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I have said in recent posts that the world economy is hitting resource limits of many kinds. These limits include oil, coal, and other sources of energy, including uranium, used as a fuel for nuclear power generation. Because of these limits, the world economy is being forced to shrink back. In my opinion, the direction it is headed in is toward smaller, mostly less-advanced, more independent, economies. This change is also likely to lead to various types of financial collapse for many of today’s Advanced Economies.
Per-capita consumption of these early used energy sources has shrunk since peaking in 2007.
Most of us remember the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009. With a declining supply of what used to be inexpensive energy resources, many economies have done poorly. Many of the wealthier countries have papered over their problems with an increasing amount of debt, but the limits to this added-debt approach are now being hit. It is the debt problem that leads to financial collapse.
In this post, I will elaborate on these ideas.
[1] Countries that are today’s Advanced Economies (members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)) are likely to fare poorly in this coming contraction.
The Advanced Economies include the US, most of Europe, Japan, Australia, and a few other countries. Their per-capita consumption of oil, coal and nuclear electricity resources has been shrinking significantly since about 2005. The year 2005 was approximately the peak of “conventional” oil supplies. More oil has become available since this date, but this oil is generally more expensive to extract.
[2] Energy consumption for the Other than Advanced Economies is hitting limits, too.
The Other than Advanced Economies were able to grow in their per-capita use of these three types of fuels between 2001 and about 2013, but since then, their per-capita quantity of these fuels has leveled off. The big impetus for growth was China joining the World Trade Organization in 2001. World demand for inexpensive finished goods empowered China to start extracting coal and other minerals in quantity. But coal mines deplete, just as oil fields deplete, leading to the flat per-capita availability of energy supply for the Other than Advanced Economies since about 2013.
[3] With these changing patterns for the two groups, one potential problem is conflict.
The Other than Advanced Economies have figured out that they are creating a huge share of the world’s goods, but their per-capita use of energy is much lower than that of the Advanced Economies. Why should the Advanced Economies get so much of the finished products available from the world’s resources, when most of the work (and the pollution) has taken place in the Other than Advanced Economies? I would expect this type of thinking to take place in China, Russia, India, Iran and other countries in this group. These countries believe that they could get along perfectly well without the Advanced Economies and their high usage of energy.
[4] With these changing patterns, a second potential problem is financial collapse, especially for the Advanced Economies.
Each economy can be encouraged to grow in two different ways: (1) Through more debt, indirectly adding to more “demand” for finished goods, or (2) Through added supply of inexpensive energy products. Adding debt to pull the economy forward seems to work well if there is not a problem with hitting resource extraction limits. Once an economy starts hitting resource extraction limits, however, the added debt partly adds inflation, rather than finished goods and services, to the output mix. Thus, the debt approach no longer works well.
The world as a whole is now hitting resource extraction limits. Not only do individual citizens become unhappy with the higher inflation level, but investors demand higher interest rates for lending. This higher interest cost becomes a huge problem for the Advanced Economies that already have very high debt levels.
A recently issued report by the US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows what is happening in the US.
In a sense, the reports that the CBO publishes are “Best Case” scenarios. The reports are optimistic in two different ways: (1) They assume that no more added-debt bail-out programs will be needed, as were used several times in recent years, and (2) They assume that inflation will quickly fall to 2%, so that interest rates can fall quickly and stay lower from now on.
Even with these assumptions, the results are disturbing. Note that on Figure 3 (in both charts shown), the especially significant increase in debt starts around 2008. This is when the US, and likely most of the other Advanced Economies, started to hide their energy problems by using more debt stimulus.
Even when the most optimistic possible estimate of the future “primary deficit” is made, and when the most optimistic possible forecast of future “net interest” outlays is made, there is still a huge build-up of debt. The implication is that very large tax increases will be needed to maintain current programs. Even with these huge tax increases, the problem will get worse and worse, year after year. There is a need to cut back on existing government programs to avoid adding the need to pay even more interest on debt in the future.
[5] If an economy is forced to shrink back, debts of all kinds become more difficult to repay with interest.
Any economy needs to grow, in order to repay debt with interest. A growing economy has a surplus with which to pay interest.
On the other hand, a shrinking economy tends to lead to major debt defaults. Leveraged debt is especially likely to cause problems.
The CBO is now forecasting that the US government could run into debt limit problems as soon as July 2025. Perhaps the US government will find ways around the current apparent shortfall, but the issue of the government not being able to meet its debt obligations without major tax increases or reductions in programs still looms in the background.
I expect that within the next three months, we will start to see loan defaults of some type, such as defaults by hedge funds. Governments will want to step in, but they will be limited by their own financial problems. Defaults on many other kinds of debts are likely to start taking place, as well. If inflation rates rise, and interest rates rise with them, defaults on many kinds of debt could start taking place.
[6] It seems likely that nearly all the Advanced Economies will have similar problems.
The Advanced Economies have tended to offer their citizens many benefits, including pensions for the elderly and some type of healthcare coverage. Many of them have financially supported what they are hoping will be energy types that will take the place of the energy types they seem to be losing.
If an economic system is not growing as fast as it has in the past (because of low energy consumption growth, and lack of debt stimulus), or is actually shrinking, these economies are likely to face a choice between either cutting back on promised programs or raising taxes. Governments will find themselves needing to cut back on programs that they have promised to their citizens, or, alternatively, they will need to default on their debt.
[7] Adding to the problems of the Advanced Economies will be the issue of goods and services needing to be made closer to home.
Without enough oil for all purposes, a logical way to cut back is to use less oil for international shipping. This would tend to reverse the trend toward globalization that started many years ago.
Figure 4 shows that the US started shifting heavy industry to other countries with better supplies of oil as early as 1974. The Kyoto Protocol of 1997 gave another reason (or excuse?) for shifting heavy industry to countries with less expensive, more abundant, energy supplies.
I expect that in the next few years, the Advanced Economies are likely to need to move industrial production back closer to home, to save on limited world oil supplies. This will be difficult to do, especially in a timeframe of less than 20 to 30 years. New mines will be needed for minerals, but the lead times on these are very long, typically 13 years or more. New processing plants for these minerals will likely be needed as well, potentially adding to the lead time. Whole new, short supply chains will be required. Finally, goods and services manufactured closer to home will need to be transported to citizens, sometimes in new ways.
Many of today’s manufactured goods require imports of minerals from China or Russia. To the extent that specific minerals from these countries can no longer be imported, additional closer sources will be needed. This will further add to manufacturing difficulties.
[8] It will not be surprising if governments, or parts of governments, collapse.
History indicates that when civilizations reach resource limits, governments tend to fail. A recent example of this was the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union in 1991, after an extended period of low oil prices. The Soviet Union was a major exporter of oil, and the low oil prices (plus other internal problems) led to the inability to repay promised debt. The separate republics within the Soviet Union remained, so the people were not left completely without a government. I expect something similar may happen elsewhere in the future.
[9] History suggests that even in a financial collapse, the entire economy will not fall apart, all at once.
Incremental changes are likely to take place. Governments are likely to try to make cutbacks. Financial investments are likely to do especially poorly in the next several years, and high-paying jobs seem likely to disproportionately disappear. The economy will no longer be able support as many specialists as are working today, in many industries.
The electricity supply likely won’t fall off all at once; instead, electricity will become increasingly intermittent, with some areas having more outages than others. Diesel and gasoline will perhaps be available, at least part of the time.
New car sales in the Advanced Economies are likely to fall very soon, leaving citizens mostly dealing with used cars, and the difficulty of finding appropriate replacement parts for used cars. The problem of “empty shelves” in stores is likely to return and get worse.
There will likely be an increasing divide between the relative handful of citizens who are doing well, and the many others. In fact, we are already seeing a trend in this direction in the US. But many of today’s big spenders are likely to be knocked down in any coming economic contraction.
[10] Perhaps the good news in this contraction is that major international wars may not be a problem.
Instead, civil wars and local skirmishes may be the order of the day. There may not be resources available to fight long-distance wars, even if many citizens might favor this approach. Wars give an excuse for more debt and more income for soldiers, so they are always popular in troubled economic times. But a lack of materials for making military supplies (including insufficient sources of antimony) and the inability to raise debt financing may impede efforts.
[11] What should we expect in the future?
The US and many other Advanced Economies are likely heading into a worse and longer lasting financial crisis than the 2008 crisis, starting as soon as this summer. The problem will likely not start out as a full financial collapse. Instead, various leveraged borrowers will encounter difficulties. Gradually, the finances and very structures of many government organizations are likely to be threatened. Some government structures that we currently depend upon may disappear.
How the long term will unfold is unclear. We know that ecosystems often operate in wide cycles, and that economic systems are a kind of ecosystem. This relationship suggests the possibility of a later renewal.
Furthermore, Eric Chaisson, in Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature, points out that there is a very long term trend in the universe toward more complex and more energy-dense structures. His analysis seems to suggest the possibility of evolution toward a different kind of more complex, energy-dense economy ahead.
In this ever-changing world, there may very well be opportunities for personal success. It will likely be a time of major readjustment, however. Perhaps quite a few people will be able to do well if they can keep their eyes open for opportunities to prosper, making the best possible use (or reuse) of resources that are available.
Appendix: Background on Oil, Coal and Electricity from Uranium
Oil Background
Oil was at one time a very inexpensive fuel, even when adjusted for inflation to 2023’s price level.
With the low prices that were available before 1970, oil could be used widely. It could be used to create electricity, and roads could be paved. Many people could afford cars who could not afford them previously.
In 1973, oil prices soared (Appendix: Exhibit 2). Appendix: Figure 3 shows that between 1981 and 2021, falling interest rates helped to make higher oil prices more tolerable. More debt could be added, and with lower interest rates, monthly payments could stay low.
Appendix: Exhibit 2 also shows that a big part of the problem since 2021 is that while debt levels are now high, interest rates will not stay down. This means that the cost of drilling new wells is now higher, and the general cost of investment in the economy is higher.
Appendix: Exhibit 1, indicates that, since 1991, the greatest per-capita quantity of oil that customers were able to afford occurred in the 2004 to 2007 period. This was a time in which home mortgage debt stimulus was used to keep the US economy growing; it was the time of Alan Greenspan and the NINJA (No Income, No Jobs, No Assets) home loans. The resulting sub-prime US housing bubble is reported to have lasted from 2003 to 2007. This sub-prime debt bubble is at least part of what led to the 2008 financial crisis.
The high US demand for oil as a result of the home mortgage debt bubble of 2003 to 2007 helped world oil prices to rise and consumption to rise. More recently, per-capita world oil consumption has been down, especially in 2020. Oil supply has not regained the 2004 to 2007 level, or even the 2018 level, in the most recent estimates.
Oil extraction has traditionally been a huge source of tax dollars, especially for oil exporters, even when oil was sold at relatively low prices. Anything that replaces oil needs to fill this role as well, because the economy needs energy (and taxes from energy) to operate. This tax revenue is a way to share what is sometimes called the “surplus energy” of the oil with the government of a country. At currently high extraction costs, this surplus energy benefit is largely disappearing.
Coal Background
Appendix: Figure 1 shows that the fuel in second largest supply has been coal. Its supply grew greatly after 2001, when China joined the World Trade Organization. This growth in coal supply did not last long because coal that was cheapest-to-extract and closest-to-markets quickly depleted. Appendix: Figure 1 shows the peak in per capita coal supply was hit in 2011.
Coal helped start the industrial revolution. By 1700, it grew to be the dominant fuel in England. Coal gradually replaced firewood and was used in many new ways.
Appendix: Figure 5 shows the ways coal has recently been used. It is used directly in industry, besides being burned for electricity.
Nuclear Background
Appendix: Figure 1 shows that the peak in per-capita nuclear energy production occurred in 2001. But at one time there had been great hope for nuclear power.
It was known as early as the 1950s that fossil fuel supplies were likely to face depletion issues as soon as 2050. Physicist M. King Hubbert was of the belief that electricity from uranium would be too cheap to meter. He also believed that the quantity of electricity produced could be very high. Neither of these things has come to pass.
Early nuclear reactors were built to avoid problems that engineers could see needed to be avoided. This approach led to accidents: Three Mile Island (1979), Chernobyl (1986), and Fukushima (2011). It became clear that design upgrades were needed, raising costs and lengthening timelines for building reactors.
In theory, there is quite a bit of uranium to be extracted, but getting the price up high enough, for long enough, has been a problem. The World Nuclear Association shows this chart of production through 2022. Production in recent years has been lower than consumption.
Fortunately, there has been a supply of nuclear warheads which could be down blended to provide uranium for nuclear reactors. This supply of nuclear warheads is now close to being exhausted. If nuclear power is to be expanded, more uranium will be needed.
Other details have proven problematic as well. In theory, the spent fuel can be reprocessed and used as fuel for reactors, but in practice, this process seems to be costly and time-consuming to set up.
Another issue is the high cost of building new nuclear reactors, and the need for debt to fund this cost. Clearly, the higher the interest rate, the higher the cost. Not many organizations can fund these high costs, in advance of actually getting electricity out and delivered to customers.
In general, to keep costs low for customers, the sale of electricity is priced at the margin. In many places, electricity from wind turbines and solar panels is given “priority.” As a result, wholesale electricity prices tend to be too low for electricity from nuclear power plants, driving them out of business. The price level is certainly not high enough to pay high taxes to governments. Such a margin would be needed if nuclear were to have a chance of truly replacing the benefits we have had in the past from inexpensive-to-produce oil.
US oil production to peak by 2027 as shale boom fades, EIA forecasts
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-crude-oil-output-peak-by-2027-eia-projects-2025-04-15/
That’s peak global.
smells like mid 2020s again to me
but what do i know
BS . EIA is gutted . Mike called it Energy Inaccuracy Agency .
Gutting EIA .
https://www.voanews.com/a/up-to-2-000-workers-laid-off-at-us-department-of-energy-sources-say-/7975631.html
https://x.com/Rory_Johnston/status/1912506065435918730
I am wondering how this will work out.
If leaders don’t like the way the data is turning out, just get rid of the data.
I can confirm that getting rid of data is the bestway . In India the NSO ( National Statistical Organization ) has no data after 2020 . The last census was held in 2011. 14 years and still waiting . Better for the elite to keep the masses illiterate and feed them ” feel good ” stories .
Numerous shale bosses have suggested this recently. Numerous articles posted and discussed on this blog.
And shale declines fast.
I want this confirmed by Fast Eddie, he knows
now the aliens have taken eddy—does that make me chief knowitall?
The EIA said:
“U.S. shale oil production will peak at 10 million bpd in 2027, up from about 9.69 million bpd this year, the EIA said. It will then decline to about 9.33 million bpd by 2050, the agency said.”
This sounds ridiculous. How is the decline held to such a slow rate? It sounds like wishful thinking, to me.
Are these the same guys who predicted in the seventies?
Does this matter to Musk? Practical matter, is there one individual in the oil industry who has ever been as wealthy as Musk? Think broadly, intelligence, money, biology(for the less imaginative, wives, women).
Perhaps the game has changed, the future is not in a black hole in the ground but the black of space.
Dennis L.
The saga continues .
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/magnitude-deterioration-wall-street-stunned-lvmhs-earnings
The downturn occurred before the tariffs were announced.
Now the tariffs will increase costs. According to the thread,
“The Chinese Government has lifted the secrecy clause that the luxury brands had in place the Chinese Manufacturers and now the manufacturers are exposing your favorite “luxury” brands and letting everyone know it all comes from them.”
Perhaps LVMH’s luxury goods, and similar ones from companies, aren’t so special after all.
I completely agree, in my business, that has strong relation with global trade, the slow motion started in January and the trend went on downwards since then.
In my view, ‘tariffs story’ have the same final objective of ‘climate change’ story, that is reduce waste of Oil worldwide.
At the end of the day, tariffs are better than climate change, because they deceive people less, and allow to try to rebuild some industry in the US before it is too late.
My only concern is that, like climate change, they don’t explain well the problem, so the average citizen could still think that it is not the right decision to pursue for some negative points connected to this action.
LVMH fail and now Hermes .
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/luxury-turns-late-cycle-after-lvmh-miss-hermes-stumbles-too
Perhaps China sales are a big part of Hermes problem. An analyst from Citi is reported as saying:
“Hermes continues to outperform with resilient sales, says analyst Thomas Chauvet, noting continued double-digit growth in all regions but Asia ex-Japan.”
We don’t have good insight on how poorly China is doing.
Most of you know I am very pro solar photovoltaics, there are problems however.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/solar-energy-isnt-always-as-green-as-you-think
IEEE is not a woke publication, electrical engineers who at one point walked proudly with sild rules swinging from their belts.
I am not saying panels can’t be made, currently there does not seem to be an alternative to photovoltaics. But, the sooner this process is moved to space, the moon, Mars, wherever the better for our planet.
Musk wants to ramp Optimus-3 yearly by one order of magnitude, year 1 5K units, year 2 50K units, year 3 500K units, year 4 5M units; you get the idea. For 10-20K I could have a maid and as the song goes, “Everybody ought to have a maid.” Manufacturing in space becomes doable. For giggles, imagine Optimus-3 piloting a small “space ship” searching the solar system for minerals.
We are going to make it, tomorrow will be better than today, but there are going to be bumps.
Dennis L.
Can’t elon fly them in space for ten minutes, like those chicks?
In notice that the linked article is from 2014. Making panels wasn’t very green in 2014; I expect it isn’t very green now. There are a lot of end of life problems as well.
