Several lines of evidence now support a two stage prehistoric cultural collapse. The evidence comes from the statue quarry at Rano Raraku, the roadways leading from it, and two types or patterns of ahu recycling and construction.

The first stage seems to have lasted no longer than a generation or two, perhaps 50 years, during which the Islanders themselves knew they were in short supply of resources, in particular, trees. The traditional culture tenuously held on to the previous habits but knew they were going to have to prepare for a new order. Culturally unable to reforest, priorities redefined statue form, statue moving, ahu construction, and disposal of the dead. At least two major ahu illustrate large scale cooperation in their new constructions though the workmanship is very poor and incomplete. Several others show a similar reduction in workmanship but maintain large scale cooperation.

The second stage seems characterized by a free-fall collapse in cultural organization, dominated by conflict, the formation of discrete districts, territorial to the family level, warfare, and ultimately cannibalism. It is proposed that this change reduced population to a level commensurate with the carrying capacity of the defoliated island, slowly leaching and eroding soils. Small family-built semipyramidal ahu became the norm and multiple whole body burials were inserted. The Tangatamanu cult resulted from the cultural need for a time of truce, an annual temporary escape from what may have been the constant threat of revenge warfare.

Interesting that the first phase of collapse was marked by greater social organization - larger groups working together - but poorer results (due to the lack of resources).  It ties in nicely with Tainter's findings of more centralized control as collapse approaches.

One things for sure its an exciting time to be alive:)

My father-in-law who is a retired (and enlightened) minister says we are headed for another Dark Ages.  It not just what we belive that is the problem.  It is how those belief's are being used by powerful people for gain.  Maybe weave that concept into your future post.

My father-in-law and I have amazing discussions with great consensus, even though he comes from a very spritual viewpoint and I from a logical scientific one.  They are not mutually exclusive but are made to seem that way by many Conservative Christians today.

I hope it helps you as much as it helped me.

The knowledge of peak oil is sapping the passion out of my projects. How are you guys coping with this?

It sounds like you are going through a psychological phase.
Sure, the books tell you about denial, anger, depression and acceptance ... but that's mostly book theory. Everybody goes through their own private hells and coping mechanisms.

OK so you are bummed out today and feel there is no future.
This too will pass.

This world is filled with many parallel universes.
Today, as you moped over Peak Oil,
Somewhere in a hospital, a young mother gave birth to a baby. It was a most joyous moment filled with hope for a bright future and dreams about all sorts of possibilities.
Across the hall, in another ward, an old man took his last draw of air as pneumonia ravaged and drowned his lungs. It was an ugly and horrid day, finally ended in grief and a last gasp realization that this whole life is nothing but a brief joke (on us). Around the corner, a surgeon was stitching up a gang member's knife wound. It was a violent day, full of hate, bitterness and maybe understanding about what it means to have bought in to the herd mentality of the gang.

So what does that have to do with your loss of passion for engineering?

Maybe tomorrow, you will wake up with a new design etched into the back of your head, a way to save the world. Don't give up on us yet. There are many parallel universes and many parallel answers.

I do think people need to take stock of where they are at with their careers.  Anyone whose job depends on the discretionary income of others will be most affected, I think.

I also think most people would benefit from reading through Ted Trainer's "The Simpler Way".  While some would find it too radical to implement all of his recommendations, there are always little ideas that you can take away to help simplify your life.  The Rocky Mountain Institute's "Energy" library section, and  especially the "Home Energy Briefs" category, have some great documents about making your home more efficient.  In my opinion energy will be more expensive in the future, so efficiency can be easily justified financially.

I try to think positively about Peak Oil as much as I can. There are some silver linings even on the darkest of Peak Oil 'clouds'.

Personally, my way of dealing with uncetainty is to assume that there is a 50% chance of a major dieoff within five years and a 50% chance of business pretty much as normal for the next fifty years. Either outcome is unlikely, but I am prepared for both.

For decades I have worked on the accumulation of useful skills as a way of preparing for the worst. It is easy, for example, to get a fine bow and superb arrows; it takes time and much practice to become an expert bow hunter. Gardening is another example: heirloom seeds are easy to get and amazingly cheap, but what is hard is figuring out how to beat the pests without pesticides and what grows best in my particular soil and climate. My most brilliant move was to get a property with some scores of sugar maple trees on it and learn how to do sugaring; now I have a valuable and renewable good for trade, regardless of what happens in the future.

