5 Places NOT to be when the $ DIES!

[Mega]

http://dont-tread-on.me/top-5-places...lar-collapses/

Check out number 3
;)
Mike

[lektrode]

Re: 5 Places NOT to be when the $ DIES!

http://dont-tread-on.me/top-5-places...lar-collapses/

Check out number 3
;)
Mike

heh - confirms my obs, that when TSHTF, in The US anyway, one wont want to be anywhere near a bluestate urban area:

2. Southern California
4. New York City
5. Washington D.C.

[BiscayneSunrise]

Re: 5 Places NOT to be when the $ DIES!

England makes the list due to a reliance on imported oil but they do have lots of coal still, right?

[*T*]

Re: 5 Places NOT to be when the $ DIES!

England makes the list due to a reliance on imported oil but they do have lots of coal still, right?

Thatcher filled in a lot of the pits. We have a lot of NG, but are a net importer of energy.

[globaleconomicollaps]

Re: 5 Places NOT to be when the $ DIES!

where do you find this weird crap?

My wife said to me yesterday that people that spend all their time worrying about "The End Of The World" need to get a job. Seeing as how I am one of those guys, I have to agree. This is a morbid unproductive obsession. Ask yourself: Has there been a time in your life that; Prices have not been going up? That the state has not become more oppressive? That we have not been in a permanent state of war? These things are not new, but a constant in our lives.

I stopped reading Simon Black because he is all about some kind of socio-economic disaster.

Think of something positive to say.

This is my contribution:
( John Maccarthy wrote this not me)

PROGRESS AND ITS SUSTAINABILITY

PROGRESS AND ITS SUSTAINABILITY
This Web page and its satellites are aimed at showing that human material progress is desirable and sustainable. People have worried about many problems. These pages discuss energy in general, nuclear energy, solar energy, food supply, population, fresh water supply, forests and wood supply, global engineering, pollution, biodiversity, various menaces to human survival, the role of ideology in discussing these matters, useful references. Other problems are discussed in the main text including minerals and pollution.

The sustainability pages are essentially done, although I plan to improve them and respond to inadequacies people find. Having done my best to show that material progress is sustainable, I can justifiably turn my attention to the future and present ideas about what progress people will want and what can be achieved. The emphasis is on opportunities rather than on inevitabilities.

Most of the contentions of these pages are supported by simple calculations based on readily available numbers. Here's an illustration. Slogan: He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
With the development of nuclear energy, it became possible to show that there are no apparent obstacles even to billion year sustainability.(1) . A billion years is unimaginably far in the future.

Humanity has progressed over hundreds of thousands of years, but until about the seventeenth century, progress was a rare event. There were novelties, but a person would not expect a whole sequence of improvements in his lifetime. Since then scientific progress has been continual, and in the advanced parts of the world, there has also been continued technological progress. Therefore, people no longer expect the world to remain the same as it is. [Very likely, the greatest rate of progress for the average person occurred around the end of the 19th century when safe water supplies, telephones, automobiles, electric lighting, and home refrigeration came in short order.]

This page and its satellites will contain references to articles, my own and by others, explaining how humanity is likely to advance in the near future. In particular, we argue that the whole world can reach and maintain American standards of living with a population of even 15 billion. We also argue that maintaining material progress is the highest priority and the best way to ensure that population eventually stabilizes at a sustainable level with a standard of living above the present American level and continues to improve thereafter.

These opinions are old-fashioned according to some people, but they have a lot of support. For example, the biologist E. O. Wilson writes in his excellent book Consilience.

In contrast to widespread opinion, I believe that the Enlightenment thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries got it mostly right. The assumptions they made about a lawful material world, the intrinsic unity of knowledge, and the potential for indefinite human progress are the ones we still take most readily to heart, suffer without, and find maximally rewarding as we learn more and more about the circumstances of our lives.

