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Outcast_Searcher wrote:Hint for the mathematically impaired. Median is LESS than the average, since the really big numbers outweigh the really small ones.

In a mean time before failure distribution, I'm betting the median can be on either side of the mean just based on the thing being quantified.

Yoshua wrote:Since the energy cost to produce petroleum is rising exponentially and the net energy is falling off a cliff, a fast crash is inevitable.

That one again?

AdamB wrote:

dirtyharry wrote:

Cog wrote:Do I live better than any other previous generation? Well yes I do. Is that crash conditions? Well you could have fooled me.

If the question is ^I^ then the answer is personal and not universal . Just because ^you^ live better does not mean ^all^ live better .

Name any government in the world that requires not only that its people do better, but commits to doing the same for everyone else as well. Just one, to see how your logical fallacy holds up in real words of real people, and how well they did.

There is no such requirement within the systems humans have built that all live better. None. There are hopes and dreams and strawmen such as you assemble to refute someone else who is being completely reasonable in their perspective. You can pretend it must be so, but any first semester stats student understands that probability density functions exist for a reason...and 10 seconds later can apply that knowledge to the human condition. And presto...we ain't all gonna live the same, let alone better.

What's up sock puppet? Did the ShortonOil persona get banned or something, or did you keep getting too many questions about being a welsher?

dirtyharry wrote:Your personal situation is unimportant .

Not to him/her, you halfwit.

As Perry Mason would say ^incompetent,irrelevant,immaterial^ . By the way I hope you know who Perry Mason was full wit.

Wow Shorty ran away from his wager. I guess he really couldn't come up with the dough.

AdamB wrote:

Outcast_Searcher wrote:Hint for the mathematically impaired. Median is LESS than the average, since the really big numbers outweigh the really small ones.

In a mean time before failure distribution, I'm betting the median can be on either side of the mean just based on the thing being quantified.

Fair point. I should have qualified it with in real world economic examples with lots of data points (like incomes). I was trying to make a simple point, not be rigorous, so for that, I'll plead guilty.

(See doomers, if you make a mistake and actually (gasp) admit it, it doesn't mean horrible things happen to you straight away).

I was trying to emphasize the point that claiming that using the median gives no useful information about the income level of a large group of people (or family units) is nonsense, and the median (in the real world in such examples) is NOT distorting things upward as our detractor du jour seemed to be implying with his "but there are poor people" distraction.

Although this thread is a bit old, I would really like to post my own definitions of fast and slow crashes.

SLOW CRASH: Times are difficult, but there is enough of the old way of life left, or enough "green shoots" that crop up from time to time, that most people believe that there is still a road to recovery. After all, we recovered from the Great Depression, and Japan and Germany, against all expectations, even made spectacular recoveries from the utter devastation of World War II. We just need better economic policies, or to make new discoveries or inventions, or wait for the business cycle to turn up again as it always has. Most people still have hope that life will return to "normal."

FAST CRASH: Most people have accepted that life as they knew it has ended forever.

AdamB wrote:

Outcast_Searcher wrote:Hint for the mathematically impaired. Median is LESS than the average, since the really big numbers outweigh the really small ones.

In a mean time before failure distribution, I'm betting the median can be on either side of the mean just based on the thing being quantified.

You're right, it depends on the context.

Yes, the median can fall on either side of the mean (and vice versa), or the two can be exactly the same, as in dice where the mean and median are both seven. In a room full of average sized adults, if one adult who is below the median height leaves the room and one young child enters the room, the average height will decrease but the median height will remain unchanged.

A slow crash is what's been happening the last few decades, with increasing debt and oil production cost coupled with environmental damage. A fast crash is sudden crisis taking place amidst that slow crash.

ralfy wrote:A slow crash is what's been happening the last few decades, with increasing debt and oil production cost coupled with environmental damage. A fast crash is sudden crisis taking place amidst that slow crash.

Years or decades of slow crash are often followed by resounding final fast crash and/or societal collapse, what have happened for example to Soviets and what is now happening to California.

The issue is one that I am finding it hard to get my head around The near total collapse on Easter Island seems to have taken about one hundred years. Was that a fast of a slow collapse? Even in terms of the sweep of human history that could be termed fast, but living through it (and it took several generations) it would seem slow.

The deer on St. Edward's island collapsed over one winter - that is much faster, but still a drawn out process.

Regarding some of the abandoned cities that have been found in jungles, I guess it was a slow collapse until the "final straw breaking the camel's back" then it becomes fast in the final exodus.

In terms that we find with the climate debates the question might be "What is the tipping point that turns a slow decline into a fast one?" For me the answer is that the tipping point is most likely some human reaction (including economic reaction) but I am unsure just what that could be and have no idea how soon that will be (but as pressure on society builds up - more people -more pollution - more debts etc then it seems like it could be soon).

Starvation is the only thing that can precipitate a fast collapse, because what else? Lack of water? Perhaps, that too.

