NY Transport Activist reports on Peak Freaks

[nancy]

http://www.freezerbox.com/archive/article.php?id=385

and his blog contains a chilling prophecy for London 2012

http://www.naparstek.com/2005/02/build- ... ll-end.php

[skeptik]

http://www.freezerbox.com/archive/article.php?id=385

and his blog contains a chilling prophecy for London 2012

http://www.naparstek.com/2005/02/build- ... ll-end.php

lol... a good portion of the Christian world thought it was all coming to an end in 1000. Of course it didn't.

I dont think I'll be sweating about a date some extinct South American Indians came up with. I'm sure they had good empirical knowledge of their particular environment and the appropriate low level technologies to survive in it, but what did they really know about anything? They looked at the stars and the planets and didnt have a clue what they were lookng at.

"Humans were sacrificed on first appearance after Superior Conjunction when Venus was at its dimmest magnitude but they most feared the first Heliacal Rising after Inferior Conjunction."

mmm. Lovely. And when push came to shove their civilisation went down because they ..didnt .. have... a...clue. At least we have a chance to figure it out and come up with some solutions.

I dont do animism or other primitive belief systems involving ghosts in the machine. I certainly don't do prophecy, which is prediction on the basis on no evidence.

[nancy]

And you thought it was just a bunch of old South American Indians

http://www.vitalsignspublishing.co.uk/b ... t2012.html

To that list add Duncan's Olduvai Cliff (according to Wikipedia's summary of 2012 predictions - even Colin Campbell is pushing PO out til then. It sure is a big date-a-coming Skeptic

P'praps they all just mean end of the world as we know it, and what's PO about if it ain't that?

[PS_RalphW]

mmm. Lovely. And when push came to shove their civilisation went down because they ..didnt .. have... a...clue.

When push came to shove - or at least some Portugese adventurers
pushed their noses in, their civilisation went down because they ...
had no immunity to pandemic diseases endemic in the western world.
Diseases like smallpox which we originally caught off domesticated
cattle and required a high population density to sustain itself. Of
course we Eurasians had developed better weapons, science and technologies,
but that was because we had a general head-start of about 8000
years on this civilisation game. It was our lack of hygeine that did
for the South American empires.

[skeptik]

mmm. Lovely. And when push came to shove their civilisation went down because they ..didnt .. have... a...clue.

When push came to shove - or at least some Portugese adventurers
pushed their noses in, their civilisation went down because they ...
had no immunity to pandemic diseases endemic in the western world.

Absolutely. Thjey didn't have clue. Never even heard of a bacterium or a virus. If they had had any genuine knowledge of the natural world, and maybe a Center for Disease Control instead of head full of animist nonsense they might have had a chance. Unfortunately primitivist ignorance is not bliss.

[PS_RalphW]

mmm. Lovely. And when push came to shove their civilisation went down because they ..didnt .. have... a...clue.

When push came to shove - or at least some Portugese adventurers
pushed their noses in, their civilisation went down because they ...
had no immunity to pandemic diseases endemic in the western world.

Absolutely. Thjey didn't have clue. Never even heard of a bacterium or a virus. If they had had any genuine knowledge of the natural world, and maybe a Center for Disease Control instead of head full of animist nonsense they might have had a chance. Unfortunately primitivist ignorance is not bliss.

At the time neither had the Portugese. As far as I remember the
Spanish Inquisition was still going on. Plenty of anti-scientific religious
mumbo jumbo claptrap from the most powerful men in Europe (the
popes). Anyway knowledge of viruses did little to stop the
'Spanish Flu' in 1918, and it might not again if avian flu gets a grip.

There were plenty of local diseases for which I am sure the S.
Americans had
herbal remedies of variable effectiveness, but they lacked the
mass killer diseases which only evolved recently after and as
a direct result of the rise of Eurasian civilisation.

To get back (slightly) on track - I vaguely remember a tribe of
(North American ? ) Indians who lived in a large, dry valley and
developed an advanced culture, but cut down all the local forests,
causing localised climate change and drought, bringing on starvation
and abandonment, and complete loss of their 'civilisation'.

To get a bit further back on track - they also independantly invented
the wheel. (a child's toy cart has been found at an archaeolgical site).
However, because none of the local large animals were suitable to
domesticate as pack animals, they had no use for it. A man could
carry as much as he could pull along the low quality roads then
available.

There was nothing 'primative' about the people - their
religion was no more irrational than ours (we were still burning
witches and heritics) and they had technology and knowledge that
was advanced as their environment would allow.

[skeptik]

And you thought it was just a bunch of old South American Indians

http://www.vitalsignspublishing.co.uk/b ... t2012.html

It seems not. A collection of idiot blatherers to go with them...

" Return of Nibiru"

please...

next somebody will be telling me crop circles aren't made with a mallet, a pointed pole, a rope with regularly spaced knots and a plank of wood....

http://science.howstuffworks.com/crop-circle5.htm
http://www.amtsgym-sdbg.dk/as/crop/howtdob.jpg

[genoxy]

Speaking of prophecies and such... I was reading this thing on, I think The Evening Standard back in 2002/3. There was a big article there about this book written about Nostradamus in 1999 or something which claimed to properly figure out his writings.

Now I know what you're thinking, but he did write something which sounded astonishingly like 9/11, about the towers of the new city being engulfed in fire and such (can't remember the whole thing).

According to the same prophecy (in case you're still reading this), WW3 will begin in 2003, will get into it's more serious stage in 2006, will last some 20 years, in which two thirds of humanity will die, and will be followed by a thousand years of peace.

