That depends on how you define "standard of living". Are iPods, SUVs, and DVDs the standard by which we measure happiness, health, and relationships? Or is clean water, lower cancer rates, and and a viable and free future a better measure? the later group is in diametric opposition to consumption once one looks beyond the very thin vanere of consumption's relatedness to the standard of living. Elsewise I agree. Government is a non-answer.
One of the biggest problems that I see right now is a trend toward trying to solve problems via government. Government is a NON-ANSWER for problems. Pointing guns at people and forcing them to do things is a NON-ANSWER. We must all take individual responsibility and be the change we want to see in the world.
*Also, I disagree with this guy's comments about consumption. There is a directly proportional relationship between standard of living and consumption in societies.
The words of Petranek on currently collapsing ecosystem's are profoundly troubling. Satish Kumar gives voice to universal wisdom on the non-superior status of humans. Shift these observations to an off-world perspective, and one feels compelled to believe in ET visitors in the desperate hope that they will somehow save us. Not a very noble thought. Beautiful thought of Watts on the illusory nature of the "skin-encapsulated ego." Thanks again, Matt.
who garners your respect more....those who watch and listen with a critical eye or those who eat it up with a spoon and never question? as soon as individuality dissolves one with his own interests in mind will rise and exploit. Like a cult.
In the worst case scenario (if peak oil was in 2005), the changes in store for us in the next decade or two will require that we make due living in small communities. It's not a question of eating up the idea or not. It's a question of survival.
This is certainly a pessimistic view of what makes humans special, innovative thinking. IF there are tools to do a job, you're not going to convince anyone not to use them. If the surgeon and the farmer can be two mutually beneficial specialized entities, why should they not be?
I am not sure what you're getting at, but I don't think innovative thinking will disappear. It will just have to solve problems without relying on tons of cheap energy.
Farming won't be something only specialists do; everyone will need to know how to grow food.
This is a pessimistic view of what we're in for. Worst case scenario, as I said. But even if the shift isn't abruptly forced upon us within one generation, it won't be much longer in getting our attention. 100 years at most.
I'm getting at a couple things: 1) cheap energy is not necessarily impossible to achieve. Trying to make an argument for its impossibility is silly as we have no idea about unrealized potentials. 2) 'everyone will need how to grow food' is an assertion which is by no means given. for one, knowing how to grow food and actually having to do the growing are two different things.
Also, with some handy tools perhaps the whole community will not have to focus their efforts on agriculture. perhaps a select few could (ie specialists) and provide food for the entire community.
The things that you assert are 'obvious, given facts' are not so at all. They should not be accepted as such without critical assessment. Those who do are sheep.
1) There's no way to show that cheap abundant energy is not possible. Unrealized potential is not something you can disprove. This is my point about innovation
i hope someone develops an energy source capable of replacing hydrocarbons soon. i am somewhat skeptical, though. it is seeming more and more to me like the industrial age has been a temporary spike in human history made possible by cheap, plentiful oil. nuclear is our only proven replacement, but there are a few drawbacks.
Without supermarkets, food will go bad quickly. Cross country shipment won't be possible (or will be too expensive). Seems like we may need to sweat a bit to eat well.
Why exactly does refrigeration require supermarkets?
The amount we will need to sweat will be inversely proportionate to the innovative solutions we can develop.
You have an emotional desire to farm. You confuse this with it being an undeniable future for all. I'm not even claiming it's an impossibility, I just don't see it as the *only* possibility. Perhaps you should just start farming.
Admittedly, I have been reading a disproportionate amount of info about peak oil. It has made me see the current energy crisis as a lot worse than it may turn out to be. Google/YouTube search: 'James Howard Kunstler' for an example : )
I'm not sure it can be fixed normonics. All species populate based on their resources/energy. If you take a bacteria colony and give it a good amount of food to eat, the colony will grow exponentially until the food runs out and then the colony will crash. I think that we have proved that we are just as dumb as bacteria.
