that at a subliminal level human beings in fact contain an understanding of all things — Robert Lockhart

It's a funny old world where ideas like that are still given credence. The truth is closer to "on many levels people don't know jack shit".

as a "simple utmost truth" it's not doing much for me.

I don't have a huge amount of trust in the class that owns and operates nuclear power plants. Would they cut corners to save money and increase the risk? Is the pope Catholic?

And BC, don't correct my narrative. It's factual. :P — Mongrel

What are you referencing?

I also drive a hybrid vehicle — aletheist

Driving a hybrid is better than driving a gas guzzling highway behemoth, for sure. But... the model of halo you get for driving a hybrid vehicle is made out of cheap yellow plastic. It never glows--even in bright light--and you have to hold it over your head yourself.

Australian Greens — Wayfarer

Boil the greens until tender.

Wind turbines slow the movement of air that was set into motion by mostly atmospheric pressure — VagabondSpectre

True. So do hills, mountains, tall buildings, and big trees. "A turbine's 116-ft blades atop a 212-ft tower for a total height of 328 feet sweep a vertical airspace of just under an acre. The air above 328 feet (all the way up for miles) is sublimely indifferent to windmills, even if there were 1 million of them.

Nuclear energy is filthy — VagabondSpectre

It's "clean" in terms of carbon dioxide (though it isn't 100% pure on that front either.

Nuclear energy could be better (safer) IF we standardized parts (the way the French have).

Nuclear power would be safer if we took the dangers more seriously. The design of the Fukushima nuclear plants put the storage pool for very radioactive and thermally hot fuel rods on an upper floor of the plant. The same design is used in many other nuclear plants. The nuclear reactors themselves are not in a melt-proof bottle. When things go wrong with a nuclear reactor, things can get very bad very fast.

Nuclear power would be safer if we buried the waste very deeply in very long term storage. Can we build long term storage? Sure we can, but "the perfectly safe" storage cavern is impeding the progress of the extremely safe storage cavern (like Yucca Mountain). So instead of burial, we have it piling up on the grounds of nuclear plants. Not good, Kemosabe.

No method of sequestering nuclear waste will last forever, but then, highly radioactive isotopes don't last forever, either. Most of them last a lot longer than we can plan for, however. Who knows what shape human culture will be in 200 years from now? 2000? 20,000? However we put it there, it has to stay stable without further attention for what...25000 years, give or take a few millennia or two.

The list is too inclusive to differentiate fascism from other kinds of political arrangements. Most of these have existed in most western countries fairly often, to varying degrees. Are all these countries therefore fascist? I don't think so.

A tighter definition of fascism than this list is needed.

I am totally opposed to labor power being suppressed, but suppressing labor, in itself, isn't fascism. It's a common practice of the small wealth-monopolizing class. Anti-intellectualism and disdain for the arts is a major flaw among people who are educated; I don't consider it surprising that the proles react to intellectual condescension and artistic obscurantism with disdain.

Intense nationalism, disdain for human rights, a conservative religious establishment serving a militaristic society, and an obsession with national security focused on an enemy (real or imagined) brought together in a political program -- that comes closer to what I think of as fascism.

Fraudulent elections, corruption and cronyism, corporate power protected, controlled media, rampant sexism, etc. are not good by any stretch, but they aren't fascism, either.

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If a simulation is complete, and completely convincing, how could one possibly know that it was a simulation? Likewise with divine creation: How could one know that a divine entity had or had not created the universe?

The most sensible theory about existence is the simplest and most parsimonious explanation: this world really exists; we are really in it.

It could be that the world is a simulation; it could be that the divine being said to have created the world is running the simulation; it could be that we exist in a video game of enormous complexity and are not real. But one has to bend over backwards and turn one's self inside out to think that this is so.

There are various technologies that can provide energy and/or liquid fuel: coal made into gasoline; biomass made into gas or liquid; nuclear; solar; wind; hydro; etc. The problem with all of these is that can not provide the huge output of chemicals and energy at a price or in volume that petroleum has provided. The world uses 96 million barrels of petroleum per day. That's 4 billion gallons. I don't see any sustainable alternate energy source that can do that. The world also uses huge amounts of natural gas every day.

What the alternates (aside from nuclear energy) can do is provide methane for limited use, and modest output of energy. These outputs will be lifesavers for small areas that have these systems in place when oil becomes too expensive to use for fuel. Turning animal waste, garbage, plant waste, etc. into methane for cooking can be done quite easily, but in fairly limited quantities. Solar and wind would make a major difference to a small population with no other source of electrical energy. For very large populations, solar and wind probably won't produce enough.

Using alternative fuels for 7 billion people (and rising) is a non-starter.

The whole modern world economy is a result of inexpensive oil, and there is nothing that can "fill its shoes".

