Was Unabomber right? Will civilization collapse?

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So what you are saying is that Fresco never produced space travel artwork? He will showcase it just to give his project more high tech credibility.

In your world perhaps.


Possibly, oh, reworking the government budget? Getting federal programs leaner, getting the social support programs we have managed with less redundancy, have healthcare provider awards from the government have a healthy chunck of their percentage (maybe 33%) on merit base, do the same for school systems where they'd be rated as such in comparison to the populace and each local's fundamental challenges. Also work on capping punative damages in lawsuits - both general and medical.

Lots of other great places to start if we're talking economics. If we're talking energy - 2009 Princeton there was a speech given by Michael McGehee at Sanford that I tuned in on from Youtube. His claim is that solar cells of the right types are surpassing other popular mediums - take oil or coal for instance - in cost efficiency by several dollars per kilowatt hour in much of Europe and by within a dollar but by a growing gap as well in California, US. I can't see, for the life of me, how that won't surpass and possibly even eliminate the US of oil for powering homes and businesses in the next few decades.


Exactly. We're both purchasing more data-goods and replacing a lot of things needed to make wooden chairs, desks, or metal accessories with solar power - not oil or coal. Hence - the overwhelming demand for oil is starting to get eaten on two major fronts and that trend should only continue in the next decade.


Ok, lets go back to your question:

Does the replacement of books with PDF or Kindle mean anything to you? Does the replacement of records, tapes, and cds with wave and MP3's on Ipods and other mp3 devices mean anything to you? Does the drastic reduction in use of DVD stamping for electronic purchase of movies mean anything to you? It does to me - a LOT less plastic and far fewer physical resources needed for that industry, and as the trend continues we could be aiming much closer to 20 and even 10%.

That and I never made such a claim that this would completely usurp the need or purchase for tangible goods - obviously to drive around you won't be in a car stored on an ipod, nor will you be waring data clothing or hammering in nails on the roof with compressor and nailgun 2.0. It's just saying that the reduction of enertainment media to a much more purely electronic field is one significant piece, in between a half dozen to a dozen pieces that I'm aware of, that adds to my conclusion that we're reducing our oil consumption on too many fronts to have a societal collapse occurr based around oil.


I'd say definitely not. Unless you mean that we'll use it all up by 8000 or 10000 AD, some point in the future where a further and further diminished need for fossil fuels to create plastics to do anything we need eventually hits those odd niche markets that still prefer it. If we're going real deep field with that though its barely relevant - unless this great collapse you're talking about is coming, by your guess, is coming milennia from now - which if that's the case we might as well try guessing whether we'll still be here, whether government will look anything like it does, whether aging or disease will or won't have been completely resolved - that really goes toward science fiction analysis rather than present day, which would be predicting a collapse in our century or quite early in the next.

No, I did not just put a bunch of words in your mouth, I'll repeat so we don't get into a side-pseudoargument over that: you're indicating that we have all kinds of great alternative fuels, fuels which by Ray Kurzweil's estimate are doubling in efficiency every seven years like every new technology. If that's correct - at all, really the only danger we have of pinching our oil supply is in the next twenty years, while our use is on the declined, and while the tar sands in Canada, one of the largest reserves on earth, still remains largely untapped due to filtration needs. The idea that we'll lay the tar sands to waste and other untapped reserves here in the US and in yet unexplored deep field areas is beyond me. By the the time this technology - solar, wind, etc, really gets going here it'll be big in China and India within a few years. Liquified natural gas didn't take off as an auto fuel mainly that it took new infrastructure, gas stations are privately owned, and obviously no one wants to stake their livelihood on buying and selling BETA players vs VHF. That also I'm sure will be available as an option to warm homes (again - if we still want it) and supposedly the US is the Saudi Arabia of gas, we have significantly larger reserves than even Russia.

My best educated guess is this - by the time the tar sands in Canada start getting tapped more seriously it'll be a short-lived endeavor and we'll be back to a signficantly lower consumption level for oil. The tar sands might end up filling what needs we have for oil for the next 10,000 years or until we find that we don't need it for anything anymore.


I see Prius's and Smart cars everywhere - and I don't even live in Los Angeles or New York City. From what your saying it sounds like the good ol UK has some catching up to do on that front (unless you're living in the country side somewhere in which case I'll just say that you're neighborhood has some catching up to do).



Your specific example I referred to was geothermal. How's your memory holding up?


Lets follow this one back a few quotes farther:


I can't tell which you're doing - trying to steal more cards in an argument by deliberately misinterpreting sarcasm or, perhaps that you generally speaking can't read it.


Shifting pace to the cultural topic:



Could you clarify where you're going with this? I can't tell if you're meaning to frame my definition as strictly religious or framing unabashed sheistiness as against religion - which you're for if it fits your argument.

If its the first: People who are violently alpha or who get their over society by the lie, cheat, and steal method are caustic and damaging to society no matter what. When people want to get theirs by whatever means or just push people around because they can - it doesn't take a God to make that a valid ill.

If its the second: Yes, I have no debate with that, though bringing it up is a bit off to the side of the argument.



You pretty much reiterated the same thing so I'll save splitting the quote to even more pieces and doing the same myself:

You make the charge that you do not see this - at all - in other cultures. Tell me what cultures it doesn't happen in? Tell me also, in these egalitarian tribes, do the sick, mentally ret*d, or disabled have kids? Do they for that matter have sick, mentally ret*d or disabled adults in their tribes at all?


