[p2p-research] no oil crisis?

[Ryan Lanham]

I must say that I've read plenty by Avery Lovin--starting about 20 years
ago.  I'd recommend him.

As to wringing hands, I suppose I am doing that.  I don't hold any sign
humans can or will learn or respond to the issues at hand.  They haven't so
far.  We have a long history of collapse and very little history of
organized success.  I give, personally, even less hope of a
libertarian/market solution--personally, I'd give the least hope to that.
So, you are right, I am hand-wringing.  Touche.

Whether that qualifies me as a member of a doomsday cult, I dunno.  I've
never been one much for organized churches of any sort.  I try to run my own
numbers.  It's become a way of thinking for me.  I always run my own
numbers, even if I see them in front of me--I just don't trust conclusions
unless I do the math, if it is worthwhile and feasible to do so.

Overall, I try to make myself believe this or that based on empirical
facts.  I'll confess to panic and jumping to conclusions.

My justification is that I work with citizens and have done so in many
formats. I know how hard it is to compel action--even in an obvious crisis.
People will cheat, twist, distort and frustrate things for reasons that are
beyond me...sometimes I suppose people just feel pain and need to bleed it
out somewhere.  That's the best explanation of social irrationality I can
give.  I work to educate people...it's a long, slow sometimes seemingly
hopeless endeavor.   But the best I can do personally is to try to figure
things out and then to teach what I have learned to people. It is those who
teach from what they know in their core, what they have personally verified,
that I always have trusted most.  It was the educational philosophy I was
brought up with, the one I chose in a university, and the one I espouse.
Verify.

As to neo-agrarian societies, you are preaching to the choir.  I love a
garden and a compost pile, but I have no intention of moving back to 1850.
I like stem cell transplants, cell phones, jumbo jets and laser-guided
drone-launched anti-terrorist missiles.  One thing I have found out about
this little mailing list of 200 or so people is that it is filled with some
very smart, often highly accomplished and frankly weird folks. I suppose I
am one of the latter.

Ryan

"NEW TO PEAK OIL? SCARED? START HERE: CONFESSIONS OF AN EX-DOOMER"

>
> http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/2006/07/307-confessions-of-ex-doomer.html
> "I consider myself to be a person of above-average intelligence and a
> critical thinker, and yet I was sucked in by the 21rst century's equivalent
> of a doomsday cult. I was ripe for the picking. ... I began to see the
> doomer viewpoint for what it is: dogma. A dogma is something you have to
> believe, without questioning it. And I began to see the hidden agenda of the
> powerdowners, namely, to bring about their utopian vision of the
> neo-agrarian society, no doubt with themselves its leaders. They know that
> most people won't willingly accept a return to centuries past, because most
> people are like me. We like our modern first-world lives! Some of us wish
> more people in the world could have the same lifestyle, even if it means
> sharing what's available a bit better. But if people can be convinced that a
> powerdown is as unavoidable as gravity, they may bring it about simply by
> surrendering to it and not looking for alternatives. Scratch the surface of
> the powerdowner philosophy, and you'll find Marxism dressed up in radical
> environmentalism."
>
>
> --Paul Fernhout
> http://www.pdfernhout.net/
>
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>
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