http://science.reddit.com/info/5zok9/comments/

thanks for your support.

4) The stigma of determinism and fear of sociobiology needs to be discarded. The answers to the large scale human problems cannot be solved by facts and science of the outside world alone - we need to incorporate facts about who we are into the equation. The nature and nurture debate has raged for too long without meaningful synergy - there is no nurture without nature. But nurture is how we are going to get through this energy bottleneck.

The problem is that we *don't* all agree that we have a science of sociobiology. It's status as a science in itself is highly in dispute, particularly its current incarnation, evolutionary psychology. Yes, you've mentioned some psychological experiments above, but even they crucially depend on the assumption that the environments in which they are tested aren't deeply biased. Could you repeat the Milgram experiment in every time and place? We don't know, because the times and places vary wildly.

There maybe no nurture without nature, but we don't even know yet which is which.

Also, most of the dispute is not *merely* the geological fact of Peak Oil. Even the most diehard libertarian, deathly afraid that recognition of Peak Oil will result in the sin of planning, accepts that any finite resource with a limited rate of extraction MUST peak...at some point.

The disagreement is whether we can adapt without catastrophe, and they claim that the facts of human nature suggest that we can adapt, when allowed to do so when the price reaches the appropriate level. So I'm not sure whether anything in this article really bears on the survival question.

"Ive never said when Peak Oil would be, only that it would eventually mean the end of economic growth as we know it - and that technology and capital can't 'create' energy. "

Nate, you're not just asking your friend to accept Peak Oil, you're asking him to accept a lot of other theories:

that:

Peak Oil equals Peak Fossil Fuels,
Peak FF equals Peak Energy,
Peak Energy equals Peak Economic Growth.

In the strong form (Peak "A" MUST equal Peak "B"), these are clearly false. Even if they weren't, as you note in your discussion of information overload, that is indeed a whole lot of stuff to expect him to absorb all at once. You might want to start with just educating him about Peak Oil...

I read this when you first posted it Nate; I liked it so much I wanted to copy it to my HD but something came up and I lost track. Thanks for reposting it. This time I'll make sure I put it on the H.D.

"you can cure ignorance, but you can't educate stupitidy"

cc

An individual transition to a new belief system of whatever sort requires much effort. You have to dump out the old ideas , become convinced of new, readjust everything in your thought processes and daily life to take account of the new paradigm, religion, political theory, whatever. Everything you ever thought or believed may need to be rethought to fit into the new paradigm. This takes lots of time and energy and commitment and if EROEI is not sufficient then the job won't be taken on. If it ain'T broke then don't fix it. You need a supportive environment of literature, support groups, leaders, etc. so that psychological isolation and or pariah status status does not ensue the switch. Perhaps the switch has to be made gradually or perhaps a shock therapy is necessary where "the truth" is suddenly recognized and then slowly adapted to.

Others come along slowly letting an idea filter into their reality in bits and pieces until one day they wake saying "they knew it all along" generally when most people have "gotten it" too. In the case of global warming or PO it seems that the vast majority of the population takes this stance and then we get the "tipping point" where only a few "reactionaries" still hold on to "denailist attitudes". However hardcore activists such as on this website active are probably always the smallest subset of people and foment revolutionary cells or new religions or scientific paradigms waiting for the most opportune moment to create the "public opinion tipping point". This is propaganda basics or PR101.

I personally believe that the wrold is just about at the public opinion tipping point which will change everything. We just need some sort of event or definitve proof of theory where even the last of the hard score skeptics throws in the towel and calls it a day preferring another job that is easier, i.e. one where where the people don't start to jeer when he steps up to the podium to make his speech.

“Without a video the people perish”-Is. 13:24

Our societal infrastructure was built with and expected to continue on cheap liquid fuels.

I was so hoping for more expansion on this. :-(

Otherwise from the work noted here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus!_Trilogy

I'm reminded of a passage between Hagbard and George. George is handed a gun by Hagbard and then 'cycles' through all of his past 'successful' behaviors and when they 'fail', George is left crying.

Hagbard then comments on man learning a behavior then trying that behavior "over and over" even with failure.

It strikes me that Man will use the past behaviors (burn everything, go at your neighbors with knifes to take what they have, and other destructive behaviors before trying something else.

I noticed myself yo-yo-ing on peak oil and climate change depending on who I talked to or what Id seen. I started to notice a pattern that my 'belief' was highly correlated to whatever I'd read or whoever I'd spoken to most recently.

