Will The End Of Oil See The End Of My Town?

[Admiral Valdemar]

I would call you a fool if you thought the futures market would foresee this problem and set in motion plans to counter what is in essence a physical inevitability. The market doesn't want to hear it in any way, shape or form. The market deems it necessary to lie to the masses of nervous investors who, at the drop of a hat, will dictate whether the world prospers or goes bust again. When you have people who own trillions of dollars of global capital suddenly find out that, logically, the economic model we've been following since the dawn of trade and industry is doomed to fail, no matter what technology comes to the fray, then you encounter meltdown, my friend.

What is the saying that best captures this scenario? Ignorance is bliss. If the commentators on Bloomberg, CNBC and the WSJ and FT say things will be okay because one Big Oil CEO reckons more oil will be on tap very soon, pushing prices down to forty bucks again, then that is what they'll believe.

But it won't. And neither the capitalists nor the communists have the foresight to acknowledge such issues. The Russians fell into this trap long ago when Reaganomics forced them to pump as much oil and gas as they could just to try and keep up with the NATO side. Before you can say perestroika, they fell and with them their whole ideology. Embrace capitalism, comrade, and you shall know a world never before within your grasp. Only, comrade, do not expect us to have any better planning for a rainy day, because we rely on ever expanding growth for ever more and this whole house of cards is balanced by people who don't think more than six months and several billion dollars ahead.

What this sad, anomalous period of human history will say to future historians, is that humanity cannot be trusted with precious resources nor, indeed, can it be expected to maintain a rational head when so much material wealth is on the table. The world's greatest democracy extols the virtues of peace and democracy, and with its second face, helps prop up the most despicable regimes known to man whose only friendship bond consists of a black sludge that two-hundred million years ago, was once a giant reptile. If awards could be handed out for greed and gross hypocrisy, the powers of today would shit on our ancient predecessors from a great height. So much opportunity for many squandered so quickly on so few.

Tell this to the people, and you'll get a brick wall of denial to counter any fundie of another religious faith. We all worship oil, and we all shall mourn its death. But most of all, the majority - the uninformed 99 out of 100 - shall actively deny this end until their faith is shattered along with the world they thought, was what they'd be retiring in and their kids growing up in.

[Starglider]

The ultimate expression of this is idea futures, which I have personally witnessed numerous ultra-libertarians verbally jacking off to.

Idea Futures are true insanity.

The concept has a vague appeal to me, basically because it's superficially clever in a game-theoretic sense. But I have yet to hear any a proposal for implementing it that isn't a ludicrous farce as a serious decision-making system. It's another of those 'might work if you could utterly ignore basic human psychology ideas', which are in plentiful supply at both extremes of the (economic) ideological spectrum.

They're the ultimate popularity contest--the ideas which will "win" in them are the ideas that people like the most, since they'll have no other particular reason for investing (and no possible desire to do any research into the subject when it's irrelevant which one they support, as long as they support a winner) and then a winner will start to steamroll and everyone will pile on to make sure they have a safe bet.

That said, your example sounds even more retarded than usual. Obviously it isn't going to work if people can make returns based on which idea gets implemented, rather than whether the idea actually works when tested. That's even less useful than polling the whole population on every issue - it's nothing more than a slightly convoluted attempt to replace 'one human, one vote' with 'one dollar, one vote'.

Command economics are necessary for emergency situations.

True, but in practice this isn't a binary issue and anyone who tries to cast it as one is either dishonest or a moron. The US is a mixed economy, currently heavily tilted to the private sector. Most European countries have a larger public sector, via some combination of direct taxation/spending, regulation (including things like pollution credit trading and mandatory pension schemes), public ownership of companies and subsidies. The US is almost certainly going to experience more government intervention and control, as happens in nearly any serious economic depression, but I seriously doubt that it will be a choice between a communist dictatorship and anarchy. Not that you seem to be saying that, but some other posters appear to be taking it that way.

[Lord Zentei]

I don't know if this is directed at me, or anyone else in particular, but what the heck.

I would call you a fool if you thought the futures market would foresee this problem and set in motion plans to counter what is in essence a physical inevitability.

You mean, like the shortage of lumber in the UK during the industrial revolution? That too was a "physical inevitability".

The market doesn't want to hear it in any way, shape or form. The market deems it necessary to lie to the masses of nervous investors who, at the drop of a hat, will dictate whether the world prospers or goes bust again.

That is true for individual agents in the market.

