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: Nov 06, 2007 Posts: 759 Location: Illinois
Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 9:46 pm Post subject: Re: Powerdown: The Solution to Peak Oil
MonteQuest wrote:
"Now, if this current modest 1.3% per year could continue, the world population would grow to a density of one person per square meter on the dry land surface of the earth in just 780 years, and the mass of people would equal the mass of the earth in just 2400 years. Well, we can smile at those, we know they couldn't happen. This one make for a cute cartoon; the caption says, “Excuse me sir, but I am prepared to make you a rather attractive offer for your square.”
That did this in a Star Trek episode. Every square inch of the planet packed with people. No privacy. No birth control and perfect health means the population grew very fast. They ended up willingly inflicting a plague on themselves to reduce the population.
The Mark Of Gideon _________________ The oil barrel is half-full.
Joined: Jan 01, 2007 Posts: 246 Location: Pacific Northwest
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 12:32 am Post subject: Re: Powerdown: The Solution to Peak Oil
Monte,
Some friendly advice. You need to choose another pandemic besides the 1918 flu to make your point on nature providing population control. Although the 1918 flu demonstrated you can’t realistically hide from a pandemic, the flu was not deadly because people’s immune systems were low. As a matter of fact the 1918 flu was the most deadly on those with the strongest immune systems. The flu was just the trigger; it was actually the immune response that killed people. Most of the deaths were in the 18 to 50 year old range, the healthiest segment of the population.
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 5:45 am Post subject: Re: Powerdown: The Solution to Peak Oil
MonteQuest wrote:
MrBean wrote:
No, I'm not interested rereading what Bartlett says but what MQ thinks about what Bartlett says. What does it mean to choose for you and what is your choise? And what that choise means in practice.
Or do you bring up the right hand list just for entertainement value?
Do a search. There are numerous threads on the entire subject explained at length ad naseum.
We have grown accustomed to the freedom to breed on the commons. For anyone to suggest otherwise is anathema to most people. But this unbridled growth can’t continue. We must intervene and become our own predator; a Darwinian application in all of its aspects. To many people, the mere suggestion of population control, much less reduction, is out of the question, especially if it entails addressing both the birth rate and the death rate. But like Hardin points out; we must choose — or acquiesce in the destruction of the commons that mankind calls Earth. Not the Earth itself, as that would be quite presumptuous, but its’ ability to support us.
Bolding mine. Nothing on what choosing to "become our own predator" would mean in practice and how you suggest to put that choise of intervention into practice - on a scale that would in fact drop our numbers to al level that you deem sustainble - the estimates of 2-3 billion you still haven't provided the sources for. I've done enough searching, if you really have answered these kinds of questions somewhere, then please provide a link.
All I see there is just big words and high emotions, doomer porn of first order. I'm a doomer, you're a doomer, but the difference between us is that I really don't enjoy doomer porn but for some reason I get the impression you get some emotional satisfaction from the imagined schock value of blathering about the the choice of intervention you refuse to give any practical meaning.
I'm not denying there is a certain logic to what you are saying, I'm saying without practical and credible political program that would in fact produce the desired effects, it amounts to nothing but doomer porn. So please, let's try to be serious here. For example, cancer is one of the big "predators" of the developed world, now I just read that Cuba has developed a vaccine against lugn cancer. I'm curious and would like to ask you, do you sincerely propose that A) Cuba or anyone else should not have done that, B) how do you propose to stop Cuba or anyone else from distributing that vaccine at large scale, and C) how do you propose to intervene to stop everyone developing and distributing new cures against our predators - before nature puts stop to such activities, if she so chooses.
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 6:13 am Post subject: Re: Powerdown: The Solution to Peak Oil
MonteQuest wrote:
I never resort to ad hominems. You might want to look up the definition.
I find the merits quite enough to debate rather than resorting to "attacks against the man" to win any debate.
"You're nuts" is an ad hominem and has no merits.
Quote:
And if you find me observing you don't have a grasp of the concepts, it certainly isn't a personal attack.
No, that is just myopia and projection of your frustrated antipathy towards cornucopians on your part, wrongly targeted. I have quite good grasp of the concepts, occationally possibly even better grasp than you have - which could make discussions even interesting and educational, but your condescending attitude of "know it all" works otherwise.
Quote:
And I did just read your statement that says a ecological paradigm shift in our thinking isn't possible and to think so is a denial of reality.
That's pretty "doomer" and defeatist.
No, there is very important distinction between "not possible" and "extremely unlikely". I'm quite satisfied with one in a million chance, and not my problem, really, since I don't believe in survivalism, life boats and all that - you can call that doomer and defeatist.
But if we take the principle quality over quantity seriously, as a cornerstone of the paradigm shift, learning simpler and better way of life at the pace we are able to learn and at the time we are given is what we should concentrate on, not survivalism and doomer porn - especially when preaching to the choire. Gardens and especially permaculture gardens, ecovillages etc. are beautifull as they are.
Joined: May 26, 2008 Posts: 1190 Location: Chicago, IL
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 10:40 am Post subject: Re: Powerdown: The Solution to Peak Oil
MonteQuest wrote:
And a lot of people don't do their homework. Think about that.
I did. It's true. So?
MonteQuest wrote:
You are new here. You don' t know the crap I have had to put up with for years.
Yes, I'm new to the site, yet that doesn't make me stupid, or more stupid than you for that matter. I'm sorry you had to put up with crap, but there will always be lots of newbies. That's the fruit of your work. You ought to congratulate yourself, instead of alienating everybody.
