As we enter 2006, we find ourselves in trouble, at home and abroad. We are in trouble because we are led by defeatists - wimps, actually.
[snip]

The biggest threat to America and its values today is not communism, authoritarianism or Islamism. It's petrolism. Petrolism is my term for the corrupting, antidemocratic governing practices - in oil states from Russia to Nigeria and Iran - that result from a long run of $60-a-barrel oil.

Petrolism is the politics of using oil income to buy off one's citizens with subsidies and government jobs, using oil and gas exports to intimidate or buy off one's enemies, and using oil profits to build up one's internal security forces and army to keep oneself ensconced in power, without any transparency or checks and balances.
[snip]

By Thomas Friedman
New York Times
January 6, 2006
Read the original here.

A local newspaper recently attributed a local leader to have said  that he likes his SUV. He seriously doubts Americans are willing to make sacrifices necessary to achieve energy self-sufficiency. "Not in my lifetime. Not in my grandson's."

His is not an uncommon sentiment, I suppose. From time to time I think about this, pondering on how to account for this view, which to me seems seriously incomplete.

In these notes, I'm not so interested in the facts of how his thinking may or may not be incomplete, but more in how so many peoples' thinking can be sub-optimal, even to the point of self-destruction.

Complacency
For several generations Americans have benefited from steadily increasing abundance in commodities and convenience. Science has elevated technology to sufficient complexity that most people have little understanding of the workings and origins of their conveniences.

Complacency is a conditioned response.

Herd Effect
Leaders mimic their competitors because it often seems safer to fail with a crowd than to error alone.  For elected officials, this is even more common. It often is safer to follow a strategy that seems rational than to follow a strategy that is rational.

Social Proof
"Social proof" is the idea that if many people believe something, then there must be a good reason for it.  The influence of social proof grows as a like-minded crowd becomes larger.  The governing strategy is to just follow along. This often is a good strategy, but just as frequently it will go awry if there are not sufficient numbers of people to actively question key operating assumptions.

Information cascade
In an "information cascade," people look at what others are doing as the basis for their own decision-making. People fall in line because they believe they're learning something from the example of others. If early decision-makers acted on flawed information or analysis, the effect of that flawed information will cascade into the subsequent decisions of others.

When people stop relying on their own learning, the cascade becomes a collection of uninformed choices. The cumulative group decision becomes a bad decision.

Conformity
When pressure to conform exists, a person adopts an opinion because it's easier to adopt that opinion than to give it real thought or to challenge the group.  Studies indicate that even more than average intelligence, diversity is key to good group decisions. Chronic pressure to conform handicaps group learning.

Culture War
America's "culture war" has balkanized communities effectively into intolerant tribes of shared identity around stereotypes: conservative, liberal, secularist, fundamentalist, greeny, oily, etc.. The politics of tribal identity make it risky to openly challenge assumptions. They also reinforce complacency.

Innumeracy
People who are uncomfortable with numbers and math are not only handicapped in lots of decision-making. They also are vulnerable to charlatans and statistical sleights of hand. They have no way of distinguishing for themselves good signals from all the noise, which abounds.

Intellect
People who are intellectually lazy or "too busy" to intellectually engage are vulnerable to poor thinking. People who are actively anti-intellectual already have succumbed to poor thinking.

Essie Jain

Jean Laherrere of ASPO (Association for the Study of Peak Oil) in Europe rebuts claims by an Australian economist Professor Owen that abundant cheap oil remains to be produced and that prices will fall drastically (Higher Oil Output to Push Down Petrol Price; Sydney Morning Herald 19th November). This letter was originally sent to the letters page of the Sydney Morning Herald.

Those who irresponsibly if unwittingly claim that oil is plentiful as Professor Owen has done ("Higher Oil Output to Push Down Petrol Price" SMH 19th November) will be contributing to the torment faced by an unprepared world when scarcity occurs and consumer suffering intensifies. The longer we deny peak oil has been reached in a society based on cheap and abundant energy, the less time we'll have to change our way of life and meet the alternatives head on.
[snip]

by Jean Laherrere
Read the original here.