When you have people who own trillions of dollars of global capital suddenly find out that, logically, the economic model we've been following since the dawn of trade and industry is doomed to fail, no matter what technology comes to the fray, then you encounter meltdown, my friend.

That seems an unrealistically nihilistic vision. Moreso since nuclear power is not an impossibility, nor will trade and industry cease to be even should it not be continued at current levels.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Command economies are neccesary for public goods, I'll agree to that much. "Emergency situations" are rather more nebulous.

Humans need central control during emergencies. Democracies are irrational in crisis situations. We're behaving like the Athenians in the Peloponnesian War. The Spartans won that conflict because their decision-making was based on the cool deliberations of a collection of old men who had governed farms, fought in battles, and gained the experience of decades, and were entrusted with the survival of a state they had been raised to love since birth. The Athenians let everyone vote, and everyone speak, and they proceeded to do such ludicrous things as, after their population had been devastated by a plague, send a massive and unnecessary expedition to Sicily while the Spartans were still breathing down their necks right at home.

Democracies do not make wise decisions in military situations. Popular opinion was against war even in WW2, and only the dictatorial behaviour of FDR, possibly the most undemocratic President in American history, responsible for the kind of constitutional violations that even Bush would stand in awe of with their blatantness (Trying to PACK the Supreme Court, christ), allowed us to intervene and take on Japan and Nazi Germany.

Sounds like the open ended "War on Terror". Sorry, not convinced. The economy cannot be a command economy in perpetuity, since such economies are less efficient than markets, and you will need economically efficient solutions to the energy problem.

No, we'll need solutions that can be effectively implemented. They will be economic in the sense that non-essential uses will be strictly limited. Once all essentially demands have been met, controls can be relaxed, and innovation into new forms of non-essential energy production can begin. Open-ended? You bet it is.

Comparisons to the war on terror? Get the hell out. This is talking about millions of deaths on American soil being inevitable, not about three thousand people dying and being followed by the pursuit of a couple thousand of tribal lashkars in the Hindu Kush while people go on spending. This is going to be like China putting nukes into downtown San Diego, LA, SF, Sacramento, Portland, Seattle, Los Vegas, Boise, etc, all the cities of the West Coast. Except it'll be spread through the whole country and the crisis will be prolonged as it will be continuous damage over a period of time rather than a single shock and awe event of nuclear proportions.

I'm not sure where you are going here; this is an argument that the command economy is going to be more politically sustainable than otherwise, yes?

It will be politically sustainable because it is necessary, and the government in charge will be interested only in what is necessary. People who disagree on what is necessary will be taken care of, presumably. I don't think it will be communists in the USA, tho'. Integralism is a more likely example, especially as the Latino population increases and gains more political power. There's a strong Chesterton-Belloc thread (Distributivism) in the economic politics of the likes of Pat Buchanan, et. al., also.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I don't know if this is directed at me, or anyone else in particular, but what the heck.

Was directed at no one, actually.

You mean, like the shortage of lumber in the UK during the industrial revolution? That too was a "physical inevitability".

And? What's going to replace fossil fuels? I'll give you a hint, it fills a perfect vacuum.

That is true for individual agents in the market.

My diatribe is against the human condition in general. I certainly don't see what the use is in arguing command and market economies at this point. They don't change anything but how you go about damage control.

That seems an unrealistically nihilistic vision. Moreso since nuclear power is not an impossibility, nor will trade and industry cease to be even should it not be continued at current levels.

Trade and industry as we have known them for two hundred years will cease. Of that I am certain. And there isn't anything to replace fossil fuels. Nuclear power is not oil, hell, it's not even coal. My inheritance versus a wage packet analogy highlights the issue we're facing. It's not one of technological know how, it's one of scale and energy.

[Darth Wong]

It's too bad that the human capacity for irrationalism also applies to central planners, then. And there, redundancy is less.

It's not the same kind of irrationalism. You are assuming all kinds of irrationalism are equal, and that's just not the case. A central planner might stick his head in the sand and ignore a long-term problem, but the masses are guaranteed to do it, because they're tiny individuals and don't feel like they can do anything about it anyway, so they might as well live it up.

And the central planner has less in the way of information about the needs and wishes of the populace ...

And if the public's needs and wishes are in direct conflict?

and less incentive to do right by the public in the absence of negative feedback.

Your entire "negative feedback" argument is merely different terminology slapped on top of the same basic (and totally unsupportable) premise that the public's wishes are necessarily coincident with its long-term needs.

