Post Industrial Stone Age

[TheEvilDetector]

Case Made Here:

The Olduvai Theory:
Sliding Towards a Post-Industrial Stone Age
http://dieoff.org/page125.htm

In-depth, detailed Examination of the Peak Oil Claim
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Index.html
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html

One of the many points talked about is the war over resources which in some points of view
is necessary. To me it seems it just prolongs the inevitable for the militarily strongest countries.

Perhaps war on terror is a politically acceptable cover for this.

At any rate I do not see how the arguments made in LATOC site can be refuted.

Mankind faces a huge problem in the near future as delivery of oil slows down and the price shoots skyward.

Case is made that even if all the alternative energies available went into full production mode simultaneously they would not be able to close the impending gap.

Very scary stuff awaits us.

Please post your comments.

[noxagol]

And my parents wonder why I keep buying guns....

[noxagol]

Also, all of the uses by natural gas and oil can be replaced by electricity which can come from the wind and the sun sources.

[asgardshill]

There's enough shale oil under the US Rocky Mountains to supply the projected energy needs of the entire North American continent for the next 500 years. Only snag right now is the cost in recovering and converting it to useful product. If light crude makes it to $100 a barrel, then it'll become cost-effective. If not, then it won't.

[Cowlesy]

And my parents wonder why I keep buying guns....

hah!

[BenIsForRon]

I've had the LATOC link in my sig since I joined this site. Peak Oil is the reason behind the timing of the Iraq War. Cheney wanted to get in there before Russia and China.

[sevin]

Why can't we just use more nuclear power? And BTW, there is plenty of oil in Alaska and the northern states, they just don't want to use it yet.

[WRellim]

First, he suffers from confirmation bias concerning a personal pet theory... he came up with the and then he went in search (for decades) of data to support that theory.

He finally found it. (You were surprised?)

How long has he searched for data that would refute his theory?
Has he found any data that would refute it?
Has he, indeed, even TRIED to find data that would refute it?

That is not science... it is pseudo-science or even just "wishful thinking" (however distopian and morose the wish).


Next, he constructs and manipulates "data" (so called) that he does present so that it both "fits" perfectly with his pet theory, and still provides an optimum value to him as the theorist.

His "theory" claims that an industrial age can last only 100 years; but then proceeds to provide various data and data that on the surface would seemingly refute that -- no matter, he simply changes his starting date and picks one that suits his theory.

Notice that he makes several dissonant claims that the "industrial age" started:

1) In the year 1765 when James Watt "invented" the steam engine. (Never mind that steam has a history going back thousands of years, nor that James Watt didn't "invent" anything, but merely created a refinement of predecessors engines, notably Newcomen's engines from 1712; nor on the opposite end that steam engines didn't come into wide use until decades later -- no, instead he simply ignores all of that and "chooses" the year of James Watt patent for some arbitrary reason.)

2) But since actually using the year 1765 would negate the "100 year span" he has arbitrarily chosen in his theory -- he has to set aside the year 1765 and instead create a "transition era" that he decides lasts up until 1930.

3) He thus settles on 1930 as the beginning point for his "100 year span" -- why 1930? Alas no reason is given for this choice. It is entirely arbitrary (i.e. it is not derived from data, events, or anything objective; he apparently just "feels" this is the right date).

All of this is to create a "support graphic" around a series of dates that are currently acceptable to him mainly because they allow the "end" of his arbitrary 100 year span to be both near enough to be "scary" to people living, yet still be distant enough in the future so that his theory cannot be refuted for a considerable time. (This is common amongst "prophets of apocolypse" -- bet it a Hal Lindsey or William Miller -- the date is always near the end of their personal expected lifespan, thus it allows them the "coincidentally optimum" amount of time necessary to promote and benefit from the the theory).


Finally, he deliberately paints a false and overly scary picture with both words and images; to wit, "a return to the Stone Age" and the subtitle "From the Caves, to the Moon, to the Caves" and he makes certain we don't miss the point by supplying the "Darwinesque" pictures of Neanderthal man and Cromagnon man. Scary, isn't it?
:eek:

But if it were a return to his 1930 date... is THAT truly "Stone Age"?

Hmmm... lacking in a lot of modern conveniences, yes, but hardly Neanderthal or Cromagnon. Heck, my father was born in 1928 (and he swears he never lived in a cave, nor did his father, nor his, etc).

Perhaps he REALLY meant that we would be returning to say... 1765 (you remember that was the date that the Neanderthal dude named "James Watt" created the first steam engine -- apparently in his cave with nothing but stone knives and bearskins!)

But I'm being silly... of is it Olduvai who is being silly? I mean obviously 1930 and even 1765 were NOT the "Stone Age."

So instead, he know has to go out on a limb... and add a series of fictitious "data points" I, J, K, and L that all somehow "prove" that our civilization will utterly fail to be sustainable at anything anywhere NEAR 1930 or 1765 (or even anytime prior to that in recorded history) but we will instead "descend" into his pet "valley" and revert to a literal Stone Age "at the subsistence level."

What exactly ARE these "data points" represented by "I" thru "L" ? We never learn. Why? Because there is nothing there. He NEVER defines them, they are just meaningless points he has "plopped" onto his little graph (the line of which is pure speculation in and of itself).


Can this be refuted? Well, actually NO. It is the exact type of thing that Karl Popper defined as "unfalsifiable" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifability) -- it is not science, it is not based on data -- it is pure fiction (the guy should really turn it into a sci-fi novel I'm sure he'd sell boatloads AND get a movie deal as well... ala Michael Crichton.)

Now that does NOT mean that I think everything will go along swimmingly.

We obviously have problems. The supplies of oil, coal, metals, etc ARE becoming more scarce... indeed significantly so, and the population and demographic changes add in their own dynamics. But to extrapolate THAT because of the end of "cheap energy" we will end up back in some "literal" Stone Age is beyond laughable, and borders on insane.

Very likely our societies will undergo rather dramatic changes (cf Chris Martenson's "Crash Course" website (http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse)) in the coming decades (as they have in many decades in the past).

And just as many previous countries and civilisation centers have undergone substantial deterioration, significant population loss, and resource deprivation -- so to we are headed for some rough times; we may even end up with the (relative) equivalent of another "dark age" (which were not so dark as many people think) -- but for us to end up back in caves would require the loss of virtually ALL the knowledge that has been gained in every field of knowledge. And that (given the widespread distribution of printed knowledge) is virtually impossible, even were several cataclysmic events to occur.

[Conza88]

The Energy Non-Crisis (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147)