Is eco-civilisation compatible with democracy?

[johnny]

You think you understand reality and epistemology, but you don't.

I have made no such claim of understanding on these topics. I'm more a fan of logic, physics, geology, math and whatnot.

My answer will remain 4 angels on the head of a pin until you publish your tome contradicting me. And according to your philosophizing world, we will both be right!

I am fully aware of the problems....

Not when you were falling for peak oil you weren't. It is more likely you choose doom of some flavor as your favorite answer, and work backwards through the mechanisms that strike your fancy to cause it. A shrewd and clever move, making sure that no one can ever deny any answer you come up with.

....and that many people think like you do. When I have finished the book, you are welcome to read it.

I think whatever it is you ultimately write would be interesting reading. If only because the perspective your espouse to have is way outside my wheelhouse.

[UndercoverElephant]

Not when you were falling for peak oil you weren't.

I didn't "fall for peak oil". Nothing I believed about peak oil has subsequently failed to materialise.

[johnny]

Not when you were falling for peak oil you weren't.

I didn't "fall for peak oil". Nothing I believed about peak oil has subsequently failed to materialise.

So everything that has happened since peak oil 2018 has unfolded as you expected?

[UndercoverElephant]

Not when you were falling for peak oil you weren't.

I didn't "fall for peak oil". Nothing I believed about peak oil has subsequently failed to materialise.

So everything that has happened since peak oil 2018 has unfolded as you expected?

It has been within the boundaries of what I expected, yes. The main thing the peak oil theorists got wrong was the price of oil. They assumed that as production failed to keep up with demand, the price would just stay high, slowly throttling the economy. They did not predict that the sub-prime mortgage market in the US would collapse (triggered by high oil prices, but an accident waiting to happen regardless), they did not predict the scale of the reduction in demand, and they did not predict the massive scale of fracking, which has delayed the decline in production even though it has mostly been unprofitable. A lot of people also failed to anticipate the massive intervention of governments to bail out the banks in 2008 -- socialism for the rich on a grand scale, instigated first by a nominally socialist UK government.

Personally I was never that interested in the immediate economic consequences, or in the details of the way collapse plays out. I am interested in the big picture, deep understanding and long-term trends. And in that sense, things have been pretty much unfolded within the range of my expectations not just since 2008 but ten or twenty years earlier. The writing has been on the wall since the 1980s.

[UndercoverElephant]

It might help me to share what I am working on now. Still sorting out the structure, and I have come to the nub of what I am arguing the problematic of western civilisation is -- how we have ended up in this mess and why we can't seem to get out of it.

We live in a post-truth world. Everybody feels entitled to their own truth, regardless of how irrational, anti-scientific and unrealistic it is. It has got to the state where people who insist on a more realistic attitude to the world are accused of hate speech – people actually feel oppressed by reality.

Pre-collapse politics and its rabid dishonesty appears to be inextricably linked to democracy itself. John Dewey was certainly right to say real democracy requires a well educated public, but we do not seem to be making any progress on the solution. Either educating people doesn't seem to be making them more realistic, or we aren't educating them enough.

The opposition to capitalism – to the economic and political status quo – is completely shattered. The left is involved in a war of all against all – it doesn't just attack the right, but elements of the left are continually attacking other elements of the left over basic notions of what is true or real, right or wrong. There isn't even any clear idea about what capitalism actually is – who is the enemy? What are we trying to overturn? What is the alternative, if communism is dead?

At the same time, the “disenchantment of the world” as described by Max Weber has become even more intense, at least in terms of "the western narrative". Capitalism continues to reduce people to “cogs in the machine”. The “Iron Cage” is getting worse as technology progresses.

Worst of all is the ecological nightmare, including climate change.

So the solution is more realism, right?

Yes, a major part of the problem is too much subjectivism and relativism and the solution has to be more realism. The whole of society needs to take science seriously, especially anything to do with ecology and sustainability. There needs to be a greater respect for science and truth, especially in politics and economics. But how could this possibly happen, given the philosophical attack on truth and the all-pervading subjectivism of post-modernism? Is it possible society could collectively re-establish a better relationship with truth and realism?

And how can we do that without exacerbating “the disenchantment of the world”? The scientific worldview is still materialistic, and any alternatives to materialism are fiercely resisted, precisely because from that perspective they look backwards. Science has been materialistic and naturalistic from the start, and it is about as difficult to imagine a non-materialistic, non-naturalistic science as it is to imagine what could replace capitalism. We seem to have the worst of both worlds – a society so lost in subjective relativism that most people have given up on the truth altogether, and a scientific and secular worldview which has disenchanted reality completely and has no intention of allowing anybody to re-enchant it.

These two worldviews are in direct conflict with each other, even though some people manage to hold both of them together (they are atheistic/naturalistic/materialistic in terms of their personal cosmology, while they are subjectivist/relativist in their socio-politics – they think religion and spirituality is bunk, but also believe everybody has an absolute right to claim their subjective take is reality – “if you feel oppressed then you are oppressed”).

We seem to have a fundamental and complex problem regarding our relationship to truth.

How could we possibly get from this to eco-civilisation? The answer is I don't think we can. We live in a world of epistemic confusion – a world which is thoroughly disenchanted and materialistic, and yet also post-truth.

It seems like we need the impossible: something which can foster a much greater realism and respect for the truth, and yet also re-enchant the world.

[johnny]

The main thing the peak oil theorists got wrong was the price of oil. They assumed that as production failed to keep up with demand, the price would just stay high, slowly throttling the economy. and gee....

You are describing peak oilers being ignorant of basic economic principles, not just price. I agree with the idea, with that correction.

