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The Tempest in the Oil Drum

Published September 2, 2012 | By Futilitist

Off the Keyboard of Futilitist Loren Soman

Note from RE: New Diner and New Blogger Futilitist arrives here from the shores of The Oil Drum, where his recent lambasting of Arch Druid John Michael Greer resulted in his being BANNED from TOD Platform.  In keeping with the Diner INTERNET FREE SPEECH GUERRILLA PROJECT, we will publish that which was CENSORED on TOD. 

RE

Published originally on The Futilitist Blog

Discuss this article at the Epicurean Delights Smorgasbord of the Diner

Friday, August 31, 2012

The Cat in John Michael Greer’s Kitchen

This story is true.  Take from it what you will. Chapter 1 The Game Begins and the Games Begin The following conversation has been compiled from the comments section of a recent Drumbeat on theoildrum.com.  It has been edited to suit me.  The entire cat fight can be found beginning at:  http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9433#comments_top.  Check it out at your own risk. The set up: Another boring day at TOD.  The topic of the day’s discussion revolves around the downsizing of the Drumbeat and the recent drop-off in interest in peak-oil generally.  A real snooze-fest so far, but all that is about to change… We join the conversation already in progress.  Leanan, the Drumbeat’s moderator, is speaking: [new] Leanan on August 23, 2012 – 8:23am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

As much as I enjoyed it, I understand how difficult it can be working in a volunteer organization with a number of personalities pulling in different directions, all equally sincere. It’s an energy drain to not only try to do your best work but to also have to champion that work’s legitimacy.

There’s some of that, I’m sure, but from my view, the changes have been mostly external. Peak oil just isn’t what it used to be. Yes, I know some people still expect TEOTWAWKI soon. But for many people, events over the past 3-4 years have led them to realize that there isn’t going to be a fast collapse, and/or that other issues are more urgent (climate change, financial collapse, getting a job). It’s not just The Oil Drum. Searches on peak oil have fallen steadily since 2008. LATOC has closed shop, EB has merged with the Post Carbon Institute, PeakOil.com’s message board now gets no messages for days in what used to be the most active forums. There simply isn’t the interest in peak oil that there used to be. It’s become a lot harder to keep people on topic. There’s nothing going on peak oil-wise – no ever-higher oil prices, no riots at gas stations, no hurricanes damaging oil platforms – so the discussion becomes silly and trivial. Some might say let people post whatever they want, since there’s nothing else to talk about. But I think that makes the problem worse. Letting the threads fill up with one-liners and links to funny cat videos on YouTube is going to drive out people who actually are interested in peak oil. The Internet version of Gresham’s Law, as Nate put it.

[new] LOREN_SOMAN aka FUTILITIST on August 23, 2012 – 3:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Leanan, You said: “But for many people, events over the past 3-4 years have led them to realize that there isn’t going to be a fast collapse, and/or that other issues are more urgent (climate change, financial collapse, getting a job).” That statement describes a rationalization that some people seem to have adopted lately. The original doomer perspective that peak oil would lead to the total collapse of industrial civilization and a rapid and severe human die-off, was, and still is, correct. It just hasn’t happened yet. The logic behind the idea of an eventual fast collapse has never been successfully rebutted on this site or anywhere else. The arguments against a fast collapse are illogical are circular. John Michael Greer is the poster boy for the slow collapse idea. Whenever anyone argues against a fast collapse, they generally reference Greer and his “catabolic collapse” theory. I recently read the latest Feasta paper by David Korowcz which lays out in excruciating detail the many ways in which a fast collapse will likely begin and then must accelerate because of the positive feed backs that would be activated. I would invite anyone who shares your view to read that paper and then explain how it’s projected outcomes can possibly be avoided. Here is how Greer carefully words his attempt to refute Korowicz’s paper in his Archdruid blog from July 18: “…Faced with the imminent reality of national collapse, the US government did not sit on its hands, which is what those with the capacity to do something are always required to do in fast collapse theories. Instead, it temporarily nationalized the entire American banking system, declared that all assets held by the banks were owned by the government until further notice, made private ownership of gold by US citizens illegal, and ordered every scrap of gold in the country much bigger than a wedding ring sold to the government at a fixed, below-market price, with stiff legal penalties for anybody who tried to hang onto their gold stash. (I’m not making up any of this, either. Look it up.) Flush with seized bank assets and confiscated gold, the government poured money into the nationalized banks, which could then meet every demand for funds, stopping the panic in its tracks. Once stability returned, the banks returned to private ownership and got their assets back, though gold remained a government monopoly for decades longer. This sort of drastic measure is far from rare in economic history. Germany in the 1920s put paid to its era of hyperinflation by issuing a new currency, the rentenmark, which was backed by taking out one big mortgage on every single piece of real property in the country. Other countries have done things even more extreme. A nation facing collapse, it bears remembering, has plenty of options, and it also has the means, motive, and opportunity to use them. It’s only fair to point out that this sort of drastic response is something that the Feasta study specifically excludes. One of Korowicz’ basic assumptions, stated as such in his study, is that governments will respond to the crisis by choosing the minimal option they think will solve the immediate problem. It’s a reasonable assumption, right up to the point that national survival is at stake, but at that point history shows in no uncertain terms that the assumption goes right out the window. Nation-states are good at surviving—that’s why they’ve become the standard form of human political organization in the viciously Darwinian environment of modern history—and it’s hard to think of anything a nation-state won’t do if it thinks its survival is threatened. That said, Korowicz’ study points to one very plausible way that the next major round of crisis could slam into the industrial world. The fact that the nations affected by it could kluge together responses to it, slap the equivalent of defibrillator paddles onto their prostrate economies, and get a heartbeat again for the time being doesn’t change the fact that a financial collapse followed by even a partial supply chain breakdown would be a massive crisis, the sort of thing that could well plunge hundreds of millions of people into permanent poverty and push the global economy further down a long ragged decline that will be much less amenable to drastic responses. We’re in agreement, in effect, that the patient is terminally ill; the question is simply whether first aid measures available to the paramedics on site can get his heart beating again, so he can drag out the dying process for a while longer.” Greer begins here with the straw man that fast collapse would require that governments ‘sit on their hands’ and not react. But Korowicz never suggests anything like that in his paper. Quite the opposite actually. Korowicz details how any possible government responses will be ineffective and likely even make the situation worse. In effect, Greer (a historian?, not a scientist) is saying that nation states are inherently powerful and literally too big to fail. When the nation’s existence is threatened, it would be able to control the situation favorably, and when faced with imminent collapse it would do just that. That argument is obviously completely circular. Greer’s analogy of the terminally ill patient is not very well thought out either. It is better used to prove the opposite point. If the patient is resuscitated at great expense “so he can drag out the dying process for a while longer”, what happens next? We would have to assume that all the problems couldn’t be permanently fixed and the patient would be left to face the next crisis in a much weakened state. Presumably in this scenario, the government would step in again and save the day. Over and over again to infinity! Obviously that couldn’t work. Just like in a real human patient, life can be prolonged by extraordinary measures, but death will still be the ultimate outcome. And the transition from life to death is always sudden (a fast collapse). Greer’s rebuttal of Korowicz’s paper is intentionally dishonest, misleading, insulting, and completely inadequate (i.e. silly). If anyone on this site wants to take up and champion Greer’s cause, or if Greer himself were to debate this on this site, I think it would be the best discussion The Oil Drum has ever had. Greer’s position is so obviously the losing one. I guess it is always socially easier to agree to disagree than to have one side actually lose the argument.
[new] Leanan on August 23, 2012 – 4:04pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
I don’t see how either side can win or lose the argument until after the collapse. Which may not happen in our lifetimes, or may be so gradual it will not be recognized by those now alive. The arguments on both sides are, IMO, equally “illogical and circular.” Interesting and worth expressing, maybe, but this is isn’t classical physics. No one really knows what will happen, because we have never been in this situation before. (And even if we had, it’s possible it would not play out the same way twice.) And I think you are being very unfair to Greer. He may turn out to be wrong, but there’s no evidence that he’s being intentionally dishonest.
[new] LOREN_SOMAN on August 23, 2012 – 6:02pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Leanan, You say: “I don’t see how either side can win or lose the argument until after the collapse. Which may not happen in our lifetimes, or may be so gradual it will not be recognized by those now alive.” I do believe that a fast collapse is imminent, but that is not the point I was trying to make. My main point is that a collapse cannot be gradual. You might be right (though I doubt it) that it won’t happen in our lifetimes, but I believe it is incorrect to assume that a collapse could be so gradual as to go mostly unnoticed. That is Greer’s biggest error. The prelude may stretch out a bit longer, but the show must eventually get started. And I am hardly being unfair to Greer. He seems like a nice guy, this not personal. And he is a very good and clever writer, but, yes I do think he is intellectually dishonest. In the blog I referred to, Greer begins with a discussion of the Kubler-Ross concept of stages of grief in order to paint anyone with a different view than his as sadly delusional due to being stuck in one of the early, immature grief stages. Greer says: “The fascination with sudden collapse—call it the Seneca cliff if you must, though it’s only fair to note that Seneca was talking about morality rather than the survival of civilization, and the civilization to which he himself belonged took centuries to decline and fall—is to the peak oil scene exactly what the fixation on Bakken shale oil and “effectively infinite” natural gas is to the collective imagination of industrial society as a whole: a means of denial.” Like I said, clever writer. He somehow manages to paint cornucopians and doomers with the same denial brush in order to dismiss them both. That is one hell of a stretch that would be hard to do by accident. Thus, I credit Greer with being intentional. I am not trying to be mean, but when you read David Korowicz’s 75 page detailed risk analysis and compare it to John Michael Greer’s casual, wave of the hand blog response, do you seriously place them at the same intellectual level of discourse? Do you really think that Greer’s arguments hold any weight by comparison? [new] sgage on August 23, 2012 – 6:28pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Instead of sniping at JMG here on TOD, why don’t you engage him on his blog?
[new] Ghung on August 23, 2012 – 7:28pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
“Instead of sniping at JMG here on TOD, why don’t you engage him on his blog?” Tried that. See below. But it’s his blog, and he controls the discussion, and is generally dismissive of those who may disagree with the story he’s telling. I respect his perogative to do so, if not always his conclusions.
[new] sgage on August 23, 2012 – 7:37pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
You disagree with him. That’s all. It’s one thing to disagree with somoone, it’s another thing to call them “intentionally dishonest”. That’s really my point. And yes, I’ve seen your posts on the ARD. You disagree. So what? I disagree about a lot of thngs with a lot of people. You are dismissive of people who disagree with you. So what?
[new] AlanfromBigEasy on August 23, 2012 – 8:12pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
“intentionally dishonest” is *WAY* out of bounds and into troll territory when discussing JMG. It devalues your analysis when making such attacks. Alan
[new] LOREN_SOMAN on August 23, 2012 – 9:06pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Alan, Why is it *WAY* out of bounds? Is JMG above all criticism? He writes a column and makes at least some part of his living trying to refute ideas that I happen to think are true. His reputation in the world depends on him being right. He uses many common literary and debate tricks to slide around the ideas that don’t fit his model. I gave a couple examples in my post. He is under ever increasing pressure if ideas like Korowicz’s come to be widely accepted. I don’t believe it devalues my analysis one bit. Any time I bring up the idea here that Greer might be wrong about something, I find myself getting dragged into a critique of my bad manners. Best hopes for not getting bogged down in useless distractions when trying to discuss important IDEAS, Loren
[new] AlanfromBigEasy on August 23, 2012 – 9:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
I disagree with the above post on just about every point. Let’s just leave it at that. I gave my own take of the likelihood of national vs. global fast collapse in another post. Alan
[new] jokuhl on August 23, 2012 – 10:38pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
No. You’re calling him a liar. That’s not about being ‘above all criticism’ , that’s libel, and ascribing that kind of motive to him here, where there are others who know him, but not addressing it to his face, that brings it to where people are calling you on using particularly unproductive (ie, Antisocial) discussion tactics.
[new] LOREN_SOMAN on August 24, 2012 – 12:11am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

