The Oil Drum

The Doomer issue is itself pretty interesting and not identical with peak oil considerations per se.  My impression is that most (though by no means all) doomers are middle aged or later and primarily male.  Most also appear to be left of center politically (though there have been and continue to be a lot of Christian Fundamentalist Rapture waiters-see the "Left Behind" crowd though not many are posting on TOD).  These observations suggest possible roles for a) projected mortality concerns (I am doomed and know it perceived as the world is doomed), and b) disempowerment on a political basis that may be exacerbated by male gender (all you Freudians out there can have a field day with this).  Of course, none of this means that the Doomers are actually wrong but may influence the tendency to be drawn to these issues rather than pursue the typical human tendency to maintain denial for as long as possible. (PS. I would advise taking all of the above with a rather large grain of salt given obvious speculative basis)

Catastrophic Utopia, or the Psychology of "Yearning For A New Dark Age"
odograph,

You said, "It's possible to keep an eye on energy issues without committing to a single energy future."

It's not only possible, it is the most realistic and scientific approach.  It is a refutation of "Peak Oil" as assured catastrophic death and destruction of culture, which there is no demonstrably provable way to show that it will be.

The issue is whether I accept absolute catastrophic doom as the only possible outcome as an article of faith.  You may notice that many  people here seem to....and react in a very hostile way to the suggestion that there could be any other possible outcome....notice the response of Kevembuangga to your remarks, "You are not a "moderate" you are a troll with an agenda."

It is shocking that a so called "scientific outlook" would react to any difference with the "accepted dogma"  of assured doom and catastrophic failure of all modern society in such a violently hostile way.  What does it say about the psychology of the "peak oil" "rapture" theology?  Of course, that version of absolutism has nothing to do with science in the normally accepted way of acceptance of new thesis and theories, and then testing them with as much rigor as possible to try to prove their correctness, a tool that relies on acceptance of questioning DEEPLY any theory.  It is, in the end, a belief system.

Of course, it was predicted and described many years ago.  Rousseau and the cult of the "Noble Savage", the Ruskin/Morris aesthetic of "Neo-Gothic Medievalist, and more directly and recently related to the "Peak Oil" catastrophist theology", Alvin Toffler.

Toffler described in the 1980's what he called "The Yearning for a New Dark Age" as part of the illness he had earlier described as "Future Shock".  

This would be, he said, the mental breakdown in reaction to complexity, high cultural speed of change, overchoice of options in lifestyle, career and social choices, and the inability and or unwillingness to stay up with the more technical and modern pace of change.  

It was pointed up that those most vulnerable to "Peak Oil" depression issues are middle aged males.  These of course are exactly the same ones most vulnerable to "Future Shock", in that they are most mentally acclimated to the older, slower more simple and organizationally stable structure, and they are least shielded (in comparison to females, with their known stronger social based networks, and "people and home" orientation) form the chaos of ultra high speed cultural post modernism in the high tech high information culture.

The reaction becomes to yearn for a simpler, more primitive, slower and less diverse time, a culture that is more comparable to a known model, namely, the past.  "Peak Oil" provides a magnificent vehicle to a slower, more primitive world.  It may be a harder world, but at least the struggles for life's basics are one the human mind can comprehend.  Thus, the collapse of a completely incomprehensible ultra modern system becomes a dream, a fantasy of a way back to a simple world.  Notice that the "Neo-Gothic" movement was born in the birth of the super expansion of industrial, commercial, media culture.

Note the virulent language used against anyone who expresses any doubts about the exact nature not of "geological" peak oil (which is a fairly easily demonstrated fact of geology in the past) but about the "catastrophist" vision of the future.  First they are completely dehumanized, referred to repeatedly as "sheepies", "screaming monkeys", and no smarter than yeast.  They are declared in some state of mental illness or sickness, "denial", "sleepwalking", "brainwashed" or "hypnotized" by giant forces beyond their comprehension.

This type of attack of such viscousness and slanderous nature bespeaks something much deeper than a difference of opinion or technical viewpoint.
It indicates that anyone who perceives any weakness in the "assured catastrophist" theory is actually an impediment to a desired goal, a possible roadblock and a danger to what is a desired vision of existence, that being the return to the mental and social peace that "catastrophe", "powerdown" and the "big dieoff" will bring....a more peaceful and beautiful utopia of a simple, non technical, slower, and local culture.

Of course, like all "Utopias", the dreamed of "dark age" will not come.  The technology cat is already out of the bag.  The knowledge will survive, the more advanced methods will exist in pockets, and live on to keep the world complicated and much different than the hoped for "simple" dark age of the past.  But it lives on as a dangerous dream.  There are those who, if they do not see the dreamed of "collapse" coming soon, may begin to try to "encourage it"  to come.  The emergence of "radical solutions" of the type proposed by "Green Anarchists"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_anarchism indicate that psychologically, the "collapse", or "die off" or "End of The World As We Know It" is not so much feared as a possible outcome of oil and gas depletion" or "Peak Oil" but dreamed of as a preferable new world for humans, an aesthetic choice.

The words of the exploration geologist Greg Croft ring louder...
"The greatest danger from peak oil is that we will do something foolish in response to it."

But what may seem "foolish" to many of us, may actually be a path to perceived beautiful future to some.  At this point, the discussion has less and less to do with oil and energy at all, but more and more to do with aesthetics, belief, and desired purposes in life.  For those who yearn for "A New Dark Age" so called oil depletion or "Peak Oil" simply becomes a means to an ends, and no solution should be attempted because none is desired.

Roger Conner  known to you as ThatsItImout