There is a Dark Age coming - ...and I feeeel fiiiine :)

[CheepMeds]

@cybertoaster I'm not, but I'm not posting this from Tor either.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

@CheapMeds can't quote you but the point I was trying to make was not of a "soft landing", when I mentioned the internet and AC I mean stuff like a favela in Rio where you see rundown shacks made of exposed brick and tin roofs but they got a cheap AC unit made in brazil and inside they got smartphones and a smartTV with netflix, but they dont have a car and never leave the city let alone travel to another continent. Electricity will not get cheaper, it just wont get as expensive as oil because you can always get solar, but the sun is not going to start raining hydrocarbons on us.

Nope, input energy, output hydrocarbons. The reason this isn't done (much) now is because the economics of it are politically rigged. It would take years to get approval, have to fight like 50 lawsuits, and by the time it's finally built, the price of oil has come way down so it isn't profitable anymore. Similar bullshit to why we don't get new refineries.

I'm not sure if intermittency would affect the process any more than it affects electricity in general, but solar thermal, pumped storage, flywheels, etc. would solve that problem nicely even if it takes away from the selling point of solar/wind being the "cheapest form of energy" (which is the real scam in solar energy).

Oh, you know what might be cheaper than cheap electronics? - Drugs.

Yes, that's part of why there's a huge push to legalize weed. Weed just makes you act retarded and sleepy without the violence and spontaneity of alcohol. It's the perfect drug for the elite to use on us.

For example, the reason why vodka is such a big part of former soviet state culture is because the vodka industry was very state subsidized for this exact reason by USSR.

Vodka was literally a license for the Russian government to print money since the Tsar was still in power, of course they'd subsidize it. People don't realize how big alcohol sales were for government revenue in the past. The real reason Prohibition was repealed was because FDR needed money.

 

[cybertoaster]

Nope, input energy, output hydrocarbons. The reason this isn't done (much) now is because the economics of it are politically rigged. It would take years to get approval, have to fight like 50 lawsuits, and by the time it's finally built, the price of oil has come way down so it isn't profitable anymore. Similar bullshit to why we don't get new refineries.

Using conventional FT technology the process ranges in carbon efficiency from 25 to 50 percent[43] and a thermal efficiency of about 50%[44] for CTL facilities idealised at 60%[45] with GTL facilities at about 60%[44] efficiency idealised to 80%[45] efficiency.

Thats from wikipedia so don't be surprised if its been doctored by the corporations involved. So yeah this might be used by the elite to keep their biz jets fueled, but forget about eating out-of-season fruit from the other side of the planet or cheap cruises and airfare, unless you're part of the elite.

"So you better netflix and chill with your hand, don't get uppity if you know whats good for you"

 

[Otterly]

I think a lot of the degrowth in the system is deliberate. We are being conditioned to much lower living standards. I think we will carry on losing our freedoms and lowering our standards of living, by just enough to not make people snap and eviscerate the WEF.
You see it already with trivial things - fewer types of an item on the shelves in the supermarket. Where there were fifteen brands of something now there’s five just spread out. My local mall is pointless to shop for the kids - they have only a few sizes of stuff, couldn’t find socks int he right size for one of the despite trying a few shops.
I think food will get more expensive, meat in particular. We will be slowly ground down. And by the time it gets really bad the control grid will be such that any dissent gets your digital wallet locked and you’re screwed.
One thing I will say is print your photographs. Don’t leave them all in the cloud.

 

[Sweetpeaa]

And then 2008 made things far worse for even the college educated middle class..

All the race, gender, trans and anti abortion crap has been a continued distraction in the last 14 years from the absolute shit economic state. The living standard has just been dropping continuously since then and race and other culture wars seem to be the choice diversion by the powers that be for the common folk. Covid just further accelerated this shit even more.

Dark age? We're already there. It doesn't have to be Mad Max level to be a collapse.

 

[CheepMeds]

I was thinking the other day about this question I had posted here...

People, what do you think are some of the more lucrative industries/trades to get into early in a slowly collapsing/declining world?

Being able to repair anything that relies on international transport as well as having the materials to do repairs will be what provides a steady trade come any break or regression situation. If even the bandits need you they are less likely to terrorize your household. That is especially true with the production of potentially dangerous products i.e. anything involving chemistry.

I think the chemistry part shouldn't be brushed over too fast.

Being proficient in Chemistry might pretty much make you a wizard in a slowly "de-industrializing" world.
Because being able to precure niche and crucial chemicals or viable substitutes that currently are supplied by global supply chains, would be like knowing how to create gold.
Just knowing how to make disinfectants, hygienic products and preservatives in an ever greasier world while most others are embracing the farm life would give you a very powerful economic edge.
It would also make you much more irreplaceable and more valuable alive than dead even if circumstances are dire enough to call that into question.

Or you can just make meth.

 

[blur]

Chemistry and maybe some practical macro physics. Knowledge set that is expandable and would be useful in any scenario, even if marooned on an island.

I for one am not worried about this scenario because I need specific medicine to survive, but my friends are and I help where I can.

But yeah I would pick the wizard class then tag the local ecology and nearby natural resource perks.

You can already profit from wizardry. During the opening excitement phase of covid hand sanitizer was impossible to come by but I picked up the components and synthesized money. Throughout the shortage anyone could easily order boxes of chlorhexidine (CHX) gluconate without any markup or restrictions. Effective viralcide even when diluted.

