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#1
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
First the dumbo Dersu Uzala referred us to: http://dieoff.org/ and provided two quotations. The first is from David Price: The human species may be seen as having evolved in the service of entropy, and it cannot be expected to outlast the dense accumulations of energy that have helped define its niche. Human beings like to believe they are in control of their destiny, but when the history of life on Earth is seen in perspective, the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance. David Price David Price is rather obviously not too bright, in the Californian manner of those who confuse moral relativity with Einsteinian relativity. Let's follow the steps in a manner even David Price will understand, though I doubt his acolyte the dumbo Dersu Uzala ever will: 1. "Entropy" has several meanings. Technically in physics it is the thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work. For those incapable of grasping the math, it is often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system. Ironically the word is also in information theory to name the logarithmic measure of the rate of transfer of information in a particular message or language. 2. David Price has incompetently grasped the middle meaning of disorder or randomness in the system, and then tripped even more incompetently over the third meaning of inefficient communication. For instance, he no fewer than three times in a single short paragraph imputes volition to a law of physics (e.g. "evolved in the service of entropy"); laws of physics are distinguished from sentient beings by having no volition. And even then he gets it arse about end: human beings didn't "evolve" (another technical word of which Price doesn't understand the meaning) in the service of this randomness which Price confuses with entropy in energy, human beings were evolved *by* the randomness of the Darwinian process. 3. In true California guru style, Price then goes into an ecstacy of inconsequentiality: "the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance". Say what? Surely, Price's case, and the case of all the other doomsayers, is that humans *created* an energy imbalance? Now we hear at the same time that humans are the solution to the earth's imbalance. 4. And note the volitional implication of the full sentence from which I took the above piece of crap. Let's savour it: "Human beings like to believe they are in control of their destiny, but when the history of life on Earth is seen in perspective, the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance." Gaia willed it, did she then? Oh, Earth Mother, forgive us our sins! Let's see if I have this right: Gaia suffered an excess of energy, like a boil. Therefore she used entropy to bring up homo sapiens to use as a lance. Right, Mr Price? Hmm. All that energy was dormant anyway. On the Price analysis, California guru style, it seems Gaia is even more wasteful than humans. Perhaps we should spank her with a few underground nuclear explosions. 5. There is so much wrong with Price's short paragraph that I could go on several reams more about the silly linkages, but why raise the profile of a clown who convinces only the most stupid of the already committed? The most important conclusion is that Price is too thick and too humourless to see that if we agree to his case that "Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance" the logical conclusion is that it is the moral thing (if you think the Earth is more important than the humans on it, as Price implicitly does) is to drive a 22ft car with a 8.5 liter engine and monstrous tailfins, to keep your heating *and* you air condition running full speed ahead 24/7, and to burn, burn, burn. The other quotation, even dumber, provided by the dumbo Dersu Uzala is from one Joseph Tainter: Energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity and it always will be. The past clarifies potential paths to the future. One often-discussed path is cultural and economic simplicity and lower energy costs. This could come about through the "crash" that many fear -- a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. The alternative is the "soft landing" that many people hope for - a voluntary change to solar energy and green fuels, energy-conserving technologies, and less overall consumption. This is a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology. Joseph A. Tainter Tainter is more subtle and insidious, but no less dumb and inconsequential. He is however a lot more vicious, to the point of being murderous: 1. He axiomatically assumes an energy shortage. That gets him tidily around the truth that here is no such thing as an energy shortage. The market adjusts to demand, price rises, demand falls to match it, as we have seen recently. There is now more oil in the known reserves than there was at any time in a century of energy scares. Anyone who thinks that in another century we will still burn oil underrates human ingenuity. 2. Tainter has as poor a grasp of history as Price. Is he really claiming in "energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity" that there were no family or larger groups before humanoids mastered fire? That is obvious bull****. One of the depressing things about these clowns is their unfamiliarity with history. For instance, can Tainter really be unaware that the Neanderthals, who died out in the Darwinian process, were magnificent environmental managers whereas our own ancestors, who clearly survived, drove species to extinction over cliffs, and so on? (Any of you guys have red hair? That's a Neanderthal trait that has survived, from when the Cro-Magnon took pity on contemporary greens and impregnated one of their women. Gentlemen preferred blondes even then...). 3. Anyone with a map can see that the basis of the cultural complexity of our world is distance; it was thus before travel and it was thus in the era of the sailing ships (The Age of Renewable Power, surely!). Ours is the age of communication, whether by travel or by ether, and that has reduced rather than increased cultural diversity. Tainter is full of crap. 4. Next, having made the unfounded assumption that we are in trouble, Tainter jumps to the conclusion that we must do something about. He tells us with lipsmacking relish of "much violence, starvation, and loss of population". Malthus lives! Actually, things are better in Africa and the Middle East now than they ever were. Millions fewer infants are dying every year than as recently as 1950. The WHO, a branch of the UN, publishes the numbers. Tainter should visit a library occasionally. We *are* doing something about it, dickhead. If you want us to do it faster, go help rather than sitting in an ivory tower whining. 5. Tainter really gives the game away in his proscription for a solution towards "a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology". Yup, Good old Uncle Joe Stalin, sorry, I mean good old Uncle Joe Tainter wants us to remove the engine of the good life -- and what pays for the salvation of all those hungry Africans -- which is market capitalism. The only way that "economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology" is by appointing a dictator. Without knowing another thing about Tainter except his short paragraph quoted above, one can see that he is a leftover Marxist who, his creed having self-destructed, is now latching onto ecology to satisfy his consuming urge to control his fellow humans, whom he sees not as individuals but en masse. A few million necessary murders, eh, Mr Tainter? "Proscription" in the first line of this paragraph is not an error -- it is a deliberate pun; it says much for the low level of intelligence and education of the people carrying on this sort of discussion on the net that I have to explain such an obvious pun. One flipper offered as his opinion on the quotations by Price and Tainter the succinct one-word summary: Crap This, predictably, sent the original poster, the dumbo Dersu Uzala , into a mouthfoaming rage: I say, not crap! Does that mean I'm correct? I bow to your superior rhetorical skills. Such a level of persuasive logic, especially supported by the facts you present, can only leave myself in awe, quiverting under the shadow of your most excellent denial, you fool. If you were to jump off the Empire State building, I'm sure you'd say "everthing fine, so far!" as you passed the mid-point of you descent. Did you read anything at the website? Is there any claim there that you contest? What part of 'finite resources' do you not understand? But, Dumbo, before we can believe anything at http://dieoff.org/, you first have to prove the underlying assumption of 'finite resources'. You've done no such thing. Even petroleum isn't proven to be finite: every year there are more reserves at the contemporary price: the market is working brilliantly, despite the worst efforts of that despicable cartel, OPEC. For practical purposes, for the century we will still use petroleum before we perfect refining hydrogen from tapwater, resources are sufficient. And, of course, nuclear power is truly infinite. But this isn't about energy, is it, you nasty little necrosis, it is about giving undeserving jerks like you control over their fellows. CONCLUSION: The "order" that the scum at dieoff.org want to introduce is death, as it was in Communist Russia, Cambodia under Pol Pot, and China under Mao. Even today's Chinese are smarter than that. If we give in to these necrophiliac creeps, for the first time in history we will have a manmade energy catastrophe. I know who should die off before we permit them to create a disaster, and it is those dangerous jerks at dieoff.org. **** Anyone who wants to respond angrily to my analysis should note that I am probably a better environmentalist than he is. For instance, I haven't owned a car since 1992; of course nothing is wasted in my house, everything is recycled. And, unlike the loudmouths, I have done something for the starving, fighting in their wars, running a food convoy in Africa, showing them how to rise against their oppressors, suchlike; read all about it in my books. But I hate the slack thinking and the vicious control-freakery of the clowns at dieoff and their nasty little fellowtravellers like Dersu Uzala . If trash like that are environmentalists, I don't want the name attached to me; I'm happy to let the market and democracy look after me. Andre Jute Besporyadok, Prince of Chaos |
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#2
Posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.audio.tubes
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
On Sep 2, 7:30*pm, Andre Jute wrote:
Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"? And You have already reached that condition - it is just that your fingers haven't caught up with your brain and are still dribbling out tripe despite the emptiness behind them. As I understand it, you do not drive mostly because you cannot afford it what with petrol prices, insurance prices and even the price of vehicles in that part of the world you distress with your presence. That last part is likely because you cannot get a license to operate a motor vehicle - it is against the law in most jurisdictions to license those who present a danger to themselves and others as their natural state. As to your claim to being an "environmentalist" by virtue of not owning a motor vehicle - and making a virtue of necessity by claiming to recycle - it is just one more distortion of the fact that you more- or-less might follow existing law. Somehow I do not perceive even the smallest scintilla of altruism anywhere in your character, just acute self-interest honed over many years of playing the chameleon so as not to have to take a stand on much of anything, ever, anywhere. Were you even slightly as you often claim to be the very dead last thing you would do is brag about it. Much smoke, many mirrors, damned little substance. Go back to your bicycles - they don't know you so well in those groups - you have more traction there, pun intended. Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA |
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#3
Posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.audio.tubes
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
Andre Jute wrote:
Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"? Useless eaters such as myself, obviously. [...] And, of course, nuclear power is truly infinite.[...] And I was under the impression that the Universe contained a finite quantity of mass/energy. -- Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia “Mary had a little lamb / And when she saw it sicken / She shipped it off to Packingtown / And now it’s labeled chicken.” |
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#4
Posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.audio.tubes
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OT: Entropy
In article
, Andre Jute wrote: 1. "Entropy" has several meanings. Technically in physics it is the thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work. Excellent. The more degrees of freedom over which the energy is dispersed, the greater the entropy. For those incapable of grasping the math, it is often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system. Best to dispense with that hoary misstatement; and anyway it can only be charitably given any weight at all in equilibrium thermodynamics. Temperature is energy per degree of freedom. Entropy is proportional to the log of the volume of phase space compatible with the macro-state. Ironically the word is also in information theory to name the logarithmic measure of the rate of transfer of information in a particular message or language. Their mathematical formulations can be made to be similar. Best not to extrapolate the metaphor beyond the point it can bear up; and that is not very far. Suppose a channel carries a stream of characters. Each character is either A or B. The probability that at each clock tick the character is A equals p (and therefore the probability of B equals 1-p.) The information rate of the channel is (-p.log(p) - (1-p).log(1-p)). The logarithm is take to base two and the channel rate is given in bits per clock tick. Observe that if p = 1 or p = 0, the rate is zero. We get no information when we know exactly what is coming down the channel. The rate is greatest when p = 1/2. There is a subtlety in the definition. How is the probability assigned? -- Michael Press |
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#5
Posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.audio.tubes
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
Andre spewed:
