The downside of dependence

TFian said:
What am I contradicting him in?
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He said in the link in the OP that the US would be a third world country in the near future. Are you serious that the world's predominant economy; only superpower; the most innovative and enterprising nation on earth, magically attaining the same status of Zimbabwe would not lead to worldwide economic, social and military collapse? Pull the other one.

Greer clearly wants this to happen, and you seem to as well. It simply won't. Learn to live with this reality, and not your fantasy.
 
lionking said:
He said in the link in the OP that the US would be a third world country in the near future. Are you serious that the world's predominant economy; only superpower; the most innovative and enterprising nation on earth, magically attaining the same status of Zimbabwe would not lead to worldwide economic, social and military collapse? Pull the other one.
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It doesn't magically change that way. Do you really think America is going to be seeing bright days in the future? You must be the only one then.

lionking said:
Greer clearly wants this to happen, and you seem to as well. It simply won't. Learn to live with this reality, and not your fantasy.
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What makes you say he "wants' this to happen.
 
TFian said:
It doesn't magically change that way. Do you really think America is going to be seeing bright days in the future? You must be the only one then.



What makes you say he "wants' this to happen.
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You are really good at evading questions. When will the US (and the rest of the world with it) collapse and attain the status of a third world future? Your guru says the near future. What about you?
 
lionking said:
You are really good at evading questions. When will the US (and the rest of the world with it) collapse and attain the status of a third world future? Your guru says the near future. What about you?
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In many ways it already is, just ask any 99er who's lost all "support" and has become part of the permanent American class of economic nobodies. As for a precise date? I can't give it, but sometime in the next 50 years no doubt. It won't be a sudden event, again it will be a long descent.

Also, what's this stuff about him *wanting* it to happen. How about justifying that claim.
 
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TFian said:
In many ways it already is, just ask any 99er who's lost all "support" and has become part of the permanent American class of economic nobodies. As for a precise date? I can't give it, but sometime in the next 50 years no doubt. It won't be a sudden event, again it will be a long descent.

Also, what's this stuff about him *wanting* it to happen. How about justifying that claim.
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Why 50 years? Justify it.

As for Greer wanting it, the relish in how he writes about the USA's demise is good enough for me.

Anyway, it won't happen. You and he are wrong. Don't forget you are making the extraordinary claim. Support it with evidence.
 
lionking said:
Why 50 years? Justify it.

As for Greer wanting it, the relish in how he writes about the USA's demise is good enough for me.

Anyway, it won't happen. You and he are wrong. Don't forget you are making the extraordinary claim. Support it with evidence.
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They're all speculations of course. But there's plenty of reasons. Just again, ask the people on their last unemployment check if they're living a first world act.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129727773
 
TFian said:
I've addressed all those. Nuclear is simply not possible without the energy & capital that fossil fuels bring forth. How would we build the equipment without such abundant energy sources?
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Lol, no.

An LFTR could probably be built with steam age technology. All you need to have is the ability to put together a big ass steel drum, seperate pure thorium from ore and mix it with flouride salts.

Uranium in the traditionally used sense is indeed peaking.
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No, it absolutely is not. Stop lying.

There's Thorium sure, but can easily be classed as "Vaporware", given it's such an immature and untested (in any large scale) technology.
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It's not untested. You're lying again.

TFian said:
What inconvenient facts am I ignoring?
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The fact that no one in the nuclear community agrees with you, for one.
 
lionking said:
Unemployment =/= third world status. But you know that. You seem to be clutching at straws.
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Well, declining living standards are included in declining wages. First world, second world and third world are generally distinguished from living standards. But what does this have to do with declining energy supplies?

Oh wait I forgot, peakniks proclaim that the 2008 economic crash was caused by "Peak oil"....
 
