Coping with Awareness

Stellarwind72 proposed we write an essay on how to remain in good mental health while being aware of our overshoot predicament.

I have assembled here ideas from thirteen un-Denial participants plus my own.

If any reader would like to add their own list of tips, please send me a message and I will update the essay with your contribution.

14-Jun-2024 Friend Jack Alpert, who has developed the only viable plan to minimize suffering and retain some of our species’ best accomplishments, has contributed to this compilation.

ABC

The insights of yours truly, on how to engage with the predicament. 

“We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.”
– Richard Dawkins

“Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
– Thucydides

Both statements are correct, philosophically one might describe them followingly. 

Natural selection:

  • “Dao; The Way” 

Maximum Power Principle:

  • “Nietzsche; The Will To Power”

How to perceive the predicament?

  • Strive for power, as an act of self-preservation.

Death is indifferent.

  • What is there to lose?

Charles

We are waiting for the barbarians while getting a free ride and think we are in charge. 

It’s time for a doomer’s jubilee.

Yes, I am happy with what’s happening in the world. Whatever the outcome. Whatever the way it unravels. (Which doesn’t mean I don’t have problems which come and go and need to be solved, up and downs, fears and obsessions probably like many.)

I so wanted to share with you the ticket out of thinker’s hell, out of humanist’s hell. It turns out to be hard. It all seems so simple now, that I don’t even remember what exactly triggered a change of state.

I could try to recount my encounter with non-duality. I could list some of the leads I followed: Ramana Maharshi, UG Krishnamurti, Swami Prajnanpad, Ramesh Balsekar, Paul Hedderman. And, how one day, the whole mental edifice crumbled. The whole indoctrination of science, layers upon layers painstakingly acquired during years of learning, repetition and practice, nothing but rumbles. Not to be replaced.

Would it be understood (comparing science to a belief system is anathema to many: sometimes the only way to notice we are wearing a pair of glasses is to try wearing another one)? Would it be of any use? Isn’t one of the points that no generalization is possible, that every one’s experience is fiercely unique.

Maybe it’s the realisation that there is a limit to our ability to predict the future, or that the worst already happened (more than once) in the past (the Shoah, Native American genocide, …), or witnessing so many experts defending tooth and nail their own version of truth, or noticing that imagination of a dreaded outcome has nothing to do with the actual experience, or going through some hardships and realising that things just go on, or that the world is 1 without 2 (it is as it is and not some imaginary else), or seeing how tough life is on most people yet they somehow manage, or that it’s always all an experience, good or bad, it’s entertaining (like I am the station in front of which trains come and go and I have no agency on which type of trains or the schedule. So I might just as well enjoy the show), or realising the shallowness of the myths that have been stacked one upon each other (by religion, by science, by the self, by the mind, …) and for which we deploy so much fervour and energy.

Maybe it’s simply the recurring small encounters with beauty, with life. Gardening does that for me, fearlessly exchanging with people to reach the depths and truth of an aspect of their mental shape too (as we are doing now), or just greedily inhaling every small details reaching my small field of consciousness.

Or, it may just be getting bored of negativity.

As much as I had wished to share this state, it seems not to be really communicable. It will dawn on you, I am sure. And some day, you will be suddenly laughing out loud in the middle of the fields. If anybody sees you then, they will think all that worrying ended up getting the best of you. 🙂

Anyway, thank you for finding and periodically bringing to our attention smart people doing original thinking on this topic of collapse. I am grateful for your clear eyesight, your ability to separate the chaff from the wheat. Especially, it has been a great support during covid.

To conclude, here are the most important ideas I want to share:

Redemption, betterment, moksha, liberation, self-realization, illumination, enlightedment, progress, self-improvement, planet rescue… As if the world could be any different than it is. As if it could be improved upon. As if we had control. As if the dynamic of life were a math problem with an optimum solution. If you meet the Buddha, kill him. I say burn them all, Fahrenheit 451 style: Buddha, Jesus, Darwin, Einstein, Malthus, the Meadows. They clutter our souls. Time for renewal. Snap out of any form of idealism, absolutely any kind of indoctrination. Now the earth was formless and empty. Go back there and start anew.

To me, it’s thinking which shapes our experience by arbitrarily slicing, labelling everything, arbitrarily picking a perimeter to focus on (identification), a start and an end, creating concepts: birth, death, progress, evolution, species, collapse, NPK (chemistry), MPP, MORT, you name it… That’s all delusional. There is no way anything can be understood. It is not meant to. And that’s fine. There is nothing to be either fearful, angry, saddened or cheerful about. It is just as it is. And that’s awe-striking.

As far as I understand, this is UG Krishnamurti, this is non-duality (not 2, which does not imply 1 either).

And then, there is all that matters, that which can’t be put in words…

el mar

el mar´s approach:

Take care!

  • Be friendly and balanced, don’t believe every bullshit.
  • Be peaceful, self-critical but don’t put up with everything.
  • “Come down”, think “small”, for species-appropriate human husbandry.
  • Buy regionally, support local producers, manufacturers and craftspeople. Eat healthy, fresh, unprocessed food
  • Start a kitchen garden. Start small.
  • Learn something crafty and practical.
  • Cooperate and share with like-minded people.
  • Listen to your inner voice – not to ideologues and pied pipers from the right and left.
  • Avoid mass consumption and mass media.
  • Inspire other people to join this movement.

Saludos

Florian

It’s pretty funny to me, I’m a “young person” (< 40 years) and I’m not following a single of Robs points.

I live in a big city (I was born here) and work in tech (which I enjoy within reason) and I can afford to only work 30h. In a slow collapse scenario I will have to trade my database knowledge for food lol but, personally, this is not the future I envision.

My own version of the future is a lot more bleak so I live my life of pleasure, sitting comfortably in my office hardly working knowing that it could end next month, year or decade. Which also has it upsides because I don’t need to worry about my retirement.

Gaia

Do you remember my post on suffering that you decided should be a guest essay (and that quite floored me to see my words the next day front and centre!)? My core outpouring then, and even more now, is the question, was it all worth it? That so few have benefited so much at the expense of so many? Even to the point of the destruction of our biosphere, endangering life systems at the macro and molecular level through our hubris in thinking we can grasp power and control far beyond our reach. In my darkest hours I feel that deepest, helpless, purging sorrow is the only true emotion we can justifiably claim; all other feelings and reactions to our existence are derivative of our denial that allows us to continue living so. It’s denial that keeps me as positive and equanimous as I seem to all around, if anything I feel an imposter as I should be more depressed and grieving for the world and humanity as a whole.
I consider this recent post a continuation of that lament on suffering and even more a personal outcry of remorse and regret that I was not as conscious of my role and responsibility in the greater good and suffering as I could have been, or if I was aware, I certainly was not courageous as I know is rightful in failing to use my one life boldly to declare justice as others have done.

As children, we naturally understand and feel injustice aggrievedly, possibly because we are otherwise helpless and dependent upon the goodness of others, but also in our naivete and innocence we trust that others know and care how we feel, and would treat us as we and they wish to be. Through a thousand thousand cuts of disappointment and breaches of trust, cog-turning assimilation into the culture and society into which we were born, it comes to pass that we throw off that banner of righteousness and justice in exchange for a yoke of resignation and complacency. We carry our burden with hardly a murmur, willingly or not, wittingly or not, so we can stake our claim of existence in this society upon which we are wholly dependent. To conform with the dominant tribe is our survival strategy, and the more complex our society becomes, it is clear that for the masses there is little choice but to continue the status quo or be cast out. We come to realize our relative individual unimportance to the system, so it is not much of a step to endorse anothers’ insignificance, especially those outside of our tribe. Then it is no matter at all to deny their right to existence, and all manner of injustices become justified. For all my complicitness of inaction, I shall bear my own guilt. It is through recognition of myself in the majority that will lead to my release of judgment for them, and if by grace I can come to some measure of forgiveness, I hope to absolve myself a little, too.

Truth to tell, at some level we know we are here because someone else is not, we have because someone else does not. My ancestors survived at the cost of another, and now I have my material life at the expense of another. There is no way else to balance this equation, however we try to reconcile it. It is all justified because we are who we are, and they are who they are–as in the developed world, complete and worthy, still deciding if the “developing” ones have a right to exist. The colour of our skin, the language we speak, the land we find ourselves, and most expediently, the exchange rate we decided upon, keeps everyone in their own respective domain and hierarchy of who shall have and not have. We call it fair trade to keep us in the West living in our high standard whilst those whose labour and resources we have stolen through our inflated dollars can only keep living in their degraded standards. Any child can see through this unfairness which we have called our globalised world. Genocide still may be abhorrent, but slavery, as long as it is at arm’s length, has its merits. I am a beneficiary of this and cannot and will not erase that stain upon my conscience. We need not wait for AI to overcome our humanity; we have already given away a greater part of that when as a species we chose to continue following the algorithms of power as a method for survival instead of allowing our still small voice of conscience to heed the golden rule. Until we embrace the earth as our village and kinship with all life, we are quite alone on this blue-green planet, spinning alone in this corner of the universe.

I contend that we all have the possibility of a Hitler as well as Mother Theresa–the only difference is quantity of intention and scope of action, but the quality is already in us. It must be so if we are a species together, the family trait of both runs deep and will out given the right circumstances. Our continued survival as a species has depended on at times dominance and exploitation, and at other times, cooperation and altruism. Daily we balance between the spectrum in all our decisions, whether consciously or not. As a species, we perhaps could never have evolved differently, but gifted with the birthright of consciousness and conscience, individually we could have chosen differently. We know it can be done because it has been done, we all have done it–have risen to the occasion of defending the defenseless, be it a rescued bird or standing for a friend against a bully. Courage in those moments is a direct line to our hearts, bypassing our brains working out what is in it for us. I daresay those are the times we felt most alive and sure of our purpose, the moments when we consider anothers’ well-being before our own. This quality of beneficence is every bit a part of our species as well, all we lack is consistency, which is the mark of mastery. Whilst some rare few may achieve instant enlightenment, the other path, however long and arduous, will also reach the goal through awareness and effort. We must be able to practice our kindness and goodness; it matters not how small the task before us as we have the quality already, it is merely the quantity we can choose to increase or withhold. We can choose kindness and rightfulness again and again, until it is no longer a choice but defines us.

Despite these physically, mentally, and emotionally draining times, I am going along as well as I can be, seizing the joy and wonder in every day as I know how precious life, and the passing time that unravels life, are. I now understand clearly why Cicero (considered a Skeptic, not a Stoic) stated that gratitude is the greatest of and the parent of all virtues. I find comfort in managing the daily tasks that so many wish they could do with as much freedom and ease as I have enjoyed all my life, and in helping others by being more generous with my time through practical action or listening ear. Giving back is the choice I am hanging onto for having the privilege of receiving so much. Knowing now as I do that our life of continued ease will be greatly foreshortened due to our own making, crystalises for me the certainty that my remaining days and choices are fast becoming last chances to consolidate what I have learned as a human being on this planet. And even more importantly, to prove to myself that my life has been an examined one and the highest version of what I can be. Whilst I cannot save humanity, I can still save the part of me that can be more grateful, kind, compassionate, accepting and forgiving. It is the only and true thing remaining for me to do, and for which my entire life was preparation.

Rob here, I’ve added to Gaia’s contribution a powerful paragraph she wrote as a comment a month ago:

The on-going genocide of the Palestinians really nailed it for me. Now we know that given the opportunity, we would act just the same way the majority of Germans did, in turning a blind eye to what we know is morally unjust and thinking we can continue with our own lives. We will watch the slaughter and deplore it, but why don’t we have the courage to upend our lives by doing something radical in effort to stop it? It’s the same for the response to Covid. It seems the most radical thing a Westerner can do (and more power to the pro-Palestine youngsters at universities who still have heart and guts) is publicly protest but why are we not all walking out of our jobs or going on hunger strikes and the like? What does it take to really take a stand, to deliberately override every instinct of survival by choosing suffering and even death (like Aaron Bushnell, who conflagrated himself) for an ideal? The drive to protect ourselves and just keep living the lives we are accustomed, especially us in the West is overwhelming–we have too much to lose and we know we cannot survive outside our system. We are workers in the hive, and we are programmed for only the hive. Knowing this, we finally come to understand that we are not free beings and never have been, but that does not mean we do not still have choice and our internal world can be closer to what we want to make it. That’s why the Stoic philosophy is particularly attractive to me; I have succumbed to relinquishing any hope of changing the outer world but I can still find meaning, purpose and joy in life by improving my inner self.

Hamish McGregor

There are no specific actions I take, to help with coping – unless being constantly negative, whining, passive aggressive and excess criticism (of everything) counts.

Hideaway

In working out where we are headed, I cope via a variety of mechanisms. We are a close family, my wife and our children, and we come from close families, so there is always the following of everyone’s progress through life as a positive to look forward to. We are financially well off, as I’ve invested well by predicting the way the world would try to head, given what I know of resources, which has allowed our children to have a much easier path. They are well aware of my findings and none of our children, in their 30’s, have chosen to have kids, so no grandchildren to worry about. They say they will just return to the farm when civilization collapses.

I have native areas of bush (forest for non Aussies) on our property that are regenerating from before we bought, 40 years ago. Taking a long walk through these areas gives a regenerative feel for the world overall. Life will go on after us, until it can’t, but will spring up somewhere else in the universe. Life is for living and I enjoy spreading the word of what’s happening in reality, so it doesn’t get me down at all. We have plenty of food, heat when necessary and great shelter that we built with our own hands. I cut wood from our bush for heating the house, mostly from storm damage, or dead/dying trees as the bush goes through it’s natural succession, so providing our own heat source in winter is also cathartic.

I get a type of internal peace knowing that there is no purpose to life, it just exists, so making the most of it with as many different experiences as possible in great company is what counts. being part of a like minded community of thinkers at un-Denial also helps with sanity as it clearly shows I’m not ‘out of my mind’ with my findings on the direction of the world, so thanks to all contributors at un-Denial and especially to Rob for hosting the site..

Jack Alpert @ https://skil.org/

I am not going to prep for the down slope for four reasons:

  1. There is no protection from the roving hoards. Both, preppers and non-preppers, will end up with nothing to eat but each other very quickly — probably in the next 50 years and most certainly in a hundred years.
  2. Running, hiding, and being the last man eating the last can of corn in the last cupboard is not what I want to work toward.
  3. I cannot drink a good glass of wine and watch the sunset without guilt.
  4. That I am old and I might make it out of here before tragedy strikes brings me no joy.

I will feel bad every day if I do not try to fix things I can see are broken.

Some fixes I do not care to work on. I am done being distracted by efforts to fix the miss perceptions and dysfunctional behaviors resulting from our limbic brain which evolved too slowly to keep up with our cognitive capacities to create civilization’s momentum.

My work focus each day:

  1. Define a viable Human Earth system in terms of behavior that controls  mass and energy flows that can exist continuously without degradation of the earth’s productive capacity.
  2. Define the collective behavior required to transition to this Human Earth system.
  3. Implement the required behavior:
  • i) Extracting bad behavior takers from the population:
    • a) Old age deaths
    • b) Starvation deaths
    • c) Deaths from violence
  • ii) Coerce the required behavior from the remaining population:
    • a) Physical enslavement
    • b) Social contract enslavement
  • iii) Create universal upgrade in cognitive processes in every living person.

Some milestones on this journey:

The existing 8 billion people living today will not be living in 2100. They will have died from:

  1. Old age
  2. Starvation
  3. Violence

The human population that exists in 2100 will be the sum of births after today. If the system that is viable under the above definitions is only 50 million that means births will have to be limited to about 500,000 a year.

If we have only natural births, not test tube babies, that will initially be only 1 birth for every 140 woman, but will increase until it reaches 2.00 in 50 years.

Implementing this will be a challenge.

At one extreme it will require immediate sterilization of 8 billion people with some mechanism for refertilization to get 500,000 annual births.

This path creates great injury and can only be selected when compared to the worse alternative of an estimated 13.4 billion people dying of starvation and conflict during the next 80 years on the present path.

The rest of the transition is equally painful and difficult to implement.

I expect that existing cultural machinery will struggle and probably fail in making a transition to the defined viable civilization. It is more likely to descend into a dark age — probably with little chance of recovery to present science and technology.

Some other more powerful transition mechanisms may be applied by groups or individuals to our predicament. Individuals may soon become powerful enough to sterilize the 8 billion. Others may become capable of culling any portion of the 8 billion.

These options may be implemented (not abiding current ethics) with much lower total lives or environments injured.

These alternative paths forward for the human experiment on earth may be selected and implemented  independent of existing organizations.

I have worked my entire adult life understanding the creation of cognitive processes that if they were universal among the 8 billion, the collected behavior to implement a viable earth system would be possible. Each individual behavior would result with the same reliability as that individual selecting to not step off the curb in front of a rushing bus.

I have made much progress but lacking a quick and universal way of inserting these cognitive abilities into a whole global population over night I imagine the individual-produced interventions of sterilization and culling to be implemented to avoid the unrecoverable dark age on our horizon.

marromai

As far as I can see, it always comes down to the same thing: oneself is powerless when it comes to the big picture, you can only make sure that you and your loved ones are doing well. That’s also what I try to do as best as I can (like the closing words from my first guest post – carpe diem).

My coping methods are:

  • I am present at work because I need the money, but I only do the minimum required. I know that our economic system is doomed, but I cannot survive without it because I am inevitably a part of it.
  • I avoid the mass media and scrutinize any news.
  • The state is not my friend. I avoid contact wherever possible. State rules and laws are interpreted as flexibly as possible to my advantage (of course only where they don’t harm other people).
  • Most people don’t know what I know or dismiss it as nonsense. I keep my knowledge to myself and don’t try to “convert” anyone.
  • Current “Science” is just another religion – I know that I know nothing. However, (old) science offers us models and techniques that explain many things well or have made them possible in the first place. I use these where it makes sense to me.
  • I am not afraid of death, because I will return to the big picture – only dying could be unpleasant…
  • We will never understand the big picture, because as long as we are alive we are a split-off part of it, and can therefore never observe it in its entirety.
  • “I hope that when the world comes to an end, I can breathe a sigh of relief because there will be so much to look forward to.” (Donnie Darko)

But nonetheless:

  • Try not to worry too much – as long as I can survive this day, the next one will also be possible. It’s like an incremental approach on living 🙂

To conclude with a quote from “A Book for No One“:

We should stop sinking into depressive moods we have created and start enjoying life in the here and now. The doomsday fantasies are due to the phase of prosperity, in which the human brain looks for new problems because our fundamental needs have already been satisfied. Even in ancient Rome, doomsday prophecies and the proclamation of new ages were booming – and yet the Romans lived relatively well for centuries without apocalyptic upheavals.

nikoB

nikoB’s farm

1993 was when I first became aware that progress (as we in the west generally think of it) was not really leading us to this consequence-free wonderful utopia in the not too distant future. The first was witnessing first hand, the clearfell logging occurring in forests across Australia. The second event that got doubts flowing in my head was my uncle casually remarking – what are we going to do when oil runs out?

