[ROCKMAN]

Ghung - Which brings up an excellent point: if he had really wanted to get a clear picture of us "PO cultists" would he not have spent hundreds of hours here and at other sites to gain such knowledge first hand? Does anyone who has read his work get the impression that he did so? Or did he just read a number of anti-PO stories to develop his "unbiased" view of us?

[GHung]

Rock; Paulo said he participated in a survey. Wondering about that, but surveys aren't as telling as jumping in and getting dirty with us, the unwashed peakists, eh? If I was writing a book, that's what I would have done; opened an account and stirred up some stank; poke the beast a bit. That's when the good stuff comes out.

Then again, maybe that would have affected his supposed objectivity. Jeez, we may even have gained a convert

It would be fun to know which, if any, sites he was lurking on. Sort of strange to know you're being 'studied'. I have a step sister, a psychologist/therapist who has been 'studying' me for decades; says I don't fit into any of her textbook categories. I think she gave up in frustration. Not sure how to take that, but don't lose any sleep because I can't be accurately categorised with books about crazy people. Maybe it's a sign of sanity and sapience, or that I've gone off the deep end. Again; not losing any sleep over it.

[Paulo1]

Loki,

I don't really remember how he got my name? I thought it was from this site or TOD. For several years I was a resource/contact person for a Buisiness School at a west coast university, but that was because my brother-in-law was the prof. It could have been that or from past students. But I think he read profiles on sites and if I remember right I had a cryptic email address on TOD. I remember a few of us exchanging info on different subjects.

Yes, I am a middle aged white guy, well educated, who is quite libertarian but socialist on some viewpoints. Apocolyptic? Man, I didn't think so. Realistic? I do think so. The trajectory I see in slo-mo, (without future change or scale back), is that the US and to a lesser extent other 1st world countries keep growing in population with reduced opportunities until we all either live in a Harlan County or Phily slum. I simply cannot imagine the suburbia dream continuing. I don't hear sweet tunes of opportunity, but rather a game of musical chairs. I believe I/we also have an appreciation of historical context, that is to say our past 50 years of wealth and opportunity has been a social anomaly fueled by burning carbon at a planet poisoning rate. As for current debt levels, I simply wasn't raised that way. I grew up on Minnesota truisms: "fish, or cut bait", "there is no free lunch", and "we all have to work for a living". I suppose the author would characterize such attitudes as 'quaint'. My Dad and Mom, who spoke this philosophy, were products of The Great Depression and WW2. I am thankful for their wisdom. I imagine the author is a product of an upper-middle class 2 parent home who paid for his university education. I would be surprised if he ever worked anywhere beyond academia or Starbucks.

From Quint (Jaws):
"You have city hands, Mr. Hooper. You been countin' money all your life. "

And:
"Well it proves one thing, Mr. Hooper. It proves that you wealthy college boys don't have the education enough to admit when you're wrong. "

His Vitae:
http://www.yale-nus.edu.sg/wp-content/u ... ebsite.pdf

[Paulo1]

One more thing:

The survey was from the author as he sent me a spam email notifying me of the publication and would welcome my opinion. I replied by telling him I thought his title was 'over the top', but that I would read it.

[Revi]

It's a lot like Napoleon Chagnon's famous study of the Yanomani. He really didn't like them, but he had to be objective. He may have provoked a measles epidemic, but he got them studied before they were decimated by disease and gold mining...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/magaz ... .html?_r=0

[Ron Patterson]

I emailed him with a link to my blog. He replied:

Hi Ron,

Thanks very much for posting about the book. I didn’t read all of the comments, but it didn’t seem like many (or any) of the commenters had actually read the book. To evaluate the connection, you’d probably need to read it, or at least read certain parts of it. You might still disagree with me, of course, but you’d certainly have a much better idea of the argument and the evidence. Titles can be misleading, and book jacket descriptions are pretty minimal. If you ever do pick up a copy, you might be surprised.

Anyhow, thank you for writing, and for taking the survey.

Best,
Matthew

[Revi]

Here is a mention of this site:

“Nonfiction books either converted readers or pushed them to search the Internet for “peak oil,” which led them to a host of new Web sites, such as The Energy Bulletin, The Oil Drum, Peak Oil News and Message Boards, and Life After the Oil Crash.9 These sites might serve different functions. The first two, for example, offered updates on energy-related news from sources around the world and expert opinions. The latter two, with large memberships and freewheeling, mushrooming forums, created the sense of community”

Excerpt From: Matthew Schneider-Mayerson. “Peak Oil.” iBooks. https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/peak-o ... 5918?mt=11

[Apneaman]

Peak oil movement? What are changes they advocating? Are they doing it for the children (ya right) like every other movement on the planet (except for abortion, that's not really pro kid is it?)? Where can I sign the petition? Is there a donate button for the movement? If the movement is successful, what can we look forward to?

