US Military Dead during Iraq War 1025

bah

Actually, technically, the "Dark Ages" are the name for the period of time caused when the Romans left Britain...

Romans were city-livers...they liked records and archives and beareaucracy...hence, the Roman period is comparatively well documented...

But when the Romans left, the Anglo-Saxons were more rural dwellers (at least, at first)...and didn't keep records and such...hence, this period of time is not as well documented (even though, yes, it was closer to the present day than the Romans)...

Hence, the period known as the "Dark Ages" is so named because when historians and archeologists look back at this period it is, metaphorically speaking, "Dark"...clouded in darkness...no records or much writings or anything to find out what happened for much of the period...whereas, the Roman period is, instead, "light"...there's plenty of documentation to refer to, as the Romans Loved to write and keep beareaucratic records of practically everything (there are Roman "shopping lists" and diaries and other "trivial" stuff to read to get an idea of the more daily life, as well as the "big events")...they Loved to write stuff down and they Loved beareaucracy, so kept it all well preserved in their archives...well, they were the original "civilisation" (in terms of its original "city dweller" semantics)...Rome is a city, not a country...their mindset entirely functioned through cities (many large cities were even considered "independent" and "allies of Rome" rather than Roman)...their "we are civilisation, everyone else is a barbarian" mindset went through everything they did...

The documentation is plentiful in Roman times and, hence, it "sheds light" over that period of time...but when the Romans left and the rural-dwelling native Britons slowly shed their Roman-inspired lives (the Romans had an "imperial strategy" that was to shower the lands they conquered, with "all that Rome could offer"...they made the conquered lands become "Roman" in the way they lived...hence, Rome could rule, even when there were no Romans around...a kind of "bribery" approach to "empire" because they did have all these wonderful "trinkets" and "sophisicated city living" things, like underfloor central heating system - I kid thee not - and their Love of "bath houses" everywhere, for getting yourself clean "in style and luxury"...the relaxing "bubble bath" of an earlier age :)...they went back to the older non-city rural-dwelling culture (which despite Roman "propoganda", never was inherently "barbaric" before they came or after they went...it was Rome's position that EVERYONE who wasn't "civilised" like Rome, was a "barbarian"...indeed, the way we STILL, today, use the term "civilised" (which technically just means "city living" in semantics) to convery "superior", "sophisicated", "better", etc....this is very much Rome's atbreastude that still exists in the language we use...many cultures had a rural tribal set-up and were NOT "backwards" nor disadvantaged by that...just a different - not "better" or "worse" - way of living...indeed, when people tire of the city, they very much often think of "going to the country" as being the "superior" way of life, for a more peaceful and calm lifestyle)...

Anyway, the "Dark" in "Dark Ages" is metaphorical and refers to the "lack of documented history and records" in the period, not to it being "dark" in any "evil" sense (not at all: The Angles and Saxons and Vikings who came to Britain at this time BECOME "the English" over time, as all the various invaders and natives began to "merge" together into one new people (this is why English is often referred to as "the Common Tongue" and also "the Vulgar Tongue"...it developed out of all these "commoners" and "traders" and such, all trying to communicate with each other...it is very much a "bastardised" language...things like the "word endings" and "grammatical gender" found in other languages just completely disappeared because it was not possible to agree - to "resolve" - a single set that suited everyone: Hence, the easier way was to just dump the lot of it, keeping everyone happy...therefore, "the Common Tongue"...the reference to it being "Vulgar" was because it came from the "commoners" and "traders", the aristocrats and kings and queens would speak "sophisicated" Latin and French in all their international dealings...also, if you've read any Chaucer, the "vulgar" part about English hardly needs explanation ;)...the English would hardly ascribe their formative years as being "evil")...

A simple "metaphor"...the Roman period beforehand was "light", as in "these written documents shed light on the period"...and the period afterwards was "light" too, for the same reason...and the "Dark Ages" were, thus, in comparative terms, "shrouded in darkness"...most of what's known about this period is strictly archeological (digging up actual things from the period out of the ground) and rare are actual written records...

And the "Dark Ages" ended when, eventually, people started getting back to "city living" once more...and the historical evidence and written manuscripts all started appearing again to be directly referred to...

Hence, if you're thinking "Dark" means "evil" in "Dark Ages" then it doesn't...this is a common misconception because there were some pretty "evil" goings-on in the Dark Ages...such as "releasing evil spirits" from people who were ill (illness was considered the work of "evil spirits" for a long period of history before proper "medicine" came into being...indeed, the term "bug" refers to a "ghost", in fact...hence, when you say a computer program has a "bug", you're saying that there's "a ghost in the machine" making it go wrong...also, we say "I think I've caught a bug" which is a (non-serious) reference to this previous belief that illness were about "evil spirits" possessing you...there is an instance of the use of the word "bug" in Shakespearean writings, which correspond with this...also, the Manx and Welsh languages still use the word "Bwgan" for ghost (where the "bwg" is pronounced roughly like "boog", so this is possibly - best guess from what I've been able to trace back through etymological references - as where "bug" likely originates from)...yeah, who'd have thought a word with such a "modern" use is actually so ancient...oh, if you've heard the story about Grace Hopper and a moth, what she actually wrote was something like: "First documented case of a bug actually being a bug"...hence, she did NOT invent the word from this and it was already established (electrical engineers had been using the word like that for a long time beforehand and it only "bled" into computing terminology that way)...and was just making the joke that, for once, a "bug" really WAS caused by an actual "bug"...the "insect" meaning is interesting, though...it could possibly also come from "ghost" or "spirit" but also could be completely unrelated...I didn't look that up)...