Over the next decade I was a rampant greenie, studying ecology and horticulture but not really putting much of the bigger picture together. Climate change was a problem but still so far away – so fixable. That was all to change when a friend invited me to a lecture by Richard Heinberg and David Holmgren. Peak oil came and put a stop to all my illusions. The door was opened and I stepped through.

It was 2006 and I was in my mid-thirties with a young family just starting out. It wasn’t long before I was aware of the Oil Drum, Nate Hagens, Jim Kunstler, Dmitry Orlov, The Druid JM Greer, the Chris Martenson crash course and many, many other places of ideas and discussion. To say this altered my thinking on everything is a massive understatement. Priorities changed overnight and I launched myself into a personal crusade to bring the truth of the peril that awaited us to anyone who would listen.

So fast forward to today, to cut through what is really a fairly dull story with maybe a few juicy details, I basically learnt that no one gives a “solidly digested meal” about resource depletion and overshoot. No matter how many ways you approach the subject. For it became a passion to try and work out the magical key that will unlock humanity’s thinking. All it did was result in the loss of close friends and family. I was mostly just a downer to people when I used to be one of the funniest people in the room (thanks to class clown training).

So where does this leave me now nearly 20 years later of being a peak oiler and recent anti-vaxxer. Reevaluating everything I do because what I have been doing hasn’t yielded results in changing minds.

I am lucky to be blessed with a partner who shares much of the same view of overshoot and its consequences. We spend quite a substantial amount of time discussing all the issues it brings bubbling to the surface. I am also blessed in that she shares the same passion for self sufficiency living that I do and together we work our little farm in the hinterlands of the northern rivers area of New South Wales Australia.

What I am slowly coming to the realisation of, is that we must not lose our passions, humanity and connections. For too long they were side lined and sacrificed for the greater virtue of telling everyone just how it is. The loss I felt was immense but that was balanced by the anger that I felt that nobody could see that what I think is so bloody obvious and that no one cares to do anything about it.

So in order to repair broken relationships (because I miss them) I have had to change my priorities and my thinking as well I suppose, so that I don’t just naturally clash with most people. This is difficult, especially not judging people for their ignorance and self destructive behaviours. But as it turns out I have all my own ignorant self destructive behaviours.

Maybe time is short before collapse makes living a nightmare, Hideaway makes many compelling arguments that this complex system is exceedingly brittle and can only withstand so many spanners thrown into the gears. Or perhaps the druid is right and that the collapse is catabolic, step by step, some big, some small but pretty much all down hill. Either way my thinking has changed on how to deal with it, though I must say the covid saga produced a huge detour and removed many friends from my circle and I would venture to say that most are not destined to return. But now I am getting back on track to living while compartmentalising the potential horror of a potential future.

I have decided to let go of the major criticisms I have of the human condition which are beautifully spelt out here in Rob’s blog over and over again. I don’t know if any of it really matters as we are all dead in the end. It is the journey as they say that matters not the destination. If we really think about it we know that is true as the destination is a hole in the ground.

So now I look to seeking the connections I can find with people that are easy to build on and see where it leads. Time to encourage rather than discourage. Soak up the interpersonal transactions and notice when something deeper occurs. But at the same time I won’t gladly immerse myself in exchanges full of bovine discharges.

As a focus for my own passions, I am back to making music, finding the humour in most things without resorting to be overly sarcastic or caustic. Observing and appreciating absurdity is great for that. Giving love as much as I can and forgetting the anger and the hate. I won’t pretend that it is easy but it does seem to be the most beneficial path and I must remember to forgive myself if I stray from it at times.

Paqnation (aka Chris)

Surprisingly, our story was more depressing to me when I was in full Daniel Quinn sustainable/wisdom mode. The whole “where did we go wrong” thing haunts you when you know humans “can” get it right. Now that un-Denial has set me straight on some of these core issues, our story is less depressing in that respect. I do think denial is at the heart of the matter, but I bounce around on how much emphasis to put on MORT, eToM, and MPP. And I am now slowly shifting to a new state of mind where it’s all about energy constraints and you can pretty much throw everything else out the window.

Society can be full of Quinn type worldviews or full of overshoot, MORT aware citizens. It doesn’t matter. Once those sacred constraints are broken, there is no way out of the madness. And there is no way to resist using this new energy technology because if you don’t, someone else will, and you will be conquered and/or killed. By the time your civilization has enough EROEI to start understanding concepts like overshoot and sustainable vs unsustainable… it’s too late. You are now way too addicted to the comforts of this energy surplus to voluntarily decrease usage. And you’re already in massive overshoot because of all the self-induced damage to your environment (mining and domestication of plants/animals). Ditto for your worldviews too. Separation of nature along with a superior way of looking at your own species are unavoidable default worldviews that come along with busting through energy constraints. The most depressing thing for me nowadays is the realization that this kind of modern intelligence (cleverness) has no purpose in the entire universe.

I have two techniques for my sanity. One thing is trying to accept the inevitability of it all. Understanding that the best-case scenario for Mother Earth is NTHE, helps me to go with more of a “I might as well partake in the Peak before it’s all gone” mentality. But the most important technique is hanging out on this website. When I first came onto the scene of un-Denial, I was shot out of a cannon. The two years prior that I was learning about overshoot, etc., I never had a reliable outlet to ask any questions. That all changed when I got here. I cannot talk to anyone in my personal life about collapse, but now I have an online support group. The following is more of a love letter to you guys for how much you’ve given me and my appreciation for being part of this Tribal Connection.

Here are some quotes I collected from un-Denial comments that caused me think and increased my awareness:

Monk: Something that helps me a lot is when I see dumped rubbish, which happens a lot in “magical NZ”. And I just think to myself how excited I am for collapse, because spoilt brat humans don’t deserve everything that we’ve got when we can’t even do something so basic for nature as pointing rubbish in the bin.

Rob: For the last 10,000 years we broke through normal resource constraints with agriculture (bigger share of solar energy) and fossil energy (ancient solar energy) and became a destructive unsustainable species, that is smart enough to know better, but denies what it is doing.

Mike: In a climax ecosystem, the system appears to be in balance with all species living in harmony. But it’s an illusion and no species intended it that way. Quinn probably got it wrong, in that respect. (Chris here, Mike calling out Quinn like that was the beginning of my internal temper tantrum)

Gaia: So over time, the ascendancy of lighter skinned humans in the cooler climates prevailed and these were the climates where agriculture and feudal living flourished, cementing the dominance of this culture type rather than the nomadic style of earlier hunter/gatherer societies which matched well with the grassland/savannah fauna of equatorial Africa.

Rob: The probability of getting 100% of things wrong by mistake is 0%.

Monk: They dug up a lot of roman prepping gold in villas in the UK. Funny to think of them prepping all that gold and never getting to use it.

Hamish: Too many people treat dogs like fashion accessories and discard them immediately when they have health issues.

NikoB: I always think of it in terms of give and take. What did you take from this world in order to live and what did you give back?

AJ: …reinforcing my opinion that the grandchildren of the victims of genocide are now the perpetrators of genocide.

Charles: I love watching the activity in a compost bin, on the surface of a decomposing carcass, the eerie colours of mushrooms feeding off dead logs… Death doesn’t really feel like an end: there is so much activity going on, and (in good temperature and moisture conditions) recycling happens so fast one can almost witness the migration of energy.

Rob: I envy people who obtain comfort from believing there is some form of spirituality in the universe that cares about us. Unfortunately I see a flow of electrons looking for a home.

Gaia: That’s just it, Rob! I identify best with being a bunch of electrons looking for a home! …Then the electrons I borrowed can go do something else for the rest of eternity.

Stellarwind72: What if intelligence over a certain level is inherently maladaptive on long timescales, because it allows you to destroy the very ecology you depend upon.

Hamish: If I ever have to turn away people seeking help, I will offer them my thoughts and prayers – that seems to be the solution to all calamities from the shit stains in Washington DC and state capitals.

ABC: “Progress” equals to mental regress in many if not most aspects, nothing short of “wickedness”.

Florian: If you are happy with what you have or even downsize then you are, from an evolutionary perspective, a defective individual and the chance is very very high that you will be thrown on the genetic trash heap. There is this saying, To understand all is to forgive all and while it can be hard to not show emotion in this absolute cluster-fuck there is absolutely no point to attach yourself to an outcome.

Charles: Life, to me is a constant invitation (sometimes quite painful) to open up to possibilities.

Rob: I’m still fascinated by denial. I see it every day in every single person I interact with. No one speaks reality, except the few that hang out here.

AJ: The lack of humility and stating that one could make a mistake, always makes me suspicious of a person’s conclusions.

Monk: Without fossil fuels the planet would have become a frozen wasteland. It looked like earth was heading for permanent ice age because too much carbon got lock up.

Rob: I believe one of the reasons we had so much coal is that large plants were enabled by the evolutionary invention of lignin and it took quite a while for fungi to figure out how to digest lignin. Today coal would not accumulate in the same quantities.

Notabilia: Remember, none of us fossil fuel colossi have to stick around when our inherited profligate way of existence hits the ground below the cliff. That will become the one remaining “civil right”. (Chris here, this one got me focused on writing my exit strategy article)

ABC: Wisdom has no inherent value in a world of energy, and never stood a chance against unhinged violence.

NikoB: Perhaps having a good spice rack will put those cannibalism fears to rest.

Stellarwind72: Our leaders seem to think that if Putin is allowed to win in Ukraine, he will invade several other countries, similar to what Hitler did after the Munich agreement.

Gaia: Maybe we can even say that MORT (denial) has been our species’ only true religion, for through it we almost became like the gods, or more poetically, it was the way in which the gods could become human.

Charles: I believe Quinn/Murphy’s story will propagate because it shows a possible way ahead for survival. It is becoming useful in this world of limits, of civilisation/technology collapse.

Hideaway: Crocodiles have existed in pretty much the same form for 200 million years, that’s long term sustainability.

Monk: Anthropologists do think pre-historic people had a lot more sex than their civilized counterparts.

Charles: I find the terms reincarnation and “life after death” misleading. They are too loaded. One should perhaps use “informational remnant through structural reorganization”.

Hamish: I’ve given up on the idea of saving people, society, knowledge, culture, wisdom. If I can help nature that will be enough.

Rob: The problem is our citizens, not our leaders.

Hideaway: Increasingly I’m thinking most major solar and wind installations are nothing more than a scam paid for by subsidies from the government, then quickly sold to whatever pension fund that wants ‘green’ credentials in their portfolio.

Stellarwind72: If MORT is true, the story of humanity will turn out to be a tragedy. The species intelligent enough to realize it is in overshoot doesn’t do much about it due to denial.

Rob: Life is not some spiritual mystery, but rather a predictable outcome of the fact that the universe abhors an energy gradient, and life is its best mechanism for degrading energy. (and) “If life is nothing but an electron looking for a place to rest, death is nothing but that electron come to rest.” (Rob here, I think that’s a paraphrased quote from Dr. Nick Lane)

Chris here. These next two get me emotional and make me think about what could’ve been (Closest to me ever having my own family was in 2003, but we both agreed on abortion. One of my biggest regrets).

ABC: I’d like to have a family, rear children and experience being a father. I know it is extremely selfish if not cruel by all definitions knowing our predicament, however I cannot shake this primal biological urge of self-interest and naïveté of having a “sense of meaning”.

CampbellS: We saw the southern lights, aurora astralis, here in the Far North of NZ. First time for me in my 53 years. Pretty spectacular and awe inspiring. Was nice to share it with my teenage kids.

And this is a nice little moment between the young, cocky Skywalker and the much wiser Obi-Wan Kenobi. They could both see the magic early on:

Paqnation: I actually think he/she is Art Berman, Simon Michaux or someone like that. I have a hard time with energy (which is why I love Sid Smith), but Hideaway is like an energy oracle.

Rob: Hideaway is better than both Berman and Michaux. Berman is deeper on oil but shallower on other energies and overshoot. Michaux has some worrying woo-woo.

One final note. While going through all my comments, I came across what is by far the most MORT thing on this entire website = My anti-pornography article. 😊

scarr0w

My journey to tranquility ( 🙂 ) is as follows:

I’ve known for as long as I have memory that I was “different”. Not exactly on the spectrum, not genius, not sociopath, but maybe a dash of each. I was in parochial school my first four years, and it was not a good fit for me. To get along, one should just fill in the answer blanks in your Baltimore Catechism workbook, not ask the nun to explain grace. Questioning the pablum we are spoon fed is not a way to be one of the gang.

Anyway, from childhood experiences, I over time built a mental outlook that more or less has evolved to be expressed best by the Niebuhr/Wygal serenity prayer. I generally kept my own council, especially when I fully realized the overshoot predicament we are in while working for a company that builds stuff for the fossil industry. I guess you could say I was “in the closet”.

Serenity, or at least equanimity is not an easy thing to maintain all the time, but I’ve gotten better over time. Raising kids, staying on the treadmill even after realizing that’s what it is, etc… can test your resolve. While I follow collapse progress and analysis at sites like Rob’s and several others, it is more to keep current, not to perseverate on (and let’s face it, being witness to this huge event in the human story is fascinating). Mostly I am grateful that I was lucky enough to be born in a location and time that will never be again.

Currently, some mental energy is on local political issues (I’m on the county board, trying to see opportunities to shift policy into more future ready states), but primarily I try to slowly make a few acres of land more in tune with what the local biome wants to be. That will be enough.

I liked a lot of what others said, especially Gaia, but since my emotion circuits were partly burnt out as a kid, I just don’t get wound up over the path out culture has chosen, or my role in it. I know others suffer and indirectly I benefit, those of us aware just have to live with a foot in both worlds, slowly reducing our complicity as best we can. Not much help for others, but that’s where I am.

Stellarwind72

Being overshoot aware constantly weighs on me. Given my young age (I was born right before the turn of the millennium), I know that the sh*t will hit the fan in my lifetime. From time to time, I feel existential dread. I know that there is a substantial risk of me dying early due to the effects of overshoot and collapse.

Sometimes just being able to talk about this issue with other people helps me with anxiety, knowing that there are other people who are aware of what is going on.

I sometimes like listening to classical music and taking hot baths to calm my nerves, but given how those are both dependent on large amounts of surplus energy (I mostly listen to classical music on YouTube), I don’t know how long I will be able to keep doing that.

Rob Mielcarski

In no particular order of importance, here are some things that have helped me remain partially sane with overshoot awareness.

Collapse Early and Avoid the Rush

There is no way to predict which of the many paths we will take (inflation, deflation, war, confiscation, theft, etc.), however we know with certainty that the destination of fossil energy depletion will be less material wealth, less food abundance, a lower energy lifestyle, and much less help from governments.

I think it is a wise strategy to voluntarily downsize your lifestyle and learn to live happily with less so that when everyone else is shocked and losing their minds due to loss of wealth and entitlements, you are already happily living the new normal.

Some things that have worked for me include:

  • Pretend you can’t buy gasoline and see how little driving you can get by with.
  • Stop flying. Find ways to vacation locally like camping.
  • Monitor your electricity consumption in real time and practice using less.
  • Practice food storage and preparation without refrigeration.
  • Practice low energy cooking like one-pot meals and pressure cooking.
  • Practice living at lower temperatures in the winter.
  • Shower when dirty, not every day.
  • Change clothes when they are dirty, not every day.
  • Stop eating out. Cook all your food from scratch.
  • Cut your own hair.
  • Maintain your vehicles yourself.
  • Practice fixing things that break.

Local Food

I think we face 5 main threat vectors and it is unclear which will strike first:

  • nuclear war (due to resource scarcity)
  • accelerating warming (due to aerosol reduction)
  • asset bubble crash (due to extreme debt and degrowth)
  • energy scarcity (due to depletion of low-cost non-renewable reserves)
  • deadly covid variant a la Bossche (due to our idiot unethical leaders)

The most important common denominator is likely to be food scarcity.

I once had a dream to buy a farm and build a doomstead. I took a small scale farming course and after about 5 years of employment as a farm laborer I learned that I lacked the money and the passion and the time to pull it off successfully. So I switched to plan B. I now assist a local farm with construction and maintenance in return for a source of local food. I still buy the majority of my calories at the grocery store but I know we can ramp up calorie production when SHTF.

Prepping

I work hard at being a wise frugal prepper which means I stock things that:

  • I like to eat and have a good shelf life so they won’t be wasted
  • are likely to become scarce first like protein, fat, and caffeine
  • are essential for good health
  • are purchased when on sale to save money

I maintain a detailed spreadsheet of consumables with quantity, cost, date of purchase, best-by date, storage location, date opened, date finished, and predicted duration the item will last. This allows me to:

  • track my consumption of each item so I can accurately predict how long each will last, and to adjust inventory levels based on my assessment of world events
  • track price inflation and to stock more of what is expected to inflate fastest
  • rotate inventory so I always eat the oldest first
  • conduct shelf life tests and record results so I know when a best-by date can extended or ignored
  • calm down – reviewing my spreadsheet reduces my stress

I have methodically gone through every durable item and service I use and asked what will I do if that item breaks and cannot be fixed or replaced, or can’t be fueled. For those items that I consider essential I have purchased a spare, or I have plan for accomplishing the same thing a different way, or I know I can do without. Here are a few examples:

  • my town water supply is not gravity fed and depends on electric pumps so I installed a hand operated pitcher pump on an old shallow well on my property
  • I can light my living area with 4 different types of energy
  • I can cook with 7 different types of energy
  • I can heat my living area with 3 different types of energy and I have practiced living with the thermostat at 15C
  • I have 4 different modes of transportation and I have some spare parts
  • I can keep my refrigerator operating, which is the main thing I care about in a power outage, for a couple weeks
  • I have spare parts to keep my computer, which is my main indoor hobby, going until I’m dead
  • I have spare hiking boots, which is my main outdoor hobby, to last until I’m too old to hike

Doing something to prepare provides a sense of agency over things out of my control which improves my mental well-being.

Prepping is of course not a fix to permanent scarcity or a catastrophe, but it might sustain life during a temporary shortage, and it might make life more enjoyable when non-essential but highly valued items like coffee become unavailable.

Prepping can be a good use of limited savings given that inflation is a likely outcome of energy scarcity. I smile every time I see price increases on things I have in inventory.

Health

When things get tough, good health will be one of our most important assets.