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Thunder said:
ah yes, nuclear power.

the clean, safe energy of the 20th century.

until....BOOOOM!!!! Chernobyl.

or BOOOOM!!!!!! Fukoshima.

relying on nuclear energy to supply all the world's electricity needs, is a recipe for disaster.
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Whatever energy source we make use of, it will have it's negative repercussions. That's true of coal, oil, nuclear, solar, wind, whatever source you choose.

Are you capable of looking at the actual degree of "disaster" that's come about due to nuclear power and compare it to the repercussions of not developing it?
 
TFian said:
With the help of abundant fossil fuels...
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But it doesn't have to. If you have a ton of nuclear, you can just use some of that electricity to make Hydrogen or charge batteries and run your trucks off that.
 
JadeStonesFromSaturn said:
Well, declining living standards are included in declining wages. First world, second world and third world are generally distinguished from living standards.
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Any country will have some segment of it's population unemployed. TFian's claim that the USA is close to being a third world country because there some people are unemployed is laughable.

And by the way, he makes that claim here:
TFian said:
lionking said:
You are really good at evading questions. When will the US (and the rest of the world with it) collapse and attain the status of a third world future? Your guru says the near future. What about you?
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In many ways it already is, just ask any 99er who's lost all "support" and has become part of the permanent American class of economic nobodies. As for a precise date? I can't give it, but sometime in the next 50 years no doubt.
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Bolding mine.
 
Roboramma said:
Any country will have some segment of it's population unemployed.
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True, but the United States unemployment rate continues to rise, as wages continue also continue to decline. Now, I'm not saying it's becoming Zimbabwe like the mystical Witch druid or whatever, but it's not honky dory either. But I don't see any evidence it has anything to do with energy supplies.

Roboramma said:
And by the way, he makes that claim here:

Bolding mine.
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Unfortunately, possible future policy changes aside, there probably will be a much larger underclass of economic "nobodies" in the US's near future. Add in an decaying infrastructure, and well, it's not a good recipe.

Btw, again, I don't agree with TFian's claims or the scale he's making them.
 
TFian said:
I've addressed all those. Nuclear is simply not possible without the energy & capital that fossil fuels bring forth. How would we build the equipment without such abundant energy sources?
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We've been through that many times. The fact that you ignored that answers doesn't change the fact that they've been given.

Uranium in the traditionally used sense is indeed peaking.
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What "traditionally used sense" is that? Uranium is an element. If we can get it cost effectively (and we can), then it doesn't matter where it comes from. There's plenty of uranium. But we've been through that many times already as well.
 
TFian said:
To keep the internet up and running takes a vastly complex technological structure, ranging from gigawatts of electricity from centralized power plants, through silicon chip factories and their supporting industries and supply chains, to universities that can train people in the wide range of exotic specialties that keep the net functioning. It also requires an economic system complex and rich enough that the internet can pay its bills and outcompete other ways of providing the services that net users actually use. None of those are guaranteed, and in a world facing energy shortages, economic contraction, and attendant social and political disruption, the chances that today’s faltering industrial societies can maintain the technological and economic foundation for the internet look very slim.
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So you are once again conflating "the internet" with "the internet as it exists today"?

Perhaps energy will be more expensive in the future, and some of the things that we do with the internet will no longer be cost effective. As has been pointed out time and time again that doesn't suggest that all of the things we do will no longer be cost effective. The energy cost of watching videos on youtube is much greater than the energy cost of sending a text email, but you act as though arguing that the former will be too energy intensive in the future demonstrates that the latter will also be too energy intensive.

Can you at least separate those things in your mind?
 
JadeStonesFromSaturn said:
True, but the United States unemployment rate continues to rise, as wages continue also continue to decline. Now, I'm not saying it's becoming Zimbabwe like the mystical Witch druid or whatever, but it's not honky dory either. But I don't see any evidence it has anything to do with energy supplies.
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Is that a trend over the last few years (since the housing bubble and economic crisis) or a longer term trend that you're pointing to?
If the former, I don't really see the relevance.
 
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