"CRUDE" oil, an absolute must see program !!!

Yeah, well I'd need the examples... but for all I have seen freedom and democracy tempered with individual rights enshrined in law aimed at creating a level playing field have produced the best results. It works with our nature rather than against it... to put it in a nut shell it is "nature with rules", the civilisation of what otherwise would be a brutal fight for survival as it is in nature and as it often descends into in the human world. Anywhooo if the US failed tomorrow you could not hold it up as a failure of a Free Market Democratic Republic. The US has wandered from that path with some major corruptions of the system, the first and most important of which was the corruption of money (not that you are alone in that!) which is at the very root of these financial market failings. Honest society needs honest money, its a building block, a foundation that is not negotiable. Corruption of a societies money supply will always lead to the corruption of its financial and payment systems and the eventual downfall of a society. Man simply cannot be trusted control money supply via a politcal process, the potential for corruption and the myriad subtle but powerfully destructive implications this has across a society are far to great. If you have studied civilisations completely you will notice that as money dies so the civilisation comes under pressure, that fact has been well documented in history.

So you propose a modification of human nature so that we will find it easy to live a life defined by scientific principles? Yeah well good luck getting humans to act rationally.... I will take the short side of that deal.

 

I just had a brain fart, - - and Bostons' way will require everyone at birth be given a frontal lobotomy....

 

I think Rapido was an early experiment...

 

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Meanz Beanz again." and that laugh I got would be worth at least 26 points

Am I getting closer to consensus? - - - even in my own outrageous way?

 

Crude Oil Prices in a World War

Interesting discussions gentlemen, but I think Meanz Beanz has it right

I'll digress for a moment with another factor that may likely influence the price of oil. I've brought this up before, and it still has me VERY concerned.

Another World War...for energy??...and triggered by some small incident...

Russian Missile Sales to Iran May Raise Prospect of Israeli Strike

Coming in the wake of Russian warships passing through the Panama Canal and visiting Cuba, conflicting reports that Moscow intends to sell an advanced anti-aircraft missile system to Iran are ratcheting up tensions with the United States. But more worrisome still is the heightened prospect of a preemptive Israeli air strike against Tehran's nuclear infrastructure before the S-300 system would become operational.

On Sunday, Iranian official Esmail Kosari seemingly confirmed earlier rumors of the purchase, telling Tehran's IRNA news agency, "After a few years of talks with Russia, now the S-300 system is being delivered." But the next day, the Russian agency responsible for monitoring international defense cooperation denied plans for imminent deliveries of the S-300 to Iran, claiming the Iranian's revelation "does not correspond to reality." Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, also said a senior Russian official had "told Israel that the new report about delivery of the S-300 was false."
As the AP reported Tuesday, despite the Russian assurances American officials believe the sale of the SA-10 (as it is known in the West) is going forward. While protesting that the sophisticated anti-aircraft system would pose a threat to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington's bigger concern is the prospect of dramatically improved air defense for the Iranian nuclear program. As the Washington Post detailed:
Israel and the United States fear that, were Iran to possess S-300 missiles, it would use them to protect its nuclear facilities, including the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz or the country's first atomic power plant now under construction at Bushehr by Russian contractors. That would make any potential military strike on the Iranian facilities much more difficult.

Make that much more difficult.

Following Tehran's recent acquisition of Tor M-1 surface-to-air missiles, the S-300 system would alter the calculus for the Israeli and American defense planners contemplating a strike against supposed nuclear weapons-making targets in Iran. As the Jerusalem Post noted in August:
[The S-300] is one of the most advanced multi-target anti-aircraft-missile systems in the world today and has a reported ability to track up to 100 targets simultaneously while engaging up to 12 at the same time. It has a range of about 200 kilometers and can hit targets at altitudes of 27,000 meters.

To be sure, the Israelis aren't standing still. In August, an Israeli defense official claimed his country was already developing electronic warfare devices to "neutralize" the S-300. Israel has also purchased 90 long-range F-16I fighter planes which can carry enough fuel to reach Iranian targets. And in June, Israel carried out a massive aerial exercise in the Mediterranean with 100 F-16 and F-15 fighters, a maneuver American defense officials viewed as part warning and dress rehearsal.