Most available employment will require manual labor, and if you’re out of shape and overweight you may be unemployable.

I expect pensions and safety nets to vaporize so many will be forced to work until they die.

I expect the availability and affordability of health care services to decline as governments become impoverished.

Covid taught me that I do not want to use our unethical and incompetent healthcare system if I can avoid it.

So I try to maintain good health by:

  • eating healthy unprocessed, low sugar foods
  • fasting 16 hours every day
  • getting some exercise
  • sleeping 8 hours
  • taking a few critical supplements like vitamin D and C
  • no alcohol or tobacco

Gratitude

Someone wise said something like “the foundation of happiness is gratitude”.

I believe it.

The lifestyle of the poorest Canadian is better than a pharaoh. It is easy to forget how lucky we are in the rich western countries at this point in history.

The majority of my good fortune came from being born in Canada, not from my skill or hard work.

So I try to be grateful.

A few things that work for me include:

  • cook deliberately: I plan my meals, and I think about the path the food took to get to my kitchen, and I try to show respect to the food by cooking it nicely, and wasting nothing
  • eat deliberately: I try to slow down and appreciate what I am eating
  • drive deliberately: when I press the accelerator I think about the miracle of fossil energy
  • shower deliberately: I think about the path the water took to get to my house, and the energy it took to heat the water, and what a luxury a hot shower is

Learn to Enjoy Your Own Company

I spend quite a bit of time alone for several reasons:

  • I find it easier to “collapse early and avoid the rush” when I am not surrounded by people competing for status
  • nobody likes being around a doomer, I’m invited less these days
  • I struggle to chit chat about things that do not matter
  • I have become less tolerant of people who believe nonsense and are incapable of changing beliefs regardless of evidence – yes I know MORT is often the cause, but I still don’t enjoy the company of people in denial

So I have learned to enjoy my own company.

I have conversations with myself, and I listen to interesting (and sometimes aware) people via podcasts and audiobooks, and I interact with a few nice and aware people at un-Denial.

MORT

When you become overshoot aware you realize there is near zero awareness and zero discussion in society about anything that matters, and not only are we doing nothing that a wise species should do, we are doing everything possible to make our predicament worse. This can be crazy making.

Understanding Dr. Ajit Varki’s Mind Over Reality Transition (MORT) theory has been a big help to maintaining my mental health because it provides a scientific explanation for why almost everyone in the world, including our brightest intellectuals and all of our leaders, are oblivious to everything that matters.

If I Was a Young Person

If I was a young person, knowing what I know now, and wondering what to do, I would:

  • not live in a big city
  • avoid occupations that depend on discretionary spending (except maybe brewing beer and distilling alcohol)
  • learn a useful skill that poor people will need and value
  • learn a skill that can be performed with today’s complex power equipment, and yesterday’s simpler manual equipment
  • I’d personally lean towards a trade like carpentry, plumbing, masonry, electrician, roofer, mechanic, etc. but I’m sure there are many other viable occupations
  • farming would be good but land is too expensive for most people to buy today; a good compromise is a skill that generates income and a home garden or rented community garden plot that you tend after work; or if you are passionate about farming, join a good farm as a laborer and work up to a position with responsibility

569 thoughts on “Coping with Awareness”

  1. Tom Murphy tries to see a little good news in slowing population growth.

    Given that population is already 8x too high, it’s a stretch.

    https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/06/brace-for-peak-impact/

    At the risk of inducing metaphorical whiplash, I have also used some form of the following metaphor to paint the picture as I previously imagined it developing: Crowds flock to fill a stadium to witness a spectacular event. They aren’t sure exactly what it is they’re going to see, but word-of-mouth promises that it will be amazing. It turns out that the grand spectacle is the collapse of the stadium—entirely due to the size of the gathered crowd.

    That’s how I perceived the tragic irony of having the most-ever people on the planet suffer the worst-ever event: an event brought on precisely because of so many people: a self-fulfilling tragedy that maximizes total suffering as if by dastardly design. I saw it as an unwitting and inevitable trap. Population would heedlessly grow until it hit a wall and broke its nose. And the wall.

    In light of the potential for an early peak due to rapid fertility declines underway in the resource-hogging (“developed”) world, I wish to modify the stadium metaphor: fewer people came than expected, and began thinning out before triggering utter collapse.

    Now, the stadium (modernity) was never built on principles of sustainability, so it inevitably crumbles anyway, and it still has substantial crowds putting a load on it, at great risk to themselves and others. But instead of wholesale catastrophic collapse that takes almost everyone down with it, smaller-scale asynchronous crumblings are confined to regions. Questions: Is it still tragic and does it still involve human suffering of an unprecedented scale? Very probably: that can’t be helped at this point, unfortunately. Is it as bad as a full-scale collapse brought on by unrelenting growth of the crowd? Surely not. I’ll take whatever sliver of good news I can get!

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  3. Today I was in need of a pick me up, so I watched Cloud Atlas for about the thousandth time. After the movie, I came back here to read our wonderful guest essay. Gaia’s portion stands out the most (when I’m in cloud atlas mode). She captured so many feelings I have.

    Just wanted to give a shout-out for her beautiful contribution. Okay, enough with the embarrassing praise, time for some scathing critique: You are still horrible with your lack of paragraphs. 😊

    (this link also reminded me of Gaia’s words)

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      1. So much crap out there. I lack confidence in most areas of life. But not in my taste for music and movies. I am trying to provide you with some good obscure ones that you probably have not seen. The golden age of cinema for me was the independent phase of mid to late 90’s.

        More drama than comedy:

        Spring Forward (1999)
        Red Dog (2011)
        A Perfect Day (2015)
        Off the Map (2003)
        Monument Ave. (1998)
        Clay Pigeons (1998)
        Miami Blues (1990)

        More comedy than drama:

        Zero Effect (1998)
        Defending Your Life (1991)
        Wonder Boys (2000)
        The Daytrippers (1996)
        Sneakers (1992)
        The Ref (1994)
        Repo Man (1984)
        Bottle Rocket (1996)
        Lake Placid (1999)

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          1. Thanks. Gonna try Sailboat. Already seen PB Falcon and liked. Very similar to the excellent The Fundamentals of Caring (2016).

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    2. Hey there bro,

      We seem to have bonded like the cement used on our braces (although mine were bands wrapped around each tooth, more metal to slice and dice one’s own mouth with). I am so glad we’ve all met on this site, no fancy algorithms needed to bring us all together, just birds of a feather! My “contribution” to the group essay was really like a therapy session for me and I am just so grateful for the opportunity to commune with everyone here, in words and spirit. Chris, you should know that lots of what you write really resonate with me, too, and I see my own journey through what you’ve shared of yours. Thank you for your sincerity and openness with this group from the start. To earn another’s trust is like having a precious flame to tend carefully, knowing when to give more air, fuel, and space before basking in each other’s reviving warmth and glow. You do that genuinely with all of us and with your undeniable stamp of humour and cheekiness!

      It is a good time to watch and re-watch everything that sparks connection and brings joy and wonder, thank you for your suggested titles. I’m way behind in screen time, that’s probably a key difference between us. It all started back in 1995 when our TV broke (in the middle of the NBA championship I recall, doh!) and we ended up delaying fixing it and suddenly, after 3 weeks of withdrawal and detox and freeing up so much extra time, we decided not to fix it and ditched the TV once and for all! That was definitely a life-changing event and led us to doing more outside and that prepared us for our eventual migration to rural Tasmania. Now, most of my dedicated screen allowance is spent on this site and derivatives from it, and I feel very indulgent indeed.

      How are your eyes, by the way? Do you have any circadian disturbances from being on the computer for both work and play? I suppose living in Arizona you are getting plenty of sunshine and real Vit D, so that’s been healthful.

      I trust everyone is taking the best care of themselves and enjoying it.

      Namaste, friends.

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      1. Great comment Gaia. LOL, me and you are always gonna think of each other as “brace face”. 

        Thanks for the kind words, I really appreciate it. And good observation about the eyes. They used to be perfect, but I wear glasses now. Can’t even drive without them. Over time, computer screens have wrecked my eyes, my mind, and my love life.

        And no, not getting as much Vit D as I should either. Reason why is what you already said, but no need to sugarcoat it. The key difference between us is me being a lazy couch potato and you being a busy gardener. (so awesome that you don’t watch TV)

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  4. I have heard it is cold in the Northern Hemisphere at the moment. It’s kind of warm down here in the south for winter. Anyone else experiencing unusual weather?

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      2. Monk, if you had not posted that video link, I was about to.

        As usual – no mention of overpopulation or the utter dependence on energy and oil in particular.

        Nevertheless, the video is absolutely brilliant. I’ve been away from the UK for nearly 25 years and it has become unrecognizable.

        There are some terms only a British person might be familiar with, and it is also fast paced, still a must watch.

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        2. I watch so much UK content I was familiar with all the terms 🙂 Plus we have imported a lot of English bureaucrats into NZ. Some places I’ve worked, half the management team is English

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      3. Hello there monk,

        Hope all is going well at Bombadil and you’re enjoying the relative warmth at this time of year. My family in Tasmania tells me that it’s been pretty cold this week (highs of 10-12C, lows of 2C) and there has been a cold snap across most of Australia’s East, so count yourself lucky! Here in the highland tropics we’ve had simply glorious weather, brief lows of 6C overnight warming to low 20s by midday with breathtakingly blue skies and scintillating sunshine. They’ve earned it up here, it had been 6 months of wet until just recently.

        Thank you for the video link, I just started with the first minute or so when we see all the boarded up shops, empty streets, run down forlornness everywhere. Our first instinct as members of a once invincible society thinking we are born with a birthright to abundance and prosperity is disbelief, almost disdain that things could have gone so low, and surely not in the neighbourhoods we grew up in. Once the shock horror dissipates a notch, we immediately think of ways to correct it, bring back these communities, inject new life and commerce and then the downtowns will look as they should, as in what we remember them to be in the days of blooming economy. Jobs and growth was the mantra everywhere (especially here in Australia, where it won elections).

        But actually, if we’re really being serious about welcoming the collapse of our civilisation as to save the biosphere and whatever life humanity can make of it, then these images should be a sight for sore eyes, not an eye sore. Loss of jobs and closed down businesses mean less fossil fuel and other resource depletion. Crumbling manmade infrastructure is the way forward to return to nature, and the further along in its decay, the closer the rewilding potential. Streets emptied of humans will make room for other species, at least in time. It is not pristine wilderness by a long shot, but at least it’s a start in the right direction, getting rid of human activity and breaking down their detritus. If anything, such a documentary is a cause for celebration, the tide is turning for nature! Here is concrete proof that demand destruction is occurring as it should, and we rejoice to see the process unfold in all its techicolour doom and gloom! Right? Ahem, then why is it that even we collapse protagonists cringe with pity to witness such a process, and sigh with nostalgic regret that things have gotten to such a point?

        For me, it has something to do with knowing there is suffering that has befallen members of my misguided species. Collapse for our empire has only just phenotypically begun and already so many lives are in desperate strife. Of course this is not even beginning to take into account the suffering of humanity’s majority for whom our experience so far of collapse would be an unimaginable boon. We know what is coming and we are grieving our loss even as we know it must end. Knowing it and wanting it to happen are worlds apart, just as saying something and doing it. One is silver and the other is true gold. I know we must make an end but still I want to linger a while, bearing witness and keeping faith that this is and was the world I helped create and destroy.

        Is this the key to MORT? We have evolved to intellectually know but when it comes to the experiential as a human being, the potential for suffering is too great to overcome. There certainly is no end to ways in which humans can suffer, at nature’s mercy, other’s hands or our own. The more we complicate our lives and control our physical environment and other beings in it, the more we can gain, but even more importantly, lose. The striving, desire, wanting is a root cause of our perpetual dissatisfaction, as Buddha surmised. Could there be an antidote to MORT so to speak, in the way we can use our intellect to approach suffering not as something to be avoided at all costs, but accepted as what is and an opportunity for choice, in thought and action? Is this the ultimate un-denial, by accepting suffering as our creator and destroyer? Trying to allow for and respond to my own or another’s suffering is what feels the most authentic state of being, even more so now, at this end of a certain age. I am propelled by a need to engage in connection with other beings, it is my way through, like a tesseract through the destruction of one world to arrive at another, not in body but by realisation of oneness and ultimate reality, for which I still crave and trust.

        These words seem to have a life of their own coming forth as I didn’t mean for another deep thought post. Thank you all for your forbearance and if what I try to express has resonated with you, it is because you share the same feeling and thoughts and here we are mirrors for one another. My great desire now is connecting with others and it is here I feel most free and welcomed amongst the kindred spirits of un-denial. All the best to everyone and your families.

        Namaste, friends.

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        1. Hi Gaia,
          Always great to hear from you!

          El Nino came late this year, so maybe that contributed to it being a bit warmer. We are finally getting some rain after drought for all of 2024. I need to grow a bit more grass for the animals. I gave away a whole of baby chickens I hatched. It feels good giving away chickens to help other people get free food.

          Sounds like it is proper chilly in Aussie! Sometimes winter comes a bit later in New Zealand.

          It must be hard for English people to match up their expectations of life, with the realities of a declining energy world. But the prioritization of old rich people over the young is scary. Then those same old rich people will complain that the young a no longer having children – rolls eyes -.

          What is sad for the English common folk is they are experiencing significant decline, but don’t have the freedom to implement local, community solutions.

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    2. That is a bad link.

      The closest I could find to $22 (might be localized to U.S.D for me) was this:

      BAOFENG UV-S9 Plus V1 V2 Powerful Handheld UHF VHF Dual Band 16KM Long Range Waterproof Walkie Talkie Ham Two Way Radio

      The URL link is too long to think it doesn’t have session specifics embedded in it.

      This shortened version might work:

      https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806084969666.html

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      1. You don’t want that one. Link still works for me.

        You want the BaoFeng UV-5R. Try searching AliExpress for it, sort by orders, and look for a store that has sold 10,000+ units.

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    1. It’s very morbid indeed. My wife and I were just talking about this issue yesterday. We were analysing our immediate neighbours as to which ones might pose the greatest threat when food gets short. We’re the only family growing food on a significant basis on our road. Although there are lots of stock (cows mainly). Several neighbours are right into their hunting and are gun owners.

      We’ve always been aiming to grow enough for ourselves, wider family and friends who may turn up, and unknown others. Having read this article I don’t think there’s any amount of food we can grow in reality. Initially there may be opportunities to trade with neighbours but I’m wondering if we should arm ourselves or whether it is pointless. The thought of seeing my kids killed or worse makes me think it’s definitely something worth deeper consideration.

      I remember reading a book a few years ago on collapse. I thought it was called Collapse for Dummies but I can’t find it. Anyway a key prediction I remember is that the survivors would be mainly young testosterone driven men with guns.

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      1. And this reminds me of a conversation I had a few years ago when I was still working in corporate sustainability but getting to the end of my techno-optimist phase. I was at a presentation by a big shot consultant telling us about how all transport in the Auckland region could be decarbonised by 2050. The room was full of sustainability professionals and I think I was the only one to challenge the talk. Anyway I was having a wine with lady who was seen as one of the leading lights in the field and she whispered that her and friends were buying land and guns because we’re fucked. Didn’t stop her from carrying on spinning the corporate greenwashing story in public. I couldn’t carry on doing it and gave up a big salary offer from the company I was with to go back to travelling the country with my family in our house bus.

        This adventure started at the height of my techno-optimist phase but at a time I’d become frustrated and depressed about the lack of government and business action. This flowed over into my home life.

        The house bus life saved my marriage and got us and the kids very close as a family. Nikki and I still sleep in the bus and the kids have the house.

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          1. Ha. I haven’t watched that video for a while (it was 2017) and I’m sure there’s a lot of cringe stuff in it from an overshoot aware doomers perspective.

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            1. LOL. I see you were running your bus on biodiesel.

              The farm I help invested in equipment to make biodiesel from deep fat fryer oil to run their pickup truck. That plan lasted for 1 year before the equipment was abandoned to the rats.

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              1. Yeah the fuel we used was a mix of waste vege oil and new rapeseed (canola) oil. I was involved with the manufacturer in getting some biodiesel into the fleet of the company I was working for at the time we embarked on the bus adventure. The owner sponsored us free fuel for 3 years until, ironically, the company I’d worked for bought them and wouldn’t supply us anymore.

                We could run the bus, ā 1976 Mercedes, on 100% bio or mineral or any mix of the two.

                As a reality check though the biodiesel plant (NZs only commercial manufacturing plant) can make up to 10mill litres/year and NZ uses around 3.8 billion litres/year. And I know Hideaway would have a view on the true eroei of biodiesel.

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                1. Great Video Campbell, thanks for that..

                  Hideaway does have a view on biodiesel, and started making bio himself from waste cooking oil about 15 years ago. We had a couple of old diesel mercedes and I ran an old tractor on the farm off the bio.

                  Of course biodiesel is no more sustainable than anything else, but use to justify to myself using bio was using a waste product. Of course like all of us here, we’ve worked out it’s the constant replacing of everything as it ages with ‘new’ stuff that’s just not possible in the long term, but because our economic system has to grow, to maintain the illusion that the poor can have everything the rich have, we’ve gone into deep overshoot and will only stop when limits prevent us from growing..

                  Individually we can feel good by trying to do our bit to live more sustainably, but MPP just guarantees someone else will use whatever resources we’ve cut back on.

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        2. Campbell you just came out of the closet. 😊 I bet you were 2nd guessing yourself before you hit the send button. I’m so glad you did. Exciting to actually see the life of an un-Denialist. You have an awesome family and I was smiling the whole video. Seeing how old it is gives you major credit which ends up giving un-Denial even more credit. 

          I was surprised but I wasn’t. I think majority of the audience lives like this. You freaks. I’m so jealous, but too spoiled to join you willingly. 

          And good for you for ditching your corporate bullshit job. Wish I could be as brave

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          1. Thanks Chris. I’d gone back to the corporate thing for 9 months after 2 years in the bus when I felt I’d freshened up and was ready again to make change. Towards the end of my contract and not long after that conversation I mentioned I remember sitting at my office desk on the 4th floor overlooking a gridlocked Auckland motorway. I’d just read the latest WWF Living Planet Index report which set out the dramatic decline in wild animal numbers since my birth year of 1970. The latest IPCC report had recently come out. Then Gem Bendells Deep Adaptation paper hit my inbox. I remember turning to look out the window, seeing the traffic at a standstill and then leaning on my desk with my head in my hands and saying to myself “We are so fucked.”

            I gave a presentation to the CEO just before I left. I told him how useless and disengaged from the sustainability space his management team were. He agreed and asked me to stay on. I knew I had the backing of the family when I turned him down. I think I would have died inside if I’d carried on there.

