It’s cute to believe that two things can be simultaneously true - that Iran is ruled by the clique of hardcore religious fanatics and that they do not follow fatwa from Khamenei outlawing development of nuclear weapons. West observed development for 35 years, did inspections and found nothing. It’s cute to think that you, in your basement, have better insights.
You’re taking about practice of concealing beliefs (e.g. when being Shia in Sunni land) and extending it to working against well known proclamation from local religious authority. A big stretch.
Thorium have the same problem as every other nuclear energy source: it needs diesel to be mined in sufficient quantities for it to be useful. No diesel no nuclear energy, whether it's thorium, uranium, plutonium or even hydrogen fusion (most hydrogen comes from hydrocarbon and not hydrolysis since the latter need an immense amount of energy which makes the process even more expensive).
Well, from what I recall from an IEEE article 20 years ago, is that thorium's problem is that it is TOO stable, and then too unstable once the threshold is reached.
Which is presumably what the Chinese are working on.
As for the need for diesel, sure that's true, but the idea that the hydrocarbons will just 'disappear' one day is entirely false. It will still be there to be dug and processed - it's just it will cost more energy to do so than would be economically viable, and then EROEI cuts in a bit later to make the process an exercise in futile stupidity.
HOWEVER, should such a fuel source be required in order to fuel a more efficient and survivable thorium system - assuming that is even possible, naturally - then obviously running a loss-leader is not out of the question. Well, it might be in the US, where everything is now corporate 'market-driven' to batshit levels, but state-managed systems can easily ignore such short-term costs for long term gains.
I was wondering what HS thought regarding the viability of the current thorium research tbh.
Ah, that's a more nuanced take that what was originally understood. Not bad.
I don't know what HS thinks, but the way I see it, thorium as an energy source doesn't change the underlying issue that got us to this point in the first place, whether it is economically viable or not, we will find ourselves, as humans, in the same predicament within 2 to 3 generations.
It is the over reliance on a finite source of energy for an ever expanding need that is the issue here, not the source itself.
Again, from what I recall from that long ago article, thorium is actually quite plentiful, and nowhere near as ecologically disastrous as uranium. (This is from memory, mind).
Kicking the can down the road a few decades is not to be sniffed at, when the alternative is global carnage while armed to the teeth with WMDs.
Of course ULTIMATELY the human apes will have to reduce their numbers drastically, and accept a more harmonious relationship with Mother Nature, cut out the consumerism, and 'live within our ecological means' - and if done well would radically improve human happiness and life satisfaction (We could get most of the way there already by the large scale use of guillotines, imposition of forced coops, credit unions taking over from banks, cutting out of 'Bullshit Jobs', and enjoying 25hr weeks with a similar SoL as we have now), but there's no harm in exploring ways to extend that period of adjustment.
Thank you for this. IMHO, the day the USraeli billionaires' empire collapses—this grotesque global machine of mass murder, plunder, terror, subjugation and propaganda lies —will be the day humanity finally breathes a sigh of relief. The empire that thrives on division, stoking nonstop religious-national hatred to pit the 99% against each other, bullying the have-nots into submission, and disguising its greed and control as 'national interests' or 'moral piety. It’s an anti-life regime, built on theft and abuse, and its downfall can’t come soon enough. When it finally falls, we’ll breathe free for the first time in many many decades.
As the zionist billionaires' Nazi colony moves to exterminate the indigious people from palestine (because they didn't have the superior religious label "jew" placed upon them at birth, and don't have running through their veins the superior "jewish blood", as the nazi zionists murderers call it), israeli soldiers have now received orders to deliberately shoot indigious children in the penis first and head second, to ensure that they will not be able to have children, in order to eliminate the existence of inferior non-jews from palestine and secure the domination of the zionist nazis over the land they invaded, stole through massacre and rape, and colonized. See the testimony of an american nurse who saw first hand the zionist nazis shooting the indigenous children in the penis https://www.mintpressnews.com/gaza-hospitals-nurse-testimony-shooting-boys-genocide/289919/
In addition, I found this to be a very good breakdown of the aims of the american/israeli billionaires' attack on iran, including their regime change operation, 30 years in the making, their imperialist aims and including the larger contex of their coming planned attack on china down the line https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/06/20/eqoq-j20.html
PS. And on the exact same day as the zionists attacked in iran, the world's wealthiest billionaires, presidents, prime ministers, zionist arms dealers, monarchs, NATO heads, CEOs of AI surveillance corporations, zionist arms dealers, trump admin representitives, and military generals were all meeting in Stockholm for their annual secretive bilderberg meeting to decide how best to control humanity, how to best murder human beings while enriching thenselves. See here a full description of what these scum of the earth were talking about https://21stcenturywire.com/2025/06/20/review-of-bilderberg-2025-ai-drones-technocracy-and-the-transatlantic-alliance/
There’s no replacement for the West and it truly is indispensable as far as global industrial civilization is concerned. The other hegemon alternative, which is China, is on shaky ground and in far more dire straits than the West. If what were happening in China right now was happening in the U.S., then the U.S. financial, economic, and political system wouldn’t be able to last for much longer than a month. Even in a multipolar world order, Russia, China, and India are not enough to solely unify and support it and the internal circulation and consumption is nowhere near enough.
The West (and its OECD nations) still holds an indispensable position because of its lack of an existential rival or replacement; its pre-existing infrastructure; greater demand for complex goods; large multinational corporations and their holdings; a more solid and older belief system; a more just rule of law; and deeper financial and political interconnectedness.
The Western super-organism will most definitely die from suicide rather than murder since shale oil and gas, excessive debt and money printing, and failed geopolitical/resource wars will implode it within a decade. I’m not sure how the West would collectively pull itself out of its next financial collapse. The U.S. has debt, unemployment, business closure, inflation, speculatory asset prices, and energy use all at an all time high. The longer this continues, the more impossible it becomes to internally restructure anything that doesn’t lead to a depression or societal collapse. Limits to growth will cause all this fictitious economic data, financial tomfoolery, and the current energy holiday from the shales to smash into the brick wall of reality eventually.
There’s too many zombie companies, fake and redundant jobs, impoverished youth, worthless asset speculation, extremely indebted consumers, and impossible to realize liabilities in all Western nations. Even new innovation or investment into technology currently yields nothing after decades of diminishing returns. There’s no appreciable economic mineral deposits left remaining either. Manufacturing has long been forgotten and or priced out of competitiveness. All money printing being done now is to just paper up old losses while continuing to add newer liabilities. Debt is now moreso being used to keep people fed and barely sheltered, let alone driving any real consumerism or actual investment anymore. I just don’t know what’s savageable from the U.S. or from Western Europe’s ashes to bring forth into a new multipolar world order. Maybe that’s why they’re trying to set the Middle East ablaze and rule over their ashes and trying so hard to turn Russia into ashes as well.
Whereas China’s population will be too old in a decade to rebel and the hapless youth so immiserated to find any work or meaning in life. All Xi just has to do is to keep the lights on and the food flowing during this ongoing new phase of the Great Leap Backward, with hundreds of millions of former middle class Chinese stepping back into poverty, unemployment, and now heavily debt stricken. China isn’t threatening enough to be turned into ashes, it’s already a burning paper tiger.
We are all watching to see if the dying flames of U.S. imperialism succeed in squashing and or blackmailing other competitive nations to put off the final Western collapse or its systematic implosion off for longer. But even a losing 800 to kill 1000 strategy won’t buy much time and entails too much volatility. All Empires need to grow at all costs or risk implosion and the Middle East is the only viable play left on the board, especially since China and Russia (or the BRICS) don’t seem immediately interested in militarily leaving their turtle shells to topple globalization and reshape it to their “ideal world” blueprint anytime soon. The West is also strangling them and keeping them occupied with one internal or external crisis after another. Also, the Iranians already have nuclear weapons, they demonstrated several underground nuclear detonations just last year. Whether they’re precisely using the nuclear reactors meant for electricity for these purposes is something the IAEA says they are not.
"the Iranians already have nuclear weapons, they demonstrated several underground nuclear detonations just last year"
I liked your comment overall, but this assertion about Iranian nukes is something I think I would have heard about, if true. Perhaps you mean something other than a nuclear bomb test by "nuclear detonations", but a "dirty bomb" test, for example, is unneccessary, particularly an underground test.
If Iran already has deliverable nuclear weapons, the Israeli's have taken a big chance in attacking. I'm sure they don't believe that Iran has any.
Thank you again for a brilliant discription of the causes and effects of the world's unfolding in the next year or decade. The nearer in time of your review the dimmer the view of the unfolding in 2040 and beyond.
You did lightly touch on these future conditions, that is living groups might be smaller, scattered, disconnected, and lower tech. You imagined that not having diesel would seriously hamper trade. You commented that resulting geological production declines would happer production of food, goods, and services.
