Hi Nate,
I gave a peak oil talk over here in Malmo, Sweden yesterday and used this prediction on one of my slides: "Space travel is bunk." Sir Harold Spencer Jones, Astronomer Royal of Britain, 1957, two weeks before the launch of Sputnik. But then again, maybe Sir Harold got his next prediction right.

You continue to amaze me with your writing and thinking. I have mentally put together my Dream Team peak oil speakers and you are at the top of the list.

Thanks again Nate.
I "believe" myths will be a liability, and will solidify as the world continues to get more groundless and frightening.

Every time I read the latest version of this post, I am reminded of "On Intelligence," a book written by Jeff Hawkins about how the neo-cortex operates. I recommend it unreservedly, and it is highly relevant to the ideas presented in this post.

This essay is a lot to get through, and it makes me believe you are one of perhaps 1% of the world's people who are truly rational. My brother-in-law, a retired glaciologist, is like that, though he has no time whatever for sociobiology-- he is more of a technocrat. I personally think your approach is largely correct, but I have also come to accept my own irrelevance, so perhaps that isn't really a compliment. My children are bright and successful, but they don't think this way -- in fact, I can't really understand how, or even if they think! So, if you are correct, does it matter? That isn't how Congress works, and much as I hate it, Congress really defines a huge part of my personal reality.

People simply don't behave rationally. The rational function in our brains seems to be there to concoct stories and to justify what we have already decided to do in the "reptilian" part of our brain. Life moves too fast to be able to research every decision. In my field, there is a "new" paradigm -- called "evidence based medicine." Sounds great -- who in his/her right mind would diagnose or prescribe without proper evidential backup? In reality, however, there is "evidence" for only the most trivial of problems, and even then, decisions are often made with a good deal of skepticism about the evidence. People still want antibiotics for their cough and sore throat. Medicine proceeds -- yes, even in the 21st century -- by appeal to authority and through pattern recognition.

I believe that your section on pattern recognition is the most important part of the essay -- to be sure, people are apparently "wired" to believe authority figures, but in day to day decisions the authority figure is not likely to be immediately present, so a decision has to be made on one's own. In that case, the decision will be made by the "best apparent fit" -- and if there is a lot of time for a decision, there will be dithering (called research), and if not, there will be a quick, gut level decision. Either way, if one survives the decision, then the "rational" function takes over and constructs a story about how that was the correct decision.

Going into the future is sort of like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. A lot of the pieces look like they might fit together -- but they don't. Some people get annoyed, and just stuff pieces in, thereby ruining the puzzle, and then they quit. Others methodically keep working. Global warming and Peak Oil are two rather large, awkwardly shaped pieces of the future puzzle, and it isn't really clear where or how they fit. Since we don't really even have the edges and corners of the whole puzzle done, it isn't too surprising those pieces can't be accurately placed.

In any case, we may continue to attempt to place them through pattern recognition if we are of the methodical sort, but if belief in authority is our overriding personality trait, we will probably just trash the puzzle and go get in the BMW with the blonde.

I'd rather not know: the psychology of climate denial

Paris (AFP) Dec 1, 2009 - If the evidence is overwhelming that man-made climate change is already upon us and set to wreak planetary havoc, why do so many people refuse to believe it? …

It is the human instinct to shut out or modify a terrifying truth: that the world as we know it is heading for a smash.

"It's a paradox: when it comes to disasters, people do not allow themselves to believe what they know," explained Jean-Pierre Dupuy, a professor of social philosophy at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.

The problem with the glass half full theory is: when we started drinking from the glass there was about a billion of us. Now there's almost 7 billion and growing. Do that math, no?

Nate, thanks for posting an update to this. Exceptional work and very insightful, I think.

We are, oftentimes, our own worst enemies. Knowledge, education, and broad experience with people and ideas that might be counter to our belief systems are very important. The primacy of the scientific method is correct, I think.

I've harangued, recently, about the need for more public discourse on our global/societal problems. Yet, your essay seems to point out the many insurmountable problems in doing so.

On the one hand, I am reminded about our inclinations as a species, which need to be kept in mind at all times. On the other, I feel more pessimistic about our ability to change.

Nate

http://wwwcdf.pd.infn.it/~loreti/science.html

cargo science Dick F link not working for me

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /~loreti/science.html on this server.

On the Magical and the mystical, it has been my observation that most of the organizations supposedly discussing and addressing the "big 3" constraints facing mankind are practicing their own kind of superstition. The parallels to religion are, to me, frightening. Most who attend these meetings are simply looking for some feel good absolution so they may continue on with BAU until the next meeting. Some make an additional act of contrition like putting the empties in recycle or some sillieness.

All are operating under the pretext of some future scenario that they have latched on to. A fantasy future that has only a tiny percent of probability in coming true. An example would be the most common belief that we will reach a point of collapse where we can then jump in and initiate the change we believe in. This is delusional.

I understand that there is a degree of utility in all of this but unless we understand that that is all this is, and ramp up the discussion to include instigating and controlling collapse to what ever degree possible... well, I would say that the vast majority of us understand that the very worst will most likely happen which will make certain that the opportunity to initiate the change we all have worked so hard for will never happen.

Even the author of Shock Doctrine her self is calling for more radical activisum;

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/08

I think its time to get more aggressive and stop the madness.

Cheers
jef

While the postings are young here, I would like to propose a new concept:

COGNITIVE CLIMATE DISSONANCE

I haven't the time to flesh it out now. The basic idea is that the notion of AGW grates against other models held in the human brain and this gives rise to anxious and uneasy feelings that one might refer to as
COGNITIVE CLIMATE DISSONANCE (CCD disease).

