Future of Humanity - Exam 1
September 18th, 2006 — -Future of Humanity Exam 1
Alright class, you’re here to predict and solve the problems of the next three centuries. Pencils up…and…go!
Proposition:
Oil Will Run Dry Within 20 Years…
- 30 Years?
- 40 Years?
And the Face of the Nation Will be forced to Change.
- How will it change?
- What will break down first?
- What will the role of Washington be in a decentralized U.S.? (What was it pre-1940)?
- Will we, like China, go to pebble-bed nuclear energy to supply the majority of our needs?
- If not, how will the nation meet its energy requirements?
We will rely on local agriculture, because shipping meat, milk, grains, beans and produce thousands of miles will no longer be economically viable for the producers.
- Unable to procure pineapples, watermelon and kiwis in February, will Americans turn to pickling and jam-making…or cannibalism?
- Imagine a couple of new-market “seasonally-grown and locally-produced†products? ie. Minnesota: Domino’s Turnip and Whole Rye Flatbread (with tarragon-sunflower seed dip)? Florida: ÂKentucky-Fried Millet Squares?
The Earth is Experiencing Climate Change: An Increase in Tropical Storms, An Increase in the Range of Seasonal Temperatures.
- Which regions of the country will become uninhabitable?
- Which will be (or become) more ideal?
- What will happen to our southern neighbors in Mexico and the Caribbean?
- What will happen to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, and other cities dependent on mechanically-diverted water sources?
- Where will migrating populations go?
Extra Credit: If media becomes decentralized and locally produced, will it stink less, or more?
Thanks for playing along, (I’m sending the answers with two box-tops to Battle Creek, Michigan for a pair of X-Ray Specs)…and what’d you get for number 5?
September 19th, 2006 at 8:55 am
Well, you may not be aware of this, Liam, but there are people who claim that the belief that oil is made from organic matter like dead dinosaurs (hence the supply will dry up), is false. If they are right, then “Peak Oil” is just another fraud designed to make certain people even richer than they already are.
I haven’t studied this, and so don’t have an opinion on it, but it’s obvious that the theory of diminishing oil supplies is a pillar of the Oil Depletion Allowance that has made so much dough for the Rockys and other oilmen. Once again, we see that certain theories are politically protected because they are profitable to the super-elite.
Here are a few quick links on this that I haven’t even actually read yet:
http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/peak_oil/peak_oil_is_a_known_fraud.htm
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hs=6Oh&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=opera&rls=en&q=oil+fraud+dinosaurs+earth&btnG=Search
September 20th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
Gosh and golly!
I had no idea people were ‘conspiracizing’ this. That oil isn’t organic, and doesn’t take some major millenia to form and foment?
Well, I’ll have a look. But what’s your prediction? How much time do we have left of high-intensity oil use?
September 21st, 2006 at 8:52 am
Well, I do think that this is pretty much the last century, and that the world will be in nightmarish shape within 2 or 3 decades. As for oil, as i say, I haven’t read up on this yet, but it’s interesting to me that there are a lot of people who dispute that oil is made from organic matter. I’ve been aware that there was another viewpoint for years, but as usual, the organic origins of oil are another theory that the media present as a “fact”, as they always do for theories and assertions that support Power.
The crisis isn’t running out of oil; to me, that would be a wonderful, welcome development, and maybe then we would all go back to the more technologically advanced forms of transport, namely bicycles and roller skates. The more important crisis, as I see it, is all the damn pollution from the oil. I’m personally choking in it even as we speak!
So, if oil isn’t organic, and the earth continually makes it, then we’re really screwed.
Just serves to remind us that not everything that’s “natural” is good for us.
September 21st, 2006 at 12:55 pm
Ah, I can see it now…
“The Bicycle Age!”
I love it! Can’t wait, myself. Trains, bikes and human-scale transport.
It’s the hiccups to getting there that don’t thrill me…
September 21st, 2006 at 5:05 pm
Hello Liam, I think that we should consider other types of energy, eg, nuclear for one. There are so many unused patents from the genius of Tesla, for one, which could be utilized, along with forms of energy such as orgone, etc. Hopefully, the inhabitants of the Earth, will start to think outside of the box and look to new, progressive forms of energy.
September 21st, 2006 at 6:16 pm
Yea-up, well,
like it or not, if we’re going to keep watching our iPods while we slurp our lattes while we drive our (smaller) SUVs, while we confab on the wireless while we watch satellite tv while we don’t read…
We’re going to need a future energy source. Nuclear has a downside, it’s called “nuclear waste.” That’ll get some people to live with less…but not most!
