But Aaron, what do you want us to do about it? Besides agree that people can be rotten? Because I don't know how to react to your position. When you say:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')o take your soft, bunny rabbit, eco-bullshit ,tree hugging fantasy & shove it up your ass.
PeakOil is You
All Kidding Aside, I'm Scared
Re: All Kidding Aside, I'm Scared
by Ludi » Sun 02 Oct 2005, 12:39:16
What does that mean? Yeah, so, people can be rotten. So, yeah. There ya go. Yep-a-doo. Yep, got it.
So now what?
- Ludi
Re: All Kidding Aside, I'm Scared
by threadbear » Sun 02 Oct 2005, 12:44:21
Wow Aaron, Did you really write "and shove it up your ass"? Harsh. How about "sing Koombayha softly, but carry a big stick".
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Re: All Kidding Aside, I'm Scared
by JustinFrankl » Sun 02 Oct 2005, 13:04:18
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('trespam', 'I')s something really big going to happen? Should we all be afraid? As a child of the nuclear age, with air raid sirens and duck-and-cover drills, climbing under my desk, I'd say that the fearful here are lacking in context.
Or perhaps the context is not lacking, but rather the understanding of that fear is lacking.
As a child of the 50s, I'm guessing, you lived within an environment of fear that was well-known and widely understood: there is a risk of nuclear war, it is understandable as a singular threat, and the whole world is at risk.
This context of fear is distinctly different: we, the Peak Oilers, are apparently the only ones who know that "civilization" (and thus our ability to survive) is at risk, and we are the only ones trying to do something about it, while the other 99.9% of the planet is going to get caught in a shitstorm that will undoubtedly complicate everyone's ability to survive. The problems here are multiple, inter-connected, and compounding: resource depletion, inflation, unemployment, food shortages, resource wars, systemic collapse. While this is not an easy sequence of events for Joe Sixpack to understand, we easily understand Joe Sixpack's likely possible reactions: panic, hoarding, mobbing, and rioting.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')s gas getting more expensive? You bet. You poor kids. Sorry. Just the way it goes.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in "Fooled by Randomness: The hidden role of change in life and in the markets" says it quite well: people these days, particularly with the internet, are inundating themselves with useless information. I mean really. We've got Aaron trying to be a writer over at his blog blathering about neo-darwinism. If Kunslter is a second rate thinker--he is--what does that make the depletion blogspot? Third rate? Fourth.
That you disagree with Aaron's "neo-darwinism" indicates that you are capable of critique, analysis, and complex thought, which will serve you well in the future. Aaron's ideas don't work for you, and as well they shouldn't, as no one singular set of ideas works for everyone. Making the blanket statement of it being "second-rate thinking", thus attempting to push people away from these ideas, in effect you are also pushing a one-size-fits-all solution.
One obvious benefit about Aaron's blog and Kunstler's writings are that they get people thinking along different and diverse lines. From a stochastic perspective, given that the environments people encounter during a possible crash are likely to be extremely diverse, survivability of society or of the human species will best be met by a diversity of ideas.
If you have already covered this in another thread, I apologize, but perhaps you can share some points about what, exactly, is "second rate" about Kunstler.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his is my non-contribution for this week/month: everyone get the fuck away from your computers. And this comes from someone who has been on the internet longer than all of you. Seriously. I mentioned before. My first employer built and ran the original internet (ARPANET). I've been munging around the internet longer than most of you. And my advice: get away from it. Go do something real.
Actively thinking and responding to the written word is one step more "real" than, say, passively reading a book. But I do support the position that people are probably better off spending less time in front of any video screen.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')emember, a large number of postings here, and at other places, are by the people who have no lives. And probably not too much income. So they're using this as a filler. Filling the empty places. Communing.
"No lives" and "not too much income" are unfair critiques and judgments, implying that doing something more or having something more is part of the solution. Wrong. "More" has always been part of the problem.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')eak oil is real. But most of the blather of the second and third rate thinkers who are praised on this site isn't real. Go outside into your community. Do something.
I would agree that doing something else in your local community would likely be beneficial, but that doing without thinking will lead to more problems than thinking without doing.
That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
