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The world economy is at a major turning point, which is why we should brace for rapid changes in the economy. The world is moving from having enough goods and services to go around, to not having enough to go around. The dynamics of the economy are very different with not enough to go around. The hoped-for solution of higher prices doesn’t fix the situation; after a point, adding more buying-power mostly produces inflation. Other solutions are needed. The world economy is reaching what has been called “Limits to Growth.”
Economies throughout the ages have grown until their populations grew too large for resource availability. Researcher Peter Turchin has studied the general pattern of overshoot and collapse scenarios. The chart shown in Figure 1 is based on analyzing eight such cycles in the book Secular Cycles. The fossil fuel age began over 200 years ago, and it now seems to be reaching its end.
I doubt that President Trump thinks in terms such as secular cycles or overshoot and collapse. But tariffs and government cutbacks engineered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) seem like they might be approaches that will allow the world economy to contract in a way that could be helpful in keeping the collapse from taking place excessively fast.
In this post, I will try to explain the situation further. The issue we are facing is really a physics problem. Governments can print money, but they cannot print resources, especially energy resources. Our bodies are accustomed to having a certain amount of cooked foods in our diets. This, by itself, encourages population growth and eventual overshoot of the resource base. The self-organizing system somehow chooses its own downward path, not falling further or more quickly than necessary, under the Maximum Power Principle. This is what we are encountering now.
[1] In physics terms, the economy is a dissipative structure. Dissipative structures are self-organizing structures that require energy to grow but are only temporary.
The universe is filled with dissipative structures. Humans are dissipative structures, as are all plants and animals. Hurricanes are dissipative structures, as are star systems. Ecosystems are dissipative structures. All these things are temporary. Even economies are temporary, but no one tells us this detail.
The kind of energy that is required varies with the dissipative structure. Green plants use sunshine. Animals require plant or animal food. Humans have evolved to eat a mixture of cooked food and raw food. While a few raw food enthusiasts can get along using a blender to break up food into small particles, the general pattern is that our modern brains require the nourishment that cooked food can provide. Thus, humans need both food and some type of fuel for cooking at least a portion of the food. Fuel is also helpful for heating homes, ridding water of pathogens, and providing transportation.
Many things that we think of as man-made are dissipative structures. Governments are dissipative structures. Governments grow and often become too expensive for their citizens to support. The energy governments use is indirectly obtained through the use of taxes. A little of the energy used by the governments is purchased directly by governments to power their vehicles, and to heat and light their buildings.
Much more of the energy required by governments is indirectly consumed. For example, a portion of the taxes collected goes to pay public officials. This pay is used for things the public officials use, such as food, transportation, and housing. All three of these things require energy at many places in their “lives.”
- Food – Sunshine to grow; oil to cultivate and transport it to the store; electricity for refrigeration; natural gas or electricity for cooking; human labor for many tasks.
- Transportation – Fuel to make the metal and other materials used in making the vehicle; human labor to construct the vehicle; fuel to operate the vehicle.
- Housing – Diesel to prepare the lot where the house is built; energy of many kinds to create and transport materials such as lumber and wiring; human energy to put the pieces together; electricity for lights after it is built; natural gas or electricity to heat the home after it is built.
In fact, every part of GDP requires energy. In some cases, this is “only” human energy. Of course, human energy requires food, some of it cooked (or broken into tiny pieces with an electric blender).
Businesses in general are dissipative structures. So are international organizations of any kind. Cities seem to be dissipative structures. Religious organizations are dissipative structures. Any organization that seems to grow, pretty much on its own, is a dissipative structure.
[2] If the energy sources needed by a dissipative structure become scarce, this can badly disrupt the dissipative structure.
Hurricanes that pass over warm water tend to maintain their strength, but if they go over land, they quickly dissipate. If an animal is deprived of food, it will become weak and eventually die. If a government is deprived of revenue (and the energy sources that this revenue indirectly buys), it will no longer be able to provide the services it has promised. It may default on its debt or collapse.
[3] Many dissipative structures seem to be programmed to eventually go downhill and collapse, even when plenty of energy seems to be available.
Obviously, running out of energy isn’t the only way a dissipative structure comes to an end. Most humans don’t starve to death. Instead, when humans get to be 70 or 80 or so years old, they lose some of their strength. They more easily succumb to illnesses. Other animals are similar. Tomato plants in our gardens seem to be more prone to infestation by pests after a month or two of bearing fruit.
[4] Even economies seem to be programmed to go downhill and collapse.
Economies have a problem with their populations becoming too large for available resources. For many years, it appears that added debt (money supply) can be used to temporarily work around a resource problem. For example, a dam purchased with debt may allow irrigation so more food can be produced for a given population.
The problem with this approach is that the benefits of added debt reach diminishing returns. At some point, an economy discovers that adding debt doesn’t add much energy supply; instead, it simply leads to inflation (and, indirectly, higher interest rates to compensate for this inflation). Also, for governments, the interest on debt becomes a greater and greater burden.
The US government seems to have reached the point of having too much debt. The US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently published this chart related to US debt:
US taxes need to keep rising, as a percentage of GDP, just to repay US government debt with interest. This is a path that can lead to hyperinflation. This seems to be the underlying reason for DOGE and the tariffs.
Adding infrastructure such as roads, pipelines, and railroads can be helpful in the beginning. The additional infrastructure enables new businesses to be built that make use of this infrastructure. Initially, the tax revenue from new businesses makes it easy to repay the debt with interest.
But additional roads, pipelines, railroads and other infrastructure are not nearly as helpful. They may add capacity, but they don’t materially change the transportation options. The tax revenue added is less.
