I would rate Prof. Goose up, but the arrows aren't working.

If "None of us here aspire to "fix the planet"", why then the question: ask someone in Pakistan what he thinks about ethanol? TOD does indeed try to fix the planet and is notorious for global think. Just check out the daily items on Drum Beat. Most are foreign related.

The truth is that some things that mitigate Peak Oil like ethanol benefit one country more than another. The idea that Americans should make economic and energy choices based on the dire situations in the Third World is every day fare at TOD.

Third world countries like Haiti, Pakistan and Bangladesh got themselves into the situation they are in without American help. Now Americans are suppose to make unsound economic and energy choices to bail them out according to many who post on TOD.

The result will be that we all descend to the lower economic level that these third world countries have already achieved. This will not sell except in those countries who reap the largess of American stupidity. They have nothing to pay for grain. They make little effort to control their ever rising populations. They have no better plans to deal with Peak Oil than we do. And if they could they would gladly slip into the U.S. and increase our own population stress which is happening even now in the case of Mexico.

Prof: agreed on the points you just made. However, I do think the Drumbeats sometimes wander off in very defeatist directions, for example in treating hard-labor back-to-the-15^th-century scenarios as inevitable, or in taking a tack - ludicrously ironic for anyone posting something on the Web - perilously close to asserting that all technology can only be useless. (Actually I think that stance often has more to do with politically-correct Marxist-Leninism than with defeatism, but that's for another day.) Nobody's crystal ball is clear enough to back assertions as bald as that, so staff might consider responding once in a blue moon, as Big Gav occasionally does on TOD:ANZ.

Check out the interaction over there a few days ago, involving John15, Big Gav, and others. It worked out rather differently from the archetypal interaction with John15 over 'here' (i.e., usually, on the Drumbeat.) Now I too occasionally get irritated when John15 posts pie-in-the-sky in a manner seeming to suggest that we could scale it up this very afternoon, but it remains that the differences between that interaction and the one typical here probably underline what theokobox might be picking up on. (And I do think the new numerical rating system tends to reinforce, or to "align with", a notion of groupthink.)

theokbox: the username page only shows how long you've been registered - a whole four hours - not how long you've been lurking. Still, don't you think your first post might be a bit early to paint with such a broad brush? It might well be fair comment on one particular article, but "Who wouldn't get doomerish reading the articles on this website" uses "article" in the plural, not the singular, and it manifestly refers to the entire site.

I'd suggest that you and anyone else new please get some perspective from the editorial and tutorial materials - and not attempt to judge the whole site from selected open comment threads.

Education definitely is KEY for why the OilDrum MUST exist! The amount of misinformation and denial out there is vast.

I had an argument today with a intelligent man, passionately self-employed, and politically libertarian by my estimation. I searched for 20 minutes for common ground and found none, just "different facts" that need disputing, which is a beginning at least.

First he said that the market will respond to problems (when the government isn't getting in the way.) Fine, minus corruption of insider information and market manipulation. Then when I bring up peak oil, he says its ALL artificial limits causes by drilling limits and that there's no shortage of oil (in the U.S.) I suggested the U.S. oil reserves would be depleted in a decade of our current consumption even if we could extract it fast enough, AND that what's left can't be extracted/pumped fast enough to meet our current demand.

He never once considered the possibility that the U.S. ought to be TRYING to reduce our consumption. He says the Market could provide for us NOW if we let it, including transitioning us to alternative energy. I noted that that's exactly what the high oil prices now were doing - a less than gentle push away from oil, and he just returned to his belief high prices were artificial and hurt people and denied that the Magic Market requires high prices to encourage us to move to what we need.

It hurts my brain to argue with denialists, but I suppose I'm yet a denialist myself. Besides choosing to "pay down debt" now while I have more income than expenses, I can set myself to live on less money in the future. Besides that, and not owning a car, I may be as bad as anyone. I WANT someone to grab my shoulders and shake some sense into me, tell me this wonderful world around me is an illusion and I need to wake up and take reality seriously. But as long as the world LOOKS normal, as long as most people got jobs, and their credit isn't maxed out yet, we can continue the illusion a while longer.

I had a similar discussion with a friend who is getting his PhD soon, and his great observation was that ONLY people in very stable situations seem to worry about economic collapse or a returning great depression. I pointed out that only people in stable positions are willing to consider things that challenge their stability, which he accepted. But his faith was based on some mysterious information about "signs" and "indicators" NOT pointing towards a depression. I couldn't make any sense of it except to assume he read something somewhere that said such signs existed and were all looking up in the future.

Anyway, I have to wonder HOW MANY FACTS can a mind deny to keep their world sane, so they can get up the next day and do something that assumes a future that can't possibly exist as they wish it. AND if denial is so powerful, what are the "key facts" that can at least STICK around a while to be added to later "key facts" that will push them over?

