Looking forward to Collapse?

[RevdTess]

isenhand made an interesting comment:

It sounds like we are all looking forward to the collapse of civilisation?

I wondered how true this is. How about a poll?

[RevdTess]

I'd like also to recommend this article, which I quoted from on another thread, but which I think deserves a full read. It's called "peak freaks" but is not per se antagonistic towards the peaknik crowd, just towards some of the personalities who offer only apocalyptic doom scenarios and/or the neo-con everything's-great-and-going-to-get-greater ostrich approach.

It's a long article but I think it's a good experiential depiction of the current state of our 'community' or movement, and relevant to this poll.

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

My own position is similar to that of the woman who expresses a desire to join or found an eco-village with access to a stable and sustainable food supply. I think that's my bottom line too. Regardless of when peak occurs and whether civilisation collapses or finds another solution, I'd like to know that I have a safety net somewhere that isn't going to vanish overnight due to forces way outside my control.

[MacG]

I could only tick one alternative. Stupid poll. I would like to tick them all...

[RevdTess]

I could only tick one alternative. Stupid poll. I would like to tick them all...

yeah me too. I with the poll software allowed you to make a 'tick all that apply'.

Next time I'll just add a "All the above" option... but it will get 100% i'm sure.

[Blue Peter]

This thread certainly resonates with me (also INTJ), since I am accused of being a doom-monger at home, and only interested in living in the future, not the present. I rather feel that however things turn out, now is the time to do something, because doing something (admittedly in my case a place with a bit of land ? I don?t think that the other half will wear a community, other than a pretty normal village) takes time. Indeed, it takes a house price crash, since land is so expensive here, and then setting everything up. And, all the while, what happens to the main economy, whilst I?m on the high seas in lifeboat not very self-sufficient, at least at the beginning (to use a metaphor from Clive Smith?). Council tax still has to be paid, as do utility bills, shoes and clothes for children, shoes and clothes for us, health, dentistry?.

It seems to me that timing is everything, and that?s one thing we can?t seem to get. I feel pretty sure that since I joined a few months ago, the preferred peak date has moved from 2007-8 to 2010+, and I don?t think that that?s taking into account a likely coming recession. It?s almost as if something happening soon would be a relief, because it would mean that you could get on with your life, whatever your life turned out to be. I suppose that in that sense, I am living in the future, since this whole nebulous set of ideas has a hypnotizing fix on me. I need to do something, but I can?t quite get around to doing so, because perhaps this shadow on the horizon is a lot further off than I think.


Peter.

[RevdTess]

This thread certainly resonates with me (also INTJ), since I am accused of being a doom-monger at home, and only interested in living in the future, not the present.

Despite INTJ's being quite rare (1 in 100 supposedly?) I wouldn't be surprised to see a much higher % involved in issues like peak oil as it's one of those systemic ideas that we are so good at intuitively grasping in one all-encompassing moment of 'oh, s$^&'.

I don't know about you but my ability to see every possibly flaw in a proposed system has given me a rare gift for my career (software development) but terminal paralysis when it comes to making any potentially-irreversible life-changing decisions.

It seems to me that timing is everything, and that?s one thing we can?t seem to get. I feel pretty sure that since I joined a few months ago, the preferred peak date has moved from 2007-8 to 2010+, and I don?t think that that?s taking into account a likely coming recession. It?s almost as if something happening soon would be a relief, because it would mean that you could get on with your life, whatever your life turned out to be. I suppose that in that sense, I am living in the future, since this whole nebulous set of ideas has a hypnotizing fix on me. I need to do something, but I can?t quite get around to doing so, because perhaps this shadow on the horizon is a lot further off than I think.

Yeah, I understand that perspective.

In my case I could never bring myself to commit to any other way of life because of the uncertainty and difficulty of contingency planning should my plans go awry. For INTJ's contingency planning seems to be exceedingly important. Even going out on an evening I always enumerate in my head three or four ways of getting home after public transport gets patchy, plus check that I have several phone numbers I can call if in need of somewhere to crash. So the idea of jumping into some sort of communal sustainable lifestyle seems to me simultaneously delightful and tempting but also terrifyingly final - a ship that could easily take me down with it if the 'community' proved unbearably disfunctional.

I find myself to be exceedingly strong when considering the interactions of a system I fully comprehend (or grok, as Heinlein - another INTJ - put it), but if that system gets just a leeetle bit too large for me to hold in my head and analyse, I can't deal with it at all, and certainly can't place my faith in it.