I'm not sure it can be fixed either. I'm also not sure it can't be fixed. MY only intention was to challenge matt's predictions which he touts as inevitable facts
I don't know... I asked for reasons and data that show peak oil is not a reality. I'm open to learning why we are not going to run out of energy. I wouldn't say I am certain about anything, I'm just making inferences about the best information I've been able to find. "Best" just means what makes rational sense to me. But again, I'd not be too disappointed if I turn out to be wrong : )
There is NO WAY to predict unrealized potentials in terms of innovation!!! How can you argue with this? It's the same point kauffman makes about not being able to predict the functionalities of future life forms....
you dont respond to my specific inquiries as to your position....also you never asked me for evidence that peak oil is not a reality and i never tried to make that claim. my claim is that to try to say you know no innovations for new kinds of energy will emerge is a prophecy, one with no backing. its like claiming 'no machine will ever fly' right before the wright brothers took off.
here is one question i have that you never answered: you said, "Without supermarkets, food will go bad quickly" and I asked "why does refrigeration require supermarkets?"
you also claimed in the 'new communities' ALL will be required to farm....and I asked what if there was technology that allowed farming to be a specialized function within these new communities so that not everyone had to....?
refrigeration does not require supermarkets, but it is energy intensive. Energy prices are going up, so it will be more difficult to keep food frozen.
so far, all our automated farming technology runs on oil. new technologies can be invented, certainly. I would welcome the development.
I didn't ask you specifically, I asked it in the last few videos...
I am saying that teh technologies currently available cannot replace the energy we get from oil. This could change, but again, I think it would be prudent for us to adapt to changing circumstances rather than hope for a technological savior.
I agree. There is no way to predict what technologies will develop. All I am saying is that we should not base our future on a new fantastic energy source being invented/discovered in the next few years. It'd be great, but I think it is dangerous to assume that technological development is a exponential curve.
There is a known problem in the formation of teams. This problem is one of 'premature agreeance'. what happens is that explicitly each member will claim that they agree with some collective course of action to achieve a collective goal. the problem is that their inner, individual goals do not, in fact, line up with the team goals, even though they outwardly claim they do. This leads to the implosion of the team. Imagine, now, scaling this team up from 6 to 6 billion.
I don't know that we need 6 billion people on the same team. We just need to mitigate violence (economic and miltary). The teams responsible for day to day survival would be a lot smaller, like tribe, village, or town-sized (numbering in the dozens, or at most a hundred or so). At this scale, organization would be easier, and specialization would still play a role (so the surgeon can do his individual thing, the carpenter his, etc). The only collective activity would be farming.
And there would be selection pressure operating, of course... If premature agreeance leads to disorganization or implosion, the group won't last very long.
There is no utopian system. I think that's what sucks about our current way of doing things. We are pushing too hard for perfection and end up just stressing ourselves and the planet out.
You don't. Like in natural ecosystems, you hope all parties involved develop an evolutionarily stable strategy. There are insentives to trade with neighbors rather then rape and pillage them, though.
while it is clear that cooperation plays a much bigger role than envisioned by traditional and neo darwinist accounts, this is not to say that competition plays no role. Competition for resources is real. Predator-prey relationships are real. So are male-dominated social hierarchies, and along with this comes aggressive tendancies/exploitation of perceived opportunities. Emotionally I like the idea of a new, peaceful, clean world. But perhaps life is just imperfect.
I would imagine that without cheap energy, a return to the living standards circa 1800 would also carry with it a shift to more traditional gender roles. The less we prepare for the shift, the more drastic the male dominance will be (b/c of the initial power vacuum).
Life, where it exists, has found a balance between chaos and order.
The world has known about some of these problems for many years. It's a shame that more hasn't been done to solve them. That might be because many times people forget to keep things balanced in respect to not only the environment but also to relationships with other countries in the world.
I see :)
Dharmill 3 years ago
That depends on how you define "standard of living". Are iPods, SUVs, and DVDs the standard by which we measure happiness, health, and relationships? Or is clean water, lower cancer rates, and and a viable and free future a better measure? the later group is in diametric opposition to consumption once one looks beyond the very thin vanere of consumption's relatedness to the standard of living. Elsewise I agree. Government is a non-answer.
endofempire21 3 years ago
One of the biggest problems that I see right now is a trend toward trying to solve problems via government. Government is a NON-ANSWER for problems. Pointing guns at people and forcing them to do things is a NON-ANSWER. We must all take individual responsibility and be the change we want to see in the world.
*Also, I disagree with this guy's comments about consumption. There is a directly proportional relationship between standard of living and consumption in societies.
mmcplaid2086 3 years ago
thank you matt
TetragrammatonMan 3 years ago
Great video. Thanks for posting this. :)
HaleyMary 3 years ago
Great video. Thank you for sharing!
