[Cog]

This would presuppose that everyone in the world is going to wake up tomorrow and declare this is collapse day. Not go to work, just lay there and die. Not going to happen. The idea is ridiculous. Governments change, tyrants rise and falls, empires weaken and fall apart. The people remain pretty much as they always have. Alive and trying to stay that way.

So no, I don't see a global collapse in the cards. If you are trying to define it as we are all going to die sort of thing. Which all too often is where doomers try to take you.

[SeaGypsy]

I mostly agree with all you are saying there Cog, but I read you as quite seasoned with regards to these matters, a different angle to the knee jerk polarity you are here defending, for giggles I would guess. I think where we agree most is peeps jumping up & down screaming are mostly hurting their own voicebox & head while repulsing the bulk of humanity with noise & the stench of hypocrisy. Cool heads, if any, will prevail.

[Cog]

Actually what I am defending is that copious abundance was right about the recovery from the 2007-2009 recession and he was right about peak oil. A rather substantial achievement, in my book, on a board full of fast crash doomers.

Right now I'm watching a potential battle brewing between two doomers, dolanbaker and Cid Yama. Apparently the artic sea ice data that dolanbaker submitted isn't doomie enough for Cid . You have to admit that is something to giggle about. This is what I am talking about when I'm referring to people getting emotionally invested in protecting their doom turf. They have invested so much time and energy into it, they get angry when the facts go against them. I find that rather funny.

[SeaGypsy]

True. I recall when I began posting in early 2009 being influenced by fast crashers but quickly learned here that some of the most knowledgeable people in the world have their doubts, the more astute more measured posters when pressed tended & still do, to be 'slow crashers' & not necessarily bleak about TEOTWAWKI.

Where I get lost with the cornies is the implication that more of the same means more of the same ad infinitum- clearly an adolescent absurdity.
I agree on the entertainment value of the extremes

[ennui2]

Wonder what happened to all those guys over there who invested so much time into all of this only to be proven wrong a short time later. Maybe they became cornies or just sulked in their basements.

We know what became of Gail Tverberg. She just set up shop with her own blog and is now dishing out doom-is-nigh-du-jour with an ever-evolving narrative to fit the current situation with the same sort of scientific-looking graphs and charts and logical leaps that fooled a lot of us 10 years ago.

[ennui2]

Not exactly. Oil is still finite. There is just a lot of it still out there. But predictions about impending doom are always wrong. This also applies to the flavor of the day, global warming. Doomers get emotionally attached to the issue of impending doom and they will defend that idea even when the data doesn't support it. I dropped back and reevaluated my thinking about doom and concluded that I was wrong about a great number of things.

The data supports both AGW and peak-oil doom, just in a longer time-scale.

[ralfy]

Its a little late to be changing definitions ralfy.

There were no changes. Hubbert predicted that conventional production would peak after 1995 + 10 years, and the IEA confirms that.

In this case, we're looking at the effects of peak oil, which means among other things, looking at production in light of population.

[ralfy]

Its a little late to be changing definitions ralfy.

So if I understand correctly, you transformed from being a believer in finite resources on a finite planet, to a believer in infinite resources for all. I find that curious. Please do tell.

Not exactly. Oil is still finite. There is just a lot of it still out there. But predictions about impending doom are always wrong. This also applies to the flavor of the day, global warming. Doomers get emotionally attached to the issue of impending doom and they will defend that idea even when the data doesn't support it. I dropped back and reevaluated my thinking about doom and concluded that I was wrong about a great number of things.

I still read the "doom is imminent" threads to see if there is anything worthwhile to consider, but I'm not emotionally invested in them anymore like many people here are.

Peak oil does not refer to oil that is "still out there."

Hubbert predicted a peak in U.S. conventional production by the late '60s to early '70s, and that happened. The same goes for conventional production after 1995 + 10 years.

Perhaps you are referring to oil prices, but weren't there problems across both sides? On one, prices would never exceed $50 or so for many decades, and on the other prices would exceed $200 in a few years. The first didn't happen because of peak oil, and the second didn't happen because the economy crashed before it did.

Given that, the point isn't "emotional investment" but the realization that we face not only peak oil but multiple crises.

Finally, the flavor of the day is not the same as global warming.

[ralfy]

This would presuppose that everyone in the world is going to wake up tomorrow and declare this is collapse day. Not go to work, just lay there and die. Not going to happen. The idea is ridiculous. Governments change, tyrants rise and falls, empires weaken and fall apart. The people remain pretty much as they always have. Alive and trying to stay that way.

