<So until ppl like this are educated or put in landfills themselves I think we need to look at contingencies as much as the few realistic ones of us taking action>
Agreed. There are many reasons, like dietary deficit and contamination during development that has produced a mass population that is, as you imply, so lazy, stupid, and greedy. But we are where we are, and its time to think about voting with your feet to an area or community where the people are more rational.
Diamond, in "Collapse" notes the criteria for those areas which recover quckest after the kind of economic crisis we worry about. A few points come to mind. A homogeneous, but low population density & forest. Areas that have minorities will have demagogues scapegoating; those that dont have people focused on solving problems. There needs to be enough land in a variety of crops to provide proper nutrition, and there needs to be enough forest to provide building materials and wood heat.
The Rockies, Appalachians, and Ozarks come to mind. But the nearness of huge metro popultions in the east is worrisome, and the risk of forest fires in the West is also. There are brushfires in the Ozarks, many set by the forest service, but they dont reach the hardwood canopy. Still, even if there is total economic collapse, global warming will go on, and you have to consider what that will do to whatever area you consider moving to.
it has resulted in a new fungus from Australia appearing on Victoria island. The spores when inhaled are quite serious, having killed a few people and many dogs that like to sniff things in the woods. So there is stuff like this that just comes outta nowhere.
http://www.dc-pc.org/farmath/farmath.html is a scan from an 1885 8th grade math book which provides clues on what agricultural prooduciton would be like without diesel engines and petrochemicals. Its also instructive to consider the mental ability expected back then of kids who were raised on family farms on what we now call 'organic' food.... compared to what we can expect of 8th graders raised on sugar cereals, junkfood, and sodapop.