cheerleading collapse

CHEERLEADING COLLAPSE
I eagerly await the next article over at www.americanenergycrisis.blogspot.com . He seems to have it pretty well together as far as Peak Oil impacting the economy. Whenever one of my loyal minions is having a bad hair day and can’t believe I know anything since I didn’t spend fifty grand going to school to listen to a teacher drone on from a textbook, I can point out a highly paid professionals opinion. I just refer them to the above site when it makes the same point I am ( a lot of the time, that is where I got the data to start with ). That is where I learned about the nearly 20% of oil import declines over the last two plus years. Of course, he and the Druid Dude and many others share a happy optimism about the future I don’t agree with. We will continue our long slow collapse, true, but only until we reach a certain percentage in energy decline. Then we start seeing food shortages. After that, it is all over. No happy tree hugging dance down organic garden way then. After that it is mass die off.
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As is often the case when you are absolutely convinced that everyone else has their head firmly planted up their butt, you tend to get a little harsh and sarcastic. The last post on the above site had few good things to say about doom and gloomers ( which is fair, since I’m not very fond of Yuppie Scum ). You could practically see the sneer when he accused us of wishing for the collapse. So that is what we are going to address today. Put aside the issue of hiding behind optimism, fearing that we have no control over the mass die-off in the near future. I don’t care how good you are with organic gardening, the die-off will not be kind to you unless you have a large land buffer between you and everyone else ( how can you accept that America benefited from isolation because of the oceans and yet not see that your millions of neighbors are too damn close? ). Let’s just focus on whether we want to see the collapse.
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A lot of us hide behind a BS macho façade of wanting to be super ninja warriors after the collapse. We stroke our plastic stocked semi-automatic carbines and lust after…what? A return to the simple life, or being able to kill off all the lawyers and politicians, or escaping from a job of shuffling papers in a cubicle. Seeing the ex-wife brutally violated and then put in the Pleasure Brigade of marauding bandits ( that’s my vote ). To give meaning to our drab lives. Whatever. I’m sure a lot of you have your own reasons for wishing to see the collapse. But I don’t actually believe any of us seriously want it, beyond the point of escapism fantasy. The few that genuinely do, they are most likely already in prison for other anti-social behavior. No matter our problems with modern society, we all know how blessed we are. That we are living at levels above ancient kings. Even those of us on minimum wage, we have a higher comfort level in the Oil Age than the richest man in the world 400 years ago. We don’t actually seriously want to give that up. How do I know?
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Because I fantasize about a post apocalypse world all the time. And because people wouldn’t actually deny the inevitability of the return to a post-oil age if they weren’t so afraid of the comforts and luxuries they must give up. I think we can all agree that I have a pretty screwed up life, and that I spend WAY too much time dwelling on a rotten future. If someone such as myself can separate fantasy from reality in this regard, I think anyone outside the funny farm certainly can. And how else can you explain the violent reaction of folks when you tell them all their precious crap is going away? NO AMMO?!?! You mean I have to give up my semi’s? NO GAS?!?! You mean I have to give up my pimpin ride? Shock, dismay, fear, denial. If they so adamantly deny the doom and gloom future, why would they want to live there? Even those of us that are cynical and paranoid fear to imagine much past the long slow collapse. It is too scary seeing a future without luxury. Doom and gloomers are mostly playing. It’s just a weird hobby.
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