Who's better - us or the commies?
Really interesting article regarding preparedness of the U.S. vs. the USSR on the eve of Peak Oil. Makes you think about moving away...
posted by Todd @ 9:35 PM
Preparing for the end of Cheap Energy
We all know it's coming, and there is likely no chance to stop it. Write your congressman and all that, but this blog is about SURVIVING through and THRIVING throughout the end of cheap energy. Let's toss in global warming, economic upheaval, and various other major calamities facing civilization.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Preparing for the end of Cheap Energy
We all know it's coming, and there is likely no chance to stop it. Write your congressman and all that, but this blog is about SURVIVING through and THRIVING throughout the end of cheap energy. Let's toss in global warming, economic upheaval, and various other major calamities facing civilization.
Previous Posts
- Free refrigeration & permaculture
- preparing in the face of stupidity and ignorance
- evil CERA
- Recent oil prices vs. oil companies et al
- Updated peak oil design
- and one more thing (if you live in the South)....
- On the BART
- On soul searching, moving & politics
- More evidence peak has hit - TIME TO BUY OIL
- How's this for controversial...
3 Comments:
Complete and utter nonsense. This Orlov fella's a kook, and you sound like a kook for linking to him. He admits he's unqualified from the outset, and his assumptions are assinine. Linking to stuff like this in the context of Peak Oil just makes P.O. sound like kook-ery, which it may well be.
Thx for your input. A few responses:
- If you want to base your evaluation on qualifications in lieu of content, I should point out that I am not an expert or a scholar or an activist, and I don't actually pay attention to folks's qualifications before posting. In fact, if you want to base your assessment based on qualifications, you might read more from David Yergin and CERA - they invent lots of ways they're qualified to give out advice. From my perspective though, attacking an argument based on qualifications is clearly ad hominem fallacy (which is a logical fallacy, ie. a faulty argument).
- You didn't specify which assumptions or conclusions were "assinine" or "kookery", so I reviewed the article with this in mind. I'm afraid I still don't see anything that I would put into either category. I see several conclusions that were definitely debatable or even suspect, but I didn't see any that were so baseless and far out there that might cause such a vehement response.
I suppose such a caustic response might happen from those of us who grew up during the cold war (ie. most adults from the US). We all were raised under the guise "Commies are bad," so to conclude "We're in worse shape than they were pre-collapse" would be anethema to many of us.
I would encourage you to do all you can to put aside your pre-dispositions about Communism, peak oil, etc. and give the article another read. I'm sure you won't agree with everything, but perhaps you'll find some tidbit useful in your own preparations for the end of cheap energy.
You want specifics of his kookery, he's a quick sampling:
From what I've seen and read, it seems that there is a fair chance that the U.S. economy will collapse sometime within the foreseeable future.
That's quite a claim to make with no corroborating evidene.
Here's some more:
Symmetries between the [Soviet Union] and the [United States] ... eventually went bankrupt.
Again, a huge claim with zero supporting evidence. The US hasn't gone bankrupt and no-one credible has evidence that will will do so in the foreseeable future.
He admits from out the outset that he's unqualified to make such statements, but goes on to make them as those admitting his inadequacy justifies doing so. It doesn't.
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