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The Big Picture

General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby Raxozanne » Tue 28 Mar 2006, 11:04:02

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jimk', '
')It's the idea that there is just one pie that really suffocates us. Petroleum reserves are just one pie, yeah, that must be an accurate enough perspective. Or copper or iron or gold. Of course some cakes one actually can both have and eat, while others disappear as they are eaten.


Petroleum might be just 'one' pie to you but it's an extremely important pie that supports all the other pies that allow for 6.5 billion people to live on this earth.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')What we seem to need more than anything is a bit of imagination. Just to see the amazing pies that are possible.


Nope I don't think imagination will help in this instance. You can't change the fundamental rules of resource depletion and overshoot. Maybe some innovative way to get rid of large numbers of people quickly?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')We don't kill each other over food, we kill each other over ideas. We have been in the imaginary pie business since prehistoric times.


Umm maybe you better go and tell that to the tribes currently clashing in Kenya over water/ pasture resources.
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby jimk » Tue 28 Mar 2006, 14:10:07

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TWilliam', '
')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jimk', 'U')nbounded progress and economic growth are entirely possible in a world with finite fossil fuel resources.


You're kidding, right? Barring colonization of space, no it is not. Even with an infinite supply of energy, there will still be other limits to expansion.


I'm not kidding at all. There is no necessary link between energy supplies and progress or economic growth. We can measure progress and wealth by any standards we want. How to steer the evolution of these patterns... well, Madison Avenue knows a lot about that.

The basic physical requirements for human health are really quite simple. We get ourselves in endless trouble by all our imaginary needs, mostly stuff to show off and establish social status.

Taichi Sakaiya's book The Knowledge-Value Revolution is really worth a look. I am mostly just parroting his fundamental point. Except he was just predicting what will happen, whereas I am advocating doing some steering along the way. I read that book 15 years ago, so I might have some details wrong! But his picture of the future world is turning out to be amazingly accurate.

Look also at a book like The Gift by Lewis Hyde. People can use just about anything to represent wealth. Money is a pure abstraction!
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby TWilliam » Tue 28 Mar 2006, 21:04:17

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jimk', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TWilliam', '
')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jimk', 'U')nbounded progress and economic growth are entirely possible in a world with finite fossil fuel resources.


You're kidding, right? Barring colonization of space, no it is not. Even with an infinite supply of energy, there will still be other limits to expansion.


I'm not kidding at all. There is no necessary link between energy supplies and progress or economic growth. We can measure progress and wealth by any standards we want. How to steer the evolution of these patterns... well, Madison Avenue knows a lot about that.

The basic physical requirements for human health are really quite simple. We get ourselves in endless trouble by all our imaginary needs, mostly stuff to show off and establish social status.


Jimk I think you're missing the fundamental point here. No matter what sort of "standard" you choose to quantify it, "economic growth" remains a euphemism for increasing consumption. That is what it denotes. And guess what? "Growth" of any kind - be it physical, economic or whatever - is predicated, first and foremost, on energy; without energy there is no growth. For that matter there is no life. To say "there is no necessary link" between energy supplies and growth is simply ludicrous.
"It means buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy, because Kansas? Is goin' bye-bye... "
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby jimk » Tue 28 Mar 2006, 22:10:43

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TWilliam', '
')"Growth" of any kind - be it physical, economic or whatever - is predicated, first and foremost, on energy


Well, nothing exists without some kind of involvement with energy. My point is that things can grow without a corresponding growth in energy. There is probably some minimum energy involved in any sort of thing. Without increasing energy, all kinds of variety can be introduced, and the marketplace can evaluate these by whatever formula it dreams up. These formulas do not need to be coupled to increasing use of energy, or any other raw material either.

For example, one can buy a pair of jeans for $20 or for $200. The raw materials that go into the jeans is the same. The difference is in design, in the chic label, or all different kinds of rarity. People will sometimes pay a significant premium for vintage jeans. I bet a pair of jeans that James Dean wore would be worth even more. No difference in raw materials usage, but a huge range in price.
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby Zardoz » Wed 29 Mar 2006, 03:08:39

The Cornucopian Manifesto:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jimk', '.')..accounting is really magic, the creation of a convincing illusion...Really there are countless pies...there are just endless pies to be divided up...Energy is like money...It's the idea that there is just one pie that really suffocates us...Unbounded progress and economic growth are entirely possible in a world with finite fossil fuel resources. I am quite confident that humanity will figure this out one way or another, whether it takes fifty years or five hundred years...The fantasy world that I propose we live in, winning and losing countless imaginary pies, may seem to folks like utter delusion...Yeah, the problem isn't so much a lack of imagination as an over rigidity of imagination...


