Social critic Neil Postman contrasts the worlds of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World in the foreword of his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death. He writes:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.

In regard to democracy, I believe, as Al Bartlett has pointed out, and even as Aldous Huxley pointed out, that it has been degraded and is on the brink of becoming defunct, however passionately the people extol and defend it. Overpopulation has reduced the value of each vote and over-organization has made people fragmented and one dimensional, incapable of decisions pertaining to the future of the world. We suffer from the "tyranny of the majority." Nations everywhere are drifting without any real direction, blown hither and thither by the winds of economics. In the real world of today, the votes of philosophers, scientists and those possessing statesmanlike qualities are equal to the numerically superior population of morons. In the virtual world, there isn't even such a thing as an age restriction. There are just cybernames, blogs and posts, no faces and no responsibility.

Well, yes ... but isn't that obvious? The internet is mostly about entertainment, not abour serious information. Computers are about games. If anybody wants to get to the real thing, the only way is:

1. Read post online about new scientific discovery
2. Look whether any real information is offered (who did the study? published where?)
3. Hunt down e-mail address of author
4. Get the peer-reviewed paper for free

Blogs that could pass for real information are extrememly rare. Derek Lowe, Paul Krugman and some Oil Drum posts have bits and pieces that could lead to something real, but else? Who for example would expect anything more than links to fantasy novels and some cultural commentary from Jim Kunstler?

Don't worry about it - the experts will find their links to real information on the web (and much faster and easier than in the old times) and the others don't care about that anyway.

Third! (Clownish attempt referencing Kunstler's respondents) Thought I might be first but then I had to login.

"Isn't it bliss... "
This is just what humans do, in the short run more attention is given to the brightly colored, red nosed personas.

In the longer run, that changes to the people who can provide the nourishment required of the tribe or whatever. We still live in an energy rich environment at the moment. This too shall pass.

On a more serious note...

My thoughts are colored by the NOVA special on Darwin I just got done viewing... highly recommended.

Forgethabout the clowns, their adaptability will be lacking soon,

While the clowns can be aggravating, soon they will be revealed for what they are.
I too struggle while watching the circus as your post illustrates Nate. I think, as most well intentioned people think, that if I could just get people to see what I see, then we as a collective could just decide to try a path that is more sustainable. But as I visited my folks today and a brother happened by, and the discussion turned to politics and the economy, I was reminded that my own family, which in reality agrees on 99% of things in general, that the variation in the 1% is what makes the clowns attractive - in this case it was a governor race. We all share the same curse, if everyone else would just see it as I see it, then.... Now I will grant you that some views are more informed, enlightened, and just plain closer to the truth than others, but the diversity of communications and audiences I think insures that the clowns novelty factors will gain them their Warhol 15 minutes of fame until the next crop comes along.

So what do we do to paraphrase the old enemies turning of the screw?

I think the transition movements and the adapting in place efforts are a reasonable attempt.
Back to the Darwinian thinking, its the individuals that mutate and have the more successful adaption strategies for the environment they find themselves in (clowns and non-clowns alike), that will have the best chance for success going forward. Remember, there is still a successful species called the clownfish, and as I re-learned watching the Darwin program, all 4 limbed land dwelling animals evolved from fish.

The Internet originally approximated Marshall McLuhan's "global electronic village". It was a village populated almost exclusively by relatively educated and well-mannered computer scientists and engineers.

However, by the early '90s it was obvious that the Internet would become a "global electronic urban area" with a highly diverse population having all the social variations and pathologies you might find in a great city.

In the real world, people tend to limit their interactions to small, village sized groups. This is true even in cities, where the people one knows are relatives, co-workers, and people with similar interests, e.g. in religion or politics. The circles of acquaintence stay small, they are just not limited to people in the same apartment building or neighborhood, who may not be known at all.

In the electronic world, it is more difficult to erect the equivalent of spatial barriers, although some sites are more picky about who they admit and who they let stay. They range from secure, invitation-only sites to sites that admit almost anyone. Thus, interactions can range from polite discussion over dinner to striking up conversations with random strangers in the subway or neighborhood bar.

The jarring quality people experience from Internet interactions reflects the fact that most people haven't gone around and talked to random strangers, frequented coffee houses filled with revolutionaries, walked through skid row, visited a mental health facility, or been to the red-light district recently.

The only thing that is very worrisome is that with broadband communications and high-resolution displays, the medium has become "hot" in McLuhan's terms. Analog television was a "cold" medium in that the visual fidelity was poor and the brain had to fill in the missing detail. According to McLuhan, such "cold" media are inherently less believable than are "hot" media, which provide high fidelity.

So long as the major communications medium was "cold" analog television, the ability of broadcasters to control the masses was inherently limited by its poor believability. This was in contrast to radio, a "hot" medium, which had been used by the great dictators of the early 20th century to spread their message.

So will the "hot" medium of the Internet (and high-def TV) enable the rise of a new generation of autocrats, or will the interactive, pluralistic nature of the Internet prevent their rise?

I guess I'm just too tired to give clowns much thought tonight, but what you have to say about people finding identity, acceptance and status as bloggers definitely rings my bells, loud and long.

I hang out here on this site way too many hours because I have found it to be the best single source of serious thought and intellectual companionship available to me, surrounded as I am by a few old people who are wonderful human beings but not much in the conversational dept for someone of my personal tastes and accomplishments.

Now as to whether we are obsessed with some particular ideas here, ranging from peak oil to "Kruggerands and ammunition", I see things the same way you do-the time for conversation and discussion is over.

I would like to see more analysis of what can be done, and what might be done, than further dissection of the problems;but I expect that most of us have not accepted thiosw reality yet.

I believe in little boys who cry wolf, because there really are wolves out there, figuratively speaking;and it only takes one wolf to do you in, again figuratively speaking.

I don't have any Kruggerands-I can't afford to hoard them, and am not sure that I would ever be able to spend them anyway,if the circumstances arrive where I could spend nothing else.

I do have a substantial amount of ammunition;do I believe my guns will save me and mine?