They did not predict that the sub-prime mortgage market in the US would collapse (triggered by high oil prices, but an accident waiting to happen regardless), they did not predict the scale of the reduction in demand, and they did not predict the massive scale of fracking, which has delayed the decline in production even though it has mostly been unprofitable.

You are mixing and matching geopolitics with peak oilers, otherwise known as "those folks who pretend bell shaped curves cure cancer". They ignored economics, they ignored supply and demand, bell shaped curves trumps all. And 2/3's of hydraulic fracturing was 20th century, not 21st (circa 2015), so no one can claim to not understand the primary completion technique in the US stretching back BEFORE Colin Campbell claimed global peak oil in 1990. Or its scale, which requires nothing more than reading trade press and counting up frack crews available.

And please, sell "unprofitability" to philosophers, peak oilers and pinheads, but stay away from those making money doing it at $20/bbl and $2/mcf in the late 80's and early 90's. As far as the buildup phase to "world's largest producer of oil and gas....again" in the late 201X timeframe where it was all about rate of growth and not profitability, turns out to be the prelude to The Oil Majors Are Flush With Cash.

"Flush with cash" isn't usually where you end up after "mostly unprofitable".

A lot of people also failed to anticipate the massive intervention of governments to bail out the banks in 2008 -- socialism for the rich on a grand scale, instigated first by a nominally socialist UK government.

Few anticipate the future indeed. Yet peak oilers were pretty insistent about those bell shaped curves. Because, you know, it was REAL science, none of that fru fru humanities or social science nonsense. Hard to hold them accountable as though they were even paying attention, when they weren't.

Personally I was never that interested in the immediate economic consequences, or in the details of the way collapse plays out. I am interested in the big picture, deep understanding and long-term trends. And in that sense, things have been pretty much unfolded within the range of my expectations not just since 2008 but ten or twenty years earlier. The writing has been on the wall since the 1980s.

Depends on what you mean by "writing".

[UndercoverElephant]

The main thing the peak oil theorists got wrong was the price of oil. They assumed that as production failed to keep up with demand, the price would just stay high, slowly throttling the economy. and gee....

You are describing peak oilers being ignorant of basic economic principles, not just price. I agree with the idea, with that correction.

I am describing some people who wrote books or theorised about peak oil. Not all of them made this mistake, and I am not sure they can be blamed for failing to predict the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and 2008 financial crisis given that almost nobody predicted it.

You are mixing and matching geopolitics with peak oilers, otherwise known as "those folks who pretend bell shaped curves cure cancer".

...and now I am remembering why you are a troll who should not be posting on this forum. You're just trying to provoke an emotional reaction, and I could not be less interested. It has nothing to do with the question in the OP.

[Catweazle]

...and now I am remembering why you are a troll who should not be posting on this forum. You're just trying to provoke an emotional reaction, and I could not be less interested. It has nothing to do with the question in the OP.

Johnny believes he holds an "I told you so...." card, which he plays at every possible opportunity, regardless of whether other participants in the thread held those outdated views or not. The context is not important, only the playing of the card, it's some kind of ego trip therapy so most people ignore it, it's pretty harmless and you learn to ignore it after a while.

[johnny]

You are describing peak oilers being ignorant of basic economic principles, not just price. I agree with the idea, with that correction.

I am describing some people who wrote books or theorised about peak oil. Not all of them made this mistake, and I am not sure they can be blamed for failing to predict the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and 2008 financial crisis given that almost nobody predicted it.

You are misrepresenting the solution to peak oil. It has never been about getting the year right, that is the just the answer everyone is looking for because they want it for a Rapture trigger, or an excuse to buy a fishing cabin or need to sell the idea to the significant other as to why they need a place in the country and a garden...and in the US more guns.

Peak oil is about A) understanding why it has happened before, and why past predictions were wrong at both the micro and macro levels, B) assembling a concept incorporating the three scientific specialties needed to not have A) happen yet again, C) assemble the expertise and money to build something taking advantage of B), and D) build the thing. And test it of course.

It is unlikely you can even name a peak oiler who incorporated the three basic sciences needed to even attempt a peak oil "hope it isn't yet another broken clock routine" guess.

You're just trying to provoke an emotional reaction, and I could not be less interested. It has nothing to do with the question in the OP.

I could care less about emotional reactions. I am interested and fascinated by perspectives, particularly those I lack.

[UndercoverElephant]

I am not interested in having this discussion. I will not learn anything from it, and neither will you.

[Default0ptions]

“I could care less . . .”

Um, that should be “I COULDN’T care less”.

It’s a pretty common example of fundamental American illiteracy though.

[UndercoverElephant]

“I could care less . . .”

Um, that should be “I COULDN’T care less”.

It’s a pretty common example of fundamental American illiteracy though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc

[Default0ptions]

“I could care less . . .”

Um, that should be “I COULDN’T care less”.

It’s a pretty common example of fundamental American illiteracy though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc

Lol. “Could care less” just irritates me because it shows the writer clearly doesn’t understand what they’re actually writing.

If they can’t understand such a simple construct it casts considerable doubt on their ability to argue any coherent position at all.

[johnny]

Lol. “Could care less” just irritates me because it shows the writer clearly doesn’t understand what they’re actually writing.
If they can’t understand such a simple construct it casts considerable doubt on their ability to argue any coherent position at all.

Interesting. So it is not possible that I could care less? Which puts the level of caring expressed above the absolute of "couldn't" care less? As far as arguing a coherent position, I put my stake in the ground on that a long time ago. And my position was verified by...you guessed it.....the world continuing to make more oil.

[Default0ptions]

“Interesting. So it is not possible that I could care less?

You’re in a hole Johnny. Stop digging. You’re just demonstrating your illiteracy by completely failing to grasp the point at issue regarding “could care less “ vs “couldn’t care less “