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Is Norway the New East India Company?

branko2f7.substack.com

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Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#151
post #83
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think that a sub-25% reduction in oil production would raise food prices by 10x?

A sub-25 reduction over several decades might be doable. But we will need to invent brand-new industrial processes and change world-wide practices. Because modern Agricultural Industry is deeply tied to Oil today and that dependence is barely reducing.

We’re already reducing significantly per capita, without the desastrous consequences you decry. Oil consumption is essentially stagnant in the US since 2000 (1) while the population has grown by 50,000,000 (2), i.e. by ~17.8%

(1) https://www.worldometers.info/oil/us-oil/#oil-consumption (2) https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/popu...

Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#152
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, bribing foreign governments is illegal, and also immoral. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Ac...

Shell is not a US company and besides, relying on another country’s laws keep yourself from being exploited isn’t going to get you very far.

Royal Dutch Shell is headquartered in the Netherlands and registered in the UK, and both countries are part of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention that criminalizes the bribery of foreign public officials.

Even if it were not, I struggle to understand the purpose of your comment.

Do you mean to say that it's morally justified for Shell to bribe Nigerian officials? Because it goes unpunished by governments? Or because the citizenry of Nigeria that do not benefit from such bribery are unable to punish such transgressions? Or is it just a nitpicky "gotcha" that adds nothing and isn't even correct?

Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#153
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compare this situation to Nigeria Not really comparable. Nigeria is in this case more like China during the opium wars - the western companies are taking away their oil from them with bribery, political and economic threats. Just read a bit about how Shell operates there, they have more power than the government.

I was just going to comment that Nigeria's wealth is not so much "distributed within Nigeria" as it is expropriated by the Nigerian élites and given to their Western partners. And bribery is fundamental to that process. That said, it's not only the Westerners screwing over Nigeria. It's also their own rich people screwing them over to get more rich. Nigerian leaders are afraid to go the China route on stamping out co…

> since Nigeria is the African superpower, there is little that anyone can do about it.

There is little anyone in Africa can do. Other countries can do plenty, but after the nation building demonstrated in Iraq and Afghanistan by the western powers, belief in their prowess must surely be non-existent. So much damage has been done with those fiascos.

Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#154
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, Norway reducing Oil production will most likely not affect the climate change, it might even make it worse due to less environmental friendly produced Oil and much less reinvestment of Oil money into trying to reduce the Oil consumption. At least currently there are still enough Oil reserves around the World that Norways reduction of Oil production would be fully compensated by other sources. Maybe this w…

> Not really, Norway reducing Oil production will most likely not affect the climate change, it might even make it worse due to less environmental friendly produced Oil and much less reinvestment of Oil money into trying to reduce the Oil consumption. I find it interesting, this argument of "If we don't do it, someone else will." It can be used to justify any kind of unethical activities, from arms trade to factory f…

> "If we don't do it, someone else will." It can be used to justify any kind of unethical activities,

No, not really.

> Norwegian oil becomes friendly for the environment.

There is a difference between something being friendly for the environment and blindly doing changes without considering there global implication not being help full and maybe even harmful. The world is not black and white.

> magical thinking

I would call it considering the effects of you actions before acting. Instead of blindly acting based on ideology not matter if it's actually helpful or not for the end goal of the ideology.

> If I didn't steal your wallet, someone else would've done it,

Which is a good example of why you can't reason arbitrary bad things with the argument. Because most likely no on else would have stolen your wallet. There is a very big difference between creating arbitrary hypothetical situations and considering realistic very likely consequences of actions.

Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#155
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compare this situation to Nigeria Not really comparable. Nigeria is in this case more like China during the opium wars - the western companies are taking away their oil from them with bribery, political and economic threats. Just read a bit about how Shell operates there, they have more power than the government.

This seems to be the fault of the Nigerian government no? Shell is going to push its luck as far as it can with every country

This may be an acceptable attitude to some, but it is a shamefully craven way to make money.

Have a read of the Wikipedia entry for Shell Nigeria. The death and destruction they are involved in (and which the acknowledgment involvement in) is horrendous. Armed conflict has broken out numerous times and Shell has backed some of it by their own acknowledgment.

The ecological and human toll from their polluting is incredible and their own reports show they aren’t attending some spills for significant portions of a year, quite apart from attempting to clean them up.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Nigeria

Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#156
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, bribing foreign governments is illegal, and also immoral. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Ac...