Let me suggest you might be understating your forecasts out to the year 2100. The present 8 billion people living today and the potential 8 billion that might be born during the next 80 years (16 billion total) if or when their lives depend only on wood energy deliveries, will mostly die from starvation or fighting over food.
Let me suggest the behavior that avoids this tragedy has little to do with rehabilitating our cultural institutions. It will require stronger more distasteful more fast acting medicine to cure our sick existence.
Here is a peek at the medicine I think is the first step toward creating a viable civilization. The peek is in the form of a YouTube video from Stanford Knowledge Integration Lab. www.skil.org.
This url contains a pointer to an ever improving version of that video.
Civilization's Predicament and its unwinding behavior
If by "viable civilization" you mean "sustainable civilization" then you are referring to the impossible. When any lifestyle consumes non-renewable resources, or renewable resources beyond their renewal rates, it is unsustainable. It also needs to avoid damaging the environment it relies on beyond that environment's capability to assimilate that damage. A civilisation must violate sustainability criteria and so can not be sustainable.
Hi Mike, you are correct in your statements. I do not mean sustainable for the reasons you outline. The word sustainable has so many conflicting meanings I try not to use it. Viable civilization is one that does nor create injury. Or at least termination injury. Here is a more robust definition of a non injury producing civilization.
I have previously watched that video and it doesn't convince me. You've engaged with a commenter named Hideaway on the un-denial.com blog, who has often raised many issues with your plan. I'd concur with all of them but there are a couple of things that I'm not sure Hideaway raised. Firstly is the reliance on some unknown future technology to come to the rescue as dams silt up (or fail, which I don't think you mentioned) and secondly is the need for some kind of global dictator with an iron fist to ensure your plan is implemented, plus some unidentified viral and anti-viral technology to ensure population numbers stay steady.
As you seem to have acknowledged that any way of life that consumes non-renewable resources is unsustainable, the world would have to go through all of this again anyway. In this case, it's a completely futile endeavour that would serve only to mean a few more people can live a convenient comfortable life filled with cool technology for a little while longer.
I'm not sure what that last line is (maybe something missing?) but are you suggesting that you have an answer to my and Hideaway's criticisms?
For myself, though I can also see lots of problems with your ideas, I just don't see that there is any chance of them being implemented. None. Even if I thought your plan was workable and desirable, I know it stands no chance of being implemented. So a face to face to discuss it seems like it wouldn't be the best use of our time.
Given that modernity itself is unsustainable, it seems a futile effort to keep some segments of modernity going in isolated regions, for a while longer. It ultimately has no future.
Morals are personal. It's impossible to accuse some party of being bereft of morals (well, not impossible but inaccurate) simply because their judgement of right or wrong is not the same as yours.
Right, there is nothing objective about morals. And I think everyone knows right from wrong (perhaps apart from some with certain brain disorders or damage) but those rights and wrongs may not be the same as for you or I. So I doubt anyone is bereft of morals, but may be bereft of the same morals as you or I.
They have a grand high moon Pope, possibly the resurrected corpse of Osama, who commands the Muslamic hivemind via electrical impulses to smite all the poor innocent freedom-lovers around the world; the only way to secure liberty and peace for all is to ensure all the mud people are reduced to smoking rubble by peaceful and tolerant 1000 Ib bombs (/s, but this is what these people actually think)
Hum… I do agree with you regarding the Western economy's bleak perspectives and predicaments.
But still, I have 2 short comments on the recent events in Iran.
First, regardless of Israeli current government shenanigans and its timing for the attack on Iranian soil, I'm surprise that you could take Iranian religious doctrine forbidding the development of nuclear weapons as face value. I reckon it is hard to say how long it could take the Iranian regime to build bombs. One week, two weeks, a couple of years. Who knows ? But I do believe that it has a nuclear military program, not only a civilian one. Beside, Iranian officials said several time that they would nuke Israel as soon as they can do it. A direct threat no other country ever issued. Not even North Korea.
Second, I believe that US/Western elites are divided in factions. Some of them want the war the way they did in Ukraine. But some of them don't. And Trump is trying to navigate this land-mined political landscape the best he can. At this point, we can only hope that last night bombings will be enough and a 'less wary' faction in Iran might prevail soon...
Actually, I even wonder if there weren't a deal between Trump and Putin : in exchange of US help reduced to a minimum in Ukraine (because, for political reasons, both national and international, it was not possible to stop it entirely), Russia (having not so much to gain with an nuclear neighbour on its Caucasus border anyway) will only grant minimal support to Iran while Israel and the US will (try to) sort out the nuclear issue over there...
"Iranian officials said several time that they would nuke Israel as soon as they can do it" don't eat cheap propaganda...they are not dumb and are very aware that's mutual self destruction, I know you think of them as blind mega crazy people like western media want to portrait so we can't trust they won't suicide, but even crazyest people like Trump and Kim Jong-un are aware that once you hit that button...life end for both sides.
West know that nuclear weapons are the ultimate self defence stance, and wan't to avoid that in Iran...so they can keep invading half the world as usual.
And BTW there's no chance of a deal between Putin and Trump regarding Ukraine and Iran...the entire world already know that no one keeps their promises (as Sorcerer say: Minks I, Misk II...) sorry but that's a very naive lecture of the current events, as long as one side has bullets and bodies to throw in the butchering will continue.
This is a powerful and deeply sobering analysis that cuts to the heart of the current geopolitical and economic crisis facing the West. It underscores how Western elites, driven by unipolar dominance rather than genuine diplomacy or peace, have eroded international trust through broken treaties, proxy conflicts, and economic self-interest.
Long ago, about 50 years, I wrote a a fairly simple computer program projecting when needs would start to outstrip resources...The model predicted 2014...That wasn't too far off, and it's when the West began preparing the Ukraine War in earnest, after a Rand paper about breaking Russia into 5 separate, and weak, countries....
Sure, the Iranian regime is a bunch of choirboys, only dabbling with uranium enrichment for civilian purpose (wink), whereas Israel and the USA are crafty villains, hellbent on destroying everything that is good and wholesome.
Now more seriously, the fact you believe the Shiites’ alleged doctrine of shunning nuclear weapons is merely another proof of your naïveté. Deceiving and lulling your enemies is a lifelong principle of any god-loving Muslim, established by Muhammad and practiced by his disciples every time they find themselves in disadvantage.
Otherwise, I truly enjoy reading your more technical essays, to do with resource depletion and the futility of any attempt to substitute them with “renewables”; your views on the social processes we are living through are also spot-on, although they reveal nothing new—most of us are well aware; but the rest of your writing is a big meh…
No sane person believes that the Iranian government are "choirboys". *All* governments are "crafty villians" to some degree - does that mean they should all be bombed?
If one looks at the history of the USA (especially the CIA) it's steeped in 'regime change' all over the place, notably (and notoriously) Latin America, where democratic governments were overthrown by murderous, CIA-backed regimes that executed political opponents, union leaders etc - but implemented USA-friendly policies.
The Israeli *regime* are committing mass murder on the Palestinians, using weapons etc supplied by their criminal pals in other parts of the crumbling Empire, including the USA. Not content with that, they started bombing Iran??? Wtf? How was that a good idea? And Israel actually *have* nuclear weapons - although they are not supposed to.
It all reminds me of the rhetoric around Iraq, that they had WMD (that didn't actually exist). Now Iran 'might have' hidden their uranium...
This is exactly what I think. That's why I never agreed with liberals. They act like nothing bad ever happened in the US before 2016 until that mean, dirty man Trump came along... when in reality we've been going to war, overthrowing democratically elected governments, spying on people (including US citizens), since 1945. The interests of maintaining and expanding an empire, versus the interests of what's doing best for your country as an elected leader, are two completely different, opposed agendas. A guy like Trump (or Biden) is just a symptom of a completely fractured, dying political culture where none of the institutions function the way they're supposed to. These people are not THE CAUSE of our problems, but the product of a system which has gone haywire.
It’s cute to believe that two things can be simultaneously true - that Iran is ruled by the clique of hardcore religious fanatics and that they do not follow fatwa from Khamenei outlawing development of nuclear weapons. West observed development for 35 years, did inspections and found nothing. It’s cute to think that you, in your basement, have better insights.
World is a lot more complex than high school cafeteria drama you’re imaging.
Have you ever heard about taqiyya and its importance in the Shia context ?
That could easily solve this apparent religious paradox...
You’re taking about practice of concealing beliefs (e.g. when being Shia in Sunni land) and extending it to working against well known proclamation from local religious authority. A big stretch.
Proclamation to the unbelievers so what ?...
Is that what you think fatwas are?
Can taqiyya override fatwa ? Honestly, I don't know. Perhaps scholars can discuss it in Qom or elsewhere.
But as you see a paradox, I just give you a possible explanation.
Do you totally rule out thorium reactor innovations, HS? As well as fusion?
