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Guest Post: No More Industrial Revolutions, No More Growth?
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
The common feature of the transformative technologies of the 20th and 21st centuries is that they were one-offs that cannot be duplicated.
What if the engines of global growth that worked for 65 years (since 1945) have not just stalled but broken down? The primary "engines" have been productivity gains from industrialization, real estate development and expansion of consumption based on the continual expansion of debt and leverage--in short-hand, financialization.
The Status Quo around the globe has responded to the obvious endgame of financialization (the 2008 financial crisis) by doing more of what has failed: expanding credit and leverage, flooding the global economy with liquidity (money available for borrowing), credits and subsidies for real estate development and a near-religious belief in "the next industrial revolution" that will spark rapid growth in employment, profits and productivity.
"The usual suspects" for the next engine of growth include nanotechnology, biotechnology, unconventional energy and Digital Fabrication, i.e. 3-D printing and desktop foundries. But are any of these capable of not just replacing jobs and revenues in existing industries, but creating more jobs and expanding revenues and profits?
There is a growing literature on this very topic, as many start questioning the quasi-religious faith that there will "always" be another driver of growth, i.e. the expansion of wealth, profit, employment and assets.
The Status Quo dares not even entertain this question because the only way to service the fast-rising mountain of debt that is sustaining the Status Quo is to "grow our way out of debt," i.e. expand the real economy faster than debt.
The past 250 years has been one long "proof" that we can indeed "grow our way out of debt" because the low-hanging fruit of industrialization and cheap, abundant energy enabled wealth to be created at a faster pace than debt.
Clueless Keynesians mock those questioning the possibility that the low-hanging fruit has been plucked by noting that doomsdayers were actively decrying the ballooning debt of the British Empire in the mid-1700s. We all know how that story ended: what looked like crushingly massive debt in 1780 was reduced to a trivial sum by the rapid expansion of industrialization.
But suppose the end of cheap, abundant energy (replaced by abundant, costly energy) and the Internet spells the end of centralized models of growth? What if all the innovation currently bubbling away only produces marginal returns?
Take biotechnology for example. Those with little actual knowledge of biotech are quick to latch onto the potential for genetic engineered medications, biofuels, etc. What they don't ask is if these technologies can scale up while costs decline, i.e. the computer technology model where everything progressively gets cheaper and more powerful.
Biofuels may have promise, but it still takes "old fashioned" energy to collect the feedstock, and it is a non-trivial task to keep micro-organisms alive on the scale that would be needed to produce a useful amount of liquid fuels, i.e. a few million barrels every day. Some processes may not scale up, and others may not see any significant reduction in fuel costs once the full input costs are calculated.
Genetic engineering also may not scale up--it may be limited by key barriers of individual patient complexity and by intrinsic costs that do not drop enough to make a difference.
Consider the diseases that have almost been eradicated--polio, for example--and the lifestyle diseases such as diabesity. The wave of diseases that were eradicated were caused by bacteria or viruses: a vaccine or agent that disabled or killed the bacteria/virus wiped out the disease.
Diabesity, cancer and heart disease are not caused by a single virus or bacteria. The "one med/vaccine works for all" model has failed and will always fail because diabesity and other lifestyle diseases have multiple, non-linear causes that are beyond the reach of a single "solution." These diseases may well be tied to epigenetic factors, for example, the interaction of "junk DNA" with environmental stresses that extend back into the individual genome.
What we face is the confusion of symptoms and effects with causes. Lowering cholesterol is not the "magic bullet" many hoped for, and neither was hormone therapy.
In the technology sector, it is clear that the Internet is destroying entire sectors of employment. The jobs that have been lost for good have not been replaced by jobs created by the Internet, nor is there any credible evidence to support this hope: automated software continues chewing up one industry after another, and the politically protected fiefdoms of healthcare (sickcare), education and government have yet to taste the whip of real innovation.
Rather than add jobs, we will lose tens of millions of jobs as faster-better-cheaper breaches the walls of these massive politically protected fiefdoms.
Healthcare spending is clearly in terminal marginal return: our collective health continues to decline in key metrics even as spending doubles, triples and quadruples. The same can be said of defense, education and many other industries.
Sectors such as agriculture have already seen employment decline by 98% even as production rose; there are still improvements in agriculture (robotic milking machine, for example) but the low-hanging fruit in agriculture as well as in medicine, education, etc. have all been picked.
The next wave of innovation will destroy protected profit centers and employment; even the Armed Forces are not immune, as the "ships of the future" will have relatively small crews and robotic drones will replace high-cost, high-employment weapons systems.
The semi-magical belief that technological innovation will create wealth in such quantities that all other problems become solvable may well be false. We may have entered an era of marginal returns, where innovations destroy jobs, wealth, assets and debt--the very foundations of "growth."
I have begun to speculate about a future where energy might be abundant but few can afford to consume much: money and income may be scarcer than energy.
The one innovation that might energize an entirely new field of employment is digital fabrication, the decentralization and distribution of production. But this will also creatively destroy jobs dependent on the present supply chain.
National governments have over-promised entitlements to their citizens on a vast scale, and the current "solution" to the mismatch of promises to national surplus is to borrow monumental sums to fund the promises. If innovations actually shrinks employment, incomes and wealth, then the base for taxes and debt will quickly shrink to the point that the debt is unserviceable. The Status Quo will collapse financially, even if energy and labor are both abundant.
Consider END OF GROWTH - six headwinds: demography, education, inequality, globalization, energy/environment, and the overhang of consumer and government debt.(via Zero Hedge)
The point made in this lengthy essay is a powerful one: the common feature of the transformative technologies of the 20th and 21st centuries is that they could only happen once. They are one-offs that cannot be duplicated. Doing more of what has failed will only set up a grander failure as returns on all our debt-based "investments" become ever more marginal and the return on increasing complexity drops into negative territory. Once complexity yields negative returns, the systems that depend on complexity quickly destabilize and implode.
The Collapse of Complex Business Models
This essay was drawn from Musings Report 48. The Musings are sent weekly to subscribers and major financial contributors (those who contribute $50 or more annually).
My new book Why Things Are Falling Apart and What We Can Do About It is now available in print and Kindle editions--10% to 20% discounts.
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Um, you are bitching about someone trying to make a buck?
I think he was just laughing at the approach being taken, technically.
Would you like to buy my buggy-whips? They're artisanal!
Or maybe a showhorse?
Now matter how dumb, there's always a market somewhere.
People would be best served not being closed-minded. (translation: I'm in agreement with you.)
I don't think that the markets for show horses is that strong (I live out in the country and I see people unloading all kinds of horse stuff, and horses). Although I don't see a future here for such, I do see the possibility for horses such as draft horses; working horses, not necessarily transportation ones (demand for these won't be too high until the roads become pretty well gone and people have access to pasture land to support their horses).
"My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet airplane. His son will ride a camel."Anonymous Saudi Sheik – 1982
"By the way, I haven't read the thread. I am just scanning ridiculous posts."
Ah, I've got competition! :-) (it's my cheap entertainment- I look for really bad logic and then stomp on it)
"Seek and destroy" the illogical's illogic ...
I am impressed by this short essay. It mirrors what I have come to believe more and more as each year goes by. Especially his take on the, at present, "protected sectors" Health Care, Education and Government. I am sure that if these artificial protections are breeched, then these high employment sectors can see massive job loss. Simply consider paper work in health care and health insurance. Ripe for new software to destroy jobs by the boat load. Education? Imagine all the university positions cut down to video and internet interactive programs. Why by taught by some brain dead fossil who is marking time to a big retirement payout, when the brightest university lecturers could be available on line and the courses could be put into high level software. It should already have happened! Government? Need I say more, bloated out of control and in desperate need of being put online for the most part. As the above essay points out, more jobs are going to be destroyed.
He also hits my favorite subject. Energy. Oil for example. We all know about the big new finds and the new ability to mine tar sands etc. etc. Great, it means decades of oil energy, the worlds best form. BUT, look at production costs of all the new finds. Not cheap!!!
It's an interesting thesis. I saw somebody talking about this very topic the other day. He stated that society progressed very little for like 1200 years, then the past 200 years(his estimation) saw tremendous progress. He said what if the last 200 years was just an anomoly and we are returning to longer term trend? Interesting thought
The scientific revolution was translated into practicle industrial revolution. Science is learning many new things, but most do NOT translate into an economic revolution. The computer revolution lies directly at the foot of science, but as the above essay shows, this is what is now killing many old economy jobs.
CHS has simply dressed up some legacy thinking in a shiny 'post-industrial' package and put it out there for to catch a rube or two.
Why center a discussion of the future upon the outdated concept of 'jobs'? An industrial revolution that came, conquered and then left is far from an abnormal blip in time...we've seen similar so called revolutions in the past, in agriculture, or with the printing press, with even greater long term effect. We live closer to this particular phenomena, that's all, and understandably overrate it's impact therefore...
couple hundred years ago, some cabbalistic talmudists were bemoaning the loss of their lucrative tax-farming and services monopolies back in greater Khazaria(Ruso-Polandia)and hit upon some new ideas to claw their way back...concentrate the populace in greater density, and manage their work output in a manner that would allow for easy rakeoff(taxation) and keep them dulled in sense and spirit.
Great innovations like the steam engine were appropriated as usual to be placed in service of the crooked cabal...there never was a need to turn these technologies into engines of social decay and environmental destruction...it's just the way they wanted it. Left to ourselves the West would have piggybacked on the creativity of Scotsmen into a brighter future of blessed harmony and contentment....instead of piggbacking on the labor of the rest of humanity.
instead we got hebraic isms up the whazoo - communism, fascism, capitalism...all forms of neo-feudal serfdom that impose a top tier of parasites onto a milling mass of devolved human beings who got caught on the wrong side of history when their "leaders" sold them out to the moneychangers.
Jobs, Charles, are a relic of the wage economy. Employment, that's something which free people do with their time...it coulda gone that way...maybe will some day...but first we gotta go back to that crossroads where our forbears took that wrong turn.
Nice post. I would suggest a modest emendation: how about "Russo-Polonia" for the Khazar's old stomping grounds? I still remember classroom historical maps that included "the Pale".
You went to all that trouble of wrapping a simple Jew-hater comment with some legitimate historical analysis? Ugh.
There's nothing "hebraic" about feudal or neo-feudal serfdom. It's a HUMAN tradition. The Egyptians and the Babylonians and the Aztecs all did it, too, completely absent any familiarity with Jehovah or Abraham.
,,,"jew hater",,,
how suave of you...
you went to all that trouble of trying to rebut my well crafted point by pulling out the most tired line in all of recent history? Why bother embarrass yourself for no return?