I'd LIKE to share some of the PeakOil presentations, BUT I see perhaps they need to be written in a weaker voice than that of the converted. For me peak oil is an uncertainty in the near term, a certainty in the long term. I like Congressman Barlett's presentations largely, and his stated bigger mission, for leaving a world his grandchildren can enjoy and appreciate as he has, and of course his attempts to give perspective on the amount of energy in a gallon of gas.

Anyway, I guess my assumption is that the future is a place of less energy, less opportunity whatever we do, individually or collectively. I don't think that makes me a doomer, but I accept it is an assumption that may not be true.

I find the idea of a world with LESS actually interesting because it gives MEANING to values I hold - that the material world has become UNDERVALUED for our excess, and conservation and care for things a lost virtue. I truly can't stand to see the HUGE garbage bins so many people put out each week. Then I imagine the hours and hours each week people must spend BUYING things to trash so much so fast. it's insane to me, at least as a single person with just my bicycle to carry things.

So, my world view is strengthened by limits, even as I fear them, fear the fighting and hoarding that MUST come when others realize their future may not be as they've assumed. I fear a future of haves and have-nots where gated communities separate people by their individual wealth. If I was a bit more optimistic about my ability to communicate I'd see that also as a great wonderful challenge, but sharing is a BIG DRAG. I'm sure our speedy modern life is largely fueled by the convenience of isolation, and when that isolation means poverty, we'll have to quickly reorganize ourselves into more collective expressions of choice and priority.

And again, that's why I'm still a denialist. I assume a position of privlege, exchanging relative "voluntary simplicity" for resisting searching for more cooperative power. It's a nice world we have for freedom: (1) Earn money (2) Spend it as you please. Oops, and add (3) Borrow as you please.

Our illusion of freedom is our weakness too. We're all part of the problem because we can't imagine a lifestyle that uses 1/10 of the energy we use now, because we can't imagine freedom in that world. And because we can't accept that challenge, we'll go on the destructive path until it crumbles beneath us and becomes impossible to follow any more. That's where I'm really a doomer - I can't see any will for collective action that can make a difference.

I've caught the fatality of the Republican pessimism - whom in the name of personal power - have demonized government as a force for good. There is no common good. There's just money and the RIGHT for those who have it to KEEP it and spend as they choose.

I just don't even know if anything is worth discussing under such an atmosphere.

I'm almost coming to the conclusion that communication is hopeless as long as you are trying to convert someone who doesn't want to be converted. a seriously fucked up idea.

I remember a quote I copied down from "The Brothers Karamazov", by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It's a philosphical book, expressed through fictional characters. In one section one character talked about isolation and the need for everyone to set an example of "brotherly love" in the world, act selflessly, act outside of our immediate direct interest and benefit. It's a fun place to be, to turn down the voice of ambition, the noise of distraction. It's not really "the answer", not really "heaven", just the other side of life that becomes hidden under a poverty of spirit. I don't believe in collective awakenings, but perhaps there is a critical mass where the world does change directions. Anyway, brotherly-love is still entirely self-interest whatever greater benefit society might find in it.

**********************************
Part Two Book VI: The Russian Monk.
1. Father Zossima and His Visitors. (d) The Mysterious Visitor Paragraph 12 [Page 278-280.]

... "That life is heaven," he said to me suddenly, "that I have long been thinking about." And all at once he added, "In fact, I think of nothing else." He looked at me and smiled. "I am more convinced of it that you are, I will tell you why later on."

I listened to him and thought that he had something that he wanted to tell me.

"Heaven," he went on, "lies hidden within all of us - it lies hidden in me now, and if I will it, it will be revealed to me tomorrow and for all time."

I looked at him. He was speaking with great emotion and looking mysteriously at me, as if he were questioning me.

"And we are all responsible to all for all, apart from our own sins. You were quite right in thinking that. And it is wonderful how you could comprehend it in all its significance at once. And in truth, so soon as men understand that, the Kingdom of Heaven will be for them not a dream, but a living reality."

"And when?" I cried out to him bitterly, "When will that come to pass? Will it ever come to pass? It is not simply a dream?"

"Then you don't believe it." He said, "You preach it and don't believe it yourself. Believe me, this dream, as you call it, will come to pass without doubt. It will come, but not now, for every process has its law. It's a spiritual, psychological process. To transform the world, to recreate it afresh, men must turn into another path psychologically. Until you have become really, in actual fact, a brother to everyone, brotherhood will not come to pass. No sort of scientific teaching, no kind of common interest, will ever teach men to share property and privileges with equal consideration for all. Everyone will think his share too small and they will be always envying, complaining and attacking one another. You ask when it will come to pass; it will come to pass, but first we have to go through a period of isolation."

"What do you mean by isolation?" I asked him.

