210 comments on DrumBeat: August 17, 2008
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210 comments on DrumBeat: August 17, 2008
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This was just a short summary. There were some extensive postings (I was took the JHK was mostly right position). Trey Garrison took the opposite position. And we had a debate on the local NPR station in Dallas. Here is a link to the full discussion:
http://bookclubblog.dallasnews.com/
There is a public town hall meeting at 2:00 P.M. today in Dallas:
The Points Summer Book Club may be wrapping up, but you'll have one more chance to share your thoughts. You're invited to an in-person discussion of the book and themes discussed here on the blog:
Who: Book club discussion leaders Rod Dreher, Jeffrey Brown, Trey Garrison and Larry Allums -- and you.
What: The Points Summer Book Club town hall meeting, wrapping up discussion of James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency
When: 2 to 3:30 p.m. Sunday
Where: The Dallas Institute for Humanities and Culture, 2719 Routh St., in Uptown Dallas between McKinney Avenue and Cedar Springs Road
I've hosted and taken part in some book and documentary discussions on issues and peak oil, global warming, genetically modified food, etc.
An interesting dynamic happens depending on the mix of people in the group. The more diverse their views on the subject the more time is spent (wasted?) with each side trying to convince the other side that their view is the correct one.
But when the group happens to all share roughly the same view on the subject then the discussion is much more productive! It usually gets deep into ways of dealing with or combatting the problem.
(Maybe when widely different views exist within the group each side sees eachother as the problem and the "combatting the problem" energy is spent on eachother?...)
I've always wanted to particiapate in a good face-to-face group discussion on peak oil and energy issues with a group that shares my views on the subject. That view being that we will eventually muddle through by adapting our culture, economy, society and habits with some rather large and difficult changes. In other words, we will deal with the problem by gradually changing to a very different cuture. It's already happening...at least in my eyes ;-)
Greg in MO
Yes, I think that's why PeakOil.com created three special forums: Doomers Only, Moderates Only, and Cornucopians Only. It just got to the point where productive discussion was impossible. Someone would try to post an idea for mitigation, and the doomers would jump all over the thread, totally derailing it. And vice-versa: someone would post about how we are so screwed, and the cornucopians would show up, posting about how silly doomers are and how the free market will fix it all. After awhile, no matter how interested you are in the topic, covering the same ground over and over again gets tedious. The special forums were supposed to offer a place to get beyond that.
People hear what they want to believe.
All of our efforts here just work on the fringes of our individual existing mindsets. It takes a great deal of time and reinforcement to change peoples worldview by even 20-30%. Then spend a weekend with a charismatic cornucopian and it'll set you back 3 months...;-)
It's a good thing to have an open mind.... just make sure it's not open at both ends.
I don't frequent their forums, but don't they run into the problem we have in all political affairs, that almost everyone thinks they're "middle of the road"?
Not really. People seem pretty aware of where they are on the "Doomatron scale." And there are mods who will move or delete posts as necessary.
Leanan,
I was just looking at the PeakOil.com discussion boards and see lots of interesting topics, but absolutely no seperation by Doomer-Moderate-Cornucopian. Am I really missing something? Are the terms used there different? Do you perhaps see different discussion baords when you sign up and declare yourself in one group or another? Help!
I have admin privileges there, so I'm not sure how it works for ordinary users. But you cannot see the special forums unless you register and log in. They are invisible to guests.
Once you are registered and logged in, I think you have to sign up somehow to get into the special forums. But you don't have to pick only one. You can enroll in Doomers Only, Moderates Only, and Cornucopians Only if you wish.
There's not a lot going on right now. Like TOD, PO.com has seen traffic severely slow with the drop in oil prices. And Doomers Only is by far the most active forum.
I'm a member and logged in, and I don't see these forums.
This is supposedly how you sign up: