Please for the love of god put inverted commas around the term elites or else add a qualifier such as stooges or clowns perhaps..
When I was a five year old child in school I remember having the sense omg I'm surrounded by nutjobs everywhere. These people are now running the show.
"In order to avoid an abrupt downturn, we would be also working on prolonging the descent as much as possible and making it less steep, not pretending that it can be avoided... "
A concept that I like to apply to this comes out of airflight training: When you know that you are forced to go down, use whatever means and decisions you have remaining to "extend the glide" and look for a safer place to land.
We would be (finally) wise to focus our remaining energy and materials wealth to build out the things that we (they in the mid-time future) will really need. Quit squandering them at the frivolous whim of "The Market".
Muscle powered local water, food, and fiber systems. Zero energy (not net zero) 1,000 year communal dwellings. Local distributed 200 year (not the cheapest price point) solar systems to maintain some lighting and radio communication. As much essential knowledge into printed books in libraries.
Very sensible. 'The Market' perhaps is simply the collective sum of fear/greed in the human psyche. I suggest that until this is primarily solved humanity will always fall prey to short term fragmented thinking.
Your views are in synch with dozens in my 'circle.' Good that you spread them. I'm curious why you are incognito, though. I interact with some of the expert references you name here and in other pieces. Perhaps you'd enjoy being on a small e-list I co-own including several of them.
B has written elsewhere that he remains incognito because he has a decent engineering job and doesn't want to jeopardize it. As a former engineer (and honest sorcerer) myself I know they don't take kindly to independent thinkers and truth seekers.
What if the doom and gloom collapse scenario is deliberately allowed to fester and grow so that demoralization takes hold and people give up and lose hope?
What if novel energy and materials technology are waiting in the wings to be unveiled when the time is right? When the fossil fuel narrative dries up? When the controllers can step in and act as the saviors of mankind all over again?
Techno-optimism had merit when there were 1-2 billion of us. Now, with crashing biodiversity, toxified air/water/soils/food chain, resource wars over diminishing 'easy' stuff, reversion by many to superstition based thinking and behavior...what is there to save?
It was metaphorical. I could have said ship or bacon or skin but in common parlance souls gets the point across. A little poetic license never hurt and to be fair superstition based thinking got us this far. But I'm not taking recourse to superstition when I suggest that something may be waiting in the wings. It's a perfectly logical concept that fits the world we currently inhabit - a world of lies and deception on all levels. We're simply milking the cow until it drops dead while an intermediary narrative (renewables) takes up the slack (at least in the minds of the public) until the new game is on.
Seems like it took us 100 years to build out the infrastructure (gas stations, vehicles, parts stores, dealerships, etc) to support petroleum and diesel-based energy system.
If something is waiting in the wings, I wonder if it can be seamlessly swapped in to replace FF, if not how long would it take to change over the infrastructure? Waiting to the last minute seems reckless.....
I ask myself that question every day when I come across these claims. Historical (hysterical) doomers will quote the Rise and Fall of Civilizations day in day out and I always retort... but here we are. Collapses of individual but intertwined overall periods obviously shouldn't lead to that conclusion since we have always (up to now) managed to climb out of the gutter to greater heights. Or at least to new ways of life which can certainly change again. I think we can sense that happening now globally and doomers will yet again chant it's the end for real this time.
Even if some major restructuring of our current system requires a new level of focus and funding and decades of effort, the mere knowledge that it can be done with actionable solutions brought to the fore - unlike the window dressing that is Renewables - then that alone would keep our collective heads above water until the next phase kicks in.
Success with a new cheap source of energy combined with the ability to maintain at least the current core requirements for industry, transportation, farming and mining with compatible liquid fuels would mean that life goes on while the new system establishes itself and likely ends up replacing the old as has happened before.
It may be that world population reduces somewhat but I would say not catastrophically so if the above turns out to be true. Humans are incredibly adaptable. Some will adapt and move on. Others will curl up into a ball and not be able to cope with change.
Throughout our long history we have not gone back to some earlier way of life. Anything that attempts this is simply a theme park allowed to exist by the current system.
If the rumors surrounding new energy methods and a near future utilizing robotics, AI, biotech, novel materials are all wrong then yes we may be in a bit of a pickle.
