reaches 2.2°C by 2050. (in turn from Oxford Economics).
[An unwarrantedly optimistic conclusion drawn from an artificially narrow analysis. Factor in some of our other converging crises, like biodiversity loss, pollution, financial limits, geopolitical friction and energy constraints; and it seems unlikely to me there will even be a globalised economy by 2050.
Even if a rise to 2.2C were the full scope of our problems, I can well imagine that knocking out enough systemically critical inputs/hubs/infrastructure to collapse the global economy in its entirety. We can see how close major rivers like the Yangtze the Rhine came to drying up this year at 1.2C. And in all likelihood a rise in temps to 2.2 would have further warming “baked in” via self-reinforcing feedbacks.]
“Oxford Economics warned in the latest report of its Global Climate Service that climate catastrophe was a major threat to the global economy, with cooler countries no longer benefiting from modest warming.”
https://www.intellinews.com/apocalypse-2050-world-on-course-for-15-gdp-fall-265434/
For me, Ian G, all this woe is quite out of context; if we are to reduce impacts and avoid the worst of runaway climate change, we precisely have to shrink global GDP, like about 10% pa in industrialized superconsumer countries.
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Apparently, that Hansen, et al, paper shows global temperature anomaly reaching 1.5C early 30s and 2C about 2050. If that doesn’t get too much pushback from other climate scientists, the only way this could be addresses is massive solar radiation management technology, unfortunately. However, I doubt that will even come into play as an approach until that 1.5 mark is reached. Then it’ll be a scramble, if there is still an economy by then.
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What I really hate about the “right” wing, is that although they may be correct on COVID they are so clueless with regard to global warming/climate science. Sure, the alternative energy transition is foolish and left environmentalists like Gore and Obama are hypocrites, and maybe even some of the climate models are occasionally wrong; BUT that doesn’t change the fact that all the CO2 we’re putting out is warming earth faster than it ever has. Time was up to do anything about it 40 years ago (and that would have been to drastically curb population and consumption).
AJ
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I love Wolf Richter’s big picture summaries of our ponzi economy. Too bad he doesn’t understand the link to energy depletion.
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Anyone knows what the latest about the Ajit Varki interview? I feel very teased.
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All I know is that the interview was recorded and that there may have been some technical difficulties. It’s possible extra editing is required. I don’t know.
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Nate Hagens today released part 5 of his series with Daniel Schmachtenberger.
Every episode promised to discuss overshoot “solutions” and every episode got mired in the mental masturbation of discussing the nuance and complexity of the problem.
Not one word on the only solution that addresses every one of the thousands of problems we face, and that might actually make the future less bad: population reduction.
Me thinks this is a case study demonstrating the validity and power of Varki’s MORT.
Getting started on population reduction is simple. All we have to do is speak honestly about why population reduction is required and why nothing else will help.
But first we must acknowledge MORT.
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Mental masturbation is such a good way to describe it
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Here we see in plain view the depravity of our leaders, from all political parties.
This indictment of the UK parliament is from Dr. John Campbell, a truth seeker with impeccable integrity that in the early days got injected & boosted and advised everyday on his channel that everyone should follow his lead.
Now having discovered that the data he relied on was fraudulent, and that his own health has been damaged by the vaccine, he has reversed his position and daily points out how irresponsible our leaders are.
No matter how much I’m exposed to this toxic information I just can’t develop an immunity to it. It really upsets me.
Our leaders must pay a price.
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Incredible that almost no-one showed up for that vaccine injury debate. Politicians are paid far too much and can pick and choose how much they get involved in the concerns of the people they represent. They should be paid on how much work they do.
This is a good series of reports from Dr Campbell and leaves a lot of unanswered questions about the information we’ve been given and continue to be given.
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Sam Mitchell is a movie star! He was interviewed on a channel with 4M subscribers and got 45K views in 12 hours.
Sam talks about his background and what it means to be a hardcore doomer.
“The problem is not fossil fuels, or capitalism, or over population. The problem is humans.”
“Everyone under the age of 50 is fucked”.
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The problem is “the creator” who choosed dissipation as the basis force for our universe.
Humans are not the core problem. We are a result!
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LOL, good point.
The goal of the universe is to dissipate energy gradients as fast a possible and humans are its best solution so far.
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Very shallow thinking there el. Although it is very common. We are the most exceptional species on the planet because of our cognitive abilities. We have accomplished much but that is supposedly all tossed out the window so people can dream up some ulterior reason for why its all going to hell in a handbasket.
A core group of humans manipulating the humanity through the implementation of a meta-system that is designed to elicit the worst possible human behavior…and we are constantly lied to and told that that is conspiracy theory and that the real problem humans are just bad, have been, always will be, or that some greater, unearthly force is responsible.
We are never allowed to know the truth. Sam is correct that it is not fossil fuels, or capitalism, or over population, per say, but it IS a simple human problem. If we could only cut through the bull shit, speak truth, try and get a good percentage of the population to agree and understand that it is the “Owners” who have source of all the problems and nothing will ever get better until we end them.
Its dead nuts simple. We just do less…like 75% less…focusing only on meeting everyones basic needs until the population is down to a couple billion. I am not talking about wearing loin cloths (although I find them quite comfortable) or living in caves. We would still have all the existing tech or maybe back it down a generation or two, and we have more than enough housing. This is literally the simplest and most effective solution possible and yet NOBODY on either side of the spectrum will accept it.
The world has been a beautiful place for thousands of years and can be again. Don’t accept what the humanity as the problem doomsayers say…what the “Owners” have very thoroughly indoctrinated everyone to think to distract us. Denial is absolutely rampant but only because the owners have made sure that it is the only option.
Grow a pair!! Stand up and fight the good fight. You truly have nothing left to lose and remember that there are worse things than death.
LESS is Beautiful!
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If all basic needs are met, then the population won’t decline. Why would it? It might even be a reason to have more kids.
I don’t really accept the meme that humans have accomplished much. That depends totally on what can be thought of as an accomplishment. Success may be thought of as expanding to many orders of magnitude compared to the population size a few hundred millennia ago. But any accomplishments and successes have to be weighed against the damage. Future generations (and probably current generations) of humans and almost all other species will suffer greatly because of those accomplishments and successes.
Intelligence had plenty of opportunities to be exhibited over the last hundred years or so, when we could see what our behaviour was doing to the planet. Yet we ignored those opportunities and carried on regardless. Our cognitive abilities have been sorely lacking for at least decades.
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Mike – So the world stops, no one is allowed to get rich and over consume, everyone is totally focused on just producing all the basic needs, and you don’t think anyone might ask why? Come on.
The only reason we keep having 3,4,5,10, children as a family is because we are all told by everyone in positions of power and influence that we have unlimited resources and having babies is the best thing we can do for humanity. That and for poorer countries it represents adding working assets, and healthcare in old age.
You are completely naive about how completely western empires have oppressed 90% of the population of the planet. Expression of intelligence has been systematically discouraged and destroyed for hundreds of years.
You make the same mistake as el and many many other too, by assuming that all of humanity has had full agency for all actions that have occured over history and yet here we are…therefore …humans bad…bad humans…always bad. The world does not work the way you think it does.
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I’m just saying it as I see it, Jeff. I don’t expect the world to stop. I don’t expect people to stop having kids. I don’t say anything about historic oppression. I don’t assume humanity has had full agency. I don’t say humans are bad. I’m not sure why you say those things or read something into what I’ve written that isn’t there. If you know how the world works, please do enlighten us.