Try listening to wack-job radio/TV (GCN, RBN, FOX, Le Show et la) then walk away without some change.

Oh and you don't see the Fnords^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpeak oil, there is no Fnords^H^H^H^H^H^Hpeak oil.

The news media, politicians (including the U.S. president), some environmentalists, and some scientists have been telling the public for years that we will develop significant quantities of alternative energies. But according to government and scientific studies, all of these sources will yield at most a few million additional barrels of liquid fuels per day (this includes coal liquifaction [GTL], hydrogen, oil sands, oil shale, biofuels, and solar.). This literature is reviewed on pages 16-29 of the following report: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html The public and some scientists do not understand that the major problem is the lack of liquid fuels and fertilizer. Thus, unlimited availability of the electric power will not solve our problems. Although we can develop liquid fuels from solar energy, the quantity is meager, according to scientific studies. The public and leaders in business, government, and the media need to read and comprehend all of this, which is highly unlikely. As a consequence, there is an ingrained belief that we can put ingenuity, hard work, technology, and resources into fixing the energy problems facing the world and the U.S. in particular. This another reason why the public, media, and leaders are generally complacent about the crises that await us in the near future. In the last few weeks, a large number of voices have indicated that global oil production peaked in 2006.

Nate,

Did you not mean to say, "our cognitive belief **bases**" rather than just "biases"?

In a snippet I caught on PBS, a scientist was explaining that human symbol manipulation is built up hierarchically in the brain.

In other words, each complex cognition associates itself with a handful of simpler cognitions, and those each network in tree like, root-to-leaves fashion to even more basic cognitions.

It could be that your friend's tree is built on "market funda-mentals" while your tree is built on "physics funda-mentals".

You both make similar noises, but they decode very differently in your internal mental trees.

Nick,

The Union of Concerned Scientists (MIT based organization of scientists and citizens who promote renewable energy sources and conservation) concluded in "Renewing Where We Live" http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/clean_energy_policies/renewing-where-... (2003) that with a maximum effort, the U.S. could "achieve 20% of electric supply from renewables" (including hydroelectric power). This would reduce natural gas consumption (used for generating electricity) by 6%. Natural gas provides 23% of total energy supply; hence, solar could add a little more that 1% (6% X 23% = 1.38%) of total energy supply. Because hydroelectric dams are ecologically damaging to rivers and estuaries (artificial lake creation, higher water temperatures, eutrophication, and loss of habitats and farms lands), both the Union of Concerned Scientists and the NAS/NAE "Energy in Transition 1985-2010" http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11771&page=R1 study oppose the expansion of this source. And there are few rivers remaining that can be dammed for hydroelectric power generation. Solar and wind power development is limited for several reasons. (1) Areas with ample sun light or wind are limited. (2) Constructing solar panels and wind turbines uses much energy, as does running power lines to far away cities. (3) Spreading solar panels (or wind turbines) over a large area will degrade vegetation and animal habitats in fragile deserts and semi-arid areas. Precipitation on steel and aluminum panels reduces water reaching the ground and it causes oxidation of supporting structures and leaches metal oxides into soils and aquifers. Cleaning and maintaining a vast array of solar panels requires road construction and vehicular operations over vast areas of fragile land. Given the enormous investment costs for home-based solar or wind turbine installations, individuals will not be able to afford solar and electric cars. And now, with the price of oil going up, these costs will increase.

This is probably one of the top 10 postings IMHO.

I've been collecting posts on the difficulties people have had convincing their family and friends for over seven years now. To see illustrations of Nate's column, I've posted my favorite comments from energyresources and runningonempty between 2000 and 2005 at

http://www.energyskeptic.com/TellingOthers.nxg

My husband is a techno-optimist, an extremely bright, funny, aware person, but we can't talk about energy or we get into a huge fight, so we don't talk about it at all. He believes a solution will be found. To undermine that belief, I've been writing about the problems with each alternative when I can find the time.

He "subscribes" to me through google alerts, so if I post an article on energy, he'll get an email and read my article -- that's one of the reasons I wrote "Peak Oil and the Preservation of Knowledge", "Peak Soil: Why Cellulosic and other Biofuels are Not Sustainable and a Threat to America’s National Security", "The Hydrogen Economy – Energy and Economic Black Hole", etc. But he still believes one or more of solar, wind, nuclear, and coal will bail us out -- by the time I write those articles it will be too late, sigh...

