Jan van Eck + 7,558 MG December 30, 2019 14 hours ago, willyr said: Why are most people commenting on this site dinosaurs? Willy, we cordially invite you to share your words of wisdom with us. And when time marches on and you, too, become some old fossil, then I feel confident you will be accorded all the respect and attention that your wisdom brings the listeners. Have a nice day, now. 3 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PE Scott + 563 SC December 30, 2019 16 hours ago, willyr said: Why are most people commenting on this site dinosaurs? Shhhhh..... We need them. Given the right conditions, theyll make fine oil & gas one day.... 2 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Otis11 + 551 ZP December 30, 2019 On 12/29/2019 at 5:46 AM, willyr said: Why are most people commenting on this site dinosaurs? What age do you presume we are? From some of the people on here I've had discussions with, I bet you'd be surprised... 12 hours ago, PE Scott said: Shhhhh..... We need them. Given the right conditions, theyll make fine oil & gas one day.... See - either PE Scott is younger than you'd think, in denial, or simply doesn't expect to see the correct conditions to be useful in the distant future... 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Anthony Okrongly + 114 December 30, 2019 15 hours ago, Daniel Ryslink said: A Czech egyptologist Bárta observed in one of his books that the same aspect that brings a civilization to a golden era later becomes its downfall. The western industrial civilization has indeed brought a rapid acceleration of scientific research and technological progress, but also aggressively killed off any alternatives, so that today's pundits can proclaim that it's "the only system that functions". The growth paradigm of capitalist competition (if you are not growing, you will be absorbed by those who do) has turned our society into worldwide infestation that growth through all the parts of the host planet we inhabit. This quarter's profit must surpass the last one's to be surpassed by the next. Why? There is no answer to that question, growth is simply the "Directive". From another point of view, our civilization is just a very efficient machine that turns resources into waste, faster and faster every year. Since we live in a world of limited resources and limited living space, it's clear that once all the resources are transformed into waste, the machine will cease to function, and people it supports will die. It was not always this way - old and often mocked systems were circular, and their waste was also a resource - dead bodies and plants became fertilizers for the fields, bones became tools, dead wood charcoal to fuel furnaces that produced meager tools that were not built with planned obsolescence in mind. Perhaps the "right to grow" we take for guaranteed is not sustainable, but indirect contradiction with the very laws of physics. In any case, if somebody's work is to cut the branch we are all sitting on, I won't mourn his loss of his job. I, personally, love these ideas and have wished they were true for the past 30 years. Unfortunately, they are not. Case in point, in the 1960's the U.S. and Soviet Union basically had exactly the same telephone systems. Centrally controlled monopolies. One was run by the government the other by a capitalist company given monopoly control over the system. Then in the late 70's and early 80's the U.S. broke up their monopoly. The Soviet Union did not. The Soviet Union system was more efficient, had less waste and was better controlled. The wasteful, chaotic, competitive U.S. system then commenced to inventing things that people didn't really need to use a phone... call waiting, call forwarding, voicemail, and conference calling. Phones became objects to buy and were make in 100 different styles. Then one of the competitors in New York created a simply ridiculous and wasteful thing called a radio phone that used towers to manage calls. These towers were called Cells. Cell phones were pointless devices that rich douche-bags carried in their cars. In the end the U.S. took a very efficient, very cost effective system where each person had ONE relatively cheap phone in their home and they turned it into a very inefficient, crazy system where every single person carries a $1,000 phone in their pocket. The phones are constantly being dropped and broken. The service is crazy expensive. A family of 4 probably pays $3,000 a year or more for cell phone service, plus $4,000 for the phones that get replaced every 2 years. The Soviet System collapsed due to lack of economic activity. The U.S. system turned into a trillion dollar industry that conquered the world. Very inefficient and wasteful. The problem isn't that we can't grow anymore. The problem is that we have regulated and protected ourselves out of growth and handed over all the future growth to China. So all the growth will move over to Asia while America stagnates the same that Great Britain did after WWII. We can easily transition from whale oil to coal to oil to natural gas to solar and wind. The costs are irrelevant because money is imaginary. Prosperity lowers fertility rates, so population will stabilize then decline within the next 50 years. All of the repeated calls for the end of civilization have been wrong. I hate it! I would love a good Apocalypse, but it is not to be. Even the collapse of the Soviet Union (which represents the largest modern societal collapse) was just a transition to higher consumption. 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Kirkman + 8,860 December 30, 2019 13 hours ago, PE Scott said: Shhhhh..... We need them. Given the right conditions, theyll make fine oil & gas one day.... My gut already produces methane, so on track already. 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
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