ARCHIVED VERSION: The Most IMPORTANT Video (part 5 of 8)

I got a number of reports over time that people had trouble loading this video, so I've reposted it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-X6EpvWWu8


Entire playlist for the lecture: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6A1FD147A45EF50D

[Thanks for the catch! Would the guy who caught this on 8-26-08 resend his message to my account? I'm so groggy I deleted the message while I was actually trying to cut and paste it into my souvenier file. Cheers!]

I'm keeping this version up to preserve the discussions in the comments.


Part 5 of Dr. Albert A. Bartlett's presentation on "Arithmetic, Population, and Energy."

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• steady
• economic
• growth
• exponential
• Albert
• Bartlett
• population
• energy
• function
• overpopulation
• arithmetic
• economy
• recovery
• depression
• climate
• change
• peak
• oil
• resource
• wars
• overshoot
• carrying
• capacity
• Julian
• Simon
• Malthusian
• Malthus

[NicosMind]

We cant keep tapping an oil well until theres nothing left. When an oil well is 40-50% it starts to become incredibly difficult to extract oil. The sweet light stuff is at the top, and the heavy, full of sand plus other crap is at the bottom. Not only does it take more energy to extract but you get less energy out of it.

So whenever you get to the point when it takes the energy of 100 barrels of oil to extract 100 barrels youre wasting your time, and wasting oil!

[Kakarot21591]

This has inspired me to re-learn math the right way. I just took my Calculus exam yesterday and got a 70 on it, even after studying all week for it, trying to memorize the formulas. Instead, I should have learned proofs much better. That way, I'd have been able to follow the logic of the functions instead of memorizing them. Never too late to start...

[lundinlucas91]

@audiopro316 I know right?! This entire series I was just thinking about the war after 9-11.

As if it wasn't already smack in your face obvious, now there's some beautiful math behind it.

[audiopro316]

Enter the middle eastern supplies.

[FreedomAtRisk]

price and productivity can and do mitigate the problems outlined here

[zssamgh]

Down the curve on schedule? Life is fucking racecar ain't it.

[charlesdarwin321]

@Evi1M4chine

You posted this on the wikipedia discussion as well. I think you have a gross misunderstanding of what Kurzweil is talking about in terms of the exponential growth of information systems.

Peak oil is entirely different.

Is your argument, that when oil runs out, information technology will stop? Do you realize there are other forms of energy?

[BastionKnight]

@BastionKnight typo: They emit*. And I'd like to stress "like trucks do". Everything that moves runs the risk of crashing. They would be severely newsworthy in the case of cargo trains, unlike 18 wheelers which overturn and cause pileups so often that only people directly affected by them remember the incidents a week later.

[BastionKnight]

@wildwindsca Magnet rail systems can propel train cars nearly as fast as jets fly. They're emit no carbon, the rails are designed above ground to not obstruct rural wildlife, and they have no risk of crashing like trucks do... If we grid that to every major urban area we could eliminate long haul truck driving entirely, and have distribution centers making short runs with smaller trucks, which could at least be run on bio-diesel.

[BastionKnight]

@wildwindsca I think the bigger problem is that oil companies own the US government. Nikola Tesla has over 6000 patents locked up under the pretext of having military applications, many of them are zero point energy machines which can't be metered and would provide free energy for everyone. I limited my previous suggestions to the solutions we're "allowed" to discuss seriously. Electric cars are still feasible. Electro-magnetic railways would be much better for shipping.

[wildwindsca]

our kids will wonder what driving a car was like ( with a oil using internal combustion engine) why winters are so toughas they are walking to work and why we dont have some kinds of foods on our table in the winter like salad greens or citrus fruits,like grandma and grandpa had year round.

[wildwindsca]

@BastionKnight prob is oil is energy dense, wind sun does not have the energy concentration that oil gives us. wind power and sun to power our cars trucks good luck....