Insanity, end of the world, etc.

Over 18 ONLY! For grown-ups. . .

Moderators: Sluggo, Amskeptic

User avatar
hambone
Post-Industrial Non-Secular Mennonite
Location: Portland, Ore.
Status: Offline

Post by hambone » Thu Feb 22, 2007 12:14 pm

It's like the old time song Hard Times

Tis the song, the sound of the weary
Hard times come again no more
many days you have lingered all around my cabin door
o' hard times come again no more
We seek mirth and beauty
and music bright and gay
but there are pale forms feinting at my door
well their voices are silent
but their pleading looks still say
o' hard times, come again no more

We sure are spoil't here in our plastic towers and bubblegum lives of mindless acts and remote control everything, while the rest of the world toils on with cleft pallet and dirt floor..
Deep painful struggle is the very base of life. All that we work for is sand in our palms, our loved ones die and fall like dominoes....
Stuggle. It's what we were born into, from the first slimy gasp of air as a helpless pink ball and everything that comes after.
We are disconnected from the rest of the world and what it means to be human. It's pain and bleeding ulcers and smallpox and sick children. THIS is life. I think what we're experiencing is collective subconcious guilt disguised as a lost purpose. It's ALL crap - all of this American Basket. There is no reward at the end of it all, as much as the bubblegum goons would like you to think otherwise. There is no merit in a palace auto, there is nothing to be gained. It's all empty.
We are a culture that is promoting living out of balance. By our acts we are socializing and promoting things that will cause our downfall. It only looks normal because our neighbors for 3000 miles are doing the same thing.
What can we do? Our best...act with love and with responsibility. Who knows? Maybe collective living will really take off. I know I'm ready to be completely sustainable, living amongst likeminded folks, surrounded by God's Grace. 1 step at a time and the next thing you know you're a DIFFERENT PERSON....
Smile! Laugh aloud! :flower: Lawd lawd, what else can you do?
http://greencascadia.blogspot.com
http://pdxvolksfolks.blogspot.com
it balances on your head just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine
your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat

RussellK
IAC Addict!
Status: Offline

Post by RussellK » Thu Feb 22, 2007 12:59 pm

Man, I wanna put you in front of a microphone. All that rage. You'd make Ginsburg proud.

User avatar
hippiewannabe
Old School!
Status: Offline

Re: Insanity, end of the world, etc.

Post by hippiewannabe » Thu Feb 22, 2007 7:18 pm

Wow, that's a lot of angst. While I probably can't make you understand that this is the best time in the history of the world to be alive, and you're fortunate enough to live in the greatest country ever known, maybe I can turn the lights up just a little in your gloomy room.

Let's look at this one:
Ritter wrote:One old time friend thinks the peak oil theories are flawed. He’s an economist (PhD type) and continued growth (ad infinitum) is part of his religion. How could we run out of economically available oil? Not possible. Growth must continue.
The reason he's optimistic is because he understands markets. Malthus, the Club of Rome, and now the Peak Oil Crew, either didn't understand, or for idealogical reasons refused to acknowledge, the effect of price in their models. The sellers of any commodity are not going to keep selling at the same low price, allowing consumption to increase, right up to the point we fall off a cliff. If people think there will be scarcity in the future, sellers will withhold supply, and users will buy it up and hoard it. This will push up the price, which reduces consumption. You saw this happen in the last year; belief in Peak Oil, plus a little geopolitical risk, drove up the price of oil. When gas hit $3 a gallon, people started to conserve, investment in exploration and alternatives grew, and viola, a new equilibrium was reached. A look at Europe shows that we can get along just fine with gas at $8 a gallon; we'll drive smaller cars, drive less, and find other ways to get along.

The bronze age didn't end because we ran out of bronze, the coal age didn't end because we ran out of coal, and the oil age will be over long before the last barrel is pumped out of some deep resevior in the middle of the ocean. The hydrogen economy is technically feasible today. It's just not economically feasible because oil is so darn cheap.

You should also undestand that we're not rich because we use a lot of oil, we use a lot of oil because we're rich. If high oil prices cause a recession and make us less rich, we'll use less oil. But don't worry too much, because we create twice as much GDP per barrel of oil as we did 30 years ago. It's not a zero-sum game, we can use less oil and be fine. As long as markets are allowed to work, a new equilibrium will be reached. Look at it this way; it would take an almost unimaginable catastrophe, and a sustained depression, for our GDP per person to fall to the level of Italy. And they get along OK.