I wonder if this comes from playing so much chess with my dad when I was little. I was a bit of a prodigy when it came to intuitively holding dozens of patterns and strategies in my head at once. I didn't examine all the individual possible moves, just relied on an intuitive feel for what was a strong and weak position. But chess stopped being fun when I reached the limit of my ability to hold many simultaneous possible states, several moves in advance. Then I just got panicky that I'd missed something, and could quite easily miss a one move mate with all the stress. I haven't played the game since I was 11.

Not sure if the chess made my mind the way it is, or it just hooked into something I was genetically predisposed towards. My brother, who never played chess, certainly does not have the same systemic way of thinking at all.

Anyway, enough ramble.

[Blue Peter]

This thread certainly resonates with me (also INTJ), since I am accused of being a doom-monger at home, and only interested in living in the future, not the present.

Despite INTJ's being quite rare (1 in 100 supposedly?) I wouldn't be surprised to see a much higher % involved in issues like peak oil as it's one of those systemic ideas that we are so good at intuitively grasping in one all-encompassing moment of 'oh, s$^&'.

1 in 100? I once worked in an office where all 3 of us were INTJs (possibly one was a letter different towards the end). Our boss was little different, but not greatly so. No wonder we were such a sad bunch.

I don't know about you but my ability to see every possibly flaw in a proposed system has given me a rare gift for my career (software development) but terminal paralysis when it comes to making any potentially-irreversible life-changing decisions.

Generally paralysis, but I?ve done a few life-changing things (well, one at least). I think that my career is more of the sort that a car does going down an icy road.

Yeah, I understand that perspective.

In my case I could never bring myself to commit to any other way of life because of the uncertainty and difficulty of contingency planning should my plans go awry. For INTJ's contingency planning seems to be exceedingly important. Even going out on an evening I always enumerate in my head three or four ways of getting home after public transport gets patchy, plus check that I have several phone numbers I can call if in need of somewhere to crash. So the idea of jumping into some sort of communal sustainable lifestyle seems to me simultaneously delightful and tempting but also terrifyingly final - a ship that could easily take me down with it if the 'community' proved unbearably disfunctional.

Yes, my mind can go into overdrive trying to work out possibilities. I?ve spent time cycling home trying to work out ways in which a community constitution could prevent a community being taken over even if people had debt problems ? a vital point, despite the fact that nothing else is in place, or likely to be.

I also think that the paralysis can sometimes mean that I just jump in some times, out of desperation

Chess..

I played a bit, but wasn?t that good, nor interested enough to become so. And since I don?t like losing, I dropped it?


Peter.

[GD]

It seems to me that timing is everything, and that?s one thing we can?t seem to get. I feel pretty sure that since I joined a few months ago, the preferred peak date has moved from 2007-8 to 2010+, and I don?t think that that?s taking into account a likely coming recession.

Pedrrrrrr,

Have you seen this?

Dale Allen Pfeiffer

Oil Peak in 2005?

...

These two statements, taken in concurrence with OPEC's August market
report that total light, sweet oil production was declining,3 and
declining extraction rates from all the major oil companies except BP,4
make it a safe bet that global oil production did indeed peak in 2005. I
must offer a note of thanks to Chris Vernon for making both of the
observations listed above in this paragraph.

[skeptik]

It seems to me that timing is everything, and that?s one thing we can?t seem to get. I feel pretty sure that since I joined a few months ago, the preferred peak date has moved from 2007-8 to 2010+,

The dates that ASPO come up with are not even worth thinking about. ASPO refuses to publish the data set which they maintain and from which their predictions are drawn. They refuse to publish their working methods.

Thus what they are doing cannot be considered anymore scientific than playing 'pin the tail on the donkey' and is the reason why they publish on the web - no scientific journals will take what they do seriously and publish them

What ASPO is saying in general terms I think is correct, but their predictions arent worth the paper they're written on. Colin Cambells past history of predicting future peaks is particularly hopeless:-

http://sepwww.stanford.edu/sep/jon/worl ... ldoil.html

Personally I go with Matt Simmons thinking on the matter. The complexity of the global system of oil production and all the factors involved - geological, political, economic. and the absence of good data make global peak impossible to predict. We'll only ever really see it in hindsight with a decade or so of historical data to look at.