Scaling up use of the panels will create a huge amount more waste. It is hard to see how this could end well.
I love you/I hate you
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YnqtKFUrlnI&pp=0gcJCX4JAYcqIYzv
The Electric Viking
Or
MGUY Aussieland
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KhcSSYtbFx0&t=8s
I’m so 🤔
” Most of you know I am very pro solar photovoltaics, there are problems however. ”
Denise , ask ChatGpt for help or better ask Musk or Bezos for a flight out to space and get some Pt . Problem solved . 🤣
You increasingly sounds like an old, drinken musician who plays the sane tune 24/7
Musk ‘wants’ to make the Optimus. Anyone can want to make whatever they eant. Whether they can actually maje ut is a different issue which you always ignore.
Even the rich are broke .
India’s polished diamond exports plummeted to $13.3 billion in FY24/25, marking a 16.8% year-on-year decline—the lowest level in nearly two decades. This downturn reflects broader challenges in the global gem and jewellery trade, with total sector exports falling 11.7% to $28.5 billion, a four-year low.
https://discoveryalert.com.au/news/indian-polished-diamond-exports-decline-2025-analysis/#:~:text=India's%20polished%20diamond%20exports%20plummeted,%2C%20a%20four%2Dyear%20low.
It goes on to say,
“The crisis stems from reduced demand in key markets like the U.S. and China, supply chain disruptions from geopolitical trade challenges, and operational uncertainties triggered by proposed U.S. tariffs.”
I have to wonder whether depletion is also an issue. The diamonds that are easiest and cheapest to extract have already been extracted. Those that are left likely take more effort.
Clearly, diamonds to put in jewelry are not essential. There are both manmade diamonds and cubic zirconia competing. Many young people have decided they don’t want a diamond; a different kind of ring would be better. If the world has to cut back on something, diamonds for jewelry might be one such thing.
It’s a recession when the working class lose their jobs.
It’s a depression when the elite lose their jobs.
So far, the system has avoided firing too many wealthy(educated) workers .
I believe this pattern will hold.
I am a member of MREA, love the place, enjoy the people greatly. Was at a one day seminar on how to mount solar panels, perhaps four attendees not part of the presentation in attendance.
Master electrician pointed out there is a 30% tax credit which goes to 40% with domestic content for installing solar electric. I have not personally checked.
1. Income inequality, need to pay taxes for it to have value.
2. This was primarily a roof installation course, no mention of roof repairs nor the cost of removal at end of life span of panels and disposal. Again Copilot:
Silicon Dust: Crystalline silicon panels can generate silicon dust during disposal, which may pose respiratory risks.
“Heavy Metals: Certain types of solar panels, especially thin-film varieties, contain cadmium, lead, and selenium, which can be hazardous if released into the environment.”
You get the idea, manageable in small quantities, industrial scale disposal is a problem.
Additionally roof repairs would be a challenge.
No mention was made of utilities backing out of purchasing surplus power, it doesn’t work.
I have great concerns over covering farm land with this stuff, mention at yesterday’s meeting was NOT made about end of lifecycle costs. This was a primarily roof top discussion, installing in winter with snow on roof is an issue, saw a video of some workers shoveling roofs, asphalt shingles with snow shovel, concerns about the longevity of the roof on my part, I remained quiet.
A back of an envelope guess: Needs to be installed on the ground, use needs to be proximal to the panels, not over power lines, and waste disposal costs need to be calculated for end of life disposal.
This stuff belongs in space, manufacture in space, transport finished products only to earth, leave the mess upstairs.
Dennis L.
Waste disposal likely depends on fossil fuels, unfortunately.
Dennis L, these are misleadingly called tax “credits”, when they are really tax deductions. If you don’t make enough money, you don’t get the 30% off. They sucker average people in with the promise of false savings (I speak as a victim of this deception). Just another way the lower- and middle-classes subsidize the rich.
Sounds like a classic pyramid scheme.
The more people that sign up, the more money the recruiters make.
“No mention was made of utilities backing out of purchasing surplus power”
It always comes back to a cubic mile of Pt.
SS can be used as an electrode to produce H, experimental home setups use it frequently. the problem is the byproducts and what do do with them.
Copilot:
“When stainless steel (SS) is used as an electrode in hydrogen production through electrolysis, potential toxic byproducts can arise depending on the electrolyte and operating conditions. Some key concerns include:
– Metal Ion Leaching: Stainless steel contains elements like nickel, chromium, and iron, which can leach into the electrolyte over time, especially in highly acidic or alkaline environments.
– Corrosion Byproducts: If the electrolyte is seawater or contains chloride ions, pitting corrosion can occur, leading to the release of hexavalent chromium (Cr⁶⁺), a toxic compound.
– Electrode Degradation: Over extended use, stainless steel electrodes may degrade, producing fine metal particles or oxides that could contaminate the system.
Carcinogenic Effects: Cr⁶⁺ is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen, meaning it has been proven to cause cancer in humans, especially lung cancer when inhaled.
Cr6+ is nasty stuff, expensive waste product, various YouTube sites suggest “scrapping it out” of the container and taking it to a municipal toxic waste center.
I suspect those centers would have few problems with Pt.
Dennis L.
I expect that municipal toxic waste centers will disappear, as the economy goes downhill. What is a person to do then?
USA does not seem to have a strong hand when it comes to rare earth minerals?
If relations have soured then it does make a simple kind of sense for China to stop the supply of minerals, processing equipment and finished products that USA would use to build its military capacity to use against China.
And it does make a simple kind of sense for USA to try to develop its own capacity for that stuff. If it has the potential for that.
They are both clearly thinking in a strategic military way now. Whether China or USA has the stronger hand with regard to rare earths is another matter.
Maybe USA is just not in a position to fight China and its best course was to just accept that?
USA does look set on military conflict with China. Hence also the talk of grabbing Greenland for its possible minerals.
Interesting times.
https://www.ft.com/content/7ac046c1-0a6a-40db-970c-579070c7a55a
Donald Trump threatens to hit critical minerals with tariffs
Donald Trump has threatened to apply tariffs on critical minerals in a move that could increase tensions with China and open a new front in a global trade war that has rattled markets.
In an executive order on Tuesday, the US president ordered the commerce department to study the critical mineral supply chains and come up with ways to boost American production while cutting reliance on imports.
.. The investigation threatens to trigger a new critical minerals trade war as the US tries to wrestle back control of a crucial industry that is dominated by China. It comes after China suspended exports of several heavy rare earth metals and rare earth magnets used in the defence, robotics and energy industries to buyers around the world.
.. The White House said the US remained “heavily dependent on foreign sources, particularly adversarial nations, for these essential materials”, arguing that it exposed the country to “economic coercion”.
In a recent article in the Washington Quarterly, Evan Medeiros and Andrew Polk, two China experts, said Beijing had since 2018 expanded its set of economic tools to retaliate against the US and other countries.
Instead of fighting tariffs with tariffs, Beijing has significantly expanded its coercive tool kit to include export controls on critical minerals. In December 2023, for example, China hit back at American efforts to cut its reliance on Chinese mineral supply chains by banning the export of critical rare earths processing equipment.
Along with barring exports of rare earths this week, China recently banned exports to the US of gallium, germanium and antimony, in addition to other materials with military applications, the White House said.
Last year, Beijing warned Japan that it would block exports of gallium, germanium and graphite if Tokyo aligned too closely with Washington on technology-related export controls. The US wanted to impose certain controls to make it harder for China to obtain advanced American technologies in the fields of semiconductors and artificial intelligence.
We have the minerals, we stopped mining them, the processing is very toxic to the land; China got the money and the pollution.
Copilot:
“Yes, rare earth mining in California faced significant challenges due to environmental concerns, particularly related to toxic waste and pollution. The Mountain Pass Mine, once the leading rare earth mine in the U.S., halted production in 2002 after a series of toxic waste spills and environmental violations. The mining process for rare earth elements generates large amounts of radioactive waste, dust, and wastewater, which can contaminate surrounding ecosystems.
However, the mine later reopened due to the growing demand for rare earth elements in green technologies, such as wind turbines and electric vehicles. Despite past environmental concerns, efforts have been made to improve extraction methods and reduce pollution.”
We have a solution coming, Starship, mine, process, refine in space. That will come soon.
Dennis L.
Dennis L.
but how soon dennis
we need to know soon
soon cant come soon enough
i shall soon be exhausted or dead, waiting for soon to get here
i seeem to have been waiting for soon all my life
mom—when will santa be be here
soon dear–very soon
everybodys favourite word, when applied to me.
Xi to Trump — Go on punk ,make my day .
The famous line by Clint Eastwood in ” Dirty Harry ” 🤣
A big issue in the US is pollution. If rare earth minerals could be extracted in a less populated but nearby area, such as Canada or Greenland, this could be a solution.
What a scam .Labour urged to support used electric car market as sector risks losing ‘millions’ with petrol and diesel ban
https://www.gbnews.com/lifestyle/cars/labour-used-electric-car-market-zev-mandate
It is impossible to find buyers for all of the used EVs coming to the market.
“EV residual values have dropped by 50 per cent in the last two years, with it expected to decline by a further 28 per cent by 2030.”
It seems to me that this is just a continuation of a long-term problem. No one wants a used EV. They are skeptical about even a new EV. EVs are not very repairable. Adding more EVs just adds to this problem.
The main problem of the food production seems to be proteins. Domestic animals are prone to diseases, the plant proteins require fertilization of the soil. We already have a hidden famine due to inadequate wages and high food and energy prices.
Don’t forget the bugs too….we think we are the mighty of them all…I don’t think so…and elephant can be taken down by a colony of angry fire ants..
So can we apparently..
Main D (2024) The Weeds Are Winning. MIT Technology review
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/10/10/1105034/weeds-climate-change-genetic-engineering-superweeds-food/
On about 23 million acres, or roughly two-thirds of Illinois, farmers grow corn and soybeans, spraying every acre with herbicides. But these chemicals, which allow one plant species to live unbothered across inconceivably vast spaces, are no longer stopping all the weeds from growing.
Since the 1980s, more and more plants have evolved to become immune to the biochemical mechanisms that herbicides leverage to kill them. This herbicidal resistance threatens to decrease yields—out-of-control weeds can reduce them by 50% or more, and extreme cases can wipe out whole fields.
At worst, it can even drive farmers out of business. It’s the agricultural equivalent of antibiotic resistance, and it keeps getting worse. East of Champaign-Urbana, there is a soybean field overgrown with dark-green, spiky plants that rise to chest height. Water hemp. Despite being sprayed at least once.
Water hemp can infest just about any kind of crop field. It grows an inch or more a day, and produces hundreds of thousands of seeds. Native to the Midwest, it has burst forth in much greater abundance over the last few years, because it has become resistant to seven different classes of herbicides. Season-long competition from water hemp can reduce soybean yields by 44% and corn yields by 15%, according to Purdue University Extension.
Two different groups of herbicides still usually work against water hemp. But cases of resistance to both are cropping up more and more.
According to Ian Heap, a weed scientist who runs the International Herbicide-Resistant Weed Database, there have been well over 500 unique cases of the phenomenon in 273 weed species and counting. Weeds have evolved resistance to 168 different herbicides and 21 of the 31 known “modes of action,” which means the specific biochemical target or pathway a chemical is designed to disrupt. Some modes of action are shared by many herbicides.
…..Weeds have developed surprising ways to get around chemical control. One 2009 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that a mutation in the Palmer amaranth genome allowed the plant to make more than 150 copies of the gene that glyphosate targets.
Another bizarre way resistance can arise in that species is via structures called extrachromosomal circular DNA, strands of genetic material including the gene target for glyphosate that exist outside of nuclear chromosomes. This gene can be transferred via wind-blown pollen from plants with this adaptation.
Yeah, but AI will outsmart them little suckers…punk tended…hehehe
Got it from energy skeptic.com
thanks for that Mike—really useful for something i’m working on
a warning not to mess with the planet
Yes. The weeds, the slugs etc. I have just made some new traps for slugs today and put them in the garden.
The food has become expensive, as we need to invest a lot of expensive energy to protect the crops.
The profitability is lost on many, many levels.
Solution : eat the weeds
In the US, people have been encouraged to eat far more protein than is necessary. Meals are meat-focused and overly large. Consumption of fiber in food is low. Fried foods and sweet foods are very popular.
I am sure that today’s diet has contributed to the poor health of Americans.
The only people encouraged to eat protein in excess are men who are trying to build muscle.
I looked at what people ate in America 100 years ago and while there was a lot more of home cooking, t hey did eat plenty of fried and sweet food so why did they seem healthier on average?
Right, Gail, number one the our bodies can not store protein.
Number two. For an average grown adult does not need the same as a growing up child or youngster.
Re. our technological future: I’m on the mailing list for a documentary film-maker whose subject matter is family farming, ‘sustainability’, food sovereignty, etc. I’ll just quote the letter he sent out and you should be able to deduce why I thought it was amusing.
“[Dan Kittredge] is a world-renowned farming and soil expert who started the highy influential Bionutrient Food Association. Having grown up on an organic farm, he has an inherent understanding of plants and soil, and made everyone in attendance think about plants in a new way. He talked passionately about how healthy plants don’t have disease. That if we’re continuously treating vegetables for blight, that’s a signal of a deeper problem. That insecticides and herbicides are a crutch because ultimately it is healthy soil that leads to healthy plants. … His house was like something out of a sci-fi movie, the kind of place you’d imagine the good-hearted resistance would gather to fight against the anonymous robot villains in a war for humanity. He’s a big thinker and writes his ideas directly onto the windows of his porch. His vision is so big, he has spent the past decade travelling the world to raise millions and millions of dollars to support it. Basically, he wants people to be able to scan veggies and meat in the grocery store from an app on a smart phone and be able to get the nutrient density of the food measured. The idea being that if you scanned an egg from unhealthy animals raised in confinement, the food would get a 30/100 score, and if you scanned an egg raised outside on insects and organic feed it would get a 90/100 score. This would inspire people to price, pay for, and eat food differently. The idea is massive and [I] get the feeling one day it will come to pass.”
This is not going to happen:
“he wants people to be able to scan veggies and meat in the grocery store from an app on a smart phone and be able to get the nutrient density of the food measured.”
If we are losing complexity, and because of this need to grow our own food, it is crazy to talk about an Ap on our phones to measure nutrient density/
Gail we are losing complexity, but every educated person aspires to make everything more complex.
For example, I think car companies would sell more cars, even electric ones, if they ditched all the computer components and provide bare-bone features but they think they can make more profit by selling more expensive cars.
World renowned? Never heard about him
“AI at the Speed of Light: How Silicon Photonics Are Reinventing Hardware
“A cutting-edge AI acceleration platform powered by light rather than electricity could revolutionize how AI is trained and deployed.
“Using photonic integrated circuits made from advanced III-V semiconductors, researchers have developed a system that vastly outperforms traditional silicon GPUs in both energy efficiency and speed. This technology could not only lower energy costs but also scale AI to new levels of performance, potentially transforming everything from data centers to future smart systems.”
https://scitechdaily.com/ai-at-the-speed-of-light-how-silicon-photonics-are-reinventing-hardware/
So, AI will reverse physics as we know it, & energize things?
I am all for having many billions more spent on AI so that the AI tool I use to make music can be even better.
Sorry, Davie, Chuckie Berry can’t be made better
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oBxlsi5SYkg&pp=ygUXRGluZyBhIGxpbmcgY2h1Y2sgYmVycnk%3D
My Ding A Ling 1972
Reminds me of the time when lots of hair was in fashion, even for men.
ba, ba ba,BOM.
Dennis L.
we are facing a large shortfall in available oil resources so bau lite appears to be the plan with Ai leading the way in providing us with some services that would have previously been provided by humans. Humans replaced by machines worldwide what a beautiful way to collapse, life will go on but humans will have to accept this new living arrangement . Say goodbye to the middle class and hello to serfdom in this brave new world. Trump is the perfect leader to have in this brave new world he is dismantling the consumerist driven junk exchange between between USA and CHINA sure electronics will stay but how else can you dumb down the masses so you have something to keep them entertained while collapse occurs.
david, have you come across the Haken Continuum?
A pianist friend sent me this link:
AI probably still will not reverse physics as we know it, and energy things, however.
An article about possible scenario for Israel – Iran area, by Jerusalem Post.
“Could Mossad kill IRGC air force chief to open up striking Iran nuke program?”
“Sources: Simply destroying Iran’s Fordow nuke facility ‘worthless,’ diluting uranium gains limited time.
With Israel concerned that the Trump administration may cut a weak new nuclear deal with Iran, one way out of such a scenario could be a theoretical Mossad operation that kills the key Iranian official who ordered 400 ballistic missiles fired on Israel in 2024, think-tank sources conjectured to The Jerusalem Post.
The purpose of this theoretical scenario would be to provoke the Islamic Republic into a new direct attack on the Jewish state, which could then be used as a basis for a wide strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities even after a new nuclear deal would have been cut with Trump.”
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-850223
Maybe this is just wishful thinking on the part of Israel. The US is not headed for a wide strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Maybe this is just whisful thinking, but we must admit that if a large attack by Iran to Israel happened (as a consequence of an usual provokation to Iran), adding all the incredible mediatic hype that would appear to all western televisions, US would be obliged to partecipate to an Israel retaliation.
No escape.
Maybe the only big difference in this current context is that Russia and China would not allow an excessive strike to Iran, because their interests would be damaged.
As you said, the world is closing in more restricted trade areas, the only Country not accepting this new configiration is Israel which has created a context of war with all its neighbors.