Maybe-maybe not.But my technical training as an ag guy (most of my courses were in the biological and physical sciences) plus my extensive own studies, lead me to believe that there is a very real possibility that ts will htf before too much longer.

Logic tells me that as a rational being I should never give up an option of any sort for no reason.The odds are the chances of my surviving any mayhem are almost certainly higher as an armed than as an unarmed individual or community member.Therefore I will remain armed.

Maybe I'm a gun clown;but I might also get the last not very funny laugh.

All that is necessary to seperate signal from noise is the intelligence, combined sufficient background information, to know the difference.Here on TOD there are some members who are all noise;I learned long ago to pay little or no attention to thier remarks. Some including all the staff and regular keypost contributors, are all nearly signal, to whom I pay very close attention. Most fall in the middle, and I gain a useful insight or learn some new fact from them occasionally.

Gold is where you find it, someone once said to me. And in that sense, satiation is where you find it on the internet. Just as there are every mental motivation or abberation of thought possible, it can be found on the internet. Does that equate with clowns? Only if you view the sheer plethra of odd and amusing distractions that are possible deriving out of the human psyche as being clownlike. Sure it's easy to pass judgement on humans - odd creatures with odd interests. But what else can one expect from an overachieving ape that can talk?

Average IQ = ~100

Therefore as the number of participants in any meme increases, eventually it has to tend to the discourse level of the average. These are your clowns.

Not only that, the more complex and nuanced the argument, the more difficult it is to grasp, and the lower the percentage that are capable, over time. It's pretty lonely and thankless saying something that's new and others just don't quite get. Better to sing to the choir; its much easier. So the short term memes and highest regarded members end up being those with the least new to say.

It's always been like this, if a group is easy to join eventually it won't be worth joining. Even the coffeehouses of the eighteenth century gave way to the gentlemen's clubs as the higher orders sought to distance themselves from the general rabble - which was a pity considering the way they bought together all strata of society, and kickstarted so many of the organisations that make-up today's world.

The Oil Drum has benefited from many who think and write at the very big scale, but its noticeable that most have now left. That's basically because the reality of peak oil is now so obvious, what is there to discuss? Not much point defining the size of KSAs reserves when its really not going to change the shape of the future much. Realistic discussion of the downslope, and the characteristics of the social system response hasn't really got off the ground here (still to much in the survivalist/pastoral idyll phase), so it ends up with most talking about the BP spill as if it mattered in the grand scheme of things.

The solution? Well communities have to be guided and marshalled. While things can run organically for a while, they tend to run offtrack if there's no guiding hand (see the Teabaggers for an example of that). I'd suggest that requests for targeted articles is about the only way the signal to noise can be improved. After all, journals do such things...

What I notice most is the anger. Even the most beautiful music video will be followed by remarks so full of hate that people have learned not to read or even post the comments. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2112780755563935760# One can watch personality disorders at work with those seeking to embroil others in any heated exchange. The laity of Proselytizing self-perpetuating hierarchical organizations are now everywhere strident. This becomes a steady drumbeat of emptiness in every forum, especially the scientific. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHIocNOHd7A&feature=channel I was attracted to TheOilDrum when the mainstream media ignored, the right wing radio stupefied, and the left declared the end of the world relative to the undersea oil gusher. In this forum, an informed discussion was available in rational, rooted in unforgiving reality, engineering terms... nestled amid the publicly strewn wreckage of the human condition. And that is the final fact: the human condition.

I think we're all Bozos on this bus, and none of us really knows where it's going. The only thing we know for sure is that we've never been there before.

Ever since the internet, all the world's a stage, and anyone can be a star.

From an entertainment perspective, the fact that some of us know what we're talking about and others do not is quite irrelevant, because the web is a perfect role-playing environment. The quality of the performance is what matters most, not the content.

If you are one of those seeking rational, civilized discourse and enlightenment on the web, it's there, but the responsibility for filtering out the noise is entirely up to you.

I appreciate the rational core of the 'Oil Drum', but am unsurprised and undismayed by the irrational antics and attitudes that have been drawn to that center like bugs to a incandescent bulb. It's only natural.

Please keep the light on.

Nate, usually I don't tend to agree with your conclusions, ideas, and concepts straight across the board. But I loved this particular article.

Down with cocktail party level internet conversations, clear the amateurs off the decks, and lets ramp up the peer reviewed science across the board, any topic. Count me in.....

Mr Hagens,

If by clowns you mean average Joe who doesnt give a stuff about Peak oil, or perhaps even someone who has a vague idea but has just started on their personal journey in resource depletion and can only see catatstrophe rather than decline? We need to have patience with them: No-one knows the future: we only know the past. The past has examples of both collapse and gradual decline. Rapid collapse seems most unlikely to me but it is still possible, and thus worth discussing as a risk. Even the more rosy scenarios are pretty scary if one wants a comfortable retirement.

Lets take a look at what the uneducated, non-aware clowns do?
They grow my food, they fix my car, they teach my kids, and they run my hospital. They keep society, and my life running against the odds. So if the clowns annoy you when they first cotton-on to the problems, cut them some slack... We need them on our side if we are to change our oil dependence successfully.

If they never participate, how will they ever stop being clowns?

Duplicate!

Sounds like Nate and Yeats are in the same mood:

“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity”

Like Old Farmer Mac, maybe I'm a gun clown, too, for pretty much the same reasons. I'm more of a precision shooter, working towards passing ten rounds through one hole. Not ever easy, but it's even harder when the gal to my left at the range with a 30 cal. on full auto is spewing hot casings in my face and somewhere down the line a guy with an eagle T-shirt is yelling, "Obama is a Kenyan! Obama is Muslim!".

There are clowns everywhere, some with guns, some with keyboards. You can talk with some of them, some are only part time clowns, and some you just have to suffer. Over on the spill thread I've been honing my skills at turning them or shutting them down, not so much because they irk me, but because they drive good minds away from the site. I'm new to blogs, so I don't know if Nate is right about it getting worse, but I'll trust his experience. I do have a real world friend who has a lot of deepwater drilling wisdom to share, but he's disgusted by all the bs on the BP thread and only rarely comments, and that's a loss to all of us.

