[A-List] Peak oil angst hits the NYT

["Sabri Oncu" <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tony:

> In short the advent of 'peak oil' and its likely associated 
> catastrophic economic and social disruption could potentially

Exactly my point! 

We are all talking about expectations of the future. 

It is clear that Tony and Sabri, that is, you and I, have different
expectations of the future. My subjective expectation on this matter,
apparently in line with Henry's, is such that "peak oil" will not lead to
any catastrophic economic and social disruption, potentially or not.

I say the issue is the following:

Personal expectations of the future are subjective. They depend on many
things such as where we were born, to what kind of family we were born,
where our loyalties are, so on, so forth. You and I, and Henry and Rick, and
who knows who and who, may share many common values but none of us share the
same "information set": that is, we all had different experiences in the
past up until today.  

And this debate, if it is a debate, is a battle for influencing the
expectations of the "others", where I leave the definition of the "other"
rather loose.

I suggest that we free ourselves from this debate on expectations of the
future. 

I guarantee you that there is no way that one camp will be able to convert
all of the members of the other camp to their own camp. 

Therefore, I suggest the following:

Instead of spending our limited energies on such conversions, let us focus
on the present and, irrespective of our different expectations of the
future, think about what we can do together at this moment.

This is how I see it.

Best,

Sabri