He could have called you an ignorant twat or pretentious.

Bingowings said:

Mrebo said:

Bingowings said:

We have been living through a blip in history, The relative comfort the west has enjoyed has been funded from the fading embers of the European Empires and the petrochemical despotism (hydraulic despotism but with oil) of the American empire. It wasn't that long ago we were all torturing women to death for knowing which herbs were good for pain relief or chopping the balls off men for daring to demand their country back. It wouldn't take much for us to go back to that. The political class in Britain seem to be really keen on it and they aren't Arabs or Persians (didn't the token Muslim have to resign for blaming Jews for his bad motoring?). The Oil is the Car, the Car is the Oil.

Shun economic prosperity! We'll be back to torturing, holistic medicine, neutering, and all the rest soon enough. Entropy demands it.

Manufactured plutocratic energy monopolies are not a stable basis for economic prosperity. They create economic cycles which inevitably lead to catastrophic (for most of us) financial crises. Leading to threads like this and as you say universal homeopathic provision.

They are good for maintaining a tiny mega wealthy elite but that was true of ancient civilisations the Egyptians, The Aztecs, The Romans etc, almost all of them had some form of human sacrifice.

Oil is a finite and polluting resource that is only currently in use because of the understandable desire of oil dynasties and their creditors to remain as the capstone of the pyramid.

Cheap and abundant fossil fuels mean abundant electricity and the transportation of goods across long distances. I don't know what financial crises due to the use of fossil fuels you are talking about. I'm sure there were those who hated on railroads in the same fashion, and that led to unfortunate editorials in the newspaper or something.

For the oil producing countries of the Middle East, you're right that pinning all their hopes on oil is not a permanent solution. But outside of oil, they don't have much more than sand.

Consider the reservations for Native Americans in the US. Reservations have long been known for their poverty. Now many reservations have casinos (which are otherwise generally illegal in the US). Casinos have many drawbacks and tend to help the people at the top. But it's a whole lot better than what many of them had.

I think you have it the other way around.

Oil is expensive and ancient technology (the Romans had machines powered by burning oil) being perpetuated to enslave the the majority.

At the moment petrol cars are only needed for rural communities cut off from public transport. If you gave back the amount of money people spend on their cars and oil based power generation there wouldn't be a financial crisis.

And as technology improves all petrol fueled cars should be replaced with vehicles that can be powered by domestic renewable generators.

The majority of plastics should be replaced or recycled. 

This is all being held back by a small mega-rich clique of backwards thinking protectionists.

The obsession with maintaining hold on this polluting, expensive and finite resource and selling the arms needed to secure it is the root of most of the problems in the world at the moment. 

Hot air/electric hybrid airships are the way to go.

The air heaters and the engines can all be powered by renewables (it can even partially recharge as it flies if it has solar cells on the skin).

Bingowings said:

I think you have it the other way around.

Oil is expensive and ancient technology (the Romans had machines powered by burning oil) being perpetuated to enslave the the majority.

At the moment petrol cars are only needed for rural communities cut off from public transport. If you gave back the amount of money people spend on their cars and oil based power generation there wouldn't be a financial crisis.

And as technology improves all petrol fueled cars should be replaced with vehicles that can be powered by domestic renewable generators.

The majority of plastics should be replaced or recycled. 

This is all being held back by a small mega-rich clique of backwards thinking protectionists.

The obsession with maintaining hold on this polluting, expensive and finite resource and selling the arms needed to secure it is the root of most of the problems in the world at the moment. 

Ah, if only we were all urbanites, there wouldn't be so many bad turbanites.

There are problems with oil. As there are with minerals, metals, textiles, grains, meat, the internet, etc. I don't understand the unique obsession with oil.

Yeah, China is in Tibet for the Uranium and is being nice to some of the African nations we usually screw over for the copper etc.

Japan and China deplete South American hardwood forests for chopsticks.

The real reason why people go on about oil is because it's so outdated and is both an environmental and political pollutant. 

The only reason the Middle East is a concern of the West, China and Russia is because of Black Gold.

The internet isn't mined in Afghanistan though the land is.

How is oil outdated? Natural gas is now supplanting a significant portion of it in the US, but "green" technologies don't provide the same energy and cost. In the absence of oil, won't there be other political pollutants? Whether the railroads or solar panels?

Should the people of the Middle East all move away or accept permanent poverty? Should the whole world aspire for less? If oil stopped tomorrow, and the royals in Saudi Arabia and the UAE found themselves without palaces, I don't think that would solve any problem. I don't know what you have in mind to improve the economic picture of Afghanistan. I suppose if we didn't have a global economy, let alone economies so nationalized, we'd expect the Afghans to be more or less content, more like the Mongolians. I've not heard of a dangerous Mongolian Genghis Khan.

Technology and Mineral resources are totally different things.

Oil is wherever nature deposited it, Solar panels are wherever they are made and they can be made anywhere.

Tidal generation provides a comparable cost for it's energy.

If you stuck solar cells on every roof you would create enormous arrays which would make fossil fuel power stations largely redundant and countries with deserts can build solar thermal arrays which are more efficient and less technology heavy than convention solar cells.

The only thing these renewables can't do is make derivatives like plastic.

If we went back to Bakelite which comes from rubber trees we wouldn't so much plastic and other new polymers could fill in where recycling could not.

The people of the Middle East should sort their own problems out without outsiders sticking their noses in every decade or so (without oil as a focus of greed chances are nobody would be that interested anyway). There is enough oil money still swishing around to keep Arab princes in bling for a while but a bit of redistribution may well be the order of the day.

Britain found itself in the 1950's without an Empire or demand for it's heavy industry and it's been a struggle but rather than having mass migration we have had controversial immigration. The Palaces of the aristocracy are now tourist attractions.

There are certain political fault lines, the Balkans, The 'silk road' corridor etc where every attempt at a foreign intervention leads to disaster. Why NATO thought they could succeed where, the Soviets and the British failed in recent history is a mystery.

It would be handy to have an oil pipe going through the mountains but it's a lot of grief for very short term gain.

For centuries the Chinese made out that Genghis was Chinese because the Chinese don't like getting caught with the pants down. They still tell school children of when the dastardly British did them over for tea leaves.

Hey, it's me. said:

Bingowings said:

Hot air/electric hybrid airships are the way to go.

The air heaters and the engines can all be powered by renewables (it can even partially recharge as it flies if it has solar cells on the skin).

Yeah nice, but that is not the answer. 

Why not?

You can make them almost any size and did I mention they even go into the upper atmosphere?

You go inside.

It goes into the upper atmosphere.

The world moves.

It comes back down again.

London to New York in less than the time it takes on a jet and this by you is outdated.

So anything less than a teleport is old fashioned by you I guess?

Thanks dear.

It's experimental but largely if you mention Airship to someone they do what you did and think of R101 and the Hindenburg or the Goodyear blimp.

You asked for a replacement for the Jet paradigm and that is the logical rival.

The only thing it puts out is water vapour.

And Warb if America isn't an Empire why isn't Hawaii still a monarchy?

Warb, don't respond to Bingowings if you keep him on ignore.  Replying to others quoting him is no different than unblocking a comment.  As much as you might not like what he says, if you are genuinely trying to ignore him, don't read the quotes, much less reply to them.

You do realise how fast the world moves don't you?

If you were to travel from one state to another you'd use a conventional hybrid which wouldn't need to go that high.

It's an interesting alternative but don't dismiss a massive balloon.

We currently fly in massive planes where people are crammed in like sardines, this would be more like a cross channel ferry but with nice views of the globe.