It's one thing to recognize that we are all apes, genetically social, given to passivity in the face of challenge. But it's a whole other thing to be smart enough to see that, smart enough to understand the problems it leads to, and then still remain passive. Whether it's fools threatening Second Amendment solutions to political problems, or trolls insulting anyone with a brain, these are bullies. And the only way to deal with bullies is to resist. Suffer and resist, if we flee the debate it will only get worse.

Here is your clown.
I think this more represents where you are going with your thought and I am pleased to serve as an example and agree. As others have pointed out above me, maybe this is the real discussion. When Joe Sixpack can buy off on the 'peak oil' issues and best long term practices, then this place might make a bigger difference. I think it has already made a positive difference in myself in the short time I have been here. Thanks TOD and its contributors.

Surfing the net for relevant and acurate information is a skill that needs ongoing improvement like any learning process if you want to be able to sort the wheat from the chaff.

"Blind faith in certain outcomes, particularly those involving Kruggerands and ammunition, certain dieoff, and $300 oil, can become both self-fulfilling, and counterproductive to society."

Sure, faith in an outcome, especially along the lines of "Krishna told me 6 billion people need to die while I was meditating" as an indicator of cetain die-off is a waste of my time to read. If on the otherhand someone presents a logical argument backed up by empirical facts and figures that a die-off is certain because we know all dynamic systems are subject to the laws of thermodynamics and require certain amounts of energy and material throughputs to maintain stability, and I am able to check and double check these facts with consistent results, well thats another story.

“Morel Foraging Society” or “Nudists for Nader 2012”

Thats a couple of interesting groups you read Nate although I never thought mycology was your thing!

Nothing wrong with a clown as long as he makes you laugh.

Well , you made me laugh (in a positive way) .

Are not clowns a reflection of what 'is' ?

The internet is in fact a magnifier of all facets of existence ,

it does not fundamentally change human nature or the mind ,

it is a new tool to master

you feel a loss of control ,

but you need to adjust to the new show

1. Clowns
I guess we may as well talk about clowns as anything else while we pass the time.

Vladimir and Estragon were ultimately clowns, making the most of the human condition while they waited for Godot. Monty Python's Meaning of Life pointed out quite correctly that the last laugh is on us and its our duty to face the audience with a grin. But I assume that's not the sort of clowning Nate is referring to.

Garyp hit the nail on the head for me when he posted about IQ. Reading Nat's post reminded me of The Bell Curve. 90% of the people interested in TOD issues would gave to be somewhere along the right hand side of that curve, so it's absolutely no use at all to rail against clowns, trolls, or the desperately ignorant because mostly they can't help it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve

2. Democracy
As for voting and expecting that to make a difference Churchill got it right when he said The biggest argument against democracy is a five minute discussion with the average voter.

In addition we all well know that politicians have to pander to a) the lowest common denominator voter, and b) to the myriad pressure groups, business lobbies and fundraisers, and c) that the polarised and totally adversarial party political system will never allow a rational consensus.

3. Orwell v's Huxley
They both got it right; Orwell's competing nation-states are not far away from today's reality and when the panic starts the bulk of voters are going to install whichever of the Big Brother political leaders convinces them he has the power to save them. And the US and Russian major cultural export - pornography - is a delightful combination of Huxley's sex-hormone chewing gum and orgy-porgy.

4. Population
Anyone who's read Dawkins The Selfish Gene would understand implicitly that humankind is destined to keep procreating. "Save the children" works right up until the edge of doom let alone down some benignly slippery "oil slope".

5. It's The Economy, Stupid.
Once you strip away all the talk and fine points of "peak anything" it seems we are left with one certainty:   the numeric difference between "positive growth" and "negative growth" in a national economy is often only in the order of a few percent while the functional difference is prosperity v's terminal decline.

It therefore inevitably follows that as the increasing cost of energy from all sources passes the point where efficiencies and substitutions cannot keep growth positive, we are economically stuffed. A tipping point (either actual or perceived) will occur *somewhere* and the first big domino will slowly tilt and fall against the next one.

Once the dominoic progression begins it's hard to see that there will be any stopping it until all the debt goes away. And the tipping point of financial panic seems pretty close.

6. I can't get Shakespear's rather prescient line out of my head:

Even in the eyes of all posterity, that wear this world out to the ending doom.

_{Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
    So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
    You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes}

PS. Apologies for the self-indulgent fun!

The mammalian brain dominates our behavior. We can easily allay our anxiety by believing the next hierarchical adjustment (election) will somehow address our problems. We can declare a war on drugs, a war on poverty, a war on cancer, a war on sex, a war on bacteria, a war on loose morality, a war on atheism, and somehow that will ensure our futures. But all of these wars will be lost as their natural funding is extinguished.

Traversing the divide between what our mammal minds desire and what we must do to support a perpetual technological society may be impossible. The perpetual technological (biomolecular) arrangements and systems of control found in ecosystems may be impossible to reproduce at the human scale. We are already uncomfortable with our mechanistic lives that can only become more controlled as our evolution proceeds.

Eventually I think one experiences diminishing returns on the internet as each additional hour of reading and searching turns up less and less new material. Maybe we should give up on our reality-modeling passions and join the clowns, they cater to the ubiquitous and dominant mammalian brain and make more money doing it.

Midway through this post I am forced to acknowledge the possibility that “I” am the clown.

Ultimately, we must each reflect on our own contributions and the signal to noise ratio we either reduce or raise.

I have found all the contributions which you penned yourself to be ones of clarity, insight, and relevant fact that add immensely not only to our information base but to our far too infrequent cultural introspection as well. Keep up the good work.

Hmmm, the belief that our government might assassinate or assist in assassinating foreign leaders would be so clownish. The belief that our government might experiment with LSD on uniformed people would be so clownish. If not for the Frank Church investigation. The belief that we would sell guns to Iran in order to support (illegally) the Contras in Nicaragua would be so clownish until of course it was found out that we did. Watergate is clownish all around, but true as we know.

