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[a1s]

Oil is needed not only for energy, but also for creating plastics.

I assume the demand on plastics is not going to go down any time soon.

Except that the demand for oil in energy use is far bigger than the demand for plastics.

This. It's hard to track down good data (everyone thinks oil=fuel, which tells you something), but in the US circa 2005 only 2.5% of all oil went to the petrochemical industry. Compare that with 43% going to produce gasoline alone (in fact only 13% of crude is used for anything that's not a straight up fuel.)

[Sergarr]

Well even with cold fusion, there's still some time until the majority of cars switch to electrical power.

With the way psychology of car-owners works, it may take years until the stereotype of "weak electrical cars" goes away.

[a1s]

Well even with cold fusion, there's still some time until the majority of cars switch to electrical power.

With the way psychology of car-owners works, it may take years until the stereotype of "weak electrical cars" goes away.

That's true, but it will murder the oil futures market. Suddenly there's a good chance Russia might have to get a real economy (for you see, also unlike normal countries, Russian leadership doesn't change every 4 years) and there might be better things to spend money on then Sportsball events.

[Fniff]

It does. It just changes to the same leaders.
"You liked Prime Minister Vladimir Putin? Then you'll love Mr President Vladimir Putin!"

[Sergarr]

Well even with cold fusion, there's still some time until the majority of cars switch to electrical power.

With the way psychology of car-owners works, it may take years until the stereotype of "weak electrical cars" goes away.

That's true, but it will murder the oil futures market. Suddenly there's a good chance Russia might have to get a real economy (for you see, also unlike normal countries, Russian leadership doesn't change every 4 years) and there might be better things to spend money on then Sportsball events.

what's bad about that

nothing I say

nothing at all

[a1s]

Well even with cold fusion, there's still some time until the majority of cars switch to electrical power.

With the way psychology of car-owners works, it may take years until the stereotype of "weak electrical cars" goes away.

That's true, but it will murder the oil futures market. Suddenly there's a good chance Russia might have to get a real economy (for you see, also unlike normal countries, Russian leadership doesn't change every 4 years) and there might be better things to spend money on then Sportsball events.

what's bad about that

Long term? It's probably the best thing that will happen to Russia in the 21 century. Short term? It going to be the ten plagues all over again- salaries will drop, as will prestige of Russia abroad, employment will shrink (half a decade later, all those peoples' underpaid labor will be the locomotive of the New Economy, but now they're just pissed) probably leading to riots in the streets (which due to Russia being somewhat unfree won't be the familiar Occupy My iPod kind of demonstrations, but real ones with molotov cocktails being traded for shots with the pro-goverment security forces. Remember Ukraine? That but more so.) Widespread famine (Russian climate leaves a lot to be desired, but their agricultural infrastructure is worse). Federal subjects breaking off. Religious extremism. In fact, possibly actual plagues. That will not be a great time to live.

[Sergarr]

Russia is not a third world nation to have plagues and famine. And it will never be.

[a1s]

There have been several in the last 100 years, millions of people would die each time as a direct result. You can say the one in 1947 was the result of The War (can't there be another war?), and the 1932-33 one was politically engineered (not even Stalin would just waste 10 million potential inmates, but let's accept it). However the one from 1922-23 was a legitimate famine that occurred in what was 10 years before accepted to be one of the Great Powers of Europe (an equal to Britain and France.) Things in Russia have a tendency to go to shit fast.

[Dutchling]

Oh wow, I stop paying attention to Russia for a week or two and suddenly the rouble is going to hell. Let's hope this doesn't end too badly, as I highly doubt this won't hurt Europe if it does.

PTW.

[Sergarr]

Famines in Russian empire were happening every 5 to 10 years. Russian empire was a shitty, shitty state which exported grain even while the Russian slaves (serfs, but really, they were closer to actual slaves, you could buy and sell them, all the stuff) died from starvation.

The main thing USSR did there was mechanization of agriculture, which actually finally stopped the famines from happening every goddamn 5 to 10 years! Also, it stopped enslaving 90% of it's population.

[Erkki]

USSR still had to import quite a lot of food, IIRC mostly grain, from its rival USA for a couple of decades right in the middle of Cod War, from 1970s. I guess Ukrainian black soil wasnt enough to feed everyone.

[Knit tie]

Well even with cold fusion, there's still some time until the majority of cars switch to electrical power.

With the way psychology of car-owners works, it may take years until the stereotype of "weak electrical cars" goes away.

