"Wanting to divorce, but unable to afford it" - article

An article came out on MSNBC today titled Wanting to divorce, but unable to afford it, which also has a comments section.

Having grown up in Brazil, I remember reading and learning that the United States had the highest rate of divorce in the world. Hollywood actors and actresses, that is, the people with the most amount of wealth and fame in the world, and whose lives are often shown to the public, were often seen as people whose marriage was already set up to be temporary: these people were likely to get divorced again so they could remarry someone else. Having multiple partners through life is fun to some, and in a society that still carries the tradition of marriage, one has have a partner through marriage in order to get approval and be able to maintain the lifestyle and great wealth Hollywood actors seem to enjoy.

The great wealth, comfort and luxury provided by an abundance of fossil fuels has made life easy for a lot of people in the first world. As a result, people have become more reliant on material goods for their "happiness and well-being", which makes them less resilient to whatever challenges they face. In the case of marriages in the US, people are known for wanting a divorce as soon as the relationship becomes challenging. If it's no longer the "sea of roses marriage is meant to be, then the solution is divorce". After all, when you live in a society of abundance where everyone can be independent while have income that provide them with a decent lifestyle, there's no reason for staying in a marriage whose maintenance requires work. Not to mention that after a person gets divorced they are free to marry someone else - hopefully someone who can provide the sea of roses they are looking for that marriage is supposed to be. The problem, of course, is that that other person is also looking for you to be the one providing the sea of roses they feel they are entitled to find in a marriage. So the result is a high rate of divorce in any affluent society where people don't have to "tolerate being married" because getting divorced occurs as such a wonderful option knowing that if you end up by yourself (man or woman) you will still have a decent lifestyle - let's not even mention the alimony and palimony laws that favor women in the US.

I'm trying to be neutral and make no judgment on whether divorce is good or bad, and the same of staying unhappily married. As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure how much work should go into a marriage in order to make it work. All I know is that relationships do take work, and no long-lasting marriage is always a sea of roses. Two people are always going to have their individual desires and needs, but when the two are indeed one body you can only go in one direction. Two go in different directions you'd have to necessarily split which makes it a marriage at that point irrelevant - "Why get married if you're still going to live as if you were single".

Now, the other side of the spectrum can be seen in other countries where people don't have the luxury, comfort and independence that can be found in developed countries. In poor countries, many women stay with their partner in situations they are not always happy with, because they could not be financially independent on their own. Again, I'm attempting to make no judgment on whether such marriages are good or bad. In most cases (speaking from personal experience as I grew up in Brazil) these women who chose to stay in marriages that are tough because the husband is the provider, these women are not in so-called abusive relationships. They are simply in marriages that are not enlivening to them, through unions that took place through their own choice.

The article addresses a likely decline of the standard of living of Americans, which will likely reduce the divorce rate in the US because women (and perhaps men) through less prospects of being independent on their own, will chose to stay in their marriage either by tolerating whatever marriage aspect they don't like, or by trying to work it out - since the other option of getting divorced and having a decent lifestyle being independent seems to become less and less attainable.

I have never been married, so I am far from having much to say on this subject. I do wish people wouldn't get divorced so easily and as soon as they find an obstacle that is unpleasant to them. I also don't wish for anyone - man or woman - to be forced to stay in a relationship that is doomed to be unhappy because they don't have the finances to have a decent life on their own. I am trying to find out what other think since marriage is a goal of mine eventually, and I'm trying to acquire the skills to have a marriage that constantly enlivens myself and my future partner, so that the topic of divorce fades for us as something that we don't even think about because the benefits of our marriage (for both of us) are so great.

"Wanting to divorce, but unable to afford it" - article

An article came out on MSNBC today titled Wanting to divorce, but unable to afford it, which also has a comments section.

Having grown up in Brazil, I remember reading and learning that the United States had the highest rate of divorce in the world. Hollywood actors and actresses, that is, the people with the most amount of wealth and fame in the world, and whose lives are often shown to the public, were often seen as people whose marriage was already set up to be temporary: these people were likely to get divorced again so they could remarry someone else. Having multiple partners through life is fun to some, and in a society that still carries the tradition of marriage, one has have a partner through marriage in order to get approval and be able to maintain the lifestyle and great wealth Hollywood actors seem to enjoy.

