How long until the end?

[Deja Q]

We've got 40 years of oil left, assuming we don't use any more. Given our society depends on the increase of speed and the increasingly disposable nature of our industry and people (yes, people), I say we've got 20-30 years.

But that aside, consider:

* rising education costs, none of which is related to the paycheck of the teachers

* massively rising healthcare costs

* Public programs being cut, partly due to the benefits government workers get (even I would take a reasonable cut just so I can keep my job.)

* corporate bastards shipping off jobs to other countries and devaluing what can't be shipped away

* wealthy not paying their fair share into a society that has to be supported by EVERYONE

* banking industry fucking the constitution and re-writing bankruptcy laws, effectively eradicating them and forcing those who lose their jobs or go under to suffer permanently.

* Corrupt government officials (mostly repukes but some Dems are pretty much forcing us to drink their urine too, and even the occasional 3rd party person is scum as well)

* corrupt televisio/media, concentrating more on self gratification and entertainment via the exploitation/hurt of others than anything socially affirming or positive. Not a single station, cable or broadcast, givea a frack anymore.

* Liveable wage (just for essentials, nothing fun even!) is $12/hr when the minimum wage is $5.15/hr and many a person needs to work 2 jobs (assuming they can pass those personality profiling tests!) This alone is a fucking outrage. (teens can live with mommy and daddy, but most of us who are older than 25 can't and most of us DO WORK HARD and all the other talking points the repukes speak of.)

* With so many americans needing multiple jobs, what happens to the children and their behavior because they're unsupervised? Sheesh, I'm not even 32. I had a babysitter/supervision when I was a tot. My, how times change... These days, I see mothers (if not both parents) in stores with 1, 2, 3, or even 4 children who are a bunch of agonizing little animals (either because of generic unruly behavior or because they're pestering the parents for some corporate logo like Barney, the oddly-shaped Dinosaur, Elmo candy, or whatever other trash corporate america bestows for children to terrorize parents with... I'm not blaming the parents, it's the fucking corporate way of life that causes EVERYTHING that's on this list, please don't argue that because you can't say anything that sums up America's problems more completely.

* Let's say the oil runs out sooner than anticipated (highly likely, IMHO). Do YOU know or do you know anybody who knows how to survive without electricity, the car, the means to grow and store crops?

* other issues I'm not remembering or thinking of.

So, how long have we got?

If * gets elected legitimately or via another pillaging of the people, I say we have 5 years. Sadly, it's too late to reverse the trends. People don't like rapid change and repukes will whine every single step of the way, spinning fact with fiction in order to make us, the people who give a fuck, look bad.

[ixion]

1. 2012

according to the Mayan and Ancient Egyptian calendars, among others.

Perhaps not, but I've always found it interesting that two cultures who know little to nothing of the existence of the other, would both earmark the same dates on their calendars.

[Tactical Progressive]

19. 2012 sounds about right if Bush wins

If 1) Gore had been allowed to assume the office he won in 2000, with 2) a Democratic Congress to work with, and 3) they started right away to address real problems, I think we might have been able to stay a half-step ahead of our problems with alot of uncomfortable change. That's admittedly optimistic, even for a scenario presuming an America as evolved as it minimally should have been by now.

With four years of Bush and a likely divided government for the next few years if we're lucky - Kerry and a Republican Congress - I don't think America or the rest of the world is going to avoid many very painful and disruptive situations.

With Bush and the right wing in control for the next 5-9 years things will slide straight into hell, buoyed only by the right-wing belief that everything, including all of the oil, belongs strictly to them as ordained by god.

The second two scenarios above are all that's left. Both make Iraqi oil, or more accurately direct Western control of some of the mid-East's oil, very very important.

[DrWeird]

24. That long from now?

My calender ends on December 31st of this year.

I'll be sure to spend all my savings before then, just in case.

[Suspicious]

28. Interestingly,

Someone posted this link a couple of days ago regarding the Mayan calendar - http://www.chiron-communications.com/communique%207-10.html

According to Mr. Barrios, 2012 is not predicted as the year the world will end...

...Other people write about prophecy in the name of the Maya. They say that the world will end in December 2012. The Mayan elders are angry with this. The world will not end. It will be transformed. The indigenous have the calendars, and know how to accurately interpret it, not others.

[ixion]

32. that is interesting

thanks! :-)

[pscot]

2. Humanity is like an 18 wheeler

just starting down a 15% grade. Our brakes are gone, but we haven't figured that out yet. It's going to be the ultimate thrill ride.

