Monday, December 31, 2012

Rationalizing Extinction

Sometimes, oppression I see
Punctures superficiality:
Overwhelming rage
No one can assuage
Helps make it O.K. with me. 

Friday, December 28, 2012

One-Shot Affair

“With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them there will be one chance, and one chance only." 
          -- Sir Fred Hoyle, "Of Men and Galaxies," 1964

Look on our works, and despair!
The resources are no longer there;
To support such advance,
There was only one chance:
This was a one-shot affair.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Monopoly Game

Stay free at the choicest doomsteads:
The oranges, yellows and reds,
Where likely the strongest
Will hold out the longest
Once the collapse really spreads.

Community Chest and Chance pick,
Distractions, the next media trick;
Railroads: a bore,
Unless someone owns four—
Then you get fucked pretty quick.

Utilities, parking, taxes—I’ve scored:
They don’t kill, can be safely ignored;
Pass go on your way
And earn weekly pay,
Working your ass round the board.

In jail you can miss turns in style
And get some relief for awhile;
Next throw of the dice,
Hope fate will be nice
To struggles that lifetimes compile.

The token you choose when you play:
Really, who are you anyway?
Go broke and death knocks,
Pieces back in the box,
Game over—extinction—m’kay?

Saturday, December 22, 2012

NTE

Near Term means “about to descend,”
Extinction means “this is the end”;
I don’t mean to offend,
But please, my dear friend,
Do the math, and check out the trend. 

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Classical psychoanalysis

“...When the threat to our personal well-being becomes sufficiently strong, however, the id (being primal and unconscious) tends to win out.....Can the rational processes of the ego and the inhibitory influence of the superego combine to defeat the self-centered desires of the id...?”
   -- The Neuropsychology of Climate Change
           http://www.paulchefurka.ca/COP15.html

Superego, ego, and id
Are places where secrets are hid;
But, to cut to the chase,
I think in this case,
We’ve really fucked up—yup, we did.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Game Theory for Doomers

What’s doom, in this math that’s so eerie?
A short cut for those getting weary:
We need not rehash
Johnny von Neumann and Nash,
It’s game over—and there’s your game theory. 

Thursday, December 13, 2012

The Joy of Doomer Determinism

The causes to which we’re in thrall
Have effects on the cosmos—but small;
Through karma and fate
We became what we ate,
So we didn’t fuck up after all.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Denial and the Consensus Trance

“Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.”
...
"Two and two are four."
"Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five." 
— George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four
==

Part of warming denial’s drive
Is consensus trance where you contrive
To rewire your brain
From the kind of insane
Which sees four fingers instead of five. 

Friday, December 7, 2012

Near Term Extinction

I just learned about NTE—
It’s the end for both you and for me;
I’d discuss what I know,
But I really must go,
‘Cause my pants are now all soaked with pee.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Nothing Matters Anymore

It’s easier now to ignore
Deniers than ever before:
Even our futile chatter
In the end, doesn’t matter;
In the end, nothing matters anymore. 

Saturday, December 1, 2012

The Word’s Getting Out

The word’s getting out on doom’s plan,
And soon there’s no more kick the can,
Ending history’s span
Soon after it began:
TS is now hitting TF.

E.g.,:

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

We’re Fucked

We need to repeat these words when
Doom seems so beyond human ken;
It’s crazy to say it,
So we must replay it
Again and again and again. 

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Jungle Morality

Changes in our reality
Cause changes in our mentality;
Jungle law is restored
When we cannot afford
The luxury of a morality.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

HROEI

Life’s hard, but yet we’re more tested
Now that our energy’s crested:
Increasing crappiness
Decreases Happiness
Returned On Energy Invested.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Predation, Starvation, or Suicide

Our living depends on predation:
Without it, we end in starvation;
If those don’t look good,
The other choice would
Be to end it with self-termination.

H/T: Daniel at Nature Bats Last 

Friday, November 16, 2012

Reducing Cognitive Dissonance

When folks start to mess with your head
By talking about [insert number here] years ahead:
Dissonance goes away
As soon as you say,
“In [insert same number here] years we’ll be dead.” 