The BDO is speculative, for sure. But at some point, insufficient agricultural production will result in population reduction. It can't help but reduce the population.

Kunstler goes off the deep end, I think, in his predictions about disease and horrific global pandemics. Unless some mad scientist/evil political cabal decided to bring back small pox, or engineered a really devastating influenza virus (worse than the 1918 version), I don't see a disease-related MDO.

But starvation is still a real and present danger, not tomorrow or next week -- but we have had crop failures on a national scale in the recent past -- fortunately compensated by good crops elsewhere (like in Australia and Argentina when the USA or Russian wheat fields did poorly). Insects, unseasonable rain, drought, hot weather, late or early frost, wheat rust, corn smut, etc. are all potential threats to a particular harvest.

Water is, indeed, a highly problematic element in our future.

Just as oil is not all equal, coal isn't all equal either. Some coal deposits are better quality than others. Some coal deposits are easier to get at than other deposits. Even if it was all good, would that be 200 years of using coal for synfuels, steam power, electrical generation, et al? Probably not, and don't forget yet another horseman of the apocalypse--global warming.

Plus, tearing up land to get at coal, and extracting and processing coal is very dirty; it produces a lot of very bad crap.

Are you sure we even have a future? — TimeLine

I hope we have some sort of future, but... No, not sure.

Coal/steam equipment could be made again, but it hasn't been made in around 60-70 years. We'd have to research, retool and rediscover techniques for it's optimal operation. The last steam train I saw actually working was in the early 1950s. Also, coal is pretty dirty (global warming) and there isn't an infinite supply of high quality coal, either.

as we have abundant plutonium — Wayfarer

And just how did you get all that plutonium, and what is Australia planning to do with it? Or maybe you have abundant uranium?

Huge amounts of stuff to be hauled--for one. Concrete and steel are made with fossil fuel--huge amounts of heat needed to make portland cement and steel. Construction equipment all runs on oil. All of the vital pumps in a nuclear power plant (or any other kind of plant for that matter) require heavy duty lubrication. Things like that.

In other words, for most of society as naive realists or materialists it feels intuitive to think that when you die there is nothing — intrapersona

There is little evidence that most of society thinks there is nothing after death. A solid majority in quite a few societies thinks there is something after death.

Their opinions are no proof. But neither are the beliefs of the those who are pretty sure nothing follows death.

That death means eternal rest in the arms of God, or eternal nothingness can both be comforting, and when one contemplates one's death, people want to feel comforted that there either is something (like heaven) or there is nothing. The two options serve peace of mind differently.

renewable energy is a technology the military has no time for. — TimeLine

Right. I don't see the pentagon running big windmills and biomass plants to keep the aircraft carriers going.

Kunstler (among others) is very pessimistic-to-downright dismissive of renewable and alternate energy schemes. He doesn't claim that solar panels or windmills don't work, of course. They do. But they are dependent on affordable and readily available oil for their manufacture, transportation, and installation--as is so much else.

Synthetic oil can be manufactured from coal; biomass will produce gas and oil. What they won't and can't do is produce petroleum replacement in the quantity that 7 billion people require, and there isn't enough coal and biomes.

So what will we all be doing in the future?

What we will all be doing is trying to grow food. Farming is our future because without oil (tractors, combines, all the heavy duty equipment) we'll all be out hoeing what crops we can grow on whatever land we can find. What happened to all the land? It will still be there -- just that most people don't live on the land anymore. Most people live in cities, and it will take time to redistribute remaining populations.

Remaining populations? There will, of necessity be a "population decline" shall we say? A big die off. Oil gave us the carrying capacity for 7 billion. No oil, no 7 billion.

Your fable is quite precisely Kunstler's point in The Long Emergency. Our efforts to adapt to the depletion of our oil puddle will be frustrated by the fact that most of our 20th and 21st century technology is predicated on cheap plentiful oil. Without cheap plentiful oil, it will be very difficult for us to do what we might want to do.

For instance, world-wide nuclear generating plants can not be fabricated, transported, and built without oil. Neither can world-wide solar and wind technology. Life as we know it doesn't work without cheap oil and gas.

There will be a Big Die OFF (BDO). The BDO will leave survivors who will have to be very clever to find ways to operate using low and lower-tech methods. They who can grow potatoes will live better than they who know not how a potato grows. They who have an old wood stove, a big tree, and an axe to grind will survive winter better than they living in the all-electric high rise.