But, Dumbo, before we can believe anything at http://dieoff.org/, you first have to prove the underlying assumption of 'finite resources'. You've done no such thing. I don't know about you, but I live on the planet Earth. Trust me, neglecting the small increase in mass due to meteorites, it is a finite planet, and I haven't read about any inter-planetary ore ships docking here. Even petroleum isn't proven to be finite: every year there are more reserves at the contemporary price: the market is working brilliantly, despite the worst efforts of that despicable cartel, OPEC. In a finite set(Earth), all sub-sets(oil) are finite. Can you handle this math? Or do you believe new oil is made everyday? Abiotic like? How's the North Sea's production going? Isn't the UK a net importer now? Even though the North Sea oil fields have the most modern equipment, and easiest capital access? For practical purposes, for the century we will still use petroleum before we perfect refining hydrogen from tapwater, resources are sufficient. How does one "refine" hydrogen from water without losing energy? Entropy, ya know. A Nobel awaits you upon you answer. Zero point energy doesn't count. And, of course, nuclear power is truly infinite. But this isn't about energy, is it, you nasty little necrosis, it is about giving undeserving jerks like you control over their fellows. An assumption without evidence. Please post a link that supports your insult or apologize. CONCLUSION: The "order" that the scum at dieoff.org want to introduce is death, as it was in Communist Russia, Cambodia under Pol Pot, and China under Mao. Even today's Chinese are smarter than that. If we give in to these necrophiliac creeps, for the first time in history we will have a manmade energy catastrophe. I know who should die off before we permit them to create a disaster, and it is those dangerous jerks at dieoff.org. An assumption without evidence. Please post a link that supports this insult or apologize. Really, I know you can read and work the internet. I don't care if you have had a stroke, you should not be acting the fool when it is obvious that your ability to reason is still present. |
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#6
Posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.audio.tubes
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
Dersu Uzala wrote:
Andre spewed: But, Dumbo, before we can believe anything at http://dieoff.org/, you first have to prove the underlying assumption of 'finite resources'. You've done no such thing. I don't know about you, but I live on the planet Earth. Trust me, neglecting the small increase in mass due to meteorites, it is a finite planet, and I haven't read about any inter-planetary ore ships docking here.[...] For you doubters of alien life on Earth, do a Google Groups search of rec.bicycles.tech for "datakoll". -- Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia Gene Daniels for President! |
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#7
Posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.audio.tubes
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
Andre Jute wrote: Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"? First the dumbo Dersu Uzala referred us to: http://dieoff.org/ and provided two quotations. The first is from David Price: The human species may be seen as having evolved in the service of entropy, and it cannot be expected to outlast the dense accumulations of energy that have helped define its niche. Human beings like to believe they are in control of their destiny, but when the history of life on Earth is seen in perspective, the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance. David Price David Price is rather obviously not too bright, in the Californian manner of those who confuse moral relativity with Einsteinian relativity. Let's follow the steps in a manner even David Price will understand, though I doubt his acolyte the dumbo Dersu Uzala ever will: 1. "Entropy" has several meanings. Technically in physics it is the thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work. For those incapable of grasping the math, it is often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system. Ironically the word is also in information theory to name the logarithmic measure of the rate of transfer of information in a particular message or language. 2. David Price has incompetently grasped the middle meaning of disorder or randomness in the system, and then tripped even more incompetently over the third meaning of inefficient communication. For instance, he no fewer than three times in a single short paragraph imputes volition to a law of physics (e.g. "evolved in the service of entropy"); laws of physics are distinguished from sentient beings by having no volition. And even then he gets it arse about end: human beings didn't "evolve" (another technical word of which Price doesn't understand the meaning) in the service of this randomness which Price confuses with entropy in energy, human beings were evolved *by* the randomness of the Darwinian process. 3. In true California guru style, Price then goes into an ecstacy of inconsequentiality: "the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance". Say what? Surely, Price's case, and the case of all the other doomsayers, is that humans *created* an energy imbalance? Now we hear at the same time that humans are the solution to the earth's imbalance. 4. And note the volitional implication of the full sentence from which I took the above piece of crap. Let's savour it: "Human beings like to believe they are in control of their destiny, but when the history of life on Earth is seen in perspective, the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance." Gaia willed it, did she then? Oh, Earth Mother, forgive us our sins! Let's see if I have this right: Gaia suffered an excess of energy, like a boil. Therefore she used entropy to bring up homo sapiens to use as a lance. Right, Mr Price? Hmm. All that energy was dormant anyway. On the Price analysis, California guru style, it seems Gaia is even more wasteful than humans. Perhaps we should spank her with a few underground nuclear explosions. 5. There is so much wrong with Price's short paragraph that I could go on several reams more about the silly linkages, but why raise the profile of a clown who convinces only the most stupid of the already committed? The most important conclusion is that Price is too thick and too humourless to see that if we agree to his case that "Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance" the logical conclusion is that it is the moral thing (if you think the Earth is more important than the humans on it, as Price implicitly does) is to drive a 22ft car with a 8.5 liter engine and monstrous tailfins, to keep your heating *and* you air condition running full speed ahead 24/7, and to burn, burn, burn. The other quotation, even dumber, provided by the dumbo Dersu Uzala is from one Joseph Tainter: Energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity and it always will be. The past clarifies potential paths to the future. One often-discussed path is cultural and economic simplicity and lower energy costs. This could come about through the "crash" that many fear -- a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. The alternative is the "soft landing" that many people hope for - a voluntary change to solar energy and green fuels, energy-conserving technologies, and less overall consumption. This is a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology. Joseph A. Tainter Tainter is more subtle and insidious, but no less dumb and inconsequential. He is however a lot more vicious, to the point of being murderous: 1. He axiomatically assumes an energy shortage. That gets him tidily around the truth that here is no such thing as an energy shortage. The market adjusts to demand, price rises, demand falls to match it, as we have seen recently. There is now more oil in the known reserves than there was at any time in a century of energy scares. Anyone who thinks that in another century we will still burn oil underrates human ingenuity. 2. Tainter has as poor a grasp of history as Price. Is he really claiming in "energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity" that there were no family or larger groups before humanoids mastered fire? That is obvious bull****. One of the depressing things about these clowns is their unfamiliarity with history. For instance, can Tainter really be unaware that the Neanderthals, who died out in the Darwinian process, were magnificent environmental managers whereas our own ancestors, who clearly survived, drove species to extinction over cliffs, and so on? (Any of you guys have red hair? That's a Neanderthal trait that has survived, from when the Cro-Magnon took pity on contemporary greens and impregnated one of their women. Gentlemen preferred blondes even then...). 3. Anyone with a map can see that the basis of the cultural complexity of our world is distance; it was thus before travel and it was thus in the era of the sailing ships (The Age of Renewable Power, surely!). Ours is the age of communication, whether by travel or by ether, and that has reduced rather than increased cultural diversity. Tainter is full of crap. 4. Next, having made the unfounded assumption that we are in trouble, Tainter jumps to the conclusion that we must do something about. He tells us with lipsmacking relish of "much violence, starvation, and loss of population". Malthus lives! Actually, things are better in Africa and the Middle East now than they ever were. Millions fewer infants are dying every year than as recently as 1950. The WHO, a branch of the UN, publishes the numbers. Tainter should visit a library occasionally. We *are* doing something about it, dickhead. If you want us to do it faster, go help rather than sitting in an ivory tower whining. 5. Tainter really gives the game away in his proscription for a solution towards "a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology". Yup, Good old Uncle Joe Stalin, sorry, I mean good old Uncle Joe Tainter wants us to remove the engine of the good life -- and what pays for the salvation of all those hungry Africans -- which is market capitalism. The only way that "economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology" is by appointing a dictator. Without knowing another thing about Tainter except his short paragraph quoted above, one can see that he is a leftover Marxist who, his creed having self-destructed, is now latching onto ecology to satisfy his consuming urge to control his fellow humans, whom he sees not as individuals but en masse. A few million necessary murders, eh, Mr Tainter? "Proscription" in the first line of this paragraph is not an error -- it is a deliberate pun; it says much for the low level of intelligence and education of the people carrying on this sort of discussion on the net that I have to explain such an obvious pun. One flipper offered as his opinion on the quotations by Price and Tainter the succinct one-word summary: Crap This, predictably, sent the original poster, the dumbo Dersu Uzala , into a mouthfoaming rage: I say, not crap! Does that mean I'm correct? I bow to your superior rhetorical skills. Such a level of persuasive logic, especially supported by the facts you present, can only leave myself in awe, quiverting under the shadow of your most excellent denial, you fool. If you were to jump off the Empire State building, I'm sure you'd say "everthing fine, so far!" as you passed the mid-point of you descent. Did you read anything at the website? Is there any claim there that you contest? What part of 'finite resources' do you not understand? But, Dumbo, before we can believe anything at http://dieoff.org/, you first have to prove the underlying assumption of 'finite resources'. You've done no such thing. Even petroleum isn't proven to be finite: every year there are more reserves at the contemporary price: the market is working brilliantly, despite the worst efforts of that despicable cartel, OPEC. For practical purposes, for the century we will still use petroleum before we perfect refining hydrogen from tapwater, resources are sufficient. And, of course, nuclear power is truly infinite. But this isn't about energy, is it, you nasty little necrosis, it is about giving undeserving jerks like you control over their fellows. CONCLUSION: The "order" that the scum at dieoff.org want to introduce is death, as it was in Communist Russia, Cambodia under Pol Pot, and China under Mao. Even today's Chinese are smarter than that. If we give in to these necrophiliac creeps, for the first time in history we will have a manmade energy catastrophe. I know who should die off before we permit them to create a disaster, and it is those dangerous jerks at dieoff.org. **** Anyone who wants to respond angrily to my analysis should note that I am probably a better environmentalist than he is. For instance, I haven't owned a car since 1992; of course nothing is wasted in my house, everything is recycled. And, unlike the loudmouths, I have done something for the starving, fighting in their wars, running a food convoy in Africa, showing them how to rise against their oppressors, suchlike; read all about it in my books. But I hate the slack thinking and the vicious control-freakery of the clowns at dieoff and their nasty little fellowtravellers like Dersu Uzala . If trash like that are environmentalists, I don't want the name attached to me; I'm happy to let the market and democracy look after me. Andre Jute Besporyadok, Prince of Chaos Nice analysis Andre, and doncha worry, you'll be attacked for it. But doncha ever get some inklng that homo sapiens is a rather temporary species of life form? Its the one that comes onto a farm, and leaves it in far worse shape them when it goes off the farm. But the younguns will maybe not care much and not worry either, just as long as a there's a market economy to keep em able to all be middle class, with aspirations to be top class, and own the biggest house in town. I won't be around long enough to see if anything I think about the future might come true, but I do reckon **** will keep happening. Patrick Turner. |
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#8
Posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.audio.tubes
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
On Sep 3, 2:16*am, Patrick Turner wrote:
Andre Jute wrote: A great deal of crap. Patrick, Sadly, the vapid creature that passes for what once was Andre Jute tends to expound these days only for the purposes of character assasination - and when doing so, only with anecdotes of doubtful veracity entirely unsupported by any independently verifiable source. Lots of words, empty of substance. Sure, it has its internal logic - but that fails with the slightest of investigation. Yes, he will be and is being attacked for it. Not just because it seems to be his entire purpose in life these days, but because the content is without substance. This entirely apart from his being a braggart, liar, poseur and charlatan in his own right. That he is attacking someone whose world-view is not one that I share makes no nevermind. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a very, very dangerous view of the world. Irrational, ignorant, pretentious fools remain such whether they agree with you or not. Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA |
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#9
Posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.audio.tubes
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
On Sep 2, 6:30 pm, Andre Jute wrote:
Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"? First the dumbo Dersu Uzala referred us to:http://dieoff.org/ and provided two quotations. The first is from David Price: The human species may be seen as having evolved in the service of entropy, and it cannot be expected to outlast the dense accumulations of energy that have helped define its niche. Human beings like to believe they are in control of their destiny, but when the history of life on Earth is seen in perspective, the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance. David Price David Price is rather obviously not too bright, in the Californian manner of those who confuse moral relativity with Einsteinian relativity. Let's follow the steps in a manner even David Price will understand, though I doubt his acolyte the dumbo Dersu Uzala ever will: 1. "Entropy" has several meanings. Technically in physics it is the thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work. For those incapable of grasping the math, it is often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system. Ironically the word is also in information theory to name the logarithmic measure of the rate of transfer of information in a particular message or language. 2. David Price has incompetently grasped the middle meaning of disorder or randomness in the system, and then tripped even more incompetently over the third meaning of inefficient communication. For instance, he no fewer than three times in a single short paragraph imputes volition to a law of physics (e.g. "evolved in the service of entropy"); laws of physics are distinguished from sentient beings by having no volition. And even then he gets it arse about end: human beings didn't "evolve" (another technical word of which Price doesn't understand the meaning) in the service of this randomness which Price confuses with entropy in energy, human beings were evolved *by* the randomness of the Darwinian process. 3. In true California guru style, Price then goes into an ecstacy of inconsequentiality: "the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance". Say what? Surely, Price's case, and the case of all the other doomsayers, is that humans *created* an energy imbalance? Now we hear at the same time that humans are the solution to the earth's imbalance. 4. And note the volitional implication of the full sentence from which I took the above piece of crap. Let's savour it: "Human beings like to believe they are in control of their destiny, but when the history of life on Earth is seen in perspective, the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance." Gaia willed it, did she then? Oh, Earth Mother, forgive us our sins! Let's see if I have this right: Gaia suffered an excess of energy, like a boil. Therefore she used entropy to bring up homo sapiens to use as a lance. Right, Mr Price? Hmm. All that energy was dormant anyway. On the Price analysis, California guru style, it seems Gaia is even more wasteful than humans. Perhaps we should spank her with a few underground nuclear explosions. 5. There is so much wrong with Price's short paragraph that I could go on several reams more about the silly linkages, but why raise the profile of a clown who convinces only the most stupid of the already committed? The most important conclusion is that Price is too thick and too humourless to see that if we agree to his case that "Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance" the logical conclusion is that it is the moral thing (if you think the Earth is more important than the humans on it, as Price implicitly does) is to drive a 22ft car with a 8.5 liter engine and monstrous tailfins, to keep your heating *and* you air condition running full speed ahead 24/7, and to burn, burn, burn. The other quotation, even dumber, provided by the dumbo Dersu Uzala is from one Joseph Tainter: Energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity and it always will be. The past clarifies potential paths to the future. One often-discussed path is cultural and economic simplicity and lower energy costs. This could come about through the "crash" that many fear -- a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. The alternative is the "soft landing" that many people hope for - a voluntary change to solar energy and green fuels, energy-conserving technologies, and less overall consumption. This is a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology. Joseph A. Tainter Tainter is more subtle and insidious, but no less dumb and inconsequential. He is however a lot more vicious, to the point of being murderous: 1. He axiomatically assumes an energy shortage. That gets him tidily around the truth that here is no such thing as an energy shortage. The market adjusts to demand, price rises, demand falls to match it, as we have seen recently. There is now more oil in the known reserves than there was at any time in a century of energy scares. Anyone who thinks that in another century we will still burn oil underrates human ingenuity. 2. Tainter has as poor a grasp of history as Price. Is he really claiming in "energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity" that there were no family or larger groups before humanoids mastered fire? That is obvious bull****. One of the depressing things about these clowns is their unfamiliarity with history. For instance, can Tainter really be unaware that the Neanderthals, who died out in the Darwinian process, were magnificent environmental managers whereas our own ancestors, who clearly survived, drove species to extinction over cliffs, and so on? (Any of you guys have red hair? That's a Neanderthal trait that has survived, from when the Cro-Magnon took pity on contemporary greens and impregnated one of their women. Gentlemen preferred blondes even then...). 3. Anyone with a map can see that the basis of the cultural complexity of our world is distance; it was thus before travel and it was thus in the era of the sailing ships (The Age of Renewable Power, surely!). Ours is the age of communication, whether by travel or by ether, and that has reduced rather than increased cultural diversity. Tainter is full of crap. 4. Next, having made the unfounded assumption that we are in trouble, Tainter jumps to the conclusion that we must do something about. He tells us with lipsmacking relish of "much violence, starvation, and loss of population". Malthus lives! Actually, things are better in Africa and the Middle East now than they ever were. Millions fewer infants are dying every year than as recently as 1950. The WHO, a branch of the UN, publishes the numbers. Tainter should visit a library occasionally. We *are* doing something about it, dickhead. If you want us to do it faster, go help rather than sitting in an ivory tower whining. 5. Tainter really gives the game away in his proscription for a solution towards "a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology". Yup, Good old Uncle Joe Stalin, sorry, I mean good old Uncle Joe Tainter wants us to remove the engine of the good life -- and what pays for the salvation of all those hungry Africans -- which is market capitalism. The only way that "economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology" is by appointing a dictator. Without knowing another thing about Tainter except his short paragraph quoted above, one can see that he is a leftover Marxist who, his creed having self-destructed, is now latching onto ecology to satisfy his consuming urge to control his fellow humans, whom he sees not as individuals but en masse. A few million necessary murders, eh, Mr Tainter? "Proscription" in the first line of this paragraph is not an error -- it is a deliberate pun; it says much for the low level of intelligence and education of the people carrying on this sort of discussion on the net that I have to explain such an obvious pun. One flipper offered as his opinion on the quotations by Price and Tainter the succinct one-word summary: Crap This, predictably, sent the original poster, the dumbo Dersu Uzala , into a mouthfoaming rage: I say, not crap! Does that mean I'm correct? I bow to your superior rhetorical skills. Such a level of persuasive logic, especially supported by the facts you present, can only leave myself in awe, quiverting under the shadow of your most excellent denial, you fool. If you were to jump off the Empire State building, I'm sure you'd say "everthing fine, so far!" as you passed the mid-point of you descent. Did you read anything at the website? Is there any claim there that you contest? What part of 'finite resources' do you not understand? But, Dumbo, before we can believe anything athttp://dieoff.org/, you first have to prove the underlying assumption of 'finite resources'. You've done no such thing. Even petroleum isn't proven to be finite: every year there are more reserves at the contemporary price: the market is working brilliantly, despite the worst efforts of that despicable cartel, OPEC. For practical purposes, for the century we will still use petroleum before we perfect refining hydrogen from tapwater, resources are sufficient. And, of course, nuclear power is truly infinite. But this ... read more » Dear dumbass, When Tainter speaks of 'cultural complexity' he is not talking about 'family groups.' |
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#10
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
Hi RATs!
I live in the USA. We use more energy sitting in traffic jams in an hour than all the audio consumers, great and small, will use in the entire history of the Universe, past, if there ever was one, and future, if there ever is one ... Our perception that energy is something real and measureble is as stupid as Eyesore's mad claims that he knows, absolutely, all spirally wound plastic capacitors of a given measured value sound exactly the same in every circuit that has been, or ever will be, constructed. Our tiny planet only receives a miniscule proportion of the sunshine of the Sun, and even less from all the other stars which have ever shown brilliance to a rather unimpressed void. It is very fashionable to pretend there is not enough oil, nor Lowther drivers, nor WE 300A tubes. Less hip is to suggest there are too many people. We sort of over simplify things. Not one of us will survive long enough, nor accomplish enough. And then, when we are dead, none of Them will, either. The Universe is expanding ... even as a child, Woody Allen knew that meant each of us will be less important in the future than even the very greatest people in the past are, in the present. Nobody matters, much, for long. No matter what she does for your mood ... What we babble on and on about is what ever we can babble on and on about. What that has to do with anything but babbling is not a place any of us should go. Not for reasons we understand. Simply because what we understand is never going to approach critical mass. So, we can only be a critical ass *,^D Happy Ears! Al |
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#11
Posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.audio.tubes
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
Peter Wieck wrote: On Sep 3, 2:16 am, Patrick Turner wrote: Andre Jute wrote: A great deal of crap. Patrick, Sadly, the vapid creature that passes for what once was Andre Jute tends to expound these days only for the purposes of character assasination - and when doing so, only with anecdotes of doubtful veracity entirely unsupported by any independently verifiable source. Lots of words, empty of substance. Sure, it has its internal logic - but that fails with the slightest of investigation. Yes, he will be and is being attacked for it. Not just because it seems to be his entire purpose in life these days, but because the content is without substance. This entirely apart from his being a braggart, liar, poseur and charlatan in his own right. That he is attacking someone whose world-view is not one that I share makes no nevermind. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a very, very dangerous view of the world. Irrational, ignorant, pretentious fools remain such whether they agree with you or not. Well, I just left the man alone while considering the ball game. There are a lot of people you can attack, but I just ain't got the time, and if I did have the time, and I did attack or counter attack more, I'd have less time to make amps and ride a bicycle, and less time to get old ungracefully. People are welcome to think the very opposite of what I think. My reaction might be "Yeah, how about that", but without fully understanding it, or changeing my life's course. Change to human conditions during our occupation of the planet is certain, and just how exactly is uncertain. So, be happy, and don't worry. Morgan Jones has a design of amp which uses balanced FB from an OPT sec to an input diff pair. There is a balanced input, but the OPT sec than has to float on a CCS. That's a real bother because if there's a short from B+ to OPT sec, the input pair cop the B+, and the speakers also go to the B+ voltage, so its an unsafe design. But suppose we have a 3 stage amp, with two LTPs for input and driver. If there is not a secondary winding with CT, it can be centre tapped with two x 150 ohm low R, and a 470 ohm taken to ground. each end of the sec might have +/-8Vrms and be all applied to the the driver LTP to get a wanted amount of global NFB but around only 2 stages. The 470 ohm is the common Rk for biasing the drive stage. Drive voltage might then be +/-10Vrms to each driver LTP grid. Input LTP can have a CCS for the cathodes, and can be set to take a balanced or unbalanced input and THD will be low without any FB if say 6CG7 is used. So its a simpler way to do what many high end makes have tried; ie, provide balanced and unbalanced input provisions. Since all my amps have active protection if Ek goes too high on any OP tube, the dc at the OPT sec can also be monitored, and if too high will trigger the same protect circuit to turn off the amp. So the driver tubes are also actively protected. Its win-win all the way. Luckily the tube amps I make are a very extremely tiny % of world production, so I don't feel too guilty about making things that are environmentally unsound in every way possible. I ride a bicycle to make up for such ill doings in my workshop. No offspring of mine will have to suffer consequences of what I have done, or have not done, because I have not produced any children. We could do with a world where more folks treated their work and thoughts as their children, and without actually having any real children. No need for anyone to feel unfulfilled if they have not managed to have a family of their own creation. Christ didn't get around to having a family either. He didn't even get old enough to say, "The older I get the better I was" Patrick Turner. Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA |
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#12
Posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.audio.tubes
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
On Sep 3, 7:16*am, Patrick Turner wrote:
