Prediction and How To Adjust One’s Life

As we face the end of 2008, there is an approaching doom that is hard to miss. Here are a number of the reasons to be pessimistic about the future.

1. Environmental damage and global warming continues unabatted
2. The US consumption based model is being copied around the globe
3. The US political structure is becoming increasingly corrupt and incapable of change (exactly as Thomas Jefferson predicted)
4. The US financial system is becoming increasingly unstable with a major financial crisis every 7 years.
5. The US population is dumbing down and easily controlled by the media system
6. New immigration is bringing in extremely combative and selfish cultures and cultures that don’t have conceptions of birth control or resource management
7. World population is out of control

All of these issues are in plain view and extremely little is being done about them. This is because it would require sacrifice or novel ways of investing our resources. Both of these options are offensive to our simpleminded sensibilities. Even the mention that there are not unlimited resources and that we may have to sacrifice cause many people to fall into a rage. Our ability to leverage scientific and industrial discoveries is now completely outstripping our ability to know when to use them judiciously. This means we can no longer effectively moderate the damage we cause with our economic and industrial activities. Now that the environmental damage to the planet is generally accepted (it only took 50 years, as global warming was known as far back as 1958), we are still is not resulting in meaningful changes. An ignorant population is easily distracted by non-solutions to the problem like hydrogen. Industry has very little incentive to look at the long term as they compensate their executives in 3 month increments. Even the “educated” population in the US thinks science will come up with answers to our problems and we don’t need to make adjustments.

We have the greatest respect for organizations like Greenpeace, however they are losing the battle.

These combine factors spell doom for the civilized system that many thought we had developed in the Western Democracies. Furthermore, the planet is close to reaching a point where global warming will become self sustaining. The science of it is explained here.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/heat/etc/worldco2.html

Personal Adjustments

It is a virtual certainty that we are going into a very difficult time, economically and environmentally. Increased greed and consumerism in the US and globally, in addition to compliant media systems make it impossible to stop this steady march. Too much effort has been spent on proposing how things can change, without a sober analysis of what the actual probabilities of change are. We propose the probabilities for change are small and our evidence is that there have not been changes to these negative tends since they began. For instance, environmental regulation passed in the 1970s in the US was not a change of course. It may have slowed the decline, but every year, though every supposed adjustment, the ice caps continued to melt, the fisheries continued to decline and global temperatures continued to rise. There is simply very little cultural progress. Every one of the lessons of Vietnam had to be relearned in Iraq. So we have a population that is amnesia tic not up the task of demanding change and in fact they may be as short sighted as their institutions. There has been meeting after meeting on these topics, innumerable treaties signed, UN conferences attended and funds raised, all with little effect on the degenerative march. Part of being an adult is admitting when things have reached a hopeless state, and taking the appropriate measures.

Here are some personal adjustments that can help protect thinking people.

1. Either do not have kids, or have only one. The future will be marked by fewer opportunities, more wars over shrinking resources and more cheating and fraud. Intelligent people don’t want their children to live in this environment. Furthermore, even if intelligent people have children, people with no standards and from disadvantaged cultures and genetics are reproducing like bunny rabbits. They are primitive, and they want a Mercedes. They have read Donald Trump’s book on success and they will do what it takes to be a winner. You can not compete with them, these craven dummies are set to inherit this diminished planet. Ignorant and self centered people are the dominant human form in any case.
2. Stockpile cash. More frequent financial crisis means the need for more financial protection. Don’t let the investment industry steal your money, as money is one of the few things that will protect you in the tooth and nail environment we are going into. Every prospectus you read, every company story you see in business magazines, every investment commercial is really about your money going into someone else’s pocket. That is the actual intent and outcome once you move past the images, fancy degrees, complex numbers and the soaring rhetoric.
3. Don’t get involved in binding contracts like marriages or credit card agreements. Cheating is at an all time high and the concentration of power gives the advantage to business over individuals. Individuals can protect themselves by minimizing their exposure to contracts.
4. Maintain your health. The US health care system has gone down the toilet and probably is not coming back. The best health insurance (which often does not pay out in any case) is a healthy lifestyle and exercise and diet. If you get sick, the medical industry, which is self perpetuating, will want to fill you with expensive treatments and pharmaceuticals of questionable value. 
5. Be extremely careful what media you ingest. If it comes to you, its is most probably subservient to corporate interests. Taking its advice will lead to bad decision for you, financially, emotionally and intellectually. Large media interests presume you to be a fool, passively waiting to understand the world through their analysis and to be told what beer to buy and what values to hold. 

Global Warming References

“Recent decades have seen record-high average global surface temperatures. Thermometer readings sufficient to provide reliable global averages are available back to 1850 (Brohan et al. 2006). In the past century, global surface temperature increased by about 1.4 °F (Fig. 1). In the past quarter-century, according to satellite measurements, the lower atmosphere warmed by 0.22- 0.34 °F per decade, equivalent to 2-3 °F per century (Christy and Spencer 2005; Mears and Wentz 2005).” – http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/global-warming-science-brief-august08.pdf

It’s also important to note that even though the full impact of that gradual melting won’t be for 500 years or so, we are reaching a point where we can’t turn back. The system is slow to change, but the change is somewhat unstoppable once it gets going. Unless we quickly reduce the present rate of carbon dioxide increase and subsequent temperature rise, we will be committing ourselves and our planet to that melting, and to the rise in sea level that will follow. – http://nsidc.org/news/press/20060706_goremoviefaq.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2000/07/0715_040715_oceancarbon.html