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    Re: Shrinkflation at the pumps is just depressing Archived Message

    Posted by Ian M on January 23, 2023, 10:28 pm, in reply to "Re: Shrinkflation at the pumps is just depressing"

    Another good one from this sheep guy. Appreciate the analysis for why we might not expect to see high prices drive another round of extreme oil extraction as that has been a worry of mine. Now we've got to balance the nightmare of fracking against the calamities of economic collapse. There doesn't seem to be another way out, like he says a predicament, not a problem. I'm still on 'the sooner it all goes down the better', and it seems unarguable that even if there was an all-out push for low-margin oil, gas, coal, nuclear, biomass, 'renewables (sic) etc. that would only stave off collapse for a few more years, and it would be even worse when it came. However, it's easy to be glib about these things, not having experienced depression, energy shortages, war, famine and the rest in my lifetime. Maybe it's a blessing to be protected by that kind of ignorance, because if we really knew what was coming we wouldn't manage to get out of bed in the morning...

    On the other hand there remains the hope that things could actually improve in the long term, perhaps in the medium and even short term by some measures. It depends how enmeshed in the system we are. The wildlife and remaining indigenous people will rebound almost instantly. Village-scale economies where people haven't been completely de-skilled will probably muddle through and have an eventual renaissance with the removal of pressure from international capitalism. City workers, though, who have never known any other life are in deep shit, and that's where the zombie apocalypse nightmares might play out. But we shouldn't underestimate the capacity of human beings to organise amongst themselves even in extreme scenarios, and even the most alienated people in the world might discover that principles of mutual aid come naturally in an emergency.

    Unfortunately the UK and especially England seems appallingly unprepared for these shocks to the system, moreso than most countries I'd say. I'm not sure how the elites could have acted in a way to lead to a worse outcome, frankly, and there aren't many signs of resistance from the general populace. T'ain't going to be pretty...

    cheers,
    I

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