Oct 312022
 
 October 31, 2022  Posted by at 2:41 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,


VIncent van Gogh Railway carriages 1888

 

 

Frequent and longtime commenter TAE Summary makes lists from time to time of differing views on topics as these can be found on The Automatic Earth and elsewhere. Since so few people understand the topic of energy (and thermodynamics), this latest list is useful as usual.

What the media reports on energy is as much “The Science” as it is on Covid and the climate. We better start questioning everything about it, or we’ll be as wrong about it as we were about Covid. With equally damaging consequences. Or worse.

 

 

TAE Summary:

Background

– We are addicted to high energy use.

– Each first world citizen has the equivalent of scores of energy slaves.

– We spend colossal amounts of energy on useless things.

– Governments and especially militaries are fabulous energy wasters.

– People and even experts don’t understand energy.

 

 

The Green Narrative

– Radical action is required to move to renewable, sustainable energy sources to save the environment from climate change. We need to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 by shifting to renewable energy sources like hydro, solar, wind, tidal and geothermal. Electric cars are our future.

– Hydrogen can be a green energy source when it is produced from green electricity sources. Nuclear and fusion power are also carbon free and possibly parts of a green energy future. Improving technologies will help solve our energy problems.

– We need massive investments in green energy. Financial instruments like subsidies, carbon credits and green energy bonds will help us move to a renewable energy future. The world will be better off without fossil fuels.

– The price of green energy has dropped and is now competitive with fossil fuel energy. Switching to renewables will save most people money. Moving to clean energy will create millions of good paying jobs.

– By moving to green energy we have a bright future awaiting us.

 

 

The Abundance Narrative

– There is plenty of energy but its availability is blocked by those who use energy scarcity to enhance their own power. The real cause of energy insecurity is under-investment in oil and gas. Climate policy is being used as an excuse to limit energy.

– Energy Cost of Energy is a myth rolled out when energy production is blocked. There are at least 47 years of oil in known reserves in the world and that doesn’t include the trillions of barrels of recoverable shale oil in the US alone. Oil was and is continuously produced by abiotic means in the earth. We will never run out of oil.

– We need to harness all possible sources of energy including oil, gas, hydro, wind, solar, thermal and tidal energy. Nuclear and fusion power are important parts of our energy solution.

– Technology will help solve our energy problems. “Clean” energy sources abound within humanity’s grasp. By 2100, we will have quantum reactors creating zero-point energy, air-wired to your car with TeraGigaHertz transmission, and matter synthesizers as well.

– By using all available sources of energy we have a bright future awaiting us.

 

 

The Going, Going, Gone Narrative

– The easily extractable energy is mostly gone. Sane energy policies in the 60’s or 70’s could have mitigated the problems but not much can be done now. New technologies almost always end up using more energy than they produce.

– Green energy is a mirage. All so-called green energy solutions require fossil fuels as precursors and are not sustainable long term. We don’t have enough lithium, cobalt, etc. for car batteries and our electric grid won’t support charging everyone’s electric cars. People may say they want green energy but are unwilling to significantly sacrifice for it.

– Infinite growth in a finite world is not possible. We are nearing an energy cliff where there will be drastically less energy available and which will cause an economic depression that never ends. Energy scarcity will be used by those in charge to enhance their own power. We will eventually return to only having local energy from the sun at our disposal, that is, about 1% of the energy we use now. Everything will be mostly local.

– Our future is not bright. Prepare now.

 

 

 

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Home Forums A Tale of Three Narratives, Energy Edition

Viewing 37 posts - 1 through 37 (of 37 total)
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  • #119730

    VIncent van Gogh Railway carriages 1888     Frequent and longtime commenter TAE Summary makes lists from time to time of differing views on
    [See the full post at: A Tale of Three Narratives, Energy Edition]

    #119738
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    – We are addicted to high energy use.
    ________________________

    No kidding, … for example, best cars are still gas hogs, still very much sought after! An example:

    F.S.