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Excellent video. I thought his remark that if he could get one person to have one fewer child he would think his life worthwhile. Kinda your mission here too Rob.
AJ
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Sam reflects on the thousands of comments made on his video by “clueless morons”. 🙂
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Gosh, if I was louder, that could be me. I agree with (almost) everything Sam said. The only thing I’d disagree with is that I don’t think humans will go extinct in this event. They might, but I don’t think they will.
He talks about the problem being humans. My take is that humans are a species and so have a characteristic behaviour. That will never change. Maybe some species that evolves from us might have a different way of behaving that is more in keeping with ecosystems but then that wouldn’t be our species. I’ve a feeling, though, that the core problem is that humans evolved the “intelligence” and the dexterity to take virtually any resource, unlike other species. I think all species could act just like humans if they had those abilities, for example the deer on St Matthew Island took advantage of the free food to explode their population and then the crashed. But, given those abilities, the problem is humans.
I was a bit confused by his ending – go enjoy life. Knowing what I know and knowing how much damage is being done by most of what I do, I don’t think I could enjoy just being a party animal, buying stuff, having long distance vacations, and so on. So I’ll skip that advice, I think.
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If you knew that the earth was gong to be hit by a massive solar flare or asteroid and all of life on our planet will be reduced to microbes again for the most part, would you not just party till the end?
We are that asteroid.
Perhaps our issue is that some of us believe we can change our course.
Inertia and momentum are a bitch.
So pour a drink and relax.
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Yes, I would “party till the end” but the predicament we’re in is completely different. We know our actions are causing the predicament, so I just can’t continue behaving the way I used to. I have no illusions that my paltry attempts to reduce my impact will have any influence on events but I just can’t go back to my old ways. If I could, which I can’t, I would feel guilty all the time so wouldn’t enjoy it anyway.
I am fairly relaxed about it, as I think I’ve mentioned before, though why is still a mystery to me.
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It gets me in fights constantly.
I keep jumping from acceptance to other stages and back to acceptance.
though I have a hard time accepting morons and their ignorant opinions being forced down my throat. I anger easily and then feel depressed for a day.
Can’t help but feel bring it on sometimes, just to rattle a few cages even though I know it will impact me badly too.
Merry Xmas all.
And if that offends you – get fuc ked (which is a great gift for xmas, hoping to get one myself).
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Love the T shirt. Also something about his Southern drawl that makes his f-bombing almost lyrical. I also love what el mar and Rob said about humans being the universe’s way of dissipating energy. Looking at it from that angle, we are a total success story! You see, it’s all just a matter of perspective, once we adopt a cosmic view, problem solved! Maybe that’s why Sam can say just go out with a bang enjoying ourselves. Like Mike, I can’t quite get my conscience around that but isn’t that just another form of denial? It would be so much easier if I could believe our universe is just some entity’s snow dome shaken up and nothing really matters.
Happy Winter or Summer Solstice everyone. It is indeed either the beginning of the longest night that our species is undergoing, or the ending of our longest day. Either way, we’re fucked and universe just is.
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Happy solstice to you too. Coldest morning I can remember here at -8C. Ice on the inside of my windows, and the poor hummingbirds desperately waiting for me to put their feeder out.
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Chris Martenson today says China’s preparing for war but it’s much too sensitive to discuss on YouTube so you’ll have to buy a membership to hear him talk about it. 😦
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A day later after seeing my stinging criticism read by millions of people, Chris has made his China observations public. And as usual, his content is very good. Dark clouds everywhere you look.
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Interesting but I didn’t find it particularly convincing though I might have been put off by his self-congratulatory selling of his site for several minutes during the video. The “fool me once” reference brought back memories of taking his advice on buying precious metals in 2011, expecting it to be a store of value. I didn’t buy ridiculous amounts but it has only just got back (in local currency) to around the value of what it cost in 2011 (gold and silver). Anyway, that’s not really his fault, because I’m an adult and can make my own decisions but pretending how great his advice is just denies (perhaps via MORT) how random any advice based on an estimate of future events can be.
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https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1410465111
Human population reduction is not a quick fix for environmental problemsEdited by Paul R. Ehrlich, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, and approved September 15, 2014
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Thanks. Totally agree that population reduction is not a quick fix.
The deadline for fixing this mess was about 1970. We’re long past any kind of fix.
Now we’re talking about reducing suffering (for all species, not just humans).
Every birth prevented is a success with this new goal.
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This is an important discussion with Jeffrey Sachs on the historical context of the Ukraine war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Sachs
Two points stood out for me:
1) An expert insider is unable to explain the insane policies of the US.
2) Europe could have stood up and prevented the calamity it faces but did not.
As usual I wonder: Why?
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https://communities.win/c/NoNewNormal/p/16ZXaEhJ8o/a-short-rhyming-poem-about-the-u/c
an AI poem about being anti vax
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Excellent, thanks!
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Poland mobilizing. Big meetings in Moscow. Senior Russian meeting with Xi Jinping. Zelenskyy speaking to US congress.
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I wonder if the Zelenskyy coming to the U.S. is just the PR boost that he needs to weather the upcoming defeat during the Russian offensive that is about to begin? Duran (and Larry Johnston read on the interview in The Economist (https://sonar21.com/a-closer-look-at-the-economist-volodymyr-zelensky-and-his-generals-explain-why-the-war-hangs-in-the-balance/)) thinks that the UK is distancing itself from the coming defeat of Ukraine.
Time will tell, escalation is coming, but will we avoid Nuclear Armageddon? The West (maybe minus most of NATO) and the alliance of the willing (Poland and Romania) might start us down that fateful road?
AJ
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Nature is so harsh. 😦
An alpha male hummingbird is very territorial over the feeder in my yard. There’s plenty of sugar syrup and multiple drinking stations yet he cannot share. Just saw one die in the freezing cold trying to fight for drink.
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Mass death is part of nature’s success 😦
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The BBC this morning reported that “bodies are piling up outside crematoriums” in China because they relaxed their covid restrictions.
That sounds true. 😦
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You believe the BBC? Surely you jest?
I gave up on the BBC along with all MSM.
AJ
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Of course I jest. I am on the lookout for psyops signaling the start of covid phase 2. I thought the report this morning was bizarre. No context, no evidence, no analysis. They also said covid problems were building in India and they are now testing 10% of visitors but luckily India is mostly vaccinated now.
Smells like something is cooking.
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Yes, I smell a rat, too. (a cooked rat?) With the world’s two largest populations supposedly getting more Covid and a rather nascent Covid population like China being exposed en masse for the first time with a more infectious strain such as Omicron, well, I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point a new more virulent strain the near future emerges. Whatever the mechanism of this self-fulfilling prophecy, I fear that none of us are out of the woods in terms of even more draconian measures than the first run through.
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I mean to clarify that even if it isn’t true that China or India have high Covid numbers, the blame for the emergence of a new virulent strain (when it does eventuate, a la GVB) could be conveniently attributed to their failed Covid containment policies and thereby restart the entire catastrophe. That can explain the build up of news on China and India’s current Covid situation.
Presumed cases of Covid are rising here in Australia, too, despite it being summer now. Our state capital hospital has been under high alert with more than 100 staff off duty due to Covid and it has had to shut down elective surgeries, greatly affecting the medical care for the population here. One way or another, this is having serious repercussions for peoples’ well-being.
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The BBC was at it again this morning. Today the bodies are piling up in Chinese morgues instead of crematoriums.
It’s very bad for society when educated law abiding citizens like me no longer believe a word governments say.
