Collapse you say? Part 4: growth, overshoot and dieoff
Nature's Ice Sculptures Along Lake Huron
On the rare occasions when the subject of collapse comes up in polite conversation, a kollapsnik like me is liable to get responses like: "Collapse you say? Surely not!" Thus the title of this series of posts. But I've found that responding with "Surely yes!" isn't very effective (as well as sounding rather childish). The pandemic this year (2020) has got some people thinking a bit more, but most still expect things to get back to normal any day now.
So in this series of posts I've been talking about what collapse is and why I think the our civilization has been slowly collapsing for several decades and will continue doing so. This in the hope of laying out the facts clearly enough that just about anyone should be able to recognize the seriousness of the situation.
In the last two posts(Part 2, Part 3), I looked at problems with the inputs to and outputs from our civilization, and pointed out a number of issues, any one of which alone should be cause for great concern. And taken together, well….
Now I think it is time to have a look inside the box labeled "Industrial Civilization". When […] Continue Reading…
The War at Home
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Published on The Doomstead Diner on December 12, 2020
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The War at Home – Rebellion from Scott Noble on Vimeo
This is K-Dog. With RE having health issues I'm stepping up to help keep the Diner going. On my own website yesterday I posted a movie. I'm bringing the video here for you to see.
Many of you know the history of our country is not exactly what we were taught in school. Howard Zinn's 'A Peoples History of The United States' is a book that describes some of our hidden national history. Oliver Stone's book with Peter Kuznick 'The Untold History of the United States' is another such book. 'A Renegade History of the United States' by Thaddeus Russell is a third. The above film carries the tradition of these books forward. Unless you are a professional historian with an interest in the U.S. labor movement, there will be things in this move you don't know about.
I have long been a fan of Scott Noble. The film was only released yesterday. I am on Scott Nobel's mailing list so I found out about […] Continue Reading…
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Collapse you say? Part 5, Over Population
Last time I talked about growth, overshoot and dieoff, and promised to continue with a look at human over population in this post. So here we go.
Figure 1: Human Population level and growth rate 1700 CE to 2100 CE (Current Era)
The diagram above is helpful since it charts not just total population (the green areas), but also the yearly rate of growth (the red line). I believe that, by referring to the various sections of this graph, I can make most of the points I want to make here.
Over on the left side you will note this statement, perhaps not readable on your screen, ".04% was the average growth rate between 10,000 BCE and 1700 CE." From some of the reading I have been doing lately it seems that the growth rate for hunter gatherers before 10,000 BCE was similar.
It turns out that humans are like other species—our population grows when there an abundance of food and shrinks when there is a shortage. For typical species, ways of getting more food include expanding their range, successfully competing with other species and evolving to occupy new niches. This sort of change, based on genetic evolution, tends to happen very slowly. But, unlike other […] Continue Reading…
The Cow Hat Revolution
This is from a Journal/Essay entry on my own blog. I did not intend it to evolve into a stand alone entry but it did so I brought it here and gave it a title.
Events are working out that shows my democracy topic is a timely choice to write about.
A man in a cow hat representing a rebel without a cause mob shut down congress while congress certified our President elect. A mob of rabble roused by Donald Trump who refused to leave office and foolishly attempted a coup. His childish ill thought out tantrum has embarrassed America. Five people died. It can't be argued that our political system is not broken. We need to fix it. America is a mess.
A known Q Anon provocateur. I suspect well paid by someone.
To fix our broken democracy we have to understand what democracy is and how in America it is broken. There is a solution. I was going to start with an example of the solution but the Washington DC events this week make me realize, if I jump right to an example people will freak out and stop reading. The solution is contrary to American indoctrination. Context has to be […] Continue Reading…
Amputee Doomer
Off the keyboard of RE
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Published on The Doomstead Diner November 8, 2020
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As I am sure you have noticed if you are a Diner regular, my Blog and Vlog production has dropped off to near zero over the last few weeks. This because I have been on an accelerating downhill health curve and finally had to bite the bullet, going the Full Monte with my right leg, which got hit first and hardest by Cellulitis. 3 weeks in hospital followed by 3 weeks in an extended care facility (torture facility) with daily very painful wound care failed to make any real progress, and shortly after returning home I began to experience extreme pain once again. My electric wheel chair that I depended on to keep some semblance of normality and independence also crapped out on me about a week after I got home and I got stuck in my new hospital bed just like in the Torture Facility, except I had even less help at home.
