perfect example of how monetary/scarsity systems (i.e. capitalism) is screwing us

jverne

jverne

Newbie
Joined
Aug 6, 2004
Messages
4,302
Reaction score
0
"If we take out that area, we could see a major washout of this market," Flynn said. "We could be talking $50 or $60 oil."

If that happens, analysts say the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries may to cut production and keep prices from falling further.

Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossien Nozari on Saturday called on fellow OPEC members not to pump too much oil.
Click to expand...

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081006/oil_prices.html



i hate this system more each passing day.
yeah sure...you'll argue about, that it's my fault for not being rich. well that's not really what i aspire for...i'm really starting to feel i was born in the wrong time. which doesn't mean i don't like to contribute to society.

but yeah, feel free to bash me as a capitalistic looser...i don't really give a ****
 
I know, I don't expect to ever see it happen. I wish it would though.
 
Eejit said:
I know, I don't expect to ever see it happen. I wish it would though.
Click to expand...

my ideal way for future energy systems goes something like this.

geothermal in the next 50-80 years or so, then hot fusion for the next 150-250. after that it wouldn't be a bad idea to start researching a good way to harness our own star. there was some designs proposed for this system...forgot what it's called...something along the line of ____ sphere


at the peak of geotermal usage we'll probably have a functioning space elevator which will enable us to actually make some serious mining of resources in space/moon.

but of course this will never happen while people say we need to pump less oil so that consumers might not get it too cheaply (in other words, near the real worth of the resource).

my two ambitions right now are to change to/pursue the study of geothermal energy research or to continue what i'm studying now, which is water and municipal engineering. i really hope i'll get a job in the water treatment/waterworks sector someday.

personally more than getting rich i really enjoy inventing stuff that helps the community (which i must admit has some selfish tendencies...alas i'm only human, but i'm trying not to be a greedy ****tard). but of course money is the ticket that allows you to actually get somewhere nowadays. which is sad in my opinion.

in my department...you can't believe to what lengths of quality reduction, water management and municipal companies go for maximizing profits. but yeah...this is how it works today, let's face it
 
This is the kind of stuff on which we should be focusing:

An even better fuel source may turn out to be green algae, the stuff that grows in virtually any pool of stagnant water (it need not be of drinking quality) and that is exposed to sunlight. Fortunately, algae feed on carbon dioxide and grow very fast. The possibilities are tantalizing. For example, Greenfuels Technology of Cambridge, Massachussetts, is currently scaling up an algae farm at a power plant in Arizona. The carbon dioxide emitted by the power plant is fed to the algae, which are then harvested to make either ethanol or biodiesel. If this process is successful on a large scale, it opens up the possibility of recycling power-plant CO2 emissions to create abundant liquid fuel to replace petroleum. That would be a Holy Grail indeed.
Click to expand...
Source.

When everyone is talking about oil and clean energy and global warming, they are also totally ignoring the simple fact that if everyone on the planet would stop eating beef/pork, the process of global warming could be slowed in a huge variety of ways. Sad that this never enters the discussion. The meat industry must have a strong lobby indeed.
 
VictimOfScience said:
This is the kind of stuff on which we should be focusing:


Source.

When everyone is talking about oil and clean energy and global warming, they are also totally ignoring the simple fact that if everyone on the planet would stop eating beef/pork, the process of global warming could be slowed in a huge variety of ways. Sad that this never enters the discussion. The meat industry must have a strong lobby indeed.
Click to expand...

let me illustrate why growing algee is the dumbest idea since wind power (slight joke with the wind power part...which is not that terribly bad) and why geothermal is not

103949main_earth10.jpg





oh and to add to the funny part...geothermal pipes work perfectly fine at the depth of 11 km underground which is not even beyond earths crust.
geothermal can be theoretically applied everywhere in the world. and it's an insanely stable system. we'd have so much power that cooling open balconies in summer would be considered economical. which of course would be the dumbest thing to do even if we solve our energy problems.
 
