[MrBean]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Buggy', 'S')o, thanks for nothing, I am now out of the matrix and shell shocked.

[ROCKMAN]

Buggy,

I agree with you about the lack of knowledge. Folks can miss discovering the facts for a variety of reasons: avoidence, lazyness, mislead by authorities they trust, etc.

Perhaps the biddest problem is their perception that they already know the answer and don't need to waste time listening to other views. I daily teach some very educated people about a particular technology. The common first response is "I already understand the deal". After they are forced (yes...they really feel I'm wasting their time) to hear what I have to show them the typical response is "I didn't know that...now it makes sense".

Just a part of human nature. Thank God I have complete control of my ego.

[MrBean]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'T')hank God I have complete control of my ego.

[ROCKMAN]

Yes Mr. Bean, it is very difficult to keep my ego in check when I'm surrounded by all this ignorance and intolerence.

See...I told you so.

[VMarcHart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', '.')..surrounded by all this ignorance and intolerence.

[BigTex]

Calling anyone "dumb" is usually not helpful.

Many people who are currently unaware of peak oil will become aware of it soon enough. For those of us who have spent time studying and thinking about it, hopefully that knowledge will be useful to others as the concepts seep into the mainstream.

One of the fundamental issues that is a little tricky to wrap you mind around is that just because peak oil will be the worst calamity ever to befall humanity, it won't necessarily be all that ugly for some of us individually, whether it's due to preps, just being lucky enough to be born into the right family, or because the really ugly part doesn't occur for several decades.

However, whether any of us individually are able to be a little more clever than the next guy, the fact remains that the survival of our entire species is likely to be in play as peak oil turns out to be the vanguard of peak-everything else.

What's sort of depressing is not so much what will happen to me, my family, my friends, my community or my country; rather, it's what will happen to our entire species and the creeping realization that our superior intelligence ultimately may not be all that useful from a long term survival perspective.

In fact, our imagined glorious natures may utlimately be incredibly tragic.

This topic reminds me of the last few lines of T.S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock":

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

[ROCKMAN]

Just self deprecating sarcasm V. And here's a news flash that so far I've only seen on an oil patch web site: OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia has arrested 701 Islamists in recent months who it claims were preparing attacks on oil industry installations, the interior ministry said on Wednesday.

Security forces "carried out several operations against followers of the deviant ideology and arrested a total of 701 people of various nationalities," said a ministry spokesman quoted by the official Spa news agency.

Of those arrested, "520 are still being held for their implication in the organisational and ideological plans of the deviant ideology." Deviant ideology is the term used by Saudi officials to describe Al-Qaeda. Perhaps these "deviant ideologist" were planning to help us get the word out on PO?

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'J')ust self deprecating sarcasm V. And here's a news flash that so far I've only seen on an oil patch web site: --snip-- Perhaps these "deviant ideologist" were planning to help us get the word out on PO?

[ROCKMAN]

Good analogy Tex. You gotta hope the KSA has the best intellgence/security money can buy.

But you still go back to a basic fact: it's very difficult to stop someone if they are willing to sacrifice their life for the cause.

I still doubt even a handful of succesful attacks would cause a long term disruption but the short term spike in prices would, IMHO, distract the masses and allow them to blame such actions for the prices and then assume the powers will take appropriate actions to prevent a repeat and ...poof....the problem of PO is solved.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', '-')-snip-- I still doubt even a handful of succesful attacks would cause a long term disruption but the short term spike in prices would, IMHO, distract the masses and allow them to blame such actions for the prices and then assume the powers will take appropriate actions to prevent a repeat and ...poof....the problem of PO is solved.

[Pops]

I may have missed it mentioned here but others haven't: Google: GMA weekend "peak oil"

Perhaps while all this talking into the sand is going on here about the dumb sheep they are lifting their heads from the grass and actually doing something. What is that line about pride before the fall?

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mefistofeles', 'M')aybe this isn't a very kind thing to say but I was looking at a website called politico.com and utter shocked that they didn't have a single story about oil.

[asg70]

It really feels now like this site is taking its last breath. Kind of dull seeing these constant 10+ year old thread-bumps. I think your point has been made already.

[ROCKMAN]

70 - How would you summarize his "point"? And do you agree with it? And a more telling question IMHO: do you think many understand that the collapse of oil prices is related to our long term declining energy predicament?

[charmcitysking]

Adam doesn't have a point, he just has nothing better to do than to bump 10 year old threads

[ROCKMAN]

charmer - Good point but it does provide you the opportunity to beat on him a bit. LOL.

But it also provides another opportunity for me to again ask a question that no one has answered: how many understand that the collapse of oil prices is related to our long term declining energy predicament?

[Sys1]

Actually, there is far worse than peak oil, it's climate change.
Ultimately, we have a systemic problem with our economic model :
Perpetual growth on a finite planet.

So I don't think people outside of peak oil are dumb as long as they get our way of living is wrong and we are collectively heading fast towards a wall.
I've myself shifted from worrying about oil to worrying about exponential debt and climate change. Moreover, we have far more oil, gas and coal than needed to collapse our biosphere. The worse threat is perhabs methane deposits waiting to be throwed in the atmosphere.

[onlooker]

I think it goes deeper than PO. It is still so many people on this planet oblivious to our overshoot of our carrying capacity in regards to the size of our population. And also to the many ways we are degrading this planet and depleting its resources especially via habitat takeover, pollution/poisoning and attrition of non renewable resources. Of course our pernicious ways of living are magnified tremendously by the size of our population. That is why China and India modernizing was a most ominous milestone

And all that without mentioning the catastrophic potential of climate change which many it seems still may underestimate

[asg70]

"without mentioning the catastrophic potential of climate change which many it seems still may underestimate"

Like Pstarr. Enlightenment is in short supply even with doomers.

[KaiserJeep]

Forget climate change and AGW. Those are losing arguments, there isn't anybody listening any more. You made all the converts you will ever make there.

The peak oil argument is better, but conventional oil did in fact peak around 2nd quarter 2008 when this thread was new, and the games played with new extraction techniques for existing wells, plus liquids and so forth effectively obscured that. Not to mention tar sands, shales, and really deep offshore wells.

Overpopulation is in the end the only problem that matters. But you have credible organizations such as the United Nations publicizing programs like their "Food for Thirty Billion" program, which says in effect that we can use oil to grow and distribute food for that many people pretty much indefinately.

In the end, you cannot depend upon any government or any international organization or any NGO to save your sorry behind. As inconvenient as it is, you have to get off of your lazy butt and figure out how to live while those around you who did not see the handwriting on the wall simply die.

The 1% have already saved themselves. They own pieces of large corporate farms everywhere in the country, and are making plans to grow food in the absence of cheap fuels, that most people won't be able to afford. They are building homes in remote, defensible, and out of the way destination communities such as Nantucket Island, which is slowly but steadily adding wind turbines and organic farms and breweries and vineyards to eventually become self-sufficient for a select few residents.

The 1% made their plans years back, these are mostly in place and waiting now. There are huge numbers of folks who are less prepared then they are, and the end of the runway is in sight, with the decision point almost here, we have to either apply the brakes or pull back on the control yoke and take off. You can join the HAVES or the HAVE NOTS, the default group you are in is the latter.

Think of it as evolution in action.