We're at least 50 years past the time where equal rights enforcement started happening and you still have older people who like to use the word 'shine' a lot. I'm saying nothing happens overnight, people are also - I'd agree - built of their memories when dealing with other people on the social level, which means that nothing happens overnight, nothing gets washed away overnight. Then again, it also means that you can't wash away things that hold, lets say a culture of drugs, constant partying, and gang life over night either. Nor can you set a whole bunch of people who come from a non-egalitarian society, throw them in a new egalitarian one, say "Be egalitarian" and expect it to work.

That's why I'd argue that slow change needs to happen. With regard to the things I said that are unchangeable - I don't care how much you change the culture we'll still largely be mating-driven in our behaviors, we'll still have big needs to be recognized; some people will choose to do that honestly, some won't bother and will prefer to take more societally destructive paths. The variance of humanity and the variety of desires to either do 'good' (constructive things to society and people) or do 'evil' (damaging things to both society and people), will always be 'them'. As monkey's though we are all equal, if we believe in liberty none of us can force the next to be something that they don't want to be, learn something that they don't want to learn, it seems like the option that gets taken at that point is just throw people in jail who don't work out. I'd guarantee in your new system the things that drive that will not go away. Will we still want to f' and have babies? Check. Will there be monopolistic competition there? Check. Will there be monopolistic competition in any area where people are trying to take a claim to fame? Check. Without jobs, even done honestly, hobbies will be taken seriously as careers, we'll be as stuck up and dickish as ever. Remove money - we simply find new things to create social heirarchy of.

Obviously if you put people all on artificial insemination, ban male/female relationships, ban hobbies, ban competition, and enforce that with Sharia-like diligence you may have something. My guess is that you've never considered making RBE a totalitarian state, so that option is probably off the table.

Could it be a better world? Depends. I really believe that we'll go that way naturally given enough time - AND - we'll have answers worked out so that we don't get buried in all kinds of problems that have their natural checks and balances taken away.


Anyway, religion vs. currency:



The process began in the middle ages and renaissance as church scandals unraveled the Vatican's power, as protestant sects challenged their monopoly on power, and slowly but shurely science ended up forcing religion to take a submissive seat from the standpoint of the reforged belief that science is simply mapping the inner workings of 'God's' creation.


No, you need a little help with this one. Mutually exclusive means something like 'OR' - its one, the other, but never both. To say religion and money are mutually exclusive would be to say that money can't exist if religion is in place or that religion cannot exist if money is in place.

Merriam agrees to this effect:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictiona ... 0exclusive


Imagination:


A note pad of the facts.... and how did that chimp get that notepad? Did a machine or some non-chimp deity give that chimp this notepad? If that chimp or any chimp wrote the facts on that notepad they needed to have good enough minds to be able to figure out "How much do I need to know?" "What all could be involved in this process?" "What are the variables?"

If you try to build a house without nails because you forgot to pick them up - you won't get very far. In a less obvious fashion, especially when viewing something as dirty or sloppy variable-wise as human interaction and culture you need to be able to take all factors into account, miss a few important variables or misrank them in order of saliency and you get a radically different picture than if you both had all of the variables considered and had them ranked in order by potency or by group correlation to one another. The reason why anything is even up for debate - the reason you have so many political parties, the reason you can have twenty economists on a TV show talking about a collapse and to our horror almost none of them fully agree on the causes - you realize that the data is both quite dirty and that even the so-called 'experts' have trouble cleaning it up or seeing past their own spectacles far enough to know how to remove their own a priori assumptions from the mix.

That's where imagination is critically important. Imagination in this sense is not dreaming things up that don't exist, its the process of trying to put together accurate working models and being able to think of enough devil's advocate questions against you're own strongest assumptions in the process (as well as 'what variables could I still be missing?) to make sure that what you have *is* right to the best of available or obtainable knowledge on your part rather than just saying it 'feels' right or that you could outargue mayne 60% of the people out there, 20 or 30% can shut you up, therefore its good enough.



Is this another abdication via dementia thing? Are we still talking about birth rate? You seemed to chase that remark down, citing it as not yours, I verified that it didn't come from your words but that descending birth rate will lower consumption or at least for now slow the increase of consumption.

Are the World Bank and Population Reference Bureau dirty examples that the birthrate is dropping globally and that education plays a big part?

Downgrade what you're doing? Abandon the planet? Invalidate "your" efforts? Are you insane? Step back, relax for a minute, get the sh** out of your ears, eyes, or whatever sensory organ you prefer (this is a joke. don't flip out again. )[/quote]

Ok first off, cut out the swearing. You're starting to appear like a real angry individual with a stack of chips on their shoulder. Its far easier if you consider the implications of what you are typing instead of getting your pants in an indignant twisted wad when people call you out for being hostile.

We do not "ignore" space technology. Hell, my good friend Douglas Mallette, who is one of our most well known speakers used to work for the space shuttle programme as a systems engineer specifically on endeavour before the ridiculous monetary considerations of the US economy cut back on the space shuttle program and put it on hiatus.

We just recognise, like a lot of people recognise that our immediate priority is with the safeguarding and rejuvination of our home. Just like those who RIGHTFULLY call out the politicians who endeavour to send aid to other countries while leaving our own to slip into the same fate.



