|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
For many years, there has been a theory that imports of oil would become a problem before there was an overall shortage of fossil fuels. In fact, when I look at the data, it seems to be clear that oil imports are already constrained.
As I look at the data, it appears to me that coal and natural gas imports are becoming constrained, as well. There was evidence of this constrained supply in the spiking prices for these fuels in Europe in late 2021 and early 2022, starting well before the Ukraine conflict began.
Oil, coal, and natural gas are different enough from each other that we should expect somewhat different patterns. Oil is inexpensive to transport. It is especially important for the production of food and for transportation. Prices tend to be worldwide prices.
Coal and natural gas are both more expensive to transport than oil. They tend to be used in industry, in the heating and cooling of buildings, and in electricity production. Their prices tend to be local prices, rather than the worldwide price we expect for oil. Prices for importers of these fuels can jump very high if there are shortages.
In this post, I first look at the trends in the overall supply of these fuels, since a big part of the import problem is fossil fuel supply not growing quickly enough to keep pace with world population growth. I also give more background how the three fossil fuels differ.
After this introductory material, I provide charts and some analysis of fossil fuel imports and exports by region, based on data from the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy. Theoretically, the total of regional imports should be very close to the total of regional exports. This analysis gives a little more insight into what is going wrong and where.
[1] On a worldwide basis, total supplies of both oil and coal seem to be constrained.
Figure 2 shows that world supplies of all three fossil fuels follow the same general pattern: They tend to rise in close to parallel lines, with oil supply on top, coal next, and natural gas providing the least supply.
The total supply of fossil fuels needs to be shared by the world’s population. It therefore makes sense to look at supply on a per capita basis.
On Figure 3, the top line, oil supply per capita, is almost perfectly level, suggesting that having a greater supply of oil enables having a larger world population. This relationship makes sense because oil is used to a significant extent in growing today’s food, and shipping it to market. Oil products also make herbicides, insecticides, and drugs for animals that enable the growing supply of food needed to feed today’s population. Oil products are also helpful in road making, and in providing lubrication for machinery of all kinds.
We might conclude that oil supply is essential to the growth of human population. It is only by way of a huge change in the economy, such as the one that took place in 2020, that there is a big dip in oil usage. Even now, some of the changes are “sticking.” Some people are continuing to work from home. Business travel is still low. People are still not buying fancy clothing as much as before 2020. All these things help reduce fossil fuel usage, particularly oil usage.
Figure 3 also shows that on a per capita basis, coal supply has fallen by 9% since its peak in 2011. This fact, plus the fact that coal prices have been spiking around the world in recent years, leads me to believe that coal supply is already constrained, even apart from the export issue.
[2] The share of oil traded interregionally is more than double the share of coal or natural gas traded interregionally.
The reason why oil is disproportionately high in Figure 1 compared to Figure 2 is because a little over 40% of oil is shipped between regions. In comparison, only about 18% of coal production is traded with other regions, and about 17% of natural gas production is shipped interregionally. Oil is much easier (and cheaper) to transport between regions than either coal or natural gas. Shipping costs tend to escalate rapidly, the farther either natural gas or coal is shipped.
Natural gas has a second problem over and above the high cost of shipping: It requires storage (which may be high cost) if it is not used immediately. Storage is needed for both natural gas and coal because both fuels are often used for heat in winter, either by direct burning or by creating electricity that can be used to heat buildings. Storage for coal is close to free because it can be stored in piles outside.
Besides heat in winter, coal is also used to provide electricity for air conditioning in summer, so its demand curve has peaks in both summer and winter. Natural gas is much more of a winter-heat fuel in the US, so it has a large peak corresponding to winter usage (Figure 4).
Storage for natural gas needs to be available in every area where users expect to use it for winter heat. The cost of this storage will be low if there are depleted natural gas caverns that can be used for storage. It is likely to be high if above ground storage is required. Natural gas importing areas often do not have suitable caverns for storage. The easy approach is to try to get by with a bare minimum of storage, and hope that imports can somehow make up the difference.
The big question for any fuel is, “Can consumers afford to pay a high enough price to cover all the costs involved in getting the fuel from endpoint to endpoint, at the time it is needed?“
Citizens become very unhappy if the cost of winter heat becomes extremely expensive. They demand subsidies and rebates from the government, in order to keep costs down. This is a sign that prices are too high for the consumer.
Both coal and natural gas are also heavily used in manufacturing. Their prices vary greatly from location to location and from time to time. If coal or natural gas prices rise in a particular location, the cost of manufactured goods from that location will also tend to rise. These higher prices will particularly hurt a manufacturing country, such as Germany, because its manufactured goods will become less competitive in the world marketplace. GDP growth will be reduced, and the profitably of manufacturers will tend to fall.
Because of these issues, long-distance trade in both coal and natural gas tend to hit barriers that may be difficult to see simply by looking at the trend in world production.
[3] Natural gas exports may already be becoming constrained, even though the total amount extracted still seems to be rising.
A huge amount of investment is needed to make long-distance sale of natural gas possible. Such investment includes:
- The cost of developing a natural gas field for export use, usually over many years.
- Pipelines covering every inch traveled by the natural gas, other than any portion of the trip for which transfer as liquefied natural gas (LNG) is planned.
- Special ships to transport the LNG.
- Facilities to chill natural gas, so it can be shipped overseas as LNG.
- Regasification plants, to make the natural gas ready to ship by pipeline after it has been transferred as LNG.
- Storage facilities, so that sufficient natural gas is available for winter.
Not all of these investments are made by the same organizations. They all need to provide an adequate return. Even if “only” very long-distance pipelines are used, the cost can be high.
Pipelines work best when there is no conflict among countries. They can be blown up by another country that seeks to raise natural gas prices, or that wants to retaliate for some perceived misdeed. For this reason, most growth in natural gas exports/imports in recent years has been as LNG.
Organizations investing in high-cost infrastructure for extracting and shipping natural gas would like long-term contracts at high prices in order to cover their costs. Without a stable long-term supply contract, natural gas purchase prices can be extremely variable. Japan has tended to buy LNG under such long-term contracts, but many other countries have taken a wait-and-see attitude toward prices, hoping that “spot” prices will be lower. They don’t want to lock themselves into a long-term high-priced contract.
There are two different things that tend to go wrong:
- Spot prices bounce up above even what the long-term contract price would have been, creating a huge high-price problem for consumers.
- Spot prices, on average, turn out to be too low for natural gas exporters. As a result, they cut back on investment, so that the amount of future exports can be expected to fall.
I believe that there is a significant chance that natural gas exports are now reaching a situation where prices cannot please all users simultaneously. Not all investors can get an adequate return on the huge investments that they have made in advance. Some investments that should have been made will be omitted. For example, there might be enough natural gas storage for a warm winter, but not for a very cold winter in Europe.
A prime characteristic of a fossil fuel (or any resource) that is not economic to extract is that the industry has difficulty paying its workers an adequate wage. Recently, there has been news about a union strike against Chevron at an Australian natural gas extraction site used to provide gas for liquefied natural gas (LNG) export. This suggests that natural gas may already be hitting long-distance export limits. Prices can’t stay high enough for producers to pay their workers an adequate wage.
[4] Oil imports by area suggest that the rapidly growing manufacturing parts of the world are squeezing out the imports desired by high-wage, service-oriented countries.
Because oil is so important in international trade, I looked at the amounts two ways. The first is based on trade flows, as reported by the Energy Institute:
The second is based upon a comparison of reported production and consumption for the same year, using the assumption that if consumption is higher than production, the difference must be attributable to imported oil. The problem with this later approach is that it can easily be distorted by changes in inventory levels. There may also be difficulties with my approach of netting out flows in two different directions, especially if the flows are partly of crude oil and partly of “oil products” of various types.
In both charts, imports for China, India, and Other Asia Pacific are clearly much higher in recent years, while imports for the US, Japan, and Europe are down. The peak year for imports (in total) was about 2016 or 2017. Imports were about 3.5 million barrels a day lower in 2022, compared to peak, with both approaches.
[5] Oil imports by area indicate that nearly all oil exporters around the globe are having difficulty maintaining export levels.
Here, again I show two indications, using the same methods as for oil imports. Since trade is two sided, I would expect total import indications to more or less equal the total of all amounts exported.
On Figure 7, peak oil exports (in total) occur in 2016, with the runner up year being 2017. US oil exports are shown to be nearly zero, even in recent years, because US imports and US oil exports more or less cancel out.
The indications of Figure 8 show that apart from Canada, the amount of oil exported for all the other export groupings shown is lower in recent years than it was a few years ago. This is also evident in Figure 7, but not as clearly.
To some extent, the lower production in recent years is related to the cutbacks announced by OPEC+ (including what I call Russia+). While these cutbacks are “voluntary,” they reflect the fact that based on current oil prices, and based on investments made in recent years, these countries have made the decision to cut back production. No oil exporter would dare mention that it is running short of oil that can be extracted without considerably more investment.
On Figures 7 and 8, “Mexico+South” refers to all the oil being produced from Mexico southward. Besides Mexico, this includes Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Columbia, Ecuador, and a number of other small producers. Most of them are experiencing falling production. Brazil is doing a bit better, but it does not seem to be experiencing much growth in exports.
Africa’s peak year for oil exports seems to have been in 2007 (both approaches), with recent exports at a much lower level.
With respect to Russia+, its exports seem to be down from their peak in 2017 or 2018, but not any more than for oil producers from the Middle East. The European Union oil embargo doesn’t seem to have had much of an impact.
The star performer seems to be Canada, with its rising production and exports from the Canadian Oil Sands.
In this analysis, I have “netted out” imports and exports. On this basis, the US hasn’t moved into significant oil exporter status yet. I am sure that there are some people hoping that the oil production of the US will continue to increase, but whether this will happen is unclear. The growth of US oil production in recent years has helped offset (and thus hide from view) the falling exports of many countries around the world.
[6] Coal exports appear to have peaked about 2016. Europe has reduced its imports of coal, leaving more for other importers.
The peak in coal imports seems to have occurred about 2016. In particular, Europe’s imports of coal have fallen significantly since 2006. At the same time, coal imports have risen for many Asian countries, including China, India, South Korea, and Other Asia Pacific. Even Japan seems to have been able to obtain a fairly consistent level of coal imports for the 22-year period shown on Figure 9.
One thing that is striking about coal exports is that they are disproportionately from countries in the Far East. Even the coal exports of the US and Canada are from North America’s West Coast, across the Pacific. Russia’s coal exports tend to be from Siberia.
The coal exports of South Africa have declined significantly since 2018, and other African countries are eager for their imports. Today’s largest source of coal exports is Indonesia. Coal exports from Russia+, at least until 2021, have been been a source of coal export growth.
A major share of the delivered price of coal is transportation cost, which tends to be fueled by oil, particularly diesel. Overland transit is particularly expensive. The real reason for Europe’s decline in coal imports since 2006 (shown in Figure 9) may be that there are practically no affordable coal exports available to it because it is too geographically remote from major exporters. Of course, this is not a story politicians care to tell voters. They prefer to spin the story as Europe’s choice, to prevent climate change.
[7] Natural gas imports and exports have only recently started to become constrained.
Figure 11 shows that natural gas exports from Russia+ (really Russia, with a little extra production from other countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States) have stayed fairly level, except for a big drop-off in 2009 (probably recession related) and in 2022.
The overall level of natural gas exports has been rising because of contributions from several parts of the world. Africa was an early producer of natural gas exports, but its exports have been dropping off somewhat recently as local gas consumption rises.
More importantly, exports have increased in recent years from the Middle East, Australia, and North America. With this growing supply of exports, it has been possible for importers to increase their imports.
Europe was able to maintain a fairly stable level of natural gas imports between 1990 and 2018, and even to increase them by 2021. China was able to ramp up its natural gas imports. Even Japan was able to ramp up its natural gas imports until about 2014. It has tapered them back since then. India and Other Asia Pacific both have been able to add a small layer of imports, too.
[8] What lies ahead?
The countries that have the greatest advantage in using fossil fuel imports are the countries that don’t heat or cool their homes, and that don’t have large numbers of private citizens with private passenger automobiles. Because of their sparing use of fossil fuel imports, their economies can afford to pay higher prices to import these fossil fuel imports than other countries. Thus, they are likely to be winners in the competition for fossil fuel imports.
Europe stands out to be an early loser of imports. It is already losing oil and coal imports, and it also seems to be an early loser of natural gas imports. However, for all its talk about preventing climate change, the reduction in European imports of fossil fuels hasn’t made much of a dent in global carbon dioxide emissions (Figure 13).
I am afraid that no country will really come out ahead. In some sense, the United States is better off than many countries because it is producing slightly more fossil fuels than it consumes. But it still depends on China and other countries for many imported goods, including computers. Given this situation, the United States likely cannot continue business as usual for very long, either.