Nate, thanks for an excellent summary of the social-psychological underpinnings that rule our lives. Unfortunately, for the reasons cited, and others, most people will not take the time to read this, or their subconscious will sanitize the information to fit their world view.

Our brains conduct this covert operation on a 24/7 basis and we aren't privy to even this smallest part of it. Worse yet, research strongly supports the view that precious little of our behavior is consciously initiated anyway.

We can try to educate people using facts, a scientific method and as much logic and reason as we want; however, we are still dealing with a largely irrational and illogical creature. And one that operates mostly on subconscious information processing and decision making. I am afraid that the genetic deck is stacked against us we try to consciously think our way out of this mess.

As some are suggesting, since logic and reason probably won't win the day, we may be better served by appealing to people's vanity and subconscious motivations which are calling the shots anyway.

It''s strange that you did not mention

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

If more of our countries civic leaders followed the scientific principles of 1)observe something in nature 2) make a hypothesis 3) test the hypothesis using physical methods and 4)repeat until statistically satisfied, we would find ourselves better served and better prepared for an era of energy declines. We must marry facts about geology and the environment with facts about our neural tendencies.

Our fundamental dilemma can be understood without invoking the scientific method. Here is an analogy for our economic system. A group of people live in a house which they are constantly expanding in size, and at the same time they are increasing the luxuriousness of its appointments. This expansion of size and luxury is a competition. Whoever adds the most value to the house gains the largest right to consume economic output such a clothes, food, medical care, toys, expensive recreational activities, etc. both now and in the future. If the rate at which you are adding value to the house falls too far below the average you will either be thrown out into the street or restricted to living in a tiny poorly furnished room with restricted access to medical care, luxury items, recreational amenities, etc. No end to this competitive increase in the size and luxury of the common dwelling is ever anticipated.

The scientific method is not required to understand that this process is unsustainable. Furthermore the rational alternative to such competitive accumulation is obvious. If the house is a comfortable place to live, then there is no need to expand it any further. Instead its occupants should concentrate on keeping the house in good working order with minimum expenditure of resources. They should share the work of maintenance and share the benefits of having a comfortable place to live. If maintenance work does not occupy all of their spare time then they should seek psychic in some in other activities than the accumulation of material wealth. If they want to introduce an element of competition into such activities because competition is the spice of life then let them do so. The end.

I realize of course that to many people talk of sharing work and sharing benefits at anything other than the household level implies 'communism'. If recognizing that we have a common interest in preserving the true sources of our long term wealth is communism then any person with a few synapses still firing should be a devotee of such an ism.

Of course in the analogy of the expanding house, the inhabitants could argue that as long as resources are plentiful the expansion can continue, and the necessity of economic maturation can be foisted off on a later generation. In the debate about how soon limits to growth will be reached scientific analysis of the relevant data is important, but to understanding the fact that limits to growth will eventually apply requires only the grossest kind of common sense.

It is true that many people refuse to apply common sense to this problem, but I personally don't perceive that the degree of scientific training has much to do with this refusal. A substantial part of this unwillingness to face facts appears to me to be simple pain avoidance. I have a brother in law who has a strongly scientific rationalist view of the world. He was at one point in a chemistry PhD program, but he switched to medical school and became a pathologist. He is doing well financially, but he is one of the least status conscious people I have ever met in my life. He definitely on the left of the political spectrum and is concerned about environmental and social justice issues. However, he absolutely refuses to come to grips with the idea that private finance capitalism itself may be fundamentally structurally defective.

My perception is that this refusal arises from fear. If the system holds together then he is on a path to gain reasonable comfort and security for the rest of his life. If a major revision of the social contract is required then his welfare and security depend upon a highly uncertain process of political and social transformation. Facing the danger and uncertainly of such a transformation is too painful, so he pretends it is not going to happen.

Question: Climate change (formerly global warming) "is atmospheric science" or it "involves atmospheric science". Big difference there...?

Another Point: Living in an information age, peoples predispositions may, more than ever, be slanted and reinforced by their bias because those are the sources they expose themselves to. The person who reads the Oildrum and Matt Simmons likely believes in peak oil, while millions have not even come across the term.

The person who reads "climate-gate" websites opposes climate change thought (formerly global warming) while the person who goes to global warming sights believes in manmade global warming. The person who reads the NY Times and Washington Post, CBS and NBC or MSNBC and CNN are more likely to believe in liberal doctrine while those that listen to the New York Post, Talk Radio, Fox are less likely.

The only other thing worth noting is that from what I see (and on this sight) is that some who believe in global warming and liberals often refuse to even study or expose themselves at all in depth to the other side, thus they live in an artificial vacuum.
They should spend 15 minutes or much more searching "climate-gate" on the web. The liberals should really take a full month and spend their time listening to the latter news sources above (many of them, like more and more of the population would never go back).

I personally, find peak oil convincing, the arguments on both sides of man made global warming interesting and very worth watching and many but not all liberal/socialist thoughts very misguided because peoples actual behavior is often guided by real incentives and disincentives (not what seems fair) and likely always will be.

Evolution could not leave humans entirely in charge of their behavior, just as it could not leave us in control of our heartbeats and breathing. Acquisition of energy/nutrition is not a choice. We are programmed to behave in a manner that will ensure our individual survival vis-à-vis our competitors. The destruction of ecosystems and fossil fuel energy deficits are abstractions that cannot be ameliorated because reversing or stopping the energy flow is completely counter to our individual survival programming. Survival has always been a result of acquiring more and reproducing more than one’s competitors.

