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Re: Peakers underestimate TPTB at maintaining the Status Quo

Unread postby StarvingLion » Thu 29 Sep 2016, 18:52:32

Douche Toilet Bank is on the brink of TOTAL COLLAPSE down 7% today alone!!!....and the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia made new lows again!

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Re: Peakers underestimate TPTB at maintaining the Status Quo

Unread postby StarvingLion » Thu 29 Sep 2016, 19:07:20

SHE'S GONNA BLOW...RUN FOR YOUR LIVES........SCAMERICA IS INSOLVENT HEADED FOR FULL BLOWN BANANA REPUBLIC

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Re: Peakers underestimate TPTB at maintaining the Status Quo

Unread postby peripato » Thu 29 Sep 2016, 19:56:48

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SumYunGai', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') could very logically argue that the entire field of economics is itself based on dogma.


I agree entirely. Current economic students tend to learn the maths of a certain dominant dogma rather than economics itself. However, that doesn't preclude trying to understand the mechanics of money supply and how it affects business cycles, as it is primordial in understanding the process.

But the highly dogmatic field of economics cannot claim to provide a definitive answer as to the cause or causes of the Great Recession. This is because economics cannot distinguish causes from effects. Economics is a pseudoscience.

Most of the complex economic "analyses" attempted by forum members here begin by describing a lot of detailed interactions that must be caused by this or that. They end with a paragraph admitting that the situation is too complicated to generate any exact answers, and thus these things must be inherently unknowable. That seems highly presumptuous. And very unsatisfying, too. I think there is a better way to understand the world.

Because of it's many fatal flaws, I really have a hard time taking economics very seriously. When it comes to understanding our current energy/economic situation, I think science is the way to go.

As a trained economist I can relate to this entirely. It's mostly self-serving b.s.

You know what they say about economists? If you could stack every economist, one atop of another, you'd still never reach a conclusion.
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Re: Peakers underestimate TPTB at maintaining the Status Quo

Unread postby StarvingLion » Thu 29 Sep 2016, 21:35:07

LOOK AT THE FRAUD SYSTEM YOU WORSHIP....

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Re: Peakers underestimate TPTB at maintaining the Status Quo

Unread postby peripato » Thu 29 Sep 2016, 23:01:34

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('StarvingLion', 'L')OOK AT THE FRAUD SYSTEM YOU WORSHIP....

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I got my popcorn ready, wondering how many more billions can they burn at the altar of douche money... :mrgreen:
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Re: Peakers underestimate TPTB at maintaining the Status Quo

Unread postby davep » Fri 30 Sep 2016, 01:06:39

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SumYunGai', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', 'A')nd energetic costs depend on broad money availability at any given time (amongst other things) so I'm not sure you've hit upon some kind of first principle here.

There may be many complex feed back loops in the way we use money to get things done, but the energetic costs have to be paid in full one way or another. That is just physics. So, yes, I think I did hit upon a first principle.

I agreed that cheap energy is a pre-requisite for the current economic system. Beyond that I don't see much enlightenment in saying money is energy as it just ignores any other variables. As ennui says, it's also linked to availability of other resources. And as I said, it's one gigantic Ponzi scheme.

And all this relates to money in its current form only.
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Re: Peakers underestimate TPTB at maintaining the Status Quo

Unread postby StarvingLion » Fri 30 Sep 2016, 02:03:08

The globalized economy is a colossal Ponzi Scheme in which the vast majority survive on the bread crumbs falling off the table. The possibility of 8 billion people achieving a consumption-oriented lifestyle is zero, so the World Bank conveniently set the poverty line at $1.90/day to legalize global slavery. Post-2008, this illusion was extended merely by plundering all future generations.

www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/brie ... ine-faqSep 30, 2015 - The new global poverty line is set at $1.90 using 2011 prices. Just over 900 million people globally lived under this line in 2012 (based on the ...
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Re: Peakers underestimate TPTB at maintaining the Status Quo

Unread postby StarvingLion » Fri 30 Sep 2016, 02:50:36

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')thers are things like natural capital, ecological services. A stable climate that supports agriculture, fertile soils, a functional ocean food-web, access to key minerals for building and fertilizer. If you can see where I'm going here, there's more that goes into the physical foundation of the economy than oil.