jokuhl, No, I did not call him a liar. That is way hyperbolic. I said basically that he is a professional commentator who has hitched his wagon to a bad idea (slow catabolic collapse). I said he uses the tools of his trade to support his theories. I gave examples from his own blog. I ascribed no motive to him other than that he wants to be right and needs to be for social reasons. These motives are very common and apply to most humans. Please feel free to review my original post on this topic and point out the libelous sections for me. I don’t believe that what I said rises anywhere near the level that would constitute libel in any legal sense or any sense for that matter. Maybe I should get a lawyer! If it hasn’t been edited out, please check out my friendly post directly to John Michael Greer inviting him to have a friendly debate on the subject and let me know what I did wrong there too. P.S.– I can’t help but notice that we are not discussing Greer’s ideas. [new] jokuhl on August 24, 2012 – 1:10am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

“Greer’s rebuttal of Korowicz’s paper is intentionally dishonest..” You trying to say this is not a clear accusation of lying? I don’t doubt you meant your later offer sincerely, having now found that comment.. but sheesh, you peppered your post with some serious catcalls up there. I think there are some things that are really hard to erase once they’re out there.. There have been been some comments in here that have gotten back to the Collapse topic, but as we have been talking foremost about the valuable discussions we have on the drumbeat, ‘discussions about energy and our future’, I think it’s been very valuable that this Website has also kept a high standard of conduct, and when it is broken, the rest of the discussion soon falls with it.. There IS a generous range of tolerance here, and with that comes no small amount of bitter retorts and puerile insinuations.. but when comments really do start becoming unfairly derisive, and I think some of yours today have been that, then this sort of ‘Housekeeping’ conversation shows up, where posters will say that they feel the line has been crossed too much. (PS, I think History is clearly a Science, and if one chooses to call it ‘Social’ and therefore ‘soft’, still that makes it a much harder and subtler discipline, not the opposite. You lost a bunch of altitude with “Greer (a historian?, not a scientist)”. )
[new] Richard Eis on August 24, 2012 – 4:05am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
I thought Greer went with the stair step idea, not just a slow collapse. Of course it also depends on what you call fast, and what you call total collapse. Greer has two main things on his side. One is ancient history and the pattern of other civilisations that have collapsed, the other is recent history as we have already seen several steps down in different countries and these coutnries keep going. As such his ideas are the ones I choose to follow… in general. When the alternatives it seems are either BAU, or OMG World Destruction, i’ll choose Greer and his middle path.
[new] John Michael Greer on August 24, 2012 – 12:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Richard, thank you for the vote of confidence, and also for actually paying attention to what I’ve been saying! It’s seemingly a rare habit. Yes, I’m arguing for a stairstep or, as I’m thinking of it these days, a fractal collapse — a long ragged process packed with crises on various scales and of varying severity, taking one to three centuries to complete the descent into the deindustrial dark ages.
[new] greenish on August 24, 2012 – 1:05pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
In “fractal collapse”, I think you have a winner. I imagine that the fact the complete system is composed of so many different fractal patterns, power-law distributions, chaotic systems, uncharacterized initial conditions and noise means it may be a fractal pattern that’s hard to characterize usefully beforehand. But then again, simplicity sometimes emerges from absolute cluster**ks. We really don’t have a well-developed taxonomy of dooms, do we? Of course, this time it actually IS different.
[new] eric blair on August 26, 2012 – 12:48pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
This time, like every time, is different. As one of the maxims of law says: “A thing similar is not exactly the same.” This time there are far more people with far wider and faster communication between the people. This time there is a far wider base of knowledge to draw upon and the storage and searchabiliy of that knowledge is far better than the past.
[new] AlanfromBigEasy on August 24, 2012 – 7:12pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

“Fractal collapse” through media with a wide variety of properties is my take. Some stiff & strong, others supple, flexible & adaptable, many weak that, once cracked, collapse quickly. Others that can continue to function even though highly stressed. Different crisis will have different impacts on different parts of societies – and different societies. Peak Oil won’t be so bad for oil exporting nations – till they stop exporting for example. Alan [new] suyog on August 24, 2012 – 8:17am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Give it a rest, already. What difference does it make what Greer thinks, what I think and what you think? Why do you want Greer to change his mind and agree with you? Perhaps Greer has invested a lot in his current viewpoint and therefore doesn’t want to change his mind. So what? It is not like Greer is going to run for office, get elected and make policy that affects our life. Nothing in this universe cares for anybody’s opinion. What is going to happen is going to happen regardless of what anybody thinks. Agree to disagree and move on.
[new] Earthbound Misfit on August 24, 2012 – 12:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Bah humbug to you all! Honestly, you haven’t the ammunition to be sniping! While I lean toward a fast collapse, Mr. Greer has a well thought-out approach to the subject. Time will tell. [new] Ghung on August 23, 2012 – 8:35pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

