Peak Oil News Forums >> Post 821419 >> Re: deleted

the48thronin wrote:

So is it arrogance to assume there might be a world changing “plan” or designed way of creating for capturing or using energy that would avoid the effects of the oil use gluttony we call Peak Oil…. Why is it not more hubristic to give up and join the refrain saying there is not a way to enable the current population to survive and prosper using some alternative that would be self evidently better than to continue the search for a plan that works?

Plantagenet wrote:
Of course you can search for a plan that works. People always search for plans that work.

So—-what is your plan that works?

If you don’t have an entire plan, then do you have part of a plan that works?

the48thronin wrote:
Ah the old “if your so smart what’s the answer” answer, not really a good beginning once you are past the 4th grade… but let’s act as if we were really trying to converse…(get real If anyone HAD the answer/plan they would already be putting it in motion).

However, as I called for in the beginning, this group of disparate thinkers from several views might because, they at least recognize the real problem, be the group to spark the discussion that finds a solution.

For instance look at this post from a different thread by dohboi:

Quote:
Very nicely put. I do wonder if governments, companies, individuals…are aware of peak oil, might some choose non-oil-based ways to restore their economies or even powerdown. And if that happened in enough cases, could this keep the world just ahead of the curve.

What if oil is suddenly seen as something to avoid being dependent on at almost any cost? What if it essentially goes out of style? US industry, as I understand it, largely moved away from dependence on oil after the oil shocks of the 70’s. Maybe this could happen more broadly.

I know that this seems highly unlikely now, but PO is getting more press and the wild swings in oil prices have certainly captured a lot of people’s attention. If we have another huge run up and crash, perhaps people will start thinking that the price of oil is just too volatile to base the future of their economies on?

the48thronin wrote:

Here appears part of the path to the solution, a rational depiction of a way to gain the time to implement one at least.

Of course for the discussion here to do anything, people will have to engage positively instead of challenging anyone who doesn’t spout their already delineated positions in agreement with them…

Just a thought… if not here? Where?

Peak Oil News >> Forums >> Open Discussion >> deleted

the48thronin wrote:
if anyone wishes we can continue this discussion as “deleted” in advance memoriam to those billions of not worthy soon to be left behind ( starving is such a brutal description for it) who would have hoped we found a real answer “plan that will work” for them too….

Plantagenet wrote:
We should all make plans as best we can, but lets not be so hubristic as to imagine that we can know with certainty what is the “plan that will work”.

In human societies, as in biology, it is best if there are multiple variations, survival strategies, adaptations, mutations, etc.

No one can know in advance which political model, military strategy, energy mix, religion, culture, etc. is the one that will be successful, because no one can accurately predict exactly what will happen in the future or what the precise effects of things like oil depletion, climate change, war, economic collapse, mass human migrations, technological advances, etc. will be.

the48thronin wrote:
Welcome to the deleted thread..

So just to make sure I am not miss understanding the answer you posted, Forgive me in advance if I have it wrong..

My reply to what I believe you said

Hubris My favorite connotation is arrogance.

So is it arrogance to assume there might be a world changing “plan” or designed way of creating for capturing or using energy that would avoid the effects of the oil use gluttony we call Peak Oil.

When the light bulb came into being, was it hubris to manufacture it and did it not change many world held ideas on how to use energy and in what forms to provide light? Or was the hubris actually the candle maker who scoffed at the usefulness of something so foreign to his way of thinking?

Is it hubristic to ask HEY let’s brainstorm this world we now live in and try to find an alternative that allows the entire population to roll out of the whale oil and candle existent reality into something different.. ( you might notice it did not take either a die off nor a planetarchy to spread the idea of light bulbs ).

As to the constant refrain that there is no way to carry the present population, I see no facts that cannot be shown to be based on the present economic and technological order of things, According to the better educated university professors in the 1300s there was no way to sail west to reach India without falling off the edge of the earth.. Who was hubristic, the sages or the mariners who were trading off the coast of north America as early as the 600s.

