> But Doug, your quick draw statistical prowess leaves me unmoved
> because it leaves my point of view entirely unaddressed other than
> rhetorically "discredited" by elevating a bit of copy editing to a
> matter of life or death. And no, I won't bother to search out the
> exact statistic because that wasn't what your challenge was about. It
> was about being a challenge. It was about you being right because I
> made some kind of mistake.
But wasn't Doug's response (the challenge) directed at your misreading of his 'that's not how it will work' thesis?* He was, by my reading, proposing an argument that would grow a movement positive rather than one that would grow a movement toward self destruction # (Malthusian?<g>).
(or maybe not)
Martin
* TW "I know it's a just figure of speech, but it's a figure of speech that reveals what underlies everyone's opinion. We each have our own idea of "how it's going to work" and that is the basis of what we accept as the "true facts". Nobody knows how it's going to work. But those who know they don't know at least have the incentive to try to be creative about their uncertainty rather than dogmatic about their certainty."
# DH "It's not going to work that way. Talking about peak oil will probably encourage more reckless drilling and an ugly dog-eat-dog Malthusian competition."