My motivations for this site will vary…
…but for now, they are as follows:
1) Web Design Practice
First, I need to get my web skills back on point for SpineFITyoga.com (SFY).
Moving from Arizona to Alaska, figuring out what I want to do here, and then how to do it, took a great deal of time and study. And that took focus away from SFY’s web development; my project before my endarkenment with regards to civilizations fate, its effect on the natural world, and us within it.
The SFY exercise program, however, being only 5 minutes, was really easy to keep up, and I have to think it’s resulting fitness to be of great importance going forward. It helps that the exercise science and nutrition behind SFY is most definitely my thing, is interesting, and in some ways fun to do. So regardless of what emergencies befall the Earth, I’m going to keep reading research papers on improving fitness, performance, and injury rehab so as to further optimize SFY.
That said, computer coding, keeping up with new software developments, eh. And it doesn’t help that I find computer skills not just boring, but eventually unsustainable. Still, we need them for now, which is I think a crux of our time; continuing to function in the present, while preparing for a radically different future.
In my time off from web design, not only have I gotten out of practice, but all the software has been updated, or replaced. The changes will make the SFY website better, but in the interim, it’s not just that I’m rusty, but also work flows are very different. So while SFY is still up and running, everyone should do it, and the program itself is great, there are major updates I want to make in how I present it, to include some adjustments as to what I think makes for the optimal diet synergized with the 5-minute exercise program for optimal performance.
The good news is that as I’m forcing myself to get used to the new software, and doing so on this site allows me to experiment with more options, without risk of wrecking anything that customers are relying on.
So motivation one for ChadReilly.com is to have a place to practice and get better at web design. I can then apply that presentation to SFY and better help make people fit, attractive, and pain free, before “the shock.” All good things.
2) Civilization Collapse
I have a lot to say to friends, family, and anyone interested, that’s completely unrelated to SFY. When I was sitting at home in 2020 during the COVID lockdowns I got to reading some new (to me) subjects. One book led to another and soon I came to the “best selling environmental book of all time,” The Limits to Growth, 1972 [free full text]. It’s funny, the bad kind of funny, that this team of exceptional researchers, at MIT no less, used the then new computing power combined with dynamic systems theory to more or less predict the collapse of global-industrial-civilization, to begin somewhere around 2025-2050 under business-as-usual scenarios. However, this was only if steps were not taken to avert it. Fast-forward about 50 years and steps were NOT taken to avert it, and it’s 2025 as I write this, so chop chop.
The book Limits to Growth was exceptionally well written and very well lays things out in layman’s terms. I highly recommend everyone read it for themselves before judging anything I say, one way or the other. I would also suggest you read the book, before you read critiques of it. In doing so you’ll be able to see the critics, mostly economists, were invariably liars about what the book said. Unfortunately, the lying worked and the Limits authors were popularly marginalized, without being wrong.
The results of Limits to Growth have been revised twice, most recently in 2004 by the original authors with no substantial change to the outcomes. Since then independent researchers have overwhelmingly confirmed the results of the business as usual scenario. Most recently, in November of 2023 with the Recalibration of Limits to Growth… [also free] study with updated data. The new data predicted global civilization would likely start to have its wheels come off sometime between 2024 and 2030 due to resource shortages, only later to be further disrupted by climate change.
I read that paper in early 2024, and was like, “ok wow, that’s basically now.” The quote on the timing of collapse is 2nd paragraph in section 4.3, or page 97, 4th paragraph of the PDF if you wish to read for yourself, which I suggest.
These dates, however, are best estimates, not prophecies, so if events happen before (a bit late) or after, it doesn’t necessarily falsify the teller. In fact the original Limits to Growth book goes out of its way to say these projections aren’t meant to be predictions but scenarios, dependent on uncertain information. However, newer estimates are using ever more certain information and ultimately corroborating the business as usual estimate. I would add that in Aesop’s Fable, the Boy Who Cried Wolf, the wolf did come.
Also, flashback to 2020 and previous reading, Phoenix, Arizona, was not only ground zero for global warming but Arizona was rated (though not in so clear of words) the least sustainable state in the union by the Global Footprint Network. And it was therefore in my estimation the worst place in the USA to be when the wheels come off.
My house was paid off. I had all kinds of equity, but I figured when everyone else realized what I realized, I wouldn’t be selling my home at all, I would be abandoning it. So motivation two of this site is to present data in such a way as to prevent my friends and family in Arizona from dying in some inevitable heat wave, or financially ruin and becoming a climate/peak oil refugee.
3) Prove Me Wrong, PLEASE!
If I am wrong, I would really like to know it, because impending collapse (via resource shortage, ecologic damage, or global warming), isn’t the happiest subject, and I would go back to partying with my friends in AZ, world travel, and other forms of conspicuous consumption… However, I’m going to need someone to show me based on facts, reason, and logic, and not some acquiescence into a better afterlife, transformation of the human spirit, or sketch future technologies.
It is interesting that long before my switch was flipped, I knew fossil fuel supplies were limited, and in theory they would eventually run out, but I always thought that was off in some distant future, that environmentalists were alarmist, and that wind, solar, or whatever, were indeed clean tech, and would take over. And we’d all just have electric or fusion fueled cars that probably flew. Seems none of that’s true, except the running out of gas part.
And I was a surprisingly well educated clueless moron. I got straight A’s in college. I had a Master’s degree. So I think there is much to say about not being too much of a specialist, so as to miss out on a broader awareness, for which impending civilization and ecologic collapse are kind of big things to miss. And surprisingly obvious with hindsight.
As for alternative energy, unfortunately it turns out not only is the new tech not cutting it, but is further worsening the planet. It’s a very troubling situation to be in, where the short term solutions only worsen the long term problem. And the long term problems aren’t so long term anymore, but are bumping up on us here and now.
I suppose we could all place our bets on some supernatural end times like Ragnarok, but wouldn’t the joke be on you to plan for the “end of the world” and just get another civilization collapse instead?
Anyway, whether we are approaching Ragnarok or civilization collapse, it’s probably better if you are strong and healthy, so I still advise everyone to do SpineFITyoga. All my friends and family get a free lifetime (grid-time?) membership if they ask, and it’s otherwise inexpensive. I expect in a post-collapse world, more muscle and less orthopedic injuries will have survival value, and probably both gyms and therapy clinics will be closed.
So how’s that for a full circle?
4) Oh, and other fun stuff…
I’m all about this whole “surviving civilization collapse” thing, so I’m doing a lot of reading and doing on subjects such as ecoVillages, forest gardens, hunting, fishing, bushcraft, foraging, and who knows what else might catch my interest. So long as it does not seem more appropriate to SpineFITyoga, and it’s something I want to share with my homies, I’ll post it here.