I think the real problem with that graph is not that the downslope is shown as smooth- it's that there is no demarcation line between past, i.e. real, data and the future projection. Of course the future projection is shown as smooth- we can't predict where the ups and downs will fall, we only know the way is ultimately down. And any person with the understanding of how to read those graphs should be able to understand that and compensate accordingly in their thinking, surely?Mr. Fox wrote:I see you as struggling to hold on to linear thinking with regard to a complex problem - linear at 4%, but non-linear at 8-10%?
Why do you see a phase transition there, rather than at the point where the growth stopped?
Orlov wrote:
Observe that the upward slope has a lot of interesting structure to it. There are world wars, depressions, imperial collapses, oil embargoes, discoveries of giant oil fields, not to mention the ugly boom and bust cycles that are the bane of capitalist economies (whereas socialist ones have sometimes been able to grow, stagnate and eventually collapse far more gracefully). It is a rugged slope, with cliffs and crevasses, craggy outcrops and steep inclines.
Now look at the estimated downward slope: is it not shockingly smooth? Its geologic origin must be completely different from that of the upward slope. It appears to be made up of a single giant moraine, piled to the angle of repose near the top, with some spreading at the base, no doubt due to erosion, with a gradual transition into what appears to be a gently sloping alluvial plain no doubt composed of silt from the runoff, which is then followed by a vast perfectly flat area, which might have been the bottom of an ancient sea.
If climbing up to the peak must have required mountaineering techniques, the downward slope looks like it could be negotiated in bathroom slippers. One could do cartwheels all the way down, and be sure of not hitting anything sharp before gently rolling to a stop sometime around 2100.
Mathematically, the upward slope would have to be characterized by some high-order polynomial, whereas the downward slope is just e-t with a little bit of statistical noise.
This, you must agree, is extremely suspicious: a natural phenomenon of great complexity that, just when it is forced to stop growing, turns around and becomes as simple as a pile of dirt. The past is rough and rocky, but the future is as smooth as a baby's bottom? Where else have we observed this sort of spontaneous and sudden simplification of a complex, dynamic process?
Physical death is sometimes preceded by slow decay, but sooner or later most living things go from living to dead in an abrupt transition. They don't shrivel continuously for decades on end, eventually becoming too small to be observable. The model on which the estimate of future oil production is based must be bogus.
And so I like to call this generic and widely accepted Peak Oil case the Rosy Scenario. It's the one in which industrial civilization, instead of keeling over promptly, joins an imaginary retirement community and spends its golden years tethered to a phantom oxygen tank and a phantom colostomy bag.
Full article
I don't see how the quote can easily compare with living organisms- human civilisations are not obviously single living organisms or as it were "super-organisms" as hive societies of the insect variety are. Can we simply imagine them staying the same way?
In short: trying to think we can easily predict the future is folly.
