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The point about the following link does not directly concern the housing bubble -
http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/21/real_estate/housing_perception_gap/index...
Notice the numbers of Americans which simply don't believe in any of the existing information concerning residential real estate prices or trends. Unfortunately, and not too surprisingly, this is around the same number of Americans that reject evolution in favor of religion based explanations of the biological world we exist in.
This is also something striking over the last decades - the replacing of Yankee frugality and pragmatism with whatever it is that America represents today - maybe the 'American Dream' of living without working at anything but being famous.
Belief has become more important than reality - a situation which can be considered always self-rectifying, if you are cold blooded enough not to care about what that 'rectification' means in hard numbers - luckily, most Americans are able to ignore any and all numbers which could potentially disturb their lifestyle.
And if so many Americans remain utterly oblivious in the face of such well founded data as real estate sales, imagine what will happen when the 'belief' in peak oil, easily dismissed as a minority delusion, becomes a reality, at least in terms of how much oil is produced. What are we at now, 1.5+ years of non-increasing production?
Fascinating - a culture utterly unable to look at the future in all its murkily shifting forms, much less be aware of the need to prepare for it.
My concern is how these idiots will react once reality is undeniable. My guess is they will do what the masses have always done - turn to the “man on the white horse” who promises them answers to their problems and a bright future. The decent from that point on will be precipitous.
A scenario the founders were very aware of - and that such would recur, regardless of how they attempted to avoid it.
Odd as it may sound, over the last couple of generations, we have removed many of the constitutional barricades intended to prevent a broadly popular demagogue from destroying the republic. For example, we believe in direct representation in voting for the president, the figure most capable of becoming a tyrant, not an executive, a belief which the founders strongly thought dangerous.
"For example, we believe in direct representation in voting for the president, the figure most capable of becoming a tyrant, not an executive, a belief which the founders strongly thought dangerous."
That's actually not quite true. The fiction of the electoral college was a product of slavery, allowing the 3/5's of a human standard for representation to be incorporated not only in the house of representatives, but also in the election of the president. It was a compromise, designed to insure that slave holding states had more than their fair share of representation in the election of the president. Prior to the Civil War, nearly all of the presidents came from slave holding states.
But, I agree that in the past six years we have seen the wholesale destruction of our constitutional safeguards. This destruction is not intended to allow a broadly popular demogague from becoming president, but to allow a corporately controlled government of the wealthy and by the wealthy to operate for the wealthy.
Though you are correct, you do realize that most American citizens who could vote in the first years of the Constitution were white males with property - most Americans were not allowed to vote, and this was considered proper by those creating the system, in part to hinder the rise of a tyrant. It took several amendments, stretching literally over centuries, before most Americans could vote - and even today, we see the massive effort expended to ensure that many citizens legally entitled to vote are denied that right.
I have also left out the rise of a standing military, another danger likely to lead to tyranny in the eyes of the founders.
My concern is how these idiots will react once reality is undeniable.
Idiots R US, not just Them. But, it does little good to just condemn the people for their ignorance. It has been possible to live a decent life here without paying too much attention to anything going on in the world. This has not been possible in other parts of of the world, especially the third world. The "idiocy" has been induced by the media, the gov't and our whole consumerist orientation. Suburbia, the interstate highway system, the destruction of public of transportation in the cities -- none of these were choices made by the people. These things were matters of design in some large degree.
My guess is they will do what the masses have always done - turn to the “man on the white horse” who promises them answers to their problems and a bright future. The decent from that point on will be precipitous.
I share your concern here: in particular, right now the populace is not overly thrilled with the war agenda despite having a very foggy picture of what's going on in the world. The economy is already heavily dependent on military expenditure. Once the economy tanks, the government may come much closer to openly embracing PO: if you want to continue as is, we must fight to take it.
The alternative, restructuring our whole way of life and working with the rest of the world to face up to the problems we face as a species, will not be presented.
SMALL TOWN CALLED EARTH
We live in a small town
you and I.
We used to think
we lived in separate cities,
but we don't.
We used to think
we could move
if this town
burned down.
But we can't.
We make it here
or don't.
when the history is written, this will all be found to be the result of the Disney Revolution. The complete replacement of common sense with magical thinking. It could only have happened in California, and is entirely fuelled by cheap oil.
Students of Hume, beware! There really is and underlying reality, and it bites
Hey, I'm a student of Hume, and a basic prerequisite of his beliefs is that reality bites - it is just that underlying part which is so hard to actually be certain of, logically. The future is always, by definition, unknown. Welcome to reality.
Unless the core of the earth is actually made of oil, the peak will arrive with a range of predictable results -- even though the exact trajectory can not be predicted. And of course, it is really irrelevant whether there is, in fact, a reality or a future -- with our human limitations we simply have to act as though there is such a thing, and that it matters.
The Disneyfication of American thought-- which has metastasized to the entire world -- replaces a necessary belief, however illogical, in reality with a mirage which serves to augment the fortunes of those who do believe in objective reality
Huh?!?
I think you stumbled across a philosophical discussion, involving Hume, et al.
I subscribe to the philosophy of Dezcarties, who famously said, "I'm pink, therefore I'm spam".
Or something like that.
:-)
I comment on The Oil Drum, therefore I exist.
Yes, that was it ;-)
Commento, ergo sum
I'm a radical neo-cartesian and refuse to create any conclusions: I think. Therefore, I think.
There's a shorter name for that: Zen.
