[extropy-chat] Peak Oil news

[Lee Corbin]

BillK writes

> On 3/8/06, Lee Corbin wrote:
> 
> > It even gets a little funny to anticipate how uncomfortable
> > these claims must make some people. One bottom line, "if you
> > are so sure, then put your money where your mouth is"
> > naturally provokes outrage.
> 
> Well, obviously.  People are happy to put their money where their
> mouth is when they select lottery numbers, decide which horse to bet
> on, which boxer to bet on, which snail to bet on in snail races, etc,
> etc.  People will bet on *anything*.

Perhaps you miss my point:  I (and others) were complaining
that people *don't* bet on Peak Oil who rationally *should*
be betting. Your examples are of a lot of loons, or people
just having fun. As Hal implied, those betting on oil
futures are most often professionals.

> It doesn't incline me to give any more credence to their beliefs if
> they place bigger bets.  It just increases their level of stupidity. 
> Betting is a tax on stupidity.

I totally agree that lotteries tend to be just a tax on stupidity,
(although I'm open to the idea that perhaps some poor people have
weird preferences regarding their fantasy-driven entertainment.)

This is not the same thing: folks buying stocks are much, much
more serious.


Russell writes

> someone in my gaming group started talking about peak oil 
> so I said "well then, buy oil futures and get rich in a 
> few years!", which was met with some vague mumbling and 
> a change of subject :)

Heh, heh.  Exactly.  

> What I did was this: having read Gold's arguments against 
> the prevailing view, before I made up my mind I wanted to 
> hear the prevailing view's arguments against Gold. So what 
> I did was, I went to a newsgroup - sci.geology or somesuch
>  - and said, hey, I've read Gold's book, are there flaws 
> in his arguments and if so where?
> The general technique that I think is a good one is: when
> you've read a convincing argument against the conventional
> view, ask a bunch of experts for their arguments against
> the maverick view and compare the two.

Thanks! Now all I have to do is remember your advice. :-(

Lee