from CG
Can the End of the World stuff be split into an End of the World thread?
Well then you will have to argue with these people on page one of this very thread who brought up such dire and gloomy stuff to begin this very thread:
from LiliRose on page one of this thread
haven't alarmist types been saying dire things like that for years????
response from thread starter CG
Ever since we saw it coming. The difference is that the warning is no longer "it's coming" but "it's here". We are no longer approaching the event horizon, we are starting to fall in.
We're only in the early stages of it right now though.
from Eborr on page 2 of this thread
at one level deep joy the capitalist world is falling apart, there is something deeply right about this.
The sad thing is that the misguided will suffer, the greedy fools who formed a queue outside Northern Rock may see their life savings expunged, but the slimy really greedy gits will survive, cos they always do.
Dave Lf put up this information from Jim Kuntsler also on page 2
When historians glance back at 2007 through the haze of their coal-fired stoves, they will mark this year as the onset of the Long Emergency – or whatever they choose to call the unraveling of industrial economies and the complex systems that constituted them. And if they retain any sense of humor – which is very likely since, as wise Sam Beckett once averred, nothing is funnier than unhappiness – they will chuckle at the assumptions that drove the doings and mental operations of those in charge back then (i.e. now).
On page three of this bvery thread, Dave put up some information from Pat Buchanan as follows
"America is coming apart, decomposing, and...the likelihood of her survival as one nation...is improbable -- and impossible if America continues on her current course," declares Pat Buchanan. "For we are on a path to national suicide."
The best-selling author and former presidential candidate is on the eve of launching his new epic book: DAY OF RECKONING: HOW HUBRIS, IDEOLOGY AND GREED ARE TEARING AMERICA APART.
[The book's release date has been moved up to this week. It ranked #237 on AMAZON's hitparade Monday morning.]
This time, Buchanan goes all the way:
"America is in an existential crisis from which the nation may not survive."
The U.S. Army is breaking and is too small to meet America’s global commitments.
The dollar has sunk to historic lows and is being abandoned by foreign governments.
U.S. manufacturing is being hollowed out.
The greatest invasion in history, from the Third World, is swamping the ethno-cultural core of the country, leading to Balkanization and the loss of the Southwest to Mexico.
The culture is collapsing and the nation is being deconstructed along the lines of race and class.
A fiscal crisis looms as the unfunded mandates of Social Security and Medicare remain unaddressed.
All these crises are hitting America at once -- a perfect storm of crises.
from Maria on page six of this thread
It seems like I've been expecting the end of civilization for the past 30 years, but it keeps *not* happening yet. I've had time to prepare- and have done so, somewhat. But I live 20 miles away from a city of 120,000 people, so if everything crashes, I don't see how we can hold out against hordes of hungry people. All my self sufficiency preparation won't help if a mob of 50 to a 100 people come raiding on our place. We don't have the means of fighting off that many, unless they scare really easy.
from Aulini on page six of this thread
Personally, I just can't come to any other conclusion than once you get past a certain point - whenever that point may be - the complexity of running the most vital infrastructure of our societies will just be impossible to maintain. That means empty stores, no national state, no electricity, no running water, dog-eat-dog anarchy. I really, really don't like that scenario, and I hope that I will be proven wrong.
from MariaHobbit on page seven
I've got all kinds of reference books at home. Every time I get interested in a new skill that might be involved in surviving with minimal or collapsed civilization, I end up getting a book on the subject. I've got manuals on edible wild plants of North America, basket weaving, canning and drying food, smoking meat & making sausages, soap making, various books on raising various kinds of livestock, black smithing, building barns and sheds... the list goes on and on. And, of course, we have many "how too" books galore on civilized skills like framing, plumbing and wiring houses. And setting tile.
You want a dozen more examples that this thread has always been about doom and gloom?