Thorium have the same problem as every other nuclear energy source: it needs diesel to be mined in sufficient quantities for it to be useful. No diesel no nuclear energy, whether it's thorium, uranium, plutonium or even hydrogen fusion (most hydrogen comes from hydrocarbon and not hydrolysis since the latter need an immense amount of energy which makes the process even more expensive).
Well, from what I recall from an IEEE article 20 years ago, is that thorium's problem is that it is TOO stable, and then too unstable once the threshold is reached.
Which is presumably what the Chinese are working on.
As for the need for diesel, sure that's true, but the idea that the hydrocarbons will just 'disappear' one day is entirely false. It will still be there to be dug and processed - it's just it will cost more energy to do so than would be economically viable, and then EROEI cuts in a bit later to make the process an exercise in futile stupidity.
HOWEVER, should such a fuel source be required in order to fuel a more efficient and survivable thorium system - assuming that is even possible, naturally - then obviously running a loss-leader is not out of the question. Well, it might be in the US, where everything is now corporate 'market-driven' to batshit levels, but state-managed systems can easily ignore such short-term costs for long term gains.
I was wondering what HS thought regarding the viability of the current thorium research tbh.
Ah, that's a more nuanced take that what was originally understood. Not bad.
I don't know what HS thinks, but the way I see it, thorium as an energy source doesn't change the underlying issue that got us to this point in the first place, whether it is economically viable or not, we will find ourselves, as humans, in the same predicament within 2 to 3 generations.
It is the over reliance on a finite source of energy for an ever expanding need that is the issue here, not the source itself.
Again, from what I recall from that long ago article, thorium is actually quite plentiful, and nowhere near as ecologically disastrous as uranium. (This is from memory, mind).
Kicking the can down the road a few decades is not to be sniffed at, when the alternative is global carnage while armed to the teeth with WMDs.
Of course ULTIMATELY the human apes will have to reduce their numbers drastically, and accept a more harmonious relationship with Mother Nature, cut out the consumerism, and 'live within our ecological means' - and if done well would radically improve human happiness and life satisfaction (We could get most of the way there already by the large scale use of guillotines, imposition of forced coops, credit unions taking over from banks, cutting out of 'Bullshit Jobs', and enjoying 25hr weeks with a similar SoL as we have now), but there's no harm in exploring ways to extend that period of adjustment.
" more tougher" - it's either "more tough" or "tougher".
Thank you for this. IMHO, the day the USraeli billionaires' empire collapses—this grotesque global machine of mass murder, plunder, terror, subjugation and propaganda lies —will be the day humanity finally breathes a sigh of relief. The empire that thrives on division, stoking nonstop religious-national hatred to pit the 99% against each other, bullying the have-nots into submission, and disguising its greed and control as 'national interests' or 'moral piety. It’s an anti-life regime, built on theft and abuse, and its downfall can’t come soon enough. When it finally falls, we’ll breathe free for the first time in many many decades.
As the zionist billionaires' Nazi colony moves to exterminate the indigious people from palestine (because they didn't have the superior religious label "jew" placed upon them at birth, and don't have running through their veins the superior "jewish blood", as the nazi zionists murderers call it), israeli soldiers have now received orders to deliberately shoot indigious children in the penis first and head second, to ensure that they will not be able to have children, in order to eliminate the existence of inferior non-jews from palestine and secure the domination of the zionist nazis over the land they invaded, stole through massacre and rape, and colonized. See the testimony of an american nurse who saw first hand the zionist nazis shooting the indigenous children in the penis https://www.mintpressnews.com/gaza-hospitals-nurse-testimony-shooting-boys-genocide/289919/
In addition, I found this to be a very good breakdown of the aims of the american/israeli billionaires' attack on iran, including their regime change operation, 30 years in the making, their imperialist aims and including the larger contex of their coming planned attack on china down the line https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/06/20/eqoq-j20.html
PS. And on the exact same day as the zionists attacked in iran, the world's wealthiest billionaires, presidents, prime ministers, zionist arms dealers, monarchs, NATO heads, CEOs of AI surveillance corporations, zionist arms dealers, trump admin representitives, and military generals were all meeting in Stockholm for their annual secretive bilderberg meeting to decide how best to control humanity, how to best murder human beings while enriching thenselves. See here a full description of what these scum of the earth were talking about https://21stcenturywire.com/2025/06/20/review-of-bilderberg-2025-ai-drones-technocracy-and-the-transatlantic-alliance/
There’s no replacement for the West and it truly is indispensable as far as global industrial civilization is concerned. The other hegemon alternative, which is China, is on shaky ground and in far more dire straits than the West. If what were happening in China right now was happening in the U.S., then the U.S. financial, economic, and political system wouldn’t be able to last for much longer than a month. Even in a multipolar world order, Russia, China, and India are not enough to solely unify and support it and the internal circulation and consumption is nowhere near enough.
