[Ibon]

People search for anchors, a place where there is clarity. Frustration mounts over human stupidity. We have to all start learning there is no refuge from "peak oil" or human overshoot.

There is no wisdom we will follow.

The pathway is through the chaos. This is not futility, this is more like the feeling one gets when one is approaching white water while still in the quiet waters in a canoe.

Those who are frustrated over humanities plight and frustrated over those still in resilient denial are looking for anchors of wisdom. This site provides little refuge, there is no sanity.

Go drifting into chaos, and guide your canoe wisely.

[onlooker]

Yes Ibon. The panorama before us paints the picture of a total overthrow of existing structures both physical and mental. To guide the canoe wisely signifies to me, humans banding together under ideologies that stress unity of purpose and intention. To salvage our species will require humans to realize what challenges are ahead and rise up to meet them united in common thought and action.

[Tanada]

Yes Ibon. The panorama before us paints the picture of a total overthrow of existing structures both physical and mental. To guide the canoe wisely signifies to me, humans banding together under ideologies that stress unity of purpose and intention. To salvage our species will require humans to realize what challenges are ahead and rise up to meet them united in common thought and action.

When you canoe down an unknown (to you) river through friendly territory the wise decision is to stay close to the river bank so you can come ashore rapidly if you need too. On the other hand if the river is going through hostile territory the best place to be is often the middle, as far from either shore as possible to make yourself a small target, at night, in the dark. On the gripping hand, when the river has troubled waters, like rapids and/or waterfalls you need to travel in broad daylight and portage around the worst obstacles in order to make a safe passage.

We are all paddling our way down the river of time through a murky future doing our best to navigate the unknown. Forgiving your friends and allies who mistake you for an enemy is one small step towards surviving the journey as long as possible. Anyone traveling alone in their kayak is much more vulnerable than a modest sized group traveling together for security.

Jevon's Paradox is the root of what I think of as the "Progress" disease, the idea that every change is an improvement over what came before it. Jevon's Paradox is what you get when you steadfastly ignore the law of diminishing returns.

Progress is best graphed on a Sigmoid Curve

When a new process is invented you are at the very start at the bottom. As the idea/technique/technology gets more and more widespread and a lot of creative thinkers play with it you get rapid growth through the second phase, as each investment of time and energy yields large returns on your investment. Then when the new thing becomes the mature thing you have the top of the sigmoid function, where the law of diminishing returns rapidly cuts the gains. If you keep forcing advancement past a certain point your return on investment is negative instead of positive. Where the inventor spent months or years developing the new thing before anyone else saw it their investment was very large for very little return. When their new thing is taken up by the mass of creative people it gets investment from all over and it pays back that investment many times over, until your law of diminishing returns rears itself up. At the top of the curve the returns on investment are negative, only a subsidy by the culture as a whole makes it possible to continue "progress". My favorite example of this are the super jumbo aircraft that require incredibly maintenance costs for the facilities at airports that support them, but there are many other examples. Greer likes to use the computer example, but you can also use the international banking example or many others.

Jevon said investment in efficiency improvement always leads to greater consumption. Most people see this as greater efficiency lowering consumer price increasing the consumer base and thus increasing demand. I see a second step to this. To have consumers, which are the base that the current economy is built upon, the consumers must have a means of support that they can spend on consumption. When you have a small population where everyone can find a job this is not a problem, but as the population expands you encounter diminishing returns. More labor makes labor cheap, but it also makes consumers from the labor class unable to consume as much. Add in the concept of automation and suddenly the surplus labor force is even larger than it would have been from population growth alone, making labor even less valued. For a large manufacturing company the cost of increased automation was offset by the cost of labor going down, keeping things somewhat balanced. The initial cost of automation are high, and the maintenance on those automatic processes is far from free as well. If one of your workers calls in sick replacing them is not a huge cost, but if your fancy automated machine breaks down your process grinds to a halt. A large labor force is inherently redundant, a sophisticated automated process is inherently inclined to a single point failure halting the entire process.