If that is REALLY your gripe, then please, do not try to hang me on that meathook. Don't complain to me about there being no more space-shuttle programme. Complain to the Federal Reserve Bank. Complain to the hedge-fund managers. Complain to the very people who have put this planet in such a dire debt-infested quagmire.

George Carlin once spoke on the arrogance and futility of the phrase "save the planet" with the words:

"Save the planet? We can't even take care of ourselves yet. We think we have the concete and the arrogance to think we can save the planet? Let me tell you something. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are f****d! The planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!"

So no, I don't have that particular arrogance so pleasde don't try to put words in my mouth.

We will go back out into space. But I doubt that will happen ever again while we still have a monetary-based system.



Then I strongly suggest that you practise what you preach.



*giggles* Oh dear. Such a shame I see through that authoritarian facade of yours accusing me of being hot-headed to make yourself seem cool and collected.

Stop fighting with me. It never got anyone anywhere.



So you're saying you live in another world where assuming about someon'es thoughts and implications are accurate all the time?



I'll be sure to run that by some of my economist friends. However there's one thing you haven't factored into consideration. This system is inflationary by nature. It can't stop its growth or even slow down. It needs to keep growing and growing and growing. Kinda like cancer. Reforms or any structural adjustments amount to nothing more than stoppages in numerous places for that crucial growth.

You can't negotiate with cancer so it coexists with, and doesn't kill the host. No. It needs to keep growing.



All wonderful innovations. One problem. Increasing scarcity of oil equals increasing profits. That's why alternative energies ar snowballed and choked to death in respect of PR. There's no MONEY in renewable energy. Simple rule of economics, scarcity = profit. Abundance = loss.



You can't sit on a megabyte or use a Gigabyte to rest your cup of tea on. But will oil be able to sustain that trend? Will oil last through an ever increasing addiction for stuff when we globally reached peak oil in 2008? The parasitic mentality of marketting DEMANDS that more people demand more stuff all the time. But here's the kicker. We live on a FINITE planet. We can't allow ourselves to suck it dry for nothing more than short-term profits.



Of course those mean something to me. And I completely agree with you. I have spoken on my podcasts of how wonderful it is to have your music collection exist as mp3. I have spoken about how when I moved house 2 months ago I sent 90+ CD jewel cases plus the inlays to the recycling because it was a waste of space and plastic to store my CDs in them. But my question was to prove to me how we can CONSUME something that exists electronically.

Besides that, if you watch the seminar entitled "The Innovation War" By Ben McLeish, you will see how such innovations such as mp3 is being more and more criminalised by the established institutions that have a vested interest in the profittability of the resource-wasting methods we have today.



Neither did I. However with the excercise I gave you you will see that FAR more resources are used in day to day "stuff" that serves NOTHING to our survival and the means towards a high quality of life than for automotive technology.

What I'm proposing is the erradication of the need to buy ANYTHING. ACCESS abundance. Very much like a library or rental system works today. You don't have 20 different companies all competing to produce 20 different versions of the same damn toaster (as an example) that's not even designed or built to last, screw that, all those individuals, working together to create 1 toaster, in a few different interchangeable designs that is the best damn toaster thats possible at that point in time. Resource waste is cut down EXPONENTIALLY. And not only that, people realising they don't need to "own" things, coz its not the appliance itself that people need, its the function it performs.



That amount of reduction on the need for oil, not only is miniscule in comparrison with our other over-the-top uses for oil, but they are also as I have described being criminalised.



That's assuming that oil will last past this century. And trust me, it won't. As I have already described, we reached the peak of global oil production in 2008. At present if we all consumed at the rate of the average US citizen, we would need 2 EARTHS to sustain us. By 2030 we would need 5. We need to stop wishing away the expiration of oil into the far and elusive future. like we do so much with the knowledge of our own mortality. Its delusion and denial at its worst.



Dude, don't take my word for it. Look at the trends yourself and realise for yourself what we're headed towards.



Nope, a hell of a lot closer than that.



The collapse is not 1000 years away. Its on our doorstep. A lot of people I know and trust would in fact say its already here.



I'm not Ray Kurzweil. Get it? Got it? Good. Just so we're clear on that.



How about we juuuuust stop using oil? Yea. I think that would be good.



Sorry to break this to you, but the largest oil reserves are in the middle-east. Why do you think there's so much conflict over there? The tar sands are a joke. You really think that a desperate government are gonna spend money they don't have on refining tar from sand then refine the oil from that tar and gain ANY semblence of longevity from it?

The documentary "Collapse" featuring Michael C. Ruppert speaks of the canadian tar sands. And I'm afraid you are gonna be disappointed with the truth.



Yea, coz you think we have shedloads of it. We don't.



You REALLY think that the oil industry as big an powerful as it is will relinquish its poisonous and unrelenting grip for a superior tech that has the potential to not just compete, but to blow it out of the water? Good luck with that.



As I have already said, the majority of all the remaining recoverabkle oil on planet earth is in the middle-east.



Ok, let me break somwething down for you.

The human race goes though a billion barrels of oil every 11 1/2 days.

The canadian tar sands uses natural gas in the refining of the tar from the sand, coz you gotta keep in mind, its not oil, and the optimum production out of ther is a MAXIMUM of around 300,500 barrels a day.

You do the math.



Do you see any EV1s? I didn't think so. Keep in mind that the pruises and smart cars are PART-electric vehicles. They STILL have an internal combustion engine. Stop quibbling on half-truths.



