<i>We Were Warned</i>: The Spelling of the Word Has an Extra "u" That Many People Forget..
Posted by Prof. Goose on March 19, 2006 - 3:16am
Topic: Sociology/Psychology
Tags: cnn, frank sesno, oil, oil prices, peak oil, we were warned [list all tags]
- plant or animal food: a source of nourishment in an easily absorbable liquid, especially the nutrient intake of plants and lower animals
- unsatisfying intellectual material: material whose intellectual content is thin, trite, bland, or generally unsatisfying (literary)
It wasn't aimed at us. It was aimed at people who haven't thought about this yet. It was gentle.
In fact, this kind of idea pabulum could be viewed as a (very) necessary step in the changes in awareness and consciousness-construction that could lead to actual incremental changes in actual behavior in a certain part of the American populace down the line.
I am sitting in my conference hotel tonight, ill with some sort of stomach bug, I downloaded the .torrent of the program, and watched with some anticipation, even if I was horizontal the whole time. I was hoping for a home run, a program that integrated the whole of the peak oil message and took it to the masses.
What did I find? Instead, I found the beginnings of a message, the beginnings of an emergence and integration of the ideas of the sacrifice and potential suffering this harbinger of the meme beheld, but constructed in a nice, safe sanitary package for easy consumption.
Then I thought about it a bit. First, I was surprised that I allowed myself to think that the media would go too in depth on anything the least little bit controversial. Second, call me an intellectual snob, but after thinking about it (and I vacillate on this), I'm not sure the workaday Joe Schmo of the American populace--or the Joe Schmos of the rest of the 'first' world for that matter--who had never heard of these ideas before could handle the gravity of the responsibility that comes with the awareness that my "ideal" program would attempt to generate in one fell swoop.
So, after thinking about it that way, it seems to me that the key questions we have to ask after this program are:
Does this program reflect an improvement on prior coverage of the topic? is it a step in the right direction? Yes.
Does it miss some (oh, ok, most...) of the important components of the argument? Yes, absolutely. (See the previous discussion thread for some of them here.)
Can we say that the media has done due diligence in its integration of the myriad ideas underlying this phenomenon? No, not yet...not even close.
Can we say that the media can do such a thing in a two hour program without completely bringing entire economies and society to a halt, just as they hypothesized a hurricane and a terrorist attack would in this thought experiment (corollary: editors and network presidents losing their jobs, etc., etc., which is why such a program would never go on in the first place, etc., etc.)? Hell no, not yet anyway.
So, in conclusion, it may seem like business as usual from the media for many of you. However, I will still maintain that tonight's program is an important event in the growing meme that underlies this problem we face.
Slow and steady wins the race, I guess? (well, perhaps not this one.)
I think the hour could have been better spent just replaying the video of Pres. Carter's Sweater Speech-- it would have informed more, and prodded greater numbers of the unwashed masses to google Peak Oil.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_energy.html
Please contrast this text vs. CNN's pabulum. Carter WARNED us years ago!
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Limits to Growth Revisited
There were several reasons the oil lasted longer than expected. Conservation. Recession. But Simmons argues the biggest "mistake" made was that the analysts were assuming that the rest of the world would catch up to the U.S. standard of living. (We were such idealists back then.)
Instead, the gap between the haves and the have-nots widened into a chasm. Rather than a car in every garage, we ended up with two SUVs, a boat, an ATV, and a riding mower in American garages, while most of the rest of the world is lucky to have a bike.
By 1980 even the oil company executives realised that oil prices would collapse during the 80s due to increased supplies, which is why they were all buying electronics and coal and mining companies.
But Carter didn't get the word, so no go on reelection.
The costs of policy are wider than you perceive. If the US had eliminated dependence on foreign oil a decade or more ago... would 9/11 have happened? would the US have spent immense amounts of military money in Afghanistan and Iraq? would the price of oil have increased as much?
Agree about the documentary. Though I think "Pablum" is the right word. It's soft, bland food for babies. When you're weaning a baby, you don't start out by serving him atomic Buffalo wings.
I liked We Were Warned because it simplifies and softens the issues. People who are not already peak oilers or leaning in that direction aren't likely to sit through two hours. One hour is a good length for a peak oil introduction. And the average American is not going to buy, say, Kunstler's warnings of pirates raiding Seattle and people who can't pay their credit card debt being forced into work camps. And their eyes will glaze over if you show them Bartlett's charts and graphs.
Kind of odd that they didn't mention "peak oil" though. Obviously, it was cut out, since it was in the preview shown Wednesday.
