Surviving the Apocalypse with Spiderman

Please forgive me for stealing Paul's title. https://permies.com/t/44420/labs/breakfast-spiderman
It just seemed like a fun way to start this mini rant that is not really a rant.

Im a Doomer. No getting around that subject...but I am also an Uber optimist. The future I see is full of unpleasant changes but I can stare it straight in the face and say, "O.K. I can face it. Lets get busy".

So Why is it soooo unpleasant dealing with other people that don't have that level of acceptance... besides the obvious of people thinking I'm emotionally unstable when I say things like, "If something is unsustainable, that means it stops", or "Its not if but when", or " You have to prepare now to not have another job for the rest of your life without a functioning social safety net".

Ya, I can be rather dull at parties which is why I generally only try to hang out with others that have a pretty good idea about that this ends badly and try to adjust there lives accordingly. Im just not going to have much in common with folks that want to talk about their tropical vacations and yesterdays big game. One person recently entering my small group and exited about having the opportunity to build a cob house, asked, Do any of you have the same problem when you tell people that you are preparing for the shit to hit the fan, that those people treat you like a nut case to be avoided. A level of complete disrespect".

Im fully aware of that to most, I come across like the manic street preacher yelling at the people on the Titanic, "Get On The Fucking Life Boat!!!"
But I do try to edit myself. I realise its TMI if I say, "I have a permaculture food forest...and a rifle to keep it" or " Unstoppable climate change, energy\resource depletion and economic destabilisation means.....a whole bunch of people die" but I find it hard when dealing with educated people that understand these problems but don't actually do the fundamental things necessary to having any chance at saving there own lives.
Organising protests, learning to love the whales, drum circles and changing lightbulbs becomes a self anestitising placebo.
So is hearing from certain friends, that if it gets as bad as I say, that they don't want to live anyhow. I keep wanting to throttle them and yell, "Slow creeping starvation, hypothermia and homelessness is not an acceptable retirement plan."

Well that's my mini rant. Any tips for not losing it amongst people hoping that solar power will fuel our flying cars in a world of leisure and equality. LOL

I'm totally in the same boat. A realist.

No one fills the goddamn glass half full and sets it down! Someone has been drinking from that cup! It's half empty dammit!!!


Yeh, The reason I'm so difficult to deal at times is my pigheaded stubbornness. And poverty. I could be planting trees right now but not from any nursury I know of. Seedling are chilling out... Their gonna do what they're gonna do. Haven't taken my first walk of the day yet. Those are usually good.


DOOOOOOOOOOOMED!!!

Ross Raven wrote:
Organising protests, learning to love the whales, drum circles and changing lightbulbs becomes a self anestitising placebo.

I will confess that on days that I feel apocalyptic (which is only some of them) I feel a lot more productive if I plant some more food tree seeds than if I go do something political or activist. But here at Permies.com we have all kinds, and I think protesters, whale-loving environmentalists, drummers-in-the-woods, and piece-meal energy conservationists are all pretty well represented among our numbers. The publishing standard here is that we be nice to other permies, so you won't catching me saying a negative thing against any of those activities. And in all good truth I think each of those activities is worthy on its own terms. Will they stave off the apocalypse? Probably not; that will come (or not come) for reasons that are too big for most of us to affect as individuals.

What I like about permaculture is how people without many resources can use it to build resilience into their lives for close to no money. Thus for me it has higher priority than activism, environmental causes, and social-spirituality events.

Oh. I wasn't referring to anyone here. I like permies because they are actually doing something. Hands in the dirt. Wood in the fire. Bringing it local. Passing on the first hand knowledge.
My activist wife is arranging seedlings today and I was repairing snowshoes to help with maple sugar collection.

My point is about how to deal with blank stare responses, when I point out to, say, someone that believes in sea level rise but choses to live by the sea shore....or say, goes to watch a community viewing on climate change but drives there and views it by coal fired electricity and is blaming the problem on someone else. (By the way. At the viewing of that film, I think I was the only person in the entire room that caught Richard Hidelman say, even with complete switch over to solar and wind, output would still require that we accept going to bed at seven. While everyone else in the room wanted to morn or be arrested at a protest...only one other couple at the event was exited like us. The film featured a permaculturalist growing cold weather rice. We were engrossed by the simple fact that we might just possibly be able to grow a complex carb to help keep from starving over a winter. Practical survival. We jumped on it) Externalising the problem wile doing nothing. Instead of buying green bags, perhaps we should burn then. Then we cant go to the store and buy food from the other side of the continent.