At some point, simply maintaining and replacing all the infrastructure becomes burdensome. Adding debt for the replacement of infrastructure becomes burdensome because the new replacement infrastructure adds no new functionality. It just maintains the old functionality. The interest on the debt must come from somewhere, but it is not built into the system the way it was when totally new infrastructure was built. Today’s approach is simply to increase the debt level and hope that the revenue will come from somewhere else.
A related issue is that old factories tend to be less productive than newly built ones that benefited from the latest advances. This allows new factories (perhaps in another part of the world) to make goods in a more cost-efficient way. An older factory is likely to lose out in price competition against a newer, more productive factory elsewhere.
[5] The analysis of Turchin and Nefedov in Secular Cycles suggests that economies often go through the pattern shown in Figure 1.
Economies discover a new resource. Perhaps they have conquered a new land, and they have eliminated the old inhabitants. Or they have cut down trees, allowing more area for farming. At a given level of technology (and fuel for the technology), a given area of arable land can support a particular number of inhabitants. If the population gets too high, the size of farms tends to fall too low to support the farmers and their families. This pattern happens if families allow multiple sons to each inherit a share of the family farm.
Alternatively (and more likely), if the population gets too high, the younger sons don’t inherit any farmland. They start working in services and or on crafts of various kinds. But these alternatives to farming generally don’t pay very well. The many workers with low wages become less able to pay taxes, creating a problem for government funding.
As the population rises, wages of these lower-paid workers become increasingly less adequate to cover the necessities of life. With inadequate nutrition, populations become more subject to epidemics.
According to Secular Cycles, as these problems arise, debt is increasingly used to work around the problems. Slow population growth and increasing debt are characteristics of the Stagflation period shown in Figure 1.
Eventually, economies fail. Governments can fail due to a lack of adequate tax revenue or by being overthrown by unhappy citizens. Alternatively, they may lose a war against another country with better weapons (made with energy supplies). All governments, as dissipative structures, can be expected to eventually fail, one way or another.
[6] The world economy now seems to be headed on a path similar to that shown in Figure 1.
The world economy now seems to be reaching the end of the age of fossil fuels. I believe that the world first entered the stagflation era in 1973, when oil prices first rose dramatically. At that time, it became clear that oil must be used more sparingly. To help economize on oil, smaller, more fuel-efficient cars began to be imported from Japan and Europe. In some places, oil was being burned to generate electricity; this electricity could sometimes be replaced by electricity from nuclear power plants.
In the 1980s, added debt became more important. Companies were told to use “leverage” to become more competitive with producers around the world. Instead of fearing credit, it should be embraced. Computers were increasingly used, and world trade was expanded. World trade very much facilitated the production of complex goods, such as automobiles and computers, because it allowed a very wide array of raw materials to be used in manufacturing.
Figure 3 suggests that world trade stalled in 2008. There has been a slight downward trend since that date. With tariffs, world trade will likely fall more quickly in the future.
One of the underlying problems facing the world economy is the fact that major types of energy supply have been falling relative to world population for a long time. The high points seem to have been in 2004-2007 for oil, in 2011 for coal, and in 2001 for nuclear (Figure 4).
Middle distillates (diesel oil and jet fuel) are particularly important in world trade. Middle distillates are plentiful in heavy oil, such as that found in Russia, the oil sands of Canada, and Venezuela. Diesel is important for operating farm equipment, large trucks and ships, and construction equipment.
Middle distillates are in short supply because it is hard to get the price up high enough, for long enough, to compensate for the high cost of extraction, distillation, and transport. If the price of diesel rises much, the price of food tends to rise. Voters don’t like high food prices. This seems to be a major reason that both Russia’s oil exports and Venezuela’s oil exports are subject to sanctions.
Without an adequate supply of middle distillates, world trade needs to be scaled back. I believe that this shortfall is the physics reason underlying the push for increased tariffs. The fact that these tariffs are particularly high against China means that long distance transport across the Pacific Ocean will be scaled back. Shelves in US stores will increasingly lack goods made with Chinese inputs.
[7] Modeling of the overshoot and collapse problem has been done since the 1950s. A recent model suggests that world industrial output is likely to fall quickly, about now.
In 1957, US Navy Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover gave a speech explaining the importance of fossil fuels to the economy and to the military. He then explained that we could not expect fossil fuel extraction to last very long:
It is an unpleasant fact that according to our best estimates, total fossil fuel reserves recoverable at not over twice today’s unit cost are likely to run out at some time between the years 2000 and 2050, if present standards of living and population growth rates are taken into account.
Much modeling has been done since that time. Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology did a series of analyses which they published in 1972 in the book, The Limits to Growth. The most recent update to this analysis shows the following summary exhibit.
The 1972 model and its update both look at the world economy from an engineering point of view. The analyses ignore the roles of governments, debt, and many other things important to the economy. The original authors of the 1972 Limits to Growth analysis said that they didn’t have much confidence in the accuracy of their forecasts after the decline had begun because of the many omitted factors.
The disturbing thing from the 2023 analysis is that it shows industrial output dropping about now. This is what I would expect to happen if there is a big drop in world trade.
[8] The world economy is self-organizing. It doesn’t seem to depend on the actions of any one person or group.
The Universe keeps growing and expanding. Many people believe that the Universe spontaneously sprang out of nothing and began to grow. I believe that there was a Creator.
An intricate system of evolution is taking place, with new dissipative structures arising and old dissipative structures coming to an end. The dissipative structures that last are the ones best adapted to the Earth’s ever-changing environment at that time.
Somehow, the world economy (and other ecosystems) maximize the total output of each part of the system, under the Maximum Power Principle. This isn’t dependent on any one system being more efficient or working better than another. Instead, the world economy tends to maximize the total output of the system, given the energy supplies (and other resources, such as water) available. Thus, the world output of goods and services is unlikely to fall so catastrophically that it quickly wipes out most of the world’s human population. For example, if industrial output is limited, it may be concentrated especially on replacement parts for current machinery and on machines needed for food production.
