Planetary Resources

[valcik]

This is the simple question if humanity needs oil to survive which can be relatively easy answered with "no" because we need actually, food, water and shelter.

Depends on what you call a humanity. A few of us can live without oil pretty well, but there is 7 000 000 000 of us. If we would run out of oil tomorrow, we'll find ourselves in some kind of a zombie apocalypse scenario. Rampaging urban punks everywhere!

 

[zegh8578]

If we would run out of oil tomorrow, we'll find ourselves in some kind of a zombie apocalypse scenario. Rampaging urban punks everywhere!

It would be a new reality, something to adapt to.
Humanity... endures...


Where is the smug jig smiley?
There it is:


Seriously tho... who said "cavemen" are anything below modern humans? Someone told me to pick up a book? They should pick up a book about cavemen for a start.
And no, I'm not going to explain myself again. Instead, I am tempted to enflame this argument further, by claiming something as utterly outrageous as:
We don't need helicopters.
^
There you go! GO CRAZY!
"You are INSANE! Why don't you read a book about sky-cranes or oceanic resque missions you ignoramus! Helicopters are VITAL to humanity! Without helicopters, theres a whole lot of things we couldn't do! You should be ashamed of yourself! Someone fetch the dunce-hat!"

 

[TheWesDude]

estimates are that once oil "falls" due to becoming much to expensive for the typical user to live their current lifestyle, oil would crash.

and current estimates are that within the first year, at least a billion people would die, and within 3 years the worlds population would be at most half of what it currently is.

there is some argument on due to the impact of the end of cheap oil, it would be considered a worse event than a meteor or other forced event as it would be a very rapid initial decline followed by a slower decline. it would be the end of humanity as we currently exist. especially in the US where we do not have a very robust energy generation systems that do not rely on oil. we have very few nuclear power plants.

would humanity survive? sure. but nowhere near where we are today. think 1800s and 1700s technology. if we are lucky. and pockets of civilization, not grand cities like we have today.

 

[Crni Vuk]

the mayans and other civilisation managed to maintain large comunities without oil. Not to mention a large part of the world is not even really using any oil. If our western society would suddenly colapse do you really believe that many communities would notice it? See thats part of the problem here, because we, as a really small part of the world believe that we are so important to it which is only half of the truth.

 

[TorontoReign]

the mayans and other civilisation managed to maintain large comunities without oil. Not to mention a large part of the world is not even really using any oil. If our western society would suddenly colapse do you really believe that many communities would notice it? See thats part of the problem here, because we, as a really small part of the world believe that we are so important to it which is only half of the truth.

Except...ya know, the Mayans didn't maintain civilization for long because they all died. Sure we could go back to living like tribals, but I'm not sure most people want that. We all know that the world would look like Mad Max if we ran out of oil. Quite denying it.

 

[Crni Vuk]

well if there would be no oil anymore tomorrow what other options do we have?

Tell me, are all of you going just to sit down, telling your self "jup, this is it!" and then passing away? Or will you at least "try" to continue? Because that is what we are talking about here right now.

Yes, our society and economy IS dependant on oil. But we are speaking here hypothetically. If it happens it happens.

 

[mobucks]

Dude we wouldn't roll over and die but we would kill each other for whatever was left. IE. the well wouldn't run out overnight.

 

[valcik]

Tell me, are all of you going just to sit down, telling your self "jup, this is it!" and then passing away?

Look at any average modern city, Crni. There are several millions of people living in. Without a food production and distribution, which is heavily depending on oil, it won't take long until they'll start eating each other.

 

[Ohaimerk]

well if there would be no oil anymore tomorrow what other options do we have?

Then the oil industry would just become the "secret oil-replacing technology they bought out and kept secret' industry, and the world would keep on turning like nothing happened

 

[Crni Vuk]

Tell me, are all of you going just to sit down, telling your self "jup, this is it!" and then passing away?