MonteQuest wrote:
I have no patience for mediocrity anymore. Zero.
It's sad you gave up. Even sadder for you, mediocrity will not go away any time soon. You have a ship load of frustration coming.
MonteQuest wrote:
Don't like it? Don't read my posts.
Oh, I actually like many of your posts. But, OK, you win, you can have them all for yourself.
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13189 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 10:44 am Post subject: Re: Powerdown: The Solution to Peak Oil
MrBean wrote:
No, there is very important distinction between "not possible" and "extremely unlikely". I'm quite satisfied with one in a million chance,
Me too, that's why I put my faith in Flying Monkey Butlers.
There's a one in a million chance they will appear and enable me to survive into the Future. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 12:01 pm Post subject: Re: Powerdown: The Solution to Peak Oil
You should know - and you do if you've read Terry Pratchet - that anything with a one in a million chance means nearly sure as hell. Not of course two in a million, one in a two million etc., those chances are just impossible.
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 10:45 pm Post subject: Re: Powerdown: The Solution to Peak Oil
TonyPrep wrote:
MonteQuest wrote:
He laid down the ecological science behind why we need to have a paradigm shift in our thinking.
What is the paradigm shift, Monte? How should we be thinking and how would it help?
Catton wrote:
Whichever of the two historic approaches we take, either choosing to accelerate drawdown or indulging in additional takeover, our new ecological paradigm enables us to see that eventually we will end up shifting back to the other. Either traditional way, if prolonged, leads to an inhuman future ... not toward the lasting solution of temporarily vexing problems ... For any lasting solution, we must abandon both of these ultimately disastrous methods. Drawdown bails us out of present difficulties by shortening our future. Takeover was of lasting value earlier in human history, but that time is past.
"We must learn to live within carrying capacity without trying to enlarge it. We must rely on renewable resources consumed no faster than at sustained yield rates. The last best hope for mankind is ecological modesty."
We want to find a "fix." A solution. There is no solution, only options.
To quote Garrett Hardin :
"With the coinage of 'sustainable development,' the defenders of the unsteady state have won a few more years' moratorium from the painful process of thinking."
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 10:54 pm Post subject: Re: Powerdown: The Solution to Peak Oil
MrBean wrote:
Nothing on what choosing to "become our own predator" would mean in practice and how you suggest to put that choise of intervention into practice - on a scale that would in fact drop our numbers to al level that you deem sustainble - the estimates of 2-3 billion you still haven't provided the sources for. I've done enough searching, if you really have answered these kinds of questions somewhere, then please provide a link.
Good lord. They are some of the biggest threads on the site!
Try the Population Reduction and Rebuttal Thread for one. MonteQuest on the Population Taboo for another.
Links to the studies have been posted relentlessly for years.
I've devoted years to answering these questions. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 11:01 pm Post subject: Re: Powerdown: The Solution to Peak Oil
VMarcHart wrote:
MonteQuest wrote:
And a lot of people don't do their homework. Think about that.
I did. It's true. So?
Your posts reflect that fact. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 11:08 pm Post subject: Re: Powerdown: The Solution to Peak Oil
VMarcHart wrote:
You ought to congratulate yourself, instead of alienating everybody.
The few I alienate is not worth worrying about. I get lots of pm's. Most of them are about admiring my patience with posters like yourself.
When I stop getting these, maybe I'll reconsider:
Quote:
The unfamiliar and uneducated would call you a "prophet," I just say you have the full ability to make sense of all of the writing on all of the walls. The connections you establish, the parallels you make, and overall the facts you choose to present are the most relevant and best interwoven I've seen.
Quote:
Monte, I admire your patience. Some days, I despair ever having such a skill.....sigh...
_________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Joined: Aug 03, 2006 Posts: 4338 Location: Graceland
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 11:37 pm Post subject: Re: Powerdown: The Solution to Peak Oil
For those who are new to Monte's approach and outlook, he can be a little strident or even grouchy at times, but part of it is based upon having had the identical arguments for several years.
It's not necessary that you agree with him. He is here to make his case and share his thoughts.
However, I think that it's impossible to follow his arguments for any amount of time and not find your own thinking on these matters evolving a little (or a lot).
When I first began reading his posts they struck me as dreadfully bleak and depressing, but when you look at the issues from a more objective perspective, there is a certain inevitability to his logic that doesn't make it less chilling, but does make it clear that it's a set of concerns of which A LOT more people should be aware.
For example, "Overshoot" by William Catton is the definitive work on the topic of overshoot, carrying capacity and related topics. It was written in 1980. It's an outstanding book. You know how many Amazon reviews there are for it? About 12. They're all five stars, but still it's clear that VERY few people are aware of these issues. _________________
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 11:49 pm Post subject: Re: Powerdown: The Solution to Peak Oil
BigTex wrote:
For those who are new to Monte's approach and outlook, he can be a little strident or even grouchy at times, but part of it is based upon having had the identical arguments for several years.
Yes, 36 years to be exact. Almost 4 years on this site. I was in the US Coast Guard in Alaska in 1972. Same year I read Limits to Growth. I saw the wildlife there and I saw us throw our garbage off the fantail everyday in to the pristine wilderness. As we worked the ATONS, I saw walrus that had been killed for their ivory teeth and oosik and left to rot. I waded through sea lion crap knee deep to work day boards. I had an ephipany about it all.
There are limits, and we are beyond most of them. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
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