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Moot

Becoming extinction astute
Means that you’ve got to uproot
Most of your mind
Because doom, you will find,
Makes everything else kind of moot.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Cooked

Global warming is how it begins:
Stuff heats up, and the populace thins;
We'll watch flesh become meat
When we can’t throw off heat
And we’re cooking inside our own skins.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Meaninglessness

Our world’s already a mess,
But as we watch doom coalesce,
We’re nevertheless
Forced to address
Ever more meaninglessness. 

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Prepping Lesson

At first, I thought I would prep smarter
By buying booze bottles for barter;
But I was naive:
Now I’ve come to believe
That plan should have been a nonstarter.

I think once the doom dam has burst,
Things will quickly progress to the worst;
Not wanting to lose it,
I’ve started to use it,
And I’m drinking the good stuff first.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Guru

The guru, when asked, “What is good?”
Replied, “Carry water, chop wood!”
When neither remain,
He’ll be forced to abstain,
Unable to do what he should. 

Monday, October 29, 2012

Global Warming Ends It

Think we’re not hitting the wall?
Do the math, and you make the call;
Unless fatally cursed
By something else first,
Global warming’s the end of it all. 

Friday, October 26, 2012

On Nuclear Waste

Perhaps they were drunk, or drinking,
But somebody failed at linking
Making nuclear waste
With where should it be placed—
What the fuck were they thinking?

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Ghost Story—Just in Time for Halloween!

‘Twas a dark and stormy night,
The kind that makes you feel fright,
When the earthquake hit
Where some fault plane was split
And began everybody’s plight.

Some rods, by the quake thus goaded,
Fell from where they’d been loaded:
They rumbled and tumbled
And crumbled all jumbled—
Then the whole thing exploded.

For those nearby when it struck,
The whole event didn’t suck:
No one felt sick—
Vaporization works quick—
The rest of world had less luck.

So back where this story began:
Getting scared was part of the plan;
But don’t worry your ass,
This won’t come to pass—
Unless there’s a quake in Japan. 

Saturday, October 20, 2012

The Fuckit Slump

Oil’s running low at the pump,
Not due to some interim hump;
We’re ready to quit
‘Cause we don’t give a shit,
And we enter the Fuckit Slump.

Starvation hits, nobody’s plump,
Global warming beats on our rump;
When it doesn’t mean squat
That it’s getting too hot,
We’re into the Fuckit Slump.

Air wafts by a nuclear dump,
We inhale a plutonium lump;
Fresh air provides
Radionuclides
To go with the Fuckit Slump.

It’s all of us, you’re not a chump,
The boiling frog still doesn’t jump;
Let’s be succinct:
We’re going extinct,
So we’re doing the Fuckit Slump.


H/T: comrade simba, Lexicographer of Doom

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

OTOH

When we finally get a clue
That our way of living is through,
And we’re going to see hell,
We might just as well
Do what we’ve always wanted to. 

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Why Prep?

If doom comes along step by step,
I’ll buy local or through online rep;
If doom’s really fast,
I know I won’t last—
So tell me, why do I prep? 

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Doomer Craziness

People will think you’ve gone fey
When you start saying what doomers say;
They’ll see you as mad,
Which isn’t so bad
If you’ve always been sort of that way.

Monday, October 8, 2012

LATOC

LATOC was an old time saloon:
Flying bottles, piano out of tune;
Overall raucous,
A grand motley caucus
Of genius and dumbass maroon.

Friday, October 5, 2012

Fukushima

If people knew more about nukes,
They wouldn’t think doomers are kooks;
They might change their mind
When they see they’re entwined
In a future with 400 Fukes. 

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Why Bother?

Why bother to sound the alarm
When nothing will save us from harm?
Do the math, you’ll conclude
That we’re totally screwed:
It’s over; we’ve all bought the farm. 

