[dorlomin]

You are from Britain, right?

Unlikely. For a start the program is on ITV.

[dorlomin]

Cheap oil/coal fuelled the Industrial revolution and having all that land when your serfdom left for factory jobs wasnt as a big an asset anymore.

Inheritance tax was deliberately aimed at breaking up the big estates. The land remained valuable but after universal suffrage, there was a political plan to go after the rural gentry.

[DesuMaiden]

Actually, the perfect metaphor for peak oil is the Titanic. The Titanic was once thought to be indestructible and unsinkable. Just like our civilization. Virtually everyone thinks this civilization is indestructible and will last forever. But this is just a delusional perception and not reality.

Let's say you were on the Titanic, and it just got hit by an ice berg. It is going to sink soon. You tell everyone that the Titanic is going to sink, and there aren't enough life boats for everyone. And you will encounter three types of people, and they are:

1) Deer in the headlight. These people are too paralyzed in fear to accept the reality of this situation.

2) People who are willing to help you make lifeboats to survive the sinking Titanic.

3) People who are in complete denial of this event. They think the Titanic is completely unsinkable and indestructible. So they tell you to "go take a hike you doomsayer. We are going back to the club to take another drink or two".

If you are a person who knows how to build life boats, which group are you going to help? Clearly only the second group is worth saving because they realize that a catastrophe is about to happen. And these people clearly want your help, so that you and they can survive.

We are all on the Titanic, known as industrial civilization. And this Titanic has been hit by the iceberg of population growth, resource depletion, climate change and peak oil. Now, what you have to do is convince some people that this Titanic is sinking, so that you can save as many survivors as possible. But you have to just accept the grim reality that most people will not be savable. Most people will perish once the Titanic sinks. And that's what will happen when industrial civilization is over. Most people will not survive the collapse of industrial civilization. Only a small percentage of people (less than 10% of the current population) will survive this catastrophic event.

[jesus_of_suburbia]

When I started coming here almost ten years ago, peak oil was the Matrix.

[DesuMaiden]

When I started coming here almost ten years ago, peak oil was the Matrix.

Please explain how it is like the Matrix. Please explain. I would like to know.

I compare peak oil to the Titanic because it is really like we are on the Titanic. It is about to sink. Yet some people still remain in denial of the sinking of the Titanic because they think the Titanic is unsinkable and indestructible. Just like how some people think our civilization is indestructible and will last forever. I'm sorry to break it to you, but nothing lasts forever, especially a fundamentally unsustainable civilization with several mortal problems.

[Revi]

I like the Titanic metaphor best. When the ship was sinking they talked to the White Star representative, and he told them to keep it quiet. Meanwhile they loaded the lifeboats with the upper class passengers while they locked the lower classes under the deck. The middle class passengers got the deck, where they waited for instructions. I think the idea of quietly making a few rafts out of deck chairs is a good one, because we aren't getting a spot on the lifeboats. They are going to create little lifeboat retreats in Chile, or wherever away from the hoi polloi, while the rest of us are going to be locked below decks (the cities) or left on the tilting deck of our sinking civilization, waiting for instructions.