Oh dear, you didn't just try and hurt some form of innate patriotism on my part did you? Oh dear, how pathetic. You can talk about how corrupt, backwards, capitalistic, twisted and disgusting the UK is and I will join RIGHT in with you. I see patriotism as a disease. I'm a child of the EARTH. I identify with no nation. Because no nation has my interest or the interests of my fellow man at heart. When you look at the earth from space, do you see any borders? No. Of course you don't.




Excellent. Which is more than I can say for your will to do your own critical thinking. (joke)



How about you be mature here, and leave sarcasm out of it?



You tell me pal. You're the one who brought up the term "evil" in addition to "sheistiness".



It must be so frustrating for you trying to second-guess me all the time. When all the while you could save yourself a lot of time and energy to simply listen, converse, exchange.



Do I have to perform micro-definitions for every word I say to you? Is that your tactic for dodging the point at hand?



Or you could just take what I said on that issue at face value. Come on, why break your winning streak? lol



Kabutsum in Israel to name one Do you get wall street types there? No. Serial murderers? No. Rapists? Theives? Extorters? No.



Am I proposing that they have the utopian dream? Of course not. Do they have anomolous distortions of human physiology? Of course. Is it anywhere near the extent to which we have it in the western world? Of course not. My point is not about human physiological problems inherant from birth defects. Keep in mind that we're talking about huamn nature here, and you are yet again straying from the point. Largely because you are clutching at straws. First you claim that bi-products of our culture are a result of our nature (I loved how you swiftly avoided my questions to you about those by the way) and now, you're claiming that birth defects are characteristic of human nature. Did the term BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL ORGANISM ring any bells with you? Human behaviour is NOT symetrically distributed. Read any book by Dr. James Gilligan and you'll see that.

Better yet, you wanna find that out for yourself, you GO to these places and see for yourself.



Have I ever said that social therapy takes place effectively "over night"? Of course not. That's ridiculous. You're missing my point entirely.



I AGREE with you. That clear enough yet? I AGREE.



And your evidence for this is what? Human nature? Haven't I already told you that there is no such thing?



And what the hell does jail solve? We call it the "correctional" service, but as Dr. gabor Mate said:

"I'd be looking forward to finding out what it is that the correctional service actually corrects. In my view very little".



I get the feeling that you're STILL clinging onto your human nature icon. Let it go. You accepted it when you found out there's no santa claus or tooth fairy or easter bunny. Take one more step my friend.



Biological drive. I agree. However people will be far wiser about the act of procreation. Because people will realise that its prooooooobably not a good idea to keep ploppin out all these kids when the earth can only sustain so many. For example if you knew your household could sustain 5 people, would you have 20 people living there? Of course you wouldn't.



Why would there be monopolistic tendencies in a moneyless society? Oh, your human nature argument again? Give it a rest. Its getting old now.



See above.



Ok, this seems to be one thing that you have cxhosen to misinterpret. Not all jobs will be automated. Coz not all jobs CAN be automated. However education and the implications of the value system will manifest human behaviour imn ways that they can enjoy the freedom to travel the world and spend time with their families and loved ones, but they will ALSO get joy from learning, and developing their own projects in addition to thinking up new ideas and presenting them to the system so that improvements and optimisations can be made to the systems already there. Because self-interest becomes social interest. And what you do to better the system and society, also comes back to make YOUR life better.

And people do it purely for the pleasure of doing it. Not because they want fame or money. Those are contrivances all born out of superficiality, greed and ego. When you do some goodness abscent of those negative faculties, you are doing it out of PURE goodness and altruism.



What does it matter what I'm doing or what you're doing on a personal level? We don't have the same aspirations, so to compare both of us or to think one of us is better than the other is like trying to compare Pulp Fiction to a set of drawers.



Neither TZM or myself advocate anything like that at all.



An RBE is a TRUE economy where humanity is liberated and free to do what it will. No state. No totalitarianism. You know what IS a totalitarian state? OUR CURRENT SYSTEM.



Then why fight the idea? Do you want it to work on YOUR time frame instead? Sorry, but you can't control gravity.



First off, this isn't a case of vs. Its a case that they're separate faculties of culture. Thats it.



Yup. I agree. However human rational thought didn't just "begin" in the middle ages. Keep that in mind.



Ahhhh, so you DO pay attention when you wnat to. Well done.



You're aware of this thing called a figure of speech, right?



And you don't need imagination to realise you need to pick them up. Its called inferrential logic.



Hense why you don't endeavour to "manage" human behaviour. In my interview with Doug Mallette we talked about the human variable when talking about chaos theory.



But its not the most important piece of the puzzle and that is what I have tried repeatedly to explain to you.




Orrrrrrr...... You could stop trying to second-guess me. Yea. That would be betterrrrr.



Please refer to my podcast answers on the subject of overpopulation.

