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Economic growth and added complexity sound like they would be good, but at some point, the combination gets to be too much–simplification is needed.
Too much of the world’s income starts going to non-working individuals and to high-earning workers in privileged fields. Ordinary working citizens start to say, “Wait a minute, there is not enough left for my everyday expenses. The system needs to change.” Elections lead to the selection of politicians who want war, or who want to overturn the current system. The system then changes in a way that leads to less spending on healthcare and other complexities.
In this post, I will try to explain a bit of the underlying problem and give some hints at what the simplification might look like. Part of the problem is too little energy supply. This is a problem that cannot be told to the public; it would be too distressing. In this post, I present the result of a recent academic study that has attempted to recalibrate the findings of the 1972 Limits to Growth study with updated data.
[1] Economies of all types tend to operate in cycles.
Economies need both resources and human participants. Human populations tend to increase in number if conditions are favorable. When population grows, resources per capita, such as arable land and fresh water, tends to fall. Adding complexity helps an economy work around falling resources per capita.
With added complexity, it is possible for resource extraction of many kinds to grow, at least for a time. Deeper wells can sometimes add more fresh water supply. Irrigation and fertilizer can be used to increase crop yields. International trade allows the possibility of getting resources from more distant lands. Adding debt allows factories to be built and to be paid for “after the fact,” using the sales of the goods produced by the factories. Ever-larger governments allow more roads, schools, and services of all kinds.
The use of added complexity helps keep economies growing for a long time, but at some point, things start going wrong. Oil wells and other types of resource extraction become more expensive to build because the easiest to extract resources tend to be used first. Pollution becomes more of a problem. Universities start producing more graduates with advanced degrees than there are job openings paying enough to justify studying for those degrees. Healthcare costs become hugely expensive. Increasing interest on debt becomes a huge burden, both for governments and individual citizens.
When added complexity reaches a limit, citizens sense a problem. They tend to vote the current governments out of power. Or they become rebellious in other ways. I think the world has already reached a complexity limit.
[2] At some point, the added complexity trend needs to shift toward simplification.
When added complexity no longer has sufficient payback, the system seems to sense this and starts pushing economies in the opposite direction. Often, the wages of ordinary workers become too low, relative to the cost of living. They rebel and overthrow their governments. Or central governments may collapse, as the central government of the Soviet Union did in 1991. This happened after oil prices were low for an extended period. The Soviet Union was an oil exporter, depending on oil exports for tax revenue. Revenue from collectivized agriculture was underperforming, also. Thus, getting rid of a layer of government, or too many government programs, seems to be one common theme of simplification.
Another issue today is international trade. Crude oil supplies per capita are low. Somehow, international trade (which uses crude oil) needs to be cut back.
With inadequate total oil supplies available, it becomes very desirable to do manufacturing close to home, rather than at a distance. This is a major reason for the competition in manufacturing between the US and China. If the US can manufacture locally, it will provide jobs and save some of the limited world crude oil supply.
Another issue is the oversupply of workers with advanced degrees, relative to the number of jobs requiring such degrees. A study released in early 2024 indicates that only about half of US college graduates are able to obtain a job requiring a college level degree within a year of graduation. In fact, the majority of those who cannot obtain a job requiring a college-level degree within a year after graduation remain underemployed 10 years after graduation. Pretty clearly, the number of college graduates needs to fall.
I showed in Figure 1 that US healthcare costs are very high, but they have recently been on a plateau. Perhaps these high healthcare expenses might make sense if US life expectancies were longer than elsewhere, thanks to all this spending. In fact, US life expectancy at birth is lower than in any other advanced nation. The CIA Factbook ranks the US life expectancy as 49th from the top in 2024.
Figure 3 (above) shows a chart I found several years ago, showing how US female life expectancy has been dropping, relative to other high-income countries.
Figure 4 shows that US life expectancies have continued to fall relative to other advanced economies. Something is clearly going wrong with health in the United States. It is no wonder that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. wants to “Make America Healthy Again.”
There is also the question of the level of US healthcare spending, relative to GDP. The share for the US, from Figure 1, is about 17%. The shares for the EU, the UK, and Japan are each about 11% according to the World Bank. The share for Russia is about 7%; for China it is about 5%.
Another issue mentioned in the introduction is the proportion of government spending that goes toward non-working individuals. The chart below shows how US Federal Government funds are spent. When the budget is prepared, often many of these programs are lumped together as “Mandatory Spending,” so we don’t see precisely what the spending is for.
Typically, the arguments about spending are on the parts of the budget other than mandatory spending. The problem is that all parts need to be funded, one way or another. Social Security describes its program as largely pay as you go. Mostly, the payroll taxes collected from today’s workers are used to pay benefits to today’s recipients.
Keeping the system working as it does today becomes a problem if the total amount of goods and services produced starts falling at some point. For example, if the total food supply at some point (say 2050) becomes too low, there is a question regarding which citizens should get inadequate food rations: the workers, or those receiving benefits under a pension program for the elderly. I would vote for the workers getting adequate food, if we expect them to continue to work. This issue suggests that at some point, the elderly may have to go back to work to get an adequate share of what is being produced.
[3] I see the results of the recent US presidential election to be a call for simplification: getting rid of the unneeded pieces of the system.
Donald Trump and his team clearly have a much different view of how the government should be operated than Joe Biden did. In particular, the new team would like to get rid of what they see as unneeded parts of the system.
There seem to be many other parts of the world encountering somewhat similar political and funding difficulties. Germany is dealing with a collapse of government. France is facing political and budget crises. Even China’s economy is having huge difficulties.
[4] I see the underlying problem as not enough resources, especially energy resources, for the rising world population.
It is not only oil that is in short supply (Figure 2); coal is also in short supply, relative to world’s population (Figure 6).
Uranium is in short supply, as well. The issue for uranium is that the world’s supply of nuclear warheads that could temporarily serve as a supplement to currently mined uranium is running short. These warheads belonged primarily to the US and to Russia, but Russia has sold a substantial amount of its warheads to the US, to be down-blended for use in nuclear power reactors.
Without enough energy resources per person, the world will likely need to produce fewer goods and services in total. Some uses for energy products, and for the goods and services that can be made with energy products, need to disappear.
Now, all parts of the world need to re-examine energy uses that are currently being made and look for uses that the economy can most easily get along without. For example, the step-down in oil consumption per capita that occurred in 2020 seems to be still having some effect. Some people are still working from home, saving oil that would be used for commuting. Some long-distance airline flights were eliminated, as well, particularly in Asia, reducing jet fuel consumption.
The self-organizing economy tends to push the world in the direction of contraction. How this will work is not at all clear. Most people didn’t understand the response to Covid-19 as a way to cut back oil consumption. It is possible that future changes will, to some extent, come from cutbacks directed by government organizations that are as difficult to understand as the Covid-19 restrictions.
[5] The book The Limits to Growth, published in 1972, modeled when world resources would run short, relative to growing world population. A recent analysis provides updated estimates, using the same model.
The original 1972 analysis, in its base model, suggested that resources would start to run short about now. An article called, “Recalibration of limits to growth: An update of the World3 model” by Arjuna Nebel and others was published earlier this year in the Journal of Industrial Ecology. The summary exhibit of their findings is shown here as Figure 8.
On Figure 8, Recalibration23 is the name given to the new model output. The BAU dotted line shows the indications from the base (business as usual) 1972 model. I found the coloring a little confusing, so I added the labels “Industrial Output” and “Population” to better mark what I consider the two most important model outputs. Food Production per capita is the green line, which is also important. The calculations are all made in terms of the weight of physical quantities of materials used, for the world as a whole. The financial system is not modeled.
We do not know how accurate a forecast such as this is. I know that Dennis Meadows, who was the leader of the 1972 Limits to Growth analysis, has said that once peak was reached, we could not expect the model to necessarily hold.
Even with this caveat, I find this forecast disturbing. Industrial output per capita (which would include things like automobiles, farm machinery, and computers) is shown as already steeply declining by 2025 in the updated model. This trend is much clearer than in the 1972 model. By 2050, industrial output per capita is a small fraction of the amount it was at peak.
Food output per capita is shown to start dropping about 2025. Based on my understanding of the 1972 Limits to Growth analysis, this change might reflect a shift away from meat-eating, rather than simply fewer total calories per person.
World population follows a curve similar to that of the 1972 Limits to Growth analysis with a peak in world population at perhaps about 2030.
In the updated model, pollution has been modeled as CO2 levels. This is different from the mix of pollutants used in the original model. The peak comes around 2090.
[6] Intuitively, the order of forecast changes for the world economy, shown in Figure 8, seems right to me.
Figure 8 indicates that world industrial production is expected to be the first type of output to drop. This makes sense if energy supply is quite limited or is high-priced. Without adequate inexpensive energy supply, a country is likely to cut back on manufacturing its own goods. Instead, it tries to buy from countries with less expensive sources of energy supply.
For example, US industrial production per capita has been falling since 1973. The year 1973 was the year when oil prices first spiked. US business leaders realized that changes were needed: A larger share of manufactured goods needed to be imported from countries with lower-cost fuel supply. Oil needed to be used sparingly because of its high cost. Coal, used heavily in Asia, was typically much cheaper.
China took the lead in industrial production after it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, but now it is running into obstacles. One issue is that China’s contribution to the world’s supply of goods is taking away high-paying jobs from other countries. Other countries are left with more low-paying service jobs. A second issue is that the US has become dependent upon China for critical materials, such as those used in military armaments. A third issue is that a great deal of China’s growth was financed by debt. As long as China’s exports were growing very rapidly, this was not a problem. But as growth has slowed, China’s debt has become difficult to repay with interest.
The level of conflict between China and other countries has grown, in part because it has become clear that it is not possible for industry to grow rapidly both in China and elsewhere, indirectly because of fossil fuel and uranium limits. The US applies sanctions against some Chinese companies and China retaliates by hoarding scarce resources. These include minerals such as antimony, tungsten, gallium, germanium, graphite, and magnesium.
The world is increasingly operating in a “not enough to go around” mode for scarce resources. At the same time, countries need to somewhat get along. So we get strange narratives in the press giving rationalizations for actions by both sides, without mentioning the shortage issue.
Figure 8 shows that once industrialization drops, food production also begins to fall, but not as quickly. This makes sense because everyone recognizes that food is essential. The falling calories likely reflect people increasingly moving from meat to vegetable products.
Somehow, world population becomes poorer, but the level of population does not drop nearly as rapidly as the drop in industrialization.
[7] Simplification is likely to take place in significant steps, perhaps at the time of strange events, such as those occurring in 2020.
These are a few ways simplification might take place:
[a] High level government organizations might start disappearing. For example, the European Union might not get enough funding and would stop. Or something similar could happen to the International Monetary Fund or the World Trade Organization.
[b] Programs that we expect to be funded by the US Federal Government might be handed over completely to the states, to be funded or not, as the finances of individual states permit. Examples might include Medicare, Medicaid, and even Social Security.
[c] There could be major banking problems, perhaps simultaneously in many countries around the world. The debt bubble holding up stock markets could pop. Governments would try to compensate, but they might not be able to do enough. Or governments could inadvertently create hyperinflation if there is virtually nothing to buy with the newly printed money created to offset widespread bank failures.
[d] There could be a great deal more sharing of homes and of apartments. The current arrangement of many single people living alone, either in an apartment or a stand-alone house could be replaced by many more roommate situations. Multi-generational families living together may become more common.
