Pangloss

Can I join in for the chorus? Now we just need someone to chime in for the falsetto main line.

Wow. You've literally just declared that other people don't have a right to their opinion. See this is what I figured would eventually become more clear to everyone. You just keep repeating your assertions, over and over, until you're the last man standing, and then claim victory. That's why you insist that your opinions are facts and refuse to countenance another point of view, and it's why you consistently spin other people's opinions. You have NOT become the majority opinion. You have NOT established your opinion as fact. You have NOT put me in a unique position. You've simply attempted a war of attrition. That's why you refuse to shake hands and walk away, or agree to disagree, and that's why you can't acknowledge or agree on someone else's opinion. Cpl.Luke hasn't picked up on that yet, but eventually he'll disagree with you on something and he'll figure that out. Whatever. You've stated your opinions and you've had your say. NOW I can close this thread on the basis that the discussion has been finished and complete, and all side have had their say, and the discourse has now devolved beyond the point of meaningful dialog, which is a reason why we close threads all the time. You may open a new one on peak oil, but if you refer to to me or to this meta-discussion in it, I will remove it. So I'm putting this thread on 24-hour suicide watch. Get your last licks in now. Unlike you, I've NEVER said that you can't have your opinion. I'm sorry you don't respect the opinion of myself and literally dozens of other posters who have expressed skepticism and critical analysis of your opinion. But you will abide by the rules of this board, as long as I have something to say on it, and that includes acknowledging other points of view, and not spinning, distorting, or misrepresenting what they think.

I'm confused, you want to agree to disagree, except that my opinion is invalid and I can't be allowed to have it? I have to conceed that you're right and I'm wrong? How is that "agreeing to disagree"? That's just rude, especially when I've explicitly indicated not only an open mind AND an acceptance of the evidence, but have even stipulated the exact means by which you can convince me of your argument. Agreeing to disagree means you state that you respect my opinion on it, and I do the same. I've been willing to do that since I agreed to return to the discussion with POM here. If YOU can't do that, then you need to step away from the keyboard, because I have *not once* done what you just said that I've done. The other side ALWAYS gets to "sit back and say I don't agree". That is an absolute given. If you don't like it, you're in the wrong place, flat out, full stop.

I just thought your reply was eloquent not just for what it said, but for what it didn't say. ("I am only an egg" is a reference to Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land", indicating respect.)

That may be, but I'm curious what you think about my point with regard to your thread subject? I wasn't really sure it was entirely germain, but did you see what I was getting at?

They certainly don't operate in a political vacuum. But that doesn't make it a good idea to, as John Cuthber seems to want, make whatever political decisions the elected politicians who put them in office happen to want! At any rate, what was interesting here to me is that Justice Ginsberg thought it significant enough to actually complain about it. Justices criticizing one another is almost unheard of.

I've explained to you why. Data showing that oil production would have been less expensive domestically produced than it would have been if purchased overseas during the period in which you claim that oil production peaked because it could no longer be domestically produced in sufficient quantity (as opposed to just being more expensive) would, if it existed, seem to make your case beyond the point of interpretation, opinion, and doubt. Do you have this sort of data, or are you just going to sit there and keep mischaracterizing, spinning, obfuscating, and ridiculing my honest and intellectually substantiated opinion? I would like to point out that NOT having this sort of data to show me DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE WRONG. It simply means that you don't have the data. If and when the data shows up, we can take up the issue again. What's wrong with that? Why is it SO important to convince everyone that your interpretation of this data is the only possible correct one? The polite thing for you to do, rather than mischaracterizing and attacking, would be to say "I'm afraid I don't have that kind of information at this time, but I will keep an eye out for it. I respect your opinion on it, but I disagree." Then we agree to disagree, shake hands, and walk away. That is how respectful discourse is done.

Their job is to determine the constitutionality of the laws put forth by the legislative branch and confirmed by the executive branch. They're charged with the responsibility of doing that without the encroachment of political influences. It is the entire reason for their existence. (Well, aside from a few other minor duties.)

Oh my, Saryctos. I am only an egg.

I saw another interesting aspect of this issue (the subject of this thread) today in the way the Supreme Court's decision was characterized in the media. The decision was to continue the ban on partial-birth abortion, and it was assessed as a "conservative" decision. That's certainly not surprising, but is it accurate? I've met plenty of people who are opposed to abortion over the years, and quite a number of them were ostensbily "liberal". Scientists, engineers, accountants, all races and genders and religions. One can even make the argument that opposing abortion is a matter of logical reasoning, on the basis that embryos eventually become human beings, so with abortion you're essentially drawing a somewhat arbitrary line in the sand for reasons that have to do with socio-political choice rather than scientific reasoning. Sure, there's a perfectly valid logical counter-point, but the point is that being opposed to abortion doesn't mean that you're (a) religious, or (b) stupid. You could well be neither. It seems to me that this country should make a decision whether or not to allow abortion based on the relative merits of the tradeoff of freedom and death. We need to make that decision with the full understanding of the exact consequences of what it means, not by hiding it behind faulty reasoning and demonstrative rhetoric.

I will admit that the reasoning is somewhat flawed. But I still need to see more detailed production cost data. Bandwagons are fun because they're easy. For a more interesting challenge, ask more questions.

It'll just run at the slower speed. I've done that before. I can't think of anything else off the top of my head, but it's been a while since I thought about Socket A.

