i'll be glad when all the oil runs out

[mopaul]

of course, it will mean the collapse of civilization, but all in all, it'll be a good thing.

[lectrobyte]

1. It's the end of the world as we know it

and I feel fine.

[mopaul]

2. the earth will cleanse itself of us, she's in no hurry

but it won't take too long, geologically speaking

[bryant69]

3. I don't know

Will my stereo work then?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[mopaul]

5. how do you think ben franklin powered his stereo, with gas?

your stereo is formed of petroleum plastic, your chapstick is petroleum, the vaseline you rub on your baby's butt is made of pure, rich, delicious petroleum.

[bryant69]

31. I don't have a baby

I'm really not understanding this. What are CD's made of?

[Cleita]

47. Those cosmetic items could be replaced with vegetable

oil products. Vegetable oils can light your lamps too. I'm afraid music will be done the old fashioned way with acoustical instruments. Every family will have a member who plays something with strings and sings songs in the evening. Actually, I am beginning to like this idea.

[BlueEyedSon]

4. You say that now. When you're hungry & freezing it won't be an

intellectual exercise anymore.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

7. Some of us would be less hungry and freezing

If there weren't cop cars driving around preventing us from building fires and killing small animals.

[BlueEyedSon]

17. Nah, some guy with a faster draw will just kill you first.

And cook YOUR small animal over YOUR fire.

That will be fun.

:(

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

37. Beats cancer from a power line nt

[BlueEyedSon]

39. you can live like this now, move to Iraq or Darfur.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

40. Way to foment Repug myths

Have you been out there? Have you traveled in the Third World? Do you know the intricate family and social structures that actually govern life in these places whether the bombs are dropping or not? If you live a lavish suburban lifestyle in America, you are the bomb-dropper. No different from the tech on the plane who opens the hatch. If you live on the streets, it's a different story. There will be bigger and smaller losers when it all comes down. If your hands are soft I mark you for a big one. If you think the poor in America are better off than in Sudan or Iraq, I could show you around sometime.

[BlueEyedSon]

42. Like i said , if the first world isn't for you, you can move.

[graywarrior]

6. Then we start paying up the nose for water

[Junkdrawer]

8. Nihilism

Nihilism literally means belief in nothing. As a philosophical position, nihilism is the view that the world, and especially human existence, is without meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value. It is more often a charge levelled against a particular idea than a position to which someone is overtly subscribed. Movements such as Dada, Deconstructionism and Punk have been described by various observers as "nihilist". Nihilism is also a characteristic that has been ascribed to time periods: for example, Baudrillard has called postmodernity a nihilistic epoch, and some Christian theologians and figures of authority assert that modernity and postmodernity represents the rejection of God, and therefore are nihilist.

Prominent philosophers that have written on nihilism include Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger. Nietzsche described Christianity as a nihilistic religion, because it removed meaning from this earthly life, and focused instead on a supposed afterlife. He also saw nihilism as a natural result of the realization that "God is Dead", and insisted that it was something to be overcome, by returning meaning to the earth. The latter described it as the state where "there is nothing left of Being as such", and argued that nihilism rested on the reduction of being to mere value.

....



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism

[oblivious]

9. What civilisation? No more oil for war at least.

I'm thinking I could look forward to paying 10 times more for oil that I do now. I think that would be a good thing.

How many miles per gallon do you think an aircraft carrier gets, or an F18?

[mopaul]

12. lawn mowers, leaf blowers, hummers, suv's, add it to the military's use

surely our scientists can get together and figure out how to run a machine WITHOUT petroleum, a carcinogen poison.

[BlueEyedSon]

18. Yeah, maybe they can figure out how to run them without energy, too...?

[mopaul]

29. my grannie never needed a leaf blower or lawn mower or s.u.v.

she actually rode around on a horse the day she got married to grandpa. people could actually cut grass in those days without petroleum. a leaf blower could be powered by batteries maybe.

we can come up with something better than petroleum, and we can survive as a society as well. it's up to us.

[lectrobyte]

32. Some of my great grandparents lived to be in their 90's. They

were born into a world without cars or electricity. People lived without all this shit, we could do so again.

From Fight Club:

In the world I see - you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway.

[Richard D]

36. Your grandparents . . .

. . . were also born into a world with what, a billion people? The current population of the planet happened only because of the use of petrochemicals. Take away the petrochemicals and the system will collapse.

Just think about 10 million or so people in any of the major cities without gas? Without food? Can't work really.