China’s gone nuclear (energy), pebble bed, I have read and heard. I’ll look into it. I think we, too, will have no… well, I was going to say choice…
But who am I kidding? I like electricity too. I could live with less, and I’m sure I (and we all) will, at some point. But we’ll still have each other (to argue with)!
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:34 am
I just figured out why The Goddess put something as harmful as oil in the earth, which is something She wouldn’t normally do.
She intended it to be used as lubrication for our bicycle chains and other moving parts. The mistake we made was burning it!
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:42 am
By the way, I personally wish they would start mass producing bigger bicycle seats that won’t destroy your crotch. I can’t even ride a standard bike seat anymore. Got quite badly injured last time I tried.
The standard bicycle, usually made in China or elsewhere in Asia, has a standard bike seat that is usable by Asians, because their butts are half the size of ours, and they weigh half as much as we do, so the pressure applied to their crotches is much less. Yet we import those same seats and attempt to rest our huge posteriors and 200 pound weight upon them. (I mean “we” as society, not me personally)
This is typical incredibly stupid human stupidity.
We also desperately need someone to design a tandem bike that is comfortable for 2 people and is more compact than the present version, so that people have an alternative to the damn motorbikes that have taken over Asia like locusts.
September 22nd, 2006 at 6:55 am
Where you livin’ Marcel? You can’t get a good bike seat?
I have one, some kind of rubber. No aches and pains. Get you to a bikery!
I bet you can order it from a US or European company (that gets its work done in Asia), so you can get it shipped (via oil-guzzling aeroplane) right back to you in …. Asia!
Try the inter-web. There’s oil a’plenty, my friend, where a new, comfortable bike seat is concerned.
September 22nd, 2006 at 8:48 am
Yeah, I know there are lots of ergonomically designed bike seats on the net, but you can’t get em here. And if I mail order them I would be subject to exorbitant import duties that would triple the price, probably.
Anyway, bicycle just won’t cut it here. I need something that can take a passenger so’s I can pickup all dese beaoootiful Asian goils :o)
Forgive me for not specifying my exact location. I don’t need to make it any easier for the CIA to assassinate me for having such unorthodox thoughts that threaten their multinational clients…
September 22nd, 2006 at 3:23 pm
Oh, don’t worry. The CIA has better things to do.
Beaoootiful Asian goils, huh? You’re a New Yorker?
Girls, girls, girls. Always lovely. But the ones who are too good looking are made rotten young, for not having to become interesting.
September 23rd, 2006 at 7:44 am
I’m really hurt that you should call me a Noo Yawker, Liam, even if it’s true. But I haven’t lived there for over 20 years, and anyway, I never liked the place much. Except I would have loved it probably in the earlier part of the 20th century when there were really cultured people there writing classic musical comedies and the like, and beautiful old architecture, and unpretentious restaurants like Schraffts and Horn and Hardart. Today it’s just filled with pretentious and venal people, and similar restaurants, if I may make two stark generalizations.
Yes, sadly it’s true, in that dames everywhere are the same…the beautiful ones are all too aware that they’re beautiful, and this causes problems…but one that’s just “extremely cute” might be okay.
September 23rd, 2006 at 11:58 am
Noo Yawk, the city so nice, they bombed it twice.
Oy vay. Poor NYC.
It was just the ‘goils’ in your soup that threw me in that direction.
Yes it’s true: venality, pretention, and over-priced by a factor of 10, really.
I feel that way - and that I would’ve loved it in the 40’s - about parts of California, which are now full of cable tv personalities destroying neighborhoods with neo-stucco-puerta-vall-tuscan condos thrown up where nice old houses have been knocked down.
A nation of spoiled bastards, at least too often, that’s the case where the easy money flows…So, what’s new, I guess!
Anyway, back to the thread:
Where will all of these Beverly-Hills-by-the-sea yuppers go when the coasts can no longer steal water from Northern Cali? What will become of Lost Vegas when the fountains no longer pump tinted, chlorinated H20?
September 24th, 2006 at 9:36 am
Uh-oh…you mean there’s a problem with Peak Water too? Yes, of course, that’s why I read that Monsanto was getting into the bottled water business…because people can’t drink the water that Monsanto polluted with their chemicals…and I also understand that climate change might cause water shortages…if there really IS climate change that is…
Let me recommend an excellent website, if you’re not already aware of it. Actually, I think it would be great if somebody introduced Chossudovsky to the Aids rethinking issue, as most of the left is totally ignorant about it.
There’s a lot of great articles on this site, including a recent one about Monsanto’s purchase of “terminator” technology that makes farmer’s seeds commit suicide, so they can’t save seeds and have to keep buying seeds from Monsanto.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=home