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A comment on Why Peak Oil Will Never Lead To $500/bbl Crude Oil.

Re:Why Peak Oil Will Never Lead To $500/bbl Crude Oil by lionhearted on Monday May 03, 2010 @10:49AM (#1314832)
> Societal complexity is a function of excess energy availability

That's true in it's most trivial sense, and false in any non-trivial sense. Quick examples - Qatar, Venezuela, Japan.

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Re:Why Peak Oil Will Never Lead To $500/bbl Crude Oil by randallsquared on Monday May 03, 2010 @11:26AM (#1314937)
Your Qatar and Japan examples, at least, make his point: the complexity of those cultures reflect the resource conditions in which they developed. Not sure about Venezuela. Japan, in particular, was the only place in the world where hunting and fishing could support large settled populations, if I remember my Jared Diamond correctly.
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Re:Why Peak Oil Will Never Lead To $500/bbl Crude Oil by WildUtah on Monday May 03, 2010 @03:53PM (#1315888)
Japan, in particular, was the only place in the world where hunting and fishing could support large settled populations

Louisiana was more productive than Japan for wild fish and fowl. (Largely destroyed now by bad planning, pollution, and man-made environmental disasters)

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