<DrumBeat: June 21, 2006 The Oil Drum 5th International Conference on Oil and Gas Depletion>

157 comments on A Critique of the 2006 EIA International Energy Outlook

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john milton on June 21, 2006 - 3:46pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I don't hate America / Americans, I'm scared of it / them. Not as individuals per say but as a collective. I should add that I'm also scared by the other individuals, grouped together as nation states, who have chosen to create and maintain stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, are goverened by folks who can only be described as massivly evil and in possesion of power with global reach, etc, etc. but it happened to be the scary nature of America / Americans that was on the table here...

By way of analogy: If I were to be walking down the street and see a dog come running towards me foaming at the mouth I suspect I would be scared, and with good reason. It would, on the other hand be both silly and unhelpful to feel hatred towards the dog.

Having fear i.e. being scared of something, is often adaptive behaviour in the evolutionary sense of the word, whereas being in a space where fear engenders hate can be quite maladaptive.

Hope this clarifies my position for you.

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Testudo on June 21, 2006 - 4:12pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Wrong answer.

You hate him for his freedom.

-----------------------------

^^^^^^^ Sarcasm Alert ^^^^^^^

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tstreet on June 21, 2006 - 5:36pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Doncha know, Bush said this morning that the idea that the U.S. is a dangerous nation is absurd.  Why, everyone knows we're fighting for Democracy and Freedom.  The word for today is absurd. No further thought required.
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john milton on June 21, 2006 - 6:10pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
But to be clear: Bush is no more the problem with America than Stalin was the problem with Russia. Which is to say that evil is present in all of us to a greater or lesser extent. What is problamatic is when the evil are empowered.

Whoever the Pres. of America is there will be a guy following him around for the entirty of his term with "the football" (The gadget that starts world war 3). Thus only an agent of intense evil can agree without reservation to be the President of the U.S., but more to the point Americans have collectivly embodied evil in their state structure because it contains the football carrier. To the extent that they are not working to dismantle this structure they too are agencies of evil in that they enable it at the least through their inaction.

Many of the things discussed here have echos of this: food vs feed stock for biofuel, environmental impacts such as Global Warming, "Demand distruction" in the global south etc.

We really need to start owning the evil inherent in the ways we consider going on these things if they are worthy things for consideration by human beings, in my opinion.

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tom deplume on June 21, 2006 - 7:18pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I wonder what the rich mean by freedom. Having never been rich I see freedom differently. A few years back I discovered that I am not free to let the paint fall off my house. Only people obsessed with their own but not my property rights would enforce such a law. I think the rich think of freedom as the freedom from helping to carry the burdens they impose on others. It certainly isn't those described in the US Constitution.
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DelusionaL on June 21, 2006 - 9:27pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
This went from a bad report to a total trashing of america.  While it isn't the best we could have done here lately there is a few things that you could do.  First of all you could leave- yes that is correct! You can leave and find a better country to live in.  The world is full of places to go to, sell everything you own and go...or...Try to fix it or at least prepare for the shortcoming that are present.
Please keep in mind that Bush has very low approval ratings, so while you(we) may not like him I don't think it fair to lump us all into a shitty box.
It would appear also that there are alot of people trying to get into the US.  It would appear that they do not agree with you.  
Bad isn't bad except by comparison, look at the opertunity that doesn't exist elsewhere.    
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GJ on June 21, 2006 - 10:34pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
John Milton said earlier:

Bush is no more the problem with America than Stalin was the problem with Russia

Nonsense.  Bush IS the problem with America.  Polling throughout the free world prior to Bush were very positive; polling after Bush and his illegal invasion of Iraq became overwhemingly negative.  That's a fact.

Delusional said:


It would appear also that there are alot of people trying to get into the US.  It would appear that they do not agree with you.

Everything is known by comparison, Delusional.  Mobility is the norm now.  Talented people from say, Bosnia (oops, a Muslim world), or India or VietNam or S.Africa, or wherever, are looking to upgrade.  Don't take it as a compliment that people are still coming here - many are also going to quality destinations like Australia, Germany, Canada, Ireland, Israel, Hong Kong, Bejing.  Although I don't have a cite at the ready, there is evidence that the US under Bush and Cheney have persuaded many bright scientist around the world to seek opporunities elsewhere.  Gresham's Law says bad money drives good money out of circulation (eg. silver coins are now hoarded).  A corollary suggests bad leaders drive good human capital out of the country.

