Christmas 2011 Or Perhaps 2061 December 25th, 2011 What a world we live in. We are now having much fun, tearing up the capitalist system and recreating reality. I have been unemployed now for a year and a half, participating in the Occupy movement, going to school, relaxing, but now unemployment is over and I have to find work, or lower my living standards. I could try charging for my words, but I have never done that with much success. So I will probably find some way to sell my services in some form of wage slavery unless I can find a coop to work with. These days there are more of them, but will they be able to put up with an irascible person like me? Fifty- Sixty Years HenceĀ Somehow there is nothing left to the world. Loose ends, bits of paper floating around the edges of a universal rubbish heap, the Yeatsian vision made flesh. Slow down the presses, steam pressure released, there is peace; a crumpling of bits of paper and broken two by fours to create kindling for a fire. This is the place where there are thousands of dirty children picking through old plastic bags and laptops, sorting, forever sorting to find a place for it all. Rummaging through the leftovers of the modern world, the past world of fossil fuels, when oil hit $300 a barrel it became more cost effective to recycle, but by then the technology was breaking down. Shortages everywhere, essential components were hard to get, communications became sporadic as the internet became intermittent due to collapse towers, broken cable lines, satellites falling like stray meteorites. At first it was seen as simply a problem of infrastructure needing repair, but for some reason there never was enough money to pay for the repairs.
Horses pulling cars, then simply carts, as the cars were stripped of excess weight, simply frames with wheels and a seat and an umbrella for a roof. Quite a problem with the manure, use it for roof top gardens, flat roofs make great gardens, until they rot. There are some kind of love fests that mean gold when you shit, and there are love fests that end up in disrupted lake side murders. What this vision entails is a state were balloons are used to transport rare minerals from African mines guarded by mercenaries and National Guard units sent over on transport ships powered by cow methane, solar panels and wind. The sails have solar panels on them and below deck is a cow barn. Milk and methane daily. But there is a problem with feeding the cows, the deck is a pasture for growing alfalfa widened like an aircraft carrier, now only balloons land on this deck. Crew quarters are rather limited below deck, perhaps a thousand men able to sit on one ship. This makes it not very cost effective for an aggressive naval force. The Naval oil reserves having been used up, only a few emergency transports remain powered by oil. Nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers function but only by cannibalizing parts from ships that are no longer serviceable. Nuclear power as an option used up due to lack of fissionable material after entire planet tried to go nuclear in the middle of the century and thus only available for emergency medical and military use. Just like fossil fuels, for medical plastics mostly. It's not exactly rationing, more like some things simply drop out of general usage. Plastic bags, private automobiles, jet airplanes, all things of the past, these are the sort of luxuries, the sort of thing that even the very rich hoard in their secret redoubts. Normal humans, the kind you would meet, live by taking the trolley to the communal farm, or the repair shop or the dairy, or the stables, or take a walk to the roof garden. Or they scrabble about in the wreckage of 250 years of fossil civilization for some usable materials. Taking the time to give, people go on about their lives. Merry Christmas. ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[email protected]?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
