I've come to understand that

the morality and relational well-being of mankind cannot be reconciled through the means of politics.  This does not mean no government
is needed.

"The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved
    by the level of thinking that created them."

in any case, any chapter of history since the dawn of time ought
to suffice as either proof or evidence.

discuss

>>38

I never claimed that industrial products will double in cost and time, I claimed that many processes in industrial products will (at least) double in cost (which is a measurement of time). The reason why I believe this is because some of my courses at university are with people whose day-job is in polymer research, and they keep telling us how important synthetic petroleum-products are, while simultaneously telling us how expensive synthetic petroleum-products are. Having taken a lot of economics courses, I find that conjunction frightening. :P

But as far as sources, here you go:

(Congressional Budget Office: Rising Price of Fuel)
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5225&sequence=0

(Thailand Board of Investment: Rising Price of Rubber)
http://www.boi.go.th/english/how/press_releases_detail.asp?id=440

(Baltimore Sun: Price of Oil relative to Price of Synthetic)
http//www.baltimoresun.com/...

(International Scientific Conference on Animal Meal: Soaring Price of Synthetic Amino Acids: "Why is this relevant you may ask?" Because bio-productive sectors use tremendous quantities of plastics for which there is no cheap synthetic replacement... they are *already* feeling the crunch of the end of the oil age)
http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/health_consumer/events/event02/eco_en.html

(International Association For Energy Economics: They predict the point at which synthetic carbon-based fuels will become cheaper than organic ones. Their guess? 8 times more than the price of oil in 1984, or something like 4 times more than what it is now)
http://www.iaee.org/documents/vol_5(3).pdf

(Automotive Digest: A graph showing how the price of giving an oil change has been continually increasing while the price it is SOLD at has not, destroying the profit margin of mechanics.)
http://www.automotivedigest.com/research/research_results.asp?sigstats_id=570

I have about a dozen more sources, so when you get done with those let me know.

Also, I'd like to appeal to common sense: it costs more to make something than to dredge something out of the ground. Why? Because that something had to have been made at some point. Not necessarily by people, but perhaps by natural processes. Why is that thing under ground? Because it took tremendous, geological amounts of time to make it. Therefore, I would think that a rational person would guess we're left with 3 alternatives: making X is very slow, making X is very expensive, finding X is fast and cheap.

When you can no longer find X... prices for everything involved with X will go up.

Lawl@Anonymous political debate: When you sound like an idiot you can just hide behind Anonymous.

>>40
No, because paradoxically, having kids becomes more expensive. Higher cost of living means that feeding the kid is more expensive, in a more affluent society, you expect and are expected to provide expensive medical care for the kid, you have to pay for the kid's education, entertainment, clothing costs are higher... etc.

>>40
College. Car. Clothes. Luxuries. Attention.
Richer people spend more money and time on their kids because they need these things (especially college), which means less kids. This is fact.

>>41 When you can no longer find X... prices for everything involved with X will go up.

People stop using X. Start using Y.

>>44
They don't need those things; they want those things.

>>42

I don't know who you're talking about, but I think that most people in this thread are making cogent points. Who are you talking about? Why do you think they are idiots?

>>45

Where'd post 41 go?

If "X" is the class of things involving petroleum in its content or manufacture, and "Y" is the class of things which don't involving petroleum in any way, then I am certain that "Y" does not contain a complete set of replacements for "X".

>>47
Then Y,Z,W etc.
It is possible to have a complete set of replacements for X, though it need not necessarily be made of one thing.

>>48

Reread my statement asshole. Y is not an alternative material. Y is not silicone or alumnimum. Y is the class of all things not made with petroleum. The world can neatly be divided into things that are made with petroleum (X) and things that can not (Y). Everything can be divided into dichotomies like this, that's why logic works, thats why statements are all either true or false.

I never once implied or imagined that Y is "made of one thing". Your reply is a non-sequitor, evident of not having read what you were replying to.

>>40

>Education usually comes without cost; especially in socialist countries; food is not a worry at all; there are parks everywhere.

None of that is free. :P

The education is paid for by taxes, and the richer a country is, the more money it spends on education per child (there is one notable exception :P). Socialist countries (and here I'm thinking more like Sweden and Canada than USSR or China) are often worse about this Capitalist countries... the price to educate a Swedish person is enormous. Intransigent fish-eating giant-headed fucks.

All the non-necessary social services like parks, busses, immunization, are a big factor in increasing the cost to society (cost to society being a cute way of saying cost to the tax-payer) drum up this figure too.

Oh, and food isn't a worry at all to be sure, but the more affluent a society is the more you spend per person on food. Food costs more in most affluent societies than in most poor societies; isn't that weird? The reason why is because most poor societies are agrarian, while most rich societies are industrial. You have to factor in transport costs. Therefore, by my bad math, its about 85 times cheaper to raise a child in Nigeria than in the United States, and over a hundred times cheaper than in Denmark, the tax-you-to-death capital of the world.