Oh, and you think the "babylonians and egyptians and the aztecs" had no familiarity with the monotheistic manipulators? You must have done very well in school. It shows.
Some day I'll put up a JOYFULS' guide to judaism for dummies - it will serve to smooth out your angst bout 'haters' and maybe learn you a thing or two, as an antidote to all that knowledge you seem to have acquired.
Yeah, that's just what the world needs. A new Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
I don't get it, myself. All efforts to exterminate the Jews in the past have failed, but even in the places where they have been the most successful, it's not as if any of the problems facing the society were eliminated.
Still, simple minds need simple solutions. If you and your kind ever get serious again, I'll be shooting back.
Is that all you've got, some kind of wacked out threat against everybody whose not on your team?
You don't get it alright! "My kind" is pretty much everybody else on the planet who isn't a crypto, or one of their silly dupes, like you. Your kind just sings along to the tune they've been taught, until it's time to go under the bus with the rest of the expendables.
Nighty night, genius!
Bullshit. "Your kind" are Jewhaters who believe that the only reason we haven't solved all our problems as a species is because we haven't murdered the right group of people yet. It's painfully stupid.
As I said, I'll be shooting back when the next pogrom starts. It's not a threat, it's just a notification. Anyone on the "side" of the murderous jackboots is my enemy, despite whatever common ancestral DNA we may share. Minds know no ethnic boundaries.
oh, and just in case you do ever want to learn something, self-improvement wise,
http://www.jewsnotzionists.org/holocaust-zionism.htm
there, I've given you a helping hand, the rest is up to you.
The idea that "self-improvement" could ever mean "finding a group of people to blame for everything" is, quite frankly, completely insane.
I realize you're doing your best. Your best just sucks, that's all.
... "finding a group of people to blame for everything"...
you've just self-incriminated...and after I warned you not to embarrass yourself!
G|eNEus at work...
Was the basis for his theory adversity by chance.Or just a reversion to mean.
Seems the great leap forwards have been engendered by horrific living conditions.
Once general comfort is achieved seems like we only get incremental improvements,
until we don't.
Starvation as the mother of invention.
It's all intertwined. It is ill-advised to think that removal of one entity would eliminate the ponzi.
If one really looks close enough at what's going on one will see that we're begging for the very same TPTB that have been in control to provide us with "jobs." I don't want a JOB, I want to do meaningful WORK.
"We all know about the big new finds and the new ability to mine tar sands etc. etc. Great, it means decades of oil energy, the worlds best form. BUT, look at production costs of all the new finds. Not cheap!!!"
The reason why it's not cheap is because of low EROEI. None of this stuff can scale, in which case yes, there will be decades of it available- because it will never be be able to be extracted and processed at anywhere near the rates of conventional oil. This will mean problems for achieving economies of scale: this will be further negatively impacted upon by decreasing affordability. Anyone not currently in the game is going to find it tough going to enter this market.
No new productive capacity, bye bye endless growth- with the exception of bernank bucks.
Any fool should see that if there is no growth with-out ward, then the growth must come with-in ward. Network and take it up with-in the local environment if you choose to reproduce. Digital tools to escape the environment are e-narcotics.
Well he's right. Simple as that. No way out of this gravity well and the bottom is a lot smaller than the top has been.
Now, what to do with the 5 billion people who showed up while the world pumped the last of the cheap and easy oil?
human pyramid ... got to use what you have to get 'er done
Growth in what? Possession of money, real estate, men, women, liquor, fiat, silver? It's a natural thing. Power by possession, power, greed. Ape shit suicide, make sure you shit on your driveway before shtf. Only then you will pass all dangers to the next generation.
off topic
Facebook down -- severe problms. Site without content
http://www.mmnews.de/index.php/etc/11649-facebook-gestoert
Booker T facebook, goes down. Take note!
How could Facebook going down be a problem?
As long as we have plenty of cheap energy and a stable climate productivity gains are inevitable. However they arent always smooth and can be highly volatile.
I just invented the anti splashback urinal. Now instead of concentrating on the yuck factor the guy taking a whiz can focus on his business plan while whizzing.
Productivity gains are everywhere
I'd seen that over in (someplace in) Europe someone came up with the idea of painting a fly in the urinals. Seems that this made a significant improvement in cleanup costs (aims improved).
I would be interested in what the author Charles Hugh-Smith thinks of William Baumol's new book on his old handiwork, The Cost Disease?
Baumol thinks that education, public safety and health care will always be costly but in the end we will be able to afford it. I haven't finished the book but he accepts as a given that these sectors are not reformable or reducible by market forces. He infers this is not a problem. He's more worried about things that are too cheap like coal which he suggests should cost much more because of the harm it does to the environment.
Comments welcome.
At least you're using that 6th grade woody education.
Yes, preparing well for that Double Major in "Diversity and Theraputic Dance".
Baumel is a Harvard/Princeton Economist.... need we say any more?
"Baumol projects healthcare spending to rise from 15% of US GDP in 2005 to 62% in 2105. But, not to worry because overall we will be over 8 times wealthier as our GDP per capita will rise from $41,800 to $343,000. Given that, it will be so easy to spend nearly 2/3 of every dollar on healthcare."
Dude, use the /Sarc tag next time.... folks will think you actually believe that snake oil.
From: http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3341873&cid=42401021
"The real issue isn't robots taking jobs it is robots taking jobs when there are unemployed people. If everyone is employed you have to automate at least partially to increase productivity. So why is automation increasing while we have so many unemployed? The answer lies in the monetary system Krugman advocates which is a Central Bank making cheap credit available.
I worked as an engineer for a company that built automation equipment. When we did a study for a company to determine if it made sense to automate there were two big factors that we had to take into account. First is the labor rate and the second is the interest rate. The higher the labor rate and the lower the interest rate the more favorable the decision to automate was.
If we had an interest rate set by a free market it would be based on the supply of funds available to loan and the demand for those funds. This provides a natural way to regulate a sustainable rate of automation. When there is low unemployment and savings are high interest rates are low and labor rates are high. This is a good time to automate. When there is high unemployment and low savings labor rates will be low and interest rates high. It will make it more advantageous for companies to hire people than automate.
Right now we have high unemployment and low savings. But we also have a central bank keeping rates artificially low. This makes it advantageous for companies to automate when the real economics don't support it. Also these companies will find out as they ramp up automation and production there won't be enough people with money to buy their products. This is the same thing that happened with the housing market bubble and collapse."
Thank you for your input.
MANY jobs that folks state were "offshore'd" were automated. I worked in manufacturing, I have seen it.
There's another dynamic happening, and that's a decrease in headcount due to rising costs in other support costs (not just "wage," though better stated as "wages and compensation"): health care; HR and general management, esp when management itself has decreased it requires a reduction in the numbers to be managed.
And, we're now seeing (as you note in your second-to-last sentence) a reversal of economies of scale. Businesses don't have a playbook for all of this...
The person who wrote this (I went to SlashDot and looked at his other comments) is quite intelligent. I don't think he copy and pasted it, either, as I saw two other variations on this same theme - kinda like he was writing off the top of his head.
Read it here first:
Future Fed banker's memoires: "The first quadrillion is the hardest"
Future tax payer: "After the first quadrillion the rectal pain is mind numbing."
The most important enabler of the affluent is only alluded to peripherally in the article. Cheap abundant energy made the other technological advances possible.
There would have been no Industrial Revolution without nearby sources of coal. Sure, the water power of the early days was a nice start, but it was not able to do the heavy lifting. And even the water power wasn't able to be harnessed effectively until petroleum powered machines made major hydroelectric projects possible.
The leverage wasn't financial syndicates so much as smart people finding new ways to use the oil and gas resources. Energy makes the life of ease possible. Big money wasn't the source of our previous wealth, it was a direct result of that wealth.
If there is another renaissance in industry, the driver won't be new applications such as biotech or 3D printing. Those are merely benefits of the underlying source of wealth, energy being put to use by smart people in beneficial ways.
The basis of the next round of plenty, if there is one, will be a new technology that can extract energy from something that already exists in sufficient quantities right now, right here.
The basis of the next round of plenty, if there is one, will be a new technology that can extract energy from something that already exists in sufficient quantities right now, right here.
And how much energy does the human body produce?
Matrix anyone? Problem solved.
Matrix produces a lot less than it burns, my little coppertop. Matrix is not plausible, thanks to the laws of thermodynamics.
Great story though. This is not to say that we aren't soaking in it right now. But something has to feed it.
Yeah, I figured as much.
viktor schauberger anyone?
I'll choose Joesph E Farrell for 30 points.
If I win, I want a trip to Neuschwabenland...I hear it gets warmer, the farther south you go. http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/88-neuschwabenland-the-last-german-colony
btw...I believe Mauss spent some time in Downsview On immediately after the war, working for Avro, on a VS design that would have actually come into production had their been the political will to resist the sio-nazi bullying from stateside. Pity.
Anyone down-arrowing you, well... I don't want them as a neighbor.
Fear not Mr Smith, we can upgrade the savages of darkest africa to squeeze another 2 or 3% in GDP, just enough to tide us over till fusion (the energy, not the spys) saves the day. Because science fiction proves that there is nothing but upside for humanity, at least in the last one I read.
You've gotta stop reading those FOMC minutes for pleasure.
"Fear not Mr Smith, we can upgrade the savages of darkest africa to squeeze another 2 or 3% in GDP"
AFRICOM at your service!
http://libya360.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/mali-us-africoms-new-war/
Fear not Mr Smith, we can upgrade the savages of darkest africa to squeeze another 2 or 3% in GDP, just enough to tide us over till fusion (the energy, not the spys) saves the day. Because science fiction proves that there is nothing but upside for humanity, at least in the last one I read.
Which one did you read?!
All I get it apocalyptic rocks hitting us, alien civs ready to wipe us out, and some pablum about how we're "plucky" (whereas no star-travelling race has ever come up with the strategy of being really hard-headed about simple problems).
This series was not at all optimistic...... plus no aliens at all. We Human's get to fuck things up on an epic scale all on our own!
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_2_7?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-te...
Great series IMHO - all six books. Best hard Sc-fi I've read in years...... do not mix em up or they will make no sense whatsoever.
Rogue
Sounds like when you ask politicians important questions on the campaign trail.
Technology revolution, if anything, is accelerating as globalization addresses issues that each nation once worked on separately.
The problem is that the revolution in labor-saving is exceeding any ability to create new jobs in new sectors.
The transition to automation has shifted from agriculture to manufacturing to services.
So what do people do when computers and machines can do most things better and cheaper?
