<DrumBeat: November 3, 2007 The Oil Drum Part 2. The Future in Australia: The Next 13 years.>

235 comments on Peak Oil - Believe it or Not?

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PigglyWiggly on November 2, 2007 - 9:33pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hi again Mike,

With respect to peak oil, college students seem to be sleep walking.

Why do you think your students are passive about this?

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Nate Hagens on November 2, 2007 - 9:47pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Without answering for Mike, I think its cognitive dissonance. Intuitively they are hearing you tell them about a world that a social science college degree isn't going to be what they thought it was - kind of a hard pill to swallow with a smile.

Education/college, health care, transportation, etc. -there are alot of heavyweight issues that peak oil will change conventional thought on.

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PigglyWiggly on November 3, 2007 - 12:21am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Thank you Nate and Perpetual Energy for responding. I'm sure you are both correct. In fact there are probably many reasons depending on the individual.

Here's my limited observation.

I have noticed a certain lack of any radicalism among today's youth in North America and I find that somewhat disturbing. When I talk to young people I find them very charming and polite, after class they will often clap and praise the teacher (I work at a college so I know this is the case ... perhaps it is anomalous to my specific school). I find them, also, to be very respectful of their parents and vice versa.

In fact all the generational tensions that I experienced when I was growing up seem not to be found now. This is class and culturally specific of course and it is from my limited observations.

On the surface this appears to be a good thing, peace and harmony. Yet the cultural implications are profound. I think one manifestation is a lack of collective social outrage.

Perpetual Energy, is the media so powerful? Perhaps it is. Many people where I work think Apple is a cool company ... it's all good at Apple. Yet no one I speak to can adequately converse on the social harm that Apple potentially does.

Nate, is the cognitive dissonance so deep that it gives one unconscious option paralysis? Perhaps so. For example, very few people dig deep enough to resolve the dichotomy created by living in an advanced capitalist state AND being an environmentalist. The debate will often take on very canned "good" capitalism (Apple) vs. bad capitalism (Chevron) polarities or cornucopian market fixing notions (the invisible hand is in harmony with Mother Earth).

Perhaps also the nature of our educational system does not create and foster adequate critical frameworks. Maybe, the so called "self esteem" movement is problematic.

Another possibility is that great wealth creates social stasis. Harold Innis argued that much change comes from the margins (ref below). Although discussing new forms of media communication that are adopted by marginalized groups to effectively challenge the centre, one could extend that argument to say that all social change comes from the margins.

Today, because of our great wealth, marginalized actors of change are pushed far outside our cultural boundaries. Very far in fact.

If this is the case, then I am afraid the doomers are correct. Social change will not occur unless the margins come closer to the centre and this, in turn, will create instability and social breakdown. TODers point out that we need stability to mitigate peak oil.

I find this topic absolutely fascinating and extremely important for the challenges facing us.

Again Nate, thank you for writing this article.

Innis Reference:

http://www.media-studies.ca/articles/innis.htm

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step back on November 3, 2007 - 7:35am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

When I talk to young people I find them very charming and polite, after class they will often clap and praise the teacher (I work at a college so I know ...). I find them, also, to be very respectful of their parents ... On the surface this appears to be a good thing, peace and harmony.

Dear Professor Piggly-Wiggly,
The stundent-zombies at your college must be truly gifted in hiding their true nature if you find them "charming", polite and respectful.

Here's what happens at night, when their true nature emerges:

1. They embalm their innards with massive amounts of ethanol -binge drinking, blacking out and sometimes even dying from excessive alcoholism (1,700 college students die each year from alcohol-related unintentional injuries).

Perhaps you even noticed the recent event in South Carolina where 7 students (a.k.a. fraternity members -ding ding ding: does a bell not go off in your head?) "tragically" died in a beach house fire.

2. They immerse themselves in video games that involve maiming, killing and otherwise doing harm to fellow humans while crashing, burning and otherwise destroying the planet.

3. They dream about becoming "famous" MTV hip hop stars.

4. They claw at each other in order to get ahead and succeed in the mad capped Flattening World of Thomas Friedman -where competition for survival is not just among your campus mates, but rather with the teeming masses from India, China, Mexico, etc. who also want to live the "American Dream".

