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People don’t want to die. That seems obvious but when nearly everyone on the street has some morbid condition readily apparent it gives one pause to wonder if that’s really true. There are many people walking down the streets of Berkeley nowadays that could have made a living in a freak show back in the 1930’s when such side-shows were still permitted. There are numerous fat people fatter than the fat lady in the classic movie Freaks; there are Olympic athletes more talented than the strong man; there are beautiful women much lovelier than the leading lady; there are limbless people; massively tattooed people, steroid laden women and much more right here on Telegraph Avenue. Go rent the Freaks movie and see humans in strange bodies all of whom seem to have a more normal human life force than many people I see here in Berkeley on a daily basis.

What is bothersome is the life denying aspect of much of what many of these modern people are doing. Skateboarding between lanes of oncoming cars was absolutely voluntary and without even show off creds. Who saw it other than the oncoming drivers momentarily and me? And another time I saw a guy riding between these same lanes of moving traffic with his girlfriend sitting perched on his shoulders—some people noticed that but not many. While that was transpiring, sensible young adults were sitting on the street curb smoking cigarettes with their legs dangling out into the fast flowing traffic. The city ban against smoking forces them 20 feet away from the front doors and into the street. That city ordinance was intended to protect people from smoking but it subjects them to more immediate and worse dangers which these kids don’t seem to appreciate. And there is no ordinance against self destructive behavior.

Today I talked with my friends about yesterday’s blog and the coming population collapse. It was a difficult topic to keep on the table because at any opportunity the subject would get changed. All the same I pursued it, off and on, with various people for a couple of hours. The problems seem so obvious to everyone. When I lay out the accumulation of various stressors and how they will interact with each other and accelerate the timing of the collapse, everyone agrees. The problem is that once it is generally accepted that population collapse is in the foreseeable future and certainly within the future of the students sitting about with their noses into their computers, that the subject changes to the weather, or some such idle topic. Even when I pushed the topic to the extreme, saying that all of these kids will certainly die before they are as old as we are, it drew a yawn and a so what and, “Is Hillary’s broken arm the reason she is being squeezed out of Obama’s Cabinet?”

My view is that we should look at these converging forces leading to the population collapse and try and figure out what to do about it. It seems that everything being discussed publicly totally ignores the obvious. And when someone approaches the obviously necessary things that need to be done it hits a wall of unconsciousness created by self inflicted blindness. Oblivion is just around the corner!—Who cares?

These things need to be approached in a positive way or people automatically filter them out. That is why it is necessary to focus people’s attention on The EarthArk Project rather than the demise of modern humanity. However, with college students, the best and the brightest of California here at the most exclusive university in the public education system behaving as I see them doing everyday it seems the only conclusion that can be drawn is that Doomsday draws nigh and it is accelerating. . . “The radio said there was an earthquake in New Zealand.”