LSD; stoned groove or door to secret of life

[ArmedDrunk&Angry]

I forgot, what were we talking about ?

[Prydain]

Originally Posted by ArmedDrunk&Angry

I grew up with a sign in my room that said " Never trust a man who doesn't drink ".

I grew up with notices saying "Meet me down the pub". Two sides of the pond, one goal.

[ArmedDrunk&Angry]

LMAO
Well I didn't stray too far from my ethnic roots.
But really, people who don't drink and have never been drunk make me nervous.
Like they have something bottled up inside and are afraid that being drunk would release some demon.

[SiN|ScarFace]

They will reveal their true thoughts and personality, thus showing the person they put forth to the world is a fabrication to some extent.

[[R-MOD]Wasteland]

Originally Posted by lonelyjew

It doesn't surprise me that he had revelations while under LSD but that paragraph is hardly the secret to life. It's just shortsighted wishful thinking. There will be something to replace oil, it may not be as cheep at first, but people are extremely adaptive(especially when they need to be). The whole falling back to nature is just lunacy though. It sounds great in theory but it basically translates to everyone fending for themselves, much death, starvation, and devastation, and an eventual recycle into kings and emperors.

I don't like any position that holds other positions as "lunacy". Focus on the issue, not the ad hominem.

I agree that something will replace oil. Oil won't simply run dry. There's many kinds of oil. Saudi sweet is some of the best. You can pump it directly into some engines and it will work. Then you've got Alberta oilsands bitumen and similar kinds. This is very expensive to produce. Saudi sweet crude is depleting, as are other high yield low cost hydrocarbon sources.

As the most attractive reservoirs dry up, more costly reservoirs will be exploited. Technology in drilling (especially directional) and logging will become increasingly important. Eventually however, a time will come when the next cheapest energy source will become more economically attractive. Forward thinking companies will have anticipated this shift and already begun R&D on the exploitation of these resources.

A shift in our mode energy consumption will occur. The only question is, will the next energy form be cost effective enough to continue running our society as we do today? The answer is no, barring some major technological breakthrough like cold fusion. If there was an energy source as cost effective (or more) as oil, we would be using it already.

So industrial societies will undergo major changes. Whether our institutions remain intact during this period of upheaval will be interesting to see.

Some people believe that our society will not survive this shift, and the people that advance this theory are perfectly rational. Hardly "lunatics". If they propose a "back to nature" alternative, it's important to realize that this doesn't mean "everyone fending for themselves" with a return to feudalism. This would be a return to a hunter gatherer state, which is the state of being mankind has existed in for the vast majority of its time on earth. It's what we're evolved for. And it's the mode of subsistence that has afforded us the most leisure time of all the modes we've tried (other modes are agriculturalism, industrialism, pastoralism, and horticulturalism).

The only problem with this theory is that hunting and gathering requires a very low population density, and there are few places left on earth that are ecologically abundant enough to still support a hunter gatherer lifestyle. So for this to work, first you'd have to see a major plague (zombies anybody?) or huge world wars (that aren't too environmentally destructive... fat chance) that would kill of the majority of the human population.

[ArmedDrunk&Angry]

Originally Posted by [R-MOD]Wasteland

I don't like any position that holds other positions as "lunacy". Focus on the issue, not the ad hominem.
---------->
So for this to work, first you'd have to see a major plague (zombies anybody?) or huge world wars (that aren't too environmentally destructive... fat chance) that would kill of the majority of the human population.

There are some positions that are lunacy, such as pretending that 6 billion people can survive without modern technology.

As for the non-environmentally destructive world war I would suggest the already existing stocks of bio-warfare weapons and the possibility if not probability of some new nano-virus.

Or, if you watch the History channel you have you choice of Mega-Disasters to choose from that would bring the populations down to a level where hunter-gatherer would be a possibility.

I don't really see LSD helping much in any of those areas but it is still a really fun way to spend 10-14 hours.

[[R-MOD]Wasteland]

Wrong, but not lunatic. People just need to understand that without technology, the earth cannot sustain our current population.

[ArmedDrunk&Angry]

But when presented with evidence that proves that if you keep thinking that we can go back 10,000 years you are not accepting reality.
That is a loose definition of lunacy isn't it ?

[[R-MOD]Wasteland]

Maybe they just haven't been presented with the right evidence. I only found conclusive proof that hunter gatherer lifestyles required vastly lower population density than industrial agriculture in higher level anthropology courses.

[DOAW]

I don't think the earth can sustain 6+ billion people with technology; it's more a matter of slowing what would otherwise be a rapid decline.