Perhaps it is due to your position as a grade-giving teacher (read that as power over life and death) that they dare not let you see the truth?

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airdale on November 3, 2007 - 9:07am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Step Back,

You forgot a few more..

They put metal into their bodies. In their tongues,on gentital portions,in their noses..and place needles full of dye into their skin....YET if a parent even slightly 'slapped' then gently they would call law enforcement upon their parents!!!

They listen to music that is NOT music..

They wear ugly clothes that can almost not be worn comfortably.

They put large speakers in the vehicles and drive to where others are and create havoc with the booming sonics.

There are more but well...they need to protest themselves for inane stupidly of the worse sort. Yet they champion it and think its cute...its not...it is degenerate.

Respectable to their parents? Hog wash!

airdale-with children like this we essentially have no future...I put it down to SoccerMomism and CouchPotatoDadism

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eric blair on November 3, 2007 - 9:21am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Or a summary:

I'm old - you damn kids get offa my lawn!

(VS the respectful way one refers to local American Indians eh Airdale?)

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stream47 on November 3, 2007 - 2:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

airdale, dude, *chill*... people have been getting piercings and tattoos for millenia - check out the Celts and Gauls sometime, same thing for the Scythians and Huns. Just because you prefer neo-Roman culture doesn't mean it's superior.

Their parents have no more right to slap them than they have a right to slap their parents. It's disrespectful and the mark of a person unable to articulate their thoughts, a bit of a throwback, in other words.

Their music is music. It's punk rock, it's metal, it's hip hop, it's electronica. I think most rap really sucks, same for most electronic music. I like grindcore and metal. Sue me. I also listen to classical music and jazz.

Sagging clothes do look funny. But it's part of a culture which you can take or leave.

and so on.

Degenerate? Hitler thought the same thing about the French Impressionists and Picasso and so on. (Invocation of Godwin's Law here...)

None of this has anything to do with Peak Oil awareness amongst the myspace crew: check out this Myspace group:
http://groups.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=groups.groupProfile&group...

and profile:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendI...

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Odysseus on November 4, 2007 - 12:15am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Airdale and Step Back,

You're being selective in picking examples of current youth. Those kids and their seemingly extreme behavior are what jump out at you, but they do not represent the norm, the median or the typical youth. I bet these are the ones that get burned into your retinas when you see them and they shock you, and their behavior and dress is meant to do that.

Unless you work with these kids a lot (teens through twenties) you can't really appreciate how many strengths they have. Even the high number of kids with autism and other disabilities might have the new ideas and insights we will need to get through the ungodly mess OUR generation has made by recklessly burning through the world's oil inheritance so fast.

We have no room to point our fingers at the weird behaviors of youth. There are tons of great kids with manners, self control and inner drive that will stand up when the depth of our need really sinks in (TSHTF).

Anyway, that's my 2c. There's hope out there, but you need to look with some hopeful eyes.

P.S. I'm a PO doomer too...

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PigglyWiggly on November 3, 2007 - 12:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Step Back,

I really don't know how to respond! You seem to miss the entirety of the argument here. Why don't you respond to the meat of my argument: young people are passive, change will occur only through radical social upheaval, and that change will problematically affect the mitigation of an oil peak.

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step back on November 3, 2007 - 6:22pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Why don't you respond to the meat of my argument: young people are passive

PW,

I didn't mean to be impolite. Sorry.
My point is that they are not "passive". They are actively self-destructive.

What would you have them do? Society is not set up so as to empower these young people to do anything.

This is not the 1960's anymore.
"We" should have seen the PO thing coming in the 60's. After all, Hubbert warned "us" in 1956. But no, we (I assume you are about same age as me) were too busy streaking on college campus, puffing on -but not inhaling- weed, and occasionally marching in an anti-war parade. We were "special". We were the greatest generation. "They" are not living up to our tall shadow. They are too passive. [/sarcasm]

Peace. :-)

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PigglyWiggly on November 3, 2007 - 7:22pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

No problem Step Back and no need to apologize. You're right it's not the 1960's anymore. The lack of activism is what gets me down.

Perhaps I should have said that many young people are politically passive or politically naive. But perhaps this is the case in all of North America I think, and perhaps for NA youth as a whole across time. I think May 1968 is a better example of political activism. Whether it was good or not is up to you to decide, but the lasting effects in France were quite profound.

