No Moods, Ads or Cutesy Fucking Icons

Woah, Peter, man!

I don’t know exactly what it says about me that I was smirking all the time while reading this, but sir, that is some dark shit. Thoroughly enjoyable, as usual.

I just hope no one ever puts you in a position where they can use this against you. Having the balls to write down what many of us are thinking (however peripherally) should never be penalized.

Cheers!

Hrm, this rant embeds itself into my mind and squirms about quite firmly, dislodging a lot of thoughts and memories.

I’ve been on both sides on the fence, primarily on the kow-towing side, that’s what we are taught to do after all… but even so, I’d crossed over to the tooth and nail side more than once before I’d even left kindergarten. It was a pretty necessary requirement in that country, hell by grade 2 me and mine had even organised a little brigade to beat the daylights out of the threats from the outside and our elders. It was both more effective, and far more satisfying that seeking the help of authority, certainly.

I mention that, because over there that was a big part of life. If one thing failed, you climbed the notches, violence was always a possibility. It created an interesting atmosphere, because it meant there was a certain amount of respect even between enemies. It’s strange how the potential of direct pain translates to that, when both parties have that potential. It also often meant that if things did come to blows, after that, it was over (not always of course, but most often). Might be a lot of reasons for that, release, the primal satisfaction, the instinctual assertions of superiority. But, it also meant that seldom did things go higher, ruining/taking a life was a serious decision, which might cause your own ruin. And it also meant that breaches, were handled directly. The potential for violence and that violence did occur seemed to somehow place a higher value/respect on life and also created a lot more attempt at direct communication to resolve matters. Of course, this didn’t prevent the murder rate from being high to the point of being ridiculous and the associated troubles.

Before I came to North America I yearned for to be here, I thought “here are the places of enlightenment”. I thought the system here would be better, I thought the other flawed… but, it seems in the end one merely trades one set of demons for another. Here the system seems to protect the wrong more than it does the right. It also seems to create apathy… I equate it in my mind to the concept of pushing a button and dealing death, except the button in these cases are often a pen put to paper. The lack of responsibility, large and small frustrates me endlessly. Especially as it’s so often done with a smile, the smile of “you can’t fight me.”

So I kow towed, I’ve been an advocate, a student leader, worked with unions, volunteered, pursued law, helped police, etc. It amounted to exactly: dick all. It changed not a thing. The belief that working within the system in the western world can bring about improvement, I think, is bullpucky.

So now, I’m trying another approach, my last course I believe, and that’s to go after the culture itself. It’s part of why I created that poster and submitted it to Doctorow. The hope, that little by little, minds might change or have new seeds embedded in them. Another part was to show support for you, to acknowledge and remember the event. And the last part, was that however small, it felt like hitting back… something those jerks couldn’t control, something to humiliate. Sometimes laughter hits as hard as a fist. Sometimes a thousand little punches is a knock out blow.

Effectively, there is more than one way to wage war. It makes me feel better at least, I hope it does the same for you and others ;P And I’ll also take what I can get.

Has anyone ever mentioned that you’re quite depressing?

(Oh, and BP does do one good thing, although it didn’t intend to: it pays approximately 7% of British pensions, and a lot elsewhere. OK, it does this by paying approximately 7% of every single British pension, and this is not its decision but pension fund managers’, and is if anything an indictment of those managers, half of whom now seem to be suing BP for making them look like idiots, but still.)

I have to shrink from any endorsement of violence and murder – Hayward is a feckless drone and actually beneath contempt really, and his physical demise would not advance the human condition one iota. The truth is that if you put gas in your car or, I dunno, have a plastic utensil in your kitchen, you are at least implicated in this crime, and I find the sanctimonious howling from the Gulf Coast pretty hard to stomach. I don’t dispute the staggering magnitude of the destruction, or the miserable, grasping venality of the corporate interests instrumental in its origin, but neither can anybody who ever objected to a nuclear plant or to dry-land oil extraction dispute that misguided strands of environmentalism have allowed, even forced the oil companies to hide our filth in the sea.

Hi Peter,
I bet you and your friends here walk everywhere, eat only things grown in your own pesticide-free gardens, and own no electronic devices. Otherwise you’re part of the problem.

You are a scientist and this is the best solution you can come up with? Smash their skulls with an antelope femur?

Wrong target, and you forgot what US citizens are REALLY good at: litigation. I don’t want to hurt the guys at the corner gas-station, I want to hurt BP, and we do that by ruining them. Uncap the liability and sue the entire company into bankruptcy and beyond.

Here’s the thing: violence does not scare these organizations because it doesn’t really touch them beyond crocodile tears and maudlin PR statements. The potential loss of all their money, however, will make them soil themselves quite nicely, and not just BP, but others as well. After all, if we can do it to BP, we can do it to anyone.

Ruin BP. The American legal system provides more tools than we need to attack them from all sides simultaneously. Federal suits, class-action suits, personal suits, suits against the company, and suits against the individuals.

And Jesus Jumped-Up Christ on a Pogo Stick — BOYCOTT ANY AND ALL STATIONS SELLING BP GAS!!! Do something besides bitch and moan, and actually hurt BP your own self, without the risk of being thrown into lockdown.

Based on what I have seen thus far in my life, the best way to hurt these jerks is to hit them in the wallet. That will get through to them more than violence ever will. Humiliation and reduced earnings have more power than any physical weapon. Because using weapons on them will just encourage them to be more likely to use weapons on their opposition, and potentially give them free pass in public opinion as victims, especially given how good at denial so many of us are.

Violence among humans is a cycle that goes around and around, just like pernicious toxic substances which pour out of some factory, spiral up the food chain, and end up sitting in our fats for the rest of our lives. On its own, human violence accomplishes nothing, except to encourage perpetual one-upmanship, a war of attrition and competition that blasts the landscape it takes place on. You can look at various places around the world to see examples of that . . .

