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Seneca Cliff

General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.

Re: Seneca Cliff

Unread postby GHung » Thu 08 Dec 2016, 11:16:24

Tanada wrote: .....

This is also the fundamental problem with the Seneca Cliff theory. Look at any country that had a sharp reduction in their oil production. So far as i can tell from my searching in EVERY case it was the result of war, either invasion or civil. In every case so far once things settled down, often with a new Strong Man authoritarian in power, the oil production resumed.

Nothing short of a World War III event that totally crashes our civilization is in any way likely to alter that fact. Despite all the evidence of this the Seneca Cliff theory is a very popular doom fantasy because it creates the fast crash doom some people seem to greatly desire.


Making the Seneca Cliff thingy all about oil is like making marriage all about sex or income. Those 'Strong Men' need the income from oil to buy all of the other things a society needs to keep things running. Witness Venezuela; insufficient oil income, things go south pretty fast. On the other hand, all of the oil income in the world won't help Venezuela (or those 'Strong Men') if all of the other highly-complex global arrangements that make oil a necessary commodity begin to crap out, which is already happening. Demand destruction is the multi-headed monster lurking in our future, being held at bay by some pretty extraordinary schemes that, by their nature, aren't sustainable.
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Re: Seneca Cliff

Unread postby jupiters_release » Thu 08 Dec 2016, 12:21:40

Tanada wrote:This is also the fundamental problem with the Seneca Cliff theory. Look at any country that had a sharp reduction in their oil production. So far as i can tell from my searching in EVERY case it was the result of war, either invasion or civil. In every case so far once things settled down, often with a new Strong Man authoritarian in power, the oil production resumed.


What about Cantarell in Mexico at only about 15% of its peak production over 10 years ago?
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Re: Seneca Cliff

Unread postby Subjectivist » Thu 08 Dec 2016, 12:50:03

GHung wrote:Making the Seneca Cliff thingy all about oil is like making marriage all about sex or income. Those 'Strong Men' need the income from oil to buy all of the other things a society needs to keep things running. Witness Venezuela; insufficient oil income, things go south pretty fast. On the other hand, all of the oil income in the world won't help Venezuela (or those 'Strong Men') if all of the other highly-complex global arrangements that make oil a necessary commodity begin to crap out, which is already happening. Demand destruction is the multi-headed monster lurking in our future, being held at bay by some pretty extraordinary schemes that, by their nature, aren't sustainable.


I don't get what you mean. If world demand dissapears then those authoritarians would be usng some other means to stay in power. On the other hand if VZ were getting a lot of oil income then there clearly wouldn't have been demand destruction, you can't sell what nobody is buying.

Demand destruction gets written a lot on this website, but so far the world is consuming a lot more now than it was 20 years ago, unless you are pkaying games by using per capita instead of global demand.
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Re: Seneca Cliff

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Thu 08 Dec 2016, 17:48:00

Sub - I also have a problem with using "demand destruction" as a catch all. At $120+/bbl there were many who couldn't afford oil at that price. Their "demand" disappeared. Yet there millions that could and did buy that oil. And there were hundreds of millions who still couldn't afford oil when it recently dropped to under $30/bbl. So in that sense the world is always experiencing "demand destruction"...or never is depending on the context. At any point in time the world can afford to buy X bopd at the price of $Y/bbl. So there is a constant demand for oil.

Of course this goes full circle to what defines an "oil glut" in a world where the global oil "demand" is sucking in every bbl of the current record breaking volume. To me a "glut" is having a warehouse full of widgets you can't sell no matter how much you lower the price. IOW selling every widget you have as fast as you can ship them out is not a glutted market.

But a car lot with 3,000 GMC pickup trucks with not a single potential buyer is sight...now we're talking glut. LOL.
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Re: Seneca Cliff

Unread postby sparky » Fri 09 Dec 2016, 02:22:00

.

Well , when I stuff up , it's a doozy :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

" I'm a bit of an history buff but cannot think of any civilization having a sudden internal collapse "

I must have been tired or something
the Soviet Union of Socialist Republic collapsed with hardly a shot fired and one casualty when an overenthusiastic protester fell off a bridge .

That's the biggest , most recent and most complete example of a collapsed civilization
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Re: Seneca Cliff

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 09 Dec 2016, 09:42:35

sparky wrote:.

Well , when I stuff up , it's a doozy :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

" I'm a bit of an history buff but cannot think of any civilization having a sudden internal collapse "

I must have been tired or something
the Soviet Union of Socialist Republic collapsed with hardly a shot fired and one casualty when an overenthusiastic protester fell off a bridge .

