good post. I think climate change will be upon us before peak oil, in fact it already is. But if i had kids, Id be much more worried about the impacts of peak oil than climate change on their lives. I think the peak liquid fuels date is the imprtant one. Then human nature takes its course. The people in power will not willingly agree to powerdown and will follow our evolutionary impulses towards acquiring other resources. One has to understand thermodynamics AND sociobiology to see this. I am MUCH more worried about peak oil, and the social implications than I am about climate - climate will have immediate impacts but the real dooom and gloom stuff is 50-100 years off. We will be well down the fossil fuel usage chain by then.
"One has to understand thermodynamics AND sociobiology to see this."
-----------
You know what's really ironic? Jay's theories about sociobiology explain why almost everybody ignores his theories about sociobiology.
Acknowledging the sociobio conunudrum basically deep sixes any and all political agendas or, as Jay would call them, "normative programs." People come up with these normative programs in an attempt to increase their inclusive fitness. But in order to be able to sincerely convey their agenda they must ignore the sociobio aspects. I think this ignorance/self-deceoption often takes place where it is most effective: at the subconscious level.
The genetic-subconscious axis purposely prevents the person from consciously understanding the sociobio aspect of our conundurm in order to allow the person to raise their fitness via promoting their normative agenda.
It's also why my focus is on "saving one's own ass" or (less hyperbolicly) "saving the ass of one's own tribe." That means the 15-to-30 or so people closest to you.
It's also why my focus is on "saving one's own ass" or (less hyperbolicly) "saving the ass of one's own tribe." That means the 15-to-30 or so people closest to you.
What are you saving them from, Matt? Do you honestly expect to see mass death in your neighborhood sometime soon?
This a different Matt here, not the AMPOD.
I think Matt's "Mass death" is perhaps hinging on the possible fracturing of the food networks that we in the US have made ourselves so dependent on. Losing one link in the chain will cripple big chunks of the works. When the grid goes down in a city for even a day or two, tons of frozen food gets landfilled. What if it tanks for a month?
Natural gas to residential users seems vulnerable.
Cross country trucking, same.
Fuel prices for agriculture...
I agree that none of these seems to be about to force a collapse altogether, but I envision typical Americans being unable to cope if they lose their access to frozen pizza and the juice to run thier microwaves and keep the diet coke cold.
We had an extended blackout here in DC after a bad storm 3 years ago--not the big northeast blackout--and people were utterly helpless. We modern Americans have essentially no skills to function if any one of our technological lifelines is cut.
So, I wonder, how long before people panic if they can't: drive their car, cook their food, buy food, take a shower, heat their home. Just one of these things breaking down will freak people out in a major way.
Not "mass death" right away, but the beginning of a growth curve of panic driven crime committed by people who would never have called themselves criminals in the current paradigm. Unprecedented anxiety that seems unresolvable will trigger a lot of bad behavior.
-Matt, DC
Were you in the area for the ice storm of '99? I spent three weeks without power, the 50% mark seemed to be about 1 week. Ice storms are usually noted for bringing neighbors one has never met together in a remarkable facsimile of community - mostly because some people have generators and some don't. There are quite a lot of nonspoilable dry and wet goods in one's home. Water could be tricky if it relies on electric pumps. I give the suburban neighorhood 8 weeks minimum (3-4 paychecks missed) cut off from the grid, the gas station, and the grocery store, before people begin to take note of who's a closet gun nut as much as they take note of who has a generator. The urban neighorhood... depends on location, but expect lines noone's seen since the fall of the USSR government store systems.
Well, that's the trouble with sociobiology, as with some marxian or freudian ideas. If you use them to explain critics' unconscious motivations, you've made them unfalsifiable.
I have to agree with Matt on this. Ultimately, Peak Oil will be unsolvable due to the self-deceitful character of people's unconscious motivations. This will allow them to falsely interpret their own selfishness, viciousness, and brutality in reacting to Peak Oil as noble and beneficent. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, this unfortunate feature of the human race is known as "original sin."
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)
Well, this illustrates where you guys are coming from. It isn't really about oil, is it? It's about "self-deceitful character of people's unconscious motivations."