Funny how clownish conspiracy theories in fact sometimes turn into the truth. It is understandable then that there is a great distrust about our government and lacking facts people make guesses just as lacking facts about what is stirring in the bushes the hunter-gatherer makes a guess it might be a lion and runs. Sometimes they are wrong, and sometimes even the craziest of theories turns out to be true. It is hard to believe that Nixon endangered his presidency with a clumsy coverup but he did.

Given the behavior of corporations to conspire to fix prices (which is why we have laws to make that illegal) is it any wonder that some think Peak Oil a conspiracy by the oil companies.

The problem in part is not the clowns, but the dishonesty in a large society where the ones who lead us and the ones who run corporations are making backroom deals. Be hard Nate on the deceivers first, the ones who are so corrupt that they evoke distrust and cover their deeds so well that people are left with letting their imaginations run wild.

Well at least one deed of the US that was rumored to be true but hidden has now come to light. Would the US ever target one of their own citizens for assassination without trial? Surely not. Anyone who thinks Bush would do that has to be a clown (and right). Of course now it is announced policy by the Democrat who promised change. Perhaps that is what we should fear. When the government and corporations no longer feel a need to hide things, when we can finally see what they do because of they feel they are immune, some of the "clowns" will be proven right, but more importantly we should shake in our boots. As long as they were hiding we knew they had some fear of the truth being told. Its enough to turn one into a doomer.

Clowns are as clowns do.

And I would prefer to be a clown. Because the problem has never been peak oil, climate change, or overpopulation. It's always been the sense of loss, the same sense of loss that accompanies death. Which happens to everyone no matter what, so the problem isn't even death, it's what to do with life in the meantime.

The meantime is perhaps better spent enjoying my limited existence's place in history. The time and effort I don't spend addressing complex social problems, well that's energy I can better spend amusing myself. It's also a good method of energy conservation, and conservation is important in this economy.

***

Q: What did one doomer say to the other doomer?
A: OMG! We're all gonna f***ing die!
Q: Wasn't that always the case?

***

How many doomers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
11 to suggest websites that offer ecologically responsible energy products.
7 to argue about compact fluorescents vs. LEDs.
5 to warn about mercury in compact flourescents.
3 to remind us that we all used to wake and sleep with the rising and setting of the sun.
2 Olduvai theorists who shout "we're not going to have any electricity!"
1 to actually change the bulb while everyone else argues in the dark.

Clowns on the internet are no worse than the clowns in old media. I no longer listen to radio or watch television. Life is too short to have someone else program my media. I decide.

I choose the medium, the internet. I choose the content, some of which I make myself like this comment.

This is a new media world and it sounds like Nate is having a little problem adjusting.

Unlike radio, television and the print media which are pre programmed, the internet is self programmed. If there are clowns on discussion forums, and there are, ignore them or go to a different website.

There are millions to choose from, unlike the old media, or create your own website and edit out the clowns so that you can revel in your own ego.

The various old media are as full of clowns and stupidity as the internet. That is why I no longer bother with them. Before the printing press and writing, there was word of mouth and stories passed down though the ages.

What did that give us? Religion. Perhaps it was an improvement over barbarism, but not much.

The internet is a big improvement over the old media, but it requires creativity.

I like You Tube. Thousands of the best performances by the best artists in the world that can be put on a list and played over and over again while surfing the net. But it takes a little effort to find them.

And I like the weather sites, instant information on what is happening weather wise with no waiting for it like on radio and television.

Market news is the same, perhaps delayed a few minutes. And charts of the action are instantly available, not secondhand analysis by some moron giving a supposed reason for the day's action.

Other news can be had from around the world without editing by the American MSM. But you have to know about the BBC, RT and other international news sources.

And you can virtually travel the world on You Tube but you have to find the videos. It takes a little effort.

The internet is not all about forums and the clowns that inhibit them. True they are part of it.

But the same was true for the old media and before that the word of mouth passed down through the generations. The clowns dominated that too. So what else is new.

People have to decide whether to accept what they are told or search for truth and personal satisfaction on their own. No one else can do it for them since each of us is different.

dangerous ground thou..

you have to get the right clowns into the view at the right time of those you wish to decoy. People are pretty self selecting in the domains they construct for themselves online.

assembling the "effect" is probably a bit trickier to stage manage than just flooding the interwebs with clowns.

meanwhile in the real world.

---------------------

TOD was somewhere that had a good signal to noise ratio

since the spill that era has well and truly gone and I think was in decline since 2007/2008 price spikes fest

remember all those predict-a-price polls?

fun fun fun

Nate - Just one small observation as to how some portions of our society views “clowns”. Last weekend took my daughter to see an animated movie “Alpha and Omega”. About two wolf packs. The Alpha wolves were depicted as you might expect: leaders. The Omegas were constantly portrayed as the clowns: always playing and doing silly things. But not worthless silliness: they were also the peacemakers and relievers of tension. They were the ones who also brought fun and true love to reality (Alphas never mated with Omegas…they followed tradition…not love). In the end it was the Omega male who prevented a fight to the death between the two packs as they were about to battle over a dwindling resource (peak caribou…I kid you not).

Granted I wouldn’t consider Hollywood to be a good cross section of our culture but it does have a history of following trends. Perhaps the writers picked up on a trend in society that you’ve highlighted. Some on TOD are always dead pan serious. Others are just nothing but clowns (intentional or otherwise). Some, like me, prefer to lighten a serious tone with a bit of humor (sometimes dark) from time to time.

But from a personal standpoint any increase in clownlyness doesn’t bother me much. It might burn up some bandwidth but I seldom waste time with the pointless clowns. The library is full of the writings of folks who would fall into this category IMHO. I don’t check their books out so why would I spend time reading the equivalent online. That’s why they made scroll wheels.

"Blind faith in certain outcomes, particularly those involving Kruggerands and ammunition, certain dieoff, and $300 oil, can become both self-fulfilling, and counterproductive to society."

