Message-ID: <3427733E.FC2DB835@mail.ptl.com.mt> Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 09:43:58 +0200 From: "V.Dimitroff" <mailto:vdimitroff@MAIL.PTL.COM.MT> Subject: ignorant/dangerous To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Jim Cory wrote:>It is only common sense however to conclude...
"Common sense" is otherwise called <conventional wisdom> and Jay Hanson is appealing against that, referring to Copernicus and Galileo..I appealed for <thinking> at the end of my message, not parroting conventional wisdoms.
>..that the Earth has finite resources..
"Finite" implies <someone> consumes them to complete disintegration! Maybe future science will discover/explain complete disappearance of matter. As of today's knowledge that doesn't happen even in black holes. Far from a black hole, on Mother Earth, things (including resources) don't disappear - only <change>. Seeing things as "finite" is a problem of limited thinking.
>...that oil is non-renewable at the rate we are using it...
How do you know this? I have spent a few years in the oil industry and never met an expert who could confidently claim this. Maybe you can reliably teach me how oil came to be?
>...and that it will one day run out...
Let's suppose it does. So what? You are worried by doomsday theories based on the scenario that one fine morning you wake up to the news there isn't a drop of oil in the entire Universe, while the whole global economy still relies on this sole energy source.
Man is a <creative> creature, you know (some say - the only one, except for its Creator ;-) Man-made technology changes faster than Nature; even today oil is by far not a "monopoly" energy source. How certain can you be about it's share at the future moment when reserves run out?
>..As to when that happens I cannot say. Some researchers who
>have studied this issue (as noted in Jay Hanson's post)...
This is "authority-based" knowledge, as defined in Jay Hanson's later posting. He appeals for empirical, "observation-based" (Copernicus-style) knowledge: where are YOUR observations to prove these doomsday theories? Well, there is nothing wrong in obtaining other people's knowledge (you can't observe everything!). But why do you choose the authority of "some researchers who have studied.." and completely ignore other researchers, not less qualified, who have studied no less than the first ones, and have come to opposite conclusions???
Because optimism is so boring; Doomsday is so exciting and chic!
Happy moaning!
V. Dimitroff