Andre Jute wrote: Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"? First the dumbo Dersu Uzala referred us to: http://dieoff.org/ and provided two quotations. The first is from David Price: The human species may be seen as having evolved in the service of entropy, and it cannot be expected to outlast the dense accumulations of energy that have helped define its niche. Human beings like to believe they are in control of their destiny, but when the history of life on Earth is seen in perspective, the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance. David Price David Price is rather obviously not too bright, in the Californian manner of those who confuse moral relativity with Einsteinian relativity. Let's follow the steps in a manner even David Price will understand, though I doubt his acolyte the dumbo Dersu Uzala ever will: 1. "Entropy" has several meanings. Technically in physics it is the thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work. For those incapable of grasping the math, it is often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system. Ironically the word is also in information theory to name the logarithmic measure of the rate of transfer of information in a particular message or language. 2. David Price has incompetently grasped the middle meaning of disorder or randomness in the system, and then tripped even more incompetently over the third meaning of inefficient communication. For instance, he no fewer than three times in a single short paragraph imputes volition to a law of physics (e.g. "evolved in the service of entropy"); laws of physics are distinguished from sentient beings by having no volition. And even then he gets it arse about end: human beings didn't "evolve" (another technical word of which Price doesn't understand the meaning) in the service of this randomness which Price confuses with entropy in energy, human beings were evolved *by* the randomness of the Darwinian process. 3. In true California guru style, Price then goes into an ecstacy of inconsequentiality: "the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance". Say what? Surely, Price's case, and the case of all the other doomsayers, is that humans *created* an energy imbalance? Now we hear at the same time that humans are the solution to the earth's imbalance. 4. And note the volitional implication of the full sentence from which I took the above piece of crap. Let's savour it: "Human beings like to believe they are in control of *their destiny, but when the history of life on Earth is seen in perspective, *the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to *redress the planet's energy balance." Gaia willed it, did she then? Oh, Earth Mother, forgive us our sins! Let's see if I have this right: Gaia suffered an excess of energy, like a boil. Therefore she used entropy to bring up homo sapiens to use as a lance. Right, Mr Price? Hmm. All that energy was dormant anyway. On the Price analysis, California guru style, it seems Gaia is even more wasteful than humans. Perhaps we should spank her with a few underground nuclear explosions. 5. There is so much wrong with Price's short paragraph that I could go on several reams more about the silly linkages, but why raise the profile of a clown who convinces only the most stupid of the already committed? The most important conclusion is that Price is too thick and too humourless to see that if we agree to his case that "Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance" the logical conclusion is that it is the moral thing (if you think the Earth is more important than the humans on it, as Price implicitly does) is to drive a 22ft car with a 8.5 liter engine and monstrous tailfins, to keep your heating *and* you air condition running full speed ahead 24/7, and to burn, burn, burn. The other quotation, even dumber, provided by the dumbo Dersu Uzala is from one Joseph Tainter: Energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity and it always will be. The past clarifies potential paths to the future. One often-discussed path is cultural and economic simplicity and lower energy costs. This could come about through the "crash" that many fear -- a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. The alternative is the "soft landing" that many people hope for - a voluntary change to solar energy and green fuels, energy-conserving technologies, and less overall consumption. This is a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology. Joseph A. Tainter Tainter is more subtle and insidious, but no less dumb and inconsequential. He is however a lot more vicious, to the point of being murderous: 1. He axiomatically assumes an energy shortage. That gets him tidily around the truth that here is no such thing as an energy shortage. The market adjusts to demand, price rises, demand falls to match it, as we have seen recently. There is now more oil in the known reserves than there was at any time in a century of energy scares. Anyone who thinks that in another century we will still burn oil underrates human ingenuity. 2. Tainter has as poor a grasp of history as Price. Is he really claiming in "energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity" that there were no family or larger groups before humanoids mastered fire? That is obvious bull****. One of the depressing things about these clowns is their unfamiliarity with history. For instance, can Tainter really be unaware that the Neanderthals, who died out in the Darwinian process, were magnificent environmental managers whereas our own ancestors, who clearly survived, drove species to extinction over cliffs, and so on? (Any of you guys have red hair? That's a Neanderthal trait that has survived, from when the Cro-Magnon took pity on contemporary greens and impregnated one of their women. Gentlemen preferred blondes even then...). 3. Anyone with a map can see that the basis of the cultural complexity of our world is distance; it was thus before travel and it was thus in the era of the sailing ships (The Age of Renewable Power, surely!). Ours is the age of communication, whether by travel or by ether, and that has reduced rather than increased cultural diversity. Tainter is full of crap. 4. Next, having made the unfounded assumption that we are in trouble, Tainter jumps to the conclusion that we must do something about. He tells us with lipsmacking relish of "much violence, starvation, and loss of population". Malthus lives! Actually, things are better in Africa and the Middle East now than they ever were. Millions fewer infants are dying every year than as recently as 1950. The WHO, a branch of the UN, publishes the numbers. Tainter should visit a library occasionally. We *are* doing something about it, dickhead. If you want us to do it faster, go help rather than sitting in an ivory tower whining. 5. Tainter really gives the game away in his proscription for a solution towards "a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology". Yup, Good old Uncle Joe Stalin, sorry, I mean good old Uncle Joe Tainter wants us to remove the engine of the good life -- and what pays for the salvation of all those hungry Africans -- which is market capitalism. The only way that "economic growth and consumerism can be *removed from the realm of ideology" is by appointing a dictator. Without knowing another thing about Tainter except his short paragraph quoted above, one can see that he is a leftover Marxist who, his creed having self-destructed, is now latching onto ecology to satisfy his consuming urge to control his fellow humans, whom he sees not as individuals but en masse. A few million necessary murders, eh, Mr Tainter? "Proscription" in the first line of this paragraph is not an error -- it is a deliberate pun; it says much for the low level of intelligence and education of the people carrying on this sort of discussion on the net that I have to explain such an obvious pun. One flipper offered as his opinion on the quotations by Price and Tainter the succinct one-word summary: Crap This, predictably, sent the original poster, the dumbo Dersu Uzala , into a mouthfoaming rage: I say, not crap! Does that mean I'm correct? I bow to your superior rhetorical skills. Such a level of persuasive logic, especially supported by the facts you present, can only leave myself in awe, quiverting under the shadow of your most excellent denial, you fool. If you were to jump off the Empire State building, I'm sure you'd say "everthing fine, so far!" as you passed the mid-point of you descent. Did you read anything at the website? Is there any claim there that you contest? What part of 'finite resources' do you not understand? But, Dumbo, before we can believe anything athttp://dieoff.org/, you first have to prove the underlying assumption of 'finite resources'. You've done no such thing. Even petroleum isn't proven to be finite: every year there are more reserves at the contemporary price: the market is working brilliantly, despite the worst efforts of that despicable cartel, OPEC. For practical purposes, for the century we will still use petroleum before we perfect refining hydrogen from tapwater, resources are sufficient. And, of course, nuclear power is truly infinite. But this isn't about energy, is it, you nasty little necrosis, it is about giving undeserving jerks like you control over their fellows. CONCLUSION: The "order" that the scum at dieoff.org want to introduce is death, as it was in Communist Russia, Cambodia under Pol Pot, and China under Mao. Even today's Chinese are smarter than that. If we give in to these necrophiliac creeps, for the first time in history we will have a manmade energy catastrophe. I know who should die off before we permit them to create a disaster, and it is those dangerous jerks at dieoff.org. **** Anyone who wants to respond angrily to my analysis should note that I am probably a better environmentalist than he is. For instance, I haven't owned a car since 1992; of course nothing is wasted in my house, everything is recycled. And, unlike the loudmouths, I have done something for the starving, fighting in their wars, running a food convoy in Africa, showing them how to rise against their oppressors, suchlike; read all about it in my books. But I hate the slack thinking and the vicious control-freakery of the clowns at dieoff and their nasty little fellowtravellers like Dersu Uzala . If trash like that are environmentalists, I don't want the name attached to me; I'm happy to let the market and democracy look after me. Andre Jute Besporyadok, Prince of Chaos Nice analysis Andre, and doncha worry, you'll be attacked for it. Oh, I don't see why anyone would wish to attack me for merely telling the truth. (The triumph of hope over experience!) But doncha ever get some inklng that homo sapiens is a rather temporary species of life form? Of course. And that our species burned so much brighter than the others is equally likely to be a reason for the species burning out faster than the others. Man is after all the only animal that plays with fire. However, that is not to agree that an imminent apocalypse has reached the bottom of the High Street. In fact, quite the opposite. It is a clear indication that in the perspective of history it is hubris (the pride of considering yourself above the gods, i.e. natural laws) for the Greens to try to preserve this particular moment in time and he earth's development on the utterly arrogant tartuffian assumption that they have created the perfect moment and now should fossilize it in amber. Its the one that comes onto a farm, and leaves it in far worse shape them when it goes off the farm. Crap. All animals are locusts until famine weeds them. In Africa I saw dongas (erosion channels) forty miles long, worn by a handful of wildebeest grazing on the same space for decades while only five miles away over easy land was a grassland that stretched for hundreds of miles. The minute the agriculturalists and rangers arrived, the erosion was stopped. But the younguns will maybe not care much and not worry either, just as long as a there's a market economy to keep em able to all be middle class, with aspirations to be top class, and own the biggest house in town. It always amazes me that people who claim that Man did all this damage (which is such a secret rite that most of us can't even see it) or is at least capable of massive damage to the structure of the planet, then want to junk the only mechanism we have that works to allocate resources, the smoothly self-adjusting and ruthlessly impersonal market, and install instead some ecological dictator, a man with some fixed agenda. Your proposed remedy doesn't square with your analysis. I won't be around long enough to see if anything I think about the future might come true, but I do reckon **** will keep happening. The world is a much better place now than when we were born, Patrick. At least part of that is due to pressure by Jeremiahs like you. You lot were wrong all along, but the law of unintended effect works on the wrongoes as well, and the **** that happens is sometimes the good manure. Homo sapiens, I have concluded, has a talent for falling with its arse in the butter. I salute those who think they're about to die! Keep smiling! Andre Jute Immovable rigour -- Gaius Germanicus aka Caligula |
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#13
Posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.audio.tubes
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OT: Entropy
On Sep 3, 5:37*am, Michael Press wrote:
In article , *Andre Jute wrote: 1. "Entropy" has several meanings. Technically in physics it is the thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work. Excellent. The more degrees of freedom over which the energy is dispersed, the greater the entropy. For those incapable of grasping the math, it is often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system. Best to dispense with that hoary misstatement; and anyway it can only be charitably given any weight at all in equilibrium thermodynamics. Hah! But the environmentalists specifically posit a closed system, which they would furthermore like to return to some static state that never existed except in their fevered imaginations. Temperature is energy per degree of freedom. Entropy is proportional to the log of the volume of phase space compatible with the macro-state. Ironically the word is also in information theory to name the logarithmic measure of the rate of transfer of information in a particular message or language. Their mathematical formulations can be made to be similar. Best not to extrapolate the metaphor beyond the point it can bear up; and that is not very far. This isn't about the math, Michael, as is surely signalled by "ironically". This is about malicious jerks like David Price either stupidly or deliberately confusing morality and the laws of physics, and thinking it clever to drag in important-sounding irrelevances. This California guru brand of conservationism should be merely laughable but because of the machinations of the IPCC, jerks like Price and Tainter get standing and then a following and perhaps soon some hysterical pol starts believing. All this is pretty dangerous, and has already cost trillions, with the Kyoto Agreement as only the most gross example so far. Andre Jute The last rationalist Suppose a channel carries a stream of characters. Each character is either A or B. The probability that at each clock tick the character is A equals p (and therefore the probability of B equals 1-p.) The information rate of the channel is (-p.log(p) - (1-p).log(1-p)). The logarithm is take to base two and the channel rate is given in bits per clock tick. Observe that if p = 1 or p = 0, the rate is zero. We get no information when we know exactly what is coming down the channel. The rate is greatest when p = 1/2. There is a subtlety in the definition. How is the probability assigned? -- Michael Press |
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#14
Posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.audio.tubes
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
On Sep 3, 5:57*am, (Dersu Uzala) wrote:
Andre spewed: But, Dumbo, before we can believe anything athttp://dieoff.org/, you first have to prove the underlying assumption of 'finite resources'. You've done no such thing. I don't know about you, but I live on the planet Earth. Trust me, neglecting the small increase in mass due to meteorites, it is a finite planet, and I haven't read about any inter-planetary ore ships docking here. Which ores are in short supply? It is widely known, and leading environmentalists were deeply embarrassed when they took a bet that ore prices would skyrocket and lost the bet, that the prices of metals and other commodities are in long-term decline through over-supply. Even petroleum isn't proven to be finite: every year there are more reserves at the contemporary price: the market is working brilliantly, despite the worst efforts of that despicable cartel, OPEC. In a finite set(Earth), all sub-sets(oil) are finite. Can you handle this math? Or do you believe new oil is made everyday? Abiotic like? How's the North Sea's production going? Isn't the UK a net importer now? Even though the North Sea oil fields have the most modern equipment, and easiest capital access? Your manner of speaking, and your entire though-pattern, is conditioned by your failure to grasp the human spirit, by the in humanity of people in your camp.You speak as if there is some natural law that we have to use petroleum forever. We don't have to. We have coal and peat and nuclear energy and water energy -- and above all we have human ingenuity. Long before the last oil is exhausted you won't be able to give the filthy stuff away, except to the poor nations, because we will have so much energy from other sources that it won't be worth digging for oil, except in low-tech economies. For practical purposes, for the century we will still use petroleum before we perfect refining hydrogen from tapwater, resources are sufficient. How does one "refine" hydrogen from water without losing energy? Entropy, ya know. A Nobel awaits you upon you answer. Zero point energy doesn't count.. The cost-benefit analysis considers the cost of extraction versus the income from the use plus the indirect benefits to society (including its environment). And, of course, nuclear power is truly infinite. But this isn't about energy, is it, you nasty little necrosis, it is about giving undeserving jerks like you control over their fellows. An assumption without evidence. Please post a link that supports your insult or apologize. You posted the link, Dumbo, in which Tainter licked his lips about the violent death of tens of millions and the removal of energy from politics, which can only mean in the institution of a dictator and an energy police on the model of the Gestapo. If that isn't giving undeserving jerks like Tainter -- and by extension you, his acolyte -- control over your fellows, what is? You guys are a walking, talking Stalinist nightmare. CONCLUSION: The "order" that the scum at dieoff.org want to introduce is death, as it was in Communist Russia, Cambodia under Pol Pot, and China under Mao. Even today's Chinese are smarter than that. If we give in to these necrophiliac creeps, for the first time in history we will have a manmade energy catastrophe. I know who should die off before we permit them to create a disaster, and it is those dangerous jerks at dieoff.org. An assumption without evidence. Please post a link that supports this insult or apologize. You already posted the link with the evidence, Dumbo: http://dieoff.org/. You further posted the relevant quotations. If you don't agree with my analysis, you must show us how energy policy can be removed from the market and effectively policed without massive force. You must further show how central planning will work better than it did in the Communist Soviet Union or in China. The rest of us know the answer: it can't work without mass murder. Really, I know you can read and work the internet. I don't care if you have had a stroke, you should not be acting the fool when it is obvious that your ability to reason is still present. Oh, I had a stroke almost forty years ago. I don't know where you ever got the idea I am in any way impaired. As for my ability to reason, it is precisely my analysis of the material you supplied which has stopped you influencing impressionable minds with the lies of Price and Tainter. I would call that a victory for reason over the enemies of society. Andre Jute Nil carborundum illegitimi |
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#15
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
On Sep 3, 3:24*pm, wrote:
On Sep 2, 6:30 pm, Andre Jute wrote: Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"? First the dumbo Dersu Uzala referred us to:http://dieoff.org/ and provided two quotations. The first is from David Price: The human species may be seen as having evolved in the service of entropy, and it cannot be expected to outlast the dense accumulations of energy that have helped define its niche. Human beings like to believe they are in control of their destiny, but when the history of life on Earth is seen in perspective, the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance. David Price David Price is rather obviously not too bright, in the Californian manner of those who confuse moral relativity with Einsteinian relativity. Let's follow the steps in a manner even David Price will understand, though I doubt his acolyte the dumbo Dersu Uzala ever will: 1. "Entropy" has several meanings. Technically in physics it is the thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work. For those incapable of grasping the math, it is often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system. Ironically the word is also in information theory to name the logarithmic measure of the rate of transfer of information in a particular message or language. 2. David Price has incompetently grasped the middle meaning of disorder or randomness in the system, and then tripped even more incompetently over the third meaning of inefficient communication. For instance, he no fewer than three times in a single short paragraph imputes volition to a law of physics (e.g. "evolved in the service of entropy"); laws of physics are distinguished from sentient beings by having no volition. And even then he gets it arse about end: human beings didn't "evolve" (another technical word of which Price doesn't understand the meaning) in the service of this randomness which Price confuses with entropy in energy, human beings were evolved *by* the randomness of the Darwinian process. 3. In true California guru style, Price then goes into an ecstacy of inconsequentiality: "the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance". Say what? Surely, Price's case, and the case of all the other doomsayers, is that humans *created* an energy imbalance? Now we hear at the same time that humans are the solution to the earth's imbalance. 4. And note the volitional implication of the full sentence from which I took the above piece of crap. Let's savour it: "Human beings like to believe they are in control of *their destiny, but when the history of life on Earth is seen in perspective, *the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to *redress the planet's energy balance." Gaia willed it, did she then? Oh, Earth Mother, forgive us our sins! Let's see if I have this right: Gaia suffered an excess of energy, like a boil. Therefore she used entropy to bring up homo sapiens to use as a lance. Right, Mr Price? Hmm. All that energy was dormant anyway. On the Price analysis, California guru style, it seems Gaia is even more wasteful than humans. Perhaps we should spank her with a few underground nuclear explosions. 5. There is so much wrong with Price's short paragraph that I could go on several reams more about the silly linkages, but why raise the profile of a clown who convinces only the most stupid of the already committed? The most important conclusion is that Price is too thick and too humourless to see that if we agree to his case that "Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance" the logical conclusion is that it is the moral thing (if you think the Earth is more important than the humans on it, as Price implicitly does) is to drive a 22ft car with a 8.5 liter engine and monstrous tailfins, to keep your heating *and* you air condition running full speed ahead 24/7, and to burn, burn, burn. The other quotation, even dumber, provided by the dumbo Dersu Uzala is from one Joseph Tainter: Energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity and it always will be. The past clarifies potential paths to the future. One often-discussed path is cultural and economic simplicity and lower energy costs. This could come about through the "crash" that many fear -- a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. The alternative is the "soft landing" that many people hope for - a voluntary change to solar energy and green fuels, energy-conserving technologies, and less overall consumption. This is a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology. Joseph A. Tainter Tainter is more subtle and insidious, but no less dumb and inconsequential. He is however a lot more vicious, to the point of being murderous: 1. He axiomatically assumes an energy shortage. That gets him tidily around the truth that here is no such thing as an energy shortage. The market adjusts to demand, price rises, demand falls to match it, as we have seen recently. There is now more oil in the known reserves than there was at any time in a century of energy scares. Anyone who thinks that in another century we will still burn oil underrates human ingenuity. 2. Tainter has as poor a grasp of history as Price. Is he really claiming in "energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity" that there were no family or larger groups before humanoids mastered fire? That is obvious bull****. One of the depressing things about these clowns is their unfamiliarity with history. For instance, can Tainter really be unaware that the Neanderthals, who died out in the Darwinian process, were magnificent environmental managers whereas our own ancestors, who clearly survived, drove species to extinction over cliffs, and so on? (Any of you guys have red hair? That's a Neanderthal trait that has survived, from when the Cro-Magnon took pity on contemporary greens and impregnated one of their women. Gentlemen preferred blondes even then...). 3. Anyone with a map can see that the basis of the cultural complexity of our world is distance; it was thus before travel and it was thus in the era of the sailing ships (The Age of Renewable Power, surely!). Ours is the age of communication, whether by travel or by ether, and that has reduced rather than increased cultural diversity. Tainter is full of crap. 4. Next, having made the unfounded assumption that we are in trouble, Tainter jumps to the conclusion that we must do something about. He tells us with lipsmacking relish of "much violence, starvation, and loss of population". Malthus lives! Actually, things are better in Africa and the Middle East now than they ever were. Millions fewer infants are dying every year than as recently as 1950. The WHO, a branch of the UN, publishes the numbers. Tainter should visit a library occasionally. We *are* doing something about it, dickhead. If you want us to do it faster, go help rather than sitting in an ivory tower whining. 5. Tainter really gives the game away in his proscription for a solution towards "a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology". Yup, Good old Uncle Joe Stalin, sorry, I mean good old Uncle Joe Tainter wants us to remove the engine of the good life -- and what pays for the salvation of all those hungry Africans -- which is market capitalism. The only way that "economic growth and consumerism can be *removed from the realm of ideology" is by appointing a dictator. Without knowing another thing about Tainter except his short paragraph quoted above, one can see that he is a leftover Marxist who, his creed having self-destructed, is now latching onto ecology to satisfy his consuming urge to control his fellow humans, whom he sees not as individuals but en masse. A few million necessary murders, eh, Mr Tainter? "Proscription" in the first line of this paragraph is not an error -- it is a deliberate pun; it says much for the low level of intelligence and education of the people carrying on this sort of discussion on the net that I have to explain such an obvious pun. One flipper offered as his opinion on the quotations by Price and Tainter the succinct one-word summary: Crap This, predictably, sent the original poster, the dumbo Dersu Uzala , into a mouthfoaming rage: I say, not crap! Does that mean I'm correct? I bow to your superior rhetorical skills. Such a level of persuasive logic, especially supported by the facts you present, can only leave myself in awe, quiverting under the shadow of your most excellent denial, you fool. If you were to jump off the Empire State building, I'm sure you'd say "everthing fine, so far!" as you passed the mid-point of you descent. Did you read anything at the website? Is there any claim there that you contest? What part of 'finite resources' do you not understand? But, Dumbo, before we can believe anything athttp://dieoff.org/, you first have to prove the underlying assumption of 'finite resources'. You've done no such thing. Even petroleum isn't proven to be finite: every year there are more reserves at the contemporary price: the market is working brilliantly, despite the worst efforts of that despicable cartel, OPEC. For practical purposes, for the century we will still use petroleum before we perfect refining hydrogen from tapwater, resources are sufficient. And, of course, nuclear power is truly infinite. But this ... read more » Dear dumbass, When Tainter speaks of 'cultural complexity' he is not talking about 'family groups.' You are so right, my dear anonymous correspondent. It is quite possible, though we shall probably never know for certain, that two hominid males banded together the better to hunt prey. Or that before that they huddled in troops. However, when you have put your mind in gear, you will see that "cultural diversity" cannot even start with only individuals on your map. Culture can be given expression only in communication, and with only individuals on the map, that is the bow-wow culture of territorial warnings-off. Pretty limited culture, eh? So, culture starts with a gathering of individuals into a group. I was right the first time. That quack Tainter should visit a library and read some history, and so should his thick acolytes, like you. Andre Jute |
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
On Sep 3, 4:52*am, Tom Sherman
wrote: Andre Jute wrote: Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"? Useless eaters such as myself, obviously. [...] And, of course, nuclear power is truly infinite.[...] And I was under the impression that the Universe contained a finite quantity of mass/energy. Wherever did you learn that? Engineering school? You shoulda gone to California for your education. There everything is possible, including the impossible. But, seriously, the finite quantity of mass/energy is just a light in your eyes, intended to blind you when wielded by these necrotic scrotums at dieoff.org. There is so much energy that what is important is its interchangeability. Finite is a quantity that matters nothing whatsoever unless it is limited to mere decades of use or has no interchangeability. (Chrome is one such, not because it is in short supply but because the ores lie in areas of chronic political instability, that is, in permanent war zones.) Andre Jute Economist. I leave the other sophisters to the politicians. |
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
On Sep 3, 4:29*pm, still just me wrote:
On Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:52:02 -0500, Tom Sherman wrote: [...] And, of course, nuclear power is truly infinite.[...] And I was under the impression that the Universe contained a finite quantity of mass/energy. We can just tap into another universe when ours runs out. Pass up the Black & Decker drill and raise the ladder a coupla notches, will you. AJ |
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
Andre does understand, at some level.