Blind faith in $300 oil certainly isn't self fulfilling. The more companies think oil will be worth in the future the more they will be willing to invest in drilling for more of it and producing substitutes. You could in fact say that blind faith in $300 oil is more likely to be self-defeating (although it would be a good thing.)

The battle of the memes.

If I appear as a clown, perhaps it is because I bring a different perspective to the table.
If I am a clown, then I am a grim one.
I have experienced the collapse of civilisation. I have seen a famine, and read about others.
To deny famine is to deny reality.

I met a man at the bus stop today. His existence is meaningless. He tries to hide this fact from himself by collecting useless bits of information.

My existence is not meaningless.

Esperance is a beautiful, clean little town on a pristine ocean. Walking home tonight I saw rubbish dropped indifferently. I concluded that although some of my fellow apes look like me they are not my equal.
They are the Untermenschen. They are still capable of suffering, even if they do not understand. I will lower my expectations.

Those of us who have the power to accurately describe our predicament must act. To know and not to act is infantile.
What are you doing to further the cause of Civilisation?

Clowns have always served to remind the rest of us not to take ourselves, or life, seriously. Clowns, fools, trickster gods, satirists, scoffers, flea bitten prophets and those who pretend to be better than their betters are just pointing out this one painful fact: The meaning of life is that there is no meaning in life. Kings are just clowns with acceptable costumes, news is narrative and the gods are a clever fiction we invent because the truth burns. In other words, be careful what you wish for. You may prefer a clown filled world, instead.

If Apple invented a new digital device that required the wearing of a propeller beanie, propeller beanies would suddenly become all the rage.

Clowns are OK as long as you remember that they’re just clowns.

HONK!

Jon.

nice post and thanks

"Our brains only have so many cc's of grey matter, and so many neurons/synapses etc. Evolutionary psychologists state that we are able to handle about 150 relationships effectively at one time, before quality deteriorates or someone on front end gets bumped off (Dunbar's Number)."

In addition to grey matter....add time! That is why I have dropped off on reading TOD, although I am thankful it exists and exists with some of the more regular responders. Some are strident, but it is easy to scroll down. Thanks OFM, Ghung, Todd, PI and a few others for thoughtful [posts, including Nate. Clowns you ain't.

Back to my bread making and have great Sunday.

Paul

Nate you and others are way over thinking this. I think what most blogs have demonstrated is that self regulation doesn't work any better on the internet than it does in commerce. You do need a strong moderator/editor to make things work. May I suggest that the TOD should have one thread where all the comments that the editors have elected to delete are housed. People can check whether the comments deleted are in fact "clownish" or whether they reflect the bias the of the editors. That way the readers can decide whether they want to spend their time with a balanced blog or one which serves to reinforce their existing beliefs.

I think what it also demonstrates that ultimately we will have to move to a subscription model because somebody will need to get paid to do the editing. People have a choice either pay somebody to do the screening or spend a lot of time going through "clownish posts". It seems to me that there is a lot of natural selection at work. Those with the least value for their time will populate blogs where there is no screening and as a generic statement those who have little value for their time probably don't have a lot to say that is of any value.

I sympathise with nate's dispeptic rant, but he goes astray when attacking armchair economists for presuming to have opinions about "fiat currency" and "fractional reserve banking", etc. the problem here is that much of social science is not science, and defering to credentialed, peer-reviewed experts just perpetuates the self-delusional. In particular economics and public policy are emphatically not science in the way that physics and chemistry are. After a lifetime of peerless omnipotence, Alan Greenspan was left muttering to himself after his finely crafted economy blew up. All of his disciples can think of nothing better to do than to try and reinflate whichever bubble was their favorite. Is this not an engraved invitation for thinking people to read, study, discuss, and even pontificate about forbidden topics like "fiat currency" and "fractional reserve banking". Should we have an empire? Should we have universal health care? Should we manage resources wisely? Reading history, current events, and independent thinking are the only ways forward in non-scientific fields. If that involves trying out clownish opinions in a public forum, so be it, let the refuters have their say as well.

Nate, don't despair. Some of the clowns are repenting and becoming intellectuals. One of them has written a piece "Common clowns can muck things up, but it takes an expert clown or so to take us over the edge". I have not read that one, but I really like the archeology white paper by Todd Palin concerning the ancient origin of Bud Lite.

I do think that a word of caution is in order for a myth of a clown-free golden age. I've read up on American political history, and today's "birthers" are, sadly, par for the course. Critics accused George Washington of conspiring to sell the United States back to England, John Quincy Adams of giving a virgin to the Russian czar, and Warren Harding of fathering an illegitimate child with Mrs. Harding poisoning her husband to protect him from the scandal. We've had all manners of snake oil salesman, periodic outbreaks of millennialism, witch trials, and every form of political agitation conceivable. Some periods seem to be worse than others, but today's problems are hardly without precedent.

What people say today about the democratization wrought by the Internet has parallels to the democratization of American society in the period after Andrew Jackson, when property requirements for voting were generally dropped. Political control fell away from the semi-aristocratic federalist class and to those who supporters called men of the people and who critics called demagogues.

In the past, and I'm not sure exactly how far into the past you have to reach, American media was dominated by a relatively small and coherent media class. It was an era when the clowns were on the run. But the drawbacks are readily apparent too. There were topics that the networks chose not to discuss and about which it was very difficult to find the truth. There was propaganda which people accepted as fact, including the growth of the consumer culture.

I very much regret the occasion and tone of this post. It reminds me of a garden party I attended that was hosted by a senior NASA manager. He was drunk with joy and more than a few stiff drinks. They had $3 billion to spend on a pointless "mission" that made him giggle and brag about it. His victory consisted of scalping Joe and Jane Six Pack, the voiceless slobs of Iowa and Ohio and Oklahoma whose lives and fortunes were being skinned ever so gently to provide a catered garden party in leafy La Canada.

