Government involvement is about as good a gurantee as anything you could think of to stifle innovation.

DarpaNet worked out pretty well.

I said I didn't care if it came from the government or someone else.

I do.
Our own history tells the tale well; Government involvement is about as good a gurantee as anything you could think of to stifle innovation.

Uh huh. And that doesn't to your mind constitute governmental involvement in trying to artificially spur 'innovation'?

I never said I didn't want government involvement, I said I didn't care if it came from the government or someone else.

Hundreds of years down the road, possibly.
Not tommorow, or the next day.

So, what, that means we shouldn't do anything about it?

So, let me understand this; You're now against higher taxes on oil trying to get people off it?

How did you get that from my comment? If anything it implies that I'm _for_ higher taxes to make oil less favorable over it's alternatives.

Great, now you've reduced it to T = O/C. Guess what? As long as C > 0, it still runs out

.

Hundreds of years down the road, possibly.
Not tommorow, or the next day.

Um, when exactly did I argue that? It doesn't matter where the involvement comes from, personally I don't care where the involvement comes from, as long as it comes. What I am against is the government making it less desirable from anybody to get involved.

So, let me understand this; You're now against higher taxes on oil trying to get people off it?

For any amount O 0, T will be finite.

Should read:

For any amount O < infinity, and C > 0, T will be finite.

Seems to me that there is an awful lot of questionable logic in Micheal's argument. For one thing, the misbegotten idea that no innovation can come without governmental involvement.

Um, when exactly did I argue that? It doesn't matter where the involvement comes from, personally I don't care where the involvement comes from, as long as it comes. What I am against is the government making it less desirable from anybody to get involved.

Sorry, but we do not have an "unlimited ability to consume it." There are physical limits to our consumption - even if everyone in the world had a car, they can't drive it for unlimited miles.

Sure we could, with good maintenance and an unlimited amount of time.

It's simple math: T = O/C

Where O is the total amount of oil that exists on earth (in barrels, for convenience). C is the average consumption rate (in barrels/year), and T is the amount of time that oil will last (in years). For any amount O 0, T will be finite.

Now I suppose you could argue that with a sufficiently small rate C, then T would be greater than the estimated time until the heat-death of the universe, but at that point we wouldn't really be consuming any oil at all.

There is also the issue of innovation to reduce use, to come up with substitutes, etc. If we have nuclear power making electricity which charges up our battery in our car, then we may end up with lots of extra oil.

Great, now you've reduced it to T = O/C. Guess what? As long as C > 0, it still runs out.

Correct. Seems to me that there is an awful lot of questionable logic in Micheal's argument. For one thing, the misbegotten idea that no innovation can come without governmental involvement. Which of course flies in the face of our own history... where the greatest innovations occurred all without any governmental involvement at all.

Sorry, but we do not have an "unlimited ability to consume it." There are physical limits to our consumption - even if everyone in the world had a car, they can't drive it for unlimited miles.

There is also the issue of innovation to reduce use, to come up with substitutes, etc. If we have nuclear power making electricity which charges up our battery in our car, then we may end up with lots of extra oil.

Michael should recall that each and every year there are more oil reserves proven. It is more costly to recover but it is there.

It doesn't matter how much is there, because any finite amount will necessarily be less than our need to consume, because new oil is not being created.

OPEC can reduce supply but with oil closing over $136 a barrel the incentives to cut back are not there. At $50 it will still be hard not to get as much cash as possible. They all cheat on quotas anyway.

So as mind boggling as it may seem to Mr. DeMent there are very reasonable and logical arguments contrary to his. This semi sentient human being sees things differently and without discounting others as less intelligent. If a person has to insult the opposition while making a point then I usually think less of the arguments merits.

Michael should recall that each and every year there are more oil reserves proven. It is more costly to recover but it is there. As oil shale and coal to liquid fuel technologies improve we will see OPEC diminish in power. What we need now is a gap filling program of drilling our own oil to add to the world supply. More importantly to add to the world supply not subject to rebel bombings, embargo, dictators with unreasonable demands, and religious extremists looking to end the world. Pumping our own oil takes off the premium those factors add.