I wonder if the version that airs at 4am ET will be any different? It's the "classroom edition," without commercials. Will there be added material?
that doesn't make it any less possible.
debtors prisons have been, historically one of the better ways to have a return on the money the creditors lost on said people. the other way i can remember is selling the person into slavery for the rest of their life.
the piracy though, thats a little farther out there.
From Yahoo news this morning, 19 March 2006.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060319/ap_on_re_af/somalia_us_pirates
Advice to any would-be pirates out there: Do NOT pick a fight with a US Navy warship, let alone two.
-Consider this a free service to any pirate too stupid to figure this out on your own.-
Brazil was a great movie, one of the few that I don't mind seeing over and over.
It wasn't really about engineers but about totalitarianism and the incompetent bumbling of a centralized bureaucratic state. I think you're referring to the swat teams that cut a hole in the floor and swoop down to arrest the wrong person on Christmas Eve. All the trouble starts when a fly falls into this minor clerk's typewriter, jams the keys, and changes the name on the arrest warrant he's typing from Tuttle to Buttle.
Or perhaps you're thinking of the repairmen from 'Central Services' that come to fix the incredibly complex pipes and wires in the walls. I also loved the way Gilliam blends 1940s style with futuristic sci-fi style.
One of the other messages was how easy it is for people to live in a totally insane and evil society once they gradually get used to it.
I rate this one Five Stars.
The entire movie is a visually surreal. I believe there were 2 endings created for the movie...one where it is all part of a induced psychotic dream and he is left there forever and another where he is rescued...it's been years since I've seen it so I may not be totally accurate here.
Your comment about "One of the other messages was how easy it is for people to live in a totally insane and evil society once they gradually get used to it" is quite applicable in this day and age of the Boiled Frog symdrome. Little incremental changes that seem innocuous at the time but in retrospect over the large timeframe, are quite incredible.
It would be fun to list things that have changed since..say the 90's.
I of course saw the version with the real rescue, and they saw the one with the psychotic dream.
Actually we only figured that out years later. For a time they thought I had a funny idea of fun.
I never remember feeling happy, though. I remember thinking at the time that it was one of the best films I had ever seen.
Gilliam made a movie about Don Quixote. Something happened where the financiers actually seized the movie. There was a disaster during filming that screwed with the money situation. I'm pretty sure Gilliam thinks the movie is finished, though I am not sure. HBO(or some outfit, I can't remember) did a documentary on the making of the Film. Gilliam is a genius, absolutely brilliant.
So, for everyone's enjoyment --- the repost.
To the Oil CEO, which is akin, in my eyes, to calling oneself "Reichsfuhrer," is missing the point of not only the argument of the moment, but the basic underlying assumptions that undergird his techno-utopian vision. I am not saying that tomorrow we will all die, I'm not even saying that we will all die in the next twenty years. (Though obviously we all die.) I am saying that his vision of constant growth is a physically IMPOSSIBLE.
IT CANNOT BE DONE.
The true nut monkeys, or more accuarately the unwitting-dupe monkeys, are people like OilCEO who believe that we will continue to grow: that population will continue to swell, that some magical techno bullet will save all our butts from the reality of simple physics. His is the blarney we all hear from carnival barkers and patent-medicine salesman. He is the man who insists that the dot.com revolution will go on forever and the stock market will rise to ever greater heights, so buy some more dot.com stock. He is the stock brocker who famously, and fatuously, said on October 28th, 1929, the stock market will rise forever. If OilCEO had even a modicum of education he would see the irony in citing the "dark side" in his comment, but he doesn't. He is mired in profit-seeking, hip-deep in moral equivocation, up to his eyeballs in ignorance: a sad and ignorant man bereft of the knowledge that would would set him free and unable to assess that knowledge, should he deign to think critically about it.
He is a booster, he is George Babbit.
What he and his ilk say is a shuck and jive that is guaranteed to ensure the snuffing of all rational action regarding this revolutionary problem. His proffered hope that something/anything, some special technology, some special human quality, will step out of the shadows and fix everything is nonsense for one simple reason:
WE LIVE ON A SPHERE, NIMROD!!!!
Even if we work out perfect, clean, unadulterated fusion, the planet will still be doomed because of population growth, the destruction of arable farmland, the loss of fresh water, the destruction of the oceans and global warming.
The problem is not oil. Oil is only the rickety wooden framework that is holding up our improbable rollercoaster of a species. The problem is ALL the resources. The problem is species footprint.
