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Apparently some people think most or all crude petroleum isn't biological in origin? (hexbear.net)
submitted 3 weeks ago by axont@hexbear.net to c/chat@hexbear.net
51 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

So apparently a large-ish contingent of American reactionaries don't think crude oil is a finite resource. They believe the Earth regenerates it at a faster pace than it can be drilled, and this isn't a niche conspiracy theory either. I mentioned it off-hand at work after seeing a random tweet about it, then like 5 of my coworkers all nodded and agreed. One even used the term "abiotic oil."

Is this just cope or what? One of my coworkers literally said, "Well oil is like water, it goes through a cycle and gets replenished." Something about how crude oil is actually made through some kind of geological process, rather than decomposed algae/animal matter from millions of years ago. I think maybe there's evidence of abiotic hydrocarbon gasses existing from various chemical reactions with minerals, but I believe there's never been a convincing source of abiotic petroleum that couldn't also be explained as biological in origin.

They don't actually believe this, do they? It's just a thin kind of security blanket so they don't have to consider the reality of what fossil fuels truly are?

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[–] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 62 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

The education system is fucked lol.

Even people who correctly understand that it's biological, think it comes from dinosaurs. It's like they heard the term 'fossil fuel' and just filled in the gaps.

A lot of our oil comes from long, long before dinosaurs existed. I believe it's mostly pressurized plankton and plants/diatoms/algae/seaweed?

But yeah, if I am to get a bit tin foil: even if the education system wasn't fucked, I think most people are suffering from some kind of severe trauma and/or propaganda induced psychosis. Also repeated COVID infections fucked up a lot of people's brains. Everyone is very sick and very depressed.

I've noticed previously smart people I know go through some weird cognitive decline in the last 5 years. It's actually really scary.

[–] SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 47 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

No lie I was literally taught in school about fossil fuels being from fossils, and it wasn't until more recently as an adult I learned the real science. We don't need reeducation for people...we need straight up education.

[–] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 47 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

I might get in trouble for anti-religious sectarianism for saying this, but people underestimate how much damage US Christianity has done to peoples understanding of reality. I literally just tried to google about the origins of oil, and any of the websites on it that allowed comments were flooded with people commenting things like "WRONG: evolutionists want you to believe that oil is organic and finite so they can keep prices high! Why would organic material be found so far under the crust? Wake up!"

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 34 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I sincerely hope every here recognized Christian Fascism as being the American 21st century form of fashion and doesn't try to stand up for it as a relgion.

There are a lot of Christian sects in the US that wield or or less political and cultural power, but American Fascism is based in the Christian Fascist sect that grew out of slave state protestantism.

Religious Tolerance and Christian Fascism is very much a "paradox of tolerance" thing. Christian Fascism must be destroyed because it's a threat to everyone and everything else.

[–] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 20 points 3 weeks ago

Oh good. I wasn't sure what the consensus was with people here. Good to know I'm not gonna be stepping on toes

[–] Findom_DeLuise@hexbear.net 23 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

AmeriKKKan evangelicals are a cancer. Few things aggravate me more than the fact that when Norwegian black metal musicians decided to start burning down churches, they stayed in Norway and torched old pre-Christian "heathen" churches built by Norse pagans. If they could have just come over to the US, they could have had a grand old time with some of the evangelical megachurches out here, many of which aren't built or wired up to code because in spite of somehow being able to afford $2M in real estate, the clergy are still penny-pinching chodes.

[–] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 6 points 3 weeks ago

I have had that same thought so many times. The history of church burnings in the US is fraught with race crime history because the KKK and others firebombed black churches because they used them to organize for civil rights.

It would be nice if it was just bored Satanist teens who thought it would be funny if they burned down evangelical mega churches over and over

[–] Lemister@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Its worse because he burned the traditional stave churches build by norwegian CHRISTIANS - but since evangelicals think that catholicism is paganism because it preserved some pagan remnants- it was a pagan church in their eyes.

