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[BlueHeron]

How have you done/started doing it?  What questions and problems remain for you?

[BlueHeron]

My question:

Can you tell me your stories of how you came to grips with the thought that many, many people will have to suffer and starve in a collapse?

I can't come to grips with that.

Perhaps it is something that shouldn't concern us, because we can't do anything about it?

[sunflowersFTW!]

I've sort of always felt that tough times would hit during my lifetime since I was still a kid, and it was and still is a terrifying thought. However, the closer we get to it it's actually gotten more difficult to wrap my head around, because, I think, each time I hear something that dawns it coming, some sort of scenario I hadn't thought of before enters my head. I've definately come to grips with the fact that it's inevitable, and instead have taken to looking at the bright side, no matter how grim.

Dealing with the mass die-offs is bitterly painful, but it hardly phases me, because ever since I was little I'd been hearing about and seeing TV footage of other nations in these predicaments. When I say it hardly phases me don't think it doesn't make me sad, it's just something I've had no choice but to accept, since I can't really do anything myself about it outside of the typical 'feel good' protests or prayer or whathaveyou. Now, when these things come to my community, I'm not sure how I'll take it, or if I'll be any less helpless.

The thing that's been hardest for me to consider is the fact that the people I care about most, half of them won't go with me to seek refuge out and away from civ. I just hope it all happens after my parents have passed away peacefully, they're already elderly and wouldn't fare well in a collapse scenario. Actually, that's probably the one thing that stresses me out about this above all.

The only way I've managed to deal with any of this at all has been to realize that we in Western Civilization have been brought up to expect happy endings all the time. Starvation, death, disease etc isn't supposed to exist here. We are conditioned to view the ones who deal with this every day as "others" who somehow are more deserving of it than we are. Life in the way that it's been lived throughout recorded history, has been full of strife. Most people in the US, for example, view the Depression as as bad as it gets over here. Nevermind what the German Depression, or Russian Depression (which saw cannibalism), was like. And who they gave ascendance to.

So, when misery does happen, people don't deal with it very well. It's a shock. But really, it's the shocking truth of the reality taking off its mask and showing itself for what it really is. I myself have been spared having to deal with even a natural death of someone really close to me, much less a violent death, and I'm not so confident I'd do well in that case myself, but keeping cold hard truth in mind might be my only healing savior.

[jason]

I deal with it like this: lots of people starve to death right now.  The only thing that collapse will change, will happen when people stop starving to death once it ends.

[Matt]

I wish I had your certainty Jason .

I don't know how to come to grips with that, I just kind of avoid it, physically, mentally, I can say I understand that it is going to happen, but I really haven't come to grips with it. Occasionally I do, and I cry and I scream for the &*&$#* corner we are backed into, but I don't know if one can live in that space all the time.

[jason]

The biggest problem I've seen comes down to source material.  I only have such certainty because I've taken my conclusions from historical examples of collapse.  But most people take their cue from movies, books, and fantasies about collapse.  Ran's page drives me nuts today with its lack of comments, precisely because he has the literary references coming hard and heavy today.  If collapse happens like you see in the movies, then yes, the wailing and gnashing of teeth will certainly make sense.  But I greatly doubt that things will go the way they do in the movies--I think it much more likely that things will follow the same course they have every other time this has happened.

[Matt]

The problem with historical precedent is that there has never been a society that is this large before, there was always a hinterland to go to, but there is no hinterland now. Further more, our cities are so huge, there are massive problems that could happen really easily.

I can't remember enough of the precendent, I should really re-read collapse, but wasn't there serious wars all through the decline of the Maya as well as mass starvation?

[jason]

Well, no civilization this big has ever existed before, but collapse always followed the same route in the past, regardless of the scale.  Bigger civilizations, smaller civilizations, they always collapse the same.  So why would it happen differently now, just because we have a bigger civilization still?

We do have a significant hinterland, though.  We rarely recognize it, but even here in the U.S., we have significant pockets where civilization has never thoroughly penetrated.  And part of the historical pattern of collapse has always involved the expansion of a hinterland, what I like to call "the opening of the map," because it runs the process of "closing the map" in reverse.

Most collapses involved a great deal of war, but look at Mayan history, or Roman history: could you really tell on that score?  They saw war almost constantly.  The U.S. has seen almost constant war for a century now.  More importantly, as the map opens more and more, the chance to simply step away from that becomes greater.

[Raedwald]

death and pain are both natural and healthy.

i guess i realised this when i was taking a class on wine. the lecturer said, "The grapes must suffer, to produce good wine". this phrase brought with it images of great suffering that often preceded the ascension of ancient heroes, jesus for one suffered greatly.

this is good for humanity. you may see alot of high faluten new agers runnin around, but until one has truly suffered, they cannot grow spiritually.

so when i think of all the people who are going to die because of their own ignorance, i say, "good." perhaps they'll learn something useful.

i look at the human species, not individuals, we are a herd, a herd that is currently degenerating. in order to heal our species we need to be culled, survival of the fittest needs to come back, so then death becomes salvation, not such a bad way to view things

population die off= salvation of our species.

unimaginable pain and suffering = enlightenment/ascension of our species.

fuckin hippies.

[jason]

That kind of logic horrifies me, Raedwald.  I've read it from the speeches of just about every tyrant in history, and heard it repeated by every pathological sociopath I've ever heard.  Unimaginable suffering does not lead to enlightenment, it just leads to unimaginable suffering.

[heyvictor]

"fuckin hippies"

Hey, I resemble that remark!

[A pipe for peace]

I'm with jason on this one. People are suffering/dying now. The collapse will make things better.

I tend to think along the lines that a human population only got as big as it did because of civilisation. So when civilisation dies, so does it's support network that can hold a population at those numbers. Humans will survive, I have no doubt of that, but at numbers of pre-civilisation.

A lot of people call me cold and 'heartless' because I don't seem to care about masses of people dying. Yet, masses of people die today and can you even care about them? One death is a tragedy but a billion? My father might die and that would be horrible. But a billion people I've never seen or met? Sure it's a tragedy in it's own right, but it's not personal.

As for suffering... When most people die of illness or after a long battle with cancer, the survivors are often left saying "At least he/she isn't suffering anymore." Death does not always equal that a person has suffered.

Meanwhile, my own life in civilisation... I've always been the "weirdo" or the quirk or the loner. I've never fit it. It wasn't until I read My Ishmael that I realised why and everything suddenly fit into place. Collapse, for me, equals hope. The end of suffering. I've met a lot of fellow Jeffreys who would agree there's more suffering in life than there is in death.

In civilisation, life can survive.

In the wild, life can thrive.

So yes, it will suck to look around me and see massive die-offs, shortages, but I will take care of myself first, so I'm better able to take care of others when the crash does happen.

[BlueHeron]

Yeah.  What you said!

I'm going to have to read that again after it sinks in a little.  Whatever is blocking me from accepting die off, I fuckin NEED to get over it.

[Raedwald]

That kind of logic horrifies me, Raedwald.  I've read it from the speeches of just about every tyrant in history, and heard it repeated by every pathological sociopath I've ever heard.  Unimaginable suffering does not lead to enlightenment, it just leads to unimaginable suffering.

the truth is scary i guess.

Tyrants aren't allways wrong,

and pathological sociopaths aren't allways "crazy".

[jason]

Truths can be scary.  So can delusions.  Which one do you think you'll find more often among tyrants and sociopaths, truth, or delusions?