If you believe that, then you have to believe a crash of civilization is the natural state (despite the rise of peaceful civilizations throughout the world and throughout history). What could explain this bizzare and humane trend? Ah, oil, a get out of jail free card.
If it were not for oil, we'd all be nasty brutish and dead.
That is essentially correct. For the past two-hundred years, Western civilization has had a fundamental faith in Progress Ideology - of which capitalism and communism have been the two most politically important variants. Both forms of Progress Ideology - as well as many others (such as the "back to nature" ideology advocated by Heinberg and many others in the Peak Oil camp) - still have many adherents. But these are all in the end intellectually blind allegiances, and ones that involve unreasonable "leaps of faith" on the mistaken basis of the material advances that have taken place over the past two-hundred years.
But the fact is that these material advances were all due to plentiful energy, not due to the innate goodness of human beings. The "desperately wicked" character of mankind's heart never changed while these material advances were taking place, but was merely concealed from view for a time. We are now entering a time of history, however, where this basic human feature will be starkly revealed once again in all its raw ugliness, due to the impending epoch of energy scarcity.
interesting that you specify "western" civilization ... bypassing my observation that civilizations are more widespread (and varied) than that, and more common than a "propensity toward collapse" would imply.
But Western civilation is the dominant one, and I don't think this will change, owing to the vast military superiority of the US vis a vis any rival or group of rivals.
Even if this were not true, though, it wouldn't affect my fundamental argument: Jeremiah's claim about the "desperate wickedness" of the hearts of human beings is just as true of Chinese, Indian, and Russian hearts as it is of American and Western European hearts.
If you think I am wrong, I challenge you to point out to me a discernible trend entailing self-sacrifice and cooperation in energy-related news of recent months - one that is sufficient to outweigh the manifest tendencies towards increasing antagonism and hostility in this sphere.
The disproof is easy. More people hold the door open for the person behind them, than slam it in their face, let alone attempt to kill them with it.
We will (chances are) never see that person again, but we do a little 'tit for tat' or 'golden rule' or 'game theory' behavior that we think will, indirectly, benefit us in the future.
I realize that is only 'energy' in the most primitive, muscular sense, holding the door open, but it all flows from there. ;-)
But do you see the United States "holding the door" open for anyone when it comes to energy? Or China? Japan? Russia, India, Iran, Venezuela? Are any of these places "holding the door" open for other countries when it comes to energy? [Actually, as it happens, the Venezuelans are....]
Are the Saudis and other profligately rich Middle East producers going to start giving away some of their oil for free to very poor countries who desperately need it? Are the Russians going to "play nice" and stop their energy-related bullying of the Europeans? Is the United States going to desist from hypocritically bullying the Russians for bullying the Europeans? Are the US and Venezuela going to desist from calling each other the "New Hitlers?" Are China and Japan going to start "playing nice" in the East China Sea anytime soon? Are all of these countries, and others besides, going to desist from their self-serving wrangling about where to build new pipeline routes across Eurasia? Are the rebels in Nigeria going to desist from their terrorism, and is the government of Nigeria going to "play nice" and give in to their legitimate demands? And so on and so forth....
Where is anyone "holding the door" for anyone else here - other than as relatively minor matters in the grand scheme of things? [And those who do "hold the door" for others, like Venezuela, are denounced for doing so on top of it all!!]
Yes, Venezuela is an example of a country using apparent altruism arguably in its own self interest.
I think we've ended up in a different place than we started. Altruism and cooperation exist in societies. In times of national emergency we have had national energy programs (up to including rationing) to deal with it.
If we are sticking to the core, and expectation of human response to peak oil, I'd say that is primarily a national "let's pull together" issue. I expect a mix of competition and cooperation on the international scene, as we have seen throughout the last century. Sometimes that competition is quite unpleasant, as history shows.
I don't expect nations to lie down like lions and lambs, but neither to I expect nations to fall apart uniformly around the world (there is always the unfortunate, isolated, case: Northern Ireland, Lebanon, ...).
I wouldn't like to see "human nature" confused with "societal nature".
Humans, and the societies that emerge when you have a bunch of humans in a group, are quite different beasts. Humans can be, and are, altruistic towards each other but it's not clear that the same is true of societies, nations, corporations etc.