The free market is to blame for government price fixing......
 
I was under the impression that geothermal power was somewhat difficult to implement in most places due to practical engineering constraints of having bores deep enough and stable enough for the necessary pipes etc.

You seem to know more than me about the topic though jverne, care to enlighten us?
 
Eejit said:
I was under the impression that geothermal power was somewhat difficult to implement in most places due to practical engineering constraints of having bores deep enough and stable enough for the necessary pipes etc.

You seem to know more than me about the topic though jverne, care to enlighten us?
Click to expand...

:D

according to wiki

The key characteristic of an EGS (also called a Hot Dry Rock system), is that it reaches at least 10 km down into hard rock. At a typical site two holes would be bored and the deep rock between them fractured. Water would be pumped down one and steam would come up the other. The MIT report estimated that there was enough energy in hard rocks 10 km below the United States to supply all the world's current needs for 30,000 years.[9]

Drilling at this depth is now possible in the petroleum industry, albeit expensive. (Exxon announced an 11 km hole at the Chayvo field, Sakhalin. Lloyds List 1/5/07 p 6) Wells drilled to depths greater than 4000 metres generally incur drilling costs in the tens of millions of dollars.
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power

yes...there is a technical problem of having such deep holes, but obviously we have technology even today to reach that depth. so it's not a matter of reinventing a new physics model like in the case of nuclear power. but it's just an engineering/technical problem.

personally a few ten million dollars is not that much compared to the potential this technology offers. i mean seriously who needs 30,000 years of energy. i'de be happy with 100.
if the oil companies can drill 11km to get that oil out, there should be no problem doing the same with geothermal systems.
the main problem is that it'is not getting any public support/funding. an i bet it has alot to do with oil lobbyists.
and it's probably not difficult to see why...since oil companies have all the technologies and patents in this department.

i fear that geothermal energy (its exploitation) might get owned by oil companies..in that case we're equally screwed as we are now. they have the knowledge, expertise, manpower and money to do that, don't see how could we compete with that.
 
perfect communism is the answer. The answer which cannot be achieved by the current state of the common capitalist spoiled human minds.
 
Capitalism is useful for efficiently generating money, but the kind of capitalism we have seen in America based on too much greed for too long has resulted in a retreat towards massive fear.
Everyone has been using money to make money, rather than producing useful goods to make money, which means there has been an over dependence on finance to produce wealth.

The correction will be painful and lengthy, and may result in big loss of prosperity an America's fall in the world to a sub-superpower entity. This is possible if they cannot continue to fund their war machine.

Having said that I think regulated capitalism in a mixed economy where there are not too many excesses and a strategy to tackle speculation bubbles is the best kind of economic system.
 
money's just a placeholder but American society has mutated to where the reserve backing up what it represents may not even be existant to the extent it's represented as. Wouldn't have these type of ridiculous problems with perfect communism. I'm sure there are other, non-greed related problems with communism but damn, **** greed indulging shit.
And **** the perfect society I'm obviously trying at, not going to happen. What's the best way? Shit.
 
DEATHMASTER said:
perfect communism is the answer. The answer which cannot be achieved by the current state of the common capitalist spoiled human minds.
Click to expand...
^This

Ants are perfect communists. So are bees, as so are the aliens from Independence Day.

They do not strive for their own gain, but for the gain of the colony as a whole, but they also have no freedom, nor personal belongings. Everything belongs to the colony, not one individual has personal ownership. The entire colony thinks and acts as a single organism, with only one being doing all the thinking. (The queen, motherbrain, dictator, etc.)

A perfect world-wide communist regime is the only way humans will ever colonize space, as such an undertaking is far to great for any one country to shoulder. Unfortunately, human nature dictates, so such a regime will almost assuredly fail. Humans are just too selfish.


