[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Geko45', 'M')ontequest,

You are making a valiant effort, but most people simply can not reason beyond their own experience base. They can't think systemically. All they think is "Hey, I could cut my own use by 10% and it wouldn't be a big deal". They don't get that if everyone did that all at once it would upset the balance of the whole system. Even the worst oil shock of all time (the Iran/Iraq War) only resulted in a 5.7% annual drop in available oil supply (1981).

[Omnitir]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')Most, if not almost all, solutions proffered here are Solutions in Isolation.

[Geko45]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omnitir', 'T')he death of the railroads in the US didn’t trigger economic collapse because alternative industries appeared. This is what must happen to survive the decline of the auto industry.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omnitir', ' ') If currently 80 jobs are tied to the auto industry, and 20 jobs are tied to, say, public transport, and you contract the auto industry but expand the public transit industry, resulting in 70 automotive related jobs and 30 public transit jobs, where exactly is the economic collapse?

[crapattack]

Other jobs to consider besides the usual baker, butcher & candlestick maker, warriors, archers and smiths:

Scavengers
Hanglider scouts & glider makers
Horse trainers
wheelwrights
solar & mico hydro technicians
engineers specializing in fortifications
irrigation/water engineer - consultants
waste management experts (not of the Sopranos variety)

Story tellers (entertainers of all kinds) will probably organize into caravans in the old way.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omnitir', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')Most, if not almost all, solutions proffered here are Solutions in Isolation.

[gg3]

Telephone operators.

As in, you lift your receiver and the woman at the switchboard plugs a cord into your line and says, "Number please?" And you say, "Oh, I'm trying to reach the hardware store at Main and 5th Street..." and she says, "That's Corner Hardware, their number is 3233, one moment please..." and she plugs a cord into their line, and then you hear the phone at the other end ring. "Hi, Corner Hardware..."

And for the most part they will be women, for the simple reason that the female voice is more intelligible over the phone than the male voice, as the telcos first discovered about a century ago.

I'm starting to think that a return to "manual telephony" (cord switchboards and operators) will occur in smaller towns as the cost of maintaining "automatic" (digital) systems increases and parts get harder and harder to obtain. On the other hand, cord switchboards and all the rest of the stuff of that era can be built and maintained with pre-petroleum methods and materials.

The switchboard will be open from 7am to 11pm, and you won't be able to stay on and talk after midnight because the evening operator will have to take down all the connections before she goes to sleep on a cot next to the switchboard. She'll be on duty overnight only for emergency calls only, as in, calling the sheriff or fire brigade. The next morning she'll go home and the day operator will be back on duty. The evening/night operators will work two such shifts per week; the day operators will work four day weeks alternated with three days (Friday through Sunday).

I suppose if the pubs are open late Friday and Saturday nights, the switchboard could stay open a bit later too, so that patrons who have hoisted a pint too many can call a carriage. And in a community defense emergency, someone will be on duty all night, with lines open to other towns, so the local militias can coordinate to repel whatever band of thugs might be trying to attack.

The hardware that makes all this work, will last a century or longer if it's kept clean and not mistreated.

As for long distance, "I'm sorry, all the circuits are busy, I'll call you when a line is free, it might take about twenty minutes..."

As for cellular and cordless and suchlike, that stuff will disappear after it starts breaking down and parts can't be found to keep it going.

There won't be touchtone dials or even rotary dials on these phones, they will look & work much as they did fifty years ago, and they will also be designed to last a century if properly taken care of.

By the end of the 21st century, communications will look & work much as they did at the beginning of the 20th.

And the post office will pick up & deliver the mail twice a day. Via horse-drawn wagon or just plain horseback.

And there things will remain until or unless a miracle comes along.

(This stuff I know well, being a telephone systems engineer and having worked in the industry for about 25 years.)

[setag]

I agree with gg3. I too have worked in the telecom industry. One exception, however, women will be on the switchboard not only for their voice quality, but because they listen more attentively.

[gg3]

Greetings, Setag, what part of the industry were you in?