"So what do people do when computers and machines can do most things better and cheaper?"
Are you really a monkey?
Consider that MOST people don't really utilize computers and machines. Roughly 2/3 of the world's population lives on $3/day or less.
The "people" that you are referring to are the praetorian guards, the buffers between the poor and TPTB. TPTB are finding it increasingly more difficult to maintain this buffer: this is my argument against the notion that TPTB are trying to wipe out the middle class. The "people" that you refer to are but a small fraction of the total population. And as you note, they are being replaced by computers and machines.
What you're really asking is what you (and the rest of us here) are going to do. Figure it out! You can either sign in blood with TPTB (and exist by their good graces, up until they can no longer afford to pay you), or you can become one of the poor and manage to just survive (and understand the real meanings of life). To sum up: either become a fucker or become poor. WWJD?
Next question?
Oh I know this! You get a hammer and break the computer and the robot, and increase demand, thus firing the economy to a new and mighty imaginary zenith.
"Consider END OF GROWTH - six headwinds: demography, education, inequality, globalization, energy/environment, and the overhang of consumer and government debt.(via Zero Hedge)"
Advances in automation has replaced jobs that were done by people to earn a living. Simple fact is that these former workers were also consumers. If the number of consumers goes up, the economy grows. Reduce the jobs = reduced consumers = shrinking economy. The capital investment in automation was great for businesses but in the bigger picture, they laid off the people who purchased products. Kind of drives demand for products down.
Even old Henry Ford knew this- the success of an industry is if the workers who make the product can afford to buy the product. No makers-no buyers. Pretty simple actually
Yes and No
Debt is curable. Once everybody starts to think like a banker, those debts will no longer be honored. Debts that aren't honored are no longer debts, they are tax credits.
It's what I call "economies of scale in reverse." And, a big problem for TPTB is that w/o the masses subsidizing the manufacture of all this stuff TPTB will suffer from higher costs as well: also think of all the pent-up frustration that'll be unleashed- I'm not going to look like a material person...
This is going to hurt.
Mankind is finished.
Science, Engineering, Technology still work.
The disaster is caused entirely by...
predators DBA government
predators DBA corporations
predators DBA central banks
It is, of course, no doubt that turning earth into the most enormous fiat debt-sewer the universe has ever known is a huge drag. However, that was created by the three evil stooges listed above.
Mankind could have achieved great things, but instead gave it all away to predators, and sealed the deal by filling their own brains with endless bogus fictions crafted and sold to them by the predators who called themselves "authorities".
Game over. Predators won, humans lost. Humans refuse to wake up.
It ain't over yet sista...
they got the guns, the gubberment, and the general advantage.
But we got the spirit...and the freedom to Use it or lose it. Saddle up and find more resistors. You'll feel better, riding with outlaws n warrior folk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byuw6yG_AT4&feature=share&list=LLWnodM08-... Ursula Rucker\Richard Earnshaw - Rise!
I could always be wrong. Maybe a sufficient number of humans will actually do something when the predators cross the 65,536th line in the sand. I suppose something will happen at some point, but humans don't seem to understand how carefully the predators have been planning the future.
Why do you think the predators co-opted almost all of science and engineering to create their "full spectrum dominance" warfare and police-state infrastructure? They have been very alert, very insightful, very proactive, very prepared for any uprising that occurs.
In contrast, the few humans who are honest with themselves, and who value liberty, can't coordinate their way out of a wet paper bag as far as I can see.
I mean, hey! I'm all for "the resistance", or whatever you decide to call it. I just see very few signs of anything action except "complain" and "protest" and "vote" and "file lawsuits" and otherwise attempt the impossible (by which I mean "work withing their system").
I sure hope I'm wrong, and find endless armed-to-the-teeth roughnecks highly organized and trained and prepared for every possible situation. I could not be happier to find I'm wrong about something. But until then, I'll stay here in the self-sufficient digs I created in the extreme boonies... watching from a distance (until the satellite communications is cut).
you can't really be proven wrong, until you wanna be. Then you'll find what you think is missing...and things will look better.
It's bleak, I'll agree. But an optimist is somebody who can steel themselves to see unvarnished 'reality' in all it's bleakness, and then balance that perception with the reserves of strength which is native to our person. Then the way unfolds, and the resources required.
After a long period of procrastination, I've committed myself to putting up my site which details my approach in this regard. Before this year is out. I've taken some time off which I'm using to try and get it ready. When I think it's presentable I'll put a link to it in my profile here.
I'll guarantee you it won't be 'rednecks' who prove the most effective resistors out there. Nor 'guns' the most effective tools of resistance.
Quit playing the blame game!
Everything, going WAY back (think "go forth and multiply"), was based on a ponzi of "perpetual growth on a finite planet." Just because you're seeing the levers in the hands of the last controllers it doesn't mean that They CAUSED all of this. The last folks on Easter Island didn't cause their end, they just participated in it (their path was entrenched well before their end-point).
Mankind "achieved" based on mankind's thinking. If, as I suppose is the case (based on the history of the planet and all living things), "success" is propagating a specie for as long as possible, well... mankind's failure to re-seed the stars may or may not be good or bad...
All I can say is, it would be a travesty to seed the universe with predator-humans or loser riff-raff humans. I welcome a universe in which I get wiped out for being dishonest, careless, stupid, or non-productive. In fact, space is pretty interesting that way... in being intolerant of being a lame-ass lifeform. Which is why those of us who make outer space our home will become inorganic in fairly short order. Much safer that way.
One thing about the past history of mankind is this. Almost always some predator authoritarian caused the disasters. Take Easter Island for instance. Classic irrationality due to religion or fictional social ideas (we're better than them or other BS).
Outer space is a place for individualists, where each individual can enjoy/bare/suffer the consequences of his actions, for better or for worse. And in space, "worse" almost always means "you're dead".
" the end of cheap, abundant energy " - clearly the author does not have any clue what Energy is. A more appropriate statement would have been: the end of cheap/easily extractable burnable fossils
To be fair, probably very few people in history of the earth, had some understanding what Energy is, so go easy on the author.
The truth is that, if we conceptualize Energy with natural medium vibrations, which is sort of the closest abstract that we can create to our scenes and theoretical physics constructs, than we can see that Energy is ALWAYS abundant. Now our machinery for transformation ( note, NOT generation, an energy can not be generated EVER, can only be transformed from, one vibration to another, if you prefer to imagine ), of this abundance of vibrations, in suitable form, for feeding to the other of our ( mostly wasteful, but this is another matter ) machinery, can be efficient ( cheap ) or inefficient ( expensive ).
Considering that in the current socio-economic system anything that TRULY decreases people expenses impacts SOME BIG players ( at their pockets ), it is easy to see why there is NO "need " for such truly revolutionary development, that in stronger words is really DANGEROUS for it spells revolution ( this is why is called revolutionary ).
Such machinery was already developed as practical concepts by several inventors, most pronounced by Tesla, at the end of 19th and the beginning of the 20th centres. So there is nothing new to invent, we just have to change our socio-economic system, but of course, this is a lot harder nut to crack than the abundance of Energy freely providable by the Electrical Universe.
That was just as quacktacular as anything from Terence McKenna.
or Walter Russell for that matter
All fine about explaining what energy is and what it is not, but the part about there being an ability to cheaply harness the "vibrations" leaves a lot to be desired.
Harnessing and or altering stuff, vibrations or ANYTHING, goes against the predominant force of entropy. If you wish to beat out entropy it'll cost you, um... energy and time. That is, in order to alter the natural "cosmic" forces at play you have to pony up energy: the "time" part comes in to play automatically based on your participation, but can also be an issue of trying to alter the timescale, which, can only be done through the application of more energy.
If Tesla's ideas had real practicality they'd have managed to spring forth somewhere on the planet. I mean, really, if you could conjure up all sort of energy then you shouldn't have any problems defeating those with LIMIT energy, right? I'm sorry, but this is all just another variant of "blame someone else for one's predicament."
We're NOT gods. We just think we are...
I have to assume, based on your statement "If Tesla's ideas had real practicality they'd have managed to spring forth somewhere on the planet", that you are ignorant about who is the inventor of the AC power transmission system, the AC motor, the Radio ( all bunch of patents ), the fluorescent lighting and another 700 patents/inventions Tesla has under his name. Or probably, you thought that Edison were the inventor of these "not practical" inventions ...
Just to note about the idea that the practical/efficient technologies "spring" on their own. The (Tesla's) AC power transmission system, as you hopefully know, is A LOT more efficient for energy transmission than the standard DC system ( and I am not talking about the new types HV DC systems, that are totally different matter ).
Now this is VERY obvious in our days, because we have all our power transfer based on (Tesla's) AC ( the "non practical" Tesla inventions ). It was the experimental research and practical engineering that Tesla by inventing it and showing the tremendous efficiency of AC over DC power transfer system. And now the curious fact, with such extremely visible superiority on AC over DC, how much time took AC to be recognized: 10 YEARS !!!! ( considering that if you were to do power transfer with DC, you have to put a power plant ON EVERY circle, surface area, with radios 5 kilometres!). This time was known as the battle of the currents. Even DC is extremely inefficient there were powerful interests behind it (Edison's) that wanted to go with it for power distribution. AC only succeed because behind Tesla, at that time, there were also money interests, that consequently left, when his research, on ground transmission of power, started to threaten the EXISTING industry order.
And just a site note about "vibrations or ANYTHING, goes against the predominant force of entropy".
It is interesting to say that a theoretical construct as entropy, that is a PROCESS, is termed as a force. I guess, you either have not clear understanding of basic physics, for for some reason confuse terms. Entropy is a theoretical construct for processes we have very little understanding about, and it does not matter how many wonderful words we use, it is clear that our understanding it limited. For ones I agree with you, we are not Gods, and just talking in a smart way about the physical reality does not make us understanding and USING it for our benefit, and would add without burning natural resources.
Damn straight! We are not gods.
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However, did you notice that huge freaking unshielded nuclear fusion reactor that rises every morning? Do you realize that it will likely emit huge quantities of energy for billions of years more?
All this talk of "entropy" is loser talk. The fact is (though we'd probably get into a huge astrophysical and/or quantum-physical food fight over this), local entropy appears to be approximately (and probably exactly in the fullness of time) balanced by global entropy.
What is maximum entropy (as usually claimed)? Well, let's be seriously egregious and create something off-the-charts maximized entropy. No available energy, no order. You know, like perhaps a cube of "empty" space 20 parsecs long, wide, high. No stars, no planets, no asteroids, no nothing... just random atoms wandering in random directions at near absolute zero, and perhaps a few faint and randomly distributed wisps of nebulae here and there. Complete disorder. No way to suck energy out of this 3K cube of nothingness.
