The contents below are paid advertisements. Their appearance does not imply an endorsement by The Oil Drum.
“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.”
—Richard Feynman
Search The Oil Drum with Google
User login
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
Personnel
- Editors: Prof. Goose, Heading Out, Stuart Staniford, Nate Hagens
- DrumBeat Editor: Leanan
- Contributors: ace, Engineer-Poet, Gail the Actuary, jeffvail, JoulesBurn, Khebab, Robert Rapier
- TOD:Local: Glenn
- TOD:Europe: Chris Vernon, Euan Mearns, Francois Cellier, Jerome a Paris, Luís de Sousa, Rembrandt, Rune Likvern, Ugo Bardi
- TOD:Canada: benk, Libelle
- TOD:ANZ: Big Gav, Phil Hart, aeldric
- Technician: Super G
Recently on TOD:World
TOD:Local
- Ask not what your next President can do, Ask what you can do for your tribe
- Summer Streets a Success!
- Plan for Hydro-Fracture Drilling for Unconventional Natural Gas in Upstate New York
TOD:Europe
- UK - Stansted Airport expansion gets go-ahead
- RAMseS: a new agricultural paradigm
- RAMseS: a new agricultural paradigm
TOD:Canada
- In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
- Compressed Air Energy Storage - How viable is it?
- Oil Megaproject Update (July 2008)
TOD:ANZ
Peak Oil Primers
Blogroll
Energy Sites
- The Coming Global Oil Crisis
- Die Off
- Dry Dipstick
- Energy Bulletin
- From the Wilderness
- Life After the Oil Crash
- Peak Oil Crisis
- Peak Oil News and Message Boards
- Powerswitch
- Rigzone
- Matthew Simmons
- Wolf at the Door
Environment & Sustainability Sites
- The Daily Green
- EcoGeek
- Eco Street
- Green Car Congress
- Green Options
- green.alltop.com
- Gristmill
- RealClimate
- Sustainablog
- Treehugger
- WorldChanging
Blogs
- The Big Picture
- Casaubon's Book
- Cleantech Blog
- Clusterf
k Nation (Jim Kunstler) - The Cost of Energy
- David Strahan
- The Energy Blog
- Entropy Production
- European Tribune
- GraphOilology
- jeffvail.net
- Mobjectivist
- Peak Energy (Australia)
- Peak Energy (USA)
- R-Squared
- Resource Insights
Finance & Economics Blogs
- Calculated Risk
- Ecological Economics
- Econbrowser
- Environmental Economics
- Infectious Greed
- The Mess That Greenspan Made
- Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Organizations
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
Specialization is inevitable to some extent. Nobody can be all things to all people. Though I think it's good to be well rounded and have extensive knowledge in a few areas.
I, too, think we're on a dangerous path. I don't blindly believe in capitalist dogma. Unfortunately we've dug ourselves into this hole and we'll have to figure out how to get out on our own.
The Pilgrims and progenitors of modern America had to work their asses off to build this country. People still work hard every day, but I would argue that most really aren't doing anything valuable. I don't think service sector jobs are going to launch us into the next era. There is a certain laziness to America now, a sense of entitlement, a sense that everything should come easy just because we exist.
What we should've been doing for the past 50 years is making sure that everybody had a GOOD education. For all of our wealth we should have an absolutely fantastic educational system. Kids should be expected to achieve academic excellence. I have to laugh when I hear about "no child left behind". Many of our crime, welfare, health, and other problems are related to poor education. Education is the single best investment you can make in a child's future.
I'm reminded of that saying about people perishing for a lack of knowledge. If Peak Oil turns out to be a nasty period in the annals of human history, then it will have a lot to do with the feudalization of America. There is no nice way to put it, but that's what happens when 90% of the wealth exists in an increasingly small percentage of families.
Not to mention the slaves and immigrants. =/
In almost every commercial transaction, one party has at least a slight advantage over the other. The one party with the trade advantage learns how to repeat that behavior. Over time, they win again and again, shifting more and more capital gain into their corner. They justify it by claiming they are superior human beings. God wanted them to be wealthy. They deserve it. In the end, you have an L-shaped distribution curve. The winners are happy with the system as is. The losers have almost no power to change it.
The problem is dumb consumers and thick people who dont think when they trade.
What objective evidence do you have to back up this pure assumption?
On the other hand, if you need proof that people are irrationally exuberant and unintelligent, then the evidence for this is bountiful. Let's start with the 2001 stock market. Even now you see people buying up SUV's and homes in outer suburbia. There is no win-win situation here. Too many unwitting people are getting suckered in to a lose and lose-big situation.
Yes, I know your economics teacher pounded the dogma into your head about the hypothetical two intelligent persons hammering out a fair deal in a "free market". But the whole fairy tale is just that. How much "free" information do you think McDonalds gives out to the hoards who line up behind its counters thinking they are buying hamburger "meat" when in fact they are being sold redigested soylent green? Madison Avenue is all about brainwashing not about intelligent transactions with win-win outcomes. Get real.
COPY:
It is a falsity to assert that people are "rational" and/or "intelligent" when they conduct a transaction.
What objective evidence do you have to back up this pure assumption?
On the other hand, if you need proof that people are irrationally exuberant and unintelligent, then the evidence for this is bountiful. Let's start with the 2001 stock market. Even now you see people buying up SUV's and homes in outer suburbia. There is no win-win situation here. Too many unwitting people are getting suckered in to a lose and lose-big situation.
Yes, I know your economics teacher pounded the dogma into your head about the hypothetical two intelligent persons hammering out a fair deal in a "free market". But the whole fairy tale is just that. How much "free" information do you think McDonalds gives out to the hoards who line up behind its counters thinking they are buying hamburger "meat" when in fact they are being sold redigested soylent green? Madison Avenue is all about brainwashing not about intelligent transactions with win-win outcomes. Get real.
We would be very poor if they did not exist, we are not poor.
We might become poor if too few think before they act or if they have to shortsighted goals.
I have both read this in textbooks and observed it in ordinary day to day life. It is obviously important in every scale of economical activity.
Regarding hamburgers there is written material about the nutritient value of the hamburgers in the McD i bicycle past daily. The factory for making most of the meat patties(?) for Sweden is situated in my town. I have not visited it, only the butchery next door too it. And I know how most of the farms selling the beef used are being run. Most of them are like my fathers farm were but the trend is to bigger more automated units with better facilities but less human oversight. This is also fairly well documented for people who care to look. But still, I choose to most often buy less well documented hamburgers in small hamburger bars since they often are spiced better. Rational or irrational of me? I do at least get my meal and reward those who spice well.