( The reason I keep saying human violence is because I am aware that the rest of the biosphere which we are part of is also full of violent competition, and my argument isn’t about that. )

It satisfies the atavistic parts of us to imagine doing physical violence to those who do violence to us or the living things (humans or otherwise) which we care about. I do it myself at times, despite philosophically being a pacfist who is against the death penalty. But ultimately, it accomplishes nothing, except more destruction.

So why waste calories painstakingly heaved out of the soil on it?

Also, and I’m really *NOT* trying to be a jerk, but doesn’t gasoline fuel jet engines? You are going to Australia, right? Sorry. This feels low but it has to be said in the interests of honesty . . .

I say this as someone who is complicit, who isn’t doing much to make things better, and feels trapped and like crap about it, who sees almost every decision about food, reproduction, clothing, transportation, entertainment . . . in moral terms. And tries to make the right and healthy decisions and fails again, and again, and again. And hates myself a little more every time.

I get what you’re driving at. I care about the biosphere and the humans who are part of it, vampiric though many of us may be (a point I think worth stressing). And for all of these reasons, I look at violence and its likely results, and cannot support it as a solution.

🙁

no. It might be satisfying but it won’t help. Hitting the people you can hit rather than the people responsible won’t help. Ignoring our own complicity in this bullshit won’t help. Like you said, we’re fucked already. It’s crisis management time.

I love your books, but don’t count me among the people who will “… feel good too, when CNN shows us the footage of Tony Hayward’s children being carted off the stage in body bags”.

Too far, man, that’s a pretty sociopathic sentiment. I’m not easily offended but that’s messed up.

This and now this… that’s radical. You feel a bit like a green* Sayyid Qutb.

* Heh, environmentalism and Islam are the same colour**.
** Why does my Firefox spell checker tells me “colour” is spelled wrong? I really need to change to an en-gb or en-ca package.

(Note: I was writing this before the thread posts jumped from 12 to 21. I read everyone’s posts.)

Cheese wiz Peter, I was wondering when you were going to rant about the Gulf Coast Environmental Disaster…being a Marine Biologist and all.

Ah, Tony Hayward, the anointed BP executive with the Geology PhD….

Let’s not forget the eleven human beings who lost their lives.

This morning I saw people trying to save Brown Pelicans, as the oil hit nesting sites. Then there was a story about how Ferraris are selling well in China.

Violence is never a solution in any way a justifiable response as some sort of exaction in making someone, or others, feel good in retaliation for bad things that happen. The blame does not fully lie on any particular humans or groups of humans.

It is one long interconnected web of humanity that stands like an endless line of dominoes. Each and every human who chooses to be in that line takes the chance in being affected by any other domino tumbling.

Violence, advocated or done out of anger, hatred, revenge, retaliation, retribution or some sort of karmic influenced hooey would not be advocated by those whose conscience would plague them for the rest of their life. It does not make me feel good in any way, viscerally or otherwise. I would endeavor to believe that is not want is being advocating by anyone on here.

BP is responsible for the spill, certainly, but it is ultimately the lust of human beings for things that need that oil who are fueling the possibility and likely probability of environmental disasters and loss of life, human and nonhuman, that ultimately rests upon all of us as a collective whole.

The pointed flinging and fingering of whom is dwelling in hypocrisy is not really going to solve anything nor is it really conducive to meaningful discussion and debate that stays at a level of higher road productive positivity, albeit heated and testy, but hopefully not one in which offense is taken and anger ensues. (However, being “grumpy” is supposed to actually be good for humans to partake in.) My understanding of Peter’s post is that it is a rant, and arguably in praise of biocide. That in and of itself alerts me to the possiblities its’ contents. Everyone and anyone is guilty of hypocrisy to some degree just for being human. Just for being alive.

We in Hawai‘i time and again witness the digging up of “ancient Hawaiian” burial grounds to make way for luxury resorts, golf courses and big-chain mega stores. All in the name of progress, jobs and moneymaking. Hawai‘i people practically had orgasms over Walmart, Target, Costco, Sam’s Club and Victoria’s Secret coming to the islands. We have stinking plastic wrapped garbage loads awaiting transport to Washington State for disposal. Then South Korean Automaker Kia has a deal to make its little energy efficient cars in Hawai‘i. That means more precious, costly island land is needed in development.

Great swaths of prime ag land is being “argued” as necessary for housing development due to the increasing human population, thereby further diminishing the ability of Hawai‘i to be more self-sufficient in actually making its own food instead of shipping the majority of it in. Thus the cost of living continues to rise making it harder for residents to support themselves, as more people end up homeless. Then we see how Hawai‘i people wait hours impatiently in their gridlocked cars trying to go a short distance from point A to point B, which really should only take minutes, so rapid transit rail is being advocated as a solution, but of course that will take up precious land, wipe out many homes and businesses along the way and mar the beauty of Hawai‘i’s natural vistas.

The thing that is not really spoken of is, will enough of Hawai‘i’s humans take the rapid transit lite rail and leave their cars at home? Somehow I do not think so. So the endless cycle of human life continues unabated without enough meaningful thought as to the significance and consequences of what we do. Of what we want.

The fact is the species that is the most dangerous on the face of this planet is the one that is overpopulating this planet. As human endeavors increase the possibilities of a longer life, thanks to science and medicine, and the lives of many are being saved through eradication or treatment of diseases, parasites, and viruses, and maternal health, infant mortality and the lives of children are saved, the human population is achieving levels of planetary unsustainability.

As harsh and antisocial as this is going to sound, there are too many human beings on this planet. Human beings are taking away the “natural predators” of humans by making it possible for any and all human beings to live. More human beings feel they need to have a litter of progeny instead of one child or two that they could really support and create less negative impact upon this world. The competition for resources, space, education and material things will increase to the point that all other life forms will either be wiped out or rendered dangerously rare. Some mammals, birds and insects are already adaptively evolving to changing climate conditions by seeking higher altitude niches and/or having to adjust their reproductive cycles, because humans have so altered the environment that they had just a few generations ago been superbly adapted to.