            In 2020, by accident, we got locked down (still in the bus) by the Covid thing with a new friend who had been writing about overshoot, limits to growth and energy for 20 years. We spent 2 months talking and learning about all those topics as well as off-grid living. It was a great time and crystallised a whole lot of stuff that I’d been accumulating in my thinking for a while. Planet of the Humans came out while we were there and after watching it we all concluded “we are so fucked” 😀

            We left there knowing it was time to look for land to settle on and start growing food. Been here since early 2021. Time in nature and in the food forest, building stuff, contributing to others, hanging with the family and recognising how lucky I am to have the life I have are things I do to cope with the awareness of our collective predicament and to ward off the depression and anxiety that has got to me at times.

            Oh, and the real star of the family is my wife. Here’s a 45 minute documentary about a project called Limbs for India that she initiated back in 2001.

            Just a warning that you may not recognise me. It was 22 years ago 😀

            Cheers

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            1. As I read your personal growth story of looking out the window and concluding “we are fucked” I thought, Campbell lives in NZ, one of the world’s paradises, imagine his thoughts if he lived in Sudan or Bangladesh.

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              1. I have several reflections on India after 2 trips there. One is that they are absolutely fucked given their population, pollution and climate. Another is how to live joyfully and make do with next to nothing. Another is gratitude for being born in NZ.

                It was simultaneously a wonderful and terrifying experience.

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                1. Agreed. I visited Japan a couple times on business and think they might do better than most despite being a rich candidate to collapse first. They enjoy a uniform and united culture, they respect rules for the common good, and they know how to live low energy lifestyles.

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            2. Thanks for sharing your story, Campbell. Very interesting. And freaking awesome video!! Had me laughing one minute and crying the next. Nikki is a goddamn saint. Love how she was a celebrity in India. And you were right about not recognizing you. Without the facial hair, I kept on saying “who is that punk looking teenager”. 😊

              Was thinking about you a lot yesterday and today. Mainly what an inspiration you and your family are. Love that you put your money where your mouth is. When I labeled you in my “expert” post as spiritual, I was only guessing because you had not posted that many comments… but I had a hunch that you knew what you were doing in life, just based on your “like button” history.

              The older (and wiser) I get, the more I realize that the key to a good life is pretty much what you are doing. Have a small family. Try and keep them insulated from modernity as best you can. And instill love and knowledge along the way. I commend you. I bet it hasn’t always been easy but keep on trucking. 

              So glad you were able to save your marriage. And whether you like it or not, you’re a role model for some of us in the audience. But Nikki is above role model status, she’s in Mother Teresa territory.

              p.s. Planet of the Humans gets a bum rap in the overshoot community. I never understood it. Great documentary.

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                1. Cool. Tell Nikki thanks. But be very cautious with me if I ever come knocking on your door. I’ll end up turning your wonderful family into lazy Empire Babies in about a week. 😊

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        3. Dear CampbellS,

          I hope thou and thine family are feeling well. 

          Bravo! 
          – A lovely showcasing, I am brimming with envy. 

          To take part in a marvellous adventure and to have such close ties with one’s own kin, truly awe inspiringly brilliant. 

          Kind and warm regards

          ABC

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          1. Thanks. We’re now involved in building each of the kids a small self-contained dwelling on our land. I’m quite happy if they never leave home. 🙂

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        4. I have had similar conversations behind the scenes with sustainability people in NZ. But have also had my fair share of debates with people who really believe all the green hopium garbage. I know a CEO of one large company in NZ who definitely knows about peak oil, he just doesn’t worry about it because nothing has gone wrong yet and we’ll think of something…

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          1. Yeah I stayed on LinkedIn in after quitting but in the end it was doing my head in reading all the techno-optimism, hopium, greenwashing and denial. I had to get out for my mental health 🙂

            I still get the odd post from the SBN and SBC on Facebook and every now and then make a challenging comment but they either get ignored or I get a pleasant response saying “thanks we’ll take that into consideration” which basically means they’ll carry on because facing reality would put their lifestyle at risk.

            Posts from people I used to work with smiling from a beach in Samoa or a mountain in Europe also piss me off and reinforce the existence MORT.

            I like this fable my wife found….

            The donkey told the tiger, “The grass is blue.”

            The tiger replied, “No, the grass is green.”

            The discussion became heated, and the two decided to submit the issue to arbitration, so they approached the lion.

            As they approached the lion on his throne, the donkey started screaming: ′′Your Highness, isn’t it true that the grass is blue?”

            The lion replied: “If you believe it is true, the grass is blue.”

            The donkey rushed forward and continued: ′′The tiger disagrees with me, contradicts me and annoys me. Please punish him.”

            The king then declared: ′′The tiger will be punished with 3 days of silence.”

            The donkey jumped with joy and went on his way, content and repeating ′′The grass is blue, the grass is blue…”

            The tiger asked the lion, “Your Majesty, why have you punished me, after all, the grass is green?”

            The lion replied, ′′You’ve known and seen the grass is green.”

            The tiger asked, ′′So why do you punish me?”

            The lion replied, “That has nothing to do with the question of whether the grass is blue or green. The punishment is because it is degrading for a brave, intelligent creature like you to waste time arguing with an ass, and on top of that, you came and bothered me with that question just to validate something you already knew was true!”

            Or this from Mark Twain..

            Never argue with a fool. An onlooker cannot tell the difference.

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          2. I went to a ‘climate’ meeting a couple of weeks ago where the speaker from a sustainability group started going on about the all electric house with solar panels on the roof, EV in the garage, batteries for the home etc, and I had to stop him, with the comment that none of it was sustainable, and gave a brief reason why..

            Later that evening one of the biggest proponents of solar and EVs and myself had a discussion about it all. As I was telling her about all the materials and resources needed, of which none of it seemed to be new to her, she didn’t deny any of it, she came out with the same interruption I’ve had many times before…

            “What’s the answer then??” I immediately replied, “there isn’t one!”.

            This is the point where the denial kicks in for most people, even climate/environment aware people. They seem to understand the material constraints, that it’s all built with fossil fuels, it’s detrimental to the entire ecosystem and 8B living this way would destroy the remaining natural world, but can’t accept there is no way out because we are so deep into overshoot.

            My, “we’re totally fucked” moment came when I was working out the EROEI of the Haru Oni ‘synthetic fuel’ plant and the EROEI of nuclear power plants. Even before then when working out how stupidly expensive running an isolated mine off renewables, I’d just tell myself we’d use ‘synthetic fuels’ made in good locations, for X, Y and Z. Then when I worked out the numbers for synthetic fuel…..

            I wonder how many other people had particular moments of denial breakthrough like that? Anyone care to share their moment?

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            1. We un-Denialist’s sure are fun at parties. LOL. We know too much, it’s that simple.

              My WASF’ed moment came from Naomi Klein’s book “On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal”. After reading it 2019 or 2020, I was put at ease that this green new deal is gonna be a winner. And that we’ve got smart people like Naomi on the case. The media, politicians, and the Jane Fonda’s were hyping it like it was a slam dunk. Done deal. Nothing to worry about. Couple years later, in the first month or two of learning about overshoot, I realized how incorrect and impossible everything in Klein’s book really was. My blame game had me hating poor Naomi more than Hitler. 

              I still try and hold on to that memory because it reminds me that smart well-intentioned good people cannot see the background noise and are totally out of their league by even trying to diagnose the situation. And then of course you, Rob, and the audience of un-Denial entered my life and now the curtain has been pulled back all the way. 

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              1. Forgot to ask. Some of you seem like you have been in meetings or rooms or situations that involve other overshoot aware people. What is that like?

                Outside of the computer, I’ve never even seen a fellow overshoot person. Gonna be funny when and if I ever do. Gonna treat him or her like a museum artifact.

                And maybe we’re not the life of the party when it’s all zombies and sheep. But an all-aware overshoot party sounds like a hell of a good time. Imagine being able to have long conversations about this stuff with multiple people in person.

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            3. The answer to what? I am not really sure I know.

              How would you phrase the question you are answering with the impossibility?

              Thank you.

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      2. Since we are at a very morbid place already, I can’t see how humanity will survive what is coming. Not young testosterone driven men with guns and not old ecologically minded females with shovels. Come on, we are apex predators with large energy needs. If we look at previous mass extinctions then this fact alone is already bad news but add that we lost almost all of our relevant cultural heritage and sense of community plus pollution plus the death of stable climate has to equal human extinction.

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        1. That’s a real possibility I guess. Maybe because I have children I hold on to a thought that some pockets of people may make it to the bottom of the Seneca Cliff. Maybe that’s the MORT in me.

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      3. Your wife is a gem.

        My neighbor situation, in U.S. PNW, is very similar to yours, except the locals are really divided into two tribes: Hippies that moved here in the 60’s (and are still into long hair, weed, some gardens) and the “Local” old families (grandparents came here in the 1860’s to cut all the trees) who are conservative, gun lovers, (Trump lovers) and still work in the timber (destroying the ecosystem) industry. I worry about both when the U.S. collapses. I have bought lots of guns/ammo since I moved here but worry about all my neighbors after the food is gone (and they have eaten their cows). I have done what I can to have lots of gardens, fruit trees, and be a “good” neighbor to both but . . . Worry is what I do now. Sure, there are a few young men with guns, but once the gas stations are gone not many of them know how to walk miles without food. However, from what I have watched on YouTube there is a lot of open space in South Island (if that’s where you are), so that may help you. Best of luck. I loved the video.

        AJ

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        1. Thanks AJ. Your situation does indeed sound similar and yes we are not so tribal here. We are probably seen more like hippies than most in the neighbours but generally get on with them all currently.

          We’re actually in the Far North of the north island but population density is low here and we live 9km from the nearest small town.

          Glad you enjoyed the video. I’m lucky my wife is overshoot aware. It makes for much easier collective decision making.

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  10. You know you’re in trouble when it’s bad but it should be worse.

    https://x.com/LeonSimons8/status/1803505053971751236

    The past 12 months, the North Atlantic Ocean Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) were over 0.6°C warmer than before 2020.

    Image

    This happened even as the amount of heat transported northward through the Atlantic Ocean (AMOC) was record low!:

    Image

    This shows a decrease in the average amount of heat transported northward in 2023 (relative to 1993-2016) of over 0.25 petawatt (PW). That’s – 250,000,000,000,000 joules per second!

    Image

    How can North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperatures still be record high? Because there is also a record amount of absorbed sunlight in the region. About 10% of the Earth Surface absorbed 3.6 W/m² more sunlight in 2023 than on average during the first decade of this century:

    Image

    3.6 W/m² over an area of 49 Million km² is equal to 0.18 PW! As I wrote in this thread, this change increase in absorbed sunlight over the North Atlantic was expected because of the decrease in air pollution, notably from

    @IMOHQ 2020 sulphur regulations. And a decrease in South to North heat transport (through both the ocean and atmosphere) was expected too: https://x.com/LeonSimons8/status/1683855710314979332

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  11. Getting back to the scope of this post, something that really helps me is rubbish. Every time I see a bit of rubbish on the road, in nature when I’m going for a walk, at a children’s park, etc. I just think how glad I am that our society will end and soon. And how so many of us are not worthy of all the privileges we currently experience. Rubbish makes me grateful for collapse and I welcome the justice of the Great Mother.

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  12. Another movie recommendation, but this one is for the entire audience. We can all relate to the main character, trust me. This is the closest a movie has gotten to nailing the way I feel sometimes regarding our upcoming collapse. The ending is ambiguous, but I liked it. 

    If I ever made a movie about learning to cope with being overshoot aware, this is the exact vibe I would be going for. 

    Take Shelter (2011)

    Take Shelter | Official Trailer HD (2011) (youtube.com)

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    1. Thanks, I watched it 12 years ago and rated it 6 out of 10. I don’t remember any of it and I was a different person then so will queue it up for another watch.

      My guess is I didn’t like the ending just as I dislike ambiguous poetry.

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      1. Ya, it was probably the ending that turned you off. I was kind of the same way. But after becoming overshoot aware, this movie has taken on a whole new meaning for me. I would be very surprised if you still rate it a 6.

        And Rob, it’s scary how detailed you are. And brilliant because it equates to having a diary and you can see how you’ve changed along the years.

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  13. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0vv717yvpeo
    Greek coastguard threw migrants overboard to their deaths, witnesses say.

    The Greek coastguard has caused the deaths of dozens of migrants in the Mediterranean over a three-year period, witnesses say, including nine who were deliberately thrown into the water.

    The nine are among more than 40 people alleged to have died as a result of being forced out of Greek territorial waters, or taken back out to sea after reaching Greek islands, BBC analysis has found.

    …

    We showed footage of 12 people being loaded into a Greek coastguard boat, and then abandoned on a dinghy, to a former senior Greek coastguard officer. When he got up from his chair, and with his mic still on, he said it was “obviously illegal” and “an international crime”.

    The Greek government has long been accused of forced returns – pushing people back towards Turkey, where they have crossed from, which is illegal under international law.

    …

    In five of the incidents, migrants said they were thrown directly into the sea by the Greek authorities. In four of those cases they explained how they had landed on Greek islands but were hunted down. In several other incidents, migrants said they had been put onto inflatable rafts without motors which then deflated, or appeared to have been punctured.

    As the Limits to growth squeeze industrial civilization, I fear this will get worse.

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  14. The latest shite from Tony Seba and RethinkX. I was once totally taken in by his vision but have come to the conclusion he’s actually a con-man.

    https://www.rethinkx.com/climate-implications/in-depth/eight-technologies-three-disruptions

    “We only need to deploy and scale solar, wind and battery power, electric and autonomous vehicles in the form of Transport-as-a-Service, and Precision Fermentation and Cellular Agriculture as quickly as possible and we could eliminate over 90% of our global emissions by 2040.

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    1. Agreed, he is someone that has worked out if you push futuristic ideas that everyone wants to hear you can make good money out of it.

      I have a Tesla driving friend that hangs off every word Seba says, including how he predicted ‘this and that’, by the early 2020’s. I have to keep reminding him that solar and wind take up, plus EVs to the extent they have been were easy to predict 10 years ago, and that I mentioned it to him (my friend) as well at the time. Even to the extent of being invested in lithium companies a decade ago…

      Seba’s Taas system is ridiculous as we have a close proxy to that now in Uber and similar services. The problems will be exactly the same, when you need a vehicle in peak times like now, none will be available, and plenty available when you don’t need them. Nearly everyone needs their vehicle at peak times, which is why the roads are clogged at those times.

      Given enough time and Seba will just disappear from the scene, slinking off into the dark as his predictions fail, like every other conman…

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  15. Hi Campbell

    Some of your last posts have resonated with me, so thought I would post a series of local ramblings. Sorry if as a first post it comes across a little too strong.

    Your appearance 20 years ago in India gave me strong Kyle Mills vibes. Wonder whether anyone ever mentioned that to you back in the day?

    Not sure if you’re a vegetarian or not but buy some possum leg traps, good for conservation purposes currently and will be good for sourcing a meal during future Chaos. Heaps of youtubes on possuming and one I would recommend is KeepingItWild, Shea is from the Uruweras but now down in Southland. Cool content if you like survivalism and outdoors. Shea and his family will be making it through!

    Also you wondered above whether ‘it’ is worth it? I believe the answer is yes, you may not actually need to but they will be somewhat of a little reassurance during anxious times.

    You mentioned you’re friends with the syntropic permadynamics family. The reason I say this is that in my opinion, given where you are, you will want to be close with your local hapu. If you were to try and go it alone as a nuclear family you will come unstuck. That is why each hapu back in the day would be closely aligned and related with their neighbouring hapu etc to maintain strong bonds when unity is required. Additionally, if you’re not friends with the locals given your specific area then you will struggle.

    My wife is from Rawiri country and I’m from UK so I think about this a bit. I see this issue becoming increasingly fraught in the coming years. People and minorities will want someone to blame and it will inevitably be towards people like me. Half like me and half don’t if you get my drift so what will be will be, but strength in these numbers and the remoteness is a draw. Dunbars number under stress is 150.
    We’ve planted our own orchard of 50 trees 2 years ago so hope for BAU to go on for another 4 or 5 years to see them get established at least. Plenty of feijoas, citrus and also neighbouring kiwifruit orchards around for those winter months.

    Rob, your site is good but come on, censorship. It’s going to become an increasingly lonely place out there. Mike’s a valued member plus also a local I think?!?

    Anyways, them possums are numbered.

    Onwards and sideways, Hemi (James).

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    1. There is no possible defense for the evil crimes our leaders committed during covid, and continue to commit to this day. This is the only place in my life where I don’t have to listen to people trying to justify or minimize the harms that were done, and are still being done.

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    2. Kia ora Hemi. Sorry for the slow response.

      In India I was mistaken for Chris Cairns a couple of times 😀.

      We do trap possums on our land. We have killed dozens in the three years we have been here. We use Timms Traps and an AT220 auto trap which is excellent. Currently we compost them, feed them to the hawks or bury with new tree plantings. Klaus at Permadynamics has given me his favourite possum stew recipe and method. It’s in the pipeline along with rabbit stew. We have plenty of them too.

      Which brings me to the gun issue and another reason to get one. Nikki and I decided yesterday that yes we would.

      We have a good friend who is highly influential and a great environmental kaitiaki with a local hapū i Moerewa about 15km away but there is a closer marae that we are yet to connect with. My wife is learning Māori. So you make a good point. We do recognise we won’t be able to defend our own patch and go it alone.

      I’m a real believer in the Monkeysphere (Dunbars #). I like this somewhat humorous take on it.

      https://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html

      And yes, while we have planted hundreds of food trees many, like yours, are still a few years off good production especially the nuts. I generally try to buy one or two more expensive grafted trees to get ahead on the fruiting and then cheaper seed grown ones for the longer term. And anything that’s producing now we are using to propagate our own.

      Thanks for your thoughts. Go well.

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  16. I like this text very much!

    Source: https://www.manova.news/artikel/zeit-ohne-geist

    uesday, June 18, 2024, 5:00 p.m.~14 minutes reading time

    Time without spirit

    The present is characterized by a strange, elusive absence of tangible reality.

    Photo: Casezy idea/Shutterstock.com

    Can you also feel it, this strange hollowness of the present? This dead, empty replay of events that one inevitably acknowledges, but which has an unprecedented degree of unreality and lack of substance? Of course, personal circumstances are always inextricably interwoven with the way we feel and perceive world events, but there is a certain probability that this is not just a purely personal individual experience. It is precisely this, and the difficulty of concretizing and verbalizing something that is felt so abstractly, that led to the creation of this text; may it counteract the inner speechlessness a little and thereby capture and tame that which has settled over us namelessly and can only affect us until it is recognized and named.by 

    Gönül Freyseel

    For some time now, I have been experiencing the present – my immediate and distant reality – as a strange non-time. Until about the end of last year, I was still able to grasp and sense something like a zeitgeist, to identify something like the general direction of people’s movements, but even then it was only sporadic and rather poor.

