Do these corporations offer a choice?
I don't recall seeing advertising for products made without using oil.
Does Sony offer computers made without using oil?
Do the electric companies offer the option of selecting an electric supply that runs on magic?

There would be no demand for something if it was never created and offered in the first place, for profit. If GM didn't make the Hummer, no one would be craving it. There is no demand without supply and advertising.

In the immortal words of Bart Simpson, "There's all these products I didn't know existed but now can't live without!"

runs on magic, thats funny! so all these things people "need", they have no choice but to buy? the choice of not buying is impossible? or, the choice to support corporations (which people do based on their purchases) which make products in a fair way, or lets say, a less destructive way?

Those pictures are just too sad.

:(

It boils down to this: Boycotting an oil company (or all of them) is next to impossible in today's world. If you really want to do it, you'd have to go live naked in the rain forest with nothing but yourself and kill small animals with your bare hands to survive. Because the reality is, everything in this world is either made directly from oil, or oil is used in it's production. Including food and electric cars. Buying or not-buying is not even a question. Anything you buy can be traced back to oil.

So I guess my answer would be no, people do not have a choice. If you have anything... right down to the clothes on your back, you are in the oil system.

It all still runs on oil.

it's about cutting oil consumption. which is what we should be striving for. of course you won't eliminate it.

Come on!! I have been enjoying your posts recently, they're quite interesting, but that is just not fair.

it was early... wasn't awake yet. :winkwink:

Well actually, the US does own 39% of BP when they merged with Amaco, the British own 40%.

BP's tagline is "Beyond Petroleum". Kinda fitting since they've gone beyond petroleum to creating natural disasters.

change your way of life, america. and things like this become less common. :thumbsup

I support communism.

England is not Britain, jesus christ.

Someone really needs to start doing some vigilant shit.

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/au...raffic_jam.jpg
http://holidays.mync.com/wp-content/...ic_generic.jpg
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...raffic-001.jpg
http://libn.com/spacedout/files/2009...ay-traffic.jpg

Insanity! Fuck Yeah!

Fuck you chump, your head's just as far up your ass as any of the rest of us. How are you getting electricity to operate your 'revolutionary' computer? Stupid fuckelberry.

Hey Coup... do you get where I'm coming from on this? People lived for thousands of years without petroleum fueled vehicles. They were doing just fine. Then someone invented the car and mass produced it for profit. If there were never a 'supply', there never would have been a demand. All those cars in those pics are the result of corporate profit motives. Not because some dirt farmer in Kentucky sat on his horse and said one day out of the blue, "hmmm... I need to have a machine that burns oil!"

Sure :)

I get your point perfectly.

But I feel the only way that will ever change is if we all accept a little blame in this and work to rectify it. We can say we don't want to live this way anymore. We can choose to do so.

I agree. :thumbsup

Poor birds. :(

Blaming regular people is valid to a point, but it is not the end-all.

If you buy a full size Hummer, or a huge truck, or gas guzzling SUV that you do not need for work, you are an asshole - I agree with that 100%

On the flip-side, people purchase what is available to them. If the only vehicles we could purchase were electric (for example), we would purchase electric cars. If the only vehicles we could purchase got 50+ MPG, then we would have to buy them.

If gas was $10 p/gallon here in the US things would change FAST! Personally, I'm all for that.

When oil runs out, we will simply go back to how things were before it ever was. We'll be back on horses, traveling to your vacation home in florida will now take 3 1/2 months instead of 8 hours, stupid designer clothing will be replaced with locally made rags, and life will once again no longer be a giant stressball of people snapping and killing all the kids at the local preschool, because they just lost their $57,000 a year job managing the local chinese supplied walmart.

I hope I'm around to see that, because that is how life really should be. Simple, about family and real happyness. Not about how wealthy you are, how much you payed for your car, and how many pairs of $400 jeans you own. Instead of commuting 4 hours a day to your shitty office job that you paid $36,000 worth of schooling for, you'll walk down the street to your tailoring business, or the distillery that survives entirely on locally grown ingredients. That your neighbour down the street grows.