The sad sack fact is that many humans by and large are quite selfish. So many people living in more fortunate locales just cannot make the leap to living a simpler, meaningfully pared down life, striving for symbiotic existence with their environment and making the necessary sacrifices to ensure that they do no harm to the environment and any other life forms.

If so many humans are not even willing to give up the plastic bags at the grocery store, and instead be aware of it’s impact upon the environment and carry around their own reusable or recyclable carryall, why in the world would enough humans even care a whit about any disaster that affects other humans in some other part of this world?

The seemingly human condition of wanting material things and damn the consequences and impact upon the planet is unfortunately what too many humans ascribe to. There are enough of those humans who do care to keep it from getting out of control, but not enough to turn the tide and make a significant impact in making things right.

It is not just some human nature that is at play here. It is also partly culture and values. Those cultures that do not see or believe in interconnectedness with the land and all of life are the most likely to continue the using, taking, depleting, ruining and plundering. Fear is also an impediment to meaningful change for the better. Many people are afraid to let go of their things upon which they have so come to depend upon to make their life easier. An addiction that is hard to break. However, it is also fear that can change that easily for those who are shaken out of their apathetic stupor.

I get it now; you’re saying nothing we *want* to happen that will actually do any good will happen, so why can’t something crappy that is likely at least happen to these expletives.

Understood.

oh, and you don’t even want to hear what my footprint is . . . : (

I wish there was a way to bring the thoughtful sentiments I hear here to sf conventions, wake people up, make them realize what they are consuming . . . but one feels so afraid to be political there, at least at the conventions I go to regularly, which are all near where I live. *sigh*

Hrrm, just wanted to add a few things:

I always find it interesting that when these events occur, very seldom, if ever, are the shareholders/board mentioned. The CEO may run the place, but ultimately he runs the place at the whim of those and needs their approval for the modus operandi. Is it the tiny degree of separation that keeps them out of the anger loop?

I’m with Peter on the litigation as well, because it’s proved so effective in the past. (Anyone remember Arthur Anderson/Enron and all the rest? That worked so well) I think satisfaction with the litigation route may be mediocre at best, and even if so, it won’t give anything more than the primal response violence would. The belief of victory/striking back, when in reality, it’s changed just about nothing.

I’ll also say, blaming human nature is, I think, a cop out. It’s another way of basically throwing responsibility over ones shoulder and saying “we’re all doomed anyway.” Blaming of biological imperatives, stopped being a valid excuse the moment society was born. If most of us can control our urge to whack the other guy over the head for the chunk of meat in his hands (for whatever reason), we can control everything else too, by choice. You don’t fall prey to your base nature, you can’t victimize yourself, it’s just a choice, admitted or not.

“It might at least make us feel good.”

It might, but receiving my two copies of State Of Grace would make feel a wee bit better.

Heh heh, oil spills are comedy gold mines*.

http://chainsawsuit.com/2010/06/09/the-truth-behind-the-oil-spill/

* oil wells? black gold mines? I don’t know which one is funnier.

This is interesting..

http://adropofrain.net/2010/05/rumor-schlumberger-exits-deep-horizon-hours-before-blowout/

There’s a rumor that the contractor who was supposed to run a final safety test was very unhappy with what they found. They told BP to close the well, as it was still “kicking”. BP refused, they refused to do the test, and wanted out. BP refused them transport, so they called their own and got their people out…

I love this essay.

The only comfort I get is that they’re going to kill us all, but they and their families aren’t getting out of it either.

Seems to me, outside the right or wrong debate, violent revolution can be an answer. Decapitate the monster and burn it’s remains? Shut the company down, employ the (surviving) management as cleanup crew scrubbing birds and the engineers to fix the leak.

I think directed, not the base emotive satisfying unconstructive version, of violence is very well capable of fixing this mess. But nobody will do it. There is no punishment for this mismanagement at BP. Nobody goes to prison, nobody gets flogged or raped by bubba. That is sort of the whole point Peter is making i thought; where is the retribution for ruining all of this? It’s not satisfactory like this.

Lots of bad press is hardly punishment. Like saying Hitler was a jerk and letting him be dictator, ruining Europe and genociding like crazy, anyways. Violence was needed for that to stop it.

I think revolution by force IS the only (and fast) alternative to the procrastinated evolution of responsibility. Which might take 1000 years or more to finally arrive at this rate.

The solution therefore is culling the herd. Maybe random maybe targetted (i could never decide who, i would prefer fast killing natural plague/disease that leaves all resources and other life intact) so the population can be kept sustainable at a million or so forever after in utter heavenly sustainable fully anarchistic cooperative tribes of wise men and woman who take the stewardship of earth serious. In my eyes that’s the only responsibility we have.

To function in that position most efficient you need to manage your species by education and cultural change. (asides from the whole 6 billion must die part, which makes the survivors manageable in the first place).

Anyways typing on iphone sucks. Sorry for errors. I share the anger, but lack the nuance to see how violence is not the only timely option to change anything. (not that i would do or support it, just singing a pessimist song)

i’m a pacifist and humanitarian. But I think the earth and the innocent beings that are not human are in total worth more then all our race. I’m glad i refuse to be in positions of any power so i can leave the decisons to more confident men and women. I dont know of i could ever truly act or decide wha is right.

Revolution is by definition terrorism of a kind and that is scary.

Good, long article in the latest Rolling Stone: The Spill, the Scandal, and the President.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/111965?RS_show_page=0

Looks like the Obama administration knew that the MMS was totally corrupt and did nothing when they had the chance to clean it up. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, eh?

I am concerned that Federal Law Enforcement system might deliberately misunderstand your statement and follow-up and seek to use it against you. I realize that you are already on the no-fly list but that might not be enough for the bottom feeders that currently populate Fed Law Enf.

An emotional reaction is clearly understandable in this situation. Anything resulting from that emotion will be dissected later when the emotion has drained away and mined for anything that might be useful.

