[thebruce]

I love how much discussion and theorizing is going on and the game is still a month and a half from launch

[Insane24Seven]

OrangeForAHead wrote:

Sweet! Jane made me a birthday present. Note: inky_jewel said "ahem, there are 10 of us". There are the 8TSOC, possibly plus Nico. Number 10 is unidentified.

Actually there is a listing of 10 that I was able to locate. If they all have messenger names is still up in the air. They can be found by clicking the "About world without oil" in the lower left hand corner ....

Quote:

We're preparing for a crisis Imagine eight people brought together by trouble: trapped together (with thousands of others) in the Denver airport by a blizzard. We had a lot of time on our hands. We talked. We bonded. Awww. How nice. One thing we talked about a lot: how the Internet scoops the official media. It's real obvious in a crisis. In Denver, as in the Katrina disaster, people found the true story on the Internet. News stories and gumment bulletins can never hope to match the agility of citizen bloggers and mobloggers, nor their honesty of people talking one to another. Internet people are the real first responders today, the boots on the ground. Now, here's the thing. We eight have come to believe that a crisis is coming – on April 30, to be precise. (An oil shock, or something to do with oil.) We have no proof – it's just something a guy said in an unguarded moment. He may have been putting us on. But we don't think so. We have decided to prepare. We're getting this website ready to be the nerve center. Come here to get the day-by-day. And this will be the place to tell your story, about your life once the crisis hits. Nobody else can tell your story – you're the authority on that. If it is an oil shock, no one is going to be unaffected. There will be disruption and suffering, and probably chaos. Having a place to connect with others is gonna be vital. We will be in it together. Nobody should suffer in silence. – Chuckles, Gala_Teah, Gracesmom, Illeana_Speedster, Inky_Jewel, LocalBoy, Pachinko, YuckyMuck with Dessum9 and mPathytest

[Esteed]

[joking]I'm going to operate on the theory that harnessing lightning is powerful enough to give life to a stitched together corpse. After all, dear Mary wouldn't lie, would she? And if it's that powerful, my god, I could rule the world!

I may also be one of the first to fall during the crisis. I sometimes wonder if this has anything to do with my strategy...[/joking]

Okay, seriously? People that keep themselves in shape will obviously be at an advantage. For instance, my dad works out daily and jogs a ridiculous amount of miles pretty much daily as well. He's getting up there in years but, as I've also said in reference to a zombie apocalypse, there's really nobody I'd trust at my side more than him. He could also whip me into shape.

I think teamwork will be key in whatever crisis occurs. When all hell breaks loose, there will be looters, there will be people that go, "F**K it, I'll do everything my twisted little mind has ever wanted to do!" You're going to need people you can trust at your side and at your back, not just for personal safety but also to protect and guard whatever resources you may come upon. I can see a future of small armies, some stationary but many wanderers, like an army of nomads that sweep their general area constantly for supplies and resources.

[Nola]

You have my attention. I'm listening. So what could the line graph represent? April 30 is when oil runs out, so the blue line could be oil Demand and the Green one the Supply... where supply finally reaches an inflexion point on April 30.

[rose]

I've always wanted to put a solar panel on my balcony.

[OrangeForAHead]

Sweet! Jane made me a birthday present.
Note: inky_jewel said "ahem, there are 10 of us". There are the 8TSOC, possibly plus Nico. Number 10 is unidentified.
*Added 6 of 8 to buddy list. illiana_speedster is giving me a problem because of the underscore so I added without, and LocalBoy...Adium has aliasing, which is what that likely is, because that would be a hard name to actually obtain.

konamouse wrote:

Hydro-electric power does not require oil...although alternative sources of grease will need to be implemented (all that cooking oil used to fry foods will not go to waste when we don't have as much heating oil to make the fryer hot enough).

Hydro-electric power isn't really sustainable - we're milking it right now (note the trickle that many a great delta have become). If we used them any more heavily we might have serious problems with drinking water (look at the poor Colorado River already).

Exclamation of Excitement!

[AprilAWZ]

RedHatty wrote:

ItWasntMeISwear wrote: Sure, oil brings a lot of money into the countries that export it, but we will surely be able to live without it via technological advances that will probably have been made by the time it runs out. Unfortunately the reality is that we should already be implementing these alternative energy technologies on a grand scale NOW, but we really aren't. If we wait to develop them until there is a real crisis, we will see a period of "dark ages." Kinda hard to make a machine without electricity to build it in the first place, ya know? Of course, there will be areas that will not suffer as much, they run on nuclear power, but without the oil that we are SOOO dependant on, I can't see more NP plants being built, not enough focus on solar energy or wind or water is made to combine those technologies with our current oil consumption based life. You can't wait until TSHTF to start to fix the prblem, realy even starting now could be too late by some studies, we should have started 20 yrs ago. But better late than never & hopefully this game will bring that awareness to people

But, there is some good news, though. Ethanol and biofuels are really breaking ground right now. Ethanol has been around ... forever. The ethanol co. my husband works for is one of those that was just awarded a pretty big grant for developing ethanol from cellulose rather than just corn. So, when you consider how widely available cellulose is (think all plant matter here), we really do have our own renewable fuel source right now.