    I cannot say who or what exactly this is due to, but at some point in the course of 2022 there was a break in my immediate perceptibility of time and its events – and of people. Since then, I have been able to feel less and less of the essence that constitutes vitality and, superficially, take note of the course of events in a disinterested manner, while at the same time experiencing my movement through this time as almost constantly difficult to bear.

    Of course, wear and tear, fatigue and a certain numbness due to permanence play a role here. I have died a little inside in the last few years, and that may be partly why I feel that way.

    The inner dying is not necessarily something bad or degenerative, but often something necessary from which something new can be born. This inner dying can ultimately just be the mirror of the outer dying, or vice versa.

    But there is another aspect that is more personal and more important. And I have the feeling that grasping and verbalizing this aspect can be an important key to gaining a deeper understanding and vision and thus navigating through this time more confidently and with more focus. If I am wrong here, it still doesn’t do any harm to walk this path once and illuminate it as best as possible.The big distraction

    What if all the noise in this world, with its “current things”, breaking news and dramas, has always had the core goal of keeping people busy and thus distracted? Why would you tie up their time and attention, what exactly would you want to keep them from doing? These questions must be asked and the answers found.

    The purely intellectual processing of the “content” of world events is no longer contemporary nor really productive.

    Even the now unmanageable and sometimes unspeakable so-called “alternative media and journalists” — with their outraged reports about “the mainstream” and often quite clever analyses — mostly join in the media’s fixation and thus consolidation of a reality that primarily only serves that absurd totalitarian agenda in whose crosshairs people are.

    And even if these reports and analyses create a certain distance from what is happening and may be accurate, they still remain in most cases part of the overarching agenda-setting and calculated effort to keep people busy; this ties up attention and thus energy, both from the author and the reader, however well-intentioned they may be.

    All the news and reports have long been perpetuating what they actually want to end.

    We must not forget that most events and their media coverage are intended to outrage us, frighten us and thus wear us down in the long run ; this is intentional and is one of the most effective ways of directing attention. Here we need to manage our precious energy consciously so that we can use it for what is essential and not be blinded by anger and paralyzed by sheer horror. We should also be aware that the events that receive mass media attention are intended to be seen and heard by the masses, that they could be “staged” (with real victims, mind you!) that come from a script that is dedicated to destruction.

    We have reached a point where obtaining information is rarely meaningful, where the added value of it is often no longer present and the “media competence” of the individual is no longer sufficient to separate the wheat from the chaff. It always contains, at least in part, a disinformation and “status-preserving” component; not least because almost all information channels have been at least partially – consciously or unconsciously – hijacked and infected with existential deceptions.

    It is no secret that the mix of truth and untruth is an effective method of credibly implanting certain narratives into the minds of many; but nowadays you can hardly find any places where this is not the case, even if the people in these places may not always be aware of it. Hijacking also takes place without the knowledge of those affected.The shortest way out of the labyrinth

    Given this level of incomprehensibility, the only reliable compass we can turn to is our intuition if we don’t want to get lost in endless analyses and speculations. The “calculations” that lead to the result are highly complex and involve factors and knowledge that are not accessible to us with our everyday thinking; we can use them to obtain the decisive result within seconds without having to struggle rationally in vain.

    Intuition is part of our nature. We can take it for granted; it is nothing spectacular, not a skill that can be acquired, not something that is reserved for certain people. In most cases, it only needs to be freed of any “blockages” by avoiding habits that counteract it: anyone who takes care of an all-round “healthy lifestyle” – which can mean something different for each individual, although certain principles should apply to most people – and who repeatedly turns to their inner world is already well advised.

    If we want to use it consciously, we just have to be faster than our conditioned mind, which likes to interfere, distinguish its voice from all the others and thus regain trust in it. We can never be completely cut off from our intuition anyway; we would probably be surprised if we were shown how many of our everyday decisions are intuitive – and not rational as we think – in nature.

    Of course, the question remains whether intuition can be manipulated or where and what exactly it comes from. But somehow we have to start somewhere…

    We must initially accept that all assumptions are based on premises and a certain degree of pure faith, but awareness of this and the willingness to admit it already makes a difference.The many forms of slavery

    What exactly are we supposed to be distracted from? What exactly are we supposed to forget, not see, not hear? And how long has this game been going on, who are the players, and why are they doing what they are doing? For now, I have to pass at least partially; I don’t know yet.

    But I keep getting this feeling, probably when I get close to what is to be hidden, which is already breathtaking. Some things seem obvious: the entire system (of every “civilization”) is designed to direct our entire attention to the outside world – which in turn is dominated by material things – and to bind us there.

    Continuous, ever faster and more primitive evaluations of ourselves and the outside world are part of its foundation – closely linked to our sexuality – which has reached its peak in superficiality in times of the smartphone plague and the like, in times of “social media”, “artificial intelligence” and the digitalization of everyday life. In fact, sexuality has always played a key role, if not the key role, in the implementation of this system of slavery.

    Their perversion, distortion, reinterpretation and undermining was a crucial element in the implementation of fundamentally false assumptions. Most of what we today consider to be sexual freedom, a lived or even liberated sexuality, is still at least partly based on deep-seated, twisted beliefs that do not serve freedom.

    What sexuality really is and what it is not is still largely unanswered for me. I don’t think we can imagine how far narratives sometimes reach…

    We have been living for a small eternity in a rather clever system of slavery, more complex than it appears at first and second glance, in which most of the enslaved strive and crave the very things that keep them enslaved, in the belief that life is everything, and even that freedom is. The extent of absurdities – measured against our actual nature and its many demonstrated possibilities – that are instilled, injected and indoctrinated into us from the cradle to the grave is simply unbelievable. It begins in the womb, continues in the unspeakable delivery room and ends, in a sense, with all those stinking and false narratives surrounding illness and death.

    This slavery, invisible to many, deforms us beyond recognition and keeps us so occupied and busy that we no longer have the time or space to really feel our inner self, or even to want something like inner silence.

    Because all kinds of junk piles up inside us because of the years of being “processed” by the system and the resulting neglect of our inner realm; and so there may not be anything nice to feel at first, but rather some clearing up work to be done, and fog and numbness that need to be passed through.

    In addition, especially in this miserable “digital age”, the mind is in a state of constant excitement, overstimulated and therefore needs constant and ever stronger new stimuli. Inner peace becomes a distant memory.

    But we cannot be killed that easily, our nature can never be completely tamed. We still feel those longings that serve as a reference, as a reminder of the nameless thing that we actually want, don’t we?

    Even though these longings may become less and less frequent and last for a shorter time, they never completely disappear, otherwise we would stop living.What needs to be hidden

    This brings us to the question: what is it within us that we should be distracted from? What should we be disconnected from, what should we lose contact with, what should we not perceive? This reminds me of two videos that I watched some time ago: “The heart is not a pump!” (title of a lecture by Dr. Thomas Cowan, available on YouTube) and one on the subject of “The Sacred Secretion,” an exciting thesis on physiological processes whose spiritual significance is illuminated by understanding the Bible as a kind of allegorical manual for this.

    Our physical heart is obviously more important than we probably think, and it does not seem to be what it is presented to us as; the most important question here is why the (whole) truth should not be known about this. Perhaps you have also heard of the fifth heart chamber; although I could not find any solid information on it, I would still like to mention it here in passing and leave it up to each individual to decide whether they want to look into it in more detail and how much truth they want to attribute to it.

    Is this perhaps the direction of the great distraction, is our heart perhaps a gate that is obscured by distraction? Is it the Holy Grail within each of us?

    Of course that is not everything, but perhaps one of the central aspects.

    You can dismiss all this as nonsense — or you can open yourself up to these possibilities and follow this path for a while and see where you end up.

    Of course, in this area in particular, one should receive everything with one’s antennas fully activated, since the so-called “spirituality” in particular has been infiltrated and crucial information has been and is being omitted, manipulated or added. After all, it is this dimension that is most closely guarded and concealed.

    From the beginning, it was basically always a war about the spiritual, the metaphysical; in the final analysis, it was never really about the profane, money was always just a means to an end; fully understanding this is probably another key.

    The ultimate question of meaning would still not be answered, nor would it be answered why the whole thing is being played at all, who the others are, why they want what they want, whether there is a kind of director, and if so, who or what that is and whether that is the final word in wisdom. Nevertheless, it is a very exciting and certainly worthwhile start to something meaningful, it seems to me.Mindless

    The fact that this time feels particularly hollow and mindless could be because the collective mind has partially withdrawn or withdrawn. If so, where is it right now, what is happening to it? I can’t really judge whether that would be good or bad, but it is probably unavoidable. It is also partly due to the increasing mental derangement that many people find themselves in during this phase of “smart distraction and numbness”.

    The fact that world events are more mechanical and exposed than ever before and therefore no longer trigger in us the same thing that they were able to trigger just a few years ago may also be due to the fact that the power behind them is waning and that the agenda operators have passed their zenith.

    Just as one eventually carries out a monotonous task in autopilot mode, they seem to be making their planned movements and completing the protocol as best as possible, but the effectiveness of their actions seems to have been decreasing for some time; this could be the emptiness that is conveying itself to us. It is as if the machinations and the collective spirit of people are becoming uncoupled from one another and drifting apart, at least in part. The reason for this may be due to the larger plan, the larger order that seems to underlie everything, at least in broad terms.

    It seems as if the things that are happening are happening, but somehow they are not really happening. They lack a certain reality, and I cannot put my finger on this fact. Is it perhaps due to the change in so-called reality as such? Or is there perhaps a shift in our perception that allows us to see and feel the backdrop and illusion-like nature of the world – which has always been there – with a clarity that feels new?Towards knowledge

    Persistently tapping the layer of ignorance that surrounds us will eventually break it open, I am sure of that. We can use all the means at our disposal to mentally and spiritually prepare ourselves for the magnitude of knowledge – to expand our inner capacity – that we will then face and that will probably exceed everything most of us have known. Preparing for the unknown is, to a certain extent, a paradox, like so much in this life.

    But assuming that everything is everything, because at the origin there is only the One from which everything emerges, and therefore everything carries at least an image of that One within itself, that there are only microcosms and macrocosms, but no fundamental hierarchies – then this preparation can only mean that we have to unlearn everything that does not really belong to us, but do not have to acquire anything from the ground up, because it is already part of us.

    We could initially, purely in our minds, mark everything, absolutely everything – every frame of reference, every absolute value believed to be unchangeable, every belief, including the one mentioned above – with a question mark, leave it open, make it available for verification or falsification. One day.

    We could do our best not to tie our inner support to our worldview, our belief in whatever, our convictions, so that it does not suddenly break away if all of this turns out to be wrong, but also because a really good support can only arise from the innermost center, not from any kind of intellectual structure.

    True stability is not based on external dependence, walking aids and crutches; it arises from constant movement, which is always a dance of letting go and regaining balance.

    Last but not least, we could always remind ourselves to always include our heart. It really does make a noticeable difference if, for example, in the middle of a conflict or a situation in which we realize that we are caught in an unhelpful behavior pattern, we mentally intend to open our heart in defiance of everything and then briefly direct our attention to this part of the body. It is a gateway and an interface, both physical and metaphysical, it is home. No matter what the mind has to say at that moment, the heart is always worth it. Because every true revolution takes place in one’s own heart – and that is where real freedom begins.

    Saludos

    el mar

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  17. I think this site can be much more useful than it already is. The other day with something as unimportant as good movie recommendations I could quickly tell that there was something there with like-minded people enjoying similar things. I’ll bet we all have a bunch of good useful advice for each other on all kinds of non-collapse topics.  Like movies, music, food, books, exercise techniques, pet tips, etc. (you computer geeks sharing your tricks have already proved my theory correct😊)

    Always tricky to post on this site with non-collapse content. Feels like Rob is gonna put the hammer down and say “this is not some pop culture website, take that shit over to Instagram”. LOL. For the audience that is only here for the juicy collapse stuff, maybe the person creating the post could put a disclaimer at the beginning so that that the others don’t waste their time. I am gonna test it out right now. (Serious Rob, if you don’t like this idea, no problem, just let me know):

    (disclaimer – non collapse)

    I struggle for new dinner ideas. I have like the same 7 or 8 in my rotation and they are getting old. I don’t eat super healthy, and I don’t like high maintenance cooking projects. If anyone has a favorite dish that fits into the category of easy & tasty, please share. I’ll go first:

    A meal I learned to cook way back in my bachelor days of college is called Rice Yuk. I still eat it today. Super quick and yummy. Start to finish is 15 minutes. Will feed 3 or 4 easily. Ingredients: 2 cups of white rice (I use the 5-minute stuff), 3 packets of powdered turkey (or chicken) gravy, 2.5 cups of water, and one pound of ground turkey.

    Brown the turkey in a skillet and drain the grease when done (you won’t have any grease if you use 99% fat free turkey). Bring water and gravy packets to a boil. Stirring occasionally so that the gravy doesn’t get too clumpy (you can experiment with the water/gravy amount to make it thinner/thicker). Once its boiling, add the rice, stir it up, remove from burner and cover and let sit for at least 5 minutes. Then combine the gravy rice with the turkey meat. The only seasoning I add is salt, pepper, and butter (2 Tbsp). Stir it all up and enjoy. A loaf of bread or salad goes good with this meal.

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    1. Greek salad is both pretty fast to make and has almost no carbohydrates which is some that you should seek out. In general I try to follow the nutrition advise found in the book “Eat Bacon, Don’t Jog” from Grant Petersen, an avid cyclist and founder of Rivendell Bicycle Works. Although I’m mostly vegetarian. The book also has a few recipes.

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      1. Thanks for the tip.

        And to the rest of the audience, don’t worry, I’ll stop trying to convert this site it into a Martha Stewart channel. 😊

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        1. Not a problem. I’ve shared quite a few recipes with a health and collapse theme in the past. For example, Rice & Lentil One Pot Dal, Oatmeal & Eggs, soup, and Dulce de leche. Gaia and others have also shared healthy recipes.

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  20. Is that you AJ in the comments trying to understand Dr. Bossche’s latest explanation of what we should expect and why?

    It’s very complicated. Do you understand it? If yes, please translate.

    https://voiceforscienceandsolidarity.substack.com/p/when-the-sweet-canary-in-the-coal

    People keep asking me how a highly virulent, i.e., deadly, viral variant could sufficiently transmit to cause high hospitalization and death rates in highly COVID-19 (C-19) vaccinated populations.

    Wouldn’t viruses with high virulence that cause severe disease or even death automatically reduce their own transmission because severely ill hosts are less likely to spread the virus to others?

    Yes, of course they would! However, in the context of the SARS-CoV-2 (SC-2) immune escape pandemic, the concept of viral ‘virulence’ must be put into perspective as it only manifests when sustained vaccine breakthrough infections (VBTIs) eventually cause the average local concentration of virulence-inhibiting polyreactive non-neutralizing antibodies (PNNAbs) to steadily decrease in highly C-19 vaccinated populations.

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  22. If you have a nagging feeling that none of the covid stories, official or dissident, make sense, then this recent excellent 1 hour presentation at Red Pill Expo 2024 by Dr. Jonathan Couey is a must watch.

    I followed Couey for a long time, and I published a long essay explaining his theory, which I subsequently withdrew because of bad behavior he displayed around Dr. Joe Lee’s String Theory.

    Setting aside the behavior I did not like, it’s possible that Couey is correct and we have been completely misled about the reality of covid (and virology and vaccines).

    Here is my attempt to summarize his theory:

    • there was no dangerous novel coronavirus
    • there was no contagious spread
    • there was no engineered virus or lab leak
    • there was no link to bioweapons research
    • acceptance of mRNA transfections was their goal
    • Ivermectin was used to distract us from their goal
    • spike protein was used to distract us from their goal
    • DNA contamination was used to distract us from their goal
    • other dissent issues were sown to distract us from their goal
    • inappropriate PCR tests were used to cause panic and acceptance of mRNA
    • data was manipulated to cause panic and acceptance of mRNA
    • coordinated stories were told to cause panic and acceptance of mRNA
    • lockdowns were used to cause panic and acceptance of mRNA
    • masks were used to cause panic and acceptance of mRNA
    • 100 years of pandemic knowledge was discarded to push acceptance of mRNA
    • opportunities to improve public health were ignored to push acceptance of mRNA
    • it’s probable, but not certain, that an infectious RNA clone was deliberately released in a few locations like Wuhan, Italy and NYC, to create samples and some sickness consistent with a pandemic, and to cause panic and acceptance of mRNA, but if this occurred it was not highly contagious and did not create a pandemic
    • the people that died in the early days did so from normal diseases like pneumonia and flu combined with inappropriate treatments like too much oxygen, ventilators, withholding of antibiotics & steroids, Midazolam, Remdesivir, withholding of Narcan, sedatives, DNR’s, isolation stress, etc.
    • transfection by injection of mRNA is a fundamentally bad idea for many reasons
    • we should expect to see new mRNA products pushed on us soon, that “fix” the problems discovered during covid, however the fundamental dangers at the core of transfection will remain, and we should reject them all

    Key conclusions:

    • Intramuscular injection of any combination of substances with the intent of augmenting the immune system is dumb.
    • Transfection in healthy humans is criminally negligent.
    • RNA cannot pandemic.

    If you watch this, let us know what you think of his theory.

    https://rumble.com/v52dk5o-red-pill-expo-2024-jonathan-couey-impossibility-of-an-rna-pandemic-gigaohm-.html

    Here Dr. Couey critiques his own presentation and corrects a few small errors he made:

    https://rumble.com/v52c4rq-gigaohm-biological-high-resistance-low-noise-information-brief.html

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    1. That was obvious to me from the very beginning. Take BoJo as an example. He was the prime minister of UK at that time, with access to all info we can only imagine. He ordered the whole nation to stay at home to save grandmas, but instead of hiding in a bunker, he decided to play quizzes and drink alcohol with his fellow party members xD

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      1. You made a similar comment earlier and I did not understand it. Now I get what your saying.

        So the big question is, did our leaders inject mRNA or saline?

        I’ll bet most of them were baffled by the bullshit and transfected themselves.