Anyway, yes, they did do things like drill holes in people's skulls to "cure" people of serious illness...because they believed illness was caused by "evil spirits"...so - in rather simplistic fashion - drilling a hole in someone's head would, thus, allow the "spirit" to escape...I doubt this "medical treatment" worked very often but, yes, it DOES make the "Dark Ages" sound like very "evil" and "horrible" times...BUT, if you think that, then you're measuring them by modern standards...this was long, long before the discovery of germs and bacteria...they basically had ZERO idea what actually caused illness or what to do about it, in the main...so, they weren't - in their own minds - being in the slightest bit "evil" (indeed, priests and men of the cloth might be the ones doing the drilling)...on the contrary, they were "doing good" by their religious beliefs and supersbreastions of the time: The person had some "evil spirit" - some "demon" - inside them, making them ill...trying to harm the good person with their "evil ways"...so, when you firmly believe that this is what's happening, the "drilling a hole in someone's head" treatment doesn't seem in any way an "evil" deed, it's supposed to HELP them...an "exorcism" of sorts...but with a physical component of actually trying to get the "evil spirit" out in a rather simplistic "drill a hole through which it will come out of the person" way...

This all may seem a bit "evil" to us, just because we know far better now that illnesses aren't caused that way...and drilling a hole in someone's head is probably the least useful thing you could do to help them...

But it's an unfair judgement to cast upon them...we're "cheating"...as Newton remarked, we're "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants" when we "know better"...Pasteur and Newton and such "Giants" have "corrected" these previous "misunderstandings"...if you hadn't been taught about that or read their work, then YOU might also have come up with some "evil spirits" explanation of illness too...you can't blame them: Germs are microscopic and invisible to the naked eye...you're asking them to somehow know about things they couldn't see or knew how to detect...

The "Dark" in "Dark Ages" was never - and should not really be taken to mean - in any context "evil"...it actually refers to the period simply be "shrouded in darkness"...so, unlike say, marking "the Bronze Age" by the bronze implements that were made (dug up from the ground, so we know they had learnt how to mine and process bronze stuff) and then "the Iron Age" by use of iron (same deal as "the Bronze Age")...and "the Stone Age" just being all the time previously...and the Romans marking that period of time...

Well, when it came to the "Dark Ages" there was nothing really by which to "mark" it...the other "ages" get their names from particular "events" and such...the discovery of how to make things out of bronze: "the Bronze Age"...but for the "Dark Age", there was, basically, no records, no real idea what happened during large parts of this time...so, it was called this as a "catch all" name: "The shrouded in darkness and we have little idea what actually happened Age"...or "Dark Ages" for short (note: unlike "Stone Age" or "Bronze Age", "Dark Ages" is PLURAL...a recognition that there could have been "Inner Ages" within this long period of "darkness"...but because we know very little about what happened during the period, all of the "ages" that may or may not have happened are just lumped with the "catch all" name of "the Dark Ages"...

Which should solely be read as "The Ages in Which We Know Bugger All About What Happened"...there is not supposed to be ANY reference to "evil" in the name "Dark Ages"...this is an "unfortunate coincidence" that the word "dark" does carry more than one possible semantic...

But it's amazing how many people do think "Dark Ages" is meant to mean "Dark and Evil and Terrible Ages"...but not at all...a common misunderstanding of what was meant by "dark"...but, don't worry, cartloads of people make exactly the same mistake...even historians, who know better, can be seen automatically almost "presuming" things in the "Dark Ages" were all "evil and terrible"...but that ISN'T what the name is supposed to mean at all...total misreading of the word "Dark"...

Hence, to "revert back to similar conditions to the Dark Ages" would require a similar "abandonment of city living" (and with it goes all the "beareaucratic records") that did happen in Britain when the Romans left...

Oh, this also corrects the false "pseudo-Darwinian" nonsense some people are tempted to believe that all of history and the past was some "linear progression from monkey to godhood"...

Nope, that's NOT how it actually happened or worked at all...the Romans were very civilised and impressive...they had "hypercausts" which were - believe it or not - underfloor heating systems that work on much the same kinds of ideas that modern "central heating"...the Romans had "central heating"...and they created "aquaducts", which are pretty impressive bits of architecture to create, where you actually create an effective "river in the air"...and this was used for some equally impressive sanitation systems...they also had a form of "mbutt-production" when it came to their pottery, producing large amounts of pots and vases and plates (the Romans treated their pottery in a totally "disposable" fashion...indeed, archeologists digging sites tend to find mbuttes upon mbuttes of pottery and broken pots and plates...this, though, is a nice little "coincidence", as it makes for an excellent means of "dating": The "fashions" for their pottery changed periodically...a vertical lip for a vase would become bent over in a later period of time...and they totally viewed pottery as "disposable", so if it cracked, then you threw it out and got another one - remember, these things were "mbutt-produced" by the hundreds in large kilns that they weren't expensive or difficult to get (yes, very much like the modern "disposable goods" atbreastude: With pottery, the Romans were exactly similarly minded but that was one thing they could and did "mbutt-produce", not too dissimilar to what we now do with practically everything we produce :)...

