by Starman » Thu Sep 08, 2005 11:37 pm
>Human wrote: if it was about depletion, wouldnt it essentiall be about running out of ALL oil? <br><br>Wintler said:<br>w: No, you might want to loook up the definition of depletion. As every and any peak oil text will tell you, and i've repeated a number of times, its about running out of cheap, easy to extract oil. I thought you said you had 'read all the material'?<br><br>BINGO;<br>I thought as much. This is what I meant in saying one can't very well debate something when the other person doesn't understand what they think they are disagreeing with.<br><br>It's like an astonomer and astologer debating cosmology.<br><br><br>Wintler said:<br>'Forgetting' about resource depletion would be par for the course for a civilisation hell bent on MORE. Suggesting we can free overselves without kicking the core drug of us white western middle managers of Empire is also ridiculous. Even if you depose the neocon cabal you'll be bombing Iraq the next day to get your gasoline fix, theres no progress there.<br>*****<br><br>WELL damn-said there.<br><br><br>"human" wrote (in response to starman): what i am saying is that it is a engineered crisis by a well organized military-industrial-scientific complex, and that no scientific data or facts and figres can convince me otherwise.<br>****<br><br>So, THAT'S what you really meant all along, Human -- That's what I thought, but I gave you the benefit of doubt anyway. Your criteria for judging the relevancy and meaning of the Peak Oil theory consists of how you FEEL about it. Scientific evidence and facts just don't count.<br><br>No wonder you said:<br>"i guess there really is nothing TO debate. Christ will return, and the wells will run dry..... "<br><br>Christ, but you're so perplexing. You said you read the information and understood Peak Oil -- But you keep saying things that don't have ANYTHING to do with Peak Oil. One of the most basic principles, which Wintler repeated, was that Peak Oil is NOT 'about' running out of oil.<br><br>This is of major importance, so it bears repeating.<br><br>Peak Oil is NOT about running out of oil.<br><br>I think a number of people here have really tried to show you how your standards for dismissing Peak Oil as wrong<br>and worse than useless, even damaging to the effort to reform society and implement desperately-needed changes, are deeply flawed.<br><br>Since you're philosophically resistant to evidence based on scientific reason and facts, the only things you can bring to a sincere debate is passion (ie., intensity), faith and feeling.<br><br>BUT -- You seem harshly intolerant of other people's passionate intensity in discussing what THEY see as important considerations. So, it seems you aren't being consistent in extending the same value of emotionally-weighted terms that you depend on to argue your point.<br><br>But as far as that goes -- Why do you insist that YOUR emotional-judgement that Peak Oil is wrong because some people fear it trump MY emotional-judgement that America's Peak Oil business-as-usual is 'wrong'? You feel Peak Oil is wrong because it's 'fearful', while I think Peak Oil is 'right' because I'm so deeply offended by the social and economic consequences resulting from our 'leaders' failure to properly understand what it means and take active steps to prevent the catastrophe that will occur if we don't plan accordingly. In both cases, our given 'reason' for feeling we're right is based on a common sense of 'decency'. <br><br>But where you and I have a real difference of opinion is in how much 'weight' our feelings have (or should have)in judging whether something is right or wrong. <br><br>My 'belief' involves the compelling reason that Peak Oil correctly predicts past and present energy-policy actions by oil-energy producers, reflecting the view that oil resources are reaching the conditions of inherant limitation. <br><br>What I don't understand is, given your avowed emphasis on feelings as a primary crieria to judge the relative truth of Peak Oil, why you don't weight the past and actual costs of human suffering as more compelling than some abstract 'potential' future suffering -- as I have enormous contempt for America's legacy of incredible pain, suffering, horror, injustice, brutality, human-rights abuses and mass-murder resulting from America's blase and unexamined 'right' to unlimited access to cheap and abundant oil. By claiming Peak Oil is 'wrong', you are ignoring the significance and implications of Peak Oil as being of key relevance to America's hegemonic Imperialism, and essentially endorsing America's reckless and profligate exploitation of cheap oil to fuel the engine of NWO Military Empire.<br><br>To return to your closing dismissal:<br>"ive come to the conclusion that peak-oilers are no more rational than apocolyptic christians."