    #119745
    John Day
    Participant

    I really appreciated this last night, TAE Summary, but fell asleep.
    I’m glad it is up as a post.
    I’ve been a going-going-goner since 1974, but it just recently got noticeable again,
    like those old Arab-Oil-Embargo days.

    #119748
    John Day
    Participant

    Japanese keijidosha, “kei-cars”, little cars get good mileage and don’t use a lot of materials.
    https://carfromjapan.com/article/industry-knowledge/kei-cars-japan/

    They have trucks and micro-vans, too.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car

    We could have this kind of thing in North America, though it would need re-engineering some for different driving conditions (more distance, heavier loads, higher speeds, though 65 mph would be healthier all around).

    #119752
    Polemos
    Participant

    I’m pretty sure Dr D was kidding about the quantum reactors creating zero-point energy wirelessly transmitted along, and the abiotic aspect was not required for the point he was making. One corollary of his argument: the very wars fought to secure unilateral access to the petrol needed to sustain the petrodollar hegemony themselves waste and burn up that energy and inevitably pollute the war-stricken environments further (I’m thinking of DoD burn pits and depleted uranium as obvious examples).

    I’m not sure any of the contemporary posters actually endorses a full-on “green” energy argument. Afewknowthetruth, so far as I’ve followed his arguments, isn’t arguing that the solutions are in wind turbines, solar panels, tidal wave dynamos or whatever, but rather arguing that corruption, personal and national and transnational, have produced our situation where the climate itself cannot cope with the effects needed to offset those changes. Thus, what must be done is something intimately imminent: a person has to take personal responsibility and tend to very local, muscularly demanding homesteading measures and not rely on the kinds of technological solutions global capitalism foists upon people —i.e., the “green” solutions that are actually manifestations of further financialization, further control, further pollution, further wastefulness, further greed.

    Many do endorse some version of the “Seneca Cliff” kind of awareness. ezxla1949, for an example but not solely, brought up the world-as-ball-filled-with-oil and linked that to (rate of the) rate of use analysis. If Dr D and ezxla1949 are both right, then a world liberated and with accessible oil reserves seems —to me— a world filled with McMansions and cheap ideas. Were humans given over to some completely exotic form of thinking, about their collective responsibilities, natures, values, and the worth of other species, even forms of life they aren’t even aware of as living at all, all that energy could go into something truly amazing —but from my own limited perspective, I’m not even sure I could conceive what from the galactic perspective is worth being amazed about it. In that sense, I’m not unaware what aspnaz was trying to get me to see about my own hubris.

    Like, what kind of conversation could we have if we did, actually, and ardently, left out all of our egos? I notice that Veracious Poet often wants to chastise the people of the West for having such eg0centric responses to the world around them, but as I’ve pointed out: isn’t it hard to practice that, authentically? Having a different perspective is not a crime. It’s not a moral failing. It’s not even wrong. It’s part of the human condition, part of being finite. If it is really true that “infinite growth” is not possible in a “finite space,” then what will we accomplish when we apply this to the very act of gathering our thoughts together and creating mechanical motions in our hands or voices motivating an interpreting computer to send corresponding data across different networked connections across time and space and culture? I get people complain about my little novellas when they want something curt, punchy, byte-sized —so the issue of efficiency and “wasting resources” arises . . . what really does insulting, mocking, humiliating, dressing-down the perspective shared alongside your own do in terms of growth in a finite space?

    When I was younger, I understood the appeal. As I’ve gotten older, I see the temptation. Looking ahead, my karma questions my choices. Beyond that, the eternal is. If love is more eternal than hatred, if it heals more than broken souls, I want that to guide me towards understanding who all these instances of beautiful divinity are alongside my own. Not everyone sees they are participating, as themselves, in God with others who are God. “Love your neighbor as your Self.” If that means reducing your consumption of fuels to amuse yourself and your wicked desires, do it. How could it mean destroying your enemies with financialized terror instruments, drone warheads, cluster munitions, microwave emitters, or very loud obnoxious mufflers on kitted cars? Maybe there is no God for them, not even themselves as gods.