In light of the corruption that exists at the highest levels of governance and finance (an expected outcome), it is clear that containing the survival instincts of billions of the world’s survivors will not be accomplished. I think many individuals would prefer losing in competition to being allotted a certain and diminishing amount when government and associates are gaining an advantage through their regulatory powers.

Thanks for another insightful and provocative post. When are you going to put this stuff in book form so we'll have something to mull over after the internet goes dark?

I have the phenomenal privelage of age and time. The latter gives me, unlike my earlier years the chance to think about things such as the environment, energy and the economy.

I was a very early professional environmentalist and left an aerospace/defense industry consulting practice in 1967 to spend the next 8-20 years on resource matters. First on the Environment in general and Federal legislation and second on Energy in particular for the first House Energy Sub Committee chaired by John Dingell who, by the way, wrote nmost fo the early environmental legislation.

Since the mid 80's I have concentrated on the Economy as I was last formally trained in a business school.

The the three issues are closely related can not be in question.
I have yet to read, much less digest your full article, but idle time to think and reduce one's observations is a privelage offered to few in our currnet society.

It is not easy to be so idled in today's world where trivia is forced upon one to saturate any open time for basic thinking. Some see this as the " bread and circus" control of the hoi poloi. But let me suggest it is generally a self assumed condition as the real world, if viewed clinically, is so disturbing that it must be ignored or at least blanketed with a deafining tinitus of noise.

Thank you for the article. I will continue to read an hopefully understand.

Bindlepete@yahoo.com

I am dyslectic and can not find my spellcheck.

Dear Nate,

Thanks for posting this. A lot of food for thought. If I were to comment in detail, I would end up writing an even longer and heavier text than your own, so I'll resist the temptation, as the ideas are already multiplying in my brain.

I often think about the concept of self-deception in relation to the invasion of Iraq. For example it always seemed to me that Britain's then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, had the ability to ignore facts and criticism relating to Iraq to a remarkable degree. He seemed to believe what he wanted to believe, or rather, what he needed to believe, or what was useful and expedient to believe. Was he practicing self-deception? That is, he first convinced himself that his lies about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the threat they posed, in order to deceive the public more effectively.

First one must learn to lie to oneself, in order to deceive others more effectively.

But then I began to think that, no, this didn't seem to really fit. Was he just a typical, or stereotypical socio-path, or something far worse?

Blair seemed, (and a couple of my friends who work in the field of psychology, were convinced he was exhibting typical socio-pathetic traits), to have the ability to lie without normal constraints. He would literally say anything in order to get his way. And this was despite critics who publically shredded his arguments and pointed out the error of his ways. At the same time he was accutely aware of the need to carefully cover his tracks and hide the fact that he was deceiving his own country and the world at large. This would imply that he was aware that he was lying.

So it would seem that certain individuals believe what they need to believe, and say what they need to say, in order to get what they want. Though in Blair's case their is evidence he was aware of his own self-deceptive methods, otherwise why bother to cover ones tracks?

But it isn't just Blair. He's just recent and very public example. Don't we think what we think, and believe what we believe, because it serves a useful purpose? One could call it pragmatic self-deception, perhaps?

There's also the question of ones position in the social hierarchy and ones interests in protecting and deferetiating between ones own interests and those of others. One could call define this as the role of "class ideology" in society and in relation to the individual who is a member of distinct group or "class."

My family were masters at this. We moved from country to country in Europe. To wherever the pickings were best and the grass greener. We adopted the social customs we needed to adopt and integrated and assimilated everywhere, as long as it was profitable for us. We believed what we needed to believe, but mostly we beleived in ourselves, our extended clan, and in money and power. At the same time we actively discouraged others, especially the "reds" from understanding, or adopting our practices. We were the real internationalists and "socialists" inside the walls of our own class, but we were damned if we were going to let the proles in our factories and mines follow in our footsteps!

My great, great, grandfather, knew Bismarck and discussed the socialist threat with him, and I believe influenced him in small way. Bismarck developed the first "welfare state" in Germany as a bulwark against the threat of social upheaval. My ancestors also built schools in every town where he had a factory or mine, despite the expense. Others thought he was mad. But he replied that it was an investment in the future, or was it an insurance policy? I forget. We thought that the right sort of education, not too little, and not too much, but just enough, was important. The workers had to learn to think the way we wanted them to think, that is, accept and internalize our values and intersts as their own. Which is pretty much how I still see society functioning, only now we have the mass-media to help. My family would have loved to own a few television stations!
Our biggest mistake was to encourage the nationalists in central europe as a bulwark against the reds. This got terribly out of hand, though to be fair, it wasn't just us that were responsible for the rise of Fascism. We lost almost everyhing, and some of lost our lives, crushed by our own machine.

The myth of nationalism and race were central to the rise of Fascism. This belief in what's not true, and what's clearly not in ones "class interest" didn't just come out of nowhere. It came out of a particular time and place, and reflected, or served, some people's interests more than others, or so it seemed at the time.

This is already way too long, sorry. I do think though that one needs to be aware, or take into account, that beleifs don't exist in neutral vacuum in society. Politics, economics, history, culture, and ideology play their part too.

Is there a role to be played by positive psychology? In the last year or so I have developed a curiosity around the books 'Happier'; 'Gross National Happiness'; and the 'Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology'. I am inclined to think that many of the conclusions currently held will be rejected in the future, it just seems like early days for the field. But I guess I'm gullible enough to think an attempt at a scientific approach to managing our own feelings might be fruitful. I guess I am toying with the idea that if people became more comfortable that we could improve our ability to take care of each other we might move our association of progress away from faster 0 to 60 times. Maybe softening the edges of our immunity to awareness. I don't know if that would make it easier for people to deal with harsh realities.