So, anyway, when archeologists dig, they tend to find tons upon tons of this "throw away" pottery...and because they were as much "artistic" as they were "functional", then the "fashions" in the patterns and designs changed consistently throughout the period...hence, the archeologist digs down, finds a piece of pottery...hand it to the "Roman pottery expert" and everything can be "dated" accurately to some pretty incredible precision of things like 5 years either way...not bad to be able to be so "precise" about something that could be up to two thousand or so years old, eh? Oh, the archeologists and historians Love the Romans for this, as it allows them to be so incredibly sure of dates and such during that period when doing digs...and bits of broken pottery - "throw away", as it was - tends to outnumber everything else they might find ten times...so, if you like, the Romans accidentally were throwing these brilliant "date markers" into the ground without realising it...ah, that at least answers the age-old question of "what did the Romans do for us?"...they at the very least allowed for accurate dating of archeological evidence, while they pottered (pardon the pun) around the place ;)...

Yeah, so the Romans were pretty damn "advanced" in many ways...but when they peeed off, everything went back to this "primitive" (in "city living" terms...there was not really anything inherently "barbaric" about the period - contrary to popular rumours and misunderstanding of the term "Dark Ages" - than any other period of time...after all, as we all know, the Romans were pretty damn "barbaric" themselves at times...lest we forget that most savage of rests - Crucifiction - by which they end Jesus...and though Jesus is "most famous" for being crucificied, it was a particular Roman favourite as a means of end...well, there were those two thieves being crucified along with Jesus and a disciple went the same way (but insisted on being crucified upside-down, as he was "not worthy" to die as Jesus did)...even good ol' "Sparticus" went this way in the movie...and, yes, "I am Sparticus!!", before you ask...sorry, Sparticus is not a serious remark here, I just wanted to make the "I am Sparticus" joke, seeing as it could be conveniently slotted in at this point ;)...

And then things eventually got back to Roman-level "advanced" once more, centuries later...hence, things DON'T work "linearly" in history at all...so, you can get rid of any pseudo-Darwinian ideas about "everyone in the past was an idiotic animal" and "we're on a straight line to godhood"...unfortunately, Darwin was around in a period of Victorian proto-Nazi sentiment...where "the Poor Law" twisted Darwin's "survival of the fittest" (mind you, Darwin - stupid idiot - was actually all for it and also believed it: This was before "DNA"...Darwin knew of "survival of the fittest" but had no idea of the MECHANISM...hence, Darwin screwed up on a few of his conclusions: That the "natives" he met on the Beagle voyages were clearly "lesser species" of human (the co-discoverer of evolutionary theory, Alfred Wallace, didn't make the same mistake because he was not "snobby" and actually properly met the "natives", realising that the differences were only cultural and, thus, unlike Darwin, didn't see them as "lesser species" of human...unfortunately, Darwin was the one who rushed to print first - he does deserve to be credited as "first" and when he realised his friend, Wallace, was about to conclude "evolution" himself (without Darwin's help) then he wrote "On the Origin of Species", got it published...and THEN did as Wallace had asked him to in his letter to report his findings to the Royal Society (who, to this day, award a prize called the "Wallace Darwin" prize and correctly follow the procedure of "co-credit" to BOTH co-discoverers of evolution...Darwin was first but Wallace did also work out evolution independently of Darwin, so is the "co-discoverer" that no-one ever mentions or credits...a shame...both Darwin and Wallace had some basic mistakes in their thinking...but put together, though - if Darwin hadn't "raced" to get credit all alone - the theory could have been better refined before being released to the public...oh, Wallace's grand chicken-up was the suggestion of "survival of the fittest" as the phrase Darwin should use to explain evolution in "layman's terms"...it's a chicken-up because evolution is, in fact, "non-survival of the unfit"...which IS slightly different and makes a grand deal of difference to all the WRONG ATbreastUDES that exist about how evolution works that appeared at that time and still hold on with many people today)...

They saw the poor as being "lesser species" and, hence, "survivial of the fittest" applied...it was against the "natural order" to help the poor and, thus, the Victorians adopted some pretty draconian practices (basically, read privatesens...he charts the kind of thing very well, if you look in the "background" at the society surrounded the characters..."workhouses" and child labour...filth and grime..."hotels" where people simply leaned against a rope and then just fell sleep leaning against it...the hordes of prosbreastutes that gave Jack the Ripper his "feast" of victims to mutilate)...and the underlying idea was, as the poor were "lesser species", then, well, you just left them to die because this was the "natural order"...of course, this was entirely wrong because - as STILL amazingly happens today - people confuse "genetic" (biological evolution; Which basically has NOT changed in any significant or appreciable way for millions of years) and "memetic" (cultural and "ideas" evolution; Which radically alters every second)...the poor were in the crap because of "nuture", not "nature"...but they didn't know about DNA or anything then, just the basic "evolution" concept and, thus, projected their prejudices: "black natives" in foreign lands didn't live in "sophisication" like white Europeans...they went solely by what they saw and, hence, blacks were "monkey people"...slightly "under evolved" to the "superior" whites...that helped justify black slavery to many for a long while...

