excaza
Illuminator
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2007
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- 3,593
It would help if you could argue using something other than sheer ignorance, incredulity, blatant lying, and hyperbole.
Will the internet survive energy contraction?
- Thread starter TFian
- Start date
It would help if you could argue using something other than sheer ignorance, incredulity, blatant lying, and hyperbole.
Mashuna
Ovis ex Machina
Based on current evidence, it doesn't seem likely though.
You could have said the same thing to me 50 years ago (if we'd both been alive), with as much justification on your part. You would have been wrong then and you are wrong now.
I can use history to inform my view of the world. And there's nothing religious about a view of the world that is informed by historical, economic, and scientific evidence.
TFian
Graduate Poster
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What is this in reference to, the myth of progress? History is on my side, not yours in this game.
PixyMisa
Persnickety Insect
TFian, nobody and nothing is on your side. Given the number of own goals you've scored, not even you are on your own side.
History has never been on the side of manifestos. History has never been on the side of people who think things will follow a Single Guiding Principle.
TFian, you're the one predicting that people will "follow" this one, universal, simple behavior---reverting to your favorite details of a distant-past lifestyle.
The rest of us are arguing that people are complicated (you don't know their motivations), people are smart (they solve problems), people are stupid (they don't do a perfect sustainability-calculation every time they act), people are greedy (they will do things for money), people are lazy (they will sometimes pay money in exchange for easier ways to do things), people are adaptable, and many different kinds of people make up a society---both people who think like you and people who think like (say) me.
That complexity ultimately includes how people generate power, what the do with the power they generate, what natural resources they find/use/recycle/deploy, who buys and sells and grows what, etc. You are utterly manifesto-bound, in the most un-historically-informed way possible, in your assumption that this boils down to something simple, obvious, and easily defined.
TFian
Graduate Poster
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You'd have a point, if I were espousing such an idea. I am not however. I have no manifesto.
No. First off, we think most people will be dead. Second off, there is no one universal simple behavior we think people will follow. The Grand Archdruid John Michael Greer believes in a dissensus approach, not some grand "consensus" approach.
That's what I've been arguing the whole time, as has Greer.
Not really. Most people die in hardship.
Yes I know. I've never denied this.
No argument there. We just disagree what technology will be possible and practical after the oil peak.
Again with the misconception. Where do you get this idea? There's no utopia or single path towards enlightenment I'm preaching. Just a future of a lot of hardship, and a lot of death. Hopefully we'll get through with it though.
Garrison0fMars
Unregistered
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You are though. (espousing a manifesto like mindset) Maybe not in a literal "This is my manifesto, follow it letter by letter or die" sense, but in a "there will only be ONE PATH to follow if you want to survive" type thing.
While Greer certainly claims this, I find that to be rather disingenuous on his part. If this were the case, he'd not go out of his way to criticize other approaches to the issues we face, let alone other energy contraction movements. If he (and you) could remove your Luddite biases for just a second, you'd see that's what's already happening. Just compare the energy polices of France vs. Germany. Both nations intend to be fossil fuel (and carbon neutral) in the near future, but both going about it in different ways. France very much embraces nuclear energy, where Germany is attempting to go towards a 100% renewable path (I believe planning to decommission all nuclear power plants by the 2030s). These are just two examples I can think off the top of my head. If you read around, you'll find countless more, at the federal national level, state/province/canton level, municipal level, corporate level, university level, citizen DIY science level, etc. etc. People are already engaged in this "dissensus" approach that Greer advocates, but they're not engaged in a lurid fantasy of the "good ol days' of agrarian misery. I've been reading his blog for the past month, and I can safely say I find his claim that he advocates a decentralized experimental approach to issues to be complete BS. The guy on a regular basis decrees commands to his audience with a very undeserved smug 'know it all' arrogant attitude. TFian, you've been taken in by an unscientific cult leader, who by his own admission, is out to find a "herd" out of the people already biased towards a Luddite desire. Why do you think he became an "Grand Archdruid" out of a made up Druid sect? It's very unlikely for simply "spiritual growth".
And why should we listen to a guy who admittedly believes "Geomancy" is an actual useful practice to derive factual information?
Or let me put it another way, why should we listen to a guy who attempted to mark his career based on writing new age woo crap literature (Supernatural creatures, occult practices, geomancy, etc., etc.) before moving onto doomsday peak oil literature? (Where he made his mark apparently as one of the cardinals of the "movement")
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/25/science/earth/25fossil.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp
A rural Kenyan farmer was willing to spend 6+ hours a week in transit (and $20/month for fares) for the ability to charge a cell phone. (Also: $15 for kerosene for lighting.)
She saved up $80 for a small solar panel, which now runs both the cell phone---other villagers pay her to charge theirs---and LED lighting. It'll pay for itself in savings in 10 weeks.
A rural Kenyan farmer was willing to spend 6+ hours a week in transit (and $20/month for fares) for the ability to charge a cell phone. (Also: $15 for kerosene for lighting.)
She saved up $80 for a small solar panel, which now runs both the cell phone---other villagers pay her to charge theirs---and LED lighting. It'll pay for itself in savings in 10 weeks.