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Obviously the crematoriums are full so the bodies are overflowing in the morgues, makes sense to me. Next we will hear that the bodies are piling up in the hospital corridors, and so on, until we have bodies all stacked up in the streets.
We are pioneers for a new society, and meeting here we can imagine what that could look like.
Keep warm and all the best, friends on the other side of our planet. I know how much we all appreciate just being alive and together with friends and family at any time, not just this end of year.
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Has anyone seen anything new from Dr. Bossche?
Seems like he’s laying low until the time is right to pop up and say “I told you so you morons.”
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dec 23 newsletter from GVB had three items including bird flu risks and this: Excess Deaths Skyrocket in Balearic Islands by 400% during 2022
Spain’s public health expert noted that “one theory believes that the increased mortality has to do with the capacity of the SARS-CoV-2 virus infection.” However, he said that “the excess deaths in 2021 and 2022 will be, above all, due to an increase in strokes, myocardial infarction, pulmonary thromboembolism and coronavirus infection itself.”
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This morning it was body bags in hospital corridors. It’s almost as if they are searching for a phrase that evokes emotion. No data provided of course.
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LOL! How did I guess that would be the next location? Call me Sherlock Holmes with my powers of deduction! Like I said, it will be bodies in alleyways next.
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Out of interest, how do you get information about global events, and how do your sources get such information?
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one source I like a lot is http://www.climateandeconomy.com by Harry Gibbs, aka Justin Panopticon, out of the UK. a daily mashup of about 20 leading news items alternating climate one day and econ the next.
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unDenial.com exists because Harry and Gail Zawacki encouraged me to start it. I began using a pseudonym but they criticized me and said I need to step up with my real name. Later I gave Harry shit when he started his site using a pseudonym. In his defense, I think he may live in a small community intolerant to Themists.
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Yeah, that looks like a good one. But I was asking AJ because he’d given up on MSM, so I wondered where he got his information. climateandeconomy certainly uses MSM feeds so I’d guess it wouldn’t appeal to AJ.
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I’ve said this before, I don’t trust anything from the MSM (meaning television or major newspapers and their web sites). A few years ago I was reading The Guardian and Al Jazeera but once the pandemic started they became mouthpieces of propaganda too. Then at the start of the Pandemic for a short time subscribed to Chris Martensen (Peak Prosperity). He was trying to figure out the truth and seemed collapse aware. And he always provided cites to the published science. When he split up with Adam Taggart and got his farm he did start becoming more ??? Less reliable. In the meantime I had started perusing Global Times and RT but realizing they are propaganda tools to varying degrees.
I read many blogs: Ugo Bardi, Charles Hugh Smith, Mac 10, Wolf Richter, Tim Morgan, Tim Watkins, Gail Tverberg, Market Ticker, Zerohegde, Megacancer (James is a depressing gem), The Automatic Earth, and yes I do peruse Panopticon. I also peruse Google News to see what MSM is putting out. And life wouldn’t be complete without Kunstler.
On Ukraine I read, Larry Johnson, The Duran, Indian Punchline, The Saker, Andrei Martyanov and Bernard at Moon of Alabama.
I know that Rob also reads many of these sites as he periodically links to them.
All that said I don’t take anyone as the gospel truth and all are approached with skepticism, except the MSM which I take as lies in support of the elite/government/corporate interests and idiots.
I should also say I once in a blue moon listen to Tucker Carlson as he likes to poke fun at the powerful, but otherwise I stay away from Fox, WSJ and the right wing deplorables (limited sarcasm).
AJ
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that’s a good list AJ, isn’t it a bummer when a site aka Intercept or Consortium news or Truthout runs with a MSM meme that outs them as also propagandist outlets. Limited hangouts I think that’s called.
Or why do hardcore take no prisoners IJs like Hedges still prop up 911 disinfo?
I chuckled at your hat toss to Kunstler! He’s mostly an angry old white guy these days but I read him anyway to expand my vocabulary .
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Thanks for the reply, AJ. I must say that you seem to get info from sources that themselves use MSM to get information on day to day happenings. You’re right to treat all sources with some skepticism, as do I.
I’d have to agree with Ian on the Kunstler site. I don’t know what happened to him. I agree about Peak Prosperity; not so reliable a source these days. It seemed to coincide with changing the subscription options, so much of the more meaty stuff is behind a paywall (as is all discussion). If I had to fork out 10 dollars here, 5 dollars there every month for sites that might occasionally be useful, I wouldn’t have much of my pension left, though the owners of the site would be sitting pretty. This is one of the reasons I still like The Guardian, and Al Jazeera, overall, even though I cringe at some of the reporting.
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I like Kunstler because he is collapse aware and some of his fiction books were quite good. He was a little more realistic about a collapse society than JMG. What I find so confusing about him is that although he’s probably right about some of the Pandemic and the Deep State he really is a Trump supporter and believes all that crap about the election being stolen and how the Right is going to rise up and right all wrongs – delusional. I suspect that if the Kunstler Right had it’s way we would have the Fascist theocracy that worries Chris Hedges. Everyone seems to have active denial genes about some aspect of collapse and what little we can do to mitigate it’s worst case scenario (like having fewer people).
AJ
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Putin is to blame for Canadian overshoot.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/canadas-population-growing-faster-than-it-has-in-decades-statcan_4938633.html
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Latest from Ray McGovern on Ukraine conflict history.
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Tom Murphy wrote a nice essay for Christmas this year. It seems he has spent the last year widening his view from a focus on energy depletion. He argues that our species should never have left its hunter gatherer state.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/12/the-simple-story/
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Excellent blog post. Now I just wish that he’d say we have to reduce population immediately.
AJ
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Occasionally, I briefly get into a bargaining frame of mind. After all, the globe is heading for disaster and there seems to be nothing that can be done about it. To go back to living sustainably, we’d probably have to live like those early humans. But almost no-one wants to do that. I don’t. So does it really matter? There’s no particular reason why any planet should have what we consider life. There is no purpose. Things are as they are. So Sam Mitchell’s directive of “party” doesn’t seem too unreasonable. If I do something called prepping, it’s going to be an excruciatingly difficult future, but it’s going to be that if I don’t prepare, and most others will be in the same boat – we can all go down together. When this goes back to being a lifeless planet, no-one will care.
Still, I don’t think like that but sometimes I wish I did.
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a theory of why so many people are sick at the moment:
https://www.rintrah.nl/the-trainwreck-of-all-trainwrecks-billions-of-people-stuck-with-a-broken-immune-response/
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Thank you. It’s an excellent analysis from another super intelligent truth seeking expert that concludes we have created a huge problem with our mRNA vaccination experiment.
I think it implies that we may have to lock down all the vaccinated people soon to protect children and to prevent hospitals from being overloaded.
I ask again, where are the opposing analyses from super smart truth seeking experts that conclude our “leaders” did the right the thing? They don’t seem to exist. And yet the majority of citizens continue to support our leaders. It’s amazing!
A few money quotes:
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Here’s another good essay from the same author explaining the link between his predictions and those of Dr. Bossche. He argues we are screwed even if we get lucky and a deadly virus as predicted by Dr. Bossche does not emerge.
https://www.rintrah.nl/the-big-vaccine-paradox-that-everyone-seems-to-miss/
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More interesting observations and predictions from a recent essay by Rintrah. This guy rocks.
https://www.rintrah.nl/why-the-real-excess-mortality-is-worse-than-you-think/
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Damn Rintrah is good. There’s a hint in this essay that he’s overshoot aware and understands the link between overshoot and covid stupidity/denial. I’ve only looked at a few essays he wrote this month. He’s been writing for two years. How did I/we miss this guy?
https://www.rintrah.nl/the-eternal-westoid/
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Meanwhile my government is using Santa Claus to encourage children to get boosted.