It has been stated by many that there is something immeasurable, beyond the known, beyond thought, experience etc., something 'sacred' if you will, the source of all energy, that can act when all thought as time and movement ceases completely and thus the entire mechanism of self centredness ends. Who knows what kind of a world humans would create..
Saying something doesn't make it so. Plus, the unknown is infinite. Speculating on it, or mystifying it into something sacred is a human trait which is now our Achilles heel. Look at the religious wars today, with terrorism, genocide, dehumanization.
Obviously. And many are charlatans. But not all. And speculating and mystifying are of course useless. I put quotes around sacred because of how the word is bandied around and the obvious circus, but one mustn't close the door to a potential 'fact' that could reorder humanity's trajectory.
I'm wide open to new discoveries. I even accept some things as likely real like telepathy. It happens frequently, and without apparent cues from external experiences. However, I chalk the kinds of thing to energy we don't know about. So far, the unknowns aren't helping one bit to reverse our self-destructive path. I'm done nit-picking. ;-) We readers likely have similar values and frustrations.
Squeezing the last drop out of a lemon... blood from a stone... but it doesn't mean that the story ends. Just wringing the last drops out of one business cycle before introducing the next. There may be an intermission with a bit of head bashing and begging on knees but else are you going to spin that you had this replacement tech in the wings. What do you think the ET stories are for?
Thank You, B, for the reminder that "civilizations die by suicide, not by murder".
B: "Given this deadlock, where questions of physics, geology, mathematics or military science are subject to loyalty tests, it is hard to imagine how a realistic plan could be put forward."
There ae rational people who have shown "loyalty" so far, but may be practicing sabotage. Degrading the control-narrative around the "suicidal plan" may be more readily done.
Gilbert Doctorow presents the case here that the "overheard" German general-staff phone-discussion about using German Taurus long range cruise missiles to take-out the Crimean Bridge may have been intentional sabotage against the prevailing neocon agenda.
Europe seems doomed yet refugees still think we're a safe haven. I wonder how long this will last. I also can't help but observe that while the prospects for Russia with it's resources and industry look great, life in Russia can be bleak and the standard of living is currently lower than much of Europe. From the perspective of someone living in Britain I'm not sure where I'd move to even if I has nothing to restrict me.
The Men Who Run the World are aware of and understand all of this.
There is no downsizing -- I highly recommend this clip which details what happens when the tipping point is reached on affordable energy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK_fsI32In4
There are also 4000 spent fuel ponds around the world that will spew toxic cancer causing substances that will circulate through the food and water supply for thousands of years.
There is no way out of this. And trust me - the Men Who Run the World have searched for every possible way to kick the can further. At some point you reach the end of the road. We are very close.
Will they stand back and watch civilization collapse and 8 billion rip each other to pieces?
Standard fission reactors only use ~2% of the energy in uranium. Spent nuclear fuel rods stored in "4000 spent fuel ponds around the world" can be used as fuel in fast breeder fission reactors, getting ~80% of the remaining energy in the "spent" uranium, and rendering the 'waste' safe as background in a few hundred years c/w tens of thousands of years. Russia has two such fast breeders supplying their grid with electricity, with more being built.
A quote stuck out to me from Schumacher's Small is Beautiful on the subject of OPEC (topical as it was in 1973): illustrating back then the same blindness to just how singularly dependent we are on oil...
"It used to be said that OPEC—the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries— would never amount to anything, because Arabs could never agree with each other, let alone with non-Arabs; today it is clear that OPEC is the greatest cartel-monopoly the world has ever seen. It used to be said that the oil exporting countries depended on the oil importing countries just as much as the latter depended on the former; today it is clear that this is based on nothing but wishful thinking, because the need of the oil consumers is so great and their demand so inelastic that the oil exporting countries, acting in unison, can in fact raise their revenues by the simple device of curtailing output. There are still people who say that if oil prices rose too much (whatever that may mean) oil would price itself out of the market; but it is perfectly obvious that there is no ready substitute for oil to take its place on a quantitatively significant scale, so that oil, in fact, cannot price itself out of the market."
Much the same can be said of the net-zero dream that peak oil will be demand, and not supply, driven.
Please for the love of god put inverted commas around the term elites or else add a qualifier such as stooges or clowns perhaps..
When I was a five year old child in school I remember having the sense omg I'm surrounded by nutjobs everywhere. These people are now running the show.