If Israel wants to survive, in my view, needs to find a way of good relation with all the Countries sorrounding its area.
US Department of Energy new grants will have 15% indirect cost (a fraction of the grant that the university appropriates for its own purposes). Universities being a cartel, they all were getting 54% (this has inched up over the years, I think it was 50% 25 years ago). Once again I can’t but agree with the president, 54% is what made universities have 2.5 admin personnel per faculty, with third world efficiency and ability to serve faculties and students.
I agree the 54% indirect charge is way too high.
The faculty all want to become deans, working to get federal grants to study this and that. The actual benefit of these studies is pretty low, but no one would admit that.
Faculty who are not deans are required to write lots and lots of papers. They hope to get lots and lots of funding. This leaves them with less time for teaching.
Actual teaching gets shifted over to adjunct faculty and graduate students. They get paid peanuts.
We don’t need professors or graduate students to teach anymore. Record the lecture once, distribute freely. The whole educational system needs a revamp. All we need is testing centers as exist for GRE/MCAT/LSAT/etc. There would have to be facilities for hands-on activities, though.
I think you are right, I have mentioned several times CC electronics books are now excellent, couple that with Copilot or the like and one has a full time tutor.
Education has changed, now as knowledge shifts more to certification, accreditation looses its relevance.
All of life is change, universities are now subject to change.
Dennis L.
Can’t agree more,this has been on my mind for some time.
This will work at the undergraduate level, and only up to a point. at the graduate level you need daily contact.
Graduate school, at least in the US, consists of classes, which I believe can work as I described, and research. The research part requires feedback, but I wouldn’t describe it as education exactly, but more of an apprenticeship; it’s work and that’s why STEM grad students are almost always paid.
STEM graduate students always used to be paid. I know that I was paid. But I don’t think that that is the case today. My daughter in law had loans from her PhD in chemistry, I know. I can’t believe that the computer science grad students are paid.
I get it. you still need daily contact, and the fresh PhD is still unable to operate professionally (no doubt this is also due to a dilution of standards). the other problem with youtube classes is that you can not ask questions. this degrades the learning process to some extent. AI can do something about it no doubt.
drb, going by Grok and ChatGPT, “AI” can’t even do simple math when it doesn’t feel like it.
https://x.com/moonsteaders/status/1911880946401579368
Imagine your pharmacist or surgeon relying on this system for anything.
The whole point of higher education is to keep the lower classes out, not to turn as many people as possible into rocket scientists or MBAs for out Star Trek economy. It’s not a coincidence that the smartest people are often the wealthiest. Accessibility is fine until you realize you have to spend most of your adult life with someone who does not share your cultural values. Managers do want more high skilled labor but at lower wages but still have something in common with them socially.
the smartest people are often the healthiest too…
in other words, the smartest people know how to extract the best from the society in which they find themselves, and not make too many stupid choices…
if you are not very smart, the opposite is true…
i would have thought that was so obvious that it didnt need explanation
The goal of college professors was never to teach. Students are suppose to show up knowing the material. Classes are suppose to challenge them. Degree programs exist to show them how to do be professional.
For example, a prospective student doesn’t enroll in engineering to learn how to do engineering. A prospective student enrolls in engineering to be taught how to do engineering work in a professional manner.
.
My friend’s mom runs a university department. Some of the changes under the Trump admin are apparently going to gut their existing system – I think it was the indirect costs limit. This is NIH-funded, by the way, so the indirect costs are not limited only under DOE.
I don’t feel bad abut this.
Neither do I, generally speaking, but it can have unexpected effects as well. She runs a clinic that provides specialized medical services, and those “indirect costs” don’t go exclusively to administrators (as with general educational grants), it just sort of goes to the overall budget that covers staff in general.
“. She runs a clinic that provides specialized medical services, ”
I am being given the impression that these specialized medical are very expensive.
I’ve done a terrible job describing it – I didn’t originally intend to go to this level of detail, but basically it’s an institute/center for diagnosing and helping families deal with children with various developmental disabilities. So they have clinicians, doctors, therapists, etc.
Science vs. Religion not compatible according to view taught by some.
We humans might not understand evolution quite correctly, but one thing I do know is that we were not created 6000 years ago in a garden by the Hebrew god Yahweh. We are Primates that walk on our hind legs. This man should not be a science teacher.
The Bible is full of myths that people told each other to try to explain how the Universe and its inhabitants came into being. It is not meant to be factually correct.
TKO — boxing term ” Technically Knock Out ” .
https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/aircraft-propulsion/china-stops-boeing-airliner-deliveries-report-says
If China will be shipping fewer goods long distance, internationally, and having fewer citizens travel long distance, it won’t need as many planes.
Plus China and Russia both make airliners.
Breads and circus .10 minutes ride just for the view .
https://indianexpress.com/article/world/katy-perry-female-crew-blue-origin-space-trip-9944099/
How do you go to space for only ten minutes?
It is very funny, this is what they found as I would call ‘definition escamotage’.
They apply the so called Karman line that you both probably know better than me, where airplanes lose their lift.
And suddenly we are in the universe!
Fantastic 😀 😀 😀
https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linea_di_K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fMz81uflGtU&pp=ygUec3RhciB0cmVrIGtpcmsgZGlhcmlvIGRpIGJvcmRv
Because they’re really in an airplane to achieve zero G for a little bit?
I suspected as much. what a bunch of scammers.
They had to shoo people away from the already-opened door, so that Bezos could be seen opening it with his “special tool” (koff, koff).
https://x.com/search?q=open%20door%20bezos&src=typed_query
My only question now is whether they really think most people are going to believe this… or whether they know people aren’t going to believe it, and the whole point is rubbing shit in our faces and demoralizing us.
This seems to be an extension of “The purpose of life is to entertain ourselves as well as possible.”
Gail, this is serious space research!
https://x.com/moulync/status/1912201603681251749
Quantifying those text messages is key to humanity’s future.
Getting hundreds of text messages is what this is all about.
“gender based violence deterrred me”
One of the she-astronauts claimed men beat her to try to deter from achieving her dreams.
This is about pushing a political narrative.
A real confusing one at that.
As someone at Scientific American said
“outer space seems designed to kill us”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-well-never-live-in-space/
Forget about contaminating other heavenly bodies with Earth’s microbes, space is where we should be sending stuff we want dead an inert permanently. Criminals, stuff contaminated with prions.
The best , brightest or most fertile should not be launched into a death trap.
it would be a cheap way of freezing keith when his time comes
Governments somehow try to work around the problems that come up:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/china-limits-stocks-sales-maintain-impression-stability-bessent-hints-boosting-treasury
China Limits Stock Sales To Maintain Impression Of Stability, As Bessent Hints At Boosting Treasury Buybacks If Fed Does Nothing
The article says that the dumping of Chinese securities shows up in Belgium numbers, so is hidden from view.
The advantage of above-average human intelligence seems to be to deceive other humans than to make better tools, art, or better leadership.
Deception is the most highly valued skill among white collar workers.
Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?
https://x.com/dom_lucre/status/1911879732133495234
No, it’s crazier
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vsrwTMn_DNA&t=18s&pp=2AESkAIBygUGSm9leSBi
This Is Why I Stay Home 9
joeybtoonz
39K
Likes
1,226,617
Lots more to see on his YouTube channel
looks like Atlanta is no longer a one horse town
I hadn’t run across this story before, but I don’t watch television.
All kinds of strange things happen. Some get publicized.
Some people say we can’t go back.
Most people do not know history before JFK.
Humanity has gone back many, many times to old orders, which returned with a vengeance, capital V.
The old standard of living will return, which most people won’t tolerate, so they will perish.
The elites will still live more or comfortably since there are enough gadgets remaining to keep them in comfort for a while, although their grandchildren, if any, will ride carriages again.
All these amazing tech came too late. Too little, too late. Or , in the African-American way, A Day Late and A Dollar Short.
If we had the level of tech now in 2015 humankind would have a chance and all the contraptions the cornucopians are pushing now might have had a chance too. But this is the 11th hour, with Asia encroaching the Western World all around, with no possible relief.
cheap surplus energy allows progress
technology of any level is 100% reliant on that energy
thats how our world works I’m afraid—no exceptions
Even our “brain power” relies on a source of energy….food.
It was a wonderful time to be born during this “flash in the pan” of human existence. Never to be had again….
Oh if I only had known earlier…the world would have an Elon Musk much sooner…just kidding…
Oh, was everyone impressed with the cat space flight?
😺. Those lovely ladies sure put on a show for us all
Students need to be taught these truths from a young age.
We have recently lived through a period in which the belief was that governments could engineer prosperity by adding debt and printing money. While this approach seemed to work for a while, it was only a temporary band aid.
Now people need to adjust to a new reality: Government programs are almost certainly not the savior most people believe they are. At a minimum, they need to be scaled way back. It is possible that today’s central governments will disappear, altogether.
governments can only govern within their energy-reach,
CA will not be controlled from DC because the energy-means to do it will not be available. Hence CA (and others) will break away over time. There will be wars of denial, but it will not affect the final outcome.
This is whats so fascinating about some of the comments on OFW—somehow there will be a breakthrough that delivers infinite energy and goods/wages forever.
They are the trumpaholics—vote for him and his Ponzi scheme will make you all rich. (and him a million times richer).
Meantime he is hacking away at the first amendment while preserving the 2nd. I’m not the only one who realises this makes civil war a certainty if he stays in office (and others of his ilk).
Maybe a civil war is what is needed. Self-organizing systems work strangely.
when the usa plunges itself into civil war, russia is likely to advance further across eastern europe, probably taking over the baltic states.
china will absorb taiwan.
the dollar will cease to be a viable currency.
isteal will then lose its USA support, and so will be attacked by surrounding states.
Suez and Hormuz will close …the usa will be in no position to protect either of them
Israel will then resort to nukes. Iranian oilfields will be neutralised, possibly Saudis too.
civil war will also stop oil from USA….canadian oil will then be useless.
i’d guess the above would take a year—2 at most.
when?
2025 is the tipping point, maybe sometime in the next 5 years….though scotus has made the don dictator—so it could happen anytime.
wow Paranoiagett, you are really sinking deep.
what about UK civil war?
oh sure, way too close to home, so you almost always avoid commenting about the declining UK.
tipping point 2025?
maybe in the UK, but please don’t upset your mind by actually looking at the many severe issues you have in your own country.
look over there!
the USA has severe issues!
project 2025 is being implemented right now. Just like the don said he knew nothing about.
constitution amendment no.1—the right to free speech
no 2 the right to bear arms
already the right to free speech is being eroded fast—dont take my word for it. Thats part of project 25.
the right to bear arms is being encouraged.
put the two together, deplete the underlying energy support and conflict becomes inevitable.
In case you missed it, the UK does not have the right to bear arms. We can own a 12g under strict police licence, but other than that—just bows and arrows. So I dont think civil warfare would last long, do you?—Fill me in in you know differently. (other than childish invective)
we also enjoy the right to free speech—though not blatant slander or flagrant incitement to insurrection. you have to be pretty outrageous here to get anybodys attention.
That is for the common good.
Right now your chosen one is trying to shut down Harvard, and initiate rule through fear.
The UK doesnt do that.
As a lady from Tennessee said to me a few years ago—I love it here—For the first time in my life I feel safe. A Couple from Washgton state said the same thing “We threw everything into 2 suitcases and got out. Here everyone has accepted us….we are happy here” They left during the first Trump regime.
We do not have a government paying lipservice to godbotherers in order to get political support.
But dont let me interfere with your constant delusion
“project 2025 ”
Don’t worry Norman, it’s part of Agenda 30 which you dismiss.
“In case you missed it, the UK does not have the right to bear arms. We can own a 12g under strict police licence, but other than that—just bows and arrows. So I dont think civil warfare would last long, do you?”
Sad isn’t it. A population without the ability to overthrow rulers, no matter how they behave. That’s not a democracy is it?
“we also enjoy the right to free speech”
About as much as we have the right to defend ourselves from institutional thugs. We enjoy no such thing. You can be charged purely on the grounds that someone claims to have suffered offence, no matter how true your “free speech” is, or how politely you said it.
Did the bbc not report on the beatings that authority thugs dished out to peaceful people, doing no more than petitioning to stop arming(and targeting) genocide, or has the regularity of beatings become so normal that you don’t even notice them as wrong anymore(little steps)?
You have heavily enforced and very narrow parameters of officially approved speech(as with thinking), step outside these and no matter how undeniable the evidence of your speech, you will be silenced.
How have you not noticed the little steps, taking us down this path?
If you had ever bothered to look at our laws Norman, you would know this. They are not what you claim.
excellent Paranoiagett.
you have dodged any thought of the details of the decline of the UK.
I assume you sleep well at night.
sweet dreams!
lol
we are all in the state of energy decline—discussion is superflous
our differences lie only in the fact that i know more or less what the outcome will be
the prayernuts, and jesusfreaks, on the other hand, remain certain that the ‘chosen one’ has exempted you all from the laws of thermodymanics.
or maybe you will be raptured?
forget that—i’d say the ponzi scheme youve joined is more likely to make you rich
but do tell me more about the uk civil war—i might need to stock up on arrow ammunition
I would rather not have a civil war in the US, some civility could go along way to avoiding this.
Dennis L.
“we are all in the state of energy decline—discussion is superflous”
I agree!!
“our differences lie only in the fact that i know more or less what the outcome will be”
surely one big difference is that I was lucky to be thrown into the world in a place that still produces massive surplus energy daily.
while the UK is circling the toilet bowl due to almost no energy resources.
but please never ever think about or discuss the severe issues in the UK, why bother when you have the severe issues of the USA to whinge about almost daily.
probably keeps your peace of mind eh?
the american dream has vanished precisely because you dont produce masses of surplus energy daily.—thats the whole point.—you just belive the dear leader who says you do.
youve joined the ponzi scheme that believes it , and promises infinite wealth.—it aint going to happen there
any more than it will happen here.—-we used to produce masses of cheap surplus energy daily—now we dont,—–simple.
i’m under no illusions as to what that means for the future i won’t actually be part of.
and can i help it if your orange scam artist is much more interesting in discussion than our home grown variety?
he’s currently using the american economy as his personal atm machine.
hence the recent tariff fiasco where stocks crashed—then suddenly bounced back up when he changed his mind.
good moneymaking scheme huh?
Yes, Western societies have recently allowed women to positively pursue whoredom, a position with which I disagree, but Islam is not the solution for the West. Reclaiming our own dignity is.
Foolish Fitz, what protections there in Islamic countries accrue only to females who take the veil and SUBMIT. The intent is right there in the name.
[I don’t pay attention to TR, who is some kind of artificial chaos agent, to be sure.]
As far as non-Muslim women and girls are concerned, they are all fair game, as the Rotherham and other horrors show. ***I don’t care if you think it is “racist” for a woman to notice negative trends in foreign sexual aggression.**
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/ive-worked-refugees-decades-europes-afghan-crime-wave-mind-21506
Hurled accusations of ‘racism’ cause women to submit to sexual violence out of fear of not being regarded as “nice” enough, fuck you very much.
Lidia, another opinion piece from 8 years ago doesn’t scream urgency, does it. Was that when Rotherham became important?
Statistically, there is only one single group in Britain that has a higher percentage of sex crime against women, than it’s percentage of population.
That group is white males, so if you have any group of males to fear, you now at least know the correct group and can raise awareness appropriately(which you seem to be keen on).
Your purpose was to identify dangers to (certain)women, wasn’t it?
Remember this truly horrendous case?
https://iambirmingham.co.uk/2023/04/05/twenty-one-convicted-largest-child-sexual-abuse-investigation-conducted-west-mids-police/
Or this one?
https://news.sky.com/story/amp/seven-members-of-paedophile-gang-guilty-of-running-monstrous-child-sex-abuse-ring-13008082
If not, why not?
What could possibly be different about these people.
“Hurled accusations of ‘racism’ cause women to submit to sexual violence out of fear of not being regarded as “nice” enough”
The victim card👍 and very nicely done as well. Hurled sounds quite violent and as you say demands submission, because being seen as nice is somehow more important than anything else(western training at its finest).
If you waddle and quack like a duck, don’t get offended when people call you a duck.
You’re as believable as Cheryl Sandburg
https://substack.com/@abotaym/note/c-109109763?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=7c6fx
“fuck you very much”
Rapist😂
We’ve got another one (Fitz) who doesn’t grasp the concept of “per capital”.
Ignore patterns at your peril. They don’t attack only females.
They are all hacking away at free speech. No singing gospel songs or praying in public for Christians in the UK (but Muslims can block whole streets and blast their prayers with loudspeakers 5x/365).
One reason They may be promoting Islamicization is that, in and of itself, it’s an extreme societal simplification. You don’t need but one Book, women stay home, not much in the way of concerts or plays to put on. As one questioner put it, why is it that “Spain translated more foreign books into Spanish in a single year than the Arab world had translated foreign books into Arabic in a millennium, and Spain had a larger GDP than all 22 states of the Arab League combined”?
oh no you will be upsetting his peace of mind if he sees your comment.
I’m not concerned. He’s a tough old bird!
/////No singing gospel songs or praying in public for Christians in the UK (but Muslims can block whole streets and blast their prayers with loudspeakers 5x/365)./////
do you have direct evidence of that lidia.?—i didnt know praying in public was illegal here.
the call of the muezzin from the mosque in muslim lands, can be very pleasant to listen to—as can church bells here on sunday mornings.—i adhere to neither btw.
i’ve never heard of ”blocking whole streets” though.—might have been an isolated incident somewhere…..tell us more.—ive never heard the muezzin call in uk
https://x.com/drantbradley/status/1751939689970311659
and ‘that’ is your authority for such nonsense???..some daft woman in uniform, not even English.
