Arguing over definitions is foundationally necessary to discourse. If we cannot agree on what terms mean, communication is impossible.
Maybe distinguish between two distinct notions of Peak Oil,
When you capitalize Peak Oil you are invoking the body of rhetoric, lore, and history associated with the term. That term has a specific meaning, which invokes a catastrophic economic failure scenario derived from discussions of Hubbard’s Peak.
Note that from an economic growth standpoint definition 2 might still be a cause for worry even if one doesn’t think that there will be a definition 1 type of issue
Hardly. Economic growth under sufficiently stable conditions is inevitable. Furthermore; that oil production will decline over time is inevitable. The only question is whether it will do so sharply and in a vacuum of other solutions, or if it will do so as a part of a pattern of transition to other avenues of energy production once it ceases to be the most viable source of energy production (which, honestly, it isn’t even that; coal is. Which is why we burn coal for electricity and not oil, but I digress.) The answer to that question is unequivocably that there won’t be a catastrophe.
So “Peak Oil” is nonsense. That oil will peak and production will fall is insufficient to proclaiming “Peak Oil”.
No definition is intrinsically correct. When in doubt (either from vagueness of a definition, connotation v. denotation issues, or others) it is helpful to use either multiple numbered definitions or to simply taboo the term wholesale. Arguing over definitions is not helpful.
… those items you’re talking about ARE the process of arguing over definitions. Or, at least, one variation of the process. It’s not even the most productive. You cannot get out of the point that arguing over definitions is foundationally necessary to discourse simply by proclaiming “arguing over definitions is not helpful”—no matter how many times you iterate it, it just isn’t truthful.
Especially since definitions themselves do not progress over time without such argumentation.
Arguing over definitions is foundationally necessary to discourse. If we cannot agree on what terms mean, communication is impossible.
When you capitalize Peak Oil you are invoking the body of rhetoric, lore, and history associated with the term. That term has a specific meaning, which invokes a catastrophic economic failure scenario derived from discussions of Hubbard’s Peak.
Hardly. Economic growth under sufficiently stable conditions is inevitable. Furthermore; that oil production will decline over time is inevitable. The only question is whether it will do so sharply and in a vacuum of other solutions, or if it will do so as a part of a pattern of transition to other avenues of energy production once it ceases to be the most viable source of energy production (which, honestly, it isn’t even that; coal is. Which is why we burn coal for electricity and not oil, but I digress.) The answer to that question is unequivocably that there won’t be a catastrophe.
So “Peak Oil” is nonsense. That oil will peak and production will fall is insufficient to proclaiming “Peak Oil”.
Agreeing on definitions is foundationally necessary. Arguing over them is almost always avoidable.
It is impossible to reach agreement on definitions without first arguing on them.
No definition is intrinsically correct. When in doubt (either from vagueness of a definition, connotation v. denotation issues, or others) it is helpful to use either multiple numbered definitions or to simply taboo the term wholesale. Arguing over definitions is not helpful.
… those items you’re talking about ARE the process of arguing over definitions. Or, at least, one variation of the process. It’s not even the most productive. You cannot get out of the point that arguing over definitions is foundationally necessary to discourse simply by proclaiming “arguing over definitions is not helpful”—no matter how many times you iterate it, it just isn’t truthful.
Especially since definitions themselves do not progress over time without such argumentation.
It seems that this is an argument about the definition of “argument”, and hence it is unnecessary ;).
It saddens me that it took someone other than JoshuaZ to point out what I was doing.