1. the fuel-air ratio;
2. elimination of any plastic/rubber components from the fuel system that may be attacked by E100.

The second issue is obviously the more difficult design change. A modern engine can probably change its fuel/air ratio with a simple parametric tweak to its software.

What the government (the public) should subsidize in our society is a pretty fundamental expression of our values I suppose.  We should ask this question honestly in a broader sense.

We seem to value mobility, in fact we have become dependent on being mobile in order to survive - in this way we are like the nomadic people, except that we return to the same bed every night.  Is it possible that we will every come back to seeing the value in living in place, without he need for so much mobility?  If that happened, I think then the questions over what the public should subsidize would change quite a bit.  

Well for the direct answer, subsidizing Wind, I contend, is one, wise direction to move our energy resources towards.  There is a great return, simple proven technology, and the  likelihood of a long future for this abundant resource, without serious downsides like soil depletion, increased water dependency and need for signifigant inputs like NG or Oil to produce it.

From another side, many see the benefits of wind without the helping hand of a gov't grant, so it could be it'll move forward fine without it.. that is, unless it needs it just to Compete with other subsidies like Corn, Ethanol, life-supports for GM and Exxon and the Contras..  See how Amtrak's subsidy could hardly be expected to armwrestle with The Auto Industry's favors, sweetheart deals in Saudi, the Highway system and the Airports..

Who's grant buried Grant in Grant's tomb?

Bob Fiske

How is subsidizing wind energy different from subsidizing corn ethanol?

In my opinion the important choice is not what alt-energy you fund, but: do you fund just research, or also production?

I'd say fund a broad array of research, but stay out of production funding.  That messes up the market and prevents us from knowing what is working.

However, market mechanisms and Social Democrats don't mix.

Flavius Aetius

the Danish government has cancelled plans for three offshore wind farms planned for 2008 and has scheduled the withdrawal of subsidies from existing sites.

I've asked Georg Nehls from the german Bioconsult-SH about this. The company serves for environmental expertise in the coastal environment.
Dr. Nehls told me that the danish wind parks are being installed as scheduled, however he spoke of two, not three.
He supposed the information about cancelling those wind parks was probably "old".
His company did not furnish an opinion about the danish wind parks, btw ..

So- the 'information' on aweo.org seems to be old, at best ..

The straightforward answer (though not exactly easy) is to find other ways to help the car companies, like subsidizing their health care costs, or taking over their pensioners.  In the long run this would be much cheaper, and much better for the car companies, who are gradually losing their light truck market due to gas prices.

Bingo. Make the fossil fuels less competitive with alternatives by increasing their cost, while at the same time encouraging conservation. Then, you don't favor one of the alternatives over another. They are allowed to compete against one another on an equal footing.

Just look at butanol. It appears to be superior to ethanol, can be grown from corn, gets better gas mileage, but doesn't have the benefit of the ethanol subsidies. Because legislators have picked ethanol as the winner, this is the situation we have.

These can be prevented by recycling the revenues in progressive ways, say by increasing the income tax exemptions.

Yes. I'm surprised how many readers here think government is interested in "doing right" by what they consider sensible standards, like health, safety, general welfare, the environment, even "justice". Google

critique of neoliberalism

Iraq is no joke, NOLA is no joke, US prison complex, hell, there might not even be any missiles in the silos in the ABM system - it doesn't matter - the profit is there because the system is rigged. It doesn't have to work, better if it does not! Is it reassuring that empty silos are better than silos with missles? Hurts the head. Failure is more profitable than success because the corpos get to sell the same crap over again. And charge to clean up. Responsibility? Spare me.

Citizens and communities need to reassert control over the corpos. If Verizon or Exxon breaks the law, the states should revoke their right to operate, break up and sell their assets to community trusts. Chavez is right; that is the people of VZ's oil. That article in today's list that says "oh, how terrible that poor blacks get oil - they don't know what to do with it", what bullshit. They know and I bet Nigeria (after the revolution) stops selling oil shortly. Smart move to recognize it is their oil and their right - their necessity, it strikes me. They better buy a bomb or two from Iran if they want to stay independent.