[Trailrider1951]

38. Well, my grannie had a leaf blower

It's called "the wind". LOL, seriously, she lived on a farm in rural Virginia that didn't have electricity until FDR instituted the rural electrification program. She had a spring house to keep things cool (google it if you don't know what it is), had chickens for eggs and meat, had cows for milk and meat, and grew her own food in the garden and canned it, too. Raised everything herself, including her nine children after husband number two croaked. The trouble with people today is that we have been addicted to sucking at the corporate teat too long! Where does our food come from? Why, Kroger and Safeway, of course! Where does our money come from? Why, Corporate Cubejob and Wells Fargo, of course! I, for one, have had ENOUGH! Thirty days, more or less, and I'm out of here. No more 8 to 5 (and sometimes more) cube-ratdom. I'm starting my own business. I cannot take ANY MORE OF THIS SHIT!

<rant off>

[Cleita]

49. I don't have any of those things.

I do it the old fashioned way, with a rake and a machete. Of course, I don't have much of a lawn, but a slope I have to wack growth down on.

If an old woman like me, with arthritis and osteosporosis can do it, so can you. It's also great exercise.

[fob]

50. Battery-powered leaf blower? I hear tell some feller invented a leaf

gathering device that works without batteries/gas/electricity, I think it's called a "Rake", or something like that.

:evilgrin:

[Kolesar]

10. It won't simply run out

There will be period when the price rockets to $300/bbl and on to $1000/bbl as large portions of the population are priced out of the market. I would burn the furniture if I had a fireplace.

[hunter]

57. Far better to burn your neighbor's furniture...

Don't worry about it though, they're dead. Died of the 'scurvy, I've heard, they wouldn't make sauerkraut. It's been a long winter, hasn't it?

Hey, want some jerkey? I bought it from some old woman at market today. "FAT GUY" brand jerkey, that's what her banner said. You don't suppose it's made from fat guys, do you? Not that I care... (munch, munch) ...I don't know any fat guys. Pretty good, isn't it? I hope she's back at market next week, I'd like to buy more, maybe trade it for beer. Man, do you remember Lite beer? What was with that? I mean I can't even imagine that people used to drink that piss.

I was just thinking about that today; I found this Lite beer bottle, and I traded it to the glass man for this cob of popcorn, at least he claimed it was popcorn. Hey, when you get that fire lit, let's see if we can pop it. I'll even give you the cob. Be nice having something to wipe your ass with, eh? I haven't seen a roll of toilet paper forever, have you?

[Kolesar]

60. Are you hungry?

I have an apple left over from lunch that I didn't eat. Do you want it?

[Brianboru]

11. This is what gives progressives such a bad

reputation.

You can live without oil any time you please.

[thebigidea]

13. a post on a message board gives progressives a bad reputation?

I love mopaul and all, but I doubt his rants are that big a factor in the reputation of the left.

and since when do progressives have a bad reputation?

with who?

with you?

with anyone but the right wing assholes that would hate us anyway?

since when does most of america even know we use the word "progressive" now? they don't hear it on the tv.

[rockymountaindem]

14. Yeah

These "we deserve it" types piss me off. Not to mention they're wrong, in some ways but not all, about the impact of "peak oil".

[mopaul]

15. exactly

oil is a curse, latex particles in the air from tires, cancer causing toxins in our air, etc.

oil is a curse, wars are fought over it, people suffering over it.

[thebigidea]

16. with every post you make, you lose us a mythical swing voter

by the end of the thread, we'll lose 2 senate seats at the very least.

and maybe the '08 elections, because people have a LONG memory where rogue mopaul posts are concerned.

right?

[mopaul]

19. i singlehandedly lost us the last several elections with my bullshit

i'm on a roll

[thebigidea]

23. strange how the ramblings of the right never seem to turn off voters, eh?

we're the only ones who have to watch we say...

you seldom see a free republic thread full of caution and worry about what liberals would think...

[gollygee]

24. You must be drunk with power!

Wow! To be able to sway all those elections all by yourself!

[mopaul]

26. my memory will last a lunchtime, i'm out standing in my own field

i'm in a class, all by myself.

[tabasco]

46. If we could simply harness the energy of Mopaul ...

and the Clenis, we wouldn't need no stinkin' oil.

[BlueEyedSon]

28. Bikes use rubber tires too, so whats the relevance of your "latex" comment

?

[BlueEyedSon]

21. Can you live without food? heat? clothes? transportation to work?

a job (i.e. income)?