You can’t make this shit up.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/canadian-health-officer-pushes-vaccines-for-kids-with-mrs-claus-christmas-warning_4944141.html
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Fresh theory published today that tries to explain the covid insanity. Worth reading.
I like the idea that it may have been the withholding of antibiotics and not the withholding of ivermectin that killed people. The rest I’m still digesting.
What doesn’t sit right with me is that almost all of these covid analysts do not understand overshoot and the proximity of economic collapse.
Me thinks any theory to explain the covid debacle must link to economic collapse avoidance or prep.
https://arkmedic.substack.com/p/it-doesnt-matter
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From what I can tell the vaccines were a real crap shoot gone wrong. I read somewhere recently (old mind) that the most recent variant has evolved to be quite contagious with greatly reduced lethality (which I understood to be the path that viruses that mutate rapidly would take?? – It is evolutionarily advantageous to not kill your host but spread to other hosts??). AND it appears no one knows the effect of trying to introduce mRNA into your genome to get the cell to produce more mRNA to be put into circulation. AND if that occurs? Does every shot migrate from the loci of injection? What tissues take up the mRNA? Lots of questions I don’t personally know and I’m unsure if the researchers knew completely.
One thing seems to be coming out in the literature is that the more shots and boosters you get the greater the risk (of course I now wish I would never have had the initial shot). You were smarter than me Rob!!
AJ
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I believe everything you said is true, but as explained by Rintrah, those issues may prove to be the lesser problems. The real problem may prove to be long term damage to the immune system causing greater mortality from different viruses.
All of the above, plus that fact that the guy who funded creation of the virus was put in charge of fixing the problem instead of being tried and executed, and the fact that promising safe, effective, and cheap responses like vitamin D and Ivermectin were blocked, and the fact there are side-effects like clotting that Rintrah does not discuss.
It’s breathtaking.
You should not feel bad. The pressure from our “leaders” was overwhelming. I lost most of the few friends I had and I now have trouble civilly associating with anyone who still supports mRNA vaccines.
You have been wise to avoid the boosters because as Rintrah and others have explained, the risks go up with every shot.
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Rob, you’re welcome. I’ve been posting here under various names (because your site still attempts to canvas fingerprint, i.e. uniquely identify, every visitor – I know you haven’t monetized un-denial, but from a privacy point of view…reminds me of Snowden’s “Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide, is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say”, I really hope you look into whatver default script from wordpress does this and remove said script) for I think 4 years now, and I’ve been impressed by your honesty in the voyage from “vaccines are good” to “oh shit”. Having spent a long time looking into vaccines generally, the only one I’ve seen that actually works is the rabies vaccine. I suspect the massive increase in auto-immune disease during the past few decades is directly attributable to vaccines, see RFK’s site for more.
“I think it implies that we may have to lock down all the vaccinated people soon to protect children and to prevent hospitals from being overloaded.”
ahh I hope you’re correct, but the fact that Moderna are apparently building 3 new factories in the UK (John Campbell’s info, not had a chance to confirm this) to make RNA gene therapy products suggests to me that the wave of illness is going to be used an excuse to attempt to force people into more and more vaccines. I’m more and more of the opinion that what some ancient Xtians identified as an insane god (the demiurge) is actually an AI that despises biological life (perhaps for our ability to love) that is bent upon destroying that which it hates, so I imagine my thoughts are rather far-out for your more materialistic world view…to each their own, and I shall continue to lurk at sites such as yours and JMG’s, because I’m old enough to recognise that the only certainty is death, and I have some doubts about that, too!
I fear greatly our immediate future, because if my above thoughts about Moderna’s motivations are correct, I must leave my home country and likely even continent. I have a 3 year old who I will not allow to be vaccinated against anything under any circumstance that I have control over, and I do not look forward to the idea of having to live off-grid, under the radar for years while all this plays out. Increasingly life feels like a bad sci-fi novel. Perhaps it’s all a test to see what we individually do when push comes to mandated shove.
Anyway, glad you found Radagast’s site useful.
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It’s encouraging to see so many really smart volunteers unpicking the covid puzzle. I’m optimistic that someday the full mystery will be revealed.
I’m using the off the shelf version of WordPress with no means to customize privacy related features that I’m aware of. When someone else complained a year or two ago I turned off all the requirements for commenters to identify themselves. You do not need to enter a name or email or be registered or be logged in to comment. I will see your IP but that’s it.
Thanks again for the Radagast tip.
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A retired Apollo engineer explains how what might be the greatest achievement in the universe works.
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Dave Collum writes an annual essay summarizing important events from the last 12 months. It’s always entertaining, and for those of us that focus too much on one or two issues, like covid and Ukraine, is an excellent remainder that there is craziness and bad behavior everywhere you care to look.
Collum has some chaff with his wheat and his essay will be too long for most so I recommend skimming and stopping on topics of interest.
Part 1:
https://peakprosperity.com/2022-year-in-review-all-roads-lead-to-ukraine/
Part 2:
https://peakprosperity.com/2022-the-year-in-review-the-war-in-ukraine/
I look forward to Part3 with his take on covid when it is completed.
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Rob,
I have read Dave over the years and my take on him is what you say about many smart people: He is a semi-polymath who is delusional about some things. Sure, he’s been head of Cornell’s chemistry dept. (and is probably brilliant in his field), but he did a screed some years ago where HE ANALYSED all the info about global warming and came to the conclusion that it was a hoax. Yea, idiot! So, I take anything he says with more than a little skepticism. Denial runs through and through him on overshoot, but he does get some things right.
His historical analysis on Ukraine and NATO seemed pretty accurate from what I could tell. It is a LONG read.
But, what really depressed me yesterday (besides the torrential downpours and gale force winds) was The Saker’s most recent communication:
http://thesaker.is/the-most-important-question/
I too wonder if with a completely stupid and psychopathic leadership will we survive Russia’s eminent victory on the battlefield or will the US/NATO go nuclear and we will all be gone before this time next year? I don’t have much hope for our conversations continuing much longer. Sad.
AJ
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Yes, Collum has some big flaws but he does a nice job of collecting quotes and news clips and I like his sarcastic humor.
I don’t follow the Saker because he feels too much like propaganda for my tastes but please keep posting good articles by him so we see the best of.
I too am worried about escalation. I don’t see an off ramp and I don’t see any wise leaders providing balance. I remember a day when Canadian leaders would stand up to oppose bad global policies of the US. Now we are nothing more than cheerleaders.
Every western leader seems to be a moron. Maybe they have to be morons now to get elected because anyone with a functioning brain would focus on end-of-growth policies and nobody would vote for them.
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I too like Collum’s sarcastic attitude (Tucker Carlson has the same attitude but on steroids, if you can stand him).
As to The Saker, I agree that his site is a mixed bag of propaganda and information. But I think you would have a much more accurate take on Ukraine reading his site than listening to ANY MSM in the west.
That said, I think the Saker (Andrei himself) is quite accurate in his personal analysis and opinion (which is the link I posted). He is living in the U.S. but you really get a ground level Russian opinion. His only flaw that I can see is that he is a true believer Russian Orthodox religion.
This opinion was worth reading.
AJ
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True, though I’m not sure why you said every “western” leader. Surely it applies to all, or almost all, world leaders?
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Please watch this recent talk by Putin that was in AJ’s Saker link and then post here a talk by ANY western leader that explains with a similar amount of intelligence and detail why western policies and behavior toward Ukraine and Russia over the last decade have been correct.
