Currently circulating in London: take your time to read....
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The Humorous Guide To Telling People About Peak Oil.
One of the BEST ways to make oneself completely unpopular is to be the Bearer of Bad Tidings!
Shooting the messenger is not JUST for Genghis Khan it seems.
In this Guide, we examine how to go about telling people their entire world is about to end & they and their loved ones are going to suffer privation, starvation and eventually die a horrible death in the not-too-distant future!
We?ve all been there?we?re at some sort of social gathering (or not so social, if you?re into that sort of thing) and one person suddenly has Some Important Announcement about some Issue ?and everyone immediately tries to cut them off in order to prevent being bored to death.
From AIDS to Zulus there is always some self-appointed monomaniacal busybody who wants to force everyone to become deathly serious when all you (and the others in your group) wanted was a night out without thinking too much, if at all?just like your day job, in fact.
However, this time, it's WORSE?this time it?s YOU who?s got the ?issue? and everyone else is mentally marking you down as the ?Not-To-Be-Invited? irksome pest who is actually asking ?em all to come out of their stupor and (gasp) pay attention with their butterfly minds to a single
issue for more than 30 seconds!
You need assistance with this far-from-easy topic!
Not just that it?s awfully lonely without your friends, but you actually want to help ?em. What?s that? They?re beyond help?
OK, um, well?ahhh?moving RIGHT ALONG - here?s how to introduce Peak Oil without Making Enemies and Provoking People!
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At a Party / Social Gathering/ Family Get-Together ? Blurting out a variation of ?We?re all doomed? is a FAST way to be ignored.
Most people know we?re f***ed ALREADY.
They choose to ignore it, for reasons I decline to go into, but which involve consuming copious quantities of alcoholic beverages and / or illicit substances.
Instead, start with a general discussion of how the government has FAILED you (all). It doesn?t matter if the government actually hasn't failed YOU personally?I?m certain that, in every crowd there will be at least one person with a tale of how they?ve been done over or humiliated excessively by some bureaucratic prat who stonewalled them, if not actively harmed them. Allow this discussion to go on for a while, then - head it off.
This heading it off takes no skill whatsoever, as well, let?s face it, most people have been trained to think of something pleasant as a way of making them the ultimate stock-market victims and, OF COURSE, so they will continue to buy shoddy goods without complaint.
After all, if you?re an importer, then getting the dimwits who are buying your 3rd rate goods to believe that the quality can only get better is the fastest way to make a few bob without EVER actually having to make any improvements to one?s product.
I digress.
The ?heading off? is easy, as I was saying. Once again, avoid the variant of ?we?re DOOOOOOOMED.? Instead pick on something POSITIVE to come out of Peak Oil ? to pick on one example, Peak Oil will mean the elimination of incompetent Governmental Bureaucracies entirely!
A suggestion is to offer Peak Oil as a solution to the bureaucratic nightmare our civilisation has degenerated into ? as in the following example:
?Y?know, if we ran outta cheap oil, then those stupid bureaucrats would be left without a job, because civilisation would break down and we?d all starve!?
For the bolder amongst you, you can suggest a toast to Peak Oil there & then and end with a rousing chorus of ?Down with Bureaucrats / George Dubbya Bush / Tony Blair / Darth Vader / Santa Claus / Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs / Homer Simpson ? etc.
Note: try not to be too expansive?suggesting the world would be a better place without one?s Mother In Law, for example, might be a touch out of place if she?s actually present.
Especially do NOT suggest that, if one were to be given the chance, one would enjoy dancing on her grave as a compensation for the long-term starvation one would be enduring after the Peak Oil induced break-down of civilisation. If you feel desirous of performing the Highland Fling on ANYONE?S grave, please reserve that for some politician. That?s what they are there for.
After the subsiding of the general merriment at the prospect of seeing the politicians / bureaucrats (or mother-in-law) bite the dust, someone may ask you if Peak Oil is a possibility?that?s your chance!
Lay it on ?em GENTLY! Remember, they are there NOT to think, just like at work, so take it slowly. You?ll be continually interrupted, of course, with crude attempts at humour, puns and other stuff, but go with the jokes and store them in long-term memory if they are especially witty. Which won?t be likely, since the average party-goer is usually there to get nicely HALF
witty, but, well?we won?t go there!
At the end of the party, the few who?re interested will come up to you & make themselves known. Go with it & let ?em in on all of the facts over a short while, taking care not to overwhelm ?em with the facts. After all, most people aren?t used to the truth, so you?ll have to introduce this novel idea slowly.
Direct ?em to the appropriate web-sites. You know the drill.
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If you?re at a more public place, among strangers, I?d suggest humour as being your best weapon, viz:
?Hey, did you hear the one about the 10 billion starving Westerners who were caught short when their moronic governments failed to anticipate that cheap oil was running out ?