But, from my dirt-loving tree-hugger point of veiw, there are downsides. Konamouse mentioned the book about the petrolium-eating bacteria. This is the kind of thing that the ethanol industry is playing with to break down cellulose in order to facillitate fermentation. Also, corn itself is a very high-input crop...very hard on the earth, and most convential farmers don't rely on a manure spreader for fertilization...in other words, we might be seeing more water pollution from fertilizer runnoff. And, where there's corn, there's usually GMO's, especially when you look at the increased corn production that will be necessary to supply all of the ethanol plants popping up all over. The more prevalent these "franken-crops" become, the more the threat to native, hierloom food crops...biodiversity takes a serious hit.

But, I don't think that the baby should be thrown out with the bathwater. I think if we can cut the petroleum apron strings, it will be a great start, economically, politically, and environmentally. I think our government will be much less likely to stir up trouble in the Arab states if we weren't so oil-dependant. Corn, and the environmental implications, might not be in the spotlight very long. Increased cellulose use will (well, "should") make it more likely that fuel can be produced in a much more environmentally friendly manner. Talk to any farmer you meet, and they will tell you what they think about the jump in the prices they are getting from corn...and later, being able to diversify by growing a variety of crops for ethanol.

Oh yeah...one more thing... Konamouse, again you hit it on the head. Vegetable cooking oil can be used "as is" in diesel engines....no tweaking or treating necessary...just filtering if it's been used. Almost all restaraunts have to pay to have the stuff disposed of, so they are happy to give it away. Free fuel!

[Insane24Seven]

negativeview wrote:

Esteed wrote: Clicking the "Nico" link at the top takes you to what appears to be a screengrab of a message board or chatroom of some type. Not that it likely matters, but that's actually Adium, an instant-messenger for Mac OS X. So it's an AIM-log.

So has anybody actually added the people in the chat to their AIM list and/or spoken with any of them?

[konamouse]

Hydro-electric power does not require oil...although alternative sources of grease will need to be implemented (all that cooking oil used to fry foods will not go to waste when we don't have as much heating oil to make the fryer hot enough).

Propane will still be available? Isn't natural gas also a resource that will also run out soon?

Quick - lets work on cow methane!!!! (hint to the MeiGeist folks?).

Start thinking outside the box and be willing to give up our internet and our tvs and our video games (cause those uses of battery/electricity will be very low priority). Bring back family board games & bike riding!

[RedHatty]

ItWasntMeISwear wrote:

Sure, oil brings a lot of money into the countries that export it, but we will surely be able to live without it via technological advances that will probably have been made by the time it runs out.

Unfortunately the reality is that we should already be implementing these alternative energy technologies on a grand scale NOW, but we really aren't. If we wait to develop them until there is a real crisis, we will see a period of "dark ages." Kinda hard to make a machine without electricity to build it in the first place, ya know? Of course, there will be areas that will not suffer as much, they run on nuclear power, but without the oil that we are SOOO dependant on, I can't see more NP plants being built, not enough focus on solar energy or wind or water is made to combine those technologies with our current oil consumption based life.

You can't wait until TSHTF to start to fix the prblem, realy even starting now could be too late by some studies, we should have started 20 yrs ago. But better late than never & hopefully this game will bring that awareness to people

[nunyo]

just a little side note

[ItWasntMeISwear]

p

[Kaliayev]

I'm actually helping a research group look into oil security, so you can count me in. Hey, if I can combine a job and a hobby, its the best of both worlds.

Incidentally, if you knew the state of security in the oil industry, you'd probably want to hit your head against a brick wall its so abysmal. I know I want to, with an alarming frequency.

[RedHatty]

Glad you could vent Crimsyn. I know how it feels, I survived Katrina

But serioulsy, we had it so bad, yet only 13 days without power, but just as long without water in the lines (no pressure). We as a society are spoiled by the modern conviences we have, flushing toilets & light with the flick of a switch. Most people do not stockpile for emergencies, nor do they have enough candles, lamp oil, propane for cooking, etc. Not to mention water & food stuffs. Especially people who live in large cities!

It is a scary thought indeed

[Crimsyn]

Wow!!!! An ARG Launch on my birthday?! I'm so in!!!!

But seriously, I agree with RedHatty and say that a world without oil and more important electricity, is a scary thought indeed.

(after a while I realized how much of an @$$ I made out of myself, so I decided to edit my "reply")