I think she belongs in the Tommy Robinson school of poilitics
do try harder
https://x.com/UltraDane/status/1733568145380741363
“London comes to another standstill as Muslims insist on chanting and making a spectacle of themselves in the road. This has been going on for 2 months.”
They are doing this in Toronto and Montreal as well. Just Google “Muslims blocking roads” and you will see them lined up with bums in the air.
“A woman is given a fine by the British police for the crime of praying silently in her head on the street.”
https://x.com/PeterSweden7/status/1717528218998075825
There are quite a number of these. I do take the side of the indigenous over the newcomers, but the government has other plans. I’m trying to figure out why. Why did King Charles host a big Ramadan shindig when he’s supposedly the head of the CofE?
“the call of the muezzin from the mosque in muslim lands, can be very pleasant to listen to”
Of course, you *would* say that, but to women it forebodes nothing but evil. It’s an unsettling and dystopic sound to me.
“but to women it forebodes nothing but evil”
Only to the propagandised, which you admit at least when you say
“It’s an unsettling and dystopic sound to me.
Your so well trained then.
The safest place for women(and children) that I’ve ever lived has been in a Muslim community. They would protect my child, whilst most white people whore their children from birth to the corporation.
“London comes to another standstill as Muslims insist on chanting and making a spectacle of themselves”
It’s called a protest march and they happen all the time in central London(I’ve personally witnessed 3 at the same time passing each other). Find me some links from that poster moaning about all the other, non Muslim marches.
“I do take the side of the indigenous over the newcomers”
From a white yank, that’s hilarious. It was all a joke, right?
Over half of the Muslims in this country were born here, so surely have as much right here as any white yank has there and they can also point out the little fact that they didn’t have to genocide the indigenous population to claim that right. Your on shaky ground there. Go champion Palestine.
You are correct about the persecution of religious beliefs(it’s all been done under Section 5 of the Public Order Act), but your trained racism does as intended and sends you off in the wrong direction. They are coming for all religions, just sweeping up the easy targets first, so maybe ask yourself why white people are so spineless and so so easily led to blame anyone, but the person giving them the beating.
I’d advise you stop listening to the distorted bs, from payed mouthpieces like Yaxley Lennon and his ilk. You don’t like their paymasters, but so willingly play along with their game. Ever wonder why that is?
If your claimed issues were such a common experience, it seems odd how spaced the links are. Couldn’t you find a march in London, involving obvious Muslims, any newer than 2023?
London, a standstill, again. What utter drivel. A single street in a city of 8.9m people gets blocked by a march for maybe a whole hour, 2 years ago. Oh no, the hoards are coming 🤣
lidia
i can admire the beauty of a cathedral, and the peals of bells coming from it, even though i know the oppressive religious system that built it.
the oppressive stupidity of the muslim way of life does not detract from the beauty of the alhambra, or the sublime voice of the muezzin drifting over the nile on a summer evening.
the world is full of similar contradictions.
we have to live with them
Free-speech nugget for Norm. Girl-athlete dads banned for simply wearing wristbands with two “X”s on them. Judge rules this is A-OK.
https://nhjournal.com/judge-rules-school-can-ban-xx-protests-over-males-in-girls-sports/
that piece was american-based lidia
personally i think males participating in girls sports (with one exception of course!!!) should be totally banned through this transgender nonsense.
“governments can only govern within their energy-reach”
My husband’s a student of history, and today I asked him how he thought Christians in Spain were able to eventually repulse the occupying Muslims. His answer wasn’t anything to do with religion or culture or even biological indoles/temperaments, but that the center of their Empire was simply too far away from Spain to maintain control.
Let’s not put this all on the Right.
THe left wants a civil war, too.
And those on the Left are just as delusional as those on the RIght. Or, do you think we are going to preserve a globalized industrialize “service economy”d economy with renewable energy and continue to prosper by having most people work in “services”. There is no such thing as a “service” economy. BTW, I found out what happened to Biden’s efforts to bring microprocessor manufacturing back to the United States. Progressives do not want to roll back the environmental and labor legislation that prevents them from being produced on u.s. soil. There is also a huge class component to dismissal of manufacturing efforts: it is seen as low-status among people on the left who pretend to side with low status people. manufacturing is dirty and dangerous and physically demanding. everyone should aspire to get a office job that requires a graduate degree.
This is the same reason why trades training was reduced… it’s for losers.
How is that not delusional, Norman?
most of the political class suffers from delusion—id say it was a prerequisite for being in politics at any level.
a ‘service’ ecomony can only exist on the back of a ‘product’ economy, otherwise there would be nothing to service—would there.
so obvious, it hardly warrants saying.
the vast majority want high wages and cheap goods without realising that you cant produce both in the same country now.
Good point!
“the vast majority want high wages and cheap goods without realising that you cant produce both in the same country now.”
We used to have a consensus of what constitutes “just rule”. We now see all the nations of EU and NA have governments that do not follow even the most basic features of just rule. No rule of law. Just law of the jungle, red of tooth and claw.
“The other day, the Trump administration arrested an innocent Salvadoran man named Kilmar Abrego Garcia and sent him to a prison in El Salvador with no trial or even any accusation of a crime. The administration later admitted that his arrest had been an error — Garcia had been granted court protection against deportation, but Trump’s people grabbed him anyway.
A few days ago, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a lower court’s order that the Trump administration “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia to the U.S. Trump initially said he would respect the Supreme Court’s decision. But then today, Trump reversed course, declaring that his administration doesn’t have the power to return Abrego Garcia. . . .
In practice, the administration is arguing that as soon as they arrest someone and ship them overseas, U.S. courts have no right to order their return — ever. That means that Trump could grab you, or me, or anyone else off the street and put us on a plane to El Salvador, and then argue that no U.S. court has the right to order us back, because once we’re on foreign soil it’s the domain of foreign policy. If so, it means that due process and the rule of law in America are effectively dead; the President can simply do anything to anyone, for any reason.”?
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-authoritarian-takeover-attempt?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=35345&post_id=161361024&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=nm2q&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
the usa is on the brink of absolute dictatorship
trump will not leave the whitehouse now, unless he is physically ejected
The Zionist Occupation will not leave the White House without violence.
America was founded on Judeo-Christian values.
Are you being sarcastic? The phrase “Judeo-Christian” was only really coined a few decades ago.
Jewish values are not the same as Christian values; not taking sides here but they are very different.
Last famous words by someone who does not understand that energy trumps all. He is erratic and (I can see) quite weak. He might in fact leave before 2029.
Norm fully understands the energy issue. He misses the Zionist issue.
the zionist issue clouds everything
I’m fully aware of that….part of the insanity of it all
“Zionism, the Human Parasitoid”?
https://scottritter.substack.com/p/zionism-the-human-parasitoid/comments?utm_source=substack%2Csubstack&publication_id=6892&post_id=161569427&utm_medium=email%2Cemail&isFreemail=true&comments=true&utm_campaign=email-half-magic-comments&action=post-comment
“He is erratic”, yes, we are in the declining old people phase of the government. The USSR went down due to the edge states leaving. Let us hope the US can also have a peaceful dissolution through peaceful secession.
Given the number of trigger happy rednecks who would prefer to shoot anyone they can see before going down in a ray of glory, unlikely
The Rednecks of USA were the riff raff of Elizabethan England who spoke like this
Captain. I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats;
If it be man’s work, I’ll do’t. (From King Lear)
They were the lowest of the low and they are the people who made Trump so they will cause a huge damage before they perish
kulm, so those who don’t want to be fed like horses and worked to death like horses are ‘the lowest of the low’?
US ‘Rednecks’ did not “make Trump”, jews did. He’s an expert at switching between ‘face’ and ‘heel’ when necessary for the show to go on.
“Rednecks” will pull my car out of a ditch when your folk would pass me by. Heck, Trump himself would probably pull me out of a ditch before you would.
trump would more likely try to sell you the ditch
a sexual predator/braggart is always the hallmark of a weak man.
i can never understand though, why so many voted for him—such an obvious scam artist
He is sort of your chucky. worry not, energy availability will dictate the next events. You should try to grasp the content in this forum a bit better.
too busy clutching at the last straws of intellect to grasp whats going on in here matey
Indeed. The presidents before him were upstanding individuals, straight as an arrow. Specially Obama, who had such a feminine wife. She did not play linebacker at Oregon State, not at all.
stop exposing yourself drb–its embarassing
Whats Obamas wife got to do with the Trump idiocy?… thats not even half-witty.
Numerous previous presidents had lecherous intents, they were all human after all, not saints
sexual predation is a different matter, inflicting unwanted sexual attention shows weakness and lack of emotional stability. Trumps first wife had to be paid off the buy her silence on his antics.
it may have passed you by, but the actual chasing and choosing is almost always done by the female of the species—they just let a guy think its all his idea,
It’s a man’s world
if you belive that zero—try arguing with a woman
example of upstanding individuals, to be contrasted with the dictatorial lecherous trump. Biden is another example. He too had such a beautiful family. it’s so sad trump had to succeed them both. he is going to bulldoze the constitution, and possibly also Gaza.
you lost me drb on the point you were trying to make
supposing there was a point of course
incidentally—who would you rather have as your bed companion—mrs joe biden, or genghis khans niece?
I always noticed that the don was always tweeting at 3 am—Joe Biden never did.
ever wondered why?
“He is erratic and (I can see) quite weak.”
Bill Maher the centrist says about his “one on one” with Trump that the Prez is fairly normal in person despite his trolling the media and Democrats.
My Dad runs a large nonprofit with 1000+ members (mostly conservative) including special interest groups who are constantly locking horns over the club’s budget and access to donated materials.
He says his management strategy is to keep everyone mad at him so they aren’t fighting with each other. In his dealings with competing non-profit Directors, the media and writers, the legislature and stakeholder agencies my Dad has gained a reputation as a “beloved character” that disarms people with humor and offers no BS solutions to bureaucracy and corruption. Some of his detractors might call him a Troll but at least he’s not a senile old fool and professional gaslighter. You only get one Dad, lol.
Yes, this has gone too far. Maybe New England can secede. I am sad to see my Alma mater fail to stand for the values that in 1977 it spent a whole year long course teaching me. The values of the Bible, Renaissance, Reformation, in general the west.
The course was titled “Western Civilization” it is no longer taught at Columbia. My college friend and I have been talking and agree college is not a vocational school rather a transmission of culture and values. The college kids and faculty are doing an excellent jobs.
The values being expressed today at Columbia in Manhattan were impossible to express in the 70s. Fight on Lions your day has come.
Which is why educating Asians and making them enter the 20th century was a bad , bad and bad idea
In the UK, some institutions of higher learning are removing the term “Anglo-Saxon” from various courses, in order to “de-colonize the curriculum”.
We have been in an unusual period where we thought people had “rights.” If there are not enough goods and services to go around, somehow, the distribution of goods and services must be cut back dramatically. The only practical way of this is by trampling on what we thought was people’s rights.
That is Asia penetrating EU and NA
In Asia the rule of law does not exist. It was always the writ by the ruler.
The “Clash of Civilizations” is a thesis that people’s cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post–Cold War world. The American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington argued that future wars would be fought not between countries, but between cultures.
In America or Europe it does not exist either. It’s a grim world.
Ray Dalio thinks it is looking like the 1930’s again.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/not-about-tariffs-ray-dalio-fears-something-worse-recession
Excerpt: The monetary/economic order is breaking down because there is too much existing debt, the rates of adding to it are too fast, and existing capital markets and economies are supported by this unsustainably large debt.
The domestic political order is breaking down due to huge gaps in people’s education levels, opportunity levels, productivity levels, income and wealth levels, and values—and because of the ineffectiveness of the existing political order to fix things.
The international geopolitical world order is breaking down because the era of one dominant power (the U.S.) that dictates the order that other countries follow is over.
Acts of nature (droughts, floods and pandemics) are increasingly disruptive, and
Amazing changes in technology such as AI will be highly impactful to all aspects of life, including the money/debt/economic order, the political order, the international order (by affecting interactions between countries economically and militarily), and the costs of acts of nature.
Changes in these forces and how they are affecting each other is what we should be focusing on.
Dalio concludes by urging readers to not to let news-grabbing dramatic changes like the tariffs draw your attention away from these five big forces and their interrelationships, which are the real drivers of Overall Big Cycles changes.
If we end up as 1930s we would have gotten off fairly easily.
Unfortunately, true.
Here is the Permian in Texas. Looks like the wells extend all the way to the Mexican border. What are the odds the oil stops at the border? In other words, maybe we should invade Mexico and frack everything there. Surely we can come up with a passable rationale – something about the cartels and national security, perhaps.
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8cc98c_5fc3f791626c4d96b5fae8a4fcebbd0b~mv2.jpg
correction: this is Eagle Ford, not Permian
FYI the 2010 map is but a fraction (12%?) of the wells that now exist in the EagleFord Trend.
This is the charts that the EIA shows for the Eagle Ford. In fact, these charts were published today.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64984
Eagle Ford natural gas production increases as crude oil production holds steady
There could be more on the other side of the border, as you say. About 1.2 million barrels of oil, per day.
“All of the following products are now exempt from the larger global tariffs, including the tariffs in place against China:
•Computers (laptops, desktops, servers) •Workstations •Computer systems •Keyboards •Mice •Hard drives •Memory modules (RAM) •Power supplies •Computer motherboards •Graphic cards •Semiconductor manufacturing equipment: •Photolithography machines •Etching and doping machines •Wafer handling robots •Cleanroom systems used in chip fabrication Used by companies like TSMC, Intel, and Samsung in chip production. •Smartphones •Mobile phones with data transmission capabilities •Devices like iPhones, Android phones, and similar mobile communication devices •Wireless routers •Network switches •Modems (cable, DSL, etc.) •VoIP equipment •Communication hubs •Internet gateway devices •USB flash drives •SSDs (solid-state drives) •Memory cards (like SD, microSD) •Other flash storage devices used in everything from laptops to cameras and game consoles. •Individual solar cells, unassembled •Photovoltaic cells assembled into modules or panels, with or without bypass diodes •Custom or specialty solar panels •Microprocessors (CPUs, SoCs) •Memory chips (RAM, Flash, etc.) •Logic ICs, analog ICs, mixed-signal ICs •Specialized application chips (ASICs, GPUs, AI chips) •Widely used in all electronics: smartphones, laptops, vehicles, appliances, industrial controls •All types of LEDs.”
This is 22% of China’s export to USA .
My understanding is that these still have China’s baseline 20% tariff
Correct Ivan , However the baseline tariff is for all imports from other countries also . The others did not face retaliatory tariffs imposed on China because they preferred to dumb down .
Yes, but the baseline for China is 20% while it’s only 10% for other countries. If I understood things correctly.
This list would not include specialized devices for specific fields, such as for medicine or agriculture, then.
“Studies by IBM in the 1990s suggest that computers typically experience about one cosmic-ray-induced error per 256 megabytes of RAM per month.” (“Cosmic Ray”.Wikipedia). I came across the interesting fact that ionizing radiation exposure on Earth’s surface is greater than zero increases with height. Now that we have lots of airplanes flying around with modern computer microprocessors in them, I wonder if radiation has ever caused problems.
Memories use error detection coding and error correction coding. That is extra bits are added to provide redundancy. This can be done for one bit errors and with more redundant bits two bit errors and more if desired.
This is IBMs one claim to fame. When you track trillions of dollars a day you are not allowed to loose track. Every step is check for correctness if it is wrong go back to the last known good state and start again. This is written into the SEC regulations. It has been this way for over fifty years.
I wouldn’t imagine it would be any different.
Banks were some of the earliest customers for computers.
I am confident that by 1990, any problems with computing errors would have been addressed since they have been using computers since the 1950s.
Only one thing is that computers today are much more sensitive to radiation induced errors because of the smaller size of transistors. It doesn’t matter if their main server computers make zero errors, all it takes is for one modern computer, in an area that is exposed to very low amounts of radiation, to make an error and the error will be duplicated throughout their networks until caught.
I think the anti-Brexit, anti-Trump people are in a bit of a bind.
How can they make the case that globalization is sustainable?
By lying.
I already found a paper online showing how globalization helped the world deal with the Covid pandemic, when what I remember happening was hoarding, which no expert had considered or made preparations for.
https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/wtr23_e/wtr23_ch6_e.pdf
https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/wtr23_e/wtr23_e.pdf
“A bigger danger is that attempts to reverse globalization and rebuild economic walls could descend into a vicious circle of tit-for-tat retaliation, beggar-thy-neighbour protectionism, escalating economic conflict and the unravelling of a rules-based trading system – making it harder for the world to cooperate, not just on economic matters, but on the urgent environmental, social and security issues it confronts. As was the case in the 1930s, declining global trust and rising insecurity could force economies to assert their own national interests, even at the expense of their collective interests, with the result that everyone is worse off. If globalization rested fundamentally on “positive sum” economic cooperation, deglobalization reflects – and reinforces – “zero-sum” economic nationalism and rivalry.
Paradoxically, the answer to the challenges posed by globalization is more globalization, not less – a more open, integrated and diversified global economy, deeper cooperation among governments, improved coordination across policies and issues, a stronger, more inclusive, more effective and modern international trade and economic system. Instead of deglobalization, there is a pressing need for re-globalization.”
