Whitechapel - Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything

Whitechapel - Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything Sat, 18 May 2013 06:33:56 -0700 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/ Lussumo Vanilla 1.1.4 & Feed Publisher Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=248381#Comment_248381 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=248381#Comment_248381 Fri, 02 Jul 2010 06:08:10 -0700 Kosmopolit "change everything" - ranging from a flu pandemic to self-aware machinrs and fusion reactors ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=248546#Comment_248546 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=248546#Comment_248546 Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:20:46 -0700 256

Polar meltdown
Extra dimensions (think this is in the context of particle physics)
Discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence
Nuclear exchange
Creation of life (i.e. synthetic biology)
Room temperature superconductors
Machine self-awareness
Human cloning
Pacific earthquake
Fusion energy
Asteroid collision
Deadly pandemic

A little bit too tired to dig into a discussion of this right now, but I'll call back tomorrow night... ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=248996#Comment_248996 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=248996#Comment_248996 Tue, 06 Jul 2010 07:49:31 -0700 256 A Curmudgeonly Look At The Future:
Ok, so thinking about this... "Polar meltdown"/sea level rise/global warming is a given. Ditto nuclear war (isn't this a bit of an antique, these days?) and asteroid collision.

But some of the others are a bit dubious. I guess the "extra dimensions" thing is really about confirming one of the multi-dimensional string theory models - not exactly obvious how this would change anything in terms of daily life on Earth. Maybe advancing materials research, quantum computing? It'd be fascinating, obviously, but would the man on the street care? No.

Creation of life - didn't this actually just happen? And nobody gave a damn.

Room temperature superconductors - ok, this would be cool. Although there are things we can do now without RTSCs that once-upon-a-time seemingly demanded them.

Machine self-awareness - I'll bundle AI with this and call it good.

Human cloning - really? Headlines and moral uproar, certainly. It'd interesting for genetic and psychological sciences in the same way that identical twin research is, I imagine. To me, the ability to clone and cultivate individual organs in vivo/vitro is more interesting (bum ticker? clone a new one, get a perfect transplant from yourself).

Pacific earthquake - This just looks like First-World bullshit to me. Obviously The Big One in California would be a gigantic humanitarian disaster... But gigantic humanitarian disasters happen all the time - usually to poor people - and they do not generally "change everything". I suppose it would have substantial economic ripples.

Fusion energy - probably the best tip for avoiding global warming, so I'll take it.

Deadly pandemic - Deadly? Pandemic? AIDS.

I'd be interested to hear what Whitechapel thinks are the events that could change everything.

]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=248999#Comment_248999 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=248999#Comment_248999 Tue, 06 Jul 2010 08:23:47 -0700 John Skylar
Creation of Life: Eh, J. Craig Venter makes too big a deal of his synthetic organisms. He made a synthetic genome from other life parts and then packaged it into an existing bacterium. It's not so mindblowing as it could've been. I think what they mean by creation of life is the from-scratch production of the whole thing; enzymes, lipids, genome, organelles, all of it. And yes, that would change the world in a big way.

RT superconductors: I share your feeling that we'll find workarounds.

Machine self-awareness: That's just a fancy way to say "AI" anyway.

Human Cloning: Yeah we can pretty much already do this, but we don't. The only thing that would be interesting about it actually being done would be that it would eliminate the need for men.

Pacific earthquake: I think you're not considering two things about this...first is that California is a tremendous segment of the world economy. It's bigger than a great many countries, both economically and in territory size. Secondly, it could create tsunamis that would ruin a lot of folks' days.

Fusion: In 2000, the Princeton University Plasma Physics Lab was pretty sure they could have a sustainable and profitable fusion reaction with a $1 bn investment and five years, as told from a firsthand source. Bush said no more funding for you, so the project got shelved and people moved on. We have the tech but it's being suppressed.

Deadly Pandemic: Eehhhhh AIDS is managed and the transmission/mortality rates are too low to be truly concerning. Yes, almost everybody dies of HIV infection if they're untreated, but transmission is too rare if you take the right precautions for this to infect more than the current load of 40 million globally. Since that's less than 1% of the world population I'm not terribly concerned. Now, take a virus like H5N1 flu or Ebola or Nipah (which I work on), and you've got a much less manageable infection with a much faster progression of infection. Let's say that tomorrow, Nipah virus developed a sustainable means of human to human transmission. Based on the rate of transmission observed in the swine-origin H1N1 pandemic, by October, between 3.5 and 6+ billion people would be dead. That would change the world to a large degree, I think.