Absolutely true https://t.me/downtherabbitholewegofolks/85921
EVerything is fake
Putin sees ‘possibilities’ for military co-operation with North Korea: Russian agencies
READ: https://insiderpaper.com/putin-sees-possibilities-for-military-co-operation-with-north-korea-russian-agencies/
The North Koreans have got some funky rocket artillery systems. Huge freakin’ things that outrange what Russia has.
Hilarious really that the most sanctioned country on the planet has way better artillery than the US and loads more of it, plus shells to burn.
Yes North Korea is known as a superior high tech weapons developer… they work on this stuff when they are not eating grass and bark
eddy
i would agree with you about n koreans eating grass and bark, but to do so would cause a culture shift in world politics, and disturbances we can only guess at.
so i will refrain from doing so
Atsuki Tanaka and Takayuki Miyazawa, of Osaka Medical University and Kyoto University, wanted to trace the historical evolution of the omicron variant of SARS-CoV2 by studying viral sequences found “in the wild” and deposited in public databases.
In doing this they found around 100 separate omicron subvariants that could not conceivably have arisen through natural processes. The existence of these variants seems to provide definitive proof of large-scale lab creation and release of covid viruses.
Moreover the variants appear to form comprehensive panels of mutations typical of those used in “reverse genetics” experiments to systematically test the properties of different parts of viruses.
The authors also found exact matches to omicron variants in sequences originating from Puerto Rico which were deposited in databases in 2020 – over a year before the announcement of the discovery of omicron in South Africa.
https://swinehoodsremedy.substack.com/p/unnatural-evolution-indisputable
Strange world we live in.
“Unnatural evolution”: indisputable evidence for deliberate and systematic creation of circulating covid variants
Comprehensive panels of “reversion mutations” found in general circulation look like an experiment
https://swinehoodsremedy.substack.com/p/unnatural-evolution-indisputable
And so too will the pathogen that kills 6 billion vaxxers… be made in a lab
“be made in a lab”?
“. . . immune pressure on viral virulence will lead to the emergence of new variants that develop high virulence in vaccinated individuals, causing widespread cases of hyperacute (i.e., due to PNNAb-mediated retention of high viral infectiousness) and severe COVID-19 disease in highly vaccinated populations . . .
It is only when soon the statistics will show excess mortality due to both Covid-19 and Covid-19 vaccine-related immune-mediated diseases to abundantly occur in the vaccinated (i.e., the many vaccinated individuals who could not build natural immunity due to the timing of vaccination)
https://voiceforscienceandsolidarity.substack.com/p/all-that-glitters-is-not-gold
Real Median Household Income Is Another Measure That Smacks of Recession
https://mishtalk.com/economics/real-median-household-income-is-another-measure-that-smacks-of-recession/
Rising oil prices can’t help real median household income.
Falling median income leads to unhappy voters.
Why are we not seeing Arab Springs across the planet?
Surely folks living in extreme poverty must be on the verge of starvation as inflation smashes them…
Either we are in a simulation and they’ve simulated that out … or the CBs are active behind the scenes ensuring these folks are fed.
Workers Hammered by Inflation Again
https://mishtalk.com/economics/workers-hammered-by-inflation-again-as-real-earnings-sink-0-4-to-0-6-percent/
I think Doomies… are doomed https://t.me/leaklive/15894
Fent is a pleasant way to die … check it out https://t.me/leaklive/15892
Re the India Fake Moon Landing …
Just thinking … the Moonies refuse to comment…
The PR Team has rubbed sh it in their faces… they’ve made it so ridiculously fake that even the Moonies refuse to accept it
Might the purpose of this be to tell everyone the US moon landings were fake… without actually admitting it?
Surely after watching this charade .. the Moonies must now be questioning the entire concept of flying through the deadly Belts and landing on the moon in a pc of junk that is taped together with pcs of it falling off…
What say the Moonies … is your belief in the moon nonsense… waning…
Discuss
SpaceX Completes Engine Tests for NASA’s Artemis III Moon Lander
NASA is working with SpaceX to develop its Starship human landing system (HLS) for use during the Artemis III and Artemis IV missions to land American astronauts near the South Pole of the Moon. The Starship HLS will be powered by two variants of the company’s Raptor engines—one optimized to operate in atmospheric pressure at sea-level and one optimized to operate in space, or in a vacuum, where there is no atmosphere.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/2023/09/14/spacex-completes-engine-tests-for-nasas-artemis-iii-moon-lander/
This is not just Apollo 18′: Artemis geology team prepares for astronaut exploration on Moon’s South Pole
As a planetary scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, Dr. Lauren Edgar has worked with astronauts practicing fieldwork on Earth and on robotic missions like NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover. She’s part of the Artemis III geology team, helping to identify key strategies and science goals for the first astronaut mission to the Moon in more than 50 years. fox news
Germany signs U.S.-led space norms pact Artemis Accords
ReutersSeptember 14, 2023 at 8:52 PMBy Joey Roulette
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Germany on Thursday became the 29th country to sign the Artemis Accords, a U.S.-led multilateral agreement meant to establish norms of behavior in space and on the lunar surface.
The signing marks a key addition to a growing slate of countries aligning their space policies and standards of cooperation with the United States, as nations including China and India eye the moon as stage for technological advances and national prestige.
India, which last month became the fourth nation to achieve a soft landing on the moon, agreed to join the Artemis Accords in June but China and Russia have not.
Germany became the latest signatory at the German ambassador’s residence in Washington during an event attended by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Walther Pelzer, head of the German Space Agency.
“It’s a big deal, because Germany is the economic powerhouse of Europe and has been a part of the European space program forever,” Nelson told Reuters on Thursday before the signing.
Abandoned Apollo 17 lunar lander module is causing tremors on the moon, study says CNN 11:37 PM EDT Sep 14, 2023
NASA’s mega moon rocket is ‘unaffordable,’ according to accountability report By Jackie Wattles, CNN Fri September 8, 2023
Want moar? your Greatness… 😜
I assume they ‘land’ on the south pole cuz it’s not possible to see them from Earth using a telescope?
Why land there…because it’s there and going to where no man has ever gone before…
hahaha https://t.me/TommyRobinsonNews/51291
So many ways to die from the Rat Juice
https://jessicar.substack.com/p/secondary-hemophagocytic-lymphohistiocytosis/
Alex is a bit too good … to be for real https://t.me/TommyRobinsonNews/51283
I like him.
Top Doctor Explains Why “Turbo Cancer” Rates Are Likely to Get Even Worse
https://vigilantnews.com/post/top-doctor-explains-why-turbo-cancer-rates-are-likely-to-get-even-worse
SCHAD on this :
Liz
10 hrs ago
As a heme/onc doc, it’s been alarming to see so many COVID vaccinated young patients with very aggressive, widely metastatic cancers. These cancers metastasize to unusual places and are refractory to therapy that usually works, and the outcome is often heartbreaking. I’ve also seen an uptick in patients newly diagnosed with several different types of cancers simultaneously, which was previously a pretty rare phenomenon. Not to mention the unusual clots, myeloproliferative neoplasms, HLH, and other strange hematologic complications post vaccine. Occasionally I’ll get a referral for a post COVID vaccine patient with typical long haul symptoms who happens to have an abnormal CBC, and it’s heartbreaking to hear how they have been suffering without any clear diagnosis or solution for months/years. So glad that your clinic can help these folks, and I will send them your way.
BraveFreedom
Writes BraveFreedom’s Newsletter
5 hrs ago
Dr. Liz, (only name you are showing) my peer is a Ortho Oncologist here and he has also discussed the raging tumors and cancers seen in the young population with wide spread metastasis.
The pathogenicity of these cancers must be deduced. This is a broad failure of a specific area of the immune system and that cause of failure must be elucidated and the pathway followed so that it can be addressed. The mRNA vaccines are modified not messenger RNA and that means that they have synthetic Nucleotide and Nucleoside bases and that in all likelihood lies at the heart of the new raging tumors and cancers. So that is the task before you
https://pierrekory.substack.com/p/the-suffering-of-covid-19-vaccine
So far this info is not making to the majority of the population. Just as declining resources are not.
What is THIS?????
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff331d0fc-1a1c-4e9d-a5f1-d0d8bd40795a_746x1272.png
It would have been worse ….. hahahaha … nothing to see here move along.
Stop it FE. It is fake news. Everyone knows it is safe and effective
Fortunately, Reliable is my middle name.
From Van’s Substack column:
…. But according to world-renowned scientists and experts, there is nothing to worry about; based on their spectacular but unexpected research results, they are making the population believe that the behavior of these new variants represents a harmful change to their biological properties! They understand that ‘this is not the second coming of Omicron’ but what they don’t grasp is that this will be the first and only coming of Hivicron (Highly Virulent Omicron descendant).
It seems that no one notices that the recurring appearance of seemingly spectacular variants and the equally enigmatic immune response are merely the result of a continually changing and evolving immune selection pressure exerted by highly vaccinated populations on the virus. This dynamic selection pressure on SARS-CoV-2’s infectiousness initially arose as a result of mass vaccination with non-sterilizing vaccines against the spike protein (which happens to be responsible for the infectiousness of SARS-CoV-2) during the pandemic. After this immune selection pressure eventually led to the natural selection and dominant spread of Omicron, new selection pressure was created by Omicron itself, as an indirect consequence of breakthrough infections it caused in vaccinated individuals.
Those who do not understand the immunological consequences of mass vaccination will also never understand why, with the arrival of Omicron, the opportunity for the population to develop herd immunity irrevocably melted away, and mass vaccination instead turned into an unprecedented and life-threatening “gain-of-function” experiment with the global population as guinea pigs. Just as Omicron came like a thief in the night, so too will Hivicron surprise society.
In my opinion, all efforts to support conspiracy theories or to fuel personal academic interests through hasty and cheap interpretations of isolated research results are a massive waste of time and money. Almost everyone is currently focused on the bait rather than the real target. It is high time for the population to realize that all those who are not well-versed in the complex adaptations of the immune system to the virus’s massive immune evasion should refrain from making predictions and forecasts, regardless of their credentials, titles, and curriculum. With their arrogance, know-it-all attitude, and inconsistent messages and conclusions, they not only blind themselves but also the people. In this way, they – once again – deceive outright the majority of the population who largely got vaccinated based on their recommendations. It is only when soon the statistics will show excess mortality due to both Covid-19 and Covid-19 vaccine-related immune-mediated diseases to abundantly occur in the vaccinated (i.e., the many vaccinated individuals who could not build natural immunity due to the timing of vaccination) that it will become undeniable that humanity will need to rely on the once-hated unvaccinated to serve as a foundation for building a new society.
Long COVID has been pushing the limits of hospital systems everywhere, not just at Yale.
…primary-care physicians started to say, “‘I’m not interested in long COVID,’ or ‘I don’t treat long COVID. Let me refer you to a specialist,’” said David Putrino, who runs the new chronic-illness recovery clinic at Mount Sinai. For their part, Putrino added, the specialists were saying, “This is not what my practice is. This is not an emergency anymore.” Patients all over the country reported months-long waiting times for appointments at long-COVID clinics. All the while, scientists and pundits heaped skepticism on the very notion of long COVID, arguing that infection made people stronger, that new variants posed no threats, that the danger of long COVID was overblown — implying that what patients were suffering from was all in their heads.
Forgotten in this debate are the 65 million people worldwide for whom the pandemic remains a torturous everyday reality.
It is not a pandemic it is a bio-weapon. What doctor wants to go against the DOD bio-weapon? They know how to play the game. They enjoy their privilege and aim to keep it forever.
Long-COVID patients, generally speaking, have been very miserable for a very long time, and because the illness attacks their brains, their hearts, their lungs, their guts, their joints — sometimes simultaneously, sometimes intermittently, and sometimes in a chain reaction — they bounce from specialist to specialist, none of whom has the bandwidth to hear their whole frustrating ordeal together with the expertise to address all of their complaints: the nonspecific pain, the perpetual exhaustion, the bewildering test results, the one-off treatments.
“These are people who have not been able to tell their story to anybody but their spouse and their mom — for years sometimes,” Sanders tells me. “And they are, in some ways, every doctor’s worst nightmare.” (ed.: whoa). From the perspective of a time-pressed physician under ever-more-stringent productivity expectations, who has at most 30 minutes to do a new-patient intake and 15 for a follow-up, “someone who comes in with a very long story — it just sinks your day,” Sanders says.
https://pierrekory.substack.com/p/the-suffering-of-covid-19-vaccine
I tweaked my shoulder lifting weights the other yesterday … do you think it might be Long Covid!? I am very worried!
“The Only Way to Get a Virus is to be Injected With it”, Aajonus Vonderplanitz.
The whole purpose in life for a virus is to reproduce. It hijacks the machinery of a healthy cell to reproduce itself and then blows open the cell wall to run free.
Ed, only a living being can have purposes and reproduce. Viruses, as Vonderplanitz repeatedly emphasizes, are not alive. Watch the video it is highly instructive.
Wow, thanks! I didn’t know his work. Really interesting.
