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168 comments on We Were Warned: The Spelling of the Word Has an Extra "u" That Many People Forget..

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TrueKaiser on March 19, 2006 - 3:39am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
And the average American is not going to buy, say, Kunstler's warnings of pirates raiding Seattle and people who can't pay their credit card debt being forced into work camps.

that doesn't make it any less possible.
debtors prisons have been, historically one of the better ways to have a return on the money the creditors lost on said people. the other way i can remember is selling the person into slavery for the rest of their life.
the piracy though, thats a little farther out there.
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Madman on March 19, 2006 - 7:37am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
the piracy though, thats a little farther out there.

From Yahoo news this morning, 19 March 2006.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Two     U.S. Navy warships exchanged gunfire with suspected pirates Saturday off the coast of Somalia, and one suspect was killed and five others were wounded, the navy said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060319/ap_on_re_af/somalia_us_pirates

Advice to any would-be pirates out there: Do NOT pick a fight with a US Navy warship, let alone two.  

-Consider this a free service to any pirate too stupid to figure this out on your own.-

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geo on March 19, 2006 - 4:15pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Thanks for the post.  May have saved me a lotta grief.   I was just buckling my swash to go out and do some piracy to pay off my credit card.  But fortunately you stopped me in my tracks.  Plan B:  I'll register Republican and use the contacts to sell my ideas for some really cool torture devices.
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Dragonfly41 on March 19, 2006 - 9:41am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Have you ever seen Terry Gilliam's 1985 movie Brazil?  Wasn't it the engineers that swooped down on the city like pirates?  Perhaps this will be our salvation Post Peak.  Bands of wayward engineers coming to the rescue.  Perhaps, it is time to watch this one again.
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joule on March 19, 2006 - 10:42am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Dragnonfly41 -

Brazil was a great movie, one of the few that I don't mind seeing over and over.

It wasn't really about engineers but about totalitarianism and the incompetent bumbling of a centralized bureaucratic state. I think you're referring to the swat teams that cut a hole in the floor and swoop down to arrest the wrong person on Christmas Eve. All the trouble starts when a fly falls into this minor clerk's typewriter, jams the keys,  and changes the name on the arrest warrant he's typing from Tuttle to Buttle.

Or perhaps you're thinking of the repairmen from 'Central Services' that come to fix the incredibly complex pipes and wires in the walls.  I also loved the way Gilliam blends 1940s style with futuristic sci-fi style.

One of the other messages was how easy it is for people to live in a totally insane and evil society once they gradually get used to it.

I rate this one Five Stars.

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Dragonfly41 on March 19, 2006 - 12:19pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yes, it was the "Central Services" guys I was recalling.

The entire movie is a visually surreal.  I believe there were 2 endings created for the movie...one where it is all part of a induced psychotic dream and he is left there forever and another where he is rescued...it's been years since I've seen it so I may not be totally accurate here.

Your comment about "One of the other messages was how easy it is for people to live in a totally insane and evil society once they gradually get used to it" is quite applicable in this day and age of the Boiled Frog symdrome.  Little incremental changes that seem innocuous at the time but in retrospect over the large timeframe, are quite incredible.

It would be fun to list things that have changed since..say the 90's.

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odograph on March 19, 2006 - 12:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I saw the movie, thought it was great fun, and recommended it to friends.  Two came back to me and said "how could you recommend such a downer?"

I of course saw the version with the real rescue, and they saw the one with the psychotic dream.

Actually we only figured that out years later.  For a time they thought I had a funny idea of fun.

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Dragonfly41 on March 19, 2006 - 12:57pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yes...I think the "happy" ending was created for American audiences since they can't handle depressing issues very well.
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jondough on March 19, 2006 - 3:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Harry Tuttle. My hero.
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Oil CEO on March 19, 2006 - 3:44pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
There are two versions? How can you tell them apart(the hardward - without watching) - are they marked different in some way? You guys are great. Maybe that is my problem. If I had seen the real version...

I never remember feeling happy, though. I remember thinking at the time that it was one of the best films I had ever seen.

Gilliam made a movie about Don Quixote. Something happened where the financiers actually seized the movie. There was a disaster during filming that screwed with the money situation.  I'm pretty sure Gilliam thinks the movie is finished, though I am not sure. HBO(or some outfit, I can't remember) did a documentary on the making of the Film. Gilliam is a genius, absolutely brilliant.

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Cherenkov on March 19, 2006 - 4:14pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Just to make sure that OilCEO reads my reply to his nut monkey comment on the Saturday open thread, I repost what I said there. As I read the comments on this thread, I see the theme of someone "coming to the rescue" playing out. The fantasy lives on. And thus, my repost is actually apropos to this thread.

So, for everyone's enjoyment --- the repost.

To the Oil CEO, which is akin, in my eyes, to calling oneself "Reichsfuhrer," is missing the point of not only the argument of the moment, but the basic underlying assumptions that undergird his techno-utopian vision. I am not saying that tomorrow we will all die, I'm not even saying that we will all die in the next twenty years. (Though obviously we all die.) I am saying that his vision of constant growth is a physically IMPOSSIBLE.

IT CANNOT BE DONE.

The true nut monkeys, or more accuarately the unwitting-dupe monkeys, are people like OilCEO who believe that we will continue to grow: that population will continue to swell, that some magical techno bullet will save all our butts from the reality of simple physics. His is the blarney we all hear from carnival barkers and patent-medicine salesman. He is the man who insists that the dot.com revolution will go on forever and the stock market will rise to ever greater heights, so buy some more dot.com stock. He is the stock brocker who famously, and fatuously, said on October 28th, 1929, the stock market will rise forever. If OilCEO had even a modicum of education he would see the irony in citing the "dark side" in his comment, but he doesn't. He is mired in profit-seeking, hip-deep in moral equivocation, up to his eyeballs in ignorance: a sad and ignorant man bereft of the knowledge that would would set him free and unable to assess that knowledge, should he deign to think critically about it.