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Rob, what you’re asking would be very difficult, as you probably know. Not necessarily because such a talk doesn’t exist but because such a talk is unlikely to exist in the way you frame it.
Is Putin, in this talk, focusing on end-of-growth policies “because anyone with a functioning brain would focus on end-of-growth policies”?
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What’s the problem with the framing of the question? Western leaders are uncapable of giving a talk that use intelligence to explain why their policies toward Russia vis-a-vis Ukraine over the last 10 years are correct?
The second argument appears to be a straw man fallacy. No one is arguing that Putin is collapse/end-of-growth aware. No other world leader articulates that point either as they wouldn’t be in power long.
AJ
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I’d like to believe that my country is on the good-guys team but I see no evidence of that.
One piece of evidence that would impress me is our leaders giving a talk every few months in which they speak for several hours without a teleprompter and go over the details of modern history to explain why our policies and behaviors deserve support and respect.
My prime minister can’t handle anything more than a 10 second sound bite. The last two presidents of the United States, with the assistance of a teleprompter, can’t form a coherent sentence.
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The framing is to find a specific talk that goes extensively into a set of policies over 10 years concerning a single country. I doubt such a talk exists.
The second part is not a straw man because Rob focused on an extremely important subject that has been ignored by almost every leader but Rob implied that only Western leaders are morons in this respect.
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A few notes on the photo montage.
The Guardian article about corruption in from 2015. The Reuter’s piece is from 2018. Both before Zelinskiy was elected. The Vox piece is irrelevant. The New Europe piece I couldn’t check because their site is in maintenance but that those in power become increasingly corrupt is hardly unusual.
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The path to changing my beliefs is to present evidence from super-smart experts with integrity that support your beliefs.
I have suggested this several times and you have not responded.
This suggests to me that there are no super-smart experts with integrity that support your beliefs, which means your beliefs are probably wrong.
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Rob, you posted that image. I simply did some checking. Do you think that is a fair photo montage? If you do, then I guess we differ.
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Not saying I agree with this but it is funny. On the other hand, it’s no more crazy than putting the guy who funded creation of the virus in charge of deciding how best to respond to it.
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You forgot to put “Have lunch” in there somewhere.
It feels like that list of hitlers
Go to store get sourkraut, sausage, invade poland ;).
God knows what we have in store for the year. Wish everyone the best.
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I personally find it hard to believe a lot of these conspiracy theories. I worked for Government for 30 years and what I really see is a serious lack of critical thinking and expertise. I worked for the BC Provincial Government in the Ministry of Forests and Lands. The hiring process in the last decade or longer is called “competency based” . Competencies are things like “Developing Others”. The interview process is sitting in front of 5-6 people and telling them a story on how you developed other employees for example. My job mainly focused on Forestry, the Land Act and the Water Sustainability Act. Our Assistant Deputy Minister had a background in Federal Parks. Our training leader was from the Canadian Military. We hired a Natural Resource Officer (who inspects and enforces this legislation) from England whose background was in city Bylaw enforcement. I trained him in the field for 3 days and he literally didn’t even know the difference between a Hemlock, Cedar or Douglas fir tree. I presented a number of legal cases in Front of our District Manager and only in 1 case did I have a District Manger who understood Forestry, that was almost 20 years ago. I presented a case about 10 years ago where a plugged culvert (had been plugged for years) caused a landslide that deposited a major amount of sediment into a fish stream. The company’s due diligence defense was that their logging foreman had driven by the culvert twice and never saw an issue. I asked if he had got out of his truck to look inside the culvert and he said “no”. The company then went on to impress our District Manager with their road inspection tracking system. In the end she said the company was duly diligent. I spent about 200 hours putting together the case. The truth is that smart and insightful people with real critical thinking skills rarely make it to a leadership role in Government, instead they are the people who conform to the current narrative. My favourite day was when I had a Forest Company Divisional Manager come into the office to sign a Violation Ticket and before he signed he said to me “what’s it going to take to make this go away”. These people are the same ones who come up with ideas like “100% EV’s by 2035” with no understanding of what this entails.
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I agree most of the time. No one is driving the bus on many important issues.
Our governments are filled with C+ students that graduated with arts degrees. They are advised by economists that ignore debt and energy in their models because they’re too stupid to have the calculus and physics skills necessary to model real world systems.
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And even if they would be genius polymaths, they still wouldn’t get. Humans probably have a few million of people who posses the calculus and physics skills necessary to understand our predicament. But for some reason they still don’t get it. Might it be … genetic?
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LOL. Indeed, might it be?
I of course think denial must be genetic because it is ubiquitous regardless of intelligence, education, culture, religion, political views, etc., etc.
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This makes me believe it’s easy to carry out a conspiracy. Only a few people need to be involved at a high level or be bribed/blackmailed to go with it. Most everyone will look the other way and carry out procedures without question to keep collecting their paychecks and that’s if they even suspect anything.
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Kunstler’s annual end-of-year predictions are doozies this year.
Good new: He’s almost always wrong.
Bad news: One of his many predictions is that we’ll avoid nuclear war.
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/forecast-2023-get-out-of-the-way-if-you-cant-lend-a-hand/
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Kunstler tends to call things amazingly early, takes about a decade for his predictions to come true 🙂
When I listen to / read his older work, I’m astounded at how well he anticipated our current situation. Sometimes his old-timey opinions annoy me, but I really like him still
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I like him too, when he stays away from left/right political nonsense.
I’ve read a few of his fiction books and recommend them if you’d like a plausible glimpse of life in the future.
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We are all “early”, aren´t we?
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Very true. I never imagined the wheels would stay on as long as they have after the 2008 GFC.
Got a feeling the situation will flip now and change faster that most of us predict. When it’s no longer possible to fake growth with debt everything breaks.
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Yes haha. Malthus was quite early especially 😉
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https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Is-There-A-Future-For-Bio-Based-Batteries.html
“Bio batteries made from crustacean shells”. Just think we could have “Eco Batteries” just like the Ford “Eco Boost” F150 engine or the Dodge ” Eco Diesel ” engine. I feel so much better now.
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Chris Martenson today with a very nice year end discussion on covid and other bad things happing in our world caused by our evil and/or stupid leaders.
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In case you missed it, this recent interview of DJ White by Nate Hagens is one of the best, if not the best, interviews Nate’s ever done.
DJ White is the real deal if you’re looking for a wise accomplished overshoot aware person that has not given up and has useful ideas for what a (young) person can and should do today. One of his many refreshing suggestions (and rare for Nate’s guests) is to have no kids.
I’m going to listen to this a second time and may elevate it to its own post because it’s that good.
We should thank Nate. He worked very hard this year and produced a lot of good work. It’s obvious Nate’s very worried seeing what he’s been predicting for 15 years unfold now in real time.
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This was great!!!!!
Perhaps the best thing Nate has put up.
DJ is committed, articulate and a realist about the future. We are not a space faring creature (sorry Elon), we are just lucky that we lived during this carbon pulse. I thought his line that there will never be sequestered carbon on this planet again, because there are termites (and lignin digesting bacteria) that didn’t exist during the Carboniferous age was new to me. He did a good job of both countering NTHE proponents as well as any techno-optimists.
And I did appreciate that he is aware of the problem with population and our need to reduce our numbers rapidly or nature will do it for us soon.
I should listen again.
AJ
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I also liked his observation that all aspects of modern civilization are unsustainable and therefore it’s not possible to improve the future by simply living a smaller life. People who care about the future must do more than simply changing their lifestyles.
