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If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

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If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby ubercynicmeister » Mon 20 Mar 2006, 21:11:11

...how will they handle living without Cheap Oil?

http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/why-mobiles-are-shrines-to-selfimage/2006/03/20/1142703262375.html

These living embodiments of Clueless Yuppiedom are...truly indescribably immature.

I wonder what'll happen when the whole creaking lot of Peak Oil comes a-tumbling down upon their heads?

BOY, I so do NOT want to be around such people when the Crisis hits. Even it it's earliest stages, they would make life unbearable.
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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby rogerhb » Mon 20 Mar 2006, 21:22:40

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ubercynicmeister', 'I') wonder what'll happen when the whole creaking lot of Peak Oil comes a-tumbling down upon their heads?


With all the comms technology, does anybody actually say anything worthwhile?
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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby Zardoz » Mon 20 Mar 2006, 21:38:10

Being young, they will adjust very quickly, of course. It's we graybeards who will sink into depressed states.

And who says we'll lose our cell phones? How much power does it take to charge one? The phone systems will always be there.

Its the Escalades, Navigators, H2s, sportfishing boats, motor homes, and private planes that will go.

We'll have an electrical grid. The cost of the power will be so frickin' high that we'll actually turn off lights when we don't need them, and learn to live again without the A/C running 24/7, but the power will be there if we choose to pay for it.

Kiss off the backyard spas, but we'll still be yapping away on those little low-voltage phones.

Hell, in the not-too-distant future we'll probably have internal nanophones implanted that'll run off the electricity in our bodies. We'll whisper some code that will activate it, and operate it by voice command after that.
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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby nethawk » Mon 20 Mar 2006, 21:46:04

The energy consumption of mobile phones is low compared to the SUVs that we drive, but there are something like a billion of them in use around the world. It's true that most of that energy doesn't come from petroleum directly, but we do know that we can't generate electricity without petroleum, unless we haul the coal to the power plants in wheelbarrows!

I'm not sure how they do it in Australia, but here in the U.S. we have power plants in Pennsylvania (a state with A LOT of coal) burning coal from Wyoming, just so that the power companies can get away with running their plants without scrubbers.

Information Technology accounts for about 8% of electricity demand in the U.S., I'm not sure if the statistic includes the cell phone system or not. One could say that it's all powered by natural gas, because all of this technology sprung up in the past 15 years, and in those 15 years nearly all of the new electricity to come online is from gas-fired plants. Gas is in the same boat as oil as far as sustainability goes. Air conditioning, hour-long showers, and hot tubs will go before IT will.

Yuppie Culture is pretty much clueless of our environment and energy situation, at least from what I know.
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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby waegari » Tue 21 Mar 2006, 06:13:10

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nethawk', 'T')he energy consumption of mobile phones is low compared to the SUVs that we drive, but there are something like a billion of them in use around the world.


It's not just the energy consumption in using them, but also the consumption of oil in producing them, which makes the number of a billion phones into another stressing factor for oil demand. I'm not sure how much oil you would need to produce them, but let me venture the guess that it's not too far removed from the ratio in producing computers. According to a UN University report you need ten times the computer's weight in oil to get one computer produced.

And there's already one firm aiming for mobile phones, made from plant based plastics:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')TT DoCoMo is developing mobile phones utilizing plant-based plastics, in an effort to develop products that are friendly to the Earth's environment. In April 2005, the company unveiled a prototype handset made from a plastic comprised of polylactic acid extracted from corn. Used in place of conventional oil-based plastics, the corn-based plastic contributes to a reduced consumption of oil resources and lower CO2 emissions by relying on plants as a raw material, since plants are known to stabilize carbon. Corn-based plastic also offers better biodegradability for both recycling and systematic waste processing.
In June 2005, NTT DoCoMo unveiled a prototype FOMA handset made from a kenaf fiber-reinforced bioplastic. The bioplastic blends kenaf fibers with polylactic acid to deliver improved heat resistance and strength. Kenaf plants are known for their ability to rapidly absorb carbon dioxide, promising to provide a positive impact on the environment through systematic planting. The prototype handsets are being used for communications by NTT DoCoMo staff at the 2005 World Exposition in Aichi, Japan, and could be released as future commercial products.


So if this would get advertized as environmentally friendly mobile phone and be succesful, that would result in one more stress on global bio mass capacity. Not to mention what would happen if the same kind of plastics would get used for the production of computers..
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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby 0mar » Wed 22 Mar 2006, 18:14:53

Never had a mobile phone.

Could never afford it.

I think it's stupid, why the fuck you have to talk to someone about how big your shitlogs are? Or what so and so was wearing? Big fucken deal.

Plus, it's rude as hell. Try carrying on a conversation with someone with a mobile phone. 50% of the time, a call comes in (almost always about something retarded too) and interupts your conversation. The person you were talking to doesn't even have the decency to say they are busy/occupied, they will, most of the time, just talk on the mobile instead of you. Annoying as fuck!

