Giant,

As one of the TOD geezers, it seems to me you are focusing on stuff to the exclusion of social relationships. In many respects, relationships took the place of "stuff." This was true of adults as well as kids. While the adults would sit on the porch in the evening and talk (now and then). We kids would play hide and seek, red light/green light or kick the can.

The same thing was true on a community level where you knew everybody because you had all lived in the same area "forever."

The place I would start were I interested in sustainability (which I am) would be to determine why we were happy back then with little "stuff." When I was a kid our appliances consisted of a stove, refrigerator, a toaster and a radio. My "toys" were a BB gun, hatchet and a butcher knife (I lived in the country). We spent our time outside almost all the time.

Once you can understand why we were happy then you will be able to approach sustainability appropriately.

Todd

OK, Dave, good to hear hope. Sure, doom isn't inevitable, just likely.

Now, for me, back to fun and games with solar stirling engines. I am getting close.

"they will realize the only road to survival is collective action",

when tshtf it is optimistic to think people will react in a rational reasoned way.A large percentage will not have the slightest notion of why things are coming undone and so only by chance could they engage the appropriate response.even if everyone did understand there response would most likely be emotional.
the social fabric has already come apart in many places of the world .if your wondering what it might look like here . . things tend to be reduced to there most base of human nature ,violence ,regional warlords ext.

"there is nothing that makes doom inevitable."
death makes doom inevitable. . .

but your right we should try, we do have brains and are able to consider the future .but collapse appears to be the solution.
im sure some humans will survive we are the most adaptive species ever yes? we were just a little to immature to handle responsibly all that free energy we found. imagine if we understood what we had in the beginning and took the long view in respect to the world we built out out of ff. we probably wouldn't be burning it in cars.

"When they figure out that they are permanently out of the middle class, they will realize the only road to survival is collective action"

Why do you conclude that people will realize this? Surely an educated understanding of political theory and some knowledge of social history would be necessary for this to occur.

Cassandra was enslaved, raped and murdered.

I think there's a moral and ethical imperative to speak out till one truly believes it is hopeless. At that point, you might have the right idea.

Taking another tack, or going off on a tangent we've discussed before, a huge, red flashing sign is how hard it is to get even like-minded people together to make preparations. Three years now, and I've not even come close till recently, and even that is a loose association.

Cheers

The English Civil war too.

Apart from being an outstanding cavalry commander,Oliver Cromwell was a puritan who slaughtered plenty of Irish non combatants just for being Catholic. He qualifies as a wacko in my books.

Please don't use Ghandi and purity in the same sentence. He was a dirty old man who used to have his niece lie naked next to him. He also screwed up the independence of India as the British had already promised independence when he started his civil disobedience campaign in '42 (caused countless needless deaths). A Ghandi type is not the sort I would want to lead a revolution.

TOd'ers should form there own community or transition town somewhere if your all convinced of the accuracy of your assessment of the situation and willing act as many here claim necessary , i would volunteer.

"What Ghandi of intellectual purity is available to us?"

Nate Hagens obviously. .8-)

yea the wonders of the age of oil. . the most potent resource ever and we had a stoned orgy for two centuries . . well y'know one thing just sorta led to another. .

Actually, most revolutions that take place may have more to do with technology than anything. We tend to break things down into Lower, Middle and Upper Classes, but I'd actually argue that there's actually at least a fourth class in there (there are many more, but that fourth one is critical) that I'd call the professional technologists. They are usually intellectual thought leaders, are typically more skilled with emerging technologies that provide a significant monetary advantage, and usually start out with modest to moderate incomes but are often at the forefront in terms of education. Especially when the technologies involved are in the information/communication space, this can have a significant advantage.

The lower class typically has very little effect socially, save perhaps as canon fodder, and quite often they are manipulated by the upper class in power to remain largely supportive of the existing status quo. They are, in general, very conservative, not terribly well educated, and unlikely to challenge the established media. The middle class, overall, are vested in the system as well, save that they envision being members of the upper class, and as long as they have those dreams, they are relatively pacified. The technical class, on the other hand, usually tend to be agents of change, especially as their own positions within the hierarchy are challenged. This is part of the reason why those in power tend to be very trustful of academia and intellectuals - they historically have been the catalyzing agent for change. They also tend to be supported by a splinter group of the upper class (typically of younger generations) that are seeking their position in the power game but are otherwise locked out for one reason or another.

A revolution occurs when this technology class is able to align themselves with a faction of the military, which typically comes when either the regime in question has reached a point of being too repressive or has become sufficiently insolvent to pay its debts. The military is usually quite conservative and supports the regime, but when you have a revolutionary regime change, it's almost invariably because factions within the military either "stood down" or even supported the rebels. Without the threat of repressive reprisals, the state loses its coercive authority (typically after having lost its fiscal authority) to the average citizen, and you see a shift as the technology class finds common cause with the middle class and the "progressive" elements within the military to bring about change.

