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Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today)

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Re: Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today

Unread postby AdamB » Mon 01 Aug 2016, 14:32:49

Newfie wrote:So everything is hunky dory and I can give up worrying about climate change and global financial collapse?


The website is peakoil.com, and while the horrors of climate change are well established (the Bering Startit landbridge cultures that were wiped out by rising oceans being just one example), the same bothering real estate owners along the Outer Banks over the course of a century, maybe, just doesn't have the same immediate kick that peak oil did. This is good news, because it means you can worry less! Stress is a killer, and sorting through real fears, versus sort of maybe sometime in a century or not we aren't sure fears, is progress!
Plant Thu 27 Jul 2023 "Personally I think the IEA is exactly right when they predict peak oil in the 2020s, especially because it matches my own predictions."

Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"
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Re: Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Mon 01 Aug 2016, 14:56:30

Tanada wrote:Cornucopians don't care what problem you point out, every cloud has a silver lining and the are going to get the silver.

Fast crash doomers don't care what solution you point to because every solution is either a total failure, or a solution in isolation.

It doesn't matter what topic you pick, EV's, solar roofs, additional hydroelectricity projects, nuclear reactors, coal to oil, natural gas to oil, permaculture farming, terra preta biochar soil remediation. Pick any topic and around here these days you don't get 20 opinions, you get at most three. Opinion 1) It won't solve all our problems overnight so why bother trying? 2) Other solutions work better so why go to the trouble of doing X? 3) Lets give it a shot, it might help and can't hurt too much.

1) Doomer, 2) Corny, 3) Moderate.


Good post Tanada. Great job of summing up the overall perspectives of the main classes of folks.

I'm not convinced however, that moderates are incapable of absorbing new information or changing their minds about certain positions, even if they still tend to consider themselves moderates at the end of the day.

By coincidence, my first (as I recall) post on here yesterday fully admitted I'd radically changed my views on two major positions in the past couple years (unlike what I see from most cornies and doomers). And I pointed out it was from observing real world changes via new data.

So IMO, many moderates are happy to change positions/attitudes, even fundamental ones, about lots of things, based on substantial changes in objective data/results, as I just did.

That does NOT mean such changes will necessarily sway moderates away from being moderates. But at least if many moderates (like me) ended up being moderates because they are curious about the world and like to think about things -- that's a fundamentally different motivation/viewpoint than having an almost religious devotion to a particular point of view at an extreme end of the cornie -- moderate -- doomer spectrum.

It also most emphatically does NOT mean such moderates are "better" than anyone else, just different than the extremists tend to me, IMO.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today

Unread postby AdamB » Mon 01 Aug 2016, 15:12:12

Loki wrote:[
I love how these straw man rants never have any links or actual quotes from these stupid doomers. You seem to be arguing with yourself and why you were wrong 10 years ago.



Oh please.

If you aren't already familiar with wacked the claims were, you either haven't been paying attention.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... ckout.html

http://www.benzworld.org/forums/attachm ... sh-gs2.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JAEw3NIdZ0o/U ... hot_10.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_in_the_Desert

http://dieoff.org/page125.htm

http://www2.energybulletin.net/node/4404

Try any of the musings from an amateur violin player, circa 2008:

http://richardheinberg.com/museletter

How about some egg headed silliness?

https://inbalance.files.wordpress.com/2 ... ildrum.png

Oh I give up, but the you can see the depth of the list like this....

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Re: Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today

Unread postby ralfy » Mon 01 Aug 2016, 21:29:14

What matters is not "attitudes" but energy returns and availability of material resources, both of which are connected to limits to growth:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... g-collapse

ETP is also connected to that.

The only thing not considered in the models is global warming. Multiple mainstream sources, from science organizations to insurance groups to multinational banks to armed forces, have warned about that, together with peak oil.

Thus, these topics have not been the sole domain of the "doomer" for some time.

And no changes in "attitudes" will negate or reverse these realities.
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Re: Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today

Unread postby Loki » Mon 01 Aug 2016, 21:30:26

ennui2 wrote:
Loki wrote:I just don't see them as THE solution.


