The LATOC "Inbox of Doom": Installment #1
by Matt Savinar
I get a lot of emails from LATOC readers, many of them very intelligent, insightful and/or entertaining. Responding to them here publicly seems a more efficient use of time than responding individually as I've done in the past.
Letters are not edited for content, spelling, or grammar. Also, I remove all identifying information from reader's emails prior to posting them.
Email #1: 18 Year Old Wants to Know Value of Classical Music Post-Peak Oil
Today's first question comes from an 18-year-old classical musician:
Y,
First of all, you're doing a lot better than most people your age who have been trained to do little more than play video games, talk on their cell phones and inhale fast food.
There happens to be tons of people who listen to classical music, most just happen to be a bit older than your peer group so you may not be aware of them. Heck I often listen to classical music while updating the LATOC breaking news page as it helps keep my nerves calm. Of course, I often listen to rap music so take that for what you will.
As far as the value of knowing how to play a musical instrument post-Peak Oil, somebody is going to have to entertain the local warlord or feudal land baron. I see no reason why that somebody can't be you. If there are no warlords or feudal land barons to employ you, I'm wouldn't be surprised if a group of us peasants would chip in to have you play in order to take our minds off our problems. As a matter of fact, my fellow "professional Peak Oil prophet of doom" James Howard Kunstler recommends the learning of a musical instrument for just this reason. He concludes his book The Long Emergency with the following story about his father:
. . . in the 1950s he liked to sit at the piano and sing quietly,
and he often played "Our Love is Here to Stay," . . . The lyrics
still haunt me now that we have left the 20th century behind:
The radio, and the telephone,
And the movies that we know
May just be passing fancies, and in time we may go . . .
How many other familiar things in time my go? . . .. Perhaps
centuries from now when palmettos sprout in the ruined
parapets of the RCA building, [our] descendants;will play
[George] Gerhswin by lamplight on homemade banjos.
Yes, I think there is a role for musicians post-peak.
Ever since Eek the caveman whack two sticks together
rhythmically, music has gone wherever people have gone.
The pioneers took their mouth harps and the African slaves
built instruments as soon as they could. The problem is, they
weren't specialists. Music was something they did on the
side. Certainly being a skilled musician will increase your
attractiveness and value to a community you might want to
belong to, even if you can't do it professionally.
I seriously doubt orchestral classical music will survive in any
great way, but folk music is harder to kill. In a post
-apocolyptic scenario, Madonna tunes are more likely to get
modified and inserted into folk music than Bach, because they
are easier to remember and learn by ear. Many of the
classical pieces you know and love are based on older folk
tunes, and a lot of that folk music is much harder to play than
classical. If you haven't explored some of the wealth of early
folk music that has survived to today, definitely do so.
If you have a strong grasp of theory and a good ear, you
should be able to pick up a new instrument quickly. And I do
suggest a more portable instrument!
However, studying to be a professional classical player means
practicing 8 or more hours per day, every day, no matter
what. It leaves little time for learning other things -- like how
to feed yourself. I wouldn't attempt to make a career of it,
but I would keep your skills sharp and start memorizing tunes
and sharpening your ability to pick up new tunes by ear.
In other words, don't let that tool get rusty, but you need a
bigger toolkit.
FWIW, Richard Heinberg, another fellow "professional Peak Oil prophet of doom" happens to be a renowned violinist. So far as I know, he hasn't given up the violin despite being intimately familiar with the rather gloomy long term prospects of the petroleum economy. If he hasn't given up on classical music, I see little reason why you should. At the same time, as Nicole points out, I don't think it would be wise for you to anticipate a full time career as a classical musician in an energy scarce world.
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Email #2: Government statistics, and harassment from "TPTB"?
Today's second questions comes from "M" who wants to know if "THEY" give me trouble.
M,
Thanks for the link. I agree, the books are significantly cooked. Mostly to support optimistic economic forecasts. Heck, Bush recently signed an executive order giving John Negroponte the ability to exempt certain companies from opening up their books for "reasons of national security" which in this case really means "because we're looting the treasury and don't want people to know."