What I thought most interesting about today's decision was the specific complaint raised by Justice Ginsberg, writing for the dissenting minority, saying that the decision was clearly about abortion, not partial birth abortion. That's the closest I've ever seen (in modern times) a Supreme Court justice come to accusing another justice of making a political rather than constitutional decision.

Sorry I wasn't able to drop by yesterday. Wednesdays are my "busy" days. That's a perfectly reasonable opinion based on the evidence presented. Yes. This is a point I've agreed with you on in the past. (I differ with jackson33 in this area.) Ok, fine, prices kept climbing. What I need to see is some cost-of-production data showing that it would have been less expensive for them to pull more crude out of US soil than to buy it on the overseas market. That would actually prove, rather than just imply, that oil production "peaked" because of inability to produce more. In fact that kind of data would add a great deal of validity to peak oil's case in general for me. Because this idea of capping wells to preserve them for later is a very long-standing, well-documented supposition (Yergin even talks about it in "The Prize").

Is it just me or are some of the posts in this thread out of order? Did we finally pass the mis-marked posts from the server crash?

CPL.Luke, I don't understand how that rebuts my earlier response. You'll have to be specific. Yes, he clearly does. I wonder if that agenda causes him to distort his interpretation of facts, thereby damaging his credibility. I've heard that can happen sometimes. Sure, you can guesstimate all you want. Sure, if the reasoning is correct. If it's off, then who gets left holding the bag? The Peaknik, who shrugs and wanders off to the next politically correct bandwagon, or the taxpayer, trying to figure out why their hard-earned money was spent on something completely unnecessary? But like I said, you're entitled to your opinion. I like the broken bottle analogy (have you posted that before? I don't think I've seen it here). Of course, whether or not it accurately reflects reality is another question. Analogies don't turn opinions into facts.

Very self-aware, but I question whether it is as self-criticizing as, say, violent movies or other forms of entertainment. For example, movies and television shows often portray drug abuse, but if you watch the story the end result is negative, not positive -- the abuser ends up dead or in jail (or saved because he gave it up). I don't know that that's nearly as prevalent a theme in rap music. I have heard examples of it. But I've also heard the opposite -- pure glorification, without a down side. But maybe I just haven't heard enough of it to judge it fairly. I don't advocate censorship, but I think full disclosure is valuable.

Ok, but I want to point out that just a few months ago Hillary Clinton was talking about government censorship of video games if the industry's self-policing efforts aren't improved. Given the need for moderate support for a Democratic victory in November 2008, and the current make-up of Congress, it's not hard to read the writing on that wall.

Interesting article in today's New York Times about the push to recruit more women into CS programs. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/science/17comp.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin I think they're right on target, and I've heard that many CS/IT programs around the country (including mine) are facing serious enrollment challenges these days. What do you all think?

Well as I understand it they are in the process of doing exactly that -- increasing production. Just last year a massive increase was announced for Prudhoe Bay (yes, I know it's only a drop in the bucket). But as jonathan33 pointed out, refineries effectively cap the maximum throughput of the domestic system. It takes *decades* to bring new capacity online and increase the bandwidth of the sytem, thanks to environmental regulations and so forth. You can't prove a negative. The question is how we could possibly know that the majority of the oil ISN'T untapped. Given the size of the earth that would seem to be a logical question. Geology has answers, but they're consistently proven wrong over time as new discoveries come from areas supposedly incapable of producing oil. The logical conclusion from this chain of events is NOT that we know that the majority of the oil is untapped, but that we DON'T know that it is NOT. I.E. this is a clear and consistent weakness in peak oil theory. Sure. Climatology is real also. But I don't see any weathermen forecasting accurately more than 3 days in advance. There is a big difference between talking about the economics of individual oil wells and the future of civilization. Right. I concur wholeheartedly.

No, I'm saying that when that stopped being the case they capped the wells and bought overseas. Again, that's exactly what your statistics show. When oil was selling at its highest price, domestic production was at its highest. When oil declined in price, so did domestic production. And before the "peak", when oil was less expensive, US production was not yet at its zenith. Wait... so now you're saying that failing to be devoted to peak oil theory equates to ignorance of science? And you don't think THAT's an extraordinary claim?

Let's ask a correlary: Does a PhD in a religious study have value, and if so, what might that value be? If the answer to that question is "yes", does that present a contradiction of any kind?

Yeah there was an SFN Folding team. I guess it... folded. (sorry) I used to do SETI but I gave it up a couple of years ago because I was annoyed at the expense. A lot of processors still out there can crank out 120 watts or more. Would you run a 120 watt light bulb 24/7 for science? That could be 30 bucks a year.... But a lot of newer processors are far more energy-efficient, and many can never go more than half of that wattage. Some of the newer programs also allow greater control over how much processor time/energy they consume, or how many "cores" it uses, etc. So it's probably much more reasonable now.

Carl Sagan used to say that the oldest scrap of written parchment known to man was a ten thousand year old Sumarian fragment that said something to the effect of "these kids these days don't respect their elders". (grin) (I think it was in "The Demon-Haunted World.")

Peacekeeping in its current methodology is more or less impossible and largely pointless, yes. We never really apply significant pressure and we don't have the guts+unity to do what might actually work in many if not most situations. For example, if we really applied an actual blockade to North Korea, stopping everything from food to video games for Il Presidente at the border, they'd ship every scrap of nuclear material into our hands overnight. I don't blame the French, mind you. I think we're making progress and the "UN Era" will ultimately be seen as a step forward. It's just a matter of finding more unity and... growing a pair.