Or some might say, "bleedin' obvious"... but it is a surprisingly powerful concept that many people have forgotten about ;-)
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein
Actually, I was quite puzzled why someone would conclude a follower of Hume to be a PO denier. It is a cornucopian who would be more likely to be anti-Hume philosophically. For instance, one of Hume’s most significant findings is that inductive reasoning is invalid. No matter how often something occurs I cannot conclude it will always occur. I can only say something is statistically probable - more likely than not. Just because the sun comes up every day does not logically prove it will tomorrow. Sound familiar? The cornucopian believes since we have always had enough oil, and technology has always found it, it always will. The previous commenter has concluded (I’m sorry if I did not understand his argument) that someone who follows Hume cannot conclude anything about anything, when in fact it is healthy skepticism tempered with experience. I strongly suspect the writer has never read his treatises. His treatise on morals is particularly good. I may not be able to logically prove gravity exists, but I’m not about to jump out a 20 story window because gravity’s proof is invalid.
Proof of this resides in how the MSM manipulates "reality" and leads an ignorant public by the nose, an ongoing situation for decades now. Experience shows that same public is still capable of learning what "reality" consists of, but at great expense to one's psyche.
Anybody here remember what the "reality" is/was behind the rock-opera Tommy? The Who had the whole "thing" figured out 40 years ago. But how many were able to be set free?
Something can't be proven by reference to a theory or personal opinion.
Both Hume and Popper showed that nothing at all can be proved, it only be disproved.
Given that, one has to work on probabilities. The probability of Peak Oil having already occurred can be guessed or estimated (you pick) at about 50%, of it occurring before (say) 2011 must be about 80%.
I agree with all of your points. Despite common sentiment at TOD, we can only view the future in terms of probability. No one knows what WILL happen in the future.
Hoever none of that refutes my point that Karlov's theory that the media is manipulating everything doesn't go very far towards proving peak oil.
Precisely! And because the probability of peak oil appears anywhere from possible to probable (rather than almost impossible), the responsible action is to perform risk management against this event.
Now, do you see our government performing risk management against this event? Do you see most corporations performing risk management against this event? That is the crux of the problem facing civilization and we are at this crux because of a false global religion (politicized economics) that promises infinite growth.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
I almost majored in philosophy in addition to history, that is, until I was exposed to the empiricism of David Hume and realized the ideas of most other philosophers were nothing more than fancy mental masturbation totally unconnected with reality. Magical thinking? Boy have you got that wrong! Totally unconnected with empiricism. Are you sure your not thinking of someone else? Because as an empiricist if I can’t use my senses or instruments to detect something, it probably does not exist. And that includes that bearded guy up in the sky by whatever name.
Jerry Garcia??
Don't Take his name in Vain!
Pick one from column A: Blank Slate, Nobel Savage, Ghost in the Machine...
From Reuters today, Bill Gross's comments:
Bill Gross, manager of the world's largest bond fund, on Tuesday said the subprime mortgage crisis gripping U.S. financial markets was not an isolated event and will eventually take a toll on the economy.
Gross, the chief investment officer for Pacific Investment Management Co. (Pimco), also said in his July investment outlook newsletter that the crisis would prompt the Federal Reserve to lower the benchmark interest rate by year end.
http://yahoo.reuters.com/news/articlehybrid.aspx?storyID=urn:newsml:reut...
If you are going to quote Bill Gross, you may want to add a disclaimer: he's been calling for interest rates to plummet for over a year (to a 3-handle on 10yr).
I don't know of any outspoken bond fund managers that have been more wrong.
Sorry, he's just entrusted with $600 billion worldwide and works with Alan Greenspan. And judging by his long-term record, there hasn't been a more "right" bond investor.
I know he manages a lot of money but he may have lost his touch. He was on the cover of USA Today in July 2002 when the dow was 7000 saying stocks were a sale (calling 5200 'fair value'. He's been calling for lower interest rates for at least 18 months, which is obviously totally wrong:
http://europe.pimco.com/LeftNav/Featured+Market+Commentary/IO/2006/Inves...
If you want to read up on economics from someone who has been right, I would suggest Michael Darda from MKM Partners who has been correctly saying for over a year that the Fed will not be able to cut rates, and may raise rates further.
You should check out a very funny movie named "Idiocracy" by the writer/director of Office Space, Mike Judge.
This is not just the result of effective disney marketing. Nor is this mind-set exclusively found among millienialist Christians and members of the Disney vacation club. Our culture is shifting from a modern world-view to a post-modern one. Although disappointing to scientists and engineers who frequent this site, post-modernity is bringing:
"...an irreverence for reason, and the rise of subjectivity... Heidegger, then Ludwig Wittgenstein, then Derrida, who examined the fundamentals of knowledge; they argued that rationality was neither as sure nor as clear as modernists or rationalists assert."
from the Wikipedia post-modernism article
Not to say much about post-modernism (which, as one art teacher suggested, is pretty hard to move beyond - and yes, she was being very sarcastic - but then, she was a very sarcastic person and a very good teacher, a rare combination), but the idea that the 'narrative' dominates reality through our perception is pretty much meaningless in the terms which allow us to have this discussion on the Internet - at least to manufacture the chips which allow a digital device to connect with other digital devices.
The world is bigger than any us, a fact that post-modernism at least generally accepts.
In third grade my son learned about the difference between facts and opinions. It turns out, this is really the key point of post-modernism: everything that isn't fact is only opinion, and philosophy constitutes a vast literature of opinion. The world divides cleanly into stuff, on the one hand, and "talking about stuff" on the other. The two don't meet up as often as we'd like to think.
Peak rationality