We all wish this was true. It isn't.
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby jimk » Wed 29 Mar 2006, 03:54:25

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', 'T')he Cornucopian Manifesto:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jimk', '
')...Really there are countless pies...

We all wish this was true. It isn't.


What I am trying to get across is not cornucopian at all. The cornucopians are also stuck on the "one pie" perspective. The cornucopians just think that the one pie is unlimited. This is totally stupid.

Here is yet another example. Look at the evolution of the music composed for string quartets, from say Haydn to Hindemith, i.e. from 1750 to 1950. The music really evolved over that time. It is totally reasonable to say that the music progressed. Yet there is no more physical energy or other supply of raw materials required to compose or perform Hindemith's music than Haydn's.

Of course, contemporary American culture tends to value huge high horsepower vehicles, McMansions, vacations half way around the world, etc. etc. much more than the sublime pleasures of e.g. learning to play a Hindemith quartet. We are addicted to the consumption of a few pies, and the limits to those pies are rapidly becoming apparent. One way or another, our patterns of consumption are going to change.

An analogy. Suppose we are alcoholic & locked in a huge mansion with an extensive wine cellar. We've worked ourselves up to three bottles a day, along with whatever other debauchery one would like to toss in for flavor. But between the alcohol poisoning our liver and the wine cellar running empty, it starts to trickle into our consciousness that significant change is right around the corner, one way or another.

The cornucopian reponse is to dismiss those forbodings. Livers are made to be resilient! Probably there are some more liquor cabinets up in the servants quarters! Party on!

The anti-cornucopian view, well, I don't know exactly, but it can range all the way to suicidal. Anyway, it is stuck on alcohol as the source of all pleasure, the sole reason to live. If we can't drink, well, life is hardly worth living.

What I am proposing is that it is possible to get over the alcohol addiction and to realize that there are many other pleasures and even superior pleasures. The library is well stocked with classic literature and even contains a piano. There is a garden that can supply delicious fresh vegetables and also the joy of digging in the dirt and learning about plants, and what about the telescope on the roof.

Our addiction is actually a prison! To escape our addiction is not to give up the source of all positive values, but to be liberated to explore countless dimensions of positive values.

Overcoming the deep seated addiction that we are caught in, that is not going to be fun or pretty. I see very hard times ahead. But if we can recognize that a very rewarding life, even a more rewarding life, is possible outside of the addiction, maybe that recognition can help us find a path from where we are to a better situation.

We will eventually find ourselves in a more sustainable situation, that is inevitable. The situation on the moon is perfectly sustainable, for that matter. There are many different sorts of sustainability, and different ways to get there. To the extent that we can steer, we owe our grandchildren's grandchildren our best insights and efforts.
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby Battle_Scarred_Galactico » Wed 29 Mar 2006, 04:00:30

Energy is like money...It's the idea that there is just one pie that really suffocates us...Unbounded progress and economic growth are entirely possible in a world with finite fossil fuel resources.

Christ on a bike, I hope this is a joke. If not I seriously suggest you go out into the real world and take a look at how modern technological processes are possible.
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby Raxozanne » Wed 29 Mar 2006, 04:16:27

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jimk', '
')
The anti-cornucopian view, well, I don't know exactly, but it can range all the way to suicidal. Anyway, it is stuck on alcohol as the source of all pleasure, the sole reason to live. If we can't drink, well, life is hardly worth living.

What I am proposing is that it is possible to get over the alcohol addiction and to realize that there are many other pleasures and even superior pleasures. The library is well stocked with classic literature and even contains a piano. There is a garden that can supply delicious fresh vegetables and also the joy of digging in the dirt and learning about plants, and what about the telescope on the roof.

Our addiction is actually a prison! To escape our addiction is not to give up the source of all positive values, but to be liberated to explore countless dimensions of positive values.


There are already many people on these boards that are buying rural land and starting and learning to live sustainable lives in preparation and are enjoying it and seeing its advantages. In fact most of us are making some sort of preparation for the post peak world and not sitting around thinking 'omg without oil I'm not going to even bother'. Doomers might write on this board saying 'our way of life is doomed' and 'many people will die' but must of them will struggle as hard as poss not to be the losers when TSHTF.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')vercoming the deep seated addiction that we are caught in, that is not going to be fun or pretty. I see very hard times ahead. But if we can recognize that a very rewarding life, even a more rewarding life, is possible outside of the addiction, maybe that recognition can help us find a path from where we are to a better situation.