“You are dismissive of people who disagree with you. So what?” I make an effort to not be dismissive or invalidate others who honestly argue the issues (and I didn’t start this thread). As I said, If Greer is dismissive of those who refuse to stay on his point, it’s his site.
[new] sgage on August 23, 2012 – 8:37pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
You disagree.
[new] Leanan on August 23, 2012 – 8:50pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
His site is tightly moderated, and I suspect that’s what many like about it. It’s an attempt to move beyond the same old arguments, and create a space for the kind of discussion he is interested in. It’s like when PeakOil.com created the “Doomers only,” “Moderates Only,” and “Cornucopians Only” forums. It was so people could discuss their expected future without having those who expected something else jump all over every thread and derail it into the same old arguments. We kind of do the same thing here. Some topics are not welcome, not because they are unspeakable, but because they’ve been beaten to death already, and they tend to suck so much oxygen out of the room there’s nothing left for anything else.
[new] sgage on August 23, 2012 – 9:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Leanan, You are the very voice of reason. Were you born this way, or did you have to work at it? :-) Seriously, you do a very good job here – we owe you a great deal. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again- Many thanks… [new] LOREN_SOMAN on August 23, 2012 – 9:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Leanan, Whenever I sit down to play a drum solo, I have to remind myself that my audience is hearing me for the first time. The musical ideas I play are (hopefully) not as stale to them as they are to me, having practiced them extensively. I think of this site as presenting open debates on important topics for people outside the TOD community to read and help make up their minds. I was one of those people for a few years before I ever left a comment here. I see TOD as being for the public record and public good. As such, we as commentors have a kind of duty to discuss unpleasant topics even when we get bored with them. I still believe that some topics are as unspeakable on TOD as they are every place else in the world, for the same reasons. I think saying that the ideas are beaten to death can be a convient way to rationalize avoiding their discussion.
[new] Leanan on August 23, 2012 – 10:02pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Fast crash vs. catabolic collapse is not off-topic here. Feel free to discuss it if you wish, without personally attacking those who disagree with you.

I think saying that the ideas are beaten to death can be a convient way to rationalize avoiding their discussion.

There’s no need to rationalize it. We freely admit it: we don’t allow some topics here. Not because they are unpleasant, but because they’re boring and pointless, and in some cases, makes us look like lunatics to those “people outside the TOD community.” Of course, everyone has a different idea of what’s reasonable discussion and what’s tedious or crazy. But there are many different sites on the internet, and if none of them suits you, you can make your own. JMG has a right to set the guidelines at his site; we have the right to set them here. You can set them at your own blog. I see this as desirable, not a problem. We cannot be an “everything bagel” and are not trying to be. We are not offering a platform for free speech for everyone who comes along.

[new] Leanan on August 23, 2012 – 8:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

It’s one thing to disagree with somoone, it’s another thing to call them “intentionally dishonest”.

I agree. Just parking this here because it’s convenient…. Remember, folks – attack ideas all you want, but not the people who hold them.

[new] LOREN_SOMAN on August 23, 2012 – 9:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Leanan, Can I at least call the “catabolic collapse theory” a dumb idea?
[new] Leanan on August 23, 2012 – 9:24pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
As long you support your view without going ad hominem.
[new] LOREN_SOMAN on August 23, 2012 – 10:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Leanan, That’s fair. I’ll certainly be more sensitive from here on. I have to say, though, that I don’t think my original comment was ad hominem in any way, although it is now being treated as such. I think that showing examples of how a professional commentator plays with the facts a bit to suit his purposes, and then ascribing some reasonable intent to such actions is a fairly benign act. Methinks everyone protests a bit too much.
[new] Ghung on August 23, 2012 – 7:18pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Yeah, Loren, I was basically put on notice a couple of weeks ago for my persistent insistence that a fast collapse, though not assured, is certainly possible. It seems that anyone who continues to discuss this possibility will be encouraged to leave the Archdruid’s Court:

JMG: Ghung, I disagree with you; you disagree with me. I’m familiar with your arguments, and I’m sure you’re familiar with mine; they clearly aren’t going to change anybody’s mind. That being the case, if you still find this blog useful, good; if not, there are plenty of others. ‘Nuf said.

I still enjoy Greer’s blog, but he keeps tight control over ideas that don’t fall into his prophecy meme. He seems to allow little room for the input of those who may have dramatically more real-world experience in situations where societies implode; assumes those of us who’ve been there, done that, learned little. It’s telling, and has diminished my respect for his views somewhat. That said, I do believe his “voluntary poverty” suggestions have merit, though he’ll likely still be insisting that catabolic collapse is ongoing when TSHTF for a lot of us. Relatively sudden collapse is here, and ongoing for many; hard to ignore. Many other societal bombs are armed and ready, and it’s apparent, at least to me, that TPTB are in denial and grossly ill-equipped to intervene in the process once things go critical, and likely have little motivation to do so. They have better options. Methinks Greer, obviously motivated towards a sense of gentile kindness, overestimates the goodness and altruism of his fellow humans, especially those in power. That’s what happens when one is totally immersed in the musings of a largely insulated academic elite. I’m in the 50/50 club, and keeping my resilience local.

[new] John Michael Greer on August 23, 2012 – 9:34pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Ghung, oh for heaven’s sake. My blog’s comment section is not, and has never pretended to be, a general forum for debating issues around peak oil. It’s a place where people can discuss each week’s Archdruid Report post with other readers and with me, and that’s all it is; among other things, it’s not a pulpit for other people’s ideas or a theater for the endless circular disputes so common on the internet. Thus my comment to you. If you want a place to talk about your opinions about the imminence of fast collapse, or whatever, there are plenty of places on the internet that encourage that sort of thing, or you could launch your own blog, the way I did, and attract an audience for your ideas. There are plenty of options. The comments page on my blog isn’t one of them, and if that offends you, well, then it offends you.
[new] Ghung on August 23, 2012 – 11:02pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Jeez, JMG, at what point have I ever said I was offended? Just askin’, because, if you’ll read my comments in this thread, hopefully you’ll notice that I defend your right to control the content of your own blog, whether or not I agree with that content. However, I do find your suggestion that I imply otherwise a bit offensive. It’s a line of respect that, I for one, take pains to not cross. Further, it distresses me that you clearly discourage challenges to your conclusions. IMO, this limits the value of what I consider to be one of the premier discussions on the web. But, again, it’s your perogative. My Father was a great teacher, a dean of academics, educational law and education at a major university, though his best quality was his humility and his willingness to consider other’s ideas, no matter how lowly the source, and no matter how much he disagreed with the premise. I witnessed that he expended much of his energy considering the things he disagreed with the most. His greatest quality was that he never rejected or dismissed ideas that potentially held merit, or those who forwarded them, even into his 80s. It took courage, especially during tumultuous times in the South. I admit that I suffer due to this standard that he set. Forgive me that I see that potential in you.
[new] John Michael Greer on August 24, 2012 – 12:13am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Ghung, I don’t discourage challenges to my conclusions; you’re free to challenge my conclusions anywhere else on the web you want.

“As a director of the U.S. government’s ministry of propaganda during World War II, Archibald MacLeish knew that dissent seldom walks onstage to the sound of warm and welcoming applause. As a poet and later the librarian of Congress, he also knew that liberty has ambitious enemies, and that the survival of the American democracy depends less on the size of its armies than on the capacity of its individual citizens to rely, if only momentarily, on the strength of their own thought. We can’t know what we’re about, or whether we’re telling ourselves too many lies, unless we can see or hear one another think out loud. Tyranny never has much trouble drumming up the smiles of prompt agreement, but a democracy stands in need of as many questions as its citizens can ask of their own stupidity and fear. Unpopular during even the happiest of stock market booms, in time of war dissent attracts the attention of the police. The parade marshals regard any wandering away from the line of march as unpatriotic and disloyal; unlicensed forms of speech come to be confused with treason and registered as crimes.” ~ Lewis Lapham

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” ~ Abraham Lincoln Online forums seem like virtual kingdoms, small as they are.