[e] Healthcare may become much simpler and local. Instead of seeing an array of specialists at a distance, people may walk to a local health provider. Medications from around the world are likely to drop greatly in quantity. Government programs to care for the seriously disabled elderly seem likely to be scaled back.
[f] Universities may be slimmed down greatly. There is no point in educating a huge number of individuals who cannot get jobs requiring a university degree.
[g] The huge amount of effort that goes into taking care of lawns in the US may disappear. Instead, people will put more effort into growing crops locally. Some people may choose to raise chickens, as well.
[h] International travel for pleasure will likely disappear, except perhaps for the very rich. Even business trips will become very uncommon. The amount of goods and services transported internationally seems likely to shrink.
[i] Many types of optional activities that now take place by car may be replaced by more local versions, which will be reached by walking, or perhaps by bicycle. For example, visits to restaurants may largely disappear, but eating with nearby friends or relatives in homes may increase. Visits to churches may drop greatly, as they did during Covid-19 restrictions, but they may be replaced by groups meeting in homes. Gyms for recreation may disappear, but people may obtain more exercise from their gardens and their need to walk to appointments.
[j] Very strange political leaders may take office. One person rule takes much less energy than transporting many representatives to a central location. Some of these leaders may take over as dictators.
In the US, there is a huge difference in profitability, depending on the size of company.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/zombified-42-us-small-caps-still-have-negative-earnings
A graphic shows that
42% of Russell 2000 (small cap) stocks have negative earnings
14% of Russell Midcap stocks have negative earnings
6% of S&P 500 have negative earnings
https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/Share_of_Companies_with_Negative.jpg
Michael Snyder writes
https://themostimportantnews.com/archives/11-signs-that-the-slow-motion-collapse-of-the-u-s-economy-is-far-more-advanced-than-most-people-think
Michael Snyder provides 11 signs that the US economy is doing much worse than the press is telling us. My shorter version of his concerns:
1. Americans are spending less on Christmas this year.
2. Job openings in the US are the lowest they have been since January 2021.
3. The Philadelphia manufacturing index is shows a severe decline.
4. Rapidly rising interest rates are pinching consumers.
5. The cost of living is out of control. Over a third of households spend more than 95% of income on necessities.
6. A survey showed that nearly one quarter of electricity subscribers couldn’t pay their entire electricity bill in the past year.
7. The same survey showed that about a third of all households had to reduce spending “on necessary things” within the past year in order to pay utility costs.
8. Demand at food banks is at record levels.
9. Stores are announcing closing, even before Christmas. Party City has announced it will be closing all stores.
10. Big Lots has announce that it will be closing all of their remaining stores.
11. In total, there is a 69% increase in store closings announced, compared to a year ago.
“2024 was a fantastic year for energy storage
Batteries reshaped the power grid in California and Texas, showing the rest of the country what’s possible when the tech is allowed to flourish.”?
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/batteries/2024-was-a-fantastic-year-for-energy-storage?utm_campaign=canary&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz–VWv5KpmgsBmdwZWd3qnKrXD1YoZO488I8R2m2mGcQFZJoYGe4yL4J-n10TCjSa7-1m0erOOhdlTXw7qrdU0HP_4eB6w&_hsmi=339751431&utm_source=newsletter
Even with low prices for materials, Western manufacturers of batteries couldn’t make battery production work.
A history of Elon Musk’s ideas that haven’t worked out.
Is Musk some kind of sacred cow?
Perhaps the engineers at Elon Musk’s companies have not taken a grade 11 physics course.
turn Keith loose with his calculator—and he’ll tell you it all makes perfect sense—just an engineering problem
The long term trend is toward more complexity. The economy works in cycles. We seem to be headed on the down part of the cycle now. But there is a significant chance that over the long term, the cycle will again be headed back up again, indirectly because of greater complexity. World population may fall significantly in this cycle.
This is a chart by Eric Chaisson, showing the long term trend toward more energy intensity in the Universe, which would seem to imply more complexity.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/13-chaisson-trend-is-toward-more-complex-energy-intense-form.png
no species can increase its numbers unless the necessary energy is there to underpin that increase.
that is a universal law.
over the past 300 years, humankind has been able to appropriate more than it fair share of what is naturally available, we are now at the end of that phase.
unfortunately—”long term”, though no doubt correct, means very long term indeed.
The energy by which we reached our current godlike status, took 300m years to accumulate.
we have consumed it.
Using 1 million years of stored energy, on average, each year for three centuries.
if we decline, as seems likely, any future increase can only be pro rata to the energy available.
cumulative energy then, is likely to take 100m years to regenerate itself.
as a species, it wont be humankind that makes use of it.
You may be right.
an angel announces to the terrified shepherds, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.
After a few discoveries only a cubic acre of platinum will suffice.
And Kulm will bear many rich gifts to the downtrodden.
with so many solid state compounds I find it hard to believe no one can replicate the energy levels of platinum. surely it is being researched…
Former US President Bill Clinton admitted to hospital with fever
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c627n98pzqzo
“It’s not those who write the laws that have the greatest impact on society. It’s those who write the songs.” – Blaise Pascal
Bill Clinton has been a vegan for several years. Vegans seem to have a more difficult time fighting off infections. While vegans seem to have less problem with heart disease (Bill Clinton’s former health issue), the mortality curve is J shaped. While heavy individuals tend to die off early, vegans are more often at the low end of the curve, and their morality rates are not very good either. From what I have seen, they tend to have problems with infections and with rebounding from surgery.
People: Remind ne again, what is the plan when oil runs out? Seems like we are pretty dependent on the stuff.
Government: Eh… there is no plan.
People: Ok… well I’m gonna go on instagram now.
Government: Ok cool.
Economy perhaps slowly goes down, at least for a bit. Hopefully “complexity” can give a few new solutions, perhaps even providing more oil from existing wells.
Governments claim that we can transition to electricity, but electricity doesn’t do nearly as much as oil. It also tends to be too high cost. And maintaining electricity is dependent on having oil.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/The-American-Shale-Patch-Is-All-About-Depletion-Now.html
Perhaps this will help a little bit
Government:
Congresswoman missing for six months found living at dementia care home
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/missing-us-congresswoman-found-living-at-assisted-living-facility-for-dementia-patients-in-texas/
wish science——-
that will solve our problems
you can find it on OFW alla time
“People: Remind me again, what is the plan when oil runs out?”
Watch a plague of rats, or any other plague species, how they rise and then quickly crash.
We are following the same path and no plan will change that. Only oil has held back the inevitable, but also made the fall so complete, as it’s allowed this plague species to devour all obtainable resources over almost the whole planet.
Like all plagues we move on to the next resource rich area and devour it. Unfortunately there’s little left, so the future is locked in. Only the timeline is debatable.
To understand how far and fast we are devolving, we need only look to our leaders
https://youtu.be/tZ3r_qu7TWc?feature=shared
you mean you dont believe the moonminers and asteroid hijackers fitz?
Plan B..there is always the Fuhrer Bunkers being built by some rich folks to make it through the bottleneck..sound exciting adventure…
The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com
The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse
Sep 4, 2022 — Tech billionaires are buying up luxurious bunkers and hiring military security to survive a societal collapse they helped create
While some others may not need it and perhaps sailing off to safety
History Supreme is worth 4.8 billion dollars and is undoubtedly one of the most expensive yachts in the world to date. It has a magnificent look to it as it is covered entirely with solid gold.
Solid gold of 10,000kg is used on this 100-foot-long yacht; its owner is Robert Knok who is one of the wealthiest Malaysians. This beautiful yacht is a masterpiece by the famous designer from the United Kingdom, Stuart Hughes.
The most brilliant thing about this yacht is its master bedroom, where you will witness wonderful decor from meteorite rocks and a statue built from genuine tyrannosaurus rex bones on a wall. There is also a wall aquarium in the room, which is adorned with 68 kg 24-carat gold. All of this adds to the magnificence of this oceanic palace.
Keith would like the decor of meteorite rocks and the extinct T Rex bones couldn’t be more appropriate.
Perhaps another will use Pt for their yacht as an energy source..wicked.
For those that celebrate have a Merry, Merry and Happy New Year….
exactly where a superyacht is supposed to sail off to eludes me.
the crew itself is likely to be the biggest risk i would have thought.
Exactly, Norman, very little makes sense in the end days of opulence and excess we are seeing..
I, myself, pretty resigned to this foolishness and deception.
Thank you for your insightful and accurate picture of the “state of things”
that provide much clarity among the comments. We need a shake of the actual instead of wishful exuberance.
Wish you all the best till I check back at the beginning of 2525, mean 2025…
Freudian slip…
Merry Christmas to all.
Dennis L.
Thanks! Merry Christmas to everyone.
I will try to get a post up in the next few days. I don’t expect anyone will be reading posts on Christmas Day, anyhow.
My husband and I will be taking a cruise from Singapore to Hong Kong, with day trips in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. We will leave January 9 and return January 28. My commenting may be intermittent during that time. I will have internet access, so I should be able to comment.
Yes, I deed DITTO
Let’s close the old dangerous and expensive cart called Nato !
Trump is doing a survey about that on Twitter/X…
https://x.com/JDVanceNewsX/status/1870471619619221976
I can see the point of pulling the US out of NATO. It is only if the US has extra money to spend on defense of Europe that it makes any sense.
NATZO is one sick org, they require an enemy to justify their existence, and after the demise of the USSR, it was obvious to make Russia that enemy.
there are probably some powerful interests that want to keep NATZO alive.
I hope the USA pulls out 100% but TPTB don’t seem to like to change what they have in place.
NATO is an ATM masked as a democracy. ‘The teacher, the officer, the nurse should deserve more’ kind of crap
Brazil grew with China. Now it falls together with China.
https://youtu.be/hKuEpYWb-kc?si=6ZJjWdOJyWNab4wL
https://youtu.be/U-CxcA1Lt0o?si=ax8eQnFtMScDVNf4
Thanks for pointing these out. I think that part of Brazil’s problem is an oil problem. It has oil, but it is expensive-to-extract oil. At its high cost and relatively low oil prices, it is hard for the government to obtain adequate tax revenue from its sale.
When I look at Brazil’s energy consumption per capita, it has been flat to falling since 2012. This is about the same time that China started running into problems with its coal resources.
Brazil grows a lot of sugar cane which they convert to ethanol and use for motor fuel.
‘Sugarcoating’
i thought sugarr cane to motor fuel was a daft idea when it started years ago
even moreso now
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil
From what I can see, on a volume basis (less on an energy basis), Brazil produces about 22% as much ethanol as crude oil. Comparing Brazil’s ethanol consumption to its production, Brazil seems to export a little over 40% of the ethanol it produces.
I assume we are in the last days of posting comments on this post . Our friends in the UK have to buckle up for 2025 . Best of luck .
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/12/19/it-isnt-only-labour/
the UK will be wobbling more and more with each passing year.
I’m guessing they won’t topple over in 2025.
but there is increasingly significant risk as the 2030s approach.
they might not make it to 2040.
There seems to be a lot of similarities in the histories of countries. UK started using coal, until production peaked in 2013. It has followed various courses since then, but it seems to be running short of options recently. Promising lots of benefits to people not in the workforce cannot last indefinitely.
