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The unintentional dystopian beauty of oil rigs

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Re: The unintentional dystopian beauty of oil rigs

#121

Post by genewitch »

stef25 wrote: post #80
weast wrote: post #31

One of my favourite videos is a striking self-promo clip commissioned by Shell in 1970s. The tech optimism is strong, with visuals that would feel much more at home in a climate shock video nowadays. the video captures the otherworldliness of oil production and large scale infrastructure in a hypnotic way. It really is quite beautiful. https://youtu.be/_zWjT59S_wk

> the video captures the otherworldliness of oil production and large scale infrastructure in a hypnotic way If you're in to that kind of stuff check out Koyaanisqatsi & Powaqqatsi

Not a decade goes by, not a decade, without someone mentioning Koyaanisqatsi.

It's in my top 5 "must watch" movies.

Re: The unintentional dystopian beauty of oil rigs

#122

Post by rtkwe »

HPsquared wrote: post #117
rtkwe wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On an even more fundamentally ridiculous level too. The people being (Alanis Morissette) "ironic" here have absolutely no choice in the matter of literally being born. For those unfamiliar it's this comic that was simplified to the final panel [0]. It's a great send up of a whole arm of bad faith debate tactics that tries to invalidate any criticism of topic X because the person benefits from it. [0] https://i.kym-cd…

Water is very destructive and yet, where would be be without it. Same goes for oil and gas.

Water isn't oil though, the former is biologically necessary and the latter is socially necessary. It also wasn't really what I'm talking about but I'll bite none the less.

I'm not really saying we get rid of it fully but we don't need anywhere near the oil and gas industry we have. About 67% [0] of extracted oil used in the US goes into the transportation sector in one form or another and an additional 6% goes into power generation.

We could eliminate a lot of that consumption through building things like nuclear plants and various green energy sources and by reducing the reliance on cars in the US. Unfortunately that latter option is going to be fighting against decades of culture and choices built into our cities, but we could also shift away from gas cars as well and it fortunately seems like we are at least headed that way though I'm betting we'll encounter a plateau in electric car adoption well before they outnumber gas vehicles.

Even if we only shifted most consumer vehicles over to some gas alternative we could probably eliminate at least a third of all oil products consumed in the US. More if electric trucks pan out though that's a trickier proposition just due to how they're used. Those two changes don't even really require large changes to how we operate our world today just shifting the energy demand away from fossil fuel onto electric.

[0] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...

Re: The unintentional dystopian beauty of oil rigs

#123

Post by switchbak »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #94
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not a really good analogies. The real question is: are the people complaining about all industry ready to live in a world without industry? To which the answer is obviously no for most of them. It’s akin to asking: do you want 90% of the global population to die of starvation?

I wouldn't mind if 90% of the population had never been born (even myself)

I wouldn't mind to have been born a giant, but here we are.

I get that some folks feel bad about human's impact on the earth, but you're going down a very concerning road here. I'm glad I was born, and I'm glad my child was born. I would love for us to move quicker towards a world that isn't trashing the earth like we are now.

I do however get a little concerned about the opinions of those who wished humans existed in far fewer numbers, especially when that involves a wish for a mass die-off (or cull!). You (or whomever) are free to hold whatever opinions you like, but when people start talking about advocating for allowing or promoting the death of large numbers of people, that's when I ask you to politely fuck off.

Re: The unintentional dystopian beauty of oil rigs

#124

Post by piloto_ciego »

muttled wrote: post #109
piloto_ciego wrote: post #100

Working in the oil field in remote parts of the Arctic was decidedly the closest to living on a space colony that I’ll ever get and it was awesome. I miss that environment and the work very much.

Could you give us a bit of what it was like? I imagine it being somewhat like the Vegas hotels where you can spend an entire vacation without actually having to step outside or a military/cruise ship that has stores/entertainment/exercise facilities built right in.

For me (I was still a pilot at the time), the camp I lived in was a bit like a more professional version of a belter colony from the Expanse with the exterior vibe of The Thing (without the aliens). Very industrial? And going outside was akin to going through and airlock and putting a spacesuit on.

The bedrooms were spartan but comfy, the internet was tolerably fast but still much slower than at home, and the meals were all communal.

Basically (and ironically) it was the closest to living under communism I’ve ever been exposed to in my life. It was kind of stifling from a “personal freedom” standpoint - even in the summer you couldn’t just go walk around on the tundra - but it was very cool to be a part of it all, and the job was fun and challenging.

What do you want to know? Accommodations were nice and after my hitch I got lots of time off. 10/10 would recommend.

Re: The unintentional dystopian beauty of oil rigs

#125

Post by CuriouslyC »

switchbak wrote: post #123
CuriouslyC wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't mind if 90% of the population had never been born (even myself)

I wouldn't mind to have been born a giant, but here we are. I get that some folks feel bad about human's impact on the earth, but you're going down a very concerning road here. I'm glad I was born, and I'm glad my child was born. I would love for us to move quicker towards a world that isn't trashing the earth like we are now. I do however get a little concerned about the opinions of those who wished humans existed i…

I never said anything about a mass die off, nobody is harmed by not having been born in the first place. We don't even need a mass die-off anyhow, we just need population control. Without population control we're going to have a mass die-off though, it's unavoidable due to the inherent unsustainability of our resource use.

Re: The unintentional dystopian beauty of oil rigs

#126

Post by switchbak »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #125
switchbak wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't mind to have been born a giant, but here we are. I get that some folks feel bad about human's impact on the earth, but you're going down a very concerning road here. I'm glad I was born, and I'm glad my child was born. I would love for us to move quicker towards a world that isn't trashing the earth like we are now. I do however get a little concerned about the opinions of those who wished humans existed i…

I never said anything about a mass die off, nobody is harmed by not having been born in the first place. We don't even need a mass die-off anyhow, we just need population control. Without population control we're going to have a mass die-off though, it's unavoidable due to the inherent unsustainability of our resource use.

I didn't say you were asking for that, but that line of reasoning often trends in that direction, and my opinions were directed those who hold those stronger views.

Do we need population control? For the vast majority of industrialized countries their birth rate is and has been well below replacement levels for decades. We're going to have a much smaller population pretty soon, and there's nothing anyone can do to change that now.

We'll see what plays out in the next few decades, but you've effectively already going to have what you're calling for. I don't think it's going to be a fun situation though - demographic collapse is no joke. Cutting down the replacement population numbers from there just seems like you'd be making a bad situation worse.

Re: The unintentional dystopian beauty of oil rigs

#128

Post by unixhero »

stef25 wrote: post #80
weast wrote: post #31

One of my favourite videos is a striking self-promo clip commissioned by Shell in 1970s. The tech optimism is strong, with visuals that would feel much more at home in a climate shock video nowadays. the video captures the otherworldliness of oil production and large scale infrastructure in a hypnotic way. It really is quite beautiful. https://youtu.be/_zWjT59S_wk

> the video captures the otherworldliness of oil production and large scale infrastructure in a hypnotic way If you're in to that kind of stuff check out Koyaanisqatsi & Powaqqatsi

There is also LUCKY PEOPLE CENTER INTERNATIONAL [0]

0, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8BZd7IBr2Y&t=3

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