See Reinhold Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society
"It may be possible, thought it is never easy, to establish just relations between individuals within a group purely by moral and rational suasion and accomodation. In inter-group relations this is practically an impossibility. The relations between groups must therefore be predominantely political rather than ethical, that is, they will be determined by the proportion of power which each groups posesses at least as much as by any rational and moral appraisal of comparative needs and claims of each group."
Odograph, I'm not in any way taking issue with your general point, but the example you gave is culturally limited, and I thought you might like to realize that. For example, in Hong Kong, people never hold doors open for others, and they are quite glad to shut the doors of the evelator in your face as you charge towards it (I once managed to enter an elevator that had been shut thus once - they couldn't go anywhere, my foot was stuck in the outer door - and I then greeted everyone present therein with the loud appellation 'Sh*theads!'. Yeah, it was a cultural thing. That's the point.)
The irony is this: re lifts, you are on the receiving end more often than otherwise, so it would actually be rational to hold open the lift door for strangers. You lose one second, but on balance you gain up to five minutes, if everyone behaves otherwise. Of course, no one behaves otherwise, so everyone spends their lives quickly shutting the elevator doors in strangers' faces for the benefit of one or two seconds.
In Hong Kong, you are told this sort of behaviour results because people are 'busy'. In fact, it is simply a form of rudeness or indifference, cultivated because everyone is generally subject to the same sort of behaviour.
Again, nothing to do with your general point. But something to remember for any of you who are headed East. Hold the lift door open for a lady and you will be greeted with (a) very profuse thanks or (b) the sort of indifference reserved for the obviously insane.
Phil, I think you may be confusing the reaction of the American government/military/industrial complex with the people of the country. I don't know where you live, but here in the midwest we just had the biggest, baddest icestorm in our recorded history. In the small city I live in (about 300,000 counting the surrounding burbs) we had 75,000 people without power for 3-12 days. One of the local DJs stayed on the air 24 hrs. a day for several days fielding calls from people who needed help of various kinds and the numerous calls from people offering help. Yes, there were a few "gougers", but people who still had electric took in strangers who had no heat/electricity, people who had wood offered it free to people who had fireplaces but no wood (same with kerosene, ect.), local motels/hotels offered reduced rates and even free lodging to people who had no heat/electricity or who had live powerlines or trees downed on their homes/cars until shelters could be set up. People with food took food to people who'd gotten stranded in their homes without food, etc., etc.
Granted it wasn't peak oil and there will be many more frightened, unprepared people who, if not given aid by neighbors, etc., may become violent if peak oil hits as hard as some of us expect. But what happened around here was very heartening to this old cynic. (Yes, since I have gas heat, I even opened my small home to three other people who I fed and feted - LOL.) And I suspect similar stories could be told across the country during the ice storms that hit. Most areas of the country have some history of self-reliance/helping each other out.
As for the afore mentioned govt./military/industrial complex, I suspect Katrina or worse will be the pattern of response to peak oil. But I wouldn't count out the average American just yet - Jeremiah's adage to the contrary or not.
This whole thread dealing with whether people are naturally altruistic or not is missing one important factor. The people helping each other in the ice storm or hurricanes ( We lost power for 3 months after Iniki) or other maladies that afflict us from time to time all have one thing in common. They all fully expect that things will soon return to "normal". The power will come back on, the grocery store will get refilled. The military will provide temporary clean water and food until things get back to "normal".
When there is no reasonable likelihood that "normal" will return, oil prices will get higher and higher, food will get more expensive and less available, unemployment will rise, electricity will get more expensive and/or unavailable, and the expectation is that this situation will not improve, then we will see how basically altruistic human beings truly are.