And why the fuck would most anyone with a brain even want to associate with most anyone? 75% of all people in this country don't know shit, are boring as hell and have zero sense of humor. They aren't witty, thought provoking, etc etc. It's like talking to a brick wall, but without the eye candy.
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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby MyOtherID » Wed 22 Mar 2006, 18:26:14

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nethawk', 'w')e can't generate electricity without petroleum, unless we haul the coal to the power plants in wheelbarrows!


Rubbish! I charge my cellphone with solar:

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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby TheTurtle » Wed 22 Mar 2006, 18:47:38

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MyOtherID', ' ')

Rubbish! I charge my cellphone with solar:

Image
\\

How much of both the cellphone and the solar charger derive from petroleum based components?
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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby MyOtherID » Wed 22 Mar 2006, 19:12:24

You don't need oil to make plastic. Ever heard of Bioplastic?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Forbes', 'C')hemical giants like DuPont, as well as small, research-oriented startups like the MIT spinout Metabolix in Cambridge, Mass., are beavering away on plastics brewed up in fermenters full of living organisms and nutrient broth. While biotech chemicals account for just a smidgen of total sales today, it's a trend that could quickly add up to a very big deal, according to a recent McKinsey & Co. study. McKinsey principal Rolf Bachmann estimates that by 2010, chemical products made at least partly by biotech methods could account for $280 billion of a projected $1.4-trillion-a-year chemical market. Sales that large would displace a notable quantity of oil, freeing it up for other uses and helping keep prices down--though no one can yet estimate by how much. It would also shift the source of industrial chemicals from foreign countries to farm fields nearer the markets where the end products will be consumed. That would cut transportation costs and conceivably reduce dependence on foreign oil.
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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby TheTurtle » Wed 22 Mar 2006, 19:21:50

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MyOtherID', 'Y')ou don't need oil to make plastic. Ever heard of Bioplastic?


Still speculative, it appears.

Let me rephrase my original question: How much of both the cellphone and the solar charger derive from Bioplastic based components?

Ahh ... I thought as much. :P
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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby MyOtherID » Wed 22 Mar 2006, 19:48:21

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheTurtle', 'S')till speculative, it appears.


Nope. :)

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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby TheTurtle » Wed 22 Mar 2006, 21:35:56

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MyOtherID', 'N')ope. :)


Fair enough. :)
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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby Doch » Thu 23 Mar 2006, 02:34:17

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ubercynicmeister', '.')..how will they handle living without Cheap Oil?

http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/why-mobiles-are-shrines-to-selfimage/2006/03/20/1142703262375.html

These living embodiments of Clueless Yuppiedom are...truly indescribably immature.

I wonder what'll happen when the whole creaking lot of Peak Oil comes a-tumbling down upon their heads?

BOY, I so do NOT want to be around such people when the Crisis hits. Even it it's earliest stages, they would make life unbearable.



I overheard an amazing conversation when on the bus to University today. A girl, 19 or 20, was relaying to her friend how horrified she was at the thought of her parents taking off on a sailing trip for three or four days without leaving any food stocks. She went on to say that she was anxious because she didn't in the slightest have any idea how to cook, and is planning on demanding that her parents leave her a four day supply of take-aways.

Oh my goodness!

I thought : how can some people be intelligent enough to attend University, but be so clueless at the same time? Won't she have fun when she finds out about PO!?!
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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby UIUCstudent01 » Thu 23 Mar 2006, 04:33:20

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doch', 't')ake-aways.


Take-out for the Non-British.

I think this girl was especially clueless...

But, it could be that their eating habits don't have their pantry and refrigerator stocked with easily made stuff (one-step stuff - boil and eat, steam and eat, fry and eat, microwave and eat, etc.)...
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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby Zardoz » Thu 23 Mar 2006, 05:03:52

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheTurtle', '.')..Still speculative, it appears...


That wasn't, and neither was my implanted phone musings:

http://news.zarlink.com/archive/2005/Ma ... ish.htm.en

Give 'em time. They'll get there.
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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby TheTurtle » Thu 23 Mar 2006, 17:51:04

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheTurtle', '.')..Still speculative, it appears...


That wasn't, and neither was my implanted phone musings:

http://news.zarlink.com/archive/2005/Ma ... ish.htm.en

Give 'em time. They'll get there.


Acknowledged. :)
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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby ubercynicmeister » Thu 23 Mar 2006, 20:32:51

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', 'B')eing young, they will adjust very quickly, of course. It's we graybeards who will sink into depressed states.

And who says we'll lose our cell phones? How much power does it take to charge one? The phone systems will always be there.


Zardoz....boy are you in need of some information.

OK, let's assume that all of the components from the average Moblie phone can be made from non-oil based materials, and that the machines which make the mobile phones (which use Oil, although indirectly) can be converted over to the use of a non-oil material, too. That's two enormous assumptions, but still, let's make them.

OK, what the heck about the BASE STATIONS?

