Unwillingness to see “doom and gloom” is, frankly a blind spot. The earth has cycles, capitalism has ups and downs, civilizations rise and fall, world powers reach their zenith and decline. Species either evolve or die out like the Neanderthals.
It’s almost a natural order that success leads to complacency, then to decadence, then to crisis. Progress rarely occurs during the decadence stage - usually a crisis is required.
We have obviously been in a stage of decadence for several decades. George W. was our Calligula, Obama our Claudius and Trump is our Nero.
Then there is the book: The Fourth Turning which also lays out a cycle with a crisis ahead for the US.
Then just looking at basic Math of the USA’s Debt to GDP ratio - Republicans were freaking out in 2010 when it reached 100% and now it’s 120%. We as a Nation are unable to handle a crisis like Coronavirus without printing and going into 20% more debt. If your family or business has 120% Debt to income ratio nobody would loan you money - because that is the point where it becomes improbable the debt will be repaid.
In fact, in my opinion it’s pretty stupid to not look at what’s coming up in the future ahead as it is and plan for it. People like me expected a Coronavirus situation for years (I was actually buying land and talking about being a “prepper” with my relator in Feb 2020). It’s not rocket science to see that deadly viruses are getting “through the cracks” with increasing regularity in the 21st century. There’s going to be another because the root causes of the past 5 have not been addressed (disgusting unsanitary and even cannibalistic practices in raising animals for meat). And that is only one of a dozen different issues.
If an individual wants to “let the good times roll”, that’s fine. Each can deal with things in their own way, but it surely isn’t responsible to just ignore basic math and obvious trends, or even the fact that predictions are actually coming true.
Nor is it “Integral” to have some kind of aversion to preparing for the worst.
@raybennett In graduate school one of my favorite courses was Scenario Planning. It really helped me grant myself peace from my analytical mind churning on all this information we have available.
Conceptually it’s not difficult - you list out the various scenarios from catastrophic failure (perhaps low probability) all the way to spontaneous Nirvana descending (also perhaps low probability). Think of these as our “corner cases”.
Then we have our broader spectrum of much more likely scenarios which are likely incremental changes over what we have today. Particularly since we have 320M people (using a US lens) that WILL modify what they do based on scenarios unfolding, I think radical shifts are lower probability.
You might see it as a “blind spot”, but I think our messy bunch of humans and even messier bunch of politicians and bureaucrats will act in their on self interests such that incremental changes are most likely.
I get it that the integral community has mapped out collectivism as “next tier” and “integral”, but I think don’t see that happening as the Integral community would like.
I think Integralists that fixate on a single scenario as the “only way” are very biased and self-rationalizing their personal political views.
What I would like to understand is how this Integral Noosphere of massive collectivism will be implemented without the ugly issues we’ve seen crop up every time collectivism gets tried.
I agree raybennet. I’m reminded of Admiral James Stockdale Decree as he admonished his fellow POW that too much optimism was a denial of reality.
I regard faith and reality as two positive forces that must be balanced. For instance, the overvaluation of feeling impairs reason while the overvaluation of reason impairs feelings. Properly used, they should fluctuate depending on the circumstances but must be kept balanced. I believe Stockdale’s decree applies to many of the difficulties we face in life, not just as a POW.
Without HR-1/S-1 creation of a significantly more Authoritarian structure, I’m much less concerned about the “shit hitting the fan”. With SCOTUS recent ruling to uphold Arizona’s new election integrity laws (no ballot harvesting, picture ID’s required, verifiable signatures) the Leftist hijacking of American has likely been stopped.
The Leftists are giving Marxism their very best shot, but it does look like they will fail. 2022 looks to be the end of the road for Marxism in the US thus eliminating the existential threat to the USA.
Perhaps your bug-out place can be turned into a vacation home now
You really are lost in this You - Vs - Them nonsense, aren’t you?
Funny you say that. Yes, which is one of about 20 reasons I’m in Hawaii instead of Idaho or Nebraska. I’m 5 years ahead of you in planning it and I’m now in the execution phase. It’s kind of obvious to me - I don’t know why more people aren’t planning for the worst and also at the same time planning for the better. Also by the way still enjoying life more and not being 100% reliant on a 9 to 5 as well as becoming increasingly independent of and not worshiping multinational corporations as False Idols.
It just seems to me common sense so obvious it completely escapes my why everyone isn’t doing it. Well, lots more people are doing it after 2020, that’s for sure. Land and Homes in the country have almost doubled in price - if you can even buy one they are selling so hot right now.
Coincidentally, in a few days I’ll be offline for about 7 days out in the boonies doing some site prep work. And I’ll also be able to multitask and turn it into a spiritual retreat as well.