There's one thing that I think the article totally overlooked that absolutely would change life on Earth: The establishment of a human colony on another planet. ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249003#Comment_249003 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249003#Comment_249003 Tue, 06 Jul 2010 09:47:15 -0700 PatrickBrown

Human Cloning: ... would eliminate the need for men.

Assuming you don't think genetic diversity matters much. ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249013#Comment_249013 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249013#Comment_249013 Tue, 06 Jul 2010 11:11:24 -0700 John Skylar Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249135#Comment_249135 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249135#Comment_249135 Wed, 07 Jul 2010 03:35:36 -0700 Kosmopolit
No, the media makes too big a deal over it.

Did you read Venter's editorial in New Scientist where he specifically says they haven't "created life" and talk about how Synthia is just another step in genetic engineering? ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249154#Comment_249154 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249154#Comment_249154 Wed, 07 Jul 2010 06:20:03 -0700 aike
The thing I liked about the Arlington Institute was they collated everything, regardless of how fringy it might sound, and just put it in the list with all the information they could find. They didn't censor, just kept track. So you find anything from hard science to weird Mayan psychic alien voodoo stuff. ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249161#Comment_249161 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249161#Comment_249161 Wed, 07 Jul 2010 06:50:27 -0700 John Skylar
@aike In the early chapters of the Cold War, the government tried to disrupt the Van Allen belts with a hydrogen bomb. ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249190#Comment_249190 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249190#Comment_249190 Wed, 07 Jul 2010 10:04:26 -0700 Paul Duffield Fusion: In 2000, the Princeton University Plasma Physics Lab was pretty sure they could have a sustainable and profitable fusion reaction with a $1 bn investment and five years, as told from a firsthand source. Bush said no more funding for you, so the project got shelved and people moved on. We have the tech but it's being suppressed.

If this is the project I'm thinking of, no tech is being suppressed, they just didn't have the results to back up the science, and I think there may have been flaws in the science too. We're just a lot further from fusion that yields a practically useful energy in to energy out ratio than all the hype (and those particular scientists) suggested. ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249193#Comment_249193 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249193#Comment_249193 Wed, 07 Jul 2010 10:22:43 -0700 0neiromancer
Human cloning I think has been going on to varying degrees for 50 years. What would happen if information came out that several people you know, or you yourself were clone descendants? What would be the implications of civil rights with clones? What if some degree of proof is found to support the starseed theory, and we find we're all clones?

Another dimension, no matter how large or small will have enormous ramifications, just perhaps not instantly. I liken it to people (like Van Gough) who have cataract surgery and can see fragments of the ultraviolet light spectrum. These people's world view changes significantly. ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249354#Comment_249354 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249354#Comment_249354 Thu, 08 Jul 2010 08:02:49 -0700 John Skylar
@0neiromancer I have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to cloning, but you've sure made me curious. ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249391#Comment_249391 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249391#Comment_249391 Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:09:50 -0700 Artenshiur Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249476#Comment_249476 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249476#Comment_249476 Fri, 09 Jul 2010 03:53:44 -0700 Kosmopolit
1. A solar superstorm like the Carrington Event could pretty much wipe out technological civilization as we know it.

2. Nanotech - not Drexler's itty-bitty robots but stuff like this.

Nano-Particles Improve Water Cooling Efficiency by 60%! ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249490#Comment_249490 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249490#Comment_249490 Fri, 09 Jul 2010 04:45:02 -0700 Paul Duffield We might be talking cross purpose then.
Even if their funding was cut for no good reason, what you just told me is a far cry from technology being actively suppressed. It's possible for funding to be cut (justly or unjustly) without malignant forces at work, and it happens all the time to science projects when administrations change. There will have been a process of independent review to decide whether the project was worth continued funding, and the scientists who got their funding cut (no matter how talented they are) aren't the best people to ask whether the review was fair! They're hardly going to say "yeah, we were going nowhere", regardless of what the truth of the matter is! ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249498#Comment_249498 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249498#Comment_249498 Fri, 09 Jul 2010 05:10:23 -0700 government spy Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249505#Comment_249505 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249505#Comment_249505 Fri, 09 Jul 2010 05:23:56 -0700 atavistian
I can't wholly fault the scientists, though. What gets funding these days are the big, splashy projects with overambitious goals and claims. Grant applications now necessitate bling.