So I finally called it quits and called 911 to send an ambulance and bring me back to hospital, pretty certain they would […] Continue Reading…
Collapse, you say? Part 3: Inputs and Outputs continued
Off the keyboard of Irv Mills
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Published on The Easiest Person to Fool on September 29, 2020
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Kincardine's breakwall awash in the waves
This is the second half of a post that I cut in two because it was just too long (6000+ words). If you haven't read the first half yet, it would be a good idea to do so—what follows will make more sense that way.
That first half finished with a discussion of the problems with fossil fuels as an energy source for our civilization. It's last paragraph is repeated below. Today, we'll go on from there, looking at other inputs that are problematical for our civilization.
Energy, renewable sources
But, you may say, if fossil fuels are no good what about renewable energy sources? There are large amounts of energy available from sources like hydro, biomass, wind, solar and so forth. And they don't involve adding more CO2 to the atmosphere—even biomass is only adding CO2 that was recently taken out of the atmosphere and will be taken out again as more biomass grows. A great many people today believe that renewables can replace fossil fuels and solve both […] Continue Reading…
The Rehab Nightmare
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Published on The Doomstead Diner on October 18, 2020
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I'm on the cusp of leaving the succor and care of our medical industry for further adventures in Home Care, to see how "independent" I can actually remain before I need to be dumped full time into Assisted Care Living prior to buying my ticket to the great beyond. Unfortunately there is no assisted suicide parlors around here, so my meat package has to go somewhere in this limbo-land between life and death.
I get released from the rehab facility Monday. Not because I am healed, but because I have used up the 20 days Medicare pays for. I am still in terrific pain and have no idea really how I will manage to continue to live on my own as we move along here. I'll be getting some home health care, Physical Therapy and Wound Care amd I'll employ one of my UE neighbors for household tasks, but I'll still be on my own most of the time. This is a good time to have a family to fall back on, […] Continue Reading…
COVID Care Comparison: Rich vs Poor
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Published on The Doomstead Diner on October 14, 2020
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Collapse, you say? Part 2: Inputs and Outputs
Off the keyboard of Irv Mills
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Published on The Easiest Person to Fool on September 29, 2020
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Waves breaking along the Lake Huron shore—and this on a relatively quiet day.
The title of this series of posts comes from the typical reaction you get when suggesting that our civiiization might be collapsing, "Collapse you say, surely not!" In my last post I said that I am convinced it is already happening or at least will happen at some point soon. Then I went on to explain what I mean by collapse—the process by which a civilization declines in its ability to provide the necessities of life to its members, the end result being that people are forced to fend for themselves or perish.
It seems to me that this is in fact happening today—that for all but a tiny minority at the "top", things are getting continually worse. The how and why of this process is the subject of this post and the ones that follow it.
The means of production and distribution that provide us with the necessities of life in modern industrial civilization require certain inputs and produce certain outputs. […] Continue Reading…
Industrial Civlization in Intensive Care: The Generational Blame Game
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Published on The Doomstead Diner on October 7, 2020
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Before going on to the closing act of this ran't, I just want to express my thanks to the Lurkers and Viewers who don't post up much but when they do contribute they carry a Big Stick and they don't do it for the accolades or attention. Today's thanks go out to a Lurker from Poland and to another Krippled Kollapsnik doing the ExPat Tango down in Old Mejico. They are probably among the most financially challenged Diners, yet they gave among the largest of Donations this weekg. One thing you will always find true is that the poorer someone is, the more generous they are.
OK, let's get back and close out the rant.
CODA
Industrial Civilization Collapse from Intensive Care: Trumpovetsky gets COVIDified
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Published on The Doomstead Diner on October 5, 2020
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In a long awaited and expected irony, the Denier-in-Chief has been diagnosed with Coronavirus. Trophy Wife Melania has as welll, and so apparently has about half the White House staff. Former NJ Gubernator Chris Christie has it and a whole Gaggle of Senators running for re-election do also . The main question is who will drop dead before election day, and also whether you can vote for a corpse?
At the left here you see a Photo Op for TEN of The Donald's doctors, possibly more including docs who got cropped out of the pic. Out here in the rel world of the not rich, not famous and not politically powerful, you don't even have 10 CNSs ("Certified Nurse Assistant") per patient, in fact just the opposite, each CNA has about a dozen patients to shuttle around to for changing bedding, cleaning shit buckets and so forth. At my current Jazzed up nursing facility, these folks aen't even the lowest on the totem pole, we have something called "Neighborhood Helpers" who are below […] Continue Reading…
View of Industrial Civilization from Intensive Care
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Published on The Doomstead Diner on October 4, 2020
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I have been recording vids while on my Death Bed here in Hospital but do not have my editing software on this computer nor do I have energy to edit the vids if I did have it. Just working up the energy to gfet the camera rolling and look cheery is a major effort. So I am just going to drop the raw vids on the Diner once or twice a week to catch up on the latest bullshit happening in the world surrounding my hydraulically powered bed. You may or may not find the stuff interesting.
