Peak Oil News and Message Boards

I am indifferent to ice cream sandwiches so if I had one I would be happy to give it to you. Under this proviso. That you do not expect me to supply you with a never ending supply of ice cream sandwiches in the future.

Some may want to play God. I don't.

I get your indifference to human suffering.

We have words for that attitude, it lies somewhere between narcicissim and psychopathy.

Just my observation.

Newfie wrote:Some may want to play God. I don't.

I get your indifference to human suffering.

We have words for that attitude, it lies somewhere between narcicissim and psychopathy.

Just my observation.

Joseph Stalin wrote:A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.

The normal human mind has a gate function, we can identify with small groups of victims even up to a small city size group of say 20,000. Once you get beyond those numbers feeling a personal connection to the lost becomes more and more theory and less and less emotional.

The normal human mind has a gate function, we can identify with small groups of victims even up to a small city size group of say 20,000. Once you get beyond those numbers feeling a personal connection to the lost becomes more and more theory and less and less emotional.

Which may be why we are capable and even eager to talk about all these things here

Newfie wrote:Some may want to play God. I don't.

I get your indifference to human suffering.

We have words for that attitude, it lies somewhere between narcicissim and psychopathy.

Just my observation.

And I see zero difference between my psychopathy and those who routinely talk about power-down on this board. The end result is the death of billions, but you folks want to make it happen. I am content to let resource limits let that occur but you seem to think that "managing" the death of billions somehow makes you morally superior.

Hypocrisy abounds.

Agreed onlooker, it is a smallish group and one of the few places I know of to
contemplate, debate, and explore such things. It does have the risk of any of
us having our personal set of what is moral and ethical applied to someone
else's personal take and attempting to provide them with feedback oriented
towards "getting their mind right" which to me personally usually involves
attempting to tug them towards my mindset. It is why our mods have big
muscles on their keyboards from the constant "stay on topic isometric" to
the more aerobic forms of dispute management and "penalty box" assignment.

Cog wrote:

Newfie wrote:Some may want to play God. I don't.

I get your indifference to human suffering.

We have words for that attitude, it lies somewhere between narcicissim and psychopathy.

Just my observation.

And I see zero difference between my psychopathy and those who routinely talk about power-down on this board. The end result is the death of billions, but you folks want to make it happen. I am content to let resource limits let that occur but you seem to think that "managing" the death of billions somehow makes you morally superior.

Hypocrisy abounds.

Far from hypocrisy Cog. Somehow you can't follow the logic. Not my problem.

onlooker wrote:

The normal human mind has a gate function, we can identify with small groups of victims even up to a small city size group of say 20,000. Once you get beyond those numbers feeling a personal connection to the lost becomes more and more theory and less and less emotional.

Which may be why we are capable and even eager to talk about all these things here

I understand this, however one should not need to have a personal connection to know its wrong to murder someone in cold blood. Likewise we do not need a personal connection to decry the path we are on.

The simple fact that the quote comes from Stalin, a psychopath if there ever was one, should be a clue that something is wrong. He could have dinner and drinks with you, joke and sing, and order your execution before you cleared the gates to his compound. Including family members.

Newfie wrote:

onlooker wrote:

The normal human mind has a gate function, we can identify with small groups of victims even up to a small city size group of say 20,000. Once you get beyond those numbers feeling a personal connection to the lost becomes more and more theory and less and less emotional.

Which may be why we are capable and even eager to talk about all these things here

I understand this, however one should not need to have a personal connection to know its wrong to murder someone in cold blood. Likewise we do not need a personal connection to decry the path we are on.

The simple fact that the quote comes from Stalin, a psychopath if there ever was one, should be a clue that something is wrong. He could have dinner and drinks with you, joke and sing, and order your execution before you cleared the gates to his compound. Including family members.

Agreed

And those who advocate power-down and eliminating the use of fossil fuels are no less a murderer than Stalin. The result is exactly the same.

Think I'm exaggerating? Tell me how you feed 7.5 billion people without fossil fuel.