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DelusionaL on June 21, 2006 - 10:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hmm....perhaps I wasn't clear enough.  Bush's poll rates are low...are we not in total agreement that he isn't liked here and that we americans should not be wraped together with him because he isn't liked? Would he win an election today?  I think not! we are just waiting to get rid of him.
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Rajiv on June 21, 2006 - 11:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Delusional,

I don't think Tom meant that as a hit on all Americans, but rather as a general polemic on the policies adopted by the US government (which presumably acts in the name of the American Public,) and the elite that determine those policies. Capitalism is taken to be democratic, while it is one of the most undemocratic means of governance.

You may find "The Strange Language of Capitalism" an interesting read.

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Prodigal Son on June 21, 2006 - 11:21pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Don't Republicans say the scariest words you can hear are, 'We are from the government and we're here to help'?

Caesar always says his legions are there to bring peace and justice. He just doesn't mention that he has to make desert in order to do so.

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LevinK on June 21, 2006 - 5:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The sarcasm in the first post was hard to get for anyone not in the USA. The idea that they "hate us for our freedoms" was so ridiculous/naive that they wisely chose not to sell it outside of american soil - and I suppose john milton did not know about it.

I guess it is pointless to rant about it, but IMO we need to take a deeper look at the brainwashing that is in place. For me it poses much bigger long-term dangers than the depletion of hydrocarbons, which in other circumstances would not present such a huge problem by itself.

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oilmanbob on June 21, 2006 - 6:53pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I agree, the attitudes of the American people enable evil.
Aldous Huxley wrote a book back in the mid sixties called the Witches Of Loudon, which was about a historical demonic possession frenzy in France in about the 13th or 14th century.
In part of his analyses he examined the madness of crowds and how they are manipulated, and even more particularily how nationalism can become a false religeon. He asserted that this worship of the state was the distruction of the Greek democracy in the Peleponesian wars. I believe we are at that state in the US now, with such inanities as a "flag burning amendment" and the number of people that worship the state and all its actions.
 We have, through our own laziness, allowed a bunch of totalitarians to take over in Washington and they will stop at nothing to retain power. This obfustication about crude supplies is just today's manifestation. The automobile industry in America cannot admit that their model of how to run transportation is not working. I mean really, 400HP SUV's flying down the Highway at 80 MPH, or sitting motors reving in a 500 foot swath of concrete and steel polluting the atmosphere.The major gasoline marketers and refiners are just as delusional, because if they admit even to themselves that our hydrocarbon addiction is bankrupting us and their companies will not survive it is emotionaly intolerable and will cause the stocks to decline as investor's realise that  Exxon and Shell and Chevron are like the tobacco industry-doomed and only worth the dividends.
  Both political parties are to blame, they are whore to the almighty dollar. And I'm sure I'll get nailed for this anti-american sentiment, but the Emperor has no clothes!
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DelusionaL on June 21, 2006 - 9:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I used to get mad at what went on in washington(still do) but have come to realize this.  Is it corruption or human nature at work.  
For example-- I build a barn and my neighbor helps me for free.  he then builds a barn.  If i don't help him he will never (probably ) help me again.  If I do help him he will most likely help me again in the future.

so, I'm a politican,  I want money for election.  someone gives me $ . There is legislation that affect thier interests. They want my help.  What do you think is going to happen?  
It sounds better with a neighbor and his barn but the process is the same.

So, unless we get rid of private funding of campaigns this will continue in all it's differnt forms such as a shitty report in an effort maintain the status que for whoever gave to the election.  