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Dietary Suggestion

We’ve run out our species’ life span
Plus many more other than man,
So if there is meat
That you still like to eat,
It’s time now to eat all you can.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The Luxurious Life

I ought to be burning with shame,
But I don’t want to give up my claim
To the fabulous ride
Fossil fuels provide—
And most people feel just the same.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Sure as Shootin’

As sure as the oil has plateaued,
As sure as we’re bound for The Road,
As sure as the ending
We know is impending,
The nuclear plants will explode.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Limits

In our world of limits, we rue
Things we did and we didn’t do;
We'll feel better prepped
The more we accept
The limits inside of us too.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Hope Limited

It turns out that nowadays hope
Means within a more limited scope;
It’s good to defer
Goals which cannot occur,
And be better able to cope.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Nothing to Lose Anymore

At first, it seems pretty bizarre,
Our whole species crossing the bar;
But we’re hearing the knell,
So we might just as well
See things as they really are.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Remembering the Sixties

Advanced thinkers used to contrive
Better ways to be more alive;
Now one may enroll
For a more modest goal:
Trying to merely survive. 

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Doomer in the City

I’m a doomer, and live in a city;
In collapse, this locale won’t be pretty,
But there’s food at the store,
For awhile there’ll be more—
It’s all good, I’m not asking for pity.

I’m old, and useless for work,
And sometimes I’m kind of a jerk,
So I don’t plan to grieve
If I’m taking my leave
Before the whole world goes berserk.

When things really go down the drain,
There’ll be pain, and not much to gain;
When I’m not sniffing glue,
Seeing Fucko Bazzoo
Is a thought I don’t entertain.

I don’t have the doomstead I should—
If I had more resources, I would;
But so far I don’t,
And it looks like I won’t,
So I’m staying, and calling it good. 

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Down and Out

It’s very scary to see:
The closer that doom comes to be,
The folks in the news
With desperate views
Are looking more just like me. 

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Kick the Can

I’m for kicking the can down the road
More than vanishing down the commode;
Though not TPTB,
It’s still better for me
If the whole world doesn't explode.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Peeling the Onion


“I surrender. Much to my chagrin,
This fight is one I cannot win;
My awakening’s new:
We’re really all through.”
“Now vee may perhaps to begin?”

H/T: Philip Roth

Monday, August 27, 2012

Preps: How Much Is Enough?

When I found out we’re really in Dutch,
I stocked up on tuna and such;
But now that I know
How fast things can go,
I don’t think I’ll need all that much. 

Friday, August 24, 2012

Reframing

There’s plenty of cause to feel glum, 
So maybe reframing helps some: 
Yes, things are decaying, 
But hey, I’m just saying, 
They’re better than what’s still to come.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Waiting for Doom

Waiting for horror to start
Is a drag on the mind and the heart;
When collapse comes about,
We’re going to find out
The wait was the easiest part.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Cliff

We’re over the cliff, we know;
Will the fall be fast or slow?
We might fly through the breeze
Like Thelma and Louise,
Or, Homer-like, bounce: D’oh! D’oh! D’oh!

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Crazy or Not, Here We Come

Extinction’s not hard to explain,
But it hasn’t convinced my whole brain:
I’m persuaded it’s true
That our end is in view,
But it still seems completely insane.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

No Trace Left Behind

Great works of art, once we’re through,
Will soon disappear from view;
Our creations so clever,
All lost forever—
And everything else we did too.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Depressed? How Unexpected!

At times, doom will make one dejected,
So while you are feeling affected,
Recall Kubler-Ross
Said, when dealing with loss,
Depression should be expected.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Entitled

Some folks think they’ll stay alive
Due to social position or drive;
They’ll sure be upset
When they finally get
That nobody’s going to survive. 

Friday, August 3, 2012

Bottleneck

Nobody’s making it through
The bottleneck we’re coming to;
Extinction’s forever:
The human endeavor
Is over, whatever you do. 

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Kubler-Ross Depression Redux

Eventually one can’t ignore
How bad is the shit that’s in store;
It’s never much fun,
But it’s got to be done:
I’m back again working Stage 4. 

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Save the World?

Save the world? Naw, might as well quit:
It’s over, we ain’t savin’ shit;
Instead, let’s reflect
On the places we’ve trekked,
And start writing up our obit. 

Thursday, July 26, 2012

It’s Over

You can wipe that frown from your brow,
We got here, though no one knows how;
Whatever you do,
We’re not going to pull through,
So relax: it’s all over now. 

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Blame Game

Blame is a mental invention
Which justifies cruel intention;
Due to guilt removal,
There’s more self-approval
And less psychological tension.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

“Senseless” Killing

“Is there a difference in the brains...?”