Odograph, I think you're confusing the "human nature" of small groups of people, which are pretty altruistic and cooperative within their small tribes, precisely because people can be held accountable for their actions - there's not much anonymity to hide behind in small groups of people. But once we move into the thousands or millions - people can get away with cheating/lying/stealing, and thus they do, at a much higher rate than in small tribes. Anyone who denies the prominence of the selfish gene in human beings, or all life for that matter, is being hopelessly naive. Self preservation is vital, and it HAD evolve to be foremost in all creatures, or they would never have surived the viciousness of natural selection. I suppose people are just trying to be positive, but when you add up how many humans are murdered for whatever reason EVERY DAY across the globe, how can you not see the dark side of human nature? As a vegan, I think of the Billions of animals tortured and deprived of even sunlight and space to turn around - they are sentient creatures that are tortured in insanely brutal conditions just so we can waste more resources and cause ourselves more self-inflicted disease via meat and dairy. Sure, when you show most people the sad reality of factory farms, they will agree that it's terrible, but they will just shrug, or think about getting organic meat. The point is, we humans are indeed pretty compassionate and cooperative little buggers - but the institutions that we create often turn out to be amoral, hideous, and disturbing. You can call the average American or Brit Peace-loving, but that doesn't change the fact that human beings are being murdered in their name by their governments, does it? The history of civilization is a history of the powerful siphoning the resources at the expense of the poor masses. Even if an individual is a gentle soul, just by living the inevitable energy-intenstive lifestyle, we consume more than our fair share of resources and thus condemn others to much poverty and suffering. Right now in Zimbabwe people have to lug huge bags of cash around just to buy a few vegetables, because inflation is so horrid. I think it's important to realize the precariousness of the energy profligate, Good Times lifestyle.
"If it were not for oil, we'd all be nasty brutish and dead."
Actually, there would be a hell of a lot less people, and thus a hell of a lot LESS suffering in the world. On the other hand, there'd be a lot less joy, music, culture, and hilarious jokes! This is something I was thinking of recently - the exponetial rise of humans is accompanied by a concomitant rise is suffering and joy. What is terrifying with climate change, peak oil, etc. is that we are nowhere near peak human suffering on planet earth!!!!
Read The Winner's Curse for observations in experimental economics. This is not a presupposition, humans are found to be altruistic to strangers in tests.
Differnent aspects, different internal rules. I trolled out Marvin Minskey once by dissing him in an old USENET newsgroup, and he showed up to defend himself ;-). That was fun. But while I think his AI was too cognitive, his idea of "society of mind" might be useful on some level. Or we have the more modern neurobiological foundation by Chomsky, Pinker, etc. for evolved brain sub-structures.
The ying and yang of it might be that while cooperation is the default in some (hopefully many) situations, we have other less nice rules which come to the fore at other times.
The commonly seen distinction between moral standards within a country, and those without, are well known. We see it right now as Americans do things to Iraqis that they would not do to Arizonans.
This isn't a binary issue. There's a whole spectrum of individual behaviour from bleeding heart social liberal treehuggers to sociopathic neo-conservative fascists. (I just threw those terms together for fun, pay them little mind.)
Humanity as a whole is neither altruistic or selfish. It is, at all times, both.
Because of this you can cherry pick selfish choices that have been made in the past and conclude that humanity is selfish. I could reciprocate. But since this isn't an either-or issue, we would both be pissing in the wind. And really, isn't there enough urine in the air already?
There seems to be good and bad in all humans.
Yin and yang.
Some allow the good side, the self-sacrificing, altruistic, generous, kind side to prevail. For those, that IS their inherent nature. These are few in number.
Some allow their baser instincts, predatory greed, lust, and anger, to dominate. For those, that IS their inherent nature. These are many in number.
Some fall in the middle, with elements of both, as their natural instinct. The unpredictability of which side will dominate in a given circumstance is the great unknown.
This is the largest group of all.
The internal battle between ego and id, good and bad, angel and devil, whatever you choose to call it, has been philosophized and extrapolated on since ancient times.
Presently, the it is second group that is in charge.
Good post. I'm not sure that most BCR supporters understand that one of the reasons they have been despised outside the USA since they took office is that they have been slotted into the second category.GWB's incompetence was never enough for him to earn loathing outside (and recently within) the USA- his detractors have always felt that he has a "bad heart".It is ironic as his born-again status has certainly been publicized enough. In contrast, even with his public womanizing, Clinton has always been universally regarded as a good person. Interesting.
Altruistic behavior has always been a Darwinian challenge. But it can be assummed that any established evolutionary adaptation by definition has had to be of net benefit to the genes of the carrier. The notions of inclusive fitness including kin alturism and reeiprocal altrusim go a long way to accounting for self sacrificial behavior at least in the short run. Even for group selection to "work" (ie, be adaptive) means that one group must benefit in terms of genetic success RELATIVE to another. SO, with respect to altrusim it becomes a question of who benefits. Group selection actually suggests that my sacrifice for my in group may well come at the expense of an out-group. If I throw myself on a grenade to save my "brothers-in-arms" they are more likely to survive to kill my enemies.
Seeing as you once publicly failed to recognize the name of E.O. Wilson on this very forum, I for one think you are disqualified from making sociobiology-based arguments.
If you took such arguments seriously, you would already see the truth of what is proclaimed by your opponents ('it isn't a binary issue'). Altruism and selfishness have a lot in common. And therein lies the problem.
Sociobiology is embarrassed by many people who espouse it.
It is interesting, your preocupation with animals. I was raised a sociopath (republican) but over the years have seen that animals often feel very strongly and loyally without subterfuge though sometime with neurosis (I am now a pussy liberal). You can even see it in cockatiels that strive daily to communicate with their owners. The case was brought home when a vet had us come in to give comfort to a cat that had gone through major surgery and for whom he felt that it needed familial support to give it a desire to survive. After that, the cat was incredibly affectionate. I am convinced that most people are only able to express emotions that a cat or dog might express (look at the neocons and think about dog loyalty), and many can express much less. My son, who might also have sociopathic tendencies, assures me that in the hard times to come that vegetarians taste better, so guard yourself. It was odd that he married a vegetarian, until my wife explained that he was only protecting his food source. His wife has subsequently has started eating meat.
Oh yeah. I think peak oil will hit us first, probably this summer with the second or third cat 5 hurricane. But global warming is not far behind... a sort of one-two punch, to insure that we live in interesting times.
Unless I'm mistaken Jay Hanson doesn't have theories...he has no competence in biology or neuroscience at all unless reading a few books nowadays counts as competence. All this crap about 'inclusive fitness' is unproven and as for genetic-subconscious axes I have no idea what you can be referring to and if you were really honest and thought about it...you might admit you don't really know either. This website and the concern of its educated readers and contributors(as opposed to those who have been let down by public education systems) are the best answer to those who have had their heads turned by the latest evolutionary psychology dogma coming out of academia.
There are some real sciences spanning the gaps between neuroscience, evolution, sociology, psychology. Many of them have compound names, like "evolutionary psychology" or "evolutionary neurobiology." I guess that's because they are late developing sciences and don't get a one-word name of their own. ;-)
People borrow from these sciences, but as often happens in the general press, and especially when an agenda is involved, they might borrow slices that suit them.
Inclusive fitness is real, but it's amusing that this page describes its principle achievement is in explaining altruism in animal populations:
You are mistaken. If you took time to read Jays work, you would know that he readily admits he has no formal training in these fields, which is why he REFERENCES everything.
And inclusive fitness has been proven over and over. Hamiltons rule has been attempted to be falsified and it has not been. It stands as one of the core tenets of biology.
And I would not say that evolutionary psychology is the latest dogma coming out of academia. Its quite the minority.
Pick up Consilience by EO Wilson. I think in 30-40 years, he will be viewed by society as Einstein is today.
Jay just connected the dots. And he didnt read 'a few books'. He read hundreds. I am not a cultist or doomer. Im a hedge fund trader turned phd student. Jay is a friend of mine and while I dont agree with everything he says, he is one of the most thorough, wise people I have ever come across.
I know the principles of biological psychology strike some as crude and obtuse but they are slowly being 'proven' in real world experiments, increasingly on humans and primates using neuro-economic tests. The problem is that people believing in intelligent design, etc are growing at a much faster pace than these science based persons (and I dont mean genetically, I mean based on our cultural messages, e.g President Bush)
-----------
You know what's really ironic? Jay's theories about sociobiology explain why almost everybody ignores his theories about sociobiology.
Acknowledging the sociobio conunudrum basically deep sixes any and all political agendas or, as Jay would call them, "normative programs." People come up with these normative programs in an attempt to increase their inclusive fitness. But in order to be able to sincerely convey their agenda they must ignore the sociobio aspects. I think this ignorance/self-deceoption often takes place where it is most effective: at the subconscious level.
The genetic-subconscious axis purposely prevents the person from consciously understanding the sociobio aspect of our conundurm in order to allow the person to raise their fitness via promoting their normative agenda.
It's also why my focus is on "saving one's own ass" or (less hyperbolicly) "saving the ass of one's own tribe." That means the 15-to-30 or so people closest to you.
Best,
Matt
What are you saving them from, Matt? Do you honestly expect to see mass death in your neighborhood sometime soon?
I think Matt's "Mass death" is perhaps hinging on the possible fracturing of the food networks that we in the US have made ourselves so dependent on. Losing one link in the chain will cripple big chunks of the works. When the grid goes down in a city for even a day or two, tons of frozen food gets landfilled. What if it tanks for a month?
Natural gas to residential users seems vulnerable.
Cross country trucking, same.
Fuel prices for agriculture...
I agree that none of these seems to be about to force a collapse altogether, but I envision typical Americans being unable to cope if they lose their access to frozen pizza and the juice to run thier microwaves and keep the diet coke cold.
We had an extended blackout here in DC after a bad storm 3 years ago--not the big northeast blackout--and people were utterly helpless. We modern Americans have essentially no skills to function if any one of our technological lifelines is cut.
So, I wonder, how long before people panic if they can't: drive their car, cook their food, buy food, take a shower, heat their home. Just one of these things breaking down will freak people out in a major way.
Not "mass death" right away, but the beginning of a growth curve of panic driven crime committed by people who would never have called themselves criminals in the current paradigm. Unprecedented anxiety that seems unresolvable will trigger a lot of bad behavior.
-Matt, DC
Were you in the area for the ice storm of '99? I spent three weeks without power, the 50% mark seemed to be about 1 week. Ice storms are usually noted for bringing neighbors one has never met together in a remarkable facsimile of community - mostly because some people have generators and some don't. There are quite a lot of nonspoilable dry and wet goods in one's home. Water could be tricky if it relies on electric pumps. I give the suburban neighorhood 8 weeks minimum (3-4 paychecks missed) cut off from the grid, the gas station, and the grocery store, before people begin to take note of who's a closet gun nut as much as they take note of who has a generator. The urban neighorhood... depends on location, but expect lines noone's seen since the fall of the USSR government store systems.
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)
If you believe that, then you have to believe a crash of civilization is the natural state (despite the rise of peaceful civilizations throughout the world and throughout history). What could explain this bizzare and humane trend? Ah, oil, a get out of jail free card.
If it were not for oil, we'd all be nasty brutish and dead.
But the fact is that these material advances were all due to plentiful energy, not due to the innate goodness of human beings. The "desperately wicked" character of mankind's heart never changed while these material advances were taking place, but was merely concealed from view for a time. We are now entering a time of history, however, where this basic human feature will be starkly revealed once again in all its raw ugliness, due to the impending epoch of energy scarcity.
Even if this were not true, though, it wouldn't affect my fundamental argument: Jeremiah's claim about the "desperate wickedness" of the hearts of human beings is just as true of Chinese, Indian, and Russian hearts as it is of American and Western European hearts.
If you think I am wrong, I challenge you to point out to me a discernible trend entailing self-sacrifice and cooperation in energy-related news of recent months - one that is sufficient to outweigh the manifest tendencies towards increasing antagonism and hostility in this sphere.
We will (chances are) never see that person again, but we do a little 'tit for tat' or 'golden rule' or 'game theory' behavior that we think will, indirectly, benefit us in the future.
I realize that is only 'energy' in the most primitive, muscular sense, holding the door open, but it all flows from there. ;-)
Are the Saudis and other profligately rich Middle East producers going to start giving away some of their oil for free to very poor countries who desperately need it? Are the Russians going to "play nice" and stop their energy-related bullying of the Europeans? Is the United States going to desist from hypocritically bullying the Russians for bullying the Europeans? Are the US and Venezuela going to desist from calling each other the "New Hitlers?" Are China and Japan going to start "playing nice" in the East China Sea anytime soon? Are all of these countries, and others besides, going to desist from their self-serving wrangling about where to build new pipeline routes across Eurasia? Are the rebels in Nigeria going to desist from their terrorism, and is the government of Nigeria going to "play nice" and give in to their legitimate demands? And so on and so forth....