Until we wait a few hundred million years, plus or minus. What happens? Well, eventually, even through random processes (luck, chance), a slight concentration of atoms in a region happens... which via gravity tends to drag other atoms that way... which makes the region a bit more massive and a bit more attractive, gravity wise. Which after a few billion repeats ends up causing a lot of atoms in that area, which eventually gains some serious mass, and sucks even more extremely (gravity wise), which... carries on for some hundred million years until... what?
One huge, more-or-less spherical (ordered) freaking ball that achieves nuclear fusion. At that point, it is a bit difficult to say "no order" or "no available energy". And this is the story of the universe, in the sense this has happened a freaking insane numbers of times.
This is the opposite of entropy, and it is a hugely common, massive phenomenon. Of course the other side of entropy is pushed on us endlessly, so I need not add my voice to the deafening roar.
Human beings are indeed incredibly irresponsible. What I keep trying to point out to all the defeatists out there is this. Human kind is totally screwed. But it is not because they have no way out. It is because, as element says, they act like prey and let the predators destroy them and every possibility for humans to do what they need to do, to get by in this universe successfully.
The universe is not "tapped out" of material or energy. Only humans are, but not because they need to be. Face it, the vast majority of humans are just losers. Sore ones at that.
Finite Planet.....
Infinite Growth......
Anyone see the problem?
Nothing a few colorful charts can't fix.
Anyone see a manned space program?
Not in the USSA.
BTW, the "finite" argument is misguided. Even without space travel there is plenty of earth remaining for trillions of people to live for thousands of years (untill space travel technology becomes more efficient... I refer to getting out of the gravity well part, the rest is okay already).
The earth is a solid ball of resources, only the most incredibly thin layer having been tapped. But now you'll claim that everything but the thin crust is molten lava, much too hot for practical application. WRONG.
The fact the earth is mostly molten is a fabulous energy source to tap. Would you care to compute the available energy down there? I thought not. Would you care to compute the available living area if we convert the molten core into a foam structure with pockets the size of... oh... say in the range of large rooms to central park or the grand canyon? I thought not.
Nonetheless, none of this is practical as long as predators rule earth, speaking here of predators-DBA-government, predators-DBA-corporations (large ones) and predators-DBA-central-banks. So in the current completely insane modus-operandi of planet earth, you finite resources guys aren't that far off the mark.
But what is the solution? Continue to be insane sheeple-chimps run by a bunch of crazed hyper-destructive predator-chimps? I think not. Yet you always assume this must be the permanent future of mankind. Well, if that's your assumption, then your conclusion is correct. No, cancel that, your conclusion is wildly optimistic, because the predators will kill you off before you run out of convenient dirt to process.
I wish that just for a day, everyone could see what a rational planet would look like. I mean, to those few who decided to stay on this planet once being rational paid off with a whole solar system to explore and enjoy. Clearly you have no freaking idea what kind of life humans could have.
But have you ever considered the following blatant contradiction?
In the 1950s, most families in the USSA had one income earner. Yet they lived a better life than families today do, and they had the potential of an infinitely better future. Now some people observe this fact and come to the conclusion that the extraordinary technologies developed in the following 60 years are what made life worse.
Nothing could be further from the truth. What made life worse is the growing and now complete dominance of predators. The technology had the potential to make life 100x better (and easier, and cleaner, and more efficient)... but the predators sucked all the gains in efficiencies out of the system and misdirected them into their craven games. Furthermore, they misdirected the application of those technologies from beneficial purposes into warfare and police-state applications.
As someone who understands what the world could be like today, had the predators not so thoroughly dominated, all I can say is, you have no idea. You can have no idea. You are not in a position to understand. Some people are, but you vote liars, cheaters, fraudsters and predators into office endlessly, then just accept whatever they do, no matter how egregiously unethical, immoral and unlawful.
The "finite planet" is not the problem. The "extremely finite honesty and rationality" exhibited by humanoid-chimps is the problem. Period.
BTW, the notion of "infinite growth" is simply absurd. Please learn what the terms you convey mean (then think about what you're saying) before you convey them.
Disclaimer: While I am quite aware the earth could support trillions of human beings living a comfortable lifestyle (given honest and rational human beings), I have a personal distaste for crowds. So I would prefer the population of earth be perhaps 1% of the current load... while I live on Mars or some moon or asteroid alone, or with a few (under 20) other honest, rational beings. So I'm totally not a fan of "lots of people" scenarios, just the opposite. Nonetheless, I am honest, and thus say it like it is, even when I don't like it personally.
I'm of the view that systems are wildly complex and yet we all attempt to simplify things and explain them by drawing on our personal biases. When I think of the 1950s, when a one income earner could provide for a family and we "lived a better life" than we do today, I have to try to imagine what other factors might have been a work other than debt and predators. I suspect---but cannot prove---that the US' position as about the only remaining major industrial base (post WWII) had something to do with it. The war had created, in its aftermath, a kind of unnatural monopoly for the US and its labor force. Furthermore, the inability (at that time) of the masses of India and China to be labor competitors probably had some influence, as did the then-US cultural norm of "barefoot and pregnant" women. If women go back to that, and Indians and Chinese re-adopt the hardscrapple life that characterized their societies from when their earlier socio-economic rises collapsed---which would have the added benefit of taking upward pressure off oil and other resources---we might return to those "Golden Times" of the US 1950s. Few, however, save for the predator-est of the predators, would want to do so. Minorities, women and developing worlders might not remember those years as golden.
So how did we get from those US golden years to today, lifting up the billions in the developing world? Debt. That was the easy solution to create the demand that gave so many others a reason to be. As the population exploded, all of us humans simply could not innovate, create, and build genuine wealth fast enough to absorb all the new souls as quickly as they might have wanted, so we used debt. Governments did it, consumers did it, and as a last ditch attempt to keep the party going, homeowners did it. The 1950s had one income households, the 00s had the three income household (Dad, Mom, HELOC). Chinese and Indians (might have) said "thank you". Oh, and the Consumer Society was a necessary part of this transition. If so many did not covet the crap China produced, and thus went into debt acquiring it, there would be no exploding shark tanks in massive Chinese malls which can be reached via high speed train.
We bitch and moan about the debt and against those who took advantage of the debt proliferation system, but those negatives just might be an offshoot of the solution we used to give everyone a reason to be. As for a solution now, well, until we can determine the real cause, we might be trying to solve the wrong problem. It is not as simple as "because of the Fed" or "the lack of a Gold Standard" or even "fractional reserve banking". Those golden 1950s came well after 1913 and the 1930s, and the standard of living enjoyed by a billion more people than even existed in the 1950s arose in spite of those supposed demonic creations. Easy answers, something so preferred around here, don't begin to truly explain our wildly complex system.
Obviously this could be as wrong as anyone else' explanation, but since nobody really knows, what the heck. Whenever I think I've solved something, I repeat an old and favorite quote: if my demons leave me, I fear my angels will soon follow
If you were standing in front of me I'd shake your hand.
psst ... don't mention hippies ... they didn't really dig the 50's man, they kind a didn't want to go through anything like that ever again man. I guess it depends who you were/are and how you grew up if you thought the 1950s was a 'golden-age'. Personally, I thought the 1970s were paradise, 1980s absolutely awesome, 1990's pretty good, since 2000 its been very crappy indeed, and steadily getting much worse every year.
Personally I feel fine though, just the entire human world seems to be turning to shit, while the rest of the world is just fine.
Well, I didn't exist in the 1950s, but I grew up in a house and neighborhood that was built in 1954. The price for the brand-new 4-bedroom split-level house on 1/2 ~ 1/3 acre in 1954 was $15,000 --- roughly equal to their one-year salary as teacher. Now some aspects of newer homes are a bit nicer today, but all the ones I've seen in similar developments today are 1/15 ~ 1/12 acres. While we had a dozen very productive food trees and enough room in the yard to play frisbee, today you can only play chess and have a barbeque in the back yard. So much for "go out and play"! So my opinion is, all things considered, I'd rather live in that house than a new one, especially as a kid!
Clearly 1913 was a very bad year... the year the most disasterous and seemingly irreverible change happened (the income tax, the IRS, the FederalReserve). Clearly there were bad times along the way (federal reserve creates the great depression and the government steals everyones gold).
But I think the point of no return was Johnson and his Vietnam war, his welfare state, his get-the-government-into-everything approach, and then capped off by Nixon going 100% fiat and Keynsian. That starts in the late 1960s, but I tend to think all of that is the 1970s.
But anyway we look at it, the early 1970s is when the tire on the USA blew out while going at top speed. Kaboom and over the cliff the USA went... straight into becoming the USSA. Of course the full consequences of the changes in the late 1960s and early 1970s didn't ruin everything immediately. So the 1970s weren't so bad on the surface. It was the classic Wyle E. Coyote syndrome. The USSA had gone over the cliff, but not that much terrible had happened yet.
But yeah, you got the right attitude. The world and mankind can drop dead as far as we're concerned. Yes, it is too bad, but... boy did they deserve it. Why? Well, for exactly what you said the other day... acting like prey when faced with predators. That attitude (acting like prey) did not work for anyone who came to the americas in the 1500s, 1600s, 1700s, 1800s or early 1900s, but somehow people in the last half of the 1900s decided they could get away with acting like prey as the predators ascended.
Well, the rest of the story is... that didn't work!
I agree with almost everything you say. The USA certainly did have a better situation than placed that had been bombed to rubble. Of course, I suspect neither of us is a Keynsian, because then we'd have to say "being bombed into rubble" is the best possible situation for an economy. On that measure, the most flattened countries in europe would be "best off". Even though I'm not Keynsian, and don't believe that crap for one nano-second, there are certain advantages to rebuilding everything from ground up with the latest techniques and technologies. In an diligent, industrious society, that does have some benefits for the future. Which doesn't make up for being blasted to death, however.
The USA had several "advantages", which, however, have led the USSA to become the most egregious pile of BS the world has ever known. After the war the USA had developed some of the best technology and manufacturing infrastructure in order to fight the war. And they hadn't been bombed back into the stone age. So yes, relatively speaking, that was a better situation than most elsewheres.
Maybe you need to have a few more conversations with old folks. You go ask them whether life was better in the 1950s or now. They will of course acknowledge the existence of more convenient and comfortable products today, but almost uniformly in my experience say that "all things considered, I'd rather life in the 1950s".