Like onlooker suggested, it's mostly a bunch of self important, over privileged, middle aged and older white dudes with the luxury to spend time on the internet bitching, blaming, playing doomer Nostradamus and counting barrels. The corns who spend their time fighting us/it/physics with retard logic, cheery picked graphs and ideological propaganda are just the flip side of the same privileged group. I sometimes suspect that most of the effort is a lament. Most of us were raised to believe that our lives would be one long, cradle to grave, march of progress with a easy happy retirement at the end. With the exception of a few of the old fucks around here, like Bob, Mak and Rock that ain't gonna happen. Most of us will never make it to be old fucks and the few that do may wish they had not. Big picture reading of history clearly shows that out of all the apes that ever walked this planet or ever will, I am a .01% on every metric that matters. Big Bonus: we get to know the whys and hows of our entrance and exit on the planetery stage - enjoy the rest of the show folks.

[GHung]

Apneaman said: "Most of us were raised to believe that our lives would be one long, cradle to grave, march of progress with a easy happy retirement at the end."

I would probably be the exception to that characterisation. Between an early childhood practicing duck-and-cover and watching my dad build a bomb shelter, and my folks buying this doomstead property when I was a pre-teen, I was groomed for doom while being encouraged to participate in BAU while understanding my contributions to human madness were just that. My parents were fairly humble depression-era liberal academics who understood that the Great Depression was just a dress rehearsal. Again, it's not hard to determine humanity's future on a finite planet, considering past and current collective behavior. We came from a culture where most folks gained success by not considering consequences.

As for; "...internet bitching, blaming, playing doomer Nostradamus and counting barrels"...

I'll plead guilty to the doomer Nostradamus thing, though I try not to bitch and blame so much, and counting barrels seems pointless in light of our fine collection of predicaments. This isn't an oil thing; it's a human behavior thing. The Nostradamus part isn't hard when one discards delusional, magical thinking, and the details don't matter so much. Self-important? It's mainly an online persona. More of a fly-on-the-wall, socially, in person. Not shy, but not attention-seeking either. Plenty of those around who don't need the competition. Besides, they already have a handle on things.

Not sure about the middle-age male thing, except that pretty much everything in this western world is being run, and fucked up, by middle age white males. Takes one to know one, and I suppose we're what you get when middle-age white males discard ambition. There are plenty of women doomers out there (my mother was a compassionate/nurturing doomer who loved life and people); Gail is pretty doomy along with some others. I think they just have more of a problem getting in touch with their inner sociopath, the thing that permits us, old male farts, to tell the world its basically fucked. Besides, I get the sense that most of us were trained as problem solvers. Good problem solvers can spot problems that can't be solved. It just takes a few miles and failures to acknowledge those.

[Hawkcreek]

I did notice in the authors CV, that he is currently teaching in Singapore. It looks like he has many publications to his credit, and excellent credentials (BA from Yale to start).
I hope he continues to observe our Peak Oil world, and I do intend to read the book.

[dolph9]

I'm a 34 year old physician and I can tell you that I never meet doomers. Wherever they are, I for one certainly missed the invitation.

The physicians all think supplies are inexhaustible, they deserve everything they have and patients should suck it up and pay, and that the right cocktail of drugs and procedures will keep every patient alive forever.

We are all trained to think like that, it's an echo chamber that can't be changed. Despite the fact that we are around disease and death all of the time! Talk about cognitive dissonance.

[Loki]

I'm a 34 year old physician and I can tell you that I never meet doomers. Wherever they are, I for one certainly missed the invitation.

You probably have met doomers, they just haven't talked about it.

I don't think anyone I know in real life would consider me a "doomer." I never talk about my real views about peak oil, climate change, overpopulation, etc., much less my prepping "hobby." Some folks know I'm into guns, some know I have a solar panel system, etc., but I never frame these in terms of "prepping."

As far as I can recollect, I've said the term "peak oil" to one person in real life, and only after he mentioned it. That was maybe 6 or 7 years ago and I still regret it. Mum ever since.

