Will the internet survive energy contraction?

TFian said:
Short term profits begate long term consequences.
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So?

The consequences of albertan tar sand extraction are very well documented.
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Yes, they are. It's a difficult, energy-intensive, and messy process.

So?

It still means that you don't get your doom, and your "empty freeways" prediction is no more than a dark fantasy.
 
TFian said:
Nevermind :p
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No worries.

So? That doesn't change it from being a very ****** way of harvesting energy.
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So?

It still means that your predictions of doom are wrong. We are not about to run out of oil, and civilisation is not going to come to an abrupt halt. And Alberta is going to become very very rich... And then, in time, decline again.

That's how things work in the real world.
 
PixyMisa said:
It still means that your predictions of doom are wrong. We are not about to run out of oil, and civilisation is not going to come to an abrupt halt. And Alberta is going to become very very rich... And then, in time, decline again.

That's how things work in the real world.
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Sure, short term profits no doubt, I agree there. Long term nasty consequences though. I guess we'll see how well they manage the externalities.
 
PixyMisa said:
Peruvian slave traders, French general-purpose bastards, and diseased Catholic priests.

When the Dutch arrived in the 18th century, the population of Easter Island had declined from its 16th century peak, but the society was still stable and relatively prosperous. The real disaster came in the 19th century, between 1860 and 1880, and it was entirely due to external factors.

The Peruvians enslaved one third of the population of Easter Island in a single year, killed 99% of the slaves through overwork and disease, and returned the handful of survivors infected with smallpox.

A Catholic priest with tuberculosis passed it on along with his religion and killed a quarter of the survivors of the Peruvian slaughter and the smallpox epidemic.

The French outright killed half of the survivors of that. Missionaries evacuated whoever they could; by 1880 only about 100 natives remained on the island.
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All of that is true, but the fact that there was a later, bigger collapse of the easter island civilization brought about by external forces doesn't suggest that the earlier one was meaningless.

It is true that were unable to build large sea-going canoes after they'd cut down all the trees, that the richness of their diet suffered, that there was in increase in inter-tribal war, and that the political power structures changed as those in power were toppled.

Life did go on, though.
 
Roboramma said:
All of that is true, but the fact that there was a later, bigger collapse of the easter island civilization brought about by external forces doesn't suggest that the earlier one was meaningless.
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No, agreed.

But to conflate the two is historically inaccurate in the extreme.

It is true that were unable to build large sea-going canoes after they'd cut down all the trees, that the richness of their diet suffered, that there was in increase in inter-tribal war, and that the political power structures changed as those in power were toppled.

Life did go on, though.
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Agreed on all points.

They screwed up, adapted, survived, and got wiped out later on.

Still, it's very true that if they had adapted earlier they would have been far better off.
 
My point on Easter Island is that the lesson we should draw from it is not All societies are doomed to expire from ecological catastrophe but Keep your options open.

If you need trees for transport, construction, and tool making - and you have no alternatives - then don't chop down all the freaking trees!
 
PixyMisa said:
My point on Easter Island is that the lesson we should draw from it is not All societies are doomed to expire from ecological catastrophe but Keep your options open.

If you need trees for transport, construction, and tool making - and you have no alternatives - then don't chop down all the freaking trees!
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Well said.

I find it quite odd that TFian contends that "civilizations fall by suicide not murder" (or whatever the quote was), and has only one example of such suicide, but hasn't responded to the examples of societies that fell by murder.

I mean, basically every society in North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, and many in Africa, South East Asia, and the Middle East at the time of European colonialism collapsed due to external forces (ie. "murder" or at the very least not "suicide").

But beyond that, if he wants to listen to Jared Diamond he can look at the evidence Diamond himself presented in "Guns Germs and Steel" of societies all over the world having been subsumed by other more technologically advanced societies throughout history.

Why are most European languages related? Because people speaking proto-indo-european languages displaced people speaking other languages in those regions. And there is a similar pattern in Africa, China, India, etc.

So, TFian, generally societies do fall due to murder, not suicide.
 
Roboramma said:
That's the point: cultural systems are conservative by nature, so by what criteria have you determined that "sinking systems" grow more conservative. All the evidence I've seen shows is that they "sinking systems" are conservative, not that they grow more conservative.

Actually I'd suggest that the opposite is the case: "sinking systems" grow less conservative.
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Well that is a great subject for debate. Most cultures are conservative by nature, they do not change radically in the matter of a generation (when it comes to values). But cultures also accrete by contact, such as the prevalence of words like burrito, salsa and spaghetti and the foods that they represent. Words and concepts are usually accreted more quickly with life style factors following behind.

Now the confusion comes when the societies and sub groups that are immersed in a culture have reactionary tendencies to change. The evangelical xians and homosexuality are mostly a case of rallying around a flag, many of these people actually know homosexuals and have some level of tolerance (if not acceptance). They may not want them as neighbors but they do not generally go out and lynch them.

The changes in foods and media expressions of culture are usually the place to look for cultural shifts.
 
TFian said:
The Easter Island society is good evidence they grow *more* conservative, rather then less. When they were running out of a critical resource, their trees, instead of conserving them, and trying to cultivate more, they simply hastened up the destruction of their eco system by erecting more of their stupid statues. And that's how they killed themselves.
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I don't think you know what 'conservative' means, and you are just guessing anyways. Conservative means resistant to change.

What evidence do you have correlating an increase in statue building leading to ecological destruction?

BTW nice bigotry TFian, we can add that to the list of logical fallacies you demonstrate.
 
TFian said:
In a matter of speaking, yes.

Can I ask why you think James Lovelock is crazy? After all, his Gaia hypothesis is well respected.
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Sort of and sort of not as a scientific hypothesis that groups of organisms can associate to benefit each other, yes. As the wooey mushy, lets all pretend that nature is never capricious and destructive, no.
 
Dancing David said:
I don't think you know what 'conservative' means, and you are just guessing anyways. Conservative means resistant to change.
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I'm well aware of what conservative means in a universal broad sense (in fact, I pretty much described it as such to another user)

Dancing David said:
What evidence do you have correlating an increase in statue building leading to ecological destruction?
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http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/24/042.html

Dancing David said:
BTW nice bigotry TFian, we can add that to the list of logical fallacies you demonstrate.
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And what bigotry have I shown? Care to clarify?
 
TFian said:
He did demonstrate civilizations usually kill themselves, rather than being killed by others. As his quote goes "Civilizations die off from suicide, not murder". It's an uncomfortable truth. Civilization in general is unadaptable.
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Add another to your pile of Undemonstrated Assertions and Appeals to Authority.

You are very wrong about civilization, you have no idea how to even use words properly.
 
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