In Good Newz but not covered as of yet in this video is the fact Trumpovetsky has joined me in Hospital, now diagnosed with COVID-19. This is the ultimate irony of course, the Denier-in-Chief himself coming down with the disease, in fact a strong enough case to already require Oxygen, so the NYT reports. Assuming he does survive, does this help him or hurt him in the election? Will the Repugnants run Pensky if El Trumpo is too sick during […] Continue Reading…
Sick of Collapse
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Published on The Doomstead Diner on September 27, 2020
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If you're not a regular Diner frequenting the tables inside our establishment, you may not know quite how BAAAAD my health problems actually are just from my Utoob vids where I try tlo put a bright and cheery face onto the Collapse of Industrial Civilization. No Cheery Face this week; not too many jokes either. Reason is I came in for a landing at the Mat-Su Valley Regional Medical Center nearly 3 weeks ago and have been stuck ever since. As Hospitals go, it's a good one, but Hospitals are a lousy place to finish out your life.
After a decade of following the progress of the Collapse of Industrial Civilization on the DoomsteadDiner.net and the CollapseCafe.com Utoob Channel, my body and physiology is starting to violently rebel against the non-stop flow of BULLSHIT being pitched at us by our "Leaders" on a daily basis. OK, to be fair this diagnosis has not been verified by any "doctors" currently treating my symptoms and failing epically to pave a smooth trip for me into […] Continue Reading…
Close the Skoolz
Off the keyboard of K-Dog
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Published on The Doomstead Diner on March 9, 2020
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Because dead people can't teach students to spell. If the point is to teach students to spell, dead people can't do it. The same goes for teaching anything at all. Dead people can't teach. What is hard to figure out about this?
The summer could have been spent figuring out how to pair educated and unemployed Americans with students furloughed by COVID-19. Doing this would eliminate problems caused by remote learning and keep lives moving ahead. Like lives matter.
The knee-jerk solution, remote learning, by itself has serious problems. The biggest problem is the mere suggestion of remote learning causes a person to think the problem is solved. Techno-narcissism creeps in and stops thought. Today we have remote learning and tomorrow we will have Mars. It takes a strong mind not to go fantastical. Particularly if you are an educated person who has used the internet to acquire a skill or two or three. You think everyone can do it and you don't see that you are unique, special and hooked up. You are […] Continue Reading…
The Last Steak Supper
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Published on The Doomstead Diner on September 6, 2020
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I toyed with many different titles for this article from "A Tale of Two Steaks" to "Birthday in Collapse", but in the end it got the title at the top due to some unforseen circumstances which came after I did the recordings and shot the pics. More on that in a bitt.
This week marked the beginning of my 64th year walking the earth as a meat package in this iteration of my immortal soul.. Many ups & downs through the years, some of which veteran Diners know from prior birthday articles and autobiographical ones as well. One consistent joy for me through all the years and trials & travails was FOOD, both eating it and cooking it. I love fine restaurants, although of course these days you can hardly find an open one. Not to mention up here where I live "Fine Food" is pretty much relegated to Pizza and Chicken Wings. lol. OK, to be fair there are a couple of decent restaurants here […] Continue Reading…
Food Preservation in Collapse: Cheesemaking
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Published on The Doomstead Diner August 30, 2020
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Candles in Collapse
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Published on The Doomstead Diner August 23, 2020
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More from Irv Mills and me on Collapse & Emergency Prepping, this time in the area of Heating & Lighting.
School Lunchrooms: A COVID Petri Dish
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Published on The Doomstead Diner August 16, 2020
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Companion article to come later tonight or tomorrow.hopefully. I am too wrecked right now to write, it's been a rough couple of days here.
Some Old White Cripples Once Could Jump
Off the microphones & cameras of Irv Mills & RE
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Published on The Doomstead Diner August 9, 2020
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Tihs post fits under the category of my autobiographical articles which covered various parts of my life. The longest of these was the 5 part Over the Road series of articles which covered my years in the Trucking industry, but there have been many others, covering my early years in Brazil, my years at Stuyvesant HS in NYC and my years at Columbia University as well. I have however neglected one period of my life, the 'tween' years between when I returned from Brazil around age 10 until I headed off on the #7 Flushing Line Subway to Stuyvesant at age 13 or so.
There are a couple of reasons I am writing this post now. One is that at this time of year, every year, I get nostalgic for the days of my youth, when I was a fast and very coordinated athlete. My birthday rolls around at the end of the month. That's me in the pic at the left, doing a […] Continue Reading…
Knarf plays the Doomer Blues
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