[MattSavinar]

Matt, Your absolute refusal to even consider solutions and your fringe extremism make you an easy target. You set yourself up for it. All of the conspiracy theories that you embrace don't really help your case. It just kills your ability to be taken seriously. Your tendency to be so melodramatic just makes you look even more silly.

Back when I was in my teens and early twenties, I took myself overly serious also. It is something we all go through. You will get over it.

When Matt Simmons says "The only solution is to pray" would you say he is being melodramatic?

When Matt Simmons or Colin Cambpell do interviews with "conspiracy theorist" Michael Ruppert are they hurting the credibility of the Peak Oil community?

Matt

Matt, as usual, in your fringe extremism, you are missing the point. Even among people who believe peak oil is a serious issue that we are facing in the next 5 to 10 years, you are among the more pessimmistic. I would place you in the "dieoff/total collapse" quadrant of the peak oil crowd.

You operate under the assumption that nothing will help, we are all screwed. You spend your day preaching the end of the world while you sell books and your newsletter subscription.

Obviously you have a financial incentive to portray the worst possible scenario and to shoot down any solutions or alternatives. If there were solutions, that might hurt books sales and the newsletter renewals. Oops. There goes the career.

You champion the concept of reorging the monetary system, civil war, revolt, releasing all drug dealers from prison, the military taking out domestic enemies (Bush?), etc.

Do you see where I am going with this? You are bordline psycho. I don't take you seriously at all. I think you are a freak.

Regarding prisons: if we would release everybody who is incarcerated for drug transactions (possession or sales) involving less than $40, we would free up a tremendous amount of resources with which we could upscale the modest alternatives available to us.

There are approxamately 1 million people incarcerated for these type of crimes. It costs $25,000 per year to incarcerate each one.

For a rather oversimplified example of what we could do with that money:
Say a home solar panel set up costs $25,000 - at the end of 10 years, we could have 10 million of those babies set up.

The government could give grants to people to get them. Of course, Jay, with your big time paying, ultra secure job as a database programmer, you wouldn't need such a grant, but plenty of us who don't "have reasons to be arrogant" like yourself could sure use one.

As far as being pessimistic, 2 points:

1. Being pessimistic does not equate to being wrong. As an example, only the most pessimistic person would have predicted in 1933 that Hitler would go on to do what he did. But those "pessimists" sure turned out to be right. Had people listened to them, many, many lives would have been saved.

2. Where do you get the idea I am pessimistic, anyway? For all we know, a post-industrial life might be fantastic. It might turn out that we (at least those of us who survive) will end up thrilled the oil crash happened.

Of course, Jay, what with your super duper job as a databse programmer, you have done pretty well in this world. I mean, didn't you mention you used to own an SUV?

While you may be happy with the current civilization, there are milions upon millions, if not billions, of peole who aren't doing as well as yourself. Of course, those of us not happy with this civilization are just leftist losers who couldn't get real jobs, right?

My point is this: believing that industrial civilization is in its last days is no more "pessimistic" than believing a 98 year old man is in his last days.

Of course, I'm sure capitalism will create some type of nanotechnology that will allow the old man to live on forever.

Jay, if you figure out what company is going to do that - solve death itself - and invest money in that start-up, you won't have to worry about anything and I will totally have to kiss your a-s someday and you can say, "See, Matt you were just a fringe extremist out to sell books. That'll teach you to discount the holy trinity of Capitalism, Algae, Nanotechnology"

I might be 75 years old by then, but I'm sure you will still insist on referring to my youthful age and "lack of credibility."

If you would just do a search for "Matt Savinar and Convicted for Soliciting Sex From a Transexual Undercover Cop at the 2000 Democratic Convention, Caught on Film in the Act", you wouldn't have to keep referring to such silly things.

Matt

[MattSavinar]

As far as preaching "nothing will help", you clearly did not read the most recent issue of the newsletter - tons of stuff about what we (as individuals) can do.

There's an article on survival fishing that will be up as soon as the author gets it to me, as well.

