Assuming we're gonna run out of oil... Thread

Here's a thought:

If Peak Oil conspiricies are correct, and we're out of oil by 2050, what does that mean for videogames? Is there any point pretending games are art if they cease to exist on that fateful day we revert to candlelight and reading books for entertainment? I've certainly given it consideration... The problem is half energy, half oil. Our computers need oil in their construction, and need energy to run. What do you think?

I don't think there should be much concern with oil by 2050, hopefully we should have full on production of alternative materials that won't need oil.
I bet the real issue of oil will come by 2025 roughly, not running out, but more likely conflicts.

Having said that though, maybe we will see things turn bad (worse?), I just prefer to remain optimistic. Just got to look at how much oil companies bring in a year, eventually, there would be only few oil companies remaining (others ruined by no opportunities or mergers) which would have huge control over oil prices and supplies. And although I generally don't follow most conspiracies, I'd have to say they could have strong influence on politics and scientific advancements which negate the need to use oil.
Hopefully by 2050 too, we'll be plugging the games into our brains anyway.

I meant the starry-eyed 'people are gonna remember this rock-painting/novel/movie/game a hundred years from now' thinking. Art implies permanence, not temporiality. The sign of powerful art is generally speaking its lasting effects. People dismiss art and music they dislike by saying 'no-one'll remember this in X number of years.'

Edited by: Ambient_Malice

I suppose Quantic computing *might* save our techno-junkie asses. No rare metals needed?

Edited by: Ambient_Malice

Assuming materials/conditions change in such a way that we can no longer sustain our current technologies, new technologies will have to be invented that are sustainable under the new conditions. There is no other way, the services we use and games we play might look a bit different but the end result will remain the same.

If there is such a thing as a "death of computing" it will be followed by (or be originated from) the death of the western world as we know it.

Ambient: to define that something is *art* is hugely subjective. You only remember those rock/paintings because people keep writing/teaching about them - saying they're art.

Edited by: moci

Would you consider music and plays to be art, because there was a time when those would cease to exist the moment they were created. It's not like you could record them and listen to them over and over whenever you wanted; the sound and sights were there for just a unique moment in time, that was part of the experience. 

At the end of the day art isn't something that has to be cast in stone or reproduced on paper, and its not something a set number of people have to see. 

And why wouldn't they, for something that has already existed for decades, popular across the world? People are naming their children after them, books movies and songs are being based on them, etc. They are pretty entwined in our culture. 

I think whats more of a problem than oil is clean drinking water for the future.

Didnt know that about the US even still in lots of parts of where I live in New Zealand people use rainwater as ther main watersupply aswel.  As for the oil hopefully by the time oil resources have been depleted Humanity would have researched more ways or more effiect ways to replace oil and all its by products.

Both yes and no.  A lot of what the general populace, or at least what the educated experts consider, to be 'high' or 'powerful' art are the ones that have survived countless of decades or even centuries of decay, strife and changing tastes. But saying that art implies permanence isn't quite correct.
What makes art, well art, is the interaction between the piece and the audience.
An ice sculpture could be a powerful piece of art if done well, like any other staggering artwork, but if noone remembers to take a picture of it, does that mean its not as powerful because only a select group got to see it? 
Art exsists in the moment of execution, be that when the viewer sees/experiences it. It's just that the longer surviving pieces have been experienced as such more times than others.

On the actual topic of the thread:
I agree with macacos. That will probably be the least of OUR worries. Personally I'll be 63 years old by then and I'm assuming most of the generations who venture here on this site will at least have tipped their fifties by that time. Technology will find its way around it, it just means that a big industry will wilt away and a new one take its place. In the same way horses were replaced by cars. If videogames were to disappear as a result of no more oil it would hardly make half the world commit harakiri in grief. It would be a change, probably not a good one, but there are other ways to spend ones time, like books, learning a new or improving an existing skill etc.

I hear there's this car that runs on cannabis.

We need more cannabis! Too bad, stupid people made it illegal.. too bad, more stupid people followed these stupid people, too bad, stupid people still exist and continue supporting such laws.

Is that... sarcasm?

Pfft, go on - be a cop-out! Me, I'll DIE with my hand on a mouse.

My first computer had an AMD K-6 processor with 3DNow! technology. I'm using an AMD processor today, but it's a Phenom X6. The power difference between them is awe inspiring.

Don't you people know we're in the 21st century? Half the people I know carry tablet PCs. We're practically living in the future!

The reason we have these awesome things is because we're intelligent and resourceful. With solar energy, biofuels, nuclear power, and the slew of other energy sources on standby for the day oil is gone do you really believe that this is going to be more than a minor inconvenience?

In 1000 years nobody except historians will know or care about the transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources no more than you care about the transition from animal fat to kerosene lamps. But they will build on the work everyone did before them and be better off than anyone before them.

That's the story of progress, a story which I simply don't see ending. Ever.