The intricate nature of evolution and the many dissipative structures formed, together with the Maximum Power Principle, leads me to believe that the Creator is still active today.
It seems to me that the self-organizing economy utilizes whatever leaders are available. They don’t need to have good motives for their actions. It isn’t that Donald Trump is a better leader than others, or that his ideas, as promulgated, will take a hold. The system works through many leaders of various political parties. Each leader is somewhat replaceable by other leaders. The underlying physics of the system is what leads to the changes that take place.
Religions seem all to be created by the same Creator. They seem to have many functions, including binding groups together, teaching “best practices” regarding getting along within a group here on earth, and (when resources are short), fighting against other religious groups. Religious organizations seem to be part of the self-organizing economy, as well.
[9] What I see ahead.
(a) Recession seems likely, starting out as being barely perceptible, but getting worse and worse over time.
(b) World output of physical goods and services will begin to decline almost immediately. In particular, products manufactured in the US using inputs from China will become difficult to obtain, as will goods imported into the US from China.
(c) I expect that commodity prices will fall. Deflation seems more likely than inflation. If inflation does take place, I expect that it will take the form of hyperinflation, with central banks issuing huge amounts of money, but there not being very many goods and services to purchase with this money.
(d) I expect that many banks, insurance companies, and pension plans will fail. I expect that governments will not be able to bail them all out. If governments do try to bail out all these failing institutions, the result is likely to be hyperinflation, with not much to buy.
(e) Many governments have plans for digital currencies to replace the currencies we have today. I am doubtful that these plans will work. For one thing, intermittent electricity is likely to become an increasing problem. For another, government organizations, such as the European Union, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the United Nations are likely to start falling apart. Even the United States is likely to become less “united,” or it may comprise fewer states.
(f) I do not see gold as being very helpful for the long term. It seems like small silver coins will be much more tradable in the future. What we will really need is food, water, and shelter. I expect that these will go mostly to workers producing these essentials, rather than to hangers-on to the system.
(g) A few businesses may do well. Figuring out how to produce food in quantity, locally, may be helpful. Converting unused buildings to shelters for poor people may also be helpful. Private “protection” services may also do well.
(h) The stock market provided great returns for US investors in the 2008 to 2024 period, but this cannot be expected to continue. A likely result is that returns will fall very low or will turn negative.
(i) Borrowing is likely to remain challenging, or get worse. Lenders will increasingly recognize the default risk. Some lenders may go out of business.
(j) Over a period of years, trade will change to be more local. The US will lose its status as the holder of the reserve currency. It will no longer try to be the policeman of the world.
[10] There are a lot of things we really don’t know.
The Creator may be creating a religious ending that we are not aware of. In fact, such an ending could come very soon.
Otherwise, dissipative structures are very often replaced by other dissipative structures. New economies may gradually grow up in different parts of the world. Perhaps the new economies will figure out new energy sources that we are not aware of, or make better use of declining energy types. According to Physicist Eric Chaisson, the long-term trend is toward more complex, energy-intense dissipative structures being formed.
“Societies” in Figure 7 seem to be similar to today’s economy.
Mass layoffs continue across freight-related companies in the U.S. and Germany.
More than 3,500 job cuts have been announced since April 30, according to media reports and Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notices.
Since Jan. 1, more than 30,000 freight-related layoffs have been announced, impacting workers in food production and distribution, manufacturing, transportation, warehousing, and logistics.
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/mass-layoffs-from-freight-related-jobs-continue-across-us-germany
This is interesting. In my view, it let understand that also Europe is fighting to conquer and submit Ukraine and probably one of the first promoter is Poland.
The news was published today first by FT but it is without paywall on Reuters.
Then also others give more details
“EU set to impose much higher tariffs on imports from Ukraine, FT reports”
“(Reuters) -The EU is preparing to apply much higher tariffs on imports from Ukraine within weeks, hitting Kyiv’s economy at a crucial time in its fight against Russian aggression, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing diplomats.
The proposal, recently sent to EU member states, would drastically cut the tariff free quotas of agricultural products — a lifeline for Ukraine’s farmers and budget, FT said.”
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/eu-set-to-impose-much-higher-tariffs-on-imports-from-ukraine-ft-reports/ar-AA1EJhkS
“(EU pravda) The decision to cease benefits for Ukrainian imports was reportedly initiated by Poland amid European farmers’ protests.”
https://eu.news-pravda.com/world/2025/05/14/53195.html
I understood earlier that the low prices of Ukrainian exports were a problem for importers from other countries in Europe. It makes perfect sense that they would impose tariffs so as to allow their own farmers to profitably produce food for local people.
the tariffs will assist local producers to produce food for their own citizens therefore reducing the need for shipping.See finite worlders their is obviously a plan in place to ration out the remaining oil reserves and assist the world to transition to alternative energy systems . So that means either Trump is either in on it much like a secret agent or he is clueless about his starring role as the propagator of the Grand Conspiracy. The oil industry knows full well that drops are coming as evidenced by the following paragraphs
” Indeed, there were warnings that the trough of the cycle was coming even before Trump began tariffing imports left and right. In January, Rystad Energy said the oilfield services sector was slowing down, and the slowdown would intensify this year.
“Market volatility, heightened geopolitical tensions and cost and capacity challenges,” were the issues Rystad Energy identified for the sector back in January, which suggests that even without a tariff war, oilfield services providers would be having a tough 2025. Yet it’s not all doom and gloom—LNG is thriving, and offshore oil and gas is set to grow, too. The industry will weather this period of depression just as it weathered all the others that came before it. “
Margaret and I were walking past the Milbrook elementary school at end of school day. First we saw Mexican Mom walking Mexican kid home. Then we got to the school and saw the busses. Long busses for 30-40 kids with only two or three kids per bus. Six big busses followed by one short bus with five kids. Looks like it is time for consolidation.