Okay, I'm really unimpressed. You were treating that androbot guy with a very hostile attitude and then you turn around claim I am hostile for saying I dislike the idea that "We need to fix the planet before exploring space?" Give me a break. All I said was "s**t" lol



That's very interesting that you knew him. Very cool



You don't seem to realize how little space programs actually get out of the grand scheme of things. When I hear people complain about space program funding I can't help but wonder if they are thinking of the countless other things that are not working towards the future that receive magnitudes greater funding. Where do you think most of the greatest advances in robotics and computing that would allow TZM to succeed originally came from? Where are some of the greatest minds in the world working? Space is an ideal outlet for many industries. If you can start processing resources in places WITHOUT ecology you eliminate a major obstacle in the way of sustainability. Just wait and see at this point



I could care less about the space shuttle program. It had its use but better things are on the way. It would be nice if it continued for a bit longer but frankly the vehicles are dangerous- 2 out of 5 destroyed is not a good track record. Private companies are taking the reigns and now NASA is getting involved in actual exploration again



Wrong. Very wrong. I recommend you do your homework on what is going on when it comes to the space industry right now. We're entering a very, very exciting time



When did I put words in your mouth? I quite literally quoted you and made one statement. You then replied with a bunch of statements that have NOTHING at all to do with my opinions (space shuttle? working against TZM?) I think we really got off to a bad start here



Wow... just wow. I haven't been hostile with you at all, I simply disagreed with something you said and you basically wrote some garbage, condescending post, which I replied to in a way I thought would be appropriate without resorting to insulting you. Can you just quit it now? I'll drop this if you will. There is no reason we can't have a civil discussion.



I admire your fighting spirit

Your error is confusing 'ownership' and 'exclusive user right'. By definition, you have 'exclusive user right' of an object X if
1) You have right to use X
2) Other people cannot use X without your consent.
As long as you expect the food in 'your' fridge will be there for you to eat in dinner time, you cannot do away with exclusive user right. Your rental system is nothing but a temporary transfer of exclusive user right and does not solve any problem. As long as the resources of the earth is finite, the whole no buying = everything abundant is just nonsense.

Space colonization would solve a lot of problems because we could have infinite expansion and infinite consumption. We could populate a billion Earths if we wanted to. Unfortunately the nearest star is 4 years away and it would take us 40 years to get there with our current technology. But this is not the biggest problem because after all it took 40 years of wandering into the desert before the Israelites entered into the promised land. Our biggest problem is that it would require nuclear propulsion to get a rocket going at a tenth of the speed of light or 60 million miles an hour. And since nuclear is a dirty word it will never be considered.

So what we are left with is the conservative miser paradigm. We will have to ration resources or do without while a small minority luxuriate and we will have to implement massive sterilization on most of the human race just to conserve resources. So we will have to implement all of these Draconian measures just because some environmentalist thinks that nuclear propulsion is a dirty word. The sad fact remains that all of the nuclear propulsion will be initiated far away from Earth and will be a drop in the bucket compared to what happens in space anyways but try telling this to an environmentalist.

Ok, heres an example. Would you consider the use of something like the porta-potty a matter of "exclusive user right"? No. Something as simple and non-glamorous as that even, has an "occupied" sign on it. Its not about "exclusive user right", its about basic common sense. In this case, the basic common sense that someone is already using the porta-potty. Come on, we're not reinventing the wheel here.



How about we just move out of our ridiculous superficial, materialistic and stupifying consumpttive lifestyles? You want to live on "The Axiom" form Wall-E and become a dumb, hapless morbidlly obese consumer, go for it. But don't drag the rest of humanity down with you.



Exactly. Completely unrealistic, right? So how about we take care of THIS planet first, orient ourselves so we WON'T be draining the planet dry, and we won't have the need to leave this atmosphere for anything other than innocent curious exploration? Wouldn't THAT be simpler? As opposed to condemn ourselves to desperately needing to find and colonise another planet like a swarm of locusts looking for the next collection of resources to obliterate.



No, this is because having to put a strait-jacket on everyone else purely because the rich wanna still live the high life while the rest of us have to become slaves coz we live on a finite planet.

Why must the rich STILL have their lofty lifestyles at the expense of the rest of us? Are YOU part of the rich elite? Is that why you're protecting their way of life? If not, why are you not considering how the rest of us can enjoy a high standard of living?

You DO realise that you're not looking at this from all the possible angles. Are you thinking:

"No, NO! We can't possibly SHAAAAARE! That would be COMMUNISM!!"



Like I've already said, lets not be cowards and jump ship when we can't delude ourselves from the repurcussions of our actions any longer. Lets make life on THIS planet good for all. Of course, that would require the supprssion of the urge to run away from our problems like any coward would.

Anyway, lets getr this topic back on track shall we? We're talking about the Unabomber's predictions of collapse.

Personally I would recommend more the work of Michael C. Ruppert.

I'm suggesting the possibility that you've got some big illusions floating around the inside wall of your bubble.


We'll be stepping back and shifting away from that inherently as problems stack - no big collapse needed.


I'm pretty sure that he talked about the successful commercialization of solar energy in that video and how there's LOTS of money in it - right now - and that companies are clamouring to get on board. If the oil companies are trying any mafioso tricks at all to quiet that I don't think they're getting very far. They also do have another option aside from going belly-up: take all that working capital, retool and diversify!



This was dealt with and reiterated later by me, I think we both agreed that the datafication of entertainment media is a big step in the right direction.


Theft of intellectual property maybe, other than that I've seen no success with luditism over means of sales. Wav and mp3 downloads are here to stay.


I would agree that the designer world gets a bit accessive, and perhaps several people having the same flat and a central kitchen with one toaster, providing they all respect it, makes sense. I get the impression that as the economy worsens here in the US we'll start taking practical steps back, not quite like that but in the sense of building smaller homes, perhaps more duplexes/triplexes again, having better economies of scale as a result. That and I have a feeling it will be more normal for adult children to live at home - even if financially successful to mutually financially benefit their parents and themselves rather than feeling like they have to buy big brick edifices to impress the opposite sex. We'll start getting more practical. That's the start of things at least. On the other hand - I think designer toasters, even if they continue and many other things of that nature, may be somewhat harmless compared to some of the collosal waste we'll be cutting in other areas.