It woud be nice if we had some political drive in this direction however unfortunately any large scale movement of this kind would be stamped out by our leaders as they are intent on maintaining the status quo, even if that means driving their country over the cliff.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')We will eventually find ourselves in a more sustainable situation, that is inevitable. The situation on the moon is perfectly sustainable, for that matter. There are many different sorts of sustainability, and different ways to get there. To the extent that we can steer, we owe our grandchildren's grandchildren our best insights and efforts.


With Bush and Blair steering we are going to be screwed :-(
Many different sorts of sustainability? Please explain because in my world a species is either living beyond it's resource constraints or it's not.
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby Doly » Wed 29 Mar 2006, 04:58:03

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Raxozanne', '
')It woud be nice if we had some political drive in this direction however unfortunately any large scale movement of this kind would be stamped out by our leaders as they are intent on maintaining the status quo, even if that means driving their country over the cliff.


I don't agree with that. I think one of the problems is that the people that should take up the issue in the political arena, ie the Green Party, is surprisingly not aware of its importance in most countries. Even green NGOs, such as Greenpeace and Friends of Earth, are out of the loop. I have recently written to both of them, and the answer was:

Greenpeace: See our studies about powering the UK with renewables. Nice, on the right track, but what about transport? Hmmmm... they haven't thought much about that.
Friends of Earth: We are dimly aware of peak oil but not working on it. For all the gods' sake, WHY?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Raxozanne', '
')With Bush and Blair steering we are going to be screwed :-(


At least they are clearly aware of the issues. Not that I particularly agree with their solution.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Raxozanne', '
')Many different sorts of sustainability? Please explain because in my world a species is either living beyond it's resource constraints or it's not.


I imagine he meant that even if there's a mass extinction, some kind of balance will be achieved eventually.
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby jimk » Wed 29 Mar 2006, 05:15:40

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', '
')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Raxozanne', '
')Many different sorts of sustainability? Please explain because in my world a species is either living beyond it's resource constraints or it's not.


I imagine he meant that even if there's a mass extinction, some kind of balance will be achieved eventually.


Right. Many different variations on the mass extinction theme are possible, and each will lead to a different sustainable world. Probably most of them won't include humans. Perhaps more than one will.

On a smaller scale, even if we don't have mass extinctions. Suppose we bury lots of plutonium and slowly it leaches into the ground water or slowly blows into dust so that increases cancer rates for like 100,000 years. There might be some such long term equilibrium possible that includes the survival of human beings. It might be a considerably more miserable kind of survival than one where there isn't plutonium slowly leaking. I expect that earth can support many different sorts of long term quasi-stable networks of eco-systems. Just look at the wide variety of worlds that earth has already supported over the last few billion years!

It's true of course, that any long term quasi-stable pattern must involve recycling of raw materials and energy balance... I don't see how any solution doesn't look like solar energy in, heat energy out, from the most macroscopic perspective. It's just a question of how the solar energy gets channelled on its way to heat dissipation. Lots of possibilities there, though!
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby jimk » Wed 29 Mar 2006, 05:22:17

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Battle_Scarred_Galactico', '
')take a look at how modern technological processes are possible.


In five hundred years, I expect our current technological processes will be as long forgotten as ... well, maybe think about technological processes from five hundred years ago.

The point is, things are going to change!

You can try to ignore the wave, you can try to stand firm against the wave, or you can try to surf the wave. I suggest surfing.
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby Battle_Scarred_Galactico » Wed 29 Mar 2006, 05:31:42

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jimk', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Battle_Scarred_Galactico', '
')take a look at how modern technological processes are possible.


In five hundred years, I expect our current technological processes will be as long forgotten as ... well, maybe think about technological processes from five hundred years ago.

The point is, things are going to change!

You can try to ignore the wave, you can try to stand firm against the wave, or you can try to surf the wave. I suggest surfing.



Well we agree theres' going to be change. Just a quick question, what will the population be in this future you foresee ?
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby Concerned » Wed 29 Mar 2006, 08:05:29

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jimk', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', 'T')he Cornucopian Manifesto:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jimk', '
')...Really there are countless pies...