You've heard stories from Africa, where much of the population lives the idealized pastoral life so many seem to think we all should aspire too. Well, much orf that population also dies an early, degrading, painful death from parasitic disease. Life was indeed nasty, brutish and short for most of the worlds history, and still is for many who don't live in a modern, developed economy. In the last decade or so we've welcomed nearly a billion people around the world into the middle class from abject poverty, thanks to globalization and free markets. While we indeed have to be concerned about how we will all share the world's resources, it's a good thing, and the market will let us handle it. So count your blessings. And cheer up, OK?

User avatar
vwlover77
IAC Addict!
Location: North Canton, Ohio
Status: Offline

Post by vwlover77 » Thu Feb 22, 2007 7:52 pm

And then there's China..... flying in the face of our half-hearted attempts to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gasses with their inefficient, filthy, coal-fired power plants being built at an alarming rate.

Every day at my job, the #1 subject is how we can make our products more "globally competitive" and the only valid answer is to move production to China or India and close down our US production because it has "too much overhead".

No, I will not cheer up.
Don

---------------------------
78 Westy
71 Super Beetle Convertible Autostick

"When we let our compassion go, we let go of whatever claim we have to the divine." - Bruce Springsteen

User avatar
LiveonJG
IAC Jester!
Location: Standing on the side of the road, rain falling on my shoes.
Status: Offline

Post by LiveonJG » Thu Feb 22, 2007 10:35 pm

Ritter,
Great topic. Don't know how I missed it. Let me start by saying, as others already have, you are not alone in your thoughts. I think about these things a lot.
What's amazing to me is this micro-community we are all a part of. There's the common thread of the VW, for most of us, a Bay Window Bus, yet as we put our thoughts down here and before on The Samba, it becomes so clear that there's so much more that binds us to each other. My wife read through this thread with me. As she read your initial post she commented that you sound a lot like me. Why does this vehicle bring us together only to find out we share a common world view (with the extremes of Bill and Steve, of course.)?

Jerry said:
"Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile."
When I reach where you were when you typed out your frustrations, I always try not to forget what Jerry said.

-John
Keep it acoustic.

User avatar
Amskeptic
IAC "Help Desk"
IAC "Help Desk"
Status: Offline

Re: Insanity, end of the world, etc.

Post by Amskeptic » Thu Feb 22, 2007 10:46 pm

hippiewannabe wrote:Wow, that's a lot of angst.
As long as markets are allowed to work, a new equilibrium will be reached. So count your blessings. And cheer up, OK?
How nice to see our sunshine Capitalist visit us here.
I do love your optimism and, wishfully perhaps, your model of human ingenuity. But. . . . . there is always a but, we all have one, the markets are under a deep strain by those who are gaming it, and damn if the gamers haven't set us back a generation in regards to the transistion we have to get working on. I do not want to piss on your parade, but people will die when the infrastructure has to collapse. I have lost a bit of faith in the adult behavior of our leaders who must make adult choices to free the markets from the oligarchies who are stifling the shit out of our innovative spirit, and you know this. We are seriously losing time. There is no market-happy-talk that can whitewash the fundamental crises of civilization that has simply grown beyond its planetary means. The sheer exuberant audacity of our technological wondrousness has placed us far out on the limb. It does not ruin my day to consider that Mother Earth will exact her price. Life will outlive us.

Hey Ritter, I have some sunshine for ya too. We are all going to die anyway, every single one of us. Many people die horrible individual deaths when you think about it. If a cataclysmic collapse of human society yanks away our survival fundamentals , perhaps we can all share the realizations of how precious life really is as we lose it together, all in the same boat. Would I rather die alone under my Bowery Park park bench while a gaudy Times Square is full of New Year's revellers making a noisy racket about nothing? Or would I rather be amongst all of these other post-cataclysmic people in the shivering dark? I'll take the latter.
ColinHaveANiceDay

User avatar
LiveonJG
IAC Jester!
Location: Standing on the side of the road, rain falling on my shoes.
Status: Offline

Re: Insanity, end of the world, etc.

Post by LiveonJG » Thu Feb 22, 2007 11:57 pm

Amskeptic wrote:Life will outlive us.
Deep words of wisdom there.

George Carlin - The Earth will be fine. It's the people that are fucked.

-John

Don't let it get you down. This is just one small step in the greater journey.
Keep it acoustic.

User avatar
DjEep
IAC Addict!
Location: Nowhere, Fast
Status: Offline

Re: Insanity, end of the world, etc.

Post by DjEep » Fri Feb 23, 2007 6:11 am

hippiewannabe wrote:In the last decade or so we've welcomed nearly a billion people around the world into the middle class from abject poverty, thanks to globalization and free markets.
The markets are only "free" to those with enough money already.
LiveonJG wrote: Don't let it get you down. This is just one small step in the greater journey.
As I said, this has happened before.