Yes most definitely a waste of resources surely one bus could handle everybody. I drive trams and drive late at night total capacity 200 people but 50% of the time there is no one on board . But I believe the elites would never touch the ample services that governments provide . Why ? Because the elites know that once cars are all gone those trams and buses will be packed to the brim and waste on public teansport will no longer be an issue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqiG7tYxD1Q
Letting the few run the world leads to bad results.
Could vaccinations with a live virus actually be causing the outbreaks of measles in Texas and New Mexico?
https://jonfleetwood.substack.com/p/two-states-with-greatest-mmr-vaccination
Two States With Greatest MMR Vaccination Rate Increase Also Report Most Measles Cases in 2025: Texas and New Mexico.
Perhaps the vaccine uses viruses that are somewhat too much alive.
Rack off. Getting reinfected unnaturally with so called measles jabs will roll back the immune systems’ existing memory, making natural immunity response naïve to previously encountered pathogen challenges across the board.
That is why getting breakthrough measles is so devastating for adults.
It only happens with a weakened or overwhelmed immune system.
It amounts to an immunological factory reset.
Adults who get a measles breakthrough infection follow a well known trajectory of then getting everything they’ve ever had in the past again!
This is very much like a Trojan, that lets everything else back in the front door.
You are far better not getting a measles breakthrough, by keeping the immun system strong in the first instance.
If you’ve had measles; you don’t need artificial reinfection.
If you haven’t had measles; because you’re young for instance; you need to acquire it naturally, from a natural carrier like an adult who’s had it.
Declaring an outbreak to chide people to inject literally augments weakening overall adult immune health. That’s why getting measles once gives permanent immunity. That is natures way.
Anyways we’ve been here before and TBTB are at it again, touting the latest snake oil promo. Just another safe and effective.
Alas, how convenient to coax people through fear to actually undermine their systems’ existing and acquired herd immunity.
The situation in Britain sounds like a more extreme version of the D. E. I. push rolled out the US, which is now being dismantled by Trump.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/britain-brink-civil-war
Is Britain On The Brink Of Civil War?
I am not sure that expediting uranium mines will make much difference, given the very long timeline usual for mines, but it is a step in the right direction:
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/us-fast-tracking-uranium-mine-permit-meet-urgent-energy-demands
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is today.
“Another article about seawater extraction of uranium. This time, Chinese researchers have developed a new extraction tech that will cut the cost in half, to $83 per kg of uranium. They also claim that it requires 1000 times less energy inputs. Article link in reply. Unless I’m missing something, $83/kg would be competitive with current uranium prices! This almost seems to be to good to be true. “?
https://x.com/HopfJames/status/1922330892531626052
Interesting!
Gail told me not to comment on delusional postings so I won’t, since this is her blog.
I am just adding that while having delusions is kind of a coping mechanism it won’t really lead to anywhere and it would just waste precious remaining resources for nothing.
Some of the delusions may lead somewhere. We hear an awfully lot from you about why large segments of the population will never succeed. Be a little tolerant of others.
Having delusions is kind of a coping mechanism. So is commenting on other people’s delusional postings.
Life is very tough for human beings, and we are all trying to cope. It’s tougher for some of us than for others, some of us cope better than others, and all of us are losers in the end.
Look how far we’ve come and how much we’ve struggled and suffered, and how big a mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.
The human race struggling to develop a Type II civilization probably won’t lead to anywhere either. Vanity of vanities; all is vanity. So relax, chill out, and enjoy the scenery.
🤣
Per Copilot about 4m Tesla’s sold globally to date. Calculation is 114M barrels of crude saved annually. It is a start.
Now charge them with photovoltaics, save burning 42M tons of coal annually. Intermittency mostly solved. As a bonus, easier on spaceship earth.
Starship launches 5/21, if on time about six days from now. Go Starship!
If Musk brings electric robotaxis to Saudi Arabia, think of all the oil which can remain in the ground.
Dennis L.
The world consumes 84 mbpd of oil per day .So 114 M = 32 hrs =1.35 days . Wow what an achievement ? How many extra did we burn to mine and manufacture the Lithium batteries . Genius at work .
Norm, I bow to the superior person. You are right Trump is a nut and a looser.
Whenever I hear about super technology I think about this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4nfJhD_ujk
However they had flaws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yIWKjdI5HQ
It all comes down to fossil fuels.
It was the tasteless, charmless T-34-85 which won in the end.
All these talk about techs which we do not have are, I have to say, just talk. The point of no return was around 2019. Anything done after that is just footnote.
Write up accompanying the first video says:
The second video is
The Fatal Flaw With Hitler’s Wonder-Weapon Obsession | How The Nazis Lost The War | War Stories
The winner needs lots of cheap, useful weapons, ships, and planes.
Wax on, wax off. Tariffs on tariffs off.
Tariffs still quite high by historical standards. They will likely cut back international trade, which is the point.
In a year or two, tariffs can be boosted further to reduce trade further.
Yep, feathering mechanism. The tariffs settled-upon for now are the ones optimized for the Hand’s demand destruction calculations and subject to change.
KSA is going to buy 600 billion dollars of American companies so it can send the profit to KSA. Good job Trump.
They can not take out directly the 1T in american banks. the USA would not let them. I think it is the best of a bunch of bad options.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/05/watch-president-trump-secures-600-billion-investment-saudi/
Title say could bring 2 million jobs to America. I say 2 million wage slaves working for KSA is BAD!
This is a link to the document the White House sent out.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/05/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-secures-historic-600-billion-investment-commitment-in-saudi-arabia/
My impression is that the investments Saudi Arabia is making are somewhat risky. The return is likely to be a lot less than 10%.