A couple of corrections to your asumptions: I used to teach sociology and media criticism in university and college, but I have different career now (although I might go back to teaching as I enjoyed it very much). So I'm not developing arguments from any lofty position (like the pope ... I'm like the other guy in Nate's article) ... I'm just a regular TOD reader.

In the 1960s I was eating cheese sandwiches and watching the Mighty Hercules ... I'm a little younger than you I think!

Peace to you to man!

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Jaymax on November 3, 2007 - 11:03pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Calling 'us' Generation-X was prescient.

Generation-Y subconsciously realize there's not alot of hope, so why bother - It didn't really work in the 60's, and people really tried and really thought they were making a difference that time round... Can you really blame them for not being motivated - perhaps when my young flatmate tells me there's no point, 'cos it won't make any difference, he's actually the wiser.

And so Generation-Z may appropriately be the last generation of the Modern Age (or the last generation of the Fourth Age of Humanity, if you're Mayan)

--
Jaymax (cornucomer-doomopian)

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CrystalRadio on November 3, 2007 - 11:09am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Nate, is the cognitive dissonance so deep that it gives one unconscious option paralysis?

Come on Piggly Wiggly give it a rest, okay? Or better, tell it to eric blair.

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PigglyWiggly on November 3, 2007 - 12:36pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Give what a rest CR? I have no idea what you're talking about.

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CrystalRadio on November 3, 2007 - 2:23pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Exactly!:)

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PigglyWiggly on November 3, 2007 - 2:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Arggggh!!!! :-)

Please CR. I wasn't being facetious when I wrote that (I think you think I was). My point is that cognitive psychological approaches have a direct bearing on social behaviour (like Nate is pointing out). Option paralysis isn't just a Gen-X Copeland thing. I think it could easily be renamed as overload and dissonance. Option paralysis isn't just about the failure to choose your breakfast cereal at Safeway because of the multiple available brands. It's more about the failure to critically anaylyze what the best breakfast cereal for your body is. It's not about choice, it's about analysis.

At the end of the day, young people, in the context of this discussion, do not seem to critically analyze society and by extension fail to appreciate the issues of oil and capitalism.

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CrystalRadio on November 7, 2007 - 3:59pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Sorry to cause that Arggggh!!!! Piggly Wiggley, I guess I was a touch out of line making a cause celebre out of what was meant as communication by yourself to Nate using the lingua franca of your profession.

While I found the Article by Nate most interesting, if slightly turgid, I had just been recovering from some of Jef fvail's convoluted mystifications. An article which, in translation, amounted to unadulterated trash. That is not meant to be a slur on you, as once one deciphers the cryptic, there is sense. Ace on the other hand was wrapping garbage in basic brown paper baffle gab. Not a pleasant experience!

BTW about young people I quite agree and they haven't changed since my youth when we expected nuclear annihilation. Very little reaction to that at the time, we just went on about our business of getting, when one thinks about it, rather useless educations.

I see my pal eric blair has reared his pugly head this morning so I better go sling a bit of mud there, as Popeye might say 'always a good thing to have a emeny about to keep one from drifting'. So best to you for now:)
------
edit:
My apologies to Ace, I had meant Jeffail in the above. Now corrected (to some degree).

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Perpetual Energy on November 2, 2007 - 10:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Why do you think your students are passive about this?

Marketing is the art of mind-bending. As long as doubt is placed in someone's mind, and the issue doesn't seem to effect them personally, action is not taken.

Institute the draft for the War in Iraq and millions will march on D.C.

When gas hits $5 per gallon and the price of everything goes way up, students in general will become more active.

____________________
myspace

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myndlessconsumption on November 4, 2007 - 4:25am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

just wait until they can't drive their SUV's anymore, and the next day get a letter in the mail informing them how much more in taxes they owe to keep social security going.

My fear is the current youth generation knows no boundaries and cannot see more than a few seconds in front of them- you'll see a lot of them wasting their last drops of gas for unbelievably insignificant things- then their last cents of change- and their last full meals. I have no clue what they expect to do once its not there anymore.

I like not knowing.

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235 comments on Peak Oil - Believe it or Not?

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