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'm pretty sure Oil and the lack of videogames are going to be the least of your worries by 2050.

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.

moci wrote:

Ambient_Malice wrote: Is there any point pretending games are art if they cease to exist on that fateful day

Is the definition of art something that exists forever? I agree with macacos2.

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: CallistoNTG

I'd worry more about the decline of easily available noble gasses used in the production of things like PCBs before I worried about oil. The death of computing in this age would be a hard pill to swallow.

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

Edited by: CallistoNTG

Rare metals are no problem. They can be mined inexpensively. Noble gasses can be extracted from the air, but the cost is extremely high for very little return.

I don't think it would mean the death of computing. We would just have to find different means with which to power the production and sustaining of such technology.

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?

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.

I meant the starry-eyed 'people are gonna remember this rock-painting/novel/movie/game a hundred years from now' thinking.

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.

Also, one thing about the peak energy theories is that it's rare they consider the market. Few people know this, but lights used to be gas powered until electric became cheaper. Cars were powered by wood in certain parts of the world. (look us wood gas cars) Coal powered trains, ect.

The point is, as oil becomes rare, the price will rise, and when it does other forms of energy become viable. The reason electric cars and solar power haven't taken off is because it's not cost effective to do so. The thing to remember is that oil is extremely cheap. Much like the gas light, the coal powered train and the wood gas car, when the oil runs out, we will get our energy else where. The industry around games might change, but the games themselves will unlikely be effected imo.

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

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

On that note, maybe Governments in places like the US should stop punishing people for collecting rainwater. Here in Aussie, all the water I use for drinking and showering is rainwater.

Hey, but I'm glad I've stirred up meanful conversation on ModdB. Cosmos has been pretty dull lately.

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.

the worst thing is that through deep welling for oil and fracking and other destructive techniques, the need for energy will have destroyed a lot of nature. In fact, to survive the future, we have to become more artificial ourselves - a trend that has already started (food, tastes, work). By no ways are we returning to a more natural (romantic) state, as was often suggested in the past.

Oil is just the most important piece in the puzzle of modern mankind. To me it's a symbol for the industrial age. We are past that - and as I believe - entering an artificial aqe now. Nanotechnology and Fusion technique should be researched more heavily. If we understand a little more of the sub-atomic space, we can start building worlds from essential blocks of information. The world of 2050 is either completely messed up, because it still depends largely on oil, or it is highly advanced, because we had some breakthrough technological developments.

I don't want to be the pessimist, but human greed and stupidity are limitless. So, in the end a few people, who profit from everyone living in misery, might screw up the future of the entire human race. I'm not afraid that humanity doesn't have the intellect or resources to pull itself out of a situation that will grow increasingly worse, every year. I'm afraid that a few greedy assholes will ruin the future for everybody else (and profit from it).

Ambient_Malice wrote:
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.'

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.

Ambient_Malice wrote: 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?

Our computers can operate via clean energy, and use very little power anyway. Most houses will soon have solar power. Our cars will operate on Biofuels (or go fully electric). Uranium will become a big resource to replace Oil (which Australia sees to profit from big time... something that shits America and China off because they know this!).

By 2050 every building in the first world will be self powering. We've already seen this with places of business, a lot of buildings have opted for self powering buildings through solar. My thinking is that this trend will continue.

Definitely Green energy and self sufficiency is the key here. Oil is un-necessary, Uranium will replace what Solar cannot.

Someone wrote:
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.

This is very true, and its not as if we can't just go back to the start and begin producing board games again.

Edited by: formerlyknownasMrCP

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.

Hmm... I'm torn between my obsessive love for Rick Santorum, with his anti-drug stance, and agreeing that drugs are over-regulated.

Ambient_Malice wrote: Hmm... I'm torn between my obsessive love for Rick Santorum...

Is that... sarcasm?

I'll be 70 by then... I'll be too old to care.

Smoth wrote: I'll be 70 by then... I'll be too old to care.

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

The government are trolling you, man. There's people in their garages who can run their cars for two-hundred miles on nothing but juice, and all the car corporations make sure this doesn't get to the market because they'll be put out of business. Elements are just the interplay of subatomic particles and molecules man, and oil is just an Earth-based dimension man.

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.

AIs built in 2013 will fix everything.

One way out of this, Nuclear power, safer reactors are being developed and they can last for a while.