Now multiply that cannibal by 75 million government employees and contractors. Small wonder Joe and Jane are pissed off and prone to conspiracy theories. Their drinking buddies came home from Iraq with incurable head injuries and hair trigger rage. Wages and hours were cut for those lucky enough to have some blue collar work. They experience a sort of dumfounded sticker shock at the supermarket. The bank won't talk to them, except to threaten foreclosure again. They shop at Goodwill for kids shoes and T-shirts. The school district sends their children home with little Care packages of peanut butter, surplus cheese, and canned pig noses labeled Lunch Meat. If it weren't for Food Stamps, they'd starve. Half of these clods need free health care, especially the elderly.

Slightly less than 90% of them graduated high school. About 25% earned a college degree. They are predominantly white, patriotic, Christian, legal gun owners, and appalled at what happened to American cities, popular music, public schools, filmed entertainment, family life and morality.

They are not clowns. Occasionally, you'll see them post an angry comment to a local newspaper site, or one of the mass market meat grinders like Huffington, TPM, Human Events, and Yahoo. What they know about peak oil or finance you could stuff in a half dozen alarmist AP squibs.

Your real beef is with me and others like me. How dare we intrude at TOD?

It wasn't by choice, but rather default. Drillers Club and gCaptain had the best information about Macondo for a while. Then everyone gravitated here. I ignored the regulars and paid close attention to Rockman, snakehead, BigNerd, jinn, Dimitry, rovman, Unconformity and MoonofA, among others. We kept a 24-hour international watch on the ROV feeds and parsed visual evidence as best we could. Some did it better than others. Everyone benefited from the headscratching about flows, caps, craws, saws, pore pressures and mud weights.

Clowns? Absolutely. ComfyChair made a virtue of it. The boys went stupid over blue toenails and ice cream. Too many took BP at their word - or lack thereof when Kent Wells vanished.

But your sniffy screed against clowns had nothing to do with Macondo or discussions at TOD. It was aimed at Joe and Jane Six Pack, the "little people" who value liberty and law enforcement without carbon taxes that threaten to kill off US energy production and private employment.

My business is finding oil. What's yours?

We can be happier, healthier and more sustainable by consuming less

Nate is spot on - the Web is becoming less pleasant, and the signal-to-noise ratio is becoming poorer by the day.

Now let's consider Peak Oil specifically.

Each day more and more people are attracted to the topic.

Some will be 'clowns', seeking recognition, praise, conflict, entertainment etc.

Others will be more straightforward, concerned individuals.

The latter will stay for a while and will review the data

Some will decide that Peak Oil is not of sufficient validity or importance to be worth further investment of time & effort.

Others however will be spurred into action and will start to make the most appropriate preparations for their personal circumstances.

Trust me when I say that such preparations take a lot of your spare time - and money - so you will have much less time available sitting in front of a PC screen.

Also, after an evening repairing electric fencing, or changing a tractor battery or collecting chicken eggs the idea of a 'chat' on the Web seems rather less appealing.

Reality beats the virtual world hands down.

The net effect of all this is that the population of 'clowns' climbs whilst the more serious people come and then go.

I know a few people who are making preparations (and I'm not talking about the gun-toting survivalist types) and these people really don't post on the web too often.

I have noticed the "clown" effect. This sounds like an internet "tragedy of the commons."

High signal-to-noise ratio makes a site attractive. Attractive sites get noticed. Everyone who wants to be noticed goes there to post a comment. Eventually the "resource" is degraded (signal-to-noise ratio goes down). I don't have a solution but I see the problem. There are sites that I go to regularly, but where I just don't read the comments any more (or post either).

Nate: Is this thread directed at the people who voiced their concerns over the BP oil spill on TOD? If so, I have a few thoughts to share. If not, I apologize for being off topic.

There was a basis in fact to be worried about the BP oil spill. Millions of barrels of oil were spilt into the Gulf of Mexico. These concerns were valid then and they are valid now. An unprecedented amount of dispersants were sprayed into the Gulf, the effect of these disperesants is still unknown.

You know what the absolute best case scenario for BP is to make this whole thing go away? This bullcrap 'evaporation' theory they are pushing now. It just takes care of itself and goes away, yeah right. The same way that the flow rate was only 5,000 barrels of oil a day, the same way that top kill 1 was working as planned, the same way that there was unrestricted media access to spill sites etc. Excuse me for allowing credibility to enter the calculus of my judgments, but I (and most others) will not apologize for it.

While we are on the credibility issue, let me state another personal opinion of mine. From the start of this disaster, 90% of the reporting on here has seemed to be sympathetic to BP. There has also been an odd divergence from the no-nonsense attitude TOD seems to pride itself on, and it has been directed at all these "clowns" you speak of- regardless of how outrageous the claims are that require no time to debunk at all. That kind of defensiveness reeks of bias.

Another point, it's ironic that a website like TOD can focus so strongly on peak oil, yet disown the founder of that theory- Matt Simmons. It's a bit like the Church renouncing Christ. The critical distinction is that the oil industry has a financial interest in higher energy prices- and TOD is an effective platform to disseminate a rationale to the public for those higher energy costs.

Finally, and I have nothing to substantiate this other than intuition and common sense, but TOD and many of its posters have cozy relationships with the oil industry. Of course the coverage will be slanted in a pro-industry direction, who would expect anything else? Obviously you and some of the other moderators are not on BP's payroll. But I strongly suspect that some of you guys get some nice perks from them and other oil companies. One of those non-business/non-professional "friendship" deals. Exactly the same kind that came to light about MMS and the oil industry, that scandal was not even revealed until after the BP Macondo Well explosion. Now, pardon my ignorance- perhaps you can give me one of these in-depth academic lectures that you and others do so frequently on TOD when seeking a diversion, but I believe that any website which derives its legitimacy/reputation/credibility from insider knowledge about the industry just might have a few connections with the industry. And heck, those connections might have a little bit of influence on you guys.

Of course there are many crazy people on here that post ridiculos theories for a variety of motives. But they do not speak for everyone who has concerns, and for you to paint with such a broad brush like that is disingenuous at best.

