"[Doomsayers]' long-held note of dread is useful only to the extent that it inspires people to do something more practical. The world we create will be, up to a point, whatever we were preparing for ...
"A critical mass of Americans who believe in an imminent zombie apocalypse runs the risk of making the future more difficult than it need be. Just as a Depression-era panic could crash a bank that would not otherwise have failed, so a widespread belief in a violent and hopeless end could actually make Americans less likely to work together during the next outage or shortage.
"... Say that Americans make only a third as much money, cut driving by two-thirds. Assume that extended families have to move in together to conserve resources and that we must cut our flying by 98 percent.
"Many would consider that a fairly clear picture of collapse. But we have been there before, and recently. Those are the statistics of the 1950s -- not remembered as a big time for cannibalism.
"Happiness, as defined by survey responses, peaked [in the mid-20th century] ... and has plummeted even as our incomes tripled.
"The tight bonds and sanguine outlook of young people in the '50s ... originated in their shared experience on the home front during World War II. Working together during a national crisis made them lifelong model citizens, who swelled rates of optimism and civic activism at every age as they passed, like a pig through a python, across a demographic lifetime. ...
"... Handled right, peak oil [which is the crisis addressed by this particular article way back in August] could bring a revival of small-town America, local farming, small businesses, and an economy that centers around Main Street rather than Wall Street."
Brian Kaller is apparently an Irish journalist who lives in County Kildare; more of his writing is at http://www.restoringmayberry.blogspot.com . I enjoy zombie apocalypse at least as much as the next person, but as a real outcome? Not so much!
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