    It’s a different choice to choose the subjugation and extermination of others. But it’s also one practiced by some trees, some fungi, some spiders, some ants, some &c &c. We know not what we do, do we? Ignorant, excited, others hold our beer and we jump in. Messy, bloodied, embarrassed, proven correct: karmic lessons abound. But teaching takes energy, gives struggle.

    Lurking is a lower energy state. Logging off and staying off is the lowest energy state. Nirvana, therefore, is IRL for IRL, and perfectly void.

    #119753
    Germ
    Participant

    Dr. Rochelle Walensky has the first 2, then gets 3rd and 4th (2 boosters) then the 5th (new failed 8 mice bivalent booster) & now failed REBOUND COVID Paxlovid;

    Now she wants IV drip shots ☠️☠️☠️

    Are you fucking kidding me!? https://news.yahoo.com/cdc-director-tests-positive-covid-170824519.html

    ☠️🤣☠️🤣☠️

    #119758
    maryballon
    Participant

    What the media reports on energy is as much “The Science” as it is on Covid and the climate. We better start questioning everything about it, or we’ll be as wrong about it as we were about Covid. With equally damaging consequences. Or worse.

    Now this is very frightening. “the end of oil” has been in our faces for a long long time. Many of us have trusted Richard Heinberg and Alice Friedemann for years. In all fairness, who can we turn to for information on the inexhaustible oil supply available to us now?

    #119762
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    @ Dr. John Day – We could have this kind of thing in North America
    ________________________

    Yes, … but we – collectively – don’t want any phlunkin’ Japanese small cars, … exclamation mark! The ones we do have available to us, … or had – like a Honda Fit – are gone forever from dealers lots – and are replaced by new models of 4×4 Passports and Pilots, … and more often than not, replaced by uber-Honda models of the same genus,… or $100,000+ Teslas!

    F.S., … who continues to drive his ‘10 Honda Fit Sport!

    #119767
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    The most important point got missed somehow: without energy, nothing happens.

    Another important point, frequently overlooked: none of the political-economic systems managers have any idea about energy. They tend to be as completely clueless about energy as they are about most other things except the working of rorts.. And when energy realities are pointed out to them, they brush the matters off with platitudes or anti-scientific rhetoric. Lawyers, economists, bankers, politicians, business CEOs etc. are by and large completely illiterate when it comes to energy, and if they think about it all, their thoughts focus on either paying someone else to acquire it for them or orchestrating the looting and polluting of the commons.

    We should also note that the fake GDP economic measurement system encourages the wastage of energy (and resources). And the fuckwit economists who came up with this system don’t even include energy in their formulas. As far as they are concerned, it will magically arrive whenever it is needed.

    Kunstler is a fan of the phrase ‘magical thinking’. The whole suburban nightmare and the consumer society that accompanies it was constructed on the basis of magical thinking.

    Yesterday It was made abundantly clear to me yet again that there will be no orderly transition to sane economic-financial arrangements: at the local building supply store the staff wore Chinese-made Halloween costumes. Oil, extracted at substantial energy cost, was transported to a refinery and converted into plastics, at considerable energy cost, and then transported to a factory, at considerable energy cost, and formed into ‘witches hats and capes’, and placed into one-use packaging, and transported by truck to a container terminal, and thence to a container ship and thence across seas and oceans, all at considerable energy cost. Upon arrival the container ship was unloaded, and the goods transported by road using diesel, just so that a bunch of idiotic humans could wear these items once, and then throw them into some landfill waste system which is totally dependent on diesel for its operation.

    So insane is the system, many councils banned to burning of garden refuse in gardens. For these particular fuckwits (or workers of rotrs) the ‘answer’ is to force people to put such waste into plastic bins (made from oil) for the organic waste to be transpoirted by diesel trucks to some central point, where it will be handled by diesel-powered machinery and either transported to some location for burial or if it is ‘clean and of the right size’ transported to a composting centre, by which means it can be sold back to the exporter of the said garden waste in plastic bags made from oil and transported by oil.

