Societal Pop!

[Javaman]

(I posted this in GD and didn't get a peep)

Something occurred to me this weekend and it had to do with crashcarts comment regarding the American way of life being non-negotiable.

Morons*/crashcarts policy of invading countries for their oil just so the morons in this nation can continue to drive their escalades will continue for a long time. Why you ask?

Currently the oil giants get boo-koo(sp) amounts of money in subsidies to keep the price of gas at the pump..."low".

Suppose as the price of oil continues it's upward climb, that moron*/crashcart continue with their sycophantic preoccupation of sexually pleasuring the oil execs with more and more subsidies until a point where: 1) there is no more oil and 2) (something far more frightening for society as a whole) they can no longer afford the subsidies, thus allowing the economy, the "non-negotiable" american way of life to go...POP!

We are living in the worse of all bubbles. The bubble of un-sustainability.

Housing bubble, stock market bubble, student loan bubble, deficit bubble, etc will all be fond memories when the oil bubble/american way of life bubble explodes. There will be no popping for this one. It would be more like the Hindenburg exploding and crashing to the ground. Oh the humanity!

As extreme an image that is, it would only be a part of it.

Since there is really no way to accurately describe how the U.S. and the world will be effected when we have the final downward spiral of downside oil, it's basically only a theory, but a theory that is based in reality, when you consider that everything we do in this country is based upon fossil fuel.

Our food, our clothing, our transportation, our jobs, our sanitation, our families, our entertainment, our medicine, etc. It's all oil based.

Want to see what our society will be like post oil? (I mean all gone, or way to expensive to afford) Read up on what america was like in roughly 1850. Then mix in a little 1930's then top it off with a dash of Sarajevo 1998.

Oh and don't forget to give it a heavy dusting of famine and disease.

I don't see the government of the U.S., in it's current form, ever stopping the oil giants gravy train. I see them being the ever apologizing child to the abusive father.

Prices will creep up, but not at the level that they should, then one day, poof! the dream is over.

Getting used to 3 dollar gas yet? I have and boy am I having fun. Excuse me while I adjust my blinders. Myopia is just the cure for this nation.

[phantom power]

1. Isn't a bubble (as in "the X bubble") unsustainable by definition?

I mean, if you think a trend is sustainable, you don't describe it as a bubble.

[Javaman]

2. True, but I'm the one giving it that term...

I think for the majority of americans out there, they don't see it as such.

[phantom power]

3. I think most Americans simply don't believe....

that their own government and media could fail them as badly as they actually are failing. When I explain to various people what I think the 21st century is going to really be like, I get mostly various brands of skepticism, and at the bottom of that skepticism is some reasoning like this: "If things were really going off the rails that badly, it wouldn't be just you telling me this. Our Fearless Leaders Would Be Doing Something(tm). It Would Be On The News(tm)."

And I guess there's also the common "We'll Figure Out Something We Always Have Before(tm)" response.

[Javaman]

4. It's the wantonly self imposed denial that gets me...

I have mentioned the same thing to some people I know and I get two types of reactions.

The first is a sort of hopeful apathy. "Well the country is screwed but if given the chance I think we could figure out a way to fix it".

The second is angry disbelief, "Are you crazy? They wouldn't let that happen".

There are very few people out there that really follow the trends and pay attention. That really scares the hell out of me.

Sometimes I honestly believe people choose to keep their heads in the ground because the way our society is current set up, it's far to frightening for people to face it, because it would basically jeopardize or question their reality.

[GliderGuider]

6. Genetic behaviour patterns are almost impossible to change for most people.

That's what you're seeing here. The drive to compete and lead is no less a genetic imperative than the drive to submit and follow. Some fortunate individuals can modify the strength of their innate programming to some extent (they become environmentalists and ecologists) but most can't (they stay sheeple).

[GliderGuider]

5. Virtually nothing humanity is doing these days is sustainable

That goes for our economic system, our energy use, our food production, our fishing, our manufacturing, our urban planning - the whole shooting match.

To your vision of the future you really need to add in an 1850's population level, a mid 1700's energy consumption, manufacturing and agricultural profile, and more than a whiff of North Korea distributed around the globe. How far in the future? Less than 100 years.

We are genetically programmed to discount threats that have not yet arrived. As a result politicians will instinctively (and I mean that literally) ignore or obscure evidence of un-solvable problems in order to keep peace within their own populations. Resource wars with others will always be disguised as being for other reasons (Islamic terrorism, WMDs, and spreading democracy are chic at the moment).

However.

However.

I've recently been fleshing out a new paradigm that is compatible with this vision while at the same time offering a lot of long-term hope. I'm not ready to write about it in detail yet because the research isn't finished, but I can give you the key concepts and triggers that are driving my thinking:

• "Humans are like both yeast and cockroaches."
  
• Panarchies and resilience theory.
  
• The unevenness of the coming decline when viewed at national and regional levels.
  
• Kerala.
  
• Lifeboat refuges.
  
• Evolutionary psychology.
  
• Deep ecology.
  
• The "Second Superpower" as described by Paul Hawken in this article.
  He doesn't use that term, it comes from the peace-making book "Enough Blood Shed" which describes the same phenomenon in the same terms. Hawken describes it as an informal, utterly unorganized collection of two million or more local environmental and social justice organizations worldwide, each independently pursuing its own local goals. The movement has no leaders, no overarching platform or dogma and no common agenda beyond a desire to make the world a better place to live in. He characterizes it as the largest social movement the world has ever seen. Because it's totally decentralized and grass-roots based it may also be the most resilient movement that has ever existed.
  
  
• And tying it all together, what I believe is the fundamental requirement for social survival, matriarchy.
  

I'll write more as the story-line solidifies. In the meantime, try taking these ideas and constructing your own scenarios. Some of them may turn out not too bad (for extremely large values of "bad", of course).