I mean, really! When I was a kid, I never imagined I would have to move out of the USSA to experience basic liberty! But I did, over 3 years ago. What was a very basic, frugal but happy life in the 1960s mutated into something I could not even begin to tolerate 40 years later. If life is so much better now (all things considered), why on earth did I consider it absolutely crucial that I move out of the country and to the extreme boonies somewhere else? Because life is so much better now? Wow! I am amazed that anyone things that way today. You are most certainly welcome to your own opinions, but sheesh!
You are spot on about the mask that is debt. But you are making my point! Life today in the USSA and western world positively sucks --- in large part because what few appearances of goodness are all fiction and facade... purchased by getting almost every individual and [every level of] government massively, massively, massively in debt.
So you made my point. Or perhaps you only made my point, but not for others. You see, I never borrowed any money, not even a mortgage. I was wise and prudent enough to see what debt would do to my future (destroy it). Life in a massively indebted society is not better. It is much worse. There is no viable future for individuals in the USSA or western countries any longer. Kaput! And you claim this is better than the 1950s? I don't think so. Not for me! But you are welcome to think that way if you wish.
You see, if you knew me before I escaped from the USSA, you could run the following simple experiment. You could stand in front of where I and the neighbors on both sides of me lived, and compare our lives. On both sides of me were multiple new cars that got replaced every 2 or 3 years, motor boats, ATVs, etc. I had one car, nothing else. Inside the houses on both sides of me were several flat-panel TV sets, a couple stereos, all sorts of gym equipment (that nobody ever used), and literally both places had two car garages so packed full of "goodies" that they could not park in their garages. Hell, they couldn't even walk through them. In contrast, I've never owned a TV, a stereo, not even a freaking boom-box! I've never purchased a music CD, and only have 3 movie DVDs even though I'm a huge movie fan and used to write screenplays. What I did have, after two decades of working harder and longer hours than anyone I've ever known, was about 10 pounds of gold. In contrast, both of those people (working couples with no kids) were something like $250,000 in debt... in addition to their $250,000 mortgages!
So you decide. Who had the better life? From outside appearances, you would definitely say "they did... by a huge margin". But knowing the whole story, who had the better life? I claim that I did, because I had the freedom to work for myself, to do the projects I wanted, and eventually to move to the extreme boonies in another country and establish my self-sufficient digs. However, a great many of you who read this might say "they had a better life". All I can say is, "to each his own".
But my point is, the difference between me and my neighbors was... I was more-or-less living the way people did in the 1950s, and they were living the modern life. They had more stuff... but none of it belongs to them, and probably never will. In contrast, everything I have, I own.
So my perspective is this. I'm retired in my 40s, living in completely paid-for self-sufficient digs in the [incredibly gorgeous] extreme boonies... in comparison to those former neighbors who are slaves to Ben Bernanke and bankster friends for the rest of their lives. And you say "their way is better" (the 2010~2020 way)? Really? I lived my life more-or-less the way people did in the 1950s, though you could argue "even more so" (no mortgage, no kids).
So which is the better life? The 1950s or the 2010s ~ 2020s? I'll take my life. I have no regrets. In fact, the degree to which I prefer my life is so extreme, that you understand why I am surprised to hear people make arguments favoring the bad new world of today. Wow!
The predators of this planet have always caused a lot of damage. And the "regular folks" all around the world are so completely insane that they tend to forgive the travesties of their own predators-DBA-government and predators-DBA-corporations simply because "they happen to live in that country"... sorta how people route at the top of their lungs for their football or baseball team... which is only their team because they happen to live nearby (not for any objective reasons).
I'm not arguing for the 1950s! I wasn't even alive then. I'm just trying to explain to people how much "good life" would be possible in a world not run by predators. Clearly the vast majority of even very smart people have no clue how astronomically much better human life would be without the predators.
Do you know what the purpose of the space program is? I know people that have been high up in the military, high up in design of key fighter jets and all. You know what I hear from these people? It's about CONTROL of space! Concerns are over command and control from the moon. Go ahead and think that it's about YOU and a better future for YOU, but know this: it is about CONTROL, of PEOPLE, same as it ever was!
"While I am quite aware the earth could support trillions of human beings living a comfortable lifestyle (given honest and rational human beings), I have a personal distaste for crowds."
WTF? Anyone thinking this is borderline fucking nuts. "trillions of human beings?" Living some vaguely defined "comfortable" lifestyle? Is this a CAFO you're thinking of? (I'm around livestock, so I tend to view the care and feeding of animals -humans are animals- in such terms.)
You really need to study biology. ALL living creatures on this planet are subject to the SAME physical laws. Over-running one's environment happens all the time (or predation is the limiting factor). Humans, without any check on population sizes are left then with only the environment to place that check on population: lack of water? lack of arable land? disease? pests?
I think that you're suffering from a sense of entitlement. No matter what you believe you are entitled to (hiding behind the campaign to encourage a space program or whatever else) nature will have the final say.
Oh sure, you are spot on correct. The only interest the predators-that-be and predator-class have in space is to further their strangle hold on mankind.
Yes, trillions of human beings is not "borderline nuts", it is "flaming crazy nuts"! Hey, didn't I say I prefer a world with 1% of the current population, not 1000x more population? Anyone who wants to increase the population is totally wacko in my opinion. You'll get no argument out of me!
Furthermore, even if we achieve the predator-free world I was trying to describe, I still prefer and advise a much smaller population. Frankly, I guess you could say that I very much prefer quality over quantity in all things (everything I can think of off hand).
So you miss the point of my comments. I don't want more population, I want vastly less population. However, I was just trying to state that earth properly managed is not short on resources to support massive numbers of human beings. We be insane to move in that direction, and the "infinite growth" crowd (as clueless as they are) is essentially correct in practice as long as the way humans are organized remains the same (authoritarianism with predators-in-charge).
I don't know what else I can say. The problems you site are absolutely true and correct. And as things stand in the world today, and any world remotely like the one we live in today, we'd be totally lala wacko crazy to advocate more population.
Oh boy are you wrong about "entitlement". That notion is a large part of the formula that is destroying mankind. Most of the human parasites on this planet support the predators-that-be and predator-class explicitly because they have a sense of entitlement. To hell with entitlement.
You know what I am entitled to? Liberty, and whatever goods and goodies I can produce as a consequence of the time, effort and productive actions I take. Period. Nothing more. You call that "entitlement"?
Hell, I got addicted to astronomy and space sciences at about age 5 or so. Nothing was more interesting and fascinating, and I spend all my free time reading, thinking, speculating... and freezing my butt off all night outside with the small telescope I manged to save and buy (and later telescopes I designed and built myself). However, even with such a burning, life-consuming interest in astronomy and space, I was against the space program. You see, I had already learned the value of honesty and self-consistency even at that young age. So I could no more advocate government steal money from people who did not care about space in order to fund a project that benefited my interests. No more than I could advocate the endless government projects that steal money from people to fund any other project (welfare, warfare, education, and endless others). So no, even though "landing on the moon" was freaking awesome to me, I never even then advocated the theft involved.
I'm curious. What did I ever say to make you think I have any sense of entitlement? That's about as opposite from me and my beliefs that I can imagine, so I wonder where you got that implication. The fact is, I and a small group of scientists are working on a project that will let us move into space. With zero government or corporate investment. That is how space should be explored and developed... privately.
Ann. I love you. Love your posts, love your set up, think you are a definate survivor babe. Would love to bump into you in the "after life" (post meltdown). However, I have to agree with Seer on this one. You seem to be focusing on space and energy as limiting resources while ignoring food and water as limiting resources. Unless, of course you just haven't shared the correction to the conundrum. There is plenty of water on the planet and I wouldn't be entirely surprised if there were some means of efficiently converting it to drinkable water, but I'm guessing the Bush family already bought the patents. heh heh. As it stands, the population will reach K and crash. And if TPTB do have the technology to over-ride the threshold, they aren't going to let it be known, IMO because they want a controlled population crash. So in that sense you are right, predators win. I don't trust anyone to be drilling holes into the molten core. Didn't they also want to blow up the moon back in the day too, to get rid of the tides? You think we have issues containing nuclear power, oh boy. Fascinating conversation you two are having. That's just my two cents. If population keeps growing beyond exponentially, it will crash. Refer madness mentioned death control. I say the chinese were right with birth control. But then you have to give up some liberty for pop control, and that's an issue in itself. Parents should only be allowed to have two kids, to replace themselves, and no more. If the situation is dire, you can reduce it to one. Population is the problem, Ann. I'd love to hear your solutions to the other limiting resources.
I would agree with a lot of what you say if our conversation was about what is viable in an uncivilization similar to what we have now. In anything like the predator dominated system of today, none of the opportunities I mention are likely to be viable, because the predators have misdirected funds, and misdirected human activity into their slave planet project (plus living high on the hog themselves).
I try to be clear about the context I am assuming, but so often it just doesn't register, or else those who hear me just can't comprehend how significantly different a world would be if the weight of predators was removed, and the creative talents of everyone who wants to be creative and productive were unleased (in a natural way, not jiggered by some authorities, who will always misdirect).
I don't think anyone could drill down to the core... at least not in the next decade or two. Sounds too sci-fi for near-term practicality. However, there are LOTS of places where geothermal is practical, and would be tapped if not for the predators in control of everything, and the predators sucking up money that would otherwise be available for productive purposes.
Do you realize how many amazing projects you can fund with $4,000,000,000,000 per year? And a planet-wide attitude "what can I do" instead of "who can I scam" or "what can I get for free"? Think about it.
I'm not a big fan of nuclear power, but I must say, a freaking moron would be smart enough to say "Wait a second, you can't build nuclear power plants on the coast near one of the most active earthquake and tsunami zones on planet earth!". And some people did complain, and kept complaining, even as the predators approved insanely irresponsible projects. So again, we're talking about damage done by the predators-that-be and predator-class. Period. No rational human being would ever approve those projects in Japan (most of which are on the coast), much less any rational scientist or engineer. Those plants should be built underground where no water table exists below the plant, and where a large water supply exists at a higher elevation than the plant (like a nice big lake). Furthermore, anyone in their right mind would require that any company that wants to build such a plant much have full insurance to cover worst case failures and scenarios. If those worst case scenarios are so impossibly unlikely, then groups of insurance companies won't charge very much to combine resources and cover those risks.
