A dedicated follower of strife

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Pent,
that was just a flip comment based upon your comments i have read that left an impression on me.  I had firmly tacked your avatar (with the little alien guy and hypnotic rainbow colors) to the abstraction of 'ennui' inside my careenium.  what you have presented as your outlook, i would have associated more with TGRR.
But my percecptions will be a little skewed in regards to that mindset anyways, because i am a relatively friendly and happy-go-lucky gloom n' doomer.  i love all the shit that you hate.  but we can still light it on fire together. 
Iptuous

wut

I don't know why I have such a bad rap around here.  I try to help people.

I didn't know you did.
I actually think of you as one of the more likeable persons on here.
I think it's because you don't use words like ''ennui'' and ''careenium''.
There is no need for that kind of language when you're actually trying to communicate.

I used ennui once.

But I wasn't trying to communicate.  I was insulting a European. 

[Urraco]

Pent,
that was just a flip comment based upon your comments i have read that left an impression on me.  I had firmly tacked your avatar (with the little alien guy and hypnotic rainbow colors) to the abstraction of 'ennui' inside my careenium.  what you have presented as your outlook, i would have associated more with TGRR.
But my percecptions will be a little skewed in regards to that mindset anyways, because i am a relatively friendly and happy-go-lucky gloom n' doomer.  i love all the shit that you hate.  but we can still light it on fire together. 
Iptuous

wut

I don't know why I have such a bad rap around here.  I try to help people.

I didn't know you did.
I actually think of you as one of the more likeable persons on here.
I think it's because you don't use words like ''ennui'' and ''careenium''.
There is no need for that kind of language when you're actually trying to communicate.

I used ennui once.

But I wasn't trying to communicate.  I was insulting a European. 

Bwahahahaha!
The correct usage as far as I'm concerned.

[Elder Iptuous]

yeah, ok, 'careenium' would only be familiar if you're a fan of Hofstadter, but it should at least activate a couple of simmballs in your head simply because it sounds so close to 'cranium'....
and ennui would only be familiar if your a fan of words that make you sound erudite...

But let us not get away from the central message of this thread; there are so many wonderful ways to be a fan of our thousand petaled eschaton that is blooming all about us!

[Urraco]

yeah, ok, 'careenium' would only be familiar if you're a fan of Hofstadter, but it should at least activate a couple of simmballs in your head simply because it sounds so close to 'cranium'....
and ennui would only be familiar if your a fan of words that make you sound erudite...

But let us not get away from the central message of this thread; there are so many wonderful ways to be a fan of our thousand petaled eschaton that is blooming all about us!

i never said I didn't know what the words mean, sir.

I appreciate your love of words (I also find myself captivated by the little buggers from time to time) but you gotta reallize dat tha most impertint part of words iz dat they is undahstood.

Eschaton! That's a wonderfully cuddly word.

[Elder Iptuous]

that one actually doesn't count for much on this board, i'm guessing.

[Urraco]

Nope. S'why I said cuddley.

S'what I'm sayin'.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Not for me. I'm hoping and praying it actually happens and I'm too optimistic to allow myself to entertain the horrible notion that we, as a race, might pull ourselves back from the brink. The truth is that by most rational definitions I'm a very bad person because I like strife. Hell, I fucking worship it. Happy ever after isn't an ending in my book, it's an ideal place to hold a war. I can't look at a pastoral landscape without imagining how much of an improvement it would be if there was a mugging going on.

It's like I said not too long ago: the doomsayers are the optimists, the hopeful ones.

HAW HAW! Tough shit, man. Humanity is too stupid to destroy itself. It'll keep lumbering along in its diseased, horrendous way, looking awful and leaving us wondering when someone will have the kindness to put the poor thing down.

But no one can. Humanity has been obsessed with its own demise for thousands of years, and even humanity itself can't figure out how to make the apocalypse happen. It's the god damn Energizer Bunny.

[Elder Iptuous]

I agree that we'll keep lumbering along, but i would say that we've made the appocalypse happen many times in the past.  why do you think we won't make it happen again?

[Cramulus]

I used ennui once.