    After more than 30 years of fighting this kind of lunacy, I have given up and am preparing for the biggest energetic-economic-financial crash in all of history, commencing this month.

    Dan is energetically illiterate and admires energy-wasting devices. That said, he has a fairly good handle on the financial-economic crash now underway that is a consequence of deep-rooted energy illiteracy.

    #119769
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    ‘Afewknowthetruth, so far as I’ve followed his arguments, isn’t arguing that the solutions are in wind turbines, solar panels, tidal wave dynamos or whatever, but rather arguing that corruption, personal and national and transnational, have produced our situation where the climate itself cannot cope with the effects needed to offset those changes. Thus, what must be done is something intimately imminent: a person has to take personal responsibility and tend to very local, muscularly demanding homesteading measures and not rely on the kinds of technological solutions global capitalism foists upon people —i.e., the “green” solutions that are actually manifestations of further financialization, further control, further pollution, further wastefulness, further greed.’

    Yep, that’s about it.

    Just in case anyone has managed to miss it: all official narratives -hydrogen economy, green technology, carbon trading, recycling, wind turbines, biofuels, photovoltaic, nuclear reactors, blah,blah ,blah- are absolute bollocks and are predicated on someone somewhere making fiat computer digits out of ongoing catastrophe that has resulted from a combination of corruption and control by banksters going back many decades or centuries.

    I know many here don’t like to hear the word: overshoot.

    In the case of billions brought into existence and kept live in the short term via the use of once-only resources and degradtion of natural systems, the overshoot amounts to around 7 billion more than what the world sustained before the widescale use of fossil fuels.

    No wonder ‘nobody’ wants to give them up.

    Thus, in the future, it is more-or-less certain that ever more vicious fights will occur for the acquisition of fossil fuels and other resources.

    Fighting over resources is what homo sapiens do.

    Homo colossus has bigger, better weapons for fighting over resources than pre-industrial forms of homo had. All of them are predicated on fossil fuels, of course.

    #119770
    ram
    Participant

    As a Ph.D. Engineer with decades of experience in the energy industry I am certain the last narrative: “The Going, Going, Gone Narrative” is by far the closest to the truth. Some isolated places around the world may not face severe energy shortages but most will. The so called “Western Lifestyle” will collapse for sure.

    #119772
    willem
    Participant

    I have come to accept the “Going, Going, Gone” narrative for the most part. That narrative and the “Overshoot” concept doesn’t square with the wonderful green futures the technocrats are peddling, if only everyone would get behind simply building more windmills, solar panels, and battery driven vehicles.

    Anyone who can do high school math will quickly conclude that the amount of energy and material needed to deliver this wonderful green future doesn’t pencil out for the vast majority of a planet with anywhere close to 7 billion people. Even the people telling us all this do not act as if they believe it themselves.

    My working theory at this point is that they are trying to get society to build them an Ark, one for which we will not be receiving tickets ourselves.

    At least Noah built his Ark himself.

    #119775
    russellnblbs
    Participant

    The one source of optimism regarding the overshoot line is that we don’t have to save the whole world. This worry about the entirety of humanity is a strange concept when you think about it, and is a bit of a cultural obsession of the west. It leads to the Green Revolution final solution line of thinking that the western elites seem to love.

    All we have to is adapt in the place we live, or move somewhere else. If roving war bands or some other outside issue ends us well that is just how history goes, can’t do anything about it anyway and the best we can hope for is to go down fighting.

    And a benefit of the centuries of industrial production and waste is that we will have an enormous amount of stuff lying around. The amount of steel, plastic and a smorgasbord of other products that will be available for creative reuse is an opportunity that wasn’t available to those who lived before the industrial revolution.