Oh, the Victorians were also highly puritanical in the beliefs...and, thus, also "modified" the account of history in many places to make it "conform" to their beliefs...hence, to this day, much of the romantic accounts of "medieval" times, with "damsels in distress" and "noble knights"...well, it's all invented bullcrap...it was a VICTORIAN thing to have "kept women": To show how "superior" and immensely rich you were, you did not permit your wife to do work...she was to be "kept" as a "lady of leisure"...based on the fact that the poor DID send women out to work without thought...EVERYONE - even the 8 year old, send him up the chimney to clean it - had to do work when you were poor...even with the whole family doing work, you'd probably scrape by to stay alive ("Poor Law"; If you didn't do it yourself, no-one helped you...as "anti" a "welfare state" as you could get...opposite rationale: "survival of the fittest"...it was right to let the poor die - the "natural order" - as this advanced the whole human race...and other such complete bollocks)...

So, to prove how rich and "superior" you were, then your wife was "kept"...no fracking way would she be allowed to do any work...that's what poor people did...that was an indicator of a "lesser" family...

Unfortunately, these Victorian puritanical and pseudo-Darwinistic ideas lead to them "rewriting history" here and there...hence, "damsels" were "in distress"...Kings, of course, were "superior" and rich people...therefore, they would never have their Queens or Daughters doing anything..."kept women"...and - BANG! - medieval history was re-written in a stroke...

To this day, people commonly believe this bullcrap...feminists talk of how women have "always" been oppressed...it's not actually entirely true...history was "re-written" and MADE this be the case because that was the Victorian atbreastude...

Actual medieval documents include some pretty racy semi-loveographic novels that were the "Mills and Boon" of their day...the Victorians would have you believe that "damsels" would blush and never read such things...well, sorry, they did...the so-called "chasbreasty belt" is another perversion of history...metal contraptions with keys? Sorry, utter bullcrap...plenty of documentation about Queens leading battles to defend castles...indeed, does Jean of Arc ring any bells for anyone? Why, a female warrior...an exception? What about Boucedia, leading war against the Romans? Okay, women weren't generally warriors because simple physicality - men are naturally taller and stronger - but there were the odd hard-nosed unpleasant woman who grabbed a sword and charged her men into battle...the point was that there was NOT the "kept woman" atbreastude throughout the past, as the Victorians tried to "re-write"...it WAS "patriarchal" but not the way most people presume it to be from the "false accounts"...and love was not "off the menu" and not a taboo subject either..."ladies", just as the concept of a "gentleman", were Victorian inventions...people were simply "men and women", just as they've always been since Homo Sapiens appeared (there's your big, mbuttive "clue": If any "evolution" had happened biologically since that point, then we'd all be re-clbuttified as "Homo Superior" or something...but we're not...we're still Homo Sapiens...because, biologically, no appreciable evolution has happened in all that time...and the brains of the people of the past were just as dumb or clever as they are today...our "advanced" ways are solely down to MEMETIC evolution: Science and technology, language and culture and that kind of thing...the only differences are fully accountable to NUTRITION and MEDICINE: We're taller overall because we eat better...and we tend to live longer because we have better medicines...oh, note: There's also a "myth" that no-one lived beyond 20 in the past...they COULD live as long as anyone else...the difference is solely MEDICINE...if you caught cancer or even something like diarrhea, then medicines were crap: Hence, you'd probably die from it...rest in childbirth was more common (killing child and mother, possibly), as there were no maternity wards...hence, ON AVERAGE, you'd be unlikely to reach 30 or 40 because SOMETHING would come along and probably kill you...but it was not anything biological...if you were the luckiest sod in the whole world, then you might "avoid" all illness and could live to any reasonable age...indeed, it's like children in Africa TODAY die of stupid things like diarrhea...as they have bugger all medical care in many parts of Africa...and their "average life expectancy" isn't particularly good either...but it's medicine and nutrition, not any "biological" reason...oh, also, of course, we all know about GERMS, where they didn't in the past...we know to wash our hands to prevent illness and spreading illness...they didn't...blah-blah-blah...it was nothing biological or evolutionary...we're taller because we eat better...we live longer because of medicine and eating better and being more hygenic...all ENVIRONMENTAL factors...indeed, as I say, in parts of Africa where they don't have such things, life expectancy and such are right back down and comparable to "medieval")...

Those Victorians are responsible for an awful lot of "bad atbreastude" in the modern world...

Anyway, getting back to the main point ("at last!", they all cry ;)...for a "Dark Age" to happen now would require some kind of "disaster" or "catastrophe" where all our knowledge and information is "lost" (Newton, Einstein, Edison, Pasteur, etc.: For these names and their work to suddenly be "lost")...for us to be unable to run our factories or keep our cities going...for everything to "regress" to a previous age...and, in amongst all this, we stop having "records" and "documentation"...thus, in the future beyond us, if and when things "return to normal", so to speak, they would look back on a long period where everything was "shrouded in darkness" and there were no direct written records or any real idea what happened in our "age", except for what can be directly dug up from the ground...