Alice

I am new here and just found out about peak oil last week.
I am convinced about it, but not the timing. I am only about 50% convinced that we are now at the peak or will arrive there within a few years.
Yes, it is a geologic fact that we are running out of oil, but I am seeing that the peak oil phenomena is really an outgrowth of our economic-political systems.
What if we did have real planning? The peak oil curve would not have to look the way it does. It is a real indictment of the society we have built, to reach such a precipitous state concerning energy.

What I think is that the average person is not interested about peak oil because there is very little to be done about it on the individual level; especially when the timing of it is uncertain and there is such conflicting information. When oil and gas prices start to climb higher and higher, then more people will be convinced.

I am personally not seeing that I can take action until there is more certainty that it is really upon us. Even then, I have relationship considerations, my partner would need to be convinced etc. Luckily I do not commmute far and don't have a huge amount of debt. Probably the best I can do is to keep my 1994 Honda Civic VX running.

Real leadership would mean that the issue of over-dependence on oil as our energy source would have been addressed many years ago instead of having confidence in the magic of free markets.

Supposing peak oil is not upon us now but is in 30 or 40 years? Then what is the psychology of those who are believing it is happening now? It seems to me that there is a bit of a righteous presumption in this article.

"Luckily I do not commmute far and don't have a huge amount of debt."

And there you have it. Do a quick math exercise: Calculate which will save you more money at various gasoline (or in my case, Diesel) consumption for your commute distance. Now calculate what you are paying in interest for any debt outstanding. Question: Which will pay you more in actual money, reducing (or best, doing away with) you debt load, or changing your commute distance. In most cases in these United States, doing away with debt pays much more in dividends than changing commute time or vehicle to reduce fuel consumption.

So, for now, is it peak oil or peak money? People will do whatthey think rewards them.

Remember, the "financial services" community (what a misnomer that one is!), makes more combined profit than the oil and gas companies.

RC

VERY NICE! Well done.

For the record.

-- if the Pope says it, it must be wrong. How's that for a belief LOL. Basically QUESTION and CHALLENGE authority. Just because so-and-so says something does NOT mean it is true or will become reality (take note Gore and Lovelock worshippers).

-- I don't believe anything. I let the evidence tell me the direction I should accept as reality. Subject to change due to changing evidence. The old adage "I change my opinions when new evidence comes to light, what do you do?" (people hate change)

-- The glass only contained half of it's capacity. If you do not know how that state came to be, you cannot say it is half full (as in half filled) or half empty (as in half removed).

-- Is anyone really ahead of their time? Or is it the belief system of the majority of people prevents them from seeing what new items are presented to them? It's the latter, hence my motto below.

-- and lastly. The more complex society becomes, the more fantasy the public will invoke to explain it.

Richard Wakefield
London, Ont.

No one is ahead of their time, just the rest of humanity is slow to catch on.

NNate,

It is a nice article but your attempt to import cognitive findings to help make your points is misplaced in a couple of respects. I think you can strengthen your points by correcting these issues. First, cognitive load experiments such as in your example explore people’s ability to do two tasks simultaneously. For the higher level cognition that is relevant for us here, the overwhelming evidence is that people simply can’t do two tasks at once. It may seem like we multi-task by thinking about two things genuinely in parallel, but the evidence indicates that we are in fact interleaving our attention to one task and then the next. But that is hard to do, so usually we don’t even do that. In the real world, therefore, when people hear about peak oil, they are not attempting to do something else simultaneously. All their attention is focused on the peak oil argument, or none is. The fact that people do not head warnings such as peak oil warnings even after they attend to them is therefore not explained by cognitive load research, as I assume was your intended point. What may be true, and is in the same vein as your point, is that most people are just too busy to have much time for the news. It is better just to say that than to attempt to make weak connections to cognitive load experiments. While it is true that, as predicted by cognitive load theory, we cannot think about peak oil and do our taxes at the same time, that fact does not shed any real light on the behavior that you seek to explain.

Second, the recency effect in short-term memory experiments lasts for only a few seconds, as does short-term (or working) memory (though in pop media it is often not represented that way). The intervals between our encounterings of arguments about peak oil are usually on the order of minutes, hours, or days, well outside the range of short-term memory. The recency effects you describe regarding peal oil learning are real, but they have little or nothing to do with short-term memory or the recency effects in short-term memory. Instead, they are, in part, long-term memory updating phenomena. When a person takes a stand on something, their argument is of course primarily devoted to the evidence supporting their case. The consequence is an updating of your long-term memory on the topic in a one-sided way. The first few times you hear an argument about peak oil (for example) there is not much information in your long-term memory about the topic, so there is substantial updating and a potentially large change in opinion. Thus, early in learning we may find ourselves being jerked back and forth in our views when hearing differing opinions. This can be compounded if we have a strong predisposition to believe in the argument that is false (e.g., not wanting to accept peak oil). As our database in long-term memory grows, however, each new argument we hear contains less new information and so there is less updating and our views are jerked around less and less. Short-term memory recency effects, in addition to being on the wrong time scale, cannot explain that fact. There is also gradual forgetting in long-term memory, so that more recently encountered evidence may be better remembered, and that can be thought of as a recency effect, but its not a short-term memory effect in this context.

