$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'I') have a good friend who is a life-long hippy, back-to-the-lander, permaculturist who (to paraphrase) 'has been waiting for peak oil all her life. ' I also hate the stupidity, greed, and especially gross materialism of american culture and I want that to end. Peak oil is a nice way to stop the machine.
PeakOil is You
Harper's -- "Scenes from a Liberal Apocalypse"
Re: Harper's -- "Scenes from a Liberal Apocalypse"
by Windmills » Sat 22 Jul 2006, 10:18:09
I think this has to be one of the bigger misconceptions about the societal and cultural transformations that will come as a result of Peak Oil, either near or long term. There has been and always will be a "machine" because the machine is humanity. It will never be stopped until we learn how to radically alter human psychology and sociology. Stupidity, greed, and materialism have always been with us and always will be with us. Our earliest recorded histories decry our persistent social follies and failings. It is only because we remain persistently stupid and unable to learn from the past that great poritions of religious texts continue to have any relevance after thousands of years. We don't get it. We don't learn. There was never a untopia on anything more than the smallest scale in rare and isolated pockets throughout history. It's ridiculous to think that just because our physical technology will be reversed perhaps two centuries that somehow our social technology will be advanced. Were there no wars 200 years ago? no famine? no greed? no rich and elite? no powerful men using others as pawns? no tenant farmers and slaves? no crime? no racism? no prejudice and bigotry? no capitalism? no poverty? Did everyone share and help each other on a continental scale?
Peak Oil will not change the rules of the game, merely the color of the uniforms. Humans will still be the players. What we're going to get is the same greedy, bigoted, selfish, short-sighted humans simply operating with new constraints. We'll have shorter life spans and instead of being a slave to wage labor, we'll be a slave to the weather, praying for rain for our crops. There will be no new and wonderful era ushered in from our dreams and wishes, but rather just the recycling of an older time replete with all its miseries.
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Re: Harper's -- "Scenes from a Liberal Apocalypse"
by Windmills » Sun 23 Jul 2006, 15:51:51
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'l')ike I said, the "gross materialism" of the American culture will end with cheap petroleum. And then the damage done to the environment by rampart resource extraction will heal. That is my hope anyway. Thus the liberal religious component 
I am also hoping that some good may come of these changes, but given human nature and its dreadfully redundant history, I sadly have grave doubts that anything will change. I think scales of our activity will change for a while, and the objects of our greed will change, but our basic motivations will not. Instead of oil, cars and electronics, we'll covet livestock, land, water and renewable resources. We'll fight wars over them, too, as we alwas have. It's likely that disparities in wealth will eventually become worse than ever as the laws of most nations allow the rich to own and control excessively far beyond their personal needs. Most of our descedants will eventually be tenant farmers.
If by "gross materialism" you mean the massive scale at which cheap energy allows us to consume, then certainly that will end. However, I don't believe that materialism will end. We will still continue to consume as much as we can. People will still retain their base instincts to hoard and make displays of wealth for purposes of personal security, power and control, social and sexual status. Perhaps the small family farm might not be able to hoard and consume as much as before, but you'll once again see the rise of a landed elite than certainly will give you the relative equivalent of gross materialism.
If there is a die-back of population, the environment might have a chance of recovering. However, as the world turns its eye back to the land, we could in the future see more environmental degradation than ever. Without conscious population control, every bit of land that can possibly be used will be. It won't be that different from we see now when a developer bulldozes land for a new suburban development. We'll swarm the earth like ants, cutting down every forest, leveling every hill to plant crops until we create another set of foreseeable disasters or we reach the ultimate carrying capacity of the planet and a consequent undulating population plateau.
There might be a short time in between miserable eras in which small pockets of decent agrarian communities manage to exist, but I see no evidence in human nature or history as to why the overall trend in economics and freedom for the next couple hundred years is going to be good for the average person.
Land reforms might go some distance to mitigating a few issues, I'd hazard to guess, but we've seen how violently and successfully most governments have put down these attempts to return the basis of real power to its people.
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Re: Harper's -- "Scenes from a Liberal Apocalypse"
by lateStarter » Sun 23 Jul 2006, 16:01:45
Damn you Windmills... Stop being so sensible. Your display of common sense and understanding of human nature is disturbing. I just hope I live long enough to see it all unwind...
We have been brought into the present condition in which we are unable neither to tolerate the evils from which we suffer, nor the remedies we need to cure them. - Livy
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Re: Harper's -- "Scenes from a Liberal Apocalypse"
by Ludi » Sun 23 Jul 2006, 16:08:41
It's not "human nature" though, it's our culture's nature. There have been thousands of cultures which didn't/don't act as described.
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Re: Harper's -- "Scenes from a Liberal Apocalypse"
by lateStarter » Sun 23 Jul 2006, 17:43:35
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I')t's not "human nature" though, it's our culture's nature. There have been thousands of cultures which didn't/don't act as described.
Damn you too Ludi.... How am I ever going to be able to get to sleep tonight? Good point though.. Actually, I'm not sure how we can even call what exists today as culture, as culture (thinking Paris Hilton...)
We have been brought into the present condition in which we are unable neither to tolerate the evils from which we suffer, nor the remedies we need to cure them. - Livy
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Re: Harper's -- "Scenes from a Liberal Apocalypse"
by Ludi » Sun 23 Jul 2006, 17:57:18
"Nature" can't change, but culture can...
.....can it change in time to avoid the worst? This seems doubtful.
.....can it change in time to avoid the worst? This seems doubtful.
- Ludi
Re: Harper's -- "Scenes from a Liberal Apocalypse"
by Liamj » Mon 24 Jul 2006, 03:18:15
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '"')Nature" can't change, but culture can...
.....can it change in time to avoid the worst? This seems doubtful.
.....can it change in time to avoid the worst? This seems doubtful.
Will culture change during energy descent? Undoubtedly. Those who can't imagine anything different to western capitalism will prove themselves right locally, and make excellent serfs.
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