Mickblog

I was browsing through realestate.com.au last week, and look what I found.

I checked the place out. They were putting in a few new light fittings and new blinds, and that’s about it

So I went through the tortue of moving out so they could do some minor renovations and charge and extra $35 a week.

ARRRRGGGGHHH MUST KILL TO STOP THE BURNING

I saw Mark’s entry about this and I must voice my concern. The sentiment of certain “experts” is that we are going to run out of oil in 2025 or so and then we’re going to “go back to the Stone Age”.

I don’t share their pessimism. Here’s why.

While I won’t argue the amount of oil we have left, I can say with confidence that we’re not going to all suddenly go to our respective local petrol stations one day and find big “SOLD OUT” signs on all the pumps. What’s going to happen is petrol prices are going to increase between now and then, like it already is, until nobody can afford it.

This is important because when petrol does start to become expensive, the free market will kick in and work properly to come up with alternatives for transport (and other things) for us. In about the time we have, the Internet was turned from something localised to the defense industry and a few universities into a global network that everyone has already gotten bored of.

It’s already happening - we’re seeing prototype hybrid, electric, hydrogen and biofuel cars already. It’s just that they’re not being mass produced or heavily developed yet because nobody really wants them yet.

The view of these “experts” seems to be that none of these alternatives are viable, for one reason or another. I’ll avoid getting into the details for now and just say that their views tend to ignore current and future developments in the different technologies. I’ve read into some of the stuff that’s being developed, and some of it is pretty impressive and encouraging. Yet the doomsayers blurt out things like “electric cars use batteries and batteries suck”, “hyrdogen can explode”, etc etc. and seem convinced that this closes their argument.

Now when petrol starts to become properly expensive, entrepreneurs will start putting some serious money into developing these alternatives, and things will start moving.

Yes, there are other things to consider, i.e. oil isn’t used just for petrol - it’s used for cleaning agents, plastics etc. But the same free market rules apply. I imagine we will figure out a way to synthesize most of these other materials, if we haven’t already.

So yeah, there will be some friction while we figure out how to live without oil. But it won’t be with a new Stone Age or Armageddon.

It’s about fucking time I wrote in my own blog.

I felt a need to share this. It’s an article on sleep deprivation and its effects on the US. I’m guessing the pattern is pretty much the same in the rest of the western world.

Some tidbits from it:

• People sleep around 2 hours less per night on average than they did a century ago
• Sleep deprivation is a major cause of vehicle and workplace accidents

And my favorite:

• Daylight saving time causes accidents!

But hey, it reduces energy consumption by 1%!