Talk:James Howard Kunstler

message: * The final paragraph before the external links is entirely accusatory. It requires balancing. 198.65.167.213
**I suppose that's fair.  I added the last graf based on conversations I've had about Kunstler, and attitudes toward him, with numerous faculty members at a large, ideologically diverse urban planning department (the School of Policy, Planning, and Development at the University of Southern California).  I welcome any modifications, and responses to his supporters explaining his attitudes. --Slightlyslack 20:28, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: General discussion of 2006

message: Hi User:Skoppensboer, you reverted my removal of "secret".  In the referenced "Twang Factor" article, he says "... because a lot of that work and expenditure was going on in secret".  Saying "a lot of work" is different than how the current sentence implies that _all_ the money and work was done in secret: "Kunstler responds by saying that a Y2K catastrophe was averted by the hundreds of billion of dollars that were secretly spent fixing the problem".  
Note that "a lot of work" can refer to just a few billion dollars, or <1% of the total, so it is incorrect to assume that he is claiming that a majority of work was secret, just "a lot".  Also, the fact that hundreds of billions was spent on fixing the y2k bug is well established, and it's not a secret that most of this money was spent.  I've changed the sentence to reflect that some of the money was spent secretly, I hope that satisfies you too. Pro crast in a tor 05:35, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Let's not turn "a lot" into "some", okay?  Skopp (Talk) 21:48, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't read his quote that way, but sure, fine by me.  I did remove the quote, though - it doesn't seem, to me, to have enough significance given that a summary of that quote precedes it. Pro crast in a tor 01:01, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Y2K bug and secret billions 

message: If Kunstler is correct and the real threat of Y2K was over come by spending lots of money using lots of people working really hard, then how can not the same thing be done with providing the world economy with oil? This is not a mere jest on my part; one of the greatest resource economists of all time, Julian Simon, made this same point in The Ulimate Resource--as scarcity increases, the relative value of oil increases, creating greater incentives for people to seek substitutes or new ways to get the old resource. (Notably the tar sands, which were once not considered oil because it was infeasible to extract, now make Canada the 2nd largest reserve of oil in the world .) Indeed, Simon's theory of constant change and improvement applies to scores (hundreds?) of different resources throughout the whole of human history. How does Kunstler reconcile his Y2K explanation with Simon's point on resource economics? Such points, in some way, should be included in the criticism section. David Youngberg 18:12, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What does that have to do with JHK? That belongs on the peak oil article if anywhere. I think peak oil activists have fairly convincing rebuttals for arguments such as these. G-Man * 19:12, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Y2K and Peak Oil 

message: I find it interesting that comments re: the price of crude oil seem to be deleted his page. JHK has actually made some accurate predictions in this re: for 2007 pricing, and there probably ought to be some mention of it.   198.107.22.21 (talk) 19:58, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  JHK and the Price of Crude 

message: I don't see any talk on this page about why the neutrality of the "Reactions and criticisms" section is disputed. I think it's rather balanced for a criticisms section, and it is certainly well-cited. If anyone has reasons, let's talk about them so we can fix them. If nothing surfaces in a few days I'm going to remove the tag. -FrankTobia (talk) 18:13, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed neutrality 

message: I find the reactions and criticisms section of this article to have an overly negative and judgemental tone. It does not adhere to NPOV. 
His predictions about Y2K and Dow 4000 are quite ancillary to his main subject matter which is a critique of the built environment of the USA in lieu of peak oil. In the context of a larger and more thorough article they would be worth including, but in an article of this length they loom too large. Attacking Kunstler by blowing out of proportion his sometimes highly erroneous predictions on tangential subjects is to divert attention away from the overwhelming thrust of his non-fiction output - the accuracy of which will not be knowable till the middle of the current century. He does after all refer to it as, "The Long Emergency". A successful refutation of Kunstler must address the terms by which he speaks of "The Long Emergency".  
::If you were to read Kunstler's web page, you will find that he frequently addresses issues very much in the "here-and-now". He is clearly of the opinion that the "Long Emergency" has begun, and it's affects are currently underway. For example, in one of his posts he said something to the effect of "if modern suburban development bothers you, take heart from the fact that it's time is at an end, and very little of it will be built in the future". So I think you are simply inaccurate when you say the overwhelming thrust of his argument consists of trends that will not manifest for 50 years. He is making short term predictions all the time, and citing one or two of the more specific of these is not inherently unbiased. 198.107.22.21 (talk) 22:49, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reactions and Criticisms 

message: Footnote 6 appears to be a broken link.  Just FYI. 68.116.99.227 (talk) 16:02, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Footnote 6 

