“My position on actions is that solutions should come from a position of understanding. I believe it is premature to discuss specific solutions until and unless true understanding has been achieved. Preceding understanding is awareness, and the prerequisite of awareness is a lack of denial. Said in reverse, the stages are: denial >> awareness >> understanding >> solutions”
Well said Chris, but, preceding these four logical steps are several others that appear to form the largest obstacle to just get people up to the “denial” stage. One is apathy, another is ignorance, and perhaps the most foreboding one of all is that the magnitude of the situation is simply unbelievable to even some of the most intelligent and knowledgeable people, let alone the masses.
This is all brand new information to most people I know, and some of them have a lot more formal education (not just in America), but, from all around the world, than I do, and they dismiss my attempts to inform them of what I have learned as absolute nonsense. I have actually earned a reputation amongst the people I work and play with as a paranoid, tin foil hat toting, doom and gloomer. My credibility is virtually waning, at least in the eyes of those I’m around most often. The only redeeming factor I have in all of this is the fact that I’ve been telling people for quite some time that we very well could be headed for not only a Depression that will make the last one look like a cake walk, but total life changing events that will be written about in future history books in a similar way that we read about the fall of the Roman Empire, only on a much larger scale. The economic news of the past year has made a few of these people wonder if maybe I am on to something, (especially those who ignored my advice to put their 401K money into the safest place available which is the money market), but, by and large, most still believe and are only aware of what their television or newspaper informs them.
Nearly this entire society is just too brainwashed by television and other distractions that amount to entertainment, to even want information such as that which is presented in the “CC.” Everyone seems to honestly believe that if a crisis of such magnitude really were on the horizon, they would have heard about it on main stream media. So, it appears. From my limited vantage point, that the vast majority will require a major panic of epic proportions before they become interested, and as I’ve come to believe from reading your site, several of the books you recommend, and other sites and videos is the message that Dr. Bartlett and yourself are trying to get out, and that would be that by the time most people realize and fully fathom the fact that there really is a problem, the problem will be of such a magnitude that it will already be too late to do anything about it and the result will be a lot of suffering, pain, and perhaps even a massive “die off” across the globe.
The 80 year old, retired bank president I convinced to watch the Crash Course” only made it through the first sixteen chapters before falling asleep. He later asked in another conversation, what I meant by the term, “fiat currency.” Another friend of mine is a 63 year old, former nuclear physicist from Germany who is currently a practicing psychotherapist in America, asks me if I’d like a referral whenever I try to discuss these issues with him. I gave him one of the copies of the “CC,” but I don’t think he’s watched it yet. I gave him a copy of the book, “The Creature from Jekyll Island,” but, he has yet to read it and among the people I come in contact with, nobody even wants to discuss the topic because they aren’t even close to the denial stage yet. I work in the engineering department of a construction firm and nobody even wants the DVD after I tell them what it’s about, even when I offer it for free. Most of my friends would rather discuss sports, home or car repair, or the weather rather than anything of any meaningful significance. Only three of my closest friends are on the same page with me regarding these important topics.
So from my point of view, it seems that just getting people up to the state of denial prior to an all out crisis is the real challenge. One of the most refreshing and encouraging aspects of your site and the “CC” is the fact that you are able to remain optimistic. So far, I have been unable to bring myself to an optimistic attitude and often doubt that I ever will, but I would be content to find some middle ground between optimism and the pessimism I now suffer from regarding these issues. That is why I spend as much time as I can reading on this site, because, as many others have pointed out, this site has more of the most intelligent, informed, optimistic, and unbiased opinions than any other site I visit on a regular basis.