I'll skip all of these for the topic below as that's really the core of the issue; you believe it'll be gone imminently, I believe that we'd need to keep consuming - at present rate, for at least another 100 years to burn out our oil supply:


http://ostseis.anl.gov/guide/tarsands/index.cfm
This is what they're saying globally - although supposedly not all of it can be reached, 2 trillion barrels are available to be extracted from bitumin. I don't think it will ever be the preferred way to go but it becomes more profitable as well oil becomes more expensive and, as that happens I'm sure the tar sands in Canada and other countries could easily be producing a lot more than they are right now. Money, as much as you love to hate it, can make some rather amazing things happen when the lens of necessity shifts focus.


You could probably just give me the bullet points.


What about the possibility that, facing demise of 'cheap' and easily affordable oil they aren't already retooling and getting interested in solar production themselves? Its companies who don't diversify that die, not simply because they happened to lead an industry that's become obsolete.


I was talking about natural gas - ie the airy stuff, this whole paragraph. Not sure what you're on about.


Is that 300,500 today? In the article I posted as well they aren't the only deposit either, just like Saudi Arabia and Iraq's mains aren't the only ones. I did read that BP estimated 1,333 billion in 'easy oil', and that their figure is being questioned. My estimate - if even half of that is available, enough to last us twenty years, we have enough time to turn the wheel of the ship before it hits the iceberg. We'll be able to shift to electric and solar - which we've already done in various applications. Obviously alternative energy will lead in home use first before it hits the automotive/trucking circuit but all of these things will combine.


Not a half truth, hybrids are a step above nothing, they will be growing more profitable as the technology has more experience, as they're made better and better per consumer specifications. Hybrids are not a dead end.


ROFL, no. You claimed that you saw nothing. Your definition of electric cars is just more rigid than what I'm willing to consider. My thought was that you weren't even seeing Prius's or SMART, which in that case - yes, you're area would have some catching up to do.


As before I'll audit the history of the conversation a bit:

We were talking about an areligious vs. religious definition of evil. I simply used the word, you brought up that my interpretation was a religious one. I'm still waiting to find out what you're take is on an optimal areligious definition.

My arguement was - we're talking about evil with people, it ties back to the 'human nature', or 'lack causes what's called human nature', that whole chain of thought. I've seen more general definitions of evil in an areligious sense being suffering or misfortune but we aren't talking about weather, earthquakes, or droughts so much as the human element.


You're babbling here. We have a friend who'll occassionally start debates, get a debate out of someone, forget what he's talking about, and start handing back stuff like this. You're starting to remind me of him here.

Just give me your areligious definition of evil and my guesswork is done.




Any articles? I'd like some proof that they're anything more than a gated community. A gated community, obviously, has right of refusal and gets to remove people like that from the picture - hence we have to remove that possibility.


You missed what I was really suggesting here.

If you're tribes are leaving disabled babies on hillsides - its cheating. If the infirmed 'dissapear', its cheating. If they have a truly egalitarian society where, when marriages are arranged, people with mental handicaps are married off - that may be worth something. The problem even there though, if the mentally handicapped can't lead a household they can't lead a household.

I'm really getting at the core of the issue - human valuation of fellow humans is a scarcity issue but its also of responsibility and accountability. That's a 'human' variable that economics have no factor in, in the sense that if you put people who are incapable in positions of authority they can't handle you get suffering and misery, for genetic 'performance' to ever be an issue its a sign that inequality isn't cultural - it genetic. If you're remote tribes have egalitarian societies I'm pretty sure they're getting to it in very pragmatic ways (ie. eugenics) that western cultures, at least after the 1960's and 70's, would frown on.


Aren't they YOUR example?



Ok, so you're oil collapse and implementation of RBE don't directly dovetail? Glad we have that clear.


Does removal of currency and egalitarian society cure genetic health problems? Does it make genetically healthy men or women more likely to have neurologically/hereditarily disabled partners? Do people still want to have kids that they can be proud of? You're blowing smoke to say that you can - at all times in history, pass this off on religion, currency, or scarcity, and that with all three gone this will be as well; besides not having any proof it makes no fundamental sense.


People don't have the choice to be born. They wake up one day, they're here. Their struggle to find meaning is between them and themselves. Regardless of how much they know and how much experience they have, almost everyone has self to some extent as its own special and held-close universe. That said we still haven't seen a way to have everyone come out of the gate wanting to contribute anything or even having any desire to fill their rolls. Enough people even can vailidy hate authority and want to do whatever they want at whatever cost to other people because they don't care, weren't put here by choice, and are offended to be told what to do - I would take that for a capitalistic system just as much as an RBE one.

Obviously in an RBE system you'd still have people with social ills because they simply rub other people wrong who end up as adults climing clocktowers. You'd still have reasons for infidelity in relationships, you'd still likely have murders over that and wives disappearing in remote island getaways. You'd still have rockspiders. you'd still have gangs based on testosterone without a proper direction for it to be vented.

What I'm getting at - there is such a thing as human nature, it comes from the human structure. It comes from hormones, it comes from limitations of the brain and how sucessfully or unsuccessfully one socializes with others. Social skills even aren't necessarily 'skills', they're 2 parts neurological conformity to one part knowhow.