The problem is there is only so much cheap oil, expensive oil, coal, natural gas, and what ever else you may want to throw in the mix, left to help back us down from the precipice with a minimum of pain. The time to remove the horses from the barn is before the building is engulfed in flames.
Listen to whom you will, but mark this: Nature will go its own way no matter our actions, but it is entirely possible that she will not include us.
Who is living in a fantasy world?
Maybe it was some other Saturday. Nut Monkey is one of my favorite terms. I'm sure I spout it in my sleep. Did I call you that? Where?
I've been mixing Ambien and quaaludes with TV lately, so I suppose anything is possible.
True, oil is not the only problem but is likely the most immediate limit that will f*ck our delusionary systems. I also agree the sooner the better and the less painful.
Constant growth IS impossible without unlimited resources. We ARE beginning to hit the natural limits.
If current global population lived as US americans do we would need 6 'Earths' to provide for them, if as UK, 3 'Earths'. And global population is predicted to grow by 50% in the next 50 years. Your 'sphere' point is well taken.
The truth is hidden. Most developed nations have continued to consume more energy and food per capita, most undeveloped countries have consumed less per capita. Global per capita food and energy consumption peaked over 20 years ago. Us 'richies' just didn't notice.
But read what OilCEO says more closely, he is probably less far from your perspective than you think ;)
It depends on the circumstances and what they'd be fighting with. If it's the status quo, the MBAs and politicians. But if it's a Mad Max type of scenario, the engineers would win hands down.
We we win, I wouldn't kill all the politicians right off. Åfter all we do need a protein source.
I'd just love to design and build some Mad Max weaponry and combat vehicles!
http://www.technocracy.org/
http://www.technocracy.ca/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy
It exists, just few pay it any attention.
Vern 'If Superman fought Mighty Mouse, who would win?'
Gordy 'Vern! Superman's a real guy!'
- either that, or 'The Right Stuff'..
Kissinger(?); "Nonsense. OUR Chermans are better zan Sey're Chermans.."
-in other words, do you think the MBA's would side with the Pols, and vice-versa, or would everybody be out at the black-market, buying up all the engineers they could?
You can go to prison for not filing your taxes, or for filing false returns, but you can't go to prison for not paying your taxes. If you file an accurate return every year but never send a check, you won't go to prison. The IRS will garnish your wages, empty your bank account and seize all your assets, but they can't touch your body.
Oil becoming expensive will certainly not change this long-standing policy.
We need MORE pirates, not fewer. Isn't everyone else here against global warming too? http://venganza.org/
Your Quote: "I liked We Were Warned because it simplifies and softens the issues".
No doubt. But has the American psychological mindset and attention span so changed in thirty years that replaying Carter's speech would have no effect? If CNN is a TOD reader--I dare you [CNN] to hire Carter or Roscoe Bartlett, then broadcast an updated, modern version of the Sweater Speech.
Maybe the best way to accelerate Peakoil-Outreach is to start a Draft Carter or Bartlett for Prez in '08.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
It would have an effect. It would immediately convince half the audience that peak oil is a crazy leftwing plot to take away their SUVs.
Just as only Nixon could go to China, I think rightwing politicians have more credibility on this issue than leftwingers.
To some extent, yes..
Physical reality is a big help.
Your Quote: "It would have an effect. It would immediately convince half the audience that peak oil is a crazy leftwing plot to take away their SUVs".
Maybe, but the other half would immediately understand that it is a crazy Thermodynamic Law to take away their SUVS. See my posting having Carter or Bartlett give an updated Sweater Speech on CNN in primetime.
Does anyone know if the Constitution prevents Carter from running again? What about a write-in vote campaign: Prez Carter, Veep Bartlett in '08-- bridges both parties!
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Carter could run again, but I doubt he'd win. He's remembered as being incompetent, especially when it comes to international affairs. The guy who bungled the Iran hostages thing, to deal with Iran again? Not likely.
I cannot believe you said Carter was wrong! Short term, yes--long term, he was right on the money! Please reread his Sweater Speech thru the vast knowledge filter you have accumulated. Consider the weak oil data that was available in the '70s vs. what we know know thanks to ASPO, et al.
People instinctly understand Thermodynamics-- we evolved because of it!-->Daddy's car is out of gas. Mommy, I am hungry. Ah, that sunshine sure feels good warming my body.
Would you buy a vehicle that comes without a fuel indicator? ASPO and forums like this are the 'needle' screaming to the public that we are heading to the Big Empty.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
And IME, people do not have an instinctive understanding of thermodynamics. Qu