If global oil production is down next year compared to this wll be able to say 'yup... this is it, the geologically constrained global peak of oil production', ( I imagine many POilers will be jumping up and down doing just that) or will it just be a temporary blip due to technical constraints and past underinvestment? - a dip as at the start of the 80's ? I dont think we'll be able to tell.

I'd advise forgetting about dates. Its going to happen , sooner or later. ( I just hope, later). Really all we can do is keep our fingers crossed and start doing as much as possible to reduce oil dependence right now... As I see it the key issue which everything else revolves around is transportation. And that has to be attacked from both the supply and demand side.

When you look at othe countries in the non-industrialised or developing world , it is amazing how little energy they get by on, andtthe comparison makes you aware of the huge ammount of wasted energy in the developed world. If we changed lifestyles somewhat we could make do with a lot less. I I do think there is an enormous ammount of slack in the system.

... whenever I see a row of SUVs, Range Rovers, sports cars all sitting at a red light with one person per vehicle, and all with their engines running, I think 'thats bonkers' Well not only will it still be bonkers , but in a few years it will also be unaffordable. We really ought to be doing something about that right now...

[Blue Peter]

Yes, I did see this.

We've peaked, nobody has noticed. Good, it wasn't a big thing after all phew. Move along folks, nothing to see here.


Since it wasn't generally picked up on (e.g. by Chris himself who's busy getting some bullets for the government's study on when we will peak - surely this would be a silver bullet?), I assumed that either the author was wrong, or it was some rather technical peaking (oil as a whole hasn't peaked, but the nice bit has), which though significant wasn't mega-significant.

Is someone going to tell me that it really is peaking?



Pedrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (with the emphasis on err )

[skeptik]

Is someone going to tell me that it really is peaking?

Nope.

If somebody does, I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

[RevdTess]

I assumed that either the author was wrong, or it was some rather technical peaking (oil as a whole hasn't peaked, but the nice bit has), which though significant wasn't mega-significant.

It's only talking about light sweet crude I believe. That's certainly what Chris Vernon blogged about.

[RevdTess]

If global oil production is down next year compared to this wll be able to say 'yup... this is it, the geologically constrained global peak of oil production', ( I imagine many POilers will be jumping up and down doing just that) or will it just be a temporary blip due to technical constraints and past underinvestment? - a dip as at the start of the 80's ? I dont think we'll be able to tell.

I get reports on global supply and demand every week from various analyst companies, but one wonders how, when there's spare capacity in the system, they manage to create any sort of reasonably accurate supply capacity numbers. How can they find out what the system *could* produce, if the demand was there? They must be depending on what the Saudis and oil majors et al tell them, and we all know how reliable and convincing those numbers are.

I'd advise forgetting about dates. Its going to happen , sooner or later. ( I just hope, later). Really all we can do is keep our fingers crossed and start doing as much as possible to reduce oil dependence right now... As I see it the key issue which everything else revolves around is transportation. And that has to be attacked from both the supply and demand side.

When you look at othe countries in the non-industrialised or developing world , it is amazing how little energy they get by on, andtthe comparison makes you aware of the huge ammount of wasted energy in the developed world. If we changed lifestyles somewhat we could make do with a lot less. I I do think there is an enormous ammount of slack in the system.

Completely agree. I think we can cut our transport costs by a large percentage without damaging the economy if we really had to. Whether people will be informed enough to tolerate such a thing without fuel protests and whatnot kicking off is another matter entirely.

[fishertrop]

The dates that ASPO come up with are not even worth thinking about. ASPO refuses to publish the data set which they maintain and from which their predictions are drawn. They refuse to publish their working methods.

To be fair, the ASPO model is only that - a model - and Colin has often said "of course it's wrong, all the models are wrong, it's a question of which is least wrong".

Look at published works recently - the CERA missive, the latest ASPO work, Rembrant's model, Chris Skrebowski's latest review - they all more or less say about the same. Where they differ is in how they draw conclusions - how they adjust the little bits around the edges.

CERA don't list everything they uses as sources and I don't think it really matters anyway - there are no TRUE sources of real data anyway.

What many other guys do - like Simmons - is take all the data they can find and model it. You get what you get - but thats all we have.

I don't think the ASPO model is any more or less credible than any other - what it does do get a lot of people looking at the big picture. I know people who couldn't get there heads around the bigger picture until they saw that one coloured graph.

[johnhemming]

It would be helpful to have links to all of these analyses.