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oilmanbob on June 21, 2006 - 11:12pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Delusional, my friend, right on. But that's only one small reform. Our basic freedoms ae eroded by the consolidation of the media. When I was growing up in Houston there were three television stations, three newspapers and 20 odd radio stations, each individually owned. Now Houston is down to one daily paper which is owned by the Hearst newspapers, and although there are 8 television stations, only two have any local content and one of those is a Newscorp station owned by Rupert Murdock. All the mainstream networks are owned by conglomerates (Disney, Time-Warner, and General Electric) and we do have a PBS station. The spanish stations are owned by their own conglomerates, and although ther are perhaps 40 radio stations, except for the two university stations and Pacifica affiliate KPFT all owned by conglomerates. Clear Channel is the largest. What I'm saying is that there is very little diversity of opinion available because of the decontrol of the public's airwaves by big corporations. And most of them are not local.
   Marshall McCluhan made the point about 1970 that the medium is the message. Amost all broadcast and print media exist to sell commercials, for gasoline refiners and marketers and car dealers. The media whips up artificial fear and anger to keep us hooked into watching and avoids anything that offends any advertisers. They want every problem and every solution to be reduced to a 30 second intervel and shy away from any question or solution with a more complexity. We need to break up these media conglomerates and limit their size or our republic will continue to get worse.
   But thank God for the internet, or maybe Al Gore. It enables people to communicate and self publish.
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fleam on June 22, 2006 - 2:39am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Oilman you are exactly right.

The attitudes of American do allow, even foster, evil.

An example that's really hit home with me is the recent realization that my older sister is, in fact, the embodiment of pure evil. How did I come to this realization? Well, it starts with the iPod. I forwarded her the article about the working conditions of the Chinese slaves who make the iPod, as a "whatta ya know" sort of thing, as she'd been considering getting one. She took that as an attack. You see, in the US, you either agree with a person completely and say so, or if you don't agree completely you still say you do, since anything but that is considered an attack. I had to do a lot of "patching up" after sending her that article, believe me! Well, the ensuing conversation resulted in her admitting her belief that the overriding principle in life is Convenience. Basically, everything to her, the meaning of life, is Convenience.

If you think about that, that is really the very core of evil. She, a prep-school kid who should have had some contact with the ideas of estheticism, (sp?) the self-sacrifices of many historical figures from Jesus to Gautama to Tolstoy, has as her core belief that, That Which Is Good Is That Which Is Convenient. This is the attitude of the Nazis who found it most convenient to work the Jews to death and burn 'em rather than at least send them to Madegascar, of the US which found it most convenient to nuke two Japanese cities rather than sacrifice more troops, your average limousine lib who sends in the convenient Red Cross payment in the mail while ignoring the poor and desperate in their own town, and every soldier, everywhere, every time, who found it more convenient to kill than to ask questions.

I guess Jello Biafra put it best, "Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death", in the title of one of his songs. That's the core of American culture.  

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LevinK on June 23, 2006 - 11:38am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I agree with most of what you say, with the exception of soldiers - for them it is not a matter of convenience to follow their orders or not. You may say that it would be a matter of convenience to decide to enroll the army or not; but first this is not always a matter of choice and second we have quite persuasive propaganda to ensure us that we are always the good guys - and I can not blame anybody for believing.
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Darwinian on June 22, 2006 - 7:40am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Huxley's book was "The Devils of Loudon". It was about people being possessed by devils, not witches. I read it and it is a true historical account, or at least as close to a true account as history can record, which is not perfect. One can learn a lot about psychology from reading Huxley. Incidently the Devils mostly occupied the bodies of Catholic Nuns.
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oilmanbob on June 22, 2006 - 7:54am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
You're right, I lost my copy during tropical storm Alison in a box in my father's garage. Wish I had another, I'll check Amazon.com.
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DelusionaL on June 22, 2006 - 8:23am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I always thought nuns were evil.(haha)
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john milton on June 22, 2006 - 12:46pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I understand that during many of these episodes the whole city was "acid tripping" due to ergot mould growing on grain (rye mostly) stored in graneries with leaky roofs and poor ventilation. Also, many of the evils attributed to the possesed are consistant with ergotamine posioning and the times of most witches corespond to wet years based on tree ring growth data.

Not sure if Huxley coverd this in his book? but I know he was right into that sort of stuff...

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157 comments on A Critique of the 2006 EIA International Energy Outlook

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