2011- the year of the news overload

Forum for general discussion of Peak Oil / Oil depletion; also covering related subjects

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UndercoverElephant
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Post by UndercoverElephant »

mr brightside wrote:
UndercoverElephant wrote:You reckon? The stormclouds gathering over world events right now does not look like it is happening in a teacup to me. It looks very, very real.
It looks to me like human beings are continuing to run the planet badly, with this going on chaos in inevitable.
It's more than that. Everything appears to be going wrong at the same time, which is what the opening post is about. This isn't just a normal crisis - it is global, systemic and a one-off (it can't happen like this again, because peak oil can only happen once).
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
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UndercoverElephant
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Post by UndercoverElephant »

JohnB wrote:I thought it was just the end of their calendar, and the start of a new one, so no big deal. At least that's what some bloke who claimed to be a descendant of the Mayans said on YouTube.
It's a bit more than that, because the calendar in question is linked to astro-theological stuff. Some sort of "rebirth" is predicted.

Image

BTW....for anyone who thinks this is recent (21st century phenomena), you might want to check this out (from 1988): http://www.DODGY TAX AVOIDERS.com/Earth-Ascending-I ... 0939680459

It is not just that the Maya predicted long ago something that would happen in 2012. Something else is going on here, but that something is far too unbelievable for the skeptics to accept it. There's more than one sort of causality at work, and more than one reason why this is happening now and what it has got to do with the Maya.

All of the above is opinion, but it is opinion of a person who was a hardline skeptic until 2001/2002, at which point I had little choice but to convert to the other side and describe myself as a mystic. I experienced a lot of very strange stuff in 2002, and it was directly connected to this prophecy. And I'm not your average tin foil hatter either. Subsequent to this "conversion", I ended up being Richard Dawkins forum administrator. That's how much of a scientific skeptic I had previously been - enough to convince Josh Timonen, who set up Dawkins' website, that I could be left in charge of it. At the time, I was at university studying philosophy and cognitive science. I'm neck-deep in this. :)
Last edited by UndercoverElephant on 27 Jul 2011, 16:30, edited 1 time in total.
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
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Ludwig
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Post by Ludwig »

UndercoverElephant wrote: You reckon? The stormclouds gathering over world events right now does not look like it is happening in a teacup to me. It looks very, very real.
Agreed. With the Millenium Bug I thought, yeah it might be catastophic, but it might not, what do I know?

With Peak Oil I know enough, I think, to bet on catastrophe...
They predicted rebirth of the world - the end of the world as we know it and the beginning of a new order. It is based on the 22,000 year precession cycle. The long count calendar ends on the day that the midwinter sun rises up through a feature of the milky way galaxy (the "dark rift") which corresponds to the birth channel of the Mayan Gods. It takes 22,000 years for the whole sky to rotate through 360 degrees and the alignment happen again.
So what happened 22000 years ago? Was it those big black blocks from space decending among a bunch of chimpanzees? :)
"We're just waiting, looking skyward as the days go down / Someone promised there'd be answers if we stayed around."
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UndercoverElephant
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Post by UndercoverElephant »

Ludwig wrote: So what happened 22000 years ago? Was it those big black blocks from space decending among a bunch of chimpanzees? :)
Nothing, probably...
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
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UndercoverElephant
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Post by UndercoverElephant »

RalphW wrote:I think the economic news is looking like another 2008 global recession, and this time the sheeple are primed and can see it coming.

This time it is also looking more global, with US. EU and China looking on the brink. US and EU are broke, China is in an enormous property bubble.

All countries are printing money, and trying to do it in lock step to hide the relative devaluations. Only the price of gold, Swiss dollars, etc. give it away. Because most of the third world trades in OECD currencies, they are being drastically short-changed, leading to increasing hunger and poverty. However, apart from the drought in Africa, this is not news.

The oil exporting nations are, of course, making money hand over fist, but most of the money disappears into those Swiss accounts, or is dissipated on populations that are breeding and consuming out of control, and require ever higher imports of food and consumer goods.

So this time, when the bubble bursts (which one)? the banks will go belly up, international trade will collapse, there will be massive deflation (not that it will do me any good, unless I can hide a 6 figure sum in cash under the bed, because my bank will default on my savings).

The price of oil will collapse as demand collapses, the OPEC countries will see popular uprisings, leading to collapsing oil production in those countries, there will be a rapid increase in resource wars as the US, China and others pitch in to support one band of rebels against another,
world hunger will explode, but reporting of it will evaporate.

We will be hungry. Many people in Africa, middle east, south east Asia and China will starve. We are consuming more food than is being grown in the world as it is. Climate change is currently looking to be damaging food production at an alarming rate. PO, leading to fuel shortage in the third world, and the collapse of trade will seal our fate.

The more I look at it, the more likely a fast crash (months or a few years) seems likely for most of Industrial civilisation. I just hope it doesn't go nuclear.

Will it happen this time, or will the banking elite hold it together one more time?

I suspect the sheeple can see another recession coming, but they still cannot see the bigger picture. They won't see it this time around, or if we survive, the next time either. For them, the time before the last recession is distant history. They live in the present (virtual) world.
Remember there is a US Presidential election in 2012. If "they" can hold the thing together somehow until then, they will.
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
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Ludwig
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Post by Ludwig »

UndercoverElephant wrote: I personally believe the most relevant concept is retrocausality, but that is a long story...
"We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning."

(My italics, T S Eliot's poem)
"We're just waiting, looking skyward as the days go down / Someone promised there'd be answers if we stayed around."
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Ludwig
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Post by Ludwig »

postie wrote: No offence or anything UE, but that guy was barking. I think it is fair to say we're all expecting something to change in quite a big way in the near future, or else we wouldn't be on a Peak Oil forum, but mystic fortune telling based on a culture that didn't see their own demise by sweaty Spaniards... then nope, like the Spaniards, it doesn't wash. :D
Mystics don't necessarily see everything, and they don't necessarily understand everything they see.

I met a schizophrenic last year, who had visions of rioting and looting in 2012. Far from attributing this to Peak Oil and economic collapse, he said it had something to do with "mechanical failure" and giant insects biting off people's heads.

Just because mystics are often bonkers by normal standards, doesn't mean they're not onto something.

I used to be sceptical about this stuff, but like UE I had experiences that changed my mind.

Of course many dates predicted for the end of the world have been and gone. Anyone can call themselves a mystic and make predictions, and many people, out of knavery or self-deception, do. That doesn't mean there aren't a minority of genuine mystics out there.
"We're just waiting, looking skyward as the days go down / Someone promised there'd be answers if we stayed around."
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mr brightside
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Post by mr brightside »

UndercoverElephant wrote:It's more than that. Everything appears to be going wrong at the same time, which is what the opening post is about. This isn't just a normal crisis - it is global, systemic and a one-off (it can't happen like this again, because peak oil can only happen once).
Yeah ok, we may be heading for stormy waters over the next 10yrs or so; but it is completely unconnected to this Maya calendar stuff.
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Ludwig
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Post by Ludwig »

mr brightside wrote: Yeah ok, we may be heading for stormy waters over the next 10yrs or so; but it is completely unconnected to this Maya calendar stuff.
You don't know that.

As for the next ten years - no, much sooner. I also think next year will be when everything changes - and does so so dramatically that people won't really believe it's happening. Whether it will be 21 December I don't know. I wouldn't put it past TPTB to have earmarked this date, as a bit of a joke, to finally pull the plug on the global financial system. But we shall see.
"We're just waiting, looking skyward as the days go down / Someone promised there'd be answers if we stayed around."
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emordnilap
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Post by emordnilap »

mr brightside wrote:
UndercoverElephant wrote:It's more than that. Everything appears to be going wrong at the same time, which is what the opening post is about. This isn't just a normal crisis - it is global, systemic and a one-off (it can't happen like this again, because peak oil can only happen once).
Yeah ok, we may be heading for stormy waters over the next 10yrs or so; but it is completely unconnected to this Maya calendar stuff.
You could be right but I quite like spooky coincidences. Those "Ooo-err missus" moments.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
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UndercoverElephant
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Post by UndercoverElephant »

Ludwig wrote:
UndercoverElephant wrote: I personally believe the most relevant concept is retrocausality, but that is a long story...
"We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning."

(My italics, T S Eliot's poem)
"We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems."

Arthur O'Shaughnessy
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
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UndercoverElephant
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Post by UndercoverElephant »

mr brightside wrote:
UndercoverElephant wrote:It's more than that. Everything appears to be going wrong at the same time, which is what the opening post is about. This isn't just a normal crisis - it is global, systemic and a one-off (it can't happen like this again, because peak oil can only happen once).
Yeah ok, we may be heading for stormy waters over the next 10yrs or so; but it is completely unconnected to this Maya calendar stuff.
Well, we are going to have to agree to disagree on that one. At the end of the day, it doesn't make a lot of difference whether there is a connection or no connection. If the End Of The World As We Know It is indeed coming, then whether or not you believe it was prophecied by the Maya is academic, if that's the right word...
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
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mr brightside
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Post by mr brightside »

UndercoverElephant wrote:Well, we are going to have to agree to disagree on that one. At the end of the day, it doesn't make a lot of difference whether there is a connection or no connection. If the End Of The World As We Know It is indeed coming, then whether or not you believe it was prophecied by the Maya is academic, if that's the right word...
'The end of the world as we know it' is a subjective conclusion. Could you be more specific? I see it as more of a slight shift in thinking.
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UndercoverElephant
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Post by UndercoverElephant »

mr brightside wrote: 'The end of the world as we know it' is a subjective conclusion. Could you be more specific? I see it as more of a slight shift in thinking.
I think that we are about to enter a period of rapidly declining living standards in the developed world, followed by the BRIC nations. I think our fiat currency system is going to implode and will have to be replaced with something else. I think that there are going to be food shortages in many poorer parts of the world, and that the death rate will catch up with the birth rate much sooner than most people believe. This isn't going to be a brief blip while we recover from the financial crisis and learn to be less oil-dependent. It is going to be the start of the Long Descent.

IMO.
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
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Post by mr brightside »

UndercoverElephant wrote:I think that we are about to enter a period of rapidly declining living standards in the developed world, followed by the BRIC nations. I think our fiat currency system is going to implode and will have to be replaced with something else. I think that there are going to be food shortages in many poorer parts of the world, and that the death rate will catch up with the birth rate much sooner than most people believe. This isn't going to be a brief blip while we recover from the financial crisis and learn to be less oil-dependent. It is going to be the start of the Long Descent.

IMO.
I see. I thought i was sensing some dispair in general on the thread which is what made me ask, i'm not trying to be a bigot or anything. Are you sure that you're not just too much a part of the system which you fear is about to collapse? If you evaporated from it a bit things might not be so gloomy.
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