 

[Maurice Maine]

I think a lot of the degrowth in the system is deliberate. We are being conditioned to much lower living standards. I think we will carry on losing our freedoms and lowering our standards of living, by just enough to not make people snap and eviscerate the WEF.
You see it already with trivial things - fewer types of an item on the shelves in the supermarket. Where there were fifteen brands of something now there’s five just spread out. My local mall is pointless to shop for the kids - they have only a few sizes of stuff, couldn’t find socks int he right size for one of the despite trying a few shops.
I think food will get more expensive, meat in particular. We will be slowly ground down. And by the time it gets really bad the control grid will be such that any dissent gets your digital wallet locked and you’re screwed.
One thing I will say is print your photographs. Don’t leave them all in the cloud.

You're not seeing the bigger picture. Fifteen brands of something is not normal. You gotta the understand the world isn't like America. The real doozy's that everything in the supermarket is getting worse. Like, tastes different, I dunno. Prices keep going up. The apparatus being set up by the fellas in charge won't work long-term as it'll all collapse as all dictatorships do.

 

[Beak Thing]

I was thinking the other day about this question I had posted here...


I think the chemistry part shouldn't be brushed over too fast.
View attachment 3985353
Being proficient in Chemistry might pretty much make you a wizard in a slowly "de-industrializing" world.
Because being able to precure niche and crucial chemicals or viable substitutes that currently are supplied by global supply chains, would be like knowing how to create gold.
Just knowing how to make disinfectants, hygienic products and preservatives in an ever greasier world while most others are embracing the farm life would give you a very powerful economic edge.
It would also make you much more irreplaceable and more valuable alive than dead even if circumstances are dire enough to call that into question.

Or you can just make meth.

I think more than a few Christian saints were identified as such because they were buried with glass bottles of ancient perfumes...both the bottle itself and the perfume would be nothing more than magic to the people of the decaying lands of post-Roman Western Europe.

 

[Picnic_Boy]

We're already there. Nothing gets invented, nothing gets cured.

 

[CheepMeds]

Latest example I've come across of how even tech boomer billionaires are investing in a collapsing future.

Yes, they (especially the guest) do use a lot of gay nu-speak, but I believe the whole context of the message is relevant.

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

Smartphones and content-on-demand (everything from youtube to gamepass) has had a huge pacifying effect on the population at large. I seen it both in the first world and in the third world, normies just lay down and watch shit rather than actually rebel.

It's the modern bread and circuses, this time around they just found a way of making the prolls pay for it too.

 

[blur]

Everyone has to remember that the future is not set in stone either. There could be a paradigm shift that changes everything. Time never goes in reverse but culture can move along any vector.

If a handful of people run the world only a few minds have to change for tectonic shifts to happen.

 

[56 others]

I think a major shrink of our economy and population will be a good thing, the less people, the more resources. There are a lot of businesses and industries that i have no understanding of how they are able to exist, and that I dont think should exist. 80% of stuff in walmart is just straight trash.

 

[CowPox]

Is it true a 3000 year old blood cult controls the Earth?

 

[timewave0]

You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

 

[CheepMeds]

I think a major shrink of our economy and population will be a good thing, the less people, the more resources. There are a lot of businesses and industries that i have no understanding of how they are able to exist, and that I dont think should exist. 80% of stuff in walmart is just straight trash.

Sentiments like that make the lobster king sad.

However, I do believe he is right that things aren't as simple as less people meaning more stuff for them. Modern world evolved in an ecosystem where there were always guaranteed more manpower in the future. Taking that out of the equation could possibly be really bad, but it had to end somewhere.
Maybe the game was rigged from the start after all.

Still I prefer this route than nuclear holocaust or famine cuz food doesn't seem like issue.

Just a pic I recently came across on /pol/

I find it relevant to the thread and some of the things in it made me chuckle.

 

[Darkholme's Dungeon]

I think a major shrink of our economy and population will be a good thing, the less people, the more resources. There are a lot of businesses and industries that i have no understanding of how they are able to exist, and that I dont think should exist. 80% of stuff in walmart is just straight trash.

I don't think that will happen. The west can always import immigrants. The question becomes if global trade collapses.

Now, a death of true intellect. A disease of the mind, perhaps. But it is required for a greater rebirth.

 

[blur]

I think a major shrink of our economy and population will be a good thing, the less people, the more resources. There are a lot of businesses and industries that i have no understanding of how they are able to exist, and that I dont think should exist. 80% of stuff in walmart is just straight trash.

The elites are useless eaters just like everyone else. Especially them since their power structure, redundant production, and financial mechanisms should have been outdated since the dawn of the computing age. It is funny to hear the obvious cognitive dissonance from the likes of harari about every topic he pontificates on.

I think that most of the people at the top for some reason see themselves as either essential expressions of the human spirit or destined to be like the beings described in The Golden Age. They still realize at a fundamental level that they are meaningless in their own eyes and try to hide their own logic behind a laughably contrived value system. So often does depravity resemble insanity. We are going to turn humanity into gods by killing all people.

Just read the WEF philosophers and trend setters. They vacillate between smug assuredness of their impending godhood and mewling fear regarding their works. Pathetic and vain in the way that only bug men can be.

The elite are more afraid of the future than anyone else is.

 

[Irrational Exuberance]

I think that most of the people at the top for some reason see themselves as either essential expressions of the human spirit or destined to be like the beings described in The Golden Age. They still realize at a fundamental level that they are meaningless in their own eyes and try to hide their own logic behind a laughably contrived value system. So often does depravity resemble insanity. We are going to turn humanity into gods by killing all people.

The issue is that there are those among them who have sold themselves to a cosmic force that hates humanity, and if at all possible would twist and corrupt it into a form that mocks and blasphemes the One who created it to be like Himself.

Yes, I am arguing from a religious standpoint; take from it what suits you. But I think the time for contentious bickering and back-and-forth is coming to an end, in view of what is to come. Take refuge from the storm while you can, before it destroys everyone and everything.