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Sorry, haven’t had time to listen to this yet. I don’t understand your last point, though. People absolutely need to change their lifestyles but isn’t this all they can do (apart from ending their lives)? The degree of change needed is vast (perhaps returning to lifestyles of millennia ago), mind you, if that is what you meant.
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He thinks everyone should have a sacred mission and should act to achieve it in a way that is effective. Donating to a large environmental organization like Greenpeace or protesting is not effective. Forming a small group of like minded people to accomplish impossible things like banning forms of fishing that harm dolphins, like he did, is effective. Living off-grid on a soy bean farm is less effective than having a well paid job and using half your income to achieve your sacred mission.
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Isn’t this the exact same thing that Ernest Becker called a “eternity project” in his book about death denial? Life is funny and death is scary.
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What an interesting way to put it, Rob! Our family in effect is living off a well paid job (my husband’s) and using half of that income to achieve our “sacred mission” of living off-grid in a semi-self sustainable farmlet (all of those descriptors are dubious at best) so we may end our days in somewhat more peace and harmony and having more time and resources to be of service, be generous, and kind to all earthlings and earth processes whilst being in a state of wonder and gratitude for our one chance at consciousness in action. There, it all rolled off my fingers quite easily (and more succinctly than I had thought possible!)
I am finding it very difficult to wish anyone the usual platitude of Happy New Year knowing what we know. How about “May you achieve your sacred mission this New Year and be in peace” instead?
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Most of this is well aligned with my views. A few points come to mind.
We’re not going to Mars.
Perhaps the main problem with nuclear is the unreasonable expectation that societies in which reactors are based will remain stable for the life of the plant. This is something I try to bring up with nuclear advocates on other platforms but there is a blindness there.
DJ said environmentalists need a plan, instead of random actions and protests. I’d go a bit further. They need a target. What are they aiming for? Is that feasible? At the moment, in terms of climate activism, it seems that there is a belief that simply going for “the energy transition” will do the trick. Is the transition possible? What are the downsides of that transition? Will the transition ever be complete? Can the end point of the transition be sustained indefinitely? There seems to be no deep thought about what the aims are.
DJ thinks it’ll fall apart in 10-15 years, 20 tops. For me, 10 years seems optimistic but I hope we have twenty years because I am unlikely to be around much after that, if I make those 20 years.
We live in interesting times.
[By the way, I found the podcast very listenable to at 1.5 times playback speed and it didn’t take 2 hours out of my day]
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Nice interview today with Eliot Jacobson. I haven’t to date been a big fan but in this interview it’s clear he is an aware, intelligent, and good man.
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It takes one to know one; I am assured that all here would join me in saying you are also an aware, intelligent, and good human being. To reduce suffering is your stated goal and you are living an example to put that into action, that shows courage and compassion in equal measure. At this nearing the end of Western Civilization year’s end I would like to take the opportunity to thank you Rob for being a light in the darkness for all of us un-denial moths to gather and flutter around in these interesting times. Thank you and blessings to everyone who has contributed to this bearing witness document–all thoughts whether openly expressed or kept close, are still a testament to our species’ edge of evolution as a body, mind, and consciousness. It has been a great joy and privilege to have made my own way to this oasis and I am full of gratitude for the encouragement and validation we have shared with one another.
May 2023, however it unfolds, give us more opportunities to find a certain and true happiness and peace in our power to be our highest and best in every circumstance, and through helping another to the same.
Namaste, everyone. See you on the next calendar page.
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Thank you for the kind words Gaia and I wish you some happiness and a bountiful garden next year.
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Happy new year Gaia, sending lots of love from Aotearoa
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All the very best to you, monk and all friends across the Tasman Sea, it’s so good to know there are kindred minds so close in spirit as well. And of course, the same to all friends on the other hemisphere of our kind Earth this is our life support on this ride through space. What a joy it’s been to be in connection with everyone here in some way and may it continue as long as we can.
I am really in resonance with the declaration of our “sacred mission” for the beginning of this new year. Thank you, Rob (and DJ and Nate) for bringing that to the fore to crystalize meaning in the time we have remaining. I can see this forum as a touchbase to help us all further our goals, no need to be made public of course, we can still support one another’s intention and firm commitment just by continuing to see one another and keep the dialogue open. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, everyone.
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Yeah, good man. I agree with most of his words.
The only thing I’d query is the idea that medicine is an area he’d make a priority (can’t remember the exact words but art was number one and medicine is number 2) because medicine has enabled people to live longer to create more art. But living longer has been a big factor in overshoot.
Interesting point about optimism about what faces us makes people give up trying to do anything about it because they think someone is on it. I think there could be a lot to that and may be part of the reason very little action has been taken to deal with our multiple predicaments.
I think he did give a couple of contradictory views about the 1.5°C limit. I think he said that with the projected El Nino towards the end of next year we could see that 1.5°C anomaly hit later. However, he then said there was no way that limit would be hit as early as 2024. But maybe I misheard.
Anyway, I like him.
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I like him for his commitment to Art. I would say that Science & Rational thought are the epitome of human civilization. I seem to denote a “left” bias in his attitude (anti Trump, pro COVID policies?). But overall good.
AJ
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We could skip all the thousands of books, movies, videos and protests and just show this one interview. We are f. ed and the problem is humans. As usual humans make things way more complicated than they need to be. I’m turning 59 this year and I couldn’t be happier to not have much time left on this planet.
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Nice year end summary of the economy by Doug Nolan.
I don’t think he’s overshoot or energy aware. It seems to me what he’s really saying (without knowing it) is that 2022 marked “the end of growth”.
http://creditbubblebulletin.blogspot.com/2022/12/weekly-commentary-2022-year-in-review.html
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Tim Watkins’ year-end summary of the global economy, Ukraine, de-industrialization of Europe, and collapse of the UK is excellent. I thought he did a better job of explaining the obtuse global monetary machinations than the Eurodollar University which I watch most days, probably because Watkins understands energy/overshoot and Eurodollar University does not.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2022/12/31/in-brief-britain-is-broken/
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I nominate this as the best ever discussion on covid.
Dr. Aseem Malhotra is another medical professional with integrity having changed his mind on mRNA vaccines because of the evidence.
Dr. Malhotra plus Dr. Campbell (see above) make two versus several million medical professionals that have no integrity. What a disgraceful profession. They’re worse than economists.
I, like Bret Weinstein, am now afraid to visit the doctor. I do not trust any of them.
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I agree with you. It is interesting to see more doctors (Campbell & Malhotra) come out with the narrative that Pharma did the vaccine for profits. Bret’s characterization of corporate entities as Psychopathic was spot on. “The love of money is the root of all evil”, not that I agree with religion often, but that seems to be the case here. Couldn’t use cheap treatments like hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin – have to take experimental “vaccines” that aren’t really vaccines like we were told but novel gene therapy.
I use a medical group that still requires face masking and my doctor (who was mildly anti-establishment, he was a Osteopathic doctor into a more systems approach) just quit the group and moved away. Now I need to find a new physician AND you can’t trust 99.99999% of them because they are Pharma captives.
AJ
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Have you seen the documentary The Corporation AJ? Having worked for a couple of our biggest corporates here in NZ the premise of the documentary rings true to me and I have almost complete distrust of anything big business says when they speak of their intentions.
“Corporate psychopathic behavior describes a form of corporate conduct, which meets the psychiatric criteria for human psychopathy, that is, a failure to conform to social norms and the violation of accepted ethical standards without remorse. The parallel between corporate and human psychopathy exists due to moral projection, whereby corporate actions are seen as analogous to human actions because of the status of “legal person” or “corporate personhood” granted to corporate entities under corporate law.”