And your stupid Audi that you want everyone to notice you in (they don't care) will be replaced by your shoes, a locally made bicycle, or maybe (and most likely) a horse, since I can't imagine to many places will have a local bike maker. And since there won't be any 80,000lb trucks rolling down the highway, if you live 200 miles away from the closest bike building guy, it's going to take 3 1/2 days to get there.

Hopefully inflation falls through the floor and money starts actually meaning something again. Yo, I just bought a house for $675,000! good deal! Will be turned into Yo, I just bought a house for $422! Good deal!


A man can hope. Globalization ruined this planet.

Structuring our communities in a way that would make the need for a car for every fucking thing would go a long way as well. it's absolute insanity that we build endless seas of suburbs with absolutely nothing within walking distance, no mass transit, no nothing.

One of the single best posts ever submitted to this board.

Unfortunately, there is going to be a massive span of time between right now, and that day. And in the middle there will be much, much more war, full out class war, terrorism on every level, eco destruction, complete anarchy, the creation of ThunderDome, and death on a biblical scale.

And that's only if we survive it all.

Good point

China has one billion people that will soon be demanding the america way of life too. Wars for resources will be an inevitability that will make iraq and afghanistan look like minor skirmishes if we don't head this shit off soon.

with all due respect...
http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/...ges/Nascar.png
do NOT fuck with NASCAR..........please :)

The best thing for this planet at this point would be a world wide untreatable plague. It would serve an amazing purpose. Evolution has effectively stopped at this point, as medicine has pretty much made it certain that the weak will survive and prosper. When the weak/ill or people who are inclined to be weak/ill have kids, the species is effectively weakened. One could argue that evolution is actually working its way backwards as a result. I worry that even if we don't blow each other up before we return to pre-oil ways of life, the species will be so weakened and sick that we won't stand a chance.

I think we are going to be screwed in either scenario. It's either nuclear war, and we all die, or a sick and weakened species, and we all die. People need to realize that not everyone gets to see 75 or 80 years old, and not all kids get to grow up. That is the way of life. Unfortinutely, our compassion and desire to keep everyone alive (out of greed of not wanting to lose someone or something), regardless of their condition, is responsible for our weakening population.

We doomed.

Brother, they aren't an inevitability... they've been going on for quite some time. Iraq and Afghanistan are not accidents. Nor are they the retaliation of our beloved drunk cowboy G.W. They are strategic locations for the U.S. to secure to ensure that whatever oil is left in the mid-east belongs to the U.S. Period. There is no other reason we are there, in any capacity. It's purely oil.

China is already demanding the 'American' way of life. Their oil consumption is skyrocketing. They want what we got. It's a larger version of what happens here locally. If something starts in California, it spreads.... everywhere. The rapidly increasing repeal of ganja prohibition is a perfect example among billions of examples.

But the U.S. Government is not completely retarded. They understand there is a finite supply of oil in this world, and they understand it very well. The last century of technological advances have put us over the break point that killed off our predecessors. (i.e. Rome) The war for the world's last drop of oil is long well under way.

I can promise you this much. The war for the last drop will most likely be won by the U.S. because militarily, no one can touch us. Don't mistake that for some sort of pride or patriotism. It's simply reality.

:2 cents:

That's right, there's no cars anywhere else in the world. Or planes.

THE WORLD needs to move beyond oil...only a fag would focus only on the US.

the us is the best place to start
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/en...il-consumption

you can't demand the world to go to AA while you still drink like a drunken sailor.

1. Boycott only means you dont buy nor advocate buying *directly* from that one company (not the whole industry unless you intend to boycott the whole industry).

2. To further the boycott, you may extend it to other people,groups,unions,agencies,corps,institutions if you have actual specific knowledge that they buy from the boycotted company (not only from the industry - unless boycotting the whole industry). The exception to this rule is if you need something to survive.