[Silverhair]

27. That truck better be empty.

I was a driver trainer with Werner Enterprises. The steepest slope on the interstate system is 7%. The steepest I have ever seen on the U.S. Highway system is 10%, but that was a short slope. There may be steeper state roads, but I don't know of any. If a truck tries to take a sustained 15% grade, it won't make it, unless it's empty.

BTW, I required my students to be able to go down the California side of Donner, (I-80) and have cold brakes at the bottom. Brakes were used only in the event of an emergeny stop. We used engine retarders, commonly called jake brakes, to hold our speed down.

I get your point however. I just couldn't resist talking about trucking some. I loved it until I had to come off the road due to becoming an insulin dependent diabetic.

[camero]

31. Almost right

I drove for 6 years. There are grades of more than 10%. 10% is the highest grade that can be allowed for trucks to be allowed on the road. If it is higher than 10%, the feds just mark it 10% so trucks can stay on the interstate. You should know this.

Case in point, The Sisters near Evanston, WY.

Edit: I'm off the road for the same reason.

[YNGW]

3. Is there any doubt the USA will eventually fall?

There are three (3) categories which historically cause a country to fall:

1) Governmental Corruption
2) Military Corruption and/or Decline
3) Moral Decline

It can be any of the above mentioned individually or a combination thereof. Given how things are going, I don't expect the USA to last much longer. The handwritting is on the wall and neither major political party is any more righteous or can preserve it longer than the other.

[el_gato]

4. let's get it on

[dawgman]

5. 10 years at most before armed insurrection starts to spread

around the globe.

Great avatar, Arnold Rimmer at your service. Where is the Cat?

[Deja Q]

11. I had one of the Cat... (and a note about armed insurrection...)

Except the Cat had his middle finger up with Lister by his side doing the same thing... :D Even at 48x48 size, you could kinda figure out that's what he was doing. I'd much rather use that avatar because it perfectly describes the action I'd do to Bushit* (flippin' them the bird), but it might perceived to be offensive to some. :-( :cry: A it of a shame, I think most DUers feel that way toward Bushit*...

Armed insurrection... that's going to be scary if it comes about. It's already started with Afghanistan and Bin Forgotten (oops, Bin Laden). Destabilizing Iraq will only add to the insurrection. When the civilized countries have no choice but to stop America's raping, it's not going to be pretty.

[dawgman]

14. It will be scary...wait until the first time someone blows themselves up

at a crowded shopping mall two weeks before christmas...UG-LY

What was the robots name? Novelty con-DOM head. I love that show. It and Black Adder are the greatest things to come out of britain since the Beatles.

[Kipper58]

29. Kryten!

n/t

[ArkDem]

15. A song about the insurrection.....

When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide
Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride
Get to the bottom and I see you again
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

Do you, don't you want me to love you?
I'm coming down fast but I'm miles above you
Tell me, tell me, tell me the answer
You may be a lover but you ain't no dancer.

Helter skelter
Helter skelter
Helter skelter.

Do you, don't you want me to make you?
I'm coming down fast but don't let me break you
Tell me, tell me, tell me the answer
You may be a lover but you ain't no dancer.

Look out
Helter skelter
helter skelter
Helter skelter

Look out, cause here she comes.

When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of my slide
And I stop and I turn and I go for a ride
Get to the bottom and I see you again
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

Do you, don't you want me to love you?
I'm coming down fast but I'm miles above you
Tell me, tell me, tell me the answer
You may be a lover but you ain't no dancer.

Helter skelter
Helter skelter
Helter skelter

Helter skelter
Helter skelter
Helter skelter

You're coming down fast
Yeah, you're coming down fast
You're coming down fast
You're coming down fast

You're coming down fast

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

[ArkDem]

6. try this..........

[pscot]

8. A little yellow pill

As prescribed by Dr. Jagger.

[ArkDem]

9. Actually,

they are white.

[Deja Q]

12. Yup, create the problem and then create an expensive pill for people...

You're joking, surely?!

Society's bonkers. Not me. Let's change society to be better and self-sustaining rather than based on personal profit at the expense of everybody else's lives, and not create a society of bankrupted pill poppers!!!!! x( :argh: You must know the state of the "medical" industry... it's depraved.

[Speed8098]

7. We'll make it

"IF", and it's a big "IF", we get a government that opens their eyes.