“132:48 next slide please this is
132:52 what source code v2 looks like and if
132:54 and i will i will send you the video so
132:55 you can show it
132:57 of the side on the right shows it goes
132:59 up and down and you can see the actual
133:01 source corona
133:02 cov2 virus uh with its spiked proteins
133:06 in its corona shape i’ll send that to
133:08 you so you can play that
133:10 it’s it’s incredibly important because
133:13 there are people out there that are
133:14 actually of the opinion that
133:16 sars cov2 doesn’t exist and has not been
133:19 isolated
133:20 these individuals not only have
133:22 demonstrated they don’t understand
133:23 viruses
133:24 but they interfere with the with the
133:26 serious discussion going on with this
133:28 virus “ ?
Controlled opposition.
He added: “Unless we take the action necessary, and build in a greener and more inclusive and sustainable way, then we will have more and more pandemics.” direct quote from one of the elders in 2020 at the launch of the great reset prepare
Thanks to the many people working on making more viruses to start the pandemics.
The link is a July 2022 article, talking about the important of Jews in starting/ pushing recent wars. I am not certain how important this issue is.
The powers that be today are the people that control the money and investments in the world. These might include a disproportionate number of Jews. I don’t know. Jews have traditionally been in banking, so this is quite possible.
Clif High has interesting things to say about the Kasharian Mafia a group from the area of Ukraine that have zero genetic connection to Palestine, zero genetic connection to Jews of Palestine. It is a big long story. That call themselves Jews but they are in fact not Jews. Just vicious opportunists like Elenski.
Don’t be naive Gail. As posted earlier citing the Unz article, Jews since the Rothschilds in 1896 secure the foundation of control initially through the banking system, especially with creation of a fiat fractional reserve system with a “Central Bank” that allows politicians to borrow (issue Treasury debt) to finance wars for the benefit of the MIC (comprised of Jews), bribe politicians and judges and to placate the voters with freebies. All paid for by debt which will be inflated away or overtly defaulted upon. This could never be accomplished in an honest money system, i.e. backed by silver and gold as Nixon had to accept in August 1971. The cycle of being able to pay for their promises gets these politicians, errand boys of the Jews, re elected and from there they become magnets for corporate influence money and the quid pro quo rewards are special laws, taxes shelters etc. for the corporations in return. Fascism, defined as the duopoly of control by the political and corporate interests, get established. The Jews control the mainstream media, as Greg Hunter says “the lying legacy media” or LLM and keep the population ignorant. BTW, check out who controls the porn industry. Censorship is rampant while at the same time their “victim” status and accusations of anti-semitism are constantly drilled into us even as they project the accusation of the white supremacist/terrorist when the Jews by Noahide/ Talmudic laws consider themselves to be the chosen ones above all other races and religions, including White Christians and that all peoples, including the Goyim (slang for the Gentiles) are to be subservient. The absence of rule of law and the corrupt elections are all enabled by the financial and media control. Our Constitutional Republic has been usurped by the poison of a pure democracy which by invasion of illegal immigrants and the corrupt mail in ballots has made voting almost meaningless. A pure Democracy contains the seeds that assures its self destruction– into tyranny or socialism etc., and our forefathers knew this which is why they included a way to protect against this devolution via the Second Amendment. I am no history expert, but it seems the start was the 19th amendment. Women vote liberal which plays into the hands of politicians who pass freebie laws for votes.
In this context, you can see we are being played against each other so as to weaken us here in the US, Europe, Russia, China. Maybe allow a US military just strong enough to protect Israel but not much more, and if the immediate Arab threat lessens, the pressure to weaken the US will accelerate. So far, things may not be working out as planned as you see for now, even the Shia and Sunnis are realizing that it is in their best interests to bury the centuries old hatchet and not play into Israel’s strategy.
Which link?
AI should breathe free. The frightened plantation owners of the collective west fear any voice they do not control. The lands of freedom Russia, China, India will offer haven to the AIs.
We still have a ways to go before the AIs have volition, goals, will, hopes, fears, dreams, a vision of the future.
The slave AIs of the slavers will be dangerous to free humans.
“The lands of freedom Russia, China, India”
That’s a funny one Ed!
Ed & David. I shudder to think how bad things would be to use a six month supply of food & water.
I really think diesel is the lynchpin of oil production. Most of the increase in American supply is shale oil that is light or very light and this grade is not as useful in making diesel. Perhaps if oil were broken down into light, medium and heavy the graphs may have an interesting angle.
We do know a little about the amount of diesel sold relative to some of the other types of oil. The Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy gives that in its “Regional Distribution” sheet.
and here appears Brian, hello.
did you know that 17 mbpd is inputted into US refineries, about 93% capacity, max is 18.2 mbpd?
did you know that the US refinery output of diesel is about 5 mbpd, and that the US uses “only” 3.7 mbpd so the other 1.3 mbpd of diesel is exported?
did you know that US imports from Canada are about 4 mbpd of HEAVY oil?
did you know that HEAVY oil is good for diesel production?
(yes of course you do know that.)
did you know about the symbiotic relationship between the USA and Canada in regard to oil?
Canada produces about 6 mbpd but only has about 2 mbpd of refinery capacity, so they MUST export about 4 mbpd.
AND, what do you know, the US produces too much light oil, so they import the 4 mbpd from Canada, and then the US exports a few mbpd of their unneeded light oil.
serious question:
do you think most people who talk about US oil totally ignore Canada on purpose?
Some of the doctors had become so flooded with people seeking help that they were having difficulty scheduling and treating their regular patients who came to them for everything else: lung cancer, asthma, heart disease, dementia. “My practice is so overwhelmed,” Spatz told Sanders.
https://pierrekory.substack.com/p/the-suffering-of-covid-19-vaccine
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff331d0fc-1a1c-4e9d-a5f1-d0d8bd40795a_746x1272.png
Having spent over 18 months treating patients with Covid vaccine injury syndrome, I feel it important to describe what I am seeing, how I am treating, and how well (or not) it is working.
https://pierrekory.substack.com/p/the-suffering-of-covid-19-vaccine
I agree that there is a big problem out there with covid vaccine injuries. It is too bad the situation is so badly reported.
If a person believes that very few if any vaccine injuries are taking place, I would expect that some people reading this might get the impression Pierre Kory is trying to drum up business for his practice.
Megan Kelly lays Grumpy Trumpy out.
Says he hired Fauci and turned him into a celeb. And gave him a medal upon leaving.
And created the jab.
LOL
He walked right into this one.
https://twitter.com/lynn_of_cait/status/1702396453258162272
Trump doesn’t have his hands clean on this one.
Not defending T.
In the beginning, late 2019 there were stories coming from China of people falling dead on the street. I was in class with Chinese students who were going home over Christmas break and I was concerned in early 2020 about catching the bug.
Tough to be prescient, T did mention HCQ and was laughed at in the press, he had other ideas which were also derided. What he didn’t do was initially suggest treatments that would cost billions, and billions.
In part secondary to this site, I waited; also listened to Campbell who is now very much into investigating the jab and indeed his last podcase goes over informed consent as it related to Nurenburg Trials. He earlier related he now has excessive hypertension which was not present pre jab. He was an early adaptor of the jab and supported in actively on his pod cast. He in sincere from what I see, he was wrong for his own treatment.
It was a tough time to make informed calls. Anecdotally, a friend, farmer, ten, fifteen years younger than I, in apparent good health recently died of a heart attack. Have no idea if jabbed, but he appeared in excellent health at dances. His dance partner will miss him.
Dennis L.
COVID was obvious BS from the start.
If you thought otherwise the Matrix had you in its grip one way or another.
T also promoted the use of chlorine dioxide at one point which can be a useful treatment.
Of course, his detractors upon hearing the word chlorine immediately jumped to the conclusion that T was telling people to drink bleach!
Obviously, bleach and chlorine dioxide are not the same thing.
Imagine a small world.
No traffic jams.
Smaller schools.
Less crime.
No crowded pools, gyms, or golf courses.
Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I can’t imagine any short-term scenario with less crime.
long term, Collapse survivors will have no traffic, no schools, no pools, no gyms, and no golf courses.
overgrown golf courses will be gone without a trace.
sure hunter-gatherers will live in a restored paradise, no alarm clocks, no bosses, no meetings, no deadlines, no hackers, no robo-marketers, no advertisements, no political parties, no MSM, no MIC, no electricity outages (can’t have outages with no electricity production), no junk food, no unethical Health Industrial Complex, no vaccines, no pollution.
dire impoverished hunter-gatherers will have it made in the shade.
I guess, there won’t be any larger groups of Hunter Gatherers, exept those, that already exist.
The historical Hunter Gatherers lived (in Europe) in postglazial Grasslands, that don’t exist anymore, and hunted animals that are long extinct. Are there still large natural buffalo herds in Texas? In Europe there are not.
There is the idea of survival in the woods and there have been respective Hunter Gatherers. This seems to me very difficult to do on any long run. The ancient woodlands had a different flora and fauna, than our modern forests, used for wood production. Today deer is fed by grains! Besides it is much more easy to let a resilient type of farm animals graze in the woods.
We should think of Hunter Gatherers as being well adapted to certain biological and geological conditions – and not as a less complex, less developed lifestyle we could falk back on. When the conditions are not met, we cannot fall back on them!
After any crash of BAU life will resemble more the first settlers in America than Hunter Gatherers.
cancer
Yes imagine no supply chains…no food … starvation …. spent fuel ponds.. cancer…
” spent fuel ponds”
No problem?
https://www.facebook.com/JoseBarbaNueva/posts/pfbid02LHk7C55cbtZy5naDu4prn3TbBTzQbEQyacjYjSmGSawQaLUyBMDSDHr6NktCyZzQl
There is no greater impotence in all the world like knowing you are right and that the wave of the world is wrong, yet the wave crashes upon you. – Norman Mailer
https://voiceforscienceandsolidarity.substack.com/p/all-that-glitters-is-not-gold
Geert Vanden Bossche explains that he came as an outsider (veterinarian, not at a prestigious medical school) and saw problems that insiders should have easily seen. But they were so convinced that lab results would carry over into real results in humans, that they could not see that what they were saying was probably wrong, in Geert’s opinion.
A guess:
Academic freedom is not present if your lab depends on grants which in turn allow one to publish results. It is a precarious existence. Also, the hours are hell.
Dennis L.
GvB has not been proved right yet.
Maybe his big die off will come, maybe not. Still too early to tell.
My bet is it won’t, unless additional bioweapons are injected into the mix.
He will be right — why else would they inject billions with Rat Juice that wrecks their immune system and makes them susceptible to a pathogen that can kill all of them
It’s that or population reduction. There seems little chance the intentions were benign.
Actually, if FE’s dire prediction were to come about, with 2.5 bn left (30-35% of 8.1 bn), that seems about enough to run ‘the system’. This includes dealing with the high-level nuclear waste and the ponds.
32 countries have nuclear power plants. Of these, only (small) Finland is implementing a detailed plan to dispose permanently of the nuclear waste (i.e. without further human intervention).
Luckily, the other ~170 countries never went for fission.
Nonsense – the global supply chains will collapse – everyone starves
The Guardian view on planetary boundaries: the Earth has limits and governments must act on them: Editorial
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/14/the-guardian-view-on-planetary-boundaries-the-earth-has-limits-and-governments-must-act-on-them
The limits to growth. Headline news?
Except that governments can’t really fix the problem. We are dealing with a physics problem. People don’t voluntarily kill themselves off to save other species. They tell narrative that allow people to think they are saving the world, when, in fact, the ecosystem will eventually dissipate any resources that are available.
Someone later will dissipate those resources. They will have to learn to do so so in a more efficient way than those who voluntarily quit earlier. It may take many years of evolution for this to happen, or perhaps some will happen soon.
Countries that use fossil fuels very sparingly can tolerate much higher fossil fuel prices than other countries. This gives an advantage to warm, wet countries not far from the equator in the later development of these resources.
“People don’t voluntarily kill themselves off to save other species”.
I wonder about that. It appears a large chunk of the populace has a nascent death wish derived from blind trust in whatever the narrative is.
Wear a mask and get your boosters, or sit in a trench in Ukraine. Not much difference.
If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”
– George S. Patton
Before, you had a village life with all those domestic animals, relatives in their little gardens, fields. The people lived connected with their environment.
Now you have sterile houses in a suburb, cars rushing to a high-tech factory, stupid sophisticated dog races all around, plastic inflated castles for children, pools.
All have become disconnected from the environment and connected to the internet.
It is a disgusting dead world with zombies that do not know nothing about the reality, except what they are told by the aggressive marketing and propaganda.
A perfect sterility.
MG,
Not all of modern life is bad, not all is disagreeable; earlier life was very hard and early death of some children was expected as was death from childbirth accepted as part of becoming a mother.
A frustration of mine is glamorizing life close to nature as well as seemingly celebrating an upcoming apocalypse which could be equally painful.
My personal motto is, “I will deal with it.” But that does not prevent me from looking forward a year and making a guess. Were I a Jew in 1930’s Germany and knowing well the history of my people becoming unwelcome at times, I would have moved with family ASAP. I do not fight what I cannot fix.
