 | Fibber McGee, Molly, and Your Energy Future | The Oil Drum: Campfire | On Independence, Energy Subsidy, and Freedom |  |
179 comments on Dopamine Returned on Energy Invested (DREI)?
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179 comments on Dopamine Returned on Energy Invested (DREI)?
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Such hobbies/spectator sports will obviously have to come to an end some day,but the sport itself is not the problem. It's getting the spectators to the track that REALLY burns up some energy.
Forty cars on the track at a Nascar event may burn very roughly anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand gallons of gas,depending on the length of the race,etc.The trucks used to haul the cars around probably use another five to ten thousand gallons,average,as some tracks are much closer together than others.Now when forty trucks go to the west coast from Charlotte,the "hub" of Nascar,that trip really burns up some diesel!
A quick glance at the parking lots at a place like Charlotte Motor Speedway (now Lowes MS,I think) and the license plates on the cars is enough to understand this point.I would guess that maybe fifteen thousand vehicles at least are driven to the Charlotte races,many from hundreds of miles away.Unless you are in reasonably good health the walk from the farther parking lots is a hike not to be undertaken lightly on a hot day.
And of course while I'm composin'and typin'w/ one finger four people beat me to the punch!
Speaking as a former gearhead(retired fan who only listens on the radio sometimes nowadays) I wish to point out that football,baseball,basket ball and all other big league spectator sports are not noticeably less fuel intensive than motor sports.
The authors are absiolutely right about the spectacle of motor racing-there is something about it that grabs you viscerally,takes you for one hell of an adrenalin ride,and leaves you limp afterward.
Just about every redblooded gun totin lightnin drinkin Baptist church goin commie hatin southern male young enough to have plenty of testerone circulating would gladly cut a deal with the devil to drive a race car professionally.Quite a few die playing the game as amatuers on public roads.
As a semi-retired motorports fan myself (motorcycle road racing), I can also understand the appeal of powerful machinery. It's both the competitive urge fueled by testosterone and the Zen-like state of mastering a skill, often called Flow.
I am amazed at the enthusiasm for sitting on what amounts to a version of a power lawnmower, souped up, for "recreation". Honest to goodness, I just don't get it. I'm probably just too old and I don't understand. No, that's not it. I do understand. The youngsters here in the county will save all of their summertime money, just to have the down payment on a used Dodge Ram Diesel complete with a "lift kit" and over sized knobby tires to the tune of $250 per tire. So, they step out of the High School Graduation Line with a brand new $700 per month truck payment. That's nuts. Testosterone, what are they talking about? Sitting in, or on, a large horsepower vehicle of some kind, four wheels or two, with your foot on the accelerator, and that gives some folks a rush? They must be everyday sissies, in my humble opinion, if that is all it takes to give them a thrill. The Dentists and Lawyer Gangs come through here all through the summer months on their Harley Davidsons. It's like Halloween, all in their version of a "Biker" outfit. Most are what I've dubbed "BOFF's". Some have their "Old Ladies" on the back, "BOFW's", who are doing their best to look hard, like they just won the cucumber contest. Scooter Trash just isn't what it used to be.
Perhaps I shouldn't be so grudging of those who don't know what real excitement is and have to find their manly thrills sitting in front of the TV, with a 18 pack of beer and a bag of Cheetos, or in person from the grandstands, with a tight grip on their hot dog with mustard, watching the football, basketball, or hockey game, or whatever; almost forgot, NASCAR. Their pantywaists. There, I've made some outrageous generalizations that ought to offend just about everyone. If you're one of those offended, then, for God's Sake, go climb a big mountain, one you can die on, run with the Bulls, take up Hang Gliding, get in a little boat on a big river. There are still legitimate and real rites of passage out there, even for the old guys. Sitting on a souped up, fire belching, lawnmower isn't one of them. Best from the Fremont
You're not drawing the distinction between competitors and spectators. Spectating is a passive activity; competing in sports takes skill and hard work. I can't personally comment on the skill and work involved in truck and tractor pulls, but in other motorsports it's considerable. Recreation falls somewhere in between, but usually it's closer to passive spectating. In your examples, the trucks and bikes are status symbols for display. It's a stretch to even call them recreation.
dwcal,
Absolutely correct and thank you for pointing out, there is a great difference between the passive observer and the practitioner. I do not doubt the skill of the motocross rider, the NASCAR pilot, or the quarterback. The line blurs with some examples, as per the Dentist dressed up in his leathers on the Harley. I think he/she is as much an observer as a practitioner, maybe more of an observer. They ride in groups, visual impact is important, and seem to always be ready for a group camera shot of the outlaws, as look at me, leather everywhere, and this weekend, I'm BAD. I see them regularly up at the Texaco, gassing up for the next leg, across the Hogs Back. Their poses are practiced. I guess my real beef is with the gasoline engine, or engines of any kind (maybe the definition of a Luddite?). For the life of me, I don't understand the fascination. Personally, I'd rather walk, ride a bike, roll down the hill (in a barrel), or just fall off of the cliff. I think that maybe, as a culture, we've all seen too many editions of Smokey and the Bandit, Dukes of Hazard, or for the more recent arrivals, the Transformer cartoons/movies. I'll take Superman, he flew around on his own steam.