If you've read this far you're either unemployed, retired, a psychologist, a blood relative, my girlfriend or someone on the edge of a paradigm shift. Thank you in any case.

Yeah, you got me. You stinker!!;-)

I hope you can forgive me for such a long comment.
I enjoyed Nate's article. It's good to get philosophical even on a primarily technical discussion list. After all, we’re talking about the need for change, which is fundamentally philosophical, psychological and potentially spiritual I supppose. Besides, we’re all philosphers, whether we admit it or not, because everyone acts according to how he or she THINKS the world is organized. Of course, not everyone cares to pay attention to this level of engagement. But numbers 5) and 6) on Nate’s “bottom line” list can’t possibly happen without paying direct attention. So even though this certainly isn’t a psychology discussion group, I’d like to suggest something along the lines developed by the late physicist David Bohm (http://www.infed.org/archives/e-texts/bohm_dialogue.htm).
And also, on a more “tournament specific” level you might say, I’d like to butt in with my own two cents (sorry, I didn't have change so it came out rather long) regarding the significance of error, which I think is key for changing.
I’m going to question GalacticSurfer’s contention that a transition to a new belief system requires effort. Of course, we’re probably defining the terms differently. Most discussions start disintegrating when participants flail at each other with completely different definitions. Most good dialogue is the result of hammering out a common tongue, which doesn’t happen without mutual respect. So yes, he's right, this DOES in fact take effort.
But on the other hand, we’re not exactly transitioning successfully by these efforts. Efforts like this tend to lead to division. If we respond to this division with mutual respect, then it’s not a problem. But effort alone is a naturally divisive movement. We struggle against an opposition camp or point of view. There is a subtle or not so subtle us against them mentality. And the interesting thing about this deeply imbedded warrior philosophy is that we can’t stop it. (Which is not the same as saying it’s inevitable, only that we can’t forcefully stop it, can’t use effort to stop effort). The effort to “think peacefully” or act like Gandhi (and I love him, don’t get me wrong) is that it’s still a subtle form of coercion, of us against them, of warrior philosophy.
That is, we apply warrior philosphies in the pursuit of peace. This is significant because it indicates the depths to which we tend to be ignorant of our own minds. And anything used in ignorance is dangerous. Hence we end up in dangerous predicaments like this. So appreciate Nate starting a little philosophical roll. There's where the source of danger lies.
Notice that it doesn’t require effort to discover that my peaceful strivings are not in fact peaceful at heart. I don't have to try to see this fact. We don’t have to TRY to see the sun, and we don’t have to try to see our own responses for what they are. They are there in full view, and it’s only through an unconscious, habitual effort of resistance and denial that we manage to avoid these perceptions and cling to our old beliefs.
Yes, we apply effort in trying to convince others, and that’s somewhat necessary and not always problematic. But I'd guess that there's no one alive who has transitioned successfully to a new mentality. And so, the issue is less one of changing others, but changing ourselvs. And this is where the deeper significance and problem with effort comes into play.
When we try to change our OWN belief systems, we end up with this rather tormented (if mine is any judge) and divided mind (society’s acceptable schizophrenia, me and my shadow). We take this internal division for granted, but it’s really rather insane, isn't it? The self is a figment of imagination to which we hold our dearest allegiance. This is where all outward wars really start, or as the stupidly dismissed Krishnamurti once said “war is the spectacular and bloody projection of our daily lives.”
I mean, hear me complain about my gaffs with the sternness of an English school-master, condemning what I've done from a morally superior third person's perch (disguised under first person pronouns): "I'll never forgive myself for what I've done!" Or listen as I express the frustrations of an injured party -- "there I go again, spilling milk all over myself!" -- in this way sidling over to gaze at my wrong-doing as the victim instead of the perpetrator).
We employ our voice or image almost as if we're enacting a convenient internal division between my righteous or victimized voice and the errant self it wants to divorce itself from. Or it may be more inadvertent than that. Sometimes it seems I'm trying to be honest but self-knowledge's very structure -- its pointing rod design -- precludes it from pointing in the right direction.
What I mean is, rational thought is perfect for solving technical problems because it can project the problem to the appropriate place. When I try to figure out a puzzle I imagine different solutions and then apply them to the puzzle. It works very well because thought is a pointing rod basically. But when turned inwardly, thought also treats itself, or the self, inappropriately as a technical problem, as an object, that needs to be handled like any old piece of external hardware. It's inevitably misleading because the pointing rod will always point away from itself. The end result is that thinking becomes implicitly and sometimes explicitly accusatory even when it's turned inwardly, and incapable of finding the source of its own error.
I’m saying we cannot “neutralize these agents” as Nate suggested, without becoming aware of this basic “fault” in thought itself. This isn't the same as saying we're limited by human nature. Seeing is a third option – a simple enough movement that transcends both rational thinking and belief, although both serve their own purposes. Seeing (or learning) is precisely the absence of resistance or effort. It’s the capacity to change in response to immoveable fact. We need LESS effort in that sense, not more.
I think the reason utter failure can seem so educational at times is due to the nature of the problem. Unlike a technical problem, which requires a projected solution, a psychological problem usually contains its own resolution. It's like a Chinese puzzle, where the more I pull the more trapped I become. If violence is the problem, then I can't force my self to adopt non-violence (except in appearance) because force is the root of violence. If selfishness is the problem, I can't merely try to be unselfish, because the motivation alone is egocentric. If division is the problem then I can't try to attain wholeness because effort itself is the dividing impulse.
It's like that moment when we first played those chinese torture puzzles as kids. The more we struggled to extricate our finger, the tighter we were held. At some point, the little kid makes the startling little discovery that it's his own effort that's making him stuck. By letting go his own efforts (by seeing the problem without resistance), he frees himself. Seeing, not effort, is real action.

