[onlooker]

I guess this is a psychological question, I would put it into psychological category but their is none. I pertains to knowing about the tremendously difficult predicaments facing us here on Earth. Knowing about peak oil, Global Warming, ecological degradation, financial turmoil all this I have sought to learn about as have many of you. So why? For me because I feel like a hiker on a trail, I am curious by nature, so I follow the trail wherever it may lead because I wish to know not just because of curiosity but because I believe one must confront reality no matter what. So how do others feel?

[Plantagenet]

...peak oil, Global Warming, ecological degradation, financial turmoil .... I wish to know not just because of curiosity but because I believe one must confront reality no matter what. So how do others feel?

I'm pretty much the same way. I love learning new things and this site has helped me explore a whole lot of questions I never considered before.

However, after 10 years of reading and posting here, I'm not sure what it is that I now "know."

I used to think I knew that peak oil occurred in 2005 followed by an oil production plateau that would then become a slow descent in oil production----but instead here we are in a global oil glut with a collapse in oil prices while oil production are at much higher levels then we were at 10 years ago.

I used to think I knew that after a country's oil production peaked it then went down. However, the US peaked way back in 1970, but over the last few years tight shale oil has boosted US oil production back up to the point that we are very close to breaking the peak oil production in 1970. So the US peak in 1970 wasn't actually the peak?

I used to think I knew that budget deficits were bad and huge US debts and borrowing would cause the value of the dollar to collapse. But here we are after seven years of record deficits, record dollar printing (QE), and the dollar is heading up relative to the Euro where austerity has been the rule for the last seven years and the US economy is still limping along pretty well, all in all.

I used to think in the Bush years that I knew that Ds deeply opposed the US getting involved in unnecessary foreign wars, but here we are in the Obama years and we are still at war in Iraq AND Afghanistan, with a new war just launched in Syria, a failed state in Libya from our war there a few years ago, and shipping bombs to the Saudis as fast as we can so they can make war on Yemen-----and no D is saying a word in opposition to all this war madness.

I used to think I knew that Ds wanted to stop CO2 emissions and global climate change, but here we are with ever more CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere, the effects of global warming climate disasters becoming obvious in California, Brazil, the Arctic, etc. and O and the US signing agreements with China that allow them to expand their CO2 emissions as much as they want and pushing a new UN deal that places no firm limits on global CO2 emissions----and no D is saying a word in opposition to this kind of climate madness

so, no, I don't regret knowing----- I regret thinking I knew and having it turn out that I didn't actually know.

[davep]

I don't regret knowing----- I regret thinking I knew and having it turn out that I didn't actually know.

That's what learning's all about. Your mind needs to be open enough to know when you were wrong.

I regret that ReverseEngineer isn't about nowadays, as he was way ahead of the curve about the "banksters". For me, the economic system where money creation depends on private bank credit is the cornerstone of the sickness in our society.

But that's just my latest peeling back of the onion. Who knows what devilry may lie beyond that

[Quinny]

RE was very entertaining and still has his Doomstead Diner - posts fairly regularly on Gail the actuarys site.

[Tanada]

I have been a History nerd as long as I can remember, I had maps of historical empires and countries on my walls before I even became a teen. Knowing history means you know about resource constraints, the vast majority of wars fought in all of human history have been for control of some resource one side had and the other side wanted to get away from them. Could be land, population, minerals, fuel, or even access to a particular location like Jerusalem. The Mongol Hoards conquered China, Kazakhstan, the Russian Principalities and Poland because they wanted slaves and the vast wealth they could loot from those they over-ran. The UK conquered India and the French Indochina and the Dutch Indonesia for the same kind of reasons. The Spanish and Portuguese conquered South and Central America for Gold, Silver, Slaves and Land. Heck even the Polynesians took over Hawaii, Easter Island and New Zealand to get the untapped (at the time) resources they found there. From the time the first stone age hunter Gatherers left Africa 400,000 years ago to become the Neanderthal and Denisovan tribes who were integrated with the Sapiens who left Africa around 75,000 years ago our three branch species has been on a path of seeking out resources just over the horizon from wherever they are today. To not know is to deny all of our history for the last 400,000 years or maybe even longer.

[Newfie]

I don't regret what I know, I regret what we have done.

