The film "Collapse"

Has anyone seen this film? See link.

This is some radical shit.

Michael Rupert is an inependant investigative journalist and formal LAPD cop. He is also a recovering alcoholic. He claims the CIA tried to recruit him for smuggling drugs into the country, something LAPD and CIA have been doing covertly for some time (umm...WTF?). He turned down the offer and was booted from LAPD. The film maker's original intention was to make a documentary about the possible CIA/LAPD drug link, and sought out Michael Rupert for an interview. Michael had a lot more on his mind, and here are some of his insights:

* Peak oil. While the concept is not new, Michael drills the point with the idea of net energy - how much energy do you need spend in order to get energy. When you need burn more than one barrel of oil in order to extract less than one barrel of oil...

Modern man's world has been "built on the edifice of oil" - all plastics, pesticides, fertilizers, toothpaste, etc etc and all consumer products in general are made form oil or derivatives of oil. Our food supply is totally dependent on cheap oil - from manufacturing/production, supply chain, packaging, and end user consumption. Your strawberries are imported form Chile, milk from China.

But what about fracking? Still won't replace the modern oil infrastructure of the world we know today.

If you were to take a map of all known oil reserves in the Middle East and superimpose a map of all known US military bases on top of it, you would see that all those bases are on top of every major oil field.

* Modern finance/economics. 3 things you need to know about the modern economy:

1. Fiat currency. All money (and there is a lot of it) is just paper backed by the Federal Reserve. If the Federal reserve prints too much or loses institutional credibility...

2. Fractional reserve banking. Basically, the banking and monetary system depends on infinite growth of incoming market participants (infinite population growth). When that trend reverses...(Japan is almost there). This is also how Pyramid Scheme works.

3. Financial derivatives. Another human construct with *perceived* (not real) value. At the time of filming (2009), there were $700 T worth (notional) of known derivatives (according to the bank of International Settlements). Today, that number is probably $1 Q (that's "quadrillion").

The combination of the above should help you to understand market crashes and financial crises and why they happen, which brings me to...

* The Financial Crisis of 2008-2010. Michael Rupert gave a presentation in 2005, mostly raving and ranting about collapse, peak oil, oil wars, etc etc....doing what he does best. He also predicts a financial crisis caused by excessive debt and over-inflated housing prices. He issued a whole series about it on his website. Here is the video of that presentation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ1xkYfjfsU

See 28:10 and 41:40.

^^^All this clarifies a lot of the current events going on today.

You can watch the movie here:

 

It's been pretty well known that the CIA is heavily involved in the drug trade for a pretty long time. The US is going to be the top producer of oil in the world probably within 5 years, as well as a net exporter, though this came out in 2009 so maybe they didn't know that then? Also, clean energy looks like it'll be available before we get anywhere close to peak oil. There've been some decent breakthrough over the last couple of years. As computing power increases and technology continues to develop, I can only imagine what things we'll come up with.

Is the guy a G? Definitely, but the movie doesn't really say anything that hasn't been said before (just going off of your blurb). Still pretty cool.

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 
Best Response

I saw this a while ago, probably some time in 2010-2011. I don't remember enough of it to make specific comments, however I remember finding that the film was not all just hyperbole. That said, however, I do think that this movie suffers from the basic flaw that most prognostications of doom usually do: it ignores the facts that humans are self-aware and that technology is not a constant.

This is to say that peak oil shifting global markets and causing doom and gloom is a valid theoretical outcome IF one assumes:

1: Humankind doesn't see the end coming. 2. We don't do anything about it.

It's similar to a static economic model taught in college. If supply goes down, price goes up, and demand won't be met. This completely neglects the fact that technologies are developed through both innovation (mobile phone tech, GPS, plastics...) and through demand (... mobile comms. tech for VIPs, GPS tech for military, plastics for everything).

For example, the reason we don't have electric cars everywhere is very simple: there hasn't been enough demand for the technology. Why, if anyone can get a $20K Honda Civic, would you want to develop an alternative to fuel engines? You wouldn't. Recently, this has changed, and we're seeing nascent technologies that are able to outdo oil-fueled options where oil is no longer a viable competitor (Tesla Motors, global solar power R&D, etc.).