That's the biggest , most recent and most complete example of a collapsed civilization


That is not an example of a collapsed civilization, just a change of government with a very rough period. A collapse of civilization is chaos in the streets, failure of rule of law, out of control fires because the fire fighters have all hidden away from the chaos.
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Re: Seneca Cliff

Unread postby GHung » Fri 09 Dec 2016, 11:33:42

Subjectivist wrote:
GHung wrote:Making the Seneca Cliff thingy all about oil is like making marriage all about sex or income. Those 'Strong Men' need the income from oil to buy all of the other things a society needs to keep things running. Witness Venezuela; insufficient oil income, things go south pretty fast. On the other hand, all of the oil income in the world won't help Venezuela (or those 'Strong Men') if all of the other highly-complex global arrangements that make oil a necessary commodity begin to crap out, which is already happening. Demand destruction is the multi-headed monster lurking in our future, being held at bay by some pretty extraordinary schemes that, by their nature, aren't sustainable.


I don't get what you mean. If world demand dissapears then those authoritarians would be usng some other means to stay in power. On the other hand if VZ were getting a lot of oil income then there clearly wouldn't have been demand destruction, you can't sell what nobody is buying.

Demand destruction gets written a lot on this website, but so far the world is consuming a lot more now than it was 20 years ago, unless you are pkaying games by using per capita instead of global demand.


Jeez.... After 2008, demand for oil, housing, commodities,, many things, dropped significantly. The BDI eventually reached its lowest in decades and shipping containers were piling up. Maybe binary thinking is clouding your thinking? I saw so-called "gift shops" closing all over because many people stopped buying discretionary crap.

Rock said "demand destruction" is used as a "catch all". Where?

You said; "If world demand dissappears then those authoritarians would be usng some other means to stay in power." Having what to do with falling demand of stuff? And what can they do this time to jump-start demand? More QE? More ZIRP/NIRP? Another "Cash for Clunkers"? And who said demand would disappear? My point was that there is a huge part of our economy that relies on discretionary spending, and those folks will be looking for something else to do (what?). History proves that. Meanwhile they likely won't be buying "Nordstrom Rocks" and ordering a lot of pizzas.
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Re: Seneca Cliff

Unread postby sparky » Fri 09 Dec 2016, 18:24:12

.
@ Tanada , having been in Russia twice after the "collapse" , it felt like a complete collapse
people going to work unpaid , just to be fed at the factory kitchen , pensioners begging in the street
the shops empty ( even more than before )
veterans selling their medals to passers bye for kopecks , gangs robbing and killing openly
while the unpaid police took to to go around the shops getting protection money or working as "security guards"

It was the whole vision thing of a providing society being wrecked
for the triumph of individual greed and selfishness through violence and cheat .
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Re: Seneca Cliff

Unread postby dissident » Fri 09 Dec 2016, 23:08:04

sparky wrote:.
@ Tanada , having been in Russia twice after the "collapse" , it felt like a complete collapse
people going to work unpaid , just to be fed at the factory kitchen , pensioners begging in the street
the shops empty ( even more than before )
veterans selling their medals to passers bye for kopecks , gangs robbing and killing openly
while the unpaid police took to to go around the shops getting protection money or working as "security guards"

It was the whole vision thing of a providing society being wrecked
for the triumph of individual greed and selfishness through violence and cheat .


Tanada makes it sound like a trivial transition. The whole economic structure was purged and replaced. Nowhere does that happen in any society on a routine basis. In fact, one typically has centuries of economic order/political order stability with a gradual evolution. For example the USA, Western Europe, Latin America (in spite of all the juntas it was basically following the authoritarian capitalist trajectory that was there in 1930s going all the way back to the beginning). Rebooting the economic order entails rebooting the elites and the whole structure of society. Russia underwent a full on civilizational collapse during the 1990s. By contrast Nazi Germany just got a change of government at the end of WWII.
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Re: Seneca Cliff

Unread postby Tanada » Sat 10 Dec 2016, 07:44:48

dissident wrote:
sparky wrote:.
@ Tanada , having been in Russia twice after the "collapse" , it felt like a complete collapse
people going to work unpaid , just to be fed at the factory kitchen , pensioners begging in the street
the shops empty ( even more than before )
veterans selling their medals to passers bye for kopecks , gangs robbing and killing openly
while the unpaid police took to to go around the shops getting protection money or working as "security guards"

It was the whole vision thing of a providing society being wrecked
for the triumph of individual greed and selfishness through violence and cheat .


Tanada makes it sound like a trivial transition. The whole economic structure was purged and replaced. Nowhere does that happen in any society on a routine basis. In fact, one typically has centuries of economic order/political order stability with a gradual evolution. For example the USA, Western Europe, Latin America (in spite of all the juntas it was basically following the authoritarian capitalist trajectory that was there in 1930s going all the way back to the beginning). Rebooting the economic order entails rebooting the elites and the whole structure of society. Russia underwent a full on civilizational collapse during the 1990s. By contrast Nazi Germany just got a change of government at the end of WWII.


