i have dreams that were slightly more intense than that. 

basically people struggling to make their homes self-sufficient with no outside resources and a toxic outdoor environment. everything has been cut off - even the radio broadcast and you figure most people are dead but you can't leave so who knows...

i've also had dreams where i'm in the hospital while humanity is coming to an end - cutting up bedsheets for bandages and sterilizing needles and what not because the outside supplies just no longer exist. 

i was actually writing a book about all this but my ex thought it was stupid so i kinda abandoned the project.

Problems: A lot of drugs are synthesized from petroleum based reactions. Same thing with plastics, which means a short term shortage of computer technology while we figure out what to use to produce circuit boards. System-on-chip would be a good idea, or perhaps we'll have optical computing down by that time. Very expensive, either way.

Of course, we do have other means of moving things via coal power, no shortage of that as far as I know. As long as there are power plants, I know how to build an electric motor (and the batteries for it, if need be).

I'm not worried.

But the painkillers and antibiotics can be produced using plants. Painkillers and antibiotics being the greatest things ever. Anyone who's ever been really sick or severely injured will second that.

No, you can kiss your electronics goodbye. I have a 70 year-old typewriter that works great. A hard drive lasts an average of 5 years. We can't maintain that life cycle.

Ah, but what does a digging machine run on? How about a transport truck? And what's a "shortage"? We know at some point that we'll have to slow down.

Yes, we already have electric motors, and if you can build a basic battery, wonderful. Can you farm with it? Who's going to maintain the power lines without vehicles?

It's not like it would be the end of the world or anything. It would be a lot more like 1910, though.

Oh, I absolutely love these dreams, I've been having them since I was ten. They are so exciting and cinematic. Finally writing a novel about it that kind of thematic, end of the world setting.

The dreams are either similar to what the OP described, or in a different vein, involve natural catastrophes like massive flooding or earthquakes. Again, the idea of the familiar becoming run-down and worn out, as people board up their homes for the flood or fortify their front porch against attacks by drug dealers in flying ghetto cars.

At 11, I had a very specific cyberpunkish dream where I was trapped in a 25 year old body, though I knew that I was 11 in the dream. It was my own body in the future, and my home town (Lower Merion, on the mainline) had degenerated into a Blade Runner-type dystopia. There were flying cars, and lots and lots of black cat suits. The government was sort of Orwellian but totally incompetent and the streets were overrun by criminals. Coolest dream ever about Lower Merion.

But my point is that we already know where and how to get insulin (pigs!). We can also make morphine, antibiotics, and a host of other plant-based medicines. If people at the beginning of the 20th century knew what we known now, they'd be much better equipped to deal with the road ahead. Sure, there are going to be problems, but I see more awesome in my future.

It's not like we won't have oil.

The oil-driven economy will collapse long before all the oil is depleted. Once the price of a gallon of gasoline goes over some threshold, nobody will be able to afford to use it for anything but the most emergent situations. The price of petroleum-based products (such as plastics and drugs) will go up substantially, but will still be available.

My guess is there will be lots of oil left over once we stop using it to run to the store twice a day. Here, "plenty" doesn't mean a whole lot, but it should still be sufficient to create and transport vital supplies, like specific drugs and whatnot.

I'm kinda with Will on this one. It'll be different, but it'll be pretty freakin' cool to see the human race get a wake-up call from our nightmare of frenetic oil consumption. I think it will bring about a new age of science, like we had back in the '50s. I also think it will help spread ignorance and superstition, as universal communication breaks down.

As an aside: my nightmare is that an invisible Bigfoot is chasing me, and I'm trying to escape on a flying carpet, but I keep getting caught up in the high-tension wires. Anybody else have that dream?

  Not to deter off topic Kevin, but have you ever thought that maybe a week in Mexico around February, March, vacation time.  Leave that frozen tundra for just a week.  Does wonders for the mind, not to mention empties out the wallet, phew, what a relief.

Don't do that! It's going to be so much fun for the clever people like us who know it's coming! If it gets really bad (which I don't think it will), we should designate a meeting place for smart people. There, we shall build a fort and write a constitution. Smart people always stand a better chance at surviving (okay, smart people who work instead of whining - the whining ones will have to be thrown to the bears). But think about it: those of us who learn quickly would be awesome at a lifestyle change. Farming isn't that bad. It's hard work, but you don't go hungry. Plenty of time for hanging out in a community centre, smoking weed and talking shit. How would that be bad?