Soooooo.....When I use the term Apocalypse ......Im using it apocryphally. lol. We understand that conventional oil has peaked and topsoil erosion in mega farming requires oil by-products or it stops and a large portion of the 7, soon to be 9 billion people wont have enough food. We know that the 2008 financial crisis was never solved and is just a warm up to an exponentially bigger financial crisis. (I never expect to see much of our retirement pension) We know about fish stock depletion, acidification and dead zones. See 9 billion above. We know about the demographic bubble about to burst as soon as the baby boomers retire making all north American tax systems stop functioning. We know about crumbling infrastructure that was originally built on credit and plentiful oil and can no longer be replaced.....And by this point we pretty much know that people aren't going to respond fast enough if at all. Maybe if we had put all our effort in back in the 70s but that ship has sailed. This is only a small portion of the disruptions we know. Not the theoretical possibilities that go along with those. Not the black swans.

So, for about 5 years now, Ive been telling people, You must get a garden in the ground right now....etc. I cant exactly say to their face, I wont have the resources to help keep them alive. I have to put my effort into the ones that can actually be saved. Occasionally I accidentally do tell people that...and somehow, I'm the bad guy. LOL

Ross Raven wrote:This is only a small portion of the disruptions we know. Not the theoretical possibilities that go along with those. Not the black swans.

Exactly. When I use the word "apocalypse" in speech it's always part of the semi-ironic phrase "zombie apocalypse". Nobody takes it too seriously because that's obviously ludicrous, which helps to signal that I don't take myself too seriously either. But I find it helpful as a way to gesture at the notion of black swans to people who don't have that concept. Nobody expects actual zombies, but it's convenient shorthand for our comfortable existence substantially disrupted. You itemized several of the big threats. I myself think we might dodge the worst effects of some or all of those... but we also might not. And there's still the black swans that we can't even worry about because they aren't on our radars yet.

Ross Raven wrote:So, for about 5 years now, I've been telling people, You must get a garden in the ground right now.

When people ask me what I really think about the future, I tend to say that I don't really think the zombie apocalypse is imminent. But we (myself and my interlocutor of the moment) are nonetheless looking at a personal future in which pretty much no matter what else happens, we are going to be hotter, drier, poorer, and less well-fed. "Getting a garden in the ground" (as you put it) is the one thing almost anybody can do, with next to no money, that will ease those expected difficulties.

I had my first clue that something was very very wrong with the economy in 2005. I consider that my awakening. I am fortunate that most of my family "get's it" as well. Most are even willing to take some action. So I have not gone completely crazy preaching to a wall, that the rest of my social circle is. I ran out of gas trying to make a difference in 2011. 6 years in, and not listening to a word I had to say with any recognition was enough for me. My focus now is only preparation. I realized that my time was much better spent and productive, if I cared about someone, to prepare extra for them in their ignorance. There will be a time that they will come to their senses and need help. But until that time that the make the choice for themselves, one can not save the willing lost.

So my plan includes a few folks who don't even know that they are included. Or that there is a plan. I know I will not turn them away to be accountable for their choices. So my time is better spent doing for them, than trying to wake them up before they are ready. Fortunately the list is small and are solid folks who will be assets to the rest of my circle. But they will have to go through the mental and emotional evolution the rest of us have, but in a much more compressed space of time.

All that to say, sometimes the best action is no action at all. If you really want to help folks, be ready to give them a net for a short period of time while they mourn the loss of the past. But then give them the tools to get busy and contribute.

Jack Edmondson wrote: I ran out of gas trying to make a difference in 2011. 6 years in, and not listening to a word I had to say with any recognition was enough for me. My focus now is only preparation. I realized that my time was much better spent and productive, if I cared about someone, to prepare extra for them in their ignorance.

All that to say, sometimes the best action is no action at all. If you really want to help folks, be ready to give them a net for a short period of time while they mourn the loss of the past. But then give them the tools to get busy and contribute.

I think I am there at the moment. Crazy prophet playing got me a few folks but not the numbers. "Save as many as you can" has always been my motto...but I think my burn out point was having to provide housing and firewood for them.

Still I have one hero in all of this. Chris Martenson has done a herculean task in all this. I think he has been the only person out there that has been communicating it all, while staying politically neutral. Successfully bridging Permies, transitioners, and survivalists.....all while not becoming a dick. Kudos. That skill seems to be way beyond my own emotional skillset

Well worth 4 hours of a persons life http://www.peakprosperity.com/crashcourse

This is one of my favorite short videos ever. Compounding's the problem http://www.peakprosperity.com/video/85829/crash-course-chapter-4-compounding-problem

Someone famous was reading my mind. http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-03-16/only-less-will-do Its a worthwhile read

Only Less Will Do- by Richard Heinberg (Got his name wrong the first time) "Almost nobody likes to hear about the role of scale ..."

While drinking last night, it dawned on me that I am not Spiderman. Im Batman. (LOL) The Dark Horse Comic version.
There lies my ulcer. Im a Dark Green dealing with Bright Greens