Daily Pill
Still Searching
I came back from the Holiday with a lot on my mind. I guess I am a bit sorry for the previous post. I do feel that money has too much value placed on it, but that feeling comes from an point of view that 90% of the rest of the population does not hold. I forget that it's VERY hard to see things from my point of view and everyone (including myself) likes to avoid bad news even if it is absolutely true. We tend to spin things and find fault in them if they don't jive with our core beliefs - and that is just as true for myself as it is for other people and theirs. It doesn't help that I don't have any answers or even comprehend our situation to the level where I can see the big picture and make long term decisions based on what I think is happening or will happen.
The reality is that most folks are still doing just fine as far as they are concerned. They don't feel too much pressure and don't really understand how close we probably are to the end of our current way of life. Most don't understand what seems to have been going on for the past 30+ years and I only caught on about 4-5 years ago myself. Even now I barely grasp the enormity of the problems ahead of us. The previous generations have no reason to understand what is happening because nothing like our current situation has ever occurred in our world history. To most there is still a lot of our world out there left untapped (a polite way of saying "un-used-up"), but never before in history did we have such a huge population entirely dependent on so few resources.
The Baby Boomer generation is likely to be the next big catastrophe - they outnumber the next generation by a lot - and as they retire and expect to cash out their investments in property, stocks or whatever, the fact that there's nobody behind them in a position to buy their accumulated wealth is going to come as a shock. The current economic situation just exacerbates the situation for them. Since the generation(s) behind the baby boomers do not have access to the resources the baby boomers had and the numbers of retirees coming up in the next 15 years is huge, we're going to see an overabundance of houses and other investments on the market that need to be sold to pay for retirement and health care costs. At our current rate of inflation and the devaluation of the dollar that is likely due to the trillions of newly printed (unbacked) copies, even if they are able to cash out, they will likely have to continue working to support themselves until they no longer can. The wealth split is greater than ever - and most of that wealth is held by the baby boomers themselves, so there's nobody there to pay it forward.
To expand on the subject and really get a good grasp of the current situation, I think this video chapter series from ChrisMartenson.com does a better job than I can of explaining what the hell is going on right now and why the current economic problems make perfect sense once you get a clearer picture of the problems. He's a hell of a lot better at articulating the problems I believe we are facing than I can.
The main angst I have stems around my lack of faith that we will continue to survive as we have been for any length of time. It's not just the oil/coal depletion, overpopulation or even global warming that has me tossing and turning at night - it's the fact that all sustainable and peaceful societies eventually get wiped out by more aggressive and resource hungry ones. As much as I wish for a society that is sustainable, the likelihood that those that are the most resource hungry will allow a society in balance (one with no growth and with sustained resources - allowing it to go "underutilized") is nearly zero. I can't think of any time in history where the peaceful/balanced/sustainable society has not been conquered by an aggressive/waring/resource hungry one. We are the product of thousands of years of those very societies. The winners. Peoples that have conquered and killed or enslaved everyone and everything in our path. Our very society is based on continued growth and prosperity and a sense of entitlement and ownership of everything around us. We have created a culture where we are born into debt and entitled to nothing - and we are rewarded for pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and beating out the competition for jobs, status and property throughout our lifetimes. Society rewards us for "success" - the more we consume, collect and conquer, the more respect and admiration we gain. We need a big home to be happy, to consume our desires and to reproduce with abandon... but not if we're "Poor" - then you are a problem, looked down upon, pitied or ridiculed. We pass this message on to each generation almost without fail.
We have lost our ability to sustain ourselves in our own environment right now. Back in the late 1980's we HAD to import our main energy source to keep growing. If we were to close the boarders of the US today and not be able to import anything - we would see massive collapse immediately of everything we hold dear as a society. We don't even produce enough energy to sustain ourselves within our own countries borders so we need to "borrow" from other people around the world - and by borrow I mean trade for printed money, steal, kill and otherwise take control of those resources by any means necessary. The problem is that the globe as a whole is running out of our energy source, so we're having to go into areas that were previously thought of as too risky to deal with... We're the biggest "fake" society in the world right now and the truth is finally beginning to come to light and now that I understand it I feel like an ass.