Best from the Fremont
All ICE vehicles are absurd, bizarre and obscenely wasteful. At least these kids are getting some thrill out of the amazing power the miracle substance oil provides. Most of us get into vehicles with the power of dozens, scores...of horses and proceed to be bored to tears by our daily commutes.
What would people from two hundred short years ago if an individual drove around in a carriage pulled by scores of horses? It would surely be seen as beyond bizarre. Yet most do the equivalent every day with no sense of wonder or strangeness.
The absurdity and obscenity of our daily lives are completely lost on pretty much everyone.
Better be careful. Once your eyes become opened to the absurdity and obscenity of it all, your perspective turns you into an outcast.
I cast myself out of the mainstream fairly forcefully long, long ago. One of the joys of a forum like this is bumping into others who have some glimmering of the insanity we live every day.
Yup....It's a waste of time and energy...As in much the same way that the whole website The Oil Drum is a waste of time and energy...Here you just have a bunch of eggheads who write posts back and forth to convince themselves how brilliant, principled, savy or just plain "green" and try to one-up each other...Brother, do you think this site actually does anything?...I will agree it's entertaining, but that is about it...Just a certain folks are entertained by motor sports...Let's sum up shall we?...One day the world will have insufficient oil, a substitute will emerge and life will go on...Feel better now???
Don't undervalue entertainment. I haven't heard egghead in many a moon.
Glad you like it...I'm an old and cranky fossil...We remember such terms...LOL
Hello Aviator202,
I respectfully Disagree. TOD,EB,LATOC,DIEOFF, and other websites, plus books, plus orgs like ASPO and Transition Towns, etc, are having a decided, but gradual viral effect upon the populace. Please go back through the archives to see how much Cornucopianism has diminished, both in the TOD postings, and also in the MSM.
I hope you are doing your part to spread Peak Outreach, too:
Do you do the Yeasty half-glass Peakoil Shoutout in public?
Do you leave Peak Outreach cards in lots of places?
Have you emailed Google asking for the "I'm Feeling Unlucky" button on their Search Homepage?
Have you emailed Tiger Woods website asking for him to plow defunct golf courses?
Have you emailed your elected officials? and so on...
Please don't forget that TOD now has a global reach and many govt & corp orgs study what is happening here. Recall the response from SS, F_F, Euan, and many others work on Ghawar.
Thanks for your respect...Although if I hear the word "viral" again I may scream...I know this, the 4% of the population that owns everything likes it just like it is....that's where their fortunes come from...I despair of grass roots movements...Haven't seen one in the U.S. even slightly effective in over 30 years...Now France, there's a different story...Sadly, I believe there is a reason the U.S. is armed to the teeth...I read somewhere our military has as much firepower as the next 200 largest countries combined...Now why is that???....I think I know...
The conclusion you reached is the perfect justification for having The Oil Drum.
If you're right about it, then we're all lucky. If you're wrong, how long can you tread water?
This site is useless just like those Libraries and Universities.. just a bunch of people gathering to talk, write, think and compare notes. Let's just boil it down to a hasty soundbite and be done with it.
Maybe yes, maybe no...Well, this site is interactive and current, unlike Matt Simmons book...copyright 2004...and he probably worked on it for a few years so the info there is going on 7 years old...like most libraries...I just think the Oil Drum is a bunch of bright folks doing a LOT of talking....But I think VERY little action comes of it...Shakespeare said something about sound and fury signifying nothing...That is my point...
If you've been reading a substantial amount of the Oil Drum, you'd have caught several glimpses of the actions that countless posters here are undertaking, while the two facets of the issue (talk/action) seem to run parallel.. ie, my actions are not necessarily a result of this discussion.. but this discussion certainly lets me know that I'm not the only one who has been grinding on the topic.
It's not just to break some kind of isolation, either. If I'm getting the sense that we're on increasingly shaky ground, my desire to leap has to be informed by the need to look.. it's a complex situation, and this is one (the one) place where I feel I can get a bit of a vantage-point.. AND it's one of very few places where I've found, in today's political climate, a conversation that manages to allow people from a range of backgrounds and differing ideas to keep an adult conversation going about it. It does get childish sometimes, and I've been drawn in to it too.. but generally it stays enough above the adolescent level that I can go in without waders. I think that alone Signifies something.
