http://zeroplayer.com/images/stuff/NOAAsArk.png -- http://fav.me/d2qx4sv

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'''Problem:'''

You want to manipulate 6 billion people, for fun and profit.

'''Solution:'''

* Step 1: Slowly, over time, insinuate your product into their infrastructure, so every one of their tools depends, directly or indirectly, on your product.
* Step 2: Repeat the Big Lie "'''OMG we are running out of that product!'''" Repeat it until even your opposition repeats it. Repeat it until it is believed.
* Step 3: Profit!

The sheeple will now perform incredible mental contortions to rationalize your every crime. They will go to war to steal your resource, and will accept devastating environmental pollution, all to help you secure and lock down more and more of that product.

See also: StaticCling, http://penbird.tumblr.com/post/646796550/heres-an-associated-press-article-defending

http://www.boingboing.net/images/_2010_05_gallery-rigfire1-1.jpg

''Didn't the bronze age get started in a place that was running out of flint? Sure, there are other stones (such as malachite, obviously), but flint is the easiest to make tools from. The fossil fuel age will not end because we run out of fossil fuels, but we might run out of cheap oil, and be down to coal and expensive oil. Also, didn't the iron age get started in a place that was running out of tin?''

No. The iron age got started where a meteor hit and revealed that iron ore could be smelted to make a better metal than anyone had ever seen before.

[I hope that these last two comments were just people trying (and failing) to be funny.]