To compensate for the natural disadvantages of building the system where single point failures are a strong possibility governments all over the place pay enormous subsidies for automation, and absorb the social costs of creating a large surplus labor pool. We have built a welfare system where unemployed labor class are not allowed to starve, and are given supplemental income to encourage continued consumption. We offer free or reduced education costs to the masses to shift them from the labor class to the management or soft science or banking or service industry. We even supplement retirement income for those too damaged or too old to actively participate in the labor force. This is the real paradox, so long as a society is wealthy it can keep all these subsidies to both the corporations on the one hand and the displaced workers on the other going, but it becomes increasingly unstable over time. Socialize the costs and privatize the profits is a house of cards, and any real hard wind or ground tremor will collapse the whole thing.

[onlooker]

Very interesting Tanada. I encountered this concept of Jevon via discussions of a book by Joseph Tainter "The Collapse of Complex Societies" In which his thesis is about what you are saying that any complex system reaches a point of diminishing returns when the complexity begets the necessity of even more complexity and this can and will reach limits which bring about a diminishing return dynamic. This also I think parallels the 2nd law of thermodynamics or Entropy whereby the costs of maintaining anything is always subject to decay and chaotic interference. With regard to our current society, it does seem that in various ways our complex society has reached limits or the apex which you refer and now the momentum is downward as natural forces conspire to effect this diminishing return feedback. All humans can do is try to adapt and counter intuitively the manner to adapt is to accept this enforced simplicity I would think.

[Whatever]

A large labor force is inherently redundant, a sophisticated automated process is inherently inclined to a single point failure halting the entire process.

To compensate for the natural disadvantages of building the system where single point failures are a strong possibility governments all over the place pay enormous subsidies for automation, and absorb the social costs of creating a large surplus labor pool.

You make it sound like governments create large surplus labor pools as a fallback in case automation fails. That is silly. Having a large surplus labor pool is not insurance against collapse when a main system hub like the financial system fails. And a financial crash will be the natural result of declining total energy. In other words, collapse is the natural outcome of our present path. How could it be otherwise?

...any real hard wind or ground tremor will collapse the whole thing.

Yes, that is our current situation.

Progress is best graphed on a Sigmoid Curve

But what happens after the curve flattens out due to diminishing returns?

In non-linear system dynamics, they refer to chaordic structures.



These arise in nature out of the Maximum Power Principle, which adds a time element to the second law of thermodynamics. Chaordic structures form and reinforce themselves to capture energy gradients and slow down the thermodynamic heat transfer. This is what life does. It is how complexity arises in nature.

Chaordic structures are inherently unstable due to entropy. When chaordic strutures begin to experience diminishing energy returns they either jump to a higher energy state or they collapse. Our civilization is one gigantic chaordic structure and there is zero chance that we are about to jump to a higher energy state.



Collapse has already begun.

Very interesting Tanada. I encountered this concept of Jevon via discussions of a book by Joseph Tainter "The Collapse of Complex Societies" In which his thesis is about what you are saying that any complex system reaches a point of diminishing returns when the complexity begets the necessity of even more complexity and this can and will reach limits which bring about a diminishing return dynamic.

What a strange sentence construction. You just said that when a complex system reaches a point of diminishing returns, it will reach limits which bring about diminishing returns. Joseph Tainter says that when a complex system reaches diminishing returns, it leads to COLLAPSE, not more diminishing returns. It sounds like you are taking the doomerly position, but you are really soft pedaling collapse!

This site is composed mainly of outright peak oil deniers and people pretending to be doomers. This allows them to control the frame of the debate by carrying on safe, boring conversations that refuse to consider the reality that we are already in collapse. But you can't fool all of the people all of the time. SugarSeam was able to tell something was weird after only 11 posts worth of interaction with people here!



---Futilitist

[onlooker]

Whatever, I am not sure why you are parsing out my words so finely. Diminishing returns is a form of Collapse. Or is that too vague for you. Fine. Peak Oil will eventually lead to collapse of that I have NO doubt. Hope that is clear now. Also, my evaluation of Collapse seems a bit different than yours as I would NOT define what is happening now in rich countries as Collapse. I would say we are in the diminishing returns phase that leads to Collapse.

[SugarSeam]

some good input here, thanks...

but really, in the mind of the cornie, what is this attempting to mean?:

understand the simple fact that we can get more efficient in how we use oil AND we can use more at the same time. But those both don't have to happen together.

they ARE happening together, aren't they? Is the incentive not there already to use less? If the incentive is there (climate, limits, etc.), why isn't mankind using less, as he suggests is possible?

