Is our "addiction" to oil dangerous?

[DarkWaters]

At the beginning of July, Alex Epstein posted an Op-Ed on the Ayn Rand Institute's website addressing one facet of this debate. However, I think another significant facet is one of economics. The global demand for refined oil is ever-increasing especially in China and India. Exxon-Mobil has a (probably biased) presentation with projected energy demands for 2030 that emphasizes this.

So in some sense, it seems like companies should be striving to obtain alternative sources of energy for reasons aside from the instability of governments of members of OPEC such as Iran, Iraq and Venezuela.

What do you guys think?

Nuclear power plants sound like a good option in many circumstances. I am not quite sure what actions that the local, state and federal governments must undergo, if any, to allow for more nuclear plants to be built.

[DavidOdden]

So in some sense, it seems like companies should be striving to obtain alternative sources of energy for reasons aside from the instability of governments of members of OPEC such as Iran, Iraq and Venezuela.

Doesn't that boil down to saying that man should discover new aspects of the universe so that he can exploit that knowledge for his survival?

[DarkWaters]

Doesn't that boil down to saying that man should discover new aspects of the universe so that he can exploit that knowledge for his survival?

I intended to place emphasis on imminency. In light of accelerating global demand for oil, as well as the increasing number of hurricanes which could potentially damage the refineries in the gulf coast region, it presently seems to be advantageous for the energy industry to start shifting towards alternative sources.

Of course, it would be hasty to make any economic decisions without undergoing a rigorous analytical study but I nevertheless am curious to gauge other people's opinions.

::: Begin edit :::

Well, I just discovered an entire thread on nuclear power plants here: http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showtopic=6949

::: End edit :::

Edited August 3, 2006 by DarkWaters

[softwareNerd]

Also see the "Peak Oil" thread .

[Inspector]

Yes, please see that thread.

But the short answer is that we have more than enough oil at home... if only our government would repeal the environmentalist laws that prevent anyone from drilling for it. And there would be no danger from foreign oil producers... if only our government would abandon its senseless policy of appeasement and self-sacrifice.

See Walter Williams' latest, here: http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4737

Also, these:

http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4642

http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4649

http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4650

http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4655

http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4736

[tnunamak]

I've only skimmed this thread but when I see your question I think, can we have any major technological advancements without becoming dependant on them and the resources required to maintain them?

Is our addiction to living in a computer-oriented world dangerous? People would have told you so around Y2K, but had they been right, would it have been better to never have begun using computers in the first place?

[DarkWaters]

I've only skimmed this thread but when I see your question I think, can we have any major technological advancements without becoming dependant on them and the resources required to maintain them?

Is our addiction to living in a computer-oriented world dangerous? People would have told you so around Y2K, but had they been right, would it have been better to never have begun using computers in the first place?

Any major technological advancement that becomes an integral part of life will by presupposition lead to the individuals of society depending on it.

Considering the example of a computer-oriented world where vital personal information such as banking, academic, criminal and (hopefully one day) medical records are stored electronically, new vulnerabilities can obviously be dangerous if certain precautions are not taken. An easy example is harddrive failure and an easy remedy is routinely backing up one's files on another drive.

Even under the proposed assumption, that the Y2K bug had been a catastrophy and computers everywhere became almost unusable, mankind and the technology industry still would have recovered with celerity. It is my understanding that data would not be lost as a result of the Y2K bug (which would definitely be a major setback for many). I see no reason to believe that all major aspects of life that heavily depended on technology then would not be back on their planned course in at worse a year or two. Probably the worst thing that could have happened would have been riots as the result of a misperceived apocalypse.

I always admire how much wealth was created through the advent of a rapid end-to-end information retrieval system such as Google alone; not to mention online encyclopedias, academic resources, the emergence of mega dot com retailers such as Amazon. Assuming that the Y2K bug actually did temporarily derail many major industries I would say that we would absolutely not be better off had the advancements never been made.