Britain is trying to dabble in bitcoin . Kurt Cobb on Brit gold and bitcoin .
https://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2024/12/when-governments-speculate-orange.html#more
Governments seem to have a history of making a lot of bad investment decisions. Kurt Cobb expects a big shake out:
The comment made on OFW is that interest in bitcoin is a lot like interest in tulip bulbs. It makes no rational sense. It is not a Ponzi Scheme. Investment doesn’t make sense, however.
real money can only exist if it is underpinned by real energy.
bitcoin isn’t
“tulip bulbs”
Like tulip bulbs, there is an underlying market for bitcoin. It was designed to be a way for people to hide assets from governments and though not perfect, it does a fairly good job at making assets hard to track.
A rise in the value of bitcoin indicates that more people fear governments are going to go after their assets.
//////A rise in the value of bitcoin indicates that more people fear governments are going to go after their assets./////
no—it indicates that more gullible people smell the elusive fumes og profit
nothing more
“just an engineering problem”
I recently, Dec 19, posted an engineering/economic analysis of making cheap synthetic diesel from trash, a little coal and intermittent renewable energy. It was in reply to a post by Gail. There were no replies. Did it get out? Was it too difficult for people to understand or was I unclear?
Here it is again.
“a net gain.”
That’s what engineering studies are for.
The closest landfill to where I live gets 9,000 tons of trash per day. Call it 4000 tons/day of carbon. An installation that made 34,000 bbl/day would need about 8500 tons of carbon, so it would need 4500 tons of coal per day additional. That is around 45 rail cars per day which is a modest amount and there is a nearby rail line. Vaporizing this about of carbon would be 8500/24 x 3 MW a little over a GW. If peak load was 3 times that, 3 GW, that just happens to be the capacity of the nearby Sylmar convertor station so the lines could handle it.
It is about 40 miles from the landfill to a Chevron refinery where they could process the gas into synthetic oil. There are several oil fields along the route. It would take considerable effort to decide if the oil fields were suitable to store months of syngas.
Figured at $200/bbl, $2.40/gal, the gross annual income would be ~2.5 B./year. The trash is free, the coal $40/ton ($66 million). The power would cost $175 million at $20/MWh. Maintenance might double this number, still leaving $2B/year. For a 5 year return on capital, you could spend $10 B. The Sasol plant cost a billion, but that included a refinery. I wonder if there is an unused pipeline close to the 405 freeway. If not, pipelines are around 8 million dollars a mile.
Hmm.
(I had an AI look this over and it corrected the last number which I had too low.)
The big issue I see is that the inputs are not likely to be available for very long because some part of the supply chain no longer works. While the calculation may make sense, I suspect that the assumption with respect how long the investment will be useful is way too optimistic, probably 5 years or less. It is just an example of models that “look right,” but aren’t feasible.
One of the big issues is falling selling price for the output of this plant. Models put together by economists say that prices will rise with scarcity. That is only true if affordability rises. In fact, what tends to happen is the reverse. Citizens get poorer and poorer, on average. They are able to afford less and less. This causes falling production because such production is simply not profitable.
Look at Revelation 18: 11-13, talking about how the future fall will be like the collapse of Babylon:
11 “The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes anymore— 12 cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble; 13 cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and human beings sold as slaves.
—
The problem is falling demand and lower prices in a collapse.
Solar, a start on making it work and deal with intermittency.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWw7wDOsc4c
Nature does not make one huge grasshopper, she makes millions of small ones, which run on solar energy, rest and repair at night.
Musk 3D prints rocket engines, this fellow mentions printing farm machinery.
Always the optimist,
Dennis L.
why not just print food
far easier
This is the farm machinery I saw in China in 2011.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/man-with-water-buffalo.jpg
My best car ever was a 1964 Ford Falcon 200 cubic 6 cylinder, automatic C4 transmission that I paid like $100 for back in 1976….it ran good but needed a muffler and set of tires. Even had an add on air-conditioning unit and built line a tank…I know I drove it hard….could fix it myself, no issues…change the carburetor, starter, alternator, brakes, ect….and yes exhaust system, if required.
Saw the video of John Deere and their new high tech machines, along with others about hightech fancy automobiles that can’t be repaired or maintained.
The farmer called John Deere about his new tractor cutting out during hay harvest. He tried first to repair it, changed fuel filter, ect. The Deere Rep said he needs to run a system check scanner first for error codes. The farmer said OK , I’ll rent it. The tech said we don’t do that, I’ll schedule you in for a visit weeks from now!!! But my hay will be ruined by then….oh that’s too bad.
Just like a Ford Truck back light that costs $1,500 to fix because it’s tied into the main control module system , the light leaks and burns out the whole system.
Print that out buddy
It is a sad situation. Complexity can make little fixes very much more difficult/expensive to fix.
Or, more accurately, always the delusionist who looks up the sky for salvation
Nature does not make a grasshopper or a swarm
Musk does not print anything. He dances before Trump for power.
Getting the cost down of field robots looks like it would be a huge challenge.
Russian couple tests the methods for achieving highest yields
https://youtube.com/@gordeevy?si=XNZqcyaUD1y8JobU
Interesting, thank you.
Dennis L.
There is a lot of detail (and complexity) to getting highest yields. It seems like there is room for the process to break down.
Islands will collapse first . Pat Reymond .
MAYOTTE AND OIL PEAK
December 20, 2024 , Written by Patrick REYMOND
With his class or more surely, his total lack of class, Macron, for once, recalls an essential fact: Mayotte is a hole that has no economy and lives on state transfers. 511 million in imports and 11 million in exports. Its only real local activity is a little subsistence agriculture.
2%, therefore, to cover imports. Morality, when the Sultan sold the island to the French, for an annuity of 1000 piastres and the education of his children, he made a damn good deal. The island then had 3000 inhabitants, that was in 1841.
Let’s have a laugh, in the activities, honey production is mentioned, with 20 hives.
The neighboring Comoros, they import 195 million dollars of goods and export 19. We can think that the 250 million of aid coming from France, makes this independence fictitious, and the difference in treatment with Mayotte, creates jealousies.
Life in the Comoros is therefore, as in Mayotte, totally artificial, on life support, and without any real economic activity. The Comoros are nevertheless much less expensive. And even cheap.
In 1997, the islands of Anjouan and Mohéli seceded and asked to be attached to France. Which they refused. Well, the government knew what Mayotte cost, and did not want to give more money. With “only” 250 million, the republic made serious savings. We are talking about 1.7 billion in costs for the state, but also 4 to 5 billion in gains for the European tuna boats fishing in its waters…
It is therefore an ultraperipheral part, whose interest only existed because it was located on an important commercial route, and the Comoros in general were victims of pirates and endless internal wars.
On an island like Mayotte, we have the maximum economic stress caused by peak oil, and it is, for the moment, offset by transfers from the mainland. For the moment.
When France has let go of Mayotte, which it will do, it will still also make savings on the Comoros, there will no longer be any reason to pay them.
In fact, those who say that the colonies were exploited would do better to find out. They are the ones who exploit the mother country.
The cost of bringing food and energy products to an island tends to be very high. It requires oil supplies, especially diesel. Diesel is in short supply. Wind and solar are nowhere near adequate as way of producing energy, even when heat is not needed, and summer/winter differences are small.
The big draw of islands tends to be tourists. But tourism has to decline, if jet fuel is in short supply.
thats what i can never figure out with Saudi—
apparently they are opening up to more tourists, for when the oil runs out—
there’s obviously something i’m missing there.
“It is therefore an ultraperipheral part…”
oh so very well phrased, I’ll have to try to remember that, for future use.
Reading the user comments below an article with a Chinese interviewer and Russian political commentator, one sees the Chinese folks talking about retaking Siberia. I assume this is a commonly held desire/intent among Chinese. The following is web-translated so a few oddities exist (eg. White Ross = Belarus):
“2. Similarly, in the future, Russia will definitely attempt to recover the northwestern half of White Ross and Hasakah, and then integrate it into an Orthodox All-Ros nation state 【 with a population of 】200 million.
3. However, with the current national strength of Russia, it is impossible to achieve the above goals. The only way is to obtain China’s full financial and military assistance!
For China to take the risk of a full break with the United States and the West to support Russia, only if 【 Russia completely abandoned Siberia and the Far East area east of the Yenisei River to China 】.
4. The above path, a Russian elite who believes in 《 grassland Eurasianism》 is absolutely impossible to accept;
However, a person who believes in 《 Byzantine Eurasianism 》 will not have too many psychological obstacles.
After all, 【 Uros + White Ross+ Northwest Hasakah 】 and 【 (to the Yenisei River) East Siberia + Far East Region 】 In terms of the resurgence of Russia, it is more clear at a glance.
“
Here is the article (use web-translate): https://www.guancha.cn/AndreyZvorykin/2024_12_22_759735_2.shtml
I agree that China thinks about Siberia.
Siberia has lots of resources, but the weather is awful. Transportation tends to be a problem, too.
Congratulations France . We are saved .
PARIS, Dec 21 (Reuters) – France connected the Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor to its grid on Saturday morning, state-run operator EDF said, in the first addition to the country’s nuclear power network in 25 years.
The reactor, which began operating in September ahead of the grid connection, is going online 12 years later than originally planned and at a cost of around 13 billion euros – four times the original budget. ”
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/france-adds-first-nuclear-reactor-25-years-grid-2024-12-21/#:~:text=PARIS%2C%20Dec%2021%20(Reuters),power%20network%20in%2025%20years.
The high cost of reactors, with all of the fittings to prevent accidents, is a huge problem. Requirements have kept changing, after the Fukushima accident took place.
The Slovak PM Fico in Moscow
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz0rn85v5kjo
You need some excuses for the world economy slump
No forced labor, no energy
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/minister-says-qatar-will-stop-eu-gas-sales-if-fined-under-due-diligence-law-ft-2024-12-22/
well now, here we are.
on the doorstep of a shiny new year.
and since that year is 2025, it means that the 2020s will be half in the history books.
is that global Collapse on yon horizon?
no it must be a mere illusion.
In the year 2025
If Keith is still alive
If Norman can survive
They may find……
In the year 2026
How are we supposed to get our kicks
When everything we think, do and say
Is in the online videos we viewed today?
In the year 2027
Ain’t got the attention to span to count to 11
The world is turning into hell or is it heaven?
While we’re listening to a song by Zagger and Evans
Whoa-oh-oh!
In the year 2028
Gotta get up early and stay up late
There ain’t much food upon our plate
If you wanna get some, you have to wait
Now we’ve had Trump for 12 years
Norman’s cried a billion tears
For what Trump didn’t do
Now Trump’s reign is through
But through the eternal night
At least if Keith is right
The twinkling of starlight
So very far away
Maybe the Tabbies are coming today
Merry Christmas everyone!*
(*with an opt-out clause for anyone who doesn’t want to be merry.)
well done!
yes we are old enough to remember when that was a hit song.
happy holidays TG.
When you fall into poverty, you have no reason for happy songs
I would say you have even more reason for happy songs.
Bravo Tim!
I especially liked the line where Norman’s cried a billion tears.
obviously—you ( and Tim) know of a secret energy resource that’s going to permit our current lifestyle to go on and grow indefinitely.
that has changed my tears to uncontrollable laughter.
what a relief.
thanks.
don’t forget to let everyone in on it though, most unfair to keep it to yourself—unless you are one of the elite of course—or an elder.
or something.
In the financial absurdity stories:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/teslas-market-cap-nears-half-global-auto-industry
https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/Carmakers-by-Market-Cap_Website.jpg
I wonder if Musk, as DOGE czar, will get to cut subsidies to all US EV automakers. This would benefit Tesla since they’re ahead already.