Regarding the powers that be (TPTB): I have never received any harassment or otherwise been intimidated. Quite frankly, I don't think I'm of much interest to TPTB. For all pragmatic purposes - from their perspective - I am simply a slightly more sophisticated version of the guy on the street with a sign that says "the end is nigh."
How the "THEY" View Yours Truly
Furthermore, if they've so much as monitored my google searches they have long since dismissed me as being anybody worth harassing.
We have a rather interesting system of "free speech" here in the U.S. So long as you have little-to-no influence, you can say most anything you want albeit with a few exceptions. Now if you are a corporate or government insider, a powerful politician, a popular celebrity, the rules are a bit different. Since I'm none of these things, have virtually no influence over the public consciousness, and have in my possession no evidence of criminal wrongdoing on the part of anybody in cahoots with "THE THING", I don't think "THEY" or their friends "THEM" are all that concerned about me.
Having said that, I do get a lot and I mean A LOT of rather spooky visits to the site. I have a privacy policy which states I will not disclose who visits the site unless compelled to by a court of law so unfortunately I can't say exactly who. But if you were to ask me, "Matt, do you get visits from 'THEM', 'THEY', 'YOU KNOW WHO', and 'THE MOTHERSHIP'", the answers would be "yes", "yes", "constantly" and "several times daily". Interestingly enough, the spooky visitors seem particularly fond of the breaking news page. Many of them check it 4-5 times in a single day before the day's update is published.
So what to make of these visitors? I see several possibilities, most of them relatively benign:
1. Dick Cheney has instructed his evil minions to watch me
as he plans on going on another attorney shooting spree
soon and wants information on how we behave in the wild.
This is certainly a possibility but like I said if "THEY" have
monitored me to any degree they have long since
determined I'm no threat to anybody. And if Dick is going
attorney hunting anytime soon I suspect he's looking to
take out some attorneys who are actually practicing.
2. The spooky visitors actually consider the LATOC breaking
news page a valuable "open source" of information. As you
probably know billionaire Richard Rainwater stated in
Fortune magazine that he checks it regularly. A few days
ago Stephen Leeb told me over the phone he checks
it daily. Roscoe Bartlett has quoted the site's main page
quite heavily so it's reasonable to suspect he or somebody
from his staff checks the news page from time to time as
well. If people like Rainwater, Leeb, and Bartlett consider it
a good source of information, I don't think it unreasonable
to think people at "BIG SCARY AGENCY #1" and/or "SUPER
EVIL CORPORATION X" who share their concerns/interests
about energy, geopolitics, the markets, etc view it in a
similar light. That doesn't mean they are coming to get me.
Of course it doesn't mean they aren't coming to get me
either. That's why I keep my tinfoil hat securely strapped
on at all times.
"You can't be too careful these days."
3. The folks at "BIG SCARY AGENCY #2", "SUPER EVIL
CORPORATION Y" and other such entities visit LATOC and
other similar sites to get a handle on what is circulating in
the public discourse. For example, several oil companies
have published ads either denying Peak Oil or subtlety
acknowledging it. It seems reasonable to expect people at
these companies would log onto the various Peak Oil
websites in order to most effectively craft their message.
Again, nothing too terribly scary about that.
4. Some combination of the above.
Bottom line, I'm not terribly concerned about "THEM" coming to get me. At least not yet.
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Email #3 and #4: The Pandemic of Dumbassery infects a LATOC Reader
This is just sad. "I.D.", a longtime LATOC reader, seems to have been stricken with the Pandemic of Dumbassery. The first email he sent me was as follows. (I could swear he also sent me an email where he said he was just about to buy the "SUV of his dreams" but I can't seem to find it.)
The second email he sent me was in response to the piece over at Steven Laurdan's site about Goldman Sachs and the manipulation of gas prices.
Let's hope "I" gets some treatment as he seems a nice enough guy. The P.O.D. is pretty nasty.
