(no subject)

[degringolade]

 

 

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Look, I fully support anyone who writes about how to downshift into what appears to be a long-delayed end to the party that the human race has been blithely wandering toward for a couple of centuries now.  I do get annoyed with the “end of the world” folks who seem to be rooting for a mad max sort of denouement where they will eke out a new existence as a retrograde and video game version of the time-honored roles of ruler/raider/peasant.  

Nate Hagens has been a good read for a long time.  Hell, in the past I have even tossed a couple of nickels in his direction.  But after a while, my mind begins to glaze and my attention wanders when I read prescriptions planning a path to one of the above mentioned alternate state of nirvana (he tends toward the peasant path).

But I am overall thinking that there will most certainly be times of suckage ahead of us.  Oh, here in ‘Murca, we won’t starve unless you are an idiot.  You might have a “diminished standard of living” but you probably won’t starve and you probably won’t freeze.  Eating things like oatmeal, potatoes, rice, beans and the occasional chunk of meat isn’t poverty, neither is wearing a sweater.

Where I see Hagans being correct is his idea of “The Great Simplification”.   That is what we are looking at in the upcoming period of time.  Prices force simplification.  Oh, you can pretend that you are a noble being living at one with planet earth, but you are embedded in a social structure that runs on status being accorded by what level of profligacy you can achieve in buying/accessing energy and forms of stored energy called raw materials and finished goods.

I genuinely wish people good luck with distancing themselves from the imperatives of that social structure.  But I do want to warn you that the social structure really doesn’t want you to leave.  That social structure has laid down the structure is what got to you through this point and whether you like it or not, rebelling and moving away from milk learning isn’t an easy thing.  When prices force you to desert what brung you here, there will be a lot of anger and sadness going about.  

I suppose that I am trying to get ahead of the game here in talking about this.  I am not telling you how to run your life, but giving up on worrying about what the rich folks do is going to be one of your first steps.  Just establishing what your base loads of needs/wants and figuring out how to best get there is the first step, but please, don’t give yourself airs about your morality and nobility, you’re just another person doing the best you can.