[–] Findom_DeLuise@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago

Ah, fuck me, you're right; the version I always heard was that the stave churches were from before Catholicism spread to Norway. I didn't realize they were mostly medieval construction. And yeah, I grew up Catholic and fucking hated that evangelicals thought that meant I wasn't "Christian."

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

If the site policy is that protective of the intellectual influence of Evangelicalism, the site should be shut down because it has lost the plot.

[–] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

It's not, I'm just dumb lol

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 3 points 3 weeks ago

I've seen some moments of HB consensus that "religion cannot be a reactionary social force ever, even theoretically, and you must be a reddit atheist idealist for suggesting so"

[–] axont@hexbear.net 26 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

it's also that no one trusts one another unless they instantly vibe with whatever inner delusion unites them. Everyone's split into little islands of soothing fun little stories

I mean I can sympathize with mistrust of institutions and expertise, but this is a level of skepticism beyond anything I've heard before. Like this baffles me more than flat earthers somehow. It's just naked cope is what it is.

[–] Aradina@lemmy.ml 24 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I think I've been noticing decline in myself. Never even had covid (as far as I know)

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 25 points 3 weeks ago

I would really love to see data on pre-covid cognitive tests compared against the same demographics now. With so much covid denial and weirdness going on it's hard to even assess which information to pay attention to.

[–] someone@hexbear.net 19 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I've noticed previously smart people I know go through some weird cognitive decline in the last 5 years. It's actually really scary.

There's also the rising CO2 levels which may be contributing to mass mental impairment, and it's not going to get better.

[–] keepcarrot@hexbear.net 5 points 3 weeks ago

Not quite there, i think heat and related stresses will get us first

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 44 points 3 weeks ago

"oil cycle" is a good bit

[–] gay_king_prince_charles@hexbear.net 41 points 3 weeks ago

If oil could be cheaply manufactured without mining, there would be a solid three dozen people in most Gulf states.

[–] Parsani@hexbear.net 36 points 3 weeks ago

The weird patsocs are really into abiotic oil lol

[–] barrbaric@hexbear.net 35 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Well y'see, oil comes from dinosaur bones, and satan places dinosaur bones to trick us into thinking evolution is real, and since there are more and more excavations, satan needs to plant more fake dinosaur bones to keep up. The only thing stopping this from having no limit is that eventually satan will get tired. sicko-satan

[–] Findom_DeLuise@hexbear.net 25 points 3 weeks ago

The problem with capitalism is that you eventually run out of Satan's dinosaur bones anarchist-occult

[–] infuziSporg@hexbear.net 3 points 3 weeks ago

Keep up the fight against Satan, consume more oil

[–] Des@hexbear.net 33 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

they read about Mystery Flesh Pit National Park and thought it was a real thing that existed and there are real slumbering elder gods that poop oil

[–] Bobson_Dugnutt@hexbear.net 13 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I thought that the Permian Basin Superorganism ate oil

[–] fox@hexbear.net 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Sort of, but also it eats nucleotides and mantle heat

[–] Bobson_Dugnutt@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

nucleotides

Like big chunks of DNA buried underground?

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[–] Des@hexbear.net 3 points 3 weeks ago

oh yeah my bad you are right. eats oil and poops out cool MDMA-like sex goo

[–] blame@hexbear.net 27 points 3 weeks ago

I think there was some peak oil cope back in the day that was something along the lines of "we dont really know where oil comes from, it could come from the earth's mantle!"

[–] Bobson_Dugnutt@hexbear.net 23 points 3 weeks ago

I remember hearing some theory that oil might be produced by extremophile bacteria deep in the crust, which doesn't make much sense, but it's more plausible than the idea that oil spontaneously generates out of rocks, WTF.