Public policy will not shape the market until citizens take responsiblity for their economies and reassert citizen control over the market, resources and production.

We don't inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. (little prince via laherre)

cfm in Gray, ME

Because you get to go to more places and take more stuff from there to there?

the government should avoid "picking winners"; instead they should increase CAFE standards and offer tax breaks based purely on a vehicle's MPG

First you say the government should avoid picking winners and then you say the government should declare CAFE as the winner to our energy needs.

I think that we ought to abandon CAFE and instead have a transfer fee & rebate, taxing low efficiency vehicles and paying buyers of high efficiency vehicles.  Trucks and cars are not distinguished.

The reason to support this rather than a fuel tax is that poorer people can't buy a new car and higher fuel taxes will make things much worse for them without any increase in income.   People who buy new cars are a small fraction of the population, i.e. the wealthy, and they can afford to drive low efficiency vehicles for a few years and then sell them.   As a smaller fraction of society accures more and more of the income, this problem will get worse.

The rest of society has to get used cars, the previous new-cars buyers cars.   If the pool of efficient vehicles available is high then that's good.

There is no substitute for a physically superior and more efficient vehicle fleet which isn't involuntary pain.

Reducing driving also helps---but it would help with high efficiency vehicles too.

Pride, I think.  It might sound almost Kremlin Face-saving of us, but I think we in the US have a sense that anything like dimming lights, especially in City Hall, would be some sort of concession, would be allowing our puffed-out chests to come back down to normal, human size again.  Cheney's line about our lifestyle not being negotiable goes very deep, and I think on both sides of the aisle..

Like Vonnegut said.. 'Life is High School'..

  I don't get the sense that you would be as tormented in a German High School (Gymnasium) for being one of the smart kids, but it was a definite taboo here.  I was a Prep-school kid, and I felt this distinctly in a very smart and positive institution.  Our history leaves us with a huge set of issues about 'doing the smart thing', or doing a compassionate thing.. which leaves us in exactly this kind of dilemma.  It's very hard to let go of that brass ring, once you've grabbed onto it.

  I think our pride is, in some respects, so fragile, that we would just die to think that we were being laughed at because we 'backed down'..

   -present company partially excepted, of course..

And then there are future CEO types who work through lunch even when they don't have to...

There are no problems if you have either skills or money.

Oh, that's great to hear. I'm glad I'm Paris Hilton. I can add one more to the mix. All the guys love me. And the Girls. Hope your wife isn't one of them. Cuz I party on the South of France. And I have more money than God.

Others added ground up rocks and seaweed (Ireland) and made soil.

Which substantially increases your cost and is tangential at best to the immediate goal of increasing yield--the kind of things that sometimes pop up in isolation, but can never take hold on a large scale because they have far too strong a ring of "ought" to them.

And these methods you speak of... why don't you explain them to us rather than hand-wave?

Eschew pesticides and petrochemical fertilizers, use plows rather than tractors, all the things you need to get a USDA Organic label.

As for your links, and for that matter, your Irish example as well, these are not agricultural techniques.  They haven't a thing to do with agriculture.  You could do these things without ever growing a single plant.  These things are being used specifically to counter-balance the effects of agriculture.  So, you're not really saying anything about the toll of agriculture, you're just offering a list of suggestions of things we can do to help heal the damage that agriculture causes.  That's a pretty big difference.  If I'm cut with a knife, and I put a band-aid on it, the band-aid doesn't prove that knives don't cut, does it?

First of all, I don't know how anyone could make such a statement given that soils vary so widely.

As I said, I'm still trying to track down the ultimate source, but it was expressed as an average, so I'm guessing they had a given sample size and calculated the mean.  I fully expect there to be fertile pockets, but if the average is 85% and it takes 50 years to regenerate an inch of topsoil, I don't think that bodes well for the prospects of post-peak agriculture.