The only way out is alternative energy.

The next question is where does the funding come from to find this illusive alternative.

Are you ready?

Legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana.

Think about it.

[Deja Q]

13. I wish I bookmarked the article, but I got the link from DU about oil...

How much alternative energy do we need to sustain us from our use on oil?

We have electric cars, but they travel only so fast and corporate america keeps increasing the pace at which we must work.

Not to forget, oil means plastic. Plastic means using oil. No oil, no plastic.

There is no complete way out, though we will likely save mere morsels of the feast that was once known as technological progress and prowess. A that point, maybe people will reinvent society to be based on using everyone, for the sake of society along with themselves, and to be sustainable -- getting rid of the vulgar notion that people and products can be expendable. People and products should NOT be made expendable... and we're about to learn that, the hard way...

[tom_paine]

10. 20+ years...although that may be waaaay optimistic

I think I agree with your assessment. If Bunnypants* by hook or by crook is re-appointed to the Imperial Throne, 5 years might be too optimistic a prediction by far.

I think the trends are already too great to turn back. If one considers the trends, such as wealth disparity et al, continued even under Clinton, the Last President of the Old American Republic.

I think Amerika, and Imperial Subjects of Amerika in general, are merely a tongue looking for the right Imperial Boot to lick. ESPECIALLY all the Imperial Subjects who have no fucking idea about what's going on.

[earthman dave]

16. Dominos

Topsoil erosion is already a problem. As oil gets more scarce, agricultural chemicals get more scarce, and yields go down. As yields go down, more land area is needed to get the same amount of food. Topsoil erosion speeds up.

This is just an example off the top of my head. The point i'm trying to make is that we probably won't see a gradual decline, instead multiple feedbacks may cause something analogous to death in organisms - multiple simultaneous failures of support systems, as the failure of one system overloads the next system.

Quite apart from these basic infrastructural problems, there are the social issues which you describe. These too could interact in nasty ways. All in all, we're fucked. Society's elites seem to be pulling up the ladder behind them, as it were - making sure they have the resources to enable them to survive the nightmare of the next few decades.

On the plus side, money only gives control of resources because we allow it to - it's essentially a shared illusion. Billion-dollar bank accounts are useless when no-one believes in banks, or money. On the down side, there won't be enough to go round, but in my more optimistic moments I think of what is sometimes referred to as the "blitz spirit" - the way people stick together and help each other out when times get tough. That said, I tend to agree with your assessment - things look pretty bleak.

[Hippo_Tron]

17. Don't worry, Republican control for too long = the whole thing collapsing

We saw it with Reagan and Bush, things got so bad that Bush had to eventually raise taxes. Another four-eight yeras of Republican control will mean serious damage resulting in us taking back congress and the white house so we can get universal healthcare, fix education, end corporate corruption, invest in renewable energy, and all of those other good things. Or we can just get shrub out of office right now so less damage can be done in the first place. History has shown that Republican policies, especially economic policies always blow up in their faces eventually and the whole idea for them is to delay that for as long as possible.

[dawgman]

20. so another four to eight years of Repubs in charge will lead to a

dem that will "get universal healthcare, fix education, end corporate corruption, invest in renewable energy, and all of those other good things?"

Just like Clinton gave us right? Oh wait, he did nafta, gatt, the first anti-terror/civil rights bill and a continuation of prior policies that allowed companies like Enron to destroy thousands of American retirees lives. Boy that's effin' fantastic.

Face it, unless it's someone like DK this fall, we are done. Question is, will it be long (20 yrs. at most) and hard or quick and hard (10 yrs at most)?

[smirkymonkey]

18. If MonkeyBoy wins the Election??

I would say we have about 4 more years. I'm serious.

[Philosophy]

21. In 20 years, sentient computers will take over

And it will be a good thing.

[Philosophy]

22. What about the Rapture?

Oh, sorry, I thought I was a freeper troll for a sec.

[dawgman]

23. that's right thousands of tiny demons will be eating our flesh in a

matter of years if not months.

[smirkymonkey]

26. I think its scheduled for

mid-May 2004.

[zonmoy]

25. My view

is that it will be less then 10 years before our country collapses. I think europe and the rest of the world will follow soon after.

[camero]

30. 2009

I say this with the thought that if our level of consumption(and like you I blame the corps) were to be spread worldwide, we would use up the resources of 4 earth-like planets. China, with more than 1 billion people is fast approaching our level of consumption with industrialization.