As for the outgoing Bush administration, its time and options are limited, if not its preferences. , The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh reported that as early as April 2006, the Bush administration was "planning a massive bombing campaign against Iran." In late 2007, Hersh claimed, the President gave the green light to escalating American covert operations within Iran. (That charge was denied by U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker.) And despite the opposition of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael Mullen, Vice President Cheney is said to prefer that the U.S. and not Israel strike Iran, as "we'll be blamed anyway." (Hersh also reported in July that Cheney hoped to trigger a confrontation with Tehran by staging a shooting incident in the Strait of Hormuz with PT boats manned by U.S. Navy Seals dressed as Iranians.)

All of which means Barack Obama can't enter the White House a moment too soon. Obama has pledged a diplomatic offensive to engage Tehran over its nuclear program. (Last week, the Washington Times reported that Obama plans to name an envoy for outreach to Iran.)

But he won't have much time to alter the trajectory of events in the Persian Gulf. The impasse with Medvedev over the U.S. missile defense system is aggravating Russia's defense of its aid to the Iranian nuclear program. While a recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concluded that Iran abandoned its plans for nuclear weapons in 2003, the IAEA announced in November that Tehran now has enough enriched uranium (if not the know-how) for one atomic bomb. And while upcoming elections in Israel may delay any decision to launch an assault against Iranian nuclear facilities before a deployment of the Russian S-300 systems is complete, a victory by the hard-line Likudnik Benjamin Netanyahu makes that prospect more likely.

...scary thoughts of another 'world war', and unbelievable oil prices

 

One can but swear in disbelief and horror....

 

well said Mr Eiland
although the warming, the food, the monetary, the over population, and the energy issue are all equally important
Ive always said we need to shake hands and make up with both Russia and China and move on to realistic and cooperative solutions
time to quit the bickering and start working together
as things will get ugly should we not

I found the notes to that paper I wrote
not sure if it got published or not but I think it did and thats probably why I dont have it handy

cultural devolution
DJR
Woods hole Oceanographic institute
MIT
CU Boulder

Historical evidence of the digression of civilization
this started out as a paper on the effects of Pauline Christianity on the advancement of civilization
( as most of you will guess Christianity had a devastating effect on nearly every area of society and marked the end of an era of great libraries, hygiene, education, sanitation, cultural diversification, science, art, religious tolerance, a great age of architecture and on and on )
but as I dug deeper into the effects of a totalitarian religion
it became obvious that there was a bigger picture and that Pauline Christianity was only the obvious in a long history of decline

for instance the duration each civilization is surviving, is dropping

1 3200-2360bc = 840 Sumerian

2 3000-1100bc = 1900 Minoan

3 3000-1500bc = 1500 Indus Vally

4 2850-715bc = 2135 Egyptian

5 1800-889bc = 911 Assyrian

6 1728-1686bc = 42 Old Babylonian empire

7 1640-1200bc = 440 Hittite

8 1100-332bc = 768 Phoenician

9 1000-547bc = 453 Phrygian

10 900-200bc = 700 Greek

11 900-396bc = 504 Etruscan

12 835-550bc = 285 Mede

13 800-300bc = 500 Scythian

14 750-500bc = 250 Cimmerian

15 700-547bc = 153 Lydian

16 625-539bc = 86 New Babylonian Empire

17 250bc-222 = 477 Parthian empire

18 31bc-312 = 343 Roman empire

19 200-533 = 333 Vandal kingdom

20 226-642 = 416 Sassanid empire

21 250-550 = 300 Nazca

22 300-1400 = 1100 Mayan empire

23 300-700 = 400 Teotihuacan

24 312-1453 = 1141 Byzantine

25 480-534 = 54 First kingdom of burgundy
26 493-555 = 62 Great Ostrogoth Empire
30 568-774 = 206 Lombard kingdom

