The Oil Drum | Jay Hanson and Dieoff.org

463 comments on Jay Hanson and Dieoff.org

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Magnus Redin on July 25, 2006 - 7:37am

I have a hard time imagining the local population rioting over unaffordable flight tickets or a doubling of the gasolene price as long as the factors giving the high price are external to the local politicians and other sectors work ok. Nobody in Sweden imagines that our government control the world market, perhaps the US population do.

This makes it important to keep electricity production up and price down to keep non oil sectors healthy and people warm and comfortable and to have towns functioning on bicycling and collective transportation and those systems are fairly ok.

The biggest external psycological help with this would probably be if some rich country region crashed and media were full of reports on how awfull it is in the car-only parts of the world who have lacked planning and now cant afford new infrastructure. Be patriotic and accept the lower pension etc, in a few years the new trolley and rail lines will open and plug-in hybrids are slowly getting cheaper, it will be better in 5 years. And if you can afford it, buy a share in the new nuclear powerplants and be guaranteed a maximum price for you kWh!

I think it is time to dust of the old nation state and try to keep the competition on the constructive side, who is better at creating new resources and make savings? Those who are best at it should both compete and trade and thus also get resources to help or keep the riff-raff at bay depending on how desperate people are and how cynical people outside this club are. If war starts resources will contract fast and they will be burned in non constructive competition.

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odograph on July 25, 2006 - 12:22pm

I'm on vacation and only skimming things before the clouds clear up (Seaside, OR). It stikes me that these inclusive fitness -> dieoff arguments pull some proper biology (recent sociobiology) but they seem to me to be selecting the slice that is usefull to the worldview.

I guess the question for those up on both dieoff and modern neurobiology is: how can you be sure this is not confirmation bias?

FWIW, it seems a warning sign when someone shares not just a concern, but a flat certainty of where the fixed and flexible portions of human behavior will take us:

Your missing the point here. Human society is unable, due to psychological hard wiring, to go from a state of high energy use to a lower one without some serious strife and struggle that is typically expressed violently.

Best.

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SkyWick on July 25, 2006 - 1:13pm

Good point,

My off the cuff blog remark is coming short of a truly balanced response.
I used to be a big poster on forums but hold back these days because I find that to write a really good post that really reflects my views I have to spend several days contemplating and researching, making sure I am covering all the angles. I don't have a chance of keeping up with oil drum posts, each time I check there are another 300 comments and posts become stale very quick.

And I agree, it is very hard to extrapolate the future from what is still a young science and yes humans are adaptable.

however, the point I am trying to make still remains...

As was said by Kevembuangga lower down.
the kind of problems we are facing now is dealing with SECOND ORDER regulations, i.e. regulating the dynamics of the system, not just the immediate outcomes.
We simply do not have the wetware that we need to face this situation, past evolutionary response has been to `move to the next island' or `kill off the neighbours.' This means that we have to consciously overrule our instincts. It can be done but it is hard, and many will not even want to try, believing their instinctual response to be the correct one.

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AlphaMaleProphetOfDoom on July 25, 2006 - 1:29pm

Women tend to mate and marry UP the resource ladder, correct? Not saying that happens all the time, but most. I could provide links if you really inssist but I think this is somewhat common knowledge.

This is why men compete to move up the resource ladder. Naturally we each want the best mates: the best looking, most intelligent, etc.

Now when will we powerdown? When women start mating and marrying DOWN the resource ladder.

Question #1: when was the last time you heard a woman say, "I'm looking for a good man, one who is smart, funny, gets along well with others and who makes less money than me."

Question #2: this one is for the married guys and gals: how would the woman in the relationship react if the man came home and said, "honey, I've been reading about this Peak Oil thing and I think we need to reduce both our own consumption and our own economic activity so as to reduce the strain on the planet. So I'm taking a 75% pay cut."?

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step back on July 25, 2006 - 2:26pm

Alpha Leader,
I am married.
I followed your leadership suggestion in Question #2.
Results not pretty.

Let's say Lorena Bobbitt is starting to look like a kindly gentle lady to me right now.

I am starting to have doubts in your leadership abilities.

(P.S. Just kidding. I'm stupid, but not that stupid to try Question number 2. The results would be total Bobbitthood. I would not be able to join you and Sailorman in those exhibition games anymore. As you know, certain things are non-negotiable.)

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AlphaMaleProphetOfDoom on July 25, 2006 - 3:12pm

SB,

lmfao! I'm writing an article on money and happiness and am so including your post!

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xironman on July 25, 2006 - 6:03pm

Question #2: this one is for the married guys and gals: how would the woman in the relationship react if the man came home and said, "honey, I've been reading about this Peak Oil thing and I think we need to reduce both our own consumption and our own economic activity so as to reduce the strain on the planet. So I'm taking a 75% pay cut."

Thrilled that I was not killing myself for things we don't need. Just wish I had the guts to do it.

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odograph on July 27, 2006 - 9:46am

I see this as slices again. Men and women both make gambits to enhance their position in life. We can say "position" in a general sense to capture more of the truth in this. Position may be as short term as a dray place to sleep [saw Fort Clatsop yesterday], as moderate term as a good line on a food source [elk through the winter], or as long term as social capital within the group [social position on return to the East].

Why do you always abbreviate that sociobiology to one specific kind of "position" and write "up the resource ladder?"

To be honest, that seems to missing the forest for the tree.

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peakoiltroll on July 30, 2006 - 4:53am

the status of women post peak is not pretty. the reason islam evolved to have their women in veil is I think, scarcity. covering them up means less competition for the males to expense a lot of energy consumption to win the best looking female.

women in the western world will be married off. they will no longer have much freedom. just the other day, the news said teenage girls opt for marriage more. have more children but they're in wedlock.

women can't handle the business world anymore, it seems. a lot of men will go the same way with regard to the business world.

all this is scary to the beta males/the intellectual ones. they feel this will happen to them. they'll be marginalized. the alpha males with the bigger muscles will win. all this is the status quo around the world today.

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