He is a booster, he is George Babbit.

What he and his ilk say is a shuck and jive that is guaranteed to ensure the snuffing of all rational action regarding this revolutionary problem. His proffered hope that something/anything, some special technology, some special human quality, will step out of the shadows and fix everything is nonsense for one simple reason:

WE LIVE ON A SPHERE, NIMROD!!!!

Even if we work out perfect, clean, unadulterated fusion, the planet will still be doomed because of population growth, the destruction of arable farmland, the loss of fresh water, the destruction of the oceans and global warming.

The problem is not oil. Oil is only the rickety wooden framework that is holding up our improbable rollercoaster of a species. The problem is ALL the resources. The problem is species footprint.

The problem is there is only so much cheap oil, expensive oil, coal, natural gas, and what ever else you may want to throw in the mix, left to help back us down from the precipice with a minimum of pain. The time to remove the horses from the barn is before the building is engulfed in flames.

Listen to whom you will, but mark this: Nature will go its own way no matter our actions, but it is entirely possible that she will not include us.

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jokuhl on March 19, 2006 - 10:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
'If you want to hear the sound of Divine Laughter, tell God your predictions..'
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Oil CEO on March 20, 2006 - 7:52am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Finally got your attention. It may be too late, however.
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wkwillis on March 20, 2006 - 8:09am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
If only someone could invent a lead-acid battery, or a solar cell, or a windmill, or a way to burn coal, or fission uranium.
Who is living in a fantasy world?
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Oil CEO on March 20, 2006 - 8:21am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
BTW, my only reference to you (that I can find) in the Saturday Open thread was rather complimentary. It was because I have always respected you.

Maybe it was some other Saturday. Nut Monkey is one of my favorite terms. I'm sure I spout it in my sleep. Did I call you that? Where?

I've been mixing Ambien and quaaludes with TV lately, so I suppose anything is possible.

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Oil CEO on March 20, 2006 - 8:40am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
OK, I found it. You got the thread wrong and you mistook yourself for some other people. That's OK. Everybody is allowed to make mistakes. But your view of me is definitely on record...twice.
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Agric on March 23, 2006 - 1:26am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
LOL, I enjoyed that post Cherenkov. I agree with your central argument: too many humans using too many resources that will too soon deplete.

True, oil is not the only problem but is likely the most immediate limit that will f*ck our delusionary systems. I also agree the sooner the better and the less painful.

Constant growth IS impossible without unlimited resources. We ARE beginning to hit the natural limits.

If current global population lived as US americans do we would need 6 'Earths' to provide for them, if as UK, 3 'Earths'. And global population is predicted to grow by 50% in the next 50 years. Your 'sphere' point is well taken.

The truth is hidden. Most developed nations have continued to consume more energy and food per capita, most undeveloped countries have consumed less per capita. Global per capita food and energy consumption peaked over 20 years ago. Us 'richies' just didn't notice.

But read what OilCEO says more closely, he is probably less far from your perspective than you think ;)

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Engineer-Poet on March 19, 2006 - 11:31am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
If it came to a battle between the engineers on one side, and the MBA's and politicians on the other, who do you think would win?
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joule on March 19, 2006 - 12:15pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Who would win?

It depends on the circumstances and what they'd be fighting with. If it's the status quo, the MBAs and politicians.  But if it's a Mad Max type of scenario, the engineers would win hands down.

We we win, I wouldn't kill all the politicians right off. Åfter all we do need a protein source.

 I'd just love to design and build some Mad Max weaponry and combat vehicles!  

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celticoil on March 19, 2006 - 12:31pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Whatever happened to Technocracy?
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eric blair on March 19, 2006 - 5:21pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Whatever happened to Technocracy?

http://www.technocracy.org/
http://www.technocracy.ca/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy

It exists, just few pay it any attention.

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jokuhl on March 19, 2006 - 10:08pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Having flashbacks to 'Stand by Me' here..

Vern 'If Superman fought Mighty Mouse, who would win?'

Gordy 'Vern! Superman's a real guy!'

- either that, or 'The Right Stuff'..

Kissinger(?);  "Nonsense.  OUR Chermans are better zan Sey're Chermans.."

  -in other words, do you think the MBA's would side with the Pols, and vice-versa, or would everybody be out at the black-market, buying up all the engineers they could?

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Halfin on March 19, 2006 - 2:19pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
A bit OT, but as an interesting fact, the United States does not have debtor's prisons (nor, I assume, do other Western countries). This means that you cannot go to prison for not paying a debt. And in particular, you cannot go to prison for not paying your taxes.

You can go to prison for not filing your taxes, or for filing false returns, but you can't go to prison for not paying your taxes. If you file an accurate return every year but never send a check, you won't go to prison. The IRS will garnish your wages, empty your bank account and seize all your assets, but they can't touch your body.

Oil becoming expensive will certainly not change this long-standing policy.

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odograph on March 19, 2006 - 2:23pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I need tax-debtors for my treadmill!
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Gryphon on March 22, 2006 - 1:55am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
But Pirates are GOOD! Look how their decimation over the years has led to an increase in global warming:

We need MORE pirates, not fewer. Isn't everyone else here against global warming too? http://venganza.org/

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