What about the concept of birth order having an effect on political/economic beliefs. First born children believe business as usual will continue and tend to be conservative. It goes back to the tradition of the first born inheriting most of the father's property. He has vested interest in supporting any decision his father makes because if he ever points out that his father is making mistakes he risks losing his inheritance. Later born children have little hope of inheriting anything substantial and face a life of subservience to his elder brother. His motive is to strike out on his own and do things different from what his father has done. Later in life first born sons hold the belief that the prosperity they enjoy is due to their own efforts and discount the fact that he stands on the shoulders of his ancestors efforts. Younger brothers have also obeyed their father and helped build up his riches. Therefore later born sons believe that their richer brother has a responsibility to help out his siblings and must change his ways if he doesn't deliver.
I have seen this in my own family even though my father left them nothing but a mother deep in debt. My oldest brother is very much a republican while my second oldest brother is very much a democrat. They both grew up in identical conditions and are only 11 months different in age. Yet they harbor opposing beliefs about political and economic matters. We younger siblings (I am fifth born in a family of ten children) are all over the political spectrum with myself being a radical progressive democrat and a younger brother of mine being a very conservative republican even though both of us being long term union members.

3) Homo Sapiens has been the most successful species on the planet.

Pure vanity. Bacteria are the most successful species on the planet by a long margin. The exist in extreme conditions that humanity, even with our current energy surplus, could only dream of surviving in.

There is an old saying - people learn from experience. I would suggest that more often - people simply keep repeating the same old experience over and over again - until the pain of repeating the same experience becomes greater than the pain of changing.

I read of farmers in Australia - 13 years of drought, they are watching the river which once irrigated their orchards disapear. They are bulldozing their dead fruit trees and they live off of drought subsidies from the government cause they can't grow anything anymore. Yet these farmers almost unanimously deny that climate change is behind this - they continue to believe it will start to rain again any day now. They simply cannot face that the life they were used to is gone. If people face to face with disaster still cannot accept that it is climate change - there is little hope that people who are not yet experiencing directly the results of climate change will begin to accept AGW or PO. It will take absolute calamity that will make change completely unavoidable.

I have a slightly critical comment about your approach in this piece. First off, let me start by saying how important it seems to me are the factors you mention regarding belief formation and maintenance in the face of contrary evidence in assessing our current dilemma and trying to figure out a collective way through them. Cognitive dissonance theory, all of the fantastic work that's been done on cognitive biases, hyperbolic discounting, self-deception, and their neuro-psychological underpinnings are really essential in my view in understanding not only how we got into the mess we are in but also have to be taken into account as we try to disentangle ourselves. However, I wonder if you are overemphasizing the psychological side of things. That might seem like a strange point to make in response to a posting that is explicitly about BELIEF formation. But individual as well as collective behavior is not only based on the internal states that we can loosely refer to as beliefs, and desires and goals and so on, but also on many external social and institutional factors that are out there in the world influencing us in one way or another regardless of what we happen to believe.

What I have in mind here is perhaps best illustrated by an example from the recent book by Dan Ariely called "Predictably Irrational" (I think it's from there it could also be from Thaler and Sunstein's "Nudge".). Apparently some researchers noticed huge discrepancies between rates of organ donation in otherwise culturally similar countries like Germany and Austria. After scratching their heads for a while wondering what internal (psychological) factors might explain the observed differences, someone realized that in countries with high rates of organ donation individuals had to opt out of donating and in those with lows rates of donation they had to opt in (the countries compared all solicited organ donations through the driver licensing procedure as we do here). In other words, peoples' behavior differs radically based on nothing but a change in the default option they are given in making a choice. And in fact attributing their different behaviors to different beliefs would be a textbook case of the "Fundamental Attribution Error" from cognitive psychology. This is a point made repeatedly in many different contexts by Thaler and Sunstein as well as others and seems to bear further investigation as it applies here.

Getting people to change their beliefs in other words may be, to put it a bit too strongly perhaps, simply irrelevant if there are various "external" constraints on their actions that lead them to act in certain ways. Beliefs in this case may be little more than after the fact rationalizations for things that we do simply because that is the way the world works. A case in point is the sheer logistical difficulty of living in an ecologically more sane way in the car-centric culture of the USA. How much does this contribute to the fact that Americans are so willing to deny climate change, profess their "need" for gas guzzling vehicles, etc. as opposed to Europeans? (A gross generalization to be sure, so take with a grain of salt please.) And the difficulty is not just psychological, but physically built in to the way we live. That of course provides a hugely powerful motive for believing in all of the myths this culture is based on -- perpetual growth, technological and market based solutions to whatever problems we face and so on. I wouldn't go so far as Marx did when he basically wrote off all of culture, politics, and ideology as nothing but a super-structure determined by the real underlying material conditions of existence, blah, blah, blah. That seems too strong a claim to make. But the complex dynamic interplay between belief systems and institutional/physical/social constraints on behavior is certainly something worth looking into in my humble opinion.

Cheers,
George

I'm on the edge of a paradigm shift, WOO HOO!!

Nate,

Very interesting post.

I must in all conscience, however point out the glaring flaw.

You are effectively saying "Human cognitive bias is like this [long explanation follows] THEREFORE I am right because they suffer from those biases."

Are you and those who are on the limits to growth side of peak oil and climate change not affected by cognitive biases that affect the rest of us?

