Peak oil and government question

fishertrop · Post by **fishertrop** » 04 Oct 2005, 20:57

MacG wrote: Oh my... Just imagine trying to write a weekly summary report over the conversations here. I guess they put the new hires on probation on that task, an then the senior staff wet their pants laughing when hearing the young ambitious ones trying to find some system to it.

I mean. just look, this forum sprout in just about any imaginable direction, except -until now then- violent overtrough. Hmm.. Not much sex either when thinking about it. Or sailing. And snowboarding. Apart from that, just about any direction...

Imagine what all our profiles look like !

PROFILE 1
"MacG" - stroppy scandanavian nomad with anarchist tendencies and a love of wood.
Classification - DANGEROUS
ACTION - Terminate immediately

LOL

Man I can't do my own profile for laffing.......

MacG · Post by **MacG** » 04 Oct 2005, 21:03

fishertrop wrote:
MacG wrote: Oh my... Just imagine trying to write a weekly summary report over the conversations here. I guess they put the new hires on probation on that task, an then the senior staff wet their pants laughing when hearing the young ambitious ones trying to find some system to it.

I mean. just look, this forum sprout in just about any imaginable direction, except -until now then- violent overtrough. Hmm.. Not much sex either when thinking about it. Or sailing. And snowboarding. Apart from that, just about any direction...
Imagine what all our profiles look like !

PROFILE 1
"MacG" - stroppy scandanavian nomad with anarchist tendencies and a love of wood.
Classification - DANGEROUS
ACTION - Terminate immediately

LOL

Man I can't do my own profile for laffing.......

PROFILE 2
"fishertrop": Polite and social Briton. So overly polite that it MUST be a cover.
Classification: Highly contagious.
Action: Terminate and destroy all residues. Even the residues can be contagious.

rs · Post by rs » 04 Oct 2005, 21:29

Totally_Baffled wrote:
For those with wealth and in power they have far more opportunities open to them than the rest of us. Who will the law will be protecting when TSHTF?
I think skeptik is right.

If everything has gone to hell, what are the 'rich and wealthy' paying the police with? Money wont be worth anything

Where will the police live? Im sure they wont leave their families in urban areas if mad max has broken out.

How ill the maintain the water systems, farms , power stations etc You cannot possible guard all the infrastructure.

I just dont believe it is in anyone interests (even the rich and powerful) for things to go to hell, because it will be the end for the rich and wealthy too. Believe you me , if any attempt was made , they are going to be the target for 6.45billion poor people, and I dont think there are enough bullets to shoot all of them!!

If we move militarily to secure the remaining oil who will be drafted ?
You reckon 300 million impoverished heavily armed US civilians will join up willingly to be cannon fodder in a oil war? I think you would get revolution or civil war first.

Why have many people signed up to be members of the police force in Iraq when they know they are targets for the insurgents too? If we had a SHTF scenario what's to stop people thinking they might stand a better chance working for the government than against it ?

As for drafting, look at the increase in age limits in the US to join the military. Could we see a return to conscription? It is already being talked about it! There is your army straight away. Join up to protect the american way of life!

I'm not saying all of this is fact and will happen. As clv101 asked I am just pointing out other potential scenarios. There have been many nasty aspects to human history and controlling huge numbers of people have been part of that.

RogerCO · Post by **RogerCO** » 04 Oct 2005, 21:30

fishertrop wrote:So in summary then, we have 3 possible scenarios:
1) The Uk gov is ignorant of the energy situation and has little preperation
2) The gov knows about some of the probs but sees it has enough time to fix some of them, possibly with some nasty measures, but is still forming a coherent plan
3) It's a flat conspiricy - the gov are 100% up to speed and most key actions to date (such as iraq) are part of a fairly organised plan to get us to some endgame, in secret

Is that the long and the short of it?

Well personally I'm more of a 3a - I believe in the cock-up not the conspiracy.

I see most of industrial civilization, or at least the overshoot part of it (last 20 years), as being a cock-up on a monumental scale by the human race.

As regards whether the Govt is coherently up-to-speed on PO I think probably not - its a cock-up again, lots of unconnected dots. But it is part of the 'evolution' of human command and control structures which is in danger of going down some pretty unpleasant paths by default - the pieces are all there and the natural human thing to do is to join them up. That will create another totalitarian system automatically and without there being any central conspiracy (which as fishertrop points out there patently isn't)

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" Edmund Burke, attrib.