RBE will not make humans all the same, it cannot offer all people the same lives, inclusion, etc.. That's not to argue that certain things can't get better from it, just that the claim that there would be no reason to kill each other or have societal 'monsters' because the triumbrant of religion, currency, and scarcity went away is patently absurd.


Quantity is not quality, and when it comes to quality its the genetic 'worth' or 'worthiness' of the given person. Ie. natural selection, ie. inherent systemic eugenics.


Will human beings still have sex drive? If so then yes, absolutely.


Will people still have sex-drive? Check.


I never said there'd be no jobs, it would be a question of how to integrate those who don't have them and keep them in good shape mentally. A good thing to remember - life is absolutely pointless. There is no free will, there is no god, there may just as likely be no such thing even remotely resembling consciousness after this. That said, people who are innactive get to stare at the void all day - feeling useless is hell.


Some people would, some people wouldn't, the people who wouldn't you can't 'make' them do anything without damaging liberty. My point being - for those who wouldn't, you'd still need to find something, anything, from having them degenerate to where those areas that they inhabit don't become third world holes in the ground where they don't take care of anything, don't care anything about their lives, and where you have meth or crack problems blowing up. Getting back to the no god and no free will bit - when people are confronted with uselessness, some fight it by working (even volunteer), others bury themselves in liquor and drugs to numb reality. Human pain would not stop in your system and, with human pain comes this type of thing. With this type of thing also comes - ready for it - unraveling the pristine global respect of neighbor that's required for RBE to work. For it go to unchecked, with several other factors, would add up to a tried and failed RBE.



I'll clarify - one of the definitions of 'we' is the human race - wasn't talking about me and you. I can't comment on aspirations, we might have similar ones but I think we have close to irreconcileable notions of what does and doesn't work in reality or what causes what. That's normal, its human, its everywhere.


To its credit, which is exactly my point. To have that much of an integrated economy and set of social conformity and values you have to sweep a lot of things under the carpet and, yes, step on liberties. Which is why TZM is a model, something people can talk about and debate, but its as realistic as a whole implementable system as Marxism. It has ideas to ponder, it has points that can be taken from it and applied, but it will never sail in total.


Its a blend of good intentions with child-like naivity, hence my comment above.


With human nature very much not debunked and with no solutions accept for blanket denial of its existence you're whole belief system here is a bit like a swarm of floating cities. Try redirecting your efforts on science fantasy novels.


They are if they're 'mutually exclusive'.


It needed an organized and strong society to stay strong; the Romans got decadent, had bread and circuses, went to squash rot as ruveyn would put it, and from that their collapse was imminent. From then on there was no Rome, there were just Germanic and Goth tribes, so what happened? From the lack of Rome their level of civilization was the new norm - hence the Dark Ages.


Yeah, you're free to make as many mistakes as you want, free to announce in public that you have three testicles, it has nothing to do with wether your right or not or whether a scientific experiment is done with all relevane variables addressed.


And I used an extremely unsophistocated and simplistic model for you to get the jist of what I'm saying. Now apply that to something far more complex where it takes a tremendous amount of insight and research to get it all correct - especially when its research of things that aren't here anymore (ie. forensic). How easy is it to miss a major step and connect the facts all wrong from something that looks probable from one direction or another?


Lol, 'manage' human behavior. I gave you a pass on being totalitarian, what's you're suggestion?


But it leads in front of everything else - ie. being able to think up the right questions.


You can't be arsed to paraphrase it in a few sentences after all this?

Ok dude, its evident that you're incapable of considering information outside of your frame of reference. That's why you're arguing so much. It completely alien to you and you can't see it. Because you have not even bothered to consider it outside of your comfort zone. That is also why nothing I say to you will have any effect. Coz your brain only considers something that only rests along your established lines of reasoning. As such, it would take FOREVER to explain this to you fully as you choose to ignore everything and argue your points instead, and as such, conversing with you on this is a complete waste of time.

I AM willing to discuss this with you, but only when you take those blinders off and consider data outside of your tunnel vision and leave bias at the door. Have a good day.

Great! Then precede as you were and actually address my arguments. Admittedly with the oil issue neither of us have a 'hard' case, and from everything I can find its quite fuzzy - I see my opinion as pretty well informed, though admittedly its my intuition - from watching the past few decades, that this decade will see a significant drop in oil consumption; admittedly its a prediction, not a hard fact.

What does bother me though is that you're dodging the challenges so much on the human nature issue. You walk in, call it case closed, and then can't address any challenges to the effect that shortfalls in the human condition, societal inequality, or crime, murder, etc. have any causes outside of money and religion. You continuously try to brush that on with a few supposed communes or tribes where it supposedly doesn't happen but you never explain how they deal with the very genetic issues that breed inherent inequality of health, ability, or how they solve the issue of people inherently being better than others in mating terms, in achievement terms, etc.. You keep professing that no money, no religion, no major social ills with regard to what we have now or the very reasons - aside from government bankruptcy - why we avoid all out socialism.

I think we all get things shoved up our sleeves once in a while ideologically, you just need to keep picking it over. The problem is, with being one of the big faces in a movement you get stuck defending it whether it makes sense or not. Feels great in a sense of having something to be a part of but then that part of it doesn't always necessarily vouch for the quality of ideas it represents.

