The Downward Spiral (A Requiem for the American Dream): The Internet Writings of William Hicks
- ISBN-10
- 1468104160
- ISBN-13
- 9781468104165
- Pages
- 314
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2011-12-30
- Author
- Willam Hicks
Description
This is a book about peak oil and the devastating effects it is already having on the American economy. Unlike most books on the subject, however, this one deals more with the real world practical effects of our ongoing, slow motion economic collapse. One can address an audience consisting of the small percentage of the population who are peak oil aware and talk about such factors as the "bumpy plateau" of world oil production, EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested), and the Export Land Model and get an enthusiastic response. Advancing such technical concepts before a group of laymen, however, is at best going to result in a whole lot of eyes glazing over, which is something I think many peak oil writers fail to consider.It is my contention that the reason so few people are today aware of peak oil, even after seven years of persistent high oil prices and the havoc they have wrought upon the American economy, is that there have been very few attempts to connect the dots and demonstrate to them just how our car and consumer-centric economic model is faltering. The corporate owned mainstream media, for all of its cheerleading on behalf of the status quo, does report many relevant stories nearly every single day. No effort is ever made, however, to link the individual data points together, and so most viewers/readers never catch on to the larger pattern. Connecting those dots and revealing what the pattern shows is the very purpose of The Downward Spiral blog, from which the essays contained in this book are drawn.The most gratifying achievement for any writer is to have people actually read what he or she writes. In a little less than eight months, from the day I started blogging until the end of 2011, The Downward Spiral blog received over 150,000 page views and over 1000 comments from readers. Clearly, there is an audience out there for economic/social/political commentary that does not sugarcoat things or pull its punches in order to win mainstream acceptance. Some may complain that what I write is overwhelmingly negative, but to that objection I would argue that there is simply no way to put a happy face on economic collapse. And anyway, I do attempt to see the dark humor in our collective predicament. Some might also say that cracking jokes about a topic so deadly serious is reflective of a sick mind, but to that objection I would merely assert that sometimes you have to laugh to keep from going crazy.The other thing you will not find in these pages is a whole lot of practical advice as to how you should prepare for what's coming beyond the basic admonishment to change your mental outlook and recognize that real economic growth as we have known it our whole lives is as dead as a doornail. What you should choose to do about that basic fact in order to prepare yourself is entirely your decision. If you are like me, a middle aged suburbanite with no children and few practical skills, maybe that just means paying down debt and positioning yourself to weather the coming storm for as long as possible. If you are a parent with young children, however, and/or maybe you are just really good with tools or in the garden (if so, I envy you), maybe that means finding the right place to make an attempt for you and your progeny to actually try to survive what's coming. Whatever you decide, you'll get no objection from me. The important thing is that you recognize that America and the globalized world are on an unsustainable path and that likely within a few years, or a decade or two at the most, economic collapse is going to strike everyone, everywhere with a vengeance. If even one person reads this book or my blog, and it motivates them to prepare themselves for what is coming, this whole effort will have been worthwhile.