More scientists finding corruption in the NOAA data.
https://discernreport.com/very-bizarre-scientists-expose-major-problems-with-climate-change-data/
"In order to avoid an abrupt downturn, we would be also working on prolonging the descent as much as possible and making it less steep, not pretending that it can be avoided... "
A concept that I like to apply to this comes out of airflight training: When you know that you are forced to go down, use whatever means and decisions you have remaining to "extend the glide" and look for a safer place to land.
We would be (finally) wise to focus our remaining energy and materials wealth to build out the things that we (they in the mid-time future) will really need. Quit squandering them at the frivolous whim of "The Market".
Muscle powered local water, food, and fiber systems. Zero energy (not net zero) 1,000 year communal dwellings. Local distributed 200 year (not the cheapest price point) solar systems to maintain some lighting and radio communication. As much essential knowledge into printed books in libraries.
Very sensible. 'The Market' perhaps is simply the collective sum of fear/greed in the human psyche. I suggest that until this is primarily solved humanity will always fall prey to short term fragmented thinking.
Your views are in synch with dozens in my 'circle.' Good that you spread them. I'm curious why you are incognito, though. I interact with some of the expert references you name here and in other pieces. Perhaps you'd enjoy being on a small e-list I co-own including several of them.
B has written elsewhere that he remains incognito because he has a decent engineering job and doesn't want to jeopardize it. As a former engineer (and honest sorcerer) myself I know they don't take kindly to independent thinkers and truth seekers.
Thank you B🙏
What if we're being lied to?
About everything.
What if the doom and gloom collapse scenario is deliberately allowed to fester and grow so that demoralization takes hold and people give up and lose hope?
What if novel energy and materials technology are waiting in the wings to be unveiled when the time is right? When the fossil fuel narrative dries up? When the controllers can step in and act as the saviors of mankind all over again?
Techno-optimism had merit when there were 1-2 billion of us. Now, with crashing biodiversity, toxified air/water/soils/food chain, resource wars over diminishing 'easy' stuff, reversion by many to superstition based thinking and behavior...what is there to save?
Our souls?
If anyone provides evidence for anything non-physical (energy-matter-information), a Nobel Prize awaits!
It was metaphorical. I could have said ship or bacon or skin but in common parlance souls gets the point across. A little poetic license never hurt and to be fair superstition based thinking got us this far. But I'm not taking recourse to superstition when I suggest that something may be waiting in the wings. It's a perfectly logical concept that fits the world we currently inhabit - a world of lies and deception on all levels. We're simply milking the cow until it drops dead while an intermediary narrative (renewables) takes up the slack (at least in the minds of the public) until the new game is on.
Seems like it took us 100 years to build out the infrastructure (gas stations, vehicles, parts stores, dealerships, etc) to support petroleum and diesel-based energy system.
If something is waiting in the wings, I wonder if it can be seamlessly swapped in to replace FF, if not how long would it take to change over the infrastructure? Waiting to the last minute seems reckless.....
I ask myself that question every day when I come across these claims. Historical (hysterical) doomers will quote the Rise and Fall of Civilizations day in day out and I always retort... but here we are. Collapses of individual but intertwined overall periods obviously shouldn't lead to that conclusion since we have always (up to now) managed to climb out of the gutter to greater heights. Or at least to new ways of life which can certainly change again. I think we can sense that happening now globally and doomers will yet again chant it's the end for real this time.
Even if some major restructuring of our current system requires a new level of focus and funding and decades of effort, the mere knowledge that it can be done with actionable solutions brought to the fore - unlike the window dressing that is Renewables - then that alone would keep our collective heads above water until the next phase kicks in.
Success with a new cheap source of energy combined with the ability to maintain at least the current core requirements for industry, transportation, farming and mining with compatible liquid fuels would mean that life goes on while the new system establishes itself and likely ends up replacing the old as has happened before.
It may be that world population reduces somewhat but I would say not catastrophically so if the above turns out to be true. Humans are incredibly adaptable. Some will adapt and move on. Others will curl up into a ball and not be able to cope with change.
Throughout our long history we have not gone back to some earlier way of life. Anything that attempts this is simply a theme park allowed to exist by the current system.
If the rumors surrounding new energy methods and a near future utilizing robotics, AI, biotech, novel materials are all wrong then yes we may be in a bit of a pickle.