Neural pathways inside our head
Come from genes and the way we are bred,
But we won’t understand
How our actions are planned
Before we all wind up dead. 

Friday, July 20, 2012

Plenty of Hate

“...the undercurrents of hatred thrumming just below the surface are likely to explode out into the open and threaten to consume us all.”

We’ll run out of food for our plate,
And places where heat’s not too great,
We’ll run out of debate
When it’s clearly too late,
But we’re not going to run out of hate.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Method in the Madness

Guy McPherson asks, “Is it possible for a scientist to die from a broken heart?”

Anyone’s heart can go bust
In a world that’s unfair and unjust,
But with science we see
The way things have to be,
And how they proceed as they must.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Faith vs. Reason

We evolved from bestiality
Without formal logic mentality,
So our likely response
To reverse Renaissance
Will be faith trumping rationality. 

Friday, July 13, 2012

Normal Baseline Mind

Evolution has come to prescribe
Human life in a small, simple tribe,
So it doesn’t improve
When the mind tries to groove
To a complex industrial vibe. 

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Crazy Talk

When telling folks how things have changed
Results in your feeling estranged,
You’re being observant:
Though you think you’re fervent,
They think you’re completely deranged.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Anticipatory or Preparatory Grief

Our preps include psychic numbing,
A kind of emotion down-dumbing;
We use it as pre-
PTSD
And we hope helps deal with what’s coming.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Doomer Forums Can Help

A doom forum’s good for your brain:
When you’re freaking, it helps you maintain;
Regular attendance
Can lead to dependence,
But at least you won’t go insane.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

A Couple of Weeks?

“Mysterious bubbles are rising up out of an Assumption Parish bayou....Boudreaux has taken samples of the bubbles and sent them off for testing. Those samples are expected back in the next couple of weeks.”
H/T: Kathy Cassandra

Some lab tests by which one discerns
Basic nature, a good doomer learns;
A quick test for gas
From sea, tap or ass:
Light a match, and see if it burns.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

It Will Hit Them First

“it will hit ‘those other people’ first”

At best, we can postpone the dread,
But no one escapes what's ahead:
Too little to eat,
Radiation and heat,
Until finally everyone’s dead.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Distraction

KC says: "...Mindless activity while we rush ever onward to the edge."

Seeking complete satisfaction
Is normal human reaction;
But since we’re so fucked,
Instead we construct
Lifestyles lost in distraction.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

On Today’s Supreme Court Decision and Most Everything Else

We’re going to go over the cliff,
It’s a question of when and not if;
Little bends in the trends
Don’t change how it ends,
So I ask myself: what’s the diff?

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Hospice

Global Climate Change Will Increase Anxiety, Fear and Depression

As people become doom aware,
Psychological help for despair
Should try to provide
A quick self-care guide
For hospice type terminal care.

Kubler-Ross’s “Five Stages of Grief”
Provides framework that’s simple and brief;
As far as I see,
Acceptance will be
As good as it gets for relief. 

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Bargaining—A Necessary Stage


Bargaining with Statistics

By tweaking degrees and percent,
Facts no longer mean what they meant;
Gigathis, gigathat:
We'll never go splat,
And gone is my discontent.


Bargaining by Gut

I’m no dumbass, I’m just not book smart,
And to me, extinction’s like art:
I know what I like,
So don’t mess with my psych;
Global warming? Don’t even start.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Peak Oil vs. Global Warming


Peak Oil seems like hitting the wall,
But it’s only a part of our fall:
Peak oil’s the cessation
Of civilization;
Global warming’s the end of it all. 


Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Kubler-Ross: An Ongoing Process


We’re Done

Every time I run across
Some more news about doomer loss,
I don’t feel lots worse,
I just reimmerse
Myself in my Kubler-Ross. 

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Disengaging

It's the end of Homo sapiens' age,
So how will we disengage:
Recognizing the trend
And accepting the end,
Or stuck in the bargaining stage? 

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Writing My Way to Acceptance

"There is no way to save the world, or even any individual person who remains stubbornly in denial. I've decided that it is time to just accept that fact and move on."