I spent 30 years as a natural resources law enforcement officer for a state agency. I had ample opportunity to deal with a variety of Federal Law Enf. agencies, none of them are beyond picking the low-hanging-fruit you have provided them and using it against you. I think you cut the distinction between violence and emotion too fine for the average Fed to understand.

Be careful out there.

Excellent, if understandably grim. Solutions aren’t in evidence, and it seems like the power of most of us to change the system is massively overrated at best. The idea of catharsis is at least slight consolation, but overall the whole thing is just massively fucked.

Why should we care about “the environment?”

I mean, the environment for whom? Because to the best of my knowledge, the wealth made possible in large part by cheap energy has caused human life expectancy to rocket upwards in any area that industrialism takes hold. Compared to the time when we were at the mercy of the local ecosystem, the human environment is doing fucking awesome right now. This accident will have great costs, but compared to the perks that the pursuit of energy that it is a part of has given humanity, it is next to nothing, a regrettable but ultimately insignificant blip in the history of an industrial civilization.

Again, an interesting post! It’s so strange to be reading the comments about BP’s Emergency Response Plan . . . All I could think of was Taleb’s contention in The Balck Swan re. probability for rare events. Pitiful.

More depressing news from Greg Palast:

http://www.gregpalast.com/smart-pig-bps-other-spill-this-week/

A few posts above Peter calls me out on my assertion that risky oil drilling at sea has been facilitated by resistance to drilling on land. I’ll own that I maybe over-cooked that one a bit, but I did not mean to suggest that there was any environmentalist advocacy of off-shore drilling – I was thinking less in terms of what was advocated than in terms of what has been resisted, and the unitended consequences thereof.

@AR:

No it’s not. Soil is getting more depleted of nutrients all around the world and poluted by companies externalizing their waste (mainly of course in the poor nations), the sea is fished clean and poluted in the same way. We are pumping dangerous levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, changing climate conditions for growing crops and creating more desert area where nothing can grow and rising sea levels. We are getting dangerously low on non-poluted potable water because of western abuse and polution, etc.

It so happens billions of people that are already struggling depend on this fish, water and not-so-fertile soil. YOU won’t notice the effects since you go in the store and don’t have to even know where food comes from and at what costs, but they don’t live in Europe or the US. Their nations don’t have the riches we have, or if they have, they are being plundered or mismanaged, leaving them with nothing, and they are dying because of it.

So the human environment is not doing do well, thank you. you are in the 8% of humans beings having NO worries what so ever. You are NOT the majority.

Not to mention we are forcing other completely INNOCENT races to extinction because of our polution, greed and destruction.

Imagine there landed aliens on earth that are great leaps and bounds ahead of us in technology, culture and development of consciousness. Imagine then, that they would randomly kill and disperse us, deprive us of the needs for us to sustain ourselves, so they can further their goals. Would that be fair in your eyes? Sad thing is, however you scream and fight, they don’t care, because they might not even understand our petty needs and see us like simple animals not worthy of through and rights. They will plunder and destroy you and have nothing to fear from doing this to you, just like we are the destoying habitats of the animals everywhere in the world and (at large) ignoring their struggles for survival and rights to live.

Seems like a pretty naive thing to say that our specific group of rich people somehow represent humanity and it’s awesome environment they built for themselves. Locally if may be great. Globally, there is a lot of unnecessary dying. In fact, it’s the norm.

“I bet you and your friends here walk everywhere, eat only things grown in your own pesticide-free gardens, and own no electronic devices. Otherwise you’re part of the problem.”

So many comments similar to this. When did everyone decide that the only moral way to live on the planet was as a primitivist?

If environmental problems are going to be solved it’ll be done by embracing and improving technology and by full engagement with our technological culture—not by going into the wilderness and living on grasshoppers and wild mushrooms.

“And the rest of us — those who kow-tow, and back down, and do what we’re told because we know what happens to us if we don’t — we’ll feel good too, when CNN shows us the footage of Tony Hayward’s children being carted off the stage in body bags.”

Or even when Colbert acts out our fantasies for us all:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/311927/june-07-2010/oil-s-well-that-never-ends

@Mirik

You say those things as though absolute poverty and suffering have not been the human norm prior to the industrial revolution. Industrialization may not have improved everyone’s life by as much, but when you consider the plight of the common human throughout the 200,000 years that humans have existed, its hard to imagine it making things much worse. If nothing else, the population booms that have historically followed industrialization should be proof of its power to improve the human condition. For a more recent example, look at how much starvation was prevented by the Green Revolution.

As for the species that are dying, well, I honestly don’t care. Not even a little bit. The majority of species that have lived on Earth are already extinct, and the majority of species that ever will have yet to evolve. Our economies are just another part of the environment to which they must adapt, or else they will die, but there’s no moral value in either outcome.

Hell, few of the orders that are around today would have come into existence without the mass extinctions of the past. If you value a species for the sake of a species, any preservation of existing ones will also preclude the evolution of possible future forms of life that are nothing like what we have now. Recall that the Earth biosphere has already survived being mostly flooded with a poisonous carcinogen called oxygen. Life got over it. From an ecological perspective, the worst we could possibly do even if we tried, global nuclear war, would merely match a number of the things that have already happened.

Worst case scenario, it’s as George Carlin said, “The planet is fine. The people are fucked.” The second part is something to worry about, though we disagree on the reasons, but nature should be a complete non-issue.

Certainly, it should be a small enough issue that when 11 people are KILLED in an industrial accident, it isn’t someone’s gut response to be enraged at the damage to the ocean, as in the OP. Those are some fucked up priorities.

Sooooo, basically everybody should just shut the fuck up about any problem unless they personally have it within their power to fix it, huh?

No! Absolutely not. Literally: your post feels like a call to action, but I can’t tell what action.

Or is the idea of the post expressive – the point is to express anger over this latest ecological stupidity?