Could this extreme state of affairs ever actually happen?

The answer which might surprise many is that, yes, there IS a possibilty that it could happen (remote but possible)...and it has bugger all to do with "Jihadists"...

Jihadists who, by the way - if you'd bothered to get yourself informed before shooting your mouth off - have NO PROBLEMS with modern science and technology...the "Islamic states" that Sayed Qutb imagined would fully use modern western science and technology but under the moral framework of Islam...the Koran praises and encourages knowledge and education...and the Islamic democracy of Iran PROVES the point because, in a country that put Sayed Qutb on a postage stamp to recognise that his "Islamic ideals" were the foundation of their "revolution", the currrent Western worry about Iran is...oh, that's right: Nuclear power...an acme of Western science and technology...the "fuel of the future"...oh, indeed, if they had a "problem" with modern science and technology, then we wouldn't need to be worrying about Iran wanting nuclear power and the distrust and worry that it might be a "cover" for developing nuclear weaponry, rather than simply domestic electricity for their people...

Anyway, there IS a possibilty of a "Second Dark Age"...and it comes NOT from "Jihadists"...it comes not from "climate change"...it comes from the inevitable "energy crisis" to which, in all these other "fashionable" topics, pretty much NO-ONE is paying the slightest bit of attention to...

It works like this: Our modern infrastructures are grossly - obscenely - dependent on fossil fuels...no, before you switch off reading, this had NOTHING to do with "climate change"...it's a different non-environmentalist topic...I'm not talking about melting polar ice caps or any of that usual environmentalist "tree-hugging" stuff...

This is far simpler...and completely inevitable, I'm afraid to report...

We use non-renewable means of producing energy from burning fossil fuels...there is a finite supply of these fossil fuels remaining...the current stock we've almost entirely burnt our way through in little over a century of industrialisation, took millions of years to form...

"Do the math", as you Americans like to say...we are consuming a FINITE supply at a rate many tens of thousands of times faster than it can naturally replenish...there is no means to artificially create these fuels (the unbreakable First and Second Law of Thermodynamics...which, in layman's terms, are often referred to as: "You can't win" for the first...and "you can't break even" for the second..."entropy" and such :)...it would always require MORE energy to create these things than we'd ever back get out of them, if "created artifically"...so, there's no "joy" in that direction either...

The "natural" way takes millions of years...indeed, WE are the next "batch" of fossil fuels...because they are formed by the process of organic matter getting crushed by the weight of gravity (when the earth builds up over the organic matter)...and then it's kind of all crushed into a "power pellet", to borrow a term from Pac-man...the energy is, in fact, originally "solar power"...comes from the plants photosynthesising or animals eating plants or animals eating animals (who originally ate some plants)...it's a pathetic amount initially...but when gravity crushes it all together: Then - BANG! - coal and oil and gas form...indeed, to be slightly patronising, that's where the "fossil" in "fossil fuels" comes from, of course...

It amounts to something fairly simple...a "basic arithmetic problem", so to speak...

Using our current pre-historic methods of simply burning fossil fuels, we're going to eventually run out...the "environmental impact" is something you can discuss with the "climate change" people...I'm not talking about that (indeed, what I'm talking about, in fact, means that some of the "climate change" buttertions are actually nonsense: "If we keep on burning fossil fuels for 500 years then the carbon emissions will..."; Umm, sorry, there AIN'T 500 years left to burn for that long...oh, don't worry, humans WILL stop "carbon emissions" fairly soon...though, it won't be through "choice", I butture you...there just won't be anything left to burn)...

What does this have to do with "Dark Ages"? Well, there is the poetical irony that, well, without electricity, the lightbulbs can't be powered, so it would literally be "an age of darkness"...

But it's all a "chain reaction"...this series of events is NOT inevitable...it is a possibility that we COULD avoid, if we look ahead and make the smart decisions now (though, at the moment, a fat round ZERO appears to be happening in this regard...amazing considering it IS a simple logical INEVITABILITY that this problem will come...no "prediction" involved...pre-determined fact)...

Right, the OPEC website is full of lies, interestingly enough...but it provides figures to begin to demonstrate the point:

"At the end of 2003, world proven crude oil reserves stood at 1,137,550 million barrels, of which 891,116 million barrels, or 78.3 per cent, was in OPEC Member Countries."

"According to the reference case of OPEC's World Energy Model (OWEM), total world oil demand in 2000 is put at 76 million barrels per day, As world economic growth continues, crude oil demand will also rise to 90.6m b-d in 2010 and 103.2m b-d by 2020, according to the OWEM reference case figures."

And here's my favourite piece of fiction on the website:

"Oil is a limited resource, so it may eventually run out, although not for many years to come.

"At the rate of production in 2003, OPEC's oil reserves are sufficient to last more than 90 years, while non-OPEC oil producers' reserves might last less than 20 years. The worldwide demand for oil is rising and OPEC is expected to be an increasingly important source of that oil.

"If we manage our resources well, use oil efficiently and develop new fields, then our oil reserves should last for many more generations to come."