Like I said - candles and bikes - the technology of the future. So things can be done to improve the transition to post-industrial life, but not to save industrial life.

Of course, if my only job skill involved industrialized technology - such as being a database programmer - I would be very emotionally desperate for technology to save the current paradigm.

Matt

[MattSavinar]

Matt, Your absolute refusal to even consider solutions and your fringe extremism make you an easy target. You set yourself up for it. All of the conspiracy theories that you embrace don't really help your case. It just kills your ability to be taken seriously. Your tendency to be so melodramatic just makes you look even more silly.

Back when I was in my teens and early twenties, I took myself overly serious also. It is something we all go through. You will get over it.

When Matt Simmons says "The only solution is to pray" would you say he is being melodramatic?

When Matt Simmons or Colin Cambpell do interviews with "conspiracy theorist" Michael Ruppert are they hurting the credibility of the Peak Oil community?

Matt

Matt, as usual, in your fringe extremism, you are missing the point. Even among people who believe peak oil is a serious issue that we are facing in the next 5 to 10 years, you are among the more pessimmistic. I would place you in the "dieoff/total collapse" quadrant of the peak oil crowd.

You operate under the assumption that nothing will help, we are all screwed. You spend your day preaching the end of the world while you sell books and your newsletter subscription.

Obviously you have a financial incentive to portray the worst possible scenario and to shoot down any solutions or alternatives. If there were solutions, that might hurt books sales and the newsletter renewals. Oops. There goes the career.

You champion the concept of reorging the monetary system, civil war, revolt, releasing all drug dealers from prison, the military taking out domestic enemies (Bush?), etc.

Do you see where I am going with this? You are bordline psycho. I don't take you seriously at all. I think you are a freak.

\

Jay,

The way you worded your a certain portion of your post was extremely unwise. Read it again and figure out why.

Seriously, think before you type next time.

Matt

[JayHMorrison]

If there were solutions, I would invest in them as whoever does will get very rich, very soon.

Matt, investing requires that you have money to start. You are unemployed.

[JayHMorrison]

Regarding prisons: if we would release everybody who is incarcerated for drug transactions (possession or sales) involving less than $40, we would free up a tremendous amount of resources with which we could upscale the modest alternatives available to us.

There are approxamately 1 million people incarcerated for these type of crimes. It costs $25,000 per year to incarcerate each one.

I wonder what the costs to society would be to have 1 million criminals just released from prison. These people learn that they will never face jail time so therefore there is no downside to crime. Great object lesson.

For a rather oversimplified example of what we could do with that money:
Say a home solar panel set up costs $25,000 - at the end of 10 years, we could have 10 million of those babies set up.

The government could give grants to people to get them. Of course, Jay, with your big time paying, ultra secure job as a database programmer, you wouldn't need such a grant, but plenty of us who don't "have reasons to be arrogant" like yourself could sure use one.

Typical liberal. Always thinking the gov't owes you something. Free energy, free solar power.

2. Where do you get the idea I am pessimistic, anyway? For all we know, a post-industrial life might be fantastic. It might turn out that we (at least those of us who survive) will end up thrilled the oil crash happened.

The fact that you are thrilled at the concept of 4 billion people dying says volumes about you and your ilk. You make me absolutely sick. You need help, very badly. I cannot believe you actually post something like that on the internet under your real name. Do you realize that this can follow you for your entire life? If you had any sense at all, you would at least use a pen name.

Of course, Jay, what with your super duper job as a databse programmer, you have done pretty well in this world. I mean, didn't you mention you used to own an SUV?

Your envy is so appealing as a character trait. It really sets off the sparkle in your eye.

While you may be happy with the current civilization, there are milions upon millions, if not billions, of peole who aren't doing as well as yourself. Of course, those of us not happy with this civilization are just leftist losers who couldn't get real jobs, right?

Ah, so those billions will be better off dead in your world vision?

My point is this: believing that industrial civilization is in its last days is no more "pessimistic" than believing a 98 year old man is in his last days.