I suspect his passage makes no sense. But I fear I might be wrong.

[onlooker]

I am glad Sugar you include all the planet. Because US Oil consumption has declined https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/07/ ... nsumption/
Yet this decline has more than been compensated by the increase in the so called developing countries like China and India. You seem to be bemused by your quoted paragraph. Yet this statement is precisely relevant to Jevons Paradox. Efficiency gains have occurred but this in turn has prompted increased use in other areas ie. Countries. I suspect what you truly are struggling with is your question of why mankind in the aggregate is not using less Oil. The reason lies beyond the boundaries of simple geological and physical realities, it lies in the socio-economic-pychological basis for energy . No country is looking to contract. Quite the opposite. So Oil and its miraculous concentrated energy has ingrained in mankind this laser like focus on growth as the marker of well being. Even our economic indicators reflect this via tabulating GDP and GNP. So, humans are wed to the paradigm of growth and consuming as being an indicator of well being. The other side of the story is that China and India with their enormous populations see no alternative to growth to employ, feed and house their populace. So, in summary this merry go-round of economic activity utilizing our most potent and available energy source will continue until it cannot.

[Whatever]

So, in summary this merry go-round of economic activity utilizing our most potent and available energy source will continue until it cannot.

Okay, sorry, parsing again. "Our most potent and available energy source"? Seriously? Don't you at least believe that we are very near the all liquids peak? If not, why not? And if so, shouldn't we be expecting the collapse, that you agree is inevitable, to begin pretty soon?

And "...will continue until it cannot". It sounds like that could be a long way off. It is very vague.

But it sounds like you at least think things will fall apart pretty quickly when it finally happens. Have you read the Korowicz paper?

What do you think of the Etp model?

Whatever, I am not sure why you are parsing out my words so finely. Diminishing returns is a form of Collapse. Or is that too vague for you. Fine. Peak Oil will eventually lead to collapse of that I have NO doubt. Hope that is clear now. Also, my evaluation of Collapse seems a bit different than yours as I would NOT define what is happening now in rich countries as Collapse. I would say we are in the diminishing returns phase that leads to Collapse.

It seems you and Tainter are talking about phase-change, a thermodynamic attribute of highly energetic and complex systems. It is an idea that Whatever's mentor is quite familiar with. I am surprised that Whatever's does not understand that subtlety of your comment.

I'm pretty sure I did.

I understand the subtlety of your comment as well. Now, suddenly disagreeing with onlooker is equivalent to disagreeing with Joseph Tainter! LOL. Nice touch. I have been talking about thermodynamics and rapid phase change since 2005. I read Tainter's book in the late 1980s.

But we (among the few non-deniers at this site) do agree with Whatever's salient point: We are a wealthy country in collapse.

Um, pstarr, my salient point is that world wide rapid collapse has begun.

And you say you agree with onlooker that: "We are a wealthy country in collapse", but onlooker just said: "I would NOT define what is happening now in rich countries as Collapse". So, kinda wishy washy, yes?



---Futilitist

[AdamB]

"Resorting to? I was in Fredonia New York last week, looking for the marker for the first gas well in the US. Found it. The formation the gas came from? Shale. So we STARTED with shale, and if there is one thing I will bet a paycheck on, it is that a modern shale well is far better than that one."

And why the hell would someone go poking around New York looking for the first gas well? Some kind of pilgrimage?

History matters, because comparing it to the present allows a quantification of volumes available as technology, price, regulations and legislation change.

There are 4 wells of interest to those of us for whom this quantification is important. The Rathbone's well, the Hart well, Drake's well, and the "American" well.

So last week I went a'travelin, what with fuel prices being low, collapse not bothering backroads, hotels, food availability, it seemed like a good time.

[AdamB]

As for the specifics here, those who deny the peak oil dynamic are delusional.

Honesty now. No one denies peak oil, not Yergin, Lynch, the EIA, or anyone who understands the premise as devised by Hubbert, related to finite systems and production rates of a given commodity in those systems.