The problem with these college educated “knowledge workers” is that they think people around the world are in agreement on most issues when in fact they aren’t. Most of what they call cooperation is achieved by bribery, and political repression; coercion.
In short, where is this cooperation that they speak of?
We don’t have oil for re-globalization. That is the problem. Without plentiful inexpensive oil, globalization (and cooperation) is not possible.
the economics of the horse and cart is difficult to accept, but there it is.
Lol a definitionally insane conclusion by the WTO. Surprise surprise. Until that point it read just like a Nicole Foss primer.
What ever happened to Nicole Foss?
She moved to NZ and got into permaculture. Walked the talk.
She seems to be back from NZ. I found this biography related to a talk Nicole Foss gave in March 2025:
I found this information about Agri-Energy Producers’ Association of Ontario, Canada:
The last entry I found on The Automatic Earth from Nicole Foss was in 2017.
Thx Gail. As I recall NZ also revolved around a romantic interest. I’ve often wondered if she stopped posting because she was early on her forecasts and felt like that was the right thing to do. Or maybe she just said everything she had to say.
She had a male friend out in NZ. Her daughters were still in Canada. It is not a shock that she returned.
The ‘eco-village’ they were trying to set up ran into problems. Per Facebook the land trust dissolved in 2016.
One possible reason behind the dissolution is they ran into the same problems that the Biodome, experiment and other isolated settlements intended to be self-sustaining had; people broke down into warring camps. As one commenter said ‘people who were otherwise delightful…liked to find flaws in others.’
What is downplayed in every single account of the Biodome experiments is how interpersonal conflict may have caused some of the non-social problems they ran into.
this is normal. These folks have always used scams to justify other scams. The world can not lose them fast enough.
Next round of US – IRAN talks will be held on Saturday in Rome.
I hope I’ll be wrong, but it doesn’t seem to me a good sign, as Italy is totally on US side.
Previous times these same talks have been held in more neutral places.
Any thought?
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/italy-says-rome-to-host-second-round-of-us-iran-nuclear-talks
Student , the five things that DJT promised in elections in his first 100 days .
1. End of Ukraine war
2. Immigration control
3. Gaza solution
4. Iran solution
5. Deficit/ China solution
He has failed on all except Immigration control , he desperately needs a victory on ‘ Iran solution ‘ as he has not only failed but has been HUMILIATED
on the other issues . However the problem is the Israel lobby . Nothing will happen until DJT abandons Israel and that will not happen .
The self-organizing system will figure out what will work and what will not.
Never mind about what DJT promised in his first 100 days. It got him elected. Some combination of changes will take place that use less oil. There are a lot of countries that have huge financial problems. Trump hopes to gain some advantage over other major countries with these tariffs. It is even possible that he may somewhat succeed.
Yes, Gail.
You make good points, as always and you see surely longer than me, but as far as I can see, at least, from Europe, almost every Country considers now Trump responsible of breaking a system that for them was working well.
For all these Countries it appears to have no sense that he has decided to break that system.
They don’t have any idea of oil scarcity or the problem of cost of extraction.
So, everybody now hates Trump here.
An escalation with Iran, adding all the mess in the area, could be a good move to divert problems and sink some other Countries trapped in the consequences.
So an escalation in that area may happen.
Hopefully not, of course.
A negotiation in Italy looks like an ultimatum.
Gail, sorry, this is totally wrong. The self-organizing system is centered in tel Aviv and will not choose what works. It will instead accelerate its own demise, but only after killing millions of iranians.
A lot of people are like the people who willingly throw themselves and their firstborn under the wheels of the Juggernaut cars.
“I hope I’ll be wrong, but it doesn’t seem to me a good sign, as Italy is totally on US side.”
True, but the negotiators have gone through all the good restaurants in Muscat, so they need to move on.
The cost of the marginal barrel will collapse the system . Luke Gorman ,
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QgqIRhUEFHI
Luke Gorman talks about each marginal barrel of oil getting more expensive to find. He says that if gasoline went up to $10 or $20, the value of a person’s house in the suburbs would fall.
Of course, if the price of oil doesn’t go up to the equivalent of $10 or $20 gallon, then we have the reverse problem. Price of oil doesn’t over the cost of drilling the marginal barrel, and the drilling stops. In many ways, this is a worse problem. Either way, we can’t win.
some opinions have it that oil is already $15/20 a gallon when you factor in the cost of the military force necessary to maintain the flow of it
The question now is — will the unwinding happen with violence or without violence ? My thought ” Only in a world of unlimited resources can men live as brothers ” .
thats my opinion too
That’s not actually what you see in nature; what you do see is that when there is abundance, there is competition, while when these is scarcity, there is co-operation. Life is designed to be robust, rather than optimal. It’s an view of reality that is a struggle to understand for people brought up with the red in tooth and claw version of reality, but it’s what you actually see if you look at the world without a preformed opinion. Some examples at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix437G3-Low
The video says that biological systems are suboptimal. Using this approach, robustness is built in. Need a balance between robustness and optimal performance.
I think of this as being related to the small differences in all parts of all biological systems being slightly different from each other. If conditions change, “survival of the best adapted” will allow at least some to survive.
When it comes to life/existence, robustness *is* optimization wouldn’t you say?
How is your first sentence not a gross, oversimplification and, therefore, a rank mischaracterization?
It is axiomatic in cultural anthropology that chronic hunter-gatherer population compaction (exceeding bioregional carrying capacity) always results in increased intertribal warfare, with the resultant casualties acting as a negative feedback loop on the compaction. Another intelligent negative feedback loop is that tribes under chronic population compaction practiced infant neglect (infanticide) on their females so that both future birthrates were suppressed and the male to female ratio was increased for warrior replacement requirements. Smart. Male to female ratios got as high as 1.33:1.
Therefore, during times of chronic, intergenerational scarcity, female infant neglect in service of increased warfare were simultaneously cooperative and competitive.
It’s obviously easier to see the ecological simultaneity of competition and cooperation in times of abundance.
The two dynamics always coexist and, given their self-organizing nature within the collective biodiversity, they’re always on the move as an endless series of contributions to cause and effect.
Regarding optimal performance, Hamant makes the point that photosynthesis is about 0.5% energy efficient, versus 15% energy efficient solar panels humans have made. Given that biology has had billions of years to optimise this process, why is it still at less than 1% efficient? It turns out that to adapt to constantly fluctuating levels of light, and indeed internal fluctuations in the plant, the best thing is to absorb light from 2 different wavelengths (red and blue), rather than to focus on absorbing the maximum amount of light; plants have chosen a massively suboptimal solution in order to adapt themeselves to constantly changing conditions.
https://youtu.be/YR769MZl9sI?t=2468
I think survival of the most adaptable is actually closer to describing what nature does; robustness/adaptability is selected for over efficiency/optimisation.
That is an interesting way of putting it: “survival of the most adaptable”
People who get advanced degrees in computer programming sometimes (today) find themselves out of a job, because people in low-wage countries will do the programming for so much less per hour. Also, programmers over 40 are expected to be part of management, but not everyone is suited for that. So the most adaptable today may be the person who can move from one type of job to another, even if it is lower paying or has less prestige.
biophile since you let it alone I gather then that you accept my counterargument regarding competition and cooperation.
Your photosynthesis vs photovoltaic argument is a logical fallacy called false analogy. You are comparing apples and oranges. Plants are making sugars with photosynthesis and the electrons of the purpose-made, highly conductive materials in solar panels are just getting excited which creates electricity. That really shouldn’t need to be said but apparently it does. I could just as easily rebut that photosynthesis is far better optimized for long term energy storage than a solar panel and but that would be the same logical fallacy, and I’d never make such a simple mistake.
“plants have chosen a massively suboptimal solution in order to adapt themeselves to constantly changing conditions.”
On what planet is that suboptimal? You’re not thinking. Optimal means best. You don’t have the foggiest idea what is photosynthetically optimal for a tree, and even if you fooled yourself into thinking you did you wouldn’t have the foggiest idea of what the internal biological ramifications would be, nor account for external limiting factors such as the CO2 levels on which photosynthesis is dependent. Arguments like yours are the kind of arguments that lead to GMOs.
” That’s not actually what you see in nature; what you do see is that when there is abundance, there is competition, while when these is scarcity, there is co-operation. Life is designed to be robust, rather than optimal. ”
Can you give some examples of this cooperation in history ? Massacres for scarce resources are many . Water wars in Africa a very simple one happening in front of our eyes in Africa . Remember Darfur was a war over grazing rights . I can recite many others but I am waiting for your response .
you are quite right Ravi
in times of scarcity, there isnt cooperation, the weak just die
What I find is that all violence is senseless.
There is no difference between the New Cold War between NATO countries and the BRICS
and the constant gang violence in many inner cities. Governments do not have nobler reasons for waging war than gang members.
It may be ubiquitous. it may even be ignoble, but what makes it “senseless”?
Conquest, expression of power, instillation of fear, elimination of rivals..
The bit above about biology being ‘sub-optimal’ is hilarious. Our biology clearly has something optimal about it, otherwise we wouldn’t be here (and still increasing so far).
Excellent point Norm. As the U.S. reduced forces in the Persian Gulf/Red Sea etc., energy security declined and prices rose. If the Houthis had a navy I think it would be +$30/gallon in security premium. It takes alot of Iron and Men to keep this world functioning as it is.
Ravi, You may well be correct that the final blow will occur because of the marginal barrel problem, but Id like to hear views on another issue which seems much more self inflicted?
By self inflicted, I mean the crazy Net Zero policy of dozens of countries aiming to stop the sale of ICE cars between 2030 and 2040. If those policies persist, I think closed unprofitable refineries, might prove to be the killer blow.
Why? [ I describe the gasoline problem below, although diesel is a factor ]
1. Most Oil Refineries are barely profitable as of today, even as every product they produce has a market.
2. By 2030~40 with no new ICE vehicle sales, gasoline sales would drastically reduce.
3. At that point, (in refinery terms), gasoline will be a “waste product” by 2040.
4. A refinery cannot just shift hydrocarbons into other products at will and profitably.
5. No refinery, could maintain commercial viability, if “green politics”, forces it to treat gasoline as a waste product by 2040.
6. An extra (self-inflicted-green-problem), is how to dispose of the “waste gasoline”, in a green and safe way in 2040 without burning it?
Am I missing something?
David Butler
David , my position on net zero , EV ‘s , renewables etc is well documented here . All scams . No ,you are not missing anything . We are on the same page .
This is the way a self-organizing system works. It is clear that our oil supply will be gone by 2050; we can’t tell the people this. We have to start using far less, much earlier. Net Zero policies give an excuse for not wasting more energy on building more vehicles that cannot actually be used.
I remember that James Kunstler, in “The Long Emergency,” published in 2005, talked about stopping selling automobiles at some point, because of the way peak oil works.
Kunstler’s latest: “Systemic Considerations”
https://www.kunstler.com/p/systemic-considerations
Excerpt: Whatever else you think is happening in our world, contraction is the reality-based order-of-the-day, and everything else is downstream of that. The world has to get by with less. Nothing is going to fix this for everybody, though any number of schemes for redistributing what’s left will preoccupy the political mojo.
Many of us are aware that the hour for this is late. We’ve already lived through our decades of pumping cheap oil out of American ground
What have we got to work with? An overly-complex matrix of systems and subsidiary systems operating on the verge of failure at excessive scale. For example, our cities and their asteroid belts of suburbs. The rot is already well-advanced in many of them from their centers outward, and we can see the process underway of strip-mining the remaining assets on-the-ground. Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore. . . all occupy important geographically strategic sites. All are populated by dwindling societies of the cope-less, floundering their way out of existence. The geographies will abide without them. Others will come along and make something of these places’ virtues.
If we don’t have enough oil, the economy somehow has to contract to get along with what we do have. One thing Kunstler says is, “one thing you can surely depend on is a violent unwinding of global finance.” I am afraid this is true.
Is there any way the finance mess could unwind slowly, without violence?
the economy wont unwind slowly to get along with what we have
trumpanomics is a clear indication of that.
he obsessed himself with the daft idea that tariffs will impoverish the rest of the world, while giving bau to the usa.
we are a global interlocked system, no major nation is exempt—it only looks like that temporarily, the don dupes his ponzi investors to think that way, but is really is only a ponzi scheme.
Oil underrpins global finance—there is nothing else—without cheap surplus energy there is NO global finance—this is why it wont just ‘unwind’.
cheap surplus energy keeps us fed clothed and housed—yes it really is that basic.
a minority already has a problem in that respect, but remove those three things from the majority and violence becomes certain.
Hard to fault …
But maybe tariffs are a way to step down slowly from our current situation, without generating as huge financial violence. Perhaps the financial violence will be in China rather than the US, in the short term. I have been amazed at how well the system has stayed together, so far.
What a lot of people avoid mentioning about the suburbs, particularly in the US, is te degree to which they a product of ‘white flight’. I just listened to a Kunstlercast from a few weeks ago: he and his guest just couldn’t bring themselves to say why people would abandon pleasant, walkable, cities with lots of cultural resources for comparatively sterile and uninspiring social surroundings.
Crime increased exponentially in urban areas in america for 30 years roughly following desegregation. this was the era of the serial killer who stalked urban and non-urban people.
Cluster of Mad Cow Disease (zombie) in Oregon.
Health officials in Hood River County say that two people have died of a rare brain disease.
County health officials say they’ve identified three cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the last eight months. One was confirmed by autopsy, while two are presumptive diagnoses.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob is a rare brain disorder caused by infectious proteins called prions, which causes rapid, progressive dementia, movement disorders and behavioral changes. It is considered incurable and universally fatal.
https://www.oregonlive.com/health/2025/04/2-in-oregon-die-of-rare-brain-disease.html
History channel had a segment about this creating a zombie pandemic. They suggested “Government may need to lock you away in room until you die or experiment on you”
Scary sh**
nobody is creating a zombie pandemic
and no—-i can’t prove that.
just eyerolling time again.
Yep!
I sometimes think that because most people live dull and prosaic lives, where the same thing unfolds predictably day after day, they cannot satisfy a craving for alleged ‘threats’, such as this.
After all, our ancestors were primed for that kind of thing occasionally.
Horror films just don’t cut it.
Perhaps the greatest torment would be if every day until death were be safe, secure and dull.
Thank Goodness for the energy predicament.
Mad Cow Disease, you say?
A cluster, you say?
Those cows weren’t named Hilary, Maisie, and Nancy, by any chance?
From the article:
Prion diseases are not well understood, and in many cases a cause is never identified.
“We’re trying to look at any common risk factors that might link these cases … but it’s pretty hard in some cases to come up with what the real cause is,” she said.
I wonder if they will look into the possible COVID-19 jab connection?
Steve Kirsch (inventor of the mouse you use to Like this post on a PC) did an article on this over three years ago, citing research and arguments on the potential for the vaccine spike protein to cause prion diseases like dementia, Alzheimer’s, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) by Jessica Rose, Byram Bridle, Stephanie Seneff, Bart Calssen, and others.
https://kirschsubstack.com/p/proof-covid-vaccines-cause-prion
In the UK today, there is news of the very last UK blast furnace making primary virgin steel, and the politics around it, as the British government attempt to take it out of private Chinese investor hands.
The political urgency was due to the fact that the Chinese company were in the early stages of shutting it down, and as many know, that once a blast furnace is shut down, its near impossible to re-open it as a going concern.
But this is not the end of the political stupidity in the UK.
This incompetent government is hell bent on Net Zero which blocks any future fossil fuel extraction. Two weeks ago our Net Zero government cancelled a planning application to extract coking coal from a site in Cumbria (North West England).
You cant make bulk virgin steel *without coking coal*. So the Chinese owners had already adapted to our political Net Zero stupidity, by ordering coking coal from Japan.
Bearing in mind that this (last), blast furnace in Scunthorpe is 3 days away from permanent shutdown without coking coal, there is a ship from Japan holding thousands of tons of coking coal docked in a local port. But it cannot be unloaded, because it’s not PAID FOR.
The Chinese owners of the blast furnace refuse to pay for the shipment of coking coal. And our *glorious* government either don’t want to pay for the shipment, cant pay for the shipment, or didn’t realize that this shipment needed paying for.
Its these kind of *unbelievable but true* stories, which tell me that we are not looking to the horizon, waiting for the collapse any more.
We are living inside the collapse, right now
David Butler 14/4/2025
Jingye, British Steel’s Chinese owner, said last month that the company was losing more than £700,000 a day and that it was no longer “financially viable”.
British Steel’s accounts showed that it made losses of £408mn on turnover of £1.7bn to the end of 2022. It made a pre-tax loss of £231mn in 2023. It is also heavily indebted — with debts outstanding of £736mn at the end of 2023.
Simply running the plant will be expensive given the price of raw materials and high energy costs. Import duties on steel imposed by Donald Trump’s US administration are another challenge.
On Sunday, Reynolds compared the annual losses that the government would have to cover, totalling about £230mn, to the cost of the “complete collapse of British Steel”. This, he told Sky News, would be “easily over £1bn”.
https://archive.md/PE6fg#selection-2011.150-2027.221
Steel prices don’t rise high enough to cover the cost of production.
I am afraid that China may be running into a little of this issue, too, especially with the tariffs.
Other countries may have this issue, too. The US only does melting of already made steel, but even this may run into affordability issues. Any electricity used in the process must be very inexpensive. Intermittent wind and solar doesn’t work at all.
