I agree we intrinsically distort the yet to be procured problem. This paper is actually a perfect example it presents a generally rosy picture by ignoring almost all complications except what is probably a low estimate of the decline rate in production.

On theoildrum of course these issues will be highlighted so the overall presentation is balanced but I'd suggest that this is rare most of the time this distortion makes its way into our assumptions about the world without critical review. As I side note it shows one thing I've noticed is that few people understand the importance of true peer review. Despite the problems with peer review its the basic principle of science in my opinion.

But this goes back to the misinformed market problem underlying that is the simple fact that we intrinsically desire to be misinformed. Its part of our neural makeup.

Although it might seem off base the classic example is that people continuously fall for the exact same scams year after year and thus on of the biggest truths about people is that a sucker is indeed born every minute.

The problem is of course to counteract this intrinsic problem you generally have to present the absolutely worst case scenario to get a problem to be recognized but then in general your labeled a doomer and banned from society. So not only are we suckers for the best news we are very effective at killing the messenger of bad tidings.

And last but not least in the ultimate hypocrisy of our self denial we don't even admit that we think this way.

I think the only reasons humans have been successful is that in the past we have always had groups of breeding populations able to reinfect the host (Earth) when our civilizations collapse. Our success is thus based on our ability to survive in harsh environments and continuously repopulate
from a base hunter/gatherer level if needed.