Population growth has already leveled off, and would continue to level off if the predators allowed humans everywhere to achieve a higher standard of living. Nonetheless, I favor every imaginable form of persuasion to convince humans not to have kids (or only have one). But I'm not an authoritarian, so I would not impose such restrictions. However, I'd certainly advocate organizations that bribe men and women to "get fixed" so they can no longer reproduce. There is an organization I could get behind! I had no kids, and can't imagine anyone in a free and prosperous world full of opportunity wanting any. Of course I'm wrong there, because some people would want a kid or two. But that's okay, as long as they are very clear in their own minds what their choice means (to themselves, I mean). In the world of today, the only people who could have kids and remain honest and honorable are people who live in the extreme boonies, and have no physical or electronic exposure to the outside world. Otherwise the BS in the world at large is certain to destroy the minds of almost all kids, and turn them into psychotic wacko chimps like we see everywhere today.
The solution is to stop holding creative and productive people down. But they will continue to be held down as long as the predators control everything. So the scenarios I'm trying to describe are entirely practical... but only in a world where the predators are gone. That world would be so different from the world of today, I understand that most people simply cannot even slightly comprehend what that world would look like.
As a hint, consider this. The tiny little group I'm working with is on track to develop a technology that will improve efficiency 1000 fold or more (just making a wild guess here), and let those of us involved leave the planet and survive forever (meaning forever literally, as in however many millions, billions, trillions of years you wish). We're talking about somewhere in the vicinity of one-billionth of the world population doing this project. What if one out of 1,000, or even one out of 1,000,000 was involved in such projects? Can you even imagine? I can. I do. And all this while we cannot tap into significant resources, and must do all our work on donated time and money (mostly from those of us doing the work), because the predators would either summarily kill us, or steal the technology and then summarily kill us. Yes, the opportunities for advancement are everywhere, and many of those opportunities are extraordinary beyond most humans ability to believe. I suppose this is partly because virtually all projects today are funded and controlled by predators, and they make sure those projects only enrich their schemes, and not everyone.
Yes, population is a problem. A huge problem. But if we just reduce the population of earth by 1% or 2%, everything would be fine. Of course, that's only if the 1% or 2% we remove are the most egregious predators. Otherwise, what's the point.
The mantle is not molten at all. Seismic wave propagation, geophysics and igneous xenolithic inclusions in extruded melts show that it's about 95% crystalline silicate solid-rock, about 2,900km thick, mostly polymorphic crystals of magnesium, iron and silicon-dioxide, with a bulk chemical composition not unlike basalt. The rest of the mantle is assorted 'volatiles', and the largest components of these happen to be molecular water + salt. The actual part that's 'melted' at any given moment is a very small fraction of the total. Unfortunately people have an entirely warped idea about what most of the earth is, and what it does.
I'm no geologist, so I may be way off the mark on the molten character of earth. However, you must be claiming that the molten lava we see coming out of volcanoes are finding their way up through cracks or vents or pipes 2800 kilometers long! If that is true, I am a bit astonished.
Or if you're saying there are just random spots of lava near the surface, that's pretty strange too. I know there is a lot of energy expended when plates push and rub together, but it seems a bit amazing to me (just intuitively) that this action creates lava. I suppose it could be.
And yeah, what you're saying bears zero resemblance to what we were told in elementary and junior high school. No geology after that for me, and admittedly I never listened in school anyway.
Nonetheless, the earth is not a hollow ball. There's enough material available to support enormous construction projects. My point is, in a world where predators don't lower the available spending money by 20x or so, humans could engineer a very comfortable life on planet earth. Even if oil totally runs out, and even if geothermal is not as massive an opportunity as I believe. We still have that astronomically huge unshielded nuclear fusion reactor to tap, either directly, or through wind, tides, etc.
In the 1950s, most families in the USSA had one income earner. Yet they lived a better life than families today do,
"Living a better life" is a dubious value judgement--the 1950's in the USA were OK (if you were a white male), but the relative level of physical comfort, personal autonomy, and leisure is dwarfed by today's.
There are benefits afforded to some that come from maintaining a "quasi-integrated" slave population, like we did back then, but you really ought to be more specific if you're going to say things like "lived a better life."
All that is pretty much true, and the USA had artificial advantages over most other parts of the world after WW2. Nonetheless, my points remain true. I have no idea where you ever got the idea that people have more leisure time today than the 1950s! Give me a break.
To be sure, certain technological advances have happened that make life more comfortable in some ways today (I couldn't survive without memory foam now that I'm used to it), but life in the USSA is much less comfortable in the USSA today in a great many very important ways. I wasn't around (or a square) in the 1950s, but I lived in cheap tract/development homes built in the 1950s and 1960s, and they were 1/4 to 1/3 acre lots (and we had a whole bunch of fruit trees and lots of open space to play). Today the same are 1/12 acre lots, and barely have enough room to play chess and have a barbeque out back. That's an improvement?
Also, you can't compare the lifestyles of two countries or two eras when in one the people typically save a significant quantity of money and has no debt other than the mortgage, and the other is a mind-blowing hyper-debt ridden society where purchases come from two salary earners and massive quantities of debt. Hell, if people in the 1950s borrowed as much as typical fools do today, they'd have been living vastly better than people today. By ignoring these differences, you compare apples to oranges!
How can anyone claim they have more personal autonomy today than the 1950s (in the current police state and endless nosey, pushy, authoritarian-oriented neighbors? You must be kidding in spades on that one.
The USA was never pure as the driven snow, but you can take it from me that life is not better in the aggregate when the "quasi-integrated slave population" becomes the 99% that is coming soon (or arguably here already) instead of the 5% in the 1950s.
I have no idea where you ever got the idea that people have more leisure time today than the 1950s!
My parents grew up in the '50s and told me about what life was like for them. Simple day-to-day survival required a great deal more TIME AND EFFORT than it does today, primarily because of technological developments which made life easier. Let's not be shrill.
you can't compare the lifestyles of two countries or two eras when in one
If you believe that, it's not warranted to say that life in the '50s was better. Unfair comparison, right?
more personal autonomy today than the 1950s
Women can decide to get educations or work in careers today, rather than then. Gay people can live their lives in the open without fear of being murdered or regularly beaten. Blacks are no longer second-class citizens by State decree. Jews are able to find work in large institutions that they don't have to own.
These are mostly SOCIAL changes, though, which may be why you're not able to perceive them. By *every* measure, a randomly selected American born in 1990 has more life choices available to him than he did if he were born in 1930.
The government today is a huge part of the economy, but it remains a relatively small part of the lives of most people. Most people don't care about government "rule" because most of their choices just don't lead them into conflict with government power.
Well, I've been around since the 1960s, and I can assure you, people had more leisure time then. And I don't think I was observing an unusual sample.
Well, let's be fair. On the one hand vastly fewer women wanted to be in the work force, largely because they didn't need the extra money to survive. But your point is still correct, they would not have found high-level positions in many fields so easily back then (though women dominated nursing, elementary school teaching, etc).
The situation with blacks was worse, of course. They had even harder times getting high-level positions. I agree about that. However, would you care to find out what percentage of blacks in the 1950s and 1960s were unemployed versus today? That's the unfortunate flip side of that particular coin. Life is worse for everyone now.
But neither of us should confuse the more sex/color/other-blind nature of today with the general point. Today the predators-that-be and predator-class consider everyone to be a slave. Back then, certain minorities were not treated fairly, but few considered them slaves.
Today, we are all officially slaves according to the predators-that-be and predator-class. They say so quite explicitly. Hell, they claim the right to kill any of us just because they say so. And dude, that's a nominally black predator-that-be saying that (and doing so, even to minors). Which shows that not even blacks are immune to treating others like slaves and even worse.
Are you serious? People are not in overt conflict with government because they act utterly and completely submissive! They act precisely like demoralized slaves, which is what they allow themselves to be. It doesn't even matter how much their rights are violated, they just do what they're told in order to avoid getting their lives destroyed even worse.
To say that overt slaves have no conflict with their harsh masters is completely insane, even when those slaves are totally submissive sheeple who speak not a word against their own mistreatment (out of fear). How gross an attitude is that?
The problem is the return of a more steady-state dynamic equilibrium ecology, since the current system is astronomically overshooting far beyond that, and so, most probably, has to drastically collapse first, instead of sanely level off. WE ARE THE PROBLEM! That we control civilization through sytems of frauds, backed by force, IS THE PROBLEM!
There are plenty of theoretical alternatives, from the oceans to outerspace, and so on and so forth. From a sublimely theoretical perspective, there is a great abundance of energy and information, far more than we currently use, which could be used. From a theoretical perspective, we could have an industrial ecology. There are plenty of ways that we could adequately recycle materials. However, all of those depend upon some system of death controls, in a murder system, to limit things, somehow. By definition, any endless exponential growth is absolutely impossible! By definition, the death control systems are what will limit the growth, to be whatever is sustainable. The problems today are first and foremost that our civilization has a fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting system. The history that made War King then made Fraud King. Everything we are doing is controlled by the people who were the best at being dishonest and backing that up with violence. Furthermore, there are good reasons WHY that kind of human ecology evolved to make the political economy that we have at present. That system has no apparent ways to become any saner, rather than drive itself through psychotic breakdowns.
The problem of attempting infinite growth in a finite world is an ECOLOGICAL PROBLEM. The roots of our dilemma is that we are being controlled by the people who were the best at lying about their real solutions. The real history of militarism made deceits the most successful strategy, and therefore, the style of our whole civilization is based on the maximum possible deceits. That makes any transformations to saner human and industrial ecologies, within natural ecologies, appear to be practically impossible, and utterly unreaslistic, since we are rushing as fast as we can the opposite direction, with more and more money made out of nothing, as debts, which is already at levels of debt insanity, which make any other creative alternatives practically impossible to introduce or scale up, because everything we are actually doing is dominated by runaway systems of FRAUDS, BACKED BY FORCE! There are tightly tangled up knots of paradoxical problems, due to that history. We need to radically transform our energy systems, however, our actual systems now are governed by those who were the best at lying about how they were doing that!
Working through human ecology and industrial ecology problems to do those necessary transformations is THE RUB! All the alternatives that I am aware of, and there are plenty of them, necessarily recreate the essential ecological problems in more intense forms. For instance, sure, there are trillions of times more resources in the solar system, than on Earth. However, any development in outer space simply forces us to deal with ecological problems in those contexts more intensely than we already have manifested on Earth.
EARTH IS ALREADY A SPACESHIP. However, the Earth now can be described as being in an insane state of mutiny, where those who are the best at being dishonest, and backing that up with violence, are controlling what is happening, in ways which maximize their short-term advantages, regardless of the longer term consequences. I see the future as primarily a roller coaster ride. There will NOT be endless growth. There will be insane overshoot, resulting in insane collapses to chaos. I expect the global population in 2100 will more probably be less than 1 billion, than more than 10.