Just the fact that you are born onto this planet with no rights to any part of it is hard for me to grasp. I was lucky to be born into this greedy social structure - I feel guilty for the way we all consume so much and do so little for the rest of the world, but it is better to be behind the guns than looking down the barrel of them I suppose. None the less, it is still painful to realize that the things I consume daily come at the cost of others less fortunate than I am and that I will likely leave this planet in much worse shape than when I was born into it despite my meager and pathetic personal efforts... It all goes with the continued growth of everything - it would be silly for me to expect the earth to be ours to share and take care of and pass along to future generations in better shape than when we got it... That we would have the maturity to keep our populations sustainable and provide everyone with everything they need from birth on. We don't even extend that courtesy to each other in the present, so there's even less chance that we'll extend it to future generations, so in a way I feel disgusted and doomed at the same time.
I have no faith that Hummers will turn into horses or that McDonalds will become Old Mcdonald's Farm. Not by choice - perhaps by forced and painful necessity... I see a glimmer of hope in some areas - somewhat sustainable lifestyles are emerging here and there - but they are far outpaced and outnumbered by the resource hungry and the pseudo-sustainable lifestyles that are much easier to adopt, rewarded by society and backed by 80% of the wealth of the nation. The ethanol cars, the biodegradable bottles, the new organics that are shipped even farther around the country than the non-organic brands. The hybrid cars and florescent light bulbs that take more energy to produce than we would lose using up the current gas guzzling cars or burning out the incandescent bulbs we already have. It's nearly impossible to know what to do - the information machine is playing both sides and trying to make money in the process, so finding the truth is tough - and you can't blame people for trying even if it is misguided.
The problem is that truly sustainable lifestyles are ridiculed and looked down upon as "backwards" or even dangerous by society despite it's "Green Movement". So I sit here struggling and searching for answers to the questions of what should I be doing. What should I be doing for my family, friends, neighbors, myself? Not knowing the outcome of the current situation or how long it will take is the hardest part of it all. Why try to save up money for land when the future of money and land itself is so uncertain? Will the dollar collapse under the weight of so many trillions of worthless printed copies? If so, what do I do with the money I am saving up to keep it from becoming worthless too? Will the economic situation lead to a total collapse of all social safety nets? Should I be arming myself to protect what little I have done to prepare for an uncertain future? The news says that firearms are selling in record numbers these days - what does that mean for those of us that don't want to ever have to own a gun - are we foolish for being passive? The answers are not easy - especially when I want a better future for my family... ...and then there is the social outcast feeling I get when I try to explain myself to anyone. It's tough and I am still searching...
I will try to post on things as I decide what to do next.
The reality is that most folks are still doing just fine as far as they are concerned. They don't feel too much pressure and don't really understand how close we probably are to the end of our current way of life. Most don't understand what seems to have been going on for the past 30+ years and I only caught on about 4-5 years ago myself. Even now I barely grasp the enormity of the problems ahead of us. The previous generations have no reason to understand what is happening because nothing like our current situation has ever occurred in our world history. To most there is still a lot of our world out there left untapped (a polite way of saying "un-used-up"), but never before in history did we have such a huge population entirely dependent on so few resources.
The Baby Boomer generation is likely to be the next big catastrophe - they outnumber the next generation by a lot - and as they retire and expect to cash out their investments in property, stocks or whatever, the fact that there's nobody behind them in a position to buy their accumulated wealth is going to come as a shock. The current economic situation just exacerbates the situation for them. Since the generation(s) behind the baby boomers do not have access to the resources the baby boomers had and the numbers of retirees coming up in the next 15 years is huge, we're going to see an overabundance of houses and other investments on the market that need to be sold to pay for retirement and health care costs. At our current rate of inflation and the devaluation of the dollar that is likely due to the trillions of newly printed (unbacked) copies, even if they are able to cash out, they will likely have to continue working to support themselves until they no longer can. The wealth split is greater than ever - and most of that wealth is held by the baby boomers themselves, so there's nobody there to pay it forward.