Neither do I, but do we have to expend so much effort FUDing and pooh-poohing this stuff?

I don't recall ever pooh poohing EVs. What I have pooh poohed is the notion that we're going to power our private vehicle fleet on solar and wind. Ain't ever gonna happen. That's the stuff of fantasy.

Loki wrote:Come to think of it, I can't think of any peak oilers who were gung ho about EVs.


I'm looking at the broad tapestry in which documentaries like End of Suburbia and Who Killed the Electric Car were part of the standard PO curriculum.

Who Killed the Electric Car is not to my knowledge a peak oil film. I haven't seen it, and I don't remember it being mentioned on a regular basis here at PO.com back in the heyday.

I have seen End of Suburbia, which is more of a peak oil story, but I don't recall what role, if any, EVs played in it.

So that's source of your ire. One documentary. That's what you're bitching about?

Loki wrote:As for Tesla....yeah....
Seems less like the savior of mankind, more like a very expensive vanity project for Elon Musk. Or, if he's as smart as everyone says he is, a pump and dump scheme that will make him richer than God.


This is exhibit A for what I'm talking about. This falling back to casual internet-style dismissals with a whiff of rich-man scamming conspiracy to it, ala Starving Lion.

Did it ever occur to you people that considering that the captains of industry control the cards that it might actually be a good thing if some of them directed their efforts at trying to help matters?

Who says he's "helping matters"? If he drives Tesla into the ground, and worse yet, profits handsomely in the process, it will be a bad thing for EVs. They will come off as just another government distortion of the market designed to make rich donors to the DNC even richer (Musk supports Hillary). That is not a positive direction if you support EVs.

Do you not recall that little hiccup we just had, the Great Recession? All sorts of grand statements were made about the virtuous role of the financial industry in enabling homeownership in the years leading up to the housing crash. Whether you want to believe it or not, the rich do, on occasion, game the system for personal gain. Bad consequences for the rest of us often follow.
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Re: Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today

Unread postby Loki » Mon 01 Aug 2016, 21:49:50

AdamB wrote:
Loki wrote:[
I love how these straw man rants never have any links or actual quotes from these stupid doomers. You seem to be arguing with yourself and why you were wrong 10 years ago.



Oh please.

If you aren't already familiar with wacked the claims were, you either haven't been paying attention.

I clicked on the first few of your links. Not a damn thing to do with electric vehicles, which is what we were talking about.
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Re: Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today

Unread postby ennui2 » Mon 01 Aug 2016, 22:55:21

Loki wrote:Whether you want to believe it or not, the rich do, on occasion, game the system for personal gain. Bad consequences for the rest of us often follow.


But what makes you think Musk's stated intention in particular to get us off of fossil fuels isn't genuine? You just hurl out an accusation with little if anything to back it up. He had already made enough money to retire from Paypal. He wants to change the world. So do people like Bill McKibben or Rob Hopkins. Who do you think is in a better position to deliver results?

Loki wrote:If he drives Tesla into the ground, and worse yet, profits handsomely in the process, it will be a bad thing for EVs.


You can write any sort of future scenario you want as long as you qualify it with "if". What good does that do?

The world needed a shock to the system. That involves a big risk, one that the major automakers were not willing to do. Of course it's risky, but it was necessary for someone to be arrogant or foolish enough to try. Now there are a bunch of copycats out there thinking maybe Tesla's onto something. That catalyst effect is worth more than the odds of Tesla crashing and burning on Musk's overreach.
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Re: Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today

Unread postby AdamB » Tue 02 Aug 2016, 00:48:43

ralfy wrote:The only thing not considered in the models is global warming. Multiple mainstream sources, from science organizations to insurance groups to multinational banks to armed forces, have warned about that, together with peak oil.


And considering how badly off base they were on peak oil, do you think they have any credibility left on the other topics?

ralfy wrote:Thus, these topics have not been the sole domain of the "doomer" for some time.