[new] notanoilman on August 24, 2012 – 2:18am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
‘anywhere else on the web’ but where? NAOM [new] John Michael Greer on August 24, 2012 – 12:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Anywhere else but on the comments page of my blog, where he’s already repeatedly stated his opinion on the subject.
[new] Earthbound Misfit on August 24, 2012 – 12:38pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Hahaha! Nicely said, Mr. Greer! No offense, Ghung, at all. I think John simply wants to explore his ideas with like-minded folk. Not unlike us on TOD, eh?
[new] dcoyne78 on August 24, 2012 – 1:31pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Not like TOD at all in my opinion. A diversity of opinion is what makes this website interesting. DC
[new] Earthbound Misfit on August 24, 2012 – 2:26pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Yeah, sure, but a peak oil denier just won’t last long here, no?
[new] dcoyne78 on August 24, 2012 – 1:27pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
JMG, Am I misunderstanding you? You don’t allow people to disagree with your ideas on your blog? DC
Unsure as it is unfrequented by myself. In any case, if I had a blog/forum and went to the unlikely extent of stifling dissent (rhymes), I might at least refrain from “chasing” my dissenters elsewhere or at least bite my tongue where I was concerned if I happened upon the same forum/thread as they, lest I be seen as wishing to eat my cake and have it too. I can imagine how a certain form of control of a blog’s comment section might function similarly to the glowing endorsements one often can find on the back of a book cover.
[new] Leanan on August 26, 2012 – 9:58am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
JMG has been a member of TOD for years. He has as much right to comment here as anyone.

I am speaking about myself in relation, and I’m all for rights. John popped in and we exercised them. Of course with rights and power come responsibilities. Small potatoes in this context, but big as an example of the bigger picture, which we all contribute to its creation, such as via John’s books, Green Wizards (which I have bookmarked) and blog: I admit that the tone

…of his [Rob Hopkins] response took me aback, and so did the number of misrepresentations that found their way into it; I have no objection to criticism – quite the contrary, an idea that can’t stand up to honest criticism isn’t worth having in the first place – but it might have been helpful if Hopkins had taken the time to be sure the ideas he was criticizing were ones I’ve actually proposed… ~ John Michael Greer

John’s relatively-short 2 years and 39 weeks surprised me by the way. I might have thought it would have been longer.

[new] LOREN_SOMAN on August 26, 2012 – 10:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Tribe, “In any case, if I had a blog/forum and went to the unlikely extent of stifling dissent (rhymes), I might at least refrain from “chasing” my dissenters elsewhere or at least bite my tongue where I was concerned if I happened upon the same forum/thread as they, lest I be seen as wishing to eat my cake and have it too.” Beautiful, insightful, and…poetic! WOW Best, Loren
[new] LOREN_SOMAN on August 23, 2012 – 11:15pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
John Michael Greer, I’m very glad you decided to comment today. It seems I’m the one whose comment started all this excitment today. Let me introduce myself. My name is Loren Soman and I would like to engage in a friendly open debate with you on the subject of fast vs. slow collapse. I am not a scientist. I am an artist and a musician. This is simply a topic of great interest to me. As you say, your blog is not the place for such a discussion. Unfortunately I do not have my own blog. In any case I am not interested in attracting an audience for my ideas. I just want to dig deeply into these ideas as a way of dicovering the truth. Perhaps the editors of The Oil Drum might consider hosting such a thing? There are lots of people here on TOD who would love to see and join such a discussion. I would probably need a lot help anyway, mostly due to my extremely slow typing speed. Hopefully something could be worked out. Thanks. Best Regards, Loren
[new] John Michael Greer on August 24, 2012 – 12:55am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Oh, man. This is too funny. Loren, you’ve accused me of deliberate dishonesty, labeled my ideas “dumb” and “silly,” made sweeping and wildly inaccurate claims about my motives, mischaracterized my ideas to an extent that makes me wonder if you’ve ever actually read anything I’ve written, flung around insults with a fine disregard for even the most basic notions of civility…but when I show up to comment, all of a sudden you’re all formal politeness and why don’t we have a nice friendly debate? I’m reminded forcibly of the time I watched a cat who’d had a bowel movement on the kitchen floor and was frantically trying to scratch nonexistent sand out of the linoleum to cover it up. I have an alternative suggestion: please go look up the meaning of the phrase “ad hominem argument” and study it until you understand why everybody here but you recognizes that that’s what you’ve engaged in. That said, you mentioned that you disagree with my theory of catabolic collapse. I would be most interested in hearing your reasons for that disagreement; I’ve been waiting since the original paper was first published for somebody to present a meaningful critique of the theory — that is, a critique that showed that the critic had taken the time to understand the theory I propose, and was prepared to present reasoning or evidence to challenge it. If you’ve got such a critique, perhaps you could post it here, or place it with Energy Bulletin. Edit: corrected link
[new] LOREN_SOMAN on August 24, 2012 – 6:46am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Sir, I am all about politeness now because if I am not I will continue to be picked on here and not taken seriously (not feeling sorry for myself, just describing the general situation). I am a serious person and I have serious points to make. Having now adopted the proper attitude as instructed by everyone here, your next move is to not forgive and instead persist in belittling me. Cool. I guess I should have expected this, but I am still surprised. It is so hard to try not to react and to keep from getting drawn into trading insults with you now. If I do, I will be seen as discrediting myself, since at this point many people here seem to think it serves me right. I wonder how long that will last. Comparing me to a cat taking a bowel movement on the kitchen floor…Wow, that’s amazing. You are a very good writer and you are totally rude. Did I really say anything to warrant that? Please quote from my post and find me the exact comment that I made about you that rises to that level. I think this seems like a very desperate way to defend your theory. Just like with Korowicz, I am dismissed with a wave of the hand. But you stopped in to TOD today because you felt you had to. That is progress. Your ideas are under pressure. Maybe you think you had a good day today with some but you may have damaged your reputation with important others, such as Darwinian and Ghung. Risky business. And I did read your paper when it was first published. I even passed it around for other’s to read. I thought it was pretty interesting and there wasn’t much else out there with that much detail at that time. Over the years I’ve become more and more convinced that you are wrong (nothing personal). If you are serious about wanting a meaningful critique of your catabolic collapse theory, I’ll sure take a shot at it. Since I’ve been told by Leanan that slow vs. fast collapse is a valid topic for this forum, I think I will post my short critiques here. I would welcome you to join in if you feel like it. Respectfully walking on egg shells, Loren
[new] John Michael Greer on August 24, 2012 – 12:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Loren, I’ll look forward to your critique.
I think you got a “poetic backhanded indirect ad-hominem” with the linoleum bowel-movement cat analogy from someone who would seem to know better– long beard, white robe and all– so I think you’re even. Personally, I’m unsure I would like to be associatively-analogized with it and might find it offensive. Or funny. Or both. ;D
[new] LOREN_SOMAN on August 26, 2012 – 10:56pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Tribe, HA HA HA! I agree, we’re even. [new] Tribe Of Pangaea- First Member on August 24, 2012 – 12:35am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Ghung, oh for heaven’s sake…

LOL… Too funny/cute! =) But first, John, maybe Ghung has to write a book (or more) and that gets published. Maybe Ghung has. Ghung? ;) If not, I would respectfully suggest you cull all your comments at TOD and compile them into a nice book. (As an aside, publishers seem their own gatekeepers, where their personalities/biases/styles echo the books that get through.) But in any case, one concern with that is that many people don’t necessarily have it in them to write at particular lengths– even to the point of needless verbosity– for a book or even a daily blog. Not that I am necessarily suggesting that, the needless verbosity, of you. So, what seems to end up happening is that certain opinions/ideas get (arguably too much) exposure/salience/distribution/lectures/platforms/etc.. Maybe something near an “idea monoculture”… Like those same “talking heads” I used to endure on tv (long ago when I had a tv)– and often, if not usually, talking about things outside of their area of, say, relative knowledge. I used to wonder why they didn’t bring those more knowledgeable in. Kunstler this, Greer that… as much as I appreciate you both. But I also appreciate a diversity of communication and that which is more along the lines of maybe what could be called short-and-sweet/subtle/obscure/direct/efficient/brief/to-the-point/etc.. Like simple comments in comment sections. And in a sense, that’s what you guys seem in part all about; localisation, “neo-tribalism” and stuff like that. Idea/Opinion democracy. …Now that I think about it, I actually read far more Ghung than Greer… but perhaps there are some Greer ideas/opinions behind Ghung’s. BTW; with regard to collapse, what is ‘fast’ and what is ‘slow’? I ask because, some time ago, I mentioned hereon my sense of the global oil production curve as maybe having a different resolution– like those pixel graphics– than a national oil production curve. (So a global peak may feel more like a plateau, rather like where we don’t notice the curvature of the earth) I mention this because I wonder if a global collapse might have a different “resolution” and therefore relative speed, than a classic/historical and more local collapse that is often referenced (Roman, Mayan, etc.).