Zensui, the answer is:

1) Take two broken wireless VOIP phones and try to turn them into one working unit. Compare to: Take two broken "Bell System type 500" telephones (or if you're in the UK, GPO 746, or in Japan, NTT 600) and try to get at least one of them working.

2) Take a wireless VOIP phone that has died due to rain or being dropped in a puddle and try to get it working. Try the same with any of the oldschool telephones mentioned above.

3) Try using a commonly-available battery to power a wireless VOIP phone. Try the same with a simple talking circuit between any two of the oldschool telephones mentioned above.

4) Take some sandpaper and rub the buttons on your cellphone for sixty seconds, to simulate about ten years of wear via normal use. Now hand it to someone and ask them to make a call without asking you for help. Now try the same trick with the touchtone dial buttons or rotary dial number plate on any of the oldschool telephones above (actually that would be Bell 2500, GPO 786, and so on). (Hint: on the old phones, the numbers don't rub off, they are molded all the way through the plastic, except in the UK they are printed on the underside of the rotary dial number plate.)

5) Look up the make and model number of any cellphone made 20 years ago and try to find one on Ebay. After that do a search for "telephone 500" and "telephone 2500."

The blunt fact is that the modern stuff is impossible to service and maintain and repair. The oldschool stuff lasts forever. I can take phones from any of four US manufacturers from 1955 through about 2005 and swap parts among them freely and they will all fit perfectly and work perfectly. I have 40-something-year-old PBX equipment that still works almost like new. And I know people who have switching systems that date back to the 1930s that also still work almost like new.

The design paradigm for today's hardware, with rare execptions, is the same as for other consumer electronics. The oldschool stuff was designed to be rugged, robust, reliable, and repairable forever.

I can build an entire village's telephone system, end-to-end including the cord-and-plug switchboard, with parts that are commonly available from electrical and electronic scrap material. It will last a century or longer. And it can be repaired all along the way. And it will be quite tolerant of fluctuations in DC power supply levels, anywhere from about 6 volts DC to about 52 volts DC.

Can't do that with wireless VOIP.

The place for wireless in the future will be what it was 50 years ago: to relay trunk calls across large distances of open countryside between settled areas. This will require all of the best knowledge and technically capable staff we can muster. These facilities will be carefully installed and meticulously maintained, and protected by armed guards who are duly sworn as auxiliaries to their local law enforcement agencies.

Internet-protocol transmission techniques may be used at the trunk level, to feed into the wireless relay system. But again that equipment will be scarce, meticulously maintained, and guarded like the life-safety critical resource that it is.

Your local loop, i.e. everything from your desk to the switchboard downtown, will be as I described in my previous posting.

In some places there will still be "automatic" service. In our community we will have digital PBX because I will be installing it myself. It will be backed up by a rotary dial "Strowger" system which a good friend of mine can install (he has warehouses full of the stuff). And that in turn will be backed up by the cord switchboard. So regardless of whatever happens in the outside world, in my community you'll still be able to call anyone in the village. For at least another century.

(I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't also mention that our engineering services are available to any sustainable community that wants to engage us. We're not cheap and putting in a decent system is not cheap, but communication reduces transportation, communication is commerce, and communication is defense.)

---

About women as operators: The reason for the "more attentive" observation is: When men are in a multi-tasked or interrupt-driven situation, they lose about 15% of their IQ for the duration of the task. When women are in the same type of situation, they lose only 5%. This is apparently a matter of anatomy and physiology in the difference between male and female brains. This is also why women tend to do much better at office management than men. (Cheer up guys, men have a bit of an edge when it comes to doing 3-dimensional spatial tasks, which is why we tend to become hunters and mechanics.)

So while we want to preserve a society where every person is equal under the law, and has an equal opportunity to compete and cooperate, we shouldn't be surprised if some identifyable groups of people tend to perform better in-aggregate than others at specific types of tasks. The key sustainable values here are individual liberty, equality under law, diversity as a source of cultural strength, and a strong work ethic that views individuals as citizens and producers rather than as consumers.