Secondly, minerals are not merely removed from the soil profile by agriculture, but also by natural weathering and leaching processes and this has been the case since long before man arrived on the planet.

That is true, but those processes lag behind the soil regeneration process.  Agriculture doesn't just remove minerals directly, it also opens up fields to erosion, salination, and other second-hand effects that accelerate these natural processes.  We didn't invent these things, but we did speed them up and shatter any semblance of balance that once existed.

Again, by analogy to the human body, we generate new skin cells, and old skin cells die, all the time.  If I speed up the rate at which your skin cells die 100 times, and we do nothing to improve the creation of new skin cells, you're going to be in some pretty big trouble, pretty quickly.

IMHO, the time-bomb in modern US-style agriculture isn't that we've irreversibly depleted our soils of their nutrients -- I don't believe that for a minute -- it's that we've forced our farmers into a situation where they can't afford to be generalists any more.  When that happened, we traded good agricultural practices like crop rotation, manuring, etc. for a lot of expensive external inputs whose expense could only be justified by extremely high and unsustainable yields.

That hasn't helped, but even before that, agriculture was killing off soil.  Not permanently, no; soil always regenerates.  But we can't just take a break from agriculture to let the soil regenerate, "OK everyone, no eating this decade; gotta let the soil regenerate."  Fallowing is as close as we have to that, but even then the pressure to increase yields is too strong to leave it as long as it really should be left--this was the case even in the Middle Ages, leading to degrading soils.  Soil is a renewable resource, but only on a fairly long timeline--no, not as long as petroleum, but long, nonetheless.

To feed just the population of the USA would not take very much land , using todays methods.The rest could be used for energy purposes perhaps if we just concerned with our own livelhood and quit 'running in place' constantly for naught.  

Its the rest of the world we are selling our crops to that lead to soil depletion, intensive cropping, highly erodeable land, drops in aquifers , high use of commercial fertilizers and so on.

It may be just an urban legend but I read somewhere that just the hog production of the state of Indiana could satisfy all the domestic demands for pork in this country.

However that being said, I submit that anyone on this site visiting a 'confinement feeding' operation would be very suprised at the inhumane treatment we apply to our meat animals.  

I have worked some in broiler houses and its not something I share with folks who eat chicken. Pork confinement is far far worse.

We are all dining at the table with our eyes shut and don't wish to be reminded nor told of such.

I asked a farmer who was curing his own hogs why he didn't use his own that he raised on concrete. His reply was that they could not be home cured for they wouldn't 'take the salt'. He grew hogs but didn't want to eat those himself. He said that he preferred those raised on dirt. Now getting har d to find those so a few years back he just gave up on home curing and smoking pork. He used to do at least 8 or more at a time. His home made sausage was enough to make me give up on store brought. I had forgotten just how good real sausage was and just how disagreeable the store variety was. Garbage in a plastic wrapper. Turns rancid in just a few days. Smells awful and high priced as well.

And so it goes in the country who 'has the best food in the world'...sure. I am certain we are shipping 'the best' to other countries. For myself I can't touch a piece of 'prime steak' unless I slaughter it myself.

Out here where we grow the food the farmers nearby grocery store sells the worst in food products. We get the 'leavings'. The almost stale bread, near spoiled fruit, cheap low brand canned goods,and most expensive milk(4.95/gal). By law we can't sell our own milk to neighbors. My own cousin has a dairy operation and he can't even give me a gallon or gets in trouble.

The world is upside down.

First of, there's a about 1.5 kg (3 lbs) splitting axe for most firewood.

Secondly, there's the 3-4 kg (6-8lbs) sledgehammer axe for the really tough pieces of firewood, and also for using wedges to split really, really, really thick wood.