Coal miners regularly find fossils in coal mines, and oil companies often employ paleontologists who study microscopic fossils brought up from oil wells to learn about the layers of rock they're drilling through: https://wiki.aapg.org/Microfossils_in_exploration

[–] 2812481591@hexbear.net 19 points 3 weeks ago

this is probably insanely harmful, at least far worse than flat-earthers, but It's still whimsical when reactionaries revive theories of 16th century natural philsophers like this and telegony and stuff compared to the normal social Darwinism shit.

[–] happybadger@hexbear.net 19 points 3 weeks ago

wut

[–] glimmer_twin@hexbear.net 18 points 3 weeks ago

We’re so cooked

[–] chungusamonugs@hexbear.net 17 points 3 weeks ago

This is what that billions of Koch ~~blood~~ lobbying money paid to accomplish.

[–] sisatici@hexbear.net 12 points 3 weeks ago

Who was consuming this oil in the cycle before humans existed.

[–] blindbunny@lemmy.ml 11 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

If anyone wants some brain damage I've never even heard of abiotic oil before. We're cooked if there are people that think this is real...

[–] iie@hexbear.net 9 points 3 weeks ago

Oil from younger rocks contains compounds linked to flowering plants, but oil from older rocks formed before flowering plants existed contains only more primitive organic compounds.

This was an interesting little detail

[–] HexReplyBot@hexbear.net 3 points 3 weeks ago

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[–] merthyr1831@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 weeks ago

Isn't it funny how easily recycled holocaust denialism is used to defend oil barons. Muh "the numbers just don't add up, (((they))) must be lying about it" bullshit right off the bat.

[–] Wheaties@hexbear.net 11 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

the important thing is nobody really knows for sure which is the true origin of oil, so we're going to act as though it's the really convenient one and be all affronted whenever anyone suggests otherwise.

except... even if it's the convenient, abiotic regenerative origin... that kinda means we could potentially put more CO2 into the atmosphere than was ever present at any point in the planet's past. Like, if it were fossil fuels, then even if we burned every last drop there would still be some form of life that could survive the conditions, cus it was life that trapped all that carbon in the first place. But if we're just pumping an endless supply of complex carbon chains....

[–] infuziSporg@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

That's assuming that the other things that have changed in that time aren't important.

Because we're talking about 500-2000 mya.

[–] Wheaties@hexbear.net 3 points 3 weeks ago

very true

pretty sure the leading theory for biotic oil is that nothing could decompose woody bark for a long time, so it just amassed over x mundred blousand years until geologic time and pressure cooked it into the old god's blood we use to power everything. That alone implies we may never get all the carbon back in the toothpaste tube.

[–] oscardejarjayes@hexbear.net 10 points 3 weeks ago

crude petroleum (literally plant medicine)

[–] JustSo@hexbear.net 6 points 3 weeks ago

They don't actually believe this, do they? It's just a thin kind of security blanket so they don't have to consider the reality

Both, I'm afraid.

[–] Vidiwell@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

https://thespouter.substack.com/p/to-dispense-with-abiotic-oil

recommend a bit of "investigation" prior to right to speak. It has an interesting history. Mao and Stalin were abiotic oil guys for a time!

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 21 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

There is a difference between people believing retrospectively dumb shit in the past versus believing dumb shit today. I'm not going to call some 16th century natural philosopher dumb for believing in elan vital or whatever.

[–] Vidiwell@hexbear.net 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

the casual dunking from people with no idea of its historical background was more the point here. an interesting idea with a history in socialist science and instead reduced to the lowest common denominator for a cheap dunk is reddit culture for better or worse. Hence investigate...then dunk.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago

Sure the history is interesting, so is that of elan vital, abiogenesis, and geocentrism. It still remains that anyone who believes in these in the modern day has something seriously wrong with them and there being a Soviet plenum that agreed with them almost a century ago does not change that fact.

[–] kittin@hexbear.net 13 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

“Some Russian scientists investigated it in the 50s” and “Stalin was an abiotic oil guy” seems like a massive equivocation since Stalin wasn’t a geologist nor was he involved in geological research so far as I am aware aside from funding research into how to close the oil-production gap with the US.

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