[ExI] Doomsday Oil Price: (was RIP: Peak Oil)

[Tomasz Rola]

On Wed, 7 Mar 2012, Kelly Anderson wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 1:16 PM, Tomasz Rola <rtomek at ceti.pl> wrote:
> > On Wed, 7 Mar 2012, Kelly Anderson wrote:
> >> Come on... some people with lots of money are still idiots. Two words:
> >> George Soros... nuff said.
> >
> > I'm not sure about this. My understanding of idiocy is such that rich
> > idiots become poor idiots very quickly. So, to judge where this particular
> > guy is heading, I would need some data on his finances. OTOH, if he is an
> > idiot but has good advisors... Yep, complicated.
> 
> George Soros is not a financial idiot. He is a financial genius.
> According to some, he is sitting on an extremely large cache of
> physical gold. If he manages to melt down the world economy, he could
> easily end up being the richest man on earth. The policies that he
> promotes would seem to be pushing us in that direction, so no, I do
> not think he is a financial idiot, I think he is willing to flush the
> world down the toilet to end up being the richest man on earth. Aside
> from that, I also think that he really does want a one world
> government, and melting down all of the sovereign nations is the
> shortest path to achieving that dubious goal.

I think the very fact we discuss his plans on this forum is a proof he 
should rethink his strategy. A villain exposed is a villain with his 
trousers down. There must be more effective way of doing harm to humanity, 
like playing guitar loudly and badly in a public place. So, instead of 
this "I am bad" daydreaming, he should go around the world with a guitar, 
doing wrong everywhere, making people aggressive with his play, causing 
city-wide riots against guitar playing etc.

This would be something bad. Even worse if he tried the same with a 
violin. Or if he started printing lousy books and distributing them 
around, instigating riots agains literacy...

But gold trading? Being the richest MITW? BTW, there is always 
someone-the-richest man. How is the current one not as bad as the next 
one? Or a previous one?

Perhaps you have just failed victim of a current one's propaganda, let's 
call him Antisoros for simplicity.

> > [...]
> >> Sucks to be you. This is a real shame.
> >
> > Really depends. If after all I land on top of this, maybe it will suck
> > less, maybe I will even like it :-). Life is a process.
> 
> Hey, life sucks for me too some days and in some ways. Can happen in
> the greatest country in the world.

Yep, there was a lot of suckiness in Russia. Probably still there is some. 
The bigger the country, the bigger suck can hide inside.

> >> However, it side steps the main question. What would a
> >> long term energy plan look like? What would it say? Would it say
> >> things like "We want to have 20% of of the transportation sector's
> >> energy to be solar photovoltaic by 2035."??? What would it say? How
> >> would that affect decisions made today? Is it just an excuse for more
> >> government meddling in the private sector?

[...]

> > Besides, it is somewhat hard to prognose about progress. Hundred+ years
> > ago, prognosis was that London would be inevitably covered by horse
> > manure, based on city/population growth speed and their expected
> > transportation needs.
> 
> And in 1850 there was great concern over the shortage of whale oil too...

Right.

[...]
> > With real numbers and with lots of simplification, it is possible to make
> > some simulation and based on them, some plans. Like World3 model from
> > "Limits to growth"/"Beyond the limits". Problem is, again, that such
> > simulations are not cool.
> 
> Again, you started this conversation saying that only government is
> long term thinking enough to solve the energy problem.

Did I really state anything like this? My control of "govt-ass kissing" 
mania of mine went wonky, obviously. That's seriously scary...

or...

Maybe I didn't say anything like this...

> First, I don't
> think government usually solves problems, at least not without a LOT
> of bad unintended consequences. Second, most governments think more
> short term than most good established corporations. Intel is working
> at least ten years ahead of production in their research. What's the
> government doing that reaches that far into the future? The only
> examples I can think of are military.

I myself am a bit sceptical about government's ability to solve problems, 
as long as government is safe from it. So, unemployment is not their 
biggest problem (up to a certain moment, when it begins to propel social 
unrest) but on the other hand, avian flu and SARS are their problem and I 
expect them to be very effective in solving this, and maybe I can prosper 
too.

I could also speculate that other cases of problem solving is just effect 
of accidents coming in right order.

However, I am unwilling to treat any group as uniform, homogenous mass, 
which is why I am unwilling to engage in 
corporate/government/Muslims/Jews/capitalism bashing. At the same time, I 
am unwilling to engage in group-ass-kissing of any above mentioned (and 
others) groups.

> I doubt there is ONE government employee reading this list (other than
> the bots at the NSA, hi bots!)

Au contraire, go bots, go! There, Osama!

There might be some corporate researchers lurking out here. They may be 
prohibited or choose not to talk. I wouldn't be surprised.

> > Do we need any transportation after 2035?
> 
> I predict that there will be more transportation then than there is now.

Depends. There is no transportation without things to be transported. And 
besides basic needs (food, shelter building/improving, weaponry) and some 
luxury (paper books, wine) the rest can be delivered with less 
transportation than nowadays, I guess. Only slower or by the wire.

Back to the problem of longterm planning.

As I said, once we have some real numbers... There are laws of physics. 
Having ten billion people, one needs this and this much of soil to feed 
them. Or this and this much of sea water to grow algae or fish. There 
doesn't seem possible to give them all an ipod - but maybe it is. If you 
can hook them on the net by means of cables plugged into their skulls, 
they can spend most of their days in the dark body magasines. Very low 
energy, all this.

Even less energy, legalize pot, sell it away on subsidied price. No need 
for hi-tek. All happy. Even better, legalize hard drugs. In Russia, 
junkies cook themselves something called krokodil. The drug is toxic, it 
harms internal organs and skin in place of injection gets green/grey, 
hence the name krokodil. The average life span of krokodil user is about 
2-3 years. The upside - it can be made in a kitchen.

However, such vegetation is not life at all.

So perhaps one should first plan a kind of life one would like to have, 
next confronting it with energy bill.

Besides, any serious plan like this would have to consider population 
size. This probably means, any plans on the net not touching this topic 
are just masterbators (a polite name for this is propaganda).

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **