The Oil Drum

319 comments on DrumBeat: January 25, 2007

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dmathew1 on January 25, 2007 - 8:16pm

How about a "Don't Feed the Trolls" moratorium day?

If it weren't for the trolls what sort of conversations would occur here?

Hothgor and Infinite Possibilities seem to make the same arguments every day and experience the same results:

Hothgor: You're wrong about Peak Oil.
Anyone else: You're an idiot, Hothgor.

or ...

Infinite Possibilities: Technology will save us!
Anyone else: You're an idiot, IP!

Certainly not enough changes from day to day to justify repeating the same argument over and over again. It makes no difference if these two individuals actually believe what they repeatedly affirm: An argument which was not resolved yesterday will suffer the same fate today.

Time will resolve these arguments in a more effective manner than perpetually engaging in the same arguments ever will. The only significant contribution of the daily threads is the news stories which Leanan and others provide throughout the day. The news is interesting and occasionally very important (such as the reports coming out of Mexico today, the world certainly is changing).

These daily debates which degenerate into insult exchanges don't benefit the Peak Oil movement at all. Do they? Does anyone seriously believe that they help?

As for myself, I believed in Peak Oil from the first moment that I heard that it is an approaching threat. The only real argument is about the timing, and that argument is irrelevant within the time scales which concern me. Undoubtedly Peak Oil will occur within this century, perhaps before 2010, possibly it has already occurred. Regardless of the various opinions about the matter there is no possibility whatsoever that information gleaned from the news today will resolve the issue conclusively either for believers, skeptics or the disinterested public.

Why then go through the trouble of repeating the same tiresome argument every day?

The Peak Oil controvery cannot help but resolve itself in time. Patience is a virtue, incessant strife a vice.

David Mathews
http://www.geocities.com/dmathew1

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Franz on January 26, 2007 - 12:21am

An argument which was not resolved yesterday will suffer the same fate today.

Time will resolve these arguments in a more effective manner than perpetually engaging in the same arguments ever will. The only significant contribution of the daily threads is the news stories which Leanan and others provide throughout the day.

It is rather ironic that you say this, seeing as you exhibit the same kind of eristic tendencies, over-attachment to baseless and opiniated rhetoric, and compulsive urge to post that mark, say, IP and some others.

Leanan, we had a hint of the rot in a certain aged poster and his plentiful off-topic references to the prowess of his dong (now thankfully a habit he has grown out of - and about time, at seventy-odd years of age), then OilCEO, who was banned (correctly), then IP, and now it appears dmathew. All these are, unfortunately, symptoms of a wider ill - the urge to talk complete BS to the wider public on what is, ostensibly, a Peak Oil site. Yes, I have done it myself. So I say unto you and the rest of the Oildrum crew: SHOOT US ALL! Disable the comment feature and spare posterity all this. Or let the comments show only RR and Westexas duking it out, and similar. The rest is dross, and should be confined to oblivion.

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step back on January 26, 2007 - 5:47am

IMPORTANT EMAIL
TO: FRANZ
FROM: NANCY REAGAN (EX-USA FIRST LADY)
SUBJECT: ADDICTED TO COMMENTS

JUST SAY NO.
STOP.

(For our non-American friends and young people, FYI re Nancy: In days of old, When knights were bold, And Ronald was our White House Resident (circa 1980-88), Good ole' Nancy came on TV with great fanfare and show, To suggest to all our addicted young people a simple Just Say No.)