The analogy is not relevant. You merely are blinded by lack of intelligence and financial incentives to see any other future.

Jay, if you figure out what company is going to do that - solve death itself -

That is not the issue. I am sure some biotech company is working on anti-aging issues, but that is not a relevant analogy to a energy issue. Your tendency for melodrama and silly quotes is the problem here.

I might be 75 years old by then, but I'm sure you will still insist on referring to my youthful age and "lack of credibility."

I think at that point it will be back to "wasted life".

[EnviroEngr]

I'm finally signed up!

Citizens Committee on Oil Peak And Decline
(COPAD)


HOME Make a donation to our campaigns Citizens' Commission | Events | News | Subscribe | Contact us | Search | Links


A Statement On Global Oil Peak
The Statement is designed to be published in national and local newspapers, news magazines, the United Nations, NGO newsletters, and any other organ of public discussion.


http://www.copad.org/index.php?page=5#list

[MattSavinar]

If there were solutions, I would invest in them as whoever does will get very rich, very soon.

Matt, investing requires that you have money to start. You are unemployed.

So why am I paying estimated quarterly taxes?

Matt

[Keis]

Man... Im so fed up with the Matt vs. Jay story.

[JayHMorrison]

If there were solutions, I would invest in them as whoever does will get very rich, very soon.

Matt, investing requires that you have money to start. You are unemployed.

So why am I paying estimated quarterly taxes?

Matt

I don't know. Didn't you realize that taxes are optional?

[gg3]

Yo guys, please don't digress every topic. We can talk about the monetary system elsewhere (n.b. how'bout pegging the dollar to BTUs or ergs or some other objective point of reference?)

The COPAD site looks interesting, though their petition seems to dismiss nuclear out of hand. At this point the need for public awareness sould overcome detail-debates like "nuclear yes or no?". Just stick to "developing viable, sustainable replacement sources of energy, and making more efficient use of existing oil supplies.." and leave the detail-debates to other forums.

However I probably will go back and sign the petition, and stand up for nuclear on the message section of that board, and see what happens.

[Excess gravity]

It both amuses and irke me that individuals tend to clum together in times of crises, like being close to some other warm body is going to change the hugh appetite of nature to seek balance.

So we had a long term accumulation of energy stored on mother earth, and then nature suggested the evolution of mankind to eliminate this surplus. Now the surplus has been eliminated and mankind is no longer needed, so a PAC is the solution! As John Stossel says, "Give me a break".

Sorry, but banning together to get government to solve this unsolveable problem is absurd. Did government solve the problem of education by creating government schools? If there is a solution, which I firmly believe there is not, then it will come from the free market and not the government hacks.

I am sorry to be so blunt, but whoever started this thread has got to be niave beyond niave.

[EnviroEngr]

{This thread needs to be cleaned up. I'll try next week if meetings don't interfere.}

[EnviroEngr]

Excess gravity

If I'm not mistaken, the point is to buy time. Naivete may or may not enter into it. As far as I can tell, it doesn't really matter. What is of apparent value to Us is the kind of future we can forge for ourselves out of our motivations, understandings and awarenesses. Beyond that, the bozo count can total a large number indeed and it will still have been worth it for a handful to have made the effort. Individual attitudes may vary; the destiny of the collective hinges on what the total capacity of the species to redeem itself is in the long run -- often effected by the least of those among us, moreover, the frequently unseen.

Was it Galadriel who told Frodo: "Even the smallest person can change the course of the future" in Peter Jackson's remake of JRR Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings? I can easily imagine this story coming from a man who witnessed the awesome machinery of Nazi Germany roll through his back yard. To me, it makes perfect sense.

We live by stories; we die by stories. COPAD is yet another way of telling a story of hope and redemption. In the end, we are bound by the excoriating need to do what we must. The almighty volumes of history still feel the swift and thunderous pen of our decisions.

[Excess Gravity]

Yea, and a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a tornado.

