Ah, Chris. Who would seek to add a rebuff of your article. It's too serious for that. Yes, you'll attract the usual critics who know deep down in their own hearts that the article reflects the past accurately as well as the future, but they'll knock you anyway because they can't handle the fear of their eventual loss of "stuff."
"Stuff" is like an addictive drug to most and I'm afraid I'm little different than the great hoarding masses. Many years ago, I bought a bush block 30k's S/W of a major Victorian city, firstly to get away from some "unseen force" and when I finally realised what that force was, human greed and materialism, I began a quest for self sustainability. I "downshifted" and re-educated myself which enabled me to work half hours with a reasonable pay rate. At the half way mark of sustainability, I came to realise just how hooked on materialism we all are. I could (if I had to) do without a job, a car, television, power, in fact all the trappings of a modern household and yet the one thing I can't get away from is the fact that if I don't pay my Council rates each year, eventually the money making machine will tip me into the street. To give up most things is mere sacrifice. To lose everything is tradgic. At my age I couldn't recover and so I keep myself tied to the money machine unable to free myself form it's bonds.
I'm middle aged and most likely will be uneffected by the results of the mad rush to control the World's remaining resources. It's my children and grandchildren I fear for. My sons dismiss me as eccentric whilst they persue the money machine. My only hope is that I live long enough to show them how to live when the excrement finally hits the fan. I doubt it will be all that far into the future.

Great story. It had stuff in it. I like stuff..

stuff weighs you down

Excellent Chris, makes a nice popular introduction to the depletionist epiphany, long may the Church of Less dematerialise.

Great work Chris, quite a laugh, Cheney was created by the great machine, but born to be ridiculed.

Great post Aime, you have summed up a conflict I have had for quite a while. I hate materialism but I am tied to the money machine, to completley free yourself from the money machine inevitably means you live on the charity of others, and I would rather be tied to the money machine, as painful as that can sometimes be.

I must thank you Carl, not so much for your your kind words regarding my post, but for allowing me to see life without any material goods at all in a different way.
It's true! If you buck the system until "they" turf you out into the street, how is a person meant to survive? Live on the street I suppose and beg from the passer by. That's not fair to either the begger or the passer by.
Better to tie yourself as little as possible to the "money machine" and leave as small a environmental footprint as possible.
Best of fortunes Carl and Chris :-)

Cheers everyone.

It's actually quite difficult to write your ideas in the naive style, because you have to swallow your dignity so much.

In this case, I wrote the whole thing in the nude. Since I am approaching 60, I am no longer a danger to shipping. My family bore up like the troopers they are.

- but it's a case of "needs must" I'm afraid.

Hey if you guys don't want your stuff, can I have it? - Hey Cat, thanks for the link.

Hey, not only was the article good stuff - but wasn't it refreshing that for once there was no-one telling the rest of us that it was all stuff and nonsense?

Yep - I like Chris' stuff on STUFF.

But aren't mining metallurgists collusive in depleting and destroying our natural abundance of stuff just to give us more stuff-ups?

Quite so dickie, the last laugh is on me.

Imagine sitting your grandkids on your knee and trying to explain to them that you are the state executioner. There's no easy way to let 'em down.

Chris - I think you're an enlightened, 21st century man and I've decided you're made of good stuff.

Keep sharing it my friend.

In the NUDE ? hmmm that's getting close to prophetic symbolism there Chris :)

here is Jesus take on 'stuff'.

13Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me."
14Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" 15Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."

16And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. 17He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'

18"Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '

20"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'

21"This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."

That kind of says "it all"
cheers.

Davo! G'day mate.

Jeez, you get around:

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_boaz/2007/03/the_belief_that_dare_not_speak.html

:)

someone please tell me who/what are: the bearded entity, mysterious force, and the minor historical deity who had been sacrificed in the early 20th century.

Jeepers, I thought this thread was dead.

Hello cjwirth.

The bearded entity and the mysterious force is a god (fill in your personal preference). I particularly referenced the god who supposedly left the Jewish neo-faithful a pawn ticket for the land of Palestine (a 3000 year-old pawn ticket according to the Zionist settlers).

My interest in this is not for any religious reason. Honestly, I couldn't care less about the religion that one happens to be cursed with.

Rather it is because of the the criminal way that the country now known as Israel, has and is being used, as an aircraft-carrier in the fight for the last of the world's great deposits of sweet oil.

- that's how I see it anyway -

The minor historical deity is Archduke Francis Ferdinand, whose assassination was given as the official reason for the precipitation of WW1. That's when the Great Getting Machine (mechanised, corporatised, industrialised warfare) first mowed down men like wheat. My dad survived that one by the skin of his teeth.

:

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your response. I read all of your stuff and it is enlightening, and I send it to my colleagues and students at the University of New Hampshire (USA) and my family. My email is wirthcj and then @ and then hotmail.com. If you send me an email, I will send you or others some extensive research stuff which summarizes as best I can where the US/world stands on peak oil/natural gas/coal. It doesn't look good, and the "quicksand effect" and "the worse things get, the worse they get" factors are here now. In any case, I will send this stuff to www.energybulletin.net. You and others will probably find it interesting. Keep in touch. Cheers, Cliff Wirth