Yes, and it is obvious that some very greedy people earn themselves silly in the current climate...recent profits of food producers/retailers showed profit margins equal to those of Esso, Sghell et.al.

I am trying to stay positive. I really am, but it is inevitable that new plaqes and flus will ease the pressure on resources...

xxx

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Disease or a big war.

WWI and II were, like all wars, a struggle for resources. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbout because the US had an oil embargo against them. The germans invaded Russia to get the the big oil fields in the Urals.

With China on the rise and moving into the middle East and Africa it might well be in the interests of the US to go to war with them before they get to big to handle.
This might begin as several small wars where US and Chinese suported forces are the combatants. For example in Sudan the fighting is already going on in Darfur. With the Sudanese government backed by the Chinese and the rebels in the south (the oil fields are in the South) by the US they could soon be at it.
Then there is Iran and Taiwan...

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Yes, the defence industry is doing very well too.

I cannot see the US ever taking China on directly, it will always be done in the same fashion as you described above.

Amazing how mankind isn't able to evolve beyond those means of control. We are doomed.

xxx

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Human evolution is quite strange when you look at it. There was a bottleneck in our numbers about 80,000 years ago and they think our population dropped down to about 2000 individuals after a drought in Africa. It seems at this time some sort of evolutionary spurt took place because just after this, about 75,000 years ago there is the first evidence that humans began to make beads and wear clothing.
From that original 2000 people there were two distinct groups living in South and East Africa. The South Africans stayed in the same area and are known today as the Bushmen. They have probably been living exactly the same lifestyle for almost the last 80,000 years.
It was the East Africans who spread out over the rest of Africa into 40 distinctive groups(geneticly) and of these only 2 groups went on to colonize the rest of the world to our present day population of 6.6 billion.
The average baboon troop of some 150 individuals has more genetic diversity than the entire human race!
So another evolutionary spurt might require us to drop down to another extream bottleneck as before. And no doubt in our far to easy to live in world where any idiot with an IQ of 70, working in a factory in Liverpool, can live and eat better than Louis XIV and take a holiday at least once a year to Thailand for 2 weeks (thats something that Louis XIV couldnt do) we cannot be presently evolving.

There are some modern day peoples though who do not have a heirachy. The Hazda tribe in Africa who are a hunter gatherer people dont even have tribal Elders. Each person just makes their own decisions on a day to day basis. This is something we havnt known in Europe since the Frisians and it would take something fairly Earth shattering to knock the Western world back to that level.
Still thats what it says will happen in the Voluspa. We can live in hope :) I'm still trying to work out where Hod's wood is though.

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A meteor would do it. The Voluspa describes Earth sinking into the sea, the sun turning black and hot stars cast down from Heaven - sounds like a meteor to me. Humans will survive the oil crisis. There are enough tribes still around doing the same thing they've been doing for 50,000 years (and that aren't dependent on oil) to make sure of that.
As an aside, I find it interesting that places like Papua New Guinea where things have remained unchanged for centuries (which we frown on as being uncultured) and then you've got these pockets of 'civilisation' like Port Morseby where the western world has introduced vehicles and fast food and TV and it just hasn't worked, they've become no-go zones.
Whether humans would survive a meteor hit is another question altogether.

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Many heathens, those who belive Ragnarok will be a real event, think that Naglfar is the description of an asteroid.

Humans will survive the oil crisis, some of them. With the easy oil we have carried the human population into overshoot of its enviroment. We could probably all live here quite happily if we were to live as subsistance farmers but human greed means that is not going to happen. We will have a die off for sure to some degree just from our inablity to produce food once the oil production drops off and this event will highly likly be made worse by war.
As John Keegan says in his book 'The Psycology of Warfare' "All wars are fought for the aquisition of resources". When something like oil, which is fundamental to the workings of modern civilization, becomes difficult to get hold of some nations are going to have to go all out to get what they need.
Most of the realy bad stuff will play out on the TV screen. Poor people the world over who already suffer will take the brunt of it. But large population centers even in 1st world countries could also see high levels of malnutition or starvation depending on how quick and effectivly the local governments can alter the infrastructure.
If they have time to do so they can try to implement things but many governments are still in denial over Peak Oil even after the Hirsch report and with the price of oil climbing 6 dollars a barrel in the last week!!! we could end up in a situation where things could crash very quickly.
With the British oil crisis in 2000 it only took 9 days for the government to fold to drivers demands because of the adverse effects it was creating on all levels.

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