The great wealth, comfort and luxury provided by an abundance of fossil fuels has made life easy for a lot of people in the first world. As a result, people have become more reliant on material goods for their "happiness and well-being", which makes them less resilient to whatever challenges they face. In the case of marriages in the US, people are known for wanting a divorce as soon as the relationship becomes challenging. If it's no longer the "sea of roses marriage is meant to be, then the solution is divorce". After all, when you live in a society of abundance where everyone can be independent while have income that provide them with a decent lifestyle, there's no reason for staying in a marriage whose maintenance requires work. Not to mention that after a person gets divorced they are free to marry someone else - hopefully someone who can provide the sea of roses they are looking for that marriage is supposed to be. The problem, of course, is that that other person is also looking for you to be the one providing the sea of roses they feel they are entitled to find in a marriage. So the result is a high rate of divorce in any affluent society where people don't have to "tolerate being married" because getting divorced occurs as such a wonderful option knowing that if you end up by yourself (man or woman) you will still have a decent lifestyle - let's not even mention the alimony and palimony laws that favor women in the US.

I'm trying to be neutral and make no judgment on whether divorce is good or bad, and the same of staying unhappily married. As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure how much work should go into a marriage in order to make it work. All I know is that relationships do take work, and no long-lasting marriage is always a sea of roses. Two people are always going to have their individual desires and needs, but when the two are indeed one body you can only go in one direction. Two go in different directions you'd have to necessarily split which makes it a marriage at that point irrelevant - "Why get married if you're still going to live as if you were single".

Now, the other side of the spectrum can be seen in other countries where people don't have the luxury, comfort and independence that can be found in developed countries. In poor countries, many women stay with their partner in situations they are not always happy with, because they could not be financially independent on their own. Again, I'm attempting to make no judgment on whether such marriages are good or bad. In most cases (speaking from personal experience as I grew up in Brazil) these women who chose to stay in marriages that are tough because the husband is the provider, these women are not in so-called abusive relationships. They are simply in marriages that are not enlivening to them, through unions that took place through their own choice.

The article addresses a likely decline of the standard of living of Americans, which will likely reduce the divorce rate in the US because women (and perhaps men) through less prospects of being independent on their own, will chose to stay in their marriage either by tolerating whatever marriage aspect they don't like, or by trying to work it out - since the other option of getting divorced and having a decent lifestyle being independent seems to become less and less attainable.

I have never been married, so I am far from having much to say on this subject. I do wish people wouldn't get divorced so easily and as soon as they find an obstacle that is unpleasant to them. I also don't wish for anyone - man or woman - to be forced to stay in a relationship that is doomed to be unhappy because they don't have the finances to have a decent life on their own. I am trying to find out what other think since marriage is a goal of mine eventually, and I'm trying to acquire the skills to have a marriage that constantly enlivens myself and my future partner, so that the topic of divorce fades for us as something that we don't even think about because the benefits of our marriage (for both of us) are so great.

Are you a believer or non-believer of Peak Oil?

I've gone again for over a month without posting or writing anything on the subject. Rest assured it's not because of lack of content or ideas. Actually, it's the large amount of ideas that have been going through my mind that have made me more hesitant to write. I don't want to write down every thought I have, which would probably be not only boring for the reader but unproductive. So I have spent the last month or so wondering what to write, while trying to stay up-to-date on the discussions that relates to Peak Oil and Energy. I finally was able to settle my mind on a few key points that I am now writing about.

Some [Peak Oil] people I talked to in the beginning of this year predicted that 2008 would be the year when Peak Oil becomes a mainstream topic. I believe this is happening. Peak Oil is now a much more familiar term and I have seen it mentioned on many articles in mainstream media. Just a year ago or so almost no one you asked around knew what Peak Oil was. I am confident that by the end of the year most people can mention the term Peak Oil to a co-worker and not get a weird look from the person.

