[actually_a_dog]

What makes you think we can continue to do that? Even if we can, what makes you think we can do it sustainably? And if we can do it sustainably, what makes you think we will? History doesn't really provide any encouragement here.

[jacquesm]

I don't think we will be able to do that, sustainably or otherwise. We're locusts, pure and simple.

But we got away with it long enough to a large number of people now believe that this is normal. It isn't. The wake up call will be a very harsh one.

[esarbe]

> this is normal. It isn't.

Agreed. Nothing about this is normal. Not the way we live, not the way we work, not the way we take a hot shower every morning. It's highly un-normal. But because we're relative creatures and define the 'normal' by what we experience and not by what has been the normal for hundreds of millennia, we tend to misunderstand the reality of our situation.

The wake up call will be a very harsh one.

[actually_a_dog]

Just to be clear, if by "normal," you're referring to the way humans existed for 95% of their existence, which was as small bands of hunter gatherers, that very clearly implies an advanced state of collapse. Even if some of the worst case scenarios for collapse come true, that's a long ways off. For one thing, it would probably imply a significantly reduced population (probably no more than 10-20% of current population levels) before nomadic hunter gatherer groups becomes an efficient way to live.

[esarbe]

That was just an observation with regards to what we "modern" humans consider to be "normal", not a comment on how far down the next collapse will bring us.

(Not to mention that we probably have neither the abilities nor the ecosystem to revert to hunter-gatherer subsistence.)

No, I don't expect a collapse back to the stone-age in the short run. But to every human living in "modern" conditions, a reversion back 100 or even 200 years in terms of comfort and luxury will be quite staggering.

The wake up call will be a very harsh one, nonetheless.