I had posted this earlier .
https://www.oilandgasmiddleeast.com/news/over-20-of-global-oil-refining-capacity-faces-risk-of-closure-report#:~:text=The%20analysis%20also%20forecasts%20a,transport%20fuels%20in%20developed%20nations&text=Over%2020%25%20of%20the%20world's,the%20imposition%20of%20carbon%20taxes
Today in F/T th
” Increased refinery operating costs resulting from higher prices of gas and carbon offsets are weighing on margins across Europe, making it difficult for all but the most efficient refineries to break even. ”
Refinery formerly owned by Lukoil in Italy being shut down .
https://archive.md/5U8Ug#selection-2223.0-2223.205
The article also says:
“Particularly, oil refiners in Europe and China face heightened closure risks due to deteriorating economies.”
This is another source showing that the China economy is doing poorly, even before the new tariffs.
H?
Dennis L. .
This is a link to another comment where I talk about China not doing well.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2025/03/31/advanced-economies-are-being-pushed-toward-financial-collapse/comment-page-4/#comment-481851
During these critical times some paintings are coming back to my mind.
They are the ones by polish painter Jakub Rosalki.
The first time I get to know him was thanks to an article by our friend Ugo Bardi.
Here one picture, but you can see all the gallery, I find them evocative.
https://jrozalski.com/projects/BaYY6
The “Reset” is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room.
if there is such a thing as a reset
humankind is trying to sustain an economic system that was created using cheap abundant energy…..using scarce expensive energy.
nothing more complicated than that.
it can’t be done, but ‘reset’ maybe isnt the right word.—-and there’s no kind of ‘deliberation’ about it…..it will just happen over time.
things will self correct over the coming century, and if we survive at all, it will not be in our current level of comfortable existence.
The economy has turned a corner, quite a few times. The year 1981 was one such time. The year 2001, when China was added to the World Trade Organization was another. The year 2008 was another, and 2020 was another.
I expect that the year 2025 represents yet another reset year, perhaps more significant than the others. We are dealing with many weak economies. The US seems to be trying to push others down/aside, in the hope that it can stay up a bit longer. It needs to save oil and natural gas, and the proposed tariffs will do that.
i look on it all rather like skimming a flat stone on a pond
i skim the stone, and can see clearly where its headed.
on the other hand, if i was living on the stone, i would feel each bounce—and think to myself, ”that was a bump, but everything seems fine now”
Always a ray of hope:
The US also has Starship and SpaceX.
There is no more oil for a growth phase, there is plenty of energy and stuff above us, we will “reach out” and get it, refine it, manufacture it.
A real problem is soil, I am personally learning that, dirt moves, modern farming is too damn hard on dirt; there are no simple solutions.
JCB has H engines for agriculture, it is the emission issue. Fellow out east in US has run his house supposedly on H. Referenced a site earlier on autonomous agriculture equipment from Australia, can’t use their diesels in US.
Autonomous equipment seems to be literally appearing everywhere. At least electronics can be maintained, emission equipment is hard.
Earth is our home, it is our spaceship, it is biology and biology is very clever but as I have posted earlier, the odds make Preato look like an optimist. Those of us alive today are a very select few descendants from say 10k breeding pairs. The odds going forward will be just as tough; if you have raised children you will understand this idea.
Economics is secondary to biology; simplest reason seems to be sentience of biology. That could be changing with AI. If robots make robots, will the odds for lineage be as hard as biology? Film at eleven.
Dennis L.
Robots can make robots but with what? They need material too
////Always a ray of hope: The US also has Starship and SpaceX////
more lols there than space on ofw allows for
bezos and musk are just blowing their loose change on vanity projects—for no better reason than they can
Hope springs eternal, Dennis.
If I remember, it was the last thing left in Pandora’s box, and also a mainstay of Obama’s toolbox too.
What was it he called it?
Are yes, “The Audacity of Hope.”
Let’s not forget 1 Corinthians 13:13 (King James Version):
“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”
These days, for every one living on faith or hope, there are ten living on charity.
A global coffee shortage, driven by climate change, extreme weather events, and rising demand, is causing coffee prices to soar and potentially lead to a more expensive cup of joe for consumers.
Here’s a breakdown of the situation: AI generated
Factors Contributing to the Shortage:
Climate Change and Extreme Weather:
Droughts, floods, and extreme temperatures in major coffee-producing regions like Brazil and Vietnam are impacting harvests and reducing yields.
Changes in rainfall patterns and increased temperatures are making it difficult for coffee plants to thrive.
Climate change is also predicted to reduce the area suitable for coffee cultivation by 2050.
Increased Demand:
Rising global demand for coffee, particularly in emerging markets like China, is straining the supply.
Supply Chain Disruptions:
Shipping delays and rising transportation costs are making it harder for producers to deliver coffee to international markets.
Attacks within Red Sea shipping lanes have led to shipments being diverted to longer routes.
Other Factors:
Political instability in coffee-producing countries can disrupt production and exports.
Pest and disease outbreaks can also negatively impact coffee crops.
Labor shortages in coffee-producing countries can lead to lower production.
Impact on Consumers:
Higher Coffee Prices:
The combination of supply constraints and increased demand is driving up coffee prices, both for consumers and coffee roasters.
Potential for Further Price Increases:
Experts predict that coffee prices are likely to continue rising in the coming months and years.
Reduced Availability:
In some cases, coffee shortages could lead to reduced availability of certain types of coffee or even temporary shortages in some regions.
Actually, the blog Energy Sceptic has bigger whammie for us all here in regards to the food supply..glad I’m OLD… take care of me…as Mother would sarcastically cry out…
Food peak production yet 3 billion more babies by 2050
https://energyskeptic.com/2025/have-we-reached-peak-food-sustainability-challenged-as-many-renewable-resources-max-out/
Dennis L can crew on that one with AI
I was in Arabia last week and I patronized a coffee shop which flaunted coffee abundance like I had never seen before. burlap bags of the stuff stacked to the ceiling, open 80 kg bags on either side of the ordering area showing the beans. you could get a hit just by walking in. this in a artfully remodeled old warehouse with lots of browns and other coffee related colors. also their espresso was the strongest I experienced in 60+ years. from Uganda apparently. They were also giving me the shot of mineral sparkling water (which should be mandatory with espresso) so I was able to down it.
Oh really, then it’s has to be fake news…
I went to Walley World and lots of coffee in the isles too, but Chock full of Nuts went from $11.00 a steel can 30 oz to $14.00 for a 23 oz can…no shortage there too..hope this helps drb…
Do bring some bags back with you from there as carry on baggage…😜 I really enjoy replying to these….hint use oversized baggage pants with very large pockets
I was not trying to contradict you but rather recount something striking I encountered.
I’ve been noticing the problem getting worse over the last few years.
Similar here to Mike, first the prices went up by around 30%, then the amount dropped from 250g down to 220g.
Matari is now around £30 a bag(£45 for White Camel) and last years harvest of an SL28 from Kenya that I particularly like, was delayed so long that only about 20% was recoverable(they of course incorrectly blamed AnsarAllah).
The coffee is still being grown, but given the problems we have caused, why bother with us, as you can guarantee we tried to squeeze the extra cost out of the producers, when they have a growing market on the doorstep.
Enjoy the new lines of trade.☕
Fitz, I agree. I did not ask for the provenience of all coffee, but the two types I drank were from Ethiopia and Uganda. Short lines that do not cross the Suez canal. Hm.
Coffee prices have gone up by about 50% in Japan over the past few years, partly due to the falling yen.
However, good coffee is still dirt cheap if you calculate how much it costs to brew one cup full of it at home—thanks to the continuing appalling bad labor conditions in the coffee industry perpetuated by the “free” market.
Won wonders if the people who pick the coffee beans can afford to drink the stuff. Perhaps they are given free coffee in order to keep them alert while on the job?
Maybe call it a “phase change”.
Bloomberg interprets Trump’s global trade war as an attempt to reshape the global economy in preparation for a potential war between USA and China. It is part of a pivot to the Asia-Pacific.
It casts the tariffs as a blunder however that alienates ‘allies’ and strengthens China’s economic ‘ties’ around the world. But it is a complex game and there are liable to be pros and cons to moves.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-04-11/trump-and-xi-s-tariffs-are-preparation-for-a-us-vs-china-war-nobody-wants
Trump and Xi Are Preparing for a War Nobody Wants
The US tariffs are aimed at boosting national security, but Trump is alienating allies he would need in any military conflict with China.
Shortly before US President Donald Trump pulled out a giant cardboard tariff chart to usher in “Liberation Day” and upend the post-World War II economic order, he made a telling comment that largely flew under the radar.
“The United States can no longer produce enough antibiotics to treat our sick,” Trump said in the White House Rose Garden on April 2. “If anything ever happened from a war standpoint, we wouldn’t be able to do it.”
If only he had stopped there, Trump would’ve been hard-pressed to find anyone who disagreed with him. Of all the varying reasons he’s given for the tariffs — balancing trade, generating revenue, creating leverage for deals — nearly everyone in Washington agrees on the need to restore the US manufacturing base to ensure self-reliance in the name of national defense.
But, as usual, Trump went much further. He quickly moved from pitching tariffs as a way to strengthen America in a potential war with China to imposing them on longstanding allies, sending global markets into a tailspin and threatening a severe economic blow to nations the US would need in any military conflict with the world’s second-largest economy.
Even after Trump announced a 90-day pause, it’s become clear that the US and China are reshaping the global economy to prepare for a war with each other that neither actually wants. Everyone else on the planet must deal with the fallout, while thinking long and hard about whether to trust either country — or to arm up themselves.
.. In his 2020 book Has China Won?: The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy, former Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani said that the US’s greatest mistake was both taking on China without a long-term strategy and eroding trust, particularly by weaponizing the dollar with the use of financial sanctions. Now, instead of isolating China on the world stage, Trump has given Xi an opportunity to increase economic ties across the board, including with many traditional US allies and other nations that could provide crucial logistical and diplomatic support.
Trump’s thing with tariffs carries the same level of economic awareness, as an infant sitting in its high chair and tipping its cereal bowl upside down, having just discovered that such a thing is possible.
and seeing the effect it has on the grownups in the immediate vicinity, on the mess it creates, and watching as they have to rush around to clean it up.
the us wants war. you would be right if they wanted peace, but they want war. they have to rearrange the economy first. they start with wholesale changes, fine tune it later. you get there earlier this way.
Tariffs are cheaper than fighting a military war. Also, materials for US weapons would indirectly need to come from China. I don’t think that there is any way the US can fight a war against China, except perhaps a few bombs in defense of Taiwan.
Nobody?
“Well, having many children was not a guarantee of surival survival.”
“The famous composer Johann Christian Sebastian Bach had 20 children, but since he was not that wealthy …”
Sure, he died.
The number of his children had nothing to do with this.
What is wealth?
What matters more:
What you own?
What you produce?
What you can think of?
What is immortality?
Even hard-core atheists might admit that Jesus was some kind of a person and had impact on generations to come. It does not matter whether you belief in the gospel or not.
And I’d say Bach’s music has much more than mere popular status and has already survived for some centuries. I guess, his family had also some impact on how he lived and how he worked. Thus also his children (dead or alive, most of them died as children) had impact on his thinking.
Last week I’ve listened to one of Bach’s Cantatas for the first time.
It was BWV 16.
Goosebumps:
‘Aria: Laßt uns jauchzen’ from BWV 16.
His music is kind of timeless.
Who can produce such kind of music today?
Taylor Swift?
Here is one version of the piece I’ve mentioned:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3I1O_2eCFE
Herr Gott, dich loben wir BWV 16: Aria and Chorus: Laßt uns jauchzen
[581 views, Feb 11, 2015, Ton Koopman – Topic]
truly great music is that which leaves you wrecked after you’ve listened to it.
very few composers can do that.
I once knew a dog who used to play the piano.
Not very well, since he had to rely on his paws, but he did his best.
He specialized in the work German composers.
His Bach was worse than his Beethoven.
If you had to choose one piece of work to represent the pinnacle of Western Civilization, then JS. Bach’s ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’ would perhaps be it,.
Or, if you aren’t in the mood for a boring dismal dirge, perhaps Mesopotamia by the B52s?
That’s tune to really get your head nodding and your feet tapping.
But according to Dennis L., it is meaningless since most composers, such as Handel, Mozart (both of his sons caught venereal diseases when young and did not reproduce), Beethoven, etc are worse than the hopelessly inbred Amish because the latter reproduced.
and they are. Evolution is the ultimate arbiter.
The bad cat (who doesn’t used capital letters due to paw limitations, apart from in the case of acronyms, when he makes a special effort) has analyzed the lack of growth in the US since 2008 and identified the US Government as the principal reason, with a particular nod to the Obama administration.
======
“we have met the enemy and they are us”
i’d like to offer three important perspectives on US manufacturing that are seemingly absent in these hyperbolic times as the jingo of trade war drums is intersecting with populist mythology on trade:
the US is the number two country in the world for industrial output and number 3 (germany) is not even close. we exceed china in per capita industrial output (more than double). the idea that “US manufacturing is gone/has hollowed out” is not factually correct. it simply changed and moved as evolving industries do.
US industrial output today is at or around all time highs in real (inflation adjusted) terms. that said, the long term growth of US industrial output was like a bird hitting a window in 2008 and has not grown since. this change was abrupt and broke a long term tend from the 1940’s to now and there has been no recovery from it. this was not a result of tariffs or foreign action: it was caused domestically with bad energy and labor policy, over support of unions, and horrible litigation risks and hurdles especially driven by the EPA and other federal agencies. this made manufacturing relatively unattractive in the US vs other uses of labor and capital, comparatively disadvantaging it relative to services, intellectual property production, etc. this, not trade barriers has been the prevailing issue limiting US industry.
so long as this issue remains unresolved (and it does), if the world moved to 100% free trade tomorrow with no country limiting US goods and the US limiting no goods from any nation, this would not drive an onshoring of industry to the US. it would drive more industry offshore because that’s how comparative advantage works. manufacturing in the US is too punitive to productivity and capital returns and thus under full free trade, the US would likely specialize more in non-manufactured goods and trade services etc for manufactured goods from abroad where the regulations were not so (relatively) restrictive. the key word here is “relative.” many seem inclined to fixate on absolute differences, but this is not what drives trade or specialization. that’s why trade economics winds up being so non-intuitive to many.
people may not like them, but these are the facts and this is why i am concerned that this trade war really cannot be won in the manner many seem to be advocating and presuming, especially if the win state is defined as “zero or positive bi-lateral trade balances in goods with each of our partners.”
that’s not what free trade would drive.
until we fix the underlying issue with american industrial policy, it likely drives the opposite. and therefore if one’s espoused goal it to “increase US manufacturing” then there is work to be done in order to make free trade serve such a goal……
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/the-enemy-of-us-industry
These are a few industrial output charts I have posted earlier:
1. An updated Limits to Growth model, showing world Industrial Output is expected to peak about now, and drop rapidly.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/State-of-the-world-plot-BAU-and-recalibration-23-with-Gails-labels.png
2. Advanced Economies vs. Other than Advanced Economies:
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Industrial-Production-Advanced-Economies-Other-1.png
3. US Industrial energy consumption per capita
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/US-Industrial-Energy-Consumption-Per-Capita.png
US industrial energy consumption per capita has definitely been flat since 2008, but it fell a lot earlier.
I am doubtful that factors such as labor policy and EPA rulings are as important in keeping industry down in the US, as this article suggests.
It is theoretically possible that factors such as labor policy and EPA rulings could keep some of the US’s fossil fuels in the ground until greater efficiency in using the output is obtained. A person would expect that if more efficiency in using the fossil fuels can be obtained, a higher price can be supported, and more fossil fuels can be extracted. But we don’t know whether this is really possible.
It is also arguable that keeping large amounts of US fossil fuels in the ground and off limits helps keep fossil fuel prices high enough to allow more fossil fuels to be extracted elsewhere, thereby helping to keep the world economy ticking over, while also giving the US an advantage as depletion issues become more intense in coming years.
I hate it when I am right and late, future of farming?
https://www.swarmfarm.com/
Think I have mentioned here I don’t think the future of farming is huge machines; it is not natural, pun intended. AI makes things possible much different from what has gone before.
These huge machines require multi million dollar “sheds” to just change the oil, sort of an exaggeration, but you get the idea.
I think we are going to see the same in autos, robotaxi has I believe only two seats, it does not have a driver’s seat.
What we know about the past may not be a very good indication of the future. If my long post on biology makes it, nature is very harsh and uses extremely large numbers to get a result. She makes Preato look generous.
Dennis L.
There is a video linked in the above it is only five minutes long.
I don’t think the US needs to worry about a labor shortage, it is going to be a hell of a social issue. I mention occasionally depreciation schedules, this is an example of a something which has probably accelerated the depreciation of large tractors and the salvage value may be nil.
I like what is demonstrated, it does not have a cab.
Dennis L.
swarmfarm excellent stuff.
Donald will need to tariff Australia for being better than US.
Those are darn huge farms.
Maybe these small machines would be the way to adapt and keep agriculture going.
Kubota’s robot agricultural machinery is coming.
Who needs undocumented aliens when the tractors and combines drive themselves?
Posted one on chance of genes surviving over generations. It is why I am optimistic, while I cannot predict the future, my ancestors have to have been tough as hell as they are an incredibly small percentage of those who started it all. Most of our lineages are going to fail, that is almost a given, so with that in mind the worst that can happen is things work out. It is a very simple bet, don’t play and the chances of losing are 100%, play and the chances of winning are maybe .0001% which is an infinite multiple of zero and then some.