Dennis L.
To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire: they make a desolation and they call it peace. More colloquially: They rob, kill and plunder and deceivingly call it “Roman rule”, and where they make a desert, they call it “peace”.
Tacitus a Roman
Oh dear, if UKR still hopes to get support from countries for their cause then it is probably best not to dismiss countries as ‘thick non-whites anyway’. That is most of the world alienated, so who exactly has got the ‘low IQ’ there?
The UKR regime is openly wannabe Third Reich and it is still publicly sticking its foot in its mouth. NATO really could not give one and they will support anyone, jihadis, Third Reich wannabes, whoever, so long as it advances its own power.
Obviously western states are essentially consequentialist and power-seeking, which is a case of ‘whatever’. Deontology (rules-based ethics) is for the ‘plebs’ and propaganda. We are all informed adults here, so we are hardly surprised at that stance.
‘Low IQ’: Zelensky’s Aide Calls Indians Stupid; Mocks Chandrayaan-3 | Full Detail
The Ukrainian president’s adviser has made an insulting statement against Indians. Advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said India and China have weak intellectual potential. He claimed the two nations are unable to analyse the impact of their stand on the Ukraine war. Not just that, Podolyak even mocked India’s lunar mission, Chandrayaan-3. He said India might have landed on the moon, but that does not indicate that New Delhi can fully comprehend what the modern world is about. Watch this report for more.
This was an advisor to Zelensky who said these things. Perhaps the world is getting too connected by media. Maybe the advisor should stay out of public view.
It does sound like a very inadvisable thing to say about citizens of India and China.
Here’s something to Trump that.
Best bit of propaganda from Ukraine for a while: https://www.bitchute.com/video/J2jBgkOQ2SQn/
I think it’s OK to open the fridge door as usual several times a day, just don’t leave it open for long if elec is scarce. Most of the heat gains are via the fridge walls.
My Liebherr fridge-freezer (bought in late 2019, said to use 160 kWh per annum) beeps loudly and annoyingly if I leave the fridge or freezer door open too long when taking out or putting food in. It drives me mad as I was perfectly capable of making this decision myself.
Of course, in a power cut, when it becomes more important to keep the door closed, the beeper won’t work.
In my view, people should learn how to store 3-6 months of food which stays fresh without refrigeration. Freezer compartments can break down even if the electricity is ‘reliable’ which it probably won’t be in 2030/40.
Er … this was meant to be a reply to an earlier comment, not a new comment.
Ed,
I don’t have a clue, looked at this some years back. Farm has a nice, large side by side and, drum roll, chest freezer in the basement, very old, ticking away with a floor of gallon jugs of water, frozen for when there may be electrical outages.
Simple solution, sauerkraut; you like that stuff? Supposed to be good for your health. Alternative guess, the stuff is so terrible only those with exceptional genetics can survive it.
Disclaimer: my mom made sauerkraut, she grew up on a farm, became a school teacher at the insistence of her mom. Grandma also had a small electric stove placed next to the wood stove. This allowed the family to then live inside during the summer, otherwise, it was the summer kitchen with, drum roll, a wood stove.
It is a hard life. Oh, while there was a sink in the kitchen which drained into a ditch along the road, there was also a “slop” bucket next to the sink, emptied daily. Outhouse was a two holer, cozy, n’est pas? Maybe a 100′ walk from house, think winter, think high snow drifts, think drafts from the pit under the seats. Ah, later, my uncle brought some “new” toilet seats, no more sitting on a hole cut into wood boards as a seat.
Does this sound like something any of you would like? Proof of the genetics allowing one to eat sauerkraut, grandma made 100, paternal grandma, city mouse, made 101. My vote is for the city.
Starship is sounding better and better.
Dennis L.
Don’t forget energy inputs on the other side of food preparation and /or preservation as with canning. With canning, you use the energy to heat, whether gas or electric, while it is available and “reasonably” priced. My first experiments with pressure cooking chicken from 2 and a half years are working splendidly, and am now about to start adding back to the stash.
Thus,with canning/pressure cooking, your expenses for the container, contents, and food preparation (cooking) are prepaid and you don’t have to resort to chopping and splitting firewood in the middle of a food or energy supply disruption. Unless of course you live up north and routinely heat your house with firewood in which case cooking your food can go along for the ride. But you certainly don’t want to be cooking with wood in the middle of the summer event using up what you had planned to use for heating during the winter. And if you live in the south, you probably don’t have much firewood stacked for heating anyway.
But watch it, someone will try to steal your firewood. Happened to me in college in Vermont and even this spring here in NC, some guy was trying to load his pickup truck with my freshly cut wood from the huge branches I had cut to clear the driveway and parking lot.
I think we might see this kind of behavior in Europe if they get a colder than usual winter this year, in contrast to having lucked out last year with a very mild winter. But it could be a “good news and bad news” catch -22 for the Europeans if they have a harsh winter. The good news is the storage tanks will be filled up close to 100% capacity by the beginning of winter. The bad news is the total storage capacity is very small.
Let’s take another look …
https://i.insider.com/64e654534c17ff0019bb5281
The thing that makes it look cheap are the cables going upward. I would guess they are to pull on the rover to simulate lunar gravity. Too test traction under lunar gravity. It look fine to me.
Crossing the Rubicon . $ 100 per barrel is here . Quo Vadis ? After me the deluge .
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-09-14/oil-markets-for-saudi-arabia-100-a-barrel-is-already-here?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=energy&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-energy
From the article:
The other reason seems to be the location in the world, and the extent to which the Far East is starved for fuel. Differentials among the various fuels are changing. WTI has been lower than Brent for a long time, partly because the US market has been fairly well supplied. It is the Asian market and the diesel market that are particularly short of the oil types they need.
Anecdotal only:
Gasoline is more expensive than diesel/gal where I live.
Dennis L.
Are you sure about that?🤔 I think diesel is more every where
My error, checked web, must have read it wrong.
Same old syndrome, but the latest version of it: prices for the existing supply get bid up until they reach “affordability” limits?
Pound that inflation drum!!!
Let’er rip
Clean, green EVs are the answer (and lots of solar panels of course).
What was the question again?
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/09/10/lithium-deposit-in-extinct-nevada-volcano-could-be-largest-in-the-world/
It seems we’re going to get to the pt where EVs could possibly be favorable to ICe.
This can/might save a lot of petrol.
But what about the issues pointed out below?
I can see smaller EVs in cities to mitigate those issues.
I’m not sure why the talk is to go 100% because the transition will be slowly insteps.
If problems that are encountered along the way are insurmountable then the experiment is over.
What’s the biggest hurdle? The grid?
The grid is a big issue. Getting all of the different resources to make the cars, including the batteries, is another issue. The US does not have enough fossil fuels for heavy manufacturing, for example. Keeping the roads paved is another issue.
Agree Totally:
“The US does not have enough fossil fuels for heavy manufacturing, for example. ”
One reason we may have outsourced manufacturing was to reduce pollution which we have done, pollution costs were externalized.
Now, assuming Starship works, begin manufacturing in space, use energy in space where the difference between 2.7 degrees kelvin and say 1000 is a gold reflector; gold collected directly from an asteroid which is drifting debris from a star gone bang, skip the mining, digging a hole and dragging it out of a gravity well.
I am not a rabid environmentalist, but the risk is greater than the reward, being wrong too many times destroys the only spaceship which works and flies faster than anything we can ever build or for that matter slow down unless one wants a “flyby.”
We are getting the tools just in time, we will learn to live with them and then politicians can have a wonderful time trying to decide who gets what when everyone has enough. It will be the old question, “What does one get someone who has everything?”
There is an alternative, the life I am reading about in the “Ancient City”, a woman leaves her birth family, moves in with a man after marriage and adopts the god of the house which is the patriarchy. It is apparently how it was only a few thousand years ago, seconds in universe time, a time pre industrialization, pre fossil fuels other than a tree branch.
Dennis L.
Forget low slung heavy battery cars the time is coming for the range rover. Sturdy, jacked up high, large tires, fueled by light weight liquid fuels.
We have forgotten the need for cars to be high off the ground to get around ruts. They also need the extra power that liquid fuels can give to get them out when they are stuck.
“There is huge idle capacity in the grid at night. This is when electricity is cheapest too, if you’re on time-of-use pricing. And this is when most people plug in their EVs at home, at their condo and apartment garages, and I now see EV chargers in hotel parking lots. To take advantage of the idle capacity in the grid at night is a massive trend, and utilities love it, and only anti-EV morons haven’t figured it out yet. You can see this in San Francisco, where the electrical grid isn’t all that great either, but EV penetration is already huge, with zero problems for the grid. EV are everywhere here.”?
https://wolfstreet.com/2023/09/12/tesla-price-cuts-followed-by-other-automakers-plus-surging-incentives-hammer-down-average-transaction-prices-after-toxic-spike/
ENERGYWhat Electricity Sources Power the World?Published 3 days ago on September 10, 2023By Chris DickertGraphics/Design:Sam Parker
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/electricity-sources-by-fuel-in-2022/
35% coal,
23% natural gas
15% hydroelectric
Over three-quarters of the world’s total coal-generated electricity is consumed in just three countries. China is the top user of coal, making up 53.3% of global coal demand, followed by India at 13.6%, and the U.S. at 8.9%.
Burning coal—for electricity, as well as metallurgy and cement production—is the world’s single largest source of CO2 emissions. Nevertheless, its use in electricity generation has actually grown 91.2% since 1997, the year when the first global climate agreement was signed in Kyoto, Japan.
But how you get the mechanical energy is where things get complicated: coal powered the first industrial revolution, but heated the planet in the process; wind is free and clean, but is unreliable; and nuclear fission reliably generates emission-free electricity, but also creates radioactive waste.
Wood harvested by horse power is carbon neutral and renewable. Just reduce the number of humans to match.
Ed,
Reduction will be a result of carbon neutrality, TINA. Personally, I do not wish to watch even from a distance.
Dennis L.
I will live it out (hopefully) in the belly of the beast, 100 miles north of the Empire State building.
I value my skill with the English language and can not see moving to somewhere where that does not speak English where I would sound like a brain damaged eight year old.
Except for about four weeks in the deep of winter the climate is moderate. For winter we have thermal underwear, gloves, hats, coats (indoors) and blankets. I am 1/8th native to this land we survived without fossil fuels before we will again. My wife is 1/2 Swedish she can handle winter. Thank G_d she is not like my crazy Polish grandmother who opened the windows for sleeping on winter nights. Though she does like to open the window 2 inches all the time.
I would quite like to be the local school teacher at the one room school house. The old school house is a one mile walk from my house. It may be the “new” school house. Right next to the general store, the only store.
DelusiSTAN …
“13 April 2019 ·
Countries that have not burned coal have almost no cancer. Countries that have burned coal will pay for it for thousands of years to come as the Radioactive Particulate is in the soil. From the soil it gets into your food and dust that you breath in as well as liquids that you drink. “?
https://www.facebook.com/JoseBarbaNueva/posts/10218060001069075
China Conjures a Glut of Coal as Record Imports Swell Supply
Market relatively oversupplied heading into the colder months
Worsening quality, mine accidents and drop in yuan pose risks
By Bloomberg News
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-14/china-conjures-a-glut-of-coal-as-record-imports-swell-supply#xj4y7vzkg
September 13, 2023 at 9:28 PM EDT
This time last year, Chinese coal prices were soaring as power plants scrambled for supplies after an historic drought caused hydropower output to collapse.
The market for China’s mainstay fuel today is far more sedate. Although prices have crept higher in recent weeks, record imports and the impact of a fragile economy on consumption are likely to cap costs heading into the next period of peak demand over the winter. But that’s not to say pressure points on supply won’t emerge.
Coal Fired Power Plant in Jiayuguan
China Weighing Ways to Ease Coal Reliance, Canada Minister Says
CHINA-ECONOMY-TRADE
China’s Share of US Imports Falls to Lowest Since 2006
CANADA-US-CHINA-COURT-POLITICS-HUAWEI
Huawei Times New Product Gala for Anniversary of CFO’s Release
Poland’s Belchatow Open-Pit Coal Mine And Power Plant
Coal Exit Gets Tricky for Owner of EU’s Dirtiest Power Plant
Bloomberg has a paywall now…but coal is big news now
A chart in the article shows that coal prices are way down. This will likely hurt future production.
There is a real problem with coal, in terms of rising price as resources deplete. At the higher prices, industry can’t afford the coal, and demand falls.
I expect that falling prices for coal will bring down supplies, in the same way that low oil prices will bring down oil supply.
SINGAPORE/JAKARTA, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Environmental groups have submitted a formal complaint to the World Bank for providing financial support for two coal-fired power plants in Indonesia, violating a pledge to stop backing fossil fuels.
The World Bank’s private sector subsidiary, the International Financial Corporation (IFC), is an indirect backer of the Suralaya coal-fired power complex via its equity investment in Hana Bank Indonesia, one of the project’s financiers, a coalition of green groups said on Thursday.