Thirdly, you need the good ole hand axe, around 1 lbs, as a utility or something you can carry in the woods, for hunting, making a fire etc.

Four, you need a cleaning or culling axe, to clean or cull the forest of inferior trees and saplings, so that the goods ones have better conditions to grow.

Five, you need the felling axe, unless you want to rely on a much more brittle saw to take down your trees.

And then there are the de-barking axes, axes for making logs for loghouses.

The list goes on and on. As for durability, buy a few extra axes, heads and handles. If nothing else you can sell them or barter. It will get you through the rough years until society stabilizes.

But the problem with these rough years is that before that we will have a downslide maybe lasting 10-20 years, before society collapses. You have to have the strength and resilience to last those non-chaos years without exhausting your resources and your willpower.

Holding our during 1-2 chaotic years is one thing, managing a slow descent before that is much worse. But the chaos won't last long, people won't have the strength. Once someone runs out of food, it's a matter of days before they're too weak to do much, and weeks until they die.

Thanks.  I think what is going to get more people will be lack of practiced skills.  These could be hunting-gathering skills or blacksmithing skills.  BTW, I do have a small forge but only 200# of blacksmithing coal..plus I'm barely an amature but I could make an axe or saw.

The advantage that people like I have is that we have had to learn skills and practice them.  Further, we have had to accept a life that most people would find unacceptable.  For example, it isn't unusual to get snowed in for a week or two with the power off (This is when we rely on the PV system and back-up generator - and, yes, if there is no gas in the future I'll run it on wood gas.).  We know people in the area who got snowed in for 6 weeks last year.  These sorts of things build self-reliance because that is the only way to survive in the mountains where I am, even with all of today's technology.

At the same time, we have accumulated the "stuff" necessary for survival such as food preservation equipment and hand tools.

The movie, Testament was mentioned on another forum this morning and I happened to be watching it last night (we don't get TV but rely on our old tapes and DVD's).  I think it provides an excellent vehicle for asking what the people in the town did right - very little- and what they should have done.  This can be applied to how one might have to cope in the future.

Todd

A blacksmith can and once did make them.

I used to own 3 coal forges, 8 anvils and 4 leg vises and made
many items. Most farms had forges and the rest and 'made' some tools , depending on their skill.

I have seen a farrier hot forge an outstanding horseshoe in a very short time and it was far better than the 'cold' shoes one had to buy.

There is plenty of scrap iron(mild and carbon steel) laying around the country side ready to be forged.

Future survival will require metalsmiths. How many can do that? How many will be around after the supposed dieoff?

Sadly all my forges and anvils went the way of the auction a few years back...I didn't see this coming.

Now I intend to replace them , if I have the time or energy.

Blacksmiths still exist and can perform wonders with hot steel.

Less time than that.  I go back to my earlier post.  Where are you getting your water.  If the fall happens into a Chaos.  Lack of Water will kill all but the most hardy of the Land Pirates. Then food spoilage and animal bites and poor health care.  The Land Pirates will be begging for hand outs sooner than you think.  Our Tin cans do spoil and they spoil faster without power on in a house than they do in a fairly stable warehouse.  

If it gets that bad, the Land Pirate will Have to organize and do it fast or die off like the rest just for differant reasons.

Don't forget Just In Time Food Transit Systems Have loaded the store shelf against getting food for your group of Land Pirates.

Since you obviously think farming = bad and humans should return to a hunter gatherer lifestyle, there's no way I can convince you, but I will say it once more: farming when done right, does NOT destroy the land, the soil, the ecosystems, or anything else.

Yes, there were historic mistakes which damaged some part of the fertile crescent, but it is well known among agronomists that most of the soil degradation in the crescent (which covers an area from the mediterranean to iran) has occurred in recent decades, due to modern agricultural practices, usually, but not only monoculture.  The area still produces a goodly amount of food. Changes in agricultural practices could raise this productivity, as well as improving the soil in almost all parts of the crescent.