The most compassionate thing we can do about over-population is to do nothing.

Cog wrote:And those who advocate power-down and eliminating the use of fossil fuels are no less a murderer than Stalin. The result is exactly the same.

Think I'm exaggerating? Tell me how you feed 7.5 billion people without fossil fuel.

Exactly. And how do you feed 9 billion? Which is worse, to starve 7.5 or 9 billion?

Cog wrote:The most compassionate thing we can do about over-population is to do nothing.

That's not compassion. That's evading the issue.

Newfie wrote:

Cog wrote:And those who advocate power-down and eliminating the use of fossil fuels are no less a murderer than Stalin. The result is exactly the same.

Think I'm exaggerating? Tell me how you feed 7.5 billion people without fossil fuel.

Exactly. And how do you feed 9 billion? Which is worse, to starve 7.5 or 9 billion?

Honestly, with the amount of old farmland in Michigan and Ohio and neighboring states that has been allowed to revert to wood lot because the 40 acre lots just didn't pay in the modern mechanized era. In a world of 9 billion I expect those new woods to be cleared and combined to form lots as big as those out in Kansas and Nebraska.

Of course if climate flips and takes Nebraska out of production that won't be enough to feed 9 billion, but who know if or when that will happen?

Sub,
It's not just climate change that puts the population at risk. Instability of the financial system is probably a bigger issue. Folks starve because of food distribution difficulties not because food isn't available.

.
" Nature is not human hearted ,the wise is not human hearted " Lao tsu

P.S. Stalin never said the statistic thing , it's an urban legend

How fitting sparky to invoke Lao Tsu. A master of strategy based on human nature and also logic and experience. The global population,the large petroleum dependence of our present human conditon, the financial ramifications of a system based on exponential growth when the numbers go exponential on the demand side and the supply side struggles to match them, are all in the mix. My side observation is Lao Tsu is from one of our oldest large civiliazations, and a people exhibiting an amazing flourish in present times in the present idioms of success. I do not think their foundational concepts are based on the permanence of the present idiom. As an American, I am grateful to my nation and dedicated to it. I am not blind that our experience was founded on great principles augmented by unimaginably profound and even unknown natural and human resources, of course including the huge petroleum riches already present and untapped that we find ourselve someplace near the apogee of exploit versus our consumption.

But the real attraction of this site and set of people is wrangling with these questions and unknowns, and making our best attempt to be civil, including biting our tongues often when faced with pure disagreement and being found wrong in assumption or timing or whole cloth concepts quite often.

This place is a luxury, so many people are too busy in the struggles of life, too immersed in their adopted belief systems, or in some other place with some reason for not pecking at this particular forum of big questions. I bob in and out of that group myself. Having said all of that, a site that is dedicated to the notion of Hubbert's straight ahead math ( bell curve distribution) on how oil might run out in relation to demand is really a place to explore and debate and vote up ad down on how a planet of vast but limited resources deals with exponential growth of demand versus supply, in almost every facet.

I would like to thank you all very much for being here, and admit I am still vastly ignorant, and submit I am not so foolish as to think everything is unlimited and that the people who prospered under the last great idiom and exploit and have been enriched for it , know the solution to the problems going forward, with the exception of their belief, knowledge, and drive to perservere.

Well said Efarmer.

Cog wrote:The most compassionate thing we can do about over-population is to do nothing.

Resolving human overshoot by letting nature takes its course is the least moral and compassionate choice. Nature knows no morals or compassion and has no mercy.

We understand enough to know that we have moved beyond that window of pain free mitigation. The moral dilemma has us checkmated but only up until the consequences start to bite and then these questions we ponder go from theoretical to very very real.

Cog wrote:And I see zero difference between my psychopathy and those who routinely talk about power-down on this board. The end result is the death of billions, but you folks want to make it happen.

Doing nothing is also a way we make it happen. By default.

So there is no real comfortable position.

As Efarmer stated this is a unique place where we can discuss this. But that won't change the trajectory.

We will let nature take its course.

+1