[sparky]

.
@ plantagenet
" I regret thinking I knew and having it turn out that I didn't actually know."
that is totally true and is as true tomorrow as it is today ,
tomorrow truth is the grave digger of today's certainties
live ,learn then die , most of your life having been wrong

I see my life as a mental strip tease , removing certainties one by one , ultimately (maybe) leaving truth naked

[Ibon]

35 years ago I learned about the destruction humans were causing the planet. Back then the trajectory was all about growth and consumption with no short term warning signs in sight. I was deeply troubled back then over the resiliency of our consumption culture and future growth projections on human population and industrialization.

Today this has shifted somewhat. We are not radically changing our ways, we continue to exponentially rape the landscape, but we are beginning to feel the squeeze and uneasy about the trajectory going forward. We are beginning to exercise caution and beginning to be aware that sustainability is not an ideological wish but will be a physical necessity. So mixed with the deep sadness over the destruction there now emerges a new emotion, one that is almost grateful that this long stretch of exploitation without consequences is coming to an end. A sense of relief that population growth and consumption is reaching its end point. That the pendulum will slowly start to swing and a big cyclical correction will start, diminishing the human presence on the planet.

Since we have been unable without consequences to self regulate consumption and population growth, an inflection point has now arrived were we will see how we manage going forward with increasing constraints. That Kudzu Ape will have the opportunity to become human again and live in balance with nature. That is good. Or that Kudzu Ape will fail and make room again for biodiversity to flourish on the planet. That is also good.

There will be a contraction of our human population where former human landscapes will be reclaimed by nature. That those small refuge populations in stressed environments will now be able to recolonize former habitat. That is good.

Humans will eventually decide their fate and if they keep a place at the table of life on the planet. Whether they succeed or fail bodes well for our planet.

[onlooker]

Ibon , I admire and respect what you are saying. Your solidarity and caring for all of nature. If more people had been like you we probably would not be where we are now. I do also, recognize that some may not completely agree with you. Their difference will be about the role of humans and their fate. We all are humans here. It is natural to see ourselves almost to the exclusion of other life. As you stated human centric. If others quibble about your casual acceptance of human die-off then that is a reflection of this humanistic point of view. I believe this dichotomy can be reconciled if we assume directly the responsibility and privilege of being stewards of the Earth. Animals and plants simply live. We can go beyond that. We can have as our mission to redeem ourselves from our past actions and become what we can potentially be. Beings dedicated to goodness in ways that will be beneficial to ourselves and all life on Earth. So I hope that humans can cease being Kudzu Ape and evolve to be beings that have reverence for life and all existence.

[Sixstrings]

So the US peak in 1970 wasn't actually the peak?

Apparently it was not the peak. Shale and fracking all that, and perhaps we now enter into another age of plentiful hydrocarbons until we approach the next peak -- but how will that happen, there's a LOT of shale on the planet and oil in the arctic too.

I think that now -- FF alternatives will come into play and gradually take over. There will at some point need to be gov regulation to encourage their use, over still-plentiful oil. Fusion power is on the way. Elon Musk makes more solar advances, and battery advances, day by day.

So maybe both crowds were right -- the cornies, and the alternative energy people. Perhaps the green tech will overcome plentiful but difficult / messy oil, to dominate the market, versus fossil fuels.

I used to think I knew that budget deficits were bad and huge US debts and borrowing would cause the value of the dollar to collapse. But here we are after seven years of record deficits, record dollar printing (QE), and the dollar is heading up relative to the Euro where austerity has been the rule for the last seven years and the US economy is still limping along pretty well, all in all.

Yeah, that's a head scratcher. I remember the 90s and how big an issue "the national debt" was. And we actually got to a balanced budget, and surpluses, for a while. Perot had a plan to pay OFF the debt.

But all that went out the window.. Dick Cheney said "deficits don't matter" -- was he right?

Do we actually NEED debt? If you think about it, no business can grow or operate without taking on debt. Usually. Unless you're Apple corp or something. Otherwise if the nation were debt free, how could it grow.

So nowdays we have this new financial economy. Which is what the UK has too, a banker economy.

Do deficits matter? Is it all just numbers?

I used to think in the Bush years that I knew that Ds deeply opposed the US getting involved in unnecessary foreign wars, but here we are in the Obama years and we are still at war in Iraq AND Afghanistan, with a new war just launched in Syria, a failed state in Libya from our war there a few years ago, and shipping bombs to the Saudis as fast as we can so they can make war on Yemen-----and no D is saying a word in opposition to all this war madness.