"Why, the isolation that prevails everywhere, above all in our age - it has not fully developed, it has not reached its limit yet. For everyone strives to keep his individuality, everyone wants to secure the greatest possible fullness of life for himself. But meanwhile all his efforts result not in attaining fullness of life but self-destruction, for instead of self-realization he ends by arriving at complete solitude. All mankind in our age is split up into units. Man keeps apart, each in his own groove; each one hold aloof, hides himself and hides what he has, from the rest. He ends by being repelled by others and repelling them. He heaps up riches by himself and thinks, 'How strong I am now and how secure.' And in his madness he does not understand that the more he heaps up, the more he sinks into self-destructive impotence. For he is accustomed to rely upon himself alone and to cut himself off from the whole; he has trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men and in humanity, and only trembles for fear he should lose his money and the privileges that he has won for himself. Everywhere in these days men have ceased to understand that the true security is to be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated individual effort. But this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end, and all will suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another. It will be the spirit of the time and people will marvel that they sat so long in the darkness without seeing the light. And the sign of the Son of Man will be seen in the heavens. ... But, until then, we must keep the banner flying. Sometimes even if he has to do it alone, and his conduct seems crazy, a man must set an example, and so draw men's souls out of their solitude, and spur them to some act of brotherly love, that the great idea may not die."
...
**********************************

Prof G: We may not want to "fix the planet" but making the world (or at least society) a better place is why a lot of us go into engineering.

Defeatism and pessimism are just things we all have to deal with. I know I get frustrated when I see countless cars driving by and I wonder where all these people are going. Or what is happening to my neighbors when gas gets REALLY expensive. or some of the STUPID things our society does like corn based ethanol. I can certainly understand Matt Simmons getting down

Now, as for TOD, there is NO better place to find such great information on energy. The analysis and data is just incredible. TOD should be offered as college credit. It certainly helps me more in life than my music appreciation class.

Prof. Goose,
I'm not quite buying the "we're just educating people" stance or at least the usefulness of this assertion to counteract the criticism that TOD shades into the doom and gloom attitude. I very much appreciate some of the work that TOD and peak oilers have done in tracking hydrocarbon usage and production. However there is a certain passivity and even glee with which some on TOD watch the proceedings that I believe is not really taking the ethical high road.

If you presume to know something in a crisis or at least know better, you have an obligation to take some leadership position or at least puzzle out what might be a way out of the crisis. I realize that some discuss solutions here but that is not "just educating people" as you assert.

I believe some in the Peak Oil community are just enjoying watching a train wreck, not really an admirable position, though replete with the pleasures of Schadenfreude.

For instance, the theme running through comments and some posts here that we will inevitably experience some form of population contraction is not NECESSARILY the future. It MAY happen and it is a matter of ethical choices and work by people to decide how they structure their future society. However, those who are attracted to the "trainwreck" narrative feel that it is INEVITABLE. This is just one example of the attraction to a gloom and doom narrative that one finds on these pages.

On my blog (www.greenthoughts.us) I have been advocating a turn to what I call the Renewable Electron Economy as a solution to our climate and energy needs. It is not an easy road to achieve this result but it is a vision of hope that can be achieved with sufficient work and social investment. It not the only vision out there that offers hope but it is one of them.

Prof. Goose,

I've been here since you launched this site and I officially joined early on as well. I can say without any hesitation that I've learned more through TOD as the backbone of my autodidact "peak oil research" than the equivalent of a multi-discipline undergraduate degree.

There are hundreds of quasi-lurkers like me among the people you have DEEPLY influenced -- and thousands more you have had a strong impact upon. Know this on the days skeptics shower scorn. Know that - slowly, and in ways that you'll never fully see - your work and the work of all editors here will indeed have an impact on the world. We will never know to what degree this will be so. But without a doubt, TOD has had an impact and the veritable army of people that have gone through "TOD School" will hopefully help the world transition to a better world. You have already achieved more than you know. My gratitude for your work and the work of all editors here runs deep.

- ziggy

TOD may not be able to "fix" the world, but one individual learning one thing and doing one act could. It has happened before and could happen again. We are trying to increase the probability that the right person/people will get the right information at the right time to make the decision to do something that will somehow help either themselves, their family, their neighborhood, their town, their state, their country, their continent, and the rest of it.

The roots have definitely been planted at TOD and some sprouts have grown...heck...the next benevolent dictator of the world could be reading right now. If he/she is PO aware and gets the world straightened out in time we all might be spared a messy crash.

(top - nonsarconal; bottom - sarconal)

We can have enough clean energy to matter, because concentrated solar power is cheap and scalable and could be abundant. Of course, BLM has just suspended new permits just when we desperately need to build as fast as we can.

C'est la vie...

Mark Folsom

Why was John15's most informative posts EVER marked down?

No hungry people in Pakistan? WTF? Last time I checked the stats there were over 50% of the population below $2/day. With that many in a hand to mouth situation it's no wonder that food riots in Pakistan make the news.