[AdamB]

WHo would you say he is most like Pstarr? Not a world leader, I mean like analyst wise. I see him askind of the anti-CHris Skrebowski.

Why do you feel the need to promote an anti-Chris Skrebowski?

Because anti-Chris, anti-Matt, anti-Savinar, anti-Savinar, anti-Hirsch folks are did better at knowing what was going to happen than the brand names of peak oil?

[AdamB]

The good thing about the ETP doomers is they are predicting doom right away, instead of the usual ten years down the road doom. This gives us ample opportunity to point out their flawed predictions within a natural life span.

Oh, it will happen far sooner than that, as you've noted. The terribly amusing part of this is they can't even see it, but then, before bell shaped curves were discredited, you couldn't get a peaker to admit that they obviously didn't work either. Even more amusing? You can't get some to admit it NOW, after it has become obvious to all but the blind. And deaf. And lobotomized.

[AdamB]

Are you kidding Adam? I don't recollect Savinar or the rest granted prime New York Times real estate.

Get yourself some experience in energy economics and you too can make it onto the New York Times. Savinar got quoted in Congress by Roscoe, does that count? And he had a website and everything!

It's your soapbox and cheaters that gets the attention. The smart ones are always ignored.

The smart ones? Ignored? Isn't that the most reasonable response to anyone who pitches terminal decline...that isn't?

[AdamB]

Are you kidding Adam? I don't recollect Savinar or the rest granted prime New York Times real estate.

Get yourself some experience in energy economics and you too can make it onto the New York Times. Savinar got quoted in Congress by Roscoe, does that count? And he had a website and everything!

Roscoe spoke to an empty chamber, the Republican Chamber of Commerce types were off to oil-industry luncheons. Were you one of those crap analysts they listened to? Idiots.

Lately I've been doing presentations for state legislators and involved in doing hour long courses for professional certification credits for oil and gas CPAs. And those industry folks you call idiots are the ones who wrecked the entire "US in terminal decline" scheme dreamed up by Hubbert. I wouldn't be so hard on people who knew they could do it, and did, as opposed to beat cops, violin players and unemployed ambulance chasers that didn't.

It's your soapbox and cheaters that gets the attention. The smart ones are always ignored.

The smart ones? Ignored? Isn't that the most reasonable response to anyone who pitches terminal decline...that isn't?

Yeah. Terminal decline on a lonely planet. Fool.

Hardly. You see, I know better than to flash V for Victory signs over the carcasses of deceased sea mammals, as opposed to the unthinking and uncaring who can only gloat in the destruction they cause. Puts me, even as a fool, one step up the ethical ladder from those types.

[spike]

I happened to review this thread (okay parts of it) and notice there's a lot more personal attacks than rational discussion. What's amazing are the way some of the posters are absolutely certain about what's going to happen, or their interpretation of what's happening. There are any number of excuses and rationalizations for why oil production's peak doesn't seem to have occurred, despite the many who insisted it was 'not a theory' and 'unavoidable' 'scientific' and so forth. There is clearly a lot of oil likely to come on line from OPEC countries in the next few years, as well as other areas like presalt, shale, etc. and yet few 'peak oil advocates' as I call them acknowledge this.
Perhaps I should be honored to have my own Thread, but the level of discourse dilutes that a bit.
Mike

[ROCKMAN]

Spike - Unfortunately I have to agree. Fortunately after more then 40 years as a petroleum geologist having my analysis trashed from time to time I've become immune to rejection. LOL.

What I actually find most disturbing is the personal attacks on OPINIONS. An opinion can not be correct or incorrect...one either agrees with it of not. With respect to your specific point about future oil discoveries global PO obviously can only be PROVEN many years (or more likely decades) after it occurs. The US almost establishing a new PO more the 3 decades after reaching it PROVES that. It also leaves the possibility of an actual reset in US PO in the future.

Thus I never could understand why such animosity develops over varying OPINIONS about a GPO date. Especially since that actual date, whenever it occurs, is of little importance to our lives. Consider the extremes related to oil production we've witnessed in just the last 30 years: economic, political, military, etc. And while we may have just reached GPO (or not) it is a FACT it wasn't reached in 1990. And yet look at the extremes that developed since then: oil less the $20/bbl and over $145/bbl, high drilling activity and drilling slumps, war waged in the Middle East oil fields, sanctions on oil exporting countries, political power shifts based at least in part on energy policies, etc.

And yet some think there will be an oil "Armageddon" when that all powerful GPO date is reached. Even predicting high oil prices and shortages on that date may be proven very incorrect decades from now when we see GPO was reached in 2016/17. The disconnect between the oil dynamics and the GPO date makes such bitter debates all the more pointless IMHO. And distracts from peeling away the complex layers of the peak oil dynamic. A dynamic that has been proven to have no correlation to maximum global oil production volumes.

Just consider the severe conditions of that dynamic we once experienced: oil export embargo's, long lines at gas stations, tens of $BILLIONS committed to building a strategic oil reserve in the US, record high oil prices that increased more then 300%, global recession due at least in part to high oil prices, govt mandated price controls and import quotas, a drilling rig count more the 2X greater then what was recently experienced, booming stock valuations of public oil companies, huge political strife over energy issues, etc, etc, etc. And all that happening more the 3 decades ago when the global oil production rate was almost 1/3 less then it is in 2017. The year that global oil production MIGHT be reaching in maximum level...or not.