Also, we'd have people who could make radios, weapons, bridges ... I see only fun coming from this.

I've always thought along the lines of Mad Max and such for the future...then the thoughts like what HisWillness is saying...sort of Little House on the Prairie (with or without pot).

I actually live on a farm...though I am not a good farmer.  I've wondered how practical it would be to get a horse, but there are not many hitching posts in town.  Maybe later, huh?

Shelley, I'd like to address this statement, too.  Continue to write this book.  Your ex is stupid.

Or can we call it John Galt's Gulch?

Ration the civilian oil, use what is needed for the military.  America does have some domestic oil supplies.  Not a whole lot.  Hopefully, people would object to the military using too much oil, but if the right kind of fear were created, they might let it happen.

True, but there are sometimes unintended consequences...
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/posters1.htm

Let me translate one poster:

Humans tend to be the most productive when they have to struggle.  A long period of easy living is very likely to cause government and its society to regress in some ways because the wisdom gained during prior struggles becomes lost with each passing generation.  I do hope that we emerge from this with a better civilization, but the short term pain will be very annoying, to say the least.

Word. Imagine how much farther we could stretch this resource if instead of burning it we used for lubricants and plastics.

The thing is we do use almost all of Tesla's inventions, just that other engineers have improved on them. People have a habit of misinterpreting his work though, especially where he grew ever more extravagant in his descriptions of what they would do.

Anyway, a lot of the natural science discoveries still left to be made require computers. The amount of information that has to be handled is just too vast and too easy to miscalculate. I can think of various ways to produce a lot of the components necessary to build a transistor computer without the need for plastic. A quantum computer may end up being easier to build under the circumstances, but that really depends on the model we settle on.

See my quote box (the first one, obviously). I'll tell you what would happen if I jumped in here. It would be redundant since this has been done to death already. But I imagine something similar would happen as in the previous thread. I would demand a rigorously formulated mathematical explanation about your assertions. You would post a pdf. I would waste time refuting it. We can only discover that which is coherently defined. This is the simplest way to trip up pseudo-physics. No math, no game.

Study math. The only people who truly understand anything about physics are those who would bleed mathematics if cut. If you can't do much math, your ability to comment on anything physics will be entirely restricted to virtually nil. Let me make it perfectly clear that if you think you can talk physics but do not have the patience or competence to study mathematics, which is absolutely necessary to have any meaningful knowledge of  underlying mechanism of physical phenomenon, then I have no symapthy for you, or your position, whatsoever.

We'll take over the Hoover Dam in the wake of the great collapse. We can fortify it, and keep it running, and we'll have a virtual inexhaustible supply of water and energy.

We have a base attached to the city. Even assuming we were 'all out of oil' (I doubt we would reach this stage before panic started to turn the wheels of martial law), simply marching the boys into the city would be no difficult task.

Moreover, I shudder at the notion that no federal intervention would be attempted at all. Nobody to offer assistance against the approaching storm?

That's a terrifying thought.

It depends on the times and places, Will. Look at Katrina: did that 'bring people together'? No. The poor (predominantly African American) communities began to wallow in conspiracy stories about how the wealthier middle class+ white folks intentionally had the levies breached. When government assistance did arrive in a timely fashion, people went batshit fucking loco. Stores were looted, people were marking-out territory for themselves and shooting at anyone who approached, friends and families would stick together while leaving anyone else to fend for themselves.

It was ugly.

Take a a look at Iraq. Has the war brought the Iraqis together? No. It's sparked civil war and unrest, without any semblence of law or humanity in some of the worst zones.

The thing is, if people were smart enough to recognize this, we wouldn't be looking at a looming energy crisis (nor would we likely need a place like the RRS, nor would we have wars breaking-out in the Middle East over oil supplies). In Edmonton, there's a tremendous portion of the population that are happily and stupidly living retarded and unsustainable lifestyles paid in full by the oil industry. Swampers in Alberta can find jobs tomorrow at $25/hr. These people are completely unaware of what goes on the world outside their massive houses, trophy wives and mightily lift-kitted Dodge Rams.