Andre Jute:"All animals are locusts until famine weeds them." |
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
Amazon reviews of Tainter's work:
http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Compl...logy/dp/052138 673X Tainter's project here is to articulate his grand unifying theory to explain the strange and disturbing fact that every complex civilisation the world has ever seen has collapsed. Tainter first elegantly disposes of the usual theories of social decline (disappearance of natural resources, invasions of barbarians, etc). He then lays out his theory of decline: as societies become more complex, the costs of meeting new challenges increase, until there comes a point where extra resources devoted to meeting new challenges produce diminihsing and then negative returns. At this point, societies become less complex (they collapse into smaller societies). For Tainter, social problems are always (ultimately) a problem of recruiting enough energy to "fuel" the increasing social complexity which is necessary to solve ever-newer problems. Complexity, writes Tainter, describes a variety of characteristics in a number of societies. SOm aspects of complexity include many differentiated social roles, a large class of administrators not involved in the production of primary resources, energy devoted to different kinds of communication, centralised government, etc. Societies become more complex in order to solve problems. Complexity, for Tainter, is quantifiable. Where, for example, the Cherokee natives of the U.S. had about 5,000 cultural artifacts (things ranging from recipes to tools to tents) which were integral to their culture, the Allied troops landing on the Normandy coast in 1944 had about 40,000. Herein, however, lies the rub. Since, as Tainter writes, the "number of challenges with which the Universe can confront a society is, for practical purposes, infinite," complex societies need to keep on increasing their level of complexity in order to survive new challenges. Tainter's thesis is that these "investments in aditional complexity" produce fewer and fewer returns with time, until eventually society cannot muster enough energy to fuel complexity. At this point, society collapses. Consider this example: A simple hunter-gatherer society with limited agriculture (i.e. garden plots) is faced with a problem, such as a seasonal drop in food production (or an invasion from its neighbours who have the same problem and are coming over for food). The bottom line is, this society faces an energy shortage. This society could respond to the food crisis by either voluntarily declining in numbers (die-off, and unlikely) or by increasing production. Most societies choose the latter. In order to increase production, this society will need to either expand territorially (invade somebody else)or increase agricultural production . In either case, this investment can pay off substantially in either increased access to already-produced food or increased food production. But the hunter-gatheres of the above example incur costs as they try to solve their food-shortage problem. If they conquer their neighbours, they have to garrison those territories, thus raising the cost of government. If they start agriculture on a larger or more intense scale in their own territories, they have to create a new class of citizens to man the farms, distribute and store the grain, and guard it from animals and invaders. In either case, the increases in access to energy (food) are offset somewhat by the increased cost of social complexity. But, as the society gets MORE complex to confront newer challenges, the returns on these increases in complexity diminish. Eventually, the costs of maintaining garrisons (as the Romans found) is so high that both home and occupied populations revolt, and welcome the invaders with their simpler way of life and their lower taxes. Or, agricultural challenges (a massive drought, or degradation of soils) are so great that the society cannot muster the energy reserves to deal with them. Tainter's book examines the Mayan, Chacoan and Roman collapses in terms of his theory of diminishing marginal returns on investments in complexity. This is the fascinating part of the book; the disturbing sections are Chapter Four and the final chapter. In Chapter 4, Tainter musters a massive array of statistics that show that modern society has been facing diminishing returns on investments in complexity. There is a very simple reason for this: we solve the easiest problems first. Take oil, for example. In 1950, spending the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil in searching for more oil yielded 100 barrels in discovered oil. In 2004, the world's five largest energy companies found less oil energy than they expended in looking for that energy. The per-dollar return on R&D investment has dropped for fifty years. In education, additional investments in programs, technology etc. no longer produce increases in outcomes. In short, industrial society is looking at steadily fewer returns on its investments in both non-human and human capital. When a new challenge comes, Tainter argues, society will eventually be unable to muster the necessary resources to deal with the crisis, and will revert-- in a painful and unhappy way-- to a much simpler way of life. In his final chapter, Tainter describes the modern world's "arms race of complexity" and makes some uncomfortable suggestions about our own future. (...). In an age where, for example, the U.S. invasion of Iraq has yielded net negative returns on investment even for the invaders (where's that cheap oil?), and where additional investments in education and health care in industrialised countries make no significant increases in outcomes, the historical focus of Tainter's work starts to become eerily prescient. The scary thing about this deeply thoughtful and thoroughly researched book is its contention that the future, for all our knowledge and technology, might be an awful lot like the past. Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this) 71 of 72 people found the following review helpful: A Landmark Study in Why Societies Collapse, January 22, 2006 By Allen B. Hundley (Midway, AR) - See all my reviews To get an idea of the impact this book has had both among scholars and on the general public one has only to look at its publishing record. It was written by an academic for academics and published by a university press (Cambridge no less) yet it is now in its fourteenth printing since its initial release in 1988. Tainter argues that human societies exist to solve problems. He looks at a score of societal collapses, focusing on three: Rome, the Maya, and the Chacoan Indians of the American Southwest. As these societies solved problems - food production, security, public works - they became increasingly complex. Complexity however carries with it overhead costs, e.g. administration, maintaining an army, tax collection, infrastructure maintenance, etc. As the society confronts new problems additional complexity is required to solve them. Eventually a point is reached where the overhead costs that are generated result in diminishing returns in terms of effectiveness. The society wastefully expends its resources trying to maintain its bloated condition until it finally collapses into smaller, simpler, more efficient units. (Does this sound like any contemporary societies we know?) One of the powerful attractions of this book is that, although written by an academic for a scholarly audience, the author is fully aware of his theory's relevance to the future of our own society, comments upon which he reserves for the final chapter. While Tainter states explicitly (writing in 1988) that he does not believe the collapse of our civilization is imminent, in a remarkably candid passage he characterizes the survivalist movement in the U.S. (excluding the lunatic fringe element) as being a rational response to concerns about the viability of our current political system. The same goes for those in the self reliance, grow you own food movement. "The whole concern with collapse and self-sufficiency may itself be a significant social indicator, the expectable scanning behavior of a social system under stress..." (p.211). Keep in mind that Tainter is writing before the first Gulf War, Y2K, 9-11 and before our current involvement in Iraq. New energy sources are the key, he says, to maintaining economic well-being. "A new energy subsidy is necessary if a declining standard of living and a future global collapse are to be averted." By subsidy he means the development of new forms of energy. This "development must be an item of the highest priority even if, as predicted, this requires reallocation of resources from other economic sectors." (p. 215). Almost twenty years have passed since Tainter wrote those words. I leave it for you the reader of this review to judge the capability of our current political system to respond to such a grave and obvious crisis. I have given this book 5 stars not because it is the final answer to the question of how civilizations or societies collapse but because it represents an important step along the way to that answer. As Jared Diamond correctly points out in his new "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed," complex societies would be expected to be the best at staving off collapse because they are by definition the most highly organized, with the best information, resource and administrative structures to deal with new challenges. Clearly other factors must be at work. Tainter however dismisses all previous theories of collapse, calling many of them `mystical'. Included in this latter group are many of the world's greatest thinkers from Plato and Polybius to Gibbon and Toynbee. What Tainter really means is that their explanations are not quantifiable, therefore not scientific, and therefore unworthy of further consideration. This is a most unfortunate mistake. Insight is insight regardless of whether or not it is quantifiable. If a scientific approach to societal decision-making always worked Robert McNamara's faith in body count statistics should surely have resulted in a U.S. victory in Vietnam. At one point Tainter states that individuals can never alter the course of world history, only powerful long-term societal forces. This flies in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, from the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae to Lee's bungling at Gettysburg, to Winston Churchill and Lord Dowding in the Battle of Britain. (See my review on the latter.) The fact that at critical junctures in history a handful of individuals have made a huge difference is extremely frustrating to those in the `social science' community. They would like to believe that with enough good statistics you can predict the future with precision. This has never been and likely never will be the case, a reality I came to terms with many years ago and the main reason I never completed my doctoral studies in `political science'. Allowing that Tainter's complexity model really does have considerable explanatory power, the important question is can you have an advanced society that is immune to complexity's dangers? The answer in this reviewer's opinion is a qualified `yes' but such a society would have to be organized very differently with far less interdependence, and hence fragility, than anything we now know. If world events (terrorism, Iran, North Korea, etc.) continue along the track they have taken in recent years, we may soon, for better or worse, have the opportunity to find out. Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this) 16 of 31 people found the following review helpful: Utterly brilliant work of genius, joins Allott's Health of Nations, August 9, 2007 By Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews This is an utterly brilliant stunning work of genius. It begins with a comprehensive review of what appears to be every work in English relative to the topic being considered. The author has done a phenomenal job of both dissecting and then discussed the varied authors contributing to each of the following lists explanations for prior collapse of civilizations (from page 42): 1) Depletion or cessation of a vital resource 2) The establishment of a new resource base 3) The occurrence of some insurmountable catatrosphe 4) Insufficient response to circumstance 5) Other complex societies 6) Intruders 7) Class conflict, societal contradictions, elite mismanagement or misbehavior 8) Social dysfunction 9) Mystical factors 10) Chance concatenation of events 11) Economic factors This book is exceptionally well organized, well presented, and well spoken. The complex discussion is delivered in easy to read and absorb constructs. After a review and elegant dismissal of all of the prevailing theories, the author leads us into his approach by positing the collapse of civiliazations as resulting from the collapse of the larger systemic process for processing information to effect the increasingly complicated system of systems. In the author's words, at some point the cost of micro-managing a complex system is so high, and yields such poor returns on investment, that the natural and beneficial response of the whole is to collapse into more readily sustainable and resilience smaller parts. I am reminded of Charles Perrow's Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies, in which he discusses how simple systems have single points of failure easy to diagnose and correct; sophisticated systems have multiple points of failure that interact in largely unforeseen ways and are very difficult to diagnose and correct; and the finally, Earth and Humanity, a system of systems so complex that "Intelligent Design" is failing us, and a natural Darwinian selection is kicking in. For America to have 27 robust secessionist movements and a plethora of "Home Rule" regimes springing up local levels, while the Bush-Cheney regime runs the nation into bankruptcy with their elective war in Iraq that has cost half a trillion dollars that could have been better used to restore our failing infrastructure and our failed schools, tells us all we need to know: the federal government has collapsed, and the Republic as a whole is next absent draconian public engagement and mandated electoral reform prior to 2008. The author concludes that "complexity is a problem-solving strategy" and that when it fails to solve the high-level threats or challenges, then the society collapses so that smaller and more resilient parts might be more innovative and adaptive, and hence survive better without the burden of inept "guidance" from above. In the context of this book, the 27 secessionist movements in America are clearly what the author calls "resistance" to the now unaffordable higher costs and lower results of the federal mismanagement of the nation, best depicted by the grotesquely inept and even inhuman lack of effectiveness with respect to New Orleans and the Katrina hurricane. There are gems throughout the work, which joins that of Philip Allott, also of Cambridge, who in his The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State suggested that the Treaty of Westphalia was a huge mistake, and we should have elevated and recognized peoples instead of sovereign states, as the latter have been too easily corrupted into aided the global elite to loot every commonwealth. A few that I noted: Military expenditures and arms races suck the health out of nations. See my review of The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs), a book in which one author discusses the consequences of allowing the military to dominate what passes for strategy in the budget, while the politicians pander to domestic interests bereft of any grasp of international reality, and the intellectuals posit solutions that have no political, military, or overall holistic integration of all the sources of national power over time and space. The books on War Is a Racket: The Anti-War Classic by America's Most Decorated General, Two Other Anti=Interventionist Tracts, and Photographs from the Horror of It and The Folly of War: American Foreign Policy, 1898-2005 are mounting in influence today. The author notes that the physics of time and space make an extended dominance of distant cultures and places impossible when relying solely on the force of arms. I am of course reminding of Jonathan Schell's The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People as well as Derek Leebaert's The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World. The author notes that no strategy can be considered viable that steals from the future to support the present. This observation is in perfect harmony will all that has been done by Herman Daly in Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications and Paul Hawkins in Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming, among other works. Collapse is cultural, systemic, a collapse of process, not of any discrete event, institution, or location. The information processing becomes impossible for a complex system that does not adapt from an industrial-era model of command and control to an information era model of distributed localized resilience. I think of The Sorrows of Empi Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project) and The The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future - and What It Will Take to Win It Back on the one hand, and the varied books on the "wealth of knowledge," wealth of networks. Although others including myself in my US Institute of Peace paper on virtual diplomacy have expressed concern over the growing gap between people with power and people with knowledge, this author has provided us with what may well be the most erudite focused diagnosis of the coming collapse of the West, a lumbering industrial era mammoth whose small elite brain cannot compete with the sleeker Third World "tigers" that are using leap-ahead technologies to avoid our legacy of ashes. In my view, the West can be saved only if America achieves electoral reform and restores the constitution, with a draconian reduction of federalism and the federal budget, while restoring to the states all of the powers not explicitly assigned to the three branches. Open Carry, Open Spectrum, all of the "opens" must prevail against the rule of secrecy and the use of scarcity to impoverish rather than enrich what should be "seven billion billionaires (forthcoming from Medard Gabel)." This is a righteous book. I have loaded two images from my own earlier work (at my web site under the photo in Early Papers) and am now working on War and Peace in the Digital Era. This book here is Ref A. Comments (17) | Permalink |
