De-automation may be inevitable

I am not certain that de-automation is the only way to go, but it seems inevitable, to solve both huge young unemployed populations and peak cheap oil problems. Either we do it proactively or be forced by it. To do it, migration barrier needs to relaxed so that huge young unemployed populations in the trapped Least Developed Countries can find jobs elsewhere and this may allow them to escape the poverty trap.

The obstacle of this policy, as European Union demonstrates, is culture (includes language and religion). While the globe is more and more interconnected to share the common fate, people’s ethnic group mentality is still slow to change. This is probably the root of the collapse, if any.

Riots in Bolivia over fuel price increase

Pakistan nears bankruptcy?

If it is true, the international politics as we know will not sustain very long.

Update: debt, subsidy reform, fuel price rises, political crisis.

Escape from reality

Make no mistake about it, ignorance is a choice. It doesn’t matter whether you are poor or rich. Books are available to everyone in this country.

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We don’t know because we don’t want to know.

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Americans have chosen to believe the lies because the truth is too hard to accept.

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Becoming educated, thinking critically, working hard, saving money to buy what you need (as opposed to what you want), developing human relationships, and questioning the motivations of government, corporate and religious leaders is hard. It is easy to coast through school and never read a book for the rest of your life. It is easy to not think about the future, your retirement, or the future of unborn generations. It is easy to coast through life at a job (until you lose it) that is unchallenging, with no desire or motivation for advancement. It is easy to make your everyday troubles disappear by whipping out your piece of plastic and acquiring everything you desire today.

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Americans love authority figures who act as if they have all the answers.

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You are being lied to, but most of you prefer it.

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When Jimmy Carter gave his malaise speech in 1979, Americans were in no mood to listen. Carter’s solutions were too painful, required sacrifice, and sought to benefit future generations. The leading edge of the Baby Boom generation had reached their 30s by 1979, and the most spoiled, pampered, egocentric generation in history could care less about future generations, long term thinking, or sacrifice for the greater good. They were the ME GENERATION.

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Instead of dealing with reality, adapting our behavior and preparing for a more localized society, we put our blinders on, chose ignorance over reason and pushed the pedal to the medal by moving farther away from our jobs, building bigger energy intensive mansions, and insisting on driving tank-like SUVs, Hummers, and good ole boy pickups.

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Kevin Phillips in American Theocracy concludes that there are so many Americans tied to our unsustainable economic model that they will choose to lie to themselves and be lied to by their leaders rather than think and adapt:
A large number of voters work in or depend on the energy and automobile industries, and still more are invested in them, not just financially but emotionally and culturally. These secondary cadres included racing fans, hobbyists, collectors, and dedicated readers of automotive magazines, as well as the tens of millions of automobile commuters from suburbs and distant exurbs, plus the high number of drivers whose strong self-identification with vehicle types and models serve as thinly disguised political statements.

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“Our principal constraints are cultural. During the last two centuries we have known nothing but exponential growth and in parallel we have evolved what amounts to an exponential-growth culture, a culture so heavily dependent upon the continuance of exponential growth for its stability that it is incapable of reckoning with problems of non-growth.” – M King Hubbert

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Are you tired of lying to yourselves?

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“Most of one’s life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself from thinking. People intoxicate themselves with work so they won’t see how they really are.” – Aldous Huxley

from this post.

Oil Pirates of Nigeria

If you were tracking oil price in the last few years, you must notice that instability of Nigeria oil production is often being attributed to the increase of oil price on that day. Of course the performance of the so call “analysts” is very poor, probably because they need to provide an “reason” (probably because we human always look for explanation why something changes like that) everyday and they didn’t have time and resources to explore deeper for the real causes which may actually be far in space and time. Therefore they always relate the changes to some events that occured recently, without testing whether their causation is valid or not (may be coincidence only, or correlation which is not causation) and if it is really a cause, how strong is the causal link (it may not be chief cause)?

Anyway, at least they revealed the importance role of Nigeria in the world oil market when the oil production is becoming harder and harder to keep up with oil consumption nowadays. Then, why Nigeria is so unstable?

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/africa/jan-june07/nigeria_01-26.html
and http://rs.resalliance.org/2009/01/09/oil-pirates-of-nigeria/ may give some clues about this.

Understanding non-renewable commodity system

A good example of online System Dynamics Interactive Learning Environment (ILE):
Oil Dynamics
helps you to understand dynamics of oil price better.