My point is (and yes this is a peak oil question as without a belief in peak oil and it’s effects the question is moot)… Why is it not more hubristic to give up and join the refrain saying there is not a way to enable the current population to survive and prosper using some alternative that would be self evidently better than to continue the search for a plan that works?

Is the comfort of standing in line patting each other on the back for wisely saying “it cant be done except on a limited scale by us WISER THAN OTHERS” really better than scrambling with every fiber of the supposedly educated beings to find an answer that works for everyone?

Maybe I misunderstood your response? Maybe you misunderstand what I am asking?

I repeat my own belief that the “plan” ( feel free to substitute design, invention, new understanding, new technology or what ever other answer comes from the blending of disciplines and resulting answer) probably will NOT be a political, military, religion, or cultural trick, most of those disciplines are about bankrupt for creating new ways of dealing with the need for energy at point of use without disrupting the natural balance of life as we know it.

I feel like a poor dinosaur asking my fellows, “Hey guys, supposing an asteroid was to hit this swamp? What would we do to survive?

What do you mean we would all just have to die?

Peak Oil News Forums >> Post 820382 >> Re: deleted

TWilliam wrote:
Ronin,

With regard to what appears to be your underlying assumption here that a 7+ billion world population is sustainable long-term, if we’d just ‘figure out how to do it’ - here are a couple of things that might be worth considering:

a) If it’s physically possible for the planet to sustain such a population, why, pray tell, has it never (at least as far as we know) even remotely approached that level prior to the widespread technological exploitation of hydrocarbon fuels? Two words that might suggest an avenue for considering this particular question: ‘Green Revolution’.

You seem to me to have the cart before the horse. Placing them that way predispositions the outcome to of the discussion to failure to even look for additional avenues and alternatives to the predisposed ideas we have been seeing for 40 years now. That tactical argument is used by everyone defending the status quo of every “established theory” existent.

Try just once saying it another way.. We do not (because history is in fact simply a collection of local remembrances and not yet fully cohesive even today in the age of the INTERNET) know how many beings have inhabited the earth as a maximum number. Now that statement cant be argued with facts.

We do have a pretty good idea what the sustainability is of our present social structure and technological base, BUT we have no knowledge preventing some other technology or even cohesive understanding of other life styles from achieving a sustainable ecology with any given number of people not based on observations limited by the existence of this social structure we inhabit.

If we admit we do not know what the carrying capacity of the planet is, why should we assume that given a reasonable effort to correct the obvious faulty technologies/lifestyles we are using now we cannot continue to carry the number now existent?

If we wish to carry the number existent we can determine what technologies are in fact working for resource depletion, and what possible avenues of change can be found to correct those deficiencies. Once understood we should be able to design a remedial life and technology adapting the existent structures to ease the transition.

History is full of failed ideas, wars, pestilence, indifference ( oh wait that one is approaching again ( pick any of the for-mentioned).
But history also is a study of mankind’s attempts to correct deficiencies overlaid on the the platitudes and chronicling of the rich and powerful.

TWilliam wrote:

b) Can’t remember where I first heard (read?) about this particular idea, but I came across it awhile back and it definitely gave me pause for thought. Consider the fact that, at least in any effective sense, there is a finite amount of biomass upon this planet. The more of it that gets converted into human bodies, the less of it there is to be utilized by everything else. What implications might this have for the biosphere at large, and its ability to sustain us?

I agree there is a finite amount of bio massive material building blocks, but cannot see any possible proof anyone might have tried to propose that the present population has used so much of those building blocks that there is not sufficient remaining. Please give more precise details on that?

My underlying point.. that billions of human beings each as valuable to the cosmos as any other deserve the maximum effort to find a way to preserve and augment their existence rather than a constant refrain of “it cant be done” and retreat to your redoubt and the devil take the hindmost is see so often.

A cockroach is a primitive form of life existent unchanged since the age of the dinosaurs, as it dies it lays eggs to hatch in 14 days as a continuation of it’s life purposes. Ecovillage for the few kind reminds me of that. An old idea for those who have given up on creating a better world for all.

