5 ms·

I read an article by a good journalist and nonfiction writer about “Peak ___”. On one hand, I think it’s an interesting concept for annotating historical event

by netcan 12y ago

I read an article by a good journalist and nonfiction writer about “Peak ___”. On one hand, I think it’s an interesting concept for annotating historical events that are likely to happen. On the other hand, i think the “peak oil” idea of an inevitable supply crisis was generally poorly explained and understood. On the positive side, if we start by identifying relevant historical Peak X points, we might get something useful. Cars are a technology. Does technology peak? Have we passed “Peak Agriculture?” Will there be a “Peak Literacy?” We need a better historical account of how things peak for this perspective to be useful for anything but long term business strategy. https://www.straight.com/news/818136/gwynne-dyer-forget-peak-oil-weve-reached-peak-everything https://www.straight.com/news/818136/gwynne-dyer-forget-peak...

eru 12y ago
We are definitely way past peak employment in agriculture.
- netcan 12y ago
  That’s a good argument in favour of complexity and nuance, rather than sloganized Big Ideas. To get anything usefully true out of it we need to break it down and itemise.
- rjsw 12y ago
  Are we ? I don't know either way but the countries with fastest population growth tend to be ones with lots of agriculture.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    Only because they are the least developed. Each country has its own peak agri though e.g. China had its in the 70s.
  - eru 12y ago
    Lots of agriculture, yes. But as productivity improves, everyone needs less people working in agriculture. Here are some graphs over time: http://ourworldindata.org/data/food-agriculture/agricultural-employment/ http://ourworldindata.org/data/food-agriculture/agricultural...
    - rjsw 12y ago
      I'm interested in total numbers, not proportion of the population.
      - eru 12y ago
        Read further. They have those, too.
mikeash 12y ago
Cars aren't comparable to literacy or agriculture. The equivalent there would be transportation in general. Cars as a specific form of transportation certainly could peak. Horses and sailing ships did.
- chc 12y ago
  Doesn't the "Peak ___" construction imply that the thing becomes less desirable as a result of its saturation? Horses and sailing ships didn't become less used because they were overused, they became less used because something sufficiently better came along. There was no real "peaking" for those items as far as I can tell.
  - nulltype 12y ago
    No I think it just means that we will not hit that level of usage again.
VLM 12y ago
Some of the confusion is primary and secondary effects. All finite resources in a growing economy have a similar shaped (plus or minus technology) peak. So that's phosphate rock fertilizer, oil, various grades of coal (anthracite is basically gone already). You can also peak infinite / renewable resources like northern atlantic cod which are basically extinct now. Or buffalo, etc. Its interestingly fractal in that the smaller graphs of small producers look the same as graphs for other small producers and the overall system-wide graph. So the graph of Texas oil which peaked in the early 70s looks about like Mexico's graph looks like the world graph, all peaking at different dates, which is interesting. As a secondary effect once you peak fertilizer and oil production, the secondary industries will peak. Refineries obviously follow oil production. But, modern industrial ag is heavily dependent on chemical fertilizer (which will peak) and oil (fuel, sprays, simple transport...) Colloquially "peak" seems to be confused (intentionally, by some?) with short term downward market fluctuations. So obviously they'll never, ever be a peak in oil production because the market cost fluctuated downward recently for a short period of time, LOL. For cars you need oil and iron, both of which you can eventually use up, so aside from all other arguments its possible. But a cultural or economic shift can mask that. So the wikipedia article is full of weird assertions that increasing the average GDP per capita must result in increased miles traveled because income inequality doesn't exist (LOL). Locally decreasing the number of "can afford a car" jobs from 2 million to 1.5 million will dramatically decrease road traffic, even if the average income for the area explodes because the 1% are richer than ever because its not like they're going to drive extra miles to celebrate. For literacy there doesn't seem to be an inherent finite resource we can use up to eliminate literacy. So traditional logistical peak doesn't seem possible. In the colloquial sense of peak meaning "a short term downturn" that is pretty trivial. So you've listed all three possibilities, a finite resource that can peak, a secondary industry that depends on peakable finite resources, and something that can't possibly have a logistical peak because there is no finite resource to exhaust.
- vardump 12y ago
  You pretty much nailed it. Just a small nitpick. I don't think lack of phosphates is going to be a bottleneck in our lifetimes. There's plenty of lower grade sources available. If nothing else, just recycling our excrement. All this doesn't mean our lives need to be less happy. We will need to do with less, unless major technological breakthroughs are on their way.