I agree with both Kosmopolit's additions. Nanotech applications to pharmacology are particularly fascinating.

Extra dimensions: as far as I can tell they're topological necessities that sit inert and inaccessible to us. Would be big if otherwise, though.

Pacific earthquake: take a look at California's budget right now. They're pretty screwed. Think Greece-style screwed. NPR's got a fantastic program called "Intelligence Squared" that features Oxford-style debating; one of their recent programs considered the tongue-in-cheek proposition "California is the first failed state." It's worth a listen. My digression aside, their ability to respond to a crisis is massively hampered, and my guess is that inspection regimes for building worthiness will suffer as well.

Deadly pandemic: AIDS fits the definition, but I assume they're aiming for something more timely like an increased-lethality flu (or, god forbid, a hemhorragic fever pandemic). I'm always dubious of the "OMG we are SO overdue for one!" arguments that seem to conveniently ignore a number of factors. What worries me more than a single pandemic is the increasing antibiotic resistance we see across the board thanks to uneducated and demanding patients, managed care and the prescribing practices of physicians or drug policies of certain countries. This tends to be a bit of a loaded issue, though. When people talk about pandemics being a big problem they tend to mean "the ones that reach and rankle first world countries." It's problematic to say the least.

We've already got some workarounds for room temp superconductors. Lots of research on the superconducting front coming to fruition lately and in the next few years, especially as regards conductive efficiency and directionality. It'll be interesting to watch RTSC and cloud-diffusive processing battle it out, though. Something to watch: there are a few specific ultra-rare minerals involved in this business that China currently holds a monopoly on. I can't remember if Congress has already or is going to set up a committee investigating strategic minerals, but it's something to keep an eye on.

Anyone else notice how many aspects of the list focus on or heavily involve petroleum-based products without a mention of petropolitics or the future of oil? ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249533#Comment_249533 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249533#Comment_249533 Fri, 09 Jul 2010 07:04:32 -0700 Kosmopolit
I'm not talking immortality here, I am suggesting that we know it's possible to live past 100 while retaining all your faculties and leading a productive life.

Imagine if that were the norm.

Scientists have now identified the genetic characteristics of people who live past 100.

See here, for example or here. ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249539#Comment_249539 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249539#Comment_249539 Fri, 09 Jul 2010 07:28:29 -0700 atavistian Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249542#Comment_249542 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249542#Comment_249542 Fri, 09 Jul 2010 07:32:57 -0700 government spy
Living past 100 would change everything, considering how we collectively treat people over 70. ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249562#Comment_249562 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249562#Comment_249562 Fri, 09 Jul 2010 08:53:25 -0700 Kosmopolit
So rather than having to support people for another 20 years we're potentially looking at unlocking the skills and wisdom of people currently languishing in old folk's homes. ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249564#Comment_249564 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249564#Comment_249564 Fri, 09 Jul 2010 09:07:30 -0700 John Skylar
@atavistan

Deadly pandemic: AIDS fits the definition, but I assume they're aiming for something more timely like an increased-lethality flu (or, god forbid, a hemhorragic fever pandemic). I'm always dubious of the "OMG we are SO overdue for one!" arguments that seem to conveniently ignore a number of factors. What worries me more than a single pandemic is the increasing antibiotic resistance we see across the board thanks to uneducated and demanding patients, managed care and the prescribing practices of physicians or drug policies of certain countries. This tends to be a bit of a loaded issue, though. When people talk about pandemics being a big problem they tend to mean "the ones that reach and rankle first world countries." It's problematic to say the least.

I'm in emerging pathogens research. I don't know if this is necessarily the thread to start talking about the possibility of a massive-mortality pandemic virus, or other pathogen, but I would be happy to discuss it. Maybe it should get its own thread? If people are interested, that is. I think the main reason that AIDS doesn't really qualify there is that it's pretty slow to both spread and kill, so we're all kind of jaded that there is this deadly virus that is capable of destroying our species. Woo. We'll probably have it beat before it's too late.