[new] John Michael Greer on August 24, 2012 – 1:12am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Tribe, that’s nearly as funny as Loren’s sudden about-face. An idea monoculture? In what possible sense? There are plenty of people in the peak oil blogosphere arguing for a fast collapse, plenty more arguing for a gradual decline, and a very large number insisting that we can have a relatively smooth transition to some kind of green utopia. My viewpoint — which is different from all three of these — is still very much a minority view, denounced in heated if not always accurate terms by all sides. It’s a source of wry amusement to me when people insist that I’m somehow hogging the limelight when all I do is post one essay a week on a blog that nobody, anywhere, is required to read. As for definitions of fast vs. slow, all I can do is reiterate the model that I’ve been proposing all along: “a ragged process of breakdown and decline, consisting of repeated crises on various geographical scales and of varying severity, unfolding over the course of one to three centuries.”

Actually, it’s possible that Loren just read some comments from various readers about etiquette right before responding to your post. At the same time, our corporate oligarchy culture is rife, and saturates us with, ad hominems, snarl words and so forth (A culture based on violence some say.) so I try to see past them/suck them up sometimes. Still, the cat-linoleum analogy was funny and reminds me of a toilet-trained cat You Tube video where the cat could be seen, afterward, scraping/rubbing the toilet seat. As for, as you say, ‘hogging the limelight’, well just looking at your recent article’s comments (assuming it’s The Archdruid Report), you already have 54, and most other, say, “Ghung-level”, blogs seem to struggle to get maybe one every few articles? Over time this– your voice– magnifies. So maybe what I’m suggesting is to consider ‘sharing the limelight’ or more of it, and/or reasonably “flexing” with the comments, such as vis-a-vis this limelight, if you don’t already. I’m inclined to agree with your collapse thing, but in a sense it seems to stand to reason: By your description of it– ragged, etc.– it somehow feels “fractally”, and what with self-similarity/chaos/complexity and all that, again, it seems to stand to reason. I would consider one to three centuries relative to one’s lifespan to be a relatively slow “collapse”. At the same time, ‘collapse’ would seem a curious term to describe something like this, such as where things reconfigure at the same time, but what the hell. [new] LOREN_SOMAN on August 24, 2012 – 7:15am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Tribe Of Pangaea- First Member, You said: “Actually, it’s possible that Loren just read some comments from various readers about etiquette right before responding to your post.” That is precisely what occured. I wonder if I can ever be forgiven.
Let’s all forgive each other, how’s that? And keep doing so. The angels that we are.
[new] LOREN_SOMAN on August 24, 2012 – 8:15am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Thanks Tribe. [new] John Michael Greer on August 24, 2012 – 2:39am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Tribe, the reason I get that many comments — or so I’ve been told by a number of those who make them — is precisely because so many people are tired of the rehashing of conventional wisdom, the endless and pointless arguments, and the other less than amiable features of so many internet forums. If more people read and comment on my blog than the other blogs you have in mind, that’s hardly an argument for scrapping the features that make my blog a little different, and embracing the habits of the blogs these same readers are choosing to avoid — quite the opposite, don’t you think?
John, the Wikipedia entry suggests you are half a century this year. Well I have a better idea than this tack we are on. What do you say? I might have a 50th. birthday present for you if you are interested. In fact it is something I feel is very important that I’d like to discuss with you. That said, how may I reach you?
[new] Ghung on August 24, 2012 – 6:21am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
The question I think most folks skip is; why didn’t Rome, or most previous empires collapse swiftly? Perhaps because they couldn’t; everything was too distributed, too local. Next question: What does our current civilization lack compared to most previous civilizations. What are its unique vulnerabilities?

What lengths-of-time are we talking about with regard to a slow or swift collapse?

What does our current civilization lack compared to most previous civilizations. What are its unique vulnerabilities? ~ Ghung

Maybe this isn’t a global civilization so much as a connected global patchwork of a few civilizations with some commonalities due to their connections. A 100+ Romes each with subtle differences. So if global civilization “collapses”, maybe it’s “just” a case of the clipping and/or atrophying of the various connections and a shrinking of each cell or node. Makes me think of a brain as the globe with each neuron being a city or nation-state and the connections being the synapses. I suppose this kind of thing in a real human being might have them lose motor control, have emotional swings, bouts of paranoia, losses of memory, etc..

[new] LOREN_SOMAN on August 26, 2012 – 11:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Tribe, slow collapse means 200-300 years. fast collapse generally means less than 20 years. 90% or so human die-off. I would argue that it will be much faster, possibly mere weeks or months. Sounds totally wild, huh? I admit, at first it is a little hard to get your head around. You said: “Maybe this isn’t a global civilization so much as a connected global patchwork of a few civilizations with some commonalities due to their connections.” One of the key things here is the commonality of lifestyles all relying on the same highly intereconnected and fragile delivery systems. We have become a world-wide human mono-culture. Think Irish Potato Famine here. The whole system is vulnerable to the slightest disturbance in BAU. We are essentially one sovereign debt default, or hurricane, or terrorist attack, or you name it, from total collapse. In terms of Greer’s terminal patient metaphor or analogy, no matter how long the patient’s life is preserved it still ends the same way. With death. And death is really a rapid phase change from living to non-living. i.e. a fast collapse. I have been invited to do a formal critique of his (slow) catabolic collapse theory by JMG, and time is short, (oh, the pressure) so I’ll have leave it at that for now. Best, Loren

I presume you are going to post your response within a drumbeat comment section? I look forward to it wherever it goes. Don’t forget the ostensible redundancies: Apparently, locally-caught fish, for example, at least where I live, get shipped to Asia and then back again to our grocery stores. If this is the case worldwide and with other products, then removing this simple effect of globalization might go some way toward reducing the down slope. Likewise with apples grown here that compete side-by-side with apples grown elsewhere, like Chile. [new] Darwinian on August 23, 2012 – 4:17pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Loren, thanks for a fantastic post. I read the very long David Korowicz Trade-Off-Financial System Supply-Chain Cross-Contagion: a study in global systemic collapse twice. Now a paper has to be very good to get me to read it twice, especially one that is 75 pages long. But it outlined the best case for a fast collapse I have read… ever. And I was really disappointed with Greer’s response which you outlined above. I would just like to add this to your excellent review. From Greer: A Crisis of Legitimacy.

Money, let us please remember, is not wealth; it’s a set of arbitrary tokens people in complex human societies use to manage the distribution of real wealth; if a monetary system breaks down, other ways can readily be jerry-rigged to keep real wealth moving.

No, that is simply wrong. Though money may not really be considered wealth it will do until wealth comes along. Money, or capital, is what our economy is built around. Money is what you buy groceries with. And without money you cannot do anything, you cannot even keep the electricity flowing in your house. Without money we would have a barter system. What would you trade for a beef roast or 10 pounds of potatoes? But more importantly if had a business with what would you pay your employees? Does Greer think they would work for nothing? Without a liquid currency that everyone trusts the economy comes crashing down, and fast. We live in a totally different world today than did the ancient Romans or the Mayas. We even live in a different world than we did in 1929 when the economy (almost) collapsed in just three years. Back then people went back to the farm. Today the world has almost three and one half times the population we had then. Today there are no farms to go back to. Not one person in 100 knows anything about farming. The collapse will surely come and the crash will be so fast it will shock everyone. It will likely happen in a matter of months. Ron P.

[new] Leanan on August 23, 2012 – 4:26pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

The collapse will surely come and the crash will be so fast it will shock everyone. It will likely happen in a matter of months.

I would bet the mortgage that it doesn’t. Eh, I’m not the gambling type, but I will predict that a few months from now…say, February 2013…people will be still more concerned about the Super Bowl than about energy or finance.

[new] Darwinian on August 23, 2012 – 4:41pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

NO, no, no. I did not mean that the collapse will happen in the next few months, I meant that it will only take a few months from start to finish. A fast collapse rather than a slow collapse, that was the point I was trying to make. If it starts in January 2025 then we will have total collapse before 2026 rolls around. Sorry if I was not clear, I should have caught that before I posted. But then I really expect it to happen before 2025, possibly as soon as 2017 but who knows. I have told all my kids and grandkids that I hope to be safely dead before the collapse happens but now I am having my doubts. But I can still hope. :-) Ron P. [new] wiseindian on August 24, 2012 – 5:53am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

I would bet the mortgage that it doesn’t.

I would too, it’s simple human psychology, we deal well with fast collapses. Martial law, rationing and things like that. A slow collapse is another matter, we have no idea how to deal with it.