Don't you just Love that "denial"?

"Oil is a limited resource, so it MAY eventually run out"?!?

"MAY"?!? "MAY"?!?!

Talk about a serious case of "denial"...the only way I can see that it couldn't is if we all stopped using oil tomorrow and then stopped using it for a few MILLION years for more oil to "replenish naturally"...

...and, as we all know perfectly well, there's no fracking way that's going to happen!!

Oh, they've upped their "estimate" by ten years since I last quoted them too! It used to say "80 years" left for OPEC oil reserves...quite how that figure has gone up ten years since previously when the figures everywhere else have NOT changed, is another mystery of this "serious case of denial"...

Because you might think "oh, 80 years doesn't sound too bad"...of course, this is until the oil becomes EXTINCT...these are "until the last drop estimates"...there's no fracking way ordinary Joes and Joannas are going to be able to afford oil when it has a few years left until EXINCTION and the oil price sky-rockets into the stratosphere and beyond (indeed, that "last drop" - which will cost far too much to ever actually get - would be literal "pricelessness"...no-one could afford it)...

Nevertheless, the point is that OPEC is lying, anyway...allow me to show you (all figures from the very same OPEC website claiming "90 years"):

Total amount of oil: 1,137,550 million barrels Consumption at 2000 levels: 76 million barrels a day

1,137,550 76 = 14,967 days 365 = 40 years

Their own figures put the WORLD supply at 40 years maximum...note that I've taken the "rate of consumption for the year 2000", which is "biasing" TOWARDS it lasting longer...because, in fact, as they say, consumption will be 90.6m b-d in 2010 and 103.2m b-d by 2020...

You'll note no "estimate" on consumption provided for 2030...can you work out why? Yes, that's right...consumption will be ZERO somewhere around this point in time because oil will be EXTINCT...something you tell your grandchildren who laugh at the very idea of "magic black water" that made "horseless carriages" move around...

They say "90 years" for JUST OPEC supplies...but their OWN FIGURES contradict that and say "40 years" for the WHOLE LOT of the entire globe...

This is a lie...and you can't blame them...neither for lying nor for being so fracking poor at lying that their own figures proves that they are lying...

Think of the consequences...let's call it 30 years (well, as they are clearly lying elsewhere - and some oil companies like Shell have been CAUGHT RED-HANDED lying about having more "reserve" than they actually did, so that people would be "put off" investing in a DEAD END, which all fossil fuel technologies factually ARE - we can't completely trust their figures...but even these probably "mbuttaged" figures do not bode well, with roughly 30 years top limit on oil remaining in this world)...

There is no point even considering buying a car when that deadline looms...the fuel will be impossible to afford...and it turns into a nothing more than "metal tent" when you've got no more oil to put into the tank...

Not all fuels were born equal: You can't drop lumps of coal into the tank instead and expect it to work...pumping literal gas (as in "natural gas", not "gasoline") into the tank is a highly dangerous explosive hazard...and it wouldn't work either...

You can't put a nuclear power plant under the hood of your car (unless you're Doc Brown in "Back to the Future" or something, with your "Mr.Fusion" food processor), so nuclear's not an option...

"Hybrid"? What's the point? One half of that "hybrid" will be gone...

"Hydrogen cell"? Sure, fine...you've got a few decades in which to totally replace all the millions upon millions of internal combustion engine cars out there with these "hydrogen cell" cars...I suggest you start advocating it and rolling them out now...as it's unlikely you'd be able to replace them all in the short time left, even if everyone immediately jumped on the bandwagon...which, of course, NO-ONE actually is...because no-one's looking into the future on this subject whatsoever...

It's not just cars...it's delivery trucks...so, how does the supermarket (which has now pushed out ALL "local producers" that they "monopolise" the town or city, so that if they start "drying up" the whole town and city does) get its "stock" to the store?

Planes...trains...trucks...cars...oh, also, as you like the military: Tanks...fighter jets...

Oh dear! Oh dear, oh dear...at best, 30 years to get a fully functional replacement for ALL modes of transport? In a climate where NO-ONE gives a crap and is doing absolutely ZERO about it...and, trust me, they WON'T do anything about it until they "feel the pinch" because I've tried to make these points before...and the standard reaction is "head in the sand" or "what you're saying sounds very dark" (which is correct but doesn't alter the pretty concrete case that, if things persist as they are now, we're in exactly that "very dark place")...

Also, oil's gone...revise all the "estimates" on coal and gas and nuclear...because these babies now have to take on the ENERGY BURDEN that oil used to cover with, say, domestic electricity use...out of these other fuels currently used, coal has the best "estimate" at some 200 years...except that was estimated before China started building hundreds of coal-burning power stations to "industrialise" a nation where a third of the population of the entire Earth lives...

Nuclear? "Fuel of the future"? Bullcrap...90 years of Uranium, if we can trust any of their lying bullcrap "estimates" (which contradict themselves - as I've shown with the OPEC website clearly - and Shell was caught CHANGING its figures to make them seem bigger than they actually were, so that people thought it was "miles away" and nothing to worry about...they are PANICING, in fact, that they aren't even lying particularly well without getting easily caught doing it)...