[Mircea]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Geko45', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omnitir', 'T')he death of the railroads in the US didn’t trigger economic collapse because alternative industries appeared. This is what must happen to survive the decline of the auto industry.

[dohboi]

Mircea, I think you make many valid points. The poor will suffer first (and are actually suffering now). Then the not-quite poor. Then the middle- and upper middle-classes. The rich and super-rich will be the last to make major adjustments, and by that time most of the rest of us will be destitute--picking scraps of undigested scraps of food from the shit-piles of the wealthy (i.e. "trickle down economics").

Sorry. I guess I just summarized capitalism. But this will be capitalism on steroids.

[Geko45]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Mircea', 'R')ising fuel costs will result in a reallocation of capital, labor and resources rail, which has been happening for some time now. The auto and air industry will not be "violently ripped away from us" as you put it. You don't seem to be able to grasp the economics of PO. As oil prices rise, demand decreases, not increases, and that will delay the onset of PO for decades.

[crapattack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')s oil prices rise, demand decreases, not increases, and that will delay the onset of PO for decades.

[Omnitir]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('crapattack', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')s oil prices rise, demand decreases, not increases, and that will delay the onset of PO for decades.

[Omnitir]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')Ok, what energy source is on the horizon that can offset the decline of oil, provide for economic growth, and that you can also pour into your gas tank?

[Geko45]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omnitir', 'S')o yes, the cause of PO is a supply problem, which will result in decreased demand, not an increase. Therefore it does stand to reason that the maximum in global oil production will be many decades away.

[Ender]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')Reducing oil consumption affects everybody along the gravy train, from tires, fan belts, batteries, auto parts, gas taxes, motel/hotels, fast food, car washes, car insurance, body shops, etc. and all the delivery companies that supply them.

1 out of every 6 jobs is tied to auto use where most of our oil consumption goes. We spend a lot of money employing millions of people and supporting businessses while we are driving around town. You cut oil use 30% and you cut jobs, period.

This has been covered ad naseum.

[Geko45]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ender', 'I')f you and your country are so car-dependent that you can't see a way forward that involves using less oil, then it'll probably be a self fulfilling prophecy for you.

[Omnitir]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Geko45', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ender', 'I')f you and your country are so car-dependent that you can't see a way forward that involves using less oil, then it'll probably be a self fulfilling prophecy for you.

[thuja]

Look- its quite simple- fossil fuel depletion is an issue that is imbedded in every layer of economic activity.

IN terms of liquid fuel, as supply decreases, price increases enough to cause demand destruction. Poorer countries and the lower classes of the First World feel the brunt of the effect and lower their oil consumption with each price increase.

But increasing oil prices affect the price of everything else as well, including food prices. We're seeing that now as a massive push for ethanol diverts corn to fuel instead of food. This raises the price not only of corn but all meat derived from livestock that consumes corn. Shipping, trucking and fertilizer costs increase the price of all food.

Manufactured goods all start increasing in price because industry needs fossil fuels to create consumer goods, as well as packaging, trucking and shipping them.

Virtually every element of the economy is now dependent on cheap fossil fuels. As they become more expensive, all goods will become increasingly wscarce and increasingly expesnive.

In essence we are looking at increasing unabated inflation in many different sectors. We are already seeing these factors play out right now. Eventually inflation will become so rampant that the underclasses and third world countries will not be able to afford essential goods. What will happen then? One can only guess, but historically and as we can see throughout the globe, this leads to riots, revolution, starvation, pestilence, war and genocide. Too many people for too few resources...

Now I think there are mitigating factors and I don't discount them, even ones taken in isolation. This is where I would differ from Montequest. Solutions in isolation will not stop the inevitable depletion of oil but they will allow certain areas to withstand the pressures of radically decreased energy.

For example, if a richer country, such as Germany, devotes massive amounts of money and energy into developing alternative energy systems such as solar and wind and nuclear, while conserving bbroadly, as well as devoting considerable subsidies toward local organic farms, then this country will be able to mitigate the worst effects of depletion better than, say...Sudan.

Will they be able to stop the cascading depletion of oil? No of course not- but they will be able to handle the effects better than other nations.