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Email #5: Man Manages to Lodge Both Head and Stick up His Own Ass
Our fifth email comes from "Mr X.", a LATOC reader in Europe responding to the "Arnold Gone Wild" video I posted a while back:
Mr. X,
Two quick points:
1. Get your head out of your ass. Arnold is a very, very and I
mean very savvy individual. (Rent "Pumping Iron", you can see
the Machiavellian intelligence shine through even when he was
in his 20s.) He knows this bill isn't going to do very much
because of legal hurdles such as this. Thus, it's not going to
hurt his ability to get money from Big Business interests for
when he runs for President. (I know the Constitution says he
can't but that can be changed.) Meanwhile he wins big points
with the liberals and greens for trying to tackle climate
change. Only Arnold could figure out a way to stay in the good
graces of Big Business while winning over all the liberals and
greens.
2. Get the stick out of your ass. There is never a bad time to
make fun of a politician, especially when said politician's
longest lasting day job involved stripping down to bikini briefs,
getting oiled up, and posing in front of a predominantly male
audience. I'll poke fun at our governator as much as I want.
If you thought that last video was funny, check out Arnold
explaining his favorite part of said day job:
Dear Mr. Savinar,
I'm an 18-year-old, studying history at (Extremely Prestigious University). I read all about peak oil (both sides of the argument), and I'm now convinced that peak oil will happen.
I'd like to do what you suggest, but I'm in a pretty big pithole. First of all, I don't have a lot of friends, being that I am different (I love classical music, I play the piano all day, and I never go to bars or anything to drink or party), let alone any friends that will believe in peak oil. My parents, to whom I've spoken about peak oil, classically dismiss it, get on with other business, and think that my head is leaking air. I don't
have any money either.
The only "skill" I have, other than what I've already got from writing loads of history essays and doing regular short-term-memory-testing schoolwork, is playing piano. So I wanted to ask, though it might seem a very odd and stupid question given all of the resource wars and corruption and machines killing Iraqis, what do you think about the future of classical music?
Contemporary music - rock, pop, rap, hip-hop, or whatever - is a mixture of sounds that are electrically produced - electric guitars, synthesizers, microphones, MIDI, and so on. On the other hand, classical music - orchestras, violinists, pianists - perform pretty much electric-free. Once the instrument is made, the performer only needs his fingers or arms or lips to produce sounds. When the oil peaks, and there are power shortages and blackouts, where are these contemporary musicians going to get their electricity to power their massive stadium concerts with huge amplifiers and TV screens, let alone their electric guitars and microphones?
But assuming that all of the contemporary does become unavailable, who will turn to classical music? Who wants to listen to a bunch of music written by people who've been dead for over two centuries, who used to wear fancy clothes and red heels and had enormous beards, and who prided themselves on being noble and aristocratic?
The majority of people don't know that these composers - Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, etc. - thought and felt the same way as any human being. They've had their moments of sadness, grief, confusion, happiness, pain - emotions that everyone's felt.
I just wanted to know your opinion on that, because I don't feel anybody would understand. If it's a waste of time for you, then I apologize for writing to you.
I would like, though, to thank you for your website. It's concise, it gives clearcut arguments backed up with evidence. It's given me a whole new perspective - I realized how much oil-dependent our lives are, and how big of an issue peak oil is.
Sincerely,
Y.
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Email #6: Consumer bankruptcy and debtors' prisons
Our last email in the "Inbox of Doom" for today comes from "B.T." a practicing bankruptcy attorney:
B.T.,
If I remember correctly, I wrote a "modern form" of debtor's prison. Wal Mart would be a natural fit for this. You pay off your debt(s) to society working for food and a cot for some giant mega-corp. (Or something along those lines.)
You hint at exactly the type of thing I'm talking about. Somebody may not be locked up inside a cell but are nonetheless chained to their job and current location by the need to satisfy their debtors. I imagine you've seen version of this in your practice.
As far as prisons, they do cost tons but who pays and who profits? We pay the cost, the insiders reap the profits. It makes no sense from our perspective perfect sense from the insider's. It's like the drug war. It makes absolutely no sense to incarcerate as many people as we do at an average cost to the taxpayers of $30,000 plus per year for small drug transactions. That is, unless you're one of the insider individuals or or one of the inside institutions who are profiting from the mass incarceration while the public bears the costs.
Anything you would like to send me about your experience on the front lines would be appreciated.
Best,
Matt
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