What people deny are hysterical consequences, from those who could at LEAST take a resource economics class before playing in the fantasy doom league on the peak oil team.

LEST WE FORGET..this is the nonsense passed around the LAST time peak oil was just out there a'waitin, to kick off a decent oilpoclypse. The guy who had this dead albatross around his neck became an astrologist, because peak oil groupies and their religious fervor gave him the creeps.

[AdamB]

My gripe with the supposed Peak Oil believers is that their analysis of the situation is so superficial that it is entirely worthless.

Mr Lion! Welcome back to our reality!!!!

But what really gets me frustrated is the wrong notion that Peak Oil is fundamentally a transportation problem.

Goodness, why would ANYONE think that!

The academic system is a propaganda system that convinces people that their entire income is NOT dependent on a never ending input flow of oil.

Well, you have to admit that when THIS is what passes for an academic system in some places, there is a reason some might be clueless about...well...anything except knowing where the munchies are!

[AdamB]

It seems folks would rather discuss the remote possibility of runaway global climate change then the certainty of ongoing peak-oil collapse.

Baloney. People aren't discussing ongoing peak-oil collapse because they all are out enjoying what peak oil has become...supply glut and cheaper fuel.

[Whatever]

My gripe with the supposed Peak Oil believers is that their analysis of the situation is so superficial that it is entirely worthless.

Mr Lion! Welcome back to our reality!!!!

Mr Obvious Troll! He said SUPPOSED Peak Oil believers. 'SUPPOSED' as in 'FAKE', i.e. 'pretending to be peak oil believers'. Learn to read better to understand more. This thread was just starting to get interesting, and you show up to disrupt it. Correlation = causation?



---Futilitist

[SugarSeam]

I am glad Sugar you include all the planet. Because US Oil consumption has declined https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/07/ ... nsumption/

I understand this.

Yet this decline has more than been compensated by the increase in the so called developing countries like China and India.

I understand this.

You seem to be bemused by your quoted paragraph. Yet this statement is precisely relevant to Jevons Paradox. Efficiency gains have occurred but this in turn has prompted increased use in other areas ie. Countries. I suspect what you truly are struggling with is your question of why mankind in the aggregate is not using less Oil.

No. What I am struggling with is how free market cultists think. How they can attempt to say something like that quoted passage as if it is at all grounded in reality. "Yes, we have efficiency gains. Yes we do use more each year. But that doesn't mean we don't HAVE to use more to maintain BAU." ... What? Considering "lower" has never actually been the case for global consumption of hydrocarbon liquids, isn't this an unfalsifiable claim to insist it's possible?

The reason lies beyond the boundaries of simple geological and physical realities, it lies in the socio-economic-pychological basis for energy . No country is looking to contract. Quite the opposite. So Oil and its miraculous concentrated energy has ingrained in mankind this laser like focus on growth as the marker of well being. Even our economic indicators reflect this via tabulating GDP and GNP. So, humans are wed to the paradigm of growth and consuming as being an indicator of well being. The other side of the story is that China and India with their enormous populations see no alternative to growth to employ, feed and house their populace. So, in summary this merry go-round of economic activity utilizing our most potent and available energy source will continue until it cannot.

I understand this. I guess what you're saying is that the kind of person I'm debating with on that site is delusional, and addicted to hopium.

[AdamB]

I understand this. I guess what you're saying is that the kind of person I'm debating with on that site is delusional, and addicted to hopium.

Not quite. The person you are debating with on that site has a firm grasp on reality, and repeating peak oil dogma circa 2005 doesn't mark him...but you.

[SugarSeam]

I understand this. I guess what you're saying is that the kind of person I'm debating with on that site is delusional, and addicted to hopium.

Not quite. The person you are debating with on that site has a firm grasp on reality, and repeating peak oil dogma circa 2005 doesn't mark him...but you.

Cool. Please explain how using less oil will be possible while also maintaining BAU for a linked global economy.

[onlooker]

Precisely, Sugar and your seeing the extent of delusion even with these last few replies. You seem to be well informed. Much info exists here about peak oil and consequent economic fallout. As for the deniers well this is a free speech zone and they can say what they want. Just accustom yourself to speak past them, the way they are accustomed to speak past us. Cheers