The Oil Drum | DrumBeat: August 28, 2006

446 comments on DrumBeat: August 28, 2006

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GreyZone on August 28, 2006 - 11:26am

"Then we're screwed."

Yep. Welcome to enlightenment. Pull up a chair, grab a cold one, and watch the show, courtesy of those too stupid to understand an exponential function or read simple graphs.

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westexas on August 28, 2006 - 11:35am

"Pull up a chair, grab a cold one, and watch the show, courtesy of those too stupid to understand an exponential function or read simple graphs."

To be fair, we have companies like ExxonMobil and allegedly intelligent people like Peter Huber and Daniel Yergin promising vast quantities of oil.

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GreyZone on August 28, 2006 - 2:08pm

Like I said... "courtesy of those too stupid to understand an exponential function or read simple graphs"... ;)

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step back on August 28, 2006 - 12:56pm

I'm too lazy at the moment (actually too jet lagged) to do this, but grab this picture to the right. Add an oil truck barreling down it, smoke spewing from the back.

Then add the caption:

Is our Oil Economy trying to take off
on the Short Runway to Nowhere?

No graphs.
No numbers.
Just an image the public can connect with at the moment.

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wimbi on August 28, 2006 - 2:31pm

Visual images are what people get. Cartoons, photos, and such stuff. I tried to get my son to follow his incredible instinct for cartooning, but he would not think of it- "no status"(!), and went for applied physics wherein he is doing creative work on things that nobody will ever hear about, and will shortly go to China.

A good cartoon- or song- or even bumper sticker, is closer to an effective way to spend time than a ton of applied physics, if we are really concerned about the future.

So, that said, back to simple engineering- I put that cistern water circulator in my living room, and in all this heat and mug the room is at a comfortable 75% relative humidity and 24C at an expenditure of 85 watts of (very inefficient) fan and pump. The copious condensate goes back into the cistern.

My neighbors' house is way less comfortable with about 4kW of AC.

Wits-for-Watts. Bumper sticker.

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Leanan on August 28, 2006 - 2:37pm

A good cartoon- or song- or even bumper sticker, is closer to an effective way to spend time than a ton of applied physics, if we are really concerned about the future.

I'm inclined to agree, at least for the U.S. JibJab.com or Michael Moore are more likely to get the word out than graphs or scientific credentials.

That's one thing that really strikes me whenever I'm in the U.K. The evening news there is so much more intelligent than it is here. The stories are so much more in-depth. And they seem to expect the viewers to have a basic knowledge of science, which is not expected on this side of the pond.

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optimist on August 28, 2006 - 3:01pm

It has nothing to do with lack of intelligence or education. What causes that is the fact that most people are visual learners, and that the human brain is wired to take in more information faster by imagery. The old saying 'a picture is worht a thousand words' is true, and even more so. One good picture can poignantly capture something a million words can't adequately describe.

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step back on August 28, 2006 - 4:52pm

Not everyone is "visual". Some are "emotional", some are "auditory", some are kinesthetic.

Listen carefully to how people around you talk. Do they see your point clearly? Do they empathize with your feelings? Do they like the sound of your "sound' logic, or does it simply "move" them?

Often people reveal what kind of thinkers they are by the way they chime in with your music. I myself am heavily into the visual communication thing. Others march or sing to different kinds of drummers. There is no one message style that fits all.

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Dot on August 28, 2006 - 4:41pm

A good cartoon would likely add to accessibility, but also to site traffic.

I cant draw for the life of me, but I wonder if TOD and it's wonderful pool of members might be able to come up with a topical cartoon of the week.

In order to initiate this, I imagine a competition of some sort would be the best way to go. If the response is large enough, it may be feasible to institute an ongoing cartoon of the week feature, which might appear just below the "quote of the day", for example.

In addition to a cartoon, the other area I think the TOD could improve is with interfacing with journalists. It is true that the general public is unsuited to digest the information presented here. Perhaps the better route is to invite journalists to act as an interface between TOD and the public. I'm not sure how this could be achieved.

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step back on August 28, 2006 - 7:43pm

The cartoon idea is a great one.
People like to have their daily dose of Dilbert or Doonesbury.

But as you imply, not everyone can draw and it is also a lot of work. Personally, I don't have the time to devote to coming up with a clever cartoon every day --that's a full time job. And then, getting community consensus on which of competing cartoons should be the toon of the day, that too is a full time job. (Ah, civilization and it's complexities.)

As for using journalists to "translate" our postings for general consumption, that is a really really bad idea. (Does not take away from your good toon idea!) Every time I read a story in the paper about an area I know something about, I see that the reporter (and his grammatician editor) got it wrong. I don't think they intentionally get it wrong. It's just that the world is complex. Certain subject areas call for a great deal of specialized education before one can understand what is going on. Journalists usually do not have that education. Certainly not in every field of specialization. So it is understandable why 98% of the time they get it wrong.

It is up to us to learn how to communicate effectively with the general public.

It would be worse than bad to delegate that job to a never-gets-it-right journalist. I can see the first wrong worded editorial now: Are we "running out" of oil?

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Kevembuangga on August 29, 2006 - 7:55am

JibJab.com or Michael Moore are more likely to get the word out than graphs or scientific credentials.

This, unfortunately, IS the problem.
A "good cartoon" can be made about any ridiculously irrational claim.
The competition is then about who has the best cartoonists NOT best content.
A lack of intelligence CANNOT be compensated.

P.S. That's why I am getting angry at times against idiots, or worse, THOSE PANDERING TO THE IDIOTS.

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Nick on August 28, 2006 - 2:48pm

Better technology is not necessarily more complex. The best engineers/scientists would agree. It's kind've Occam's Razor applied to technological solutions.

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slaphappy on August 28, 2006 - 11:31pm

I'd actually say that the thought behind better technology is generally much more difficult (though perhaps simple), so that the actual implementation can be simple.

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totoneila on August 28, 2006 - 3:55pm

Hello Wimbi,

I am afraid Nuke their Ass--I want Gas! will be the most popular SUV and HUMMER bumper-sticker of all time. Sad.

Check out this image:

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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Bigelow on August 28, 2006 - 6:48pm

I prefer this image myself!

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alistairC on August 29, 2006 - 6:43am

Oh oh I've just got to have the "Organic cotton -- made in the USA" version! I'll bet it's a big seller...

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slaphappy on August 28, 2006 - 11:27pm

Nothing wrong with applied physics, I was physics myself.

One of the primary trends in human development has been a long term shift from production oriented work to design oriented work. Take a look at software. No production at all, just design. This is true to lesser degrees about cars, planes, computes, etc... The amount of thought that goes into things before we first tell the robots to build it is growing all the time. Another example is wall street. I'm not sure if it's happened yet, but very soon the programmers and quants are going to outnumber the traders and bankers. More and more, when something becomes routine, the computers do it. The bankers mostly do one-off projects (that themselves require quite a lot of research).

I think this is eventually where we're heading. Soon enough a very substantial fraction of worldwide jobs will essentially be research and development. Probably a larger fraction than will actually be production. Applied physics will fit in here just fine.

A note of caution though, as this happens the disparity in incomes will tend to rise. It already is rising (due to aweful economic policy, not really this effect), but this sort of effect will amplify it. Nobody wants to be operated on by ten terrible doctors, or have five bad lawyers plead their case. Similarly, nobody is really going to want a batch of bad physicists or programmers, as one good one can do things that 100 bad ones will never accomplish, no matter how much effort they put in. A dangerous little evolution going on....

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