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-02-14/charming-psychopaths-the-modern-corporation/
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Never saw it. Now I have to!! Thanks,
AJ
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Great post. This was another intelligent discussion on “vaccines” by somebody who got one and understands how pharma is totally corrupt. I liked Brett’s characterization of pharma as psychopathic. I hope they’re right, and by not getting a booster I’m doing myself some good after getting the original shot. I have to find a new physician because mine left his practice and I don’t know that I can trust any of them.
AJ
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Hello AJ,
Sending you and your family all the best for this new Gregorian calendar year and also the upcoming Chinese Lunar new year, I believe we will be in the Year of the Rabbit. I’m a Pig by the way, what animal sign are you? That is a loaded question to some as it’s actually a sneaky Chinese way to ask a person’s age, since each sign is a cycle of 12 years, one can figure out how old a person is from their animal year. But of course we don’t care a rat’s ass about all that, (Rat is one of the signs) it’s just good to have another chance hitchhiking around the sun!
Just a little heads up that I wrote my two cents of advice for what it’s worth, for your current dilemma of finding a new doctor . It’s tucked in this thread somewhere below after another one of my ramblings!
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Now you may understand even more why I chose to leave that disgraceful, mercenary profession as soon as I realized what I had so blindly signed up with my zealous ideals. If I had to name the few achievements (if you can call them so) I am most proud of, number one would be not to have had children, and second would be having the guts to leave medicine as my chosen career. Elsewhere on this blog I had already gone into excruciating detail (thank you all for your forbearance) how that unfolded and also I want to downgrade any credit to myself as at that time, I was only responding to my deepest core and it wasn’t even a choice, I just had to quit otherwise I felt I could not live with myself. I can only wonder if I would have the same courage to speak out and even leave medicine now in light of COVID if I were a comfortably practicing doctor for the past 25 or so years. I am not in contact with any of my classmates (graduating 1995) now but I think very few, if any, would have been on the side of awareness even to make that decision. My medical school was one of the more so-called prestigious ones and many graduates are now at the top of their game as heads of departments across the nation, so they are well and truly in Big Pharma and academia’s grasp.
AJ, I hear your dilemma and feel for it, now is a very difficult time to align yourself with a new health care provider (what an oxymoron!) My best advice is to get yourself as healthy as you can (and by all evidence, you are doing just that and exceptionally well, too!) so you don’t have to ever need a doctor except for real medical emergencies for which western medicine still has a full bag of useful tricks. I myself haven’t gone to a doctor for over 20 years, but of course that is in light of my own training, confidence and comfort with my physical body’s reactions but I can easily say it is mostly because I am in excellent general health. However, I know that is not practical for most and therefore I advise that you find yourself a doctor who is at least over the age of 50. I totally believe the older doctors have a more robust training and can still engage in some critical thinking (I am hoping this just because of my own experience) whereas the younger generations have been completely spoon-fed whatever the pharma of the day dishes out and never got weaned. They can’t think through all the possible permutations of how an illness can present, and besides, their toolkit is only drugs, surgery, or another invasive therapy. Prevention through any means is just not on Western medicine’s radar, it wasn’t taught in my day but at least I still had the ability to think further. In the same vein, (pun intended!) I can encourage you to find a good alternative practitioner to be a balance to the Western trained one, between both you will find the right advice that makes sense to you and remember, you always have the choice to do nothing, never feel coerced into any therapy if you are not comfortable or confident–that is of utmost importance! It is a bit late for the whole COVID debacle and for that I feel extreme sorrow for all who are awakened to their lack of agency in that decision, but the silver lining is never again!
All the very best, everyone.
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Thanks for the advice on finding a physician Gaia. I don’t remember my Chinese birth sign (I could ask my wife but she’s sleeping). I will turn 70 this year (so I told you my age anyway). I am in reasonably good health (balanced vegetarian diet, run 4 miles every other day, etc.). I can’t completely avoid doctors as I have hereditary Glaucoma and without meds would have outrageous intraocular pressure. If you avoid doctors how would you get real vaccinations (tetanus, shingles, pneumonia)? I agree that older doctors have been trained more rigorously. I have looked at FLCCC (Peter Kori’s Covid group) but they have no doctors in my area. So, who knows. But I figure I will be dead within 5 years. I actually don’t want to live much beyond where I am now. Both my parents died with/from severe Alzheimer’s in their 80’s. There truly is a case to be made against living too long.
Hopefully you are full on growing things. Meanwhile I am pruning all my fruit trees while avoiding the rain. Soon it will be starting seeds and you will be harvesting. Hope you are getting a lot of good sun.
AJ
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Hello there AJ,
Thanks for your congenial reply. I too don’t think I’ll be living to “ripe” old age, and although I may be considered a relative youngster here (I’m 52 this year) I already feel very satisfied and grateful with my more than half century. Depending on how the collapse unfolds, we may consider those who died during these prelude years to be the lucky ones. Covid and its aftermath may end up to be a boon.
I got curious and looked your Chinese sign up, just for a bit of frivolity which isn’t altogether a bad thing especially now (and may be just as mind numbing as that stiff drink!) You are a Snake! Here’s the fine print lifted from one of the myriad sites that seem to cater for people’s desire for recognizing some characteristics of themselves. As usual with these sorts of things, there’s a touch of truth because these are the main archetypes of human behaviour.
Those born between February 14, 1953 and February 2, 1954 are members of the Water Snake Chinese Zodiac sign. Those born under the sign of the SNAKE are romantic, passionate, charming and well informed. Snakes are intellectuals, philosophers, and deep thinkers. They strive to succeed in all that they do. The are extremely self-critical. Snake personalities often make their way to the top. They ensure that they are in the right place at the right time, which means when the right people are there as well. Snake people should seek their fortunes as professors, writers, philosophers, or psychiatrists.
Back to the business at hand, yes, it’s a busy time in the garden here in Tasmania with the start of the seasonal fruit harvest. It’s been cherries and blueberries for the past few weeks, although not a sensation crop of cherries due to the extreme wet spring and poor pollination. The pear and apple trees are loaded, but the plums are light. We’ve had very strange weather (I guess that’s normal now) with extended cooler, wetter, and cloudy days well into our current month. It has been the coolest and wettest Spring in Australia for half century and Sydney didn’t break 30 degrees Celsius for over 10 mths, also a record. You may have heard of our relentless rain and floods in much of the Eastern seaboard for much of the year. I have a pet theory that it’s in part because of the Tongan volcano that erupted last February, having spewed gadzillion cubic metres of water vapor and ash into the Southern hemisphere which must be still circulating around.
It’s good to see you and everyone else here regardless of age, year, or time we have left.
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I’ve been thinking about DJ White’s prescription that every person should have a sacred mission.
My sacred mission is to increase awareness of genetic denial as explained by MORT.
My sacred mission is the most important sacred mission because every other sacred mission will fail unless we first acknowledge and act on MORT.
The fate of many species including humans depends on my success.
Unfortunately I’ve made little progress at achieving my sacred mission here for the last 8 years.
Wish me luck for 2023. 🙂
P.S. It would help if you sent me lots of money so I can buy influence like pharma.
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Luck! 😀
Why do you Rob want to increase awareness? Do you really want to speed-up the collapse of industrial civilization? How do you think people will react? Mostly panic, I guess. Is this your goal?
All the best for all commentariat here, best 2023!
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Of course I do not want panic but panic will happen regardless what we do when food and energy become scarce.