Follow all those thing back to their sources and you will discover a thoroughly oily trail....

[oblivious]

27. Seek, I'm pretty sure that was sarcasm, but I thought I'd check. Is it?

[Brianboru]

58. Dean recently said we need to reframe issues

Saying we hope oil runs out - and building a campaign around that belief - will not win any new votes. I'm not concerned about the right wing -- we'll never get them. Tell middle America we want to do without oil and they will run away.

Reframe it around energy conservation, wind, solar, and we'll get there. Tell them we want to shove it to the Arabs and they'll listen.

It's not about posts on this board. It's about winning votes in Ohio.

It's not sarcasm, it's being tired of losing.

[eallen]

20. The Olduvia Gorge scenario is a myth.

Civilization isn't going to end because we run out of oil. Those who project this are pretty silly in their arguments. In essence, they say we won't use coal because it is too dirty, we won't build more nuclear reactors because of the waste problem, and we won't conserve, because it is too hard.

So instead, we'll wait until we run short of oil and starve to death. :eyes:

I think we are running out of cheap oil, and maybe are running up to peak oil. I have made some investments based on that fact, on the likelihood that oil will get expensive in the foreseeable future.

But it won't be the end of civilization. When you count the other fuels that we already know how to use, there is plenty to keep civilization going for a couple of centuries. And by then, we will have figured out something else.

[mopaul]

22. yeah, but for now oil affects our civilization

politically, environmentally, physically, economically. it's like an oil cult. I'm sure they'll come up with clean fuel cars soon out of necessity.

[BlueEyedSon]

25. "Peak Uranium" will be in 25-35 years.

(Plus I don't see anyone breaking ground on new reactors anywhere in the US....)

Coal will accelerate global climate change.

We can, as a civilization, survive many shocks.... but it takes leadership and planning. Bushco provides NONE of that!

[all.of.me]

30. we'd go back in time a few hundred years

we'd have to build fires, live near water sources, grow our own food and hunt. or we could be nomadic. i think it would be great!

[lectrobyte]

33. I think that's a bit pessimistic. There's still hydro and lots of coal,

so electricity is still a possibility. And there were cities even hundreds of years ago, too. So I'm not thinking hunter/gatherer. Maybe life in 1900? Trains? Bicycles? Trolleys?

[all.of.me]

35. then call it wishful thinking!

i don't think it's pessimistic. i'd love for life to be closer to the earth. how many people know how to survive outdoors? it's a skill that was lost with the advent of the industrial revolution.

[LoneDriver]

34. If we're lucky

When the cities are gone...and all the ruckus has died away, when sunflowers push up through the concrete and asphalt of forgotten interstate freeways, when the Kremlin and the Pentagon are turned into nursing homes for generals, presidents and other such shitheads, when the glass-aluminum skyscraper tombs of Phoenix, Arizona barely show above the sand dunes, why then, why then, why then by God maybe freemen and wildwomen on horses, free women and wild men can roam the sagebrush canyonlands in freedom--goddamit! Herding the feral cattle into box canyons, and gorge on bloody meat and bleeding fucking internal organs, and dance all night to the music of fiddles! Banjos! Steel guitars! by the light of the reborn moon!--by God--Yes! Ed Abbey

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

41. Nothing isn't good

If you look at it the right way. I can't stand what we've built on this planet and especially in this once beautiful country. The me generation might not get it, but those of us who opened our eyes long after the fall are willing to pay with our own lives to see the world burn.

It's analogous to the hand-wringing horror that goes on here on dU when people talk about riots. Anyone who has lived in a ghetto has wanted to burn it down at times. Know where the "bonfire" comes from? Medieval peasants seasonally burning their huts to rid themselves of rats and disease.

People with a nice home and a shiny car, a rationalization for what they do and their white guilt sewn up in their back pockets cringe at any idea of disorder. They don't realize it's the very disorder they create that makes the rest of us want to see it done away with "by any means necessary."

[Orsino]

43. Great. The end of civilization.

Then the warlords can get back to the serious business of oppressing women, and killing off gays and other minorities at an even faster pace.

Just great.

[underseasurveyor]

44. I can't say I'll be 'glad' about it.

But I know whacha mean :-) I think that sometimes myself.
But then it'll just be something else, like water. We can live without petroleum but not water x(

[Cleita]

48. You won't live without water.

The Romans were experts at moving water for their cities without any electricity, only hydraulic power. We will have to learn to do this again.