 Other factors which historically and at present degrade the productive potential of farmland, including that in the Fertile Crescent, are inappropriate crop or animal selection, deforestation, the loss of local and regional biodiversity (often as a result of deforestation, but also due to the use of petrochemicals) and changes in the hydrology of an area (again frequently related to deforestation, but also affected by monocropping, a practice made worse by the selection of inappropriate plants).  Poorly informed grazing practices, including selection of species, timing and length of the grazing period, intensity of animals per unit of area, also degrade soils.  

But be sure of this, most of the land that has or is being degraded by poor practice, including neighbouring deforestation and all the other mistakes, among which monoculture is the reigning champion, can be restored to its natural potential in three years.  Most of the rest can be restored over a longer time frame.

Geological processes constantly generate soil, if at an insufficient rate to overcome poor practice (the rate varies according to climate, water, source rock, topography,etc. It is however incomparably quicker than the formation of hydrocarbons).  

It is mostly flora, fauna and skill which do the necessary work to achieve the restoration/net improvement of the soil.

Althought I don't doubt that agriculture will have access to hydrocarbons for decades after the automobile has been largely relegated to museums, I anticipate with vicarious pleasure the improvement in the quality of food and the quality of rural life that will emerge as hydrocarbons are slowly withdrawn from agriculture.  

If there is starvation post-peak, it will be for the same reasons that it is occuring pre-peak. Reaons rooted in our systems of social relations.

You and others might enjoy the story of James Hutton as told in "James Hutton and the discovery of deep time".  Hutton, the father of modern geology, was widely know in his day (especially in France) for his publications on the restoration of farmland.  He cultivated (sorry) his knowledge on some theretofore exhausted land in Scotland.  The biography provides a pleasant account of this effort.

Second, I notice that the primary definition of "mineral" is based on geology/chemistry, but the fourth meaning is minerals that are essential to the nutrition of plants and animals.  So, while silica is a mineral, it is not a mineral that is essential to the nutrition of plants and animals.

Also, if you do a websearch on mineral depletion, you get far fewer hits (and many of those are about oil depletion!) than if you search for soil depletion.

"Modern agriculture is the use of land to convert petroleum into food"
Bartlett (1978)

I reponded to the anti-wind letters in my local paper, and although they spelled my name wrong, they did finally publish it:
http://www.altoonamirror.com/Letters/articles.asp?articleID=4412

That has the ghastly ring of truth to it.  Britain's MI5 has a maxim that society is only four meals away from anarchy.
As a little black humour, here are the lyrics from the song "Going Hunting" by the Canadian group "The Arrogant Worms":

We're goin' huntin'
We're gonna kill somethin'
I don't care what it is
Maybe a raccoon, maybe a gopher,
Maybe the neighbour's kids!

THIS is why some people call us an echo chamber for the insane!

God, how disgusting.

Riots and warlordism are another wonderful byproduct of the corpgov way of life!

As she said, Canadians (even River Pirates) don't get too excited about anything.

It leads to a story of May 17, 2006 headed "US Secretly Backing Warlords in Somalia", a story which illustrates my point about the nefarious effects of the imperialist policies of the Empire in Decline.

While I hate to arrest your dark descent into the hell of your imagination, here is a round-up of news from Reuters of August 25, 2006: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/1f19eb00766bdcb4937bb059ab0251bf.htm