I personally do not see humanity avoiding a complete surveillance state,
with no mercy, no empathy and no slack whatsoever,
every particle being used for ways which would bring the most utility,
and virtually all of today’s non-owners simply ground to dust.
All these talks about energy sources out somewhere are just talks, and they won’t benefit the poor. All the new lands Spain found in the New World did not help the Spanish peasants, whose condition did not improve at all until late 20th century.
it’s a race, when IC ends a few decades from now due to lack of surplus energy flowing through the system, there will not be enough energy to power that hypothetical survelliance state.
so yeah you’ll be wrong.
even now, the end of growth and the tipping into degrowth will restrain a buildout of survelliance.
try better in 2025, k.
and happy holidays to you.
David is back!!! 😀
happy holidays, Sam.
2024 has been a very nice year for me.
lately I’ve been having lots of fun, and I should do something about that, since it has been distracting me from OFW.
but a peek at my calendar has alerted me to the urgency of posting about the soon to arrive new year.
onwards to 2030 and full speed ahead!
We are going to make it!! I think ……I hope….I wish….I pray….
It is either overcoming the end of IC or back to barbarism.
The term Draconian came from Draco, an Athenian lawyer who supposedly lived around 600 BC.
Premodern societies had no shortage of surveillance.
then for sure it’s back to barbarism for humanity.
no big deal.
humans lived without IC for many thousands of years and surely will return there for many more thousands of years.
it’s almost poetic in its historic symmetry.
the 2040s are going to be brutal.
/////humans lived without IC for many thousands of years and surely will return there for many more thousands of years.////
er
you forgot about the numbers
happy holidays NP.
what numbers have I forgotten?
perhaps you have forgotten that when posting online, there needs to be sufficient words to get across the intended meaning.
and to you David
sorry—i try to avoid over-wordy writing when i can
that was maybe too short—i meant numbers of people—humankind jumped from 700m (peasants) to 8 bn in 300 years.
unsustainable
got it.
yes as IC ends later this century and humanity returns to its more barbaric forms of daily living, the number of humans will return to some level much lower than now, a magnitude lower or very likely even less.
it’s all good.
humans managed to live through tens of thousands of years of barbaric life, and after IC the future humans will probably live for many more tens of thousands of years.
if barbarism was acceptable to the Universe back then, it should be acceptable after IC.
lucky us, living our entire lives through the peak years of IC.
then inevitable human extinction in the far future, it’s nothing to worry about.
Virtually all of today’s owners may be simply ground to dust too.
Once the fully automated high-tech artificially-intelligent system is operational, it may not need any human servants to serve it, and it certainly won’t tolerate any human masters trying to boss it around.
Davros found out this to his cost in Genesis of the Daleks.
(Sorry about the quality of the special effects.
It was the best the BBC could do on their budget!)
Kulm’s philosophy has much in common with Davros’s.
Neither of them had much time or sympathy for the working class.
Because working class, I have to say, has no stake in civilization
Shows like Dr. Who are made for normal chaps who think they have a shot in the world
I don’t watch TV shows. Scripted shows are for mass consumption.
civilisation has no script
no one has a stake in it–or ever can—except as a fleeting part of self delusion.
civilisation is fluid—and has no permanence—no preset intent…..it is what we hold it to be in our present.
we react to circumstance a fantasise that choice id involvrd.
In the world’s wokest country, dying sad new zealand the Christmas season has begun in the usual way; murdering the homeless:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360532421/woman-charged-murder-humble-gisborne-grandfather
What is odd in this otherwise not unusual case is that the perpetrator is a woman.
Now being a woman and committing what would be a serious crime in a first world country, does not come with normal consequences:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/helena-cribb-sentenced-to-home-detention-for-drunken-hit-and-run-death-flaunts-ankle-bracelet-and-drink-in-private-social-media-posts/TC6ZI5NRNRCHFJXV36FWI6NBHU/
Morally bankrupt new zealand specializes in intersectionalism.
You can kill others in this sad country and get a peppercorn sentence if you have the following attributes:
1. You are a woman.
2. You are part of an ethnic minority.
3. You are the daughter of an All Black
Die new zealand, you foul thing.
The dead old man’s name was Wayne Tamahori Dewes
It is a non crime
And, being a daughter of an All Black is like being a daughter of a knight during the medieval era, so it is natural that a Knight’s daughter is treated differently.
Eight kids! And you’re never alone with a whanau. I wonder if the murder suspect was one of the family?
Wayne DEWES Obituary
DEWES, Wayne Tamahori (Wayne). Born October 27, 1957. Passed away on October 28, 2024 aged 67yrs. He will be dearly missed. Survived by his partner, 8 children and their growing whanau, mother, and 4 siblings. He will lie at Pahau Marae in Manutuke from Friday afternoon Nov 1. Church Services at 7pm Fri/Sat, and 11am Sunday followed by interment at Taruheru Cemetery, then hakari. Nau mai, haere mai.
To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.
Published by The New Zealand Herald on Nov. 1, 2024.
For those readers not sufficiently excited about New Zealand crime to click the links, I should explain that these are two separate cases. Helena Cribb was given a light sentence for a drunken hit & run homicide. (That’s three strikes by the way.) And some other as-yet young unnamed woman has been brought to court for murdering a grandfather.
Privilege has to be recognized.
It will be a whole new business atmosphere in Italy starting on January 1, 2025. That’s because the federal government there will require every company to buy climate insurance as internal financial support to offset losses from floods, landslides, and other natural hazards.
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/12/20/all-companies-in-italy-must-now-purchase-climate-insurance-its-the-law/#:~:text=It%20will%20be%20a%20whole,landslides%2C%20and%20other%20natural%20hazards.
The article is supposedly about Italy, but it talks a great deal about the US, too.
The whole issue is very political. Historically, in the US, flood insurance has been offered by the federal government at very low rates, to encourage building in flood zones. Also, rates for homeowners insurance and the corresponding coverage for businesses have been held down my government agencies, especially in Florida and California. It is a very foreseeable risk. The state and federal government would like to encourage building in scenic areas (where tax rates are high). Insurance companies move out, as a result of the inadequate rates.
I expect rates in Italy will be high. This will disadvantage Italian businesses. Their overhead expenses will be higher. The benefit will be close to nil. It will tend to make Italian businesses less competitive in world trade.
I agree Gail.
At the moment the deadline for the new law has been postponed to March 2025, becuse no one was ready, including insurances, due to the great impact on the number of Italian business.
My impression is that it has been decided in order to avoid that the State will be obliged in the future to help citizens on the result of catastrophic events, like the ones that have been happening lately for natural and not natural causes (see cloud seeding).
It has actually happened lately that the Italian State has been forced to help citizens and business with great amount of money for the catastrophic consequences of floods.
They want to avoid to do it again.
My impression is that at the moment European governments still see possibilities to squeeze citizens and business more, that is probably true if we compare our standard living with the one of Lebanese or Syrian people.
They will go on till the economic system will allow that and , in particular, untill the financial system will allow to go on creating the incredible amount of State debts that is still growing.
https://www.economyup.it/innovazione/assicurazione-obbligatoria-imprese-contro-i-danni-da-calamita-naturali-come-funziona-e-le-tecnologie/
It is Christmas Season and I will offer an interesting menu.
Christmas Menu , Paris , 1870
Hors D’oeuvres.
Butter Radishes Sardines Ass’s head, stuffed.
Potages
Puree of beans aux croutons Elephant consommé
Entrees
Fried gudgeons Roast Camel a la Anglaise
Civet of kangaroo Roast ribs of bear
Rotis
Haunch of wolf, venison sauce Cat with rats
Water-cress salad
Antelope pie, truffled Petit pois au beurre (small peas in butter)
Rice-bakes with preserves
Gruyere cheese
Wines
Xeres Chateau Mouton Rothschild
Latour blanche, 1861 Rornancee Contil, 1858
Chateu Palmer, 1860 Bollinger frappe
orti, 1827
Café et liqueurs
It is said that the menu was served to clients at Voison, a famous restaurant during these days. Some say it was for Rothschilds, but who knows. It is said that the whole mean costed what would be $400 in today’s dollars.
What led to this unusual menu is the German Siege of Paris. Long story short, the Germans and the French got into a squabble no one knows and cares now, and the Germans whipped the French rather hard, besieging the City of Lights.
It is true that animals in the zoos of Paris were eaten, and there were markets for meat not usually eaten in normal times. The slaughter of the elephants is documented by Victor Hugo, who talked to someone who actually ate an Elephant foot soup (which was not too tasty). Lautreamont, a young poet who could not afford such kind of meat described above, died (probably of starvation – no one at that time had the time and inclination to find out the cause of death) at the age of 24 during the siege.
I said anything bigger than hedgehogs will be eaten. And there is a precedent.
Meat was always the high-priced food. More of it was deemed “better.” So this is the strange menu that they came up with.
“citizens will tend to be unhappy.”
With good reason. Falling income per capita trips evolved psychological brain mechanisms and puts the population on path to war, revolution, or the destruction of a subgroup. That is the theme of the “Genetic Selection for War in Prehistoric Human Populations” paper.
https://arelzedblog.wordpress.com/2024/12/01/berserk/
Thanks for the link to your draft article. It sounds like it is a fairly recent article you have been working on.
I have read before about young women being taken in as wives, and the men being used as slaves, building roads and doing other heavy work that people would not want to volunteer to do as work. The reason given for taking women in as wive was a problem of higher mortality of women, due to excess deaths during/after childbirth. This is not directly related to the choice to fight or not.
If the problem is not enough energy resources, capturing men and using them to do quite a bit of the heavy labor would seem to help with this issue. Dams could perhaps be built, for example. This might be a different direction Arel Lucas might be interested in exploring.
“fairly recent article”
It is a follow up to a 2006 article, https://www.academia.edu/777381/Evolutionary_psychology_memes_and_the_origin_of_war
The new part is a math analysis of gene selection when war was a better alternative for genes than starving and how a human cultural norm of taking the women of a defeated tribe makes the gene survival work. It makes a case for why bonobos are so different in behavior from chimps in passing. It is possible that one human group, the Khoesan, missed selection for war because the women have so few children. If this is the case, that group split off before the selection for war happened. The selection predates “out of Africa.”
The genetic selection for war happened before roads, dams and for that matter, agriculture. Something, weather in most cases, about once a generation disrupted the food supply. The choice was attack neighbors or starve.
Population running up against the resource limits is not new.
Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith!
I know it’s difficult, but you have to try to appreciate the difference between raiding and war.
While both raiding and war involve conflict, they represent different phenomena.
Raiding is a smaller, more opportunistic act, whereas war is a larger, organized campaign with strategic purposes.
Understanding this distinction will help you greatly in analyzing the evolution of human conflict throughout history, if that is your aim.
Humans are opportunists. Chimps and bonobos are opportunists. Monkeys and squirrels, cats and dogs, crows and pigeons, raccoons, coyotes, bears, seagulls, ants….. all are all opportunists.
Pigs and boars… Great opportunists.
Carnivores, it goes without saying, and also omnivores tend to be opportunists. Herbivores are generally more conservative and fussier about what they eat. Koalas are not opportunists as they eat mostly eucalyptus leaves, and neither are Galapagos marine iguanas, who subsist almost entirely on algae. Giant pandas are opportunistic only to the extent that they will make use of any opportunity to eat bamboo leaves and shoots.
Giant pandas,, Koalas and marine iguanas are not generally territorial or aggressive, although the boys will fight over the chicks, and the girls will fight to protect their kids. Probably mammalian species that don’t fight over the chicks or to protect their kids die out in short order.