message: James Howard Kunstler has a weekly audio podcast called the KunstlerCast. That program has it's own website http://kunstlercast.com
The podcasts are available for listening there as well as transcripts of the podcasts. There is also a discussion forum.
It is a free podcast. There are no commercials. 
I tried to add a link to the podcast website on Kunstler's page, but Mervyn deleted the link. I don't think that posting a link to Kunstler's podcast violates any Wiki rules. 
Please explain why the podcast cannot be listed on Kunstler's wikipage.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.97.159.226 (talk) 20:11, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kunstler's weekly podcast 

message: The topics below were removed as potentially inappropriate for his bio.  Since he has never claimed to be either a professional or amateur programmer or economics expert, his personal predictions and opinions on the topics don't seem appropriate here.  Most of us had some opinion about Y2K and the economy at some point. So what if he's wrong or right.  Suggest we let him keep this stuff for his blogs and put what he's noted for in the wiki.  Any 2nds?
Kunstler, who has no formal training in the fields in which he prognosticates, made similar predictions for Y2K as he makes for peak oil. Kunstler responds to this criticism by saying that a Y2K catastrophe was averted by the hundreds of billions of dollars that were spent fixing the problem, a lot of it in secret, he claims.
Kunstler has made several failed predictions regarding U.S. stock markets. In June 2005 and again in early 2006, Kunstler predicted that the Dow would crash to 4,000 by the end of the year.  The Dow in fact reached a new peak of approximately 12,500 by the end of 2006. In his predictions for 2007, Kunstler admitted his mistake, ascribing the Dow's climb to "inertia combined with sheer luck".
Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 03:00, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, the way one does this is to first discuss removing the text before removing it, not simply remove it to the talk page! Very heavy handed, ww. Now to the issue in hand, the data you have removed represent well-known predictions JHK has made. His stock-in-trade is prognostication, so the wild errors of his previous prognostications, no matter where published, are fair game for a biographical page. Colbert tripped him up with it on TV, so it certainly is notable. . Until there is further input on this long-standing text excerpt, I'm replacing it (with a suitable citation). I suggest if you want to remove it again, put it to a RFC. ► RATEL ◄ 04:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Critique of irrelevant issues 

message: Note that external links must follow the rules as per WP:LINKS and may not include links to video or multimedia.► RATEL ◄ 01:45, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Reviewed section Linking to YouTube, Google Video, and similar sites.  "There is no blanket ban on linking to these sites as long as the links abide by the guidelines ... for the prohibition on linking to pages that violate copyrights. Therefore, each such link must be evaluated for inclusion on a case-by-case basis." The rights to the video link I added to this article is owned by the site linked to.  Should therefore be OK from the rules stated.Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 03:12, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: External Links

message: America is not a Nation but a continent made by three subcontinents with 25 Nations (soon to be 26). 
http://geography.about.com/od/lists/a/officiallist.htm
Economic powerhouse North America only includes three countries but it is most of a continent and thus a region onto itself.
Canada
Greenland*
Mexico
United States of America
* Greenland is not yet an independent country.
Central America and the Caribbean
There are no landlocked countries among these twenty countries of Central America and the Caribbean.
Antigua and Barbuda 
The Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
Costa Rica
Cuba
Dominica
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
Grenada
Guatemala
Haiti
Honduras
Jamaica
Nicaragua
Panama
Saint Kitts and Nevis 
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Trinidad and Tobago
South America
Twelve countries occupy this continent that stretches from the equator to nearly the Antarctic Circle.
Argentina
Bolivia
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Guyana
Paraguay
Peru
Suriname
Uruguay
Venezuela
Mr. Kunstler's nationality is USA?
Jorge Caneda (talk) 22:53, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Kunstler's nationality is American to the extent that people mean "United States of America" when they speak of "America". Context is the key, not some authoritarian notion that the word "America" means and can mean only one single thing, in perpetuity, regardless what people really mean when they use the word in a conversation. It doesn't matter that Canada is part of North America. Canadians call themselves Canadian, not American. It's the same with Mexicans, etc. Neither do Europeans, Africans, Asians, and so on, refer to Canadians, Mexicans, Hondurans, Belizians, Panamanians, Ecuadorans, Brazilians, Peruvians, and so on, as Americans. The conventional usage of the word has evolved over time to refer to citizens of the USA. That's how language is. It doesn't sit still. Maybe one day in the future Americans will no longer be conventionally referred to as Americans. That day has not yet arrived. Take note of course that this hasn't changed how people refer to the North- and South-American continents. It's still possible to do that because the context is clear; it doesn't carry any ambiguity with it.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.223.130.60 (talk) 21:36, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  American is not a nationality 

message: I have commenced a tidy-up of the Bibliography section:
* Cite templates will be used where possible.
* I prefer capitalization and punctuation to follow the standard cataloguing rules in AACR2 and RDA, rather than "title case".
* Links (either direct or indirect) to potentially unreliable or incomplete digitised copies and to booksellers may be removed. 
This is a work in progress; feel free to continue. Sunwin1960 (talk) 03:42, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bibliography