@Peter

On another note, I’d like to say that when I read the part of Blindsight that said:

“To the Historians, tools existed for only one reason: to force the universe into unnatural shapes. They treated nature as an enemy, they were by definition a rebellion against the way things were. Technology is a stunted thing in benign environments, it never thrived in any culture gripped by belief in natural harmony.”

I was all like, “Fuck yeah, technology!” But then when I read posts like this, where you lament the loss of mere ecosystems in the pursuit of ever greater industrial power, I have to wonder if that was how you meant it to come across.

Speaking of fiction, this reminds me of a take on Mother Gaia that contrasts sharply with the way people who use the phrase “Mother Gaia” usually see things. I have it here, but for some unknown and presumably stupid reason it is in the form of an image.

@patrick: “rather pathetic instance of small man’s disease. Tough talk, no impact.”

IMHO if this blogpost is pathetic, then your comment is even more pathetic. I mean, you’re also powerless, and have no impact, but you’re even more powerless than Peter. After all, he’s got a blog with dozens reading, you’re just a commenter which even less people read.

What makes it even more pathetic is that you’re trying to protect the powerful BP from Peter’s ineffectual blog post, which, well, you know, BP don’t need.

@AR: You took that out of Blindsight? What, did you not read the rest of the book?

@Tea4Phage

Well, yeah. After the whole “consciousness is not needed for intelligence” idea, the second most important theme in the book, what with that section, Heaven, and other things, seemed to be “advance forever, or stagnate and die.”

I understand that Peter is not advocating violence against officers or employees of giant planet-raping megacorporations. My reading is that he’s saying “Like it or not, it’ll happen; when it does, we’ll feel good because it’s the only payback we’re ever likely to see.”

Wanting to see the guilty punished runs pretty deep in many of us. As Justin Sullivan put it: “I believe in justice. I believe in vengeance. I believe in getting the bastards, getting the bastards.” Although when ‘vengeance’ spills over onto innocent bystanders (Peter talks about Hayward’s children being carried out in body bags) you’re heading down the road to insanity at two hundred per, and justice isn’t even a tiny spot in your rearview mirror.

But I think there’s a good reason why seeing violence done to the despoilers shouldn’t be cause for any kind of satisfaction. Umberto Eco, in his essay collection “Travels in Hyperreality”, has an essay that talks about anti-state violence as committed by groups like the Italian Red Brigades or the Baader-Meinhof gang. The point he makes, briefly summarized, is that these are the enemies against which a repressive state is best able to defend itself. Each terrorist attack ‘justifies’ increased repression in the name of ‘security’. The attackers can be painted as ‘extremists’ and ‘fanatics’, while the state presents itself as the guardian of ‘peace’ and ‘stability’. Terrorist attacks strengthen rather than weaken despots.

So too with corporations. Giant corporations like BP are already deeply intertwined with government. When they or their employees are subject to violent attacks, they turn to the government for special protections and the government obliges. The end result is that they become still more unaccountable and their actions are even less subject to scrutiny. Anyone trying to find out what they’re up to risks being accused of information-gathering in preparation for a ‘terrorist’ attack. The state assumes responsibility for the security of the corporation, and corporate interests come to direct the security policies of the state.

So seeing violence done to officers of a corporation, no matter how vile that corporation (or how vile its officers), should not be anything to celebrate. Because when it happens, we all lose.

@Tea4Phage

I also got that, but it hardly contradicts my other interpretation. It just adds, “Therefore, we’re fucked.”

People wring their hands at violence never solving anything, meanwhile, violence is solving *them*.

Shit howdy some of youse-BP is making money. Now. As we speak. Get the picture? They don’t give a sweet fuck about lovely little north american boycotts, or Greenholes who only eat organic. There’s a big ol’ world out there, and they’ll chomp away on any ol’ oil they can get.

So what do I make of this? Well, here it is: had me a harsh childhood. I lived in a town where if you were a native, and, say, were a little drunk, and it was winter, the cops might pick you up, deposit you outside of town, in your shirt and socks. That town was tough, and dirty as all hell. Bigoted, mean spirited, and everybody was in on the fun. Hey, the University had ‘Agro’ students-farmer John would send in his inbred son to get some learning-that had a big red truck, especially for hazing, that had painted in white on it’s side ‘Rapemobile.’ I kid not. Finally, somewhere in the bowels of the eighties, they were told to stop-not the activities, of course, but driving the truck.

Cause it looked bad. Hmn…much like The Hellfire Club, with their penchant for cutting off noses…I often laugh at people, when they talk of such and such, and seem surprised that things can be so bad. That there could be sociopaths that care not a whit. And that the corruption goes very deep, indeed. I generally say “What part of ‘we’ve been at this for a long, long time’ did you not quite get?”

But my laughter is bitter. Because hey, I’ve had it hard, for a long long time. And often thought that if only I didn’t have eyes to see…Bhopal, anyone? Goes back further than that. I’ve felt it on a personal level. Way too many fights, where some jerk is beating on you, badly, just because he can, it’s kinda fun. And even though you’re fighting back, you’re getting stomped.

You just want to hulk out, and lay waste. My dad used to say “if you’re angry, go punch a tree.” I used to reply with “It isn’t the tree that got me riled. I wanna hit what did this to me.” It’s a basic human need, it’s why every once in awhile, the King gets surprised by a visit from the local villagers.

what depresses me the most, is what I read from Jane Goodall, about our closest relation, ye olde chimp. She observed that every once in awhile, a tribe would get a leader that made crappy decisions, abused those under him far more than the normal alloted levels of abuse, and other sundry indicators of a bad leader. well, them old chimps would finally, after taking a lot of abuse, get pissed off enough to gather together, and rip said leader ape to bits. But then they’d completely forget that they had just acted as a group. They weren’t capable of getting past that. Not enough evolving, maybe just such a thing aint needed.

And we humans, so evolved? we do the same thing. And those fuckers know that. They’ve known it for a long time. So, I should take the blame, and responsibility for what some coke-addled criminal did? Yeah, that’d be like someone B and Eing where I live, and me deciding that since I’ve done such and such, I’m involved too. Screw that.