Clearly the world economy cannot grow forever inside a finite system. The limits to growth model, however, has some fundamental flaws. Firstly it doesn't take into account that people STOP HAVING CHILDREN as they get richer (which is the real source of growth in resource depletion - population growth). Secondly they don't take into account that we tend to spend more on services as we get richer, which use less resources. Thirdly, it doesn't give sufficient due to substitutes (specifically renewables) and doesn't give more than a nod of the head to pollution control.

And I have to say I agree with your friend who said that wall street does know about peak oil. There was a VERY good report out a few months ago from Deutsche bank about peak oil.

My take is they were too pessimistic because they discounted the effect of all that shale gas and huge substitution effect it's going to have on the long distance trucking that Kunstler says is impossible.

In addition, need I draw attention to the flaws in the theory that our financial system is based on unlimited growth?
It is NOT. It is based on bubbles of optimism followed by crashed of despair. Speculators buy stocks based on their GUESS that the market will go up, but it may not and most investors other than the incredibly naive are fully aware that they could lose their money. Interest on fixed principal is likewise not guaranteed and neither is it based on oil.

What IS based on oil is the sheer productivity of the economy because of all the invisible oil slaves. But as you must be aware, there are also electricity slaves.

To conclude:

I remain unconvinced that the doomers among us have a monopoly on the truth. They just believe fervently in one particular MODEL with a particular set of assumptions.

There is more than one MODEL that describes the outcome of peak oil. Is your model better than my peak oil model?
Make your choice and place your bet.

Some comments:

1) Peak Oil is a geologic fact. Global warming is atmospheric climate science.

Second sentence should read: "Anthropogenic global warming is an atmospheric climate science fact".

Also, there is no mention of how the substantial LPG and NG reserves in the world will ease the transition from oil to renewables.

Nate----were you by chance a psychologist in one of your previous lives?

The problem may not be with our belief system.

We are simply not capable as a culture of "reading" the idea for "finite energy supply".

We just can`t get our heads around the idea that an energy source could disappear in toto.

It is pretty clear how we came to believe that. We used crops, wind, waves for millenia. They never went away. We were led to understand that that is what you get when you process energy---a steady, constant forever flow.

But after this we may be able to process the information that some energy comes in a finite supply. A few people have processed it and of course Hubbert did and some others. More and more, but only a small minority.

Also the disposal of waste. We were led to believe, by leaving pottery shards, horse manure, old straw sandals, and other "waste products" of the past ages that waste would just go away by itself. It is quite a revelation to find out that isn`t the case when it is plastic and old TV sets. We can hardly quite comprehend the consequences because we haven`t yet had millenia to "think" about this.

I think it just takes a very long time for a culture as a whole to process necessary information. More than one lifetime at least. Probably a few generations. Don`t give up hope.

Very dense article, very much on the mark.

Of course, all this is very old hat. The world has gone through an almost identical situation with an almost identical set of relative risks.

Prior to November 8, 1923 very few people outside of Germany had ever heard of Adolf Hitler. On that day and during the next, in the company of associates and Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff, Hitler attempted to gain control of the Bavarian government by force. The attempt failed when Munich police fired into Hitler's group. Hitler ran away but was later arrested and charged with treason.

During Hitler's trial and subsequent confinement, he made no efforts to disguise his intentions to gain control of Germany and thence hegemony over as much of Europe as possible. His approach meant to do so with as much bloodshed as possible. In his book, 'Mein Kampf', written in 1924, Hitler outlined an aggressive and deathly hostility toward mon- Germans, Russians, Jews and other 'subhumans'.

During Hitler's quest for political position, his forces used whatever means were available, including street violence and intrigue. Hitler's fundamental 'problem solving' approach was well known to Germans and to anyone able to read a newspaper.

After Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January, 1933 he rapidly consolidated power. Events such as the burning of the Reichstag in February, 1933 were orchestrated to concentrate authority into Hitler's hands. The concentration camp at Dachau was opened in March, 1933.

Many of Hitler's cronies as well as prominent political figures were massacred in June, 1934 during the 'Night of the Long Knives'. Among the victims was former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher. Hitler gained control of the military immediately afterward. The Nuremberg Laws, depriving Jews of citizenship were enacted in 1935. Later that year, Hitler renounced the Versailles limitations on armaments, announced universal conscription and began to openly rearm. All of this was covered by the press at the time.

German Jews were being openly persecuted in 1935. Many of these emigrated, many to nearby countries, the rest ot England, Palestine and America. All reported persecution and terror on the part of the authorities. In 1936, German troops entered and re- militarized the Rhineland district adjacent to France. Hitler sent a battalion, the French had available many divisions. Repelling - or arresting - the German force would have put an end to Hitler as most of the German military staff was opposed to the adventure. In November, the Nazi government organized a pogrom against Jews, seizing and destroying property and assaulting them; this action became known as 'Kristallnacht' or 'Night of Broken Glass'. Beginning in 1936, Hitler sent military equipment and personnel to Spain to fight alongside Nationalist forces. German actions in Spain were well- covered by the press.

In March, 1938, Hitler annexed Austria; his SS forces and Gestapo were soon openly terrorizing Austrian cities and town. Members of the prior regime, intellectuals, leading citizens and Jews were subject to harsh treatment or random killing after arrest. Austria was not closed during the period of Anschluss and treatment of Austrians by German authorities was no secret. It was also no secret when Jews were deported to concentration camps from both Germany and Austria.