I actually forgot about it all until two months ago when I learnt about PO. Up to then I thought he got 9/11 right, but the rest is just rubbish.... To be honest though, the rest of the article seems quite likely now.... Iraq was the beginning in 2003, we seem to be going towards the unknown in 2006, and most astonishingly, the estimates of how many people can we support on this planet without oil, is about one third of the current population (he said two thirds will die).

As for the last bit of the prophecy - WW3 will be followed by a thousand years of peace... at first I thought "yeah, right", but if we're actually going to be reduced back to the stone age in twenty years of war, following PO.... who knows?

[nancy]

Oh dear, I fear Skeptik is going to be foaming at the mouth at all this blithering nonsense now

Since finding out about PO, I have evolved into finding the thought of the 'End of the World as We Know It' (oh, for a handy acronym) coming by 2012 extremely comforting. Like being told you have 6 years to live, which is kind of enough not to have to panic, but enought to make sure that I am living the kind of life I enjoy and giving my time to the people I care about. I recommend it.

Minmia, a local self-styled 'fat little grey haired Koori woman' (who also says that Koori lore says 2012 (October 5th to be precise) is the big one, but I think Skeptik could safely say was another primitive idiot) does say that she gets up each day and says to herself, "This is your last day on earth", and she reckons that's a good thing to remind yourself of. It works for me, except I've chosen to use 2012 as a kind of backstop last year, so that I still make plans to visit friends, go to the cinema etc, do PO Presentations to NSW State Parliament with my Peaknik buddies etc

[skeptik]

Oh dear, I fear Skeptik is going to be foaming at the mouth at all this blithering nonsense now

Not really... theres tons of it on the web. Got past the 'foaming at the mouth' stage many years ago. Mainly I just ignore it now. Have the odd rant when i feel in the mood. No point in getting seriously stuck in as believers aren't suseptible to rational debate anyway ( and most of them are harmless).

After all human beings are just animals that can believe three impossible things before breakfast, so there's no point in getting upset about it.

It is interesting, though, how a scientific concept like peak oil has been appropriated by purveyors of new age nonsense and 'end of the world' doomers. Same sort of thing as happened to the discussion of climate change. Turned into a highly lucrative axe to grind. Politicised and compromised.

I imagine people will be writing theses about all this in 50 years time...

but I think Skeptik could safely say was another primitive idiot

No I wouldn't call people from primitive societies idiots, just ignorant. Give any tribesman a decent education and his understanding of reality would be no different to you or I. Im sure he or she would show the same ability to understand how gravity works - the inverse square law - as I anybody from an industrialised society.

the idiots are educated people who take nibiru , psychic/ufo produced corn circles and ancient prophecies seriously. They ought to know better.

ha...this is way off topic!!! ok thats my last word. Maybe we could talk about it at some other time, like 2013.

[Bandidoz]

I'll quite happily forget the Bible Code if Jerusalem isn't nuked by 2007. Until then, it will remain at the back of my mind....

[nancy]

Oh Skeptic, Minmia is a highly educated university professor..and then she was apparently reminded of her 'wimminslore' duties by her former tribe - so she must fall into your 'idot' category.

As indeed I fear I must do too. A former acknowledged "rational scientist', whom life chose to throw some seriously wierd irrational sh*t at. When it did so, having never had any truck with religion, let alone any other 'new age' stuff, someone sent me a link to a learned website that asks you to answer many many questions and then matches up your answers with which of the world's religions might most closely fit your opinions and beliefs, so you could perhaps link up with like minded souls. I turned out to be a neo-pagan.
(I've yet to find where they hang out)

But I have met whole new branches of rational scientists through the peak oil world, and although they often do not agree with one another on matters of scientific 'fact' and sometimes do not seem to have very open minds, I still love 'em.

[RevdTess]

I turned out to be a neo-pagan.
(I've yet to find where they hang out)

I've hung around them all too often. Delightful folk, very creative, mostly compassionate, generally very intelligent. Also a few folks completely off their rocker - and I'm not talking about the fans of crystals et al. I'm talking about the ones who obsess about who's doing evil magic against them and which spirits and familiars are still under their control etc.

I sometimes wish I had the sort of mind that could completely embrace a belief in spirits and gods and magic, but the closest I ever come is an appreciation of them as archetypes offering spiritual insight.

Now on the other hand, one of my best friends is something of a shaman, and he tells a story in all seriousness about a spirit exorcism he once performed, and I can tell you that it scared the bejeesus out of me, not least because I have to either call him a liar or believe something quite impossible, and I've never been able to do either. (Unless it's quantum theory, which obviously makes perfect sense.)

[skeptik]

Oh Skeptic, Minmia is a highly educated university professor..and then she was apparently reminded of her 'wimminslore' duties by her former tribe - so she must fall into your 'idot' category.

It's not uncommon. Hummans do seem to be quite good at doublethink - the ablity ot hold contradictory concepts in mind at the same time - as George Orwell noted in 1984.

As far as you friend is concerned there doesnpt have to be any clash between a modern scientific understanding of the world and the traditions of her own culture or 'wimminlore duties' as you call them.I'm sure se has a somewhat different perspective on them though compared to an uneducated member of her tribe.

I quite enjoy our quaint little ceremony of burning the effigy of a Catholic terrorist on a big log fire, as we do every November 5th in this country and have been for the last 400 years...

[skeptik]

I sometimes wish I had the sort of mind that could completely embrace a belief in spirits and gods and magic, but the closest I ever come is an appreciation of them as archetypes offering spiritual insight.

I thank God that I haven't