Friday beer

It's been a while, it seems, since I've met up with people at the pub. The summer of busy has hit us all. All to the good. As far as I'm aware though, there's nothing particular happening this upcoming weekend. No infest, maelstrom, or other things that would mean people are otherwise occupied.

And so I would like to suggest, going to the pub on friday. I've not made it for a few weeks, and on the weeks I have, others have been unable to.

I'm thinking that Friday, about 19:00 is both traditional, and appropriate to do so. Although I suspect I shall pop next door on the way, for some of their luvverly masala fish.

Any takers?

if the end of the world comes soon, what will you do?

I was pondering something the other day. There's starting to be 'signs' that as a race we're running dry on fossil fuels, and have majorly screwed up the climate.

How long before that reaches the crisis point?

Anyhow. I figure that one of the eminently possible scenarios, is that we all put our head in the sand, deny it all, and when the last drop of oil is pumped, economies around the world, that are so dependant on it, collapse entirely.

So. Let's just assume, for the sake of argument, that that's going to happen. That it's been proven beyond reasonable doubt, that we're run out of time. The time frame is 10-30 years. What would you, given that amount of time to prepare, do about it? I'm meaning 'you' in the specific sense - no hypotheticals, or 'if I had a lot of money' - with the stuff you have now, or could reasonably expect to have in 10 years time, what would you do with it?

How would you deal with the short term - suddenly the world has a whole lot of people who have skills that have just become useless. And they're all going to want food, shelter and warmth?

In the mid term, a lot of people are going to die, but gradually we'll hit a point of sustainability. Assuming you made it through the rioting, looting and ensuing panic, then there'll be a time when things settle down, and people actually get on with living, rather than bullying others.

And then there's the longer term. It doesn't actually take all that much worldwide economic damage to make cars, computers, telephones and the like non longer viable. Our world today is firmly build on foundations of fossilized hydrocarbons. We know there are alternatives, and we still haven't adopted them for economic reasons - wind power is just not cost effective for sustaining our current life style.

How would you prepare for the 'future', assuming a complete collapse of economy and society, at least in this part of the world. How do you prepare with being able to pass on knowledge of generations, without the current ability to mass produce text books, and distribute information by computer?