On the somewhat related topic of life extension, have you guys heard about the singularity-like Methuselarity folks? Because they're kind of interesting. Probably 100% wrong, but kind of interesting nonetheless. The tl;dr: If research can consistently extend human life expectancy by one year in a period of time less than one year, people will (sort of) live forever. ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249568#Comment_249568 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249568#Comment_249568 Fri, 09 Jul 2010 09:20:16 -0700 atavistian I'm in emerging pathogens research.

I'm sold. What do you do?

I don't know if this is necessarily the thread to start talking about the possibility of a massive-mortality pandemic virus, or other pathogen, but I would be happy to discuss it. Maybe it should get its own thread?

Getting its own thread seems like it would guarantee a mod-lock; this thread seems fine to discuss it. I could be wrong on either or both counts, though.

Don't get me wrong, I full admit the deadly and potentially disastrous nature of HIV and AIDS. I've lost two friends to AIDS. Not downplaying it at all. But I don't see it as an extinction-level event kind of thing, as things stand right now. I'd love to read whatever you have that says different, though. I'm not locked into my position through anything more than limited general knowledge.

Have never heard of the Methuselarity, thanks for bringing it up. Looks like I have some reading to do. ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249576#Comment_249576 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249576#Comment_249576 Fri, 09 Jul 2010 10:01:57 -0700 Artenshiur Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249610#Comment_249610 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249610#Comment_249610 Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:34:12 -0700 Paul Duffield Understood :) I just wanted to add an alternative possibility, since people tend to gravitate towards (and I tend to be wary of) explanations in which "government" might easily be substituted for an individual acting out a clear plan.
Thanks about FA :D ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249671#Comment_249671 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249671#Comment_249671 Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:13:33 -0700 John Skylar Getting its own thread seems like it would guarantee a mod-lock; this thread seems fine to discuss it. I could be wrong on either or both counts, though.
All right, I'll try to start it here and if our keen-eyed masters should decide to kill it or that I should take it elsewhere, so be it.

I'm sold. What do you do?

Our department is an RNA viruses department with a focus on negative-standed viruses. We have an emerging pathogens institute which works on: Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever virus (CCHFV), Dengue virus (DENV), SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV), Ebola virus (EboV), Nipah virus (NiV), Lassa fever virus, and Chikungunya virus (CHIKV, but I love saying this one's full name).

NiV is my pet. It's maintained in more-or-less asymptomatic bats, and causes about 75% mortality in humans. This is the kind of virus where you work in a rubber space suit and take a shower when you're done; Biosafety level (BSL) 4. I work with viral component proteins so that I can work in a BSL2 environment.

About the odds of a deadly virus emerging: There's three basic elements to any given virus. They are pathogenicity (how sick it makes you), transmissibility, and immunogenicity (how strongly it recruits an immune response). These are all interrelated, and they all affect spread.

The golden rule is that viruses evolve to spread better. The actual spread of the virus is a function of all three things. Too pathogenic (EboV) OR too immunogenic (Sendai virus), OR not transmissible enough (H5N1 Influenza A, NiV), and you won't spread. So either it's reduce your pathogenicity or immunogenicity (usually, make yourself less deadly), or a third, dangerous option.

The real danger is a virus that improves its spread by improving just its transmissibility. One of the reasons we are worried about NiV is that it takes two weeks to kill people, infects almost all mammalian cells, and can remain asymptomatic in patients for up to six months and THEN kill them. Thankfully, for some reason, Nipah can't sustain person to person spread. NiV, or maybe its cousin Hendra virus, is a candidate virus to cause a global high-mortality pandemic. There may be an undiscovered virus that has the same characteristics; if there is, odds are it's a bat virus, because bats are similar enough to us for their viruses to infect us, but different enough for their viruses to make us VERY sick.

These viruses are always out there, always evolving. On a long enough timescale, the chances that one of them will evolve the capability to become a massively mortal pandemic are 100%. But with good surveillance, we can discover these viruses before they emerge, and develop vaccines and antivirals that will prevent disaster. Great virus hunters to read about are Dr. CJ Peters and Dr. Herbert "Skip" Virgin. You might also want to check out Dr. Ian Lipkin. There's also a good podcast called This Week in Virology by Dr. Vincent Racaniello.