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    2. The ‘no virus’ theory is very interesting and worth more debate. I don’t personally know anyone who got covid prior to being vaccinated. There are two NZ doctors who work on the no viruses theory. But it is hard for me to tell if they are legit or charlatans.
      What we can say for certain is:
      – No virus has ever been viewed by a microsope (spectrometer).
      – No virus has ever been isolated.
      – No virus has ever been isolated, shown to infect another person/animal, and shown to produce the same symptoms.
      – A famous high court case in Germany was used to prove to the measles virus has never been isolated.

      Over time, virologists have lowered the standards for is a “virus”. It seems to be quite self-referential. One lab says some bits of code they find are a virus, then other labs find the same bits of code and argue that it is the same virus.

      So presumably we only know viruses by their effects, if they are real.

      Anyway, the whole no virus theory could be complete nonsense. But it does expose something that Chris Martenson also found, which is “what are virologists actually doing in their labs” because it doesn’t look like the scientific method and looks more like “mad scientist”.

      If you are interested, here is a two-page summary of the no virus theory. Again I say, it could be complete nonsense, I haven’t looked into it enough:

      https://drsambailey.com/resources/settling-the-virus-debate/

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      1. Very good points.

        In case you have not watched the Couey video above (which you should because it’s excellent and he’s super intelligent with deep virology knowledge) Couey is not saying there is no such thing as a virus.

        He is saying that the RNA covid virus cannot pandemic as claimed.

        I don’t know what is true, but I don’t trust anything pharma conflicted experts and government regulators say.

        I’m also coming around to believing the current 72+ vaccination shots given to children today, compared with the 5 shots when I was a child, are a cause of the recent increase in autism and other health problems in children. Sugar of course is another problem, as is glyphosate in Cheerios cereal.

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  23. Statistical Review of World Energy

    The Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy analyses data on world energy markets from the prior year. Previously produced by bp, the Review has been providing timely, comprehensive and objective data to the energy community since 1952.

    https://www.energyinst.org/statistical-review

    You can also download the data in an Excel file.

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    1. Step by inexorable step we march up the escalation ladder day by day (Putin and Xi don’t want us to but we are led by STUPID people). I am very pessimistic that we will all see the end of Summer (Winter for those in the south) without the end of us all.

      AJ

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  26. I’ve been criticized by Mike Roberts for overstating (or accepting dodgy analyses) of covid deaths due to the incompetence and/or malfeasance of our leaders. Here’s why I think that criticism is invalid.

    There are two plausible root causes of all covid related deaths:

    1. Real pandemic caused by bioweapons gain of function research lab leak. (RFK Jr.’s thesis)
    2. Fake pandemic to force acceptance of mRNA transfections with deaths caused by inappropriate treatments and mRNA side effects. (Couey’s thesis)

    Either way, our leaders are responsible for every single covid death, regardless of the specific cause of death.

    So I have not overstated the 15+ million deaths caused by our leaders. If anything, I have understated them, and more deaths continue due to mRNA side effects.

    Our leaders need to go to prison.

    Here is the essence of the two camps:

    Dr. Bret Weinstein:

    https://x.com/BretWeinstein/status/1803545232400851128

    Fauci has to keep the ridiculous “natural origin” idea alive for 2 reasons:

    1. If SARS-CoV2 came from the lab, he can’t hide the harms with accounting tricks—ALL the harms of Covid and our response belong to him.
    2. His legacy and kingdom depend on irrational fears of zoonosis.

    Dr. J.J. Couey:

    1. Intramuscular injection of any combination of substances with the intent of augmenting the immune system is dumb.
    2. Transfection in healthy humans is criminally negligent.
    3. RNA cannot pandemic (due to insufficient pattern integrity).

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  27. Hard to accept the idea that there was no real virus or pandemic.  For me personally, I go to my experience of getting the delta version of COVID in October 2020, most probably from my lady friend who got sick 72 hours before me.   My blood pressure went up, which has never happened to me with even very nasty flues, and I lost my sense of smell entirely, meaning the damn thing infected my brain.   I think it was a year later, I got the Omicron version.

    The pieces of the COVID origin story seem to be coming together.  In general, it seems gain of fu”nction research was authorized by Fauci from his position at NIH.  NIH was coordinating some of this kind of research on behalf of U.S. bioweapons defense.   “IT got out of the lab.  Fauci et. al are lying about this to protect themselves, and perhaps lying to deny U.S.A. culpability in the accidental release of SARs-COV2.   (Bioweapons are a real concern, whether engineered by a rival or a nut job in a home lab.   Some people in government and defense think we should be prepared to react quickly and effectively.   That at least is the benign take on this research by government and vaccine research by corporations.)

    A big question is why this particular gain of function research was outsourced to a lab in Wuhan, and why China (its intelligence agencies etc.) would allow U.S.A. sponsored gain of function research to be done in one of its labs.  Maybe just an eager and errant and greedy scientist outside of the lines.  Don’t know.

    Another big question about this issue is why other countries are not publicly accusing the U.S. and/or  China making this mistake, or at least why we are not seeing stories in that regard.  To me this means either I am wrong in my story above, or it shows just how powerful the intelligence agencies are in controlling the dissemination of information unfavorable to the U.S.A.   

    For further perspective on issue of whether this virus and pandemic is/were real, I just note the other extreme view from Geert Vanden Bossche (DVM, PhD) who says we must now prepare for mass death in the vaccinated from the newly evolved versions of the original virus.  

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    1. Good points Shawn.

      There is actually a 3rd thesis by John Cullen that might explain your sickness. He claims Wuhan and covid were fake covers for a GOF bioweapons flu that escaped a US lab, and they really were worried it might become a serious pandemic. This explains why Trump ordered vaccines BEFORE a single death occurred from “covid”.

      Did you watch Couey’s presentation? If yes, what do you think are the flaws in his “RNA can’t pandemic due to lack of pattern integrity” thesis?

      The question of why a Chinese lab helped the US with bioweapons research is deeply troubling.

      As is the question of why US enemies like China and Russia are not attacking the US for causing covid with GOF research.

      Ditto on why China cooperated in dialing up the panic, with for example, videos spraying streets with decontamination foam.

      Ditto on why opposition political leaders in pretty much all countries are not using the debacle to take down the parties in power.

      Ditto on why US enemies did not transfect their citizens with mRNA but did use conventional vaccines.

      Ditto on why the country with the highest per capita number of Nobel prizes (Israel) volunteered its citizens as a test lab for mRNA.

      I have a lot of respect for the intelligence, expertise, and integrity of RFK Jr., Dr. Bret Weinstein, Dr. J.J. Couey, and Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche, yet their stories on the surface are incompatible with each other.

      Which means we’ve not yet gotten to the bottom of this mystery.

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      1. There is so much happening now in general, I am having to triage on information intake. So no, I have not watched Dr. Couey, for now I have put his stuff is in the “probably not worth spending time on” category.

        But as you note, there are so many unanswered questions, particularly on the vaccine roll out. I am still mostly in the camp that most of the things that seem strange to us engineers, logicians, and near or on the spectrum folks, can be explained by 1) the profit motives of amoral pharma companies/algorithms and their highly compensated executives, 2) the profit motives of medical system makes more money the more healthcare is provides, 3) institutional incompetence of the military, CDC, NIH, FDA, and other three letter agencies, 4) the incompetence of high ranking individuals in politics (not enough engineers and scientists), and 5) the currently very high personal cost of bucking social and politically accepted narratives in this late stage of empire.

        Still, so many things seem strange. Here are some other random thoughts in that regard.

        In the U.S., The progressive left dominates the media companies and newsrooms, the tech social media companies, the universities, and of late, the Human Resources areas of many corporations. The request that everyone take the vaccine to benefit all lined up nicely with the communitarian narrative and belief of these groups. (Although interestingly, these people expressed skepticism of the vaccines when Trump was in office…)

        Second, the military and covert agencies were much more involved from start to finish than is understood. In this vein, SAR-Cov-2 is worse than they are letting on.

        Third, and somewhat jokingly, all this has something to do with UAPs. That is now my fun go to thread of explanation when I cannot make sense of how some things can be so stupid.

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        1. Shawn, that’s an excellent and plausible explanation if you prefer to believe no one is driving the bus, and that our leaders are idiots rather than evil.

          I hope you’re right. With all of the biophysical problems we face it would be nice to know that evil leaders are not an additional threat.

          I’m going to continue to monitor the evidence as it emerges. Someday I’d like to be confident of what happened.

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      2. Can you keep this comment somewhere handy Rob? Maybe make another blog post on covid with this included? As we learn more, we can come back to your excellent questions

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        1. Hi monk, it’s been a year and a half since you authored a guest essay.

          You seem to have an open inquisitive mind about the mystery of covid. Would you be interested in writing an essay summarizing every known theory that attempts to explain what happened, highlighting where they differ and where they overlap?

          For example, I am certain that pharma’s top priority was to use the emergency to force acceptance of the mRNA technology. This mRNA goal does not conflict with the:

          • official government narrative
          • RFK Jr.’s Wuhan covid bioweapons lab leak
          • Cullen’s US military base H1N1 lab leak
          • Couey’s RNA can’t pandemic story
          • Fast Eddy’s population cull story
          • no-virus theory

          Which means, I think, it should be our top priority to kill mRNA.

          Which is why I’m such a fan of Dr. Joe Lee’s String Theory. It’s easy to understand, uses only science agreed by vaccine manufacturers, and although it only addresses clots, and ignores cancer, myocarditis, etc., it’s good enough to kill all mRNA. Too bad Dr. Lee is such a prick or he’d have a bunch of momentum by now.

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          1. I would love but I’m very busy at work over the next few weeks. I would also need to read a lot more on some of the people’s theories 🙂

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    2. Gain of function research is illegal in most western countries, as far as I know. That’s why they do it in other countries like China

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  28. This old William Buckley interview is good. It was on primetime network tv in 1969. (at a time when there were only 3 channels total). The “system” used to actually let the masses watch Noam Chomsky kick knowledge for an hour. 

    Buckley is the villain asshole Bill O Reily type, but he really isn’t that bad. He’s funny, civilized, and good at being a prick. And the documentary about his televised interviews with Gore Vidal is really good. Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal (2015)

    People were much different 50 years ago. The idiocracy has been fast and furious. The “system” is winning. 😊

    Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: Vietnam and the Intellectuals (youtube.com)

    Been on a Chomsky kick lately. Going back to old stuff from my journey is fun. It jogs my memory about things. This next memory is about me starting to open my eyes for the first time.

    Around 2003 I noticed two things at about the same time and they both gnawed at me. My job was in sales at a cable tv company. Our sales goals increased every 3 months like clockwork. It began my thinking of “This cannot continue forever. No way is new housing and people gonna continue at this pace”.

    The second thing was the evolution of athletes’ salaries compared to the rest of us peasants. And I know it’s just a silly baseball analogy, but this kind of stuff actually helped me to begin my awakening:

    Year/ Top money earner/ How much more $$ than the avg fan watching.
    1930 Babe Ruth 10x’s
    1950 Ted Williams 10x’s
    1970 Sandy Koufax 10x’s
    1990 Roger Clemens 80x’s
    2010 Alex Rodriguez 750x’s
    2024 Justin Verlander 1000x’s

    The “system” was pretty reasonable and consistent for a very long time. Then kaboom!! And I started to resent it with much disdain. I hated everything corporate. And I was all about stealing from the man. Switching price tags, leaving items under the grocery cart, or just damaging material goods. I was a hardcore rebel. 😊

    A year or two later I was hooked on Noam’s books explaining to me how this explosion of inequality is rooted in the Reagan/Thatcher era. But just looking at the silly baseball list can save you a lot of time.

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  29. Debated on sharing this all week, but I just read Indi’s newest post. A funny one about his cat and dog. I took it as a sign from the universe to share my cat story.

    Itches For My Bitches — indi.ca

    Last Saturday night I had an intimate moment with my cat, zeus. LOL, this could go in so many weird directions… I was one with him and could see how destructive his lifestyle was. And what a prisoner of the “peak” he was. This all might sound basic. But I assure you, it was far from basic in the moment.

    I saw his food & water mapped out from creation to me serving it to him. Same with his toys and scratch posts. Same with his litter stuff. As Paul Kingsnorth would say, “you flush it and have someone else deal with your shit”. All the resources involved for his comfortable, easy life. And how those resources are only available because of the deep time of life functioning properly (by nobody breaking the energy constraints). 

    As far as his environment goes, he is stuck with me and that’s it. Pretty much no interaction with any other life forms. We’ve had bad animal fights in the past, so the dog roams the house and cats are in the bedrooms, doors shut. Mine is the master so zeus gets a bigger room at least, but no outdoor time. Thats the sin of all sins right there (and was a major theme of my experience). I’m in my room most of the day with him, he gets to roam the house once a day for an hour, and he receives plenty of love from me. But that’s no excuse for never getting to explore Mother Earth. I don’t want him to run away, that’s the only excuse. Like a warden or a slave master. 

    Now during this special moment with zeus, I was heavily under the influence, of course. Prior to my NDE, I would average three or four nights a year shrooming. I don’t trust my heart anymore and have been scared to get back into mushrooms. But I’ve been dying to see what it would be like now that I am overshoot/energy aware as well as spiritual for the first time ever. So I finally got the nerve last weekend, and it was a very low dose. My calculations were correct though. I just knew that a good “trip” would be much more meaningful nowadays than it used to be. 

    Most of the details from Sat night have already faded from memory, but the main theme will stick with me: What an unnatural, miserable and destructive lifestyle for this spoiled Empire Kitty. (and very similar to the life of his Empire Baby master)

    Overall, it was fun and enlightening, but also had a few scares. Heart thumping was way too hard at times. Enough that I probably won’t do it again anytime soon. It’s such a bummer too. Now that my brain is finally equipped to have those mystical shaman type experiences… I can’t risk it because of my weak-ass heart. 

    I know, boo-hoo, poor me, I can’t do drugs anymore, big deal. But it is. Bucket list items like Ayahuasca, DMT, etc. will probably never be an option for me and that really sucks. 

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  30. http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2024/06/after-cape-town-will-breakdown-of.html
    After Cape Town will a breakdown of confidence bring ‘Day Zero’ to Mexico City and Bogotá?
    https://grist.org/drought/mexico-city-bogota-water-day-zero-cape-town/
    As reservoirs go dry, Mexico City and Bogotá are staring down ‘Day Zero’

    The city administration in Cape Town generally enjoys the trust of its citizens who rallied together with widespread voluntary efforts to reduce water consumption. Neither Mexico City nor Bogotá enjoy that same kind of credibility.

    Residents of both cities may simply keep their fingers crossed and hope for rain. And, if they do and the rain doesn’t come, then Day Zero will arrive.

    And, this speaks to the breakdown of confidence in the governing classes practically everywhere. In the face of increasingly abrupt crises without easy answers or temporary fixes (which imply that things will return to normal), government and the businesses which live off them will face unprecedented challenges that require maximum flexibility and the courage to say and do things which the populace does not like. That does not sound like most governments that I know.

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  31. Your doom chuckle of the day from Guy McPherson’s site:

    https://guymcpherson.com/coming-events/

    Partner Pauline and I have suspended hosting our Only Love Remains workshop due to lack of interest.

    I found this when looking for confirmation to Sam Mitchell’s claim today that McPherson has gone all in on saving humanity by creating a People’s Forum to find solutions for cooling the planet. 🙂

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    1. LOL. I stopped checking his yt channel a while back. Nothing worth watching from him anymore. But him going over to the side of saving humanity is priceless.

      I’m sure its like you guys say about some of these people. No money in all doom. Gotta sell some hope if you want a paycheck. But c’mon Guy, you of all people cannot just change your tune like this and expect people to follow you. 😊

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    2. He could always go back to work at his real job, counting trees or whatever it was. I suppose he thought we’d all be dead by now, and he wouldn’t need a job …. awkward. Yes it is hard to make a living misinterpreting science and sharing links to junk science websites.

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  32. Really good essay today by Karl Denninger on:

    1. How impressive the Apollo moon mission was.
    2. How brave the Apollo astronauts were.
    3. How far we’ve fallen since because we now prioritize feelings over engineering.
    4. Apollo will remain our most impressive accomplishment.

    https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=251535

    First, we didn’t know how to do it when Kennedy announced the intent to go.  Literally, we didn’t have the engineering knowledge to do it.  We also didn’t have fancy pocket computers and similar devices; all of this was done basically by hand and every single Saturn V rocket was bespoke; you could not, for example, take an engine out of one from the assembly process and put it in a different one; the various required things (like the fuel line flanges) would not line up and work.

    The entire mission depended on developing and having work for the duration two computers that were basically identical and yet both were required; one in the command module and the other in the LEM.  The reason the one in the Command module was required is that it was physically impossible to carry enough propellant to re-enter an orbit around the Earth on return — every pound of anything you wish to have at any time in the flight had to be lifted off Earth’s surface at the start, and that includes propellant.  There was simply no mass budget to include that extra propellant and thus on return you had to hit a re-entry angle, all the way from the moon back, about 2 degrees wide because if you were too shallow you would not slow down enough to be captured by the Earth’s gravity and would skip off into space, and if you came in too deep you would burn up as the amount of energy dissipated over time was too high (total energy to be dissipated is the same but the time would be too short), the heat would thus burn through the heat shield but by then you’re probably dead anyway as the deceleration forces would also exceed the human body’s capacity to withstand them.

    No human could burn and steer the engine with sufficient precision to hit that reentry corridor.

    But that requirement didn’t end with the CSM.

    To actually land on the moon you also needed a second copy of that computer in the LEM because the amount of propellant you could carry (remember, you had to load that propellant on Earth and get it into space first as well!) was also very limited and no human could fly the descent accurately enough to not run out, which means you either have to abort or you crash and die.  Final landing, yes, but descent, no.  Much worse you had to get back to the CSM.  This is why the LEM had distinct descent and ascent stages since on the math it was impossible to land and then take off and rendezvous with all the hardware you came with and thus everything you did not actually need for the ascent but used earlier was left behind.  The required mass limit for it all to pencil out was in fact so low that the engine on the ascent stage had neither throttle or gimbal to direct thrust in direction and quantity because, once again, both of those mechanisms have mass and there was no available capacity for either.  The RCS thrusters on the LEM’s ascent stage were thus the entire ascent steering capacity; each had about 100lbs of thrust in any of their directions, but again no human could fly that ascent profile accurately enough and there was no possibility of a second chance if you missed the rendezvous.  Not that it really mattered much if you missed because the propellant available was insufficient for a stable orbit (thus the ascent stage was destined to crash back into the moon) and both the oxygen and battery power (without which the LEM is an uncontrollable piece of trash) were limited enough that both dudes would be dead rather quickly anyway.