As your fable concluded,

Unsurprisingly, things went badly. — hypericin

believe shale methane hasn't reached peak yet. And last I recall there is something like 200 years worth for the US to run off in the country alone. Also, shale oil/gas is a US innovation that hasn't yet taken hold of the rest of the world due to limiting the tech to the US to benefit initially from it the most last I recall. — Question

All fossil fuel has to be extractible at an energy cost substantially less than the energy produced, or it is not worth doing by any measurement. After the end of the fairly short Age of Fossil Fuel there will be a lot of oil and gas still in the ground because it can only be extracted by putting more energy into the extraction than is gotten out of it. That doesn't make any kind of sense, and it won't be done.

The same goes for all other energy projects: The output has to substantially exceed the input. Hydrogen, for example, isn't freely available on earth. It has to be pried out of its preferred molecular forms. That takes substantial energy. Hydrogen, once obtained, is expensive to move, expensive to store, and is far more dangerous than methane. It's also corrosive (because it interacts with other elements) which is a problem for moving, storing, and using it.

I agree -- global warming is in progress and it won't be put into reverse any time soon.

Global warming is thawing the permafrosted organic matter in the arctic areas of Canada and Eurasia. As it thaws, it rots producing methane. Whatever organic matter is under the ice in Antarctica won't be thawing in the near or intermediate future

I'm obviously joking, but I certainly don't want to be the first on Mars. — Question

You may not want to be the first person on Mars, but somebody has to go there to investigate geothermal energy on the Red Planet. You have an interest in that. It will be a lonely dirty job, but somebody has to do it.

This is true: without oil (and all the technology that depends on cheap oil) there will be less reason -- and ability -- to go to war on a big scale, like WWII. But there will be plenty of fighting over the last few billion barrels of oil, rest assured.

There's also natural gas as mentioned — Question

Sorry, natural gas passed it's peak of production too.

Do you see any signs of miracle births?

Also, I wouldn't count on a lack of oil bringing an end to war. People did just fine fighting wars before the first bucket of oil was poured into a barrel.

At some point diesel could become so expensive that entirely electric based alternatives (which have yet to be designed as far as i know) will have to become the replacement. — VagabondSpectre

Freight trains, for instance, can run on electricity. You know those long trains pulled by 6 engines...? The 6 are needed only to get the mile long train moving up to speed. Once a mile long train is moving, it only takes 1 diesel locomotive to keep it moving (barring a climb through the mountains, say).

I don't know if electrified trains make sense to move coal from Wyoming to Atlanta, for instance (assuming Atlanta couldn't find any other way to generate electricity by non-hydrocarbon methods).

Anyway, here in Australia, we had one of the world's best Carbon Emissions schemes, and the then government abolished it, having first politicized the whole question, and we're now 'skating backwards at the speed of light', to quote Steely Dan. It's a disgrace and an act of perfidy on an international scale. — Wayfarer

It is incomprehensible to me, it really is, why your (or my) government, and our industrial leaders can not grasp ANYTHING about climate warming, alternate energy, peak oil, or anything else. I mean, sometimes I can't see any angle in their opposition that would benefit them. Like with ObamaCare -- what makes people froth at the mouth over it?

Carbon taxes, for instances, affect all industries equally (presumably). No competitor is getting an advantage because everybody pays the tax. Usually businesses accept that kind of economy-wide tax. It's an equitable scheme directed toward a sensible end (reducing the severity of global warming).

it's not a question of when we switch to alternate sources, but a question of how long the switch will take. — Pneumenon

This is true.

The "proliferation of alternate energy" is a good thing but I don't think this accounts for cheap oil right now. All the oil that is offered is getting bought; prices are not high. Why? Because the biggest oil produces don't want to cut back--thus making prices rise, and destabilize the industrial economies that buy their oil. Plus, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, UAE, et al can not afford either a reduction in income or an unstable world economy. The population of the middle east oil producers grew enormously with the income of oil income. Even some of the non-producers grew as a result. The oil regimes need to keep the cash flowing in their oil economies OR face possible regime change in an uprising of the people.

Besides, wind and solar supply electricity. Oil isn't used much for electrical production in most situations. Where oil is used is in diesel powered generation plants which run only when absolutely necessary to take up slack on the grid. Most of the time those plants are sitting idle.

the known reserves of oil were enormously increased by some major finds, like the Tupi ocean field, off Brazil, and the sudden and unexpected resurgence of American oil production. — Wayfarer

The Tupi (now Lula) field has 8 billion barrels -- about 3 months worth of global demand.

The US passed it's peak production years ago; that means the best quality, cheapest-to-produce oil has been sucked out o the ground and used up. "Peak" doesn't mean "the last", so sure, we have more to pump and we can pump more. But the return on investment, or EROEI (energy return on energy invested that Apokrisis mentioned) is much less favorable, and it will continue to get more unfavorable. Also, the more we pump now, the sooner we we reach the 1:1 ratio, where it takes as much energy to get the oil out as there is in the oil.