When gas goes, then it's "burden" is transferred onto the others...when nuclear goes, it's ALL dumped on coal...just watch those "estimates" vanish into nothingness with alarming speed...

Then what? Well, then nothing...absolutely nothing...this stuff doesn't "come back"...Uranium, for instance, requires a star going supernova, as that's the only natural process (and we can ONLY use natural processes because of that annoying "Second Law of Thermodynamics"...any "artificial" construction would require more energy to do than you'd ever get back out of it: "You can't win, you can't break even")...and, quite frankly, if a star nearby went supernova, electricity to power your toaster is slightly "academic"...stars blowing up aren't exactly "nice" or "small" things that you want them happening any near you...

Fossil fuels? Well, WE are the next batch of fossil fuels...so, by definition, it's got to be long, long after you're dead, anyway...but this stuff took millions of years to get the amount we've peeed through so far...it's not an option either...

Yeah, all the "burning" options - based on that prehistoric invention of "fire"...refined but essentially we have not "advanced" on that basic model since that time - are out...dead ends...to be honest, there's no point even looking at them anymore...they are INEVITABILITY doomed to failure...

Nuclear fusion? Well, they are building that "experimental reactor" to see if large-scale production is feasible...but it's "theory" only...the experiments might show it's just not possible (a possible "Second Law" problem that starting the whole lot - which requires a lot of temperature and pressure - is far more than you actually get back out...even if it's not, is what's left over sufficiently practical? Remember, eventually, it'll be taking on EVERYTHING alone)...it has one good attribute: The "fuel" is hydrogen...this is finite too...but it's the least finite thing you'll find in the universe, as hydrogen is - by a large margin - the most common element in the universe (although, ON EARTH is all that's directly relevent...not much use knowing that there's tons of it in the "Horsehead Nebula" or in the Andromeda Galaxy)...hydrogen is in water...which is "handy"...though, let's make sure we don't go and suck up all the water in the same way we've sucked up all the fossil fuels...water is something I think you'll find we can't do without...

Fusion might work...might be useful...but it's all just "theory" and "guesswork" at the moment...could turn out to be, in practical terms, quite useless...

Well, there's the "renewables"...those could work...solar panels get the power from the Sun, of course, so you don't have to worry about that "running out" until the Sun stops shining (by which point, of course, if you haven't been a million years long gone of the Earth and the Solar System, then you're already dead, anyway)...hydroelectric is nice...doesn't actually use any "fuel" as such...water runs pbutted (gravity), turns a turbine...the water cycle goes around and around (again, if the water cycle were to stop or gravity cease to apply, then powering the toaster is the least of your worries)...wave power...wind farms...and such...

Of course, the basic problem with "renewables" is, well, they are crap...otherwise, we'd all be using them already...as they are "clean" and "cheap" (the Sun doesn't charge you for its sunlight, gravity has no "fees" for making the rivers flow to the oceans ;)...but, they just carry the necessary kind of "punch" required...

Nevertheless, eventually, these are very likely to be the only things left that actually work...so crap or not, we're looking at the only "non-dead end" technology...the coincidence that this is the same thing environmentalists push because of the "clean energy" aspect is nice...as you saw, my point has NOTHING to do with that (but I've noticed people seem to get it confused, so I stress that the above was about SUPPLY, completely ignoring the "environmental impact" or "greenhouse gases")...

Seems President Bush knows something he's not telling us too...you know that his ranch has loads of solar panels and waste water recycling facilities? And, in fact, is the "environmentalist's dream"? Nevertheless, while he makes his own ranch self-sufficient to "ride out the impending storm", he tells the rest of us that there is no "energy problem", that there is no "climate change" and so forth...he says one thing, yet does the complete opposite with his own ranch...the "plan", I presume, is then when everything falls apart, he's "okay" because he's created a self-sufficiency paradise there for himself and the family...then, well, you know the saying: "In the kingdom of the Blind, the one eyed man will be king"...the rest of us are screwed but he's okay...and then he can take charge - a new ruler of the New World Order he helped create - as its new "king"...

But, anyway, those "consequences": No more transport, no more deliveries...but, wait, cities are concrete jungles...they don't grow anything themselves...it's all brought in by deliveries...well, they got by in the olden days, right? Yeah, except that they weren't catering for cities of MILLIONS of people...

Just like when the Romans left and the "supply routes" stopped, the cities became impractical and infeasible...everyone returned to the "country lifestyle"...

It won't exactly be "medieval", though...you know, what we know now we'll still know then...but, well, how many people today know how to do the send art of thatching roofs with hay? That was an important skill in the past but we didn't need it once we had roof tiles and, hence, no-one's done it (except as a "hobby" to "keep the art alive") for centuries...no-one remembers how to do it anymore...

If there's not sufficient power to run the production lines in the factories and no-one remembers how to do things "manually" anymore...well, what's going to happen then?