But fighting over the chicks and fighting to protect the kids is not WAR. War is a racket. War is a business. War is a force that gives Neocons meaning. War / Good God, y’all / What is it good for?
No need for genes for war. Genes for opportunism does the trick much more neatly. Opportunists will go to war when the occasion or their bottom line demands.
“War is a racket. War is a business.”
What would you call this:
. Larry J. Zimmerman and Richard Whitten, 1980. “Mass Grave at Crow
Creek in South Dakota Reveals How Indians Massacred Indians in 14th
Century Attack,” Smithsonian 11, no. 6 (1980): 100-109.
There were rat hunters in Paris until 1914. In 1870, they made a fortune selling them for 2 francs each, if they were not killed in a knife fight in the catacombs. Rat meat has always been sold until recently.
During the Hundred Years’ War, a pork butcher who made excellent pâtés was sentenced to be burned, along with his accomplice, the barber, who killed monks and threw them into his basement. I’ll let you guess what the pork butcher’s pâtés were made of.
We are literally poisoning ourselves…never mind ..
during brewing By Sanjana Gajbhiye Earth.com staff writer
You might think of tea as a comforting, soothing ritual. But, scientists at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) have made a startling discovery – infusing tea through commercial tea bags might be releasing billions of nanoplastics and microplastics into your cup.
Recent research from the Mutagenesis Group in the UAB Department of Genetics and Microbiology highlights how polymer-based tea bags release microplastics and nanoplastics (MNPLs) during brewing.
For the first time, the study has shown that these particles can be absorbed by human intestinal cells, potentially entering the bloodstream and spreading throughout the body.
Source of plastic contamination in tea bags
Food packaging is a leading contributor to micro and nanoplastic pollution. Humans are primarily exposed to these particles through inhalation and ingestion.
This new study focuses on the significant release of MNPLs from commercially available tea bags when used to prepare an infusion.
The researchers discovered alarming levels of contamination:
Polypropylene released around 1.2 billion particles per milliliter, with an average size of 136.7 nanometers.
Cellulose released 135 million particles per milliliter, averaging 244 nanometers.
Nylon-6 released 8.18 million particles per milliliter, averaging 138.4 nanometers.
Ancient Rome had lead piping, we have too many to list..
Like Art Berman said the Climate isn’t top of the list to worry about..
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=12sBWD_xqL4&t=1444s
Support for Scottish independence continues to rise despite the troubles of the SNP. Whether they can get another referendum anytime soon is another matter.
States are not obliged to offer independence referendums under ‘international law’ and UK law takes precedence over that in any case.
The UK government gave them a referendum in 2014. Maybe they will give them another one some time. Whatever they want to do.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24807978.poll-yes-support-59-per-cent-scotland-becomes-republic/
Poll: Independence support at 59% if Scotland ditches monarchy
INDEPENDENCE support would rise to 59% from 54% if it meant Scotland would be a republic, a new poll shows.
Support for independence was found to have risen to 54% when undecided voters are excluded earlier this month in poll commissioned by The Times following the Scottish Budget.
Campaign group Believe in Scotland (BiS) commissioned pollsters Norstat to ask the same panel if Scotland removing the King as head of state would affect how they would vote.
Support went from 54% in the same poll to 59%.
Founder of BiS Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp said: “That’s quite a jump and although roughly what my gut was telling me to expect, it’s also strange to see it confirmed after all these years of no polling on that issue. It throws up lots of questions, first being will this be repeated in future polls?
“Does this reflect the current generation of Royals or will William becoming King, with his more media friendly Queen, change things?”
I can imagine more and more separation of countries into smaller units over time. Get rid of the overhead of Royals, if nothing else.
Let Scotland go independent, and let them have the Monarchy, as England has no further use for the Windsors.
At the very least, let the Scots have Andrew—a Royal with no country for a country with no Royals! And with a good old-fashioned Scottish name to boot.
“The U.S. lost its way in foreign policy because its leaders were energy-blind.”?
https://www.artberman.com/blog/almost-everything-is-about-oil-in-the-middle-east/
“The true cost of wind and solar energy in New England is not competitive with that of natural gas. This is especially true for offshore wind, which is twelve times more expensive than combined cycle (CC) natural gas in the region. . . .
As a result of not accounting for the hidden costs of intermittent energy, even the unsubsidized LCOE values estimated by Lazard are extremely low, ranging from $27 to $73 per MWh for onshore wind, $74 to $139 per MWh for offshore wind, and $29 to $92 per MWh for solar.
As we have shown, the true system cost of wind and solar in New England is at least three times the high-end values listed above, and up to twelve times more expensive than the low-end values. “ ?
https://energybadboys.substack.com/p/wind-and-solar-up-to-12-times-more
I agree that the cost of intermittent wind and solar are very misleading, when looking at scaling these up. These amounts were developed with the assumption that wind and solar would be only tiny additions to the grid. If wind and solar are to be anywhere near self-supporting, huge additional costs will be involved. (In fact, I question whether it is really possible.) I don’t know if the amounts shown are the right ones, but they seem much more likely than the nonsense low ones that we have been seeing.
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The world does not bend to emotional tales. – The Kageyu (Inspector) in the movie Hara Kiri
(And Fast Eddy said ‘when men were men’ about this)
===
Those who get emotional for the mother and the child in the below clip have no business entering Type I Civilization.
https://youtu.be/UoXpir_s9yo?si=zQpXBOApNFH2ZUk0
A cop cites a homeless woman who said she is about to give birth. And people get outraged.
Yet he did the correct thing for the taxpayers of the city.
Frankly speaking, a child to be born that way would not be really adding anything to Civilization, but is likely to be a burden to the society.
Long time ago, 19 years old Herman Melville went to England to work and there was an unwed mother, crying with her two young’uns, because she had nothing to eat and nowhere to go. The young Melville tried to help her as best as he could, but the neighbors said she and her children deserved to die because they were in sin. When Melville returned to her after a long assignment they were gone and no one would say where they went. That experience haunted Melville for the rest of his life.
Things in England back then, before 1945, were much tighter and people had no mercy or no resources to waste for the unfortunate and those who could not fit, something Dickens, one of the few who did care, wrote in his stories over and over again.
Those who run civilization are now increasingly getting fed up of having to support peoples who are unlikely to support civilization, and would rather see such kind of peoples gone.
As resources turn scarcer and things ‘simplify’, the hostilities of those who have the resource to survive against those who don’t will be full blown. I have stories which are PG-13 about how my ancestors treated such people, which I could supply if requested.
One does not enter Type I Civilization with emotions or mercy.
Very hard decisions, which will not be palatable by many, will have to be taken and everything will have to be concentrated for that purposes.
While all the technologies being tauted here have merit, and I am not opposing them, there are just a bunch of ‘mights’ and ‘coulds’ and no actual move to built such contraptions, which means it is already too late. All of them should have been in operation by now, instead of remaining in the blueprints.
Building them now will not do any good since the world as we know won’t last beyond 2027.
Only those who entered machine-line conscious levels will enter Type I Civilization.
“Type I Civilization”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_civilization
The way this is defined is on energy consumption, about a 1000 times the current amount. Human use of energy was not growing much until recently when AI training and use shot up. AIs are part of civilization. I think they are likely to become the majority part of civilization before it becomes a Type I. But that is just a guess.
You might consider recasting your Type 1 model with humans being a small, perhaps vanishing part of the future.
I have written fiction about this era, but most of it is offline at the moment. In this world, most of the human population uploaded leaving a small population which TPTB (whoever or whatever they are at time) are trying to preserve.
https://htyp.org/Standard_gauge
PS If what we see at Tabby’s star is a data center, they are between a Type I and a Type II. One of the objects (or whatever) is intercepting 1.4 million times the energy used by humans (not counting agriculture).
The Tabby star phenomenon is just conjecture as this point. More fanciful imagination. The 1.4 million times the energy used by humans would seem to indicate other phenomena in my opinion. That is a substantial percentage of the energy emitted by the star! People love to believe in miracles. Counting on one is wishfull thinking.
wish science is one of the staples in our diet of survival
This is more like terror than wish.
Of course, one could say that miracles are all around us! Most living things seem miraculous to me! I think I’m disagreeing with myself here. Oh well, dream on!
Most (all?) living things, and even the self-organizing economy seem miraculous to me. We can never be certain what is ahead, if there is a literal Higher Power behind the Universe, and the way it operates.
“The Tabby star phenomenon is just conjecture as this point.
More like unexplained observation.
“More fanciful imagination. The 1.4 million times the energy used by humans would seem to indicate other phenomena in my opinion. That is a substantial percentage of the energy emitted by the star!”
No, it is a very small fraction. It is not hard to figure out where it is and how large it is. It blocked 22% of the light from the star and took about a day to cross our line of sight. That gave the velocity and from that (and the star’s mass) the orbital radius of 7.8 AU. The area is 22% of the star’s disk, about 409 times the area of the Earth. The light for that star at that distance is about 1/10th the intensity of sunlight at Earth’s orbit, Times the area gives the intercepted starlight. While large, it is still a very small fraction
” People love to believe in miracles. ”
Given how low people think the chances of even one technological civilization in the galaxy is, finding one that close is improbable to the extreme. If it is one, it is a miracle.
“Counting on one is wishfull thinking.”
I was in the “don’t know what it is, but it has to be natural” camp before the astronomers found 24 blinking stars in a cluster. One is likely natural, 24 looks intentional. The closest blinking star is 511 ly from us. If we are looking at aliens, there is good news and bad news.
The good news is that they made it through their local singularity, so maybe we can too.
The bad news is that we have competition and they are thousands of years ahead of us.
Or maybe NASA et al are just pumping out fake bollox.
“In the standard Lambda-CDM model of cosmology, the mass–energy content of the universe is 5% ordinary matter, 26.8% dark matter, and 68.2% a form of energy known as dark energy. Thus, dark matter constitutes 85% of the total mass, while dark energy and dark matter constitute 95% of the total mass–energy content.”
So gravity and its prevailing universe model need 85% and 95% of unknown, undetected ‘substances’ to work.
At least NASA’s CGI is improving. Is that called “value for taxpayer dollars”
“Or maybe NASA et al are just pumping out fake bollox.”
The Kepler space craft recorded the discovery data, but finding it in the mass of data was due to a bunch of citizen scientists. Tabby Boyajian was the lead author on the 2015 paper and since then has run a privately funded observation program. (I contributed a little.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabby%27s_Star
The JWST looked at the star more than a year ago, but as far as I know nothing was ever published about the observations. (Fodder for the paranoid.)
“In the standard Lambda-CDM model ”
This star is so close that cosmology does not enter the picture as far as I know.
Tabby’s star from Forbes….
” It’s definitely due to dust particles, down to maybe about 100 nanometers in size. The ratio of how the light dims in different wavelengths/colors demonstrates that and rules out other hypotheses.”
It seems Keith doesn’t want to believe in reality….
I’ll contend that there are no space faring civilizations and all type 1, 11 and 111 civilizations are just a figment of human imaginations, a nice fairy tale of the future, instead of the harsh reality that humans without the energy slaves of fossil fuels will return to a life that is nasty, brutish and short, on a planet devoid of most other life forms due to our diligence in sending so many species extinct…
“rules out other hypotheses.”
Dust won’t do it. Light pressure blows it away like a comet tail
Understand that I hope you are right. Because if the 24 blinking stars are aliens, we face serious competition from a much older civilization.