    #119777
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Another important point, frequently overlooked: none of the political-economic systems managers have any idea about energy.

    The “energy is a weapon” viewpoint is missing. My view is that the politicians all know that energy is a weapon and it is now being used as a weapon. If you believe that oil is running out, then why do you need to impose legislation on the oil industry? That doesn’t make sense. Why not let the cost of oil rise until people start using alternatives?

    Why are the politicians voluntarily doing something so unpopular? They normally run and hide from the unpopular and promote the free gifts, letting the next occupant of the seat do the unpopular. So why do this? Because energy is being used as a weapon. What is happening now has nothing to do with how much carbon based fuel exists in the world, this is a war, an energy war.

    Energy wars have been happening for the past 50 years, but now they are stepping up the game. Energy was the reason Japan entered WW2, it is now the mechanism being used to destroy the west. The question is why do they want to destroy the west. I am still not clear on the why, but I can assure you that places like Russia, China and all the BRICS+ will be burning oil and coal for many centuries to come.

    Energy is being used to change the world, it is a tool, the AGW theory is a total distraction, there is no inherent problem with energy, otherwise you can be sure that the government would do nothing about it, as the government tends to do about all important issues: until Covid arrived and the government became the prison guard, the government was totally inept. Covid and energy are linked, what is the link?

    #119778
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Credit to IKTT who’s comment I quoted above.

    #119780
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant
    #119781
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant
    #119785
    ram
    Participant

    Actually, every major war is about energy, mostly about petroleum, starting around WWI.
    Now, fossil fuels are running out (as in those that can be extracted in an energy positive fashion). Soon even Russia and China will be having problems with shortages of fossil fuels which explains why they are rapidly developing advanced nuclear power plants. COVID19 and associated dictatorial measures are the “financial elite” trying to reduce the fossil fuel use of “the maggots” (as they call the workers) so they can continue to use their private jets, mega-yachts, exotic cars, helicopters, and private submarines. It is why they concentrated the mRNA “vax” in the USA and EU, and to a lessor extent Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. Stopped most of the cruise ships, airline flights, and reduced road traffic.

    #119787
    aspnaz
    Participant

    ram said

    COVID19 and associated dictatorial measures are the “financial elite” trying to reduce the fossil fuel use of “the maggots” (as they call the workers) so they can continue to use their private jets, mega-yachts, exotic cars, helicopters, and private submarines.

    Why would they do that? The rich are able to buy expesive fuel so they can let the price rise and they will still be able to fuel their planes while you cannot fuel your car. That is the basis of supply and demand, that is why they have private jets and super yachts and the rest of us don’t, because they can pay for them. So why would they be afraid of fuel supply reducing and the price going up? Doesn’t make sense.

    #119788
    aspnaz
    Participant

    The one group who can afford to pay for oil are the rich, they will never have a problem getting oil even if the oil has to be obtained from boutique wells where 10,000 people produce 1 gallon of raw oil which is then converted by a lab into kerosene, 1 litre per week, they can still afford it. The rich can get fleets of electric trucks to daisy chain, to ship their 100 gallons of kerosene to their private air strip, they can pay for it, the price is no object. The rich are definitely not afraid of fuel running out, if all else fails they will make it all in a lab.

    #119789
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Like AFKTT, I’m sure people notice my position is more complex. One thing I noticed from TAE Summary is perhaps these simple positions we’ve grown up with: Green vs Drill Baby have finally widened and become less simple and polar, which is a good first step. Or not, as it probably means it’s been that way so long that a whole faction has died of old age. (Classic Hippies).

    So if you wished we were all back in the 70s and only first found out we have 40-80 years of oil left: good news! We probably do now. Not then. That doesn’t mean we have 700 years of oil, or 170. I can only support that we have 40-80 years of oil, AND only at this rate, with no growth, AND only in parts of the world we don’t control well and would love to grind us.