True. But the Heaven's Gaters mostly suicided themselves hitching a ride on that comet, leaving the other doomers behind to predict invisible peak oils.

ralfy wrote:And no changes in "attitudes" will negate or reverse these realities.


True, once the laughing began about how poorly malthusians do when it comes to understanding resource economic issues, the echo of that will cause it to be awhile before anyone takes them seriously again.
Plant Thu 27 Jul 2023 "Personally I think the IEA is exactly right when they predict peak oil in the 2020s, especially because it matches my own predictions."

Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"
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Re: Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today

Unread postby AdamB » Tue 02 Aug 2016, 00:51:07

Loki wrote:
AdamB wrote:
Loki wrote:[
I love how these straw man rants never have any links or actual quotes from these stupid doomers. You seem to be arguing with yourself and why you were wrong 10 years ago.



Oh please.

If you aren't already familiar with wacked the claims were, you either haven't been paying attention.

I clicked on the first few of your links. Not a damn thing to do with electric vehicles, which is what we were talking about.


Maybe. I was responding to your statement about the invisible stupid doomers.

straw man rants never have any links or actual quotes from these stupid doomers.
Plant Thu 27 Jul 2023 "Personally I think the IEA is exactly right when they predict peak oil in the 2020s, especially because it matches my own predictions."

Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"
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Re: Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today

Unread postby Loki » Tue 02 Aug 2016, 01:11:13

ennui2 wrote:
Loki wrote:Whether you want to believe it or not, the rich do, on occasion, game the system for personal gain. Bad consequences for the rest of us often follow.


But what makes you think Musk's stated intention in particular to get us off of fossil fuels isn't genuine? You just hurl out an accusation with little if anything to back it up.

Oh, I backed it up:

Critics observe that Tesla loses over $15,000 on every car it sells and could not exist without government subsidies. The share price, they assert, is grossly overvalued, giving Tesla an inflated market value of $34 billion, a figure nearly four times bigger than Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV’s FCAU, +0.47% $9 billion. For comparison, Fiat Chrysler produced 4.7 million cars and light trucks in 2015 versus 50,000 for Tesla.


That is an absurdly inflated market value for a company that produces 50,000 vehicles a year. Pump and dump is just as likely an explanation as Musk being the saint you seem to think he is. Time will tell.

He had already made enough money to retire from Paypal.

It isn't about the money, per se, when it comes to the astronomically rich. It's about power and ego. But most of all it's about being richer than your peers. See Bloomberg's recent remark about Trump not really being all that rich for a prominent recent example of this mentality. Musk is the 83rd richest man on the planet. That's got to gall him. 80 fucking 3rd?!? For a supergenius like him?!?

He wants to change the world.

Silicon Valley's national sport is blowing smoke up each other's ass, and Elon Musk is the Tiger Woods of smoke blowing. I take proclamations about their own virtue with a big grain of salt.

I have no idea if Musk is what he claims to be, or if he's just an money-grubbing egomaniac with good talking points. Since he's only producing 50,000 cars per year, it really doesn't matter unless you own Tesla stock. When Tesla is producing within an order of magnitude of Chrysler, we can talk.
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Re: Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today

Unread postby Loki » Tue 02 Aug 2016, 01:39:32

AdamB wrote:
Loki wrote:
AdamB wrote:
Loki wrote:[
I love how these straw man rants never have any links or actual quotes from these stupid doomers. You seem to be arguing with yourself and why you were wrong 10 years ago.



Oh please.

If you aren't already familiar with wacked the claims were, you either haven't been paying attention.

I clicked on the first few of your links. Not a damn thing to do with electric vehicles, which is what we were talking about.


Maybe. I was responding to your statement about the invisible stupid doomers.

straw man rants never have any links or actual quotes from these stupid doomers.

I'm quite familiar with some of the stupid shit peak oilers said 10+ years ago. I thought it was over the top then, and time has proved me right. For the record, I always thought Mike Ruppert was fruit loops, that Matt Savinar was a moron, and that the "die off hypothesis" was utter bullshit.