So why do revolutions seem to go bad so often? In part, because the skills necessary to run a revolution are typically exactly the opposite of those necessary to maintain a stable government. Revolutionary leaders are firebrands, highly charismatic, often likely to be very inspirational, but also feel of zeal to see their reforms cemented in place quickly, even if its not necessarily in the best interests of the people. Moreover, during revolutions, people's emotions are up, and the necessary adrenalin highs that come about from changing a repressive regime often take a while to wear off. Those in the upper class who sought to take advantage of the situation also understand that during a revolutionary moment, its often easy to depose new leaders because for the most part there's still a lot of mistrust involved on the part of both the surviving upper class (who see their authority disappearing quickly) and the lower class (who don't see immediate change in their lives, and in fact resent the disruptions that any kind of mass social movement causes).

Moreover, once the actual business of running the country (itself actually a pretty boring activity) really gets underway, the potential for corruption sets in. People don't want to give up power and prestige once acquired. The US Revolution worked largely because it was distributed, the political structures that did exist were still in flux, and there was a certain degree of autonomy that was then taken away, and even given that, it would likely have failed if it weren't for the simple logistics and costs involved in trying to wage a war from the other side of an ocean. The United States was created because it was simply too costly for England to wage war across that divide - militarily the US lost almost every encounter they were engaged in, but they succeeded by making it too expensive for England to win divisively.

Fragmentation works the same way - the ability of the central government to keep border provinces from seceding diminishes beyond a certain threshhold, usually after a period of repression after having achieved empire. It's not the repression itself - most empires enter a repressive phases as those in power become distrustful of their ability to remain in power by political means - and in most cases while that seeds the ground for the technology class to attempt to take over, it's usually very unusual for repressive regimes to spontaneously explode. However, as the ability to hold the repression in place takes its toll (it is usually very draining on the treasury) you eventually get to a stage where you have the necessary preconditions for a revolution to take place.

What that means over the next few years is that revolution is likely to become a fairly constant state of affairs for most countries until they reach a stage and size where they are effectively governable again. I think there's a strong case to be made that a military coup will take place within the next twenty five years in the US, as well as probable secessions, I think the European Union will likely disintegrate in the next five years as the contradictory needs of individual countries reach their breaking point, and I think that Federated Russia will strengthen for a while before going through a second set of contractions within the next ten to fifteen years. China may undergo its own disintegration as well (though its long bureaucratic history argues against it), and I wouldn't be surprised to see Mexico become two or three countries by 2020.

Alaska already has an Alaska Independence Party (Gov. Palin's husband was a member) that advocates for Alaska becoming a separate country. The state is resource rich, which means it can be largely self-supporting. Alaskans are known for their contrarian views and dislike of federal laws and authority. Hawaii was an independent kingdom before being taken over by Europeans and then absorbed into the U.S.. There is a very active movement within the state to reinstate a version of the Hawaiian nation. The fact that the state is more than 2000 miles from the U.S. mainland means a U.S. government in crisis will find it difficult to maintain control of the islands. As the economy contracts it will become increasingly difficult to hold on to distant outposts. These states will likely be among the first to slip away. The mainland USA will be too absorbed in trying to feed and control the masses in urban centers to deal with these distant territories. The disintegration of the US could be likened to a person experiencing hyperthermia. The body's blood is withdrawn from the extremities and concentrated in the central core to maintain essential functions.

But I agree that our democracy is broken. I think this is a combination of greed, lust for power, disproportionate size of corporations, the media, velocity of information and government intent to do what is popular and not what is right.

In his closing speech to ASPO, Nate Hagens made the point that the creation of corporations, giving them rights similar to humans, was a landmark event on the path that has led us to this point in history...

In short we have a failure of leadership and integrity.

There is the old prayer:

God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
courage to change the things we can,
and wisdom to know the difference.

Notice it doesn't say "the politicians," it says, "us." Is there a single momentous positive social change that happened without a fairly massive mobilization of the citizens? Suffrage? Civil rights? Democracy itself?

Until the general populace starts talking to one another and coming to some sort of group decision for it all to be different, it won't. We have got to stop thinking the politicians and the powerful are going to make the sorts of systemic changes that will lead to sustainable societies. They will not.

If you want a Washington or Parliament full of Mr. Smiths, then go shake your neighbors' hands, find one, and get them elected. Otherwise, this idea that government and business will fix what ails us is absolute folly.

We are they key, not them.

Cheers

"It seems at present we are being ruled by referendum and opinion pole, where vocal minorities are ensuring their voice is heard, the industrialists of course whisper in the ears of the politicians in private clubs. Basing complex decisions on the majority view of ill informed public minority opinion, or on the vested interests of massive corporations, is no way to rule a country."
Posted by Euan Mearns

But how else could things logically end up, with governments being elected. It's physically impossible for representatives to meet equally with ALL their constituents, so they interact with a relatively few. These are also generally those who have the resources to fund the next election campaign, i.e. corporate wealth. The open nature of the system makes it unconstitutional to effectively ban corporate influence on government.