To expand on the subject and really get a good grasp of the current situation, I think this video chapter series from ChrisMartenson.com does a better job than I can of explaining what the hell is going on right now and why the current economic problems make perfect sense once you get a clearer picture of the problems. He's a hell of a lot better at articulating the problems I believe we are facing than I can.
The main angst I have stems around my lack of faith that we will continue to survive as we have been for any length of time. It's not just the oil/coal depletion, overpopulation or even global warming that has me tossing and turning at night - it's the fact that all sustainable and peaceful societies eventually get wiped out by more aggressive and resource hungry ones. As much as I wish for a society that is sustainable, the likelihood that those that are the most resource hungry will allow a society in balance (one with no growth and with sustained resources - allowing it to go "underutilized") is nearly zero. I can't think of any time in history where the peaceful/balanced/sustainable society has not been conquered by an aggressive/waring/resource hungry one. We are the product of thousands of years of those very societies. The winners. Peoples that have conquered and killed or enslaved everyone and everything in our path. Our very society is based on continued growth and prosperity and a sense of entitlement and ownership of everything around us. We have created a culture where we are born into debt and entitled to nothing - and we are rewarded for pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and beating out the competition for jobs, status and property throughout our lifetimes. Society rewards us for "success" - the more we consume, collect and conquer, the more respect and admiration we gain. We need a big home to be happy, to consume our desires and to reproduce with abandon... but not if we're "Poor" - then you are a problem, looked down upon, pitied or ridiculed. We pass this message on to each generation almost without fail.
We have lost our ability to sustain ourselves in our own environment right now. Back in the late 1980's we HAD to import our main energy source to keep growing. If we were to close the boarders of the US today and not be able to import anything - we would see massive collapse immediately of everything we hold dear as a society. We don't even produce enough energy to sustain ourselves within our own countries borders so we need to "borrow" from other people around the world - and by borrow I mean trade for printed money, steal, kill and otherwise take control of those resources by any means necessary. The problem is that the globe as a whole is running out of our energy source, so we're having to go into areas that were previously thought of as too risky to deal with... We're the biggest "fake" society in the world right now and the truth is finally beginning to come to light and now that I understand it I feel like an ass.
Just the fact that you are born onto this planet with no rights to any part of it is hard for me to grasp. I was lucky to be born into this greedy social structure - I feel guilty for the way we all consume so much and do so little for the rest of the world, but it is better to be behind the guns than looking down the barrel of them I suppose. None the less, it is still painful to realize that the things I consume daily come at the cost of others less fortunate than I am and that I will likely leave this planet in much worse shape than when I was born into it despite my meager and pathetic personal efforts... It all goes with the continued growth of everything - it would be silly for me to expect the earth to be ours to share and take care of and pass along to future generations in better shape than when we got it... That we would have the maturity to keep our populations sustainable and provide everyone with everything they need from birth on. We don't even extend that courtesy to each other in the present, so there's even less chance that we'll extend it to future generations, so in a way I feel disgusted and doomed at the same time.
I have no faith that Hummers will turn into horses or that McDonalds will become Old Mcdonald's Farm. Not by choice - perhaps by forced and painful necessity... I see a glimmer of hope in some areas - somewhat sustainable lifestyles are emerging here and there - but they are far outpaced and outnumbered by the resource hungry and the pseudo-sustainable lifestyles that are much easier to adopt, rewarded by society and backed by 80% of the wealth of the nation. The ethanol cars, the biodegradable bottles, the new organics that are shipped even farther around the country than the non-organic brands. The hybrid cars and florescent light bulbs that take more energy to produce than we would lose using up the current gas guzzling cars or burning out the incandescent bulbs we already have. It's nearly impossible to know what to do - the information machine is playing both sides and trying to make money in the process, so finding the truth is tough - and you can't blame people for trying even if it is misguided.