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
On Sep 3, 6:38*pm, (Dersu Uzala) wrote:
Andre does understand, at some level. Andre Jute:"All animals are locusts until famine weeds them." Andre not only understands at all levels, he refuses to run with the impressionable, thoughless herd of lemmings to which the anonymous Dersu Uzala belongs. Andre Jute Himself. Thinking for himself. |
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
On Sep 3, 6:29*pm, (Dersu Uzala) wrote:
In article , says... And, of course, nuclear power is truly infinite. But this isn't about energy, is it, you nasty little necrosis, it is about giving undeserving jerks like you control over their fellows. An assumption without evidence. Please post a link that supports your ins= ult or apologize. You posted the link, Dumbo, in which Tainter licked his lips about the violent death of tens of millions and the removal of energy from politics, which can only mean in the institution of a dictator and an energy police on the model of the Gestapo. If that isn't giving undeserving jerks like Tainter -- and by extension you, his acolyte -- control over your fellows, what is? You guys are a walking, talking Stalinist nightmare. Licked his lips? I don't see it. If these 'green nazis' are so 'Stalinist' (what? huh? rather strange conjunction of politics) I'd think that it would be easy to cut and paste ONE sentence demonstating this. You can write hundreds of lines, but not one quote to back your opinion. This is kindergarten debating trade tactics, to demand the same proof over and over until the respondent tires of supplying it, and then to claim a "victory". I have already twice pointed out that the reference is Tainter, and was supplied by the dumbo Dersu Uzala himself. Here, once more, is Tainter's lipsmacking relish about the lingering death of tens of millions: a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. |
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
Licked his lips? I don't see it. If these 'green nazis' are so 'Stalinist= ' (what? huh? rather strange conjunction of politics) I'd think that it wou= ld be easy to cut and paste ONE sentence demonstating this. You can write hundr= eds of lines, but not one quote to back your opinion. This is kindergarten debating trade tactics, to demand the same proof over and over until the respondent tires of supplying it, and then to claim a "victory". I have already twice pointed out that the reference is Tainter, and was supplied by the dumbo Dersu Uzala himself. Here, once more, is Tainter's lipsmacking relish about the lingering death of tens of millions: a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. I think we can all agree that the death of millions is a bad thing, but this quote doesn't show any relish or lipsmacking. You may be projecting here, I don't know. If a Doctor were to tell you that "You have cancer, and you will suffer terribly, and your tumor is inoperable", would you claim the Doctor is evil, and relishes your pain? The above line from Tainter is without any emotional affect. It is just a simple statement of his views, and, as far as I can tell, does not imply any desire for it to happen. Why is this so diffcult for you to understand or admit? A kindergarten tactic is to repeatedly claim proof has been provided where none has been offered. Tainter then proceeds to offer what he has the cheek to call a utopian alternative that... will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology. Joseph A. Tainter He calls it utopian because it doesn't look like it will happen, not because it will be perfection. I thought you fancy yourself to be 'literary', Andre, you should understand the allusion. He's saying changes aren't going to happen to address the need for alternative energy sources until reality smacks the leaders of the world up against the side of their heads with a crises. He is not saying that a disaster is desired, or to be encouraged to trick the world into 'going green' as a smokescreen for totalitarian control. Jeez...talk about giant dense globs of matter... That's a prescription for central planning with violence, fascism as practiced under Hitler, communism as practised under Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. I have invited Dersu Urzala several times now to describe an alternative mechanism for this murderous "utopia" that doesn't involve "a few million necessary murders" but he appears not even to understand the historical references. Please, insult me on my actual errors, not assumed ignorance. I know the reference. Doesn't have to be murderous. How about tax credits for alternative energy? How about similar infrastructure projects along the lines of the interstate highways, waterways, etc., how about R&D along the likes of the Apollo and Manhattan projects. (All centalized planning by, gasp!, governments) Also, assuming that a severe energy crises does occur, central planning along the lines that WWII nessecitated in the western democracies would be called for. Andre Jute Bored with this fool Repeated obtuseness and failure is boring, isn't it? |
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
We're not getting anywhere fellow. We cannot even get started on
Tainter until you prove his underlying assumption that there is an energy shortage. So far you haven't even proven that there is an oil shortage. This supposed energy shortage underpins Tainter's entire argument, and without it his argument falls away and his motivation become moot. So, first you prove the energy shortage. Not holding my breath -- I remember the ozone layer we were supposed to be destroying in the 1960s, and the clowns who wanted to warm the oceans up in the 1970s because the ice age was imminent, and the clowns who had committed a foul mass murder of millions of children and their mothers by malaria when they had DDT banned without a single human death ever being proved against DDT. The anonymous dumbo Dersu Uzala, David Price and Joseph Tainter all belong to that strain of murderous irrationalists. The onus of proof is on you, Dumbo. Oh, and I notice that, after I exposed the ridiculous way Price misrepresents the laws of physics, poor Price no longer features in your defence of dieoff.org. If your champions falls that easily, we must doubt your judgement in selecting them, and your judgement in bringing this halfbaked case before us, and your judgement in continuing to consume oxygen that the cockroaches need. Darwin was right, and my headline is right: the people at dieoff.org should take their own advice. Andre Jute A little, a very little thought will suffice -- John Maynard Keynes On Sep 3, 7:50*pm, (Dersu Uzala) wrote: Licked his lips? I don't see it. If these 'green nazis' are so 'Stalinist= ' (what? huh? rather strange conjunction of politics) I'd think that it wou= ld be easy to cut and paste ONE sentence demonstating this. You can write hundr= eds of lines, but not one quote to back your opinion. This is kindergarten debating trade tactics, to demand the same proof over and over until the respondent tires of supplying it, and then to claim a "victory". I have already twice pointed out that the reference is Tainter, and was supplied by the dumbo Dersu Uzala himself. Here, once more, is Tainter's lipsmacking relish about the lingering death of tens of millions: *a genuine collapse over a period of one *or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. I think we can all agree that the death of millions is a bad thing, but this quote doesn't show any relish or lipsmacking. You may be projecting here, I don't know. If a Doctor were to tell you that "You have cancer, and you will suffer terribly, and your tumor is inoperable", would you claim the Doctor is evil, and relishes your pain? The above line from Tainter is without any * emotional affect. It is just a simple statement of his views, and, as far as I can tell, does not imply any desire for it to happen. Why is this so diffcult for you to understand or admit? A kindergarten tactic is to repeatedly claim proof has been provided where none has been offered. Tainter then proceeds to offer what he has the cheek to call *a utopian alternative that... will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology. Joseph A. Tainter He calls it utopian because it doesn't look like it will happen, not because it will be perfection. I thought you fancy yourself to be 'literary', Andre, you should understand the allusion. He's saying changes aren't going to happen to address the need for alternative energy sources until reality smacks the leaders of the world up against the side of their heads with a crises. He is not saying that a disaster is desired, or to be encouraged to trick the world into 'going green' as a smokescreen for totalitarian control. Jeez...talk about giant dense globs of matter... That's a prescription for central planning with violence, fascism as practiced under Hitler, communism as practised under Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. I have invited Dersu Urzala several times now to describe an alternative mechanism for this murderous "utopia" that doesn't involve "a few million necessary murders" but he appears not even to understand the historical references. Please, insult me on my actual errors, not assumed ignorance. I know the reference. Doesn't have to be murderous. How about tax credits for alternative energy? How about similar infrastructure projects along the lines of the interstate highways, waterways, etc., how about R&D along the likes of the Apollo and Manhattan projects. (All centalized planning by, gasp!, governments) Also, assuming that a severe energy crises does occur, central planning along the lines that WWII nessecitated in the western democracies would be called for. * Andre Jute Bored with this fool Repeated obtuseness and failure is boring, isn't it? |
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
Patrick Turner wrote:
[...] No offspring of mine will have to suffer consequences of what I have done, or have not done, because I have not produced any children. We could do with a world where more folks treated their work and thoughts as their children, and without actually having any real children. No need for anyone to feel unfulfilled if they have not managed to have a family of their own creation.[...] butbutbut, I love children. Baked, broiled, deep fried, its all good.  -- Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia “Mary had a little lamb / And when she saw it sicken / She shipped it off to Packingtown / And now it’s labeled chicken.” |
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#26
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
There is an incomprehensible amount of oil in the ground. It will
never run out. We will never be able to extract it all. But the cheap oil is gone. We in the US are now using, for instance, oil processed from Canadian oil sands at a cost of 75-95$ barrel. We depend on this oil now. We burn it up as fast as they can pipe it down. Meanwhile the biggest oil field in the Western hemisphere, Cantarell in Mexico, is depleting at a rate of 35% per year. That's a phenomenal rate of depletion. It means Mexican oil production is falling almost to zero. And their exports, which the US of course depends on, are falling at a faster rate than their production, because they are consuming more of their own oil. This pattern of diminishing exports and production is seen in giant oil fields and producing countries all over the world. Accelerating depletion, Andre. We use the oil and then it's gone. The major fields of the world are depleting at such a rate that it requires over 4 million barrels per day of new production every year just to stay even. And that's assuming demand stays flat. In ten years we need over 40 million barrels per day of new production that we don't have now. But damn, discovery of giant oil fields (the world gets about half its oil from about 200 oil fields out of over 4000) just doesn't happen anymore. Cantarell was one of the last ones to be found and it's already crapping out. Likewise with the North Sea fields and Prudhoe Bay, other relatively recent finds, now producing 10-20% of their peak volumes. But I don't see any shortages, do you? Not here in the good ol U S of A. Not yet. The price will rise high enough to balance supply and demand in a world of diminishing or plateaud supply. Anybody who can't afford it will be priced out leaving plenty of expensive oil for the rest of us. But cheap oil is thing of the past. Andre you seem to think that oil extraction is some kind of ATM transaction. Let's imagine that oil is an infinite resource. Neat, huh? Ah, but drilling rigs, for one thing, are not infinite. There are only so many of them, and they're all over there digging empty holes somewhere else. The market will produce more rigs you say. Ah but have you seen the price of steel. Etc. Even if oil were infinite there would be limits on the rate of extraction. We seem to have reached that limit, as production of crude seems to have plateaued for several years. R |
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#27
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
Tainter is a historian.
You took an out of context quote and made all sorts of wacky assumptions about Tainter and what he believes. His work on this subject is history, not soothsayer. The book is called The Collapse of Complex Societies. Maya, Romans, Anasazi, Etc. |
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#28
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
On Sep 3, 7:51 pm, wrote:
Meanwhile the biggest oil field in the Western hemisphere, Cantarell in Mexico, is depleting at a rate of 35% per year. That's a phenomenal rate of depletion. It means Mexican oil production is falling almost to zero. Sorry, should say 'Mexican oil exports falling almost to zero.' Not production. Mexico will be an oil importer in a few years. |
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#29
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
Darwin was right, and my headline is right: the
people at dieoff.org should take their own advice. Andre Jute A little, a very little thought will suffice -- John Maynard Keynes Thanks for demonstrating that you did not read the website. Dieoff.org does not encourage, recommend or take pleasure in the prospect of a human die off. Evidentially, both very little thought, or reading has been done by Mr Jute. He seems rather nasty. http://dieoff.org/ |
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#30
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
On Sep 3, 9:57*pm, wrote:
Tainter is a historian. You took an out of context quote and made all sorts of wacky assumptions about Tainter and what he believes. His work on this subject is history, not soothsayer. The book is called The Collapse of Complex Societies. Maya, Romans, Anasazi, Etc. Andre will never let facts, accuracy or common sense get in the way of his fantasies. Attempting to make him hew to reality is about as effective as nailing Jello - an activity of dubious utility yielding questionable results. Further, arguing with him "on the merits" changes nothing but does give him the opportunity for more spew. Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA |
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#31
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