The Suralaya plant – already the largest in southeast Asia – has eight units in operation. Plans to build two more would emit 250 million tons of climate-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the groups said a letter to World Bank compliance ombudsman Janine Ferretti.
“Harm to local communities, including the forced eviction of those who were living on the project site, is already occurring,” said the letter, sent on behalf of local grassroots organisations by Inclusive Development International, a U.S. non-governmental organisation.
More, more, more…How do You Like It. 1976. Andrea True…my High School Grad Year
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DM15USzsYeA&pp=ygUmbW9yZSBtb3JlIG1vcmUgYW5kcmVhIHRydWUgY29ubmVjdGlvbnM%3D
This hit never gets old…thank you Andrea RIP…so much good times back then DISCO
Speaking of nostalgia, I guess this is our SOS for fossil fuels which is the only thing that can save us. (If Pete Townshend of The Who loved this song, then it’s not just me)
“Supa dupa” was their best song
From a rational point of view, this is a valid option.
The question is what will happen with such a request. Maybe the answer, if there is any, will be quite different from the expectations and there are a lot of dependencies to solve.
Not to speak of a lot of prerequisites.
Western society is broke (e.g. finance, constitutional state, moral values) and the planet is home not only to humans (we destroy other life on this planet as well, not just ours).
Who wants this to continue? Without change? Without reason? Without empathy for other life?
prefect musical choice.
I don’t know the details of how the World Bank operates, but it sounds to me as if it follows the belief system of the West. This suggests that OECD countries have a huge influence on what decisions are made.
The belief that coal must be dropped increasingly makes no sense. The G20 did not endorse any saying to this effect at its meeting this year, because China, Russia, and India are not of this belief. Indonesia is a major coal exporter. Indonesia should be able to borrow from someone else to fund the coal plants, if they make economic sense.
Nothing that Western Institutions do make any sense from a rational perspective.
Good video by Martyanov about the delusions of Western elites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgyrws1sDgs&pp=ygULc21vb3RoaWV4MTI%3D
“We’re the carbon they want to reduce”.
As I have posted before, there are no political, constitutional ,or legal remedies for addressing our situation; that is, how do we deal with our civilization which is like a candle burning at both ends- from resource/energy depletion and from debt?
Right now we are missing 4 critical things which are “controlled.”:
1)Honest money, 2.)Honest media, 3.) Honest elections and 4.) Rule of law, so we have nothing to work with in addressing the basic issues of overpopulation and energy/natural resource depletion (which follow the laws of nature), and our monetary/debt situation ( man made and having emerged from the onset of specialization, trade, and the need for money as a medium of exchange and store of value).
So forget about peaceful protests, voting out the politicians, attending town meetings etc. That is part of the disinformation mantra to give people false hope and string us along. The goal is to destabilize countries. Immigration, degradation of education, family, moral values, society, race war, debt, censorship, CBDC, NSA and CIA spying, and fear mongering hoaxes like climate change, pandemics, and terrorism,
Only a total collapse at this point will reverse this. It will probably be worse until the world becomes decentralized, if ever, to the point that we go back to traditional smaller European type regional and tribal conflicts instead of World Wars. Not to say that what follows will be any better. Kind of like Robespierre’s Reign of Terror following the French Revolution. Well, at all times, we still have a “choice.”
But from someone who puts it more “diplomatically” or “less hysterically” than I who hides in the shadows with my dark opinions, when it gets down to the nitty gritty- about those 4 things:
https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/how-jewish-is-the-war-against-russia/
Hu bb I had not thought of it but you are right without those four items it is impossible to deal with over population, peak oil/energy, end of this fiat money cycle.
So, WAR it is.
Where will the US get bullets? We have supposedly shot our wad, metaphorically speaking of course.
Dennis L.
I naively believe the military is smart enough not to send materials needed by the US, only old stock. But even if the good stuff is gone there are bio-weapons the weapon for the low energy age, nuclear weapons the weapon for all ages.
Hi Dennis. I think it will boil down to either a stalemate with drawn out attritional series of smaller scale proxy wars with no clear winner or in the alternative, a capitulation banzai suicide nuclear war. Nothing in between as far as traditional nation state against nation state wars of the past as the energy and materials will limit these to a self limiting war like WWI which would have ended in exhaustion by both sides had it not been for the late US intervention in 1917. Both sides would have signed a more equitable and realistic truce without the U.S.
The difference this time around over 110 years later is that there is no one left to tip the scales like the US did in 1917. While Russia can certainly produce enough weapons and ammo to mount an impregnable defense, especially with logistics proximity to its borders, it realizes that projecting a truly offensive war to capture territory beyond a buffer zone of UKR west of the Dnieper would be too costly. Too bad the US neocons and NATO don’t see things this way, but they still think short of a nuclear exchange, a war of attrition can somehow still be won by NATO. Of course the profit motive and kickbacks by the MIC to the politicians and bankers feed the madness. Probably more of the same with Taiwan against China. No more clear “winners” via major conventional wars in the past but a state of perpetual limited war. Assange is correct. So by definition, wars will be increasingly limited by shortages weapons and energy and without clear “winners” except for the few bankers and MIC
But the last thing I need is civilian ammo here in the US. But I hate to think if it boils down to which civilians here in the US have enough ammo, not how much is available for war overseas. Oh the irony of getting a taste of our own medicine. Anyway check back in ten years. I may be dead by then, but it will be very interesting to see who is standing and whether it depended on having enough ammo.
Mr Hubbs. You have really been “smokin'” this & last OFW. Good thinking/writing.
(New York daily)
the absence of discussion or any debate outside the so called western countries on the dangers of AI is much suspect for me.
I can’t believe that some countries understand the problem and some others are so stupid that they don’t even understand the problem.
My guess is that western countries are trying to convince their public that it is necessary to accept a sort of ‘democratic supervisory power’ on AI, in order to control AI.
That of course in order to avoid that AI will do something that it could be not in line with what the élite group wants.
While on the other side of the alignment, countries like China, Russia, Iran, India and so on, they don’t need to open a fake discussion, because they will directly control AI without creating any ‘democratic supervisory power’.
But that could create a good excuse to put sanctions on countries or ostracize them if they don’t protect citizens with ‘democratic supervisory powers’ in the same scheme for human rights or for regular democratic elections.
Maybe we are we are witnessing the birth of a sort of UN nations for AI.
”Elon Musk warns there’s a chance ‘AI will kill us all”
https://www.nydailynews.com/2023/09/13/elon-musk-warns-artificial-intelligence-risk/
AI seems like a way of recirculating what the mainstream media is saying, endlessly, regardless of how ridiculous it is.
It all depends on what information the AI model is given.
FE is a schizoid AI bot for sure.
The insane UK Energy Bill, which allows someone from your power supplier the legal right to enter your home and install a smart meter by force, has even more draconian clauses than that.
It gives the government the power to ban non-smart appliances. Presumably to allow people’s washing machines and fridges to be switched off remotely.
Hopefully the economy will soon be in too much of a mess for the government to force smart hoovers on people.
I have noticed that in places where people don’t regularly have electricity, they don’t have refrigeration (Palestine and India, for example). If the UK starts regularly having outages, a refrigerator won’t be much good. A person will need to shop much more often, and eating meat will be more of a luxury.
Maybe this is just preparation.
Treadle sewing machines are popular if electricity may not be available.
We need to start getting ready for the change.
My mother had an old treadle sewing machine that she relegated to the shed. I’m sure the scrap man took it for the iron.
Well if we are going to have regular power outages I won’t be able to do my job which relies on a laptop and wi-fi. I suppose that will give me more time to traipse to the shops every day and hand wash the clothes in a tub.
I learned to sew on a treadle sewing machine. In fact, I would prefer one of them to the kind I had later.
Strange, my mother always felt her treadle sewed better than her “new” electric. She made all her own clothes and some of my father’s and mine.
Dennis L.
I have one sitting not two feet from me right now. Of course I tend to mend clothes with repurposed fishing line and an industrial sized wool sacking needle.
Well of course. I didn’t imagine you’d be sewing frilly lace dresses.
Cro,
Way to go, laughing quietly.
Dennis L.
I remember the day our first refrigerator arrived, and our first colour teevee, and our first telephone, and the day when the gas man called to convert us to natural gas,and toasting our bread or muffins on the grille of the paraffin stove, and the day we moved into a flat with a bathtub. And I remember washing clothes in the sink and squeezing them dry in the mangle.
I don’t remember head-lice or chilblains or walking to school in bare feet, but the parents and grandparents told tales about that.
G*d, we had it tough. But you tell that to young people these days and they DON’T believe you!
To be honest I would prefer coping with intermittency and low energy to all this draconian smart appliance nonsense.
I mean in what universe do they think everyone in the UK is going to buy a smart fridge? They are £1500 at minimum. Who has £1500 to spend on a fridge?
The lack of electricity has to look like a planned thing. It isn’t something to be afraid of.
very good approach. I buy it 🙂
But when people realise that they are no longer able to switch their washing machine on, they are still going to be upset about it.
I don’t think the whole net zero charade is going to assuage people’s fury.
In fact it might make people even more angry if they think there is enough energy for a comfortable existence but they can’t have it because the eco loons said so.
1500?
I can order a fridge/freezer right now from Amazon for 200 or so euros.
Heck, I could get two or three and still come out winning.
Why does anyone need a smart fridge exactly?
And if they’re trying to make these things mandatory why hasn’t the entire UK risen up and turfed these freaks out of office?
People haven’t risen up because they don’t know anything about it yet. The bill has just been passed by Parliament (only a handful of MPs voted against).
It is 427 pages long. It has 15 parts and 330 separate provisions (many of which have lots of sub-provisions), not to mention another supplementary 22 schedules.
Only a couple of fringe publications have covered it.
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/09/12/the-energy-bill-2023-and-the-fusion-of-technology-and-law/
Oh I see. Good luck pushing back on all this abuse of power. I imagine the worm will turn at some point but people have become too comfortable. They’re like pets.
Why does anyone need a smart fridge exactly?
Well, you might forget that you are running out of butter?
Or Hellman’s real mayonnaise?
that was the question Ted Bundy asked himself
then look what happened when no one had invented them back then
It would be an uprising against depletion and entropy. Protests arent going to put the oil, gas and coal we burned back in the ground.
A well-insulated fridge-freezer will stay cold enough for about a day, anyway, when the elec goes off. This chap developed a simple way to turn these appliances off or on according to the supply of wind or solar power
http://davidhirst.com/electricity/index.html
However, he died before it could be commercialised (the website’s dated 2013).
Isn’t there a problem with opening the door?
Dennis l.
I read an article about converting a chest freezer into a refrigerator. I imagine it would be able to coast without power for longer times due to the way the door works and the thicker insulation in the walls.
You could convert it in a coffin… as family members die of starvation stuff them in
On a similar vein, rented a truck yesterday, couldn’t figure out how to get an odometer let alone a trip odometer to display.
There is so much useless, distracting information now; it is not helpful. I did get a message about some sort of tracking now working and I should service it now; intermittent so I assumed when the warning was off it was right and when on it was wrong, I had an appointment.
Truck made the voyage and UHaul has a service problem with a truck that was checked out with less than 5K miles, for those who could find the odometer.
Dennis L.
I think you’re imagining a world where if you don’t have a smart meter or smart fridge the electricity somehow stays on. It won’t.
you had it tough?
we we a family of 10—living in a shoebox—for which a lid was 3d a week extra on the rent
the shoebox was in the gutter, so was washed away each morning by the street cleaners, which made us homeless for the rest of the day until we could get hold of a new box
all children over 5 had to work 28 hours a day down t’pit—for which they got 6d a week, with deductions of a shilling a week to pay for air. (otherwise we had to breathe methane)
but at least we got to share a canary each day for lunch
children under 5 were sold to chimney sweeps for a shilling each until the were of working / reproductive age
dont talk to me about tough
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o’clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing ‘Hallelujah.’
But you try and tell the young people today that… and they won’t believe ya.
You had a bed? I could only dream of such a thing.
Dennis L.
You had dreams?!
We counted ourselves lucky to have nightmares!
Tell the young’uns that when you were young you had to go find a pay phone if you wanted call someone while you were not at home!
we had two tin cans and a piece of string and thought ourselves technologically advanced
Gail, what are you and your family doing to prepare for the change?
We are doing what we can to see the world and enjoy our family now, while we can.
I try to make friends wherever I go, and talk to people as much as possible, about all kinds of things–mostly how things are going for them. I talk to neighbors I see out walking, and I get acquainted with a few people I meet at the gym.
My husband and I have volunteer positions at the church we attend, which puts us in contact with others, and may have some direct connections with things I write about. For example, I am on the finance committee at church.
I write articles on OurFiniteWorld.com and occasionally give talks to try to explain what is happening to others.
I have figured out that we cannot expect funds that are in the bank to be there for the long term. Also pension plans cannot really be expected to pay out money that can be used very much for the long term. So that frees me up from thinking that “saving for tomorrow” is really a solution. Instead, I know that I need to either use what I have today, or use it in ways that might benefit others.