The phrase "the people don't necessarily know what's best for them" is usually dismissed with the label "paternalism". But label-rebuttals are a poor substitute for genuine logic. What if that statement happens to be true?

Democracy is good for one thing: making sure the government at least pays attention to the wishes of the populace. It breaks down when the wishes of the populace are totally at odds with their needs, and they're too ignorant to realize it.

[phongn]

IIRC, the implementation of the Idea Market that was proposed by the US government was to be closed to the general populace and used by presumably rational and informed actors. I'm not even sure if they were going to actually trade real money, either.

[Darth Wong]

BTW, how can anyone seriously deny that democracies don't work well in emergency situations when every democracy on Earth reserves the right to invoke martial law for ... drum roll ... emergency situations? I thought it was virtually common knowledge that democracy is shitty in emergency situations.

When you're trapped in a burning building, you don't take opinion polls.

[Starglider]

That is true for individual agents in the market.

A valid point only if you can show that the errors made by individual agents are random and cancel out to near-optimum, or are accidental and quickly self-correct. Markets are good for a lot of things, certainly they're well suited to running a scarcity economy in times of peace and plenty, but unfortunately for some things they're crippled by systematic human cognitive flaws (and sometimes entirely objective game theoretic issues). These result in the majority of players making the same wrong decisions and continuing to do so until it's too late. For cases like this markets actually make addressing the real problem harder, because you have to count on many orders of magnitude more people being educated and rational, and personal profit at other people's expense is actively encouraged rather than being illegal corruption.

[Lord Zentei]

Humans need central control during emergencies. Democracies are irrational in crisis situations. We're behaving like the Athenians in the Peloponnesian War. The Spartans won that conflict because their decision-making was based on the cool deliberations of a collection of old men who had governed farms, fought in battles, and gained the experience of decades, and were entrusted with the survival of a state they had been raised to love since birth. The Athenians let everyone vote, and everyone speak, and they proceeded to do such ludicrous things as, after their population had been devastated by a plague, send a massive and unnecessary expedition to Sicily while the Spartans were still breathing down their necks right at home.

Sparta, pfft. We are talking about a rather more complex problem than straightforward seige operations around a rival city. Anyway; we are also talking about command economies versus markets, not dictatorship versus democracy.

Democracies do not make wise decisions in military situations. Popular opinion was against war even in WW2, and only the dictatorial behaviour of FDR, possibly the most undemocratic President in American history, responsible for the kind of constitutional violations that even Bush would stand in awe of with their blatantness (Trying to PACK the Supreme Court, christ), allowed us to intervene and take on Japan and Nazi Germany.

Even FDR did not nationalize the economy (though he increased the share of the public sector, certainly).

No, we'll need solutions that can be effectively implemented. They will be economic in the sense that non-essential uses will be strictly limited. Once all essentially demands have been met, controls can be relaxed, and innovation into new forms of non-essential energy production can begin. Open-ended? You bet it is.

And you are so sure that the state can implement solutions to energy needs by micromanagement more effectively than companies working for agents, including the state?

Comparisons to the war on terror? Get the hell out. This is talking about millions of deaths on American soil being inevitable, not about three thousand people dying and being followed by the pursuit of a couple thousand of tribal lashkars in the Hindu Kush while people go on spending. This is going to be like China putting nukes into downtown San Diego, LA, SF, Sacramento, Portland, Seattle, Los Vegas, Boise, etc, all the cities of the West Coast. Except it'll be spread through the whole country and the crisis will be prolonged as it will be continuous damage over a period of time rather than a single shock and awe event of nuclear proportions.

That's not really what I meant: I was speaking of the justifications and arguments for keeping an open ended mandate for "emergency" solutions. If it's open ended it's not an "emergency" any more.

It will be politically sustainable because it is necessary, and the government in charge will be interested only in what is necessary. People who disagree on what is necessary will be taken care of, presumably. I don't think it will be communists in the USA, tho'. Integralism is a more likely example, especially as the Latino population increases and gains more political power. There's a strong Chesterton-Belloc thread (Distributivism) in the economic politics of the likes of Pat Buchanan, et. al., also.

Ho ho. Necessity does not mean sustainability. If it were that easy, oil would never run out. Nor is a government's perception of what is "neccesary" going to be accurate w/o negative feedback. For both, see: PRNK.