“Regardless of the mechanism in question, we can be certain of one conclusion: the reason for the dimming of Boyajian’s star is due to dust. This is normal, particulate dust, containing particle sizes down to about 100 nanometers, or smaller than the wavelength of visible light. The same dust that causes short, day-or-less dips also causes dips that last many months, and also cause the decline that’s lasted more than a century. It’s all due to plain, normal dust.”
“The big, open question that now remains is where this dust came from? It’s not because the star is young or still forming, and there are incredible constraints on the star having an unseen companion. It cannot all come from interstellar dust. Was a planet devoured? Is there something even more unusual afoot? The only way to know will be with more — and better — science on this object. But one thing’s for certain: even if alien megastructures exist somewhere, they aren’t here.”
Keith I’d love to believe that aliens are zipping around the galaxy and universe, but the laws of physics forbid it, along with power laws of size and complexity of civilization guarantee that any species anywhere in the universe that uses up their own natural resources will Kollapse their civilization long before they have reached the stars, in anything except in a rudimentary way…
“plain, normal dust.”
The concept of computronium has been discussed on the Extropian list for maybe 30 years. It is nanocomputers that are able to station keep using light pressure. I don’t think much of the idea, but it would explain why an alien artifact looks like dust from a distance.
“aliens are zipping”
They don’t have FTL, or they would be here. From the looks of the cluster, they are spreading at sub light speeds.
“except in a rudimentary way…”
That seems to be the case, if they actually exist and really have spread out to 24 stars.
Your argument about using up natural resources doesn’t hold water, life has existed a very long time on the same resources and sunlight.
What? at 7.8 AU not even a very large star will blow away anything quick. All our planets were at one point a dusty cloud. I wonder why they do not see more of these. Being edge-on, as we apparently are with this star, only loses a factor of 1000. After all the entire field of planetary science has moved to giant surveys of starts, looking precisely for that 1/1000 to record transits and derive both mass and size of planets.
“blow away anything quick.”
Can you put numbers on this?
Sure. Tabby is close to the Sun in mass, having about four times the luminosity. it took the Sun about 10 million years to clear the dust from its disk. But other events can regenerate dust as you know, such as large comets and large collisions. I can assure you that the Earth looked exactly the same after the collision that created the Moon (that is, there was a clumpy ring that eventually coalesced into a single body). Plus if they have determined that it is dust, they must have done it by reddening during those dimming periods. You can’t argue with spectral changes.
I ask myself if volcanic eruptions can also do something like that, since after all Ganymede and Callisto are dark due to Io’s volcanoes dust. and Io is really small, although really volcanic. What do the Doppler curves say about tabby? is there anything else besides the red dwarf companion?. Has any of the infrared space teelscopes ever looked there? if they haven’t, it probably is not interesting.
” Has any of the infrared space teelscopes ever looked there?”
Yes. The JWST did over a year ago. Far as I know there has never been a report. Stick that in your paranoid pipe and take a puff.
If there is no report it is because there is nothing to report, no? just run of the mill reddening. I assure you it is extremely common in astronomy.
From a space forum
” interests of all member states.”
it was the emphasis on States while giving short shrift to individuals that motivated the L5 Society to (successfully) oppose the Moon Treaty.
However, my thinking on this subject has been drifting in the last year with the rise of AI. The AIs may make States (or even people) obsolete before there is serious expansion into space.
It is nonsense to think humans will dominate in a world where the AIs are much smarter than we are.
AI is not smart, not the interactions I’ve had with it anyway, I’m always pulling it up on points/stats it leaves out, as it is a program, programmed to think linearly. It is not smart nor intelligent, just a computer program with lots of inputs that still makes many mistakes..
“still makes many mistakes”
Yep. On one of the other groups I follow someone posted a silly error an AI made. It was the kind of error you might expect from a 6th grade student trying to work a word problem.
But they are getting better fast and I find that as tools they cut the time to do a rough engineering analysis by a large factor, much faster than using a search engine.
Jordan is the next Syria ?
“Jordan is the next Syria ? ”
I sort of doubt it. Jordan seem to have a reasonable government. But you never can tell.
As if that mattered.
A quick check on Jordan’s oil reserves shows that they have virtually nil. So, they are safe in that regard.
But, if I was anyone living in that region, I would be preparing to loose everything.
That is the main driver, but there is also water. Israel might want to have both shores of the river.
If the people of a country cannot earn incomes that will buy a reasonable amount of goods and services, revolution becomes likely. In particular, if standards of living are going downhill, citizens will tend to be unhappy.
Behind paywall so copy/paste . Flying below the radar .
” Donald Trump broke a whole lot of economic-policy conventions when last he was in the White House. One he stopped short of, however, was action against Hong Kong’s pegged-exchange rate.
That may seem arcane when measured against the Republican’s other first term-grenade tosses. Like when he crippled the World Trade Organization’s judicial oversight of commercial disputes, or used dubious national security concerns to justify tariff hikes on treaty allies (as he did against the European Union over steel and aluminum.)
It may also seem minor when considering how President Joe Biden engaged in convention-breaking of his own, albeit tied to a brutal war of aggression that’s killed tens of thousands. Biden froze Russia out of the dollar-based international financial system and participated in an initiative to send Ukraine the earnings on seized Russian assets.
But Hong Kong’s exchange-rate peg to the dollar, along with its broader role as a globally respected center for cross-border finance, offers China perhaps its best opportunity of constructing a parallel system to the current one based on the greenback. And with Trump’s adjutants on the warpath to maintain the dollar’s dominance, it’s something that’s worth keeping an eye on come Jan. 20.
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Donald Trump broke a whole lot of economic-policy conventions when last he
China’s policymakers have long hoped to diminish the dollar’s global role, with a central bank chief once calling for a “super sovereign” reserve currency. But setting up some new international denomination is inordinately complex, and coordinating such a thing across many major economies seems a stretch. (Just consider how many questions still remain with regard to the euro.)
For a while, it seemed China would try and make the yuan a new force in global finance. In the early 2010s, there was talk of fully opening the nation’s capital account, allowing free use of the Chinese currency overseas. But a botched devaluation in mid-2015 and a subsequent mass exodus of capital from China put an end to that idea, undermining the credibility of Beijing regulators who had backed market-based reform.
More broadly, allowing for free use of the yuan around the world is incompatible with a Communist government that prioritizes control of both the cost of capital and deciding where it should flow. So there’s that as well.
But China does have another currency available to it: the Hong Kong dollar. This one is freely convertible and issued by an authority that has a different (read: Western) legal system. Since 1983, the Hong Kong dollar has been pegged to the more famous one.
Ironically, that move was made to address a crisis of confidence tied to China. At the time, investors were spooked by talks regarding the territory’s handover by Britain to Communist-run China. The New York Times reported that, before the dollar-fix was made, residents were hoarding “what are considered the three staples of life here: rice, toilet paper and liquor.” The peg helped calm things down.
In 1997 Hong Kong returned to mainland control. But it retained its UK legal system and connection to the broader international trade and financial system. Today, Hong Kong’s status as an international financial center—though wavering—makes it a key pillar in “Beijing’s vision of becoming a financial superpower,” according to Huang Yiping, a member of the People’s Bank of China’s Monetary Policy Committee who is ranked fourth in Trivium China’s list of the country’s top economic advisers.
“The city is a Chinese territory, but it is also where market forces dominate, where its institutions and its way of life are in line with international standards with international recognition. We must continue to keep all of these in place,” Huang said, adding “the peg makes a lot of sense, given the dominance of the US dollar.”
Indeed, Charles Gave, founder of the Gavekal research group, speculated this week that Hong Kong could become the potential nucleus of a new international financial system. Gave highlighted a buildup of US dollar reserves in Hong Kong in recent years, a potential sign of Asian exporters opting to keep their earnings outside of the US.
“If these deposits were to be converted into Hong Kong dollars, and lent to borrowers in countries around Asia, we would see the emergence of a new pyramid of credit,” Gave wrote in a note Thursday. “In effect, this credit would be denominated in US dollars, but the US authorities would have no oversight over it or how it gets used.”
As for Trump, the real estate developer-turned-politician is hardly someone who likes being told he has no say over something. And Hong Kong was indeed a focus of his previous administration. Back in mid-2020, Trump’s advisers decided against moving to undermine the Hong Kong dollar peg to the greenback. The context was how to punish China for its draconian crackdown on freedom of speech, assembly and the press in the territory under what Beijing called a “national security law.”
Fast forward several years, and things may be viewed differently in Trump’s second term. This will especially be the case if the peg emerges as a key facet of a cross-border financial system that can compete with the dollar.
And nowadays, Hong Kong has fewer champions in Washington. Just last month, the Republican and Democratic heads of the House China Select Committee said in a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen that Hong Kong “has shifted from a trusted global financial center to a critical player in the deepening authoritarian axis” of China, Iran, Russia and North Korea.”
This raised questions over “whether longstanding US policy towards Hong Kong, particularly towards its financial and banking sector, is appropriate,” Representatives John Moolenaar and Raja Krishnamoorthi wrote.
One more dynamic to watch in the sea of geo-economic uncertainty that is 2025.
Don’t mess with China .
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/chinese-ship-suspected-undersea-baltic-cable-sabotage-sails
The entire argument that Hong Kong will supplant the USA in global credit issuance should be backed up by some facts, like what percent of global credit is issued in HKD. The article seems like a lot of hot air to me.
Almost any aspect seems vulnerable to change, now.
I hadn’t thought about the peg of the Hong Kong dollar to the US dollar.
When I go around and see poorer people walking with their children, I just want to sigh.
They do not know that their young’uns will meet horrible ends, as the challenges of advancing civilization will leave no room for the majority of civilization.
About 80-90% of all people alive now will have no way to earn a living to sustain themselves, let alone their families, within 10 years from now as the advancing tech will separate a lot of people from their occupations which will be unnecessary.
The future will be efficient, cruel and efficient. Simplification means simplification of unnecessary things, and today’s winners will gladly watch the demise of 80-90% of today’s pop, which will not affect them an iota.
Sounds like you’d make the poor individuals around you into stem cell farms in an instant or maybe just surplus parts, for no less than being so…poor, but compared to whom?
Poor people are in many ways more capable of being happy and generous in their state than the so called advantaged in theirs’. Whom would you rather have for company?
What an ocean of empathy if everyone thinks to exploit the already exploited oh sorry, i meant ocean of psychopathy.
Judge not; it might be a poor warm hearted empath who saves you, least yeh be converted into a stem cell donor because of an otherwise greedy empty little worthless self, very common and therefore not worth much at all. In fact could be easily got rid of…do you see the circular reasoning?
That frees a lot of resources for those who are more likely to advance civilization
Poorer people being happy? After skipping three meals they won’t happy too much
Smarter people love companies with peoples of their own level, not those who live in different worlds
Those who run the world have zero empathy. Which is how they advanced that far.
I have written quite a few posts about that.
Yemen is a very poor, overpopulated country. It is well past peak oil. Yet, somehow it has hypersonic missiles.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/houthi-hypersonic-missile-renders-iron-dome-useless-slams-tel-aviv-area
A triangle trade? Iran sells to China. China gives missiles to Iran. Iran gives missiles to Yemen. Yemen kills people on behalf of Iran (and China).
You might be correct!