There have been several "Apocalypses." Rome, Egypt, Maya. Many great civilizations have crumbled. And yet, here I am. And I could choke on a piece of lumpia today, there goes my world.


But it is hard to be this young and have no hope for the future. I feel like society has let me down before I even had a chance to help shape it. Now I'm stuck trying to decide if I should play the game and rack up as much dept buying as much crap as I can, like a good Amerikan, before it all goes down. Or move into the woods and live out of a couple of VW's, waiting till the day after.

Heard we are starting shit with Russia and China again too, yea...
"Live life, love life. Enjoy the pleasures and the sorrows. For it is the bleak valleys, the dark corners that make the peaks all the more magnificent. And once you realize that, you begin to see the beauty hidden within those valleys, and learn to love the climb." - Anonymous

Do you want to Survive? Or do you want to LIVE?

User avatar
Cindy
IAC Addict!
Status: Offline

Re: Insanity, end of the world, etc.

Post by Cindy » Fri Feb 23, 2007 6:23 am

As long as markets are allowed to work, a new equilibrium will be reached.


its not that simple. i know your post went into more complex detail, but this statement concerns me. markets are not entirely self-correcting and they never will be. as with most things in life, a solution requires work from both sides of the ideological spectrum. it sounds like you have a lot of faith in the principles of microeconomics. i do too. but some regulation, some sensible intervention, is almost always called for. we need something to temper the profit motive when enlightened self-interest isnt so enlightened anymore. i agree with colin--the leaders we have in office right now dont have a clue about what that really means. it is a delicate thing. and it requires sharp intellectual consideration.

on the other hand, i disagee with those apocolyptic notions of economic doom. we are on a fast train to hell--its true. but we also have a damn smart system, and plenty of tools. people get scared as they watch jobs go to china (and china scares the hell out of me, the more i read). but if manufacturers cripple their American consumers, if we spread the supply chain too thinly, across continents, losing control over production-- it will collapse. and people will find another way. that is one beautiful thing about capitalism. if you want to survive you have to figure it out.

as for oil, who among us can imagine this self-centered society allowing itself to disintegrate? people want their stuff and they want to drive around a lot and eventually they will get it. they will understand they need to change. others will see the change as a chance to make money. and in a broader sense, supply and demand could save us.

hi, colin. :argue:
“No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side.
Or you don't.” ― Stephen King, The Stand

User avatar
Velokid1
IAC Addict!
Status: Offline

Re: Insanity, end of the world, etc.

Post by Velokid1 » Fri Feb 23, 2007 8:49 am

byproxy wrote:
as for oil, who among us can imagine this self-centered society allowing itself to disintegrate? people want their stuff and they want to drive around a lot and eventually they will get it. they will understand they need to change. others will see the change as a chance to make money. and in a broader sense, supply and demand could save us.

hi, colin. :argue:
Nobody's saying that the end of cheap oil will mean death to humans. "People understanding that they need to change" sounds innocuous enough, but the truth of that statement is that the change they'll be forced to make will be directly tied to the collapse of our infrastructure. Suburbs and working 20 miles from your home and being able to drive alone to pick up bread from the store on a whim.

As for hippiewannabe's argument... people often make that argument and they get to the "prices will go up, oil will be conserved and so there will be oil left still" and leave it at that. The critical point isn't when oil is gone. The critical point comes far before that, when prices go up enough so that the working class can't afford gas any longer.

The price going up is at first a solution, but at some point afterward it becomes that actual catalyst for a breakdown.

When that happens, we'll be forced to abandon (most of us) the suburban-based way of life we know, where we work 20 miles away from where we sleep, etc. Which sounds all nice, but having a bunch of people abandoning the suburbs and moving into urban areas will be a real strain on the homeostasis of our current way of life. It will likely be a very tumultuous transition, on many levels.

Disclaimer: All of that ^^^ is IMO only. Just the movie that I allow to play in my head right now. I'm always willing to change the movie.

mattg
Old School!
Location: Elburn,IL
Status: Offline

Re: Insanity, end of the world, etc.

Post by mattg » Fri Feb 23, 2007 8:54 am

Velokid1 wrote:
byproxy wrote:
as for oil, who among us can imagine this self-centered society allowing itself to disintegrate? people want their stuff and they want to drive around a lot and eventually they will get it. they will understand they need to change. others will see the change as a chance to make money. and in a broader sense, supply and demand could save us.

hi, colin. :argue:
Nobody's saying that the end of cheap oil will mean death to humans. "People understanding that they need to change" sounds innocuous enough, but the truth of that statement is that the change they'll be forced to make will be directly tied to the collapse of our infrastructure. Suburbs and working 20 miles from your home and being able to drive alone to pick up bread from the store on a whim.