    But like I wrote last month, rejoice! That means we have OPTIONS. It’s not the cornocopia universe of options, it’s not “Hey, let’s go to Mars” options, but it’s not “We’re all gonna die” might as well kill myself and my kids too.

    Downside: as said, realistically, historically, what they’re REALLY going to do, is take all 40 years, start a war, dump it in tanks, and burn it killing each other while you and I get zero. Liquid Hegemonic Power. BUT WE DON’T HAVE TO. That’s what I’m saying.

    Every day is TINA, There Is No Alternative. We must do as we’re told because there is no choice, no options. I say, and can prove, there are, if only WE tell THEM we ain’t gonna let them take all our oil and put it on rockets and shoot it at each other because that’s Stooooooopendously Stooooooopid. To kill 2/3rd of the world because human bad, cannibalism otherwise. But you see, if there WERE no alternative, if it really was Green or go home, then Lo! The angels came and said we could only power Teslas with WEF-owned gov’t nuke plants, then the wars that break out WOULD make sense, there WOULD be no alternative.

    But they’re lying. So don’t fall for it, take a deep breath, count your fingers and the number of wells, and recognize we aren’t out yet, we still have air speed and we CAN – if we wish – make the remaining choices and transitions. Badly, maybe, but we humans have never done anything elegantly or early yet.

    Who knows? Maybe they’re doing us a favor this way. By creating a fake urgency and a fake corner maybe we’ll finally take the real emergency and the real dead-end seriously for a change.

    #119791
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    I should point out that the fake economic system is predicated on there always being more energy available every year, especially easily-transported liquid fuels..

    That is one reason the commencement of TSHTF was September 2019.

    Some argue that everything since September 2019 relates to the totalitarian fascists attempting to keep the masses from recognising that ‘the ship is going under’.

    Others argue that the totalitarian fascists don’t have the intelligence or skills to implement such a plan, and are just doing what they have always done, and floundering.

    By the way, the International Energy Agency was infamous from including ‘yet to be discovered oil’ in their rosy projections for the future. That despite the clear evidence the peak of discovery was many decades ago (1962 from memory) and has been declining every year.

    The weirdest of things: last night I dreamed I met Elon Musk and he gave me his personal contact details, printed on a semi-opaque gold plastic card because he wanted to do some projects with me.

    Must’ve been seeing his face too often on the ‘net lately 🙂
    .

    #119792
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Maybe the energy war has something to do with Roadmap 2030 as mentioned in Modi’s tweet which shows that India is not a representative democracy, it is an aristocracy doing as it wishes with the largest rich-poor divide in the world:

    Warmest congratulations @RishiSunak! As you become UK PM, I look forward to working closely together on global issues, and implementing Roadmap 2030. Special Diwali wishes to the ‘living bridge’ of UK Indians, as we transform our historic ties into a modern partnership

    If India is in bed with Roadmap 2030, where does that put the BRICS+? Is China also going to implement Roadmap 2030? What about Russia, are they just playing their part in implementing Roadmap 2030, Russia’s role being the bad guy in the theatre of destroying Europe’s industrial base?

    Is the Ukraine war an excuse to convert the world to electricity, to rid the world of distributed energy sources and force everybody onto a central grid where they can be controlled? No Covid vaccine, no electricity? Meantime, the rich will be filling their luxury vehicles (yachts, planes) with oil that is only licensed to be provided to large corporations.

    The aim is not to help us or the planet, they have never done that in the past and they are not going to start now.

    #119793
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    This very good (except for the last few seconds showing a technological city of the future)

    #119794
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    This very good (except for the last few seconds showing a technological city of the future)

    #119799
    WES
    Participant

    Here in Canada, Trudeau has subjected us all to a carbon tax on our natural gas and oil.

    Guess what he used the tax revenue for?

    Trudeau bought himself a new big fancy Airbus plane as the Canadian Challenger plane was too small for him.

    #119800
    aspnaz
    Participant

    WES said

    Trudeau bought himself a new big fancy Airbus plane as the Canadian Challenger plane was too small for him.