And, if you don't have the means to run those factories and move to "manual" means, then if that lasts generations where no-one has made any silicon chips...and no-one "pbutted on" the knowledge to later generations...then, yeah, the "skills" and the "knowledge" CAN be lost...very easily...Islamic blacksmiths had a special "technique" to create a sword blade that was world-reknown as being, in legend, "invurnerable"...it wasn't, of course...but it was because the forging technique was far more advanced than anyone else's technique that the swords (which actually had a strange "wood grain"-like effect, though made fully of metal...the "pattern" just a nice cosmetic consequence of how it was forged) were far, far stronger than other swords...and seemed to many to be "invurnerable" or "unbreakable"...ah, yes, oh ye who is uninformed, the Muslims used to LEAD the world in science and technology (they had gunpowder from the Chinese too, before we worked out how that worked :)...as the Koran itself speaks in PRAISE of knowledge, so there's sod all "unislamic" about science and technology...the reverse, in fact...

Anyway, the technique to do this was lost for centuries...and even with modern equipment and knowledge at our disposal, it took forever to work out the exact process they must have used to do it...

We look at Stonehenge or the Pyramids...we take "guesses"...but, really, that's another "goodness knows how they did it with what they had at the time" situation...the "knowledge" is LOST the second people stop pbutting it down to the next generation (books and the printing press, indeed, were very crucial in the development of science and technology; They allow knowledge to be most easily "pbutted on"...unfortunately, you've probably found that your local library has thrown out all the books and replaced them with PCs...because this is "high technology" and they are in "shock and awe" of the internet...what a dreadful idea, in the long run...the energy goes, the PCs don't run anymore...well, let's go back to good ol' books...oh, oops...we appear to have burnt them all to "make room" for all the new PCs in the library...kind of like being an "accidental Hitler", burning all the books through idiocy, rather than malicious intent...nevertheless: Same consequences)...

So, yes...there is a POSSIBILITY of another "Dark Age" descending...coinciding, as it did last time, with the fall of "civilisation"...the Roman "pull out" last time...the fossil fuel-based infrastructure we totally and utterly depend upon for nearly everything, suddenly being out from under our feet...

That will mark the end of Western civilisation...

And it'll be placed into the history books next to Rome and the others that fell before us...indeed, it might even be called "the New Roman Civilisation" (some even mockingly call it this now) from the perspective that it's followed a pretty close parallel...and it'll fall through "arrogance" and "short-sightedness" and its people forgetting how they got to where they were in the first place...

Can't happen because we're so fracking "superior"? Yeah, guess what exact atbreastude the Romans had just before their civilisation fell too? You guessed it: "Nero" thought himself so "superior", he reckoned he was a "god"...and didn't bother with Rome's "problems" because, as everyone knew, Rome was "invincable"...look how "advanced" Rome was! Look how far its "empire" extended across the world! There's no way it could just "blink out" and cease to exist, right?

Sorry, wrong guess...the only real thing that remains is the symbols for the letters I'm now typing out and your reading...the Latin characters...that's the legacy of "the glory of Rome"...the thing that survived it...

Sorry about "going round the houses"...but, as you can see, it takes a lot of "background information" and explanation to "join the dots" to get to the underlying point:

If there is to be a Second "Dark Age" then it will come about through our own arrogance and short-sightedness to do nothing now, when there is an INEVITABLE "storm" on the horizon that is heading our way...

In comparison, persons? Irrelevent...climate change? Irrelevent...oh, I do not deny these are very real and presenting problems...but, in comparison, they are completely irrelevent...far more will die - we'll end up like those Africans and others we refuse to help now - when civilisation falls than any person could manage in centuries...the "carbon emissions" of "climate change" kind of solve themselves when there's nothing left to burn...and who cares about floods a hundred years from now, if civilisation itself dies a whole lot sooner?

There are ways around this "storm"...renewables, books, preparation, changing lifestyle now so that we do it on our terms rather than forced to change when the "storm" hits, etc....but no-one takes these seriously...they are mocked, ridiculed, laughed at...called "backwards" (ironic, yes? That's "backwards" while relying on dead-end technologies is "forward looking"? Not quite)...

Indeed, this is such a non-existent topic that - despite total inevitability that the fossil fuels will run out and pretty soon too, there's NOTHING going on of any seriousness to deal or prepare with the coming storm - well, I'm so outside the "orthodoxy" here that I'm being "blasphemous"...so, yeah, I know "burn the witch!", just all that other obsession with "burning" and "burning" of fossil fuels that'll lead to inevitable crisis...

By the Jihadists? It won't happen...in the grand scheme of things - for all the damage of 9-11 - mere insignificant fleas...quite irrelevent...indeed, if we stop provoking them to gain "new recruits" all the time then, in a crude way, they are a "self-solving" problem...they dissolution plant themselves out of existence...and, in Algeria, they got so obsessed with being a "perfect Muslim" - free of Western "jahelia" entirely - that they could only see "perfection" in themselves and no-one else (typical, ego-filled narcbuttism of such extremists to have "god complexes"...or "everything I do is perfect because Allah wills it" complexes, to be more precise to the specific case)...they literally started killing each other...

Caveat: You haven't studied much of anything - in your entire life - it would seem, as all your views seem to be "parroted" off "Fox News" or from Bush's speeches or Republican party conferences with little to no evidence of "original thought" from yourself...

Nevermind, not like it'll matter in a handful of decades...because the "surity" of fossil fuels running out is exactly 100%...total inevitability...

Have a nice day!

Beth :)