Friday, November 24, 2017

culture collapse


CULTURE COLLAPSE

The other day, I mentioned that the 1960’s economic collapse was viewed as a cultural collapse and we placed the cart before the horse.  We are still doing that, making survivalists just as guilty of transference and denial as the general public is.  At least in kind if not degree.  I talk about the idiocy of corporate suits, obviously implying idiots in charge, rarely instead focusing on the fact that idiots must be in charge to manage a dying institution.  We talk of college not teaching a darn thing after four years, but fail to note that Political Correctness is actually the perfect training for a dysfunctional system ( we think PC made the system that way, when the opposite is true ).

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How about a military that is passive and expensive?  Retail stores that dislike inventory?  Fire departments that put equality before saving lives or police departments that place skin color before competence?  Hospitals that get more profit killing you than saving you?  Workers that cannot actually perform their job by any definition of the term?  Films and books that cannot entertain?  If you recall the term, “he is paid to do ONE thing and can’t even do that”, that is our entire system globally.  You can’t blame that on politics.  Or even economics.  That is simply systematic collapse. 

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Which somehow we keep denying is actually taking place.  Preppers confidently go on with their lives after the next hurricane is stocked for.  Survivalists spend all their time talking about WHEN the collapse will occur.  It used to be “if”.  Now it is “when”.  But one thing we forgot to note is that it went from being “when” to being “now”.  We see all this dysfunction and say “this is what is going to cause the collapse”.  What we should really be saying is “this proves the collapse has already happened”.  Yes, I’ve gone from talking of “when” to “when will the final phase of collapse start the die-off”, but even I’m not sure I’m really comprehending the true state of our being.

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I’m still thinking in terms of economic collapse which started fifty years ago ( I’d postulate that the Peak Steel of the fifties was what really ended our Industrial Age economy a dozen or so years prior to Peak Oil.  If that was indeed the case, all those hundreds of thousands dead in the two World Wars sacrificed themselves to the elite for really only a mere fifteen years of trouble free western civilization rule-less than one generation.  Call Peak Iron Ore 1957 or ‘59 and the economic collapse following that just four or five years after.  Just like the global Peak Oil was followed three years later by the ‘08 collapse ).

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But at some point in time we went from an economic collapse caused by resources costing more to extract ( remember, capitalism is based on resource THEFT.  Once it costs something to actually produce…) to systematic collapse caused by resource supply contracting as population grew exponentially.  I can’t time that switch, especially since we always tend to focus on singular causes which distorts things, but I’d guess when the last of the gushing free oil started drying up in the late ‘90s ( at the same time China started needing a humongous crappot worth of resources themselves ).  I could be wrong, but that would merely be academic. 

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We still think we are in the far more benign economic rather than systematic collapse.  Even when we sternly have a talking to with ourselves, “self, you ignorant slut, it is SYSTEMATIC”, we don’t truly comprehend or believe ourselves.  We grew up in an economic collapse.  That is our reality.  Those make for interesting times but they are by definition recoverable from.  I used to congratulate myself on being born just as the collapse started, saying how wise I was to the reality of decline rather than growth.  I think I’ve been fooling myself.  What I’ve been doing was habituating myself to decline rather than collapse.

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I have had great fun in exposing the Druid Dude as an optimistic ass, but am I much better?  If I’m seeing the reality of decline, with collapse in the future, how is that different than his 300 year stair step collapse?  Sure, I’m talking die-off within my lifetime and he was talking a sharp decrease in population not through resource contraction but through the inability to procreate due to limited resources, but neither one of us acknowledged that we were already past economic collapse.  That was the lifetime norm.  It was our paradigm instilled while we were in our formative years.  It branded our perception and reality.

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We are going on one generation of resource contraction having caused ( note past tense ) a systematic collapse and we are still looking at the economy as if it mattered anymore.  It only matters because we are so focused on money as a survival tool.  Women debase their bodies for it and men debase their souls and ruin their bodies for it.  Yet our economic system is predicated on growth through resources increasing in supply.  The proverbial “infinite growth on a finite planet”.  The tree huggers get it, then waste time trying to fight a system which by its very definition is incapable of NOT growing.  How many trees did they kill tilting at that windmill?  How much economic growth through resource use did they cause trying to convince people to stop using resources? 

