The End Of Our Industrial Civilization

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
21

Thing is, it’s not like one day eveything’s just gonna go crazy. Things are GETTING crazy, one day at a time, very, VERY slowly.

Americans are dipping into their savings to facilitate PURCHASES. We (as a nation and as individuals) are more in debt than EVER. The cost of living CONTINUES to climb, and EVENTUALLY, the typical suburban lifestyle will simply not be economically feasable. What we see today as suburban track homes that are all nice will eventually drop in value due to the high cost of commuting.

The suburbs will eventually become slums. Houses will be torn down to achieve airable land so that people can build community farms.

The inner cities will become more dense, with emphasis on mass-transit, human powered locomotion (bycicles and skateboards), and of course, walking. In fact, people will probably begin selling their cars eventually, just so they can afford the rising cost of food, due to the exorbitant cost of transporting it.

I forsee that humanity will become polarized - with more communities and families becoming very very rural, but ecologically and economically sustainable, and cities becoming more densly populated. All in all, the current lifestyles we experience WILL CHANGE. Sure, we’ll still have iPods, and even BETTER internet. We’ll probably even have community farms, solar panels, and wind-turbines.

…what we WON’T have (at least, not MOST people), is petrolium powered vehicles.

EDIT: this is actually “knewsom”; I accidentally posted under my buddy’s name (on his comp)

22

[quote]harris447 wrote:
Does everyone really think that the species that put men on the moon, created written language, invented the wheel, etc. won’t think up something?

Isn’t Nevada something like 80% uninhabitable and owned by the federal govenment? Cover the whole f’ing thing in solar panels.

The species that invented the iPod will not revert to living in caves. Except for that Osama douchebag.[/quote]

thats fucking dangerous thinking… . unless you yourself can solve the problem what makes you believe that everyone else is working to solve this problem for you?

firstly solar may be a good idea but it takes a huge amount of panels to make any significant energy… . for solar to be worthwhile each person should outfit his home with panels he’s brought and paid for… . something in the range of $25,000 for each small home should suffice… . the government isnt going to buy them for you. …

secondly solar only “solves” the problem “where is the power for my tv going to come from?” it does not address the issue of transportation which uses the majority of fossil fuels… . it also doesnt address the issue of agriculture which uses fossil fuels not only to power its machines (irrigation and tractors etc) but also for insecticides and fertilizers… . two things which have managed humanity to produce enough food for 6 billion or so people when the actual naturally imposed carrying capacity for earth is closer to 2 billion people. …

there are some major discrepencies in energy which can not be solved in the near future. …

23

[quote]Gl;itch.e wrote:
secondly solar only “solves” the problem “where is the power for my tv going to come from?” it does not address the issue of transportation which uses the majority of fossil fuels… . it also doesnt address the issue of agriculture which uses fossil fuels not only to power its machines (irrigation and tractors etc) but also for insecticides and fertilizers… . two things which have managed humanity to produce enough food for 6 billion or so people when the actual naturally imposed carrying capacity for earth is closer to 2 billion people. …

there are some major discrepencies in energy which can not be solved in the near future. …[/quote]

That’s a good point, but I would like to point out, however, that civilization isn’t just going to come to a grinding halt. For farmers that simply can’t afford fuel for tractors (even BioDiesel isn’t exactly going to be FREE), Oxen will simply have to suffice. For people who live in a rural environment, cars won’t be practical anymyore - bycicles and horses, however, WILL.

In cities, the cost of living will be much higher than in rural areas, but the MATERIAL quality of life will be higher - clubs, bars, movies, new technology gadgets, gyms, of course, all but cars will be ubiquitous in major cities.

Sure, there will still be vehicles - ethanol powered motorcycles and compact cars, BioDiesel powered trucks and boats, electric cars and trains in cities, and even inbetween cities. Airfare WILL get extremely expensive (except for people who do things the old-fashoned way and SAIL - another lifestyle that will probably see increased interest), and people WILL travel less, probably leading to an increased number of sub-cultures within nations, states, and even cities.

Point is, LIFE WILL GO ON, but things are sure gonna change. It’s not like we dont’ have failsafe technologies - Solar and ethanol might not do the trick, and Nuclear power WILL ALSO eventually run out (it relies on a finite resource - Uranium), but we have failsafe technologies - Oxen, Horses, Bycicles, Sailing Ships… In fact, I suspect that our lifetimes are probably going to be amongst the most interesting in a long, long time.

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I guess ya’ll just need to get the books. Trust me with whatever ‘solution’ you have come up with is answered in the book.

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[quote]Brown_Sugar wrote:
I guess ya’ll just need to get the books. Trust me with whatever ‘solution’ you have come up with is answered in the book.
[/quote]

The books are alarmist hype. You fell for it.

Our civilization will change.

Civilizations will always change.

It is not the end of civilization. We will be fine.

26

This is a very interesting topic, one on which the nature of our future will surely depend. If your interested, the following terms may help in finding more information on the net:

The term for someone who holds that “everything will be alright” due to technology and economics is a “Cornucopian.”

Those who hold that human beings, as living breathing creatures, are subject to the same limitations of resources and overpopulation are “Neo-malthusians.”