AHxPUCH 3 years ago
The words of Petranek on currently collapsing ecosystem's are profoundly troubling. Satish Kumar gives voice to universal wisdom on the non-superior status of humans. Shift these observations to an off-world perspective, and one feels compelled to believe in ET visitors in the desperate hope that they will somehow save us. Not a very noble thought. Beautiful thought of Watts on the illusory nature of the "skin-encapsulated ego." Thanks again, Matt.
thomasmatus 3 years ago
who garners your respect more....those who watch and listen with a critical eye or those who eat it up with a spoon and never question? as soon as individuality dissolves one with his own interests in mind will rise and exploit. Like a cult.
normonics 3 years ago
In the worst case scenario (if peak oil was in 2005), the changes in store for us in the next decade or two will require that we make due living in small communities. It's not a question of eating up the idea or not. It's a question of survival.
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
This is certainly a pessimistic view of what makes humans special, innovative thinking. IF there are tools to do a job, you're not going to convince anyone not to use them. If the surgeon and the farmer can be two mutually beneficial specialized entities, why should they not be?
normonics 3 years ago
I am not sure what you're getting at, but I don't think innovative thinking will disappear. It will just have to solve problems without relying on tons of cheap energy.
Farming won't be something only specialists do; everyone will need to know how to grow food.
This is a pessimistic view of what we're in for. Worst case scenario, as I said. But even if the shift isn't abruptly forced upon us within one generation, it won't be much longer in getting our attention. 100 years at most.
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
I'm getting at a couple things: 1) cheap energy is not necessarily impossible to achieve. Trying to make an argument for its impossibility is silly as we have no idea about unrealized potentials. 2) 'everyone will need how to grow food' is an assertion which is by no means given. for one, knowing how to grow food and actually having to do the growing are two different things.
normonics 3 years ago
Also, with some handy tools perhaps the whole community will not have to focus their efforts on agriculture. perhaps a select few could (ie specialists) and provide food for the entire community.
The things that you assert are 'obvious, given facts' are not so at all. They should not be accepted as such without critical assessment. Those who do are sheep.
normonics 3 years ago
Blast. I posted a comment and it didnt stick.
1) There's no way to show that cheap abundant energy is not possible. Unrealized potential is not something you can disprove. This is my point about innovation
normonics 3 years ago
Oops...it did stick,...my bad
normonics 3 years ago
i hope someone develops an energy source capable of replacing hydrocarbons soon. i am somewhat skeptical, though. it is seeming more and more to me like the industrial age has been a temporary spike in human history made possible by cheap, plentiful oil. nuclear is our only proven replacement, but there are a few drawbacks.
Without supermarkets, food will go bad quickly. Cross country shipment won't be possible (or will be too expensive). Seems like we may need to sweat a bit to eat well.
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
Why exactly does refrigeration require supermarkets?
The amount we will need to sweat will be inversely proportionate to the innovative solutions we can develop.
You have an emotional desire to farm. You confuse this with it being an undeniable future for all. I'm not even claiming it's an impossibility, I just don't see it as the *only* possibility. Perhaps you should just start farming.
normonics 3 years ago
Admittedly, I have been reading a disproportionate amount of info about peak oil. It has made me see the current energy crisis as a lot worse than it may turn out to be. Google/YouTube search: 'James Howard Kunstler' for an example : )
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
i'll check him out
normonics 3 years ago
Don't fool yourself, we are in a lot of trouble.
capaonfire 3 years ago
we've always been in a lot of trouble ;) whats new?
normonics 3 years ago
We did make it through a couple of close misses with nuclear Armageddon a few decades ago. That being said, the stakes are much higher today.
capaonfire 3 years ago
And you think you know how to fix it?
normonics 3 years ago
"And you think you know how to fix it?"
I'm not sure it can be fixed normonics. All species populate based on their resources/energy. If you take a bacteria colony and give it a good amount of food to eat, the colony will grow exponentially until the food runs out and then the colony will crash. I think that we have proved that we are just as dumb as bacteria.
capaonfire 3 years ago
I'm not sure it can be fixed either. I'm also not sure it can't be fixed. MY only intention was to challenge matt's predictions which he touts as inevitable facts
normonics 3 years ago
I don't know... I asked for reasons and data that show peak oil is not a reality. I'm open to learning why we are not going to run out of energy. I wouldn't say I am certain about anything, I'm just making inferences about the best information I've been able to find. "Best" just means what makes rational sense to me. But again, I'd not be too disappointed if I turn out to be wrong : )
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
who did you ask?