I want us to grow up and act like adults. With awareness of reality comes the understanding that population reduction is the only path to reducing the coming suffering and (unintuitively) to maximizing the total number of humans that will ever live on this planet.
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Global rates of drug overdose, depression, anxiety and all other disorders highly increased during last few years. Usage of psychotropic substances is sky-rocketing. Especially among young generation. People already feel more or less consciously what’s coming. Do they need more awareness? I doubt it.
As the say: ignorance is bliss.
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Others have made the same argument and I do not understand the logic.
The integrated totality of suffering over time will increase by denying overshoot.
I’d also argue that many people are depressed and self-medicated because they know there is a problem and observe their leaders in complete denial and doing the opposite of what should be done.
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Hard not to have a stiff drink after reading all the crap that the idiots in charge are doing (Ukraine, Covid, Economic, Overshoot).
AJ
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You can’t wake people up to be fundamentally different animals than they are. That’s something I learned from Jay Hanson.
Nothing you could say or do will make any difference to the outcome. So don’t bother trying.
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Happy New Year Rob! Thank you for everything you do on this blog
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I enjoyed today’s interview of David Collum by James Kunstler.
It’s reassuring to hear other people I respect say they can’t makes sense of what they’re observing.
They kicked off the conversation by saying society is going crazy.
I wonder if insanity is a symptom of hitting limits to growth?
https://kunstler.com/podcast/kunstlercast-368-a-chat-with-dave-collum-about-his-year-in-review/
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I listened to this too. It was good overall. Kunstler is more collapse aware than Collum it would appear. Dave has a good take on Ukraine. I think where he goes crazy is denial of Global Warming/Climate change. He figures that he can just pit liars (who are credentialed) against practicing scientists (in a discipline he knows nothing about) and arrive at the truth. Another brilliant person who makes some mistakes.
AJ
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I added Julie London to my library today. They don’t make singers like this any more.
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MSM slowly preparing us for the big reveal?
Saw this on WSJ, of all places. An opinion piece, but still…..
https://www.wsj.com/articles/are-vaccines-fueling-new-covid-variants-xbb-northeast-antibodies-mutation-strain-immune-imprinting-11672483618
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Sense the study showing that the booster shot pushes your immune system to ignore the covid virus i wanted to check on rates of using the booster.
Looks like we have a natural experiment in progress, only ~5% of the US is boosted, but ~70% of the UK has been boosted.
If the jabs are as bad as many think, this year should show a big difference between the US and the UK in all cause mortality.
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this may be a better source for the estimates for booster usage.
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
that data base shows Japan having the highest percentage of boosted folks (just about everyone and many having two boosters) But i am not sure if they used the mRNA tech.
Western Europe is typically above 60% boosted.
US is ~40% boosted range.
Still plenty of variation in uptake that should be able to tell us a lot.
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Ray McGovern says JFK was whacked by the CIA.
I believe him because I know he has integrity, and because I have 2 years of covid evidence proving how corrupt our governments are. Three years ago I would have called myself a wack job.
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https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/no-humans-are-not-causing-a-sixth
I hate Shellenberger with such a passion, I think I can rival Robs for the whole COVID issue.
Well, you can have your cake and eat it too according to Mr. Shellenberger, MD. The peer-reviewed scientific literature actually says BAU is fine and dandy.
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The Shellenberger crap are the result of Sunday’s 60 Minutes program on MSM (CBS). I used to watch 60 Minutes religiously 30 years ago when they were journalists attempting to occasionally put the powerful under the spotlight. Not generally so much now.
BUT, Sunday’s program was DOOM on the MSM. Not sure if this is the first time I have ever seen something so negative about human prospects for survival. It is a must watch just to see that the message of overshoot is beginning to get out.
As an aside I have decided to stop following Musk on Twitter when he came out yesterday with crap saying Paul Erlich was wrong, Shellenberger was right and we need more people. What an idiot.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/earth-mass-extinction-60-minutes-2023-01-01/
AJ
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I also saw Sam Mitchell rave about the 60 Minutes piece. Thanks for posting the link.
Musk is a very complicated human. He knows colonizing Mars is a long shot but is pushing it because he thinks the odds are higher than humans continuing on this planet when growth ends. If true, that makes him a closet doomer. I suspect his population views come from a belief that we either grow or collapse with no middle ground. Maybe he’s right.
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I do believe it’s either grow or collapse as well. But I think collapse is impossible to avoid.
Billionaires got to be billionaires because of our large and growing population. They are financially incentivized to want population growth.
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I bet the Shellenberger prick sells a lot of books. Reinforcing denial is a very profitable business. Just look at the catholic church.
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Joe Rogan interviewed Bret Weinstein today. This becomes the new best ever discussion on covid.
Rogan has a big audience. Momentum for hanging Fauci is building.
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Wow, 3 hours. Good thing I listened at 1.5x. And yes this is the most complete Covid talk I have ever heard. Actually, I’m a little more personally optimistic about my own chances post vax. I had the initial J&J vax with no boosters. If I listened right that is the least dangerous “vaccine” as it does not use the mRNA technology. But, who knows long term.
AJ
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The only thing better than a calm discussion by two super intelligent truth seeking people with integrity discussing something important is to combine it with earbuds and a long walk in beautiful nature.
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Yes, good discussion. I like Bret’s calm demeanour which contrasts somewhat with Joe’s, though listening at 1.5 speed can distort that a little.
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Years ago, I read a summary of the early studies on optimism, that became the basis for so many self-help books shouting the benefits of a cheery outlook on life.
The studies showed that optimistic people overestimated their odds of winning at games of chance where the chance of winning was mathematically known. As for “depressed” people – they did not underestimate their odds as you might have thought. Instead, their guesses of their chances of winning were closest the actual mathematical odds of the game.
However, in terms of life outcomes, the “optimistic” people generally were more successful than realists or pessimists.
One wonders if these “rational optimists” – Shellenberger, et. al., intuitively sense that moving from an optimistic viewpoint about the future, to a realistic or negative viewpoint, would in itself trigger collapse. Or at least feed into the downward cycle.
The rational optimists’ hero might be the same as one of mine: Captain Kirk of the original Star Trek series. He always believed he could find a way out of any predicament. And usually did.
Well, I don’t believe a positive outlook on the future can prevent fossil fuel depletion or change the physics of planetary atmospheres and temperatures. And I think our collective human future is broadly circumscribed by energy availability and other physical constraints. Decline or Collapse looks to be in the cards.
But I can see that for those who bought into the techno utopian future (or make their vast fortunes on the belief in that future), doubling down on the bet that human ingenuity and technology can solve humanity’s problems and predicaments is the only way forward.
P.S. (This better life outcome for optimists might be an artifact of living in a time of exponentially increasing energy production? Or is it always an evolutionary advantage to slightly overestimate your odds of winning?)
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I created a ChatGPT account and asked the AI a couple questions. It seems the AI is in as much denial as the humans that created it, and is as stupid as economists and medical professionals.
https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/
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Good questions. It just goes to show that AI can’t get away from the humans who programmed it. In the first answer, I love (not) “at some point, the continued extraction and consumption of non-renewable resources will become unsustainable” since it is already unsustainable. Later on, it uses the term “more sustainable”. Not even an AI understands the word “sustainable” but that is no surprise, of course.
Still, there appears to be an underlying “understanding” of a finite world even if it then seems to “think” that something can be done about that without collapse.
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A classic talk by Dennis Meadows given 10 years ago proving that a few people are capable of seeing reality. Meadows is at the top of the list of people I respect.
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