Receiving bribes is too, right? The fault may be shared between corrupt countries and companies, but Nigeria is not blameless.

Both are to blame but there is a long history of the "blame free" variety of African leaders getting assassinated or "regime changed" by external forces if they don't cooperate.

I wonder how Norway would look if they were constantly under the same threat.

Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be the fault of the Nigerian government no? Shell is going to push its luck as far as it can with every country

This may be an acceptable attitude to some, but it is a shamefully craven way to make money. Have a read of the Wikipedia entry for Shell Nigeria. The death and destruction they are involved in (and which the acknowledgment involvement in) is horrendous. Armed conflict has broken out numerous times and Shell has backed some of it by their own acknowledgment. The ecological and human toll from their polluting is incre…

…no, it’s shamefully craven behaviour by the woeful Nigerian government who couldn’t be bothered to act in their citizens’ best interest in even the most basic ways.

Shell is a corporation like any other and will not hold itself to moral standards unless forced to by other entities.

Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Receiving bribes is too, right? The fault may be shared between corrupt countries and companies, but Nigeria is not blameless.

Both are to blame but there is a long history of the "blame free" variety of African leaders getting assassinated or "regime changed" by external forces if they don't cooperate. I wonder how Norway would look if they were constantly under the same threat.

Good question. Why isn't Norway under the same threat?

Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#159
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you cope with food prices rising 10x in cost ? And the famines ? And the breakdown of law and order accompanied with the failure of most industry and the military. ? Please propose a solution along with your oil-ban utopia.

Why would food costs increase 10x? It’s not particularly hard to make ammonia fertilizer with renewables. Ammonia is made using hydrogen already (not fossil fuels directly, as is mistakenly believed by many), it’s just that usually that comes from natural gas. The price of ammonia might increase a bit in the near term as we make it with clean hydrogen, but it wouldn’t increase food prices 10x. Secondly, electric trac…

Why would anyone use ammonia as fuel?

Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?

#160
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not really, Norway reducing Oil production will most likely not affect the climate change, it might even make it worse due to less environmental friendly produced Oil and much less reinvestment of Oil money into trying to reduce the Oil consumption. I find it interesting, this argument of "If we don't do it, someone else will." It can be used to justify any kind of unethical activities, from arms trade to factory f…

This is the philosophy of Yaakov/Justin Fauci. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNqozQ8uaV8

Not really, its considering the global effects of your actions.

The video you link e.g is titled "‘If I Don’t Steal [Your Home] Someone Else Will’ Israeli Settler Justifies Forcible Takeover".

But there are some major differences between that and my arguments mainly I consider realistic consequences of blindly changing the (not so perfect) status quo by reducing Oil production in Norway, while the argument in the video creates a hypothetical in normal situations completely unlikely scenario. Furthermore in the video, it's used to justify something which is normally considered a crime and where you force someone else. While here it's neither about a crime nor about forcing anyone (selling Oil is not a crime and not causing climate change, burning it does. And no one is forced to buy the Oil.), if anything Norway tries to convince people to buy less Oil in total on the long term as far as I known.

And sure there are similarities no one will reduce Oil production (implicitly causing Oil usage) if everyone always argues that then other will increase Oil production.

Or that would be the case if we move it in a hypothetical scenario where everyone would argue that way. But in reality we are in a different scenario where some parties don't use such arguments but base their decisions on completely different factors, which makes it predetermined how they would act in the hypothetical scenario in turn nullifying the idea that everyone is shifting blame onto everyone else, making this a very different situation then the ones you refer to.

And yes, you know try to extend it to the settler arguing that the Israeli governments action are predetermined and as such it's the same. And indeed there is a argument to be made to blame the Israeli government and not the specific settler(s), but you then can blame the settler not for settling but for supporting evilish decisions of their government.

But at this point we side-tracked the discussion to a degree which kills is.

The point I want to make is that there is a major difference between considering likely outcomes of actions and trying to choose the best action in your power (or in this case Norway power) and creating hypothetical scenarios to justify something which in your own moral system is normally considered a crime.

Sure this approaches might sometimes look similar in their outcomes but their are very different in their approach and philosophy.

E.g. in one case you satisfy demand while trying to not increase demand with to low prices while trying to reduce demand in in turn then reduce production in the same degree. I.e. something which iff done right would be generally considered good. While on the other hand you hypocritically try to find excuses for your actions (hypocritically because the person using the argument would probably not fine with their house being stolen).

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