That Peak Oil is becoming a mainstream topic is great news. Hopefully people familiar with Peak Oil will know that it doesn't mean the world is running out of oil as in "tomorrow we will not have oil". Peak Oil basically means that demand for oil oustrips supply. It's a pretty simple thing and yet the economic consequences can be dire.

Let it be known that Peak Oil is a theory and not a fact. Because of that, Peak Oil can easily be seen as another religion. That is because a theory, any theory, requires faith since it's not the truth. In the case of Peak Oil the believers and non-believers can be divided within a spectrum that on one end has the people who believe oil is a finite resource and on the other end has the people who believe there's plenty of oil reserves to be discovered and perhaps oil is quickly being formed right now underground in areas that just yesterday had no oil. People can fall anywhere within this spectrum, yet it's easy to see a line that divides it in half, thus making it easier to separate the believers from the non-believers.

Now, as a believer or non-believer of Peak Oil you may have arguments that "human ingenuity" inevitably will find a replacement for oil. This argument makes for a very good discussion, but let's save it for another time. For now, let's focus on the question "are you a believer or non-believer of Peak Oil?". This is a question I am genuinely interested in, so feel free to express your opinion in the comments section. As for me, I'd like to explain why I believe that the theory of Peak Oil is correct.

There are two distinct philosophies present in the world right now that can be integrated with the Peak Oil theory.
One philosophy is that we live in a physical universe, in which there are planets, including one with ideal conditions for life where we find outselves today. Planet Earth has resources that make life for humans and other species possible, resources such as oxygen, water, and everything else you can think of that is essential for sustaining life. Let's call this the "world of finite resources" that because they are finite there are limitations.
The other philosophy is that we do not live in a physical world; that matter is just an illusion and everything we perceive as real exists only in our mind. In this case, mind over matter makes anything possible. Obviously for someone who embraces this philosophy, Peak Oil should be of no concern; after all, oil itself is an illusion. Let's call this the "world where matter is an illusion" and because everything exists in the mind there are no limitations.

I like to think of myself as open-minded so I'm not discarding either philosophy described above. Actually, I find myself quite fortunate to have been exposed to both: the first one I experienced while living my first 19 years in Brazil while the second one I experienced while living for 13 years in the United States.

Well, based on these two very different life experiences I must say that the finite world is much more real for me. The scarcity I experienced in Brazil (and did not find pleasant) made a mark on me and therefore makes it easy for me to be a Peak Oil believer. The abundance of resources and opportunities that have seemed infinite in the United States for many years is something I attribute to the abundance of oil that we have in this country (with two-thirds of it being imported now). While I believe in the power of the mind, I also strongly believe that oil is a finite resource and thus it will end some day, just as when you drink a glass of beer it gets empty. In the case of beer you can go make some more, assuming you have the right ingredients. In the case of oil we do not have the capacity to create more oil.

So to summarize, the thinking that causes me to believe in Peak Oil is pretty simple: we live in a physical world where oil is a finite resource that we have been using up and some day won't have any left. You don't need to agree with this line of thinking. But suppose it is correct, then one question that naturally arises is "what will life be like when we have no more oil?".

Well, that is very hard to imagine. But we should try, and so here's an attempt: try very quickly to think of ten products that do not come from oil.

It's very hard isn't it because oil is one of the most pervasive element in modern life. Now, assuming you came up with a few products that do not come from oil, such as a wooden chair. Let's take a closer look at this wooden chair. It probably has nails in it. The wood was probably cut with a saw that used electricity that might have been generated in part by burning oil. And the chair was likely delivered to the store by a truck that ran on fuel that came from oil, and if the chair was produced in another country across the ocean then it probably came to this country by a ship that used diesel for fueling it. The conclusion is this: that chair, as imagined by you, would probably not be possible without the use of oil.