They're the kind of people who snap when someone looks at 'their girl' while they're having a night on the town, are sure that Jesus rides shotgun with them and have violent temper tantrums when the kid at McDonalds messes-up their order.

The last thing in the world that I'd trust is the idea that these persons would let their lifestyle go silently into that goodnight.

I'll never underestimate the human ability to invent new and better ways to kill each other, even in the absence of oil. Horses make excellent artillery tows and transport vehicles (as has been demonstrated in times of warfare prior to the widespread use of oil). Relatively low-performace aircraft have been constructed and flown using solar-powered props; and yes, while these are hardly impressive compared to modern fighter-bombers, they're also unmanned and comparatively cheap. Strap a JSOW to one, and you've got yourself the equivalent of a high-tech German buzz-bomb.

The last part I agree with, the first I don't. science and industry are married - one has always been a part of the other. You're claiming that science will flourish outside the shadow of technology and government? I say that's proposterous. history teaches us that this is very far from the truth.

i think the plan is that i get to do all the toking and discourse (to myself - it will be some good shit ) while i supervise all you able-bodied people in the fields.

You can want whatever you like.

Not true. Hard work, yes. Anti-social? No. And if the large community is all in it together, the task becomes easier.

Oh, not everyone will be fed. For instance, those who aren't interested in shovelling manure and clearing rocks.

Whatever did we do before farm machinery? Hmm ...

If you don't plan on feeding anyone who doesn't do farming, what's to keep those who don't want to from using the remaining supplies to eat while spending all their time training for combat and once the harvest comes raiding and stealing from the farmers?

I used to have nightmares about nuclear war almost daily in the mid-1980s as a kid. Of course at the time Reagan was president and it certainly seemed he was doing his damndest to start one.

Me.

I'm trained in combat, both hand-to-hand, and otherwise. I'm a decent shot, able to fall a deer at 150 yards. I can set up a defensive perimeter, as well as perform stealth operations. (The last I learned from Metal Gear Solid.) And, I'm not bad with a foil, though not very good with a rapier, and I suck with a saber.

But most importantly, we'll set loose the genetically-engineered raptors in the fields at night.

In the absense of farming machinery? When we're out using plows, horses and pitchforks, have no means of enriching soil or planting higher-yield crops (because they're no longer in development).

Yes, Will. What I said is extremely accurate. Especially up here. Read up on agricultural history. You're looking at 16-ish or so hour days in the field sewing and reaping, every day of the week, both to ensure everybody is fed and to ensure you have enough food to keep everyone fed when the climate harshens. And note that not everyone in the supposed community would be capable of evenly contributing (the elderly? the infants?).

In warmer climates, you might arguably be able to establish orchards and make the task a little easier for yourself, but orchards aren't exactly something you can establish in short order, and you'll likely find yourself running out of space in such climate zones as more people pack their way in.

And such people (and their friends/families) would simply let themselves starve to death?

Check the population figures, post green revolution. There were significantly less people to feed at that time.

Also see: Dust Bowls. We did incredible, unsustainable damage in agricultural regions through our farming practices. Yields were so low that we had to farm much larger surface areas, which meant clearing-out a lot of vegetation and trees, which meant destabilizing topsoil...

Without the oil supply to meet agricultural demands, we'll be looking at mass starvation. When that occurs, I'll bet top dollar that status quo and the illusion of cooperation will shatter, and people will be at each other's throats.

Go too Google video and check out Derrick Jensen,he makes some very disturbing claims about our Culture and I do believe that he makes some rather good points.Toxic memes is a deep look at ourselves.

...we Rationalists should start making serious plans to rendevouz if/when things do get this bad. We need a safe haven. You all know that if the world really did get much worse, very fast, we would not want to be around for the religious apocalyptic reactionaries using catastrophe as a means of promoting the retro-active interpretation of the prophecies of a tribe of desert nomads.

I think it would be appropriate to organize "survival prep cells" in every city that we can, start storing things we'll need and especially recruit much needed talent from all sectors of society. I don't plan on toking and philosophizing. Hell, I'll work in the field if you'll feed me. Certain genes need to get propagated here... namely those connected to higher intellect.