Llamedos

http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=15180

This is an outstanding post from the Reverse Engineer at The Burning Platform who asks the basic question of whether you are a Full Doomer or Doomer Lite depending on your position on various issues.  Not surprisingly, I was in the Full Doomer column on every single one.   I suspect most others around here are as well.  


One of the greatest difficulties you have once you go “Full Doom” as a writer on the Econoblogs is that your concerns become less worth considering by people who are concerned with more “Doom Lite” issues, and their concerns aren’t that important to you.  Let me present a couple of examples to demonstrate how this works.

From my side as a Full Doomer, I’m not really concerned with Obama-care or Ron Paul’s Presidential bid.  I know Obama-care cannot work, but more than that I know there is NO solution to the health care problem that people would consider “acceptable”and would work.  I’m not really concerned with whether Ron Paul becomes POTUS or not, because as a Full Doomer I don’t think anything Ron Paul could do would stop or even much slow down the collapse.  If anything, if Ron Paul follows through with some of the things he has bloviated on over the years, I would expect the collapse to accelerate.  That IMHO would be a GOOD thing, so I support Ron Paul over any other dickhead out there running for POTUS, but I sure do not believe Ron Paul will solve our problems.

Not to say I don’t chip in sometimes on these threads, but when I do you will find many of my remarks to be quite sarcastic, and of course I engage in my predilection for digging up Pics to make fun of the threads.  This because I do not take those threads seriously; because I don’t think they are addressing the real problems.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, when a “Doom Lite” writer like Admin drops in on my threads, he mainly makes fun of my Doomsday ideas.  To him, considering a complete Civilization Collapse is not worthwhile, he wants to tweak and fix the current system to make it WORK again.  Kick the CONgress Critters out, do the Perp Walks with the Banksters, stop the Spending, stop exporting the Jobs, eliminate Entitlements and the FSA, let’s get Amerika PRODUCTIVE again!  The Doom Lite writer sees the short term problems and wants to find a FIX for them; the Full Doom writer sees all these things as transient and unfixable problems that are precursors to other problems.

Who are Doom Lite writers here on the net?  Examples would be Jim Quinn, Karl Denninger, Mike Shedlock, Yves Smith et al.  Full Doomers are Dmitri Orlov, Jim Kunstler,  Mike Ruppert, Chris Martenson et al.  Also myself of course, and I tend to out-Doom most of them, except Dmitri my Ruskie Twin. LOL.  Doom Lite writers tend to be most concerned with the mechanics of the Monetary System Collapse; Full Doomers focus down more on the long term issues of Peak Oil and Energy.

Neither group of writers is WRONG insofar as what they are concerned with, but the timelines are different and there are differences in the types of Solutions they try to consider.  However, if you put a Doom Lite writer and a Full Doom writer on the same website at the same time, each of them will consider the other one to be somewhat ridiculous.  That is for the most part why Jim and I argue, we both see the same things insofar as the collapse is concerned, but Jim hopes for solution to the economic and political issues which I already consider impossible to manage, and the solutions I consider are far past the timeline Jim is concerned with here.  He is most worried about the world his Sons are about to inherit; I am most worried about the world a couple of generations down the line will inherit. (call them Gen Apocalypse and Gen Mad Max)

MOST people prefer Doom Lite, because it tends to offer a little more in the way of HOPIUM.  Since this website is Jim’s Bully Pulpit, MOST of the people here are Doom Lite people.
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Now that we have a better Definition of the Full Doomer and Doomer Lite philosophies we can take a look at a few of the Recurring Topics we have on TBP and briefly analyze the differing perspective of Full Doom and Doom Lite Pundits.

Hey Bill!! Great to see you!

Now, lemme read that. Even though I already know the answer.

Now, lemme read that. Even though I already know the answer.

Likewise! Full Doomer for sure..

<wanders off to read article>

I rather liked the comments of Reverse Engineer.. this one especially..

BLAME THE SILENTS

To me, the argument that we will find a Solution because we have always found new solutions is purely Faith based and really gives us no clue as to HOW we will find such a solution. When you go down the List of Possible Solutions that currently exist, you can pretty easily deconstruct them and show why they likely will not work as solutions. Dmitri Orlov is pretty thorough in debunking most proposed solutions, and then if you really want to go deep into the debunking, all you need to do is read back posting on The Oil Drum, Life After the Oil Crash, Peak Oil (my old Home Turf from 07-09 before I got BANNED), etc. There is just VOLUMES of material out there on every possible permutation, I’ve been reading the stuff virtually nonstop since 2007 when I got my Wake Up Call in the aftermath of Bear Stearns and I have barely scratched the surface of what is out there. For every word I write, I probably read 10000 words written by others since I read WAY faster than my absolutely INCREDIBLE keyboarding speed (evidenced here on Daily basis) and I spend more time reading than writing. From my reading, I am quite convinced no current solution in the pipeline at any stage of development can resolve the overall problems of energy production, storage, transmission, portability and absolute cost in terms of EROEI.