And? What's going to replace fossil fuels? I'll give you a hint, it fills a perfect vacuum.

Nah, it fills a nuclear reactor.

Trade and industry as we have known them for two hundred years will cease. Of that I am certain. And there isn't anything to replace fossil fuels. Nuclear power is not oil, hell, it's not even coal. My inheritance versus a wage packet analogy highlights the issue we're facing. It's not one of technological know how, it's one of scale and energy.

Well, if you are so certain, go ahead and despair; if anything is certain it is that this at least won't be much of a solution to anything.

[CaptHawkeye]

And? What's going to replace fossil fuels? I'll give you a hint, it fills a perfect vacuum.

I know we shouldn't stand here and pray for a divine inventor to suddenly rise up and scream "i've found the solution!". But are you sure their is not concievable energy source that could power mobilized society? Even if it at limited levels? (IE: No more cars above 50mph.)

My diatribe is against the human condition in general. I certainly don't see what the use is in arguing command and market economies at this point. They don't change anything but how you go about damage control.

Indeed. On the subject of ignorance in power: Regardless of how much damage is caused, you can bet fundamentalism will be out of control come the energy crisis. People will scream for a magical god to come and save them... we've already pointed out about how people will sit around and point fingers complaining no one warned them.

Trade and industry as we have known them for two hundred years will cease. Of that I am certain. And there isn't anything to replace fossil fuels. Nuclear power is not oil, hell, it's not even coal. My inheritance versus a wage packet analogy highlights the issue we're facing. It's not one of technological know how, it's one of scale and energy.

Why is it that nuclear energy can't hope to work for industry and fixed infrastructure?

I really need to take a break from this thread. It's ruining my day.

[Admiral Valdemar]

BTW, how can anyone seriously deny that democracies don't work well in emergency situations when every democracy on Earth reserves the right to invoke martial law for ... drum roll ... emergency situations? I thought it was virtually common knowledge that democracy is shitty in emergency situations.

When you're trapped in a burning building, you don't take opinion polls.

People don't like to acknowledge the fact that someone needs to be designated boss. Some people will shun the responsibility. Many more will vehemently oppose the idea that another person is to have absolute power over them, without their input on the matter.

This is simply another facet of human psychology. The few running the many is something we supposedly got rid of when feudalism was eradicated. What people don't realise, or maybe even consciously ignore, is that the same system is imposed today in most all democracies and certainly the 80-20 Pareto rule means the one thing that matters today, the economy, means a select few hold all the cards.

I often wonder how the people who passed the business exercises I've been on before for job open days would do in an emergency when sitting around a table discussing options all day isn't possible. These people rabidly oppose any one person taking command, even if they happen to know what the hell they're doing.

[Lord Zentei]

and less incentive to do right by the public in the absence of negative feedback.

Your entire "negative feedback" argument is merely different terminology slapped on top of the same basic (and totally unsupportable) premise that the public's wishes are necessarily coincident with its long-term needs.

The phrase "the people don't necessarily know what's best for them" is usually dismissed with the label "paternalism". But label-rebuttals are a poor substitute for genuine logic. What if that statement happens to be true?

Democracy is good for one thing: making sure the government at least pays attention to the wishes of the populace. It breaks down when the wishes of the populace are totally at odds with their needs, and they're too ignorant to realize it.

Under such circumstances, who do you trust to define the public's "needs"?

That is true for individual agents in the market.

A valid point only if you can show that the errors made by individual agents are random and cancel out to near-optimum, or are accidental and quickly self-correct.

Incorrect. Agents that fail to perform are eliminated by competition. That is the control mechanism.

[Darth Wong]

Under such circumstances, who do you trust to define the public's "needs"?

Highly educated experts. Your opposing premise (that millions of undereducated fools who are glued to American Idol every week actually have a better grasp of the situation) is simply absurd.

Agents that fail to perform are eliminated by competition. That is the control mechanism.

You refuse to recognize that the definition of "performance" in the free market is not coincidental with the needs of society at large, and in fact encourages self-enrichment at the expense of society at large. Starglider made this point already, and you totally ignored it. The free market does not encourage people to do the right thing, so its control mechanism for enforcing its incentives is totally irrelevant to the argument.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I know we shouldn't stand here and pray for a divine inventor to suddenly rise up and scream "i've found the solution!". But are you sure their is not concievable energy source that could power mobilized society? Even if it at limited levels? (IE: No more cars above 50mph.)

