Let's talk about mindset.

[Nicole]

aahh... you mean a religious leader. 

That's second.  First you have to reform and then foment against it.

Well, unless you are Hubbard.

[xcrunner77]

This could be a very depressing scenario after you read enough, but it occurs to me to consider things like:

1. Oil has only been important to the world for about a hundred years.  Prior to that humanity existed just fine without it.  The Renaissance occurred with nary a drop of gasoline. (Having said that, I'd love to read a thorough history of oil, when it really started, when it started becoming big, etc.)

2. This country was settled without oil. Washington, Jefferson, Adams, etc. all formed the U.S. without a barrel of oil.

3. Assuming that it occurs gradually, and not as a sudden un-plug (a la New Orleans... which you can't really adequately prepare for) people will shift their skills back to a pre-oil economy.  We keep being told we'll have to re-train.... in this case, not for higher tech jobs, but for lower tech jobs.

4.Okay, so we lack "life" skills. I am a computer programmer who bangs out code all day, but what I really do is *solve problems* all day. The code is incidental. The real work is "figuring it out".  If I had to throw all that in for basic life skills tomorrow I'd be screwed, but give me some warning and time to adjust, and I will.  The point is, while we lack those basic skills, we are also many times more educated than our ancestors.  We can figure things out. (That is the point of education after all... not the memorization of knowledge but the ability to problem solve.)

5.Yes it will suck to not have ice cream in summer and frozen raspberries in winter.  Such things will be a luxury as they used to be. (I recall a visit to colonial Williamsburg, during which they pointed out that it was a BIG DEAL for the royal governor to serve ice cream at his banquets in the summer.  Today we can run down to the local store and get as much Ben and Jerry's as we want year round, so whoop de do.  But back then it was a huge treat.  And likely will be again. We'll deal.)

6. All of which seems to come down to the hardest adjustment being not physical, but mental.  We may not be able to stuff ourselves with vast quantities of food or watch hours of entertaining television, but we won't just all die in 5 minutes from being unplugged from the system. It's the people who can't face life without its modern luxurious who will not make it.  Don't get me wrong, I *love* my air conditioning, my neighborhood chlorinated swimming pool, abundant cheap food year round, etc.   It sucks that all of that may go away, along with indoor plumbing.  But I will be able to mentally handle it if that happens.

7.  Think of the things we *won't* need all this energy output for. We won't have treated water, but we won't have factories polluting the hell out of it by dumping chemicals in either.  We may not have cars but we also wont' have to sit in gridlock every day.  We won't have a huge variety of food at all times, but we'll have locally grown food without pesticides (because there won't be any).  If it's not too late by then global warming should start to reverse itself. We wont' be adding greenhouse gases because there won't be any fossil fuels to burn.  In short... the bad stuff that results from our wasting the gift of petroleum will go away when the oil does. 

I'm not saying "bring it on."  I love the great things about modern life and will miss being able to hop on a plane pretty much when I want to, go to anywhere in the world I'm willing to afford for pretty cheap (if I plan ahead).   That's why I plan to see as much of the world as possible before we all end up back in villages.  Hopefully we can avoid the crazy small-mindedness that such villages had while once again enjoying the advantages of close communities.  I don't think humanity is going away, although our level of activity will probably be reduced.

[ToledoBass]

xcrunner77

You are right on the money with that post !

We will also have a lot of things, that will make life easier, than this countrys first settlers had. One would be the hiway systems, it'll be a lot nicer ridin your horse down a 4-lane highway than down a muddy path!

We won't loose the knowledge that we have, it will just have to be refocused.

One of the down sides will be a higher mortality rate, because of lack of emergency medical care and being able to transport to ER's quickly. I think life expectancy will most surely go down.

[nobody]

Hi and Welcome xcrunner77,

Its evident from your post that you're a Slow Crash'er. It should also be evident that due to cheap and abundant oil, we can have cheap and abundant food, and with abundant food we can sustain a larger population of people. Change the 'cheap and abundant' to 'expensive and scarce' oil and what happens to the food portion of the equation? Food decreases, maybe dramatically. With less food, fewer people. So, I believe that a large portion of humanity will go away, probably within the next ten years.

[OldHorseman]

One would be the hiway systems, it'll be a lot nicer ridin your horse down a 4-lane highway than down a muddy path!

   Only if you have a good farrier who has a stockpile of borium... Bare hooves don't hold up to a lot of miles on asphalt and concrete, and plain shoes are dangerously slippery on such hard surfaces.

[Nicole]

Farrier!  Another PO occupation!

[ToledoBass]

Oldhorseman

Ya took me way to serious on that!

I really didn't mean, white line riding. I'll be more precise in the future!!

[OldHorseman]

I really didn't mean, white line riding.

   Hey, it works for me. Once all those nasty automobiles are dead of thirst, I'll be friggin' King of the Road!  Maybe I'll have the big girls drag some of those abandoned heaps back to the shop to be salvaged for wagon parts and such.

[Nicole]

Or melt 'em down for shoes for those monsters. 

[the foodguy]

Hi all,

Like some have said, things won't happen that all of a sudden and before a 100 years ago the world was build without a single drop of oil.