All of our science and technology has made us trillions of times more powerful, EXCEPT that primarily means a trillion times more greedy and stupid! The ONLY genuine alternatives to overshoot, and collapse into chaos, due to genocidal wars, along with democidal martial law, would be the negotiated development of a better murder system, imposing better death control systems, so that the impossible exponential growth could be restrained, with less of that overshooting insanely, then collapsing into chaos. All of the possible creative alternatives, of which there are LOTS, and theoretically more and more possible, with some astonishing breakthroughs being plausible and possible, STILL have to have their central features be their death control systems. No matter what alternatives, the alternative murder systems are the keystones, or lynch pins, to hold together everything else.
Infinite growth on a finite planet is obviously impossible. Some more imperative ecological equilibria will be forced to happen, probably in the worst possible ways. Theoretically, there are plenty of alternative death control systems, which could result in better balancing out everything else. However, those are by far the hardest to imagine actually succeeding. Instead, those systems are way more likely to be the ones that most collapse into chaos, and cause genocidal and democidal wiping out of the majority of the world's population, and activities.
There are basic ecological problems, which are chronic, and inherent in the nature of life, and which must be resolved, over and over again, in one way or another. All of the creatively alternatives only can temporarily postpone more thorough resolutions of those chronic problems, which require evolving an ecology with a balanced rate of death controls to match the birth rates, for all things, not just human beings.
There are so many wild trajectories happening at the same time. We might see the emergence of a world government at the same time as the development of cyborgs! Who knows? BOTH the creative and destructive aspects are on exponential growth curves, and yet, BOTH will have to equilibrate somehow together, eventually, through their own inherent processes interacting.
The deeper problems is that our entire civilization is based on the maximum possible deceits, in both our money and murder systems, so that everything we do is based on financial frauds, backed up by military madness, all of which are runaways. The ideas that we collectively could negotiate better balancing of the death and birth rates seems preposterous at the present time. The only apparently realistic ways that could happen is through future booms and busts, on an unprecedented scale, where the total human population and all human activities, boom onwards, until some level when they go bust. Therefore, the boom in more and more people, is likely to be followed by a terrible bust, where billions of people get horribly wiped out, through genocidal wars, along with democidal martial law.
Since sane negotiations of alternative death controls appears to be politically impossible, therefore, still overshooting, until the boom goes bust, on an unprecedented scale, appears to be the most probable future. I like to day dream of breakthrough political enlightenments, whereby we face the fundamental facts, especially about our weapons being trillions of times more powerful, and therefore, enough of us admit we need radically different militarism, and murder systems, and drastically renegotiated death controls.
IF we had that, then the rest of the creative alternatives could be integrated. However, without that, then the rest of the creative alternatives are trapped within the insane meat grinder of overshooting, followed by collapses into chaos. The futures are either some degree of leveling off, which appears political impossible, given the general levels of greed and stupidity, powered by more and more technology, or else, too much growth, in unsustainable ways, which then must result in catastrophic popping of the biggest bubble of all. So far, clearly, we are still in the great boom, going UP, with more and more people living than dying on the planet. However, there are plenty of good reasons to believe that grand bubble could pop, and finally, the human population will stop growing, but rather drastically collapse, especially since that could easily accelerate, to become different groups of human beings wiping each other out ...
The only genuine alternatives are negoiating better death controls. Those are quite theoretically possible, and then, all the rest of the good theoretical alternatives could be integrated. However, without that, then nothing else anywhere else is workable. If Spaceship Earth can not be stabilized, then none of the other opportunities in outer space could be either, since those are simply more concentrated versions of the same problems that we already have here now.
I like to read your posts... they're great. In the end, "spaceship earth" may indeed be stablized by predators (for a while), if they complete their plans to eliminate 99% of humanity (plus or minus 1%), and implement their servant robots.
What is radically sick is to understand that honest, productive, non-predatory human beings are not up to that task. This sickens me, because nobody but the predators will enjoy the way we "get there from here". Trust me on that one.
BAD SYSTEMS FAIL!
To borrow from religion: "The meek shall inherit the earth."
I'm a farmer. Farmers have always been besieged by roaming armies; yet, there are still LOTS of farmers. Should I take up another line of work because of the threat to farmers? Food, Shelter and Water... No, "they" aren't going to kill us all off; if they did, then who is going to provide for them? (and no, I don't plan on providing for "them" as long as I can help it)
And another quote: "No one said life is fair." We live and then we die. No one is exempt.
Cheap 'american' rationalization.
Nobody said that being on the right side of unfairness was unfair.
Bad systems fail: best.
'Americans' aim toward depletion of resources.
When 'americanism' fails, no following system will be allowed to succeed as every system requires some means, resources etc
And here we have another 'american' trait: too big to fail.
When failure happens, failure is so terminal that it jeopardizes the possibilities for others to succeed.
One thing to remember, bankers are 'americans' who just happen to be bankers. No determinism in the banker position. All in the 'american' status.
Extremely trenchant!
This should stand as a separate article. No other articles broaching this topic even come close to the target: makes the economics stuff look pretty silly and trite.
Well seriously Seer, why don't you register to post and write one, or three, so it can be thrashed out.
Who is that "we"? 'Americans' came up with that idea they were able to overcome the environment and they crush any other human beings who did not share the beliefs.
Two remarks: 'americans' are 'americans'. So they are compell to shift responsibility onto others whenever it is consequences they deem bad. In the end, to speak 'american', the true guilty people are those who fail to resist 'americans' 'Americans' often target those people as the root of the problems.
Second, 'americans' are 'americans' and only know 'american' solutions to any problem that is.
They wont innovate and stick with 'american' solutions.
It makes the future a quasi certainty. And it is solving an overconsumption issue by consuming even more until there is nothing left to consume.
Two salient points:
(1) pope ain't goin for it, but fuck him. (just kidding about that point)
(2) 'Nature', whatever you want to call the dynamics of life, is running this show, not humans, and it can and actually will solve any and all problem that you have, or perceive to be real, no matter what it is. On a long enough timeline, absolutely 100% guaranteed, every time.
There is zero danger in anything - enjoy.
Galactic Empire is the solution.
And after the Milky Way is full, there is an entire Universe to fill . And probably a Multiverse as well.
The space, that new frontier to pionneer. Check the 'american' institute named NASA, they have a slogan of the type.
'Americans', or the fantasy of the to the stars and beyond.
Actually, you'd make a great inter-galactic anti-hero. A sort of cosmic James Dean with a giant chip on your shoulder about, well, about pretty much anything and everything. Just super-duper pissy about everything and nothing, but all at the same time.
These are the trollings of a communaught enterprise.
His mission: to create strange new words, to blob-up new strife and new insanitations, to boldly troll where no ChiCom has trolled before ... (music) ...
"Citizenism Trek"
Don't worry, Mike! It's not likely we'll forget how to make war.
The Lauddite Fallacy never gets old, does it?
Honestly, the only thing holding people back from being as employed as they want to be is the gov't. The author mentions, "the politically protected fiefdoms of healthcare (sickcare), education and government have yet to taste the whip of real innovation." Well, yeah. That's one of the benefits of controlling a monopoly. Another is limiting competition - and that's why people sit around unemployed. NOT because of technology.
+100. The assertion that "the common feature of the transformative technologies of the 20th and 21st centuries is that they could only happen once. They are one-offs that cannot be duplicated. Doing more of what has failed will only set up a grander failure as returns on all our debt-based "investments" become ever more marginal and the return on increasing complexity drops into negative territory. Once complexity yields negative returns, the systems that depend on complexity quickly destabilize and implode," hinges on a narrow view of value and that government is the creator of it. If you want to expand opportunity(s), get government out of the way. There will never be a time where entrepreneurship and innovation have apexed to where jobs and income can't exist. Scarcity invites innovation and the creative destruction of dated and inefficient ways of producing and distributing goods and services. This includes government monopolies, cradle to grave economic policies, protectionism and so on. I look forward to this day arriving sooner rather than later.
Employed.
Now there's a word to conjour with.
Does 'employed' mean being exploited or does it mean doing something useful?
There's a BIG difference.
I totally agree there is a big difference! In a monopolistic environment a worker doesn't get much of a choice of employer. That lack of choice leads to exploitation by the monopoly of the captive workforce.
My usage of the word conjures the theorhetical elimination of said monopoly. Were that to come to pass, then there would be many more employers. Any employee would be a potential employer due to low barrier to entry - making exploitation of employees a sure-fire way to go out of business (i.e. the workforce is not hostage, and can quickly become a competitor or a competitor's employee).
"Were that to come to pass, then there would be many more employers."
Let me guess, you are an employer or want to become one?
Care to guess how many of the 4+ billion on this planet who earn $3/day or less are "employers?" And, do you really think that this is all a function of intrusive govts? (just curious)
But... this is all old paradigm stuff, stuff out of the fossil-fuel age.
You'll get your competition alright.
Self-employed! :-)
I think you'll still find the govt STILL presumes that it employed you, and will not hear of any contrary suggestion - jus sayin. ;)
Ouch, that is like saying after Einstein made the one-off discovery of relativity, there is less "low-hanging fruit" to discover left
I was a machinist and injection mold maker for over 15 years and all I can say is, "Good Ridence. Let F'n China keep the Industrial Revolution."
I had to stop reading after the first sentence:
The common feature of the transformative technologies of the 20th and 21st centuries is that they were one-offs that cannot be duplicated.
Er, couldn't that statement be made for every transformative technology throughout all of history?
By definition, all discoveries are made only once (although some discoveries have been lost and needed to be rediscovered.)
I make a bundle smuggling untaxed candy cigs into Minnesota.
growth.
a quality associated with organic life forms in
an ecologic domain. it has it's place.
the interest
payment is a hard debt that must come from future
borrowing or stealing or slavery or murder, there
the usury and evil at the heart of the failed,
eternal growth(cancer)dependent, money system; why it
will fail ugly. it seems
.
2008 represents the bust of the fraud patch employed
in 1971. imo
.
here a great link i pass along.
Talks
Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight
Filmed Feb 2008 • Posted Mar 2008 • TED2008
http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight....
.
" dog's breakfast " k.v.
.
the fed and banks are the dog, we and the world are the breakfast, or so they think.
cheap energy is not the causation of wealth or scales of economy....energy is a colinear artifact of the rise of wealth....wealth has grown with freedom, innovation, and capital....the plutocrats are snuffing these out with the threadbare toxins to growth which you mention....to conflate cheap energy, low hanging fruit, and other concomittants of growth is a huge analytical error....
destory the fed, the nazi state, confiscatory government, and fire economy, and you shall dramatic changes of fortune.....