The backdoor bailouts under political cover have finally made their way back around to the Mothership. That’s when you know we’re knocking on heaven’s door.
I see a lot of Trump claims that foreign nations have agreed to invest in the USA, but don’t know that they actually are, or that we have the workforce to support the plans if they are in fact real. It’s a bit of a Schrodinger reality for me – are other nations distancing themselves or doing the opposite and investing in the USA?
Looking at Italy, it’s a bit of both. different individual companies take different decisions. Trade flows also are already adjusting, not just w.r.t. USA but also other parts of the world.
Aliens meets Covid meets Schrödingers cat meets Economic collapse.
Ripley saves her ginger moggy and goes back to the control system to disengage the auto self destruct.
Warning The time to cancel social economic, civilisational collapse has now been exceeded…..
You now have… four years and fifty five seconds to reach minimum safe distance……
Electricity too cheap to meter?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2025-05-12/will-bezos-amazon-helios-trigger-global-market-shock
It is an Amazon project. Will it work? Maybe, I don’t like it as it releases more energy into the earth’s ecosphere.
I am starting to use AI to design a custom electronics course for a project in process. Will see how it works but could be a game changer for universities. Personally want it to evaluate my diet. Have a trainer, gained weight commuting to and from cc about seventy miles from me.
Fossil fuel is mostly behind us, but the future is before us.
Me, Starship, put AI computers in space to get rid of heat in space; spaceship earth is very precious.
Dennis L.
Dennis, it’s just more hopium. Bezos has invested a few dollars in a start up, which is being marketed with all the usual hype…
https://www.nucnet.org/news/amazon-s-jeff-bezos-joins-nuclear-fusion-investors
The important bit from in the article….
“but if proven would provide a practical near-term path …. yada…. yada…”
Fusion is a dead end, it’s not cheap. Eventually some-one will get an expensive 1 hour burst of fusion, then a 2 hour burst, but only with a huge array of expensive equipment, and no actual energy out of the units anywhere.
Getting any fusion reaction to last 20 years? No close on anyone’s horizon, let alone collecting energy from the reaction.
Some rapid change.
Optimus-3 sells below $20K, purchase two. One of indoors housework , one for gardening, minor outside maintenance and snow shoveling.
As there is not enough work to keep these robots busy, hire them out in the neighborhood.
Imagine Robby walks to the neighbor, knocks on the door and askes if it would be convenient to mow the lawn.
Convenience and a deductible source of income, all done so locally.
Gail mentions locally often, I follow Gail.
Dennis L.
i cant wait till my local robot. (usually going by the name “rusty”) shows up at my house offering to do oddjobs
dennis, I’m really glad you were never my dentist
Well, what can I say?
Dennis L.
Even if humankind somehow ends up with godlike tech, which looks more and more forlorn every day despite of the hallucinations of some people,
all the gains will be monopolized. Nothing for the hoi polloi.
Only the few who led the drive will benefit anything from the godlike technologies.
There is no need to spend a cubic mile of something to equip all the rednecks with space vehicles.
It will be boutique tech, to be enjoyed by less than, say, 100,000 people who will gain near immortality so there would be no reason for them to reproduce.
In a sense, they transcend biology, which is so ancient history.
delusion…..again
there can be no support for any form of elite—-of any size—without the working input of we….the great unwashed.
thats the way the world works
Linked is a video on automation, Optimus style robots, AI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFbuZpNaIaY
We may be witnessing a revolution—not one fought with guns, but driven by innovation.
On my farm, every decision is grounded in reality, not abstraction. Robotics and AI are at the forefront, reshaping the way we work. The shift toward automation presents a compelling argument: Optimus could dramatically increase the value of older tractors—machines without cabs or climate control. Instead of investing in a single $600K–$800K John Deere, deploying two or three Optimus-enabled tractors could deliver greater efficiency, simpler maintenance, and continuous versatility. Optimus wouldn’t just operate machinery—it could be the mechanic, reducing downtime and service costs.
Modern soil science presents promising solutions. While high-input farming may boost yields, better biology—optimizing natural processes and reducing input costs—can actually increase net revenue, even if total output is lower.
The future of large farm equipment remains uncertain. A combine is more than just an expensive machine—it demands a massive storage shed and costly maintenance infrastructure. If Optimus can handle multiple tasks year-round, traditional combines may struggle to retain value.
There are multiple narratives at play. I approach this through a data-centric lens—not necessarily better or worse, just different.
Dennis L.
Seriously, you still want to become a robot in outer space?
That is surely stretching for some kind of ‘purpose’ to your existence?
And that is what society exists ‘for’?
The ‘purpose’ that ‘justifies’ everything?
Kulm as a robot in outer space?
Whatever!
How about we just send up a robot and call it ‘Kulm’?
Happy now?
Organic life is mprtal. Inorganic existence lasts long.
Carl Sagan is long dead. But his Golden Record, in Voyager I, will last a billion years.
Blind Willie Johnson, a blues musician, died in 1945 because he caught pneumomia and the hospital judged a poor, blind black man was not worth treating. But his music lives in the Record forever.
Why are you so afraid of death? I suspect the answer to be twofold; you have such a huge ego that contemplating its end is sheer terror for you, and during the time that you are actually held responsible for your actions and thoughts here…well, you’re hardly a paragon of virtue and kindness, kulmthestatusquo, so that’s probably not going to be a fun period for you. So it’s much easier to deny that that will happen, which ties in to the techbroery of seeking immortality. It all boils down to fear; not a good approach to existence.
To leave one’s mark is eternal. That is the reason.
Jesus saud what good is there if a person gains the world and loses his life. There was someone who did tgat, Alexander the Great.
Alexander will be remembered as long as humankind exists.
