Optimism Bias,

[John Day]

After an intense 3 days of difficult choices and complexities of packing order, a 45 ft shipping container is packed for rural Hawaii, including a 13 year old Chevy (Toyota) Prizm and an ’87 Isuzu P’UP diesel long-bed pick-up , both with under 90k miles and a lot of fixing-up.
Also a complete off-grid solar power set-up, with 10 kWH of Edison cells is in there, and 5 55 gallon Kikkoman soy sauce shipping barrels of food grade plastic, and other forward-looking tidbits.
I’m optimistic that it and I will get there.
I’m flying back for Christmas on 12/21/12, late flight from Kona.
If the world ends that day, I am going to stand there and be a pain-in-the-ass until they credit my card for the flight.

[Anonymous]

I want to comment on optimism.

Underneath all our current problems, such as debt, deflation, etc It does seem possible that underneath it all, the future is bubbling away, getting ready to appear.

As an example, I just learned that not too far from me is a company that has fifty 3D printers, working 24/7. 3D printers combined with scanners and design software is going produce huge change. Everyone, sitting at home in front of their computers, would have the capacity to “build a better mousetrap”. Also, as another example of change, it may be that earthquake and hurricane proof skyscrapers will be “printed”.

Of course energy is needed for the future. If Ray Kurtzweil is correct, solar is going to grow exponentially soon and combined with improved battery technology, it, solar, will become the main source for local energy. Cheaper, more powerful, and lighter photovoltaic solar panels means that someday all roofs will be solar panels. After all shouldn’t we have better roofs than asphalt with little stones, coated with ceramics imbedded in it? Combined with a switch from uranium to thorium reactors, and conservation, means that there is much more energy that is cleaner, to be harvested and produced.

[SteveB]

Rodney7777 post=6357 wrote: I want to comment on optimism.

Did you mean “in optimism”?

[Nassim]

I see. Material science and energy does not even enter into the equation. If we build – with the help of 3D printers – gadgets, we will no longer need the factories of China or the resources of Arabia, Africa and Australia.

Attached files

[Nassim]

Rodney7777

I see. Material science and energy do not even enter into the equation.

If we build – with the help of 3D printers – gadgets, we will no longer need the factories of China or the resources of Africa and Arabia

[istt]

This message or point has been made many times, and I agree with it. You cannot get out of a debt problem by amassing more debt. However, what I would really like to read more on is what will be the specific consequences of piling on more debt. Yes, things will collapse, economies will falter but what does this translate into for the everyday citizen? What can we expect to see happen? What will be the fallout of this kicking the can down the road when there is no more road? What, Ilargi and Stoneleigh, do you envision happening? I recently purchased the 4 DVD set and have listened to the first DVD. Will the answers be revealed in the later DVDs? Thanks.

[Raúl Ilargi Meijer]

istt,

I don’t know how specific you would like the “answers” to be, I hope it’s obvious that we’re entering chaos, and that makes it impossible to predict all too specific things, other than enormous losses in wealth and purchasing power, as well as availability of products that can (no longer) be bought.

In general, the larger the scale of the system you depend upon for your work and your basic necessities, the worse off you will be. The closer you keep your control over your energy, shelter and food, the better it is.

But that doesn’t guarantee much of anything in a chaos; we can only do the best we can.

[istt]

Thank you for your response, Ilargi. I guess what I am asking, to be more specific, is, how should assets be allocated? I know you have said cash is king and I believe you also feel hard assets are more desirable as well, such as real estate. Realize I reside in the US. Nicole has said the dollar will fare much better than other currencies. As I said, I have not completed the DVD set yet. Is this information covered in the set?

[Author]

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