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 26 Aug 2011, 1:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hmm. Let's take a look at a few facts here:

There is an unprecedented seven billion people on the planet. All major economies are in debt and default is only a few steps away. All economies are global thus inextricably connected to one another (i.e. if one crashes, it'll severely damage and/or crash other ones connected to it). New uprisings are popping up all over the world. Oil production has peaked, driving denizens of India and China are increasing at record pace, and the largest consumer of oil, the United States, is using approximately 18,690,000 (2009 statistics) bbl per day. That amount of oil consumption is completely unsustainable and the frightening thing is that the U.S.'s infrastructure relies heavily on that cheap oil. Without it, crippling inflation is imminent. Alternative energy is not even close to supplementing the current amount of oil consumption/production. Expect major resource wars in the future and prepare yourself for the possibility of nuclear warfare.

Civilization is beginning to crack at the seams. No techno-utopia awaits us. The techno-dystopia is already here, both Huxleyan and Orwellian in nature. Invasive CCTVs; creepy organizations such as the Department of Homeland Security; politicians paid off by corporations and special interest groups, owned by banks; the Federal Reserve intentionally turning our money into toilet paper for a profit; the military industrial complex making big bucks by exploiting soldiers and using them as cannon fodder pawns in a lucrative global chess game; the fluoridation of our water supply and the government refusing to remove it even though it's a physically and mentally debilitating toxin; GMO crops that only last a year (we're the Guinea Pigs eating this shite); Pharmaceutical and alcohol companies lobbying to keep marijuana illegal; the ATF giving weapons to Mexican cartels; the CIA running drugs for decades and taking a keen interest in the opium fields of Afghanistan; metal detectors in high school; piss tests for drugs at the work place; policemen murdering innocents without punishment; humiliating airport security x-ray's and patdowns; exploiting slave labor in third world countries order to fill the isles at Kohls and Wal-Mart...

The list could go on for a long time.

Something's gotta give. This insanity cannot last much longer unless we're prepared to dive into the abyss of the dark ages and never return. This is not hyperbole. This is what's going on as I type this. It's depressing and infuriating how people are treated like disposable chattel; like domesticated farm animals, weaving through airport security oblivious to just how wrong it is to pat-down a six year old. Civilization, as we know it, must collapse in order to restore at least a modicum of sanity, soul and heart.

I think this is really up in the air - ie. a lot of things in the next century could threaten us with potential collapse, the question is will the average person sheep-out all the way to the edge or will people be able to put the issues in perspective well enough to prevent an allout meltdown.

Adam-Anti-Um and I debated the oil issue, if that runs out in a meaningful/transportational sense (ie. the over $10.00 prt gallon of gas scenario) the whole world may well be stuck in quite an uncomfortable place for a while, local organic farming would probably become a big deal again, big airline trips across nations would be close to unheard of as well but at the same time something like that might also give people a chance to regroup and figure out what happened. I'm optimistic that we're civilized enough at this point that we wouldn't revert right back to barbarism (perhaps may have some places were 'old West' justice would be necessary for a while at worst) but I also doubt that martial law to the extent of setting up a military government - permanently - would yield anything worthwhile. Under a system where the middle class is wide range the rich get so much more in the range of goods that they'd be taking a huge net loss in standard of living for the sake of a few megalomaniacs if that were the case.

And off he goes completely ignoring the fact that I have said that I wasn't gonna discuss this with him anymore. I've presented my information, but he has CONSISTENTLY ignored everything. Even when I said I wouldn't engage him anymore he STILL carries on as though nothing has happened. How sad.

Absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more here. We're in SERIOUS trouble.



Still in 100% agreement.



Absolutely. You hit the nail on the head. THIS is why we need a shift in value systems. And a shift in economic systems.

I just went back and edited part of that, I think the last line of what I put down earlier was a bit more inscendiary than I wanted.

We started debating something, it hit a wall.

How bout this. You don't need to answer to me on those questions, but - at least for the issue of human condition challenges - such as genetic equity, accountability within society, the human urge for power as based on lymbic/procreational urges, I would suggest that you dig into that more. I spent my 20's, as I tried to overcome the shortfalls of my AS, trying to figure out reality and people the best I could as I felt like it was a grave matter of survival in the sense of living a bearable life vs unbearable and having some semblence of control over my environment. Its that time that I put into research of the human condition that I'm speaking from.

I would say this - the way we treat money is symptomatic of our problems, I'd agree that consumerism can excaburate bad behavior, however when you have genetic inequity its the way of the wild for natural selection to take place; and I would put that struggle above all others, significantly above class struggle, because its within all of us and we fight it internally with ourselves as much as we may fight it outwardly competing for mates, competing for success or prominance, etc.. I think of it like this - if we didn't have to eat and didn't need protein we wouldn't be chopping up animals daily. If we didn't have 46 chromosomes that break down and if genetics were equal - we wouldn't have any point or reference or compulsion toward pettiness because it would bear no purpose. The list goes on.

I know you're a big and vocal name in the Zeitgeist movement, so you're not allowed to fold here. Fine. Do your research, look into what science you can find on this issue, and if you change your mind on the issue - you don't have to tell anyone that I said anything about it or come back to me and say anything; its not about ego, just straightening out what causally precedes what. What I will give people in TZM - they have big hearts, they want great things for the world. However you need to be very careful to examine everything - and even play Devil's Advocate diligently - before you cease a set of ideals that push for radical overhaul of anything. Looking good on paper and working are not the same thing.

That's all.