    To put perspective on this the entire ascent portion of the LEM (the only part that left the moon) had a dry mass of about 1,000 lbs.  On the moon gravity is 1/6th that of Earth so empty, a single astronaut, on the moon, could actually LIFT IT using nothing but muscle power!  The propellant for the ascent was approximately equal in mass to the dry mass of the stage itself.  That was all, plus the two dudes and some rocks (also 1/6th of the apparent weight of them on Earth) that left the surface and there was no available mass budget for anything more which is why it was all left there and the craft was built that way.

    If from this you surmise that if any of that stuff failed to work correctly everyone on board was almost-certainly dead you’re correct, and everyone who flew or was involved in building the Apollo missions knew it.  There was no possibility of rescue nor was there anything “extra” to use to try to get around a problem that could not be solved by sacrificing something yet to be expended if you could opt out of otherwise using it.  Everyone who flew those missions knew all this and they went anyway.

    Today Boeing is apparently incapable of not only producing a spacecraft that can manage orbital operations without significant malfunctions but in addition they appear to have a similar problem with the much-simpler task of pride in assembly of civilian aircraft such that multiple bolts, nuts and safety wires were left off one of them resulting in a hatch that cannot physically be removed with those in place coming apart in flight.  Apollo 13 nearly killed everyone on board because of one defective component that was not caught during assembly where this was not one missing bolt it was FOUR complete sets and upon the evidence to date none of which were installed as the presence of even ONE would have prevented the hatch from coming off.  Today we accept and “iterate” through these sorts of things, whether its be Space-Xs “tests” or Boeing’s aircraft and spaceships, rather than taking the position that failure is not an option and both doing the engineering up front and taking sufficient pride in execution that such failures do not occur.

    We lost two Shuttles with everyone on board because arrogance and feelings had been put in front of known engineering requirements.  Both were a direct result of flying with a known-dangerous condition that was not a necessary risk.  In the first we knew the O-rings on the booster were insufficiently compliant below a certain temperature and risked burn-through before they could seal, which would doom the rocket.  They launched outside of the safe temperature window, the seals failed and everyone died.  In the second for environmental friendliness reasons we changed the chemical composition of the foam that insulated the exterior fuel tank.  We knew this was unsafe because immediately after doing it we observed chunks of foam coming off the tank during the launch.  Rather than go back to the other formulation which didn’t have that problem we kept using the new formulation in genuflection to the God of environmental friendliness before human life, a chunk of foam came off during launch and impacted the wing of the shuttle, holing it.  That was a fatal event at the time it happened because we had no ability to go up there with another shuttle and rescue the crew from their fatally-damaged craft and re-entry did in fact destroy it, killing them all.

    Nations, and the entities within it, achieve when engineering — that is, merit and facts — are placed before all else.  They rot from the top when corruption, arrogance and feelings are allowed to intrude into the forefront and override actual requirements.

    I can and have pointed to literal hundreds of such examples over the last 15+ years writing this column both in areas of economics and otherwise.  It is not just that we are no longer progressing beyond where we were in the 1960s in this regard; we couldn’t even do that again right here and now as we’ve lost the drive required to place competence and engineering before feelings.

    This, above all else, is why health care is now 20% of GDP instead of 4% yet despite this wild-eyed spending we get worse results.  It is why we spend nearly $30,000 a year per student in Chicago’s public schools yet even in the 1990s the vast majority of the “graduates” could not do four-function arithmetic with paper and pencil nor write a basic business letter, a fact I can speak to because I tested every applicant at my company and kept the records as a defense against being sued under a false claim of “discrimination.”  It has gotten much worse since with some schools having literally nobody who reads or calculates at grade level — and yet people believe we should spend even more.  It is why we have driven mandates for various “safety” features in vehicles yet the number of crashes has not gone down but the cost-per-crash has wildly accelerated, thus so have both car and insurance costs.  And we’ve come to believe in both the stock market and the rest of our lives that we can spend more than we take in, effectively charging the difference on a credit card, and there is no limit to this profligacy nor do we ever have to stop doing it.

    None of that is in fact sustainable and that your toilet still flushes, the water in your tap is still (excepting Flint, of course) drinkable, the lights work when you flip the switch and the overpass you are on (or condo you are in) will not collapse while you are where such an event can kill you is far more-tenuous today than at any time in America in the last hundred years.  Yes, we all have our “smartphones” but we seem to have forgotten that while having a world of information at your fingertips is great refusing to demand engineering come before feelings and rewarding failure with even more money, refusing to actually earn the funds first and rather putting it all on the credit card, will eventually fold back and when it does it might be so bad that in fact the lights do not come on when you flip that switch.

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    1. Glad you read Denninger and keep us updated. As they say a stopped clock is on time twice a day. I got so tired of his superior attitude (as evidenced by so many entrepreneurs attitude that they are geniuses when really they were unbelievably lucky and happened to be at the right place to take advantage of that luck – Musk, Gates, et.al.). That he thinks Libertarianism is right and Climate Change is fraud just shows how ignorant he can be.
      YES, he is right in this article but it got too hard to sift through all the dross he spews that I gave up on him.
      AJ

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    2. Elon Musk giving a tour of his Starship factory today which he says will be used to build a city on Mars.

      I’m pretty sure it will never happen but Musk is determined to get off this planet before we collapse.

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      1. We have only one chance to become a space-faring species, if we blow it, it is over.

        It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on the Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing intelligence this is not correct. We have or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned.

        -Sir Fred Hoyle

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          1. Someone wise said something like “if you picked the worst place on the Earth to live, like say the middle of Antarctica, or the bottom of the Mariana trench, it would still be a thousand times easier to survive than on Mars”.

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            1. Exactly, the entire exercise is just a scam to get Elon rich. He knows that but he also has a god complex. I think he sees himself as our saviour.

              I say drop him off in Antarctica for a year and see how he does.

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              1. Maybe. I’ve listened to him discuss his motivations. My sense is he is sincere (and crazy).

                But I might be wrong.

                I am impressed that he may have saved social media from total censorship.

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  35. Jeffrey Sachs with a refreshingly clear statement of how insane and dangerous the Ukraine situation is.

    Key points:

    1. Russia wants nothing more than the US demands for itself (no weapons on border).
    2. Russia will, if necessary, fight to the death and escalate to nuclear to prevent NATO in Ukraine.
    3. Ukraine is no longer a democracy.
    4. Ukrainian citizens have no say in their government policies and would probably vote for peace.
    5. American citizens would probably vote for peace.
    6. US and European leaders are unwilling to even discuss any of the above.
    7. NATO is losing and instead of negotiating is doubling down and escalating.

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  36. Good one today from Gail Tverberg.

    This chart, plus the fact that debt increased faster than the economy for the entire period shown, explains worldwide stresses and risks.

    https://ourfiniteworld.com/2024/06/22/the-advanced-economies-are-headed-for-a-downfall/

    The problem facing the people of the Advanced Economies is like the problem the biological world often faces.

    The biological world is constantly faced with the problem of too many animals (for example, wolves and deer) wanting to occupy a given space with specific resources, such as water, sunlight, and smaller plants and animals to eat. In some sense, the world economy is an ecosystem, too, one that we humans have made. The Advanced Economies are already in a conflict with the less advanced economies, trying to decide which parts of the world will “win” in the battle over the resources needed for future economic growth.

    The Maximum Power Principle (MPP) tries to explain who can be expected to be the winners and losers in an ecosystem when there are not enough resources to go around. I think of the MPP as an extension of the “survival of the fittest” or “survival of the best adapted.” The difference is that MPP looks at the functioning of the overall system, which in this case is the world economy.

    I suggest that if these principles are applied to the competition between the Advanced Economies and the less advanced economies of the world, the Advanced Economies will lose. For example, the Advanced Economies have been falling behind the less advanced economies in industrial output.

    We don’t know what is ahead. The economy is a self-organizing system that seems to figure out its own way of resolving the problem of not enough resources to go around because of diminishing returns. The world economy seems to be headed toward reorganization.

    I believe that the Covid-19 era represented one rather strange self-organized response to the “not enough oil to go around” problem. Figure 6 shows a clear dip in the amount of oil consumed in 2020, particularly by the Advanced Economies. Some of this reduced oil consumption continues, even now, because more people started working from home, saving on oil. Another helpful change was a huge ramp-up in the use of online meetings.

    It is possible that new adaptations to limited oil supply may appear in as strange a way as the Covid-19 era did.

    Another possibility is that the Advanced Economies, particularly the US, will encounter severe financial problems as the rest of the world moves away from the US dollar. Or the problem could be falling asset prices because of higher interest rates, causing many financial institutions to fail. Or the problem could be too much money being printed, but practically nothing to buy, causing severe inflation of commodity prices.

    War may be a possibility because it is an age-old way of dealing with resource problems. For one thing, it becomes easy to raise debt to pay for a war. This debt can be used to hire soldiers and buy munitions. With the higher debt, the GDP of the economy can be expected to suddenly look better because of the stimulus given to it. The major “catch” is that picking a fight with a major competitor or two could prove to be disastrous.

    Let us hope that our leaders make wise choices and keep us away from severe problems for as long as possible.

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  37. Like

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  38. Birmingham, Britain’s second-largest city, is being forced to dim lights and cut sanitation services due to bankruptcy

    “Once nicknamed “the workshop of the world”, Birmingham was an industrial powerhouse in the 18th and 19th centuries. But today the UK’s second-largest city can no longer afford to keep its own streets brightly lit.”

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-17/birmingham-uk-bankrupt-cutting-public-services/103965704

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  39. Often Rintrah is too rude and crude for my taste but today’s essay is quite good with a big picture, not too technical, look at the economic and lifestyle implications of bird flu. It really helped me understand the problem.

    He also touched on the European attempts to reduce livestock farming which I’ve never understood because I usually see it described as a political attack on free choice, or an ineffective fix for climate change, rather than an attempt to address a real nitrogen pollution problem.

    My take-away from his essay is that when we are prepping mentally and materially for the future we should expect our diets to shift towards vegetarian, regardless of our beliefs on the merits of a meat free diet.

    I’ll think I’ll try to practice and expand my repertoire of vegetarian recipes.

    https://www.rintrah.nl/the-big-bird-flu-problem-everyone-seems-to-forget-about/

    People are afraid of bird flu, because of the possibility that it may start spreading from human to human. But even if that doesn’t happen, you’re already dealing with a massive problem right now.

    It’s pretty clear they’re failing to contain this virus. Colorado has so far seen bird flu in 19 herds, one in april, three in may, fifteen in june, of which eight were in the past four days. This looks like exponential growth to me. Right now, 10% of the cows who catch the virus are dying of it. That number is not stable, it took time before bird flu in chickens evolved to be deadly enough to kill most birds that catch it. It’s perfectly possible that it becomes hard to sustain the dairy industry. We’re also starting to see the virus pop up in beef cattle.

    So, are vaccines going to save the day? Well, you’re asking counties where 90% of people vote for Trump to inject their cows with mRNA products. In practice, we’ve seen that these COVID vaccines have not worked. That’s not my opinion, it’s just mainstream science that these vaccines work for a few months until the virus has mutated enough to work around the antibodies. Influenza mutates faster than corona viruses, so it’s just not going to work. Worse, you’re going to generate new variants of the virus, that will be able to jump into other species. We already saw this happen with the bird flu in chickens.

    And the other problem with vaccination against bird flu, is original antigenic sin. Scientists have already looked at this. When you vaccinate a young animal never before exposed to influenza against H3N2, the animal becomes much more vulnerable to H5N1, with 100 times higher virus levels in the lungs. So when you try to vaccinate young cows against the bird flu, this is what you can expect: You make these animals much more vulnerable to other influenza viruses.

    Whether people like to hear it or not, this whole way of life has become unsustainable. People will have to transition to eating other things than animal products, as the huge numbers of animals living together in small facilities have led to the birth of new types of viruses that we are now going to be stuck with for the rest of our lives.

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    1. Kurt Cobb also discusses the same issue today.

      https://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2024/06/what-h5n1-scare-tells-us-about.html

      I don’t know whether there is an H5N1 “bird flu” pandemic in our future. H5N1 seems to be very dangerous to humans. Half of the 900 people known to have contracted it worldwide since 2003 have died. And, so a lot of scientists are concerned about the possibility of a pandemic now that the virus has crossed over into mammals including dairy cows.

      That means that the milk we drink may have the virus in it though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says that pasteurization makes the milk safe. Or does it? A recent study indicates that a “small but detectable quantity” of H5N1 bird flu virus can survive “a common approach to pasteurizing milk.”

      We humans think we can build moats around our modern way of life that protect us from the natural world. We will pasteurize our milk and that will solve the problem. We will spray kitchen counters with some noxious disinfectant to kill offending organisms. We will wash our hands again and again with anti-bacterial soaps. And, when soap and water are not available, we’ll use hand sanitizer. All the while we have actually been building the equivalent of superhighways into the heart of human society everywhere due to our dense living arrangements and global travel and trade.

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  40. Art Berman today explains our overshoot metacrisis.

    He also provides a nice summary of the geopolitical, military, and economic stresses that are escalating around the world.

    https://www.artberman.com/blog/metacrisis-getting-honest-about-the-human-predicament/

    All of the processes are interconnected, and changes to one inevitably affect the others. Changing things without thinking about its cascading effects can lead to disastrous outcomes yet piecemeal changes have been the norm so far in society’s approach to problem-solving.

    We want solutions but do we understand the problems we are trying to solve?

    The popular idea that fossil fuels can be, and are being, replaced by renewable energy is false. There is no energy transition or green revolution. Wind and solar accounted for 2.4% of world energy consumption in 2022 – a zero-rounding error. There has never been replacement of one energy source by another. No energy source has ever been substantially reduced.

    Population was 2.5 billion when I was born in 1950. It has more than tripled in my lifetime to more than 8 billion in 2023. Total energy consumption has increased more than 60-fold in that same period. Half of all historical oil consumption has been since 2000.

    Growth is the problem. Carbon emissions are a consequence of the growth in energy consumption that has enabled the growth in human population and economic activity.

    A barrel of crude oil contains the energy equivalent of about four-and-a-half years of human work (Figure 5). In 2023, the world used 84 billion barrels of oil equivalent from coal, natural gas and oil. At four-and-a-half years of work per barrel, that means that society has 378 billion fossil energy slaves working for us all the time.

    The work value of a barrel of oil is approximately $337,000 using the 2022 U.S. median income of $75,000. That explains the high levels of productivity that have improved global living standards over the last century. Half of all historical oil consumption has been since 2000. No other energy source can remotely compete. It is delusional to imagine that humans will voluntarily trade fossil fuel prosperity for a much poorer renewable energy world.

    The metacrisis has inevitably affected the global economy. Since 2020, the global economy is arguably weaker primarily because of higher energy costs, geopolitical conflicts, inflation, and the costs associated with the energy transition and climate change. Higher energy costs have raised operational expenses for industries worldwide, affecting everything from manufacturing to transportation. This has contributed to increased costs for goods and services, slowing economic growth​.

    Unless the future is somehow completely different from the past and present, the only solution to climate change and overshooting our planetary boundaries is a radical reduction in energy consumption. Lower economic growth and a lower population will be unavoidable components of a renewable energy future. That’s not part of the transition narrative, and is a non-starter for most people and political leaders.

    Berman accurately concludes with what we need to do, but omits any discussion of why our uniquely intelligent species is doing the opposite. That discussion requires an understanding of MORT.

    Our focus must first be on the whole, not just the fragments. This means acknowledging the natural world as the foundation of our resources and prosperity. Ignoring how our actions affect nature is a core reason for the metacrisis we’re facing. Climate change is just a piece of a much larger puzzle of environmental and ecological breakdown. Focusing solely on carbon emissions misses the broader context—energy, the economy, society, and human behavior.

    We need a holistic approach, one that moves fluidly from the whole to the parts and back again. Otherwise, we’re simply shifting problems around, likely making everything worse in the process.

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  42. Wolf Richter reminds us how distorted our economy is today.

    https://wolfstreet.com/2024/06/23/who-holds-the-recklessly-ballooning-us-national-debt-of-34-7-trillion/

    The US national debt – now $34.7 trillion, up from $23.3 trillion in January 2020, and from $27.6 trillion in January 2021 – has spiked so fast that it would make our eyes water with disbelief, if we didn’t know better. Over the four years and five months since January 2020, it has spiked by $11.4 trillion. Since the pandemic trough, the economy has been growing rapidly, yet trillions were flying by so fast it’s hard to see them. We don’t even want to imagine what this will look like during the next recession.

    Every single one of these Treasury securities is held by some entity or individual. So here they are.

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      1. Actually the opposite.

        Despite US support for genocide and other bad behavior, if you offered me a treasury from every country in the world, including Canada, I’d pick the US treasury. The US dollar works pretty much everywhere in the world, and the Eurodollar system plumbing (which is independent of the US fed) still underpins most of world trade. When SHTF the value of the dollar will go up relative to most other currencies, except maybe gold. Than after a while we won’t care too much about currencies because there won’t be anything to buy.

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  43. Some brave climate protestors ran onto the 18th green at a golf event today. See if you can make it all the way through the one-minute video without throwing up from the reaction of the audience.

    I found this on a yahoo article. I know comments on yahoo are the bottom of the barrel and should never be looked at. But thousands of comments are mad that protesters may have damaged some property. Same old argument that I see with any kind of protesting nowadays. The elites have convinced the masses to actually worry about the elites’ precious private property. LOL

    This is my xenophobic country. Bunch of dipshits who are completely on the side of the ruling elites without even knowing it. As far as a deadly virus, vaccination, or nukes… I say bring it on. But make sure you terminate the USA with extreme prejudice.

    https://x.com/ScooterCasterNY/status/1804971751031329048

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  44. Fast Eddy today restates his covid theory. It’s tough to imagine his UEP idea is true.

    Here’s my take on an explanation for the big mysteries:

    1. It was a fortunate coincidence that covid appeared just as the global economy needed a reason to print trillions to keep the wheels on. This could explain why US’s enemies played along with the covid charade since they also needed cover for printing money. Maybe this explains why China collaborated with the US at the Wuhan lab and sprayed streets with decontaminating foam to create panic in the west.
    2. Opposition parties everywhere are silent on covid malfeasance when normally any half truth is enough for them to attack the ruling party. It’s as if the head of every opposition party was visited by their intelligence agency and told if they discussed what actually happened they would be charged with divulging top secret information.
    3. Every single decision made that impacted public health was exactly wrong. Incompetence does not explain getting 100% of decisions wrong because our leaders would have achieved better health outcomes by flipping a coin. The only reasonable conclusion is that maximizing public health was not the goal. Our leaders obviously had a different goal. UEP seems unlikely. But cover for forcing a reduction in oil consumption, and implementing tools useful for maintaining social order in a collapse seem reasonable.
    4. Maybe the mRNA debacle was nothing more than a side-show with pharma playing along to achieve their own goal of fast tracking approval for a highly profitable patented vaccine platform to replace traditional vaccines that were waning in effectiveness and patent protection. Maybe this explains why China and Russia did not use mRNA and why the west never criticized them for doing so, but pounded any country that did anything that threatened the EUA for mRNA, like India with their Ivermectin success.

    https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/what-cannot-continue-will-stop

    “The global economy was facing the worst collapse since the second world war as coronavirus began to strike in March, well before the height of the crisis, according to the latest Brookings-FT tracking index. “The index comes as the IMF prepares to hold virtual spring meetings this week, when it will release forecasts showing the deepest contraction for the global economy since the 1930s great depression.

