captainballs
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2004
- Messages
- 9,954
we are on the eve of a transformational part of human history that we are not really prepared for, and that is the end of oil being readily available for the demands of the population it has been a major factor in growing.
the availability of oil has affected all of us in how we personally feel about economic reality. There is this innocent idea that human innovation will endure, that things will continue to get better. my personal view is quite the opposite: that a nation or people flooded with easily available energy to build their reality upon will collapse into a barbarism to hold onto that reality if it is forced out of their hands by scarcity.
I picture us sitting on a mountain of economic and social growth spurred by oil, able to look down upon history and judge from a perspective of relative cleanliness or innocence. We are able to look back at Nazi Germany, for instance, and identify personality disorders and economic devastation as the causes of large psychotic movements. the problem is that we really don't think we we are capable of doing it again, except worse. when the one resource that is the essential building block of our reality runs out.
if you live on a farm, you ration the shit out of your water because no one's pumping electricity out to your county's irrigation system. If you're lucky you live alone.
If you're an insurance salesman living in the suburbs in America, you wonder what the fuck the President is going to do about it. It's not that the infrastructure isn't there to provide energy needs to everyone, it's just that the meaning of life changes when you are working only for the right to buy enough energy to transport yourself to work the next day. Subsistence farmers have experience here, we don't.
What we do have, however, is a powerful and calculating military and a history of preserving the idea of "divine right" through global imperialism. So without going on too much further, I fail to see how we're going to avoid the moral problem of taking a political leadership role in deciding who is going to die and how they are going to die from a lack of power over their population's energy source. I'm afraid that we've developed, as a nation, a fairly democratic political system. for this reason, we will be able to share the responsibility in the decision-making process and feel personally, for once, that we have something to do with problems like starvation and genocide.
I guess, as an American, I am feeling the growing pains that our nation is going through. we haven't really been pushed too many times, but when we are pushed we tally the number of lives that would be taken given different options. When forced into a global power play, we have proved that we are capable of hitting the red button and living with it. And I think that we'll be forced to hit it again and again during the coming oil crisis by self-interest.
make no mistake, we will get the oil - every last drop. but I think that the population control decisions and human suffering as a consequence will be greater in scale than anything we have seen in the past. What's worse, is that we will go through with whatever it takes to preserve the lifestyle afforded by oil while we lose that innocence that is needed to really appreciate it and enjoy it like we used to. ignorance is bliss, basically, and I don't see how we're going to preserve it.
so, are you optimistic, pessimistic, or realistic? do you have a different opinion about what impact the oil crisis will have on economic behavior, when we really know that it's the end-game? Or, do you believe in technological alternatives, alternative extraction techniques, or human ingenuity trumping survival instinct? i believe things will get bad - real bad.
the availability of oil has affected all of us in how we personally feel about economic reality. There is this innocent idea that human innovation will endure, that things will continue to get better. my personal view is quite the opposite: that a nation or people flooded with easily available energy to build their reality upon will collapse into a barbarism to hold onto that reality if it is forced out of their hands by scarcity.
I picture us sitting on a mountain of economic and social growth spurred by oil, able to look down upon history and judge from a perspective of relative cleanliness or innocence. We are able to look back at Nazi Germany, for instance, and identify personality disorders and economic devastation as the causes of large psychotic movements. the problem is that we really don't think we we are capable of doing it again, except worse. when the one resource that is the essential building block of our reality runs out.
if you live on a farm, you ration the shit out of your water because no one's pumping electricity out to your county's irrigation system. If you're lucky you live alone.
If you're an insurance salesman living in the suburbs in America, you wonder what the fuck the President is going to do about it. It's not that the infrastructure isn't there to provide energy needs to everyone, it's just that the meaning of life changes when you are working only for the right to buy enough energy to transport yourself to work the next day. Subsistence farmers have experience here, we don't.
What we do have, however, is a powerful and calculating military and a history of preserving the idea of "divine right" through global imperialism. So without going on too much further, I fail to see how we're going to avoid the moral problem of taking a political leadership role in deciding who is going to die and how they are going to die from a lack of power over their population's energy source. I'm afraid that we've developed, as a nation, a fairly democratic political system. for this reason, we will be able to share the responsibility in the decision-making process and feel personally, for once, that we have something to do with problems like starvation and genocide.
I guess, as an American, I am feeling the growing pains that our nation is going through. we haven't really been pushed too many times, but when we are pushed we tally the number of lives that would be taken given different options. When forced into a global power play, we have proved that we are capable of hitting the red button and living with it. And I think that we'll be forced to hit it again and again during the coming oil crisis by self-interest.
make no mistake, we will get the oil - every last drop. but I think that the population control decisions and human suffering as a consequence will be greater in scale than anything we have seen in the past. What's worse, is that we will go through with whatever it takes to preserve the lifestyle afforded by oil while we lose that innocence that is needed to really appreciate it and enjoy it like we used to. ignorance is bliss, basically, and I don't see how we're going to preserve it.
so, are you optimistic, pessimistic, or realistic? do you have a different opinion about what impact the oil crisis will have on economic behavior, when we really know that it's the end-game? Or, do you believe in technological alternatives, alternative extraction techniques, or human ingenuity trumping survival instinct? i believe things will get bad - real bad.