I do not dispute the possibility that at some point in the future some new technology might be developed that is not even on the radar now, but since the likelihood of that seems very small to me, the logical thing to do is to prepare on the assumption such a technology will NOT be found. If it is, great, I’ll be able to keep driving around some kind of vehicle powered by something and lots of cool foods will continue to magically appear on the Supermarket shelves, but I am going to prepare on the assumption that will NOT be the case. Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst of course.

Now, MOST people since they are IDIOTS are completely CLUELESS and don’t even make it into the Doom Lite vs. Full Doom debate at all, so I am not even going to consider them. They aren’t even here reading this website or other ones concerned with the issues, they are watching Amerikan Idol and the Royal Wedding. Breaking down the much smaller subset of people who DO have a clue, again most of them fall into the Doom Lite category, although I think the number of Full Doomers is increasing. When presented with all the evidence (assuming these folks have spent a decent amount of time reading up on all the issues), why is it that the majority remain in the Doom Lite category? Two basic reasons for this IMHO.

First one is that the idea we are unavoidably going to return to a subsistence living paradigm without even the basic improvements made through the industrial era like Electric Lights and Indoor Plumbing is so HORRIFIC an outcome to most people they simply won’t consider it as even POSSIBLE. People who grew up inside the Industrial Nations in the latter stages of this paradigm have become CONVINCED that we are destined to Trek the Stars and get ever cooler Gadgets to play with like Iphones and Wii consoles. Giving all this STUFF up is so far beyond the IMAGINATION of most people, even if they ARE aware of all the problems we have keeping the paradigm running that they simply REFUSE to consider the possibility this won’t continue onward. We have ALWAYS found Solutions, we always WILL find solutions! It’s pure Faith Based Ideology.

The second reason for maintaining the Doom Lite ideology is a little more abstract, it comes from strongly held notions about what is wrong with our society that everyone works up through their lives which they have a hard time letting go of. You gradually become convinced over time of certain things you see WRONG in the society, and these are your personal Pet Peeves. The 30 Blocks of Squalor, the People of Walmart, the inefficency and waste of Big Goobermint, high Taxation rates, stupid Union Rules etc etc etc are all aspects of our society which bug the living shit out of you on a Daily basis. As the collapse proceeds, you get even MORE upset over all these things, and they become the FOCUS of your anger. “If we just GET RID of Big Goobermint, if we just STOP dishing out Welfare, if we send the Unions to the Great Beyond we can get our society Back on Track!” The Doom Lite philosopher looks at all the SYMPTOMS here of the society we developed and feels that if we just treat these symptoms, we will cure the DISEASE. My position here is that we cannot Cure the Disease by treating the Symptoms of the Disease. The real Disease here is the evolution of complex systems which take an extraordinary amount of Energy to keep functional. I refer to such systems as the “Conduits” (and its probably a good time to resurrect my Conduits series, so it will likely be Coming soon to a Theatre Near You). To run very large societies you need very complex systems to do it, and those systems evolve over time. Capitalism is such a Complex System, so is Communism. The problem here is that we do not have enough energy available anymore to maintain such complex systems, so little fixes on some of the symptoms won’t do Jack Shit to cure the disease here.

I will of course NEVER be able to convince people who have been totally sold on the idea that we can perpetually improve the human condition through invention and ingenuity that there is an END to such improvement, and moreover that the End is now in Sight. Its not going to come Tomorrow, and it might not even come for another Decade, at least for people who have not yet ALREADY fallen off the economic cliff of a collapsing monetary system. But come it will, barring the Miraculous discovery and implementation of Energy resource that we have not been able to make work for 60 years. That Holy Grail was Fusion Power, and I do not think it will ever be achieved at positive EROEI here on Spaceship Earth.