The myth of Alexander, the legend of Alexander, the historical story of Alexander, and the name Alexander will be remembered, certainly.
But the person Alexander himself will not be remembered because nobody who actually remembers him is still alive.
All our knowledge of the chap is, at best, secondhand.
The British Grenadiers remember Alexander, in the company of Hector, a mythical prince of Troy, and Lysander, the Spartan leader who destroyed the Athenian fleet at the Battle of Aegospotami. I expect you have some sympathies with Lysander, who is remembered as being very anti-democratic and pro-oligarchy.
While hardly anybody remembers the British Grenadiers these days, the late Dr. Robert Firth would surely have enjoyed the following song:
Some talk of Alexander,And some of Hercules
Of Hector and Lysander, And such great names as these.
But of all the world’s great heroes, There’s none that can compare
With a tow, row, row, row, row, row, To the British Grenadiers.
Those heroes of antiquity Ne’er saw a cannon ball
Or knew the force of powder To slay their foes withal.
But our brave boys do know it, And banish all their fears,
Sing tow, row, row, row, row, row, For the British Grenadiers.
Whene’er we are commanded To storm the palisades
Our leaders march with fusees, And we with hand grenades.
We throw them from the glacis, About the enemies’ ears.
Sing tow, row, row, row, row, row, The British Grenadiers.
And when the siege is over, We to the town repair
The townsmen cry, “Hurra, boys, Here comes a Grenadier!
Here come the Grenadiers, my boys, Who know no doubts or fears!
Then sing tow, row, row, row, row, row, The British Grenadiers.
Then let us fill a bumper, And drink a health to those
Who carry caps and pouches, And wear the louped clothes.
May they and their commanders Live happy all their years
With a tow, row, row, row, row, row, For the British Grenadiers.
Taliban adds chess to ever-growing list of things banned in Afghanistan
https://globalnews.ca/news/11175560/taliban-chess-banned-afghanistan/
Fun is prohibited…
If people need to work nearly every working hour, there is no time for fun.
Entertainment only becomes important with the help of fossil fuels. Stamping out television might be a better goal, but television adds to GDP. Chess playing adds little to GDP.
Newton did okay without TV.
Dennis L.
thats like saying Archimedes did ok without the propeller
Apparently in tribal hunter-gatherer societies people had more leisure time than we.
Dancing, singing, games, festivals began then.
It was with the Industrial Revolution and the exploitation of fosiil fuels that the tyranny of the factory – and its long work week began.
Even in agricultural societies there are times when there is nothing to do.
The factory knows no rest.
nfortunately in agriculutural societies with no work yo do……..
no wages get paid either
Much less to learn with hunter-gatherer; so very much to learn now as we have a poor understanding of the fundamentals.
The universe is a strange place.
Dennis L.
Fine insight with that first sentence, Dennis. The second sentence is a strange place rather than the universe being one.
For a contrary view, see James C. Scott’s book, Against the Grain – A Deep History of the Earliest States. Esp. the chapter, “Landscaping the World.” Some snippets:
“let us compare, broadly, the life world of the hunter-forager with that of the farmer . . . The lives of hunter-gatherers are orchestrated by a host of natural rhythms of which they must be keen observers: the movement of herds of game (deer, gazelle, antelope, pigs) the seasonal migrations of birds, especially waterfowl, which can be intercepted and netted at their resting or nesting places; the runs of desirable fish upstream or downstream; the cycle of the ripening fruits and nuts, which must be collected before other competitors arrive or before they spoil; and, less predictably, appearances of game, fish, turtles and mushrooms, which must be exploited quickly. The list could be expanded almost indefinitely . . .
“Botanists and naturalists have been continually amazed by the degree and breadth of knowledge hunter-gatherers have of the natural world around them. Their taxonomies of plants are not classified in Linnaean categories, but they are both more practical (good to eat, heal wounds, will make blue dye) and quite as elaborate. Codifications of farming knowledge in America, by contrast, have traditionally taken the form of the Farmers’ Almanac. . . . We might, in this context, think of hunters and gatherers as having an entire library of almanacs: one for natural stands of cereals, subdivided into wheats, barleys and oats; one for forest nuts and fruits, subdivided into acorns, beechnuts and various berries, one for fishing subdivided by shellfish, eels, herring and shad; and so on. . . . .
“It is no exaggeration to say that hunting and foraging are, in terms of complexity, as different from cereal-grain farming as cereal-grain farming is, in turn removed from repetitive work on a modern assembly line. Each step represents a substantial narrowing of focus and a simplification of tasks. . . .
“Once Homo sapiens took that fateful step into agriculture, or species entered an austere monastery whose task master consists mostly of the demanding genetic clockwork of a few plants and, in Mesopotamia particularly, wheat or barley. . . .
“. . . it represented a contraction of our species’ attention to and practical knowledge of the natural world, a contraction of diet, a contraction of space, and perhaps a contraction, a well, in the breadth of ritual life.”
But hey, thanks to such narrowing of focus and isolation and disconnection from the natural world, we got to reproduce ourselves into 8B+, create billionaires and bring about the 6th mass extinction, so . . . winning!
That’s great content on the ecological beauty of animist hunting gathering, tagio, but it is not contrary to Dennis’ deep biological insight. The yin and the yang; deep insights are nested in cycles. The truth is a widening gyre.
All of that beautiful complexity in the quote amount to the mastery of the fundamentals (of biology/natural law). It’s already been learned. It is the culture. Children are sponges, and the learning is by osmosis.
We, on the other hand, at the ago of 20, or 30, or 40, have to unlearn the industrial culture which is a biological vacuum culture — for hoovering up economic value — and then we have to actively learn, and largely by ourselves, how to eat, see, and, think biologically. To relearn those fundamentals while living through the anthropocene.