I've overheard co-workers talk about zombies, Doomsday Preppers, the end of the world, climate change, etc. I never join in, except to talk about pop culture nonsense (latest developments in the Walking Dead soap opera and the like). I don't see any personal advantage to having serious discussions about this kind of stuff with friends or coworkers. If I want to gab about this kind of stuff, I'll do it anonymously online.

The physicians all think supplies are inexhaustible, they deserve everything they have and patients should suck it up and pay, and that the right cocktail of drugs and procedures will keep every patient alive forever.

We are all trained to think like that, it's an echo chamber that can't be changed. Despite the fact that we are around disease and death all of the time! Talk about cognitive dissonance.

Interesting, but not terribly surprising. I could be wrong, but I see physicians as technicians trained to fix stuff. Like engineers. And like engineers, they'll rarely admit to not being able to fix something. I'd also guess that there's a culture of intellectual superiority among physicians, as among engineers, and advanced technicians in general.

That said, there are a lot of engineers on this site. Not so many physicians. The only one I can think of is Smallpoxgirl, and she's long gone, unfortunately (she was frickin' awesome).

[tom_s2]

I actually bought the book this morning, and I've read about half of it. It's pretty good. Some of it is less convincing; for example, the stuff about the peak oil idea being an attempt to reinstitute traditional gender roles, was kinda out there. However there were other more valid connections drawn in the book, such as the connections between the peak oil movement and the "back to the land" movement and survivalist/doomsday movements from the 1970s. Many of the classics around here such as "Limits to Growth", "Overshoot", and so on, were written in the 1970s.

I've always been surprised that this group never got much academic or media attention. Granted, it got some brief media attention back in the heyday of peak oil prepping around 2007 or so. Back then, there were articles in Harper's Monthly, the NY Times magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and others. Right after that, however, peak oil just dropped off the radar. It was never mentioned after that, in any conventional media outlet. The only remark I heard after that was from Paul Krugman (of NY Times op-ed fame) who opined in 2010 that peak oil was probably upon us but would definitely not cause the collapse of civilization. He devoted a few sentences to it, then moved on.

This group has never really had any kind of retrospective on what it meant. There was an entire social group consisting of thousands (or even tens of thousands) who were preparing for doomsday, and it was just ignored by everyone else. When civilization didn't abruptly collapse circa 2009, most peak oilers (it seems) just quietly dropped it and went back to their lives. Most of the big peak oil websites closed down without much commentary, and the whole thing was forgotten.

My reason for being here is that I find doomsday groups to be fascinating. What I find particularly interesting is how groups will respond when their predictions have clearly failed, especially when those predictions were made in a tone of total certainty or were believed without hesitation ("it's just a matter of basic thermodynamics", etc). To be sure, most members leave the group when the predictions fail, but some people stay. I always wondered why.

I'm glad somebody wrote a book about this. Otherwise the peak oil doom thing from 2005-2010 could have been just forgotten about, or lost to history. A lot of people are unaware of just how MANY doomsday groups there have been in the US over the years. It's interesting as history.

-Tom S

[tom_s2]

Hi Ghung,

Absolutely, and it isn't just peak oil. It's a systemic confluence of things; financial, environmental, societal... that will be heavily influenced by peak oil. Peak oil = peak everything, except for delusion and denial. Reading the comments, it seems the author may have compartmentalized peak oil as a standalone issue.

Definitely not. He describes the whole thing. He brings up declining EROI, the "Olduvai Gorge", peak gas, peak everything, die-off, overshoot, the inter-connectedness of modern civilization, and all the other ideas which are common here. It's not compartmentalized.

-Tom S

[careinke]

So what your point there tom_s2? Could it be that the earth is an infinite source of happiness, human ingenuity and our brilliance will always trump planetary limits? Is that it, Major Tom?

You are shooting the messenger.

I am also reading the book and find it fascinating. He has an easy to read writing style, and has done some extensive research. Contrary to the prevailing theme coming from those of you who have not started to read the book, it does not villainies Peakers. Rather, it is more of an analysis on where the Peaker is coming from.

I do get the feeling, reading the book, the author finds the most disturbing thing about Peakers is they do not organize like other movements. I attribute that to his liberal bias, but hey, we all have biases. .

[onlooker]

It's interesting as history.