Not like fossil fuels. There's no more million year old dead plants and animals in the ground to come to the rescue after we've extracted this lot.

What if there were? Then we keep on going as normal and run into the same damn problem later on in human civilisation. You can't cheat thermodynamics. You can't win. And there's no way out.

Why is it that nuclear energy can't hope to work for industry and fixed infrastructure?

I really need to take a break from this thread. It's ruining my day.

Nuclear is a base loader and it has many issues that I've gone over previously. If you had enough nuke plants, you could keep the power going today. But we don't have enough, and so it doesn't matter. And a crash course in making them today would still take decades to implement what we're now losing. Three billion more people appearing is only going to fuck your game plan up.

My solution? Stop breeding. The population needs to be kept in line, and don't anyone bother trotting out useless crap like the US or UK have their death ratio being higher than their birth ratio. This is a global problem, and the countries that are sucking up the energy faster than anyone else are also the ones breeding like rabbits.

We have reached our planet's carrying capacity. No, scratch that. We've long since past it if you want to maintain anything like a 21st century lifestyle for the developed nations. If everyone wants to have even basic living standards like us lucky Westerners, then you better find several more Earths first. Because we're using 10 calories today for every calorie we eat. Know what happens to organisms that expend more energy trying to feed themselves than what they get from their food? They die.

[Darth Wong]

Well, the bright spot regarding overpopulation, if you can call it that, is that the worst overpopulation offenders will pay the heaviest price. There is balance.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Nearly six billion people today only exist thanks to fossil fuels. When the equilibrium comes, it won't be seen by everyone, that's for sure. Even if a magic bullet does come round the corner like fusion or a rich, creamy nougat centre of oil in Earth we've not found yet.

That's a harrowing number. Take everyone you know, then take away 6 out of every 7 of them.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

What is the fucking obsession with cars even in this thread? Isn't it getting through anyone's heads, seriously, that you will be enormously LUCKY if we can implement enough mass transit in time?

In 50 years, as many people will own cars as did in 1900. They will be specialty vehicles for the government and large corporations, and novelties for the extremely very rich (top 1% of society). Nobody else will have cars, and the closest personal transportation vehicles available as substitutes for them will be bicycles and horses.

Get that fact into your head now, and start worrying about how we're going to build enough commuter rail to take the place of those cars you will never enjoy again in your life.

[CaptHawkeye]

My solution? Stop breeding. The population needs to be kept in line, and don't anyone bother trotting out useless crap like the US or UK have their death ratio being higher than their birth ratio.

Then I do have what may be a glimer of hope. Since i've been smart enough to understand it, I have never been interested in the idea of having children. Those who partake in the challenge I hold no grudge against. But it personally doesn't interest me.

A number of my friends feel the same way. I know it might be just us being "dumb teenagers". But i'm surprised at the number of people i've met who really aren't interested in making kids.

While it's a small glimer, it's better than nothing. Though i'm not going to hold my breath for it.

[Lord Zentei]

Under such circumstances, who do you trust to define the public's "needs"?

Highly educated experts. Your opposing premise (that millions of undereducated fools who are glued to American Idol every week actually have a better grasp of the situation) is simply absurd.

You assume that these experts will provide for the fools at home w/o negative feedback because...? Soviets tried that already. How are these experts recognized and selected? How do you guarantee their benevolance? And how do they gain the information to micromanage?

Agents that fail to perform are eliminated by competition. That is the control mechanism.

You refuse to recognize that the definition of "performance" in the free market is not coincidental with the needs of society at large, and in fact encourages self-enrichment at the expense of society at large.

Yes, I do indeed refuse to recognize such nonsense, at least as it pertains to private goods. However, if you are talking about public goods and externalities, that's another issue entirely.

Starglider made this point already, and you totally ignored it. The free market does not encourage people to do the right thing, so its control mechanism for enforcing its incentives is totally irrelevant to the argument.

The market is not what encourages people to do the right thing under captialism, nor does anyone claim such. People are expected to be mature enough to function as rational sentients.

Anyway, as for the market not encouraging people to do the "right thing", neither does a central planning commitee, if the USSR is anything to go by.

[CaptHawkeye]

What is the fucking obsession with cars even in this thread? Isn't it getting through anyone's heads, seriously, that you will be enormously LUCKY if we can implement enough mass transit in time?

Personally, i'm not as worried about cars as I am about the lights at home.