Still my favorite post of all time.

Even with the peak oil info left out of it, this is basic stuff that all humans should be required to read and think about before being allowed to wander loose in the world.

Deserves its own dedicated website. (ass-from-elbow.com probably available.)

Thanks for a great article, Nate!

TOD does have a tendency towards bean counting, and your posts are always a breath of fresh air to us "mathematically challenged" :)

I can't wait for your next, presumptuous post! May I ask what it will be about?

I have a new metric I want to call. Peak Cars. More specifically I will be interested to see whether it coincides with Peak Oil, or actually occurs after Peak Oil, because it illustrates our collective cognitive dissonance very precisely. If it does occur after Peak Oil, how many years after?

We do not have monthly collated data for global cars sales like the illusionary monthly "data" we think we do for oil. Nevertheless annual figures rounded to the nearest million will do. 2006 was a record year (70m units) and 2007 is tracking well to post even higher numbers. In addition, many of those vehicles have only had a bicycle traded in against them, so if peak oil was 2006, where is the extra gasoline coming from to run them? If Peak Oil was July 2006, then stocks must be down 50-100m barrels. I suppose this could easily be the case and explains the sudden run up in prices now, at the wrong time of year.

So a further twist on Nates excellent article is the psychology illustrated by the concept of Peak Cars. My final question is this: will they all still be in use at the end of their finance periods (accidents and write-offs aside)?

The Pope photo and caption (which BTW could never happen! Even the geocentric model was never dogmatically defined to be true, though you might certainly have had a hard time for denying it.) led me to search the Vatican site to see if there were any mentions of the energy issue.

From the Pope himself, there is an interesting paragraph in his message for the 2007 World Day of Peace (Jan 1st)

The close connection between these two ecologies can be understood from the increasingly serious problem of energy supplies. In recent years, new nations have entered enthusiastically into industrial production, thereby increasing their energy needs. This has led to an unprecedented race for available resources. Meanwhile, some parts of the planet remain backward and development is effectively blocked, partly because of the rise in energy prices. What will happen to those peoples? What kind of development or non-development will be imposed on them by the scarcity of energy supplies? What injustices and conflicts will be provoked by the race for energy sources? And what will be the reaction of those who are excluded from this race?

Then, from the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, there are a few in the last 3 years.