It’s just that all the weeping, gnashing of teeth, and trying to hit them in the wallet (that’s a rich one, that is) aint gonna do diddly to these guys. They’re like the Blackhawks versus the Canucks-while the idiot lame ass canucks were happily playing a polite form of the game, those drugged up steroid monkies were playing hard, nasty, and dirty as hell. It’s like playing touch football at a real game, and whining about why are they hitting me so hard.

But it seems, as Peter so eloquently put it, that all we seem to have left is the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Does it solve anything? No, and I’m pretty sure he’s not the type of guy who gives in to his worst impulse. Shit, it took me forever to realize a simple thing: he had his ass handed to him by a wee tribe of likely drugged up poorly trained apes, and had the temerity, the gaul, the indecency to react with intelligence-and take it through the courts. Heaven forfend! Or maybe “Bob” forend-though I can’t see a faux icon like “Bob” forfending anything.

Heck, he’s gotta know that blogging about this is pretty much all he’s got in the arsenal. And what makes it worse is, these guys really do play a very different game then you and I. Exxon, anyone? Hey, I noticed that when Exxon did their little stint of bad business, well, the other boys slapped them down, but hard. so much so, that Exxon made money.

It’s pure frustration. We’re on a vehicle, the drivers are coked up hardcore criminals, and we know that if we could just get past their guns, well, we could turn it around, and have it not drive off the cliff. Except that it’s entirely possible that we are at a point where there aint enough time for a coup, cause we ran out of ground, and there’s not enough room to turn the vehicle around, and meanwhile, the baddies are partying it up something fierce, like it’s all cool to be a bad guy.

when that moment comes, you just go ape. “Screw it. we’re done. I’d really love to find me something to bash about for a bit.” Would you do it? Likely not, we have control, sort of, but damn it, if that’s all that’s left a s a reaction, it won’t solve-but hey, he already said that. And way better than I ever could.

Thanks Peter-I’m all cheerful and peppy right now. It’s a love hate thing, you understand.

Gonna add a little something here. There is one thing we have going for us. and it’s something that can be described within the constraints of science and materialism. It’s called our brain, and how much power it has. Let’s take a look at it. We have a biological computer that is very plastic in terms of damage-and how much repair the brain can do, is increasingly broadened, especially as medical science continues to advance. It has more neural connections than stars in the universe-and there are a lot of stars in the universe. More importantly, the brain does not use and/or binary logic, or even parallel processing, to do it’s thing. We haven’t quite worked out what it uses, but we know it aint that.

It’s also easily capable of massive amounts of memory storage, with clear recall (with training, of course) and I suspect that it’s processing capabilities will be found to be very high. I’m using the idea of what the brain can do with, and to, information, sort of an ability quotient. One notices that many animals do some pretty incredible things, with minimal equipment.

Best part though, is what I can at best call a sort of OS. The brain, having electro-chemical synapses, neural pathways, possess a unique hardware-in that the Os can be written, and changed, on the fly-often using only minimal processing power. Like DNA, it is both flexible, yet stable. what this means is this: everybody plays games. Everyone. You can’t hope to directly alter someone’s game, and in many cases, no matter what you do, they’ll keep playing their game. But, you can change, in seconds, and faster, your game. Indeed, you can go so far as to bypass, step outside of their game. and, with just a little practice, play them.

Especially if they’re hardcore game players, and ones with negative impact. Yeah, I know, that won’t clean up the gulf-we will, if we decide to. Or maybe if we’re allowed. It aint much, but it’s better than nothing. Maybe we should look to the animals. They’ve survived worst shit than an oil spill, and with far far less to work with. Time for us to toughen up.

I meant lynch. OOPS!

@Hljóðlegur: And how does that make you feel?

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[:]

[I/O ERROR]

Hljoolegur: Stop that! I just finished my assembly language class a little while ago, and my brain totally started trying to condense that into hex so I could read it! You are furthering my insanity.

Nick N, I don’t think free fall with no drag from air or etc. is going to be able to get mass up to the speed of light.

Yes, but I always thought the phrase “terminal velocity” MEANT the point at which the resistance of whatever substance the object was falling through overcame gravity’s constant acceleration. In a vacuum, wouldn’t an object just continue to accelerate until 1) it hit the ground or 2) it began to experience relativistic effects?

This was my own Fantastic Sci-Fi Idea(TM):

1) Set up opposing portals a la Aperture Labs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_(video_game)), one on the floor, one on the ceiling.
2) Chuck in a rock.
3) Enclose portals and falling rock.
4) Suck out the air.
5) Wait about a year.
6) Take your portal gun to inhabited area, and open one of the entangled portals.
7) Boom.

Unanswered questions:
1) I presume that the rock will, at this point, be going fast enough that it will simply explode on contact with air. How big a boom are we talking about? Tunguska-level, or, K-T?
2) WIll the rock even make it out of the portal, or will the air rushing into vacuum make the rock blow up in the lab? That would kind of reduce its effectiveness.

Panel?

[I/O ERROR]

Hahahahaha – Flanders ftw!

My flash drive just melted.

Dang that Larry Niven.

Well, Peter did have some interesting ideas regarding the Pope in a previous post…

My confusion was that Peter seemed to be saying that the spill was a big blip, but still just a blip, in a larger systematic devastation and an excuse for some GroupHate faux angst on the part of the American Public that would not accomplish anything in the long run. So instead of having an adrenaline rush/fatigue on this issue; we should focus on the big picture for the long haul. Then he seemed to turn around and say, now let’s have that GroupHate about these exceptionally icky bastards who are the real ones ruining the planet! To my mind, he may have undercut his message or not settled on which message he wanted to emphasize.