Democrats are for "less war."

I'm starting to think isolationism, no war at all, really is the way to go. Except where we are attacked -- like this ISIS -- if that gets worse then on something like that, we ought to just go in there with the marines and wipe all the strongholds out and then pull out of there. And do a clean up again, if it becomes necessary again.

We do have to defend if actually attacked, and ISIS just did that Texas attack, so there ya go.

But anyway -- I am much more onto the no-war side, and war as last resort, lately.

I used to think I knew that Ds wanted to stop CO2 emissions and global climate change, but here we are with ever more CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere, the effects of global warming climate disasters becoming obvious in California, Brazil, the Arctic, etc.

It's inherent conflict of interest -- D's say they are the eco party, but since the DNC and Bill Clinton New Democrat shift -- a very long time ago now -- they became the wall street party, too. Those two things often come into conflict with each other.

I regret.. not having had the foresight to know which tech stock to buy, in the beginning, at the right time.

I regret.. that me and my fellow citizens did not try Ross Perot's ideas out, and turn away from globalism and pay the debt off instead and develop internally, instead.

I regret.. falling for conservative narratives too much, pro war narratives too much. If there must be war in the world, we don't actually have to be a part of it. There's plenty other people out there than can be a part of it, without us, right? So let them fight it out.

Probably a good rule of thumb, going forward, is do nothing militarily unless the rest of the West really is totally on board and has been pushing us to get involved for a long time, and then finally we will join them okay, but other than that let's stop being the FIRST ones in.

It's time for others to step up. Saudis in the ME. EU to maybe make its own army, etc. Japan partnering with Australia more, etc., on defense. We actually should now close some bases, like draw down some in Japan and stay allied but Japan is ready now to take over their own defense. We need to reduce military and bases abroad about 20% ish, at least.

[Pops]

I think most of us know relatively little, for the most part we can't tell the trunk from the tail from the pizzle.

Yet we all think we know exactly which direction the beast is bound.

With certainty.

LOL

[Sixstrings]

Is it just me or is there an article on the forum front page that says green energy is dead and peak oil was nonsense?

and many private investors too–bought into the “peak oil” nonsense

[Ibon]

If others quibble about your casual acceptance of human die-off then that is a reflection of this humanistic point of view. I believe this dichotomy can be reconciled if we assume directly the responsibility and privilege of being stewards of the Earth.

To those who may quibble, I ask, are you upset because I am being casual about human die-off with my words on a forum or are you upset because humans collectively are being casual in their actions today regarding the eventual die-off they will face?

If my words cause irritation is it with me personally or what my words reveal about you collectively?

Just asking.

[Outcast_Searcher]

However, after 10 years of reading and posting here, I'm not sure what it is that I now "know."

Congratulations for having far less hubris than the average person about what you "know".

Some year in school (I think it was the sixth grade but am unsure), my teacher said something very unusual that grabbed my attention. Basically it was: "Most if not all of the specifics about science you learn in school will be "wrong" in 20 to 50 years. That doesn't mean science isn't a good thing -- just that we are VERY unusure of the details."

And of course, looking back on any topic from electrons to dinosaurs to the solar system, etc. (this was nearly 45 years ago) and yeah -- many of the concepts and nearly ALL of the details are indeed different, given what current scientific theory and observation tells us.

Awareness is a good thing as it gives us the potential to try to act. However, like the story of Socrates trying to get his fellow philosophers to define "virtue" before running around like mad trying to find "men of virtue" -- being aware of how nebulous our "knowledge" of the details is first, and pausing to consider consequences, would IMO be a very good thing. Sadly (consider the political climate), people seem to be generally unaware of this, or just blatantly ignore it.

[onlooker]

OS, some good ideas. Just occurs to me where your line of reasoning really applies is technology. We have developed so much technologically. Yet did we pause to consider whether that technology is advisable, what should be its rightful uses or even how risky it would be. Nuclear comes to mind, but their are other examples. In general I think we have come to consider ourselves much too knowing without balancing that with the humility of realizing that what you think you know might not be the case. Widespread use of fossil fuels is perhaps another example of this.

[Shaved Monkey]

I regret not knowing

[AgentR11]

I am glad that I know what I know.
I am content that there are things that I do not know or understand.
I am gravely concerned about the things I do not know that I do not know.

Rumsfeld was mocked when he said it; but the dangerous things are those things we don't know when we don't even know the initial question to ask.