Now, I realize that Peak Oil has a negative connotation, especially in our society. An idea of dwindling and scarce resources cannot be well accepted in a culture that wants to believe in no limits. However, Peak Oil does not need to be seen as a negative thing. Remember, there was life before oil was discovered, and there was life before humans started using fossil fuels and our so called "industrial age". And life was just as enjoyable if not more enjoyable. Personally, I have learned that materialism does not make anyone fulfilled. Peak Oil just may be what brings some balance into our world, what brings people closer together, and causes everyone to work for the survival of humankind, with no one having even the desire for a "free ride".

The United States was the pioneer in oil production, and it was only because Americans quickly figure out applications for oil, which made oil extraction a very profitable business. As a result, the United States has often been called "the most prosperous country in human history". I believe Americans have enjoyed so much wealth and abundance because of oil and not because "the physical world is an illusion and there are no limitations". The US is still by far the largest consumer of oil, which puts this country in a very vulnerable position when oil production is in irreversible decline, which is the core of the Peak Oil theory. The quality of life that we have now, materialistically speaking, is probably as good as it gets. If we want to maintain a decent standard of living, the wise thing to do is to use the remaining oil to build alternative energy solutions that can keep us going when our civilization has no more oil. However, if our goal is only to prolong an unsustainable way of life for as long as possible, then we will have to grab resources from other countries so that we can use them. This is just logic in a world of finite resources.

I would like to finish this post with one more thought: there are many people who speak of "free energy", as referring to different alternatives that will replace oil (that we have yet to discover). I have found thought about free energy for a long time and my conclusion is this: we have already found free energy. It exists in the form of oil. It sits underground with the possibility of being extracted. Most of it has already been extracted. It's likely that over half the reserves of oil have already been burned.

Thank you for reading and engaging yourself in this important discussion.

- Ricardo Parker

Are you a believer or non-believer of Peak Oil?

I've gone again for over a month without posting or writing anything on the subject. Rest assured it's not because of lack of content or ideas. Actually, it's the large amount of ideas that have been going through my mind that have made me more hesitant to write. I don't want to write down every thought I have, which would probably be not only boring for the reader but unproductive. So I have spent the last month or so wondering what to write, while trying to stay up-to-date on the discussions that relates to Peak Oil and Energy. I finally was able to settle my mind on a few key points that I am now writing about.

Some [Peak Oil] people I talked to in the beginning of this year predicted that 2008 would be the year when Peak Oil becomes a mainstream topic. I believe this is happening. Peak Oil is now a much more familiar term and I have seen it mentioned on many articles in mainstream media. Just a year ago or so almost no one you asked around knew what Peak Oil was. I am confident that by the end of the year most people can mention the term Peak Oil to a co-worker and not get a weird look from the person.

That Peak Oil is becoming a mainstream topic is great news. Hopefully people familiar with Peak Oil will know that it doesn't mean the world is running out of oil as in "tomorrow we will not have oil". Peak Oil basically means that demand for oil oustrips supply. It's a pretty simple thing and yet the economic consequences can be dire.

Let it be known that Peak Oil is a theory and not a fact. Because of that, Peak Oil can easily be seen as another religion. That is because a theory, any theory, requires faith since it's not the truth. In the case of Peak Oil the believers and non-believers can be divided within a spectrum that on one end has the people who believe oil is a finite resource and on the other end has the people who believe there's plenty of oil reserves to be discovered and perhaps oil is quickly being formed right now underground in areas that just yesterday had no oil. People can fall anywhere within this spectrum, yet it's easy to see a line that divides it in half, thus making it easier to separate the believers from the non-believers.

Now, as a believer or non-believer of Peak Oil you may have arguments that "human ingenuity" inevitably will find a replacement for oil. This argument makes for a very good discussion, but let's save it for another time. For now, let's focus on the question "are you a believer or non-believer of Peak Oil?". This is a question I am genuinely interested in, so feel free to express your opinion in the comments section. As for me, I'd like to explain why I believe that the theory of Peak Oil is correct.

There are two distinct philosophies present in the world right now that can be integrated with the Peak Oil theory.
One philosophy is that we live in a physical universe, in which there are planets, including one with ideal conditions for life where we find outselves today. Planet Earth has resources that make life for humans and other species possible, resources such as oxygen, water, and everything else you can think of that is essential for sustaining life. Let's call this the "world of finite resources" that because they are finite there are limitations.
The other philosophy is that we do not live in a physical world; that matter is just an illusion and everything we perceive as real exists only in our mind. In this case, mind over matter makes anything possible. Obviously for someone who embraces this philosophy, Peak Oil should be of no concern; after all, oil itself is an illusion. Let's call this the "world where matter is an illusion" and because everything exists in the mind there are no limitations.

I like to think of myself as open-minded so I'm not discarding either philosophy described above. Actually, I find myself quite fortunate to have been exposed to both: the first one I experienced while living my first 19 years in Brazil while the second one I experienced while living for 13 years in the United States.

Well, based on these two very different life experiences I must say that the finite world is much more real for me. The scarcity I experienced in Brazil (and did not find pleasant) made a mark on me and therefore makes it easy for me to be a Peak Oil believer. The abundance of resources and opportunities that have seemed infinite in the United States for many years is something I attribute to the abundance of oil that we have in this country (with two-thirds of it being imported now). While I believe in the power of the mind, I also strongly believe that oil is a finite resource and thus it will end some day, just as when you drink a glass of beer it gets empty. In the case of beer you can go make some more, assuming you have the right ingredients. In the case of oil we do not have the capacity to create more oil.

So to summarize, the thinking that causes me to believe in Peak Oil is pretty simple: we live in a physical world where oil is a finite resource that we have been using up and some day won't have any left. You don't need to agree with this line of thinking. But suppose it is correct, then one question that naturally arises is "what will life be like when we have no more oil?".

Well, that is very hard to imagine. But we should try, and so here's an attempt: try very quickly to think of ten products that do not come from oil.

It's very hard isn't it because oil is one of the most pervasive element in modern life. Now, assuming you came up with a few products that do not come from oil, such as a wooden chair. Let's take a closer look at this wooden chair. It probably has nails in it. The wood was probably cut with a saw that used electricity that might have been generated in part by burning oil. And the chair was likely delivered to the store by a truck that ran on fuel that came from oil, and if the chair was produced in another country across the ocean then it probably came to this country by a ship that used diesel for fueling it. The conclusion is this: that chair, as imagined by you, would probably not be possible without the use of oil.

Now, I realize that Peak Oil has a negative connotation, especially in our society. An idea of dwindling and scarce resources cannot be well accepted in a culture that wants to believe in no limits. However, Peak Oil does not need to be seen as a negative thing. Remember, there was life before oil was discovered, and there was life before humans started using fossil fuels and our so called "industrial age". And life was just as enjoyable if not more enjoyable. Personally, I have learned that materialism does not make anyone fulfilled. Peak Oil just may be what brings some balance into our world, what brings people closer together, and causes everyone to work for the survival of humankind, with no one having even the desire for a "free ride".

The United States was the pioneer in oil production, and it was only because Americans quickly figure out applications for oil, which made oil extraction a very profitable business. As a result, the United States has often been called "the most prosperous country in human history". I believe Americans have enjoyed so much wealth and abundance because of oil and not because "the physical world is an illusion and there are no limitations". The US is still by far the largest consumer of oil, which puts this country in a very vulnerable position when oil production is in irreversible decline, which is the core of the Peak Oil theory. The quality of life that we have now, materialistically speaking, is probably as good as it gets. If we want to maintain a decent standard of living, the wise thing to do is to use the remaining oil to build alternative energy solutions that can keep us going when our civilization has no more oil. However, if our goal is only to prolong an unsustainable way of life for as long as possible, then we will have to grab resources from other countries so that we can use them. This is just logic in a world of finite resources.

I would like to finish this post with one more thought: there are many people who speak of "free energy", as referring to different alternatives that will replace oil (that we have yet to discover). I have found thought about free energy for a long time and my conclusion is this: we have already found free energy. It exists in the form of oil. It sits underground with the possibility of being extracted. Most of it has already been extracted. It's likely that over half the reserves of oil have already been burned.

Thank you for reading and engaging yourself in this important discussion.

- Ricardo Parker