[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', '
')Look, it's a simple point I'm making: If you think that peak oil doom will inevitably lead to civilizational collapse, there is no way that governmental policies of any sort can possibly forestall such an event.

[Carlhole]

Wrong again. Shit is shit, no matter how you spell it.

And the political rantsters around here are full of it if they also considers themselves doomers.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eXpat', 'I') actually took the time to read the full article.

[joewp]

I love these comic relief threads.
"Think the Earth is finite? Think again"

[Homesteader]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('scas', 'W')e are "wrong about everything and misanthropic". Hard to argue with that.

He is right that resources are fluid and have a past and a future.

The past of oil is organisms and sunlight. Their future is in atmospheric gases.

The past of soil nutrients is rock and dead organisms. Their future is at the bottom of the ocean and in our landfills.

The past of arable land is forests and soil ecosystems. The future of that arable land is.....under concrete. Or desert.

The past of our freshwater is in glaciers and groundwater. The future is in the ocean.

The past of organisms is life and evolution. The future is extinction.

[careinke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', 'I')t's the point I was making the other day - there are AGW and Malthusian doomers, and there are the old school Helter Skelter race war paranoid survivalist scanning the sky for UN helicopters. The overlap of the Tea Party and doomerism is not AGW, it's belief in conspiracies like Climategate, Obama's birth certificate, evolution, ACORN, slavery reparations etc that are all supposedly multigenerational global conspiracies controlled by the Illuminauti. And they share their love of AK-47s and Patrick Swayze.

[Pretorian]

Politics are entertaining. Entertainment for humans is as important as food and arguably more important than sex ( considering those who not yet or already not participating).

[Xenophobe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eXpat', 'N')onsense and idioticy have no political party, they can come equally from Republicans, Democrats, Communists, Torys, Labor, Anarchists, Fascists, etc.

[Serial_Worrier]

one thing that I've found that is truly infinite is the hatred for humans that only certain humans can bring. Yeah I'm talking about the doomers, the hate they possess for their fellow struggling ape knows no bounds....

[Xenophobe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Serial_Worrier', 'o')ne thing that I've found that is truly infinite is the hatred for humans that only certain humans can bring. Yeah I'm talking about the doomers, the hate they possess for their fellow struggling ape knows no bounds....

[peripato]

Reading that article and the loony tune posts hereabouts, it seems beyond doubt that cornucopians are mistaking the one-time fossil fuel bonanza for brains.

[Homesteader]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('peripato', 'R')eading that article and the loony tune posts hereabouts, it seems beyond doubt that cornucopians are mistaking the one-time fossil fuel bonanza for brains.

[rangerone314]

I'm not sure that even the greater interdependency of cultures today means that peak oil destroying one culture will necessarily destroy another. Of course government policies will have an effect on the outcome.

If I am a doomer, it is simply because I don't believe the best-case scenarios where the governments do everything that is right and everything turns out well. People tend to make situations get worse rather than better. Humanity is one of the few species that if on a boat in the middle of the ocean would lack the wisdom to not shoot holes in the bottom of the boat.

If there are countries that can self-suffice or adapt and have enough isolation, they will survive. I don't agree that if the world is in chaos and someplace like Egypt implodes, that swarms of refugees will manage to travel thousands of miles to Sweden or something.

Most likely, people will be too preoccupied tearing their own countries apart and fighting their elites (and elites's paid bodyguards) to worry about what is going on 3,000 miles away.

[Oakley]

It seems to me that there is some thinking on this board that it is inconsistent to both place a high value on freedom, including freedom in economic transactions, and to also think that we are facing the end of the energy driven industrial age and a related dieoff.

Free markets cannot magically defy the laws of nature. One misconception relates to "technology" as if we can invent our way out of disaster. Technology is knowledge applied to resources. If you don't have knowledge then you don't have technology, but just resources, and if you don't have resources, you don't have technology, but just knowledge. So lacking knowledge, for a long period of human history we walked around on large quantities of resources without the ability to use them. And after they are gone, we will again be unable to use them, so any knowledge of how to use them will quickly expire.

Technology cannot possible bail us out in a resource scarce future because one of the two requirements for technology will be missing.

The idea that we collectively can defy the laws of nature is just as absurd as the idea that free market inventiveness will defy the laws of nature. The political arrangements that exist will only affect who will likely survive and who will likely die. With the collectivist arrangements that now exist, it is more likely that the average man and the poor will not be survivors, but those who occupy the seats of power will. If we were to throw off the chains of slavery that bind most of the world population, then the survival of the fittest would more effectively operate and those who have the capacity to individually and in small groups navigate the future will have a better chance than the thugs who now occupy the seats of power and use that power to plunder and control the majority.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Oakley', 'T')he idea that we collectively can defy the laws of nature is just as absurd as the idea that free market inventiveness will defy the laws of nature. The political arrangements that exist will only affect who will likely survive and who will likely die. With the collectivist arrangements that now exist, it is more likely that the average man and the poor will not be survivors, but those who occupy the seats of power will.

[peripato]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Oakley', 'T')he idea that we collectively can defy the laws of nature is just as absurd as the idea that free market inventiveness will defy the laws of nature. The political arrangements that exist will only affect who will likely survive and who will likely die. With the collectivist arrangements that now exist, it is more likely that the average man and the poor will not be survivors, but those who occupy the seats of power will. If we were to throw off the chains of slavery that bind most of the world population, then the survival of the fittest would more effectively operate and those who have the capacity to individually and in small groups navigate the future will have a better chance than the thugs who now occupy the seats of power and use that power to plunder and control the majority.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('peripato', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Oakley', 'T')he idea that we collectively can defy the laws of nature is just as absurd as the idea that free market inventiveness will defy the laws of nature. The political arrangements that exist will only affect who will likely survive and who will likely die. With the collectivist arrangements that now exist, it is more likely that the average man and the poor will not be survivors, but those who occupy the seats of power will. If we were to throw off the chains of slavery that bind most of the world population, then the survival of the fittest would more effectively operate and those who have the capacity to individually and in small groups navigate the future will have a better chance than the thugs who now occupy the seats of power and use that power to plunder and control the majority.