My view is that we humans don't want to die, and many of us don't want to face the unthinkable.

Again, I say that even if we are to find a way to survive as a species, that a PAC to promote this is idiotic. First of all it presumes that the rulers in government have an interest other than their own betterment; this is absurd on its surface. Secondly, it presumes that government is effective; yet another misunderstanding. Thirdly, it presumes that man is more powerful than nature; again a false assumption.

So, I politely, albiet cynically, make the suggestion to wake up and smell the coffee while in fact coffee is still available.

[MattSavinar]

Yea, and a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a tornado.

My view is that we humans don't want to die, and many of us don't want to face the unthinkable.

Again, I say that even if we are to find a way to survive as a species, that a PAC to promote this is idiotic. First of all it presumes that the rulers in government have an interest other than their own betterment; this is absurd on its surface. Secondly, it presumes that government is effective; yet another misunderstanding. Thirdly, it presumes that man is more powerful than nature; again a false assumption.

So, I politely, albiet cynically, make the suggestion to wake up and smell the coffee while in fact coffee is still available.

Keep your coffe, I'll stick with Kool Aid.

Matt

[Chicagoan]

Civilization existed before oil. We may go back to the dark ages, but after the die-off, we will have more then enough resources to go around. A citizen of Rome in the fifth century would have had every reason to believe that civilization was doomed. He would have been half right. Roman civilization was swept away. But thanks to the work of Christian monks, much of the knowledge of that civilization was preserved, eventually leading to the rebirth of higher civilization in the later middle ages.

So when you abandon the sinking ship, take some books with you.

[azreal60]

A few things.

1. I disagree that a political action commitee on peak oil is a waste of time. You really think as large an entity as the US gov could not be used for good to combat this? Just sheer size compared to anything else would make it something to think about.

2. Stop thinking in normal pac terms. Just because you have a bad image of what a pac does does not mean that one can not do better.

3.The Jay vs Matt thing is old to me out of one post. Guys, if you can not stop sniping at each other, find a bar, get drunk and beat the shit out of each other. I don t really care who is the older one, you both made me feel like I was between two rivals on the high school debate team. Just because you use better vocabulary does not make it any less silly. Cut it out.

4.Pessimism has its place, but do not automatically assume just because someone sees bad things happening assume they are wrong.

5. I hear everyone say the die off this and the die off that. There is a huge difference between just plain old controling our population and watching large numbers of people die off. Plenty of people die every year to reduce our population by that much in time for it to be nesseary. The problem is our Birth rate. This is where the revolution as it where needs to take place. Remember that stupid term it takes a village to raise a child? What if per village you only had like half the amount of children produced as u did older people. So every couple could have one child. I know it goes against every single thing christianity ever taught us ( be fruitful and multiply my children) but lets face it, we are going to out grow the capacity of this planet damn fast even WITHOUT peak oil ever happening.

6. Members of this website need to remember that debate is one thing, but basic decency is another. Jay, no where does matt say he is eager to see 4 billion people die. I believe his exact quote was that post peak life will probably be better and we might actually enjoy it. Personally, I agree. I don t think that i have to feel guilty about saying that living in a way that doesn't kill the capacity of my planet to support me is a bad thing. Matt, stop letting Jay goad you. Geezus, between you two is a heck of alot of knowledge. Have you two ever, you know, met? Maybe you might even like each other if you met for a drink. My grandpa and i don t agree on almost anything, but we at least can sit at a table and have a beer.

Oh, and final note, who ever runs this damn thing, if you need more moderators, by all means, I am available. :D

[RIPSmithianEconomics]

The PFJ (People's Front of Judea, not to be mixed up with the Judean People's Front) know about peak oil. I told them, and they replied "This calls for immediate discussion!"

[EnviroEngr]

Oh no. Cleese!

[EnviroEngr]

I was wondering when that might come up. Except -- no offense Halva -- I thought it would come up in the compass of Direct Democracy discussions first. Night and day between here and there I can tell ya.