    At this point it got serious. The Central Banks determined that they were running out of track so the Ultimate Extinction Plan (UEP) was activated. Many trillions of dollars were dumped into the global economy under the cover of Covid relief to prevent the above-mentioned collapse, and the Rat Juice death shots were rolled out to prepare for the end game – extermination.

    This new stimulus, along with upwards of USD One Trillion Dollars of new debt in America every 100 days, has kept the train rumbling down the track. However in the past couple of years inflation has reared its ugly head, a product of trillions of dollars sloshing around the economy and increasingly expensive energy production costs.

    The Central Banks are now screwed.

    The massive private and public debt loads incurred when interest rates were at record lows are already unsustainable at 5% making further increases unlikely. Reducing rates will only fuel the raging inflationary fires.

    This looks to be the final act of civilization. The camel is staggering under the twin burdens of high interest rates applied to eye-watering debt, and punishing inflation.

    What cannot continue will stop. The question is when.

    Tick Tock….

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  45. My generation had it good and made a mess for young people, although thanks to MPP and MORT, young people would probably do the same in the same circumstances. 😦

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    1. Look at how the rich kids from Tiktok and Instagram live. Their lifestyles are incredibly excessive with the plastic, plane flights, shopping, unboxing, hauls, etc. etc.

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      1. I use TikTok once in while for focused searches like how to make a French omelet or dal. A bunch of short videos can be a good way to get ideas.

        When I occasionally browse trending TikTok videos it scares me. A lot of young people are entitled vacant lots.

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  46. Hideaway…

    https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-june-19-2024/#comment-777328

    OFM … This bit, is the contrary bit that most people never seem to want to understand….

    “to build some HVDC transmission lines, some wind and solar farms, and millions of electric vehicles”

    The, to build whatever, takes a lot of mining of raw materials to do, of on average lower grade ores than we’ve had in the past. This means more energy needed to do it, then transport it, then process it, then transport it again to manufacturing facilities, that need to be built and have machinery installed before they can make anything, which is more energy in raw materials, more experts needed to plan, build, equip and run these new factories etc.

    It means the entire system needs to grow to make it happen, more energy needed to be used, to make it happen.

    What do we do? We use more coal to make more cement, more coal to make more steel for both the buildings and machinery in the buildings, whether processing plants at mines or in manufacturing facilities.

    Once peak oil has set in, with prices skyrocketing, and new production just not happening, (because it’s the real peak!!) then the energetic ability to do any of this new grand building has gone.

    With a lag from peak oil, coal and gas will also peak, as we use oil to gain access to coal and gas, all currently done with incredible complexity. As the system of modernity unwinds from a high energy using complexity, to a simpler system, we will no longer have the complexity to gain the oil from many remaining fields, which will accelerate to downslope of oil availability.

    The situation will be completely the opposite of what has happened in the last 200 years of increasing energy availability, the rules of economics from the last 2 centuries will no longer apply. No-one seems to want to understand this. The real problem is the 8 billion humans and still growing about to be confronted by less energy, less food, more unstable climate, where the natural world is rapidly disappearing.

    To think “Build more” is any type of solution, is a failure to understand the problem of humans building too much already, by too many of us, depleting all the high grade resources. A single 350 tonne excavator at a large opencut mine, with 2 drivers operating in 12 hour shifts will move the earth that it would take 54,000 fit, healthy, humans to do the same. These types of machines are highly complex, relying on a huge supply chain of fuel and parts that will all be non operable in a world of falling energy availability.

    The hand wave of we’ll build more of this, that, or whatever, is not going to happen in a world of an accelerating decline in oil availability. Those resources we currently get from isolated places will become unavailable and that’s where all the new mines are on average, as we’ve mined out all the close to civilization minerals…

    Once collapse happens, there will be no areas of modernity left, as all modernity relies upon a 6 continent supply chain remaining active. The fall of complexity will make most of the remaining required resources, unobtainable, all while a rapidly falling population fight each other over the last scraps of food and vegetation for heat..

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  47. B is thinking about similar issues as Hideaway. Today’s essay does a nice job of restating our overshoot issues, but is also a bit of a rambling mess with conflicting conclusions.

    But don’t worry, we’ve got decades (in one paragraph) or generations (in another paragraph) to adjust to our new reality, as long as our leaders don’t do something stupid like fight to maintain BAU.

    Me thinks B’s MORT circuit is struggling with awareness.

    https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/could-we-go-back-to-the-1950s-please

    The important thing to understand here, is that finite resources always had the annoying tendency to run out — no matter how carefully we husband them. In our case that meant that we were forced to go after ever more energy expensive to mine stuff. First, we went after the easiest to get minerals, like copper and gold nuggets lying around in shallow river bends. Then, when those tasty nuggets ran out, we picked up a shovel to dig up the shore. Then we went up the mountainside with a pickax and a horse-drawn cart to open a small mine. Then we invented steam engines to pump the water out from those mine-shafts going deeper and deeper… Till we ended up blowing up entire mountains, hauling ever poorer quality ores on ever larger trucks; carrying their load to ever larger mills using ever more fuel, ever more (pumped) water and ever more toxic chemicals to leach out an ever meager amount of copper per ton of rock. Note, that this is an ever accelerating process, as we not only needed to mine more material than ever year after year to keep up with growing demand, but we also had to do this at an ever increasing energy cost per unit.

    Sure, many of our methods and devices got much-much more energy efficient, but in the end it really did not matter. Technological advancement did not make any high quality resources more plentiful, it has only opened up more and more, lower and lower quality resources for extraction. All this has created an illusion of plenty; at the hidden expense of an exponentially growing energy demand. And while it’s true that our processes got significantly more sophisticated and efficient over time, the comparison only stands using the same resources as inputs. Considering, however, how overall resource quality has declined over the past seven decades, as we run out of the easy to get stuff, all of our efficiency gains were eventually erased, then reversed.

    So no, there is no going back to the 1950’s. Ecosystems, species count, mineral resources, oil, the climate — just to name a few — are all in a much worse shape already than they ever were. Meanwhile, our population has more than tripled, requiring more food and water than ever in this planet’s history. Underground freshwater reserves are already in the process of being depleted by mining and agriculture, or being poisoned by these processes. At the same time extracting all kinds of resources from oil to copper, or from sand to groundwater, got multiple times more energy intensive, ruining the fantastic return on investment ratios previous generations enjoyed… The very thing what made them so prosperous.

    I cannot give bulletproof recipes, though; that would require knowing how things would unfold exactly. For now I can only lay out the fundamentals based on what I learned so far: The future will be small, local and low-tech. Much will depend on our ruling class accepting this simple fact of life, and refraining from trying to “bring back the good ol’ days”… (With our current crop of delusional elites, I have to say, I’m not fully optimistic.) So, while there might be a great turmoil, as the current economic model based on growth fails in a most spectacular fashion, the coming simplification will not be a destination we could arrive at in a decade, rather a journey lasting for generations to come.

    The end of this civilization, however, is not the end of the world, nor the human race. Yes, it will be a painful and chaotic transition interspersed with periods of relative calm. Facing it in full awareness of the facts will help us keep our sanity and make sound decisions down the line. The coming decades will be a massive come to Jesus moment for many folks living around you; be sure to share this information with them when they finally seem to be ready to hear it. Act as an anchor of sanity within your community, and try to keep others away from fanatics and demagogues promising a quick fix to something, that is impossible to fix.

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    1. I didn’t find it that rambling, however it might be because I’ve followed those types of rabbit holes before.

      I found this bit sums it all up…

      “Any industrial civilization is by definition unsustainable, no matter how slow they burn through their resources.”

      Only I’d use “Every” instead of “Any”, plus it applies across the universe and fully explains the Fermi paradox..

      Every industrial civilization, of every species to reach it, has overshot the resource carrying capacity and collapsed.

      Every intelligent species that has worked out industrial civilization was not sustainable, never tried to industrialize in the first place.

      One other point that most people in the collapse sphere seem to not want to understand, that collapse will be quick, not a slow process over decades or centuries, our urbanization and 6 continent supply chains guarantees it.

      Most aware people like to look at how long Rome took to collapse as a guide, but Rome was relatively small compared to today’s civilization and relied upon human and animal muscle for all non food energy, they don’t seem to understand that the 6 continent supply chain for fuel, machines and parts needs to keep going or food will rapidly stop flowing to the cities.

      The chance of survival for people in cities is close to zero when collapse happens, with very similar odds for those that live anywhere near a city facing the hordes trying to escape…

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      1. I expect that many of us doomers that began awareness with a peak oil focus have in the back of our minds a faint hope that some wise alien species somewhere might constrain their growth and perfect fusion thus creating a sustainable advanced civilization.

        Your education to us here on the significance of metals and other non-energy resources has had a big impact on my thinking.

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    2. We better get good at recycling metals or we’re headed back to the Stone Age (literally).

      Look at my quote above from Sir Fred Hoyle.

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  48. Dr. Joe Lee’s answer to the question, “why is everyone so silent on the String Theory?” is wrong.

    Lee’s interpersonal skills and writing style make him look like a nut job, despite probably being right.

    He blocked me about a year ago for trying to help by providing some tough love.

    https://josephyleemd.substack.com/p/why-is-everyone-so-silent-on-the

    @janesherrard1 because the doctors/scientists who are in this business? are SHOCKED that they’re such DUMB idiots.

    and scientists OUTSIDE this shitty IMMUNOLOGY/vaccine lane? are too wary of commenting on this “antivax” issue and being called out as DUMB.

    @janesherrard1 What the dumb immunologists/vaccinologists/and pediatricians idiotically created?

    a veritable CITY OF CARDS.

    Not just a house of cards. a CITY. with a foundation based on ONE stupid assumption.

    They DID find an antibody against a virus in the blood of the patient. I

    @janesherrard1 So what. If the first antibody they ever found against a virus was an HIV antibody?

    They would have LEARNED that

    “oh, damn. there’s an HIV antibody. The patient still died. I guess antibodies in the blood against a virus is useless.”

    @janesherrard1 and with THAT stupid ASSUMPTION they made an ASS out of HUNDREDS of thousands of immunologists/vaccinologists/pediatricians over the past 200 years.

    @janesherrard1 but the idiot Fauci? He was RIGHT THERE when HIV came to America. He SAW those patients all make HIV antibodies and it be COMPLETELY useless.

    For THAT IDIOT? to STILL think that antibodies will help against viruses???? I can’t even DESCRIBE how STUPID or EVIL he is.

    @janesherrard1 You know why my work is so easy? Because FAUCI and company are THIS stupid.

    At the pool yesterday? of course my job is to talk to ALL parents with vaccine age children.

    EASY as PIE to convert parents to being antivaccine.

    @janesherrard1 “You DO know that antibiotics don’t work against viruses but DO work well against bacteria?

    any parent. “of course.”

    “well, antibodies are the same thing. They work GREAT against bacteria but not at ALL against viruses.”

    The parent, now MAD at her pediatrician.

    @janesherrard1 “oh, and let me tell you what no parent of toddler age kids seem to know. pediatricians come from the BOTTOM HALF of their med school class. Many of them, the bottom 10% of their med school class.

    You don’t have to REALLY respect them. They’re PRETENDERS —

    @janesherrard1 but be nice to them, becuz the idiots won’t give you antibiotics then, when your kids need them.

    just act SHOCKED that the pediatricians can’t refute the STRING video which I showed you. on their @AmerAcadPeds

    and that’s how EASY to make parents who LOVE their kids? Antivax

    @janesherrard1 @AmerAcadPeds they RECOGNIZE that if I make such a STRONG case of this STRING mechanism?

    being UNABLE to REFUTE this String mechanism that shows EXACTLY how vaccines DAMAGE by having the MAIN EFFECT of causing PRECIPITINS/CLOTS

    unable to REFUTE? but STILL vaccinating??? DARK HEARTS.

    @janesherrard1 @AmerAcadPeds Unable to REFUTE the STRING? but STILL continuing with your SICK blood money vaccinations?

    who would do this but docs from the BOTTOM of their FUCKING med school class???

    Oh, when mothers find out how STUPID you idiots are? All hell will break loose.

    @janesherrard1 @AmerAcadPeds so when other docs are deathly afraid to comment on this issue? Because it’s not THEIR lane? and they don’t want to look like an ANTIVAXXER and be thought to be STUPID?

    The STUPID pediatricians? got ONE PR move right. They made the public believe that ANTIVAXXERS were STUPID

    @janesherrard1 @AmerAcadPeds and with THAT one HORRIFIC move, the idiots SEALED their OWN fate. Because NO immunologist could EVER ask difficult questions again at any other vaccine conference.

    what they do? it’s more like kumbaya at a campfire, their vaccine conferences. all feel good, no questions.

    @janesherrard1 @AmerAcadPeds and THESE were the idiots the public thought CARED about their children.

    No, they’re more analogous to the high priests of HUMAN CHILD SACRIFICE than thoughtful caring physicians you can trust your child with.

    @janesherrard1 @AmerAcadPeds this is an ABSOLUTE FACT that if they can’t refute the String? and YET continue to vaccinate?

    DEPRAVED INDIFFERENCE and worthy of MURDER CHARGES.

    Pedophiles horrible specimens of humanity?

    Pediatricians who can’t refute the String and STILL vaccinate? HOW DIFFERENT???

    @janesherrard1 @AmerAcadPeds when I tell RFKjr, you don’t even have to AGREE with me. RFKjr I KNOW you’re SO damn worried about YOUR reputation don’t want to be thought of as dumb.

    so, you’re the most FAMOUS antivaxxer on earth who can’t even CALL himself an antivaxxer.

    “You don’t have to agree with me.

    @janesherrard1 @AmerAcadPeds since you’re SOOO worried about your DAMN reputation and what OTHERS think of you.

    But you can’t stay SILENT on this. If you DO?

    Have you heard? that saying? Silence of “good” men?

    They mean silent men are PARTICIPATING IN THE EVIL by their SILENCE.

    @janesherrard1 @AmerAcadPeds Can “medicines” that evolution evolve for us have side effects? Sure.

    Does the antibody work great against bacteria? Sure.

    Then why does the antibody form against a virus? Because it’s a SIDE EFFECT.

    @janesherrard1 @AmerAcadPeds The vaccine industry?

    Built their CITY OF CARDS on a side effect of a medication that evolution evolved for us for EXTRACELLULAR PATHOGENS.

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    1. I’d love Doctor Lee to look into the idea that viruses don’t exist (or maybe some viruses don’t exist). I need to try and watch some more of his content when I have a bit more time

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  49. Nice, Julian Assange is free.

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  50. In the last 2 weeks I’ve had 4 interactions with different people I know. Every one of them has strange virus like health problems, all serious enough to visit their doctors.

    All transfected with mRNA. Something seems to be going on.

    Anyone out there seeing similar strangeness?

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        1. Hi Rob,

          Just checking in to roger your assessment and also give a heads up that I’ll be rather silent on the comment front (which is probably a good thing, the Chicago song lyrics “Everyone needs some time away” comes to mind!) as my husband is coming up to our subtropical property for his annual working holiday where we try to tame the jungle in 3 weeks. Every year seems an urgency to prepare more land, plant more, but this year it’s gone into hyperdrive and we will just do our best with what energy we have. Just being outside working purposefully together is a pleasure and privilege that means more than ever now, as we know the time remaining in relative peace and indulgent ease is limited. I will definitely enjoy my daily visit to this site and send all my best wishes to everyone here and hope things will remain as steady and stable as they can be as long as possible. I am only too aware that every day we have is one closer to when our world becomes irretrievable, and that is both a doom and release.

          But back to the general health of my social circle and their families–I unequivocally can state that it has been a downward slope for the majority ever since Covid and the ensuing interventional sequelae erupted. I have made earlier comments on this but as to date, I can attest to knowing people who have died suddenly, developed turbo cancers (and then died, or are quickly dying), contracted one cold, flu, pneumonia or Covid after another (the record I know is someone getting Covid 4 times, and each bout taking several weeks to get over). Many are left with residual respiratory symptoms, chronic cough is common and one previous fit and healthy middle aged adult now has severe asthma after getting pneumonia in the summer time. I know people who suddenly developed heart problems, neurological problems including worsening of dementia or new onset dementia, autoimmune issues, blood clotting issues, chronic fatigue and pain. In the first year after the mRNA roll-out, 10 elderly friends or elderly parents of friends died, unheard of in that time frame despite being in the older age cohort. It’s not just elderly people who are getting sick, the turbo cancers (3) and sudden deaths (2) were in younger groups.

          It’s the rate of change in decline as well as severity over all cohorts that is so alarming, and of course the increased incidence. Now when I don’t hear from someone for a little time, I naturally start to think something untoward happened to them healthwise. I cannot confirm the vaccination status of all those with morbidity but I would have to say most received the injections at least 3 times, (the initial 2 shot and a booster) as Australia, and especially Tasmania, had a high uptake rate. You might recall that Australia was a guinea pig country of sorts as the population didn’t have a chance to be exposed to Covid naturally before the vaccine roll-out, so most people’s immune systems were trained through the vaccine and seem to be showing the repercussions of that hijacked mechanism of incomplete immunity thereafter.

          Sorry to end with this rather discouraging assessment, time will tell how much further the decline in health status will go, and of course there’s the next pandemic bird flu literally waiting in the wings (ha, a pun!)

          Thank you and warmest wishes to everyone here, all your contributions are most appreciated and I am filled with gladness and wonder to be able to share this concluding part of a very long journey with you here. We are a fellowship and will help see each other through till the last.

          Namaste, friends.

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          2. Thanks Gaia. As you know I’m a bit of a loner so my sample size is too small to be confident of trends but your bigger social circle confirms what I see.

            It’s remarkable that our leaders remain silent. No advice for people on how to strengthen their immune systems, no announcement of research to figure out how to undo mRNA damage, no cancelation of further transfections, nothing, silence.

            Obviously public health is not a priority.

            Good luck with your food forest expansion and hubby visit.

            Hopefully we’ll hear from you again in a few months.

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