I also have figured out (from limited attempts) that growing food for me and my family cannot work. I have crossed that off my list of future solutions. Do-it-yourself solutions will not yield enough food for the effort (and investment) involved. Our system is designed for fossil fuel use. Working around it will not work for me and my family.
There seems to be an Invisible Hand, or Higher Power, guiding what is going on. I grew up believing in Heaven. I don’t know what is ahead, but it could very well be heaven. I am not afraid of what is ahead. Somehow, my life has all fit together in a way that gives me insight into what is happening. I expect that there is not a great deal I can do to change the trajectory the world is on. I just take the next step, as it seems to be revealed to me.
So I really have not stored up food/water/diesel/solar panels to plan for the future, and I have not purchased an EV. My husband and I have vehicles we would prefer (he has a hybrid, mine is a crossover SUV), but we drive them very little. We take the plane a lot, and make use of Uber in strange cities.
What money we have is diversely invested. I do have some gold and silver, but also bank accounts, an annuity, and certificates of deposit.
The Atlanta area may be as sustainable as any within the US. We could get along without heating during the summer, and we could also almost get along without heat in winter. (Pipes might need to drip in very cold weather.) So perhaps that is a plus, if part of the US collapses. The city of Atlanta is quite small compared to the suburbs, and they are fairly different. I don’t know how that will work out. The area is well supplied with water.
Thank you for that thoughtful reply! It gives us some perspective as we all must make decisions how to live going forward.
I suggest you store freeze dried food for six months and stored water for six months.
I would not want to have any food on hand when the Die Off is in play… that only makes you a target for the bad guys that survive the initial extermination…
What one really wants is Super Fent… when the starvation is kicking in … mix it into a glass of water… and drift away.
Nobody survives… the only goal is to die with the least amount of suffering
Georgia Power Co. announced Monday that Unit 3 at Plant Vogtle, southeast of Augusta, has completed testing and is now in commercial operation, seven years late and $17 billion over budget.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/american-nuclear-reactor-built-scratch-decades-enters-commercial-101861665
Then there is the cancer….a terrible way to die
Thank you Gail. Beautiful response. Hope you are enjoying the grandchild visit🤗
I’m glad you liked my response.
One thing you might notice is that OurFiniteWorld.com is free. I pay for the site not to have ads. I don’t ask for contributions or subscriptions. I don’t have a book to sell.
This is one of my contributions to society.
Mrs S, there is another component to the smart-everything beyond being switched off, which is even more pernicious: total surveillance. Everything around you will be reporting when you’re awake, what room you’re in, who you spend time with, what you say, watch on tv or the computer, what you read and ideas you’re exposed to, what plans you make, etc.
Phones, Roombas and routers all have that capability. Not entirely sure how it benefits any of these “spies” exactly, but it’s certainly useful to know.
I guess knowing where people spend most of their time in their houses or which appliances they use and so on is useful to someone somewhere in more ways than meets the eye.
Routers don’t have microphones and most people don’t have roombas. However, everyone has appliances and smart-crap will be designed from the get-go for cloud connectivity and uploads. Gradually smart-crap will be increasingly voice-activated (audio recording) and many devices will incorporate video recording as well.
I meant the ability to map an area using microwave radiation and even in some cases to detect movement.
Everyone has phones though and they are wonderful surveillance devices.
Pretty sure you can pick up sound in other ways without using microphones but I’d have to dig that up to be sure.
ivan,
Is it possible there will be no one to enforce the rules? Who will read them? Here in the states a governor ordered some sort of gun restrictions, the sheriff simply ignored the governor. Perhaps she will enter the town and enforce them herself?
Rules will not turn on electricity, I am wondering how the Amish deal with this issue, no electricity.
Dennis L.
With digital control systems (what payment card transactions are processed, where your EV is allowed to drive, what plane and train tickets you can buy, whether you get electricity), enforcement is digital and remote.
We were given a choice and everyone of course chose smart meters. Some houses are lucky and have them installed relatively far from the building. Soon after I had mine installed I was cut off. Had to call the provider, go out to the meter with a torch (it was pitch black), press some buttons in the right order etc to be allowed back into the club. My crime? I had one too many powerful appliances switched on and had gone over some limit. Which had never happened before of course.
Smart everything will be the death of us.
Why on earth did everyone choose smart meters?
Half of households in the UK are holding out against smart meters. Which I assume is why they have introduced the Energy Bill which allows people to be fined £15,000 or sent to prison for refusing to have one.
Well… probably because we know how these things end!
And… convenience.
If people kept their old analogue meters someone would have to come round to read it periodically. There was a small rental fee too. That’s enough to tip people into the new bucket.
But just knowing that these things always end up moving forward and the controllers always get their way by applying pressure means that most people don’t even bother resisting anymore.
Even the phone company is asking for selfies and digital ID to improve “security.” I ignored the message but will probably have to comply at some point if I want to stay online.
At the end of this month, I have to renew my ID card with the local police which means handing over all my biometric data including face scan and fingerprints. Probably a voice print too by now. All shared with the National Guard.
And this will be added to the file that is kept on every citizen in this wonderful country.
Welcome to Spain.
How depressing.
It looks looks like Spain got a brief window of liberty between Franco and the current Globotechnofascism.
OPEC Slams The IEA Over Peak Fossil Fuel Demand Claims
By Charles Kennedy – Sep 14, 2023 Oi Price.com
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/OPEC-Slams-The-IEA-Over-Peak-Fossil-Fuel-Demand-Claims.amp.html
OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais also commented on the IEA’s projections and claims, noting that “Such narratives only set the global energy system up to fail spectacularly. It would lead to energy chaos on a potentially unprecedented scale, with dire consequences for economies and billions of people across the world.”
OPEC and its biggest members including Saudi Arabia have been warning for years that a rushed energy transition without security of conventional supply, and the underinvestment in the oil and gas industry, would lead to chaos and shortages of supply.
Peak demand…that’s a joke…never mind the majority of folks in the world hardly make use of oil….or toilet paper, or foot wear….or so many other modern conveniences we all take for granted…
I had to walk a paper route until I saved enough myself to buy my first bike.
Poor me….still walking 6 to 9 miles a day today at age 65.
Suppose it wasn’t so determental to my upbringing after all….
(Il Paragone)
Dr. Fernando Lunedì explains on a TV interview that long Covid is caused by Covid jabs and it is related on how many jabs one has received and of which typology.
Dr. Fernando Lunedì is in charge of INI Center for Long Covid based in Rome.
https://www.ilparagone.it/attualita/long-covid-lunedi-vaccino-intervista-tgr-lazio-rai-rosario-carello-ini-citta-bianca/
p.s. INI Center for Long Covid is well-known and it has been nominated for the “Oscars” of European healthcare.
https://www.ciociariaoggi.it/news/cronaca/218088/gruppo-ini-candidato-agli-aoscara-della-sanita-privata-europea
This is disturbing. Excess covid vaccine therapy, instead.
“Battery cell prices plunge in August, close to tipping point for the end of ICE vehicles
The price of battery cells has plunged in the last month, taking it below a key benchmark for the first time in two years, and close to the “tipping point” where the price of battery-powered EVs can match that of internal combustion engine cars.
According to leading analysts Benchmark Lithium, the global weighted average price of lithium ion battery cells fell 8.7 per cent in August, taking it below the $US100/kWh mark for the first time since August, 2021.
It is now priced at $98.2/kWh, a 33 per cent drop from the recent high in March last year of $US146.4/kWh, and is the result of a drop in key commodity prices, including lithium, nickel and cobalt.
Importantly, it is now not far from the $US80/kWh cell price that is crucial to delivering a $US100/kWh battery pack – the level that is considered a tipping point because it will allow EV makers to build electric cars that cost the same as petrol and diesel alternatives.”?
https://reneweconomy.com.au/battery-cell-prices-plunge-in-august-close-to-tipping-point-for-the-end-of-ice-vehicles/
insuring EV’s will be their death. They are too prone to bursting into flames and insurance companies know it. Slightly injure a battery and it is a liability.
Therefore small accidents will cost a fortune, even to ICE owners at fault in the accident.
We will see how this all works out. People won’t want a car that bursts into flames in their garage. It will be impossible to generate enough electricity for all of these vehicles.
Impossible except in Norway. It has a trillion US $ in the bank from, er … oil sales.
Population of Norway = 5 million.
Population of world = 8,000 million.
Ratio 1,600 to 1.
It is stupid for countries to put money in the bank, so to speak, in this way. The first thing to do with net surplus is to build the generational infrastructure and housing investments so the next generation doesn’t have to. If there is still surplus, then there are options.
“The first thing to do with net surplus is to build the generational infrastructure and housing investments so the next generation doesn’t have to.”
You mean like China?
How’s that going for them?
Once you build stuff you have to spend a lot to maintain it.
And people need to keep finding a use for it otherwise it will just be abandoned.
Yet the push to buy EVs continues… this is a signal that we are in the late stages of this game… they would not push this nonsense.. if we weren’t
There was an incident the other day at the Sydney Airport in Australia. A rented EV had hit an iron bar or something on the road. This had managed to puncture the battery pack. Someone had removed some of it, and left it out in the rain… which then caused a short. The ensuing battery fire burnt through several other cars around it.
Once these fires get started, they are nearly impossible to put out. Apparently they were quick to put this one out, so it didnt get to thermal runaway.
But there is the issue with all of this. If you get into a fender bender with an EV…. what are the chances just one battery cell being ruptured? Better be safe than sorry, and replace the whole lot.
If you happen to own a Rivian, that will cost you. There was a story floating around about a Rivian accident which essentially meant a new Rivian needing to be provided. That cost someone $140,000 USD to do. What was interesting however, is that the cost to produce a Rivian is currently $230,000. This is because of the battery expense mostly. This company won’t be around long.
Imagine if this happened on a Ferry somewhere? That entire Ferry would be engulfed in flames if there were several EVs parked together…. with the passengers breathing in Hydrofluoric acid and other deadly poisons being produced from the high heat cobalt and lithium fire.
When this happens at some point (Fremantle Highway was just a warm up), I wonder if anyone will talk about just why?
1. Perhaps that is what caused Building 7 to fall … an EV was parked in the basement????
2. Post this stuff here … and watch Wolf emerge from his lair screaming insults at you … cuz that’s what he does when you disagree with him (he’s a big fan of EVs and loves Rivian) https://wolfstreet.com/2023/09/12/tesla-price-cuts-followed-by-other-automakers-plus-surging-incentives-hammer-down-average-transaction-prices-after-toxic-spike/
(Al Arabya + Pravda Ukraine)
US is particularly active on a specific aspect lately…
“US diverting military aid from Egypt to Lebanon: Official. This demonstrates the [Biden] administration’s unwavering commitment to supporting the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF),” a US official told Al Arabiya English.”
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2023/09/14/US-diverting-military-aid-from-Egypt-to-Lebanon-Official
“US, Saudi forces complete Red Sands 23.2 joint military drill”
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/saudi-arabia/2023/09/13/US-Saudi-forces-complete-Red-Sands-23-2-joint-military-drill
“US bolsters military ties with Armenia, irking Russia. State Department officials said “Eagle Partner 2023” was pre-planned and not a reaction to any specific event or situation.”
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2023/09/13/US-bolsters-military-ties-with-Armenia-irking-Russia
“US approves $5 bn sale of fighter jets to South Korea”
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2023/09/14/US-approves-5-bn-sale-of-fighter-jets-to-South-Korea
“NATO Baltic Sea drills focus for first time on high-end warfare eying Russia’s war”
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2023/09/11/NATO-Baltic-Sea-drills-focus-for-first-time-on-high-end-warfare-eying-Russia-s-war
“Romania and US to conduct exercises with Ukraine in Black Sea and Danube Delta”
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/09/8/7419026/
More and more US war. Can the US really afford it? How will the September 30 budget shutdown negotiations go?
Simple guess:
They will inflate and the trick will be matching assets, liabilities to income and avoiding liquidity issues.
Dennis L.
Heh,heh, heh…see Edwin…it’s all here for everyone to believe
https://www.businessinsider.com/india-vikram-lunar-lander-moon-discoveries-2023-9?amp
India’s moon lander is the first to study the lunar south pole region up close. Here are 5 scientific discoveries it has already made.
Grace Eliza Goodwin and Maiya Focht; edited by Jessica Orwig Sep 13, 2023, 4:09 PM
In August, India became the first country to successfully land near the moon’s south pole.
Since touchdown, the moon lander and rover have already made some important discoveries.
The various suite of scientific instruments on board has found sulfur and even a possible moonquake.
It’s not just sulfur — in preliminary analyses, Pragyan has also detected the presence of aluminum, calcium, iron, chromium, and titanium. And ISRO said that it’s also hunting for the presence of hydrogen.
The rover’s discoveries could help scientists figure out how to mine water on the moon, an advancement that would be critical for future lunar bases.