It has been stated by many that there is something immeasurable, beyond the known, beyond thought, experience etc., something 'sacred' if you will, the source of all energy, that can act when all thought as time and movement ceases completely and thus the entire mechanism of self centredness ends. Who knows what kind of a world humans would create..
Saying something doesn't make it so. Plus, the unknown is infinite. Speculating on it, or mystifying it into something sacred is a human trait which is now our Achilles heel. Look at the religious wars today, with terrorism, genocide, dehumanization.
Obviously. And many are charlatans. But not all. And speculating and mystifying are of course useless. I put quotes around sacred because of how the word is bandied around and the obvious circus, but one mustn't close the door to a potential 'fact' that could reorder humanity's trajectory.
I'm wide open to new discoveries. I even accept some things as likely real like telepathy. It happens frequently, and without apparent cues from external experiences. However, I chalk the kinds of thing to energy we don't know about. So far, the unknowns aren't helping one bit to reverse our self-destructive path. I'm done nit-picking. ;-) We readers likely have similar values and frustrations.
We are steaming oil out of sand. That's all you need to know
Squeezing the last drop out of a lemon... blood from a stone... but it doesn't mean that the story ends. Just wringing the last drops out of one business cycle before introducing the next. There may be an intermission with a bit of head bashing and begging on knees but else are you going to spin that you had this replacement tech in the wings. What do you think the ET stories are for?
Thank You, B, for the reminder that "civilizations die by suicide, not by murder".
B: "Given this deadlock, where questions of physics, geology, mathematics or military science are subject to loyalty tests, it is hard to imagine how a realistic plan could be put forward."
There ae rational people who have shown "loyalty" so far, but may be practicing sabotage. Degrading the control-narrative around the "suicidal plan" may be more readily done.
Gilbert Doctorow presents the case here that the "overheard" German general-staff phone-discussion about using German Taurus long range cruise missiles to take-out the Crimean Bridge may have been intentional sabotage against the prevailing neocon agenda.
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/03/04/9718/
Europe seems doomed yet refugees still think we're a safe haven. I wonder how long this will last. I also can't help but observe that while the prospects for Russia with it's resources and industry look great, life in Russia can be bleak and the standard of living is currently lower than much of Europe. From the perspective of someone living in Britain I'm not sure where I'd move to even if I has nothing to restrict me.
It might depend on how long it will take for the safe heaven to become a ripe fruit....
It's important to have something to look forwards to in life, according to the self help books.
The Men Who Run the World are aware of and understand all of this.
There is no downsizing -- I highly recommend this clip which details what happens when the tipping point is reached on affordable energy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK_fsI32In4
There are also 4000 spent fuel ponds around the world that will spew toxic cancer causing substances that will circulate through the food and water supply for thousands of years.
There is no way out of this. And trust me - the Men Who Run the World have searched for every possible way to kick the can further. At some point you reach the end of the road. We are very close.
Will they stand back and watch civilization collapse and 8 billion rip each other to pieces?
Or do they have a Plan B? https://www.headsupster.com/forumthread?shortId=220
Standard fission reactors only use ~2% of the energy in uranium. Spent nuclear fuel rods stored in "4000 spent fuel ponds around the world" can be used as fuel in fast breeder fission reactors, getting ~80% of the remaining energy in the "spent" uranium, and rendering the 'waste' safe as background in a few hundred years c/w tens of thousands of years. Russia has two such fast breeders supplying their grid with electricity, with more being built.
A quote stuck out to me from Schumacher's Small is Beautiful on the subject of OPEC (topical as it was in 1973): illustrating back then the same blindness to just how singularly dependent we are on oil...
"It used to be said that OPEC—the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries— would never amount to anything, because Arabs could never agree with each other, let alone with non-Arabs; today it is clear that OPEC is the greatest cartel-monopoly the world has ever seen. It used to be said that the oil exporting countries depended on the oil importing countries just as much as the latter depended on the former; today it is clear that this is based on nothing but wishful thinking, because the need of the oil consumers is so great and their demand so inelastic that the oil exporting countries, acting in unison, can in fact raise their revenues by the simple device of curtailing output. There are still people who say that if oil prices rose too much (whatever that may mean) oil would price itself out of the market; but it is perfectly obvious that there is no ready substitute for oil to take its place on a quantitatively significant scale, so that oil, in fact, cannot price itself out of the market."
Much the same can be said of the net-zero dream that peak oil will be demand, and not supply, driven.