[ExI] Ignorant fear mongering (was Re: Doomsday Oil Price: (was RIP: Peak Oil))

Sat Feb 25 21:09:03 UTC 2012

On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 6:10 AM, Brent Allsop
<brent.allsop at canonizer.com> wrote:
>
> Hi faithless fear mongers,

Thanks, Brent.  I've been sitting here wondering where to start.  Now
you've taken the weight off my shoulders.

There is something in the human psyche that loves worrying.  About
something.  About anything.  I call it the Henny Penny Syndrome.  "The
sky is falling!!"  "We're doomed!! We're all doomed!!"  Something in
such declarations provides some sort of emotional relief.

Politicians love the Henny Penny Syndrome.  They employ it all the
time.  For every political stripe, its own boogieman.  They trot it
out and then say, "Vote for me and I will save you."

Commies, Injuns, Islamofascists, homosexuals, Nazis, fascists,
feminazis, the yellow peril, Mogambo, terrorists, narcoterrorists,
bankers, the Jews, the Bilderbergs, the Masons, Opus Dei, the
Reptilians, furriners,... the list is endless.  One ideology's
bogieman is another's white knight.  "Vote for me.  I will save you."
Puleeeeese!!  This is so old.

The energy "problem" we face -- not the bogus end times scare fantasy
-- is basically one of price.  We've had so much for so long and so
cheap, that being wasteful has become SOP.  When you see wastefulness
for what it is, the  solution becomes obvious.  Stop being wasteful.
Really, it's just that simple.

When gas was 17 cents a gallon, kids would ride up and down main
street in their muscle cars.  For entertainment.

Soon humanity will be expanding beyond the Terran gravity well.  Then
this fear-mongering will be seen for the emotion- and ambition-driven
manipulation that it is.  Fifty years tops.  Till then primordial
hydrocarbons and nukes will do us just fine.

Not to worry.  Just make sure you and yours stay educated so that you
don't have to suffer unviability and impoverishment with the sheep and
the other "stupids".

"These are not the droids you're looking for."

Same thing for the "global warming" scare.  (Anthropogenic climate
change is factual, but will never become catastrophic.  The very
factors which worry people about the (gradual)supply decline and
(gradual)price rise in "fossil" fuels will drive -- are driving -- the
transition to non-carbon-based energy sources.)

Stop being manipulated by the fear-mongering and celebrate the awesome
wonderfullness of life.  Notice, but don't obsess over, things outside
yourself.  Focus on your own prosperity, build something for yourself,
and don't be diverted by scary stories that emotionally manipulate you
into serving the interests of others,...at your expense.

Best, Jeff Davis

             "You are what you think."
                                 Jeff Davis

>
> It'd be really interesting to find out how many experts agree with this kind
> of fear mongering, and if there are any better arguments for this that any
> experts think are more valid.
>
> These arguments still just seem silly, to me.  Many people once claimed we
> had reached peak oil, at last in the US.  But even that is no longer true
> right?  Many people are now arguing we may be on track to start approaching
> complete oil independence.  I missed the original "RIP: Peak Oil'  article -
> was it about this? If so, to bad it, or the response wasn't canonized, so it
> wouldn't be lost and repeated endlessly.  Obviously, I'm not an expert on
> this particular issue, but it seems to me that electricity for use in cars
> and everything is exploding.  And nuclear energy, despite Fukushima, is
> continuing towards a big and safe Renascence.  (Their about to build a big
> new one here in Utah, already)
>
> You mentioned that it would have been great to get started back in the
> 70s!!??  Do you know how many people launched in this dirrection back then
> with billions of $$, only to lose their shirts, and everything, because they
> were so successful at crashing the price of even oil for such a long time?
>  You, We, and Obama, seem to be failing to learn from all that, and grossly
> repeating these mistakes, putting large money into already completely
> failing institutions, just like last time.
>
> It takes energy to get energy, pfffff...  Yea, maybe for fossil fuels and
> other similar primitive and dirty stuff.  The FV output per cost continues
> to rise exponentially, no additional energy required, right?  I'd bet the
> bang per energy research cost or work (as measured in non automated human
> hours) is exponentially growing also, even for fossil and other similar
> fuels.
>
> Am I the only one that thinks it'd be valuable to survey to see just how
> many experts there are in both sides of this issue, and what the experts
> agree are the best reasons, and the morality of current society or the
> general population, as compared to the experts, including trending, on this?
>  If you guys think this is such an important moral issue, shouldn't you
> start some kind of petition, or something, somewhere, or at least do
> something?  Or are you just a lot of mistaken, noisy, non expert, hot air,
> just wasting everyone's time and slowing things down with such posts?
>
> Who and how many, here, are on either side of this issue?  Or does nobody
> but me care what everyone else thinks, and why, and am I the only one that
> tires of all these continuously repeated popular noisy mistakes on either
> side?
>
> For decades, before a few years ago, the same kinds of silly mistaken noisy
> arguments were repeated in these groups, add infinitem, even more than peak
> oil, about consciousness and qualia.  Has anyone noticed that nobody waists
> their time on any of that any more here?  The same for the importance of
> Friendly AI, even though there is much less expert consensus emerging on
> that issue (see: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/16 ) There is a clear expert
> consensus emerging on some critically important moral issues on
> consciousness that were once lost in the popular ignorant noise (i.e. the
> popular wisdom is being significantly amplified, or at least finally
> catching up with the expert's at a faster rate).  It appears the emerging
> expert consensus is we're on the verge of the greatest scientific discovery
> of all time in that field:   The effing discovery of the relationship or
> mapping between subjective experience or quale and the underlying neural
> correlates.  It's so fun to be able to say things like that, without fear of
> starting yet another many month infinitely repetitive, conversation war,
> with the noisy clueless masses, as it once would surely have done, before we
> even got to that level.  (If you don't know why this is, see the clear
> emerging state of the moral art expert consensus camp:
> http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6 ).
>
> Brent Allsop
>
>
> On 2/25/2012 4:40 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 12:01:22PM +0100, Stefano Vaj wrote:
>>
>>> I see the point, and wonder whether in fact we are not already in such a
>>> trap.
>>>
>>> OTOH, rather than going for a replacement with lower-EROI alternatives
>>> which is becoming increasingly unlikely for the reasons explained
>>> therein,
>>> perhaps we should make use of whatever resources we can still put on the
>>> table for breakthrough-oriented research programmes.
>>
>> We pretty much know where to sink the bulk of the money and resources
>> we still have (which are going, going, gone) -- it's increasing
>> electrification wherever
>> possible, energy conservation in nonessential areas, synfuels, thin-film
>> PV and so on -- I could give a long list but nobody will read it, so I
>> won't.
>>
>> There's sure some low hanging fruit in R&D still but we no longer can
>> afford throwing around rapidly evaporating funds for high-risk high-payoff
>> stuff.
>> That's because we've waited to long, the right time would have been
>> early 1970s (some early projects were started then but were cut in
>> early 1980s because people are poor in foresight).
>>
>> Now we're out of time and money, need to focus on boring, sure winner
>> areas.
>> Deploying rather than developing. Germany does some of that, but also
>> too little, too late.
>>
>> I'm sure many people will fail to see the lesson nevermind to learn from
>> it,
>> and will fail to assign blame where blame belongs.
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>
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