Look at any average modern city, Crni. There are several millions of people living in. Without a food production and distribution, which is heavily depending on oil, it won't take long until they'll start eating each other.

yeah but our western society is only one part of this world. Lets not ignore all those communities on this world which never even touched oil. Let it be a few million people. That would be already enough for us to "survive" as species. Yeah. Our western world would be down. And the world would sure change its face. But we are hardly the center of humanity. We just reached the peak in technology. That hardly means anything in the sense of history when you look back at 30 000 years of known (more or less) human history. Empires rise and fall. People move on. History is full of such examples. I dont think it would be different with our western society. As long we dont decide to push the button to release a global nuclear war. But even here some scientists believe that humanity could eventually survive ... but thats a different story.

 

[valcik]

Lets not ignore all those communities on this world which never even touched oil.

Agreed. At least the Brotherhood of Steal will survive, they are indestructible!

 

[alec]

Lets not ignore all those communities on this world which never even touched oil.

All those communities? Which ones are you hinting at exactly?

I think that, apart from some tribes, which are scattered all over the globe (from the rainforest over the pacific to the Australian bush) pretty much all other humans have touched oil at least once in their existence. In the form of plastics, for instance. Or in the form of planes containing food, medical equipment, tourists, ... Hell, even if a tribe would do anything in its might to avoid contact with oil, a plastic bag or a plastic bottle might still wash up on its secluded shores. It happens on the remotest of islands.

Let it be a few million people.

That's what you call all those communities - a few million? Then surely 'some communities' would have been a bettter choice of words, seeing as how 'a few million' really isn't that much. It doesn't impress me much. I'd be impressed if a whole continent was doing just fine and dandy without oil. I'd be impressed if said continent had the same level of technology/medicine. I'd be impressed if that sans oil continent would be an economic worldpower. But there is no such continent. And the small number of enclaves where humans have never ever touched oil (if those even still exist, which I seriously doubt) are places of poverty, high death rate, low life expectancy, ...

That would be already enough for us to "survive" as species. Yeah.

That's debatable. In a number of ways. Which would lead us too far, I think. Again I will simply refer to the excellent book, 'The Artificial Ape' because I find it a horrible waste of time to repeat what others have already said - and usually much better.

 

[zegh8578]

Alec, nobody is claiming that a world without oil would be like the world we have now. That goes entirely without saying.

What about past civilizations? Were they failed? Incomplete? Awaiting the future? Am I silly to even bring up people who have/are living without oil, in a debate about people and oil?

This is a debate about a hypothetical world - that will one day become reality. Yeees, it will. In the future, even far future - even a future as distant from now, as the medieval era was. And remember, that even medieval cultures were actually, real, genetically correct humans.

I really struggle to understand this locked mentality in here, where the only relevant cultures seem to be those who fullfill certain expectations, while all else are brushed aside as irrelevant.
199 000 years of oil-less existence? Irrelevant! They didn't even wear pants!
Our entire history comes from peoples who lived without oil. Yeah, but they don't count. Oh. Okay then.

What if I switch sides - and claim that once the wells run dry - we will not be able to survive at all: Every last human will die. Not a single breeding pair will be able to grow a single carrot.
You would totally hi-five that statement?
Remember, we're talking about humans as a species - not the status quo of the current civilization.

 

[alec]

What little would survive would probably not refer to itself as homo sapiens any longer.

And rightly so.

 

[paeng]

Very few is relative. Compared to the global population, even 100 million could be considered "very few". Humanity will endure.

Same irrelevant argument: either no one survives or a few survive. If it's the latter, then "humanity will endure." If it's the former, then that's bad news. Except that no one will hear the news, so that's OK, too. In which case, we have a win-win situation, folks!

I will not even bother with the rest of your post, as you now argue that you were kidding about some points and serious concerning others. But because your points are so absurd I can't tell one from the other.

