Know how they say the shit doesn’t have to hit the fan, it just has to hit the fan for you for life to suck? Maybe instead of a total collapse the shit will hit the fan for more and more people while others remain oblivious to it.

Today’s show can be summarized as, “Live realistically for the best, but have contingency plans for the worst.” OR “…live a better life if times get tough, or even if they don’t.” Hmm, where did I hear that?

Jack, what do you think about”Insights for prospering as our world changes”?

Also what do you think about the site Peak Prosperity where the above tagline comes from; its creator Chris Martenson; and its associated Resiliant Life – How to prepare for a better future? He has some of the same or similar guests on as you including Joel Salatin and others in the Paleo, financial, preparedness and other areas. You even had Martenson on The Survival Podcast in Episode 515 June 21, 2010.

For those who do not know, Martenson generally focuses on the three areas: the economy, energy and the environment, which he posits are inexorably linked, with current abundant cheap energy being the driving force behind making more of the global population than ever live more like Pharos and kings than ever before. To clarify that, he notes that the energy in a gallon of gasoline that lets you ride for many miles would take many man-hours (or slaves) to accomplish.

Further, beyond other sources of energy, coal, wind, solar, nuclear, tidal or whatever, he sees oil as the ONLY currently significant energy-dense, widely-available source of energy that can power cars, trucks, ships, airplanes and other mobile equipment, including the vast array of most currently used farm equipment.

His focus is not on peak oil, but CHEAP peak oil, and heavy crude at that, which can be used to make diesel fuel, which you cannot with the lighter fractions that come out of the Balkins.

Relating cheap peak oil and the long term trend of the increased cost of extracting any resource, he along with others sees the long term result of driving the global economy down. Indeed, it does make sense that if the global economy, as it exists, is dependent on the constant extraction of resources at an ever-increasing expense, there is no other way for the economy to go but down.

Some feel Martenson just follows the thinking of Thomas Malthus, 18th century philosopher who posited that that there was a limit to population and both are just “doomers.”

Also it has been pointed out that if Martenson and others have been predicting economic collapse for some time, why hasn’t it happened? Many, along with Martenson have figured out so far that it seems to be a manipulated controlled descent.

Both Martenson and Spirko have expressed how money and the perception of a sound economy is manipulated. Some of which expressed by either or both, Chris or Jack include quantitative easing; financial repression; statistics manipulation (GDP, employment numbers, etc.); juggling financials by corporations, big banks, central banks; countries like China; etc.

However both Martenson and Spirko see countless opportunities, regardless of whatever may come. Jack’s emphasis on all aspects and all sizes of sustainable and regenerative agriculture is just one huge area of opportunity.

Despite your disclaimers about how much you agree with Nicole and how smart she is, this show seemed to me to be a bit unnecessarily condescending. Not trying to be a jerk, just being honest, Jack.

Jack,

Episode 1660 was my first exposure to your work here at TheSurvivalPodcast and I generally found it enjoyable. 1661 leaves a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.

While it was styled to be an explanation on how Nicole justifies her views (and how she will inevitably change them), sadly it seems to truly be more of a justification of why YOU continue to believe what you believe – i.e. it will be bad, but it won’t be as bad as Nicole has suggested it will be nor as quickly as she suggested as we (as a species) will find ways to extend/pretend to avoid collapse.

John Michael Greer (of the Archdruid Report, mentioned by others in the comment section) writes quite a bit about this phenomenon as a matter of “modern religion” – people who belong to the Cult of Science whom believe that a way will be found to solve our problems before they become acute. In your case it would seem (to me anyway, based on podcasts 1660 & 1661) that you recognize things cannot stay they way they are, but feel they will not be as bad as Nicole has suggested due to some form of adaptation we will undertake as a species.

I cannot agree with this point of view, and the arguments you put forward in 1661 were weak ones at best.

Yes, The Powers That Be (“Elite”) will likely do everything they can to extend/pretend to avoid collapse (assuming their interests remain aligned – please consider that, eventually, the Elite will gladly eat each other to maintain their status, regardless of how much havoc it causes for us the “little people”), but it is not without cost. Energy prices will continue to rise, environmental degradation will continue (which I should point out I don’t really care about as much as you might suggest I would, considering I place myself in the Peak Oil camp), and economic collapse will continue along the fringes and eat its way inward to the core. When it collapses, nobody can say, but Nicole is absolutely correct in suggesting it’s baked into the cake.