Writing is mostly my way
Of coming to terms with dismay,
So the more I accept
And get mentally prepped,
The less, it seems, I’ve got to say. 


Friday, June 15, 2012

Different Realities

When changing from what’s called normality
To more of a doomer mentality,
There’s a way to explain
Why you might feel insane:
Each view is a different reality.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Dinosaurs

“We are all dinosaurs now”

We are what most creatures dread:
The Animal Kingdom head;
Still, it’s time to say ciao,
‘Cause we’re dinosaurs now,
And like them, we’re already dead. 

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Nobody Cares

We face such a serious affair,
There ought to be widespread despair;
But folks don’t prepare:
They remain unaware,
And nobody seems to care.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Missing Medications

Some folks will miss their narcotics,
Others, sedative-hypnotics;
What will more widely bite:
Folks dropping dead left and right
Without any antibiotics.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Radiation Evacuation

Despite some large movement rants
For escaping nuclear plants,
There’s no place to go;
Evacuation, though,
Might take place right in our pants.

Friday, June 1, 2012

The New Cannibals

Face eating without permission
Is not due to malnutrition;
It’s a drug aberration,
Not reactivation
Of normal cannibal tradition.

Cannibal incivility
Is currently drugged instability;
A shortage of food
Will change how it’s viewed,
And give it more respectability.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Coming Soon: The Big One in Fuku

Japan’s quake will make us subdued,
On the TV our eyes will be glued;
From watching the mess,
We’ll be able to guess
In how many hours we’re screwed.

Fuku’s like the sword of Damocles:
We’re so freaked, that Jeeze, we can’t find our knees;
Sooner or later,
That area will crater,
And then we’ll all die by slow degrees.

Someday, Fuku will shake,
Spent fuel will suddenly bake,
We’ll all die on the spot,
Or else, maybe not;
Until then, we wait for the quake.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

The Ballad of SFP4

In old Fukushima, Japan
The shit finally hit the fan;
A spent fuel pool
Which they tried to keep cool
Was sketchy, is how it began.

No one was worried at all
That the rods had no ceiling or wall;
The danger was greater
That sooner or later
The whole thing was going to fall.

At last, folks couldn’t ignore
What had been lying in store:
Then a quake came along
Sufficiently strong
To topple SFP4.

Collapse and worldwide privation
Resulted in upkeep cessation;
Rods elsewhere suspended,
Also untended,
Let loose lots more radiation.

Sixth extinction’s not fully explained
By the multiple rads that reigned;
As at Chernobyl,
Warming gone global
Finished off most of what life remained.

Friday, May 25, 2012

The UN on Radiation: No Worries


"Studies indicate minimal health risks from radiation in the aftermath of Japan's nuclear disaster."
H/T: Satori at Silco

Radiation helps make you strong,
It won’t hurt or do anything wrong;
UN health groups agree
That there’s nothing to see—
That is all. Now please move along.



“Few people will develop cancer as a consequence of being exposed to ... Fukushima .... based on two ... independent assessments.... by a subcommittee of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR)....[and] the World Health Organization (WHO)”  *

UN health experts agree,
And they give it their guarantee;
Based on separate sources,
The UN endorses:
It’s good for both you and for me.



“Experts agree that there is unlikely to be a detectable rise in thyroid cancer or leukaemia, the two cancers most likely to result from the accident. “There may be some increase in cancer risk that may not be detectable statistically,” says Kiyohiko Mabuchi, who heads Chernobyl studies at the National Cancer Institute in Rockville, Maryland.”

When problems tend to go global,
State scientists may go ignoble:
Epidemiology
Downplays pathology,
Pretty much like at Chernobyl.



“People are “utterly fearful and deeply angry. There’s nobody that they trust any more for information....People want to know whether what we say is true.”

Well, there’s a big fucking surprise!
So far there’s been nothing but lies;
It’s not easy deceiving
Those set on believing
What they see with their own lying eyes.



 “In the year since the accident, the plant has been stabilized, and radioactive emissions have largely stopped.”

At first, it seemed like we'd flop,
But of course we got it to stop;
Questions on cancer?
You’ll be fine, there’s your answer—
It’s fixed, so go out and shop.


==
*    “WHO is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system.”