Ship of Fools

by the subway philosopher™

A tripartite ship of fools is sailing the muddy, toxic waters of planet Earth these days. Beneath the hoary, fluttering ensign of the corporate state, on the vessel’s main deck, we see the ‘plenty of oil, nothing to worry about’ crowd. Crammed into the cargo hold are the peak-oil doomers, kept out of earshot of decent folk  in order to mute their tiresome cries: ‘the oil is running out, the oil is running out!’ And aft on the poop deck we find the abiotic ‘oil is constantly replenishing itself’ gang.

But despite the apparently conflicting viewpoints, it’s all the same ship. Consider the following unpleasant facts:

1) The amount of energy per barrel of oil that’s available to power the economy and civilization is in relentless decline. Seventy years ago, 95% of a barrel’s energy helped drive prosperity and growth to dizzying heights, while today that figure is hovering somewhere in the 80-85% range for new discoveries – a significant reduction.

2) Oil and fossil fuel discoveries have substantially lagged extraction and consumption for almost all of the past 60 years.

–          How many internal-combustion vehicles can dance on the blades of a wind turbine?

Now check to see which part of the ship you dwell in, and ask yourself – how does my particular perspective alter these two essential pieces of information? Answer: it doesn’t. Thus all three theories are effectively irrelevant, the equivalent of disputing how many ICE vehicles can dance on the blades of a wind turbine.

The limits to fossil fuels are only partially a question of depletion. More realistically, they’re a function of extraction costs, i.e. depletion of the most easily-exploited resources. From an EROEI greater than 100:1 back in the day, to the current figure of roughly 7:1 for sources such as the Athabasca tar sands or Venezuela heavy crude, the long-term trend in extraction costs is such that any curious persons ought to be wondering at what point they become prohibitive. Does it matter how much oil exists if we can’t viably extract it?

–          Could it be that the masters of the Great Reset actually understand reality?

Furthermore, suppose that at least a few of the people who recognize these practical limits to oil are ensconced in the upper echelons of power. After all, it doesn’t seem reasonable to assume that every single corporate billionaire and/or high-level government official is an intellectual dullard, irrational though the powers-that-be appear on occasion. How would such persons behave if they were in the know? What policies, rules and mandates might they enact? What would the puppet-masters be doing if they were concerned about the energy constraints staring humanity in the face?

A quick look at some additional facts illustrates the matter more clearly:

• ·         The world’s great petroleum companies are, through both voluntary and coercive means, turning their backs on the oil and fossil fuels that made them unimaginably wealthy.
• ·         Gov.com almost everywhere is promoting enforcing a suicidal switch to ‘green’ energy alternatives and sources which make little sense from economic and practical perspectives.
• ·         Electric vehicles are being jammed down the throats of citizens world-wide, despite the obvious reality that electrical grids cannot support them all and most people can’t really afford them.
• ·         Every automotive manufacturer is switching to EVs, disregarding an almost complete lack of demand from the public.
• ·         The rules and regulations ostensibly designed to combat covid are in the process of becoming permanent, and severely restrict the mobility and energy use of the unwashed.
• ·         Government, corporate and personal debt continues to skyrocket, an ever-increasing supply of ‘money’ notwithstanding.
• ·         The prosperity of ordinary people, especially in the first world, has been falling for two decades, if not longer.
• ·         Current economic growth depends far more on financialization and monetization than on production of useful goods and services, and benefits only the elite.
• ·         Brown is the new green – the toxic extractive processes which enabled the industrial machine are accelerating to embrace the even more toxic extractive processes which enable the green machine.
• ·         Thirty-five nations are pouring $22 billion or more (of your tax dollars) into the development of the most complex machine ever devised, one which will operate at 10 to 20 times the temperature of the sun. Does this seem reasonable? Or just desperate?

If you suspect there’s an agenda behind all this, you’re probably right. There’s plenty more going on too, but the astonishing feature is that John & Jane Q. Public are otherwise engaged, busy squabbling about racism and gender bias that doesn’t actually exist (at least not as portrayed), about domestic terrorists, about Russia-gate and China-gate (is that a thing yet? Don’t worry, it will be), about freaks with dicks defeating women in the Olympics, about Biden and Trump, about climate change, about whether female beach sports-ball teams should wear bikini bottoms or shorts (bikinis, of course – why is anyone even arguing?), and on and on the bullshit goes.

–          The ‘Great Reset’ does not mean what you think it means.

Behind the diaphanous curtain, hidden in plain sight, the most significant transformation in the history of industrial civilization is stirring from slumber, hungry and restless after a great sleep, a rough beast making ready to snack on the slow, the weak, the stupid, the powerless. The great reset is on the way, although it likely won’t conform to the expectations of the woke, entitled and complacent.

In other words, the ship of fools has yet more passengers – in steerage, where the great mass of humanity unknowingly awaits a slow, irregular, generations-long transport to the brave new world of grunt labor and indentured service under the merciless lash of a harsh reality in which only a limited number have access to the coveted BTUs of days gone by. The coming contraction of the energy economy will not be mercifully quick, but it most certainly will be painful, especially for the peasants.

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