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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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I went with "1: The mineral supply crisis that's rarely talked about ."

So as I thought, it’s the old malthusians, peak oil, peak copper, Paul ehrlich crowd. I’m sure my grandchildren will be having the same argument against those people, like my grandparents before me, and their grandparents before them.

“That can’t go on forever”

The old argument from infinity at the heart of the doomer mindset. It goes: Limited resources, unlimited growth. The sleight of hand here is that you can’t go from an argument to infitinty to a prediction of the near future. Limited resources, unlimited growth was valid 2000 years ago, 200 years ago, 20 years ago. Does it mean our ancestors were running out of resources and should have embraced de-growth?

“the conventional reserves of oil are decreasing between 5 and 7% per year’

Reserves grow faster than production. In 1980, we had 30 years of oil reserve left. In 2020, so ten years after we were supposed to have nothing left, plus all the increase in consumption, it’s 54 years.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/years-of-fossil-fuel-reserves-left?time=earliest..2021&facet=none

“Paul Ehrlich was right”

The man who predicted that in the 1970s hundreds of millions of people would starve to death, and all major marine wildlife would be extinguished? Those people will never update.

We shouldn’t have said ‘we’ll have peak oil at a particular date’ . We should say ‘the macro trend shows we’ll have a problem sometimes in the future‘. Instead of focusing on a date, we should focus on a trend.

Ah good, they almost admit they were wrong. Their solution for the constant humiliations they suffer is to make the theory less falsifiable.

Seemed like you had your own set of targets and expectations from the second you went into it. You said you'd listen to one podcast and didn't want book-form resources. You got what you wanted at a first and quick pass. If you were expecting scholarly footnotes in a thirty minute dialogue, I'd suggest calibrating your expectations better in the future. I am left a bit curious though. You seemed to roll right past the point that Simon Michaux brought up about oil reserves. How that didn't land for you is bizarre to me. 'He's produced data on it'. At any rate, be well. ✌️.

This is a pointless comment. Why don't you make the point yourself and cite the data you refer to, and I'll answer that in detail.

I gave you the basic introductory thesis and summarized part of it in my first comment. Last I checked, Library Genesis was a thing.

I can provide you resources and evidence. I can't provide you evidence you won't read. Incidentally, I read the links 'you' provided and found them interesting. So it seems we've got evidence on both sides to some degree. The evidence I would find 'most' compelling, would 'directly' address the work of the scholars I point to. Thus far, 'I haven't seen any'. If Richard Tol, or William Nordhaus directly addressed and could quantitatively refute the work of Keen and Michaux for example, I'd regard that as test that would falsify my views.

What's with 'the' quotes? No argument requires an entire book, let alone a man's entire work. You should just summarize the points you find most compelling.

First you say "cite the data," then you say you want "an argument?" Fine, here's some data (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Let me know when you're done. I don't know where this prejudice against reading books comes from. It's what got me there in the first place. If you don't want to read it, that's on you. I read your links.

Fine, if you don't want to discuss it, then read this. I endorse his work generally.