The problem with people like you and Ennui is that you take the dumbest thing some idiot said 10 years ago, and extrapolate that to include every one who thinks peak oil might be a problem.
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Re: Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today

Unread postby ennui2 » Tue 02 Aug 2016, 01:54:49

Loki wrote:It isn't about the money, per se, when it comes to the astronomically rich. It's about power and ego.


What's wrong about that if it's directed in a positive direction? Bill Gates shouldn't have formed the Gates Foundation?

Loki wrote:When Tesla is producing within an order of magnitude of Chrysler, we can talk.


That cash-burn Tesla's doing on things like the Gigafactory is intended to do just that. It's not like the world's got decades for this stuff to scale out. I mean, if Cid's right then it's already too late for any sort of mitigation anyway. So why not fight fire with fire by using the irrational exuberance of the stock market towards a constructive end-goal? Yes, I know the phrase that you can't solve a problem with the same mindset that created it. But I also know that you can't change people's minds who don't want changing. So in the end you kinda have to appeal to people on a level that they understand, which is things like 0-60 acceleration and status-symbolism.

Loki wrote:You take the dumbest thing some idiot said 10 years ago, and extrapolate that to include every one who thinks peak oil might be a problem.


Now YOU are the one straw-manning, because I happen to think peak-oil is a problem too. I just don't subscribe to ETP and I'm starting to think that the pain of depletion will remain manageable enough long enough that we'll be wrestling with AGW-impacts before Mad-Max doom.

Now, there used to be some long-time posters on this board who were EV evangelists. Timo (who recently quit) was one. A couple others used to talk about lead-sled conversions. They dropped off.

If oil remains cheap for the next couple years I suspect the site will finally bottom out and lunatics like StarvingLion will have the place all to themselves.

Selection bias being what it is, anyone still here has some sort of extenuating motivation to hang on (i.e. PStarr being here just for the 'yuks'). As the underlying issues lose relevance, the topics shift elsewhere, like the horror of Obama wearing a brown suit. It's kind of the equivalent of the old punch-line when a discussion dies off and after a pregnant pause someone interjects: "So... how about those Cubs??"

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Re: Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today

Unread postby careinke » Tue 02 Aug 2016, 18:10:39

Outcast_Searcher wrote:If on the off chance it happens and it can't be fixed, do you REALLY think having a doomstead will matter more than a month or so? Or if it's a normal cycle like 2007-2009 that the doomstead matters at all, except being a financial drain?


Why would you design your doomstead to be a financial drain? That seems pretty stupid. My doomstead is productive, otherwise there is no point.
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Re: Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today

Unread postby ennui2 » Tue 02 Aug 2016, 20:59:16

For anyone with a white-collar job a doomstead is nothing but a glorified vacation home.
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Re: Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today

Unread postby careinke » Wed 03 Aug 2016, 02:52:51

ennui2 wrote:For anyone with a white-collar job a doomstead is nothing but a glorified vacation home.


Sorry, I gave up being a wage slave about 12 years ago. Your assumption that my doomstead is different than my domicile is also incorrect.
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Re: Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today

Unread postby ennui2 » Wed 03 Aug 2016, 09:58:45

Re-read what I said. You're not a white-collar worker anymore.
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Re: Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today

Unread postby litesong » Mon 31 Oct 2016, 13:46:56

Loki wrote:....the rich do, on occasion, game the system for personal gain. Bad consequences for the rest of us often follow.
//////
litesong wrote: Yeah, remember when a relative of Aunt Bee's, bought a lot of property in Mt.Pilot & left Mayberry in the lurch. He got rich, Mt. Pilot got all the busy pollution & Mayberry became a back water stop. Despite only about 4 or 5 jobs in the town, all the players in the Andy Griffith show loved Mayberry. Floyd had the best job... barber. As sheriff, the only thing Andy had to worry about was getting shot in the back by Barney's one bullet.
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Re: Doomer Attitudes towards Green-Tech (Yesterday and Today

Unread postby AdamB » Mon 31 Oct 2016, 22:03:46

ennui2 wrote:For anyone with a white-collar job a doomstead is nothing but a glorified vacation home.


Hunting cabin, thank you very much.
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Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"
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