31 581-618 = 37 Sui dynasty
32 618-907 = 289 Tang dynasty

33 632-661 = 29 Orthodox caliphate

34 661-750 = 89 Omayyad caliphate

35 681-1018 = 337 First Bulgarian empire 17080

36 750-1100 = 350 Vikings

37 800-1200 = 400 The Chola Empire
38 900-1400 = 500 Mixtec

39 900-1100 = 200 Kingdom of Ghana

40 910-1171 = 261 Fatimid Caliphate Cairo

41 960-1126 = 166 Northern Song Dynasty

42 962-1806 = 844 Holy Roman Empire

43 1127-1279 = 152 Southern Song Dynasty

44 1200-1500 = 300 Chimu
45 1250-1521 = 271 Aztec

46 1280-1367 = 87 Yuan Dynasty

47 1350-1918 = 568 Ottoman empire

48 1438-1543 = 105 Inca Civilization

49 1450-1820 = 370 Oyo Empire

50 1460-1591 = 131 Songhai

51 1483-1757 = 274 Mughal Empire

52 1495-1975 = 480 Portuguese Empire

53 1501-1723 = 228 Safavid Empire

54 1519-1898 = 379 Spanish Empire

55 1600-1945 = 345 British Empire

56 1644-1911 = 267 Quing ( Manchu ) Dynasty

57 1776-2006 = 230+ USA

58 1867-1918 = 51 Austrian-Hungarian Empire ( alliance )

59 1867-2002 = 135 British commonwealth

60 1871-1940 = 69 French Third Republic

61 1922-1991 = 69 Soviet Union




av time of existence period of existence
197 yrs 1500 to present

274 1000 to 1500

309 500 to 1000

475 0 to 500

281.5 500bc to 0

406 1000bc to 500bc

604 1500bc to 1000bc

476 2000bc to 1500bc

1817 2500bc to 2000bc

1370 3200bc to 2500bc



the trend is clear, as time goes by our governments are not learning to survive longer, instead they are failing faster
this represents evidence of something negative happening to our progress as a culture
and there seem to be many areas of science representing levels of cultural development that display devolution evidence of this type

for instance language, the number of letters in an alphabet and of even greater significance, the number of words in a language



cuneiform is one of the oldest known language forms

first appearing in about 3100 bc

original sumarian cuneiform was comprised of about 1500 characters

Babylonian 2900 bc cuneiform about 600

cuneiform was last used in 76 ad

linear a and linear b

linear a is comprised of about four hundred letters

1800 bc

linear b is comprised of about two hundred

1450 bc

cuneiform Abjad appearing about 1500bc
is comprised of 31 distinct letters but has no vowels
proto-Canaanite ( consanantal syllabary ) appears to have only 23 letters

first appearing in 1400 bc

Phoenician ( abjad ) from about 1150 bc has only 22 letters but also no vowels similar to the proto-Canaanite alphabet

paleo Hebrew ( abjad ) appearing in about the year 1000 bc

it is a consonant alphabet with no vowel indication

paleo Hebrew is comprised of 22 letters

Greek first appearing in 900bc is comprised of 24 letters
and represents the first true alphabet with a separate symbol being used for each vowel or consonant

Aramaic ( abjad )first appearing in approximately 800 bc

is a derivation of cuneiform abjad

is comprised of 22 letters

Etruscan appearing in 800 bc is comprised of 26 letters

roman first appearing in 700 bc was originally comprised of 21 letters adopted from the Etruscan

the Brahmani ( abugida )languages first appearing in 600bc

comprised of approximately 47 letters

Tibetan ( abugida ) first appearing in 650 bc

is comprised of 35 letters

Syriac appearing in 200bc comprised of 22 letters

runes proto-Germanic Teutonic

first appearing about 100 bc

is comprised of about 47 letters

Gothic alphabet first apearing about 300 c

comprised of 28 letters

elder Futhark a Germanic alphabet from 400 c

comprised of 24 letters

Ogham is a ancient language of Ireland originating in approximately 400 c

is comprised of 22 letters

Armenian alphabet from 405 c

comprised of 38 letters

Anglo Saxon Futhoric about 750 c

comprised of 28 and later 33 letters

Glagolitic the first known Slavic alphabet appears in 862 c

the number of letters in the original language is not known but there are 41 in use in ancient times and today only about 30 are in use in Croatian and Czetchan languages

