Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Joined: May 16, 2004 Posts: 162 Location: Rural, Indiana.
Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2004 5:40 pm Post subject:
While some folks here get irritated with the opposing viewpoint of Peak Oil, I for one like to hear the argument from both sides. Whether that argument be with facts, or with just someones personal beliefs.
True, some get more impassioned with their beliefs as Yamaha has, but I still welcome the argument against Peak. It makes me feel like there may be a little bit of hope out there that we will hit a soft landing.
Joined: May 22, 2004 Posts: 1438 Location: Ottawa, Ontario
Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2004 7:24 pm Post subject:
Anyone who isn't aware of peak oil would call that a pretty rough landing indeed.
But yes, I think I'm in the "soft landing" crowd as well. Though I don't rule out Mad Max .... eventually. People who assume this civilization is indistructable are fooling themselves. It's the most advanced civilization the world has ever seen or probably ever will see but it is also in some respects the most delicate. Even only a hundred years ago, our society could handle much larger shocks than now. Afterall most people still lived on a farm back then where they could grow their own food. In only a couple of generations we have lost much of the knowledge required to survive without a grocery store and rolling warehouses. In other words if things do start falling apart, we do not have the skills to catch ourselves at a lower level of technology. We'll all have to go back and start from scratch.
Here an analogy:
While you are in a train that is moving, you are most likely not aware of the speed of the train since the focus is on the steps that you do within.
And just as any person is generally observing itself as single individual only and therefore not accountable for its seemingly minimal needs (the gasoline that my car needs in a month is "nothing" in relation to what is used on earth per day...), the laws of current economics accounts only the totality of consumers and is therefore equivalent to the train .
While you as an individual might imagine a "soft landing" as leaving the city in case of bad times and starting to grow green leavy vegetables on the countryside (and I am not making fun of vegetarians, I am one myself) economic crisis tend not to announce themselves, they appear all of a sudden (another characteristic of our current economic system).
If you would like to find out more about the engeneering and design of the "train", do research, as we all do here. A book that I currently wait for to be released is " A Century of War" by William Engdahl. But that's a personal interest in my research and might not apply to your state of mind (which could be way more advanced for all we know...)
It is just hard to see how a die-off of 3-5 billion people is going to happen when we have so much time to gradually adjust to these problems. Most people start looking for ways to produce food when they get hungry.
Of course people will look for ways to produce food. But will they be able to find them? We have suffered dieoffs in the past, and human ingenuity was not able to solve them. During the Irish potato famine, starving people were wandering the country, eating grass and weeds at the side of the road. A million died.
The problem, as I see it, is that we have exceeded the carrying capacity of the earth. Even of the U.S. Oil has allowed us to do that. Without oil, there must be depopulation, one way or the other. Just as in Ireland, there had to be depopulation when the potato crop failed.
Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 309 Location: Ontario, Canada
Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 7:06 pm Post subject:
Oh course, Ireland had immigration open to it. That helped, a lot.
Although any collapse of civilization will likely take decades, if the stock market is ever told "we can no longer meet demand, the economy will not be growing for at least several more decades until we get fusion and/or hydrogen working, and could you please all start taking the bus to the trading floor?" a sudden shock is possible.
I think natural gas could also be a "sudden" issue. If oil becomes too expensive you may be able to squeeze by on a bus or bike every other day. Try going without heat or power every other day. With natural gas, the world can't act as a safety net for other parts. _________________ "Our forces are now closer to the center of Baghdad than most American commuters are to their downtown office."
--Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, April 2003
Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 7:12 am Post subject: Re: Deja Vu - All Over Again
Hawkcreek wrote:
I remember 5 years ago when all the fools were hollering about an end to civilization because or a date change (remember Y2K). Everyone thought the power plants were going to shut down, the financial system would be ruined, and it was time to stock food and guns for the coming worldwide anarchy.
This kind of generalization doesn't work.
One: Not everyone thought Y2K would be a big deal, I didn't - am I the only exception? I doubt it.
Two: A problem with date formats in software is hardly comparable to the depletion of natural resources
Three: You were obviously a little concerned yourself because you took some cash out as a precaution!
Sorry Hawkcreek, it's not that easy to bury your hand in the tar sands! (as Devil put it so beautifully!) _________________ Burning the midnight oil, whilst I still can.
I remember 5 years ago when all the fools were hollering about an end to civilization because or a date change (remember Y2K). Everyone thought the power plants were going to shut down, the financial system would be ruined, and it was time to stock food and guns for the coming worldwide anarchy.
I participated in a year long effort to perform Y2K remediation for a large international bank.
Millions were spent on this effort which involved hundreds of people around the world.
Similar projects were conducted in business and government organizations everywhere.
That's the reason Y2K was a non-event.
Unfortunately, Hydrocarbon Remediation is somewhat more difficult to achieve. _________________ "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F Roberts.
Oh course, Ireland had immigration open to it. That helped, a lot.
About as many emigrated as starved to death at home. But a lot of the emigrants died, too. There's a reason they called them "coffin ships."
Still, you have an important point. In the past, dieoffs have been local affairs. Examples like Cuba and Argentina aren't good analogies, because peak oil will be a world-wide problem, and there will be little or no outside help. No place to emigrate. No UN food programs. No foreign investors.
As for Y2K...I never worried about that. Didn't make a single preparation. Except for not planning a Christmas vacation, because I was afraid my employer wouldn't let me go. (Which turned out to be a smart move. Not only did they deny all vacation requests, they imposed mandatory overtime.)
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