For example, I boycott tax collectors. I dont give them any money in order to resist some government actions and inactions. However, many (or most) people do pay taxes (directly to gov agents). Its not my fault if the supermarket continues to pay taxes directly to gov agents (from the money I spend there). I need the food to survive. So, I continue to buy food (from a tax paying supermarket).

If I could buy food from a non-tax paying store, I would, but those food stores are unknown to me and I will not refuse to eat because some politicans, judges, police, bureaucrats created this situation and continue to extort taxes from the supermarket. In order to survive, I have no other choice but to buy from companies which violate my personal boycotts (which is giving money to tax collectors).

america relies on people buying lots of useless shit they don't need. if they didn't lots of jobs would be lost. a minimalist society sounds great but what are people supposed to do for a living?

people got along fine without this destructive rat race we currently call "a living". We can do it again.

I blame everyone (consumers and corporations). But I blame the corporations more. Corps control what is produced and what is not produced. The public can only put pressure on them or force them out of business (boycott or gov action) but cant directly force them to produce what the public wants.

For example, GM produced the EV1 in late 1990's. Many us automakers developed hybrid cars back in the late 90's too but they cancelled them because they claimed "they wouldn't sell enough".

It wasn't until Toyota took a gamble and started mass producing the Prius, then everyone accepted that hybrids can be profitable to sell. I dont fully understand why the other companies did not sell hybrid or electric cars sooner. I know that electric cars have limitations but I suspect there *was* bias towards non-combustion engines. Or there was a fear of the unknown (electric motors). I am convinced it was not simply because of "lack of demand".

GM could be leading the world now in electric vehicle mass production. GM could be a huge successful company now. They could have at least, kept the EV1 alive with a few million per year on development. Right now, they could pull out the old schematics,plans,drawings and retool their assembly lines and start building EV1's again but they dont do it. I seriously dont understand what is wrong with them.

Instead, they beg for government handouts while the executives and managers dream at night about the good old days of oil burning, high pollution cars.

Death to Commies.

Have you ever worked in a large corporation?

A large corporation is not a single mind. It can consist of hundreds,thousands of minds, usually working constructively but sometimes a few minds might become destructive to others in the corporation.

Also, many (my guess is most) employess are more concerned about their personal profit than the corporations profit or the execs profit. Some people may make decisions,actions which increase their own profit but will lead to a long-term reduction in corporate profits. some people might even just straight up embezzle money from other workers,execs,shareholders

Human beings are far from perfect and not always rational (including me and you). I dont rule out the possibility that some corps exist for reasons other than monetary/financial gain. Maybe some guy started a corporation mainly to increase his chances to get laid or boost his perceived chances of entering heaven. But maybe that corp did not survive long (or maybe it did). I am just throwing out some alternative motives for human behavior.

We're not talking about "some guy" in his mom's basement starting a corp on LegalZoom because he wants to get laid. We're talking about real corps that impact the world. It violates corporate charter to do anything but act in the best interest of the corp. The entity is designed to be an evil profit machine. That's not how it started out, but that's how it is.

Recommended viewing: The Corporation.

It's a few years old, but right on the money.

And where are you from you idiot.

atleast read the whole thread before you spew dumb shit, is that too much to ask?

You are beyond stupid. You have no idea what you are saying.

Nice series (and ordering) of pictures, Coup.

I blame God for giving us oil.

Our lives revolving completely around oil is going to end one way or the other. We can accept it now and start making changes or we can battle it out for the remaining bit. I'd rather take the easy route.

thanks for "getting it" mark :)

should I have whittled my own from wood bark and twigs or something?

Bring your fucking politics elsewhere. I doubt very much you dont use oil in any manner.

Thanks for stopping by :)

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Now maybe Obama can lower unemployment. Hire the unemployed to shampoo dirty ducks and clean fishes. I never lost faith in Him....He has a plan!