I believe the stance the Long Now Foundation takes is; this current evolution of human has been around for roughly 10,000 years based on the fossil and archaeological record, yet we think and plan in ever smaller futures. Their idea is that if we've been around for 10,000 years, assume that we could be around for another 10,000. Generally, we should consider a longer future than the next weekend, fiscal quarter, news or election cycle. Also, if we started to think (and act) in longer terms our decisions would be very different.

I wasn't assuming that many generalizations could be made about ETS readership. Only that the people who have responded to my previous threads on the subject have been overwhelmingly upbeat and optimistic.

As far as this forum's guide lines go, I believe we're "supposed" to talking about relatively short term things, the 72 hours that most emergencies last and then a few weeks or months nodding to the fall out after hurricane Katrina.

For this topic, I'm thinking in terms of years or decades with the world looking very different at the other end.
It's really not at all about "doom and gloom". I'm not religious (I don't believe in God's wrath), and I'm not particularly political (Republicans and Democrats only represent a weakness in the system). We've just spent so much time and energy (collectively) acting without any thought to the long term consequences. Like scafool said, it's a train wreck in slow motion. We've built up so much "momentum" based on assumptions that aren't panning out, that the eventual fall has to monumental in proportion.

The most difficult part, for me anyway, is trying to figure out when and where it will hit the turning point, actual collapse where everything starts to break down, and how best to prepare.