I highly recommend you familiarize yourself with Jevons Paradox (if you are not already familiar with it) and consider that no matter how efficient we make our machines/devices in terms of energy consumption, they always CONSUME energy and our demand for that energy grows. Unless our energy sources increase (which they are not), nothing we invent will stop the inevitable – an outcome where there is no longer enough energy remaining to power our modern-day society as it currently exists.

Furthermore, I would ask you increase your understanding of Peak Oil. At the 23 – 24 minute mark of the podcast you suggest there are 100+ years of natural gas remaining, but that time frame is likely constructed on the idea that other energy sources are still in play. If natural gas was all we had, it would be consumed a heck of a lot more quickly given today’s levels of energy demand.

You also mention around that point the idea that we always find news ways of getting more oil out of the ground and that “angers” peak oil’ers. What you fail to mention/recognize is the rising cost curve and where it intersects with the peak oil curve – i.e. these technologies we are implementing, combined with the fact we’re picked the “low hanging fruit” easy oil sources, means that at some point in the future the cost of extracting the oil (not only in terms of dollars but in terms of invested energy) will exceed the value of what we pull out of the ground. When we get to the point that it’s costing us 2, 3, 4, 5+ barrels of oil to extract one out of the ground the game will likely be up, regardless of how much we allow energy companies to inflate their debt levels or how much fiat the government prints to try to justify continued oil extraction.

Around the 34 minute mark, you talk about a gold backed / gold basis money system… I recommend you read Martin Armstrong and understand the shortcoming of ANY commodity being used as money. I won’t re-explain it here, but Martin does a good job of explaining what money truly is and how it ALWAYS will be corrupted by the government of the day. It is inevitable that any money supply will be compromised, whether fiat or not, as the problem lies with those who make the rules not the money itself.

Around the 36 minute mark you make some serious assumptions – that the asset you overpaid for (i.e. a home / farm / etc.) will continue to be able to be productive during a downturn. There are no guarantees of this, and in fact there are clear examples in history of the opposite occurring – look up references to milk producers pouring out their milk on the ground to maintain milk prices during the Great Depression.

Further, you go on to suggest the government CAN’T possibly evict everyone from their homes – this would seem to be a fairly close minded / biased view and is somewhat hypocritical after you spent over 20 minutes explaining how intelligent people like Nicole are wrong because they can’t see how the system would change/adapt. I’d love to understand why you are so confident that the system would NEVER find a way to evict so many people from their homes, or at the very least confiscate those assets – at pennies on the dollar – that people overpaid for just a few years prior. If you really stop and think about it, it actually sounds like a PERFECT plan if one were part of the banking cartel or a member of government – getting people to overpay for something they couldn’t afford in the first place, and then taking it away from them later at severely reduced prices. This is the way people will lose their liberty – by making selfish choices to have the things they want now rather than making due with simply meeting their needs.

Back to Nicole – she has one of the most well though out and comprehensive understanding of what the future holds. She constantly points out that nobody knows exactly when things will collapse, but that it is unavoidable that they will collapse and we should be responsible enough to act accordingly by making good decisions now (i.e. if you know smoking is going to give you lung cancer, shouldn’t you stop smoking as soon as possible and not be so irresponsible as to say “oh, I’ll quit next week – my lungs can handle one more week of smoking”).

If a person wants to gamble at the casino and try to play this game as long as possible (e.g. taking on debt, spending money on education or capital that they refuse to see will be unproductive in just a few years during a major financial collapse, assume new or old money systems can be re-introduced to stabilize the economy and prevent the worst from occurring), they should recognize the risks they’re undertaking in doing so.

Sorry if your listeners are scared by what Nicole has to say, but if they’re sitting on mortgages they probably SHOULD be worried (though Nicole would likely frown at my attempt to encourage fear) – the game (of musical chairs) could come to an end very suddenly, and those people will learn the down side of using debt as leverage very quickly. Better they get out of debt now and start doing whatever they can to improve their standing by gaining control of their means to their survival if they want to avoid a debt servitude based future.

Cheers,
-GBV

I have come to the conclusion I just literally don’t care anymore about the crap other people want to me to care about. I’m still having a strategy to make sure the basics are covered, but I”m just not going to sweat that crap.

The more I concentrate on that problem, the more I’ll attempt to solve that (large than myself and current influence), and i’ll be unlikely to make a change. So as a result I have gone full focused on building sustainable systems. Why? Because it makes sense, and in a way I have kind of heavily adopted an irrational faith based focus on being able to get it done, for it’s sake. (and obviously seeing the world how I want it).

More and more I’m trying to drop the “make money” aspect of it, and would rather enjoy the ride and learn how to control the flow of resources and energy. Equations, thinking, then action. Rinse cycle repeat.