    Obviously he is not concerned that his supply of kerosene is running out. Carbon tax mimics a supply shortage that rraises the price of oil, but as there is no supply shortage, a carbon tax will be used instead. As the tax squeezes the poor, they will gradually reduce their carbon usage while the rich really don’t care as they have loads of cash and anyway, they regularly get new government contracts to refund the money.

    No shortage of fuel for the rich, the poor will have to beg to even to power a light bulb. The making of a faux luxury good, energy, in the name of enslaving the people. Starve them of energy, make them obey.

    #119801
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Will Alberta’s new anti-WEF Premier start a new trend of politicians trying to prove that they are not owned by the globalists energy controllers? … https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/albertas-new-premier-under-attack-refusing-associate-wef

    #119802
    aspnaz
    Participant

    IKTT said

    This very good (except for the last few seconds showing a technological city of the future)

    Featuring:
    – A person apologising to the earth for destruction of nature.
    – A recyclable future with bicycles, obviously not made of steel.
    – A recyclable future with non-recyclable windmills.
    – A recyclable future with glass and steel highrise buildings (carbon is needed for highrise).
    – A planned transition is best … the energy war is the planned transition.
    – etc

    The usual weak minded story that caters to the sack cloth and ashes crowd where development is something to feel guilty about: yes, they even apologise to the earth, that weak minded. Made by the “everything is terrible” crowd and their “humans are terrible” allies. Rather than telling us that everything is shit, maybe tackle one issue at a time, propose a working solution in depth … not the sort of solution the governments have implemented, such as the unrecyclable windmills are not a solution to anything, not even to coal running out, and which require carbon based steel.

    By all means propose a new system to be adopted in the future, but maybe you will forgive us for asking about the details. For example, the video talks about managing the population, so how will it do that? Starve them due to a lack of food without fertilizer or deliberately cull them? What does “managing the population” mean?

    Weak minded trash.

    #119803
    oxymoron
    Participant

    russellnblbs
    I agree with your sentiments and have a diy doomstead mentality with a reduction over time of surplus sanctimoniousness

    #119804

    I want to live where you live- where milk and honey flow.
    I get the whole conundrum- you think that I don’t know
    That in the end, too many will snuff the dazzling flame-
    That’s why I’m here this instant: I’m here to stake my claim.

    #119805

    Is it love we seek, or acceptance?
    When we seek love, isn’t it better to love first and hope to be loved in kind?
    And when we love and do not hide ourselves as we love, can we be content with being accepted?
    Love may come, eventually, like fog: on little cat’s feet.
    In that awakened moment, you both find yourselves purring.

    #119807
    Polemos
    Participant

    russellnblbs, your comment reminds me of something I read in a Heinlein story, where the character compared the Romans having no use for oil and treated it like trash but the people of the 20th C did have one and treated it as treasure —so the middens and landfills of today will become the mines and lodes of the future.

    But then, in my mind, it will be more of a Peter Beagle kind of future (where “men are fairy tales in books written by rabbits”) where synthetic organisms genedriven with sequences from Pseudomonas and Pestalotiopsis build their chthonopolises in the vast fields of mudge gunk underground while colonies of Kineococcus radiotolerans bask in irradiated pools steaming beneath miles of glacial ice and talk about the Manganesian Age of their culture.

    aspnaz, maybe there are rich who take advantage of other rich (the [not-so] secret wars of old family lines versus ruthless self-made geniuses) and there are wealthy who have incorporated magic (“highly advanced technology”) in their gaming strategies, and so some play out their interests in ways that don’t seem obvious to us. Relying on money alone, people get squeezed no matter how much or how quickly they convert promises into cash, and so collapse events catch them up as much as they do collectives (e.g. a regional “middle class”). Layers of disposable people, just as there are layers of disposable consumables, even disposable identities for those who live longer than “normal”.