The West (and its OECD nations) still holds an indispensable position because of its lack of an existential rival or replacement; its pre-existing infrastructure; greater demand for complex goods; large multinational corporations and their holdings; a more solid and older belief system; a more just rule of law; and deeper financial and political interconnectedness.
The Western super-organism will most definitely die from suicide rather than murder since shale oil and gas, excessive debt and money printing, and failed geopolitical/resource wars will implode it within a decade. I’m not sure how the West would collectively pull itself out of its next financial collapse. The U.S. has debt, unemployment, business closure, inflation, speculatory asset prices, and energy use all at an all time high. The longer this continues, the more impossible it becomes to internally restructure anything that doesn’t lead to a depression or societal collapse. Limits to growth will cause all this fictitious economic data, financial tomfoolery, and the current energy holiday from the shales to smash into the brick wall of reality eventually.
There’s too many zombie companies, fake and redundant jobs, impoverished youth, worthless asset speculation, extremely indebted consumers, and impossible to realize liabilities in all Western nations. Even new innovation or investment into technology currently yields nothing after decades of diminishing returns. There’s no appreciable economic mineral deposits left remaining either. Manufacturing has long been forgotten and or priced out of competitiveness. All money printing being done now is to just paper up old losses while continuing to add newer liabilities. Debt is now moreso being used to keep people fed and barely sheltered, let alone driving any real consumerism or actual investment anymore. I just don’t know what’s savageable from the U.S. or from Western Europe’s ashes to bring forth into a new multipolar world order. Maybe that’s why they’re trying to set the Middle East ablaze and rule over their ashes and trying so hard to turn Russia into ashes as well.
Whereas China’s population will be too old in a decade to rebel and the hapless youth so immiserated to find any work or meaning in life. All Xi just has to do is to keep the lights on and the food flowing during this ongoing new phase of the Great Leap Backward, with hundreds of millions of former middle class Chinese stepping back into poverty, unemployment, and now heavily debt stricken. China isn’t threatening enough to be turned into ashes, it’s already a burning paper tiger.
We are all watching to see if the dying flames of U.S. imperialism succeed in squashing and or blackmailing other competitive nations to put off the final Western collapse or its systematic implosion off for longer. But even a losing 800 to kill 1000 strategy won’t buy much time and entails too much volatility. All Empires need to grow at all costs or risk implosion and the Middle East is the only viable play left on the board, especially since China and Russia (or the BRICS) don’t seem immediately interested in militarily leaving their turtle shells to topple globalization and reshape it to their “ideal world” blueprint anytime soon. The West is also strangling them and keeping them occupied with one internal or external crisis after another. Also, the Iranians already have nuclear weapons, they demonstrated several underground nuclear detonations just last year. Whether they’re precisely using the nuclear reactors meant for electricity for these purposes is something the IAEA says they are not.
"the Iranians already have nuclear weapons, they demonstrated several underground nuclear detonations just last year"
I liked your comment overall, but this assertion about Iranian nukes is something I think I would have heard about, if true. Perhaps you mean something other than a nuclear bomb test by "nuclear detonations", but a "dirty bomb" test, for example, is unneccessary, particularly an underground test.
If Iran already has deliverable nuclear weapons, the Israeli's have taken a big chance in attacking. I'm sure they don't believe that Iran has any.
Thank you again for a brilliant discription of the causes and effects of the world's unfolding in the next year or decade. The nearer in time of your review the dimmer the view of the unfolding in 2040 and beyond.
You did lightly touch on these future conditions, that is living groups might be smaller, scattered, disconnected, and lower tech. You imagined that not having diesel would seriously hamper trade. You commented that resulting geological production declines would happer production of food, goods, and services.
Let me suggest you might be understating your forecasts out to the year 2100. The present 8 billion people living today and the potential 8 billion that might be born during the next 80 years (16 billion total) if or when their lives depend only on wood energy deliveries, will mostly die from starvation or fighting over food.
Let me suggest the behavior that avoids this tragedy has little to do with rehabilitating our cultural institutions. It will require stronger more distasteful more fast acting medicine to cure our sick existence.
Here is a peek at the medicine I think is the first step toward creating a viable civilization. The peek is in the form of a YouTube video from Stanford Knowledge Integration Lab. www.skil.org.