There is NO WAY to predict unrealized potentials in terms of innovation!!! How can you argue with this? It's the same point kauffman makes about not being able to predict the functionalities of future life forms....
normonics 3 years ago
you dont respond to my specific inquiries as to your position....also you never asked me for evidence that peak oil is not a reality and i never tried to make that claim. my claim is that to try to say you know no innovations for new kinds of energy will emerge is a prophecy, one with no backing. its like claiming 'no machine will ever fly' right before the wright brothers took off.
normonics 3 years ago
here is one question i have that you never answered: you said, "Without supermarkets, food will go bad quickly" and I asked "why does refrigeration require supermarkets?"
you also claimed in the 'new communities' ALL will be required to farm....and I asked what if there was technology that allowed farming to be a specialized function within these new communities so that not everyone had to....?
normonics 3 years ago
refrigeration does not require supermarkets, but it is energy intensive. Energy prices are going up, so it will be more difficult to keep food frozen.
so far, all our automated farming technology runs on oil. new technologies can be invented, certainly. I would welcome the development.
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
I didn't ask you specifically, I asked it in the last few videos...
I am saying that teh technologies currently available cannot replace the energy we get from oil. This could change, but again, I think it would be prudent for us to adapt to changing circumstances rather than hope for a technological savior.
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
I agree. There is no way to predict what technologies will develop. All I am saying is that we should not base our future on a new fantastic energy source being invented/discovered in the next few years. It'd be great, but I think it is dangerous to assume that technological development is a exponential curve.
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
There is a known problem in the formation of teams. This problem is one of 'premature agreeance'. what happens is that explicitly each member will claim that they agree with some collective course of action to achieve a collective goal. the problem is that their inner, individual goals do not, in fact, line up with the team goals, even though they outwardly claim they do. This leads to the implosion of the team. Imagine, now, scaling this team up from 6 to 6 billion.
normonics 3 years ago
A shift to the collective can only be achieved if everyone is in line. I think many who claim to be are not.
normonics 3 years ago
I don't know that we need 6 billion people on the same team. We just need to mitigate violence (economic and miltary). The teams responsible for day to day survival would be a lot smaller, like tribe, village, or town-sized (numbering in the dozens, or at most a hundred or so). At this scale, organization would be easier, and specialization would still play a role (so the surgeon can do his individual thing, the carpenter his, etc). The only collective activity would be farming.
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
And there would be selection pressure operating, of course... If premature agreeance leads to disorganization or implosion, the group won't last very long.
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
well that doesnt sound like the scenario you are pushing for...
normonics 3 years ago
There is no utopian system. I think that's what sucks about our current way of doing things. We are pushing too hard for perfection and end up just stressing ourselves and the planet out.
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
How do you prevent one team from exploiting neighboring teams to increase its advantage?
normonics 3 years ago
You don't. Like in natural ecosystems, you hope all parties involved develop an evolutionarily stable strategy. There are insentives to trade with neighbors rather then rape and pillage them, though.
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
while it is clear that cooperation plays a much bigger role than envisioned by traditional and neo darwinist accounts, this is not to say that competition plays no role. Competition for resources is real. Predator-prey relationships are real. So are male-dominated social hierarchies, and along with this comes aggressive tendancies/exploitation of perceived opportunities. Emotionally I like the idea of a new, peaceful, clean world. But perhaps life is just imperfect.
normonics 3 years ago
I would imagine that without cheap energy, a return to the living standards circa 1800 would also carry with it a shift to more traditional gender roles. The less we prepare for the shift, the more drastic the male dominance will be (b/c of the initial power vacuum).
Life, where it exists, has found a balance between chaos and order.
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
Matt: you wont go to heaven when you die, you will rot in the ground.
LimpLoser 3 years ago
Don't worry, everything is going along as it will. The conficts in the world are the birth pangs of the global civilization that is forming.
StevenErnest 3 years ago
and that idea is supposed to ..what? COMFORT us?
zezt 3 years ago
Nice!
patternsinchaos 3 years ago
intriguing video. what is the music?
jeffcrenshaw 3 years ago
great video; thank you for sharing this insightful presentation
charleygregg 3 years ago
The world has known about some of these problems for many years. It's a shame that more hasn't been done to solve them. That might be because many times people forget to keep things balanced in respect to not only the environment but also to relationships with other countries in the world.
mikha1280 3 years ago