As for hippiewannabe's argument... people often make that argument and they get to the "prices will go up, oil will be conserved and so there will be oil left still" and leave it at that. The critical point isn't when oil is gone. The critical point comes far before that, when prices go up enough so that the working class can't afford gas any longer.

The price going up is at first a solution, but at some point afterward it becomes that actual catalyst for a breakdown.

When that happens, we'll be forced to abandon (most of us) the suburban-based way of life we know, where we work 20 miles away from where we sleep, etc. Which sounds all nice, but having a bunch of people abandoning the suburbs and moving into urban areas will be a real strain on the homeostasis of our current way of life. It will likely be a very tumultuous transition, on many levels.

Disclaimer: All of that ^^^ is IMO only. Just the movie that I allow to play in my head right now. I'm always willing to change the movie.
The question is who is directing this movie in your head?
I'm all out of ideas and I've tried nothing.

77 Westy 2.0 FI

User avatar
Ritter
IAC Addict!
Location: Sonoma County, CA
Status: Offline

Post by Ritter » Fri Feb 23, 2007 9:18 am

Amskeptic wrote: Hey Ritter, I have some sunshine for ya too. We are all going to die anyway, every single one of us. Many people die horrible individual deaths when you think about it. If a cataclysmic collapse of human society yanks away our survival fundamentals , perhaps we can all share the realizations of how precious life really is as we lose it together, all in the same boat. Would I rather die alone under my Bowery Park park bench while a gaudy Times Square is full of New Year's revellers making a noisy racket about nothing? Or would I rather be amongst all of these other post-cataclysmic people in the shivering dark? I'll take the latter.
ColinHaveANiceDay
Colin,

That is some sunshine, man! No really. I'd much rather die cold and shivering on a mountain than in my car (although I'm not sure I want to die of disease, not much into being sick).

hippiewannabe wrote:Wow, that's a lot of angst. While I probably can't make you understand that this is the best time in the history of the world to be alive, and you're fortunate enough to live in the greatest country ever known, maybe I can turn the lights up just a little in your gloomy room.
Angst? Yes, I have some angst. I honestly appreciate your attempt to boost my spirits, but I just don't believe in the economic model as our salvation. Look where the economic model had gotten us in the early 60s. Without serious environmental regulations (strongly opposed by industry), we had rivers in this country that were so polluted they would burn. Air quality was much worse in urban areas than it is today despite there being far more cars on the roads now (yet the air is still dangerously unhealthy in many areas). The only reason there is a single oldgrowth forest left in this nation is due to governmental regulation, not economic regulation. If industry had its way, it would rape until there was nothing left.
1978 Westfalia 2.0 FI

User avatar
Velokid1
IAC Addict!
Status: Offline

Re: Insanity, end of the world, etc.

Post by Velokid1 » Fri Feb 23, 2007 9:42 am

mattg wrote: The question is who is directing this movie in your head?
That may be your question, but it's not mine. :geek: I know I'm directing it. That doesn't make me feel any more comfortable than if the TeeVee were directing me, however. But at least it implies that I have some control over how I process the info I trip over each day. LOL

User avatar
Ritter
IAC Addict!
Location: Sonoma County, CA
Status: Offline

Post by Ritter » Fri Feb 23, 2007 9:47 am

All,

Great posts. Glad I wasn't chased off the board as a freak and glad that many of you can relate.

More of my opinions: Let’s look at the whole economic picture as I see it (DISCLAIMER: I ain’t gots no edgumacation in economics). Peak Oil (PO from here on) is not the end of oil. As Greg said above, it’s the point where production peaks as demand has outpaced our ability to produce from existing supplies or find new ones. Several experts believe we are at this point. Many experts believe that if we are not at this point currently, we will be within 10 years.

Now, consider that, as supplies dwindle, costs increase. What we (we being the general public) usually look at is the cost in gas or heating oil because, as Americans, that is what we perceive to be the direct impacts. We don’t generally consider the externalities and associated rise in cost of food items, clothing, every god damned thing in Walmart, Target, Home Depot, etc., that is reliant on fuel to be shipped from God knows where. Production costs increase. Transportation costs increase. As gas prices continue to rise, so does everything else. And, at the same time, our ability to transport ourselves to work to make $ to pay for more gas to drive to the above places to purchase whatnot and widgets is diminished. At what point do business shut down because nobody can afford their products or services? I know that if the economy takes a huge dump, I’ll probably be out of a job (I work as an environmental planner with a civil engineering firm) thus eliminating my ability to participate in this grand economy. I suppose that’s what economists refer to as a market correction. I think it looks more like massive civil unrest and soup lines (although, I’m not confident in our government’s ability to provide for the poor huddled masses).