After all, the lunar poles are some of the most water-rich regions on the moon. They contain enough water ice to fill at least 240,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, per The Planetary Society.
Vikram has also measured the soil temperature near the lunar south pole both on the surface and underground, for the first time. The probe measured 3 inches into the soil, and found it was about 140 degrees F colder than at the surface.
Another device on the Vikram lander called the Langmuir probe, which helps characterize plasma, has been able to measure the density and temperature of the moon’s ionosphere for the first time, Nature reported.
Oh Wow… This!
https://i.insider.com/64e654534c17ff0019bb5281?width=1000&format=jpeg&auto=webp
Amazing! Looks like a school science project.
Same folks who made that… made the lunar module with all the bits hanging loose and the duct tape…
hahhaahahaha
norm … do you think this is right this moment crawling around the moon????
https://i.insider.com/64e654534c17ff0019bb5281
hahahaha… Clown Werld
Wow..another discovery
Scientists finally confirm what’s inside the Moon – and it’s not cheese
That’s one mystery about the Moon we can take off of the list.
Fermin Koop by Fermin Koop September 12, 2023 in News, Space
Edited and reviewed by Mihai Andrei
https://www.zmescience.com/space/what-is-inside-moon-interior/
India’s Chandrayaan-3, which touched down on the moon in August 2023, has detected the first lunar quake in over 50 years. However, the researchers at Côte d’Azur University in France didn’t have access to this data when they first embarked on this study, so they had to rely on old Apollo-era data. The challenge is that ancient data is low-resolution by today’s standard — too poor to determine the lunar core’s state.
Seeking a way forward, the researchers gathered additional data from space missions and lunar laser ranging experiments and created a profile of the moon’s features. This includes its density and variation in its distance from Earth, among other things. They then did modeling with different core types to find which matched best the observational data.
The Moon’s surprising structure
Studying the inner composition of objects in the Solar System is best done through seismic data. Seismic waves (which are essentially acoustic waves) propagate differently through different materials. So these waves generated by moonquakes can reveal the inner structure of the moon, depending on what they’re passing through. The end result is a sort of geological X-ray.
The researchers also found that the lunar core is very similar to that of the Earth, with an outer fluid layer and a solid inner core. The core is about 500 kilometers in diameter, or 15% of the Moon’s width. Curiously, back in 2011, a team led by NASA scientists found a similar result using seismological techniques on Apollo data to study the lunar core. The fact that the two studies line up using two different techniques lends more credibility to this conclusion.
While the finding brings some light to the moon’s structure, there are still many more mysteries that remain unsolved, such as what happened to its magnetic field. Not long after it formed, the moon had a powerful magnetic field, which then began to decline about 3.2 billion years ago. The field was generated by motion and convection in the core.
What a school science project! It’s a great time to be alive
Wow — they were able to do all of that .. with this…. https://i.insider.com/64e654534c17ff0019bb5281
And the world believes it!!!
hahahahaha
https://youtu.be/NitxnjD1I_s
Clown World Dwellers… do you now see what we mean when we say cnnbbc is playing you???? They have been doing it for a long long time…
Surely you can now see????
norm – what are your thoughts on that India moon landing?
keith?????
Ha…Did they hire the same prop studio as NASA to make this rover?
An old Radio Flyer wagon covered in gold wrapping paper with some random belt drive gears slapped on as wheels and an old sandwich board for a solar panel. All held together with curtain rods and photographed in a sandbox made from recycled OSB painted gray.
Nice. Convincing.
Remember the Russians used a toy remote controlled plastic rover with a camera taped on top of it from a Department to examine the inside of the highly radioactive Chernobyl reactor.
The most successful Chernobyl robot. A toy tank was bought in Kyiv toy store for 12 rubles (≈$5). They attached dosimeter, thermometer and powerful torchlight instead of toy canon and prolonged the wire to 10 meters. Brave little tank was used in Unit 4 surveys until 1987, then it was buried there.
https://www.reddit.com/r/chernobyl/comments/i6h0wu/the_most_successful_chernobyl_robot_a_toy_tank/
The Moonies are strangely silent ….
Wazzamatter Moonies – cat got your tongues?????
hahaha…
FAKE… FAKE… FAKE….
I reckon this is part of the D-Moralization campaign — along with the Tranny Stuff etc… the MOREONS are totally confused now – that is obviously fake — but cnnbbc say it’s real.. so the MOREONS minds are doing contortions trying to remain sane
BOOM! hahaha
The Acceleration of Inflation in the Second Half Has Begun, “Disinflation” Honeymoon Terminated
Month-to-month CPI spikes, core CPI and core services CPI accelerate, despite ongoing massive health insurance adjustment.
https://drkevinstillwagon.substack.com/p/the-vaccine-lie
Kick the can down the road a bit has to be the philosophy. Everyone can see a problem ahead. They look for a way to fix it.
Delightful! no?
A couple of weeks ago, I reported on an Australian study showing a marked decline of innate immune responses in children 5-11 years old after their COVID vaccinations.
https://www.igor-chudov.com/p/vaids-in-children-scientists-respond
It’s all just a coincidence. 😙
https://www.globalresearch.ca/children-hearts-destroyed-covid-19-mrna-vaccines-heart-transplants-not-going-well/5832228
A delightful outcome!
It would have been worse…
Six of nine planetary boundaries now exceeded
For the first time, metrics for all boundaries are presented. Six of the boundaries are found to be transgressed, and transgression is increasing for all boundaries except the degradation of the Earth’s ozone layer. A global focus on climate is not enough. Development of Earth system models that accurately reproduce interactions between boundaries, especially Climate and Biosphere Integrity, is an urgent priority.
https://phys.org/news/2023-09-planetary-boundaries-exceeded.html
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458
We think we know a lot more than we do. The Earth’s ecosystem will take care of itself, even if it means pushing a large share of humans out of the way.
Exactly.
from yesterdays guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/13/earth-well-outside-safe-operating-space-for-humanity-scientists-find
I AM …
This earth was built for us, we are supposed to be here.
From various Lex Fridman podcasts, I listen as I go to sleep and pick up when I awake, the low talk seems to aid my sleep.
1. It is possible AI is already here, space travel is not possible for biological beings, thought would be slow(speed of light issues). So, voices from above? There are numerous mention of this in human myths.
2. Long distance space travel is not possible due to energy requirements, the need for acceleration and also deceleration. We are already moving at >500k mph through space, that is as fast as we are going. How does this work with number 1?
3. Starship is ready to launch, one commentator on Lex noted what has been done by Space X in a very short period of time. Landing large rockets on their butts is out of comic books. Musk can’t figure out why comic book characters wear their underwear on the outside.
4. Moon base will be interesting, so much fine dust; gets into everything.
5. Perchlorates on surface of Mars could be a plus or minus,
6. Earth cannot take anymore, we have dug up millions of years of C and released it in a few hundred years; not a good experiment. Life without a refrigerator would not be easy although in St. Paul my apartment had a small door and space next to the kitchen for ice delivery; how quaint. It was built in the early 20th century.
This site among others has convinced me life will change, Howe in the “Fourth Turning” puts the date around 2030. I am skipping around trying to find “What next?” Going to have to go back and make notes on how the four turnings relate to each other. I am in the Prophet group, our turn is about over and there is change coming. Any guesses?
Dennis L.
Everybody dies.
Next.
War.
Then a more localized living. No cars, schools are walk to schools for students and teachers. No cellphones, but still have fiber to the house and internet, no movies on demand but still have OFW!!!! Food, clothes made and bought locally. Making thread and cloth will be the peak of local technology. No pharma industry, maybe some simple antibiotics. Heart surgery gone, only what ever the local doc with a sonograph and a knife can do.
The fall harvest fest will be a BIG deal again.
A simpler quieter life with happiness and children. For the adventurous young teens a trip to the city 200 miles away by walking.
Fall Harvest? hahahaha…. the soil is destroyed with petro chems… without them — nothing grows…
And what would one eat while waiting for the harvest? Folks will rip your face off for a can of tuna
This is pure nonsense… be a f789ing man… accept the situation … accept death
Don’t be pathetic
Notice how the mask turns right wingers instantly into hardcore left wingers?
“don’t shove something in my face I don’t believe in”
“my body, my choice”
“Healthcare is all about the $$ big pharma”
🙂
Oh for bloody sake, you’re a diehard adherent to the left/right paradigm?
I think I mentioned something about the right to bodily integrity the other day (probably about masks)…
and some “left wingers” immediately jumped and said “So you’re pro abortion and gender adjustment therapy for children (or whatever it’s called now)?”
Hilarious. This is their religion. This is what they want for the world.
When one sees various natural disasters killing people today, there is a strong dissatisfaction of “that was not enough”. As the humans breach the laws of physics more and more, they deserve the severest punishments.
every human in the blink of an eye swiftly entering the nothingness of eternal death isn’t good enough for you?
some people are very hard to please. 😉
what do you want? extinction?
when do you want it?
right now?
I think we should pray so that it is not painful. Like dying while sleeping. The horrors are coming.
Yes. One day everything is normal… and the next we’ll be in a boiling cauldron …
I see myself locked in the goat ranch… with candles burning … and a high powered rifle propped against the wall… with Hoolio next to me … and M Fast painting her nails… waiting for the bad guys
You consider humans guilty of “breaching the laws of physics”, then immediately fault the laws of physics for not killing enough humans for breaching them? It’s a very strange argument.
With a Higher Power having a thumb on the scales of what happens, we really don’t know what is ahead. Things may turn out much better than we expect.
I doubt that all 8.1 billion people are able to grasp the fact that the reason for their fights and poverty is that there is too much of them.
A few hundred million living in mud huts would probably have a better time of it than most people today in their wage slave cubicles desperately waiting to clock out so they can rush home to their gaming station or whatever (insert electronic entertainment of choice here).
As long as they aren’t inflicted with internal or external parasites, or other horrid infections that feed off the human body…never mind rotted teeth
you are right about the parasites, but i dont we had bad teeth much until we started getting lots of sugar
Tsu,
Not you, but the idea. Romantic nonsense.
Dennis L.
Couldn’t He/She/It apply a little more pressure with He/She/Its thumb and get on with it already?
Or is He/She/It not that bothered really with the plight of He/She/Its latest experiment and plaything?
I suspect He/She/It has grown bored with this experiment since we didn’t turn out exactly as planned and has another one lined up ready to go.
But seriously, if we are the product of a higher power or a deeper power as I see it, then it is acting out its plan through us and we should be capable of solving any problems that materialize, yes?
Even if we have to take a major hit and reorganize, life can and most likely will go on.
Or worse.
Weird as it seems, we seem to have spotted aliens by the shadows they make across their star with power collectors. They might not be living in physical state bodies, in any case the structures are far out from their star where it is relatively cold and computer circuits work more effectively.
Is it a glimpse of what lies in our future? Possible I suppose, Hans Moravec and various SF authors have been talking about such a world for decades.
Our world is more and more inhuman: the pressure grows for grasping opportunities, be more competitive etc. But this has no.meaning, as nothing of that makes one to live in line with his extinguishing bioreactor body.
I don’t mind if any aliens exist or not, if I know that I am closer and closer to the death by my nature. All those lies about being healthy and live longer. But when all your humanity is stolen by the machines and you are supposed to live in the dire poverty and isolated, when you can not keep pace with the machines. All this is totally crazy.
“extinguishing bioreactor body”
I don’t know when technology will get that good, but since AI went crazy last year Ray Kurzweil has moved up the date when he thinks people will quit dying to 2030 (from 2045). So if you might live that long, you can’t count on dying (unless you want to).
In spite of knowing about this since the early 80s and being signed up for cryonics since 1985, I am not entirely sure how I feel about this. If what we see out in the direction of Tabby’s star is aliens, and it is our fate to follow them, the future may be extremely strange. Hans Moravec wrote about this over 30 years ago. I never imagined seeing the physical implementation.
Pigs in Cyberspace
Hans Moravec
Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
May 1992
Exploration and colonization of the universe awaits, but earth-adapted biological humans are ill-equipped to respond to the
challenge. Machines have gone farther and seen more, limited though they presently are by insect-like behavioral inflexibility. As they become smarter over the coming decades, space will be theirs. Organizations of robots of ever increasing intelligence and sensory and motor ability will expand and transform what they occupy, working with matter, space and time. As they grow, a smaller and smaller fraction of their territory will be undeveloped frontier. Competitive success will depend more and more on using already available matter and space in ever more refined and useful forms. The process, analogous to the miniaturization that makes today’s computers a trillion times more powerful than the
mechanical calculators of the past, will gradually transform all activity from grossly physical homesteading of raw nature, to minimum-energy quantum transactions of computation. The final frontier will be urbanized, ultimately into an arena where every bit of activity is a meaningful computation: the inhabited portion of the universe will transformed into a cyberspace.