Actually what Burke really said was "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle" which makes more sense and is possibly more relevant to this debate.

Our politicians and leaders are, by and large, good men. The rise of totalitarianism and the necessity for violent struggle will only come about if they (and we) fail to associate. This is why PO (and more generally Limits to Growth) education is so important today; I do not want to be forced into becoming a street fighting man, I want to live in a peaceful and sustainable society - but that is not the direction we head in today, and ultimately I might have to fight to get there.

BTW MacG where in Sweden are you - I sailed to Oland this summer but didn't meet any wood loving stroppy nomadic scandinavian anarchists - well plenty of wood-loving : does that count as getting sex into the thread; all we need now is some snowboarding

MacG · Post by **MacG** » 04 Oct 2005, 22:00

RogerCO wrote:BTW MacG where in Sweden are you - I sailed to Oland this summer but didn't meet any wood loving stroppy nomadic scandinavian anarchists - well plenty of wood-loving : does that count as getting sex into the thread; all we need now is some snowboarding

OMG! ?land? Most of those have three teeth and play a banjo! PLEASE dont judge all of us based on what you find on ?land. Please! I dont judge you based on what I find in Wales. Bloody good score for the connections though...

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 04 Oct 2005, 22:02

fishertrop wrote:Now that's how to get Powerswitch on the MI5 filter-list, assuming we aren't already....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

I think it's probably safe to say that GCHQ & the NSA are already listening.

PowerSwitchJames · Post by **PowerSwitchJames** » 05 Oct 2005, 08:24

If we ever have 'PowerSwitch Forum Awards' I want this up as the best thread ever.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 05 Oct 2005, 09:25

Joe wrote:
I think it's probably safe to say that GCHQ & the NSA are already listening.

My brother spends a lot of time at GCHQ - I could tip him the wink

Blue Peter · Post by **Blue Peter** » 05 Oct 2005, 10:22

Roger,

That's a very provocative piece. Do you have anything to flesh it out, back it up, etc.

BTW, I think that it should be couched in terms of freedom fighting, preserving democracy, etc. which we are definitely still allowed to use,

Peter.

GD · Post by GD » 05 Oct 2005, 11:55

I want to know what on earth MacG saw in Wales...

RogerCO · Post by **RogerCO** » 05 Oct 2005, 12:28

GD wrote:I want to know what on earth MacG saw in Wales...

<puts on tin helmet and prepares to run for cover...>

The Welsh, presumably

(I'll respond to Blue Peter later)

GD · Post by GD » 05 Oct 2005, 12:40

RogerCO wrote:
GD wrote:I want to know what on earth MacG saw in Wales...

<puts on tin helmet and prepares to run for cover...>

The Welsh, presumably

(I'll respond to Blue Peter later)

Perhaps it was cornish immigrants

MacG · Post by **MacG** » 05 Oct 2005, 12:42

[Edit: Disturbing pic removed]

GD · Post by GD » 05 Oct 2005, 12:59

He he MacG, that's shocking.

Back to the ant hill, anyone seen Monbiot's latest article?

All politicians who seek to justify repressive legislation claim that they are responding to an unprecedented threat to public order. And all politicians who cite such a threat draft measures in response which can just as easily be used against democratic protest. No act has been passed over the last 20 years with the aim of preventing anti-social behaviour, disorderly conduct, trespass, harrassment and terrorism which has not also been deployed to criminalise a peaceful public engagement in politics.

RogerCO · Post by **RogerCO** » 05 Oct 2005, 13:22

Monbiot and James Humphries (ex Dowing Street department of spin) were on Radio4 this morning talking about how changes could be made to combat climate change.

Monbiot made the point that we are all a bunch of hypocrites and the 'hair shirt' approach simply doesn't work.

Humphries made the point that the government will never take the lead because they think that the swing voters in marginal constituencies are the epitome of 'consumers' and the govt simply will not take them on with measures designed to reduce consumption. They would rather sleepwalk to destruction than introduce 'unpopular' regulation - this observation from a man who has been in the meetings in Downing St where these issues (climate change, and by association PO) are discussed.

Monbiot finished by saying that the govt must take the lead, but that that will only happen if political pressure groups (like powerswitch) demand that the govt acts - and promote the view that any party or organisation which promotes the voice of the 'consumer' is acting against the national interest in the same way as if it supported terrorism.