Biology is powerful stuff and damn good an engineering by elimination.
Dennis L.
Got curious on this one. Copilot, asked if all offspring of 10K breeding pairs survived what would be the current population. Ans:
“The current global population is approximately 9 billion. Using the exponential growth formula for 400 generations with 10,000 breeding pairs and 5 offspring per pair, the theoretical population would be astronomically large—essentially 2.5 raised to the power of 400, which is far beyond Earth’s carrying capacity.”
Essentially we can only descend from one specific pair which means the survival rate of a set of genes is essentially 0%. What did and is surviving is an incredible set of genes which has enable these generations to survive multiple changes in climate, war, disease, everything. Per Copilot:
“Surviving pairs after 10 generations:
4.5 billion × 0.01% = 450,000 pairs.
This means that, theoretically, only about 450,000 pairs from today’s population would have direct descendants 10 generations into the future, assuming the survival rate of lineages remains consistent.”
Biology rules, there is no medicine, no political narrative which can come close to this.
Theoretical population after 7 generations:
P = P₀ × (r^n)
P = 31 million × (2.5^7)
P ≈ 31 million × 610.35 ≈ 18.9 billion.
These are the numbers from before the civil war. Wow, more than half of the lineages disappear in about 250 years.
It is a crude estimate, but life has never been easy and getting a house seems fairly easy compared to this gauntlet.
If it doesn’t work, biology eliminates and somewhere in these numbers is a continuous lineage of genes going back >10K years. That would be a good set of parents to chose, odds are overwhelming with you.
Dennis L.
From someone who thinks 20% is a good odds.
Art Berman once again addresses Peak Oil and Hubbert’s theory.
Putting the Earth Back in Model Land
https://www.artberman.com/blog/putting-the-earth-back-in-model-land/
Part of what Berman says,
another AB article soft on facts and more about philosophical meanderings. Has he always been this way, or is this some recent later-in-life older-aged rambling? If his message has changed, why has it?
“Modern thinking is almost entirely human-centered—focused on extracting more growth and prosperity from a planet already under immense strain. We treat Earth as a backdrop to our ambitions, not a living system we depend on. That perspective blinds us to the deeper context models should reflect. It would be more useful to balance human wants with an earth-centered view—one that grounds our assumptions, judgments, and goals in ecological reality, not just economic desire. Without that shift, our models will keep pointing us in the wrong direction.”
yes Mr. B, that direction is reality and it will never willingly change, certainly not due to a soft squishy article like this one.
Yeah, i’ve noticed that as well that his articles tend to be more about puppies, kittens and unicorns. His peers tend to rake his views on oil so maybe it’s better he discusses flowers and the weather.
maybe he has kids and grandchildren to think about.
I don’t follow him closely, but it seems something has changed about his messages.
i enjoyed bermans article it is saying that the world has lost its way, hubbert was saying this too and the end was nigh easy oil would be used up eventually and catastrophe would be reached .So yeah running out of oil will happen i trust hubbert more than anyone , he said two trillion barrels of oil before we run out but he also said he could be wrong in his analysis by 10% either way.
In fact hubbert found to his horror that he could be off by 15% that translates to 1.7 trillion barrels before all the oil has been wasted.
Based on my own calculations i think we have used 1.6 trillion barrels of oil so the 2020’s are looking as the date for “the end of the oil age”.
Dennis L. among his many theories, talks about biology.
Well, having many children was not a guarantee of surival.
The famous composer Johann Christian Bach had 20 children, but since he was not that wealthy , after his death they all went their ways and few of them reproduced.
Although JC Bach had 5 sons who grew up to reach adulthood, 121 years after his death in 1750, the last person who used the surname Bach died in 1871. A granddaughter married an officer named Colson, who appears to be of English origin, and their descendants were traceable until 1950s but probably went extinct around that time.
The only remaining descendant of Bach is through one of whose granddaughters, Louise Frederica who had a ‘loose’ life and had illegitimate children from at least 3 men, only one one of them, a daughter, leaving descendants. The daughter, a great-granddaughter of the composer, ended up in, out of all places, Oklahoma where her descendants still live. They are the only remaining descendants of the composer’s 20 children.
https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/34/oa_edited_volume/chapter/2113201
20 children and all that remaining was an illegitimate great-granddaughter ending up in Oklahoma.
Same story as William Shaxpear, the seed dealer often attributed for all these famous plays which he, who never learned how to spell, did not write. He was one of 9 siblings; his own line died in 2 generations, and out of the 9 siblings, only the line of a sister’s son who emigrated to USA still exists.
The pressure for Europe to cull weaker genes was very high until 1914. I talked about the rest below.
co-authoring plays was a very common practice before and during Shakespeare’s time.
WS and Edward DeVere clearly co-wrote most of the famous plays attributed to “Shakespeare”.
I think you mean Johann SEBASTIAN Bach, who died in 1750 — he had 20 children, including Johann CHRISTIAN Bach.
Sorry, so many Bachs. But akk extinct exceot the Okie line
https://youtu.be/xTfqL8PRFbk?si=2uMrpUl-ZVgVxQGl
Times radio discusses The 1st battle of Ypres, aka Chucky’s fkup.
I didn’t bother to listen to it since it would have British bias, but the losses of Europe’s best, replaced by the ‘people of boondocks’ from USA, the Dominion of Canada and the Anzacs was an unrepairable disaster as Asia is about to overwhelm the West once for all now.
James Hanson is joined by Admiral Chris Parry and Professor Alexander Watson. Watson and Hanson are common names and hard to determine how important they were before 1914, but Parry, a surname originating from Wales, produced some notable people before 1914.
At the eleventh hour, these people are re-visiting the f’kup Chucky and his 200/400 Worcestershires, former train conductors, shop workers and chimney sweepers, who are no less guilty than Chucky himself, caused to Europe and Western Civilization.
The Asians are like the Barbarians during late Rome. Some of them spoke English, like some nomads , collectively called ‘Germanics’ but most of them having little to do with the people who now live in Germany, speaking Latin, some Asians speak English but their minds favor Asia in the end.
Chucky’s fkup led to peoples who had no business running a feed store, let alone governments and major institutions, to power and made people like Robert Firth, descended from forest rangers in the Midlands, PhDs from Oxford and Cambridge, and what did they wrought?
The Civilized World overwhelmed by Asia.
Trump lost the tariff war against China, and the Opium War is now reversed. The people who crushed China at Opium War at ease and crushed the Manchu Empire all perished at Flanders and Somme or returned shell shocked, and the ‘salt of earth’ people. who never had leadership positions prior to 1914 in their entire family histories, proved to be completely incapable of defending the West from the Asian Hordes.
If there is another civilization after this one, it will never allow anyone who had not had any leadership position in their family history to have higher education so they would be eternally excluded from power.
===
A Francois Arouet was quarreling with Cardinal Rohan, the Rohans being one of France’s most prominent family, that the Cardinal would be the last of his family while Arouet will become the first of his family.
Arouet, later known as Voltaire, never married and is not known to have a bastard son, and while the Cardinal probably didn’t leave descendants, the Rohan family is still going strong.
Chucky basically destroyed 4 centuries of selective breeding and made the West flooded by peoples who had no business receiving higher education or running institutions, and we are seeing the end of what he has wrought as the West enters its final stages of disintegration.
Maybe the world changes. Perhaps what the world needs now is the methodical approach of the Asians in leadership, rather than America’s system favoring wild innovation, favoring anyone can come up with an idea. In a way, the Asian method is like AI. Looking for incremental improvements.
That means the end of imnovatom and progress. And long stasis.
We think we know more than we do. Even if total world energy consumption is going down, there perhaps can temporarily be areas with growth in energy consumption and innovation. Perhaps different specialization of China and the US will be helpful, at least temporarily.
Asian leadership Style?
Let’s leave Genghis Khan out of this.
Yes he was methodical. I concede that. But not so incremental.
Asia was the same on 1000 and 1800
Prior to the Opium War , one of the highest moment of British history, China was still medieval
And if Asia wins the world returns to that stage
Peking in 1917 (not much different from 1900)
https://youtu.be/_GWa4b7g9qs?si=fnAVx8fjfIfaGLci
Calcutta in 1910s (I don’t use the names the locals use to call it. For me, Calcutta is always Calcutta.)
https://youtu.be/vTRLIZ1CC48?si=vx4RP1XObZPWU3oS
Manila around 1900
https://youtu.be/Kix0Yk7lD5k?si=ycho83tQLHSJRNq0
Saigon around 1930 (The commies call it Ho Chi Minh city. The locals still call it Saigon.)
https://youtu.be/m-t9F4GOZzM?si=lK55K0glgKIYNfvE
Palanquins. Rickshaws(invented by an American during 1860s). Oxcarts.
That’s the natural state of Asia which the West should not have messed with and let them live like that and not consume any fossil fuels.
And that is the future which will await when the Asians triumph.
But Kulm, sadly, we can’t go back.
Somebody stole our ladder.
I know you are not very fond of pop songs, but this ballad has a nice old-fashioned laid-back melody supplied by a piano and flute.
They say you can′t go back again
Looking out as strangers trying to find a friend
And hoping it will end this wondering
No you can’t go back
And pray that people change
Who let all the promises fall through our hands
Little lies like sand until the end
No you can′t go back
You can’t go back again
And pray that people change
And the chance won’t come again
Anyone can see when you need a friend
You′re a lot like me when you pretend
But you can′t go back
You can’t go back
No you can′t go back again
And pray that people change
Admisdion of guilt and condemnations of past screwups are the behinning steps
That is the future that awaits us due to resource depletion.
The idea that the West could have kept industrialization from the rest of the world indefinitely is ludicrous.
Remember gunpower and papermaking were invented by the Chinese, without them the West could not have developed.
Civilization itself began in Mesopotamia; they were certainly not Anglo-Saxons.
Who’s chucky 🤣
An agent of entropy, which Kulm and the entire EU direktorat seek to contain and shrink back.
Charles Barkley, retired basketball player.
😎
Brigadier General Charles (“Chucky” to his friends) FitzClarence, VC
I thought everyone knew old Chucky, but there you go.
Irony of ironies, old Chucky thought he was saving the Empire and Civilization in general by leading a charge against the Prussians at Polygon Wood in November 1914.
Instead, his heroism led to the loss of his own life and, at least according to Kulm, the demise of both the Empire and Civilization in general.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_FitzClarence
I am more angry on the unrepentant attitude of the so called British Patriots, who would been precisely the kind of people called the scum of the earth by the officer class back then but began to breathe a bit for the first time in their entire bloodline thanks to chucky destroying a huge portion of the ruling class.
As long as you don’t count me among the apologists for the British regime. I got out young, and one of my reasons for leaving the country was my revulsion at the Falklands Campaign and the jingoism that surrounded it.
Mind you, I was already irritated by the 1977 “Sliver Jubilee” when working-class neighborhoods up and down the company held street parties beneath red white and blue bunting. As an unruly yob at the time, it quite turned my stomach. Back then, these revellers were “class traitors” in my book.
On the other hand, a more mature me would argue, we could hardly have let the Argentinians win, now could we? And a day off work for the workers and a party for them to celebrate the monarch’s anniversary, what harm can it do?
I put a lot of the “unrepentant attitude” among the older British patriots down to the propagandistic military music. We have some of the catchiest tunes any army has ever marched to. Apparently, the bulk of British people used to be totally hypnotized by stuff like this
And they are perfectly ok with people from the Subcontinent encroaching
Those who could not tolerate the BS left like you. The remaining are compliant automara .
The energy of the Sun has its limits:
which parallel is the great wall of china and the hadrian wall?
The Great Wall of China and Hadrian’s Wall are located at different latitudes, but both lie roughly between the 40th and 55th parallels north.
Great Wall of China:
Stretches approximately between 40°N and 45°N (varies by section).
For example, Beijing (near the wall) is around 39.9°N.
Hadrian’s Wall (Northern England):
Runs at about 55°N.
For example, Newcastle upon Tyne is around 54.9°N.
Key Difference:
Hadrian’s Wall is much farther north, at a similar latitude to southern Scotland.
The Great Wall is farther south, closer to the latitude of New York City or Rome.
Both walls were built as defensive barriers, but their climates differ significantly due to their latitudes. Hadrian’s Wall experiences cooler, wetter weather, while the Great Wall has a more temperate (and in some sections, arid) climate.
https://chat.deepseek.com/a/chat/s/641e31fe-87a2-4018-aa2a-501d636bcf37
It is like the 49th parallel: the line between the two worlds of warm latitudes of the civilization and the harsh savage north of scarcity
Would you like a comparison with other famous walls or boundaries?
Great Britain gets a lot of its warmth from the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Current.
The Romans built Hadrian’s Wall across what is now the north of England in order to grow grapes along its southern side. 🙂
There would be no point building a wall in eastern Siberia, north of China, at 55ºN where no sod lives.
Well, when I say, no sod, I mean no agglomerations of people that would qualify as cities under current standards. There are towns such as Zeya (pop. 25,000) in places where the temperature in July has been known to fall to zero and in January has never been known to rise above zero.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeya,_Russia
All the increasingly insane and deranged talks about space aside, these advances of AI can only result in more control, the control of virtually all resources by those who control them, with nothing for the rest.
Middle- and Lower-class humans (‘working class’ is a euphemism of ‘low class’) had it good for 110 years, but it ends with a bang, not with a whimper.
Back to tenements, 10 people in a room, 1 car for 100 people, etc. Too much good things and humanity proved to be incapable of deserving them.
kul,
Was curious, Copilot of course.
Remarkable documentation: The Kong family genealogy is one of the most meticulously recorded in human history, spanning over 80 generations. This makes it a valuable resource for historical and cultural studies.
Confucius had one son, Kong Li, and two daughters. His son, Kong Li, continued the family lineage, which has been meticulously documented for over 80 generations. The daughters, however, are less prominently mentioned in historical records, as Confucian society often emphasized male descendants.
Well, seems to indicate the hard work was left for the male heirs, sigh.
Dennis L.
Surprisingly there are very few people actually claiming descent from the philosopher
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Te-cheng
This guy was born in 1920. The person who was called his father died in 1919. He was born from the second concubine of his alleged father.
Since Confucius was called a great philosopher and the epitome of Chinese philosophy, all regimes made sure his line continued, somehow. Whether they would have been actually related to the philosopher genetically is another question the Chinese government would rather not tackle. Who knows, maybe the concubine gave birth to a girl, who was switched with a boy and the actual child somehow disposed of, and the boy, whose parentage would only be known to the servants actually doing the switcheroo, inheriting Confucius’ title while having nothing to do with him genetically whatsoever.
Professor Jeffrey Sachs sums up quite nicely in 4 minutes the ongoing conflict and mess in the ME and the same can be applied to Ukraine. “Empires divide to rule”.
https://x.com/clashreport/status/1911004324030804288
It seems like the fact that there is oil available for extraction in the Middle East makes the area very attractive to the US (or Britain or France). Prof. Sachs says there will not be peace until the US gets out. I am doubtful that that would make a difference. As long as oil is a scarce resource, some power, perhaps more local (Israel), will want to upset the balance.
“Prof. Sachs says there will not be peace until the US gets out. I am doubtful that that would make a difference.”
Agreed 100%. Because even if the US is out of the ME, you still have Israel, which is essentially the US. In order for there to be peace, you either need a two State solution or both the US and Israel needs to leave the ME. Israel are ‘colonialists’ much like their Big Brother.
Israel is no match for Iran. It has not defeated Hezbollah, or Hamas for that matter. It can not reach the Houthis, though the Houthis can. The moment the US gets out, Israel gets out also. I think Israel needs to be on the North american East Coast, like NY or Washington.
I agree 100%… But Israel serves its purpose for the US …an aircraft carrier on land there
Per person $55,000
https://www.foreignassistance.gov/cd/israel/
Maybe moving them to a desert like Las Vegas is a better place, they like the entertainment industry
I never said they were. As long as Israel is in the ME there will be NO peace because they are colonialists. They operate with the same chutzpah as US neocons. That’s why Israel will never have peace because they sh*t in their own bed, then have to sleep in it. They rule by chaos, just like Big Brother.
Rodster,
Not an argument, but not quite colonialists. Both Persia and Israel(Jewish) cultures go back >2000 years. Hard to tell who is who and who “owns” what after that many years.
Seem to have been more than a few disagreements over who owned what in that neighborhood over the years.
Dennis L.
Interesting, both cultures go back over 2,000 years. They must be doing something right. s.
Dennis L.
Everybody’s culture goes back over 2,000 years—with modifications of course.
It’s like that well-known exchange in which one person, a snob, says, “My family goes back generations!” And another person replies, “Everyone’s family goes back generations!
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1001376
Long-term history of violence in hunter-gatherer societies uncovered in the Atacama Desert
10,000 years of violent conflict revealed by skeletons, weaponry, and rock art
Interpersonal violence was a consistent part of life in ancient hunter-gatherer communities on the Atacama Desert coast of northern Chile, according to a study published September 20, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Vivien Standen of the University of Tarapacá, Chile and colleagues.
Archaeological research supports the notion that interpersonal violence and warfare have played an important role in the lives of hunter-gatherer groups over time, but many questions remain about the factors that influence such violence. The record of human populations in northern Chile extends across 10,000 years, providing a valuable opportunity to study patterns in violence over time.