In September, 1938, Czechoslovakia ceded its Sudeten provinces to Hitler; in return, the new British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain received assurances from Hitler that this concession would be the last Hitler would demand. Six months later, Hitler moved to occupy the entirety of Czechoslovakia.

In September, 1938, Hitler's armies invaded Poland, overrunning half of the country in four weeks. The Soviets occupied the eastern half of Poland. In April the following year, Hitler conquered Denmark in one day; a few weeks later Norway fell. Hitler invaded Netherlands and Belgium on May 10, conquering France by the end of June.

During the run- up to all out war, the Western Allies had numerous opportunities to solve the Hitler problem. In addition to the Rhineland episode, the German high command was prepared to detain Hitler had he invaded Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain's feckless surrender to Hitler gave him a bloodless victory ... and left him untouchable to the disgruntled generals. The European governments' unwillingness to confront or contain Hitler amplified his political moral supremacy within Germany. Absent that gift of moral supremacy, Hitler would have been one in the long chain of obscure Weimar politicians; he was as much a creature of European vacillation as he was an offspring of his own warped willpower.

The 'James Hansen' character during the run- up was British MP Winston Churchill. A constant harangue in Parliament during the 1930's was Churchill's demand for more and better fighter aircraft to defend Britain from the air. Stanley Baldwin's premiership was resistant. Neither Baldwin nor the French government wanted to provoke Hitler. Both countries were recovering from the Great War and had severe economic difficulties. Churchill wheedled the British establishment for five years with small results. After the Fall of France in the Summer of 1940, the Luftwaffe launched its all out air attacks on Britain in preparation to an assault by sea. What saved the country from invasion and conquest were Churchill's lonely fighter aircraft and overworked pilots.

The Soviet Union was in denial about Hitler and his intentions, even though they were outlined in black and white in his book. In 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed a non- aggression pact. Up until June 22,1941, the USSR was sending train loads of grain and other materials to Germany. On that day, the Germans launched Operation Barbarossa which destroyed most of the Russian armies within three months. Despite having intelligence from the British, the Soviets were completely unprepared.

A big reason for Hitler's political success was that he was thoroughly modern and stylish. He embodied in himself and in his supporting establishment the hyper- aggressive potential of machinery and advanced technology. In the Hitler regime, all humans were cogs in a deterministic and ultimately fatal environment. A similar but not as 'moderne- style' environment existed in Japan, where service to the point of suicide was the expected norm of behavior. Japanese fashion derived from military caste traditions that had been absorbed into the conscript army and navy as a matter of policy.

The US was completely unready for entry into the newly unwinding war. Japan invaded the part of China it did not already control beginning in 1933. Japan held dominion over what is now Korea and all of northern China. Japanese military activities and atrocities and covered in the press. There was no secret about Japanese intentions in China. A Japanese assault on Russian forces in Mongolia in 1939 was repulsed with great Japanese losses. In 1940, after the fall of France and the Low Countries, Japan moved to take control of French and Dutch colonies in SE Asia, what is now Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Indonesia. As a consequence, the US embargoed fuel and scrap steel shipments to Japan. The US was in the beginning of mobilization, authorized in 1938. A 5 million man army was in training, but equipment was meager.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and simultaneously Manila and Australian and Dutch bases in Philippines and elsewhere in the Pacific, the US was unprepared to defend against the attacks. The US army had one radar station in Hawaii and no air traffic control, even after the British had demonstrated the effectiveness of radar and air traffic control over a year earlier during the Battle of Britain. Most of the American aircraft were lost on the ground to Japanese fighters in the initial strikes. Aircraft were lined up in neat rows, unfueled and unarmed, waiting to be shot up by the Japanese.

During the run- up the establishment, mostly competent political leaders, civic leaders, realistic and hard- headed military commanders ignored or denied the threats to democracy posed by Hitler and aggressive Japanese militarism. Consequently, in the six war years almost to the day, fifty million lost their lives violently. Europe and much of Asia was almost completely ruined. Much of Eastern Europe fell under Stalin's dominion. The consequences of ignoring solvable problems until they became too large to address inexpensively were demonstrated. Everything that Nate mentions in his long and thoughtful post was experienced in Europe, America and the USSR.

The Germans were in denial about Hitler as was the rest of Europe. The Germans never lost faith in Hitler's ability to win the war in the end even when German cities were being rained with British and American bombs. Germans kept an almost mystical faith in Hitler right up to the point of there being Allied forces marching up the streets in German towns. Both German and Japanese soldiers and civilians have testified to being 'mesmerized' and 'under a spell'. Large events have a way of warping the minds of participants. This is one reason why so many now are unprepared and unpreparing. History is larger than day to day life in which we are immersed.

The same submission to both authority and compelling fashion that existed in the totalitarian regimes is obvious among the world's citizens today. The same fetish cult of machine aggression exists today as it did during the 1930's and 40's; it an be very appealing. One thing machines do is make the users feel more powerful and able to act out that power. Fashion is power, it embodies it. Had Hitler and his henchmen behaved as had the Kaiser, they would not have been taken seriously within industrial Germany. Likewise in Japan, the traditional bushido fashion did not allow a level of modern machine aggression; this was imported from the British military services along with much modern military technology.

Because all of the leadership that learned and endured the Second World War are dead, there are no leaders to bring forth the lessons from that era. There is no Winston Churchill - a politician with a pragmatic bent and the eloquence that moves minds.

