Short Takes  

GREEK FIRE -- WESTERN DESTINY

"Greek fire" was the mysterious weapon employed by the Greeks in antiquity to great effect in their naval battles and siege tactics on enemy redoubts. What this strategic substance was is still unknown. But could it have been our modern petroleum eminating from natural seeps? If so, Western man has long experience with crude oil, with all its blessings and curses.

Western Civilization has risen twice, once from its Greek roots and consumated in the Roman Republic and Empire, which then collapsed in chaos. And then Western Civilization rose again from the ashes to its current status, bestriding the world.

Each time, Western ideas of organization and technology unleased human potential on a scale rivaled by few others (China, Egypt, and possibly ancient Mesopotamia).

In harnessing human energy, the West had one advantage: Freedom over slavory, both phyisical and intellectual (sure, slavory was a part of the Greek and Roman worlds, and wasn't eliminated from the West until the American Civil War. But compared to other Civilizations, that half-step to freedom, made a dramatic difference.

Refining these ideas required flexibility and competition. There has always been a struggle for the acceptance of ideas.

Big Gav, the selection of stories was fair and reflective. Peak oil had a very good week. There is every reason for proponents of peak oil to be feeling their oats. Oil company leaders and oil analysts alike gave credence to the idea that production is maxed out.

But you also were balanced with the article on competing figures for oil stocks and even theories on the origins of oil. Estimates for total supplies are all over the board.

One can take away vastly different numbers; there seemed to be something for everybody.

Oil industry executives must be dreaming "diamonds are forever." Are they consulting with the De Beers company?

Prices for commodities are set on the margins: Small additions of supply can have an exagerated effect on price. Every discovery of oil, even small discoveries, has an effect on price: Think of a handful, or bundle, of uncooked spaghetti, each strand is part of the bundle. Prognosticators who belittle smaller finds, as, "not worth the trouble (environmental impact, and so on) don't understand the market. Also, in looking for even small finds, one may find the next 10 billion barrel field or larger.

All this is not to say that ideas of alternative energy should not be pursued with vigor. They should. Economics has been called the "dismal science," but also, it is known that economics is a function of human desire, which beyond food and minimal shelter, is whatever man thinks is desirable.

The struggle for man, when comparing "doomers" and "optimists," is still a battle between freedom and slavory.

Will our ideas enslave us or our fellow man, or will our ideas unleash the great still untapped potential of mankind?

This post gave balance to the competing ideas.

Ideas still hold sway over the mind of man. From "Greek fire" to today, Western destiny still rests on the shoulders of men unafraid of ideas, and searching for the ideas that liberate man's soul, not enslave him to fear and suffering.

Fear, suffering, and ignorance are the handmaidens of cruelty and destruction.

Of all the evils unleashed from Pandora's Box, from Greek mythology, hope was also released.

Let us not allow evil's handmaiden to take a hatchet to the reasoning mind of man.

Jim - you can rest assured that I don't support any form of slavery, nor do I consort with evil's handmaiden.

BTW - I think I saw you pop up in the RI comments in a different guise. Be a little wary of openly frequenting that place...

Big Gav,
I was glad you knew it was me. I had to go somewhere, and neglected to put my salutation at the bottom.

What is the RI? Is it a blog?

I don't think I have, but it's possible, but I don't know what RI stands for.

Respectfully,
Jim from Oregon

Rigorous Intuition.

Big Gav,
Thanks. No.
I believe you don't entertain any such thing. Your ideas are positive and focus on man's abilities. My concern is with the extreme doomers. Some of their ideas...

Respectfully,
Jim from Oregon

Hmmm - well someone there has just taken up signing their comments with "Respectfully, Dave (or something similar) from Oregon" which is a pretty weird coincidence (see the jellyfish post I mentioned above).

If its not you then someone is playing silly buggers - not uncommon at that place - but I'd recommend not getting drawn into it if you can avoid it.

After you identified the blog, I took a look at it. Esoteric is the polite descriptive; bizarre and weird is more accurate.

That is not my cup of tea.

I'm more concrete than that. I suppose I got carried away with my Greek motif. Greek fire, is something I've toyed with since my interest in oil origins was peaked (about a month ago).

But the handmaiden and the hatchet was taken from your graphic -- serves me right for getting too literary, then I get accused of hanging out on a wacko blog.

Seriously, the extreme doomers with their chat about death and destruction and ominous talk of "population reduction" does strike concern.

What looking at the Rigorous Intuition revealed to me, is the deep well of irrationality out there. People know there is a market for that kind of thing on the internet and they feed it.

My interest, here, is Earth science, and while politics has an impact, that is not my focus.

Respectfully,
Jim from Oregon

I didn't accuse you of hanging out at RI - just asked, as someone there had just started using a sig very similar to yours.

RI is bizarre, but its more accurately tagged as communist conspiracy theory with a heavy overlay of weirdness (in the case of that post, the jellyfish seem to represent the "fascist octopus", and the point seems to be that Obama is just another puppet dangling from the tentacles).

Its also frequented (and frequently interdicted by) by various spooks, which is why you don't want to become a regular (and the fact that you are being mimicked there isn't a healthy sign). One way or the other, its now a honeypot (not necessarily by the author's intent).

Your talk about artificial scarcity and cartels is a common theme there, so you have more in common with them than you may imagine...

Big Gav,
When someone asks me a question, and in response I tell them, "No." And then they follow up with, "Hmmm - well someone there has been signing...pretty weird coincidence...look at the jellyfish post...". I call that an accusation.

"Respectfully" is a common salutation.

Sorry if you don't agree, but that's my response.

As far as the rest, thanks for the information. I wondered what you were talking about.

You are reading too much into my comments. It's the peak oil folks that talk incessantly about the oil companies and OPEC lying about how much petroleum is left. As you saw previously, I relied on figures provided by The Oil & Gas Journal.

You, on the other hand, were the one calling the publication a "mouthpiece" for the petroleum industry.

My point has been that there is plenty of oil, and that more scientific evidence exists to support abiotic origin theory than fossil theory, and so far, you haven't provided any direct evidence to contradict that assessment.

Jim

Jim - I didn't accuse you of anything - I asked you a question, and offered an alternative explanation for the weirdness (and weird it is - I've never seen anyone - in hundreds of thousands of blog comments that I've read over many years - sign themselves "respectfully, so-and-so from Oregon" before this week).

As for your other comments, you are contradicting yourself and just going round in circles. You accused the ASPO of being funded by the oil industry. You mentioned the De Beers cartel again and again as a model for the oil industry. Don't tell me its just the peak oil people - you just have a different variant of the conspiracy theory.

Your abiotic oil theory is just Soviet era nonsense - you previously said you would prove it, then backed down. I regard this is simply tinfoil, nothing more. Its up to you to prove otherwise.

As I requested previously, please stop wasting my time with unnecessary comments that add no value to the discussion.