SOMALIA: Mogadishu port re-opens after 11 years
As another sign of improved security in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, the country's main port was officially re-opened on Thursday after more than 11 years.
"The chairman of the courts [Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed] officially opened the port today [Thursday]," said Sheikh Umar Ahmed Weheliye, the port manager. Full story at:
SOMALIA: Islamic courts ban trade in charcoal and wildlife
The Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which controls the capital, Mogadishu, and much of south and central Somalia, issued a directive on Tuesday banning exports of charcoal and rare birds and animals, an official told IRIN.
The Executive Committee of the UIC issued the directive after a full committee meeting agreed to the ban, Sheikh Abdulkadir Ali Omar, the UIC Vice-Chairman, said. Full story at:
SOMALIA: Premier appoints new cabinet
Somalia's interim Prime Minister, Ali Muhammad Gedi, on Monday appointed a 31-member cabinet, two weeks after the dissolution of the previous one amid disagreements over the premier's handling of peace talks between the transitional government and the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).
President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, who heads Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG), dissolved the cabinet on 7 August, a week after a vote of no-confidence in Gedi was defeated in parliament. Full story at:

Sorry to present you with so much good news.  I should say it accords with reports from the many Somalians who live in my neighbourhood.  

As for the Montreal riot of 1969, which you try to use to somehow demonstrate the inevitability of crisis and chaos after peak oil, the toll was: 108 arrested, 20 injured, $11 million (Canadian adjusted to 2006 value) in property damage.  After some overnight violence, by hooligans, some military were posted at public buildings, the fear being that separatists might try to take advantage of the situation.  Nothing happened.  The 1969 riot barely compares to the 1955 riot following the suspension of famed hockey player, Maurice, the Rocket, Richard.

Hardly a descent into chaos.  

The main point is, overall, he is getting the correct arguement out there in a major newspaper.

My original point many months ago (in my original post in January), was that based on Khebab's HL work, the top exporters (I just looked at the top three) were more depleted than the world was overall--thus my conclusion that production by the top exporters would fall faster than overall production.

If you then plug in the positive feedback loop of rising domestic consumption as we send vast amounts of money to the exporters, you get the "Export Land" model, where exports are squeezed between falling production and rising consumption.

"Only the devil could have invented such a system"--Uwe Reinhardt

The problem is that insurance is tied to your job here in the U.S.  If you're so sick you can't work, you eventually lose your insurance.  And of course, the company has incentive to cut you loose as quickly as possible, since you're raising the rates for the rest of their employees.

Even if you don't lose your insurance, there are all kinds of caps, co-pays, etc., even with "good" insurance.  One person with a serious illness can wipe out the coverage for the while family.  When you sign on the dotted line, a three million dollar cap sounds like plenty, but one child with a serious illness can wipe that out quickly.

Delusional disorder ... is a type of serious mental illness called a "psychosis" in which a person cannot tell what is real from what is imagined. The main feature of this disorder is the presence of delusions, which are unshakable beliefs in something untrue.

Conventional anti-psychotics include Thorazine, Prolixin, Haldol, Navane, ...

forget this BS:

You were right about the Shrinking Willys:

''Polar Bear Penises Shrink--Are Humans Next?

Bristly, 1000-pound brutes willing to claw it out for females and whisk them off for a week of spirited shagging, male polar bears might hook up with several mates in a season. They are not the stripe of male to suffer from any image problems when it comes to, well, having the right equipment--not, at least, until today, when the Nunatsiaq News of the Nunavik region of Arctic Quebec--surely an authority on polar bears--reported that their penises are shrinking.

A photograph accompanying the article shows a woman holding 20-odd polar bear penis bones, which were found by a recent study to be significantly shorter in bears exposed to high levels of toxic chemicals. The findings, published last month in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, adds fuel to concerns that a massive buildup of pesticides in the bodies of Arctic animals and hunters is causing environmental and health problems (see the story in Mother Jones). The issue may compound troubles caused by the bears' loss of Arctic habitat. "Added to the stress of climate change," the Nunatsiaq News points out, "this could be bad news for their survival."

The same toxic buildup taking place in polar bears is happening to a lesser but increasing degree in the fatty tissues of humans--even in some places outside the Arctic. For the sake of our own mating rituals, let's hope the global masculinity index isn't going bearish.

Posted by Josh Harkinson

From Mother Jones (he says in a squeaky voice).