We all wish this was true. It isn't.


What I am trying to get across is not cornucopian at all. The cornucopians are also stuck on the "one pie" perspective. The cornucopians just think that the one pie is unlimited. This is totally stupid.

Here is yet another example. Look at the evolution of the music composed for string quartets, from say Haydn to Hindemith, i.e. from 1750 to 1950. The music really evolved over that time. It is totally reasonable to say that the music progressed. Yet there is no more physical energy or other supply of raw materials required to compose or perform Hindemith's music than Haydn's.


All these sub pies are worthless without a functional BASE pie that allows human sustinence. Food, Water and Shelter/Clothing ALL else is a moot point.

I play lots of computer games, this is a luxury that has some value to me only because my fundamental needs have been met.

If my BASE pie were taken away then all my sub pies, my music, my laptop, electronic gadgets, autographs, stamps, baseball cards etc.. are all worthless. Without your base needs met you are quite simply dead.

Go to someone starving say in sub sahara Africa offer them a rare stamp worth one million dollars or a weeks supply of grain. (Assume for the sake of the exercise the same individual is unable to reach a market where he/she can convert that stamp to money and then use that money to buy food) Which do you think he would choose a million dollar stamp or twenty dollars of grain? Which would you choose?

This is the future facing the unlimited pies theory. Which is valid only in the context of having enough surplus energy to provide base needs and additional energy which then gives value to objects of desire not need.
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby jimk » Wed 29 Mar 2006, 14:11:53

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Raxozanne', '
')There are already many people on these boards that are buying rural land and starting and learning to live sustainable lives in preparation and are enjoying it and seeing its advantages.


This is getting to my point. There are ways of living that are ecologically sustainable that people can find preferable to the modern industrial addiction. In fact, within an ecologically sustainable way of living, it is possible to acheive constant progress, constant movement into ever preferable situations. This can't happen as long as people are so stuck that their only way of measuring quality of life is by the energy and raw materials consumed. But really we are not totally stuck that way now, and we can get less stuck.
Last edited by jimk on Wed 29 Mar 2006, 20:01:51, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby jimk » Wed 29 Mar 2006, 14:16:48

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Battle_Scarred_Galactico', '
')what will the population be in this future you foresee ?


Very difficult to say what the real sustainable population might be. We waste so much energy etc. today. The world in five hundred years will look so different. I think it will be about as unrecognizable to us as our world would look to someone from five hundred years ago.

If we're taking bets, I'll put my chips on: five hundred years from now, world human population of 500 million.
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby jimk » Wed 29 Mar 2006, 14:51:10

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Concerned', '
')All these sub pies are worthless without a functional BASE pie that allows human sustinence. Food, Water and Shelter/Clothing ALL else is a moot point.


Maybe they should be called "super pies"! Because you are absolutely right, of course. There are basic requirements of nutrition etc., without which it is impossible to appreciate the progress from Haydn to Hindemith.

It's like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Once a person has enough to eat, then to keep eating more is actually quite stupid. When you're hungry, it seems like food is the only goal worth working toward. But if the food situation can get stabilized at a sufficient level, then eventually one can relax about the food and start building friendships or working toward other super-pies.

Modern industrial culture is a bit like a teenager. We're big and strong now and those old people just look stupid and weak. We've learned how much fun it is to stay out late and party. We've got our driver's license. Look out, here we come!

Now come some crucial years, like our 20s. We can worship the party hardy cult and put ourselves in an early grave and maybe take down a few carloads of innocents with us in our big flaming exit. Or maybe we can start to see that we need to limit our self-indulgence, just to stay out of jail if nothing else - we can sneak and struggle through life with an attitude like "take what you can get away with". Or we can really blossom into creative and mature adults, enriching the world and bringing ourselves profound joy through our work.

The earth today is still so amazingly rich. We've destroyed a lot in getting this far, but despite that we still have plenty of resources to satisfy the basic needs of everyone alive and then some. Probably not in a sustainable way, but who really knows. The lives we lead in modern industrial society are so far from any kind of foundation in basic physical needs. We are total slaves to the desires that have been created and amplified by media etc.

Look at grocery stores, the whole experience of shopping for food in a U.S. city. There are whole aisles dedicated to cookies and chips. It is totally absurd. Most people have no clue how to eat, and 99% of our social structures are designed to prevent them from getting any clue. It is vastly more profitable to keep people ignorant, dependent, sick.