Make no mistake: oil will be phased out. Just not right away. When peak oil is reached (if it hasn't been already), we'll adapt. No adaptation is without its rough edges, and there will likely be some form of conflict in the decades during which the transition takes place. But I think we'll be okay.

in it 2 win it
 
Kassad:

I saw this a while ago, probably some time in 2010-2011. I don't remember enough of it to make specific comments, however I remember finding that the film was not all just hyperbole. That said, however, I do think that this movie suffers from the basic flaw that most prognostications of doom usually do: it ignores the facts that humans are self-aware and that technology is not a constant.

This is to say that peak oil shifting global markets and causing doom and gloom is a valid theoretical outcome IF one assumes:

1: Humankind doesn't see the end coming.
2. We don't do anything about it.

It's similar to a static economic model taught in college. If supply goes down, price goes up, and demand won't be met. This completely neglects the fact that technologies are developed through both innovation (mobile phone tech, GPS, plastics...) and through demand (... mobile comms. tech for VIPs, GPS tech for military, plastics for everything).

For example, the reason we don't have electric cars everywhere is very simple: there hasn't been enough demand for the technology. Why, if anyone can get a $20K Honda Civic, would you want to develop an alternative to fuel engines? You wouldn't. Recently, this has changed, and we're seeing nascent technologies that are able to outdo oil-fueled options where oil is no longer a viable competitor (Tesla Motors, global solar power R&D, etc.).

Make no mistake: oil will be phased out. Just not right away. When peak oil is reached (if it hasn't been already), we'll adapt. No adaptation is without its rough edges, and there will likely be some form of conflict in the decades during which the transition takes place. But I think we'll be okay.

  1. Human kind obviously doesn't see the end coming. Are we acting as if we are? We already squandered most of the available natural resources rather than conserve them.
  2. Since humans don't see this coming, they obviously aren't doing anything about this. It doesn't matter, it's already too late.

Human beings can't overcome the laws of physics or the laws of thermodynamics.

I think it's clear that nothing will replace fossil fuels, which are obviously finite. Only conserving existing resources would make any difference, but that will never happen because humans would not be willing to accept a lower and perpetually diminishing standard of living.

I don't think human beings will become extinct either, but I do believe there will be mass die-offs until humans reach some kind of balance with the resources that are available. Humans might eventually be OK but the rest of my life (and yours) will suck.

Man made money, money never made the man
 

As efficiency increases, you need less resources for the same living standards. Energy can be recovered almost everywhere - the force on streets, the friction from tires driving on pavement, exhaust gas (turbos, and BMW is working on a laser system... good stuff), using lighter-weight materials like carbon fiber and aluminum instead of steel.

Electric cars just aren't currently viable for most people. Hybrids could be, but they should be targeted at city drivers. An aerodynamic 1.0L car will get close to the same efficiency as a Prius on the highway, and a diesel like the VW Polo certainly will, if not better. Hybrids should also have smaller battery packs to lower the cost and increase efficiency, since most of the gain is from using electric up to 20-25 mph (an engine's inefficient range, first gear low rpm). Hybrid turbodiesels are really the future - hybrids will be relatively limited long-term (maybe covering 30% of vehicles), same for diesel (I could see them going from 5% to 25% of new cars). $21k subcompact, hybrid turbodiesel and 130 mpg. Civic sized +$4k and -25mpg. It'll sell itself.

Then there's the market of human powered vehicles. Imagine just leisurely pedaling on one of these things: http://shweeb.com/ . Or imagine enclosed electric motorcycle-recombinant bike hybrids (could have 2 seats in line) that get 200 MPG-equivalent, dedicate 2 half-lanes for them and traffic congestion, solved. You want to be cheap, pedal a bit, want to be lazy, only use electric power.

Its as simple as this- people will eventually be forced to use less fossil fuels, and as that time approaches, people will take more innovative, efficient ideas seriously. We won't run out (supply/demand - prices will go so high it won't be practical relative to other sources before it runs out).

 

I wonder what the ramifications of clean energy will be. I mean, oil & gas is an enormous industry. Clean energy won't take nearly as many people to keep it up. How many jobs will be lost and what are those people going to do?

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 

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