This statement at the 2nd Comittee of the General Assembly of the UN on Sustainable Development seems to show they are pragmatic and open-minded, as should be.

if fossil fuels are going to be with us for "the foreseeable future" and if states are going to rely on "hybrid options in energy mix", as the Secretary-General suggests, then serious public investment in clean technology must accompany this pragmatism (emphasis added)

And his address at the 15th session of the Commision on Sustainable Development of the UN Economic and Social Council is particularly interesting:

Mr Chairman, the question of energy is rapidly becoming one of the key questions of the entire international agenda, as all of us struggle to assemble a common, global, long-term energy strategy, capable of satisfying legitimate short- and medium-term energy requirements, ensuring energy security, protecting human health and the environment, and establishing precise commitments to address the question of climate change.

The scientific evidence for global warming and for humanity’s role in the increase of greenhouse gasses becomes ever more unimpeachable, as the IPCC findings are going to suggest; and such activity has a profound relevance, not just for the environment, but in ethical, economic, social and political terms as well.

...

Thus, in order to address the double challenge of climate change and the need for ever greater energy resources, we will have to change our present model from one of the heedless pursuit of economic growth in the name of development, towards a model which heeds the consequences of its actions and is more respectful towards the Creation we hold in common, coupled with an integral human development for present and future generations.

...

Not so long ago, the Security Council had a meeting to discuss the relationship between energy, security and climate. While not everyone agrees upon the discussion of such material in the Security Council, the sobering fact is that we are already witnessing struggles for the control of strategic resources such as oil and fresh water, both of which are becoming ever scarcer. If we refuse to build sustainable economies now, we will continue to drift towards more tensions and conflicts over resources, to say nothing of threatening the very existence of coastal peoples and small island states.

Recently, we have heard of economies that have managed to grow while actually reducing their consumption of energy. Surely this success holds out hope that our current economic model does not always oblige us to use more and more energy in order to grow. Economic growth does not have to mean greater consumption.

The term ‘Homo Sapiens’ leads to a misunderstanding of this species.

‘Homo semi-Sapiens’ would be a more accurate description.

It is an exceptional treat to have a consideration of how the 'semi' aspect affects the dynamics of this. Many thanks.

Nate I read the first 2387 words - which brought me roughly to the section on Authority Figures - leaving roughly 4975 words unread. I have to choose who I believe - you or The Pope.

This is truly great stuff. The interview with Thomas is sublime - and I'd love to hear his views now. The fact of the matter is the majority of "economics" types and arts students just plain don't understand that energy cannot be magiced up out of nothing. The effort required to work out PO and to think through the consequences is quite large - and since this leads to unpleasant conclusions I imagine many people will just choose to remain ignorant, continue to live a life in denial up to the last minute.

The comments on cognitive load theory are very pertinent. I have a number of pressing urgent issues to deal with - buy a wood burning stove and chain saw, try to get a position at a local university, deal with some tax issues for my Mum who is 90, do the definitive research into UK gas supply forecasts - but am not able to get around to doing any of this cos other issues keep arising that deserve / need attention - many emails, writing comments such as this and pursuing other initiatives - right now there is a huge amount of screaching in the background.

The point about Authority Figures is very important - and ties straight back to the comments made by Thomas. One thing to remember always is that Mr Yergin wrote an amazing book and has earned his right to authority and Dr Jackson is a highly respected geologist, formerly of Enteprise Oil. So why should people believe what we say as opposed to them - and I'd point out they currently earn loads of cash doing what they do - and we don't - are they much smarter than we are? Well maybe they were all short on oil and we weren't:-))

You told me to make contact with Richard Nehring in Houston - he is a typical authority figure. He speaks very well and has huge experience. He attended the the talks given by Stuart and I - made some comments and we spoke afterwards. He also spoke and placed himself firmly in "The Peak Later" camp - 2020 or beyond - still plenty time to party! In the Q&A session I asked him where Chris Skreboski was wrong in his analysis (Chris has a peak past / now / very soon position) and Richard N struggled to answer. I think we need to engage the Authority Figures in a positive way - and become authority figures oursleves.

Was it Dr Schlesinger who said in Cork that the peakests had won - and that we needed to be magnanimous. I'm not sure if this is true yet. But at some point those who have worked tirelessly on this problem for many years for the benefit of humanity must surely be richly rewarded - I'm thinking Campbell, Duncan, Youngqvist, Laherrère, Defyes et al - they must be held up by the world community and recognised for their work - and then they can become magnanimous Authority Figures.

Hi, Nate.

Thanks for pulling all this together. I too have had conversations like yours with Thomas.

There is another very useful model one can use to understand human behavior, which is that you could look at humans as a network of conversations.