[I'm not claiming Wilson would agree with everything on these pages or even most of it. Indeed I think his last chapter has too much overly standard environmentalist pessimism. Wilson's 2002 book, according to a review I saw, makes it clear that he would not. I see it as a retreat into sentimentality from what he wrote above.]
I offer no opinion about a "right" population, and I suspect that population will eventually be limited by a sense of crowdedness rather than by material considerations. Here's a more extensive discussion of population. There is a widespread belief that the present standard of living of the advanced countries is not sustainable and not extendable to the present backward countries. I and many others don't agree. This exposition mainly concerns scientific and technological bases for optimism rather than the historical and economic arguments ably advanced by Julian Simon, who died suddenly in 1998. Simon's web page contains much of his work.

There are some menaces, but they are likely to be avoided. In contrast to the menaces there are technological opportunities. I'm pleased to see that the opportunities are slightly ahead of the menaces in numbers of hits.

I consider these pages essentially finished as far as showing that material progress is sustainable. I have gotten into some arguments about what present policies are good and bad, and pages concentrating on that would require continued updating. However, I think I have enough to show sustainability.

[bungee]

Re: 5 Places NOT to be when the $ DIES!

My wife said to me yesterday that people that spend all their time worrying about "The End Of The World" need to get a job.

Why waste your time doing a job when other saps can do that and you can claim welfare?

Ask yourself: Has there been a time in your life that; Prices have not been going up? That the state has not become more oppressive? That we have not been in a permanent state of war? These things are not new, but a constant in our lives.

The answer to this probably depends on how old you are and where you grew up but there was a time when prices did not always go up and there wasn't a permanent state of war. We only have to put up with the current state if inflation and war as most people think they are getting a good deal out of it, because as you say they have never known any different, and they themselves have never made the effort to question and find out if things really have to be this way. Until their eyes are opened, likely by a sudden drop in living standards, those of us who know better have to put up with the current status quo.

Regarding the link you attached, although the website proudly states "He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense" in the first few paragraphs I can't see any calculation on how much uranium is going to be needed, or where it is going to be mined, to support 15 billion plus people for the next billion years even though he claims this is perfectly possible, so don't worry about anything. The link to some abstract figures elicits the novel belief that it can all be extracted from sea water conveniently ignores the fact that a large or larger proportion of the energy you get from the uranium is going to be used up in extracting it in the first place (at least I’m not aware of an energy efficient way of extracting trace elements from sea water) – ie. the energy return on investment would be low. This is before you start to worry about what to do with all the waste radioactive material which I assume will mount up over a billion years.

Put simply the earth can not support 15 billion people all living like they would want to – big house, car, tv, multiple holidays, eating meat etc etc. Of course 14.9 billion living as debt slaves in slums and 0.1 billion living in luxury managing things for them in perfectly achievable. If you’re sure you’re kids kids will be in that 0.1 billion then you don’t need to worry at all, but you probably wouldn’t be on this web site if that was the case.

[globaleconomicollaps]

Re: 5 Places NOT to be when the $ DIES!

Without going into details, John McCarthy has written an extensive web site with hundreds of pages of closely reasoned research on the topic of sustainability. I am not going to point you to his thoughts on nuclear waste or mining for new fuel as they are a few click away from the main page and if you are interested you will hunt for them.

Put simply the earth can not support 15 billion people all living like they would want to – big house, car, tv, multiple holidays, eating meat etc etc. Of course 14.9 billion living as debt slaves in slums and 0.1 billion living in luxury managing things for them in perfectly achievable. If you’re sure you’re kids kids will be in that 0.1 billion then you don’t need to worry at all, but you probably wouldn’t be on this web site if that was the case.

Nations that have successfully industrialized have declining or at least stable populations. There is a race on right now to industrialized the rest of the world before the populations of the few remaining unindustrialized nations explodes. Regardless, His point is that in the future , virtually everyone can and will live with a lifestyle far above the best medieval king ( provided that a supportive political environment exists ).

If you don't care for my upbeat link of the day, I will provide another.