Stuck does not like that I do my Nostradamus Predictions of Timelines for the failure, but he does agree that the systems will fail. I do the predictions and write the scenarios in order to bring home the IMMEDIACY of the problem that faces us here, in the effort to get more people to do the best they can to Prepare for the Worst, while Hoping for the Best. For the Silents and the older Boomers here, if we are all very lucky and do not have a Fast Crash, we may just make it to the Great Beyond before the whole thing goes to Hell in a Handbasket. The chances that the whole Bizness does NOT Crap Out before GenXer’s cross the Great Divide is exceedingly small though IMHO. The GenXers are themselves now mostly too old to prepare for the world that is likely to come here, for the most part they expect what the Silents and Boomers GOT, and are just getting increasingly pissed off with the realization they will not GET it.. They are NOT prepared in any way for how to deal with NOT getting it though. I cannot Save them now, they are a Lost Generation. I want my legacy to be with the most recently born, I do not even know if there is a name for the generation I teach yet. The kids I teach are 8-15 years old, they are the ones who will have to make it through the Zero Point, if it comes in the next Decade as I expect it will. I will call them GenA, for Apocalypse. I want to teach them skills for Survival at the most basic level. If things turn out better than I expect, having those skills won’t hurt them. If things turn out as I think likely they will, these are the ONLY children who will make it through the Zero Point.

I myself am too old to survive the world to come, with too many health issues that would prevent it. But I still do know many things, and more than that, I know how to TEACH many things. Meta-cognition is my game on an academic level, understanding how people think and how thinking produces understanding. I have a topological theory on cognition that is fairly novel. Got the Ph.D. Dissertation almost done here. Not something I intended to do, but a Doctorate will help me on Da Goobermint level, so I am doing it. What pisses me off here is I have to PAY people to read this bullshit and then issue me a Ph.D so I can PROVE to Da Goobermint I know what I already know I know. LOL.Nominally my Masters in Ed provides me enough Sheepskin to do what I am doing, but being a DOCTOR makes Goobermint Apparatchiks turn into bowls of quivering Jello, which is helpful if you are running on the far side of what is reimbursable by the State. I could have done this a bit easier (and CHEAPER!) going Ed.D.rather than Ph.D, but by doing this in Psych rather than Ed I can license to be a Shrink also. LOL. Imagine ME as a Shrink! ROFLMAOPIMP. Not to worry, I still would have to do an internship I am not gonna do to get that license. All it really gets you is a Goobermint OK to issue Drugs to Kids to control their behaviors anyhow.

In my mind in abstract, I believe I can make a difference here for some of GenA, and so I will try to do that before I walk into the Great Beyond. I will not sell these children on Hopium or advise them to go to an Elite University as I did. That world IMHO is passing into history now. If they have a mind for it, I will still teach them the Calculus, so hopefully that knowledge does not disappear too quickly from the face of the earth, but in reality I doubt this knowledge will be of great use to them other than the fact it helps you to organize your mind and understand nature better. They will be faced with a much more difficult problem than any differential equation. The problem of how to SURVIVE in a world depleted of the Fossil fuels that made all our lives so much easier for these last couple of centuries. This form of living is going the way of the Dinosaur, IMHO to be quite sure. Its NOT the end of Homo Sapiens, at least it does not HAVE to be the end. It is just the end of Industrial Civilization, and that is what you have to accept as most probable here, and prepare for it.

For myself, I am a Boomer Dinosaur, overdue for Extermination. I should be DEAD already many times over based on the Live Fast, Die Young and Leave a Good Looking Corpse Boomer life I led. Therein Muck About lies the ANSWER to the Captain Obvious Question you asked regarding why your Daughters lived as they did despite your best advice. You see, even if it was not conscious the Boomer generation KNEW from the time the the Counter Culture died at the end of the 60s that there was NO HOPE to reform the culture. And so they went NUTS, and they Partied Like it was 1999. They let it ALL hang out, let Greed go WILD, get as much as you can, take as much as you can, borrow as much as you can. Boomers did TRY to STOP this at Woodstock and in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco and on the Farm in TN, but they were CRUSHED by Silents on the Streets of Chicago at the Democratic National Convention in 68 and were shot down at Kent State University and on the Killing fields of Vietnam. The Rebels were CRUSHED by the Silents. Like sexually abused children, surviving Boomers became the abusers themselves, in SPADES. To seek the reason for why Boomers behaved as they did, all you have to do is look at what the Silents sold to those Boomers. They sold them AS CHILDREN on the idea that Technology could make their lives ever better, as in “The Graduate”, Benjamin is sold that the Future is PLASTICS. The Silents created a sick generation beneath them, and they are the ones most responsible for this mess. The Silents enabled the Evil and bred up a massive Baby Boom of Evil Seed. Boomers are simply the VICTIMS of the abuse of the Silents. LOL.