That is the small, imprisoned, black, nested truth of the upsidedown within Scott’s white, field truth. The upsidedown is the Faustian bargain that exchanges a learned ecological power for a rock-bottom, willfully ignorant raw power, and the journey from rock-bottom is always long and rarely made.
How many people here are making that journey, even after dropping the willful ignorance? It’s a tall order
Against the Grain is a great book. I first wrote about the book in this post:
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2018/08/02/supplemental-energy-puts-humans-in-charge/
No, hunter-gatherers had more to learn.
Brains were bigger 20000+ years ago.
hunter gathering living was very simple.
you learned life-skills virtually from birth, from your own tribal kin…..
if you didnt learn quickly, you died quickly.
I agree. “Brains were bigger 20000+ years ago.”
There was a whole lot to learn as hunter gatherers.
Hunter-gatherers got up in the morning and thought to themselves:
“What shall I do today? Shall I hunt or shall I gather? Decisions; Decisions.”
There was a division of labor. My impression was that the women did quite a bit of the gathering, and the men tended to do the hunting. But in many places any meat was from fish. This could be fishing and gathering.
A hunter-gathering lifestyle demands a much greater range of both technical and social skills than does modern society, where a fine division of labour is typical.
Television keeps the population down, though. Also distracts people from reality.
Helps keep up the illusion that business as usual will continue forever. It provides the illusion that the products sold on television are worthwhile. Major example: expensive pharmaceutical drugs.
More and more people in Slovakia are ending up in prison for drugs. The percentage of serious criminals there is below average
https://domov.sme.sk/c/23483733/vaznice-trestny-zakon-susko-vazba-kalinak-vykon-trestu.html
We have a new phenomenon: complete families go bankrupt
https://www.trend.sk/spravy/crif-aprili-zbankrotovalo-zatial-najviac-obyvatelov-slovenska-tomto-roku?itm_brand=trend&itm_template=hp&itm_modul=najcitanejsie&itm_area=najcitanejsie-24h&itm_position=3
I expect at some point whole nations will go bankrupt. The Vatican is a mini-nation. It seems to be on the edge of bankruptcy.
If a government goes bankrupt, I would suppose that its money loses all value. Bank accounts would disappear. Banks would cease operations.
There would still be (in theory) other, more local governments, that might try to step in and play the role. They could issue Wisconsin dollars, or Texas pesos, and not make nearly as many promises.
They’d still need to be able to make — and deliver-on — the promise of structural surpluses. Growth. Because without growth there is no collateral for which currency is a proxy. There’s just Steve From Virginia’s First Law…. all the way down.
but we have been assured that AI will deliver everything we need
“tim anderson
@timand2037
Unconfirmed Report. Chinese intelligence report 🇨🇳 on the ouster of Syrian President 🇸🇾 Bashar al-Assad (and the dismantling of Syria).
● A report published by Chinese intelligence reveals controversial details regarding the change of power in Syria to Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani.
● The report confirms that what happened was the result of internal betrayal by senior Syrian army officials, bribed with Qatari money, who played a key role in implementing a complex international and regional plan.
● According to the report, on the night Aleppo fell, officers of the Syrian army’s central command committed a serious crime of treason by isolating Iranian consultant commander Bur Hashmi (aka “Hajj Hashim”) in a conference room.
● After isolating the Iranian commander, these officers directly contacted the Israeli Mossad, paving the way for the Free Sham Front to advance and occupy the city in just 45 minutes without any resistance.
● The spread of betrayal.
This betrayal was not limited to Aleppo; other Syrian cities were similarly surrendered. Syrian officials also sent false coordinates to Hezbollah, which trapped it and led to the destruction of a convoy of 100 vehicles belonging to Hezbollah following Israeli strikes.
● Concurrent with this event, the US Air Force targeted Iraqi Popular Militia forces near the Syrian border, in coordination with Israeli operations.
● Deceiving Bashar al-Assad.
• Despite Iranian warnings, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad remained unaware of the extent of the betrayal within his army. He was receiving false reports from his close agents, who kept him isolated and ignorant of the situation on the ground.
• As losses mounted, President Assad began to doubt the loyalty of his superiors. According to the report, the final plan was to hand him over directly to the Al-Nusrah Front (the mock Liberation Authority). Aware of the imminent danger, President Bashar al-Assad sought direct assistance from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• The report indicates that this operation was planned and executed in coordination with several international intelligence agencies: the British intelligence service (MI6) 🏴, the Israeli Mossad 🇮🇱, and the CIA🇺🇸, under the direct supervision of Turkish President 🇹🇷 Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
● The coming days could reveal more details about this complex process, which combined internal betrayals and international collusion to reshape the Syrian landscape according to the agendas of major regional powers, the Chinese report indicates.”?
https://x.com/timand2037/status/1921438500794290279
From my vicinity:
Thieves in the Považie region in western Slovakia drilled holes in the tanks of cars. For a few litres they caused hundreds of euros worth of damage
The perpetrator was caught in the act.
https://mypovazska.sme.sk/c/23489806/zlodeji-na-povazi-vrtali-diery-do-nadrzi-aut-pre-par-litrov-sposobili-skodu-za-stovky-eur.html
It is the last day and USA has capitulated to China for all practical purposes.
China won the trade war.
Being too nice to USSR and PRC led to this creisis.
You can get a lot farther with a kind word and an atom bomb, than with a kind word alone. But please stop complaining. The master race is very factional (I hope that you are part of it, because otherwise there will be absolutely nothing for you) and one faction wanted big profits and sold out the industrial base. After that it was always going to be downhill.
The difference in engineering quality between Russia-China and the US is amazing now. That is due to another faction that pushed indoctrination at various school levels. It is difficult for me to care as the master race are the most racist people I have ever met. They may identify with western civilization itself, but none of them is actually able to do anything.