Peak Oil News Forums >> Post 820364 >> Re: deleted

Ludi wrote:
You’re welcome to start your own thread, ronin.

Yes, I’m taking what marbles I have left and leaving in a huff.

Have fun!

the 48th ronin wrote:
I believe you started this one and requested I post what I wanted to say here. Now in a huff you delete the title and tell me to go elsewhere.

I think this proves my point about communication and open to new ideas, you think it stands as proof you need not waste time discussing the subject with someone you don’t think like. ( maybe you are so beyond the primitive discussion …?)

A moderator can choose to put back a decent subject, you can repent and at least put back a decent subject line, or if anyone wishes we can continue this discussion as “deleted” in advance memoriam to those billions of not worthy soon to be left behind ( starving is such a brutal description for it) who would have hoped we found a real answer “plan that will work” for them too….

sigh

Peak Oil News Forums >> Post 820354 >> Re: a plan that works,etc

the48thronin wrote:

The quest here is for a workable universally acceptable solution ( wow that’s setting the bar high) being as we at least see the approaching apocalypse.

MrBean wrote:

That’s where the problem starts. I don’t believe in any of that universalist totalitarian crap. I’m relativist, believing in variance, difference, localism.
the48thronin wrote:

Possibly this is just an over reaction to all the doomstead appearing on almost every discussion, but I have alway wanted to win against a perceived challenge not just get by.

MrBean wrote:
As for pragmatic approaches with express time table, I proposed to Al Gore to become the planetarch, to run for president of US, if won then declare Planetarchy, appoing a council of wise men to draft a global plan of survival/soft landing, then put that plan into global referendum, as wide as could be organized. Then if approved to be excecuted. As tyrannically as necessary.

Didn’t go that way. I don’t consider myself cynical (I did write to Al with best intentions ) but a realist. So, any other and better pragmatic ideas to save the bulk? If not, I’m still into the ecovillage type of seed planting for future generations of human communities… but helpless to save all of the mankind.

The 48th ronin wrote:
Your response and even Ludi’s seem both predicated on standing defense for what prior thinking has been published, and slightly based on your idea of what I was saying and asking which do not to me appear to match what I was trying to convey.

See my comment on open to ideas above. The actual exchange of ideas to form a consensus and effect change can be more challenging simply in establishing a viable communication than solving the problem causing the communication.

Universally acceptable ( practical) should convey more “so utilitarian” that it would be usable by the MAJORITY of people rather than the select few. Possibly your ecovillage ideas are almost practical. almost universally acceptable, but they are for now useless to more than a few.
Like ecovillage, the solution will have to adapt to different local conditions, but to actually affect the outcome for large masses of fully as deserving as anyone else people, it must be self salable to a variety and probably self contractible as well. ( simply a point not a guaranteed part of a solution).

YOU say you are willing to settle for planting seeds for future generations, I say to my view that means you give up on finding a more equitable solution for all those others your decision to plant seeds has condemned to starvation. I am as yet unwilling to wave sorrowfully goodbye to so many billion people I have yet to even meet and try to understand.

I originally phrased this in common language, and I will try to continue in common language to avoid the pitfalls predetermined definitions can add to the natural hazards of communicating with someone who speaks like but thinks different ( as we apparently do).

I stated above that government action is not IN MY OPINION either useful nor desired due to both the differences in perceived need for and type of government and to the obvious shortcomings of governmental action as demonstrated on “name your favorite pork disaster”.

The real practical universally acceptable actual “plan that would work” must seemingly be either the production of a viable alternative energy source, production and acceptance of some other media of accomplishing mastery of biosphere and production of wealth. ( or possibly a redefinition of wealth ((good luck on that one)) or complete change in the necessity for transportation and distribution. ( that statement deserves challenge and amplification )

Apparently to some here raising anew questions about why some answers simply CEDE some desired results makes me a JERK to some here… so be it.