In general the problem with pre-modern (and post peak oil?) mortality is focussed on the childhood years.

Child mortality is high... but once people survive to adulthood they tend to live "reasonably" long lives.

Don't confuse "average" life length with life expectancy of a person who survives to 15 years of age... two very different things.

oilmanbob, you may be in danger because of specific health conditions, but the general life expectancy for a modern and pre-modern 50 year old may not be that different.... it is childhood that is deadly.

I'd like to offer some solid numbers here, and they are available, but if you hunt around you'll find them. I'm sure that 50 year olds have better life expectancies now than 100 or 200 years ago.... but again the improvement has been much less than the improvement in the average life span, which has increased because of childhood survival rates increasing so dramatically.

Alright, I see where you are coming from. And I think we were just talking at cross purposes. My point earlier was that our health in general is not dependent on modern medicine, though that may be different for individuals with specific problems (especially those with "modern" or "industrial" health problems).

But I look at the coming changes not as descent into some Mad Max world, but as an opportunity to correct the problems of a social and economic system gone astray. I do not see the modern world as something worthy of sustaining, even if climate change threats can be overcome. I am as concerned about the "pollution" to our beings, physical, social, psychological and spiritual as I am about the ecosystem.

I'd urge you to consider that many of those "collapse" scenarios are a reflection of the modern world or of civilization in general, not a necessary aspect of the loss of central authority. For example, homelessness is an issue created by the concept of private property, prostitution occurs where women's role in society is degraded below that of men (which occurs concomitantly with the introduction of agriculture). The rest I will leave to you to imagine. But I will end with this - there are more choices available than just the collapse scenario and the clinging desperately to a technological existence scenario.

That wasn't a rant - I think you coherently articulated what many of us on here are thinking.
--
When no-one around you understands
start your own revolution
and cut out the middle man

Try prozac, or zoloft or welbutrin if continue to feel depressed, I swear its pathological. I, by the way, do take welbutrin, as I've had depression all my life, its apparently genetic, plus I think I really screwed my brain chemical balance with too much dope as a kid.

You've had depression, you admit you screwed up your brain's chemical balance via heavy drug use, AND you are now on powerful psychactive medications but you are accussing the doomers of being the unbalanaced ones?

It's time somebody calls shenanigans on you here.

Look guy, I've never had any depression what so ever, never done any drugs, never had a need for any psychoactive medicaiton and am as doomeristic as it comes. Perhaps my good mental health is what enables me to handle the bad news while your admitted imbalance(s) are what cause you to indulge in the false hope that "we" are all going to do much different than what we're already doing which is spending trillions on killing arabs and grabbing their oil & water for our corporate overlords.

Not trying to flame you . . .

I have a pet theory that people on anti-depressants are more likely not to be able to come grips with the reality of our situation then people who are mentally healthy. Your use of them is a single data point backing up my theory.

Have a day.

Talk about psychological projection!

Never have I said that I was depressed, Bob. Angry maybe, but not depressed. I am not happy with the situation I see developing but I am coming to grips with it the best I can. One need not be depressed if one is not "happy". There are other emotional states in there too, you know. But it is irrational to ignore what is happening around you just because you dislike it.

So stop projecting your own psychological problems on others. I've dealt with lots of situations in my life and fortunately never been clinically depressed. With luck, I will maintain that record whether I have one year left or fifty.

As for why I've developed negative conclusions about civilization, it's due to having studied what is happening from many angles while not seeing any viable response from my own civilization. And while you might find it untenable to live in anything other than the modern world, I do not automatically come to the conclusion that I have to be unhappy or depressed if modern society goes away. No, I won't like it as I said above but I think I can cope with it, especially without serious brain altering chemicals.

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Dr. Albert Bartlett
Into the Grey Zone

Picture your modern city: there's lots of people living in a small area. Generally the water is pumped in. Maybe it can be gravity fed to the area, but at the very least apartment buildings need electricity to pump the water up to the higher floors. Picture a situation in that some times there is water, sometimes not. That puts a damper on the effectiveness of the toilet (in it's present form as a water flushed, indoor device for a private household).

Another thing, boiling water requires energy, be it electricity, gas, or woodstove. Even Mad Max might find that boiling water adds an extra twenty minutes of work to his daily routine.

We might even speculate on what happens when gas gets expensive and the garbage truck comes once a month instead of once a week. (Its the big rats rustleing around in the garbage piles that bug me, although the flies aren't that great either.)

Sure the hygene is possible, but it becomes more difficult as energy gets scarcer. People who are tired or poor are especially likely to start cutting corners. But you don't need to imagine or watch mad max. Go visit a third world city. Stay in a cheap hostel and see what it's like. For a lot of people and municipalities in the third world enegry is already quite expensive.