Gail, do you try to track diesel production?
This is up to 2022:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Time-series-of-world-diesel-production-refinery-output-by-year-in-million-barrels-per_fig2_367441693
I guess Using conventional as a proxy is a way.
Looking at some graphs on peak oil barrel makes me think
We’re at that level now.
I am always skeptical of the JODI database. That is the source of the diesel graph in the academic paper.
JODI is a voluntary database of those countries that choose to contribute. I am not sure what is in it. Russia? Iran? How soon do countries report?
Perhaps I should look at its output and see how it compares to the consumption amounts from the Statistical Review of World Energy.
http://www.jodidb.org/TableViewer/tableView.aspx?ReportId=93904
Russia stopped reporting in 2023 post-war. Iran stopped reporting in 2018. The linked table is for crude oil production by country.
You can see why world totals are kind of a question mark from Jodi data.
Student , specially for you .
https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/an-understanding-of-italys-economic?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=571129&post_id=162174845&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=26quge&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Good lord, these academics are so dishonest I wish they could get vaxxed multiple times. They correctly identify the central role of IRI, OK. But nowhere in the paper they state that in 1992 a psyop called “Mani Pulite” was unleashed on Italy to wipe out the current political class. The political change allowed IRI, ENI and other state companies to be privatized. No prizes for guessing who bought them. Italy was at the time the fourth economy in the world. It is probably not in the top 20 now. Italians pay 50 euros for a train ride from Bologna to Rome, and those 50 euros go to London. They pay when they drive on the freeway, and then they pay when bridges collapse, because the money, instead of being used for maintenance, goes to London.
Relevant drb ,but 1992 is already 33 years in the rear view mirror . As Billary said ” What difference does it make ? ”
They then harp on on how the economy is not according to the sacred books. The hell, it was the same economy prior to 1992. Typical academic trash.
I would argue that wherever you go, industrialization and large companies have arisen in cold areas of the world. These countries were able to find coal supplies to heat their homes. As a secondary effect, these coal supplies could be used to support industry. This pattern is found in Europe, China, and the US.
The small company effect relates to limited fossil fuel supplies and a lack of need to use these fossil fuels to heat homes, in a relatively warm climate.
The Statistical Review of World Energy shows that Italy has only a small amount of oil production and very little (and declining) natural gas. It has essentially no coal. It is these fossil fuel constraints that are holding back the formation of bigger businesses and the use of more R&D.
Greece is in a similar situation. Spain also. They are not doing well either.
Of course. And of course Germany and Austria are in the same boat. But while Italy started its decline in 1992, the other countries started it in 2007-2008. It’s too late for anything now, but it never pays to be a colony of some big distant empire.
I agree with drb.
‘Many Pulite’ was a foreign action to destroy Italian politics and economy.
At that time Italian politicians still had some independence.
Many Pulite also to destroy good entrepenurs.
At that time the famous UK Royal yacht Britannia arrived close to Civitavecchia and on that ship was also Mario Draghi and Beppe Grillo.
They were among the people who offered the Country to be split and sold to the highest bidder.
From that time Italy went down.
Francesco Cossiga, flaws and all, said that Mario Draghi was a profiteer of the worst kind and about Beppe Grillo couldn’t say anything because luckily he died before looking at him in politics, at the time Beppe Grillo was only a comic of vaudeville.
Mario Draghi was the one who recently declared mandatory mRNA vaccines, in order to kill the last good Italians left above 50 years old.
He said live in television: “if an Italian person doesn’t take the vaccine, will get sick, will die and will make other people die’.
Then, about other Countries, also France and Spain have no gas and oil, but for unclear reasons France was considered a winning Country of WWII and it was allowed to have nuclear bombs.
At that time France and Spain were not comparable to Italy, but now they are ahead.
The ‘experts’ of the study say that Italy could return to the old Lira as a menace, but I personally think that it would be a good situation intead of bad, but we should have done it many years ago and maybe, better, we should have even not entered the Euro.
And this last mistake happened thanks to Mr. Mortadella (p.s. it is a kind of salami), also known as Romano Prodi, another enemy of its own Country.
https://www.investireoggi.it/draghi-e-il-caso-britannia-facciamo-chiarezza-sul-piu-grande-pregiudizio-contro-il-premier-incaricato/
and then they trot out these creeps, or the Economist, to explain how austerity will generate again strong growth. Resources is 90% of the game, and the other 10% is being a sovereign country.
Having a lot of debt seems important, at least until energy resources seem to hit extraction limits.
I completly agree Gail, but if we had kept Lira, we could have improved our debt situation a little better.
Our main mistakes were done during ’60s and ’70s.
On the contrary, giving our debt to the London stock market and have entered Euro, without in contemporary manage European bonds, it was our designed and pre-packaged death.
For example it would be like put on the international stock exchange any single debt, in Dollars, of any US State, such as California debt on its own, New York debt on its own, Washington debt on its own and so on.
In my view, it was a mistake for Italy to enter the Euro and the conversion was additionally wrong, in favour of Germany.
By the way that conversion was organized by Mr. Mortadella, the one mentioned above.
And he is still interviewed on main stream media…
This is one of the issues that will lead to the breakup of the eurozone. In fact, it will tend to lead to the breakup of large countries in general. More homogeneous countries make schools easier to teach. It represents the world, when energy supplies were lower.
Absolutely, it was a bad move for Italians that Italy adopted the euro. Had Italy kept using the Lira, the markets could have devalued it from time to time if the country was in trouble. Now they are stuck with an overvalued currency that makes them uncompetitive.
The main mistakes done in the 1960s and 1970s were after and during the Gladio operation, and amidst assassinations of relevant politicians, and with every single editorial in every single newspaper written and distributed by the CIA. Difficult to describe how shallow these economists are.