Whew...tried to make that as short as possible, but it's a big topic. Apologies for the length, hope it was of some value. Questions? ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249672#Comment_249672 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249672#Comment_249672 Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:13:33 -0700 Kosmopolit
That'd make at least 10% of the power plants in the world redundant. ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249695#Comment_249695 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249695#Comment_249695 Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:20:47 -0700 Finagle
Not the actual exhaustion of petroleum, but a combination of price hikes and shortages that would make the 70's U.S. embargo seem like a fond memory of plenty, over a significant portion of the First World. Should also to be considered as the event that would be necessary and sufficient to trigger a number of these other potentially really major things, such as the development of fusion or a nuclear exchange.

The end of cheap, readily available oil as we know it now wouldn't just impact cars, but all of transportation and agriculture, as most fertilizer is currently petroleum-based and dependent on refrigerated trucking. Plastics would be costly. Travel becomes rarer and dearer; people start living more densely again. ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249725#Comment_249725 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249725#Comment_249725 Sat, 10 Jul 2010 03:37:57 -0700 Paul Duffield I thought for all intents and purposes we'd passed peak oil? It's just a wait until availability reflects dwindling supply. ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249756#Comment_249756 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249756#Comment_249756 Sat, 10 Jul 2010 10:01:13 -0700 mister hex
@John Skylar - you are my new favorite human. Who else has a pet virus? Keep us safe, John. ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249763#Comment_249763 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249763#Comment_249763 Sat, 10 Jul 2010 12:15:01 -0700 John Skylar
@Finagle Have you read Out of Gas by David Goodstein? It's an interesting take on peak oil, if a little doomsaying. People have made peak oil predictions like 10 times since we started using oil, and they've never panned out. I'm kind of hoping that for the sake of the human habitat, we'll hit peak oil and fast. But I doubt it. ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249913#Comment_249913 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249913#Comment_249913 Sun, 11 Jul 2010 09:22:37 -0700 Paul Duffield How does being a function of "available oil" instead of "total oil" make peak oil a myth? Honestly confused here, and trying to be open minded (since I know this is a topic that causes angers to flare).

I may be putting words into your mouth, but I encounter a lot of examples of "peak oil" being used as short hand for a point in time at which oil prices sky-rocket and society grinds to a halt. As far as I know, this is a misuse of the term.

Peak oil (as far as I understand it) is the point at which the global rate of oil extraction begins to decline; a "highest point" on a graph of extraction-rate over time.
As far as I'm aware, the data suggests that peak oil has happened already (obviously there's no way of saying 100% that it has, since extraction rates may rise to a new high unexpectedly), but either way it will happen. The peak is an unavoidable function of the availability of any limited resource over time, and it doesn't matter if the limiting factor is our ability to extract oil, or the total amount of oil in existence. I hope you can see why calling it a myth confused me... it's similar to calling the highest point of a parabola a "myth"!

So, the arguments that matter are all about what impact the peak in the graph will have (or is having). After all, it could be a slow, steady decline that leaves us time and space to adapt, or it could be a sudden crash that really does lead to massive financial and social chaos. Reports of social collapse may turn out be myths (as they often do), or they may not (as occasionally happens too!) but they're still useful forms of speculation that help us to understand how our reality might play out, and what counter-measures to take.

EDIT: Alternatively, I just thought about something I've not heard discussed, it might be that we have a series of peaks and troughs, which could actually be a worst case scenario, since it'll play havoc with any attempts at stability in one direction or another. ]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249963#Comment_249963 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=249963#Comment_249963 Sun, 11 Jul 2010 16:08:36 -0700 Kosmopolit
link

]]> Sci-Am's 12 Events that could change everything http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=250024#Comment_250024 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=8501&Focus=250024#Comment_250024 Mon, 12 Jul 2010 02:39:45 -0700 atavistian
@ Paul Duffield - the idea of peak oil being a series of peaks and troughs scares the hell out of me. You're right about it being a worst case scenario, absolutely.

@ Kosmopolit - fascinating graphic; my initial instinct is that the Oct 09 - Oct 12 period is more pessimistic than warranted, but I could be wrong. There's also a problem in the current context where it focuses on mbd extraction without really referencing the cost trends in that extraction (which admittedly was probably outside the scope of the project there, but is still very important, especially when talking about the Canadian Oil Sands). ]]>