Learning the tricks from Great Britain
Many political analysts such as Alexander Mercouris have warned Israel, be careful what you wish for. The entire Syrian region thanks to the United States Empire who spreads chaos and destruction around the world could have a negative blowback effect on Israel. Now there are different factions fighting each other while Israel is gobbling up more land for its turkey dinner.
I would like to remember to all of you that Israel is killing almost all Gaza people (and many West Bankers, Lebanese etc.) with US bombs and weapons.
And Israel avoided to be heavily attacked by Iran missiles last month, thanks to external air help from US, UK and France.
The pilots are OK, but a Fighter Jet was lost.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-fighter-jet-shot-down-over-red-sea-disastrous-friendly-fire-incident
US Fighter Jet Shot Down Over Red Sea In Disastrous ‘Friendly Fire’ Incident
So much talk about bitcoin can that help the states res established power and pay off its debts?
No . Power is exercised through control and control can only be done exercised via surplus energy . So it will fail , but the governments will try the method you have enunciated . Power is the ultimate addiction .
We have plenty of energy now.
Didn’t you hear about the massive oil glut coming next year for the foreseeable decade?
Is this tongue in cheek? If there is an oil glut that means that there is a depression economically. If that happens governments have to go deeper into debt to help citizens out. I just don’t see how this bitcoin plays out? Eventually does it crash? Or can it be used to make debt go away? Strange times
They’re gonna wipe the debt I’m assuming when the next pandemic or something of that nature hits. Looks like Bird flu
Reading Gail’s graphs, I see industrial output tanking, a glut would be consistent with that.
Dennis L
Oil producers quit because the price doesn’t stay high enough.
if bitcoin could be used to clear debt
they would pay your wages with it
they don’t
ask yourself why
debt cannot be repaid by the simple expedient of ‘creating money’ which is what bitcoin is.
yes—-i know gevernments pay off debt by creating more debt, but that will ultimately collapse too, when there is not enough money in the system to sustain it
my mistake——
not enough energy in the system to sustain it
We need a growing supply of finished goods and services to repay debt with interest. This was possible, when the supply of oil and other fossil fuels was growing rapidly.
Without a growing supply of finished goods and services, all that more “money” can provide is inflation. This makes citizens very unhappy.
Well, fusion is supposedly around the corner, on earth no less, in the US no less.
Musk is going for shot seven soon now, if that works, space is now a open space mine with Jupiter as a garbage dump and safe, reliable fusion for energy.
Sort of solves those problems.
Dennis L.
problem is——
”finished goods” represent converted embodied energy
and that is getting too expensive to use in the conversion process
We need fewer immigrants, to keep the denominator in “goods per capita” down.
We need less debt, as the economy tends to shrink. Or perhaps, governments try to issue more debt, to try to paper over problems. But this tends to lead to inflation/hyperinflation.
Could it be the demographics is wrong secondary to “modern” medicine?
Dennis L.
dont know what the average wage is in usa
but i’d guess immigrants work for a lot less
pay your veg pickers a higher rate, and everyone will complain about higher prices.
But you can’t have less debt in the USA because of collateral debt obligations. The immigrants were a way of kicking BAU down the track. Trump appears to want to spend more money 💰 than Biden. My guess is that when the smoke clears after Biden we will find that there is more debt than he admits and unemployment will be higher. When I searched the latest funding bill it’s difficult to find out how much it increases the overall debt
Maybe the U.S gets richer and the rest of the world gets poorer as inflows keep coming in
I am sure that the US getting richer and the rest of world getting poorer is what Trump and his advisors want. They especially want this on a per capita basis. Getting rid of extra unwanted immigrants might help GDP per capita.
Depends . Are you looking at ” nominal ” or ” Price Purchasing Parity ” ‘
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29
I remember reading about the possibility that the price of gold could be used to create sufficient collateral for greater creation of credit without the collapse of balance sheets. The gold is held as an asset that counterbalances the incredible depts on balance sheets. An example would be the USA. If we have 8,000 tons of gold, if the price of gold is high enough then debits equal credits and financial solvency results! Of course, the price would have to be exorbitant! I wonder if this would matter in reality. I should relay that the price of gold is considered a reflection of the value of the dollar. So if the price is exorbitant, that may just reflect the loss in value of the dollar. Sounds a bit like Alice In Wonderland though, so the future is uncertain.
If the quantity of gold stays constant, and the quantity of goods and services created each year falls, even a person owning gold will be able to buy less each year. The situation will look like inflation.
If the amount of money increases, but the quantity of goods falls, the situation will look like even worse inflation.
It is very difficult to “stay even” in a world with a falling quantity of goods and service, per capita.
Yes that’s interesting I wonder what happened at the collapse of the Soviet Union… it must have been difficult to get certain goods then. I wonder if that is similar to what you are talking about
Dmitry Orlov writes about the collapse of the Soviet Union. He lived in the US for several years, but now he lives in Russia. One of his books is Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Experience and American Prospects-Revised & Updated.
That book is 13 years ago. I will try to get a copy, but from the reviews it seems to largely about things in the US that did not happen–yet.
Kind of like OFW.
“wonder what happened at the collapse of the Soviet Union”
I have never understood this historical event.
It seems like there should be a book about it. Any pointers?
At least part of the problem was low oil prices that damaged the economics for an oil exporter like the Soviet Union. Another issue was that collective farming was not very productive.
A couple of old posts:
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2013/04/05/how-oil-exporters-reach-financial-collapse/
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/08/08/fall-of-the-soviet-union-implications-for-today/
Dmitry’s book is on my shelf.
The US has already undergone cultural collapse, collapse in its ability to build infrastructure at an affordable price, weapons that work in a large scale conflict etc etc.
Collapse doesn’t mean Mad Max, just an ongoing slide into poverty and chaos.
All The Western countries are at various stages of this process. You can debate forever whether this is deliberate, or just the inevitable outcome of human nature.
“Dmitry’s book is on my shelf.”
Perhaps you could summarize what he says about the events that led up to the collapse?
“The US has already undergone cultural collapse, ”
I don’t pay a lot of attention to such things, but do you think the Taylor Swift concerts were a cultural event? My wife drags me to concert events like she did decades ago. There seems to be a surfeit of movies and video.
“collapse in its ability to build infrastructure at an affordable price,”
For the most part we seem to have enough infrastructure. There is some new being built, but mostly it is replace or repair. Thinking of the I35 bridge in Minneapolis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Saint_Anthony_Falls_Bridge
Bunch of stuff I didn’t know.
“Flatiron Construction, Inc. and Manson Construction Co. were awarded the contract on September 19, 2007; Flatiron’s was the highest-priced and longest schedule of the bids submitted.[21]”
It didn’t go to the low bidder. Someone knew what they were doing.
….
“While the total cost was expected to be between USD $300 million and $350 million for the 1,900-foot (579 m) multi-span bridge, including financial incentives for accelerating the schedule,[11] the winning bid was for USD $234 million. Disincentives for missing the completion date of December 24, 2008 included a $200,000 per day penalty, while incentives to finish early could have been as much as $27 million.[21][24]
…
The team constructed the $234 million bridge three months ahead of schedule and on budget, with no lost time due to safety accidents.[30] Flatiron-Manson was expected to earn $27 million in bonuses for accelerated performance.[31] ”
The other infrastructure repair project that impressed me was the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernando_de_Soto_Bridge I could not find how much it cost to repair .
^^^^^^
” weapons that work in a large scale conflict etc etc.”
Certainly weapons are expensive. I am interested in what you consider examples of ones that don’t work. A large scale conflict could go to nuclear weapons. I know enough about this topic to expect the US ones to work. Unfortunately.
“Collapse doesn’t mean Mad Max, just an ongoing slide into poverty and chaos.
“All The Western countries are at various stages of this process. You can debate forever whether this is deliberate, or just the inevitable outcome of human nature.
I think the wild card in the deck is the extremely rapid advancement of AI.
I should find and post a chunk of Beyond AI by J. Storrs Hall. It was published in 2007. He missed a few things, but most of his projections of the future to date are correct.
Is not existing debt devalued by inflation
it is
but only if theres an increasing input of physical goods into the economic system
When we compare hunters and gatherers, the hunters are not very resilient: overhunting in accessible areas is easy, the animals have parasites, diseases. You need a lot of heat to prepare the meat, it is hard to preserve the meat.
If humans survived in the past, it could not have been thanks to hunting. There are safer sources of protein.
https://chatgpt.com/share/676628dd-8c28-8012-88a1-5d0312949bb3
I can believe that the hunters were not very resilient. Getting milk, cheese, and eggs from animals is a whole lot more sustainable, if a person can keep animals in a pen and feed them. Fish are also a lot easier to catch than say, bears or tigers, and they don’t fight back as much. Fish are generally available year-round.
When I look at mortality studies, they seem to show a J shaped mortality curve. While being overweight is a problem, so is being underweight. Vegans are often underweight, especially if they encounter some illness that sets them back. There seems to be a balance that works. It generally involves a fair amount of “gathered” food, some of which is cooked. Diet likely also includes some fish, eggs, cheese, and perhaps milk.
hunter gathering did give one boost to progress
if you live in a cave, fires produce a lot of smoke high up
if you kill an animal, you hang up parts of it away from stray dogs etc
it would have quickly become obvious and commonplace, that (smoked) meat could be preserved for months that way, allowing early humans to carry food supplies over long distances, where game and roots might not have been readily available.
The calories from meat are also quite dense. It is easier to carry these calories along than much less dense calories from carrots or potatoes.
Also, some plant foods are poisonous. It is risky to try new plant foods, while animal meat tends not to be poisonous. In a settled area, plants have a distinct advantage, especially in tropical wet areas, where plants grow abundantly. But in moving to new areas, preserved meats are definitely helpful.
Like that one, “There seems to be a balance that works. ” Gained some weight, I am not a bit heavy, I am balanced.
Dennis L.
The insurance has no meaning in the times of collapse, as insurance seeks profits where there are no profits anymore.
I think the problem is more/different from profit seeking.
Insurance is often pooled risk, without a real profit-seeking motive. Mutual insurance companies are often set up to provide insurance to a particular group of people–owners of homes in an area, for example. If someone has a claim, the amount is shared by the group. Usually, there is a premium in advance, which may be adjusted after the fact, if experience of the group is better or worse than expected.
The problem on the down side of Hubbert’s curve is that not all of the built infrastructure is needed, if there are fewer commodities available for say, heating homes. Wage disparity becomes more of a problem. Some poor people stop taking adequate care of their homes, or start using insurance to pay for what should be regular maintenance. This leads to skyrocketing claims.
There can also be a problem with the premiums collected by insurance companies, that are planned to be used for paying claims. They normally are invested in bonds, during the time between the premium is collected and claims are paid. If the financial system starts having problems, or if the owners of the bonds start defaulting, this causes a problem, because the planned on funds are not available.
We could save a ton of energy and materials through standardization. One simple example is bicycles. Right now we have so many different parts from different wheel hub sizes to 5, 6,7,8.9.10,11.12 speed cog sets and corresponding chains. Hundreds of different kinds of disc brakes, associated brake pads and rotors. The same applies to vehicles, there is absolutely no standardization. This would drastically reduce factory production lines. Even house designs could be standardized with sinks, taps, lights you name it. Of course this doesn’t fit with the capitalist model of making money but would make life simpler, cheaper and drastically reduce our energy and carbon footprint. Complexity is the order of the day and it keeps the economic growth model rolling which benefits the 1%. We are absolutely brainwashed into thinking so many choices are a good thing but it benefits very few.