The problem is that truly sustainable lifestyles are ridiculed and looked down upon as "backwards" or even dangerous by society despite it's "Green Movement". So I sit here struggling and searching for answers to the questions of what should I be doing. What should I be doing for my family, friends, neighbors, myself? Not knowing the outcome of the current situation or how long it will take is the hardest part of it all. Why try to save up money for land when the future of money and land itself is so uncertain? Will the dollar collapse under the weight of so many trillions of worthless printed copies? If so, what do I do with the money I am saving up to keep it from becoming worthless too? Will the economic situation lead to a total collapse of all social safety nets? Should I be arming myself to protect what little I have done to prepare for an uncertain future? The news says that firearms are selling in record numbers these days - what does that mean for those of us that don't want to ever have to own a gun - are we foolish for being passive? The answers are not easy - especially when I want a better future for my family... ...and then there is the social outcast feeling I get when I try to explain myself to anyone. It's tough and I am still searching...
I will try to post on things as I decide what to do next.
posted by VirP at
3:55 PM
5 Comments:
Even though math makes my brain ache and smolder, I'm glad my feed reader caught the first version with that YouTube video in it. Good stuff...though I think I'd almost rather have taken the blue pill at times.
Yeah, "The Most Important Video You'll Ever See" is a good one, but the new link I put on there is more comprehensive and covers the same topics.
I felt I had to rewrite my post after I stopped to read it again as it came across as accusatory - which was not my intention. The new post covers my main feelings at the moment. It's a difficult time for me right now - lots of decisions that have a huge impact on my comfort and happiness in the future.
I am also confused by the mix of emotions - one of excitement and acceptance of change - and one of near terror as I am at the bottom of the income level right now and our business is likely to tank this year along with others...
There is a mental sidestep around this. You know that I hold as true everything that you have covered here. I had a key thought for me a few months ago, and you touched on it briefly here. - being born with an equal right and ward of the earth. It was a shocking thought that I have exactly the same rights and responsibilities for my earth, exactly equal to every other person alive - no fences, no property ownership, this is my world as it is to every living thing.
The mental trick I thought of to help me through is this. Once you have the paradigm shift that you have described, you also need to recognize that you are now living enemy territory. You are an embedded conspirator living in a society that cannot embrace what must be done. The trick is to think and act as a revolutionary, to accept that having understood the collapse underway and required, you are now barred from entering the mind numbing main stream again. You really can't put on the headset (TV, media) and slip back in tune. We are forever out of tune yet horribly aware of what is happening.
But by being outside that stream you have to realize that you are now FREE from Robert's Rules of Order. You decide your own actions, and everything after the moment that the first plow touched soil is suspect including the entirety of written history. It was a bad idea that is being played out in your lifetime (I suspect I'll only catch the opening acts).
As to stores of value, it feels like a crapshoot, nearly hopeless trying to preserve capital. I'm still thinking gold, weapons and ammunition as trade items, and a complete and thorough understanding of really good alcohol reflux stills (the best quality drinking alcohol - not fuel). Cash money and land will both be in excess and decreasing in value for generations.
I recently counseled a friend that all I could think to do is to take advantage of every opportunity offered. Not to exclude himself from local flows of value, instead to take them, convert them to more durable assets (yes again, which ones, gold, silver, booze, guns and ammunition).
We are the new ragtag underground of a collapsing society which must remain in complete denial until it actually burns. That will be the day to get gone.
alan
Come up with anything, yet?
I can't say that I have really come up with any answers at this point. A lot has changed in the past month which is why I have not really felt like blogging all that much... That being said, it is time for me to get motivated again.
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