The compelling public voices of the current crises are the deniers ... the Hitlerites and appeasers of the now. Their motivation is the same as their Quisling forebears; they advertise what they desire to possess. Hitler was bleeding edge fashionable, a supreme fetishist of motorized modernity, a charismatic rationalizer of aggression and hostility without limits, a compulsive liar, a glamorous psychopath. He was the machine- man of his and all modern times. It was nothing for the Chamberlains of Europe to hand over Czechoslovakia to the camps; just as it was nothing for the Hitlers of Europe to ask for it. Just as it is nothing for industry to ask for the world for the fleeting sensation of eradicating its last natural bits and pieces. The industrialists are all the same. Czechoslovakia is expendable, the world is expendable, in the end all of us are.

In the end, Hitler and the Japanese were defeated. The approach was simple; fight them both everywhere at the edges and work toward the centers. At some point, the denial will be abruptly ended. Reality has a way of doing this, ending foolishness. There was no fooling about Hitler after he invaded Poland. Katrina was close to removing the illusions about climate change. It's hard to say when the turning point will be reached, but it is coming and soon. At that point, the deniers will be silenced and the hard work will begin. How will it turn out?

"Americans always do the right thing ... after they have tried everything else."

Great post from Nate, as always.
Though I do think he needs one of those papal funny hats and some robes ;-)

Right at the end of your article you mentioned the movie 'Serendipity' and how the scientist hated it and he daughter loved it. To me, this dissonance points to how the most scientific people (and engineers) selectively choose theorem to test and evaluate. They as a rule, do not LIKE exploring theories that threaten their current BELIEFS about reality. Scientists and engineers in my experience are even more curmudgeonly in this regard.

I think the movie Serendipity points toward one of the bigger anomalies. Accurate records of dreams and synchronistic events exist that point toward some invisible domain of connected information. Call it holographic species memory if you wish.

Perhaps the most documented and well researched example of what I am talking about is the research done by Ian Stevenson on reincarnation. For a great scientific investigation of numerous documented cases of children accurately recalling past lives, I would recommend the recent book "Life Before Life" by Jim B. Tucker, M.D. who has been continuing this research. I would challenge you to review the data and not find yourself realizing reincarnation is the only scientific explanation that makes sense.

So what does reincarnation or synchronicity have to do with Peak Oil? For one, it points out that we don't fully understand the nature of reality and the meaning of human life. Two, it points out that large scale dramas that humanity is facing: overpopulation, end of easy petroleum, changes in global climate, are all taking place within a much larger interconnected reality. If reincarnation is even possible, we will not only get to deal with the results of our past errors and waste, but will get more chances to learn these hard lessons.

Hi Nate,

Good post, lengthly, but good research and references. As a practicing scientist, I only want to make a few points which may repeat those of others here that I missed reading. First there are different types of science....what have probably broadly been divided into the directly testable versus extrapolatable. If in my laboratory I want to test the hypothesis that "geneX" will confer herbicide resistance to corn, I will make a transgenic plant (GMO) that now expresses that gene. Then I will test if it indeed is resistant to the herbicide in question. Even in such a controlled situation, can we conclude that the product of "geneX" actually, directly confers resistance in corn to the herbicide? In some cases, it can be shown to be 'causal', but in most others there actually are many possibilities. These include the chance that "geneX" activates something completely different in the corn genome to confer the resistance. Alternatively, "geneX" may indirectly cause coloniziation of the corn by species of bacteria that are known to breakdown the herbicide in question. These and more unknowns arise even when the system is relatively simple and "testable". Imagine how difficult it is to really prove that compounds in milk bottles ingested during infancy might cause cancer in those over 50?

With regards to evolution, I can actually test for the "evolution" of a plant virus population as it's genome shifts to accomodate new antiviral strategies that are implemented to control it. It is an "extrapolation", however, to say that this "proves" that through evolution humans and chimps have a common ancestor. I happen to believe that we do, but I would consider myself a poor and foolish scientist to say that science has proved this to be so.

There is the hypothesis that global climate change has a man-made component. There is a hypothesis that we may run out of economically extractable oil. There is a hypothesis that we might build starships and colonize other parts of the universe. Looking backward, there is a theory that man originated in Africa and later crossed the Bering strait to the Americas.....there are other hypotheses that it could have gone from the Americas to Africa any number of ways.

My point here is that science is a tool....it works pretty well on simple problems, but I would argue quite poorly on the large ones. By comparison, we tend to "dis" indigenous cultures for their "silly mythologies", yet mythologies arose through a desire/need to explain the observed and science is subordinate to the larger gift of "observation". Many, but not all, indigenous cultures didn't call it "science", but they did over many thousands of years "observe" what worked and what didn't,....and NOT just using some multi-year replicated trial. (Corn provides a good example: Euros would like to pat themselves on the back for advances in corn breeding....but the original corn that they started with had already been selected and re-bred by indigenous peoples over thousands of years.) These observations lead to the accumulation of a knowledge, transmitted trans-generationally by oral tradition. Those populations with a careful eye trained on the limits imposed by nature would build these limits into an ethic.

To me, it comes back to the question of "just because we can, should we?". Personally I agree with those who might say that we, as a species, can think our way out of many imaginable catastrophes (most of which will be of our own creation). But if your imagination is filled with wonder at the though of being on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, dancing about in a holodeck, and eating either synthesized or some space-age version of slaughterhouse pork, then we part ways. I simply will not feel much connection with that version of "human". It's why, having lived (though not with complete immersion) in a rural setting for the past 15 years has made it impossible for me to return to the city as anything but a visitor.....and then, rarely.

