Comment...
Ying Min,

Your response was very helpful for me because it fostered a different way of interpreting the text and aided me in rethinking my own scenario. In your response to the Two Scenarios, you make a good point about a return to village life “…living under hay roofs and taming cows” after the “Darwinian slaughter”, but this is not how I understood the text because the author implies a technologically advanced village lifestyle which will be sustainable because of the small population. The life style doesn’t necessarily need to look exactly like 18th century Europe. However, you make a good argument against the possibility of agriculture (for multiple reasons you explain in your response). You also say that technology will no be in use because there won’t be any oil to run the machines needed; “Technology, I speculate, might be an aspect that will become the antiques of tomorrow.” Your response implies that the Great Flood is the most likely or favorable scenario which will create a decline in Homo sapiens, but you say “Noah’s Ark seems to be the most optimistic scenario after all.” What do you mean by optimistic? A synonym for optimism is hopefulness. And hope is to wish for something, if we wish than that means that we have no influence or impact on the outcome, this means that we are passive in the situation. According to the scenario if we don’t take action there will be a “Darwinian Slaughter”, this is clearly an awful scenario, which was brought about through our passivism. After the mass decline in population there might come a favorable and sustainable situation such as village life (but this is not implied by the author). This is worth thinking about since from reading you response to Two Scenarios you think that what the author saw as pessimistic is optimistic “This all sound too perfect.” And the pessimism or optimism in his scenarios is hopeful, since such words imply that we have no control over the situation, and will not attempt to take any action. Optimism and pessimism both include the factor of hope; gloomy versus a best possible outcome view on the post-peak situation. We are often confused by mixing up different words to describe what we think about the various possible scenarios, partially because of their connotations; between optimism and pessimism, awful and wonderful, likely and unlikely. For example, I have an inclination towards the pessimistic view. Simply because it seems unlikely that action will be taken, and this means that the brief life on Earth will be even worse than it currently is in this culture, due to the attitude of this culture. This does not mean that I think the fall of civilization is an awful thing or that change from our present way of life is awful, but the process will be awful because it will first involve a similar to the Great Depression scenario and later a mass die off in which only the fittest survive. In this response to your writing I have neglected one major difference typically found (however not in the Two Scenarios text) between the optimistic and pessimistic scenarios:

Pessimism & Optimism = No action
Pessimism = No action= No life
Optimism= No action= Relatively unchanged life

In the Two Scenarios Text:

Pessimism= No action= mass die-off/Darwinian slaughter/ nuclear warfare
Optimism= Action taken by governments = greater oppression & greater survival rate

Another good distinction that should be made in the Two Scenarios text for the pessimistic option, is the before and after the Darwinian Slaughter situation. Which one has positive and which has negative out looks, out comes and implications for post-peak life?
What will life look like after the Great Flood? Will there be life?

This response can be read on: http://www.ymsosciance.blogspot.com/