by AdamB » Mon 01 Sep 2025, 11:03:24
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Armageddon', 'W')e get it, you’re the smartest man on this site. You tell us daily.
I know exactly how smart I am (which usually isn't the smartest person in the room because 90% of my coworkers have PhD's) It is like having a college professor on any topic except finance (but more than a couple economists) and they LOVE it when some dunderhead (like me) shows up and asks the equivalent of this question from their perspective....."ah...Mr PhD person, how is it that XX doesn't equal YY except here and here in history" and presto, I get a certified expert in the field giving me an hour dedicated to the topic. Who did you learn from? Ruppert, Simmons, Rense, Coast to Coast and every other outlet of horseshit and blubbering nonsense.
What would even someone like you do in such an environment Armie? Would it bother you that everyone in the room is smarter than you, and run and hide in your corner because Ruppert is a joke as a learning source...or would you do what I did....and drink from a firehose the likes of which you can't even imagine? And turn curiosity into a career?
Honest question Armie. Because some people would be intimidated and just stick to their specialty ( as I do have one) and others would be like a kid in a candy store of ideas and arguments and nuance and that firehose then defines you. For the rest of your career.
And smartest person on this site is irrelevant, this place isn't for measuring the ability of one's brain pan, where I work is. It took me about 6 years to get my feet squarely under my shoulders and stand up in that environment, coinciding with the early days of peak oil. And was shortly after banned from attending any of those early ASPO conferences because the bosses were afraid I would lend credibility to them, even if I went on my own time and paid for it myself.
The smartest person in a room of the 3-5 regulars left on this website isn't the measure Army. Once a professional athlete reasons the pinnacle of their performance it is nothing but a joke that they would go back to middle school and challenge 3 chubby 8th graders to a foot race.
It is about becoming a polymath. Not in all areas, but in every science required to solve peak oil along the way to far more interesting and complex problems.
So just a normally smart guy with a good education, professional experience in shales dating back to the mid-80's (good career timing with that as well), and access to the smartest people in the country who taught me what they knew across several different science specialties ranging through economics, geology and particularly statistics.
But I do reserve the right to gloat around those who can't think their way out of a wet paper bag even AFTER having been revealed as complete fools by time. You should know, I do respect those who CAN think their way out of a wet paper bag, even if they fell for peak oil. Dennis for example, but not Paul Pieke or ShortonOil and his ETP horseshit. The peak oilers who can't learn? Well, they are fair game, forever trapped within their intellectual disability...that disability being incapable of learning outside their belief system. Some can break free, Pops seems to have, and you'll notice there aren't many peak oil conversations around here anymore. Other than suckers occasionally mentioning it...the Aussie thinks it happened 17 years ago....why? Because THAT is a peak oiler....no data, no logic, can't read graphs, all they need is to BELIEVE....and therefore it must be so. The perfect example of unabridged belief matched with a parrot's zero working intellect.
Plant Thu 27 Jul 2023 "Personally I think the IEA is exactly right when they predict peak oil in the 2020s, especially because it matches my own predictions."
Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"