[underseasurveyor]

51. Moving water from point A to point B isn't my concern.

It's being able to afford the darn stuff

[Cleita]

53. Well, when civilization collapses, you are gonna have

to grab what is yours. Back when I wanted to live on the land without hookups, I looked into all kinds of ingenious ways to get water. The obvious is from a lake, river or creek, the next is dig a well. You will be surprised how much water is in the ground. The third and most ingenious, is to capture rain water.

You need a water tank and you divert rain water with gutters, on your buildings, in your yard into the storage tank. Of course all these methods will require some kind of sterilization, the simplest being boiling before you use it. Also, remember that water runs downhill. It will important when you put all those elements in place.

[underseasurveyor]

59. Ingenuity and elbow grease, yup I know.

We lived in a very rustic log cabin at the 9000 ft. level with no electricity we used kerosene lamps to light the dark, no plumbing, wood stoves our sole source for heat and cooking, a "real" icebox, an outhouse, and had to haul in every drop of water we used. We had 4 big barrels to catch rain water so it was that much less we had to haul in. And to date believe it or not, those were the happiest years of my entire life.

But not every one lives near an easily accessible water source, nor can you always dig down far enough or through rock if you don't have the right equipment, and it doesn't rain often enough in many places.

I know there are plenty of ways in which to acquire water, however it will eventually become more and more difficult and expensive to acquire if "they" continue to gain more and more control on water rights, like "they" have been doing for years. In our area about 3 or 4 years ago they proposed "testing and checking" all the private wells on private property, under the guise of public safety and "quality control" :eyes: which sounded good to many folks at first, but then the final small print catch was they wanted to put meters on these private wells then start billing the property owner for gallons used. Farmers and home owners weren't too happy about that and nixed that real fast but how long before "they" demand and "they" make sure we have "safe water" coming out of our own private wells through their meters?

Water in this century is already referred to as the new "liquid gold."
"Wars of this century will not be of oil but of water." Don't remember who said that.

Man is this a depressing post or what:-( BUT! What ever happens, happens:shrug: Hope for the best, prepare for the worst :-)
:hi:

[Cleita]

62. Kind of off topic here, but did you ever think of investing in

a composting toilet? I have never known anyone who has one but the literature is compelling. You have your loo indoors, but there is a composter beneath it, and you can put this part under your house or basement.

You empty it out every couple of weeks or even every month, depending on use, and you have good smelling compost to put on your ornamental plants or just toss in the forest. It's not recommended for food plants. Supposedly, it doesn't stink up your house, and eliminates the need for septic tanks and other types of waste disposal.

As far as the happiest days of your life, I believe you. It's what I would have wanted but DH's kidney failure made it important for us to live near a dialysis clinic.

[Cleita]

45. So when all those oil millionaires find themselves without

a pot to piss in, are we going to help them out by offering them a job working in our fields and cleaning our houses?

We could pay them half of what they need to support themselves with no benefits and no future. I think it's a good punishment for them. Of course since there would be no electricity. They would also have to do all the work manually and haul in water from the well pump.

So while Shrub is out clearing brush in your field, Pickles can gather up and clean the chamber pots everyday.

[captain crunch]

52. Alot of people will die, and it won't be the rich.

Does that make you happy too?

[Cleita]

54. Not necessarily unless they are killed in a civil war.

The rich will be in shock wondering what happened. The poor, who are used to living on the edge, will be more resourceful.

[mopaul]

55. happy as a clam

sure whatever. who will die? and why?

[captain crunch]

56. that question shows your ignorance.

bye

[mopaul]

61. no goodbye kiss?

how rude.

[Hardrada]

63. We were talking about all this in 1970

and ZPG too and various useful skills were mentioned in the Whole Earth Catalog. Did the environmental movement and Counter Culture reach only .0002 % of the population. I ran for state office in 1980 and talked about solar power and renewable energy. I was soundly trounced partly, because I was also pro-choice and the local priests told their parishioners not to vote for me and thus eroded my Dem. base of support. Maybe that's the problem in a nutshell.

[Cleita]

64. The priests talking politics from the pulpit should be shut down.

I propose that any religious institution taking advantage of their tax free status lose it the minute they start endorsing political candidates or endorsing legislation that affects everyone. Maybe making them pay property taxes on their vast holdings not to mention other taxes may give them pause to reconsider what their role is and that separation of church and state would indicate that it isn't in meddling in secular and government affairs.