In this study, Standen and colleagues examined signs of violent trauma on the remains of 288 adult individuals from funerary sites across the Atacama Desert coast, dating from 10,000 years ago to 1450 AD. The researchers also analyzed patterns in weaponry and in artistic depictions of combat during this time. They found that rates of violence were surprisingly static over time, though there was a notable increase in lethal violence during the Formative Period starting around 1000 BC, a trend also found in similar studies of the Andean region. Data from strontium isotopes indicate that this interpersonal violence was occurring between local groups, not between local and foreign populations.
These results indicate that violence was a consistent part of the lives of these ancient populations for many millennia. The absence of a centralized political system during this time might have been a factor leading to the consistency of violent tensions in the region. It’s also possible that violence was the result of competition for resources in the extreme environment of the desert, a factor which might have become exacerbated as farming became more prominent and widespread.
The authors add: “Despite all the technological advances, humanity has not learned to resolve its conflicts in a different way than our millenary ancestors, in peace and without war.”
I expect Keith (where is Keith?) would cite this result as yet more proof that most humans have “genes for war.” Keith is fond of genetic explanations for behavior.
I would say it merely shows that humans, like many other animals, tend to act more violently when times are tough and competition for the basics is intense.
Interestingly, Keith likes to use the Bushmen of the Kalahari, also known as the San peoples, as examples of people who don’t possess these genes for war, despite the fact that they are mainly hunter-gatherers who inhabit a desert region. They seem to have found ways of avoiding intense competition that don’t involve banging other hunter-gatherers on the head, such as lowering the birth rate. Or perhaps their desert was a less extreme environment than that of the Atacama Desert?
This seems to be them.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/680660
> Kalahari Violence in Perspective
Anthropology Program, Old Dominion University
Unfortunately, anthropologists who have conducted research among the Basarwa (“Bushmen”; San) have not always been clear on specific issues, resulting in some confusion, as is evident in Knauft’s comment. Homicide rates must be viewed within cultural and temporal contexts and include the influence of outside agents. Knauft states that the lack of lethal aggression at Kutse is evidence that there is less serious violence than among the !Kung, but he does not take into consideration the role of Western medicine. At Kutse I have witnessed or heard about numerous nonlethal conflicts, as well as a few potentially lethal conflicts (were it not for Western medicine) including the use of poison arrows and spears, which together add up to more conflicts per month than figures reported among nomadic groups (e.g., Draper 1978; Lee 1979). Although there are many differences between !Kung and Kutse residents, I attribute the difference in violence to an increase in year round sedentism and aggregation….
without a doubt the Kalahari is way more forgiving than Atacama. There is no record of rain ever falling on most of Atacama. In Kalahari mongongo nuts (a staple for the San) are a high energy food that is relatively abundant.
Interesting, it might also suggest that those without genes for war are no longer with us. I suspect many of our narratives are to find ways to deal with this and where/when possible make life somewhat less warlike.
Dennis L.
Dennis, my reply to that would be, “Why do there have to be genes for everything?
Some people prefer coffee; others prefer tea. That’s an important difference. No doubt, some bright researcher will get funding to check whether there are any statistically consistent differences in the genomes of those who prefer coffee and those who prefer tea, and declare that those differences determine the preferences.
But there are likely to be lots of other factors that went into determining any individual’s preferences. For instance, if they were started off on cheap supermarket coffee (or tea), or if they had to drink it with too much sugar or not enough milk, the taste of that might have put them off the beverage for life. Or there may have been associations with incidents in early childhood that led them to develop a phobia about coffee (or tea).
As with beverages, so with war. There might be lots of reasons why people might go to war, even if their culture was originally not warlike.
This hypothesis is totally consistent with experiments done on rats in cages. Given the “right” environmental conditions, a sadistic scientist can get almost any rat to perform almost any behavior, from hyper-aggressive to totally passive to downright psychotic. Genetic determinism (even partial genetic determinism) is overrated in my humble opinion.
Perhaps we have more interpersonal violence to look forward to.
Violence is golden and begins with the heat of a flame and the force of a wind, transmutates into infant neglect (infanticide) due to an unsanctioned and unaffordable birth, a mother slapping away her child’s wandering hand and, from there, ends with men going toe to toe over perceived necessity. Life doesn’t exist without it. Cultural religions of fake peace and secularism alike which are institutional, imperial violences under political cover, seek to monopolize it, always.
Can’t have pleasure without pain. Can’t accept the threat of pain without fear. Take the fear out of pain and hardship and strength comes alive. OTSS. Desert boys be pain and violence hardy, self-discipline must be high as intertribal observance of carrying capacity must be high because it’s a very sensitive ecosystem. If civilization compacted tribal desert populations around 1000BC then intertribal violence must rise against in order to maintain a lid on a trapped, bioregional population or many more will die than necessary, and also in order that the plant and animal communities are adequately honored and respected; controlled violence is like controlled anger: love at maximum power projection. The yin and the yang.
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2024/11/agriculture-farming-neolithic-revolution/680701/
Was Agriculture the Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race?
Did it solve scarcity or create it?
After 200,000 years of hunting and gathering, a history-defining decision was made. Starting roughly 12,000 years ago, at least seven different groups of humans independently began to settle down and begin farming. In so doing, they planted the seeds for modern civilization. This is traditionally told as a straightforward story of human progress. After humans made the switch, population growth increased, spurring innovative and creative endeavors that our ancestors couldn’t even imagine.
One counterintuitive strain of thought has treated this decision as “the worst mistake in the history of the human race,” as the popular author Jared Diamond once put it. The argument largely rests on research that shows our nomadic forebears were healthier and had more leisure time than those who chose to farm. Diamond, who wrote this article in 1987, when overpopulation concerns were rampant within the American environmental movement, argued that, “forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny.”
Sometimes unorthodox ideas are unorthodox for a reason. On today’s episode of Good on Paper, I’m joined by Andrea Matranga, an economist whose recent paper “The Ant and the Grasshopper: Seasonality and the Invention of Agriculture” argues that the Neolithic revolution happened as a result of climatic changes that necessitated storing food for the winter. Matranga rejects the idea that the past 12,000 years of human development were a mistake, one that underrates the threats of famine and starvation endemic to nomadic life.
“There’s a sense in which theories of the Neolithic tend to mirror the political anxieties and the social anxieties of the time in which people came up with them and in which they found favor,” Matranga tells me. “So, you know, obviously in the ’80s—WWF, environmentalism, Earth Day—people are worried about runaway population growth. So obviously in the Neolithic, they must also have had runaway population growth. There’s this interesting mix of the current events bleeding into history.” ….
Agriculture was more efficient than hunter-gathering at producing food. It allowed more people to be fed, thus supporting a higher population. It was part of a very long trend we have been seeing, toward more population supported by more efficient means of production.
Agriculture isn’t more efficient. It just requires surpluses, so it is more productive. That’s a cultural dynamic not a physics dynamic b. Subsistence societies refuse surpluses because they come at the cost of their long-term resource base.
Nothing is more efficient than evolution. Natural selection optimizes all ecological efficiencies. One easy way that we can see how inefficient agriculture is is that its annual staple crops must rob the soil of nutrients whereas wild perennials put about 55pc of their photosynthetic energy into feeding the soil, which is how soil is built. That’s so efficient in agricultural terms it’s over-unity, the holy grail. Powered by fusion.
“Yields vs. land use: how the Green Revolution enabled us to feed a growing population”
https://ourworldindata.org/yields-vs-land-use-how-has-the-world-produced-enough-food-for-a-growing-population
I’m standing in for Fast Eddie, definitely a YES..it was the WORSE mistake ever and the first farmer should have been stoned…
Now, let me just add, we’re ALL going to die soon..so don’t be a prepper like me and move around the planet to nest in the perfect place for decades now.
Great!
Now tell us about the ripping of faces.
does he still do substack?
he’s living in prosperity in a modern economy in WA, I’m sure.
Perhaps the Aussies are less willing to put up with his antics than the Kiwis were, leaving him a bit downhearted.
Or, far more likely, he’s down at the beach sunbathing and learning to surf.
The climate on South Island is more conducive to staying home, feeding the Rayburn, and surfing the net.
his substack sums him up very neatly:
quote: ”If you believe we went to the moon, you are not welcome here”
says it all
The fossil evidence suggests that post-Ice Age hunter-gatherers were cannibals in Europe where the fossil record is relatively good. There was a harsh climate and a scarcity of food and, needs must.
The Magdalenians were largely replaced by Villabruna HGs from the Balkans or Near East (we do not know yet for sure) as the climate warmed. The Magdalenians are not genetically detectible in modern populations but there probably is a bit in there.
Perhaps cannibalism will make a comeback during the Collapse. If so then it will not be done in a ritualistic and dainty manner that leaves the skeleton largely integral – just cook them up and chuck the bones. Yum, yum!
> New insights of cultural cannibalism amongst Magdalenian groups at Maszycka Cave, Poland
Abstract
The manipulation of human corpses started to become commonplace during the Upper Paleolithic. This well-documented behavior among Magdalenian peoples consists of perimortem manipulation and the removal of soft tissues and has been understood as forming part of the cultural repertoire of mortuary actions. The study of these practices has given rise to several interpretations with the consumption of human flesh (cannibalism) occupying a central position. The human assemblage of Maszycka Cave (18,000 cal. BP) is part of this ongoing debate. Although initial research in the 1990s suggested cannibalism, more recent studies challenge this interpretation arguing that the low incidence of human activity rule out the likelihood of processing for the purpose of consumption and proposing skull selection as a funerary practice. This study reviews the assemblage and presents previously unpublished postcranial skeletal specimens along with evidence of whole-body manipulation for consumption. This behavior is also observed in other chronologically and culturally similar assemblages throughout continental Europe, suggesting that cannibalism was integral practice within the cultural systems of these Magdalenian groups.
Helps solve the problem of a shortage of food!
In undeveloped subsistence based societies around the world cannibalism is still practiced. During European colonization of the world, there were several accounts of cannibalism being practiced.
In Africa and some countries in the Americas it is still being practiced. The cannibals have the same reputation as violent gangs. Everyone knows they exist but are unable to stop them.
Even more taboo is ritual human sacrifice. Supposedly Arab and European imperialism obliterated these practices but there are rumors this is still being practiced in private.
Other practices that are considered morally abhorrent by mainstre
“WEIRD people”
(Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) Joseph henrich , Steven J. Heine, and Ara Norenzayan 2010.
are honor killings, which are still practiced in India
and infanticide, which is the abandonment of sickly babies
and then there are the controversial studies that show domestic violence and psychopathy traits being higher in some non-civilized people….
“
@MarketMakersOfficial
Hanke cites Milton Friedman often – Friedman said “tarrifs had little to do with the great depression” – and Friedman is correct.
Fordnoy McCumber Tariffs in 1922 an average of 40%, the result: – Stock market increased 500% – GDP +50% -Inflation 1.56% – Commonly called the Roaring 20s
The Great Recession/Depression – started in December 1929 (NBER) – the stock market crashed in September 1929 – Black Monday/Tuesday etc and was down more than 30% Beforej tarriffs even announced – Thousands of banks already went under (9k) total – Europe defaulted, Canada defaulted – Smoot Tariffs were not even fully implemented until 1932, market was down -80% The intelligencia keeps repeating the tariff mantra of tariffs caused the Great Depression. It’s a low IQ, low resolution explanation of what happened, and is not backed up by economic history or facts. But thats what works with the public, keep repeating tariffs caused the depression and the public will believe it.”?
Lesson learned. They’re frontrunning the tariffs this time. Not a good look lol.
The free market people didn’t say the tariffs caused the great depression but that the tariffs made it worse. Restricting the ability of indebted countries to export restricted their ability to generate enough tax revenue to pay off their debt and made a default more possible. The negative impact of tariffs seem to depend on the number of them and if they are retaliatory ones. I didn’t find a lot of countries that defaulted on their national debt during the Great Depression but I did find that the United States and Germany did.
The free market people are making the same claims about Trump’s tariffs right now. They are saying that tariffs will cause exchange rates of different currencies to change in ways that will make it much harder for countries to meet debt obligations. Some people have speculated that Trump( the U.S.A. government) may have decided to default on outstanding federal debt and are using the tariffs to prepare America for a lot less international trade.
. . . when when Trump laid into this tariff thing and what happened
25:23
we had a Treasury auction this week and usually primary dealers and C foreign
25:30
central banks buy around 15 16% of of each one of the
25:35
uh the the supply of treasuries at the auction this week they they were they
25:43
bought like one one one and a half% only and and within minutes after that Trump
Failed Treasury auction
25:52
called for a 90-day pause in the tariffs that’s what caused that if you want to know what was going on you you have to
26:00
understand the plumbing of the system and how things work and and that that
26:05
auction failure it was a complete failure and I’m certain Scott Basset the
26:13
Secretary of Treasury pressed the panic button which uh Trump saw and and they
26:20
dialed back on the tariffs put the 90-day pause in “?
Money supply has been shrinking since 2022. This will, by itself, tend to lead to recession.
Making many changes at once creates regime uncertainty. Consumers and investors hunker down and stop investment. No investment in US between 1929 to the end of WWII. Taking the gold back made the depression much worse.
Stock market seems likely to fall. Expects real earnings growth will be 0. Likelihood of recession this year is over 90%.
Smooth Hawley tariffs announced in March, 1930. Ended up 83% lower than when the tariffs were announced. Current situation is somewhat similar, with higher even higher tariffs.
Contracting the money supply is likely to lead to deflation, based on the quantity theory of money.
People are overly excited about the effects of tariffs. Money supply doesn’t change. CPI might become more volatile, may go below 2%.
“6:55 um already two years ago you know we were going to get inflation because the way they did it is very different
7:00 from 2008 they massively expanded credit for consumption for purchases
7:07 and while not increasing the amount of goods and services available but just increasing demand and money
7:13 buying things because you are pushing up prices that’s the inflation we’re getting now it’s a monetary phenomenon
7:19 don’t believe them when they talk about oh it’s the war it’s russia well this was actually caused uh from
7:26 february march 2020 onwards with this concerted monetary policy of massively
7:32 injecting creating injecting new money used for consumption”?
Richard Werner on how CBDC could be the end of banking and on the Sovietization of Europe
“0:00
the probability of a recession I think it’s over 90% and the stock market has
0:05
to go down when I say earnings tumble remember what’s priced in now is is
0:11
something on the order of earnings growth of 10% and I say no it’s it’s
0:16
going to be zero or maybe even below zero maybe maybe profits will even be in
0:23
negative territory so So there’s a long way to go things are just warming up
0:28
this could be a really bad economic quarter for not just growth but also earnings “?
Until today, I cannot say that Fast Eddy’s perspective was so wrong.
For me world economics is caught between resource limits and spiritual expectations. I guess, the deep state made an agenda out of it.
Whatever, the consequence will be people will be responsible for themselves and will have to care for themselves.
It means, they will manage with a bunch of merinos and hens and hopefully some robust cows (as the system ‘bovines digest grass’ is a very efficient producer of biomass).
Crops and gardens and forests are a wonderful complement, especially for medical herbs, but they require social stability and some years until they are productive.
The eĺites probably believe, they can go on as used to, while the masses dont travel, dont heat and eat low quality foods. I doubt that is realistic.
We know from other failed countries how this will take place: The governmental services will retract to some rich cities, the periphery will be unadministered and people will establish self-sufficiency with what they have. This will deteriorate property rights with all the usual consequences.
After some years, unmaintained roofs, windows, streets, pipes, cables, radio towers, solar and wind installations as much as machinery wont be able to be repaired. So they will be replaced by more efficient solutions, usually a hole in the ground with some more or less water repellent cover – which is a challenge to construct with natural materials. Education, knowlege, books or glasses to read them? Probably not maintained.
Here in the European Alps we have recently seen a long, hidden tunnel, crossing some mountains, making absolutely no sense. It was probably meant to secure mining under war conditions. The tunnel was dug out by hundreds of Hitler’s slave workers. Slave work alone does not seem to be a way out of the energy predicament. It seems to need special conditions to produce surplus.
It would be great to prepare:
The first is to stop contamination and poisioning, especially by nuclear waste, but also to keep the DNA inheritage intact. Second is to distribute robust and usable seeds and breeds adapted to the local conditions. What is there can be used, what help is any seed bank in Greenland? The third is to maintain knowledge unďer stonage conditions: Materials, colours, herbs, medical interventions, chemical procedures, optics, pest control, calculations, projections, history, philosophy, law, entertainment. To me the later seems to be the most difficult part, if there is no academic tradition and no knowledge conservation by passing a craft to the next generation. As much as today the knowledge of cooperage is lost, tomorrow it will be optics, acoustics, digital machinery, basic chemical equations, medical or veterinarian interventions.
The production of metals, glass and ceramics, some kind of seeds, of research and knowledge conservation or seafaring are community actions, that are hard to conserve as technologies in the family, like spinning, knitting and woodwork.
If we think of knowledge, this must be condensed and transferred to paper or clay tablets every 100 years, reading and understanding the language must be kept alive amoung people, who see absolutely no benefit to their daily lives in doing so.
Maybe you are aiming too high. In the book “The Earth Abides” the protagonist teaches the kids how to make bows and arrows. Rolls of quarters from the bank make good arrowhead material.
I expect that knowledge will keep changing. For example, the yarn the world will have 500 years from now will be different than the yarn we have now, for example. Perhaps the knitting and/or crocheting techniques will change as well.
Maybe our DNA heritage is meant to change, so we can better adapt to changing conditions.