The election process has two immediately evil effects. First, it destroys any real ability for government to engage in long-term thinking, and second, it converts the political offices into prizes to be won, its ALL ABOUT WINNING!! Every election is a potential doomsday for any politician and the short-term nature of the election cycle makes elections the perfect choke-chain for the economic elites to yank if a politician should stray too far "off the reservation."

All this in turn insures that any candidates promising real change are vetted out of the process relatively early on, and that the final outcome of an election has little to do with the quality of the candidate or proposition in question, but on who can deploy the most get-out-the-vote troops, whose spin doctors and ad men come up with the catchier slogan, etc.

Antoinetta III

I have taken all my money out of Wells Fargo and use USAA who now seems to be going the same route as all the other crooks.
We need to go back to Credit Unions, Unions in general for that matter.
The Banking and Financial system should be a public utility owned by the people that deposit money with them. This is absolutely obvious and the private ownership of something like the banking system is akin to the private ownership of The water systems.
Privatization sucks and will always lead to criminals enslaving the people.
It is up to us to form unions and community owned services that all participants have a stake in.
USAA still pays dividend to all the depositors since we are the owners.

It is just amazing that the criminals feel so safe. They should be terrified that they will end up hanging from a Lamp Post.

airdale

PBS ran a show a few days ago that verifies everything you are saying.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/creditcards/

Banks and credit card companies are using every possible scam they can think of to pull money out of their customer's pockets. I hope everyone will watch the show which is available at the above link. Just don't have any heavy objects nearby that could break the TV when you throw them.

In one segment, a bank president admits flat out that they program the debit card accounts so overdrafts must allowed, the owner of the account can't tell his bank to turn it off. In another segment, a banking industry trade representative claims "customers have told the banks" that, in the case of overdrafts, they want the largest checks paid first followed by progressively smaller amounts. This means a bank can more easily charge multiple overdraft fees in a single day, one for every transaction after the account goes below $0.

I urge everyone to use the smallest bank or credit union they can find in their community. They typically are more consumer friendly than the major banks.

In the UK, banks are replacing the concept of charging interest on overdrafts (because it is too complicated to understand) with the simplified concept of applying a flat rate daily charge of £1 per day for using agreed overdraft facilities up to £2500. So lets say you are £500 overdrawn on average for the year, the charge will be £365, an effective interest charge of 73%, or there about.

I was irate. Had a meeting with my bank to be told that this would not apply to my wife and I since we enjoy private banking priviliges. In other words, this extortionate levy is to be applied to the poor. The vast majority will be unaware what is happening to them, but they are going to find their debts rolling up out of control in order to line the pockets of the bankers.

I am still irate but lack the will to take this up with the Board and politicians. The banks are in any case owned by the people.

These fees are another reason to scale back the banking system in favor of hard money. There is no reason for having a financial system that is such a large percentaage of GDP. The financial system is not productive in that it does not actually produce anything and does little to bring down the cost of living. Productive enterprises like manufacturing and productive professions like engineering have been left to die. There will be an extreme price to pay for this, the current financial crisis being just the first chapter. The final chapter will be the end of free enterprise and it is a decade away.

Fiat currencies benefited from the deflationary bias of productivity since the industrial revolution; however, since the 1970’s it has become obvious that productivity cannot compensate for resource depletion and any excess currency creation will lead to inflation.
The current banking system operates as part of the government wealth confiscation system by taxing inflationary gains on savings, the interest being negative even before taxes.

It should be obvious that governments are desperate and will increasing be redistributionist in the end game we are in. Governments are declaring war on cash equivalents and forcing savers into riskier investments, with bonds in the risky category at current interest rates. There will be a true systemic breakdown, that is, beyond what the government can support, a few years out.

A wise investor will have an excess of debt over cash equivalents and hold intermediate term money in commodity linked assets and also have a reserve in precious metals.

After the complete economic collapse there will be a call for hard money, as well as a return to barter.

The government has shown complete incompetence in allowing the asset bubbles and ignoring the energy facts since the 1973 oil embargo. They are the problem and not the solution.

Usury was outlawed by the Church for a reason. Today's financial system has stooped so low that the wealthy bankers are preying on the paycheck to paycheck members of society. It was a mistake was to bail out the financial system at the expense of taxpayers. The government should be supplying only temporary support in order to do an orderly liquidation of the industry.

Hard money is power to the people. Even lowly paper money does not leave an electronic trail.

They used to be a officer only insurance and financial services company then they opened it up to enlisted back in the early 90s I think. Now I hear adds on popular blue collar channels such as ESPN when I am at the gym so I am wondering what they are up to. Either way it is not the old USAA that I originally signed up with back in the 80s.

will the "developed" world be able to adapt to life without them?

That's not what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting that agricultural fertilizer requirements probably can be reduced by 75%, and the rest produced from electrolyzed hydrogen.

I suspect that pesticides account for less than 1% of FF consumption, and due to the small scale that any necessary hydrocarbons can come from biomass.