Nothing trivial about it, but in the historical context it was not a collapse, it was a discontinuity. People living in Russia today are not living with a 19th century standard of technology or medicine, or a 19th century lifespan.

In a collapse of civilization you do not just bounce back to prior or better standards of living after the depression/disruption period.

Somalia has collapsed, the way they were living in 1980 was far more advanced than the way the majority living there eke out a living today. Somalia today is a 'failed state' Russia today is a pretty robust state with a functional government and relations between that government with both its citizens and the outside world in a meaningful way.
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Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
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Re: Seneca Cliff

Unread postby GHung » Sat 10 Dec 2016, 11:18:46

Tanada said ; "In a collapse of civilization you do not just bounce back to prior or better standards of living after the depression/disruption period.... "


Russia had neighbors that didn't collapse and commodities those neighbors needed. Easy to avoid full-on collapse when you can sell stuff. I was in the USSR in the '70s and Somalia in the early '80s, and can testify that both were showing signs of collapse; plenty of people being thrown out the back of the bus. Unlike Russia, Somalia didn't/doesn't have much that others want to pay for. Its only "advantage", for what it's worth, is location.

Anyway, "collapse" is a process, like growth and economic expansion are ongoing processes. Growth=>stagnation=>contraction=>collapse.... all part of the same mess we make. Easy to view in hind-sight. Not so much in real-time, when you're embedded in it,, until it smacks you upside the head..

Tides of change, eh?
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Re: Seneca Cliff

Unread postby Tanada » Sat 10 Dec 2016, 11:50:15

GHung wrote:
Tanada said ; "In a collapse of civilization you do not just bounce back to prior or better standards of living after the depression/disruption period.... "


Russia had neighbors that didn't collapse and commodities those neighbors needed. Easy to avoid full-on collapse when you can sell stuff. I was in the USSR in the '70s and Somalia in the early '80s, and can testify that both were showing signs of collapse; plenty of people being thrown out the back of the bus. Unlike Russia, Somalia didn't/doesn't have much that others want to pay for. Its only "advantage", for what it's worth, is location.

Anyway, "collapse" is a process, like growth and economic expansion are ongoing processes. Growth=>stagnation=>contraction=>collapse.... all part of the same mess we make. Easy to view in hind-sight. Not so much in real-time, when you're embedded in it,, until it smacks you upside the head..

Tides of change, eh?


I fully agree Collapse is a process, which is why I believe the Seneca Cliff model is unlikely to actually take place. For the cliff model to work collapse has to be very rapid and world wide so that no recovery using remaining resources is possible. The collapse of Rome depending on whom you ask took from 100-300 years because signs were showing up in the 200's AD, but they always weathered those early storms. Even after the 'collapse' when the City of Rome itself fell to the invaders in the early 400's the technology level and lifestyle of the survivors was not greatly changed from what it had been in the 300's. The problem was the culture was no longer on a path of success so things continued to degrade until we got the early 'Middle age' when Charlemange tried to build his own version of Empire in modern day France and Germany. By then the culture was too focused on safety, travel was rare and expensive, there was no reliable means of communication outside of your home village and you didn't know anyone outside worth communicating with. Individual education fell to a bare minimum, infrastructure was not maintained, people eked out a living with stoop labor agriculture or fishing boats that never strayed out of sight of the shore.

While it is true Russia still has a lot of resources to trade with its neighbors the population could see how well its neighbors were doing and it wanted that lifestyle, or some form of it, for themselves. In Somalia there are some resources worth exploiting and trading, but the population is terrorized by various warlords and their focus is first on safety for themselves, their families and their clans. Where there is no security there is no freedom to better your circumstances. In its own way Haiti is another example of the same thing, their are a few very rich folks who control everything and teeming masses of poor who they keep as poor and ignorant as possible so they can stay in control more easily.
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Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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Re: Seneca Cliff

Unread postby dissident » Sat 10 Dec 2016, 12:55:44

Did 8 million Somalians die due to their "collapse". Get real. Somalia just lost the flimsy 3rd world central government but retained its 3rd world agrarian lifestyle. So no, Somalia did not collapse in any reasonable metric of civilizational collapse. Being a 3rd world country with a strong local tribal authority structure it almost does not need a central government. Somalia cannot be compared to the collapse of the USSR. So don't try to make it sound like nothing happened during the 1990s in Russia. Basically stop projecting your propaganda fantasies on it.
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Re: Seneca Cliff

Unread postby GHung » Sat 10 Dec 2016, 13:48:09

Tanada wrote:
GHung wrote:
Tanada said ; "In a collapse of civilization you do not just bounce back to prior or better standards of living after the depression/disruption period.... "


Russia had neighbors that didn't collapse and commodities those neighbors needed. Easy to avoid full-on collapse when you can sell stuff. I was in the USSR in the '70s and Somalia in the early '80s, and can testify that both were showing signs of collapse; plenty of people being thrown out the back of the bus. Unlike Russia, Somalia didn't/doesn't have much that others want to pay for. Its only "advantage", for what it's worth, is location.