Now for my editorial on alternative energies saving our bacon. Biofuels, ethanol, etc. are a pipedream. First, we’re displacing agriculture to make food. That might work provided we continue to have a nice cheap supply of oil to provide the ag machine with fertilizers, pesticides and fuel for ag equipment. PO says we won’t have that. Without oil inputs for ag, our ability to produce food will drop exponentially. In that case, we will need far more land devoted to food production. So now where do we farm these biofuel crops? Oh, and not to mention we’ve paved over the most productive farmland in the country. Oops.

Solar, wind and the like have potential but the truth is we will not be able to replace the energy of oil with them. They are simply not efficient enough nor are they capable of running machinery on the massive scale needed to provide transportation based on our current model. We could change our model by implementation of mass transit, resurrection of rail and city-centered growth, but those changes are on a far greater timeline than that allowed by PO. Nuke power? Yeah, that might help some, but they tend to be associated with a nasty waste product. That and the problem that the great Daddy USA won’t let anyone else have nuke power. Hydropower? If we dam the last of our wild and scenic rivers (oh, that was an environmental regulation also or power companies would have already done so), we might increase hydro power by say 10%. A drop in the bucket, no pun intended.

So that’s it. I don’t really see an alternative to our oil dependence other than a drastic change in our way of life. And I don’t see that being any kind of smooth transition. People like their lazyboys and American Idol, cheep beer and Nascar. PO changes everything and it doesn’t allow much time to change our ways.
1978 Westfalia 2.0 FI

User avatar
hippiewannabe
Old School!
Status: Offline

Re: Insanity, end of the world, etc.

Post by hippiewannabe » Fri Feb 23, 2007 10:47 am

byproxy wrote:...but some regulation, some sensible intervention, is almost always called for. we need something to temper the profit motive when enlightened self-interest isn’t so enlightened anymore.
Ritter wrote:.....Without serious environmental regulations (strongly opposed by industry), we had rivers in this country that were so polluted they would burn. Air quality was much worse in urban areas than it is today despite there being far more cars on the roads now (yet the air is still dangerously unhealthy in many areas). The only reason there is a single oldgrowth forest left in this nation is due to governmental regulation, not economic regulation. If industry had its way, it would rape until there was nothing left.
No disagreement here. Don't confuse free markets with old school slash and burn lazes faire industrialization. One of the most important improvements to the field of economics is the concept of "externalities". Clean air and water have value, so that must be taken into account in the cost of a product. We now pay a little more for paper towel so the paper companies don't kill the rivers, and a little more for cars so they don't pollute the air. The producers don't see pollution as a direct cost of production, so regulation and government intervention are required.

What is inviolate is the concept of supply and demand; once all the true costs are accounted for, the price agreed by willing buyers and willing sellers determines how much will be produced and consumed. Anything else leads to mis-allocation of resources and waste.


Speaking of externalities...
Velokid1 wrote:[....Suburbs and working 20 miles from your home and being able to drive alone to pick up bread from the store on a whim...
This is one of my favorites. One of the consequences of cheap gasoline here in the US is suburban sprawl. The plowing up of wetlands, forest and farms for subdivisions and malls has a real cost that's not being reflected. In Europe, development is densely clustered around train stops. It's not because they are a different species than us, it's rational economic decision making based on the relative cost of driving a car. They would love to pay $2.50 a gallon for gas rather than $7.00, but they adjust, make appropriate choices, and live their lives. We showed that the world didn't come to an end when gas hit $3, but it was enough to change our behavior. Gas needs to be taxed up to about $5, then we will use a lot less, and have less sprawl. The scariest proposal is the panacea of forcing the car makers to produce cars with better gas mileage than the market now demands. If we don't couple that with an increase in the price of gas, people will just pocket the bonus and drive more miles, exacerbating sprawl. I'm also a student of the law of unintended consequences.


Anyway, you should all take a deep breath, and step away from the Hollywood-Democrat-media misery machine. Look at the broader vertical scope of world history, and the horizontal scope of the world today. This is as good as it gets. We have the luxury of debating the details in a nice warm shelter, with full bellies. For 99.9% of human existence, it's been a struggle just to survive.

Post Reply