by netcan 12y ago

eru 12y ago

We are definitely way past peak employment in agriculture.

netcan 12y ago
That’s a good argument in favour of complexity and nuance, rather than sloganized Big Ideas. To get anything usefully true out of it we need to break it down and itemise.
rjsw 12y ago
Are we ? I don't know either way but the countries with fastest population growth tend to be ones with lots of agriculture.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  Only because they are the least developed. Each country has its own peak agri though e.g. China had its in the 70s.
- eru 12y ago
  Lots of agriculture, yes. But as productivity improves, everyone needs less people working in agriculture. Here are some graphs over time: http://ourworldindata.org/data/food-agriculture/agricultural-employment/ http://ourworldindata.org/data/food-agriculture/agricultural...
  - rjsw 12y ago
    I'm interested in total numbers, not proportion of the population.
    - eru 12y ago
      Read further. They have those, too.

mikeash 12y ago

Cars aren't comparable to literacy or agriculture. The equivalent there would be transportation in general. Cars as a specific form of transportation certainly could peak. Horses and sailing ships did.

chc 12y ago
Doesn't the "Peak ___" construction imply that the thing becomes less desirable as a result of its saturation? Horses and sailing ships didn't become less used because they were overused, they became less used because something sufficiently better came along. There was no real "peaking" for those items as far as I can tell.
- nulltype 12y ago
  No I think it just means that we will not hit that level of usage again.

VLM 12y ago

Some of the confusion is primary and secondary effects. All finite resources in a growing economy have a similar shaped (plus or minus technology) peak. So that's phosphate rock fertilizer, oil, various grades of coal (anthracite is basically gone already). You can also peak infinite / renewable resources like northern atlantic cod which are basically extinct now. Or buffalo, etc. Its interestingly fractal in that the smaller graphs of small producers look the same as graphs for other small producers and the overall system-wide graph. So the graph of Texas oil which peaked in the early 70s looks about like Mexico's graph looks like the world graph, all peaking at different dates, which is interesting. As a secondary effect once you peak fertilizer and oil production, the secondary industries will peak. Refineries obviously follow oil production. But, modern industrial ag is heavily dependent on chemical fertilizer (which will peak) and oil (fuel, sprays, simple transport...) Colloquially "peak" seems to be confused (intentionally, by some?) with short term downward market fluctuations. So obviously they'll never, ever be a peak in oil production because the market cost fluctuated downward recently for a short period of time, LOL. For cars you need oil and iron, both of which you can eventually use up, so aside from all other arguments its possible. But a cultural or economic shift can mask that. So the wikipedia article is full of weird assertions that increasing the average GDP per capita must result in increased miles traveled because income inequality doesn't exist (LOL). Locally decreasing the number of "can afford a car" jobs from 2 million to 1.5 million will dramatically decrease road traffic, even if the average income for the area explodes because the 1% are richer than ever because its not like they're going to drive extra miles to celebrate. For literacy there doesn't seem to be an inherent finite resource we can use up to eliminate literacy. So traditional logistical peak doesn't seem possible. In the colloquial sense of peak meaning "a short term downturn" that is pretty trivial. So you've listed all three possibilities, a finite resource that can peak, a secondary industry that depends on peakable finite resources, and something that can't possibly have a logistical peak because there is no finite resource to exhaust.

vardump 12y ago
You pretty much nailed it. Just a small nitpick. I don't think lack of phosphates is going to be a bottleneck in our lifetimes. There's plenty of lower grade sources available. If nothing else, just recycling our excrement. All this doesn't mean our lives need to be less happy. We will need to do with less, unless major technological breakthroughs are on their way.