[new] LOREN_SOMAN on August 27, 2012 – 2:08am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
wiseindian, Your rational puzzles me a bit (a lot actually). And I’ve seen this idea expressed before (I think it qualifies as a genuine meme), so I’d like to take a close look at some of the logical contradictions inherent in what you are saying. You are implying that we get to choose which outcome will happen based on a personal preference for one or the other. You are also saying that we should logically be more afraid of the consequences of a slow, gradual, hardly noticable collapse as opposed to, say, IMMEDIATE STAVATION! Really? Because we don’t know how to ‘deal’ with a slow collapse? Do you have an idea how to ‘deal’ with immediate starvation? You seem to be confusing how we deal with the IDEA of collapse—with how we deal with the REALITY of an actual collapse, fast or slow. And what if I prefer a fast one and you prefer a slow one? Do we have to choose the same one or do we get to experience alternate realities? Majority rule?
[new] LOREN_SOMAN on August 23, 2012 – 5:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Ron, Thank you so much for helping me to point out just how silly Greer’s position really is. When I first pondered the idea of a fast collapse, it seemed so obvious logical. No subsequent evidence has emerged to change my mind on that. True, if you had told me in 2008 that we would still be here debating this on the Oil Drum by 2012, I would not have taken you seriously. It did not seem possible then that we could have avoided complete collapse by now. For wishful thinkers, I guess this is evidence that the original idea must have been wrong. For people like me, it is very frustrating, but until I see some real evidence to the contrary, it is still hard for me to change my mind. Your post concludes with: “The collapse will surely come and the crash will be so fast it will shock everyone. It will likely happen in a matter of months.” I completely agree. I think things are beginning to slip as we speak.
[new] jokuhl on August 23, 2012 – 8:39pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
One thing that makes predicting this sort of thing so thorny (and contentious), is that we now have the technology to look at the entire globe and the peoples across it.. we have a number of connections, economic, trade, cultural, contractual that provide bonds and make the world look in some ways more homogenous and unified.. which makes some think that any fall will surely entangle and drag down all these connected nations and peoples.. and yet, there are cultural, environmental, resource and pure distance and geographical distinctions to every inhabited region, and after a certain degree of energy decline and maybe cultural or economic chaos, it seems quite likely that there will be a greater gulf between regions on widely varying scales.. some isolated places will lose their imports, but will find the local riches to be able to continue on quite well.. and may be enough out of the way that invasion or colonization would be unlikely. Point is, these sorts of variations will be reengaged in peoples all over the world, and some will find they are in places that cannot survive without the umbilical of cheap energy and goods, some will have wars, either ruinous or ultimately redrawing borders.. while other places will be able to regrow. Painting ‘The Collapse’ in any sort of monolithic framing seems too simplistic, while the potential for varied responses also, in my mind, would make the ‘average decline’ much milder than the one that the fast crashers often paint as if it were going to be that way everywhere..
[new] Jedi Welder on August 24, 2012 – 4:31am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

The collapse will surely come and the crash will be so fast it will shock everyone. It will likely happen in a matter of months.

Wow, you realy are a doomer. I will refrain from jokes about december 21. Although I plan to throw a party that day. I don’t think there is more than a narrow chance of a fast collapse any time soon. But I also find it equally impossible to avoid it long term. Imagine two islands moving apart from each other through super fast tectonic movements (say Cm/day). There is a bridge between them, but no more building material. Engineers are working every day to canibalize the bridge for material and stretch the bridge further and further, thus making it more and more fragile. That is what we are doing with the world economy (from eco systems and natural resourses, to jobs and financial instruemts). There are still room to stretch resources over even bigger gaps, but when it comes down, it will. More and more people are adding weight to a resource base that don’t grow and partly is even shrinking. The reason I don’t see the fast collapse on the emediate horizon is that I expect noise and rumblings before it happen. Call it pre-quakes if you want to. While things are happening right now and the situation is much worse than just 5 years ago, and that indicate we are moving closer towards the inevitable, we still have some more distance to cover. The world ain’t shaking enough. I may re-evaluate this analysis at any point in the future. EDIT: I now read Leanans comment,and your comment to hers. This was fun!

[new] orbit7er on August 24, 2012 – 8:41am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Darwinian writes:

Back then people went back to the farm. Today the world has almost three and one half times the population we had then. Today there are no farms to go back to.

Looking out the windows of my concrete and steel suburban Corporate office building I see trees, acres of grass and at night herds of deer. In the USA at least all those old farms plowed under for surburban sprawl have just been converted to energy wasting lawns of grass and asphalt parking lots. The deer can be hunted. Lawns can grow vegetables again. Acres of asphalt parking lots can be torn up and food planted in them again. Even in Manhattan public schools are growing their own vegetables! Lets not overlook the resources right in front of our own eyes out here in the suburban wasteland…

[new] Darwinian on August 24, 2012 – 8:54am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Yes, when the economy collapses you can just start growing food on your lawn. After cultivating them for a year, and keeping starving people out by keeping watch all night, you might get enough food to keep you alive for a month or so, or until the food rotted.

The deer can be hunted.

Yes they can. By the end of the first year we will have eaten the songbirds out of the trees. Ron P.

[new] Jedi Welder on August 25, 2012 – 10:58am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

The Swedish army calculates the swedish forests can sustain a population of 50 000 (hunting/gathering). This is the pop we had before agriculture. We are now 9 million. [new] John Michael Greer on August 23, 2012 – 9:23pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Loren, the fact that you disagree with my viewpoint — or, more precisely, your rather remarkable distortion of my viewpoint, speaking of straw men — is hardly grounds for claiming that I’m being deliberately dishonest. I disagree with your viewpoint — does that make you a liar? Of course not. Neither you nor I nor anyone knows in advance how this is going to play out. I hold, for reasons I’ve discussed at great length in four books and six years of blog posts, that the end of the industrial age is most likely to involve a long ragged sequence of messy crises followed by periods of relative stabilization and partial recovery. To use the metaphor of the terminally ill patient, which you somehow managed to misunderstand — please look up the meaning of the phrase “terminally ill” sometime — the doctors get his heart started again, but the underlying disease remains and worsens; there will be more heart failures, more crises, a steady decrease in vital signs and quality-of-life issues, and sooner or later the doctors aren’t going to manage to revive him. Is that what’s going to happen? Good question. Again, neither you nor I nor anyone knows. What I’m saying is that, in my view, this is the most likely scenario, and that most fast-collapse arguments share a set of flaws that, in my view, make them very implausible. You don’t have to agree with that view, but that’s the way I see things, and this notion of yours that I must be deliberately lying because I couldn’t possibly disagree with you for honest reasons is really a bit much.
[new] Darwinian on August 23, 2012 – 9:46pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
John, in times past I have been one of your greatest supporters on TOD. When others have criticized you I have come to your defense. But here I must side with avid Korowicz. I read his paper… twice… and found it absolutely compelling. I did not find your refutation, such as it was, very compelling. Your dismissal of the role of money I found especially weak. If money collapses, people cannot live, they cannot buy the necessities of life. People are civilization, not wealth. People must eat, people must have shelter, people must have a means of support. Without money they have nothing regardless of what they possess in the form of tangible wealth other than currency. People on this list talk of what we waste and how if we only stopped wasting so much then we could get by with a lot less. Perhaps but all that waste is produced by someone else’s gainful employment. When the majority of people in a society are unemployed the system collapses. End of story. During the great depression we had only 25 percent unemployed. If we get to 50 percent unemployed we will, I believe, have total collapse. That can happen fast, very fast. And that is the difference in times today and times past. Back then people were closer to the land. Even if they lived in the city they purchased food from peddlers on the street and small shops who got the produce directly from those who grew it. Not so today. Food comes mostly from a can or from a factory farm. Things are totally different today. Ron P.
[new] AlanfromBigEasy on August 23, 2012 – 9:52pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
In occupied Germany, money was cigarettes. Switching from a failed currency to a new one has been done *SO* many times in history, and never caused a complete and utter collapse of society that I can think of. I was tempted to read his analysis, but if that is all it is about, I won’t bother. Currency & Financial Collapse /= Social Collapse. Hundreds (thousands ?) of examples and not one contra example I can think of. Good to own gold & silver then, of course. Alan
[new] John Michael Greer on August 23, 2012 – 11:37pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Alan, thank you. You beat me to it!
[new] Darwinian on August 24, 2012 – 6:52am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
That’s it? That’s your answer? Cigarettes or gold trinkets? You are going to run a society on that? Or liquor? Now I know no slow crash advocate has ever given this problem much thought. If you had you would not post such a silly answer as that. In a partial collapse, one that affected only a few and a few countries one could get by by trading what few items they have. But a total collapse these kind of items would be of use only to a very few and then only for a few days. The cigarettes would be smoked and the liquor would be drank and there would be no more coming down the pike… ever. And people would soon find that their gold trinkets would be of little value. They could not eat any of them. I do not consider your or Alan’s reply a reply at all. You are going to run the world by trading trinkets, cigarettes and liquor. Even manufacturers and service employers will pay their employees with them. As Charlie Brown often says. Good Grief! Ron P. Edit: But Alan and John, I do thank you for your answer. I am going to save it and use it every time someone talks argues for a slow crash. It will always settle the debate.
[new] Leanan on August 24, 2012 – 7:20am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
I agree with them. Financial collapse is not the same as societal collapse. Many countries have suffered financial collapse without suffering societal collapse. Korowicz’s arguments remind of the ones Stoneleigh made before and during the 2008 crisis. I think she was definitely onto something. There were rumors of goods piled up on docks, because the credit lines had dried up. And remember how we were all watching the Baltic Dry Index? But it didn’t translate into empty store shelves. And while I generally find “this time it’s different” arguments suspect…in this case, I wonder if it might really be different. In particular, we are so close to a cashless economy. We use credit cards, debit cards, and cell phones to pay for everything. Even food stamps are debit cards now. There was an unexpected delay when I closed my HSBC account and opened an account at my local credit union, and I had to go a couple of months without cash. It was no hardship at all. Even the farmer’s market takes plastic these days. In Argentina, a lot of the hardship was caused by the government’s attempt to keep people from moving cash outside the country. They limited withdrawals, and it wasn’t enough to live on. But if money is electrons instead of paper, they could keep it in the country without limiting how people spent it domestically. I dunno, maybe it would somehow make things worse instead of better. But given the wide range of scenarios we’ve seen from past financial crises…I don’t think anyone can say for certain that financial collapse would lead to societal collapse, never mind predict the speed at which it would happen.
[new] Darwinian on August 24, 2012 – 7:32am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Okay, now I understand. No one in this debate arguing for slow collapse has even bothered to read the David Korowicz paper. Too long and too much trouble I suppose. And besides, you already have you mind made up and that’s it.