A good share of the Bakken field in North Dakota is shut down now, because the price producers get for crude right now isn't high enough to support the cost of fracking.

What's true for the US is true for the world: The world has passed peak production. Even Saudi Arabia has to squeeze to get oil out of one of its huge fields. It pumps sea water in to squeeze out more oil, but it also brings up a lot of that sea water with it. (That isn't to say S.A. is about to run out of oil next week.)

Thermal depolymerization holds a great deal of promise and is already up and running. But whatever technological advances come the final instance of life with oil and life without will never come. What will come is an agonizing reappraisal of who or what wakes up with all the chips when we start doing things a different way. I suspect that is your point. — Monitor

What is the cost-benefit of thermal depolymerization? How much energy input (heat and pressure) does it take to get so much energy output? If oil disappeared, my guess is that the feedstock would be pretty much plant based, and that the end product would be somewhat different.

James Howard Kunstler for sure thinks there will be an agonizing reappraisal.

I accidentally flagged your post. Sorry. Can't de-flag it.

Oil companies are already interested in renewable energy and non-petroleum industries.

The thing about diminishing oil is that it might not be all that gradual, and by and large there are no other substances that readily replace oil as chemical feedstock. Oil doesn't just provide energy.

What about chemical feedstock? An awful lot of very important and convenient stuff is made out of oil. It isn't that there are NO substitutes ever, it's that there are often no easy substitutes. Oil is a great source of molecules which do all kind of fantastic stuff, like dental parts and glues, for instance, or pharmaceuticals. An awful lot of stuff has oil as a component.

A rule of thumb is that major new technology takes 40 or 50 years to be established. For instance, from the beginning to full deployment, solar will likely take 50 years -- including building necessary transmission lines, developing and deploying battery installations (of some kind), developing solar/thermal as well as solar/electric, etc. Same for wind. Full deployment is not 50 years from today, but 50 years from when we started which is like 10-15 years ago.

Kunstler points out how very very very dependent the world is on oil. Electricity isn't the main thing that oil provides. It's conveniently packaged, highly potent, shelf-stable energy. The car runs on oil, but it is also lubricated with oil, it's upholstery and carpet is made from oil, the paint and rust proofing is made from oil, the tires are largely made from oil. The plastic dashboard and door covers are made from oil.

A good share of clothing is made from oil (i.e. polyester), as is carpeting, indoor/outdoor paint, plastic bags, plastic packaging, plastic containers, plastic furniture.

Going back to natural fiber (wool, linen, cotton, leathers and feathers) is possible, but doing so would require a tremendous agricultural and manufacturing shift.

Children might be shaped to believe that Santa Claus exists, but later they learn to think. Thought is not shaped by childhood experiences. — jkop

"The way we think" and some thoughts (like Santa Claus) do seem to be shaped by childhood experiences, but it isn't rigidly determinist. Just because a child of 5 thinks Santa Claus is real doesn't mean that at 15 he will still think Santa is real. Rigid, unbending thinkers learn to be that way somewhere along the line, as do flexible, adaptive thinkers.

That was already covered in the OP, if you just cared to look... you could have responded to that specifically but I notice you have a tendency to not do that. — intrapersona

Isn't there something you want to say besides dismissing my response? I disagree with your title suggestion that nature can be considered moral or immoral because "nature" isn't an agent of any kind.

As a child I was convinced that there's something behind everything (like the world I see is just a veil). I don't remember when I decided that thething is ideas. Did you have an experience like that? — Mongrel

No, definitely not.

or will he drop from the sky singing "I was born this way." — Hanover

Will god need a parachute, and what color is it?

The way we exist in the world is formed in our infancy, and develops rapidly. Childhood experiences do not give us a metaphysics, but they shape the stance that we will have. So I agree with The Great Whatever that

Your metaphysics is probably a retroactive expression of your behavior/outlook. — The Great Whatever

I am a theist, and my belief that God is real significantly affects my behavior, moral outlook, relationships, and overall worldview. — aletheist

Aletheist was probably directed toward theism at an early age. Theism became part and parcel of his metaphysics from the beginning of his life.

But if certain individuals just make a habit of provoking the ire of others, why not ban them? — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, the possibility of being banned is part of the deal when joining a forum like this. So, if some people want to play the role of a demon with a trident and just keep sticking it into people to see them flinch, then ban them back to hell.

Some people are sensitive, and sometimes it may be just a matter of reading one sentence and it's already too late. — Metaphysician Undercover

This I know all to well. In the past (before PF or TPF) I was in a bad state and often experienced a state of really intense ire before I could do anything about it. There are, sadly, quite a few people in this bad state. "Self-help" doesn't always deliver salvation. Major life changes which I didn't engineer gave me new life circumstances which solved my problem.