Having read his work, I am mostly immunized to his OTT violent metaphors; so that kind of washed over me like swear words in a George Carlin concert. But I knew that a lot of people would just see what he wrote and their vision would automatically cloud up: won’t somebody please think of the children! If I thought he actually wanted that or advocated it, I would be a lot more pissed off by his use of language. If the purpose was for him to reach ranting apotheosis, then it probably succeeded. If it was to communicate, it may or may not have been entirely effective.

I did have a bit of gMike’s worries about what Big Brother might do with PW’s language here. However, Dr. Watts is a big boy who has been through the wringer once already and gotten some real legal advice on this subject. So I have no problem with him speaking in his own particular idiom (as Sir Lancelot would say) and he does not need me concern trolling him. He’s got more perspective on consequences than most of us; so rant on, mister Squiddy man, tally me ecodiversity implosion.

Allister01 says:
Hljoolegur: Stop that! … You are furthering my insanity.

Dearest Allister01,
01001100011011110111001001100100001000
00010000110111010001101000011101010110
11000111010100100000011100110110010101
10111001100100011100110010000001101000
01101001011100110010000001101100011011
11011101100110010100100001

00001101000010100100110101111001
0000110100001010011 10111011011110111001001101011
000011010000101001101000011001010111001001100101
00001101000010100110100101110011
00001101000010100110010001101111011011100110010100101110

Alright, I promise no more binary after this. 🙂

Hey, Sheila, if I remember rightly, the caps of the many sperm bump the surface of the egg and chemcially induce permeability, then one slips in, causing a cascade of impermeability to ripple out from the spot and prevent further insemination.

It’s why low sperm count can make you infertile – you need a certain number of sperm brothers to rap on the door so one may enter.

It’s one more reason why I get amused at the tooth-n-nail mythology of individual cuthroat action that peppers biology. As if the sperm have minds with which to calculate how competitive to be. If you think about it, cooperation amongst the related sperm gets the job done.

It’s been so long since I have had physics that I need help figuring out how long it would take to approach c.

You’re one up on me, then – I probably never could have figured it out. Something approaching a year, at least, as the acceleration is 1 G.

Niven also pointed out that this would amount to a perpetual motion device.

Pity that he was never this astute about biology.

@keanani
And your posts often make my eyes glaze over. I’m hoping for an ignore button, as I like this blog, and like the discussion, -but I don’t like people who just doth post too much…

@Jason Stackhouse
You’re right, in this case. I should just put up with him.
However, if something more were at stake, someone has to be a *dick*. Even casually. If we all went around tiptoeing around one another’s fucking feelings(as being a “dick” means being abrasive), nothing would ever get done quickly enough. ’nuff said, I believe.

I would like the great minds of Rifters to once over this article relating to the well itself. Basically, it would seem BP is in a race with a collapsing well.
Saskboy- not inbred
Please read:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593/648967

@Hlj…damn.
re 1. English is my third best language. You can hardly expect flawless prose and phrase choice from me.
re 2. Really. That’s not a social norm where I come from. They’re more basic here. Abrasive is okay, as long as you don’t try to hurt someone’s feeling for fun. I’ve heard that North America, on the other hand, is reportedly full of people who are all smiles, even if they hate you. I don’t get that. If I hate someone, I like to glare. If I don’t care, I look as If I’m not giving a shit. Why bother with charades?
re 3. Pass by her ideas? I guess I should just install greasmonkey and write a script in that. In the past months, her posts have been exceedingly prolific. She makes me understand why the aliens in Blindsight treated us mammals the way they did.

@Ryan F: Awesome. Were it not for me having a girlfriend I would be some kind of eco-terrorist trying to make humanity go extinct, so this splits the difference nicely. We can hope this whole event will trigger some sort of horrible chain reaction that will cause people to either wake up and realize our whole species is going down, or we will probably just start fucking the environment even more. Either way, I win.

As for the substance of the article, I’m no expert on drilling, but it seems plausible. Guess we’ll find out when the whole thing asplodes, or not.

Außenseiter: YES! America is soooo backward when it comes to that! How I long to live in a country like yours, where everybody glares at everybody, and then people say mean things, and then expect everybody to laugh about it! “I hate you! You body odor offends me and your parentage is dubious! HAHAHAHAHA! Now buy me drink!”

Also, congratulations on your English. It is not the easiest language to learn, and it is certainly better than my Outer Assholevanian.

@Hljóðlegur: I’m guessing Austrian. They have a long and storied tradition of meaningful glaring.

Spankings administered, shall we move on?

The Oily Apocalypse Scenario is making the rounds at speed. I’ve been unable to track and digest the idea myself, for lack of either spare grey matter or training… How far can this plausibly go? Do we (ie, you all) have any data from previous spills on rate of recolonization?

I tried to work out a sense of boundaries, of what -wouldn’t- be in some way affected by the OAS, and found I honestly couldn’t do it.

NO!!!! MORE SPANKINGS!!!!

How far can this possibly go? Possibly the collapse of the entire North Atlantic fisheries (which has been teetering along waiting for something to push it over the edge for decades). Say goodbye to Atlantic salmon, Maine lobster, and a good chunk of the ocean whitefish and tuna. I don’t know if an actual oil slick will be able to ride the Gulf stream all the way to Britain, but tarballs on Cork’s and Cornwall’s shores seem to be on the horizon.

Oysters? Fuggeddaboutit.

Let’s go back to general spankings. At least those could be considered to have some subtle sexual undertones. Then again, all this talk about oil is kinda turning my crank too.

Note to self: Feature some kind of exploding oil derrick scenario in next week’s roleplaying session.

Not totally on point, but I can’t think of a better group of people to have weigh in on this…
I hope the HTML works.
Neurobiological cause of intergroup conflict: ‘Bonding hormone’ drives aggression towards competing out-groups
ScienceDaily (2010-06-15) — Researchers in the Netherlands provide first-time evidence for a neurobiological cause of intergroup conflict. They show that oxytocin, a neuropeptide produced in the brain that functions as hormone and neurotransmitter, leads humans to self-sacrifice to benefit their own group and to show aggression against threatening out-groups. This finding qualifies the wide-spread belief that oxytocin promotes general trust and benevolence. … > read full article

I just don’t know what more anyone can say on the disaster in the gulf… I think what I’m waiting for is for Hayward to say, “Look, we don’t have a clue what to do; the oil will just have to keep on coming until there is none left.” At least it would be more honest than anything he’s said to date.