In terms of impact, a large-scale financial collapse would far surpass the fuel blockades in impact and speed of onset. The movement of goods, people, and critical functions would be rapidly affected. The catastrophic impact arising from McKinnon’s study would be merely a sub-set of the potential impact.

He is talking about the real life fuel blockades in the United Kingdom in 2000. Grocery store shelves had began to empty and people were starting to panic. A full scale financial meltdown would far surpass anything that has ever happened… anywhere. I understand now Leanan. Thanks for your reply. Ron P.

[new] Leanan on August 24, 2012 – 7:42am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
I’m arguing that we really don’t know, more than for slow collapse. I don’t think anyone can be sure, one way or other, about this topic. It’s possible for intelligent, well-informed people to disagree about this. I’m also reminded of those studies that found the most accurate predictions about the future are made by those who are least sure they are right.
[new] Darwinian on August 24, 2012 – 7:59am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments topYes we do know. We do know what would have happened in the UK if the trucks had not started rolling again. We know what happened in 1932 when 25 percent of the workforce was out of work. We know what would happen if there were no currency to pay anyone with. We know what would happen if world commerce came to a halt. And I do not believe for one minute that David Korowicz has any serious doubts as to what would happen in the event of a worldwide financial meltdown. Saying that he is amount the least sure of the results of his study is just not accurate, not by a long shot. And I also understand that if a strong argument needs to be made it will take many pages to cover all bases, all counter arguments. But if one were to do that then the study would be too long for anyone to read it, especially those who are already sure of their current beliefs. I repeat my earlier argument. No one on this list, or on any other blog has refuted the points made in the David Korowicz study. That’s because they have not read it so how could they possibly refute it. Ron P.
[new] Leanan on August 24, 2012 – 9:04am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

We do know what would have happened in the UK if the trucks had not started rolling again.

Actually…I don’t think we do. Moreover, we don’t know that the trucks will stop rolling. And if they do, it might not be permanent. One thing that’s become clear to me over the past few years is that collapse is not a one-way street. There are stair steps up as well as down. New Orleans was a Mad Max nightmare come true. But they recovered. Not fully, but they’re hosting the next Super Bowl. Similarly, the chaos after the hurricanes, with fistfights at gas stations, people sleeping at work because they couldn’t get gas, the National Guard protecting fuel tankers, and drivers filling up even their coffee cups with gas when it was available – didn’t last.

And I do not believe for one minute that David Korowicz has any serious doubts as to what would happen in the event of a worldwide financial meltdown.

And that increases the chances of his being wrong

[new] LOREN_SOMAN on August 27, 2012 – 12:19am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Leanan, “Not fully, but they’re hosting the next Super Bowl.” Maybe, maybe not. Philosophically speaking, your idea of what is certain in the future is really not any more certain than an immediate, total, rapid collapse. The future is inherently unknowable, right? I think Darwinian is right. People who want to argue against a fast collapse really ought to read the Korowicz paper. –Loren

 

 

Let’s Get Real

Before I post chapter 2 of “The Cat in John Michael Greer’s Kitchen”, I just wanted to take a brief time out here and switch gears to my upcoming analysis of Greer’s Theory of Catabolic Collapse.  As has been documented in my previous post, John Michael Greer himself has invited me to write a formal critique of his theory.  I am beginning that exciting process as we speak.  What follows here grows out of that effort, but should not be mistaken as the formal critique itself.  In fact, this page is meant as a serious critique in terms of content, but it’s tone is more that of a scathing, sarcastic, rude (and hopefully humorous) attack on both the theory and it’s creator.  And it should by no means be considered complete.
To get the ball rolling, I would first like to closely examine the ad hominem attack I was accused of making last week.  Here is the critical part of my original post on theoildrum regarding Greer’s offhanded blog response to David Korowicz’s excruciatingly thorough Trade-Off: Financial System Supply-Chain Cross-Contagion: a study in global systemic collapse , which I would recommend everyone read now, if you have not done so already.
LOREN_SOMAN on August 23, 2012 – 3:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Leanan,…
…Greer’s rebuttal of Korowicz’s paper is intentionally dishonest, misleading, insulting, and completely inadequate (i.e. silly). If anyone on this site wants to take up and champion Greer’s cause, or if Greer himself were to debate this on this site, I think it would be the best discussion The Oil Drum has ever had. Greer’s position is so obviously the losing one. I guess it is always socially easier to agree to disagree than to have one side actually lose the argument.

This attack, as written, is technically an ad hominem attack; but it is a special exception to the usual rule, and is known as a valid ad hominem attack.  From an article in Scientific American called “Character Attacks: How to Properly Apply the Ad Hominem” by Yvonne Raley.
“Although ad hominem arguments have long been considered errors in reasoning, a recent analysis suggests that this is not always the case. In his new book, Media Argumentation: Dialectic, Persuasion, and Rhetoric, University of Winnipeg philosopher Douglas Walton proposes that fallacies such as the ad hominem are better understood as perversions or corruptions of perfectly good arguments. Regarding the ad hominem, Walton contends that although such attacks are usually fallacious, they can be legitimate when a character critique is directly or indirect­ly related to the point being articulated….
…What types of ad hominems might then be justified? Walton argues that  an ad hominem is valid when the claims made about a person’s character or actions are relevant to the conclusions being drawn. Consider, for example, former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, who was caught on a wiretap arranging to hire a prostitute for $4,300. Because this behavior ran counter to Spitzer’s anticorruption platform, its unveiling would prevent Spitzer from governing successfully; thus, criticizing this aspect of his character was relevant and fair. In an earlier scandal, in 1987, televangelist Jimmy Swaggart was seen at a motel with a prostitute. Because his behavior undercut his preaching and status as a Christian role model, a character attack based on this incident would have been spot-on.”
So, with all that in mind, let me make something perfectly clear right here and now that I obviously would never be allowed to say on theoildrum.com:

John Michael Greer is a Charlatan!

Let me say that again.  John Michael Greer is a modern day, snake oil selling charlatan.  I just wish I could say it louder.  I will now offer the following indictment in support of my position.

