 | 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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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...