In a sense, I agree with you. What you are suggesting was done in the Soviet Union. A very limited number of car types were available, always in black. Coats tended to come in standard colors (or one color). Refrigerators were standardized.
This was good from the point of view of a need for fewer spare parts. But it didn’t lead to innovation. Refrigerators, in places where competition was used, become more and more efficient. (Refrigerators and other appliances also became shorter and shorter lasting, however, based on my own experience.)
It seems like a “happy medium” is needed. Some standardization, but still competition and room for innovation.
Interesting, a “a high end” refrigerator is now about $15k.
Dennis L.
You have to be kidding!
I had a refrigerator that was less than one year old die two years ago, about Christmas time. My new one didn’t cost anything like $15K. It seems to be doing OK. It is a Whirlpool, which my repairman recommended. He said it was more of a US brand. Repairs, if needed, might be easier to get.
Subzero, very pricey, I believe the modern machines are a problem, will need a new one soon, looking this direction.
Dennis L.
Found it.
https://www.consumersearch.com/home-garden/ultimate-guide-subzero-refrigerator-prices-need-know
$15K is for high end, more “reasonable” probably $7-8K plus of course sales tax.
Last one I had was excellent, one can hope.
Dennis L.
We could do a lot of things to cut resource consumption, but will we while it could make a difference? Is it too late already?
We cannot cut consumption without bringing on an economic collapse . The following rules are the basis of our current living style .
1. My waste is your income .
2. It is a ” landfill economy ” .
3. Non discretionary spending supports discretionary spending.
We are trapped and we have been at ait for far too long . Yes , it is late already .
i like
”landfill economy”—ty
I suspect the old economic model has run its course, it was terrestrial based. Limitless energy with no pollution changes things; we might be closer than one thinks.
Then, the real challenge is to find meaning.
Dennis L.
you are quite correct
unfortunately variety also brings wider employment—and employment creates the necessary wages o buy bicycles in the first place.
the same applies to every other device we use.
would you only want to have one shoe style, coat, chair?
the list is endless
History does not always advance It regress.
The Hordes had to be stopped at all costs and no measures were done
Eisenhower valued the lives of 5,000 rednecks more than the title of the Victor of WW2 and now Russia is exploiting it to the very end.
Some say hindsight is 20/20. That is because of the American predicament of ‘history is bunk’, said by Henry Ford, who was eventually kicked out by his own grandson.
Russia should have been ended in 1990s, by recognizing Chechnya and making it dissolve into a hundred states, a goal later proposed by Nuland & Co, too little, too late.
The only way the facilities Keith, Dennis L and Peter Cassidy want could be built is by implementing Kulm’s policies
1. Restrict consumption for the 99% of human population, all the way to 1950 level
2. End all upward mobility for those who have no stake in society, which could be described as those with assets less than 5 times the GDP per person. There could be minor modifications but you get my vibe.
3. 100% controlled society with no mercy, no slack and no quarters given.
The road to a Type I Civ is not smooth.
A typical day in a Type I Civilization will be similar to that of a dystopian movie, with no fun whatsoever, whoever still standing duly reporting to work like machines, and the elites enjoying all the perks of Type I civ. They won’t reproduce since there is no need to do so because they will essentially live forever in their ever expanding space empire.
Otherwise, we will get global anarchy.
kull,
Biology has been around since the beginning of time; it works, it will work. We are along for the ride.
Dennis L.
Not really. Unless biology is transcended there will not really be no advance, no matter how often you chant mantras.
“US price tag for China’s gallium export ban: $602 billion and new monopolies for Huawei”
So what about the silica from North Carolina? Wars are not fought over water? Bans on both sides will bite China is not immune as this guy makes it out. My guess is Trump is not going to do much to put tariffs on china
Real power comes from the countries holding the commodities. Any country can build end products (given enough time and ingenuity), if they have the raw materials.
Gallium is vitally important in the manufacture semi-conductor chips, clean energy, and several other items. China controls 95% to 98% of the gallium. $602 billion loss of US production is based on a USGS estimate of a US 30% loss of gallium imports.
North Korea has a lot of rare earths , too, as discussed by Putin’s people in his recent visit to there
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/12/19/the-next-phase-of-russia-north-korea-cooperation-may-be-coming-a83482
Not ending North Korea in 1994 was another huge screwup
I have heard that rare earths, in general, are not that rare. They are available, in theory, in quite a few places. But mining the rare earths tends to provide a lot of waste products to get rid of (pollution), and many places have chosen not to work very hard on mining rare earths, if it is easy to buy them from China. North Korea may be one of the places that rare earths are available.
The pollution problem is my understanding as well. Starship will solve that one, mine the solar system, if it is on earth it is up there. Jupiter is such a wonderful metaphor for “junk” as well as conveniently realistic.
Dennis L.
None of them would have been an issue if USA were willing to suffocate the newborn People’s Republic of China on its crib
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/trillions-stake-next-battle-asia-over-north-koreas-rare-earth-resources-120776
https://www.nknews.org/pro/why-russias-designs-on-north-korean-rare-earth-metals-probably-wont-pan-out/
Was the lives of 50,000 US rednecks, plus countless South Koreans which did not count, worth the resources of North Korea?
Yes.
The lives of those who would have died in Korea were as wonderful as the people featured in this clip
https://youtu.be/SrkoFQWvRuc?si=cXoGxB_OgkDKF21a
Were the lives of these fine folks worth more than the rare earths of North Korea?
No.
I showed that to Dennis L. who ignored this, but the cold truth is working class lives are disposable and are not really amounting to anything.
kul,
From what I see all biology is disposable as well as recyclable. I am told by well informed sources that my disposal is about ten years out, max.
Dennis L.
https://tass.com/politics/1891183
Ukraine is allegedly targeting civilian infrastructure in Russia proper, but don’t you worry, Zakharova will raise the issue at the UN. That will put a stop to it.
Strange world we live in. Raising the issue at the UN sounds like a very mild response.
Russia is only 15% Muslim and they’re already issuing fatwas that contradict Russian law. I don’t see how Russia can successfully manage the ethno-religious splits long-term, as the Muslim fraction grows.
https://www.rt.com/russia/609711-polygamy-muslims-allowed-marriage/
I suppose this is sort of like Utah looking the other way at polygamy.
https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/360/fox-13-news-360-after-utah-decriminalized-polygamy-some-see-a-culture-shift
difficult to enforce this when Putin has six wives. Not legally, no.
Is that common knowledge/consensus in Russia? I’ve never heard or read about that.
It could be five. He has fathered children with many women. AFAIK, he has not let go of them, so there is some kind of arrangement.
Looks like fusion is a few years closer. I am hopeful, will believe it when it works.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-the-worlds-first-nuclear-fusion-power-plant-be-built-in-virginia-heres/
We are going to make it, still it will be bumpy.
Dennis L.
Don’t rely to much on fusion…
Even if a reactor can sustain fusion operations all year round, it will not be a game changer. There is a “trick” not explicitly stated.
Just take ITER for example, the big reactor now in construction in France.
It is stated that the reactor will generate 500 MW of energy from 50 MW of input.
But the 500 MW is thermal power not electrical!
And this assuming a Q factor (Fusion energy gain factor) of 10. The best that human have ever reached for now is 1,5 at NIF.
So you have this 500 MW of thermal energy. Put all this energy through a steam turbine with an efficiency of 50% and you will get 250 MWe.
But the entire reactor will need more than that amount to operate, around 400 MWe!
At the link below some more info.
https://news.newenergytimes.net/iter-fusion-reactor-technical-references/
The reactor should have a Q factor of at least 20 or even more to be energy (and economically) feasible.
For now and the foreseeable future, at least until the end of the century (or maybe even more), we will have to rely on fossil fuels, coal in particular.
This is a similar article, which is not behind a paywall.
https://virginiamercury.com/2024/12/18/virginia-to-host-worlds-first-fusion-power-plant/
We will see. Will it really be operational by the early 2030s? What changes will be needed to get the cost of electricity generation to be low enough for citizens to afford it?
One can hedge one’s bets, be an optimist and at worst lose a finite amount of money. My guess remains Pt and H for the near future, the engineering is well understood, the one resource seems to be the problem.
Wonder what a back of the envelope calculation would show if surplus energy from solar were stored as H and used when the sun does not shine on earth.
Dennis L.
“the one resource seems to be the problem.”
That’s true. I have considered this problem for years. The problem with making synthetic fuel from hydrogen and CO2 is the cost of the electrolyzers, and the reason for the high cost is the platinum. Recently there has been talk of nickel in carbon which might work, but as far as I know it has not been demonstrated at industrial scale. We can mine platinum from metal asteroids but talk about low grade, platinum is around 1 ppm, so you have to process a million tons of asteroid to get a ton of platinum. Still, you can work the numbers, which I did a long time ago in the mining asteroids article. Processing the asteroid 1986 DA in 24 years takes a 30 GW power plant for the initial melting.
“would show if surplus energy from solar were stored as H”
It takes 50 MWh to make a ton of hydrogen (content 40 MWh) from water using a platinum electrolyzer. Fuel cells will get around 80% of that back. Heating carbon in steam takes 3 MWh to make 1/3rd of a ton or 9 MWh/ton. Or you can make 1/6th of a ton of hydrogen and 2.3 tons of CO. Those can be used to make diesel or jet fuel.
The second problem is, that we have no viable fuel for it on Earth. So, we still need to get to the moon in order to somehow extract tritium, and get it back. That will be a bit pricey.
That said, this is the perfect human mission statement. We should work on it collectively as a single species. It would solve so many problems, as it is absolutely achievable as it is in the realm of known physics.
Once that chain is functioning… the rest of the solar system will be achievable.
Love that optimism, we need to access the solar system. It is a time proven system with a time proven fusion reactor even if it is a times temperamental with a nasty flare or two.
Dennis L.
Finally, 29.99 years away! I believe by 2500 we will be 29.98 years away. Gian sums it up nicely.
You forgot to read the part saying “why we are skeptical”
Who are ‘we’ who will make it? Not me. Maybe your spirit might make it in your virtual reality
https://wolfstreet.com/2024/12/19/census-bureau-revises-up-population-growth-8-million-in-3-years-due-to-immigration-total-us-population-340-million/
This makes a difference in employment statistics and things like what percentage of the unemployed are finding jobs. The article says:
The high immigration numbers raised total US population by “close to 1%” in the 12 months ended July 1, 2024. This means that GDP per capita numbers lower than what most people have previously assumed.
I am in the education system, as a student and see it work for a reasonable cost with good results.
The biggest issue I see is with liberals trying to improve it with “humanities.” It takes precious time from the kids learning how to make a living, have a life and have a family.
More and more one sees women becoming the dominate group at colleges. My guess, they are going the wrong way. Strap a welding helmet on them and see if they can run a bead, make something stick together.
Humanities at one time were handled very well in Sunday school, it seems to have worked better than the current nihilist model.
Dennis L.
Men are seeing that college degrees don’t pay back well. They can do better by learning a trade through a short course. With their bigger size, they can qualify easily for jobs that require physical strength.
Women tend to take all kinds of nice to have courses in the humanities. As you say, Sunday School did it better. But when they get out, all the jobs many of them can get are ones that don’t require a college degree. This is especially the case if they interrupt their career with having a couple of children.
The fry counter at McDonald’s is where many of them can be seen. Caressing freshly cooked french fries with dashes of table salt.
Unfortunately, this option is not available to new zealand women with humanities degrees as they are generally obese and eat everything in front of them.