Why John Michael Greer is a Charlatan

1.  John Michael Greer does not seem to want to discuss his actual theory very much.

See if you can find a very good explanation of catabolic collapse from the threads in question.  Real scientists and academicians do not miss the chance to explain their ideas.

2.  John Michael Greer does not seem to much like questions or comments opposing his ideas, and in fact does not allow them on his own blog.

This is also inconsistent with the general attitude common to real researchers, scientists, and academicians (and that includes historians).
Ghung on August 23, 2012 – 7:28pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

“Instead of sniping at JMG here on TOD, why don’t you engage him on his blog?” Tried that. See below. But it’s his blog, and he controls the discussion, and is generally dismissive of those who may disagree with the story he’s telling. I respect his perogative to do so, if not always his conclusions.
And: John Michael Greer on August 24, 2012 – 12:13am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Ghung, I don’t discourage challenges to my conclusions; you’re free to challenge my conclusions anywhere else on the web you want. notanoilman on August 24, 2012 – 2:18am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

‘anywhere else on the web’ but where? NAOM John Michael Greer on August 24, 2012 – 12:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Anywhere else but on the comments page of my blog, where he’s already repeatedly stated his opinion on the subject.

3.  John Michael Greer seems quite proud of his position with regard to not entertaining opposing ideas on his own blog.

He seems preoccupied with commerce and popularity, as opposed to ideas.
John Michael Greer on August 24, 2012 – 2:39am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Tribe, the reason I get that many comments — or so I’ve been told by a number of those who make them — is precisely because so many people are tired of the rehashing of conventional wisdom, the endless and pointless arguments, and the other less than amiable features of so many internet forums. If more people read and comment on my blog than the other blogs you have in mind, that’s hardly an argument for scrapping the features that make my blog a little different, and embracing the habits of the blogs these same readers are choosing to avoid — quite the opposite, don’t you think?
And:
Ron,… …I’d also point out that it’s ironic, to use no stronger word, that this tempest in an oil drum should have blown up shortly after a lengthy discussion, on this same forum, of the fact that online attention to peak oil sites such as this one has been dropping since 2008. I haven’t had that experience on The Archdruid Report, oddly enough; my page views per month have been climbing steadily during that same period. Could it be that this is because most online peak oil forums keep on rehashing the same tired debates in the same stereotyped terms, and my blog doesn’t? It’s an interesting question to which I don’t have a firm answer — but I do have my suspicions.

4.  John Michael Greer is quite fond of accusing his detractors of not understanding his ‘theory’.

This is a common defense often used by charlatans.
Some examples from the thread:
“The arguments I offered haven’t been refuted, or even addressed, by Korowicz — or, indeed, any of the studies just mentioned.”
“Richard, thank you for the vote of confidence, and also for actually paying attention to what I’ve been saying! It’s seemingly a rare habit.”
“Loren, you’ve…mischaracterized my ideas to an extent that makes me wonder if you’ve ever actually read anything I’ve written….”
“(the tone)…of his [Rob Hopkins] response took me aback, and so did the number of misrepresentations that found their way into it; I have no objection to criticism – quite the contrary, an idea that can’t stand up to honest criticism isn’t worth having in the first place – but it might have been helpful if Hopkins had taken the time to be sure the ideas he was criticizing were ones I’ve actually proposed…”

5.  John Michael Greer is not even taken seriously by the academic community he pretends to be a part of!

…I’ve been waiting since the original paper was first published for somebody to present a meaningful critique of the theory — that is, a critique that showed that the critic had taken the time to understand the theory I propose, and was prepared to present reasoning or evidence to challenge it.

6.  John Michael Greer speaks in analogies and metaphors.

The terminally ill patient metaphor comes to mind.
From an analysis by “Prestige” on James Randi Educational Foundation web site, whose founder is a long time debunker of frauds and a personal hero of mine.  This took place on their discussion forum way back in 2007:
“The idea of catabolic collapse is simple enough, and it’s best communicated through a metaphor.
     —-John Michael Greer
No. Absolutely not. First, an idea is always best communicated in its own terms, not in terms of something else.
Second, if his idea really is “simple enough”, he should have no trouble explaining it simply enough in its own terms.
Third, the problem with metaphors and analogies is that they require you to assume as given things that have yet to be established. In this case, the author wants us to assume as given that civilizations share certain fundamental constraints, dynamics and consequences with home ownership.
…This use of metaphor, in place of actual research, of analogy in place of evidence, is a lie. A cheat. A fraud.
An analogy might be useful for introducing schoolchildren to novel concepts that are not “simple enough” in their own terms. And even then, the concepts they introduce have been thoroughly researched and proven, in their own terms, by people who are not schoolchildren.
We’re not schoolchildren. To be lectured as if we were, with childish and simplistic analogies, is insulting enough. When that lecture is delivered by someone whose own efforts on the subject show no signs of having progressed beyond such childishness, it is downright laughable.

7.  John Michael Greer seems to be revising his ‘theory’ on the fly.

It is hard to critique a moving target.
John Michael Greer on August 24, 2012 – 12:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
Richard,…
…Yes, I’m arguing for a stairstep or, as I’m thinking of it these days, a fractal collapse — a long ragged process packed with crises on various scales and of varying severity, taking one to three centuries to complete the descent into the deindustrial dark ages.

8.  John Michael Greer’s ‘theory’ is not even a proper theory in the first place.

But that’s OK since I’ll bet that his biggest supporters on the oildrum have not even bothered to read it anyway.
Once again from “Prestige” of the James Randi Educational Foundation discussion forum:
“In the final paragraph of his paper:
     1. He hasn’t done any of the hard work necessary to validate his proposal.
Such assessments of past and present societies, in order to achieve a high degree of analytic or predictive value, require careful quantitative analysis of a sort this paper has not attempted.
(page 12, paragraph 2, sentence 1)
     2. In fact, it may be impossible to validate his proposal.
Since each element in the conceptual model presented here stands for a diverse and constantly changing set of variables, such analysis offers significant challenges, and in many historical examples it may be impossible to go beyond proxy measurements of uncertain value for crucial variables.
(page 12, paragraph 2, sentence 2)
     3. He’s willing to admit supposition in place of actual evidence or serious research efforts
However, general patterns corresponding to the catabolic collapse model may be easier to extract from incomplete data.
(page 12, paragraph 2, sentence 3)
     4. In closing, he asserts that such supposition should be biased in favor of his proposal.
Any society that displays broad increases in most measures of capital production coupled with signs of serious depletion of key resources, in particular, may be considered a potential candidate for catabolic collapse.
(page 12, paragraph 2, sentence 4)”
And further:
“…Also, the research isn’t very detailed, and the detail is most notably absent from the parts of the examples that are supposed to support his claims. He even admits as much: “… careful quantitative analysis of a sort this paper has not attempted”.
…After admitting that actual evidence may be difficult or impossible to obtain, he says, “general patterns corresponding to the catabolic collapse model may be easier to extract from incomplete data”. He’s suggesting that anything that looks like his model can be supposed to validate his model.
…So don’t you find bias in favor of an untested, unsupported, unresearched model a little problematic?”
                                        ___________________________
This breakdown doesn’t begin to critique the so called Theory of Catabolic Collapse from a standpoint of the actual scientific evidence available or with reference to actual scientific theories that stand in stark opposition.  I will begin to outline those objections in the next post.
In any event, I invite any and all comments, questions, objections, or whatever to this or any other blog entry I submit, and I will attempt to answer each and every one directly.  Take your best shot.  I gladly welcome a free and open discussion of ideas on my blog, unlike some people I know.
Until next time,
—–FUTILITIST
PS—Perhaps the con man has, wisely, already left town.  From Greer’s latest blog entry:
“It has been three years now since I took a break from these weekly essays, and for a number of reasons, now’s a good time not to take that any further. The fictional scenario that was going to be the last post in this series of three has unexpectedly grown into an extended narrative five posts long, one that needs to be filled out by a good deal of further research; I also have a contract, finally, for the Green Wizardry book project, and a major writing project on the other side of my career, both of which could use some concentrated attention just now.
This will therefore be the last Archdruid Report post until the beginning of October. I’ll be responding to comments on this post for the next week or so, but after that, you’re on your own for the month of September. Put the time you’d spend reading these essays into digging in your gardens, building solar ovens, learning to brew beer, or in some other way developing skills that will help you weather the opening years of the deindustrial age, and you’ll be ahead of the game. See you again on October 3!”
                                                                                            —John Michael Greer
I guess we will have to wait until then to see if John Michael Greer shows his white robed, long bearded, snake oil selling, charlatan face ever again!
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