Cyrillic earliest variants appeared about 940

cosisted of about 33 letters

Hangul alphabet 1443 c comprised of 14 consonants and 10 vowels totaling 24 letters

Zhuyin Fuhao both alphabet and syllabary consists of 21 consonants and 16 vowels for a total of 37 characters


consideration sould be given to the tottal number of words in each language although it is nearly imposible to get a resonable estimate off the total number of words actually specific to any given laguage

although an extensive thirty year project to develop a dictionary for the Sumerian cuneiform the project is as of yet incomplete there for complete data is as of yet unavailable for this language form

linear a unavailable

linear b unavailable

cuneiform abjad

proto Canaanite

Phoenician

palio Hebrew

information unavailable

Greek is a huge language with an estimated 76 million words extant with at least 1.2 million lexical forms ( from http://omega.cohums.ohio-state.edu/mailing_lists/CLA-L/2000/01/0364.php )



early spanish derived form the latin in aproximately 800 c to 900 c and is comprised of about 100,000 to 200,000 words lexical from ( http://spanish.about.com/od/spanishvocabulary/a/size_of_spanish.htm )



modern english arose in about 1550 c and is estimated to have about 1 million words in use today however the largest dictionaries only contain about 450,000 lexical forms ( http://www.languagemonitor.com/wst_page7.html )

although it is generaly estimated that modern english is comprised of about 250,000 to 300,000 words actually in use as many words are unknown and obsolete today

( http://spanish.about.com/od/spanishvocabulary/a/size_of_spanish.htm )

 

My feeling (no research - just feeling), is that a capacity to negotiate in honesty and abide by that negotiation (fair trade rules?) and a system of exchange/barter/monetary values are important preconditions for an enduring society....

There may be some localities (trading and "university" ports) where shared knowledge and permanent trading warehouses may be set up in a cross/multi-cultural environment - - a role like modern day Singapore...

A capacity to let other societies do their own thing unimpeded in any way so long as no threat is made to adjoining societies (tolerance and acceptance)....

A Global recognition that NO growth and NO expansion is GOOD and necessary for sustainability.... - - - and a very difficult consideration, that calamities and local disasters are a natural means of reducing pressure of human habitation and should be left to run their natural course...?

 

Boston, I can think of several societies not mentioned which have had long endurance (prior to western impact) like Maya, Inca, Aztec, PNG and other Melanesian, Micronesian and Polynesian cultures as well as the Inuit, red Indian, Indian, Malaysian/Indonesian and Australian Aboriginal peoples.... and also the mysterious disappearance of the peoples of Easter Island....

So perhaps a degree of isolation is also necessary.... and or small community size (numerically limited capacity to over-exploit their patch)?

Isolation and limiting access could occur with sail powered boats to a maximum size of say 20m.LOA & 5 crew including "spouses" - - ? - - This would also suggest compliance in a peaceful trade venture and no intention of making aggressive/invasive actions... (the cruising yachtie still has a place to wander freely...)

 

From the desk of T. Boone Pickens

Hey Army,
I’ve told you this all along — our addiction to foreign oil could bring us to our knees, and there wouldn’t be a damn thing we could do about it. Now take a look at today’s headlines. OPEC just announced it’s cutting production by 2.2 million barrels. Remember – this is on top of the 2 million barrels in cuts they’ve already made since this summer! These guys are serious about getting the price of oil back up right where they like it: $75 a barrel, $100 a barrel, $150 a barrel.

This is exactly why now is the time to pull together and Push the Pickens Plan. Every time the price of oil drops, America falls asleep. The Saudis don’t. The Iranians don’t. The Venezuelans don’t. But we do.