Imagine a technology that would obviate most long haul trucking, air travel, and shipping of container goods ( and possibly bulk dry shipping ). This technology would use essentially zero oil or gas ( in fact it may make net energy ) and requires no new advances in material science or new technology beyond small obvious improvements to known techniques:

http://www.paulbirch.net/OrbitalRings-I.pdf
http://www.paulbirch.net/OrbitalRings-II.pdf
http://www.paulbirch.net/OrbitalRings-III.pdf

Behold! The orbital ring.

The point I am making is to be up-beat about the future.

[flintlock]

Re: 5 Places NOT to be when the $ DIES!

virtually everyone can and will live with a lifestyle far above the best medieval king.

Yes! I've brought this up before. Things are all relative. The indoor plumbing alone we have today would have put to shame the finest king's riches.

but.... That doesn't mean we should lay down like sheep to the slaughter either. I'm more interested in reading about things that can be done to fix the problem. I think bringing up the consequences of the current road to ruin we are on might just maybe give a glimmer of hope to fixing things. Though I am sure it is a long shot. But you are right, too much of the negative just feeds on itself and quite possibly it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We all get such a negative attitude about others that we ourselves become the assholes we are talking about.

[goodrich4bk]

Re: 5 Places NOT to be when the $ DIES!

Even assuming NO progress, I'd rather be a moose with a massive rack when hard times fall than one with no rack at all. We can jettison our SUVs and 40 gallon water heaters and still survive quite nicely thank you very much, but if you're already driving a Tata and bathing in a cesspool, you've got more worries than we do.

[Jam]

Re: 5 Places NOT to be when the $ DIES!

An opinion that is now much in vogue is that industrial growth must stop, that resources are limited, and that conservation and redisrtibution of wealth should be the order of the day. This view, I believe, is wrong. It ignores the immensity and diversity of the Universe, the generosity of God, and the ingeniousness of Man.

My favorite quote from these 1982-83 papers.
http://www.paulbirch.net/OrbitalRings-I.pdf
http://www.paulbirch.net/OrbitalRings-II.pdf
http://www.paulbirch.net/OrbitalRings-III.pdf

Thanks globaleconomicollaps for sharing.

[lektrode]

Re: 5 Places NOT to be when the $ DIES!

Yes! I've brought this up before. Things are all relative. The indoor plumbing alone we have today would have put to shame the finest king's riches.

but.... That doesn't mean we should lay down like sheep to the slaughter either. I'm more interested in reading about things that can be done to fix the problem. I think bringing up the consequences of the current road to ruin we are on might just maybe give a glimmer of hope to fixing things. Though I am sure it is a long shot. But you are right, too much of the negative just feeds on itself and quite possibly it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We all get such a negative attitude about others that we ourselves become the assholes we are talking about.

+1

'we are the people our parents warned us about'

[scootie]

Re: 5 Places NOT to be when the $ DIES!

.....PROGRESS AND ITS SUSTAINABILITY....

I agree with your wife

thanks for the link!

[jiimbergin]

Re: 5 Places NOT to be when the $ DIES!

My favorite quote from these 1982-83 papers.
http://www.paulbirch.net/OrbitalRings-I.pdf
http://www.paulbirch.net/OrbitalRings-II.pdf
http://www.paulbirch.net/OrbitalRings-III.pdf

Thanks globaleconomicollaps for sharing.

+1

[raja]

Re: 5 Places NOT to be when the $ DIES!

Ask yourself: Has there been a time in your life that; Prices have not been going up? That the state has not become more oppressive? That we have not been in a permanent state of war? These things are not new, but a constant in our lives.

I prefer to be (what I consider) realistic, rather than "think positive".
So I ask myself, has there ever been a time in my life when:

1) Oil, the world's main source of energy, is drying up?

2) Asia, the world's most populous area, has now become a leading competitor?

3) States are going broke and selling off their infrastructure?

4) Retirees are wondering if they will be forced to move in with their kids?

5) Unemployment levels look like they will be above 9% for years?

6) Several European countries are about to go bankrupt?

Nothing wrong will thinking about solutions . . . but let's not downplay the fact that things are never going to be the same . . . .