Anyway, "collapse" is a process, like growth and economic expansion are ongoing processes. Growth=>stagnation=>contraction=>collapse.... all part of the same mess we make. Easy to view in hind-sight. Not so much in real-time, when you're embedded in it,, until it smacks you upside the head..

Tides of change, eh?


I fully agree Collapse is a process, which is why I believe the Seneca Cliff model is unlikely to actually take place. For the cliff model to work collapse has to be very rapid and world wide so that no recovery using remaining resources is possible. The collapse of Rome depending on whom you ask took from 100-300 years because signs were showing up in the 200's AD, but they always weathered those early storms. Even after the 'collapse' when the City of Rome itself fell to the invaders in the early 400's the technology level and lifestyle of the survivors was not greatly changed from what it had been in the 300's. The problem was the culture was no longer on a path of success so things continued to degrade until we got the early 'Middle age' when Charlemange tried to build his own version of Empire in modern day France and Germany. By then the culture was too focused on safety, travel was rare and expensive, there was no reliable means of communication outside of your home village and you didn't know anyone outside worth communicating with. Individual education fell to a bare minimum, infrastructure was not maintained, people eked out a living with stoop labor agriculture or fishing boats that never strayed out of sight of the shore.

While it is true Russia still has a lot of resources to trade with its neighbors the population could see how well its neighbors were doing and it wanted that lifestyle, or some form of it, for themselves. In Somalia there are some resources worth exploiting and trading, but the population is terrorized by various warlords and their focus is first on safety for themselves, their families and their clans. Where there is no security there is no freedom to better your circumstances. In its own way Haiti is another example of the same thing, their are a few very rich folks who control everything and teeming masses of poor who they keep as poor and ignorant as possible so they can stay in control more easily.


While I agree to a point, I also don't discount that things happen much faster these days, are more inter-connected, and that long JIT supply chains are a major vulnerability considering rates of consumption and the cross-contagion thingy. We're in uncharted waters, especially with our reliance on information systems, which are coming under attack from many quarters. Suppose someone unleashed the ultimate IS virus that took down virtually everything,, permanently. Low-probability/high-impact? Not a Seneca cliff or TLG scenario, perhaps, but could bring it on.

Tainter makes some valid points, and never have we had the hyper-complex reliances we do today.
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Re: Seneca Cliff

Unread postby sparky » Sat 10 Dec 2016, 13:57:25

.
This is a valid discussion, conducted in a civilized way ..to better define what we are talking about ,
I think I can see the point Tanada is making .

.....A society collapse is the permanent disappearance of the central authority.... ?
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Re: Seneca Cliff

Unread postby Tanada » Sat 10 Dec 2016, 14:07:44

sparky wrote:.
This is a valid discussion, conducted in a civilized way ..to better define what we are talking about ,
I think I can see the point Tanada is making .

.....A society collapse is the permanent disappearance of the central authority.... ?


I wouldn't say permanent, but for several decades at least, possibly centuries before a successor central government manages to assert itself. For modern day Spain and Portugal the Romans pretty much dissipated in the late 400's AD and were replaced with a centralized 'barbarian' King whose descendants held weak power for about 300 years only to be swamped by the Islamic invasion in the mid 700's. The Islamic state of Grenada ran the entire peninsula for centuries as a centralized power and were eventually displaced by the Catholic Monarchies that became unified Spain in the 1490's. During that 300 year more or less period when the central power was very weak the infrastructure left behind by the Roman Empire continued to slowly decay, then when the Islamist strong central government took over in the mid 700's the infrastructure was rapidly rebuilt and in some cases improved upon over what the Romans had built many centuries earlier.
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Re: Seneca Cliff

Unread postby onlooker » Sat 10 Dec 2016, 14:45:10

Yes, this period is unlike any prior, it is without precedence. Just consider the following. We have a world civilization who is living totally dependent on unsustainable practices in the air, water, food and soil. Consider the enormous size of our world population and how day after day it is degrading the state of the planet as a whole. Consider, how many of our natural bounty is being depleted ie. water aquifers, minerals, oil, phosphorous etc. Some of these are non renewable resources on a time frame that would involve humanity. Then on top of all that, we have AGW. Perhaps we could reboot and rebuild after the effects of peak oil and other consequences including the downfall of our civilization and mass die off. However, given that now AGW seems to be at the nascent stages of runaway, it just seems to much to withstand for any higher organisms including ourselves.
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