So can we "prove" that climate change is caused by human activity? Can we "prove" that we will run out of oil? To me, it doesn't really matter. Your Wallstreet (un?)-friend summed up the difference between his attitute and mine when he said "We're here to live life. I'm not going to sit around waiting for 'the next big change' when I can enjoy life with my kids and live large. I work hard you know" Hear the loaded words ping-pong around inside your head...."live life"...."enjoy life"......."live large".....and the coup de grace "I work hard you know"....which seems to be the ultimate justification these days for the destruction of the planet.

Hi, I just watched a supposed to be respectful political talk on a Bulgarian TV - one of the guests showed a little model of a car supposed to run on WATER - yes water as a source of fuel. To my full surprise nobody questioned this and continued to talk nonsense about the climate change etc. I believe that if anybody has mentioned peak oil he would have been violently argued. People would believe in model cars like this just to avoid reality. Well in fact for me it was very funny!

Awsesome, but my mind is not "trained" enough to continue with the psychology of peak oil and climate change without reverting back to "only" wanting to talk, or even argue about the main issue. As I try to reprehend the bouncy, unfocused mind within, I realize that I would rather go to the belief system of "I am right since I have facts". It just plain feels better to yell out the "obvious" facts (as to why I believe in PO and AGW). Kinda like a religion.
I really appreciate this article as it reminds me how unrational I am (and have been on prior posts).

I believe that even though it seems impossible to escape through the bottleneck alive, science will save most of us. I know that it only has up to now because of the excess of oil but believe that it can without them IF we use oil to build the next energy economy. If (my dream of) robotically mass produced solar mirrors and PV doesn't come to light, then we will have to rely upon nuclear and reprocessing (as the French do). If that doesn't work, perhaps we could mine the methane hydrates (before global warming releases it?). I hate the idea of tar sands, but I am now starting to "justify my belief" by adding more fossil fuels to it!

By the time we scrape up all the last economical reservoirs, (this is where belief really kicks in) science will have made it possible to do the robotic thing, that is, make the mirrors or PV grow like a virus (not literally)! Same with the LiFePO4 (or better) battery or thermal storage.

Conspiracy theories obviously come to play in my head because "I KNOW" that if they can mass produce everything else for so cheap (retail, not counting), why can't they already do so with solar... I think it's just money (but still very serious).

However, I recently had a bubble bursting too... China apparently holds most of the rare earths market, needed for the billions of electric cars and wind turbines (in my dream). I would think that if just 1% of 1% of the people became educated in science, even these problems would be solved.

Because of the above psychology, I find it hard to train my brain to be a REAL scientist. This is where smart people need to help, to make it possible for others to be more scientifically adept!

My intent is basically to promote large scale solar and wind as there is no hope for freedom without energy.

Is that a picture of you Nate?

Thanks for the article.

Charles.

.

Hi Nate , on the subject of magic ,it's not a bad belief system at all
in " war and peace " Tolstoy give the example of a steam locomotive
an informed spectator , if asked how it work , would start with thermodynamic , mechanic , laws of motions ETC...ETC without ever ending
the peasant would said ..it's because of the devil inside
a perfect , complete explanation for him .

magic is an open ended system , it accept the unknown and is not really bothered with it

during WW2 the U.S. Army had bases in the Solomon islands ,
local were used for various tasks , they would drive trucks ,load ammunition , discharge ships
smoke cigarettes and eat ice cream
but would put food offering under the trucks to keep them working ,
even though they knew they were running on petrol since they refilled them
After the war they would pray for the ships with the goodies to come back ,
it was the original cargo cult

I saw an interview with a New Guinea islander , he lived in Australia for many years
but was a stone age kids when the first white men came , they were attacked of course
but a few gun discharges later , peace negotiations started
at first they though the whites were otherworldly ghosts ,
but saw quickly they were only weird humans when they were observed to shit
the biggest shaman of the tribe , observing a soldier parade fell frothing at the mouth
at the sight of the synchronized and glistering bayonets ,
he told the warriors that the white man was powerful beyond any imagination
it was not the guns , they understood weapons ,
it was their magic which was awesome .

.

This was one of the best essays to appear on TOD IMO. Can some of the other better papers also be pulled out from the past for re reading?

A best of TOD section perhaps?

Nate:

Incredible artical Nate. Without the Science all we have is speculation. This is the Achilles Heel of Science. It must be 100% absolute and pitted against belief and the belief system along with the failure to want to believe that we have come to the cross roads I fear we will continue down the slippery slope. Economists are running the world.

From Don McLean (no relation)
When the signals are flashing
and the barriers are down
and the whistle is blowing in vane
but you stay on the tracks
ignoring the facts
well you can't blame the wreck on the train

Cheers

"Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well. The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion – in the long run, these are the only people who count."
-- Heinlein

Why do people believe what they believe? For most people, the most people who can't think, won't think, etc., it is because they were influenced to do so by:
1. someone with Authority
2. someone to whom they owed something (Reciprocation)
3. someone they Liked
4. someone/something to which they felt a Similarity
5. Consistency with past behavior
6. Scarcity, related to intermittent reinforcement

Cialdini should have been at the top of your sources.

The evidence and facts are clear that evidence and facts and almost completely irrelevant. Having a mental model that coincides with physical reality is far, far less important than having a mental model that coincides with what your social support system tells you. You said it yourself, we didn't evolve to process calculations, model runs, and percentages.

But we did evolve to process social and sexual cues. Evidence and facts work only on a tip of a sliver of a minority of the population. Everyone else gets their beliefs and behaviors from the process of being influenced.

You cannot "get through" to most people using facts and evidence. It simply isn't possible. You must use different tools and different tactics to get the behaviors and responses you expect or want.