<br><br>This is a FINE example of inconsistency and self-contradiction -- YOU are the one who appealed to faith and repudiated the value of scientific reason and facts --just as the apocolyptic christians. You just can't or won't grasp that Peak Oil is NOT about predicting apocalypse -- that's the prediction, supported by observation and analysis by such peak Oil populuzers as Ruppert who conclude that UNLESS our political and industry and financial 'leaders' wake-up in time and begin to effect much-needed change, will most likley happen --You seem to be unable to detach Peak Oil theory from socioeconomic analysis -- this again suggests you HAVEN'T done your basic homework.<br><br>"civilization WILL collapse, because you read it in a book... "<br><br>Again, you are making unwarranted deductions and specious characterizations of Peak Oil that are NOT part of the hypothesis. I don't even know what 'book' you are talking about. The Bible? Given the current trend of an out-of-control war-bent corporatocracy, I think major global crisis is very, very possible. The cause will be greatly aggravated by 'leaders' failure to take Peak Oil seriously. Is this notion of your unwitting complicity by refusing to consider that Peak Oil may be true, thus resisting the imperative to apply the critical lessons of limits to unrestrained dependency on cheap oil, what drives your unreasoning passion?<br><br>"shit, at least the Bible is "Gods" word.... "<br>Shit, if 'You' say so ...<br><br>"yall are worshipping pseudo science."<br><br>And you're losing whatever shred of credibility you still had. This makes NO sense whatsoever; I challenge you to prove your claim.<br>HOW is a testable theory 'pseudo science'? <br>How is debate based on reason, facts, substantiated and corroborated information and evidence from a wide range of sources 'worshipping'?<br>You can't know how silly this sounds.<br><br>"i guess there really is nothing TO debate. Christ will return, and the wells will run dry....."<br><br>Peak OIl theory does NOT predict wells running dry. Long before oil wells are completely emptied, the costs and energy of extraction will exceed the value of energy recovered -- wells will be abandoned when (really, just before) they become net energy losses.<br><br>Again, if you done the basic homework you'd have known this most basic principle.<br><br>The lights are not gonna go off all at one -- there will be perhaps years of supply-interruptions and rolling brownouts, and more and more desperate resource wars and military feints, parries, invasions and retreats and alliances and aysymmetrical warfare and food-shortages and civil-strife and so-forth.<br><br>You sem to have your mind so convulsively wrapped around a particular worse-case desperate scenario that you just can't be convinced what you're 'arguing' about is a particular interpretation of consequences IF the Peak Oil hypothesis of oil-supply shortfalls isn't mediated by taking concerted, organized action to develop feasable alternatives and promoting conservation. How many years behind Europe fo you suppose the US already is? Do you really think there will be any widespread incentive to change as long as the same robber-baron cuthroat corporate gangsta thugs are in control and calling the shots? HAVE you thought this out?<br>(It sure doesn't look like it!)<br><br>By simply dismissing Peak Oil out-of-hand and blaming energy-shortages and high prices on unregulated crooked oil executives in-league with corrupt politicans and special interests (ie., defense industry), your reaction to the impending crisis of short-supply is hardly <br>different than the masses of sheeple who decry expensive gas while chanting 'What Me Worry?' I can confidently predict they'll be led to support the 'troops' to the precipice of world war in defense of the 21st century Holy-Grail myth of 'cheap oil'. <br><br>Do you REALLY think the average mind-numbed sheeple masses are aware or concerned enough about social injustice and economic unfairness to sacrifice their crumbs of security and convenience to actively challenge and confront the status-quo elites by placing their bodies on the wheels and gears of the clanking firebreathing automaton war-machine of Empire? HaH! I think the 'typical' American is far less involved or self-aware of world affairs that Germany's patriotic citizens and loyal troops on the eve of 2nd World War.<br><br>But I sure would LOVE to be proved wrong. AFATG: I think the Feds are dupliciously using the Katrina catastrophe to make the public weary about contributing to disasters. How many citizens have given a thought that the Government had an agenda in confounding and impeding the disaster relief, and making the Federal-coordinated state and local response far more inefficient and FUBAR than if FEMA had just left everybody alone?<br><br>Starman <p></p><i></i>