Where is anyone "holding the door" for anyone else here - other than as relatively minor matters in the grand scheme of things? [And those who do "hold the door" for others, like Venezuela, are denounced for doing so on top of it all!!]
I think we've ended up in a different place than we started. Altruism and cooperation exist in societies. In times of national emergency we have had national energy programs (up to including rationing) to deal with it.
If we are sticking to the core, and expectation of human response to peak oil, I'd say that is primarily a national "let's pull together" issue. I expect a mix of competition and cooperation on the international scene, as we have seen throughout the last century. Sometimes that competition is quite unpleasant, as history shows.
I don't expect nations to lie down like lions and lambs, but neither to I expect nations to fall apart uniformly around the world (there is always the unfortunate, isolated, case: Northern Ireland, Lebanon, ...).
Humans, and the societies that emerge when you have a bunch of humans in a group, are quite different beasts. Humans can be, and are, altruistic towards each other but it's not clear that the same is true of societies, nations, corporations etc.
See Reinhold Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society
"It may be possible, thought it is never easy, to establish just relations between individuals within a group purely by moral and rational suasion and accomodation. In inter-group relations this is practically an impossibility. The relations between groups must therefore be predominantely political rather than ethical, that is, they will be determined by the proportion of power which each groups posesses at least as much as by any rational and moral appraisal of comparative needs and claims of each group."
Odograph, I'm not in any way taking issue with your general point, but the example you gave is culturally limited, and I thought you might like to realize that. For example, in Hong Kong, people never hold doors open for others, and they are quite glad to shut the doors of the evelator in your face as you charge towards it (I once managed to enter an elevator that had been shut thus once - they couldn't go anywhere, my foot was stuck in the outer door - and I then greeted everyone present therein with the loud appellation 'Sh*theads!'. Yeah, it was a cultural thing. That's the point.)
The irony is this: re lifts, you are on the receiving end more often than otherwise, so it would actually be rational to hold open the lift door for strangers. You lose one second, but on balance you gain up to five minutes, if everyone behaves otherwise. Of course, no one behaves otherwise, so everyone spends their lives quickly shutting the elevator doors in strangers' faces for the benefit of one or two seconds.
In Hong Kong, you are told this sort of behaviour results because people are 'busy'. In fact, it is simply a form of rudeness or indifference, cultivated because everyone is generally subject to the same sort of behaviour.
Again, nothing to do with your general point. But something to remember for any of you who are headed East. Hold the lift door open for a lady and you will be greeted with (a) very profuse thanks or (b) the sort of indifference reserved for the obviously insane.
Phil, I think you may be confusing the reaction of the American government/military/industrial complex with the people of the country. I don't know where you live, but here in the midwest we just had the biggest, baddest icestorm in our recorded history. In the small city I live in (about 300,000 counting the surrounding burbs) we had 75,000 people without power for 3-12 days. One of the local DJs stayed on the air 24 hrs. a day for several days fielding calls from people who needed help of various kinds and the numerous calls from people offering help. Yes, there were a few "gougers", but people who still had electric took in strangers who had no heat/electricity, people who had wood offered it free to people who had fireplaces but no wood (same with kerosene, ect.), local motels/hotels offered reduced rates and even free lodging to people who had no heat/electricity or who had live powerlines or trees downed on their homes/cars until shelters could be set up. People with food took food to people who'd gotten stranded in their homes without food, etc., etc.
Granted it wasn't peak oil and there will be many more frightened, unprepared people who, if not given aid by neighbors, etc., may become violent if peak oil hits as hard as some of us expect. But what happened around here was very heartening to this old cynic. (Yes, since I have gas heat, I even opened my small home to three other people who I fed and feted - LOL.) And I suspect similar stories could be told across the country during the ice storms that hit. Most areas of the country have some history of self-reliance/helping each other out.
As for the afore mentioned govt./military/industrial complex, I suspect Katrina or worse will be the pattern of response to peak oil. But I wouldn't count out the average American just yet - Jeremiah's adage to the contrary or not.