"cheap energy is not the causation of wealth or scales of economy....energy is a colinear artifact of the rise of wealth"
WRONG!
Energy = ability to do work
If you don't work you cannot get "wealthy!"
Real "wealth" has been from the exploitation of natural resources: mineral mining, forestry, Ag farming (mining soils), and fossil fuels. These are not possible without Energy. Again, simple test: there's 1 lb of gold buried 10' under your feet- can you get it without performing any work?
"Wealth" is transitory. If you don't believe it then hang around until the next glacial period to see if what you thought was "wealth" actually is of any value. I assure you, however, that having the ability to readily do more work WILL be worth something...
The next big forseeable IR isn't even on the list. Truly intelligent robotics. Intelligent enough to fully automate child care and elder care. And it is quite a way off, so we are not likely to see much of it in our lifetimes.
By definition, I don't know about any IR that isn't forseeable. Such things depend on new discoveries that haven't happened yet.
"Such things depend on new discoveries that haven't happened yet."
Are you willing to bet our life on this?
The Easter Islanders were probably thinking the same thing... Yeah, laugh, but you talk as though NO other civilization has ever thought that there would be some "solution," only to discover there wasn't.
Bottom line: Are you asking ME to help FUND these beliefs/plans?
You forget that drones will be much more numerous than current planes and ships. Yes, they are cheaper, but they are also expendible, and can be mass produced by the millions or billions instead of thousands. This will keep the profits flowing at record levels, have no fear. We are only in the earliest beginnings of the military drone revolution. Perhaps drones will become numerous enough to make the prophesy of Revelation true - skies filled with "locusts" that hurt only Men.
2/3 of the world's population lives on $3/day or less, and much of the rest is DEAD BROKE.
Where from do you get your notion of these drones being able to be produced by the "millions or billions?"
This shit performs horribly in inclement weather. The counter-revolutionaries (for every force there's an equal and opposite force) aren't going to make any of this a cake-walk.
Maybe Revelations was in fact talking about locusts? The impacts of crop losses on anything other than humans wasn't likely a concern by those writing this stuff: perhaps some concern for working animals (if so, I'd love for someone to provide me a pointer to such info [I'm a fan of working animals]). Maybe TPTB like to use such references for their own advantage? (conquering peoples often took over the traditions and beliefs of those whom they conquered).
BTW - In no way am I trying to minimize the notion of the destructiveness of locusts. That's why I think that such texts warned of them. But on the other hand, perhaps they were in fact trying to instruct humans to watch out for stuff that would only occur thousands of years in the future, stuff that then current day humans couldn't imagine, over threats of locusts? (go to the hassle of creating a warning for the far future when failing to warn for the immediate future might result in the loss of humanity BEFORE the far future? huh?)
Here's how it goes down. Big War. Remnants of humanity left. Aliens, (who have been observing us for a very long time), mine whatever is left on the planet.
The Aliens could have given us warp drive, (but, really, why would any off world species do that for us?).
Our species was successful to a point, eminently successful, but a few things went wrong along the way. Nobody is really at fault. All of the hominids are basically flawed.
Now the dinosaurs, there was some promise there in the long run until that damn asteroid came along.
If you understand modern livestock operations you might have another angle on this...
Look up CAFO (if needed).
Humans and much of modern livestock are BOTH fed heavy amounts of corn, wheat and soy. In the livestock industry the target is weight gain. Now look around at the human CAFOs (restaurants, supermarkets): consider that TPTB tend to not hang out at the same feeding troughs...
A Christian friend of mine likes to joke around that all religions will be proven wrong, that God will come in a space ship... (then I start thinking of Chariots of the Gods... which then makes me think that my above scenario might not be so far fetched after all)
Big wars? 'Americans' own it all and armed to the teeth.
Big wars are so unlikely. What is left to steal for 'americans'?
Are you serious? The theft has barely begun.
the theft, perhaps. but the theme is "the big war" and there I've my doubts, too
"we" are fighting endless small wars (drugs, poverty, stability of pension funds, etc. etc.) and in order to fight this "big war" we would have to commit resources that simply aren't available
You have a number of errors in your thinking. The market is not broken; it is being sabotaged. The problem is that the sabotage no longer works. We have not had a real marketplace since 1971. According to John Williams of shadowstats real price inflation has been much higher than the government says. This means that American standards of living have been declining since '71. We are poorer now than in the 1960s.
http://www.shadowstats.com/
The beauty of the marketplace is that it is self correcting. If you increase the money supply, then two things happen: artificially lowered interest rates mislead businessmen into pursuing risky ventures and more money chases goods which leads to higher prices. If the FED slacked off on money creation, the market would go into a deflation washing out the bad debt. A constant infusion of money is needed to hold off the collapse. The problem is that the amount of money needed to get an effect increases until it is unsustainable. In order to keep from going into a hyperinflation, the FED periodically slacked off on money creation to create an artificial bust. When enough bad business decisions are liquidated, then the boom begins again. You misinterpret the boom as growth when it is not.
What you are expecting is for the boom to begin again, but the market is not cooperating. People are not investing in new plant and equipment. They have hunkered down waiting for the crisis to be over. It could be when Obama leaves office or sooner. If it is sooner, then Obama gets to channel FDR. But, a recovery won't occur so long as the FED increases the money supply.
Will we ever get growth again? Sure. When the FED is out of business.
It is way too late, unemployment is the greatest lie of all the litter lies in the US eCONomie today:
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts
The USA is already right up there with Spain but somehow that reality still hasn't sunk in, because you're in nominal 'growth', well, at least you are, if you use the 'right' deflater to pretend you are. But as you point out the deflater may be just a touch adrift from reality.
"Quick, call big ears! We're going to need a fresh batch of eloquence fast!"
You were speaking to the author, not me, right? That is the only way that your comment makes sense.
I do not believe we have seen the last of productivity increases in certain areas or industries, but the burden of government may not only cancel out the gains but result in a net negative for the economy. The good news is if that is the case, growth has a chance of being restored by reducing the burden of government taxes and regulation. The bad news is that this pattern has played out before with tragic results.
and lo i heard' a great jofar make blow and the land was fill'd again with agrarian justice and sustenances, every dwelling as home and commerce was a energy producing unit with the great energy conglomerates of old relegated to maker of the market.
Okay, okay, 'americans' being 'americans' does not remove the necessity of accuracy but one has to wonder how 'maiercans' manage to be so off in so many basic observations.
Here, for example,
___________________________________
and the Internet spells the end of centralized models of growth?
___________________________________
Okay, this 'american' makes a living out of the Internet but still?
The Internet is another magnificent endeavour of centralization led by 'americans'
The Internet allows centralization on scales never reached before. Very hard to see how it could end centralized models of growth.
One of the biggest successes of the Internet, FB, was achieved by bringing a new dimension to centralization of data, this is how this firm and his owner has grown.
As usual, with 'americans', you have to submit to their shameless fantasy. To believe that the Internet is going to end centralized models of growth, you have to volunteerly ignore the existence of the likes of FB. Same stuff as usual with 'Americans'
.
ROR!
Best: AnAnonymous is 'maiercan'.
The next great discoveries and innovations will arrive shortly after we get the government out of the way.
It is funny how the environment exists for 'americans'.
The surge of the growth known since 1945 is the result of the loosening of the european nations' grip on their colonial empire.
Up to that date, each 'american' colonial power viewed their colonies as their priviledged turf.
Each of them consumes their colonies with the goal of perpetuating itself.
One consequence was that every colony was only subjected to the greed of one 'american' nation. And a side consequence, each 'american' colonial power also withdraws their colonies from being consumed by other 'american' powers.
The end of the exclusivity of european consumption on their colonies made them an open turf and 'americans' brought an 'american' solution: free for all race to consume the wealth of the open turf the fastest.
Once again, as exhibited so many times, this 'american' is 'american', that is unable to do anything without a fabled past.
This 'american' would like to keep the idea that 'americans' know how to overcome the environment, that they are detached from it, contrary to other people.The ultimate sustainability. This was introduced as a cheap justification for their 'american' stealth streak, as why others should hand down their environment to humanity.
If the environment was left to others, it would be for humanity a slow descent to an ever shrinking way of life.
If the environment was left to 'americans', it would be an ascent to an ever increasing way of life.
Either a slow, decaying path to death or a shiny, ever improving path to eternal life.
What have 'americans' exhibited so far? That no matter how much the inputs to their society are increased, they will find new ways to consume.
There is never an excess of inputs as 'americans' will design ways to consume.
In the mix of new ways to consume, to be found stuff like technological advances. Which 'americans' have been used to trying to sell as an evidence of their capacity to overcome the environment.
Of course, all this was just a by product of the formidable increase of inputs to 'american' societies. As those fall, so will the 'american' technological advance rates.
Blah blah blah blah 'americans' blah blah blah blah blah consumption blah blah blah blah blah 'americans' blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blobbing-up blah blah blah blah blah blah blah 'americans' blah blah blah blah blah 'americans' blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah .....
I have to take a dump.
I think the next growth boom will come from Soylent Green.
true problem is the limit of final demand
technological breakthroughs were possible because there were new consumer markets to capture
NO MORE TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS ?
ARE YOU SERIOUS ?
I work in technology and the pace of technological development is getting faster and faster, yet the cost of it is dropping all the time leading to mass adoption => CLOUD COMPUTING..just starting..
Fracking is being driven by technology - looks like this is going to save the US economically.
Space travel is being commercialised - NOW. So thats potentially access to a WHOLE UNIVERSE of resources.
A new "jet age" is beckoning with Reaction Engine / Skylon - UK/Aus in 4hours based on oxygen/hydrogen fuel
THE TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION HAS BARELY EVEN STARTED...
Good points, it would seem that at some point in the last 20 years, innovation in medicine, robotics, the advent of the internet and others have simply shifted jobs for those families that were nimble, educated, lucky etc. but have left the rest further behind. Industrial growth for the last 200 years required more people to create more products for an increasing consumer base. Not so now with jobs being destroyed faster than they are created. Even China is replacing people with machines that don't take breaks, need healthcare, talkback, get sick and are more adept. When the US can send an army of flying, crawling, rolling drones into a god forsaken place like Afganistan and take care of business, you know the end of job growth is upon us.
Complete and utter nonsense. There is not a human on earth who can predict which societal and technological revolutions will happen in the future.
Doomers just lack imagination, with a twist of historical ignorance.
It's 1902. You guys would be the ones to state this on the ZH of the time:
"There is no chance that man will ever fly. The one-off gains of the invention of The Train cannot be duplicated."
This thread was some of the most disappointing claptrap that I have ever seen here...