So what. Fossil Oil is required to run a successful military. Show me a ruling currency regime that doesn't have control over a military. You can't.

davep brings enlightenment on how the mechanics of the actual banking system may work and it never fails, the peanut gallery sidetracks the trail of discovery by trotting out their favorite econ theories in their life long quest to be an wannabe economist.
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Re: Peakers underestimate TPTB at maintaining the Status Quo

Unread postby SumYunGai » Fri 30 Sep 2016, 04:08:03

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SumYunGai', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', 'A')nd energetic costs depend on broad money availability at any given time (amongst other things) so I'm not sure you've hit upon some kind of first principle here.

There may be many complex feed back loops in the way we use money to get things done, but the energetic costs have to be paid in full one way or another. That is just physics. So, yes, I think I did hit upon a first principle.

I agreed that cheap energy is a pre-requisite for the current economic system. Beyond that I don't see much enlightenment in saying money is energy as it just ignores any other variables.

Saying that money is an energy exchange medium does not ignore other variables. It includes them. The way physics views the economy is a complete system based on energy. That way, some useful answers can be derived.

Economists blindly split while physicists sensibly lump.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', 'A')s ennui says, it's also linked to availability of other resources.

It is linked in the sense that it takes energy to make all other resources available.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', 'A')nd as I said, it's one gigantic Ponzi scheme.
I agree with you on this. Civilization is a gigantic Ponzi scheme.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', 'A')nd all this relates to money in its current form only.
It is unrealistic to think that tweaking the form of money will do any good since the real problem is balancing the energy books. Accounting tricks cannot solve the problem. And besides, it is *WAY* too late for that now since we are already in collapse.
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Re: Peakers underestimate TPTB at maintaining the Status Quo

Unread postby ennui2 » Fri 30 Sep 2016, 12:57:11

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SumYunGai', '
')It is linked in the sense that it takes energy to make all other resources available.


One problem with ETP is it focuses on EROEI in a very narrow sense, namely the energy expended to extract and refine oil. Look at EMBODIED energy. Oil itself is ancient sunlight, after all. Wood is more recent sunlight. Annual agriculture is even more recent. Minerals required exploding supernova to create. So for all that ETP leans on thermodynamics, its perspective is much too narrow. Humanity exists because of energy expended millions and billions of years ago depending on the resource we're utilizing. Not only that, there's a certain amount of leverage that comes from having already dredged up, mined, isolated materials. Much has been discussed about a post-peak salvage economy, for instance. Why keep refining raw ores when we have so much trash sitting around anyway? This sort of wide-angle-lens to human activity is absent from ETP because it sees things only from the tunnel vision of oil. Oil is the alpha and omega. It may be the most important resource but it's not the only one that keeps us going. This is not necessarily a corny position either, as it's liebig's law of the minimum. Remove potable water and we're F*CKED. Remove arable sol and we're F*CKED. There are problems going on that are on their own negative trajectory.
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Re: Peakers underestimate TPTB at maintaining the Status Quo

Unread postby onlooker » Fri 30 Sep 2016, 13:40:24

Ennui, I do not think Sum and others are discounting other variables in the downward trajectory but simply stressing the importance of our principal energy source. Again it is via energy that our panoply and interplay that we call Industrial Civilization is kept humming along. Basically energy allows economic activity to take place and resources to be manipulated and utilized. Thus the importance of Oil cannot be overstated
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Re: Peakers underestimate TPTB at maintaining the Status Quo

Unread postby ennui2 » Fri 30 Sep 2016, 13:44:30

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onlooker', 'T')hus the importance of Oil cannot be overstated


Sure it can. Considering we're in a glut and ETP predicts zombie hordes in 4 years your math better be precise if you expect people to buy into it.

The problem is ETPers use a reluctance to buy into the extraordinary claim above to turn around and accuse us of not believing in limits to growth or the 2nd law of thermodynamics. There's a foundation of truth in ETP but it's being twisted to support that extraordinary claim.

