No Peaking

People are getting worked up about peak oil theory. I’ll reply to some of the deluge of mail in the next day or two but first, three things:

(1) Lawnorder, the blogger at Daily Kos who I wrote about in “Oil and Instinct,” has written a follow-up posting (“Peak Oil Myth and the Easter Island ecological disaster“) in which she corrects a previous (and unintentional) misrepresentation of my perspective on peak oil theory, while still disagreeing with my perspective. I guess this shows that it actually is possible to have a polite blog debate.

As to Lawnorder’s new arguments: I’ll repeat that societies that include significant levels of self-ownership and private property, along with a low-friction exchange system (“money”) tend to have a “price mechanism” that creates incentives for producing, conserving and replacing scarce and desired commodities. Unless the economies of Easter Island and North Korea included this price mechanism they’re not counterexamples. And North Koreans didn’t starve because of a shortage of national natural resources. There may even tend to be an inverse relationship between natural resources and wealth-creation; see for example The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad by Fareed Zakaria:

“Wealth in natural resources hinders both political modernization and economic growth. Two Harvard economists, Jeffrey D. Sachs and Andrew M. Warner, looked at ninety-seven developing countries over two decades (1971-89) and found that natural endowments were strongly correlated with economic failure. On average the richer a country was in mineral, agricultural, and fuel deposits, the slower its economy grew — think of Saudi Arabia or Nigeria. Countries with almost no resources — such as those in East Asia — grew the fastest. Those with some resources — as in western Europe — grew at rates between these two extremes. There are a few exceptions: Chile, Malaysia, and the United States are all resource rich yet have developed economically and politically. But the basic rule holds up strikingly well.”

(2) Reader Philip Brydon (letter below) has brought to my attention an article by geologist David Deming, “Are We Running Out of Oil?,” that makes some of the same arguments that I’ve made but that contains information that I didn’t know. Everyone interested in the subject should read this short and readable article.

(3) Republicans, Democrats and peak oil theorists seem to agree that “dependence on foreign oil” hurts Americans. As in Bush’s: “Our dependence on foreign energy is like a foreign tax on the American Dream — the tax our citizens pay every day in higher gas prices, higher cost to heat and cool their homes — a tax on jobs. Worst of all, it’s a tax increasing every year.”

The Theory of Comparative Advantage is hard to understand but how hard is it to understand that oil companies import oil into the USA because foreign oil is cheaper than domestic? If oil companies depended on only domestic suppliers (all things being equal) oil would be more expensive for American consumers, so depending on foreign suppliers is like a tax rebate.

In case you think Yaron Brook is unrepresentative of the dork death cult known as Objectivism, here’s my conversation with Robert Cons, Objectivist: (unedited, all emphasis original):

    CONS: Any person who asks, “What is Objectivism?”, should do a little reading and crucial thinking. To start with I suggest he read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, The Virtue of Selfishness, The Voice of Reason, and Leonard Peikoff’s Objectivism, The Philosophy of Ayn Rand .

    These are all great essential works that will help any honest seeker searching for true critical answers, that are based on reason and connected to reality, in todays dishonest culture.

    Robert

Continue reading “”

Would You Buy This Car on eBay?

I meant to write this post about six weeks ago, so forgive me if anyone’s asked the question already, but: Would you buy this car on eBay?

Before all the warbloggers gave their stamp of credulity to US government photos of the car in which Italian agent Nicola Calipari was killed by US forces, they should have asked themselves that question. And I’m sure they would have, if they weren’t partisan hacks with heads full of oatmeal. Take a look at the listings on eBay Motors. Notice how almost every listing has photos of the car from at least a dozen angles, interior and exterior as well as under the hood? Now if you, dear reader, a person with a healthy amount of skepticism and your money on the line, saw a seller with only a few pics, all from one side, wouldn’t ya be a little suspicious?

The Italians sure are:

    After the killing, the United States and Italian governments agreed to conduct a joint investigation, because accounts of witnesses – including the journalist and the American soldiers – varied greatly as to whether the car had been warned to slow down and how fast it had been traveling.

    The bullet-riddled car in which Mr. Calipari and Ms. Sgrena were driving was returned to Italy today now that the evidence-gathering portion of the joint investigation was over.

    In the past two days, the Italian news media has been filled with unattributed reports that the two Italian members of the team have refused to sign the investigation’s report, because they disagree with its conclusions.

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Would You Buy This Car on eBay?

I meant to write this post about six weeks ago, so forgive me if anyone’s asked the question already, but: Would you buy this car on eBay?

Before all the warbloggers whooped and hollered about US government photos of the car in which Italian agent Nicola Calipari was killed by US forces, they should have asked themselves that question. Which I’m sure they would have, if they weren’t partisan hacks with heads full of concrete. Take a look at the listings on eBay Motors. Notice how almost every listing has photos of the car from at least a dozen angles, interior and exterior as well as under the hood? Now if you, dear reader, a person with a healthy amount of skepticism and an interest in

Terror by blog

Wow. BBC reporter and weblogger Stuart Hughes is being blackmailed and threatened by a Romanian hacker who has hijacked his blog. Apparently, the guy took over Stuart’s blog and demanded that he post about the Romanian journalists held hostage in Iraq.

Daster again! I told you to help our romanian journalists hostages in Iraq and you ignored me! That’s mean you don’t care about them……ok…this is an Ultimatum! If tomorrow our journalists will die, i promise you that i’ll distroy you!!! I have all your accounts. I’m not a bad guy but if you’ll ignore me again i swear i’ll distroy you!!!I hope that you are sure now that’s not a joke….don’t make me angry…
[…]
If you are not worried about you, or your family…ignore me again…Anyway next time (wich means tommorow if you don’t publish any thing about journalists) i’ll block your credit card, your cell phone ,and your access to internet……see you soon!

Romanian hacker, DASTER!

People posting comments are saying that Daster has done this before.