On the topic which Toraneko was addressing, another one of the things that seems to me to play a very important part in all of this is the Hinata-Sou itself. It seems like over the course of the manga it's established as a sort of magical static place where everything is charmed, nothing is harmed, and most importantly of all, nothing ever changes. The fact that it seems almost set outside of time, a place where nothing changes, seems to be the most important to them because how many people do you think would give an arm and a leg to be somewhere where they would never have to deal with...well with having to move on basically. The problem with anime (the epic ones especially) is that in them nobody ages (generally), nobody ever leaves (or if they do they are quickly retrieved or come back), and everyone is basically static, mentally, emotionally, sexually, and maturity-wise.
They never have to worry about such things as growing older, what will happen after they graduate, or the other 'characters' leaving them, generally, unlike us in the real world. but getting back to the Hinata-Sou specifically, it's always hinted at that the old inn holds magic within it's walls, the biggest example of this is the Annex debacle with Kanako, and that there's something mystical about it, not to mention the creepy old men and how the signs always seem to point you to it, as seen in the anime. If you look back you'll notice how it seems that within those walls nothing can be hurt, and nothing changes. All the major changes (such as Keitaro maturing) happen outside of its walls (with the Keitaro example, when he was away traveling with Seta) and Keitaro's great injury also only happens outside of its walls, though in real life, I somehow doubt he would be able to leap to the roof of Toudai and detach one of the simple by spinning around on it unscrewing it as if it were a plug, only to then have it fall on you, so there is some suspension of disbelief needed there.
Also, the biggest change of the show, Naru finally admitting she's in love with Keitaro, happens during the Spring Special, or on the trip to Molmol, if I remember correctly, so once again they find they need to leave the Hinata-Sou to gain any sort of progress whatsoever. The magic of the Hinata-Sou is at once a blessing and a curse, for if nothing can ever change than you can have complete confidence in everything and everyone around you and would be 'safe', but also you would never be able to see any progress within yourself or with your relations with the people around you, thus leaving you to stagnate within your 'safety'.
If I ever put up one of my LH works you'll see this belief reflected in my writing as any major changes in the characters or their relations will only happen outside of the Hinata-Sou and were anything ever to happen within it then it would have to be of epic proportions and more so I would consider the inn's magic broken because of it and the fall out from such a thing would not be pretty, real life would hit all of the residents pretty hard form that point on, imagine our little talks about LH where we apply real world logic to an anime world and you have somewhat what I picture would happen in this scenario.
There are admittedly some exceptions to this rule, the biggest is obviously the 'never aging' thing which is contradicted by the final chapter in volume 14 but I'm writing that off as time skip which I don't really count as 'aging', more like punctuated equilibrium if you ask me but whatever. The other thing people might argue is when other people such as Tsuruko or Mei (Naru's younger step-sister) come and interrupt the inn's day to day running, but if you really look at the way those visits went, did anything really change? Everyone still stayed within their preset personality types, sure Motoko may have had to fake a relationship with Keitaro which she would not normally do but she still retains the same personality without and we see little to no real development from her besides the one line where she asks him if it would really be so bad to marry her, and if I remember that correctly it happens outside of the Hinata-Sou.
I know that it's probably just because it's a story that somebody wrote and had established characters in mind and thus they would stay to their personality set, but I like to think that Akamatsu just might have had a few more reasons for the way that he did things and the parallels that he set between the 'real world' (the world outside of the Hinata-Sou) and their world (within the Hinata-Sou), so, possible mystical undertone, or just the ramblings of someone who's spent far too much time analyzing Eva and has started to bleed over to other fandoms, you decide.
Oh, and on the oil thing, well we humans abused the earth and now you better believe that someone's gonna' be payin' the Pied Piper. I think it's about time that the 'chaff be cut from the wheat' as it were and humanity purged of some of its 'weaker' elements, every other animal species on earth is strong and adapts, physically, much faster and better to their surrounding than humanity, why? Natural selection, the weak who have weak genes die of while the strong live on to breed, and thus the weak or those ill suited to survive are weeded out and do not propagate their weakness within the species.
But we humans, no we protect the weak, we treasure our weak, we glorify our weak, and our gene pool is just further and further polluted as the strong are suddenly the minority and the weak the dominant faction, suddenly it's the strongÆs duty to provide for the weak because they are unable to for themselves. Hell we even glorify those traits that make the weak weak, it's Slave morality, that's what it is, read Nietzsche and his critique of Christianity, in which he calls Christianity a slave religion due to them being the one who nursed an raised this belief of ours that it is the strongÆs duty to provide for the weak and even to imply that being strong was a bad thing and that the ideals of a weak man are noble and right.
Christianity gained the popularity and following it did because so much of the human race is weak and suddenly theyÆd found a religion which told them that they were not weak, they were selfless, that they were noble, that they were a 'better man' for being weak! All the traits of the strong it spat upon and said were vile and wrong while it lionized the traits of the weak, simply because the weak had finally found something they were good at, banding together with other weaklings and grumbling about their weakness, misery has always loved company.
Anyway, read Nietzsche, he explains this so much better than I ever could. Just know that if I ruled the world there would be a very Draconian set of laws in place and I am somewhat of a Darwinist, if you couldn't guess that by now, and to just take everything said here with a grain of salt, I don't want to be beaten with a Bible by any particularly religious people who might have been offended by this.
Also, I find it funny how two conversations, one on anime and one on oil and mass starvation, can be held simultaneously within the same thread and even overlapping between posts, this amuses me. And your original comment holds true Terdwilicker, I do have a mighty large number of opinions.
[EDIT] Here Simmy, easier to read?