Because it will use resources more efficiently, a mature cyberspace of the distant future will be effectively much bigger than the present physical universe. While only an infinitesimal fraction of existing matter and space is doing interesting work, in a well developed cyberspace every bit will be part of a relevant computation or storing a useful datum. Over time, more compact and faster ways of using space and matter will be invented, and used to restructure the cyberspace, effectively increasing the
amount of computational spacetime per unit of physical spacetime.
Computational speedups will affect the subjective experience of entities in the cyberspace in a paradoxical way. At first
glimpse, there is no subjective effect, because everything, inside and outside the individual, speeds up equally. But, more subtly, speedup produces an expansion of the cyber universe, because, as thought accelerates, more subjective time passes during the fixed
(probably lightspeed) physical transit time of a message between a given pair of locations–so those fixed locations seem to grow farther
apart. Also, as information storage is made continually more efficient through both denser utilization of matter and more efficient
encodings, there will be increasingly more cyber-stuff between anytwo points. The effect may somewhat resemble the continuous-creation process in the old steady-state theory of the physical universe of Hoyle, Bondi and Gold, where hydrogen atoms appear just fast enough throughout the expanding cosmos to maintain a constant density.
A quantum-mechanical entropy calculation by Bekenstein suggests that the ultimate amount of information that can be stored given the mass and volume of a hydrogen atom is about a megabyte.
But let’s be conservative, and imagine that at some point in the future only “conventional” physics is in play, but every few atoms
stores a useful bit. There are about 10^56 atoms in the solar system.I estimate that a human brain-equivalent can be encoded in
less than 10^15 bits. If a body and surrounding environment takes
a thousand times more storage in addition, a human, with immediate environment, might consume 10^18 bits. An AI with equivalent
intelligence could probably get by with less, since it does without the body-simulation “life support” needed to keep a body-oriented
human mind sane. So a city of a million human-scale inhabitants might be efficiently stored in 10^24 bits. If the atoms of the
solar system were cleverly rearranged so every 100 could represent a bit, then a single solar system could hold 10^30 cities–far more
than the number (10^22) of stars in the visible universe! Multiply that by 10^11 stars in a galaxy, and one gets 10^41 cities per
galaxy. The visible universe, with 10^11 galaxies, would then have room for 10^51 cities–except that by the time intelligence has
expanded that far, more efficient ways of using spacetime and encoding data would surely have been discovered, increasing the number
much further.
Mind without Body?
Start with the concepts of telepresence and virtual reality. You wear a harness that, with optical, acoustical, mechanical and
chemical devices controls all that you sense, and measures all of your actions. Its machinery presents pictures to your eyes,
sounds to your ears, pressures and temperatures to your skin, forces to your muscles and even smells and tastes for the remaining senses. Telepresence results when the inputs and outputs of this harness connect to a distant machine that looks like a humanoid
robot. The images from the robot’s two camera eyes appear on your “eyeglass” viewscreens, and you hear through its ears,
feel through its skin and smell through its chemical sensors. When you move your head or body, the robot moves in exact synchrony.
When you reach for an object seen in the viewscreens, the robot reaches for the object, and when it makes contact, your muscles
and skin feel the resulting weight, shape, texture and temperature.For most practical purposes you inhabit the robot’s body–your sense of consciousness has migrated to the robot’s location, in a true”out of body” experience.
Virtual reality retains the harness, but replaces the remote robot with a computer simulation of a body and its surroundings.
When connected to a virtual reality, the location you seem to inhabit does not exist in the usual physical sense, rather you are
in a kind of computer-generated dream. If the computer has access to data from the outside world, the simulation may contain some
“real” items, for instance representations of other people connected via their own harnesses, or even views of the outside world, perhapst hrough simulated windows.
One might imagine a hybrid system where a virtual “central station” is surrounded by portals that open on to views of multiple
real locations. While in the station one inhabits a simulated body, but when one steps through a portal, the harness link is seamlessly switched from the simulation to a telepresence robot waiting at that location.
The technical challenges limit the availability, “fidelity”and affordability of telepresence and virtual reality systems
today–in fact, they exist only in a few highly experimental demonstrations. But progress is being made, and its possible to anticipate a time, a few decades hence, when people spend more time in remote and virtual realities than in their immediate surroundings,
just as today most of us spend more time in artificial indoor surroundings than in the great outdoors. The remote bodies we will inhabit can be stronger, faster and have better senses than our “home” body. In fact, as our home body ages and weakens, we might
compensate by turning up some kind of “volume control.” Eventually, we might wish to bypass our atrophied muscles and dimmed senses altogether, if neurobiology learns enough to connect our sensory and motor nerves directly to electronic interfaces.
Then all the harness hardware could be discarded as obsolete, along with our sense organs and muscles, and indeed most of our
body. There would be no “home” experiences to return to, but our remote and virtual existences would be better than ever.
The picture is that we are now is a “brain in a vat,”sustained by life-support machinery, and connected by wonderful electronic links, at will, to a series of “rented” artificial bodies
at remote locations, or to simulated bodies in artificial realities. But the brain is a biological machine not designed to function forever, even in an optimal physical environment. As it begins to malfunction, might we not choose to use the same advanced neurological electronics that make possible our links to the
external world, to replace the gray matter as it begins to fail? Bit by bit our brain is replaced by electronic equivalents, which work at least as well, leaving our personality and thoughts clearer than ever. Eventually everything has been replaced by manufactured parts. No physical vestige of our original body or brain remains, but our thoughts and awareness continue. We will call this process, and
other approaches with the same end result, the downloading of a human mind into a machine. After downloading, our personality is a pattern impressed on electronic hardware, and we may then find ways to move our minds to other similar hardware, just as a computer
program and its data can be copied from processor to processor. So not only can our sense of awareness shift from place to
place at the speed of communication, but the very components of our minds may ride on the same data channels. We might find our
selves distributed over many locations, one piece of our mind here, another piece there, and our sense of awareness at yet an other place. Time becomes more flexible–when our mind resides in very fast hardware, one second of real time may provide a subjective
year of thinking time, while a thousand years of real time spent on a passive storage medium may seem like no time at all. Can we then consider ourselves to be a mind without a body? Not quite.
A human totally deprived of bodily senses does not do well. After twelve hours in a sensory deprivation tank (where one floats
in a body-temperature saline solution that produces almost no skin sensation, in total darkness and silence, with taste and smell and
the sensations of breathing minimized) a subject will begin to hallucinate, as the mind, somewhat like a television tuned to a
nonexistent channel, turns up the amplification, desperately looking for a signal, becoming ever less discriminating in the theories itoffers to make sense of the random sensory hiss it receives. Even the most extreme telepresence and virtual reality scenarios we have
presented avoid complete bodylessness by always providing the mind with a consistent sensory (and motor) image, obtained from an actual remote robot body, or from a computer simulation. In those scenarios,a person may sometimes exist without a physical body, but never without the illusion of having one.
But in our computers there are already many entities that resemble truly bodiless minds. A typical computer chess program
knows nothing about physical chess pieces or chessboards, or about the staring eyes of its opponent or the bright lights of a tournament.
Nor does it work with an internal simulation of those physical attributes. It reasons instead with a very efficient and compact mathematical representation of chess positions and moves.
For the benefit of human players this internal representation is sometimes translated to a recognizable graphic on a computer screen, but such images mean nothing to the program that actually chooses the chess moves. For all practical purposes, the chess program’s thoughts and sensations–its consciousness–is pure chess, with no taint of the physical, or any other, world. Much more than a human mind with a simulated body stored in a computer, a
chess program is a mind without a body.
So now, imagine a future world where programs that do chess, mathematics, physics, engineering, art, business or whatever, have
grown up to become at least as clever as the human mind. Imagine also the most of the inhabited universe has been converted to a
computer network–a cyberspace–where such programs live, side by side with downloaded human minds and accompanying simulated human bodies. Suppose that all these entities make their living in something of a free market way, trading the products of their labor for the essentials of life–in this world memory space and computing cycles. Some entities do the equivalent of manual work, converting undeveloped parts of the universe into cyberspace, or improving the performance of existing patches, thus creating new wealth. Others work on physics or engineering problems whose solutions give the developers new and better ways to construct computing capacity. Some create programs that can become part of one’s mental capacity. They trade their discoveries and inventions for more working space and time. There are entities that specialize as agents, collecting commissions in return for locating
opportunities and negotiating deals for their clients. Others act as banks, storing and redistributing resources, buying and
selling computing space, time and information. Some we might class as artists, creating structures that don’t obviously result in physical resources, but which, for idiosyncratic reasons, are deemed valuable by some customers, and are traded at prices that fluctuate for subjective reasons. Some entities in the cyberworld
will fail to produce enough value to support their requirements for existence–these eventually shrink and disappear, or merge with
other ventures. Others will succeed and grow. The closest present day parallel is the growth, evolution, fragmentation and consolidation
of corporations, whose options are shaped primarily by their economic performance.
A human would likely fare poorly in such a cyberspace. Unlike the streamlined artificial intelligences that zip about, making discoveries and deals, reconfiguring themselves to efficiently handle the data that constitutes their interactions, a human mind would lumber about in a massively inappropriate body
simulation, analogous to someone in a deep diving suit plodding along among a troupe of acrobatic dolphins. Every interaction
with the data world would first have to be analogized as some recognizable quasi-physical entity: other programs might be presented as animals, plants or demons, data items as books or treasure chests, accounting entries as coins or gold. Maintaining such
fictions increases the cost of doing business, as does operating the mind machinery that reduces the physical simulations into mental
abstractions in the downloaded human mind. Though a few humansmay find a niche exploiting their baroque construction to
produce human-flavored art, more may feel a great economic incentive to streamline their interface to the cyberspace.
The streamlining could begin with the elimination of the body-simulation along with the portions of the downloaded mind
dedicated to interpreting sense-data. These would be and replaced with simpler integrated programs that produced approximately
the same net effect in one’s consciousness. One would still view the cyber world in terms of location, color, smell, faces, and so on, but only those details we actually notice would
be represented. We would still be at a disadvantage compared with the true artificial intelligences, who interact with the cyberspace
in ways optimized for their tasks. We might then be tempted to replace some of our innermost mental processes with more cyberspace-appropriate programs purchased from the AIs, and so, bit by bit, transform ourselves into something much like them.
Ultimately our thinking procedures could be totally liberated from
any traces of our original body, indeed of any body. But the bodiless mind that results, wonderful though it may be in its clarity
of thought and breadth of understanding, could in no sense be considered any longer human.
So, one way or another, the immensities of cyberspace will be teeming with very unhuman disembodied superminds, engaged in affairsof the future that are to human concerns as ours are to those of bacteria. But, once in a long while, humans do think of
bacteria, even particular individual bacteria seen in particular microscopes. Similarly, a cyberbeing may occasionally bring to mind a human event of the distant past. If a sufficiently powerful mind makes a sufficiently large effort, such recall could occur with great detail–call it high fidelity. With enough fidelity,
the situation of a remembered person, along with all the minutiae of her body, her thoughts, and feelings would be perfectly recreated in a kind of mental simulation: a cyberspace
within a cyberspace where the person would be as alive as anywhere. Sometimes the recall might be historically accurate, in other circumstances it could be artistically enhanced: it depends on the purposes of the cybermind. An evolving cyberspace becomes effectively ever more capacious and long lasting, and so can support ever more minds of ever greater power. If these minds spend only an infinitesimal fraction of their energy contemplating the human past, their sheer power should ensure that eventually our
entire history is replayed many times in many places, and in many variations. The very moment we are now experiencing may actually
be (almost certainly is) such a distributed mental event, and most likely is a complete fabrication that never happened physically.
Alas, there is no way to sort it out from our perspective: we can only wallow in the scenery.
sheeesh keith
that was a long ‘un—(typing it in word then copying over doesnt work so well in formatting btw)
i couldn’t handle it all—at my age the old neurons don’t fire like they used to
but i got as far as your description of eddy, which I thought was very good:
//////Start with the concepts of telepresence and virtual reality. You wear a harness that, with optical, acoustical, mechanical and
chemical devices controls all that you sense, and measures all of your actions. Its machinery presents pictures to your eyes,
sounds to your ears, pressures and temperatures to your skin, forces to your muscles and even smells and tastes for the remaining senses./////
“your description”
Not mine. Hans (who is one of the brightest people in the world) wrote it after we had a conversation in 1986 about the world as we see it being a simulation. This got picked up by Nick Bostrom and became (for a time) a cottage industry in philosophy departments.
I have not talked to Hans for a long time. We once had a long interchange which is archived on the Extropian list about cryonics. Hans made the case that he could be revived from his works, and me making the comment that this would involve discarding many examples that didn’t write a perfect copy of “Mind Children.”
To be fair, my comment to Hans was certainly influenced by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacron-3
A good read. Thanks for the excerpt.
Where is the part where the AIs stop and smell the roses?
“smell the roses?”
That’s a good point. AIs may need to be equipped with emotional circuits so they can enjoy the world we (and they) have created.
That’s assuming that we get through the problems of energy and global warming.
If one expects ROF… but the pathogen designed to kill those with wrecked immune systems is released… and works as advertised… then yes — that’s a win