So no, I don't see a global collapse in the cards. If you are trying to define it as we are all going to die sort of thing. Which all too often is where doomers try to take you.

Doom does not refer to someone's reaction to what is inevitable but the point that collapse is inevitable.

It's not based on a declaration but on multiple crises amplifying each other. That is not seen in your post, which does not refer to increasing production costs, environmental damage, increasing population, etc.

[ralfy]

Actually what I am defending is that copious abundance was right about the recovery from the 2007-2009 recession and he was right about peak oil. A rather substantial achievement, in my book, on a board full of fast crash doomers.

Right now I'm watching a potential battle brewing between two doomers, dolanbaker and Cid Yama. Apparently the artic sea ice data that dolanbaker submitted isn't doomie enough for Cid . You have to admit that is something to giggle about. This is what I am talking about when I'm referring to people getting emotionally invested in protecting their doom turf. They have invested so much time and energy into it, they get angry when the facts go against them. I find that rather funny.

Didn't various economies crash during the same period, with conflict taking place for several of them?

Also, if you are shifting your argument from one against doomers to one against fast crash doomers, then you have to realize that they are not necessarily the same.

Finally, the problem with melting sea ice is not the rate of such but potential effects, i.e., feedbacks that have not been studied readily.

[onlooker]

I would go further on to say that doom or serious problems ahead is the logical and fact based product of much information gleaned from many sources about many interacting trends which point to a collapse scenario. So Ralfy is right, the reaction to this can take many forms but the conclusion of eventual collapse is sound based on the available information interpreted objectively.

[ralfy]

True. I recall when I began posting in early 2009 being influenced by fast crashers but quickly learned here that some of the most knowledgeable people in the world have their doubts, the more astute more measured posters when pressed tended & still do, to be 'slow crashers' & not necessarily bleak about TEOTWAWKI.

Where I get lost with the cornies is the implication that more of the same means more of the same ad infinitum- clearly an adolescent absurdity.
I agree on the entertainment value of the extremes

Fallout from the 2008 crash and oil price increases were averted only because of incredible amounts of credit used to prop up financiers and debt passed on to the public, but even then fast crashes still took place for several economies and what amounts to a slow crash still lingers for most of the global population.

Can more credit creation take place? Can more oil and other material resources be extracted to reverse these fast crashes, reverse that global slow crash, reverse environmental damage and the effects of global warming, and ensure a growing global middle class?

[GregT]

Actually what I am defending is that copious abundance was right about the recovery from the 2007-2009 recession

If the economy has already recovered from the 2007-2009 recession, they wouldn't still be talking about recovery today. Now would they?

There has been no recovery. If anything, bubbles have been blown even larger. The one positive, at the moment, is the pullback in the price of oil from 600% of pre-global financial crisis prices, to 200% of pre-global financial crisis prices. You know, the crisis brought on from the peak in conventional oil production in or around 2005. Just like Hubbert predicted.

Unconventional oil is too expensive to allow the continued economic growth necessary to lubricate our ponzi schemed financial systems. 8 trillion dollars in debt has not helped, and ZIRP has not helped either. Th entire system has been papered over with IOUs.

Sorry, not only are we living on borrowed money, we are living on the stolen future production of not only ourselves, but all future generations. Add to that climate disruptions, that are expected to grow more intense for at least the next several decades, and we are facing a storm of epic proportions.

[Pops]

Plan for the worst; hope for the best is a difficult lifestyle. Mainly because it could be the bumper sticker slogan of cognitive dissonance. "Let us eat and drink today, tomorrow we die" is a hard prescription for long term consumption. I said way back that a "No Regrets" policy is the moderate path. The example would be rotate a years worth of stuff through a large pantry rather than buy a years worth of ntro packed wheat berries but continue to dine nightly at Taco Bell.

Normalcy and Doom are a subconscious mindset, they exist outside of logic or evidence. I think "Noah syndrome" is a good description for Doomers, not the hoarding aspect necessarily but more because of the way they look at clouds. The Noah POV is just different from that of people with the more typical normalcy bias. From the standpoint of situational awareness, yes, Doomers are more alert: to doom. Typical folks are definitely less on the lookout for the Dots of Destruction.

I don't want to say doomers are more contemplative overall, but I think it is safe to say they do contemplate stuff others don't... like what happens "behind" the light switch for example, and especially what if at some point IT doesn't happen?

True Cornies never consider the light switch, let alone what would happen if IT didn't work. Not saying that's good or bad, they just don't.