And since others are already criticizing you for the same, I will just let them speak for me.

 

[DammitBoy]

estimates are that once oil "falls" due to becoming much to expensive for the typical user to live their current lifestyle, oil would crash.

and current estimates are that within the first year, at least a billion people would die, and within 3 years the worlds population would be at most half of what it currently is.

That sounds awesome, there are way too many people on the planet already.

Aren't we overdue for some kind of ethnic cleansing genocide anyway?

Think of all the polar bears that would be saved!

 

[Crni Vuk]

What little would survive would probably not refer to itself as homo sapiens any longer.

And rightly so.

says who? You? Are the native people of Brazil which eventually life in the jungle not humans to you? And you expect me to take that seriously ...

what kind of argument is that?

 

[zegh8578]

I will not even bother with the rest of your post, as you now argue that you were kidding about some points and serious concerning others. But because your points are so absurd I can't tell one from the other.

Dude.. I wasn't "kidding", I was exaggerating certain elements to make a point. I refered to that as making a "tongue in cheek joke", this is not the same as telling a rabbi-in-a-bar joke.
Are you not aware of this?
I think you _are_ aware of it, and you are simply stooping to cheap manipulation tricks "you were joking, you said so yourself"

Lame.

I am also still confused about what exactly we are debating:
Would all Homo sapiens die without oil?
Would society change without oil?
Which one is it?
I've offered many compromises - basically that society would be unrecognizeable without oil - while I get nothing but protests, is this solely about egocentrism? People want to "win" the debate?
"Humanity" is defined by Homo sapiens and all it's immediate descendants.

Fine, I couldn't really care less by this point, I give up, the moment oil runs out we will all die. The very moment. Phew...

 

[Crni Vuk]

well some here have trouble to make a difference between homo sapiens as species and society. No clue why they argue about it even ... as its rather self explaining that homo sapiens does not need oil to survive ... yet they always come up again with the same useless point "but society will die!!11111!". Like anyone of us ever said it would not. But we are not talking about society here. We are talking about Homo Sapiens and what he needs to survive. Oil is not one of those things. As simple as that.

 

[alec]

says who? You? Are the native people of Brazil which eventually life in the jungle not humans to you? And you expect me to take that seriously ...

First of all: yes, I expect you to take me seriously, I am not implying anything else. I, on the other hand, have a lot of trouble taking you seriously because of your complete disregard of grammar and spelling. How many microseconds does it generally take you to put your brainfarts into what you think of as writing? Or would that be a negative number?

Secondly: calm down. Read my post again. No: really read it. What does homo sapiens stand for? That's right: it's Latin for 'wise man'. Now use your remaining braincells to figure out why a species that manages to destroy itself would probably not want to refer to itself as 'wise men' any longer. Got it? Yeah, you made yourself look stupid.

Thirdly: I'm going to ask you - once again, one can only try, n'est-ce pas? - to delve into Timothy Taylor's The Artificial Ape. Merely googling the title already gives you a hint about its contents: it's about a theory that tools and technology are the real drivers of human evolution. Taylor makes a strong case that humans are no longer the homo sapiens that could survive in the wilderness with only the help of sticks and stones. He argues that through the use of tools and technology humans have become something altogether different. They've become artificial apes: they are dependent on their tools and technology for their survival - without it they are nothing. Personally, I think reading the book would immediately solve most of this tiring discussion.

what kind of argument is that?

A good one. One that is written in pretty good English and largely follows the correct rules of spelling and grammar. It is a polite argument. And one that still stands, by the way.

Maybe the point is that modern technological man is something else (not something more or better or even worse) than homo sapiens. Maybe the point is that if some forest dwellers survive the end of days, humanity is still gone. Maybe the point is that when all resources are depleted and the shit hits the fan and everyone dies except for some tribes of aboriginals, humanity is still gone. A chimp controlling a keyboard is something else than a chimp using a stone handaxe.