But whether we've reached GPO or not this year it will be of little consequence to what's happening in the world today. The complexity of the dynamic greatly overwhelme some date on a calendar.

Of course, that's just the Rockman's opinion. LOL.

[yportne]

I first encountered mclynch on the USENET about 20 years ago. He was debating with Jay Hanson and others. Many of those posts are still archived. Although differences of opinion were expressed, Lynch was invariably polite. Jay still lives in Hawaii but seems to have abandoned the internet.

[asg70]

(Coming out of lurker mode here)

And yet some think there will be an oil "Armageddon"...
...whether we've reached GPO or not this year it will be of little consequence to what's happening in the world today. The complexity of the dynamic greatly overwhelm some date on a calendar.

You've stuck the "-dynamic" suffix on peak oil, made the cause and effect more diffuse and harder to define, but you're still pushing the same narrative of "oil depletion" => "negative events" as hardcore peakoilers do. So I don't understand why you feel so superior. Yes, it's less apocalyptic, but it's still basically the same attempt to simplify the cause of bad things happening by blaming it on a PO boogieman. Sounds very much like a religion in delivering easy explanations for complex systems.

Debates that devolve into ad-homming dissenters and preaching to the converted reflect a last-stop reversion to dogma, similar to what you see in the dark corners of the internet where Holocaust deniers hang out.

I mean, some of the attempts at logic I'm seeing applied here to fluff-up the relevance of peak-oil are really no more compelling than Kirk Cameron proving creationism with bananas. Only the gullible and heavily-biased are moved by such pseudo-science.

The irony here is that the peak-oil movement 10+ years ago used to frame itself on The Matrix's red-pill/blue-pill metaphor. A big emphasis was placed on studying the true nature of psychological denial of supposed "cornucopians". Essays about magical thinking, for instance. But these days I see very little attempt on the part of peakers to hold their own convictions to the same degree of scrutiny as the march of history continues to contradict their predictions. (For the record, I see a great amount of trouble brewing, but most of it revolving around ecological problems rather than the threat of near-term fossil fuel shortages.)

Say what you like about Michael Lynch but at least he's trying to apply scientific-method to the issue rather than starting with a conclusion and clinging to "alternate-facts".

I wonder sometimes how Hubbert himself would handle the challenges to his bell-curve if he were alive to weigh in. I would expect him, as a scientist, to be much more willing to admit he was wrong then peak-oil die-hards. I mean, even Einstein had blind-spots in his models (quantum theory).

The debates here have reached a sort of intellectual closed-loop. In the ETP thread if you back up and read forwards you'll see the same talking points repeated again and again, almost verbatim. It's just going in endless circles. I don't know why those people feel it's worth their while to keep that wheel turning since it's not moving anywhere.

It just seems the most active posters here are really not interested in intellectual inquiry as much as they are at the entertainment-value of poster-on-poster drama.

There's still a more level-headed discussion worth having here, but it would be difficult to do so with such strident voices dominating things.

I hesitated to post because I suspect by doing so I'll just be dragged into the game of hurling petty-insults that masquerades as a debate, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who has stumbled into this forum and feels the way I do.

[AdamB]

I happened to review this thread (okay parts of it) and notice there's a lot more personal attacks than rational discussion.

This is the internet. And peakoil.com. The funny thing is that some who posted, daring to question the oilpoclypse, have this "permanently banned" tag near their names. So personal attacks? Yup, dare to question dogma, and you can get into trouble.

What's amazing are the way some of the posters are absolutely certain about what's going to happen, or their interpretation of what's happening.

That isn't amazing. It's called the Dunning-Kruger effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E ... ger_effect

Perhaps I should be honored to have my own Thread, but the level of discourse dilutes that a bit.
Mike

Stick around and participate. A time sink, I know, but whereas once economists were openly despised, at least folks are more quiet now, having seen those ideas have more value in this debate than randomly fitting bell shaped curves to only decline/all the time equations to time series oil production data.

[spike]

My video on youtube, Petroleum Follies III, talks about resources. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMKJDu ... XJowHEAKfw

[AdamB]

My video on youtube, Petroleum Follies III, talks about resources. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMKJDu ... XJowHEAKfw

Keep up the good work Mike. Most people won't believe what you say because normal folks say it, but maybe an expert hammering away on obvious facts will get through. Loved your Jimmy Carter example, and his running out games. The Malaise speech in 1977 is the one I remember, running out by the end of the 80's! Lions and tigers and bears!

[Cog]

Stock market is at all time highs and oil just dropped in price making fuel costs more affordable for the consumer. What is not to like here?

[onlooker]

hmm, I am smelling blood in the water as industry shills and supporters get more strident in their denial

[Cog]

I think what you are smelling is the rotten corpse of another flawed peak oil model.

[AdamB]

hmm, I am smelling blood in the water as industry shills and supporters get more strident in their denial

You mean when we say that peak oil didn't happen back when it was claimed (2000,2005,2006,2008) that we were wrong? Hard to be called a denier, unless you think we are deniers because we denied peak oil was a load sold to the gullible back when it was supposed to have happened...as compared to the reality that is happening even as I type.

iea-2016-new-annual-oil-supply-record-t73226.html