You better understand something though. You are generating a hostile environment from people all along the gulf coast with your manipulation and condescension. Don't you ever tell the people along those beaches, the best kept-secret in the world, that they are stupid and don't know what they are talking about. Don't you ever tell them that they are conspiracy loons, gloom and doomers, opportunists or whatever your catch phrase of the week is. Because I've got news for you, BP and those associated with it brought this disaster to everyone. We didn't ask for anything but you damn sure brought it to us. There is a lot of sketchy things going on down there that is not normal at all. The water and the wildlife down there are not acting naturally. There is a lot of dead or dying things down there. I will take the opinion of the countless Gulf residents who are sounding the alarm bells, and the neutral/un-affiliated scientists down there raising major concerns, as opposed to the culprit BP and it's hired-gun scientists.

So spare me your intelectual sermon about the clown-civilian population. Why don't you, BP, and the oil industry grow up and take responsibility for your own actions? We don't need you, you need us- our elected representatives are the ones who decide whether or not you get these drilling permits at all and I hope we kick BP out of the Western hemisphere. To the best of my knowledge, in eyes of the law this is not a strict liability situation. But as far as I'm concerned, and in the court of public opinion, it is. BP was calling the shots on this airplane and they flew it into a mountian. They will reap the consequences, the least of which is hearing people vent about it on internet websites like TOD.

Seems like a lot of people misunderstood Nate's post. He was discussing internet forums specifically, not the media at large. And a lot of people got sidetracked by the choice of the word "clown" to describe the type Nate had in mind. Not so much a prankster but a loudmouth, one with a lot of time to post on internet forums, with an agenda he wants to advance (my favorite are the buy-gold guys....it's ALWAYS a good time to buy gold!!).

It's funny how this process can lead to disparate ideas getting conflated together in the public mind. So you believe in [political] conspiracies? Then you must also believe in the conspiracy to suppress the reality of UFOs! Granted, that particular conflation was more a media creation than one hatched in internet forums. But what is peak oil being conflated with? Is it getting conflated with a survivalist viewpoint? (not necessarily, IMHO) Is it getting conflated with a particular financial critique? Maybe. There seem to be different groups that want to graft a peak oil narrative on as support for their particular financial story (hyperinflation! deflation! end of fiat currencies! end of fractional reserve banking!), and they're working hard to accomplish it.

Another factor that I think has allowed the loudmouths to gain a position is that the subject has matured. The body of knowledge surrounding peak oil is such that it's much harder to write groundbreaking posts, the kind that really introduce new understanding. Those generally knock the loudmouths on their heels, shoo them in the corners like light scatters healthy palmetto bugs. I think Nate among many others on this site has strived mightily to advance the discussion in positive directions beyond peak oil itself, in an effort to break new ground, towards solutions, mitigation, and so forth, and now he and the others are running up against some pretty dense intellectual blockades (or dead ends?). Maybe what's left is reporting the unfolding reality as opposed to doing research.

Nice post. I've been drifting away from many of my old favorites like TOD, Chris Martenson and Zero Hedge due to the effort and time required to separate wheat from chaff.

My preferred use of the internet these days is to get concentrated doses of opinions via downloaded books, audiobooks, and lectures.

Nate, you might find the following musings to be of interest. They may relate to crazyv's comment. Oh, and I am interested in obtainting a copy of your dissertation -- I could not find it on the school's web site. Could you please e-mail me a copy or a link to it?

To paraphrase one aspect of the drumbeat article: the basic assertion is that the world, as represented by the on-line community, is becoming more clown-like in that the apparent number of misinformed, biased, and less thoughtful people is increasing.

I suspect that the global viability and connectivity of the internet is enabling the fringe community to become more connected, and that the very small minority of those people who are proactive are able to express their viewpoints in discussions outside of their group. Add in a basic tendency of people to give equal credence to alternative opinions (at least until such time as those opinions have been evaluated and rejected). Then add in the basic response of people to increase the credibility of any given viewpoint based on the number of people expressing it. The result is a global systemthat, when operating without censorship, is more easily swamped by the marginal viewpoints. The outsider approaching the group will have difficulty determining the core or central viewpoints held by the community.

I assert that social groups normally impose a level of censorship on its members that tends to suppress the marginal viewpoint in favor of the consensus opinion. The censorship is very firmly applied to outsiders who attempt to introduce marginal viewpoints. The end result is a consistent set of viewpoints espoused and supported by the group.

When censorship is lacking and a permanent record of all expressions is maintained, then the marginal viewpoints can have the appearence of beingas important as core viewpoints held by the group. Moreover, the global visibility, enabled by internet search engines, provides for othes who adhere to the marginal viewpoint to locate and contribute to the marginal discussion, even though the group consensus does not support it.

As for social networks, I suppose that those who care and who may be able to effect real change in the world (contrast with those who simply like to express opinions without changing the world) are willing to invest effort in situation that have a genuine chance of gain, economic or otherwise. There is a high cost, in terms of time and cognitive effort, to social networks. Time is required for reading and thinking. A greater amount of time is required for participating and composing well formed response to issues raised in the textual forums used for social networking.

I feel that many of the social networks found on the internet are oft not connected to those people who can effect change. Effective people, the shakers and movers, initially approach social networks and invest resources in participation. Relatively quickly, the effective people realize that the chances of obtaining a gain from participation in those social networksis low. Consequently, they move on to smaller networks of connected effective people that can achieve gains for the group. These networks are often far more closed and less visible than the typical on-line social network. Those left participating in the open, more visible networks eventually trend towards a large population of clowns.

I suspect that the shift to closed, highly effective networks is nothing new. Consider, if you will, a simplified view of the American political process as an example. There are small, closed networks of highly effective people, the power players. They interact and establish the group norm for viewpoints (and stances in this case). In the American system, there is a need for far larger groups to be established that are capable of obtaining a sufficient number of votes required for continuance of the closed social networks. A new open and far larger social network is established, driven by the core closed group.The large network is unwieldy. Initially the espoused viewpoints are focused and closely adhere to those of the core group. However, because the group has too much connectivity, visibility, and an inability to apply censorship (keep in mind that censorship means the groups ability to deemphasize the marginal viewpoints and to emphasize the central ones),over time the clowns will come to predominate. Post election, the American system disbands the large network and, if the group was successful, the core, more closed group remains.

