Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Tikib wrote:Having kids with the spectre of peak oil and climate change hanging over us is wrong.

Good thing that you could have made a million bucks and be living the high, non hating life since peak oil happened a decade ago, and people have been banging on about climate change since before you were born.

As I believe human over population is our biggest problem (and have thought that from a young age, it's been my most consisten position in life) I used to think about this a lot. Here's what I figured out.

First, it takes a certain intelligence to unspderstand the problem. People without that intelligence will breed no matter what. Then the smart people don't breed. How's that helping the situation?

But then, because the ultimate purpose of life is to pass on our DNA, if you don't breed it is the equivalent of genetic suicide. I don't know of a single decent argument for suicide. None.

So yeah, over population is the big problem. Bit I can't think of a single argument why a smart young couple should not be allowed to breed.

Yes their kids may have a tough time of it. If you don't want to, well then thats your personal choice. It's OK.

Also, increasing consumption per capita, and ironically brought about by increasing intelligence.

Yup. More and more confusing.

I am another who has spent his entire life concerned about human overpopulation. There are lots of enablers of this, and cheap energy from FF's was the greatest. The last one was digital electronics and the internet. I believe that our technology will save the human race. I'm a "Save the People" guy and not ever a "Save the Planet" guy. Whatever we do, the planet is safe - it's the people in peril.

ralfy wrote:Also, increasing consumption per capita, and ironically brought about by increasing intelligence.

Is that a LATOC leftover idea, or was it formed after peak oil became a bust?

LATOC is still around? I figured it would have been taken over by tumbleweeds.

As I believe human over population is our biggest problem (and have thought that from a young age, it's been my most consisten position in life) I used to think about this a lot. Here's what I figured out.

First, it takes a certain intelligence to unspderstand the problem. People without that intelligence will breed no matter what. Then the smart people don't breed. How's that helping the situation?

But then, because the ultimate purpose of life is to pass on our DNA, if you don't breed it is the equivalent of genetic suicide. I don't know of a single decent argument for suicide. None.

So yeah, over population is the big problem. Bit I can't think of a single argument why a smart young couple should not be allowed to breed.

Yes their kids may have a tough time of it. If you don't want to, well then thats your personal choice. It's OK.

Suicide is the logical choice for some people. Because there lives have far more suffering than pleasure. In a oil depleted world with billions struggling just to eat, most of them would be better off dead.

If you can't think of a single reason for suicide Newfie you have lived an extremely blessed life.

Considering all you guys have been looking at this problem for most of your lives I can't beleive some of your opinions, without oil economic activity will drop like a stone. There will be two major occupations. Back breaking labour in the fields, or looting from other people.

Not really
Depends on your preps and location
I dont do back breaking labour in the food forest or the veg garden and that aint going to change.
Fishing, crabbing and prawning is fun.
If the economy flat lines and there are no jobs,or money, they cant expect you to pay bills.

Hey guys, hell is not whats coming, it is what we are leaving behind. Life has been an indulgent and indolent affair for most modern humans living with abundant energy.

Once constraints force a downward pressure on our population and consumption lifestyles guess what returns to humanity?

INTEGRITY.

Consider how many have been living lives without it. It's been hell for them.

Our children perhaps wont have to suffer such indolence.

Cog wrote:LATOC is still around? I figured it would have been taken over by tumbleweeds.

Matt fled the scene after revealing the true colors of peak oilers, became a publisher of astrology magazines, seems to be having a tough time kicking them out as fast as the original plan called for, but he has gotten a couple out over a few years. LATOC reconstituted, but without him (after what he revealed about them, I'm amazed they would want him back) and looks to be slowly dying already. You just can't get a decent doom conversation going without any oil doom, so you end up with a bunch of folks discussing part time jobs growing weed and hoping that Trump doesn't screw up their business model.

Tikib wrote:Suicide is the logical choice for some people. Because there lives have far more suffering than pleasure. In a oil depleted world with billions struggling just to eat, most of them would be better off dead.

That's what they said about peak oil, yep. Turns out, peak oil just meant lower crude prices, and they want to be dead because they were unfriended on Fakebook. Go figure, silly millennials.

Hawkcreek wrote:

KaiserJeep wrote:

Hawkcreek wrote:I heard a quote that addresses that.
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
I think you should not be so sure that the collapse that may come will make life not worth living for all the kids in the world.

If you are going to quote, you should give the source. Your quote was from Ronald Reagan.

Sorry, it was from Mark Twain.
Reagan was a loser.

Actually, it turns out that Twain never said that - all of his works are online, and those words do not appear in any published text of his.

The quote does appear in the opening of the film The Big Short (2015), about the financial conniption of 2008.

All of that’s really just setup though, to my biggest pet peeve about the movie The Big Short opens with an epigraph:

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. – Mark Twain

Here’s the thing: there’s no evidence Mark Twain ever said or wrote those words. The Quote Investigator tackled variations on this quote and determined that the modern version comes from an encyclopedia of humor by Josh Billings written in 1874. The first attribution to Twain comes as early as 1899, but again, there’s no evidence that Twain actually said or wrote those words. Normally, a little Twain misattribution wouldn’t bug me but the quote is literally about the dangers of thinking you know something that actually isn’t true. What delicious irony!

The full text is here: https://scatter.wordpress.com/2016/01/16/the-big-short-and-the-most-ironic-quote-misattribution-ever/

Reagan's version was: "The problem with our liberal friends is that they know so much, about so many things, that just are not so."

Here he is saying it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiGsHCpBGg4

I never saw the movie, but I remembered that Reagan said something like that. Twain never did.

Ok. We were both just totally wrong. It happens. Thanks for the tidbit.

AdamB wrote:

Tikib wrote:Suicide is the logical choice for some people. Because there lives have far more suffering than pleasure. In a oil depleted world with billions struggling just to eat, most of them would be better off dead.

That's what they said about peak oil, yep. Turns out, peak oil just meant lower crude prices, and they want to be dead because they were unfriended on Fakebook. Go figure, silly millennials.

Just the calm before the storm.

Peak oil refers to a peak in production, which in turn is caused by diminishing returns, while prices can be affected by what speculators do, what consumers can afford, etc.

Prices won't reverse diminishing returns.

An article on the 'why not just commit suicide' statement.

https://www.reddit.com/r/antinatalism/c ... is_so_bad/

Suicide is just not an option except for the sick.

My parents had me and my five younger siblings, right after fighting WW2 and Korea, and during the Cold War. I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis and my entire class laughing hysterically when the teacher assigned a theme due in a week, knowing that we would be radioactive vapor by then. I remember watching Nikita K take his shoe off, pound on the podium, and tell us that the USSR would bury us. I remember being told not to eat snow that contained radioactive Strontium 90 from H-Bomb blasts on the opposite side of the globe. I remember leisure suits, Brylcreem, and above all, the horror of Disco.

You wimps want to check out because we are running short of energy, the environment is sick, and Trump won the election. You haven't even got a good excuse for angst, let alone depression.