I thinks it is important to learn the old skills again.  Listen to your grandparents how they lived.  Mine are now 80 years old, and every time I visit them I ask them a 1000 questions on how they lived when they were young.  These people are maybe a bit to old to practicaly learn something from them, but it is interesting to rediscover the old things.

My speciality is cooking.  I am a proffesional chef and at work I have the availability of all kinds of fancy equipment.  It is fun to work with this equipment and even love it very much. 
But at home I am a very different cook.  For the last 10 years or so, I have been experimenting a lot with the old techniques.  Making jams, baking bread, smoking meat, sterilising fruits and vegetables, making flavoured oils and vinigars, beer, butter, drying fruits.
I learned how to build a wood oven, smoke oven and dry oven.  I even have a lot of experiance with solar ovens (you even can bake bread and cake in it or roast meat).  I know how to make simple charcoal or wood stoves and understand thermodynamics concidering the kitchen. 
I know how to handle food in a hygienic, how to store them.  I have basic skills on builiding natural fridges, without electicity or other power.
I read a lot about the chemistry and phisics of food.
I have learned the ancient techniques on how to make icecream, without a freezer or icecreammaker (I do it with ice and salt).
I know how to kill an animal and how to butcher it.  I don't mind to gut a living fish.
When I look around, most cooks I know only can work with fancy equipment and most of them find themselves to pretty to learn the old stuff.  These spacemonkeys have no chance in the future.
It took me pretty long time to do learn al these things, but I am pretty sure one day I can be very valuable because of these skills, especialy in a communitie of people with other valubale skills.

I have lived a few years in Africa, wich I always consider my trip to the post PO future.  I have seen over there that very good proffesonals made good money and were very respected.  So I think it is very important to be very good in one proffesion, and I mean very good (not just a guy who can do only little part of the job).

Don't be a spacemonkey ! Get out and learn everything you can learn about something !!

[shadow]

I can shoot a gun straight and hit the target the first time.  I don't know if I can do this under pressure.

I keep my head in a crisis.  When everyone is still looking around figuring out what happened, I am barking orders and heading for the epicenter.

A recommendation:

Play paintball. 

Yeah I know it is just a game but just try it once.  It is, and most legit fields will make you sign a waiver stating that you understand the fact that it is, one of the most mentally stressful things you can put yourself up against.  The sound of paint whizzing at 200 MPH past your head will really put you under some pressure.  Your heart will race, you will sweat and at times when it is 5 on one you will tremble.  But in the end if you can take out the other team either by directing your team or single handedly by remaining calm it will go along way toward proving to yourself that you can get ahead even while under pressure.

Sure you aren’t going to die if you get hit but at the same time…

A good hit will remind you for a month that you played.  I had one bruise on my arm that lasted for six weeks.  Every damn time I leaned up against a wall I was thinking about what I could do better next time.

Not to mention that it is just plain fun…

Point is, know your limits.

In an environment where actions can be made in haste you must think of all possibe outcomes.  If you dont know how you will react under pressure dont initiate.  The first time I engaged in "combat/paintball" I froze.  I had no idea that things would move so fast.  Real combat would be worse...

Sure is different when the target shoots back!!!

[Chip Haynes]

Mindset and skill requirements will vary with region and locale. If you live far from the city, you'll need to know how to get by one way. If you live in the city as I do, you'll need a whole different set of skills to get things done. We don't all need to know how to butcher hogs, nor do we all need to know how to weld. Much of what we do right now will still be done a hundred years from now, it will just be done with less, and much closer to home.

Of course, if you're a professional telephone sanitizer (or an RV salesman), you're probably pooched.

The best way to imagine our ppotential future is this: The end of the 21st Century may probably look a lot like the end of the 19th, but with much better health care and stronger child labor laws.

There now, that's not so bad, is it? 

[Natrodomis]

My life so far in the pre-post-peak oil has been disappointing enough so far, which is perversely a very good thing.  No family, house, or career means much less stress when the SHTF.  Mentally I think I've been preparing for this for some time.   It probably has to do with growing up and working in a doomed family-owned business (office supplies) for many years.

I know I have a bias towards pessimism, so I've been trying to be skeptical of this Peak Oil thing since I found out about it a few weeks ago.   But it's only logical to assume that if the US reached a peak in oil production in 1970, then eventually the whole world is going to tap itself out as well.  So there is no doubt about it: we're screwed.

My mindset is probably a priceless asset.  I'm not deluded into thinking that small town living is the path to survival.  Once the global financial system collapses the descent into chaos is going to be swift.  The world economy is like a piece of fragile glass that can't break into a few pieces but will instead shatter into many fine shards.   There is not going to be a long period of "adjustment."  But it will be interesting to see how long the federal government will be able to hold things together after it runs out of money.

My survival strategy is simple: escape.  The continental U.S. is going to be death trap once petro based agriculture is no more.  I'm moving to an underpopulated island somewhere.  I just haven't figured out which one yet.

[Chip Haynes]

Ok, Natrodomis, that pessimism thing will do you in. you have to believe that knowledge is power, and that the more you know about this, the better off you will be- the more likely you are to make the right choices and moves. And what might those be? how about these:

1. You need an oil-proof job/income.

2. You need to get out of/stay out of debt.

3. You need to live where you want to be- and be able to live there year around.

After that, it's all gravy.