President-elect Obama said it best a few weeks ago on 60 Minutes. “Oil prices go up, gas prices at the pump go up, everybody goes into a flurry of activity. And then the prices go back down and suddenly we act like it’s not important, and we start, you know, filling up our SUVs again. And, as a consequence, we never make any progress. It’s part of the addiction, all right. That has to be broken. Now is the time to break it.”

I couldn’t agree more. We’ve got to break that addiction now. Before it breaks us.

-Boone

 

One day USA will wake up, but will it be too late?... Even here in Australia, the sleeping sickness seems to have struck....

 

Yes Brian... its all to possible isn't it!

The idea terrifies me but by my understanding of the creatures we are dealing with (yes thats us!) it seems to be the path most often taken. I dearly hope to be wrong but I believe that we are going to fight over this and even more terrifying is the fact that some of the major players have limited ability to wage a ground war. Look at China and the US, on the ground there is no balance... China has weight of numbers on its side BUT then you look at the nuclear arsenal that the US holds. If push comes to shove the choice is clear for the US. I don't pretend to know how war might unfold but I do believe that now we have become at relative ease with a world full of nukes we are in all probability closer to using them than we have ever been before. Simple logic leads you to this point... start at this point in time, take all the likely political choices that will be made against a back drop of depleting oil and you get to war... then look at the options for a war and the fact that "we", in our wisdom, now believe that a limited tactical nuclear war can be won... its a bigger risk than most would acknowledge especially if the compressed time line demonstrated in that video comes into play. IEA says we have a 9.1% depletion rate, that equals half todays oil flows by 2015... who really thinks we can do that? Its on our doorstep.... and as Boston and others point out its the first of many challenges, but its one we are ignoring for now.

Lets just hope that we get our act together and agree on a global plan of action.... (stop laughing at me! I can dream!)

Anywhooooo its Christmas here! Just getting ready to do the rounds.... enjoy every single day of the next few years folks... just in case... And Merry Eggnog to your Christmas.... no, no, thats Merry Kissmoose to all!

 

hey Masalai ya Im sure there were some I forgot
although the Inca I did include as well as the Mayan I think
although they may be throw in with the Inca I dont remember

point is there is a clear trend towards governments going extinct in less and less time

av time of existence period of existence
197 yrs 1500 to present

274 yrs 1000 to 1500

309 yrs 500 to 1000

475 yrs 0 to 500

281.5 yrs 500bc to 0

406 yrs 1000bc to 500bc

604 yrs 1500bc to 1000bc

476 yrs 2000bc to 1500bc

1817 yrs 2500bc to 2000bc

1370 yrs 3200bc to 2500bc

tribal cultures are difficult to measure but I believe the comparison included enough data to form a trend

although there is a moment of anomalous data from 500bc to 0 ce

in the end we are headed according to the data at least towards a situation were the duration of the governing bodies does not exceed the human natural life span according to the data in about 200 years
so question is
what will come of ultranationalism and various forms of cultural diversity

best B


hey Meanz
thats called the MAD doctrine for mutual assured destruction
nobody liked it
but it has worked
in a sick and twisted sorta way

B

 

Its not MAD anymore... thats my point. Its gone very quite, kinda like a psycho does just before you wished you where not at that particular bar.

Don't give me eggs to suck kid...



P.S. Boston... I think that measuring civilisation in terms of time is not that relevant. Change brings social strains and stresses... you need to look at what each society has achieved in the given period. Change seems to be running along an exponential curve with the last hundred years or so having been exceptional. Recently we have handled massive pressures comparatively speaking when you look back at previous eras... global wars, technology turning life upside down regularly, changing social structures etc. Sure we are repeating past mistakes but as yet they have not proven fatal, there is time to get this right or at least correct the mistakes. Some aspects are looking ropey, that is granted... but maybe we do it, who knows.

May you live in interesting times.

 

Trying to predict the trajectory of a society using the number of letters in their written alphabet, is, well 'interesting'. A simpler explanation just might be that there are only so many sounds that can be made with the human mouth and tongue, and that given the inevitable evolution of language with usage, there is a convergence toward a minimum number of characters capable of adequately represent all those sounds. The number seems to lie consistently between 20 and 30.

Jimbo