Every time a moderate-to-large sized storm comes through, people complain bitterly about how the mobile phones are fine, it's that the base-stations have died / fallen over / ceased operating. How often do we hear authorities (correctly) warning people NOT to depend upon Mobile Phones when there's large weather events? And why do they issue such warnings? Because of the well-know vulnerability of Mobile Phone Base-Stations to occasinoning damage when exposed to such weather events.

Then there's the stuff that makes the base-stations work. Mainly electricity.

We already know that in a Post Peak Oil world, keeping some form of "national grid" going will prove damn near impossible, as so much of the componentry is based on Oil- derived materials. Or at least Oil gets used in it's manufacture or transportation.

But: lets asume we can still keep our National Grid(s) going...no, I dunno how this will be done, but let's assume it can be.

OK, what happens when one's built-down-to-a-price-not -up-to-a-standard phone reaches it's life-expired date? When the really vital bits finally stop working and nothing can make 'em go again?

You're "just going to buy a new one"? How? When you won't be able to get enough food, how the heck are you gonna get mobile phones?

Even worse, that Base-Station is built of components which are built along the same design philosophy. So how do we replace them? And given the widely-separated places where such Base-Stations are "dotted over the land-scape" how is one gonna get the transportation to do the actual fitting of the replacement equipment?

Sure, the base-station s in the bigger centres will be the last to go, I don't doubt that. Post Peak Oil there will be some idiot trying to "preserve normalcy" who will persuade their fellow citizens that the Right To Talk over a mobile is more important than the ability to find food, but that won't last long. Starving people like to find food a whole lot more than they like to compare notes to their neighbours or send them irrelevant text messages.

And that's without people doing the usual human thing of "scavenging". If a mobile base-station is working, then it'll be pretty easy to find that out - and it would make a tempting target, Post Peak Oil, for those who want the bits they cannot buy any more.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')ts the Escalades, Navigators, H2s, sportfishing boats, motor homes, and private planes that will go.


A WHOLE lot more than that.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e'll have an electrical grid. The cost of the power will be so frickin' high that we'll actually turn off lights when we don't need them, and learn to live again without the A/C running 24/7, but the power will be there if we choose to pay for it.

Kiss off the backyard spas, but we'll still be yapping away on those little low-voltage phones.

Hell, in the not-too-distant future we'll probably have internal nanophones implanted that'll run off the electricity in our bodies. We'll whisper some code that will activate it, and operate it by voice command after that.


Yeah, riiiight, right after the Martians provide us with oodles of cheap oil.
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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby ubercynicmeister » Thu 23 Mar 2006, 20:34:15

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doch', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ubercynicmeister', '.')..how will they handle living without Cheap Oil?

http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/why-mobiles-are-shrines-to-selfimage/2006/03/20/1142703262375.html

These living embodiments of Clueless Yuppiedom are...truly indescribably immature.

I wonder what'll happen when the whole creaking lot of Peak Oil comes a-tumbling down upon their heads?

BOY, I so do NOT want to be around such people when the Crisis hits. Even it it's earliest stages, they would make life unbearable.



I overheard an amazing conversation when on the bus to University today. A girl, 19 or 20, was relaying to her friend how horrified she was at the thought of her parents taking off on a sailing trip for three or four days without leaving any food stocks. She went on to say that she was anxious because she didn't in the slightest have any idea how to cook, and is planning on demanding that her parents leave her a four day supply of take-aways.

Oh my goodness!

I thought : how can some people be intelligent enough to attend University, but be so clueless at the same time? Won't she have fun when she finds out about PO!?!


One of the biggest changes wrought by the Feminists - as yet unappreciated - is how very few "modern" (post-feminist) girls know how to cook. Remember: "Cooking" was denounced as part of the "male-dominated patriarchy", same as "Cleaning" or "being clean" (rhetorical question: what the heck is a female dominated patriarchy? Or is this just yet another example of the empty tautologies that Feminisim is so famous for?).

Beleive me, after having travelled as often on Public Transport as I have, the number of females who do not practice even the basics of hygene are ...worryingly large. These girls reek.

The thing that has constantly surprised me is how good most younger guys are around the kitchen and see it as no big deal, whereas their girlfriends couldn't boil an egg. One of my mate's sons gets his big kicks out of mercilessly teasing his girlfriend about how useless she is in terms of cooking (he's a wizz). This is an area, Post Peak Oil, that will prove one of the most difficult. If you can't cook (for yourself) clean (for yourself) and generally look after yourself, you will be seen as an unneccessary burden upon others. I honestly don't know how things will go then for anyone who doesn't know things like cooking.
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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby MyOtherID » Thu 23 Mar 2006, 20:45:05

I've seen plenty of solar powered mobile phone base stations.

There are even very large ones for huge rural areas:

Image

Mobile phones will not go away, you can count on that.
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Re: If they can't handle living without their mobiles....

Unread postby Battle_Scarred_Galactico » Fri 24 Mar 2006, 05:39:24

I honestly don't know how things will go then for anyone who doesn't know things like cooking.


Good posts, but I have to just say that getting the food first would be slightly higher on my priority list. Worrying about cooking it can come a distant second.
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