Life After Teh Oil Crash

Stone, did you read the page ? It makes some very good points, not even necessarily on us running out of oil for energy but that much of our technology, manufacturing and goods depend on a source of oil for production.

And for the record, SUVs suck. I'm totally anti-SUV and it's not even for entirely enviornmental reasons. Those things just infringe on everyone's rights on the road.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by g0zen

I don't know where you get fewer people are starving than before, when according to the World Food Summit, 840 million people live in the condition of chronic, persistent hunger. That's 1/7 of the world's population.

---

The key stat is the PERCENTAGE. What percentage of the world's pop back-in-the-day was living a subsistence lifestyle? You better believe it was greater than 1/7.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by g0zen

oil prospecting is already growing harder, more expensive, and by the way more dangerous (both militarily and from a climate perspective).

---

Which is precisely why newer tech will rise and join oil as one of our fuels.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by g0zen

If you're hoping for altruism on (the part of corporations), then we're really screwed.

---

Altruism didn't get us nuclear power, it didn't get us the assembly line, it didn't get us the computer and it didn't get us fire. The market provides b/c ppl are greedy (for power/money/a leg up on the other guy).

I think your point about managing our resources properly (and I would add, efficiently) is well taken. But conservation is not the SOLE means for seeing mankind gets to the next millenium.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by g0zen

You've obviously never played Metal Gear Solid. The idea of nuclear energy being clean and safe is bull.

---

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

g0zen is my new hero. He's making all the logical arguments and tongue-in-cheek MGS references that I'd like to make if I could be bothered to write coherent posts on this topic.

Someone sent that link to me a month or so ago, and I've been reading about the topic off and on since then. Needless to say, it's troubling. I can't understand how some people can completely write off such disturbing and seemingly relevant issues. It must be a difference in brain chemistry or something. o_O

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The_Meach

We've already witnessed the seeds being planted for future energy harvests. Nuclear power is exponentially more efficient than coal (not to mention cleaner). Solar and wind power, while in their infant stages, are inexhaustible for at least a million years.

---

Nuclear power is already a dinosaur from the '70s and '80s. The problems outweigh the benefits, which is why you never read about new nuclear power plants being built (except in Iran and North Korea, of course).

Solar/wind power is cool to think about, but so far neither is efficient enough. They aren't practical in many parts of the world, to boot.

Quote:

---

The beauty of this ecosystem (of which homo sapiens is a part) is how well it tends to balance itself out.

---

Unfortunately, if you take the example of nature, the restoration of such a balance usually involves massive die-offs. Which is exactly what the "peak oil" doomsayers are predicting.

But yeah - humans are pretty good at adapting to stuff. The world we live in now would be unrecognizable to somebody from just 20-30 years ago, so chances are the future will be better than those guys think.

My mailbox is right beside my porch.

Yep.

Edit: In all seriousness, if (if, if, if) it happens, then it certainly sucks to be us. I'm very sorry I contributed to it driving to the store, getting fatter and all the more greedy by the second what with all that sitting, instead of taking a leasurly stroll. I'm really, really sorry.

The fact still stands that we're in the position we are (And I don't mean dire straits, but king of the hill on this here rock), because of something unheard of on this planet before us. We certainly didn't get here because of brute strength and mamoth size, kids.

We've thought our way out of bigger holes than this, quite literally, and we've certainly grown past the usefulness of the strategically shaped rock. We'll adapt. We always have. From the rock to the bow to the gun to the now, we have and we will get our eat on. If not until a massive die off, well, I said my apologies above, but we'll probably beat it with only a few stragglers dead.

We'll find them locked in bomb shelters, those cans of sweet potatos empty and littering the floor.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by voltz

I'm sure when the president enacts martial law over the U.S., you could see a civil war developing to defeat it. The one thing that'll scare me is if that happens, another country is going to attempt to invade and we'll be fighting them on our own.

---

Just bring it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by g0zen

I certainly can't stop you from driving your gas-guzzling vanity car

---

My explorer? Gas and oil guzzling? Yes. Vanity? HA! HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA! Ohhh, I don't drive that damn thing because I want to, and it sure as hell isn't turning any heads... well except "Wow, what a piece of shit." But I suppose I was doing my part concerving oil when the oil light burnt out and managed to get 4 quarts low and then the engine exploded on the internstate.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stone

People like you make me want to buy an H2 out of spite, coat the entire thing in chrome, and run over baby seals with it. I'd roam the streets looking for Prius owners to blind with double-strength Xenon highbeams

---

That is going in my sig, because it's fucking great. Good show.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Johnny

I'm more worried about the coming zombie holocaust with the moaning and the biting.

---

This is a guy who has his priorities straight!

its so tempting to begin panicking and preparing for a vagabond lifestyle, but well (thinks of Fable on XBOX coming out, Darkfall on PC), maybe later...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GohanX

Just bring it.

---

No problem. I'll bring enough guns and ammo to last us two world wars, you just better make sure to pack enough beer and none of that old style crap or your arse sits in the watch tower alone. :cool:

We need to bust out the Star Trek technology.

Beam me up already!