I don’t think any of the $20Bn will ever get to the real people who will never have their way of life ever again.

unconnected paragraphs…

keanani reminds me of twirlip in the mist. sometimes I am a bit “huh” and someones “oh, maybe. yeah. I see that.”

perhaps people go offtopic since the main topic is a bit horrifying.

somehow the memory of this blog post bubbled around in my head with all the other random oddness that a memory of the Psalms popped up and I realized that pw’s hypothetical reaction is a bit like the one where the psalmest said he would be happy to see his enemy’s child have its head dashed against the rocks.

I’m angry at all the people who react to speeches by saying that they want to hear specifics on how things will get fixed. complicated engineering stuff does not work like that. I’m just a programmer, and even programmers have a hard time estimating things to the higher ups. Or even knowing exactly how something will get implemented. I take that personal experience and scale it up to something incredibly tricky and I feel for the engineers having to deal with things and trying to figure out how to solve the problem. I’d be glad to hear that there’s a dedicated team of engineers doing their earnest best trying to figure out what the hell they can do.

Higher ups? They fucking suck. Regulatory minions? they suck too. People who think that we should deregulate everything? They double fucking suck and should be forced to experience living in a libertarian dystopia. how the unprivileged lived in The Sheep Look Up. It seriously fucking sucks that the people at the top who lead to this won’t get treated like impoverished crack heads who get sent to prison rather than extremely rich guys with top notch lawyers.

@Außenseiter, I am done spanking you.

1. Your English is very good, in fact. I just thought you were a sloppy typist..

2. Social norms vary from place to place, website to website, it’s true. The “Don’t be a Dick” rule requires different behavior, depending on where one is. Hm. If you are glaring at me right now, er, how do I know?

3. Pass by her posts. You know, just don’t read them? If you aren’t a native reader of English, she will be more confusing, because she writes poetically, in layers of meaning, including references to pop culture. A great deal of what she is saying might be lost on non-native speakers. Also, lots of lateral thinking, which takes more concentration to follow the connections. You have my sympathy, reading it in a foreign language.

Talked with my friend about this last night and he’s pretty convinced this may set off a pretty big collapse, or at least severe reorganization, of the USA. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t read “Black Man” by Richard Morgan (or “Thirteen” to you Americans) can really appreciate how scary that may end up being.

I don’t really see it happening, but hey, hope springs eternal.

*clutches his SAS Survival Handbook tightly* Just you and me baby, just you and me.

Could be. Can you fry rabbit in crude? I prefer Crisco myself, but we do what we have to. I have tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, zucchini, yellow squash, black-eyed peas, sweet peas, sweet pea pods, cucumbers, brussels sprouts, various lettuces, swiss chard, radishes, asparagus, water melon, cantaloupe, pumpkins, and beans. No corn. The raccoons always get to it before I do. I also have 3 apple trees, a plum tree, a peach tree, 4 grape vines, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, and mulberries. And a 50 ft. x 8 ft. herb berm. All sorts of goodies on it. Bring it, man, I’m ready!!! All I need is a proficient brick lobber to protect it all from Bugs. That’s our protein for the meal. Do we have a deal?

Planting in berms or raised beds gives you more control over water content in the soil.

@proudinjun
Eat rabbits? I wouldn’t bother with them. No real eating there.
During the coming meltdown, long pig is certainly going to be the most plentiful and easiest to hunt prey item…
Due to their numbers being grossly above the ideal level, we’d be doing the biosphere a favour while also ensuring that our offspring end up with a more privileged position in it. Furthermore, unlike the wild pig, long pig is easy to sneak upon, is very unwary and very gullible.
A classic win-win situation that will surely lead to our improvement as a species, as a lack of natural predators has contributed to a surfeit of sickly and degenerate individuals abounding.

I’m sure oil company executives taste great. Do you think they get massages from time to time? I’ve heard that improves taste and texture tremendously…

… I read that last bit about execs and pork… and my mind instantly wondered “Would they squeal?”

That seemed for a moment to be too much… And then I heard on a webcast how all the Gulf of Mexico response plans for the five large oil companies are exact copies of each other… And three list an emergency contact who died five years ago.

I have since amended my thought to, “How much can we -make- them squeal?” =P

Oh and maple… yum!

Hmm… I forgot about prions. Lets hope the next law that gets passed includes something about screening oil executives for diseases.

We need to make sure our food source is secure.

The only “payback” we’ll get to see will be against conveniently designated targets of minority, marginal or foreign background. Not even the lowliest of corps employees will get his hair tussled, not with our gigantic MSM noise machine blaring coordinates for selective divide-and-conquer false flag payback day-in day-out.

I say smoke ’em or pickle ’em!

Tastiest outcome 🙂

I am actually all aboard the smoking train now. A whole new meaning to JERKy

Cannibalism is always funny!

…except in real life. Then it’s not funny at all.

Jokes about imaginary cannibals are always funny!

Loved the link, long pig jokes are fine, and cannibalism jokes are okay, too. I agree, nothing funny about it in the “real” world. But we can either laugh about the gulf situation, or we can all cry ourselves to sleep at night. I hate reality checks. I prefer to laugh. And I still think oil execs would be tasty with apples. Lean or fat, it makes no difference. The heat from the smoking will take care of the fat.

I think the question boils down to whether it’s effective to kill the drug dealers, or attack their families and business associates, or otherwise put them out of business. Or do we need to address the question of what to do about the addicts and the causes of addiction?

Brilliant post, Peter. Ignore all the nay-sayers and pussy-footers in this comment thread; you hit the nail right on the head.

Keep up the good work.