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I don’t buy for a second the argument that they are using a little resource capital to stop growth.  The entire world eats because of unrestricted resource extraction and waste and use, and to preach to people to stop eating is beyond retardedness.  So sorry your whole life has been wasted, but as you yourselves admit, we had to start thirty years ago to make a difference.  So now you are just a resource eater like everyone else.  If you REALLY care and want to help the earth, hijack the plane you are on going to that green conference and plow it into a mountain.

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The same for all you squawking about Gore Warming, not just Club Of Rome resource and population issues.  If you are still driving you are part of the problem.  Shut up.  Your hot air is warming the oceans ( I’m kidding.  The warming of the earth, irregardless of being man made or not-refer to the above It’s Too Friggin Late statement-is an important component in your survival plans because of extreme weather events, potential diasporas  and even farming plans ).  For anyone, political pundit, Gore Warming advocate, anyone who advocates changing behavior, you are NOT getting it.  Too.  Friggin.  Late. 

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When a system is in collapse because there are no longer resources available to support that system, there is no saving it.  Period.  Full Stop.  All dysfunctional behavior does not portend collapse, it is proof of collapse.  NOT just economic anymore.  Economic collapse is a slowing of the growth.  Systematic collapse is not just NO growth but rather a constant increase in the amount of decline.  We have gone far too long with that decline to even begin to pretend it is capable of recovery.  Even recoverable at a level below the old norm.  The only thing we have been seeing is the rate of decline slowing slightly for short periods.

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This could be construed as a stair step collapse, granted.  But that concept implies a much gentler downward slope than the far more realistic sharp drop off the cliff.  That is how animal overpopulation corrections happen, and we are but mere tuxedo clad chimpanzees.  I’ll continue tomorrow going back to the beginning of this article and expanding on our behavior being caused by the collapse rather than as a consequence thereof.

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2yXbvi2 )
 
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10 comments:

  1. Our societal collapse is caused by our behavior? Or our behavior is caused by societal collapse...
    Does it even matter? A huge reset is on its way and our best hope is to be able to feed ourselves and protect our own.

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    Replies
    1. It matters, insofar as one implies changed behavior will save us. And the other doesn't.

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  2. article about how much human effort is required to make wheat into food: https://survivalblog.com/familys-garden-grain-experiment-part-2-wild-billb/#more-49932

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    1. I wasn't terribly impressed with the article. As usual, the best Tool Man Taylor approach to pretending to prep, plus absolutely zero comparison for EROI. It was after all over fifty thousand calories. But thank you for the link.

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  3. Sorry to be off topic, but here's an addendum to grain grinder topic of the other day.
    In past I had grown a small plot of rice (maybe 4 by 10 foot area, dry land- no flooding). The harvest resulted in about 3/4 gallon container of rice with hull attached.
    By the time most of us see grain we purchase, it has already been hulled of course. And in many cases processed further by polishing the grain such as in the case of white rice or pearled barley.
    Well, someone came up with a modification for the Corona mill to enable grain hulling. Basically a neoprene rubber disc fixed (glued) to the stationary plate (the other grinding plate is the one the handle spins around). The distance between the plates is adjusted to the point the hull is sloughed off without damaging the grain.
    A better description and plans exist online, and could be adapted to other brands of grinders. Southern Exposure Seed Exchange used to sell the modification for a Corona.
    Just a bit of miscellany that might prove helpful for the right person in the right situation. Such as a post collapse windfall of grain that cannot be processed/hulled due to transportation and infrastructure breakdown.
    S/FL

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Never off topic. If you post a comment in the original, does anyone read it? This way the word gets out better.

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  4. That was the point. Everything was "drive the SUV to the tool store or feed store". I wonder if they sprouted heritage grains or post-green revolution seeds? They made a point of telling us about the synthetic fertilizer.
    I would have liked to see intensive ag with human-powered cable-pulled plow so they don't have to feed a horse.'lectricity shore do save a lot a work!

    pdxr13

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    1. You would have thought such a small plot would have been so little work not needing the help of a power tool. Was it my imagination or were they using the wrong type if the heads didn't thresh easily? Wheat should have gotten to the point that wasn't an issue, breeding through the ages?

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  5. Try "systemic", Systematic doesn't mean what you think it does.

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    Replies
    1. Dammit Jim, I'm a writer not an editor! I was pretty close :) Thanks, I'll try not to repeat the embarrassment.

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