So, here’s to you Mrs. Robinson. Joltin’ Joe has left and gone away. That mirage went Bye Bye in the 60’s and the Boomers never recovered from the abuse of the Silents. Paul Simon got that one right. Nor will the GenXers EVER recover from the abuse by the Boomers. We ALL should have KNOWN from the day Bobby Kennedy got gunned down it was Hopeless. I lost my Hope that day in 1968 when I was 12 years old, and I never Voted for a single Political Candidate ever because of that. I never even REGISTERED to vote in any political party. Only thing left was to Party like its 1999, and party I sure did. Live Fast, Die Young and Leave a Good Looking Corpse.

See You on the Other Side.

RE

Thanks for posting that, Bill. I have made the passage from Doomer Lite to Doomer over the  past decade. According to that I seem to have pretty much made the passage.   

Unlimited growth eventually turns out to be cancer and "progress" is just another way of disrespecting your Mother.

And so they went NUTS, and they Partied Like it was 1999. They let it ALL hang out, let Greed go WILD, get as much as you can, take as much as you can, borrow as much as you can. Boomers did TRY to STOP this at Woodstock and in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco and on the Farm in TN, but they were CRUSHED by Silents on the Streets of Chicago at the Democratic National Convention in 68 and were shot down at Kent State University and on the Killing fields of Vietnam. The Rebels were CRUSHED by the Silents. Like sexually abused children, surviving Boomers became the abusers themselves, in SPADES. To seek the reason for why Boomers behaved as they did, all you have to do is look at what the Silents sold to those Boomers. They sold them AS CHILDREN on the idea that Technology could make their lives ever better, as in “The Graduate”, Benjamin is sold that the Future is PLASTICS. The Silents created a sick generation beneath them, and they are the ones most responsible for this mess. The Silents enabled the Evil and bred up a massive Baby Boom of Evil Seed. Boomers are simply the VICTIMS of the abuse of the Silents. LOL.

There is much truth in this but not all followed the model of the abuser and some recovered to become SURVIVORS. They are your Carolyn Bakers, your Joe Bageants, the Thom Hartmanns of the world. The Ina May and Stephen Gaskins. They still hold up a lantern to show the way to this very day.

Good to see you again Bill!

I'm hardcore doomer. More so since I joined LATOC in 2006, as I was a doomer lite type before then. Peak Oil, and the unbelievable balls of corrupt governments and sociopathic corporations have pushed me over the edge.

Sabre

I believe there is a third category: slow doomer.  Actually, this is the position Kunstler takes, i.e. The Long Emergency.  A point that should be made here is one which is historical based.  It is my considered belief that most Americans have an extremely poor sense of history.  It was a subject in school they barely tolerated and forgot as soon as accomplished.  It is part of the background information on cultures and societies which have collapsed in the past, often for similar reasons.

I think total collapse right now doomers take the stance because in many ways it is simpler.  No timeline necessary.  Many even take some satisfaction in this sort of scenario.  As I have said before that is madness.  Anyone who WISHES for a quick collapse, often because they are very dissatisfied with their current lives or the political scene, had better read up on former quick collapse occurences.  It will be an eye opener.

The problem with the slow collapse scenario (that would be me) is that no one knows the timeline. It is a very frustrating thing to watch....two steps forward, one step backward.  And, drum roll please, I think this is what Bernanke is doing.  Or rather, he is the financial conductor of a slow economic collapse.  He understands there is a greater chance of ameliorating the damage if the collapse is slow and "managed."  Of course his management leaves a lot to be desired and may in fact produce a faster collapse, but that is the subject of another debate.  And a rather large tenent of this whole subject, and one we almost never touch on, is what is the final eventual outcome of either a slow or quick collapse and how will we deal with it? What cultural changes will happen along the way which will be more or less permanent? How can we best secure the future well being of our children and grand-children?  I think these are the important questions of our time.

I became peak aware during my doctoral work in economics when I took a course on the economics of renewable and non-renewable resources.  I was very active in alt.survival during the bbs era in the late 90s.  I learned about Dermot's Gulf Oil Game which turned me onto his site.  I became a moderator on his forum and then got turned on to LATOC.

As a result of my learning more about the eminent crash, I moved from the Philly area back to central PA and started prepping like crazy.  I now have a 3700 sq ft garden, raise chickens and turkeys, can most of my produce and have a larder to die for.

Every extra cent goes toward becoming as sustainable as possible.  If that is not full doomer, then I do not know what is.  BTW,  I do not have one #10 can of freeze dried crap in storage.  But, I do have lots of hand tools and a five year supply of OP seeds.  I have totally changed my life style and I feel I am living a much richer life as a result.

BTW, if the crash does not happen, then big deal.  I still like my current life style.