That's true, but it will murder the oil futures market. Suddenly there's a good chance Russia might have to get a real economy (for you see, also unlike normal countries, Russian leadership doesn't change every 4 years) and there might be better things to spend money on then Sportsball events.

what's bad about that

Long term? It's probably the best thing that will happen to Russia in the 21 century. Short term? It going to be the ten plagues all over again- salaries will drop, as will prestige of Russia abroad, employment will shrink (half a decade later, all those peoples' underpaid labor will be the locomotive of the New Economy, but now they're just pissed) probably leading to riots in the streets (which due to Russia being somewhat unfree won't be the familiar Occupy My iPod kind of demonstrations, but real ones with molotov cocktails being traded for shots with the pro-goverment security forces. Remember Ukraine? That but more so.) Widespread famine (Russian climate leaves a lot to be desired, but their agricultural infrastructure is worse). Federal subjects breaking off. Religious extremism. In fact, possibly actual plagues. That will not be a great time to live.

I think you are greatly exagerrating everything you've just said, both the good and the bad. Russia's already been through multiple crises in the recent memory of its people, the worst of which was the complete socioeconomic collapse of the 90s (which is why we never call Gorbacher a "great man", but rather a fuck-up), and another one of these crises might lead to some moderate public unrest, it will certainly not lead to anything you've described. For starters, nobody will want to separate, aside from perhaps some Caucasian takfirists. And Russia's economy will not be that badly hit either - for starters, it sells gas in addition to oil, and even then, oil and gas sales combined account for 18% of the Russian GDP, leaving 82% to be acquired through other means.


And besides, why are we making theories on what will happen if car owners will stop buying oil? They won't do so anytime soon, if only due to a lack of alternative.


To answer Helgo's and Sheb's question on why I support Russia: because the USA doesn't want peace and justice, it wants to stick it to Russia for impudence under the pretense of fighting for peace and justice. If the USA really wanted to defuse the crisis in Ukraine, it would've taken less steps to support the Ukrainian army, and more steps to prevent said army from terror-bombing civilians - the shelling of Donbass goes far, far beyond any military necessity - and needlessly firing up the conflict by attacking otherwise peaceful separatists. This position would be less good for humiliating and cowing "bad Russia", but it would be much better for actually ending the conflict, especially since Putin has made it very clear that he is willing to cooperate with Poroshenko on Donbass, provided that the ATO stops. The whole siuation is reminiscent of the 1st Chechen war: side A illegally declares independence, side B follows by attacking and turning the whole conflict into an old-school meatgrinder. And instead of trying to defuse the situation by reigning in side B's attack, the USA has decided to use it to "punish" Russia (punish in quotation marks because the people Poroshenko's killing are Ukrainians in their absolute majority) in essense being guilty of promoting the Ukrainian civil war at least to the extent to which Russia is guilty of doing the same by supporting the rebels.

So we have one side, Russia, that has decided to use questionable and illegal means to promote its interests, and then we have the other side, USA, which has decided to reprimand the usage of said illegal and questionable means by enthusiasticlly fuelling a third-party conflict and refusing to compromise, and that, in my opinion, really doesn't allow it to claim moral superiority. And when the two sides are equally morally questionable, people tend to support the side they feel they "belong" to, which, for me, is Russia.

Found this article today, don't know if it's been posted already because I haven't been following this thread lately.

I think this man has pretty much nailed it.

Famines in Russian empire were happening every 5 to 10 years. Russian empire was a shitty, shitty state which exported grain even while the Russian slaves (serfs, but really, they were closer to actual slaves, you could buy and sell them, all the stuff) died from starvation.

The main thing USSR did there was mechanization of agriculture, which actually finally stopped the famines from happening every goddamn 5 to 10 years! Also, it stopped enslaving 90% of it's population.

Sergarr, sweetie, please calm down. You are like my evil twin or something - we have the same views, mostly, but you profess them by ranting and hollering.

[a1s]

USSR still had to import quite a lot of food, IIRC mostly grain, from its rival USA for a couple of decades right in the middle of Cod War, from 1970s. I guess Ukrainian black soil wasnt enough to feed everyone.

Huh, so according to Wikipedia they have fixed that. As of 2012 Russia imports some meat and fruit, but they finally got grain production high enough that there's an exportable surplus (there's $6 billion of wheat alone).
My respect for Russian agriculture has gone up quite a bit. Now I'm only wondering what a "peasant farm" is?

[Knit tie]

USSR still had to import quite a lot of food, IIRC mostly grain, from its rival USA for a couple of decades right in the middle of Cod War, from 1970s. I guess Ukrainian black soil wasnt enough to feed everyone.

Huh, so according to Wikipedia they have fixed that. As of 2012 Russia imports some meat and fruit, but they finally got grain production high enough that there's an exportable surplus (there's $6 billion of wheat alone).
My respect for Russian agriculture has gone up quite a bit. Now I'm only wondering what a "peasant farm" is?

A farm with peasants in it.

[Sergarr]

USSR still had to import quite a lot of food, IIRC mostly grain, from its rival USA for a couple of decades right in the middle of Cod War, from 1970s. I guess Ukrainian black soil wasnt enough to feed everyone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_Khrushchev#Agricultural_policy

It was his idea to try to grow up corn in a cold weather. It backfired.