    Point being: “they” are not all one group wanting to share within the group. Bernie Madoff shows this, right? So even if some one gets that liter of kerosene, there’s no guarantee that this one or that one is the one. FOMO afflicts many classes and clades, and I take it the most powerful and effective propaganda and psychological operations and their countermeasures aren’t waged against the middle majorities and the poor, but among the rich, the wealthy, and the nobility.

    I agree with what you’re stressing about the Trudeaus or the Pelosis who jet about to knockabout and talkabout without fear of running out. It’s a problem with nation-states and people who think they represent them. I also think —but it’s my anarchy talking through me now— that national sovereignty is dying this century, because of what you’re talking about. What follows, the deluge.

    #119817
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Polemos said

    so the middens and landfills of today will become the mines and lodes of the future.

    Totally agree with this although it will take some technological progress before we are in a position to take advantage.

    Point being: “they” are not all one group wanting to share within the group.

    Could not agree more. We have the Biden mob trying to destroy Europe (the WEF agenda), using energy starvation to do the job. We have the bankers who massively benefit from the middle classes, so I cannot believe they support the impoverishment of the majority. We have the rich families, most of whom have survived for over a century, many are based in Europe, they are unlikely to kick off or support something as radical as the destruction of Europe. Because I cannot see a clear strategy, I assume that what is happening is a mixture of many groups fearing the worst so trying to smash and grab.

    I also think that Russia and Europe would genuinely work together if not for the USA. NordStream 2 was a massive investment with money from Europe and Russia. You do not do that sort of thing if you plan to destroy Europe. That is my main reason for believing that Putin is not secretly controlled by WEF: Putin has a lot of personal wealth in GasProm.

    I also think —but it’s my anarchy talking through me now— that national sovereignty is dying this century

    I think they (assume globalists) are trying to destroy national sovereignty and will continue to do so. I am sure that foreign adversaries see immigration as a huge western weakness and are probably helping to fund the corridors that migrants are using. That said, I do not agree with the conclusion of your statement. Nation states will not die. Why? Because Russia is hugely nationalistic, India is hugely nationalistic, China is hugely nationalistic and they will control the world post US empire.

    #119842
    Polemos
    Participant

    But I’m saying it’s not We who take advantage but the microbes and rhizomes left behind from attempts to remedy the problem. It’s a long time between here and getting gobbled up by the aging Sun, and I am not convinced humans are going to make it (life, biotic or mechanic, always will).

    Does it change your calculations about “doing that sort of thing” that one of the four lines survived the blasts? Monty Hall liked to narrow down the choices to drum up drama; salespeople like to create a scarcity to generate a premium; ruthless people will wipe out their own crew just to make sure they have their hostage’s attention (Gus Fring slits Victor’s throat in Season 4 to prevent Walt and Jesse from retaining control while also eliminating Victor as a liability to the entire operation). Hope is a dangerous weapon left in the minds of the people whom you wish to control, for some folks…

    Well, if the Seneca Cliff folks are right, the dwindling energy supplies will make it difficult to maintain centralized nation-states of such sizes (population and land mass) as R, I, & C. Maybe that’s part of the opportunity a very forward-looking Dr. D is talking about: the vacuum is an opportunity to expand into one’s local space, and many local spaces means many different ways to try out communities.

    #119877
    Yirgach
    Participant

    Accept the fact that after 200 years of doom and gloom, the Malthusians, the Erlichs and the Gretas missed one very important ingredient in the energy mix: Human Ingenuity.

    Without that we wouldn’t be here.
    With that we will continue to be here for a very long time.

    #119913
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Polemos said

    Well, if the Seneca Cliff folks are right, the dwindling energy supplies will make it difficult to maintain centralized nation-states of such sizes (population and land mass) as R, I, & C.

    Doubt it, those countries have survived for a very long time, through all sorts of tribulations. Bardi’s theory is simplistic, neither the world or humanity operate in a linear fashion, they respond to huge numbers of multi-dimensional oscillatory trends, causing decline and regrowth but very rarely collapse.

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