Bottom line: Humans will never colonize space a.l.a Mass Effect, Star Wars, or Star Trek, so it would be best for us sci-fi nerds wishing to see when that day comes to just get over that now so we can go about our daily lives of buying, selling, ripping one another off, counting money and playing stocks, and possibly owning anything and everything any citizen of a communist regime could only dream of having. That's human nature and why communism doesn't work, and neither will space colonies. The International Space Station, Mars and the moon will probably be as far as our countries' space programmes will go.

Two problems answered with one stone. Next plz.
 
Where's the Culture when you need em?
 
Communism would rely entirely on price fixing without a market to rationally determine prices which is a terribly bad idea.
 
Mr Stabby said:
It's exactly what's happening, the opec countries are enaging in price fixing, not the free markets fault at all.
Click to expand...
I think the problem with this is assuming that "the free market" is something ideal, platonic, uncorruptible, and perfect.

In the event a free market will always unbalance at some point become an unfree market because that is integral to both the system and to the idea of 'human nature' that it relies on and endorses. Governments don't usually meddle with the market because they think that the market needs to be regulated; they meddle with the market for their own personal gain, and are convinced to do so by companies out for their own gain, all of which remains in the spirit of capitalism. Claiming that it was not an essential part and product of a free market system would be like claiming that bureaucracy and power problems are not an essential part and product of a state capitalist system.

The answer may be government regulation to ensure a free market. But the problem there is that government regulation is also the engine by which a free market swiftly becomes unfree - even an anarcho-capitalist society, I feel, would swiftly develop governmental structures, or at least a capacity for fixing and corruption. The thing that people like me claim to be the solution is also the thing that people like you claim to be the problem. Which rather complicates things.
 
Sulkdodds said:
I think the problem with this is assuming that "the free market" is something ideal, platonic, uncorruptible, and perfect.
Click to expand...

Free market capitalism is a utopian idea, it's never been truly achieved. I was making the point that the actions of the government are indepenant of the market. The market didn't cause the price fixing the OPEC goverenmnts did, so it's incorrect to blame the problem on the market.

In the event a free market will always unbalance at some point become an unfree market because that is integral to both the system and to the idea of 'human nature' that it relies on and endorses.
Click to expand...


Only a seriously powerful corporation like a government can make markets unfree.

Governments don't usually meddle with the market because they think that the market needs to be regulated; they meddle with the market for their own personal gain, and are convinced to do so by companies out for their own gain, all of which remains in the spirit of capitalism. Claiming that it was not an essential part and product of a free market system would be like claiming that bureaucracy and power problems are not an essential part and product of a state capitalist system.
Click to expand...

That's complete nonsense. That's like saying Zimbabwe can't have democracy without political intimidation. The things that interefere with something are not essential parts of it.

The answer may be government regulation to ensure a free market. But the problem there is that government regulation is also the engine by which a free market swiftly becomes unfree - even an anarcho-capitalist society, I feel, would swiftly develop governmental structures, or at least a capacity for fixing and corruption. The thing that people like me claim to be the solution is also the thing that people like you claim to be the problem. Which rather complicates things.
Click to expand...

The only government regulation the market needs is to ensure that fraud is properly prosecuted. Non governmental organisation don't have the power to make the market less free. Perhaps the power of the government needs heavier regulation.
 
Saturos said:
^This

Ants are perfect communists. So are bees, as so are the aliens from Independence Day.

They do not strive for their own gain, but for the gain of the colony as a whole, but they also have no freedom, nor personal belongings. Everything belongs to the colony, not one individual has personal ownership. The entire colony thinks and acts as a single organism, with only one being doing all the thinking. (The queen, motherbrain, dictator, etc.)
Click to expand...


amg you forgot the Borg from star trek!
 
If we take out that area, we could see a major washout of this market," Flynn said. "We could be talking $50 or $60 oil."

If that happens, analysts say the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries may to cut production and keep prices from falling further.

Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossien Nozari on Saturday called on fellow OPEC members not to pump too much oil.
Click to expand...

oil is going to run out mabye not in my life time but certainly my childrens life time
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top