Best case: the third world stops improving and halts its level of development. Worst case the third world starves or riots and the first world joins them. This would make delivery of Insulin rather unlikely and I would experience a terrible death. You might look up "Ketoacidosis" on WebMD.com. As I used to be a Survivalist and have a pretty low opinion of how people treat each other, from misunderstood indifference to deliberate evil, knowing I'm going to face death because people can't get along is a humiliating realization. And I really believe that they'd rather kill each other than compromise their "dreams". Optimists pretend that Peak Oil is someone else's problem, either because they can't believe that Oil, a limited resource, can run out, or because they think it will run out in decades or centuries rather than pay attention to the already declining production and existing wars over oil that began recently (Kuwait 1990-91, Iraq 2003, Nigeria 2006).
Pessimists and Cynics like me know its our problem and we Americans will face the wrath of the rest of the world for centuries because WE STOLE IT ALL. We burned it up. It was a chance to bootstrap the third world into first world amenities: clean water, sewage treatment, hospitals, roads. All that is gone, possibly forever.
I keep my fingers crossed that advancements in solar will be seized by the govt and given away to the third world so they have something to be grateful for and a way to advance themselves towards a world which will HAVE TO BE sustainable, whether it wants this or not. And Optimist wouldn't prepare or make the effort, because Optimists believe that someone else will do it, that they live in the best of all possible worlds. Candide, by Voltaire, published around 1760, clearly and concisely disproved optimism with numerous examples. Optimism is just as wrong as the Flat Earth Society and the insistence of Phlogiston being responsible for wood combusting in a fire.
Why do I care about what the third world thinks? Because I know that wars start over Envy, and the USA is sitting on unmineable and expensive to extract oil shale, which fools in the third world will likely claim is and ace in the hole instead of a useless non-resource within our borders. The third world has lots of conspiracy theories whose villains are always Yankees (Americans) operating from the shadows. We're the cause of the world's troubles, they say, and no amount of reality will dissuade them. An optimist would say that the World Trade Center never fell, but it did, didn't it? And the men responsible blamed us for hurting their homes. The whole world has men who hate us like that. An optimist would ignore that hatred and blithely visit on an EcoTour and get kidnapped and dismembered in the deserts or jungles because they were ignorant. I believe in human nature. I have seen its cold eyes with my own.
Please take the time to consider your philosophical position in context with both history and modern reality. Or ignore me and go on your merry way. It's your life, after all. Self determination is well and good and accepting other's beliefs and respecting their choices is a very American truth. I'm also Pro-Suicide. Anyone who wants to off themselves leaves more food at the Table for me. They always get my gratitude.
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timeasmymeasure
Some arguments to consider
Date: 2009-05-22 04:08 am (UTC)Pessimists and Cynics like me know its our problem and we Americans will face the wrath of the rest of the world for centuries because WE STOLE IT ALL. We burned it up. It was a chance to bootstrap the third world into first world amenities: clean water, sewage treatment, hospitals, roads. All that is gone, possibly forever.
I keep my fingers crossed that advancements in solar will be seized by the govt and given away to the third world so they have something to be grateful for and a way to advance themselves towards a world which will HAVE TO BE sustainable, whether it wants this or not. And Optimist wouldn't prepare or make the effort, because Optimists believe that someone else will do it, that they live in the best of all possible worlds. Candide, by Voltaire, published around 1760, clearly and concisely disproved optimism with numerous examples. Optimism is just as wrong as the Flat Earth Society and the insistence of Phlogiston being responsible for wood combusting in a fire.
Why do I care about what the third world thinks? Because I know that wars start over Envy, and the USA is sitting on unmineable and expensive to extract oil shale, which fools in the third world will likely claim is and ace in the hole instead of a useless non-resource within our borders. The third world has lots of conspiracy theories whose villains are always Yankees (Americans) operating from the shadows. We're the cause of the world's troubles, they say, and no amount of reality will dissuade them. An optimist would say that the World Trade Center never fell, but it did, didn't it? And the men responsible blamed us for hurting their homes. The whole world has men who hate us like that. An optimist would ignore that hatred and blithely visit on an EcoTour and get kidnapped and dismembered in the deserts or jungles because they were ignorant. I believe in human nature. I have seen its cold eyes with my own.
Please take the time to consider your philosophical position in context with both history and modern reality. Or ignore me and go on your merry way. It's your life, after all. Self determination is well and good and accepting other's beliefs and respecting their choices is a very American truth. I'm also Pro-Suicide. Anyone who wants to off themselves leaves more food at the Table for me. They always get my gratitude.