CONFLICT IS NATURAL
A brief detour before I get into the meat of today’s topic. There was a link at Yahoo, but then I saw it at http://tslrf.blogspot.com/ so I’m giving them credit. Despite their too optimistic view, I like the Three Amigo’s survival web site ( I use the term with a sense of fun, as I liked that movie ). And since they always quote me, I need to keep up their love. It isn’t enough to go back and reread my wisdom, I like it when I can go elsewhere and do the same. Speaking of which, if anyone has a web site and needs material, feel free to use any of my blog articles ( if it is in an e-book I’m selling, you can’t use it for obvious reasons ). You just need to give me full credit, provide the link, and let me know. Anyway, the above link was about the top ten states being in economic trouble. The fun fact I gleaned from it was that these ten ( including Nevada-we’re famous! ) account for a third of the nations population as well as its economy. If a third of your people are sucking wind, that might be a good indicator that there are absolutely no green shoots at all and we are all freaken headed for the stew pot. Sure, we’ll recover. As soon as oil imports recover the almost 25% they’ve dropped in three years. What? That will happen when monkeys fly out of my butt? But, that goes against my wishes and hopes and dreams! Jerk-offs.
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Okay, I simply must once again throw ice water on your delusions. It isn’t that I think I’m smarter than everyone, because I know at times that I really pull some idiotic moves. But I do devote a heck of a lot of time thinking about this stuff. As you are busy raising curtain climbers, enjoying real relationships with the spouse and working at a well paying job, I’m pretty much living in Post-Apocalypse Land. It isn’t as pleasant as a Happy Place, but it has to do right now. Asking why we can’t all just get along isn’t a stupid question, but it does show that you haven’t given a lot of thought to it. So, this is what you pay me for. Thinking about all the hard questions. The short answer is that it isn’t in human nature to get along with our fellow man in a resource scarce environment. You can’t escape it. You can minimize the impact, have less enemies per square mile. But it is impossible to escape. We have lived through multiple generations of energy surplus and to us it seems natural that the pie is big enough to share. For now we’ll ignore questions of colonial exploitation and elite control and just make the blanket statement that as far as we here in the First World are concerned, it has always been a pretty peaceful place most of the time.
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Humans might be evolved in their tool usage and communications skills, but we have never outgrown our reptile brains sense of self preservation. Mother Nature doesn’t do anything half assed, and species survival is present in all of us. As I continually tell you, tribe against tribe assures one tribe survives by taking from the other. If they didn’t, both tribes would die from lack of resources. Human aggression against other humans is natural and needed ( of course, I’m talking primarily of males. We have the 20% advantage of upper body strength, the mental outlook needed, and the hormones. Females in general are caregivers and nurturers, not fighters. This is the natural order of things, FemiNazi propaganda and teenage boy fantasy cartoons notwithstanding ). Some are not as aggressive. They are channeled into the worker bees that feed and equip the warriors. Not every male is naturally a warrior. This might have confused some to think that aggression is unneeded. No, it merely means that regardless of how advanced you think you are, in some ways humans are little better than task segregated insects. Some farm, some fight.
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If stealing the neighbor tribes food in order to survive is natural, why do so many cry out against even the discussion of the subject? Because we think living in an energy abundant world is the natural order of things and will never cease. If you accept the notion of petroleum running out, then you accept the fact of die-off and resource scarcity. It follows that we will return to a more primitive existence. When the food runs out then people will fight one another for it. You can be the biggest Jesus freak on the block, give to charity and help our starving little brown brothers overseas. But once your fellow religious neighbors start to starve, I don’t think you will meekly turn the other cheek and go into the stewpot. One of you will have a revelation. Baby Jesus himself will visit you at night. Slay the unbelievers in my name! Problem solved, now you have religious sanction to kill the enemy. Yes, I think the towelheads should be banned. If we are trying to fight them, don’t allow them to be a local fifth column. But in their defense, Christians have been just as deadly in the name of religion.
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I would love to live in peace the rest of my days, left alone by everyone. But once the gas is gone, any jagbag and his brother that come along will want to kill me. I say, better to take the fight to them first. Sorry if that makes me politically incorrect.
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A guest article this Saturday. Same bat channel.
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7 comments:
Jim is on a roll folks!
To steal a great Woody Allen line from "Love and Death" - "Yea verily, the lion shall lie down with the lamb, but the lamb won't get much sleep."
Keep telling it, brother! Remember Rule Number 303!
Jim,
I enjoy your blog. I think you're an eccentric, interesting guy. So let's have a little back and forth here.
I agree with you on the imminence of peak oil and resource scarcity. There will be resource wars. There already are (e.g. Iraq).
The area of possible disagreement seems to lie in the level of social organization that will exist post-peak oil.
There is a reason that the city-state took over the ancient Middle East, and spread: this level of organization, more complex than the tribe, allowed more specialization and sophistication in terms of technology, agriculture, warfare, etc.
So why do you think that when peak oil gets bad, that it we will automatically devolve to the tribal level? Of course, gangs all over are already going there. But still, the Roman Empire maintained a huge political entity with no oil.
When the shit hits the fan, those groups, regions, and states that engage with others to form larger political and economic units will be able to survive better than those that fragment.
A good article at the SurvivalBlog site recently talked about this. Preppers are right to prepare for hard times, but you MUST attempt outreach to others in your community, if only to avoid making enemies. Even if you want a small tribe, you have to make the effort to meet your future tribal members.
I think that some regions will be able to create and maintain political entities at the current state level, if they are lucky. States may form regional alliances.
My main beef with your pessimism is not on the facts of peak oil, but on the ability of people to band together on the village, county, and regional level. I think it is possible, because history proves it's been done.
How do you justify the idea that all regions will devolve to tribal warfare? I think we can all agree that certain regions, such as the greater LA area, are screwed... they've already going down the tribal warfare path.
Constant conflict is a wasteful drain on resources, not an effective means of preserving them.
Technology always shifts gears to accomodate the survival of the human race. It can also help destroy it. But neither circumstance is caused by technology. It's caused by what people choose to do, and how they choose to act.
War is a waste of resources. If people really wanted what would benefit themselves, they would work for voluntary interaction. But if you think that other people's voluntarily-acquired material gain equals your loss, you'll come to the conclusion that you must take your neighbor's stuff.
10 people all working together on a 40 acre plot of land are better able to do the all work that needs to be done to make the land fruitful. Or they can waste their time fighting over that land. Just take it macro.
Publius, the Roman Empire was built on energy surplus. War brought in more food and more slaves which built more fields and a bigger army etc. When soil fertility was used up from over-use and the boundries of empire were reached ( insufficient farming or too powerful of an enemy ) than everything was tried to keep power, just as we see today such as paying with funny money. Energy in the form of less food and less slaves, coupled with all the problems economically and politically, meant the beginning of the end of empire. The state began to shrink. Less energy means a smaller political unit. Growing states need surplus energy. Which is why we won't see a One World Govt. And which is why I think we will see very small states prevail. After the collapse, once sustainable war industries are formed by those with the needed materials, then the state will begin expanding again through conquest. It is all about energy inputs. Entropy Is All.
I hope I don't live to see the day Americans shoot Americans to live.
Is there not a better way? Wish I knew what it was.
Yes I have preps. How long I can last alone?
Time will tell.
See Ya
Anyone who says they would never through the first punch probably hasn't been in very many fights.
If a fight is going to happen not attacking is stupid. Hit them hard first and keep the momentum on your side until they are a bloody crying pile on the ground.
Fight YOUR FIGHT not theirs because odds are you will like the end of your fight a lot better than the end of theirs.
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