The on-line groups suffer from the inability to reject the marginal viewpoints by self censorship and from being too large. Most can not prune the network, remove evidence of the marginal viewpoints, and select who can be a participant.

Amazing it is ... the power of the "clown" frame.

It seems that the one word
... and a couple of pictures
sends people here into a frantic circus spiral.

Why?

I think this type of service says it all. Paid blogging comments:

http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2007/07/buy-100-quality-blog-com...

It is sick but it is the current problem. People are paid to be clowns and act anti-intellectual. There is too much of it in my view.

Here is an eHow explaining the process of getting paid to comment on forums.

http://www.ehow.com/how_4791326_online-getting-paid-post-forums.html

Can anyone verify this type of thing and whether it is real?

When I discover a new musical genre or maybe just a new artist, then I find all this exciting new stuff and I spend a lot of time listening to it, learning the lyrics, etc. After a while, then maybe I still like it but it is not new anymore, and it does not hold my attention anymore - it isn't so much that it's become noise, but that it does not stick out from the noise so much anymore.

In other words: you're bored. Quit whining about it and go get into something new.

I've known for a long time that the internet as we have it today was going to get odd to really strange for a long time now, but I have been online for over 20 years. Back in the day it was a telnet text site, where you chatted on a BBS or even via IRC( Inter Relay Chat ), nothing was pictures, unless you later decoded them on your computer from the source codes they were written in.

Then along came the World Wide Web and HTML coding and all the newer and newer bells and whistles.

Years ago we had cordless phones and that was the big thing, then pagers, then cell phones, and today you can't go anywhere without seeing someone with something attached to their heads and them talking into it. I have often wondered, where I wandered in from, was I gone while all this silly stuff was going on, or what!

But I met my first wife online, and my second one as well. And I was online when I met my thrid wife, but we were just sitting next to each other at library computers. So in one respect I have been here all the time, I just never fully jumped into the pool and got all wet, or have I?

I try not to get all my information from online, as I trully can't trust some of it as much as I could from books, not that I have the books handy to get half of the things I want to know about. I've known that people online aren't real until I see them face to face or at least hear them on the phone for some time now, but maybe that is my own paranoia talking, or the knowledge that I have in the past been able to create fake people in the days long ago in the world far away, or knew of it happening in the hacker gatherings of old.

What has happened it seems is that the Internet is the TV of the 50's, where if it was on TV then it must be real. If I can put a You tube video up of something, or other that I did, or post pictures of things in my house, yard, or hand I become famous for those 15 seconds and then again and again with each veiwing.

In 1994 my then first wife, taught herself html coding and created a webpage on Betta speices, mostly about Betta splendens, the species that you see in pet stores in the little bits of water in jars or cups. At the time we were breeding them and a member of IBC the small group of international betta breeders. Over the years we answered thousands of people's email and online chat questions via that website and others, and I just got tired of seeing the same child like cluelessness over and over again. I got jaded rather faster than I expected too, now over 15 years later, trhe clowns of the online world just remind me of those days long ago.

15 seconds of fame and it is over till the next wave of people show up to get their pat on the back and told that if you press button 3, you'll get a candy treat.

I know people who have grown up with the internet, and don't even know what live TV is, people who have never known a hardline phone plugged into cables under the house. The world is only going to get worse in this respect and not better.

I'd be willing to bet in some places falling back to not having the ability to talk to someone right this second will be a shock to their systems so great they might have to sit down and cry for a while.

Sunday morning the power supply on our modem died, about 3 hours ago we finally got around to fixing it with a new modem. For over 36 hours we did not have internet, and I did not worry about it, nor did anyone else. What would happen if you lost your cell phone for a week? (I did about 4 weeks ago, only had the new one for 2 weeks) I didn't worry to much, I have lost a lot of people's phone numbers, but I figure they still have mine, or can get it from the places they got it last time, if they want to call me they can, if not, oh well, no worries.

Not many people can say that, if they can't find their internet linkage, or their cell phone they'd freak out and faint from the stresses involved. Maybe I am jaded in a good way after all.

I don't know what to do with all the clowns, they were out there all the time, just that now they have a way to express themselves that others have to deal with, just look the otherway like you did when they were on the streets holding up signs.

Charles, jaded in Arkansas, BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed world, cell phones and internet aren't in most of the designs I have done, if you want them just let me know.

Never underestimate the importance of absurdity.

I find the most interesting thing about clowns is their ability to get elected to public office.......I much prefer the company of mimes, they won't interrupt you when you are making an important point.

Joking aside.

Like many of you, I never had the internet growing up. Still used manual typewriters, and had a phone that was attached only to the wall. And MTV only had 3 videos.

'Thud'( head hits desk )

When I wanted to learn something growing up, I either : asked somebody who appeared to be knowledgeable ( not a clown ) or I went to the library ( popular with mimes ), but usually both, to check them against each other.

How are clever clowns and the electively mute similar?

That silence regarding the science of human population dynamics has been willfully perpetrated by the mass media is to be expected. But for blogmeisters with environmental credentials and top rank scientists to collude in silence with the clever clowns they openly object to when it is politically convenient and economically expedient to do so, that is sad...and sad to say. Small groups of people who are providing a reality-oriented basis for necessary change need a bit of support from people in public positions of power.....from thoughtful leaders and opinion makers capable of speaking truth as they see it and not effectively killing what could somehow be true with duplicitous clowning or pernicious silence.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
http://www.panearth.org/

"So, can we have your liver then?"

Friends who share your way through school(s) are very precious: In acting, thinking, feeling! and friendship! It is simple and honest and natural. Indivualisation starts not earlier than in the youth. that's why natural energy I'm not sure. Elementary school friends' energy gives you respect and acceptation, that's what I know.
for sure.

they're asocial
they smack you in a hidden
they jump out of the lu and it's locked!
they fetch all the cats in the world from what so ever chimney
and the survive with nearly no food

Nate — I feel your pain bro.