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oh man's! it's been exactly a year since i last used this doohickey
new plan: let's play the lj game w/ less emo and more worthwhile
k.. so maybe i don't really have much worthwhile to say, seems like i'm only really good at taking things in, but no so much with the reworking them into something new
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( on globalization, environmentalism, politics, and generally everything going to hell )
new plan: let's play the lj game w/ less emo and more worthwhile
k.. so maybe i don't really have much worthwhile to say, seems like i'm only really good at taking things in, but no so much with the reworking them into something new
--
( on globalization, environmentalism, politics, and generally everything going to hell )
Is this what you predict will happen, hope will happen or read somewhere might happen? Some of it sounds almost way too good to be true. 2 potential problems I see both growing out of the resource grab that will inevitably occur if there is an end of energy production.
1. Rather than some peaceful drift back to deglobilazation and everyone living the quaint and happy Amish life (or some equivalent), we will begin with an escalation in warfare around the world as people grab the remaining resources. Will the major U.S. corporations sit idly by as their markets shrink? Will Americans, and other first world citizens be willing to accept returning to a lower energy consumption lifestyle? Possibly yes to the latter, but definitely no to the former, since you'll have a few individuals with great leverage who, in the short term, would be greatly inconvenienced if the markets stopped expanding and profits didn't rise by the Wall Street expectations, who'll end up pushing us to war. See what's happening already in Iraq... except this time they'll have more general support since people will see that we'd actually be in Iraq (or Iran, or Saudi Arabia, or Venezuela) for the oil, and we'd desperately need it too.
2. The population crisis which you alluded to which I've been harping about ever since I was 12 or 13. Population growth as we know it can only even possibly be accomodated for with an increase in technological innovation. Any argument that we'd be able to support this current and future population relies on the increase in innovation and technology and an increase in the energy supply. We presume to cut this off, which would mean billions would end up starving. In 50 years, 3rd world Africa will still be expanding its population, faster than ever, albeit at a slower percentage. Inevitably, we'd be forced to let them starve (which begs the question, why not do it now?), and they, before starving, would become a very large disquiet mass (of say 4 billion).
Anyways, it's nice to see you're still alive Alexei. What've you been doing with yourself these days?
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Besides, Americans are more than happy to kill people around the world for resources provided they can deny doing it out of want for lifestyle. I seriously doubt they will be able to go through with it, especially after how poorly Iraq was done. Maybe if Bush had done a better job managing that war, there might be a chance at attacking someone else, but at this rate, even the military is against further violence.
Even going beyond that, the military is just about the worst possible instrument for acquiring oil. Just think about how much they have to burn to send a jet on a bombing run, or how much oil a carrier (not even counting the support fleet) uses. Or how much oil goes into the manufacture and transport of weaponry like bombs. The more they fight, the less they have to bring home to show for it.
2. Africa might be helped if let them manage their own food supplies, but yeah, I agree, that's still a pretty mess and can only get messier. What I was alluding to more was the inner city poor and how many problems they'll have as the trucks that feed the grocery stores stop running.
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Am spending the summer working for Cisco... ordinarily it wouldn't be worth it, but i get to spend the weekends in SF which makes it all worthwhile.
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And Saudi Arabia can't afford to continually pay off its aggressors if the oil supply is shrinking. Also, consider the following haunting possibility. Since China and Russia are major powers with strategic fuel reserves, they will conceivably be able to outlast us in this war over energy. In your utopia, we would revert to low-tech, early 20th century lifestyles, while they could still power their bombers, nukes, nuclear subs, etc.
One good thing thought... we'll likely still have a number of usable technologies. The internet being one since they can make computers than can be manually powered now (that stuff they'll be sending to Brazil and other somewhat poorer countries). Might have to give up your quad-core processor, but actually it'll still be better than like 1995 stuff.
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but even then, despite how evil or war mongering the powers that be may become, all of today's governments are still run by the people, however remotely.
There is only 1 bush, maybe a million police and soldiers, which leaves 300 million of everyone else in the us. even with 75% of the population in total apathy, that's still a lot of people who might do something.
it's going to be hard to have another world war when they don't have enough oil to maintain supply routes. even now, in Iraq, the US is totally hosed because of supply problems.
computers and internet? might still be around, i could totally envision solar powered data centers, but they would be far and between. the manufacture of computers is crazy expensive (especially in terms of water), and without the oil driven infrastructure to back that up it will become very very expensive. it simply won't be profitable to maintain the internet.
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