Collapse is when a society can no longer meet it's basic needs. We're obviously not there yet, but there are signs. Yes, a financial collapse can get us there, too, and faster.

A slow collapse is the process and a fast collapse is the results. No? A slow collapse is no different than a retreat. A fast collapse would then be a route!

Wow Shorty ran away from his wager. I guess he really couldn't come up with the dough.

The ravings of the mind of a demented child; with nothing meaningful to say, and with nothing worth listening too.

The definition of a fast crash, and slow crash are like the definition of a recession, and a depression. A recession is when your neighbor loses their job; a depression is when you lose yours! Judging by the duration of the oil age, 160 years, we are in a fast crash. At my age, hopefully, it will be irrelevant? When a species can no longer find the wherefore all to care about the future of its offspring, it is a species heading for extinction.

shortonoil wrote:

When a species can no longer find the wherefore all to care about the future of its offspring, it is a species heading for extinction.

+1
In Tainter's "The Collapse of Complex Societies" he discusses the "Ik" (Pp. 17-18) as one of his 18 collapsed societies. They are a Hobbesian society involving fully unrestrained, selfish, and complete competition among all individuals. Absolutely nothing is shared. Tainter: "Children are minimally cared for by their mother until age three, and then are put out to fend for themselves. This separation is absolute. ... Children band into age-sets for protection, since adults will steal a child's food whenever possible. No food sharing occurs within an age-set." The rest of his description is horrific.

They [may] continue to exist (can't find any update on their fate), but have extinguished what most would call humanity.

.
I've posted this for half a dozen times but here we go

three collapse models

- 1 the cliff ,short ,sharp and brutal societal collapse typical of free market societies

- 2 the glide ,a well managed tightening of living conditions with an authoritarian police-state keeping the peasants frosty

- 3 the stairs , a succession of sharp rupture with some stabilization phase until the next crash , the European way

the poorer the country .....the less the pain

sparky wrote:.
I've posted this for half a dozen times but here we go

three collapse models

- 1 the cliff ,short ,sharp and brutal societal collapse typical of free market societies

- 2 the glide ,a well managed tightening of living conditions with an authoritarian police-state keeping the peasants frosty

- 3 the stairs , a succession of sharp rupture with some stabilization phase until the next crash , the European way

the poorer the country .....the less the pain

I think it is too early to say how each model will fare, and to some extent it will likely be influenced by factors unique to each place and not just by government policy. Except for countries on the losing side of major wars, we have never seen anything quite like this in the Modern Age. However, I do not think "well managed tightening" will happen anywhere. This will be a traumatic episode every where, even in poor countries, which I think are more integrated with the rest of the world than you assume. I also think that most people have a tendency to overestimate the capabilities of central planners and to underestimate the virtues of flexibility.

aspera wrote:

shortonoil wrote:

When a species can no longer find the wherefore all to care about the future of its offspring, it is a species heading for extinction.

+1
In Tainter's "The Collapse of Complex Societies" he discusses the "Ik" (Pp. 17-18) as one of his 18 collapsed societies.
[snip for brevity]
They [may] continue to exist (can't find any update on their fate), but have extinguished what most would call humanity.

Turnbull studied the Ik (rather poorly according to some critics of his research) during a famine. Some observers have expressed the opinion that air dropping food relief during the famine may paradoxically have worsened their social breakdown. However that may be, they have since recovered and number over 10,000 persons:
https://yandex.com/search/?text=ik%20tribe&lr=21366

I see no reason to believe that any of the 3 noted steps will be universal. Each region will be effected differently.

I continue to fear that a fast collapse will come from a collapse of trust in the global financial system freezing world trade. How that plays out is anyone’s guess.

.
" I do not think "well managed tightening" will happen anywhere."

Well managed tightening has happened many time , it's called rationing
it can be done either with a coupons system as was done in Europe during WW2
or by manipulating prices with consumption taxes
it simply need the muscular arm of a police state and a voting system which doesn't have any other function than to be decorative

[quote="sparky"].
" I do not think "well managed tightening" will happen anywhere."

Well managed tightening has happened many time , it's called rationing

Rationing is normally done to compensate for the effects of price controls, and rarely lasts for more than a few years. There are several problems with rationing, perhaps the worst being that it lacks flexibility, since different users have different needs, and even the same consumer may have different needs at different times. It also incurs enforcement costs (more government overhead at a time of collapsing government revenues since less energy means contracting economic output, ie, chronic recession). When coupled with price controls, it also dampens the price signals that incentivize people to conserve, produce, and switch to alternatives. Prolonged controls induce or, in this case, worsen shortages. In the seventies we tried gasoline price controls and a mild form of rationing and we got "gas lines," empty filling stations, and commuter frustration. I do acknowledge that the intuitive reaction of many people and politicians to a crisis is to assume that the best response is to centralize control of resources, thus reducing individual and local control and decision making. I am not convinced that this intuitive reaction is the optimum response to every crisis or most crises.