Closing Thoughts 2022
DTG: 07:38 Friday, 30 December 2022
Although we have at least another day left in 2022, I thought I'd spend a few minutes down here and post something before I start the new year.
When I created this blog, I thought wanted it to have a place to post political comments. Politics have become toxic, and I didn't want to make Nice Marmot a toxic place.
But, like anyone I suppose, I have darker moods from time to time; and I often find that I'm reluctant to post those thoughts at the marmot. They're not strictly political, though politics has a role in why they exist.
For instance, the other day I was thinking about what my most likely cause of death would be. Ordinarily, as a privileged white male (if that's not too redundant), I'd say the causes would most likely be heart disease, cancer or accident. I'd say my chances of dying of starvation would be very, very low.
Today I think the potential mechanisms facilitating my departure from this mortal plane have expanded to include starvation, violence attendant to social disorder due to famine, illness due to loss of public utilities, chiefly water and sewer, the collapse of health care services, and complications due to COVID.
Now, except for COVID or COVID-related illness, I don't expect any of those things in the next five years. I think the next five will be fairly benign, though we will be witnessing increasing signs of collapse. I think it gets a little hazy after that.
There may be a period of twenty to thirty years where we kind of muddle along in denial, growing increasingly aware of the fragility of our civilization. If that's the case, it'll likely be one of the more typical modern maladies sending me off, and I'll have lived to something approaching a "normal" modern lifespan.
But there could be a sudden collapse too. Another pandemic, some unanticipated consequence of loss of species diversity, crop losses due to extreme weather events, a nuclear exchange between nations, setting off a chain of events that ruptures the brittle nature of the logistics supporting nearly 8 billion people on this planet.
I mean if a ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal can be a global issue, imagine what lobbing a few nukes might cause.
Anyway, when I'm feeling "low" I have the burrow here. For now anyway.
Feelings pass, at least they usually do for me. I don't think it'll all be doom and gloom.
Sometimes it'll just be rage.
And I'll issue a communiqué. A note from the underground.
It's darker here.
Radio Check
DTG: 05:25 Saturday, 17 December 2022
Test post to see what happens.
Perhaps some exposition would be helpful. This post is from Notes From the Underground (woodchuck hole for a certain nice marmot).
@B_Banzai Replying to myself. This was a post from another blog/domain I have.. I've edited the post to add some additional text, and updated the item in the RSS feed. Waiting to see if micro.blog updates the post. (I rather expect not, but I need to know.)