Yep, Osama Bin Laden was finally killed when he died laughing about it??
(Boom, Boom!)
With Fuel Prices being what they are, most people will get the sour joke and give you almost 10% of their attention?almost as much as the footie or That Nice Blonde With the Tight Shirt.
Note: this is NOT a good joke when survivors of a terrorist attack may be nearby.
Climate change is another good idea to use as a way of introducing the subject of Peak Oil.
For example, when some Greenie wannabe introduces the topic of how we?re all supposed to be under 200 metres of water right about now, suggest that, as we?re running out of Oil the ?Global Warming? which they are predicting will not come true. They won?t know how to handle you, of course, and remember ? Greenies, in spite of their appearance as a "radical" organization are actually quite conservative, so try not to make ?em THINK too much!
(Heck, you can?t introduce TWO new topics to them, such as Peak Oil and thinking y?know.)
But, you hold a trump card ? if you criticise the government about Peak Oil and its lack of preparedness they?ll relax long enough to let you speak.
See? I TOLD you Georgie Bush was useful for SOMETHING!!! And you thought he was a total wash-out? HOW SILLY of you!
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You?re trying to talk to a group of people? As a neat way to break the ice, well I?d suggest my old favourite ? suggest a YUPPIE cull, as even businessmen like that idea.
No-one, not even YUPPIES, like YUPPIES. They stink even in their own nostrils. And Peak Oil will be the Mother Of All Yuppie Culls.
Ask, at a round table discussion, for a way to reduce costs by eliminating the weasels (I mean the YUPPIES) who?re running their company into the ground while defrauding it of billions. I?m sure you?ll get the usual suggestions from the sublime ?
* put cyanide into bottles of Imported French Mineral Water;
* paint all BMW steering wheels with strychnine;
* force Armani to electrify their suits to generate 50,000 volts of Quartile Productivity Enhancements upon the occasion of the wearer answering their first mobile phone call (smiles all round at THAT suggestion);
* Spike the Yuppies? Latte with powdered glass;
to the mundane:
* Put ejector seats into SUV?s (Large 4WD?s known in Australia as Toorak Tractors) tuned to forcibly propel said occupant out when passing under low bridges; (C?mon, admit it, who hasn?t thought of THAT?)
to the positively vindictive:
?Happiness Is A Belt-Fed Machine Gun? (well, I hate YUPPIES, too);
retro fit all BMW air-bags to use napalm as the propellant. I know, jellified petroleum is an oil-based product, but, well, I can live with the extravagance if you can. Besides, Nerve Gas is banned and Depleted Uranium is waaaay too dangerous.
HOWEVER, you can suggest one way (by this time they will be VERY happy and open to most suggestions) of staging a Yuppie Cull they haven?t thought of? Peak Oil!
Yep, it might kill off most of humanity, but, well, as most people DESPISE Yuppies I?m sure they?ll be happy enough to see that happen & then you can all gloat together as you tell ?em how it?s all gonna happen (insert evil laugh, here).
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In short there are MYRIAD ways of introducing the topic WITHOUT becoming a Social Pariah, indeed, with dry humour and a settled detestation of all things Yuppie, you will become the toast of the town.
An imaginative use of the outcomes of Peak Oil & its ramifications will allow you to gain acceptance not ONLY for your idea, but also for yourself, and before you can say ?Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer?, you?ll be getting ASKED to speak on the topic!
I hope you can use what?s been written here to avoid the more obvious pitfalls of introducing uncomfortable topics, such as, on the one hand, reproducing the Infantile Rhapsodies the Greenies fabricate when regurgitating the half-learnt foamings about Global Warming, and on the other hand the illegible jargon-filled ramblings of the average Economist when she?s justifying the Desolation of Rationalism, the bland disseminations, vague beneath a claim to precision, designed to lull the unsuspecting into an ever deepening stupor, where the hypocrisy of ?Arbeit Macht Frei? returns with a renewed and unsuspected vengeance, all the while the deadly throbbing instilled poison of rampant Materialistic Consumerism?sorry, got carried away there, for a second!
Where was I? Oh, yes, with this Guide you should be able to avoid the twin pitfalls many fall into. I commend it to you all, then, as a successful way of introducing to even the most apathetic audience the Most Uncomfortable Topic Ever Known:
The End Of Life As We Know It!
Selling Peak Oil through Humour
Moderator: Peak Moderation
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Neily at the peak
- Posts: 353
- Joined: 06 Dec 2005, 20:49
- Location: Devon
I have asked back along the chain and been told it came from Australia as a 12KB pdf, copyright Patrick Barry, Newcastle, NSW, in May 2004.Neily at the peak wrote:Wow I would love to know who wrote that it's kind of worthy of Rob Newman.
Neil
(Why did it take so long to reach us?)
It is somewhere on eMule.