This url contains a pointer to an ever improving version of that video.
Civilization's Predicament and its unwinding behavior
https://lite.evernote.com/note/ee411e1c-c69e-5e16-c340-c6d87c523fec
Comments and suggestions will be used in future versions of this video which are produced weekly.
Warmest regards,
Jack Alpert
If by "viable civilization" you mean "sustainable civilization" then you are referring to the impossible. When any lifestyle consumes non-renewable resources, or renewable resources beyond their renewal rates, it is unsustainable. It also needs to avoid damaging the environment it relies on beyond that environment's capability to assimilate that damage. A civilisation must violate sustainability criteria and so can not be sustainable.
Hi Mike, you are correct in your statements. I do not mean sustainable for the reasons you outline. The word sustainable has so many conflicting meanings I try not to use it. Viable civilization is one that does nor create injury. Or at least termination injury. Here is a more robust definition of a non injury producing civilization.
”A non-injury producing Civilization"
https://youtu.be/dYR5Ix-1wMs
Glad to speak with you directly if you wish. Alpert@skil.org
Jack,
I have previously watched that video and it doesn't convince me. You've engaged with a commenter named Hideaway on the un-denial.com blog, who has often raised many issues with your plan. I'd concur with all of them but there are a couple of things that I'm not sure Hideaway raised. Firstly is the reliance on some unknown future technology to come to the rescue as dams silt up (or fail, which I don't think you mentioned) and secondly is the need for some kind of global dictator with an iron fist to ensure your plan is implemented, plus some unidentified viral and anti-viral technology to ensure population numbers stay steady.
As you seem to have acknowledged that any way of life that consumes non-renewable resources is unsustainable, the world would have to go through all of this again anyway. In this case, it's a completely futile endeavour that would serve only to mean a few more people can live a convenient comfortable life filled with cool technology for a little while longer.
Mike,
It is wonderful to find you. Your comments raise issues which are important.
Would you be willing to engage in a live face to face small group discussion. Rob, hideaway and my self. Just one cycle.
If we found it fruitful there are some other great thinkers who might join us.
A little stirring the pot of four points of view might help.
Jack Alpert 913 708 2554
Jack's work 600 word summary
I'm not sure what that last line is (maybe something missing?) but are you suggesting that you have an answer to my and Hideaway's criticisms?
For myself, though I can also see lots of problems with your ideas, I just don't see that there is any chance of them being implemented. None. Even if I thought your plan was workable and desirable, I know it stands no chance of being implemented. So a face to face to discuss it seems like it wouldn't be the best use of our time.
Given that modernity itself is unsustainable, it seems a futile effort to keep some segments of modernity going in isolated regions, for a while longer. It ultimately has no future.
Sorry.
Morals are personal. It's impossible to accuse some party of being bereft of morals (well, not impossible but inaccurate) simply because their judgement of right or wrong is not the same as yours.
What is "accurate" when it comes to morals?
To accuse some party of being bereft (or devoid) of morals just means that *in one's judgement* the way that party is behaving is wrong.
Yes, judgements differ - but they are made. There is no 'objective' position on moral issues, yet most do know right from wrong.
Right, there is nothing objective about morals. And I think everyone knows right from wrong (perhaps apart from some with certain brain disorders or damage) but those rights and wrongs may not be the same as for you or I. So I doubt anyone is bereft of morals, but may be bereft of the same morals as you or I.
“Developing such a weapon would’ve gone against Iran’s religious doctrine and thus was forbidden by the Ayatollah…”
This is a sick joke right?
Are you unaware of the fact that Pakistan is a nuclear power?
Are you aware that Pakistan is a different country 🤯
It’s an Islamic country. Idiot.
You know they don’t have a single authority like Catholics, right? Right?
They have a grand high moon Pope, possibly the resurrected corpse of Osama, who commands the Muslamic hivemind via electrical impulses to smite all the poor innocent freedom-lovers around the world; the only way to secure liberty and peace for all is to ensure all the mud people are reduced to smoking rubble by peaceful and tolerant 1000 Ib bombs (/s, but this is what these people actually think)
they are collecting water in great cisterns and ride big sand worms.
Trump making peace great again.
Cultivate excuse/distraction
Drag everyone into bloodbath
Repeat
Hum… I do agree with you regarding the Western economy's bleak perspectives and predicaments.
But still, I have 2 short comments on the recent events in Iran.
