On Hubbert, and TEOTWAWKI

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains; however improbable, must be the truth.”—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I’ve already written about Jung, and synchronicity, and the lack of coincidence in the universe, I have semi revealed to you some of my thoughts, i.e. being out of place, and time.  As I stated in a previous blog post regarding the lack of civility in the church of ostensible peace (I realized later that more people have died in “Godly” fights than for any other reason I could conscientiously think of, anyone besides me recall the crusades?).

I have also regaled you with my thoughts on something wicked this way comes.  I have begun the study of bushido, not because I wish to become a samurai, but because the samurai had some good thought processes that anyone can adopt to help them get through life.  So it’s not from a swordsmanship perspective, but from a philosophical perspective that I read and study the works of Tsumetomo.  In the bushido, or hagakure, Tsumetomo speaks often of the warrior living each second as if they were dying, and even in dying should always move toward their goal.  My goal is to survive long enough to get to the other side of whatever it is that is coming.

Last week I was in class, learning Microsoft’s WPF framework, I’m a software developer (don’t ask it’s a long story) and we are adopting this as the model moving forward for all of our windows development.  The conversation turned most curiously to on M. King Hubbert, who in 1956 predicted that production of oil would peak in the United States in or about 1970, several years after his prediction, geologists came to the conclusion that Hubbert was in fact correct and oil production in the United States had in fact peaked when Hubbert said it would.

I find this very disconcerting, I am aware that the black stuff in the ground is a finite resource, and even if oil were abiotic (renewable in its current form) we still do not know how long it takes for an oil field to recover, it is quite evidentiary however that whatever that recovery rate is mankind is rapidly outstripping the earths ability to put it back.  If it is not abiotic, then we all need to take a page out of the Hagakure, and prepare every day for our death, imagine all the ways we can possibly die, and come to grips with it.  I don’t say this lightly, I believe that we could return to ways that were sustainable, and of course those who cannot will unfortunately perish.

It’s this constant mantra of “business as usual” that will be the down fall of mankind.  I find it almost ironic that those people who currently live on a sustenance existence are the best equipped to meet the new world head on.  After all they already exist at a level that will be below where the western world finally ends up.  I foresee some areas returning to “the wild west” and the areas between the towns will pretty much be a no man’s land, this will not require a terrorist attack, a nuclear weapon discharge, or some other yet unforeseen catastrophe to befall us, we have sealed our own fate by failing to take into consideration that funny looking black liquid that was first mined in Pennsylvania launching the industrial revolution did not have a finite quanta that could be applied.

I’ll leave you with pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate, which loosely translates to “plurality should not be posited without necessity”.  The simpler something is, the easier it is to maintain that thing.  I love my high speed internet, my large flat televisions, the cable that brings me mindless entertainment for roughly 30 minutes a day (don’t know why I own 3 TV’s 2 don’t get watched) and the one that does is usually on either food or how to shows.  Time to get simple, or as simple as you can, life is going to get simple soon enough.