..and there's a lot to be learned from old books. You just have to remember what that is, and what it is not.
Thanks for the thoughts,
Bob
Aviator, how could you possibly know what's going on in the countless places on Earth people are viewing this site? Yes, it's obvious there is a lot of discussion here but beyond that everything you assert is just a feeling you have. There are plenty of posters here who are very, very engaged and I can't stress enough how what I've learned here goes into what I'm doing in the physical world.
Aviator202 wrote;
"One day the world will have insufficient oil, a substitute will emerge and life will go on...Feel better now???"
Aviator, this is typical of the first stage of grief. There is;
- Denial ("There must be a substitute that will keep our lifestyle going [You Are Here])
- Anger ("How could they let that happen?")
- Bargaining ("Maybe it won't be so bad? Maybe everyone will magically use much less energy?")
- Depression ("Oh, how will I ever be able to survive on a 1920's energy budget?")
- Acceptance ("Well, no use crying over spilled milk")
Do you have any idea what will replace the amount of energy at the level of oil production we currently produce? Do you have an engineering degree so that you can at least talk to the scale and EROEI of what would be required to do so?
Optimism can be underrated, though it can also become a blinder (or a crutch).
"if I hear the word "viral" again I may scream"
Let it all out, you'll feel a lot better...
All ICE vehicles are absurd, bizarre and obscenely wasteful.
Really? Roto tillers, trucks to move produce to market, ambulances, fire trucks - all obscene?
Good points. I was being a bit sweeping. I was thinking primarily of commuter cars.
I'm sure produce trucks, ambulances...could also be made to be more energy efficient than most are built now. But mostly I think one of the strongest arguments for rationing gas as we head into decline is so that there is enough for these vital functions for as long as possible. Also, though I am generally quite skeptical about biofuels, limited development for just these functions does seem prudent (but unlikely).
As for rototillers, I'm more of a no-till guy myself, but I know they can be quite useful in some situations where you have compact soil and no way to ship in lots of compost for raised beds....
I think the title of this threat pretty much captures the essence. My guess is that pre FF humanity engaged in other, though similar (from a dopamine-release point of view) behavior - perhaps race horses until they dropped...
WeekendPeak
Well I'm fully with you, but I can see where the addiction comes from. A few years back I was teaching my son how to drive, we were in the Sierra's and I took an unplowed snowcovered road. After letting him play with slipping around, in both 2wd and 4wd, I took her (4wd Tundra) for a small ride. Nothing like the awesome power of 240hourses, in compound low (5mph or so max). It really was an adrenaline rush. So I can see how someone could easily get hooked.
Then I know about dangerous stuff. I used to be a rock climber in my younger days. Now, I was always real conservative about safety etc, but there always is the climb that you just know is too darned easy to bother with a rope -and then a couple hundred feet up you discover -it isn't easy at all -and you are commited! Long story short, you get into this awesome mental zone, and it feels so good to make it (and to have performed so incredibly well doing it). Well I can see how if you weren't careful, you'd seek out those experiences whenever you could.
'Well I can see how if you weren't careful, you'd seek out those experiences whenever you could.'
or.. 'Adventure is just bad planning' Amundsen
"May you live in exciting times" -- ancient Chinese proverb / curse.
It's funny - things like NASCAR just don't light me up. My wife is a big fan however, but to me it is just a bunch of cars driving in a circle for hours. I joke with her that I would be a horrible driver - I would fall asleep from boredom, but I guess that's because in part the whole sport seems completely pointless so I wouldn't really care where I finished (or even if I finished).
For some reason I don't really like really loud noises. Sometimes (like when using power tools) it is sort of unavoidable, but the sound of the cars on TV puts me on edge like I was at the dentist's office for something. After 3 hours of such abuse I would be in a horribly foul mood. My wife keeps threatening to drag me to a track somewhere for a race, and I keep telling her to save her money and go with her sister (who is also a fan).
I get back at her a little bit when I watch bicycle racing on TV. For some reason she thinks that is boring, but at least it is generally a quiet sport.
Sports are pointless period. What difference does it make whether or not someone throws a ball thru a hoop or kicks it between two posts or whatever? Who cares which car goes around the track fastest or which truck can pull the most weight? People get all caught up in the most stupid shit I guess because people are just generally stupid. The entire sports industry should just die out from lack of interest. It would sure save a lot of energy if people just quit paying attention.