In 50 years, as many people will own cars as did in 1900. They will be specialty vehicles for the government and large corporations, and novelties for the extremely very rich (top 1% of society).

Thank god my goals for my career in aviation have always been aimed at corporate or government employment.

Nobody else will have cars, and the closest personal transportation vehicles available as substitutes for them will be bicycles and horses.

Time for me to get some excercise then.

Get that fact into your head now, and start worrying about how we're going to build enough commuter rail to take the place of those cars you will never enjoy again in your life.

Like I said, i'm not much of a car man. I am however, an airplane man. THAT could potentially fuck me over.

[Admiral Valdemar]

What is the fucking obsession with cars even in this thread? Isn't it getting through anyone's heads, seriously, that you will be enormously LUCKY if we can implement enough mass transit in time?

In 50 years, as many people will own cars as did in 1900. They will be specialty vehicles for the government and large corporations, and novelties for the extremely very rich (top 1% of society). Nobody else will have cars, and the closest personal transportation vehicles available as substitutes for them will be bicycles and horses.

Get that fact into your head now, and start worrying about how we're going to build enough commuter rail to take the place of those cars you will never enjoy again in your life.

This is quite simply like telling the average Joe on the street you came from Mars. They'll look at you funny, then probably spew some spiel about such a situation never arising and how they read about it in USA Today, then leave you. I've seen it happen myself, and I can't even broach this subject to my family because they won't take me seriously, or because they understand really and the concept scares and depresses the hell out of them. Why do they want to hear that they can't have a retirement like their parents because something we've been so used to is about to disappear and take our cosy lifestyles with it? Motoring is such a huge part of EVERYONE'S lives today, that the first thing my dad said to me after graduating was that I should get a car for work. The idea of living anywhere near a workplace and, heaven forbid, use public transport is seen as backwards in the extreme. I don't know anyone in my family or close friends who doesn't drive or at least knows someone they can always get a lift with.

The keeping-the-cars-running-no-matter-what proposal is so fantastically stupid, that it could only come from people in active denial of a simple fact. It's like the British dropping clean berets for those poor bastards during Operation Market Garden, when they neglected the real problem. It's about as counter-productive as you can get, like taking a shower with rationed water in the desert and no hope for rescue anytime soon. Ford, shortly after Pearl Harbor, kept making cars until the gov't told them to get making munitions and fast. They didn't want to grasp the reality of what has just happened, and I doubt many on the street did at that time either. How dare Japan have the audacity to attack the USA!

How dare politicians and corporate whores lie to us about the future of oil!

[Starglider]

Take everyone you know, then take away 6 out of every 7 of them.

Better hope we come up with the Greg Egan solution (from Diaspora, kinda) in time; destructively brain scan 99 out of 100 people and put their uploaded consciousnesses in a version of The Matrix running on nice efficient solar-powered satellites. The remaining 1% of people can have a stab at fixing the mess in the real world. The ethics and logistics of uploading 99% of the global population 'for their own' good' are left as an exercise for the reader.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Like I said, i'm not much of a car man. I am however, an airplane man. THAT could potentially fuck me over.

Give up aviation and go to work for the railroad. You will be out of a job in ten years if you go into aviation.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Take everyone you know, then take away 6 out of every 7 of them.

Better hope we come up with the Greg Egan solution (from Diaspora, kinda) in time; destructively brain scan 99 out of 100 people and put their uploaded consciousnesses in a version of The Matrix running on nice efficient solar-powered satellites. The remaining 1% of people can have a stab at fixing the mess in the real world. The ethics and logistics of uploading 99% of the global population 'for their own' good' are left as an exercise for the reader.

Valdemar doesn't seriously expect the majority of the human race to die, especially not in the first world countries (I could easily see half the population of places like Africa and India dying, though). He is just making a point that 6 out of 7 people today are alive thanks to fossil fuels, and we're going to have to replace all the energy that is required to keep them alive with energy from other sources.

The majority of that will be nuclear, solar, wind, and hydroelectric / height differential, with some tidal / geothermal along the sides. Genetically engineered products will have to compensate for the lack of oil in farming, and we're going to have to work fast to develop electric mechanical systems for farms to do plowing and harvesting and so on.

We're going to have to transition like this:
Oil - Coal (emergency basis) - Renewable Final Solution.

Which means we'll be in continuous crisis mode for decades as we come up with solutions to deal with the end of our oil supplies and then in turn come up with solutions to deal with the end of our coal supplies.