[LordMelvin]

Most sub-Saharan African countries consume very little oil anyway.

I call stepping back from the post-industrialized rural community in the western world that I live in to the economic circumstances of non-urban sub-Saharan Africa something pretty akin to the end of civilization as we know it. YMMV, of course.


Also, what does peak oil and the impending (alleged impending, okay, happy now?) Malthusian cataclysm have to do with Prop 8? If anything, Prop 8 increasing the number of married couples would seem to decrease the number of single households, and therefore increase efficiency in resource consumption, delaying the inevitable (right, right, allegedly inevitable, okay, happy now?) badness...

[samiam]

I call stepping back from the post-industrialized rural community in the western world that I live in to the economic circumstances of non-urban sub-Saharan Africa something pretty akin to the end of civilization as we know it. YMMV, of course.

Why do I keep discussing politics on the internet? Why can't I help myself?

[Scotty]

Not sure, but I like how you argue.  None of this blaming religion for everything.  Your arguments have been mercifully religion free.

[samiam]

Thanks, Scotty. I appreciate it. Allahu akhbar to you.

Anyway, Melvin, my point is that there are plenty of other ways people are getting power, like solar powered batteries or coal or whatnot, that the almost every country could switch to with barely noticeable (say, 5%) reductions in whatever their current living standard is. Since I'm so bad at sorting wheat from the troll-chaff, I felt obliged to reply to you.

[666maslo666]

dots stolen by nuke

[666maslo666]

It won't. What you're suggesting is so ridiculous that I can hardly find anything about it.

Indeed you cant, your source does not seem to adress my argument at all.

Peak oil is not only some fringe argument as you tried to imply, but a credible threat:

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

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-professors-flattening-oil-production-trump.html

Most sub-Saharan African countries consume very little oil anyway.

Does not work that way. They consume little because they cannot afford more, not because they dont need it, so they are more vulnerable. Increase in oil price will thus hit primarily these poor countries. Famine in Somalia during oil price spike was the first sign of things to come.

The world can switch to different energy sources without anyone starving.

You dont know that, and nobody really does until we try. What we know is that there is not a single economy on this planet where oil is not of vital importance.

[Grizzly]

You dont know that, and nobody really does until we try. What we know is that there is not a single economy on this planet where oil is not of vital importance.

There's France, the country with the highest GDP per ton Co2 emitted, due to it's vast array of nuclear reactors. I don't think that they would be impacted as much as you think by rising oil prices, although this is only a hypothesis.

[samiam]

It won't. What you're suggesting is so ridiculous that I can hardly find anything about it.

Indeed you cant, your source does not seem to adress my argument at all.

Peak oil is not only some fringe argument as you tried to imply, but a credible threat:

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

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-professors-flattening-oil-production-trump.html

I appreciate you reading my source. The point is that, although costs are associated with peak oil, nowhere in my paper's discussion is mention of starvation or anything you're talking about during its discussion of world agricultural production and fossil fuel inputs.

The papers you mentioned did discuss large costs associated with peak oil, but also stated that the world could adapt to it and nowhere was starvation, malnutrition, or anything at all related to population constraints mentioned. If anything, the report assumes that population will continue to grow. The one specific prediction that the Hirsch Report did make was that the peak would result in expensive capital replacement costs spread out over a decade or so. Five percent of GDP per year, maybe less. Expensive, but hardly in the way you suggest.

My argument is that peak oil will not appreciably affect world population growth. And I'm pretty sure it won't. Here's How to Feed the World in 2050 by the FAO. Peak oil is not even mentioned as a potential threat to the food supply. Again, I can't find anything saying peak oil won't lead to some population crisis anymore than finding a source showing Peak Lithium leading to famine. *grumpiness removed*

For what it's worth, if you're okay with citing internet articles, here's some dude who thinks there will be a population crisis, but doesn't even consider Peak Oil a major cause. Still bull****. But it is a better argument for Malthusian collapse.

[LordMelvin]

One of the things that people neglect in these kinds of debates is the HUGE prevalence of petroleum-derived fertilizers. You subtract those, or raise their price like you're going to have to when the demand-curve spikes and you will see the price of industrialized food production spike through the (metaphorical) roof.

[samiam]

Petroleum-based fertilizer meme. I don't think so.

The closest thing you can get to that is stuff like nitrogen fixation requiring large amounts of energy, but you can get solar for about twice the price (which is constantly deflating), which, I guess, is inconvenient but food prices would still be lower under that regime than they were for most of history. And when you go down the list of all the energy sources out there, there probably aren't many places in the world that absolutely cannot generate or import electricity if any one particular source happens to disappear.

[Ghostavo]

Heh, yeah, I remember those.  Good times.