It dawns on me how funny it is OF tries to set himself up as a corny. By the definition above he's obviously a doomer. He contemplates the light switch just as much, if not more, than any doomer who ever posted here.
He just whistles a different tune past the graveyard:
"Look! The lights came on again!"


I've always thought the worst situation is to be a Noah at heart but afraid or embarrassed or otherwise prevented from building a boat. A doomer trapped in a corny lifestyle. I think a lot of people who have posted here over the years have found themselves there.

This thread is chock full of situational justification...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hNIX7V21pU

[Outcast_Searcher]

Wonder what happened to all those guys over there who invested so much time into all of this only to be proven wrong a short time later. Maybe they became cornies or just sulked in their basements.

We know what became of Gail Tverberg. She just set up shop with her own blog and is now dishing out doom-is-nigh-du-jour with an ever-evolving narrative to fit the current situation with the same sort of scientific-looking graphs and charts and logical leaps that fooled a lot of us 10 years ago.

It's amazing to me how successful such people can be at peddling their POV decade after decade. There are THOUSANDS of financial newsletters (now mostly blogs) where self-described "financial experts" peddle their advice, decade after decade. Apparently they're smart enough to tell everyone else what will transpire financially, but not to become financially independent (much less very wealthy) following their own advice. I guess marketing is a powerful thing.

[kublikhan]

It's amazing to me how successful such people can be at peddling their POV decade after decade. There are THOUSANDS of financial newsletters (now mostly blogs) where self-described "financial experts" peddle their advice, decade after decade. Apparently they're smart enough to tell everyone else what will transpire financially, but not to become financially independent (much less very wealthy) following their own advice. I guess marketing is a powerful thing.

Sound like that old adage: Those who can't, teach.

[Ibon]

Would Copious Abundance venture to share with us why he feels this disdain toward doomers?

I'll give you a hint: It has something to do with being wrong for decade after decade, and even century after century (see: Erlich 1968 and Maulthus 1798). And refusing to learn anything from those experiences.

The trend is your friend. We have proven Malthus wrong for over 200 years. No matter your internal narrative, doomer or cornucopian, this is just fact. This will remain the case up and until the day it no longer is. Now how is that for profound?

[Strummer]

There's nothing fundamentally wrong about Malthus. The population still depends fully on agricultural production and that production still depends on the availability of fertile topsoil, constant input of energy and other resources (nitrates, phosphorus, etc...). In fact today it is much more dependent on those inputs than it was at any time in the past. The fact that we found some more temporarily available sources of those inputs than were known in Malthus' times does not change or invalidate his basic premise in any way.

[Ibon]

There's nothing fundamentally wrong about Malthus. The population still depends fully on agricultural production and that production still depends on the availability of fertile topsoil, constant input of energy and other resources (nitrates, phosphorus, etc...). In fact today it is much more dependent on those inputs than it was at any time in the past. The fact that we found some more temporarily available sources of those inputs than were known in Malthus' times does not change or invalidate his basic premise in any way.

No it doesn't but his specific prediction during his day that 18th century human population was critically over populated and at the tipping point was not true. For 200 years we are drawing down non renewable resource sinks. That is true. And we have avoided time and time again consequences.

Through sanitation, germ theory, green revolution in agriculture, digital technology, fossil fuels and last but not least, replacing natural ecosystems with human landscapes, all of this has allowed us to continue unabated since the time of Malthus to grow to 7.3 billion. To assume that this will all come to an end exactly during your or my lifetime is a potential fallacy of the doomer mind set.

This must be soberly acknowledged when attempting any kind of prediction going forward.

Will there be an end one day to this 200 year long linear exponential growth? Yes. Will it be through the catalyst of the consequences of human overshoot? Yes

Would I like to see the human foot print smaller on the planet? Yes

Would I embrace and welcome consequences that would return us to a sustainable population within carrying capacity? Yes

Copious Abundance states that carrying capacity is not definable and not exact and is influenced by too many factors. Like the ones I mentioned above; germ theory etc. While true there is a definition that serves me quite well. Homo sapiens can have whatever population it can afford to maintain as long as we have thriving and sustainable populations of natural ecosystems and bio regions, viable populations of
species with stable populations, allowing water sheds to keep viable populations of native wetlands, marine fisheries that allow for thriving populations of top predators like tuna. Etc etc. etc.
Maintaining resource sinks at renewable and sustainable levels like fresh water aquifers, top soil, etc.
Carbon emissions at a rate that it can be sequestered at a stable rate.

Anyone who wants to argue that carrying capacity can ignore any of those above mentioned examples is free to do so. And thus expose your hubris..... which is an invitation of sorts