But I wasn't trying to communicate.  I was insulting a European. 

yeah, ok, 'careenium' would only be familiar if you're a fan of Hofstadter, but it should at least activate a couple of simmballs in your head simply because it sounds so close to 'cranium'....

Roo Roo Hofstadter! I've been trying to come up with a way to summarize the Who Shoves Whom Around in the Careenium essay, because it neatly encompasses the Black Iron Prison, Free Will vs Determinism, and Shrapnel discussions.

/tangent

I agree that we'll keep lumbering along, but i would say that we've made the appocalypse happen many times in the past.  why do you think we won't make it happen again?

FTR, I'm with you on the skepticism about doomsday prophecy. They've predicted the end of the world well over 200 times in the last 500 years.

but the threat of global nuclear annihilation - that's straight up possible.

[Elder Iptuous]

FTR, I'm with you on the skepticism about doomsday prophecy. They've predicted the end of the world well over 200 times in the last 500 years.

but the threat of global nuclear annihilation - that's straight up possible.

I agree, but i like the quote attributed to Einstein, "i don't know what weapons WWIII will be fought with, but WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones"

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

[Cainad (dec.)]

I agree that we'll keep lumbering along, but i would say that we've made the appocalypse happen many times in the past.  why do you think we won't make it happen again?

I meant apocalypse in the sense of "Game Over, And We're Out Of Quarters." Perhaps Armageddon is a better word for that.

[Tempest Virago]

I don't find it especially amusing, invigorating, or positive when people are hungry or homeless or physically harmed, especially kids.

It's easy for people to have a smugly salacious view of social collapse and the ensuing mayhem when they're snug in their homes with enough to eat. Go hungry and cold for a few weeks and see if you have as much fun as you think you will. Maybe watch some of your loved ones die and see if it motivates you.

I agree completely.

[hunter s.durden]

It's easy for people to have a smugly salacious view of social collapse and the ensuing mayhem when they're snug in their homes with enough to eat. Go hungry and cold for a few weeks and see if you have as much fun as you think you will. Maybe watch some of your loved ones die and see if it motivates you.

I know it's a hard thing to digest, but some of us don't have a huge problem with what you define as the "problems" of social collapse. I understand a bunch of the doomwishers are internet tough guys who want to idealize the Mad Max scenarios, while being in no way prepared to handle it, but some of us... well, I doubt I'll ever get to truly make my point.

So, Silly, I think I'm back in the full swing of the pd hivemind. Not 3 hours ago I was formulating a rant quite similar to this, using the economy as backdrop. Some of your wording was quite similar to mine, especially your point about how pessimism and optimism can look like the other in the cracked mirror.

[Cain]

I don't think social collapse is on the cards.  At least, in the sense I understand it.  I honestly think something between Argentina and Russia is more likely, on the worst end of possible scenarios, maybe with some Greek riots thrown in.  Society didn't collapse, it just...gets disrupted.  And becomes shittier to live in.  More dangerous.  Less opportunities, once the dust settles.  Stratified.

I like options.  I think the more complex a society, the more chances for actual chaos are present.  Allows for more black swans, and a more complex society tends to support more political/social/religious factions, which means more dyads (potential flashpoints of conflict arising from various relational positions) among those groups.  Which had more chaos, the incessant scheming of the Greek City-States, or the barbarian Avar Khanganate?  One was a society rich with backstabbing, intrigue, diplomacy and war...the other was rule of the biggest thug on the block.  As it turns out, I'm not the biggest thug on the block, and neither is anyone else here (and if they are, why aren't you working for Blackwater Xe and making a literal killing off such skills?).  I know which I prefer.

Sure, there will be a point where no-one has a clue what is going on, and someone with enough luck to be in the right position and with the right presence of mind will be able to do well, but leaving such things to chance is a mug's game.  And if you miss your shot at it...well, people who show themselves to be poor players at the game are not often asked back for a second chance.  And as things devolve and get less complex, as it turns into a Cold War struggle between the lower class (probably aided mostly by the now dwindling middle class) and the upper classes, those chances will come less and less often.  And class war only allows for one eventual outcome - oligarchy.

tl;dr version: the Roman Empire at it's height was a thousand times more chaotic and strife-filled than something as stupid as current day Somalia.