If that is truly your opinion Tom, I think you have missed the main point as you admitted of the confluence of things. Those on this site discuss a wide range of predicaments humanity faces. We view it as predicaments because they have no easy solutions per say. Systemic collapse is a way to view it. It is a way of picturing multiple stresses from multiple sources bring down the entire interconnected system. All this is far from being some esoteric subject only worthy for its historical value. Peak oil in fact is real as is environmental collapse, financial collapse etc. It is the height of folly to perceive peak oil as having gone "away". It in fact has and will create ever more dramatic upheavals to society as will the other factors. An interconnected system at some point reaches a critical threshold whereby it is unable to function. In fact most of us here can thank peak oil for alerting us to other pressing dangers on the horizon not to mention Global warming. The reason the term doomers has been so widely adopted is because society at large cannot handle the total realistic picture of this moment in time, so just casually labels it a doomer cult or something.

[GHung]

by tom_s2 » Sat Oct 24, 2015 10:59 pm

I actually bought the book this morning, and I've read about half of it. It's pretty good. Some of it is less convincing; for example, the stuff about the peak oil idea being an attempt to reinstitute traditional gender roles, was kinda out there. However there were other more valid connections drawn in the book, such as the connections between the peak oil movement and the "back to the land" movement and survivalist/doomsday movements from the 1970s. Many of the classics around here such as "Limits to Growth", "Overshoot", and so on, were written in the 1970s.

I also don't see it as an attempt to "to reinstitute traditional gender roles". I've never sensed that it was anything more than an 'organic' artefact of the issue, and that many of us are middle-aged males, perhaps, because younger white males were reading the kinds of books you mention back in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and that some of us hoped the future offered us something more 'real' than the dehumanising, increasingly financialised, lives we were being offered, or perhaps that some of us have always simply had a sense of adventure. This sort of thing has been part of our culture since Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Shit, I travelled Western Europe and the Soviet Union at 16, came back, quit high school, left a cushy upper middle-class life, and hopped freight trains around the country. No way I was going back to a life in a cubicle and be happy.

What's more adventurous than the beginning of the end of a civilization? "Peak everything" is a damned good excuse, and a mandate, to take back some semblance of control of our lives. Sitting in traffic the rest of my life certainly wasn't the kind of adventure I was interested in. Better ways to waste a life, eh?

I've always been surprised that this group never got much academic or media attention. Granted, it got some brief media attention back in the heyday of peak oil prepping around 2007 or so. Back then, there were articles in Harper's Monthly, the NY Times magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and others. Right after that, however, peak oil just dropped off the radar. It was never mentioned after that, in any conventional media outlet. The only remark I heard after that was from Paul Krugman (of NY Times op-ed fame) who opined in 2010 that peak oil was probably upon us but would definitely not cause the collapse of civilization. He devoted a few sentences to it, then moved on.

Probably doesn't sell so well; easier to mention it in passing, then dismiss the whole thing. Most folks would rather get their doomer porn from fictional hollywood portrayals where everyone dies except the heros, or silly TV shows where stupid 'preppers' broadcast their 'secret' preps to the whole planet. Bedsides, not so sure cognitive dissonance is marketable at scale.

This group has never really had any kind of retrospective on what it meant. There was an entire social group consisting of thousands (or even tens of thousands) who were preparing for doomsday, and it was just ignored by everyone else. When civilization didn't abruptly collapse circa 2009, most peak oilers (it seems) just quietly dropped it and went back to their lives. Most of the big peak oil websites closed down without much commentary, and the whole thing was forgotten.

My reason for being here is that I find doomsday groups to be fascinating. What I find particularly interesting is how groups will respond when their predictions have clearly failed, especially when those predictions were made in a tone of total certainty or were believed without hesitation ("it's just a matter of basic thermodynamics", etc). To be sure, most members leave the group when the predictions fail, but some people stay. I always wondered why.

I'm glad somebody wrote a book about this. Otherwise the peak oil doom thing from 2005-2010 could have been just forgotten about, or lost to history. A lot of people are unaware of just how MANY doomsday groups there have been in the US over the years. It's interesting as history.

People, by-in-large, have short attention spans, and BAU provides an almost infinite variety of powerful lures. It saturates our lives. Conversely, 'The Long Emergency" will continue to play out long after any of us are around. Responding requires adopting a completely different world view, forming new and quite different habits. Not so sure many folks have a long enough view and the commitment (courage?) to put in the effort, and deal with the social repercussions and lifestyle changes to respond in a complete way to big changes that occur over decades. And many folks simply didn't (don't) have the skills or wherewithal to make drastic changes. I personally, gave up a lot of cool things. Easier to go back to the herd. The herd is calling you back.

In short, peak everything was just a fad for most, like so many things.

-G