I don't doubt that for many folks around the world, basic sustenance is much more of a challenge. But I don't think their situation is disconnected from modern industrial culture. The well-stocked shelves of stores in the U.S. are tightly connected to the hunger and ecological and social/military devastation in the places around the world at the other ends of our supply chains.

Has anybody read Mike Davis's book Late Victorian Holocausts? The commonest cause of famines doesn't seem to be that the earth can't supply enough. I certainly agree that there must be some limit, and maybe the healthy sustainable limit is significantly less than 6 billion. But the reality directly in front of us is a completely different affair. Just look at what we spend on weapons.
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby coyote » Tue 04 Apr 2006, 03:06:38

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', 'I') think that any creature damages its environment.

That's incorrect. We behave fundamentally differently from any other creature -- though, as we will discover, we are ultimately ruled by the same laws.
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby coyote » Tue 04 Apr 2006, 03:25:52

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jimk', 'H')ere is yet another example. Look at the evolution of the music composed for string quartets, from say Haydn to Hindemith, i.e. from 1750 to 1950. The music really evolved over that time. It is totally reasonable to say that the music progressed.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jimk', '.')..without which it is impossible to appreciate the progress from Haydn to Hindemith.

I'm not really liking your analogy. Are you saying that Hindemith is a greater composer of string quartets than was Haydn? How about Mozart? (I doubt Paul Hindemith would agree...) -- And that such is a natural end result of 'progress?' By that logic, there must inevitably follow Hindemith a composer greater still, and so on... Or perhaps you meant progress in terms of compositional techniques -- that would still be a matter of opinion, with most non-musician listeners still preferring the music of the Classical era. In any case I don't think it's a persuasive way to expound upon how great you think life will be after the Peak.

Don't get me wrong, Hindemith is a fine 20th century composer -- but myself, I would say the string quartet 'peaked' with Beethoven.

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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby jimk » Tue 04 Apr 2006, 04:11:41

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('coyote', '.') Are you saying that Hindemith is a greater composer of string quartets than was Haydn? ... In any case I don't think it's a persuasive way to expound upon how great you think life will be after the Peak.


Yeah, my analogy is weak, it's true.

I am certainly not saying that life will be great after the Peak. I am not really making any kind of prediction. What I am trying to point out is what kinds of possibilities there are. Which of those possibilities we choose, that's a different matter.

I want to point out that there are kinds of progress that are not tightly coupled to increased consumption of petroleum and other resources. Art and science would be two primary examples. Science is a bit more troublesome, because modern science is so coupled to industrial technology. But various anthropologists have noted that non-industrial cultures often have deep knowledge of the natural world, e.g. botany. So I think that non-industrial science is entirely possible. The whole biointensive permaculture movement is probably a good example.

I don't view any kind of progress as being inevitable. But I don't think that music is over and done with since Beethoven, or painting since Rembrandt or Michaelangelo.

Anyway the point is not to posit the possibility of some composer to come who will be greater than Beethoven. A lot of people seem to think that if per capita petroleum consumption were to decrease (as it inevitably will), then life is hardly worth living. This is totally stupid. Actually even if one cannot compose such sublime or tremendous music as Beethoven, one might still have something profound and worthy to contribute musically.

The whole concept of progress is a bit of a chimera. What kind of absolute scale could exist that would allow anyone to compare Ornette Coleman to Beethoven, or Hindemith to Haydn, etc. But somehow I think we will make better decisions, decisions that will lead to a better future, if we think that life in the future will still be worth living. A lot of people think that progress is what makes life worth living. It seems to me easier to show that multiple measures of progress exist, and that continued progress is possible post peak. It seems harder to convince folks that progress is actually rather illusory or absurd.
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Re: The Big Picture

Unread postby Doly » Tue 04 Apr 2006, 10:01:17

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jimk', '
')I want to point out that there are kinds of progress that are not tightly coupled to increased consumption of petroleum and other resources. Art and science would be two primary examples. Science is a bit more troublesome, because modern science is so coupled to industrial technology. But various anthropologists have noted that non-industrial cultures often have deep knowledge of the natural world, e.g. botany. So I think that non-industrial science is entirely possible. The whole biointensive permaculture movement is probably a good example.


You are assuming here that the industrial world will disappear with peak oil. I disagree with that. Oil is tied to one specific type of industry. It would be like saying that agriculture would disappear if we lost the capacity to cultivate rice for whatever reason.
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