It's like saying since gravity exists, we're all going to be pulled into the center of the earth. One does not prove the other.
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Re: Peakers underestimate TPTB at maintaining the Status Quo

Unread postby SumYunGai » Sat 01 Oct 2016, 01:56:26

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ennui2', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SumYunGai', 'I')t is linked in the sense that it takes energy to make all other resources available.

One problem with ETP is it focuses on EROEI in a very narrow sense, namely the energy expended to extract and refine oil. Look at EMBODIED energy. Oil itself is ancient sunlight, after all. Wood is more recent sunlight. Annual agriculture is even more recent. Minerals required exploding supernova to create. So for all that ETP leans on thermodynamics, its perspective is much too narrow. Humanity exists because of energy expended millions and billions of years ago depending on the resource we're utilizing. Not only that, there's a certain amount of leverage that comes from having already dredged up, mined, isolated materials. Much has been discussed about a post-peak salvage economy, for instance. Why keep refining raw ores when we have so much trash sitting around anyway? This sort of wide-angle-lens to human activity is absent from ETP because it sees things only from the tunnel vision of oil. Oil is the alpha and omega.

Oil is the resource that we need in order to be able to acquire all the other necessary resources, so it is very important. The Etp model is a model of oil depletion, not a model of the world. It does not forecast collapse. Do you think the Etp model really needs to account for ancient supernovas? Please explain why?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ennui2', 'I')t may be the most important resource but it's not the only one that keeps us going. This is not necessarily a corny position either, as it's liebig's law of the minimum. Remove potable water and we're F*CKED. Remove arable sol and we're F*CKED. There are problems going on that are on their own negative trajectory.

Those other problems are likely to make the negative trajectory of civilization worse than what the Etp model predicts. So what is your point?
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Re: Peakers underestimate TPTB at maintaining the Status Quo

Unread postby davep » Sat 01 Oct 2016, 02:02:28

I guess the point is that like any other model it's a reductionist view with a limited set of variables that in this case don't take into account the bigger economic and resource picture.

So it may have a useful purpose, but doesn't model or replace complex reality.
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Re: Peakers underestimate TPTB at maintaining the Status Quo

Unread postby SumYunGai » Sat 01 Oct 2016, 03:04:06

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', 'I') guess the point is that like any other model it's a reductionist view with a limited set of variables that in this case don't take into account the bigger economic and resource picture.

Models that try to include too many independent variables don't produce any results at all. The Etp methodology is quite simple and elegant, and it's assumptions are very straightforward and logical. But I feel this is kind of getting off topic. We were having a discussion about the general attributes of physical models vs. economic models. I think ennui succeeded in creating another "Etp hijack" of a thread to blame on "Team Etp"! LOL.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', 'S')o it may have a useful purpose, but doesn't model or replace complex reality.

You are correct. The Etp model can only define the physical boundaries that constrain many complex realities, especially those complex realities that depend upon the energy from oil.
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Re: Peakers underestimate TPTB at maintaining the Status Quo

Unread postby ennui2 » Sat 01 Oct 2016, 09:53:25

Whatever, there's no way for you to contintribute to a thread without it oozing of ETP-thinking, whether you bang out the acronym or not. Therefore there's no way to counter what you contribute other than to go after ETP once again.
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Re: Peakers underestimate TPTB at maintaining the Status Quo

Unread postby ennui2 » Sat 01 Oct 2016, 12:22:48

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SumYunGai', '
')Models that try to include too many independent variables don't produce any results at all.


Who is to judge what constitutes too many or too few variables?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SumYunGai', '
')The Etp methodology is quite simple and elegant, and it's assumptions are very straightforward and logical.


Again, this is a subjective argument on your part. Considering that you have likened ETP to a grand unified theory, note that the math physicists are wrestling with in order to reconcile relativity with quantum physics is inherently complicated. It's only your personal desire for simplicity and elegance that drives you to view ETP's model as valid despite leaving too many variables out of the equation. The desire for simplicity is more religiosity than scientific method. It's the same thing that drives people to believe in astrology (like Matt Savinar) or Tarot. People are terrified by the seeming chaos of world events and desire to understand it in order to provide survival advantages. The track record of savants isn't very good, though. Even Nate Silver's batting average is off the mark.
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