Seeing that the people I work with are bissfully unaware of possible major problems does nothing to give me confidence in the decisions they make.  But in my particular case I didn't have much confidence in my company anyway.  The biggest effect for me career wise is that I have re-evaluated my plans.  I'm not really looking to change from my present situation into another that is similar, so I have scaled back my job hunt.  I'm focused instead on how to make a living closer to my home, which may entail a career change.  I'm thinking more seriously about starting something on my own, or with a few others, and I would love for it to be energy related.  It will take some time to accomplish this, but then the job market for engineers stinks anyway.

When I'm at work, my motivation to do a good job comes from my own desire to do what is right, and that I care about the people I have worked with for a very long time.  But I don't get worked up about it anymore, as I fundamentally believe that my present employment situation is temporary regardless of my performance, on a scale of say 5yrs or less, due to factors both internal and external.   So I'm basically one foot out the door, it's just that I have no idea what's on the other side.

My personal philosophy is to minimize the consequences of being wrong. If we were to chose modernity and peak oil caused cascading system failure, it would be a disaster. If we were to move even further into the country and adopt a neo-Amish lifestyle, then our children would have a sub-standard education in many respects and we would be cut off from the intellectual culture we value. Peak oil (or financial crisis, which is an even bigger concern for me in the short term) might make that a price worth paying in advance, but there is no guarantee. I would hate to have drastically narrowed my children's options prematurely.

Basically, we have been seeking a dynamic balance between two very different lifstyles - a balance which provides quite a reasonable degree of control over the necessities of our own existence, while being sufficiently flexible that it can be shifted in one direction or the other as new information becomes available. My partner and I work as power system consultants and are trying to build a renewable energy business (biogas and microhydro). We offer expertise in energy policy and legislative review (me) and also in simulation and control engineeering as applied to power systems at the transmission level and at the level of individual generators (my partner). One of our children is training to be an artist, and another an opera singer. All of that is very much grounded in modernity.

At the same time, we raise sheep, alpacas, chickens and sled dogs on our small farm. We live in the country, but close enough to major population centres that good schools are accessible and the occasional trip to town for work or for pleasure is not out of the question. We grow our own vegetables and cut our own hay (with a little help from our friends). We have our own water, sewage system and power generation. Our recreation tends to be inexpensive country pursuits all year round, and our children are learning many traditional skills as well as school-based intellectual ones. Our third child wants to be farmer. We carry no debt and can live quite cheaply as we provide for many of our own necessities. We have no financial investments as we are convinced that a deflationary financial crisis will destroy many asset classes.

We feel we have done our personal best to take control of an uncertain situation, and that is psychologically empowering. Life is hard sometimes and we don't always get much sleep, but having a reasonable grasp of what we are facing as a society allows for psychological preparedness, and that - mental acceptance of a higher level of risk - is half the battle.

TOD is great for enhancing psychological preparedness in a logical and dispassionate manner, which is why I spend so much of my precious time here. It's a good antidote to the mass-hysteria I expect to overtake the unprepared masses in the next few years. That form of irrational panic (the polar opposite of and natural follow-on from the irrational exuberance of recent years) is my biggest concern for the next couple of decades, and the one I have the most still to do in order to prepare for.

We all have responsibilies.  I wanted to head for the hills at first, but what's the point of that?  I like society, I like culture, and I like technology!  

On the other hand, I don't like consumerism, and rooting that out of my life is a big part of my preparations.  So this is good.

I know from personal experience that some people are predisposed to obsess over these issues.  On the other hand, depression can have external causes, and Peak Oil is one hell of an external cause. Besides, sometimes the only way out (of obsession) is through.

1. Unplug the TV and limit computer access to current news to, say 30 min. a day. Most "news" is "noise."
   
2. Ride your bike to the public library and read up on history, anthropology, how to fix things (e.g., bicycles), how to live a simple life (the books by Helen and Scott Nearing are, in my opinion, the best, with FIVE ACRES AND INDEPENDENCE by Kains a close second). Through interlibrary lending, you can even get very useful books of ethnographies from which you can learn how to make fish traps, for example, something that certain Native American tribes excelled at. Also, I think it helps much to read the best of the considerable "dieoff" fiction genre. Here, EARTH ABIDES, by George R. Stewart is head and shoulders above the rest, and LUCIFER'S HAMMER by Niven and Pournelle probably in second place. THE LONG LOUD SILENCE, by Wilson Tucker is also excellent but is hard to find. After you've done a lot of reading, follow your interests, and who knows where they might lead? Perhaps you will become a leading maker of fine crossbows as a sideline or main profession. Perhaps you will become a builder of wooden boats or a maker of low-tech windmills. Oh, and if you have to bike long distances, so much the better, because biking is good for the body, mind and soul.