First, regardless of Israeli current government shenanigans and its timing for the attack on Iranian soil, I'm surprise that you could take Iranian religious doctrine forbidding the development of nuclear weapons as face value. I reckon it is hard to say how long it could take the Iranian regime to build bombs. One week, two weeks, a couple of years. Who knows ? But I do believe that it has a nuclear military program, not only a civilian one. Beside, Iranian officials said several time that they would nuke Israel as soon as they can do it. A direct threat no other country ever issued. Not even North Korea.
Second, I believe that US/Western elites are divided in factions. Some of them want the war the way they did in Ukraine. But some of them don't. And Trump is trying to navigate this land-mined political landscape the best he can. At this point, we can only hope that last night bombings will be enough and a 'less wary' faction in Iran might prevail soon...
Actually, I even wonder if there weren't a deal between Trump and Putin : in exchange of US help reduced to a minimum in Ukraine (because, for political reasons, both national and international, it was not possible to stop it entirely), Russia (having not so much to gain with an nuclear neighbour on its Caucasus border anyway) will only grant minimal support to Iran while Israel and the US will (try to) sort out the nuclear issue over there...
"Iranian officials said several time that they would nuke Israel as soon as they can do it" don't eat cheap propaganda...they are not dumb and are very aware that's mutual self destruction, I know you think of them as blind mega crazy people like western media want to portrait so we can't trust they won't suicide, but even crazyest people like Trump and Kim Jong-un are aware that once you hit that button...life end for both sides.
West know that nuclear weapons are the ultimate self defence stance, and wan't to avoid that in Iran...so they can keep invading half the world as usual.
And BTW there's no chance of a deal between Putin and Trump regarding Ukraine and Iran...the entire world already know that no one keeps their promises (as Sorcerer say: Minks I, Misk II...) sorry but that's a very naive lecture of the current events, as long as one side has bullets and bodies to throw in the butchering will continue.
And quicker-still today...
;-(
This is a powerful and deeply sobering analysis that cuts to the heart of the current geopolitical and economic crisis facing the West. It underscores how Western elites, driven by unipolar dominance rather than genuine diplomacy or peace, have eroded international trust through broken treaties, proxy conflicts, and economic self-interest.
Long ago, about 50 years, I wrote a a fairly simple computer program projecting when needs would start to outstrip resources...The model predicted 2014...That wasn't too far off, and it's when the West began preparing the Ukraine War in earnest, after a Rand paper about breaking Russia into 5 separate, and weak, countries....
Sure, the Iranian regime is a bunch of choirboys, only dabbling with uranium enrichment for civilian purpose (wink), whereas Israel and the USA are crafty villains, hellbent on destroying everything that is good and wholesome.
Now more seriously, the fact you believe the Shiites’ alleged doctrine of shunning nuclear weapons is merely another proof of your naïveté. Deceiving and lulling your enemies is a lifelong principle of any god-loving Muslim, established by Muhammad and practiced by his disciples every time they find themselves in disadvantage.
Otherwise, I truly enjoy reading your more technical essays, to do with resource depletion and the futility of any attempt to substitute them with “renewables”; your views on the social processes we are living through are also spot-on, although they reveal nothing new—most of us are well aware; but the rest of your writing is a big meh…
No sane person believes that the Iranian government are "choirboys". *All* governments are "crafty villians" to some degree - does that mean they should all be bombed?
If one looks at the history of the USA (especially the CIA) it's steeped in 'regime change' all over the place, notably (and notoriously) Latin America, where democratic governments were overthrown by murderous, CIA-backed regimes that executed political opponents, union leaders etc - but implemented USA-friendly policies.
The Israeli *regime* are committing mass murder on the Palestinians, using weapons etc supplied by their criminal pals in other parts of the crumbling Empire, including the USA. Not content with that, they started bombing Iran??? Wtf? How was that a good idea? And Israel actually *have* nuclear weapons - although they are not supposed to.
It all reminds me of the rhetoric around Iraq, that they had WMD (that didn't actually exist). Now Iran 'might have' hidden their uranium...
This is exactly what I think. That's why I never agreed with liberals. They act like nothing bad ever happened in the US before 2016 until that mean, dirty man Trump came along... when in reality we've been going to war, overthrowing democratically elected governments, spying on people (including US citizens), since 1945. The interests of maintaining and expanding an empire, versus the interests of what's doing best for your country as an elected leader, are two completely different, opposed agendas. A guy like Trump (or Biden) is just a symptom of a completely fractured, dying political culture where none of the institutions function the way they're supposed to. These people are not THE CAUSE of our problems, but the product of a system which has gone haywire.