I honestly didn't know that little factoid about the term "marriage" predating its religious attachments either.  Even looking beyond gay marriage, I'd always found it strange that government was in the process of certifying "marriages" in general, but if that's the actual original usage, then that shoots down the theoretical idea of applying some other term to everybody.  From a practical standpoint, though, I doubt many people out there are aware of that fact, and even if they were made aware of it, a good number probably wouldn't take it to heart, so we're still stuck in the same unfortunate boat.

If people ignore this factoid when it's presented to them, of course the problem continues.

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=63438.msg1250532#msg1250532

The fact that this argument was had 3 years ago in this very forum tells us much...

[samiam]

I'm not sure where the idea of petroleum derived fertilizer came from. Fertilizers consist of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. These are all elements. Petroleum is a hydrocarbon. You cannot transmute a hydrocarbon or any other material into a different element unless you're a magician.

Maybe someone got confused between peak phosphorus and peak oil. Or maybe someone was just trolling an ecology forum. Either way, it doesn't make any sense.

[Mongoose]

Heh, yeah, I remember those.  Good times.

I honestly didn't know that little factoid about the term "marriage" predating its religious attachments either.  Even looking beyond gay marriage, I'd always found it strange that government was in the process of certifying "marriages" in general, but if that's the actual original usage, then that shoots down the theoretical idea of applying some other term to everybody.  From a practical standpoint, though, I doubt many people out there are aware of that fact, and even if they were made aware of it, a good number probably wouldn't take it to heart, so we're still stuck in the same unfortunate boat.

If people ignore this factoid when it's presented to them, of course the problem continues.

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=63438.msg1250532#msg1250532

The fact that this argument was had 3 years ago in this very forum tells us much...

So, you wait a week after this post, when the topic has moved on to--y'know, how the hell did the topic get to this anyway?--, and you dig up a snippet of conversation we had three years ago, to do...what exactly?  I mean, let's look past the fact that you either have a scary-good memory, or else you're going almost stalker-level on me.  Let's even overlook the fact that I'm in a very different place now at a personal level than I was back then.  What you're saying is that your un-elaborated three-word point in the middle of an intense back-and-forth should have left some sort of lasting impression on me, as opposed to Ryan actually taking the time to explain the historical concepts involved.  Yeah, sure.

[samiam]

Chill, all. This is the internet.

[Ghostavo]

Heh, yeah, I remember those.  Good times.

I honestly didn't know that little factoid about the term "marriage" predating its religious attachments either.  Even looking beyond gay marriage, I'd always found it strange that government was in the process of certifying "marriages" in general, but if that's the actual original usage, then that shoots down the theoretical idea of applying some other term to everybody.  From a practical standpoint, though, I doubt many people out there are aware of that fact, and even if they were made aware of it, a good number probably wouldn't take it to heart, so we're still stuck in the same unfortunate boat.

If people ignore this factoid when it's presented to them, of course the problem continues.

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=63438.msg1250532#msg1250532

The fact that this argument was had 3 years ago in this very forum tells us much...

So, you wait a week after this post, when the topic has moved on to--y'know, how the hell did the topic get to this anyway?--, and you dig up a snippet of conversation we had three years ago, to do...what exactly?  I mean, let's look past the fact that you either have a scary-good memory, or else you're going almost stalker-level on me.  Let's even overlook the fact that I'm in a very different place now at a personal level than I was back then.  What you're saying is that your un-elaborated three-word point in the middle of an intense back-and-forth should have left some sort of lasting impression on me, as opposed to Ryan actually taking the time to explain the historical concepts involved.  Yeah, sure.

I only looked at this thread now, I remembered that this theme about marriage and religion had been discussed here on HLP and looked it up using the search function.

I apologize if I gave the impression of a personal attack, it was just coincidence that you were the one in the link (and if you notice two replies before mine, Knight Templar gave a huge response about it, but it's size makes a link have less impact since he had multiple points, not just this theme).

It just annoys me to see the same point having to be replied to over and over again, like the argument about the 2nd law of thermodynamics and evolution.

[Mongoose]

Yeah, I definitely took your post the wrong way, and I'm sorry about that.  The thread you linked to wound up being a particularly ugly one, from a generally toxic time in GD's history, and I guess seeing it dredged up like that made me wince pretty hard.  There are certainly a lot of statements I made in there that I'm cringing at right now.  I can see your overall point that repeating certain facts over and over again gets extremely old; obviously what happened in that thread didn't leave nearly as much of an impression on me at the time as Ryan's post did now.

[Ghostavo]

While I'm at it, I'll take advantage of this date, topic and the suggestion that I was stalking you to present you this:

[Mongoose]

I feel kind of sad that I've actually seen that episode.

On a related note, apparently I've been using the word "factoid" wrong for years, and I'm not the only one.  Besides feeling sheepish, now I understand why you italicized that word, because it was kind of the opposite of what I meant in the first place.