[ColossalContrarian]

This is great...

Memorial Day -Battle to the gas pumps

[sciencegirl]

lol that was pretty funny

[MattSavinar]

Only the link got copied over... fixed it. (Aaron) link
Here's the kicker about highly advanced software and command and control ("C&C") police state type programs: Even high-tech organizations like the NSA are subject to the law of diminishing returns as articulated by Joseph Tainter in "The Collapse of Complex Societies."
The NSA's current electricity crisis is an example of one these breaking points, albeit one currently at a comparatively early and only mildly disruptive stage:

A year after the National Security Agency nearly maxed out its
electrical capacity, some offices are experiencing significant
power disruptions as the agency confronts the increasingly urgent
problem of an infrastructure stretched to its limits, intelligence
officials said.
The spy agency has delayed the deployment of some new data
-processing equipment because it is short on power and space.
Outages have shut down some offices in NSA headquarters for up
to half a day. And some officials fear that major problems could
occur this summer as temperatures climb.

A lot of Peak Oilers are freaked TPTB are going to implement a "1984"-style police state once TSHTF. But the law of diminishing returns is the big X-factor: the C&C mechanisms employed by TPTB are as dependent on huge energy inputs and 3,000 mile supply lines as Wal-Mart is. The day those supply lines and energy flows reach certain tipping points, TPTB won't even be able to answer the phones let alone engage in massive Orwellian command and control schemes. In other words, the future is more likely to be a low-energy, chaotic dystopia like "The Road Warrior" than a high-energy, fascist dystopia like "1984".

[Roccland]

VIDEO: Orwell Rolls in his Grave

[Heineken]

The world of "1984" did not strike me as particularly "high energy."
In fact, it was rather quaint by today's standards. People lived jammed into tiny apartments and used public transportation or walked, if I remember correctly.
I think that whatever the future looks like, it will probably be different from what we imagine, and that people will have either no role or a much smaller role in it.

[TommyJefferson]

The whole "tipping point" concept is shaky in this regard.

[Rogozhin]

H, Are you impling that governets, corporations, and militias will be the determining factor of the immediate future?

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he future will be more akin to Mad Max than George Orwell

[Jellric]

Well I don't believe it unless I read it here at peakoil.com first.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he future will be more akin to Mad Max than George Orwell

[mididoctors]

I go with a more soylent green version when indulging in doomer porn

[Grautr]

how long before the world discovers they are making bread out of people Boris?

[parainwater]

Given a choice between those two possible futures I would definately prefer the Mad Max world.
Tina Turner had great legs!!

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Rogozhin', 'H'), Are you impling that governets, corporations, and militias will be the determining factor of the immediate future?

[chris-h]

My vote goes for the Matrix

[GrizzAdams]

I could see the class gap getting greater. Maybe even resemble South Africa somewhat, where the rich have to put flame throwers or spring loaded blades on their cars to keep from getting jacked.

[frankthetank]

No matter what most of us are doomed, or children, or grandchildren. An elite group of wealthy individuals might keep going for awhile, but even they will have to give up their addicition to oil someday. Maybe by then that moon base will be built. In the long run, hunting and gathering is probably where we are headed. I think farming may be doomed...all it did was increase population.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MattSavinar', ' ') The day those supply lines and energy flows reach certain tipping points, TPTB won't even be able to answer the phones let alone engage in massive Orwellian command and control schemes. In other words, the future is more likely to be a low-energy, chaotic dystopia like "The Road Warrior" than a high-energy, fascist dystopia like "1984".

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Montequest', 'T')he first thing our founding fathers did once in power was pass the Bill of Rights to protect the people they were governing. Fresh in their minds was the memory of the British violation of civil rights before and during the Revolution. ...
“These restrictions, I think, are so guarded as to hinder evil only. However, if we do not have them now, I have so much confidence in my countrymen as to be satisfied that we shall have them as soon as the degeneracy of our government shall render them necessary." —Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789.

[MattSavinar]

@Aaron: Why not just post the link? Isn't that the way you're suppossed to do it?
I mean you can't just cut and paste from the NY Times, as an example. LATOC ain't the NY Times but the copyright rules apply the same way.
Not to mention that your "edit job" left out the graph and the links in the article. So people can't go check the Baltimore Sun article, the link to the Tainter entry, etc.
Of course, if you don't want me to link to my own articles it's your site here so "you the man."