Tom Sherman wrote: Patrick Turner wrote: [...] No offspring of mine will have to suffer consequences of what I have done, or have not done, because I have not produced any children. We could do with a world where more folks treated their work and thoughts as their children, and without actually having any real children. No need for anyone to feel unfulfilled if they have not managed to have a family of their own creation.[...] butbutbut, I love children. Baked, broiled, deep fried, its all good. I was always uncertain about having children, but welcomed the prospect were it to arrive under suitable conditions. First you need a good relationship, and for one reason or another, getting that far wasn't possible. I did marry one girl, and live with 5 others for over a year, but never did I plead with them to stay and have children, especially after they'd behaved like utter bitches. Like a true gentleman, I'd just hold a door open when the bitchiness began. I knew myself, so why didn't they know themselves? The very few girls who were remotely attractive, and sensible about kids all married a variety of men different to myself. Some were complete arsoles, some were rich, but none were me. They all said I was the best in bed of course. They say that to all the guys they ****. Getting sex is no achievement, and sex does NOT bond you well to any woman for very long. Its the willingness to be a slave, and to be a martyr, and to gently pass fist-fulls of dollars to your gal that really impresses. Plus behave in 1,001 ways which are absurd, to relieve boredom. But even this brief summation seems quite wrong though because while young I witnessed many a man with a short dick and ugly features, and terrible personality get a pretty girl with brains, and then go one to treat her like poo for 20 years. My wife deserted me because she felt inadequate. She sure was. Seeing other females having kids frightened hell out of her. I thought I'd have to be patient about her, but she saved me having to ever be patient. Others I found were better BJ experts than the others, better or worse cooks, some were faithful for slightly longer, or not as long, but all couldn't be like their mothers or mine. The 1960s generation of young shielas copped a lot of criticism from their mothers who'd not had the Pill, and maybe had felt forced to stay with a drunken ******* for 20 years. The 60s gals all thought travel, shopping, and rooting a string of fellas to be just fine. None I knew thought marriage was a good thing. Those women who did think it good were often 3 feet in diameter, and didn't know what a BJ was. Or would be really upset by one when they found out. Or they had the tremendous charms of Germaine Sneer. How could any man get a hard on with Germaine? So maybe more than 1/2 the planetary shielas repelled me. I happily washed my own clothes, and cooked my own meals. Much less drama and expense. Now the experts tell us that there is a bonding chemical that is exuded more by men who have successful marriages, so staying married depends upon your genes, not your socialisation skills. But the same newspaper articles don't say what bonding chemical is released into the air for men to smell from women. I used to think it was the Smell Of The ****, but I was never totally hooked by that. Its nice other folks had kids. There are nice young doctors and dentists as a result. I would have liked to have children, and would have made a good father, and I bought a nice house and extended it so if the right gal appeared, she'd have done well, but all they told me was that I was boring after awhile. They'd told all the previous guys the same thing after awhile. They'd go on telling future guys they were boring after awhile. After living with the first girl, and watching her behave so badly, and with other men while she lived with me, I distrusted all women after age 22. They'd have to prove themselves. None did. They all expected freedoms greater than what they'd grant me, and none were ever happy. Before children, all this **** must be well sorted, or I'll sleep on the sofa. Now I see the old hags of 60, about my age, and they still whinge and moan and are impossible to live with, and a BJ is totally unthinkable. They are so glad they divorced. Thousands line up on Internet introduction and dating venues, saying they want a man, and when I even just say hello, they runaway like a frightened old chook. I met a few, and boy, they are so ****ed up. So why did they marry? I'm happy I am not a grandfather either. I like working for people to improve their experience of music via vacuum tubes. I don't need close relationships that cost huge sums of money, challenge sanity, and ruin your heart condition, and ruin your focus upon your trade or craft. The world has far too many people. I didn't increase the numbers. For those who love children, my missing children have left your children with more world to have, so there is no validity in sneering at me for not being a dutiful lad and not breeding. Because my kids I didn't have don't clutter the roads, your children will get from A to B faster. Some ppl I know of my age with kids between 20 and 30 have a love hate relationship with their kids. Its often hate mostly, and the kids just want money. I have lots of friends though, and I prefer a female doctor and dentist, because unlike the ****ed up males out there, the youngish female professionals are more conscientious about their work like I am about my work. And I share my house with a female boarder, a rare pleasant person, and no hassles. I worked out about 35 years ago that a man didn't have to marry and breed to feel complete. An old guy of 60 told me when I was 20 in 1968 it didn't matter who you married, you'd make the best of it. A few people actually used to do that. People went through whole lives without understanding much. He didn't understand that in the post 1965 world there wasn't a female alive who thought it didn't matter who you marry, nor did he realise that a woman would leave you at the drop of a hat no matter how wonderful you were, even in her own stated terms. Nearly all the old tradesmen who taught me so much lived in a dream, and waited patiently for retirement, and the pension, and not working, and enjoying grandchildren, but most died of cancer or heart attack well before they got to the dream. The dreams merge into a sham sometimes, and I could see the sham all too plainly. If things ain't right at home with the missus, keep the dick out of the fanny. Most men can't, at 25. Kids will only make things worse. But the Pill changed so much. It saved us from ourselves. So now, 35% of all females born are unlikely to have kids. I am very happy that they become doctors instead of mothers. Patrick Turner. -- Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia “Mary had a little lamb / And when she saw it sicken / She shipped it off to Packingtown / And now it’s labeled chicken.” |
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
"Patrick Turner" wrote in message
... some bitterness Tandems are great though, and even on topic for RBT. |
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
Clive George wrote: "Patrick Turner" wrote in message ... some bitterness Tandems are great though, and even on topic for RBT. I'd never find a sheila to be my "stoker". I've ridden about 120,000 km on a bicycle over a period of 8 years, and never met any woman via involvement in riding bicycles who wanted any relationship. First must come the relationship, then you share the cost of the tandem. Canberra has terrific cycling amenties, and i ride 200km a week. During this winter, 90% I see riding are men, and of the 10% of females, most are too young, and not serious, and so slow, its no fun to ride with them. Even in Pedal Power, a local group I ride with during warmer months, it is nearly all men, and the women just cannot keep up, even when they are 30 years younger. But I don't ride to meet sheilas and get laid. I don't go to cafes or pubs either, with such motives, because try as much as I might, the females don't like being approached by anyone. I have only ever seen one married couple in this city of 300,000 ppl who persisted in riding around on a tandem on sunday mornings. Both must be 60 now, and I see them out sometimes on the tandem, and sometimes on their own bikes, and I used to race the guy 20 years ago when as a veteran he rode in A grade. I don't think they had children; I know they were not bitter. The guy had a slightly deformed face, as if he'd been in a terrible accident. My oldest friend is 78, and he was knocked off by a car 6 mths ago in less bike friendly NSW, and left to die. He got a punctured lung, fractured skull, and wrecked knee, and is still ****ed off. No wonder bicycles are never going to be accepted by most people who could ride them but don't. Patrick Turner. |
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
On Sep 4, 2:51*am, wrote:
There is an incomprehensible amount of oil in the ground. It will never run out. We will never be able to extract it all. You'd be surprised what human ingenuity can do. But I expect that the last, expensive oil, will be kept for higher-value petroleum products, for instance a little tin of NOS Vaseline sold for a thousand dollars to a roadie who must absolutely have the grease he always used... (A phenomenon already familiar to the tubies also in this debate.) But, long before that happens, long, long before the oil actually runs out, I expect alternative sources of energy to take over. I bet nuclear power will make a comeback, and possibly wind power will be bigger still, though I don't expect solar power ever to be more than a tiny niche supplier. The biggest advance will be in harnessing the power of the oceans, all those rolling waves. And the market will take care of it, without disaster and without compulsion. But none of this will happen in your time, unless you're like maybe 17 years old and will live very long. Meanwhile petrol will just rise to its natural level, say thirty dollars a gallon. Andre Jute Economist But the cheap oil is gone. We in the US are now using, for instance, oil processed from Canadian oil sands at a cost of 75-95$ barrel. We depend on this oil now. We burn it up as fast as they can pipe it down. Meanwhile the biggest oil field in the Western hemisphere, Cantarell in Mexico, is depleting at a rate of 35% per year. That's a phenomenal rate of depletion. It means Mexican oil production is falling almost to zero. And their exports, which the US of course depends on, are falling at a faster rate than their production, because they are consuming more of their own oil. This pattern of diminishing exports and production is seen in giant oil fields and producing countries all over the world. Accelerating depletion, Andre. We use the oil and then it's gone. The major fields of the world are depleting at such a rate that it requires over 4 million barrels per day of new production every year just to stay even. And that's assuming demand stays flat. In ten years we need over 40 million barrels per day of new production that we don't have now. But damn, discovery of giant oil fields (the world gets about half its oil from about 200 oil fields out of over 4000) just doesn't happen anymore. Cantarell was one of the last ones to be found and it's already crapping out. Likewise with the North Sea fields and Prudhoe Bay, other relatively recent finds, now producing 10-20% of their peak volumes. But I don't see any shortages, do you? Not here in the good ol U S of A. Not yet. The price will rise high enough to balance supply and demand in a world of diminishing or plateaud supply. Anybody who can't afford it will be priced out leaving plenty of expensive oil for the rest of us. But cheap oil is thing of the past. Andre you seem to think that oil extraction is some kind of ATM transaction. Let's imagine that oil is an infinite resource. Neat, huh? Ah, but drilling rigs, for one thing, are not infinite. There are only so many of them, and they're all over there digging empty holes somewhere else. The market will produce more rigs you say. Ah but have you seen the price of steel. Etc. Even if oil were infinite there would be limits on the rate of extraction. We seem to have reached that limit, as production of crude seems to have plateaued for several years. R |
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
On Sep 4, 2:57*am, wrote:
Tainter is a historian. Then he should be ashamed to let those clowns at die0ff.org misuse his work. And he should be embarrassed to make such sweeping assumptions as in his quoted paragraph. And he should be firmly told to stick to his last and not make economic and cultural prescriptions for the entire world. And, among other things clear from his single par, someone should take him aside and point out that there is a difference between a culture or even a civilization going down the tubes and a sentient species being extinguished, two widely different matters he appears to confuse to the detriment of his credibility. You took an out of context quote and made all sorts of wacky assumptions about Tainter and what he believes. Crap. If Tainter allows the scum at die0ff.org to misuse him, I am entitled when they put his extract before me to treat it in isolation. I honestly didn't know anything more about Tainter when I did, and all I know now in addition comes from skimming a part of the reviews on Amazon which were provided to this forum -- which just confirmed my suspicion that Tainter is leftover pinko commie fellow traveller and trendy of unappetising aspect. His work on this subject is history, not soothsayer. The book is called The Collapse of Complex Societies. Maya, Romans, Anasazi, Etc. If Tainter has been properly represented to me, he's a bull****ter. Anyone with the slightest Time-Life familiarity with the Mayan civilization can guess they went under because the priests became overbearing. Anyone who has been to Easter Island (I landed there when I sailed around the world after one Cape to Rio race) can see how the compulsion of their religion to put up those huge statues first of all killed their trees (for rolling those big stones) and then them when there was no one else for the laast guy standing to eat on that barren island they created. I have personal experience of the fall of nations and ideologies (my novel The Insurrectionist is widely used as a handbook by revolutionaries, and the South African apartheid government twice sent assassins after me for my books). It is obvious to me, as to every serious thinker on the subject, that nations and whole civilizations fall when the ruling class is forsaken by the agencies of enforcement. That is the key: it may come as the result of an imbalance between butter and guns, on the classic Soviet Union model, or it may come when the army is corrupted by seeping capitalism as in modern-day China, but in no case does it have anything to do with the larger view of resource management as in the environmental model, as in Tainter's model. You'll forgive me if I just don't believe Tainter, given that he has been faithfully represented to me, and suspect that only the committed and the least thoughful of the trendies believe him. Andre Jute Permanent student |
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
Andre,
What happened to plain ol' fiultra? Fiultra3 is gonna make me create another filter. Oh well, It was nice and quiet while it lasted. Cheers Jon |
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
On Sep 4, 6:17*am, (Dersu Uzala) wrote:
*Darwin was right, and my headline is right: the people at dieoff.org should take their own advice. Andre Jute A little, a very little thought will suffice -- John Maynard Keynes Thanks for demonstrating that you did not read the website. Whyever should I? The samples from the ****** Price you supplied was enough to tell me what sort of halfbaked idiocy lurks there. And Tainter isn't much better. Dieoff.org does not encourage, recommend or take pleasure in the prospect of a human die off. The samples you provide go a long way to proving exactly the opposite of what you claim, as I proved at the top of this thread. Evidentially, both very little thought, or reading has been done by Mr Jute. He seems rather nasty. You lost the argument, again, Plod, so now you descend to personalities and sling insults. It's a pattern. When will you learn to stay clear of me; you can't win, you can only look foolish once more. http://dieoff.org/ -- for a good laugh! Oh, by the way, anyone on RBT who hasn't yet had enough of Dersa Uzala's trashily transparent wannabe California guruing can find on rec.audio.tubes in the later part of the thread "Tube Troubles" that Flipper has quite independently made precisely the same analysis of the crap poor old Plod posted as I did. Note that Flipper isn't necessarily a member of my fan club: quite the contrary, so his analysis independtly virtually duplicating mine must count double. http://groups.google.ie/group/rec.au...164f56f?hl=en& and the first troll from the clown Dersu Uzala is about halfway down the page. Omnia vincit. Andre Jute Sauvitor in modo, fortiter in res (One of my family mottoes: The iron hand in the velvet glove) |
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
On Sep 5, 1:11*am, Tom Sherman
wrote: aka Andre Jute wrote: On Sep 4, 2:51 am, wrote: There is an incomprehensible amount of oil in the ground. It will never run out. We will never be able to extract it all. You'd be surprised what human ingenuity can do. But I expect that the last, expensive oil, will be kept for higher-value petroleum products, for instance a little tin of NOS Vaseline sold for a thousand dollars to a roadie who must absolutely have the grease he always used... (A phenomenon already familiar to the tubies also in this debate.)[...] "Tubies" as in "valves" [1] or as in sew-ups? [1] Rightpondian term. -- Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia “Mary had a little lamb / And when she saw it sicken / She shipped it off to Packingtown / And now it’s labeled chicken.” Tubies as in the aficionados of audio amplifiers with glowing valves. Some of them truly value New Old Stock tubes which they claim has a better sound than anything produced today. Some of them, eapecially in the Far East, pay crazy prices for rare to unobtanium pieces, and even for common-as-dirt pieces given only that they are labelled "Western Electric". Andre Jute Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/ "wonderfully well written and reasoned information for the tube audio constructor" John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare "an unbelievably comprehensive web site containing vital gems of wisdom" Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review |
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Posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.audio.tubes
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Who should be first to die off in the "energy crisis"?
On Sep 4, 6:54*pm, Jon Yaeger wrote:
Andre, What happened to plain ol' fiultra? *Fiultra3 is gonna make me create another filter. *Oh well, It was nice and quiet while it lasted. Cheers Jon Several of his aliases have been booted for TOS violations. Imagine that. Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA |
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