Linda
This whole thread dealing with whether people are naturally altruistic or not is missing one important factor. The people helping each other in the ice storm or hurricanes ( We lost power for 3 months after Iniki) or other maladies that afflict us from time to time all have one thing in common. They all fully expect that things will soon return to "normal". The power will come back on, the grocery store will get refilled. The military will provide temporary clean water and food until things get back to "normal".
When there is no reasonable likelihood that "normal" will return, oil prices will get higher and higher, food will get more expensive and less available, unemployment will rise, electricity will get more expensive and/or unavailable, and the expectation is that this situation will not improve, then we will see how basically altruistic human beings truly are.
"If it were not for oil, we'd all be nasty brutish and dead."
Actually, there would be a hell of a lot less people, and thus a hell of a lot LESS suffering in the world. On the other hand, there'd be a lot less joy, music, culture, and hilarious jokes! This is something I was thinking of recently - the exponetial rise of humans is accompanied by a concomitant rise is suffering and joy. What is terrifying with climate change, peak oil, etc. is that we are nowhere near peak human suffering on planet earth!!!!
The ying and yang of it might be that while cooperation is the default in some (hopefully many) situations, we have other less nice rules which come to the fore at other times.
The commonly seen distinction between moral standards within a country, and those without, are well known. We see it right now as Americans do things to Iraqis that they would not do to Arizonans.
You can't get a species to deviate from its inherent nature to that far of a degree.
The only logical explanation is that humans are not inherently altruistic.
Best,
Matt
Humanity as a whole is neither altruistic or selfish. It is, at all times, both.
Because of this you can cherry pick selfish choices that have been made in the past and conclude that humanity is selfish. I could reciprocate. But since this isn't an either-or issue, we would both be pissing in the wind. And really, isn't there enough urine in the air already?
Yin and yang.
Some allow the good side, the self-sacrificing, altruistic, generous, kind side to prevail. For those, that IS their inherent nature. These are few in number.
Some allow their baser instincts, predatory greed, lust, and anger, to dominate. For those, that IS their inherent nature. These are many in number.
Some fall in the middle, with elements of both, as their natural instinct. The unpredictability of which side will dominate in a given circumstance is the great unknown.
This is the largest group of all.
The internal battle between ego and id, good and bad, angel and devil, whatever you choose to call it, has been philosophized and extrapolated on since ancient times.
Presently, the it is second group that is in charge.
Seeing as you once publicly failed to recognize the name of E.O. Wilson on this very forum, I for one think you are disqualified from making sociobiology-based arguments.
If you took such arguments seriously, you would already see the truth of what is proclaimed by your opponents ('it isn't a binary issue'). Altruism and selfishness have a lot in common. And therein lies the problem.
Sociobiology is embarrassed by many people who espouse it.
No species is inherently altruistic. It's impossible for such species to evolve.
Oh yeah. I think peak oil will hit us first, probably this summer with the second or third cat 5 hurricane. But global warming is not far behind... a sort of one-two punch, to insure that we live in interesting times.
People borrow from these sciences, but as often happens in the general press, and especially when an agenda is involved, they might borrow slices that suit them.
Inclusive fitness is real, but it's amusing that this page describes its principle achievement is in explaining altruism in animal populations:
http://www.personalityresearch.org/evolutionary/inclusive.html
I find that amusing because the peak oilers who borrow from these sciences expect anything but altruism from the population!
And inclusive fitness has been proven over and over. Hamiltons rule has been attempted to be falsified and it has not been. It stands as one of the core tenets of biology.
And I would not say that evolutionary psychology is the latest dogma coming out of academia. Its quite the minority.
Pick up Consilience by EO Wilson. I think in 30-40 years, he will be viewed by society as Einstein is today.
Jay just connected the dots. And he didnt read 'a few books'. He read hundreds. I am not a cultist or doomer. Im a hedge fund trader turned phd student. Jay is a friend of mine and while I dont agree with everything he says, he is one of the most thorough, wise people I have ever come across.
I know the principles of biological psychology strike some as crude and obtuse but they are slowly being 'proven' in real world experiments, increasingly on humans and primates using neuro-economic tests. The problem is that people believing in intelligent design, etc are growing at a much faster pace than these science based persons (and I dont mean genetically, I mean based on our cultural messages, e.g President Bush)