Exactly what is the flaw in Kurzweil's vision, that is a nice puzzle. It relates back to discussion here from a couple weeks ago on the sustainability of electronic integrated circuit manufacturing, or of the internet. Whether or not we can gracefully pull back to Intel 4040 technology, to push ahead to 35 nm or 20 nm technology is no joke at all. Look at the superconducting supercollider or the international space station. Sometimes people just thow in the towel & decide the exponentially increasing cost is just not worth the bother. I.e. exceeds the discretionary budget. Again, the question isn't whether your thousand dollar laptop is worth the money and the electricity it burns. The question is whether the billion dollar chip fab and the thousands of people involved in keeping the whole mess running, will there be enough of a market to keep that alive & pushing the technology envelope.

Do we have supersonic passenger planes running anymore? Sometimes it just doesn't pay to keep pushing in some fixed direction.

The deeper fallacy behind Kurzweil's thinking is that he gets to play loose with metrics so he can paint the picture he wants. I heard Stephen Jay Gould give a talk once & he constrasted the bushy view of evolution versus the idea that evolution somehow strives to optimize something or other. As if by any objective measure humans were somehow the most "advanced" product of evolution. This is the trap that Kurzweil falls into, as far as I can tell. That and just being far too smart for his own good. Wolfram is in that same category. Like a rocket without a working guidance system. Take cover!
 

Ha ha!!

That reads like a snippet from that "superhuman intelligence" known as "M-x yow"  {keys for Zippy the Pinhead on emacs}

More specifically on Kurzweil.    

The reason why Moore's law has worked is because of the laws of physics.  Specifically "There's a lot of room down there".   The physical length scales that we could engineer things at in 1960 were many orders of magnitude bigger than atoms.   There was many orders of magnitude of headroom possible in electronics.

In energy there isn't.  There aren't many orders of magnitude available under the laws of thermodynamics for massive improvements.

A super-human intelligence still can't break the laws of physics any more than the captain of the high school math team can beat the jocks at football.

A superhuman intelligence would quickly come to the conclusion that reduction of human population to match sustainable production is essential.   Why don't we call it BlueSkyNet?

I'll quit while I'm ahead, and not attempt to parse out that quote for lies. Ol' AL is a great talker, really knows how to turn a phrase, but has become pollyannish in the extreme in these past few years. Or maybe he always was, I don't know.

- Steve

The challenge for all of us now is to count how many lies there are in this text.

Sounds like too much trouble. He makes no sense in any sense. I conservatively assign zero value that everything he's saying.

No, the challenge for us is to get access to the same drugs he's having. That's some potent stuff.

I am amazed that most people here would not instantly recognize the picture, and I am also somewhat surprised to hear the instant rejection of what seems to me to be his worthwhile arguments on how to get out of our self-created mess.

Just as a bit of anecdotal support for his thesis on waste as a source of energy-  My rotary power saw quit on me; I found its bearing had committed suicide and scattered its guts all around the insides of the saw.  I sent off for 4 small, light, simple replacement parts.  I got the four little parts in 4 SEPARATE UPS SHIPMENTS ON A DIESEL TRUCK DRIVING ABOUT 17 MILES.

So, all you numbers freaks count that one up.  What is the ratio of energy that could have been sufficient to get me those diddly little parts to the energy that was used to do it??  Hint- that ratio is way less than 1/4.

Amory is right.  IMO.

- Steve

You are welcome to believe that God is going to initiate a factory recall (aka the rapture) followed by 1,000 years of peace if you wish.

As far as the Bible goes: I suspect the author(s) were very intelligent and, on some level, understood what happens when a society becomes to complex for it's own good even though they had not read Tainter.

The predictions in Revelation, for instance, are essentially a rehash of the Tower of Babel story just projected into the future. IE, the story of what happens to a society based on constantly increasing levels of consumption: alliances with less than dubious nations in order to secure the necessary resources coupled with internal decay particular in regards to previous accepted moral/ethical codes followed by economic collapse followed by societal balkinization and warfare.