I could have made that argument too, but I didn't want to push it that far. Ultimately I think part of the problem is that we have been conditioned to constantly seek entertainment. Be it web surfing, watching TV, overeating, or buying crap. Adrenaline sports are really just a subset of all of this. I know there have been stories here about how this will be one of the aspects of the trip down that will be hardest on people - giving up all of these external stimuli.
This isn't to say that all forms of entertainment are bad of course - like with a lot of things when done in moderation it provides a healthy release. Many sports were invented back when people didn't have TVs, so the choices they had for entertainment were far more limited, and could in fact be part of the glue that can hold a small community together (for example, in a small town you might have the high school baseball team playing another school).
When I lived on Long Island I would meet my friend & her daughter from upstate NY and we'd attend the Bridgewater Fair in Bridgewater, CT. My favorite thing at the fair was the oxen pull contest. Those big muscular animals impressed me much more pulling weights on a sled than any truck or tractor ever could. But my friend's daughter was totally bored watching the oxen pull. She couldn't wait to get to the rides, to have some "fun." To my mind, the rides were a ridiculous waste of $$ & energy but I had to indulge the kid. Fun, rides, "adrenaline sports", "external stimuli" of these sorts, are vastly overrated. In fact, such things are worse than pointless, they are actively insidious in that they tend to inculcate a competitive, us vs. them mentality in children. Team loyalty transfers to brand loyalty to belligerent nationalism. The social cohesion provided to a small community by the school baseball team, as in your example, may play hell on the sensibilities of academically inclined kids with no interest in or talent for sports. The entire sports industry is something we would all be a whole lot better off without.
The idea of overrated pleasures reminded my of the great old classic. Unfortunately I couldn't find it sung by any of the great old singers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCNmd-vOnsg
"In this world
of overrated pleasures
and underrated treasures
I'm glad there's you..."
The energetic sport of the future? I hope it is Human tractor-pulls with geared railbikes on SpiderWeb tracks; to see who can move the most O-NPK up a grade. Otherwise, the default 'sport' for all will be the Tlameme Scheme:
http://www.daylife.com/photo/0bLmcaEcFm97s
I also hope the chief knowledge competition will be to see who can be the Rock Star of Corn, or tomatoes, or wheat,..and so on:
http://deltafarmpress.com/corn/corn-yield-0529/
-----------------------------
304-bushel corn — in 1955?
He was the Rock Star of Corn.
..A state record corn yield of 179 bushels in 1950 for his first 4-H project, when he was just 10-1/2 years old...
..“I broke it deep, rowed it up in 28-inch rows, subsoiled, and used 30 wagonloads of barnyard manure, 1,200 pounds of Vigoro fertilizer, 1,000 pounds of soda, and planted Dixie 17, thinned to 12 inches, cultivated once.”
..“I made the crop with our eight-year-old mule, Dolly.
..I’d get up in the middle of the night, go down there with a shovel and a coal oil lantern, wading barefooted in mud ankle deep, to turn the water across to another row.
..After my first state record yield, companies gave us some 13-13-13 fertilizer and that made a big difference. We’d dump fertilizer in the irrigation water and you could almost see the corn change color before your very eyes. It was beautiful, and people came from all over to take photos.”
-----------------------
Are there any kids today that have abandoned their videogaming record attempts to pursue new agriculture records? Try to wrap your mind around the concept of a postPeak pre-teen working in the midnight loam with only the feeble light "of the cold-hearted orb that rules the night..."
That is certainly not 'Nights in White Satin, never reaching the end..."
How many kids will yearn to feel the 'white satin' of beneficiated fertilizers slipping from their fingers to the final square foot below? Borlaug: Without I-NPK, Game Over!
How many will fall to their knees to stir in the O-NPK they so laboriously saved?
"Remember when the music
Was the best of what we dreamed of for our children's time
And as we sang we worked, for time was just a line,
It was a gift we saved, a gift the future gave..."
Can you hear the very faint music 'that sets our minds afire' when very gentle winds blow across Spiderwebs 'strung with silver wire'?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Spider_web_with_dew_d...
"Remember when the music
Was a glow on the horizon of every newborn day.."--Harry Chapin
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
IMO, the only justified location for these high-energy consumption tractors would be at any of the USA's 16,000 golf courses now going belly-up financially. Picture Tiger Woods & Justin Timberlake, plus other former golf pros, racing heavy plows across lots of abandoned golf courses as the local crowd wildly cheered them on...
Golf Masters into Master Gardeners!
EDIT: Spiderweb link up above doesn't seem to work so here is another photo for your SpiderWebRiding Contemplation:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Spider_web_with_dew_d...
I agree- I never got into watching shinny things go around in a circle----
But, with the liberation that the automobile gave to the American South, I can see the religious mentality the American Muscle Car brought to a backward culture.