Some conversations are very old (war will solve this problem, men are better than women, women or more nurturing than men) and others are very young (peak oil, what Brittney Spears did last night). Some of the oldest conversations have been with us since humans developed language (spirits, gods, etc.). All conversations are valid as conversations. That's not the same as saying they are true, btw.

In this model, human action is highly determined by the conversations in which they participate. That's why there is the saying, "Choose your friends carefully." Another way of saying that is, "Choose the conversations you participate in carefully."

Peak oil is a relatively young conversation. To have humans repeat this conversation means that other conversations will need to be displaced. But many conversations have a sort of immune system that keeps them around, and is based on much of what your essay talks about. Survival, immediate gratification, comfort over discomfort, authority, etc. all perpetuate conversations.

The field I am discussing generally is called the study of "discourses." It doesn't take human initiative out of the equation, but it does have fascinating predictive power.

--------

Andre' Angelantoni
Preparing for a Carbon-Constrained World, No Charge Online Briefing
www.InspiringGreenLeadership.com/preparing-carbon-constrained-world

I like the fact that you are looking at psychology to understand why people have blank stares or automatically discount evidence of peak oil when it is presented. Cognitive load is probably not the strongest explanation. I look much more at cognitive dissonance theory which came out of social psychology (Leon Festinger). It is the tendency to discount or dismiss that data which contradicts the ideas one has about one's investments. If I am invested in a system which has provided my needs and continues to provide my needs, what data will persuade me to make massive changes to my life? to my beliefs about the system? I am standing on the tracks, I see no train coming, why should I get off the tracks?

I do think optimism and pessimism have a great deal to do with responses to peak oil information. Pessimists are more likely to believe bad things can and will happen. Typically, optimists are more resilient than pessimists, but sometimes pessimists get it right.

Why are young students passive? Most likely deer in the headlights. Many students today have no experience with achieving goals through collective action. If a social movement is not perceived as a viable option, most young people have only themselves as resources to address huge problems: overwhelming. Brain shuts down.

I think the data needs to be broadcast and spoken of to all who will hear. When changes become strongly evident, collective action is more likely. Will it be timely? Doesn't look like it so far.

Rob Berger, MA
Licensed Psychologist

“This post is a first stab at examining our cognitive belief biases.”

“We have evolved to have instant access to our emotional minds in times of stress or danger - a million years ago too much rational thought would have essentially been suicidal.”

“From the moment of birth we depend on others to instruct us about the world. While young, we are given a specific language, a specific religion, a smattering of science and history and all the while we implicitly assume we are learning facts about the world. But we are not. We are simply being told what to believe. Though this is of course practical, it has resulted in 6.5 billion different (but overlapping) belief systems, somewhat modifiable as we grow up but increasingly less malleable as we get older.”

“The answers to the large-scale human problems cannot be solved by facts and science of the outside world alone - we need to incorporate facts about who we are into the equation.”

In keeping with the above quotes, I offer the following:

In order to understand why the world is the way it is, one must understand how it got to be this way.

The point list below contains some basic “givens”. It’s a list, that if clearly understood (it’s linkages and synergies), can lead to a process of exposing manufactured compliance in belief systems (illusions) that are leading individuals/societies away from cooperative, egalitarian life styles toward ever-increasing hostility and conflict.

Accelerating resource scarcity (such as we are witnessing with global oil supplies) is just one of many realities that can only serve to further entrench societal illusions and accelerate the process of manufacturing compliance.

I believe the points listed below apply universally; and that they exist irrespective of literacy levels, economic status (impoverished or well-off), political and religious beliefs, and ethnicity. I also believe they provide a framework for understanding why no individual, society, country, state or regime (past, present and future) is immune to the social, economic, political and environmental “problems” we have witnessed and are presently witnessing. They form the basis for why we are where we are today, and why we are continuing to move further away from understanding societal illusions.

1. Anger is an emotion and is part of a pain-driven natural survival response (NSR).
2. The alternative to the NSR is extinction.
3. The NRS is as follows: Pain leads to fear (emotion), leads to anger (emotion), leads to resentment (emotion) which leads to a need to react or retaliate (emotion) which leads to hostility, a behavioural response (acting out self-protective destructiveness), which ultimately leads to change.
4. Classical conditioning takes place when pain is linked with a secondary cue (judgment), and eventually the cue alone reactivates and reinforces painful memories that produce anger (much like Pavlov’s dogs were tricked into drooling). Anger is a natural, helpful response.
5. When anger* is the response to the secondary cue (bad, dirty, etc.), you are being tricked or fooled into responding to a judgment.
6. As a child you have no choice in the conditioning process, which links secondary cues (bad, wrong, dirty, etc. etc) with pain.
7. People aren’t born with an innate knowledge and understanding of secondary cues: judgments like right, wrong, good, bad or any other human construct.
8. The belief in, and conditioning to these constructs is a product of (predominantly parental childhood) training (nurture). The “nature” part of childhood training simply relates to the capacity to respond to training.
9. Unless someone is biting, kicking or punching you, or posses a direct/immediate/realistic threat to your welfare, the pain you are experiencing is a result of the way you are thinking. If the way you are thinking is a response to a cue, or the memories the cue elicits, it can be referred to as distortional thinking.
10. Cues (which may be memories stirring body feedback pain as well as judgments) can stir memories that express themselves through the limbic system (the autonomic nervous system).
11. This is the crucial point where the scope of NRS thinking diverges from classical conditioning. The NRS incorporates the fact that the response is not simply “drooling”. The response involves all of the body feedback generated by the limbic system when the memory was first stored as well as the message from the immediate cue. (A brick held over the foot causes a much more involved response than a neuromuscular flinch of the leg. Just as the body feedback one experiences when one is criticized/labeled is not just the result of the judgmental label used at that time, it’s the sum total of feedback from all previous experiences with criticism.)
12. As a result (because the limbic system is involved) there are two outcomes: a. As you think and stir memories, so you will feel, and b. As you feel and stir memories, so you will tend to think.

Understanding these linkages is a prerequisite to exposing the illusions that persist despite the existence of facts (scientific method) and the principles of logic. Since imagined pain (pain that is the result of being tricked or fooled through distortional thinking) is the result of stirring pain related memories, the only hope humanity has for a less painful, continued existence on this planet, in the face of dwindling resources, is to understand the difference, in causation, between real and imagined pain.

* It is also true that pleasure can be a response to a cue. This is termed the “positive” hoax response. The positive hoax is equally as problematic as the negative hoax.

Did you see this article? - similar to your toughts, but not on Peak Oil.

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
Cognitive biases potentially affecting judgment of global risks.
http://www.singinst.org/upload/cognitive-biases.pdf

A lot of smart money has already figured out we need to develop substitutes for fossil fuels. Look at the huge increase in venture capital funding of energy ventures.

The price of oil is going to change lots of minds. The masses are about to get persuaded by the price signs as gasoline stations.

What we can not know: How fast will innovators develop ways to adjust to the post-peak world? That's an even more important unknown than the date when world oil production starts declining.

this debate has to become more neutral because it is becoming fundamentalism.

I liked Nate’s post, and all the compliments are well deserved. I may have posted on it before (?)

Nevertheless, although everything is linked (human memory, perception, behavior, etc. etc.) when addressing paradigm shifts, or even just public awareness, or even a lowly question like fashion, the cognitive characteristics of humans are a minor topic.

What is at stake (from psychology) is the behavior of groups - e.g. cultural stereotypes and stigmatization vs. cognitive dissonance (although Festinger was a social psychologist at heart), ingrained cultural habits vs. the recency effect (how ppl process information, or their short term memory, does not affect their religious beliefs), group risk taking rather than ‘relative’ personal aversion for it -- according to social psych. groups are far less risk-aversive, through a process they call ‘polarisation’ - extremes attract and win out, duh, though one may question such conclusions as ‘it all depends on the circumstances’ and generalizations are hard to come by even if social scientists feel obligated to tout them, etc.

The belief in, adherence to, adulation of, etc. authority figures *is* a group process, as it permits groups to function and act. But it is by no means constant (if evident throughout history) in its nature, type, scope, degree, so not describable in general terms. Egalitarian societies distribute power and don’t accord much of it to specific individuals; Societies in stress worship strong leaders and kill scapegoats as well as their neighbors; cults of personality are manipulated all the time; etc. etc.

Individual psychology (eg face recognition, short term memory, visual perception, etc.) concentrates on what might even be called biological characteristics. Fine, and it is fascinatin’. Put one of those humans in front of a TV and the propaganda it spouts - and a whole other picture (sic) calls for attention.

(I skimmed some of the posts above so sorry if some is a bit of a repeat.)

Nate, thanks for the great keypost. Let's see, who should I believe, the geezer with the funny hat or Nate? Hmmm ....

| _{The problem will solve itself.}
|  _{But not in a nice way.}

if you are the owner of a yellow gas-guzzler, you might as well convince yourself that the sensible blue car you passed up was an ugly bore.

From NYTimes article on cognitive dissonance and how it happens