The article "A Brief Mythology of Petroleum" caught my attention on many levels.   Besides feeling being taken for a fool and buying into the false notion  of  "progress", I have to add that the oil Plutocracy needed another willing player in the charade: that of the "spin doctors"; the ad men.  Edward Bernays comes to mind as he is considered to be the father of propaganda.  Even Goebbels referred to Bernays as a master of mass mind manipulation.  The spin doctors did a thorough job of selling the American populace the myth of " Progress" with its multi headed Hydra insinuating itself into every phase of American life.  They knew how to weave a myth that went deep into the human psyche to sell the "new and improved" .  The oil industry is just one industry that has brought about the global crisis we face today, but as the article points out, its tentacles have reached far and wide to secure its dominance over all other industries.  After all, if you make cupcakes, you need oil fueled generators to make the electricity, (or natural gas)  to heat the oven and gasoline to fuel the delivery vehicle and on and on it goes. Myths were created for us to feel the need for the auto, the production of abundant food via genetic engineering and the petroleum based weed and bug killers,  and to quell the fear of not looking appealing, sexy or smelling good! The entire American culture is a culture based on myth created for big industry to maximize profit.