I will say that the original Greek translation of REvelation 9:11 makes me uncomfortable being that I live in Kali-Fourhn-Yah. It references a tyrant from Mount Olympus whose name is "Abadon" which means destroyer. Arnold Schwarzenegger is of course best known for being  "the terminator" and Mr. Olympia. A little too close for comfort there if you ask me!

Best,

Matt

You will also learn why the great libraries of antiquity were burnt by representatives of the Church after it was captured by politicians and bureaucrats of the day.  Fortunately, the discovery of the Rosetta Stone provided the key to writings in stone that survived the great tragedy of the 3rd century, when the notion of the christos in all people, was twisted into the idea that 'God' had only invested 'His' hope into one man, and the texts that revealed this perversion were burnt.

The real conspiracy had nothing to do with the bullshit found in Mr. Brown's fairy tale.

For a spiritual person there is a message of hope in this book for better times ahead, once we regain the understanding that truth is only found in myth (narrative).

Harpur is a Rhodes Scholar, an ordained Anglican priest, a theologian, and formerly the religious writer for the Toronto Star.  

If you have an open mind, this book will open doors for you.
If you have a closed mind you will still enjoy the book, especially the link to solar power.

I heard a Catholic Priest relate this in a Sermon once..

'If you want to hear the sound of Divine Laughter, tell God your plans'

  No offense, but I read religious words less literally.  I heard an idea once that suggests that getting caught up in the 'actuality of miracles' is really materialism, and is not within the domain of spiritual work.

  When the question arises, however.. 'Where was God at Aushwitz?'.. 'Why are these things allowed to happen?' I have to think that 'God' (if you will) is right there, watching.. and still smiling, but only because this is the complete knowledge of who we are, complete knowledge of us, not in some mirth over the tragedy.  But the actions are ours and ours fully.  What we do to or for each other, to or for the Earth in the next decades is up to us.

"After two years we felt that we could approach your sixteen verses of the fourth chapter of Genesis. My old gentlemen felt that these words were very important too--`Thou shalt' and `Do thou.' And this was the gold from our mining: `Thou mayest.' `Thou mayest rule over sin.' The old gentlemen smiled and nodded and felt the years were well spent. It brought them out of their Chinese shells too, and right now they are studying Greek."

Samuel said, "It's a fantastic story. And I've tried to follow and maybe I've missed somewhere. Why is this word so important?"

Lee's hand shook as he filled the delicate cups. He drank his down in one gulp. "Don't you see?" he cried. "The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in `Thou shalt,' meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel--`Thou mayest'-- that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if `Thou mayest'--it is also true that `Thou mayest not.' Don't you see?"      
                      -John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Bob

http://timshel.org/timshel.php

Why should I accord such a standpoint any more intellectual respect than the degree of intellectual respect customarily accorded to religious standpoints on this site?  An attitude of summary dismissal towards an opposing viewpoint should at least be rooted in serious understanding thereof.

Well, maybe it won't happen at all: Sometimes I try to imagine the symptoms that we should expect to see if the Singularity is not to develop. There are the widely respected arguments of Penrose [19] and Searle [22] against the practicality of machine sapience. In August of 1992, [...]

Is one I like, and makes me think we are playing with the idea, and not 'locked in' on the outcome.

A very healthy attitude, if I may.

human-like intelligence ...

What the heck would you do with that?

Fire all your programmers.  (I actually remember a co-worker in the early 80's saying that our days were numbered, and that we'd be replaced by AI's in ... what did he say, 20 years?)

On the link, I guess transhumanists choose their path to immortality.  Either through AI uploads (of brain contents) or through perfected medicine.  (Medicine would have to be pretty perfect to get us to 1000 years.)

Saw him on Charlie Rose the other night with James D Watson, I think it was recorded last year some time. It seems they have both edited books on Darwin.

Anyhow, Wilson has an amazing intellect.