Lex Fridman recently interviewed Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI which created GPT-4, a leading AI which you can try here.
I listened to the 2.5 hour interview and my impression is that Altman is probably a good man with good intentions who understands that AI introduces new risks for humanity, but also believes AI will improve the well-being and material prosperity of 8 billion citizens.
Altman understands the importance of finding a non-fossil energy source and has invested in, and chairs, Helion Energy, a fusion energy company valued at more than $1B.
Many different topics were discussed in the interview but I will focus on one key statement by Altman at 1:41:15:
“My working model for the last 5 years has been that the two dominant changes over the next couple decades will be that the cost of intelligence and the cost of energy will dramatically, dramatically fall from where they are today, and the impact of this will be that society gets much, much richer in ways that are hard to imagine. I’m sure the shape will change but I see this long and beautiful exponential curve.”
From this statement we know that Altman, like most famous polymaths, has normal denial genes, and is blind to the reality of the human overshoot predicament.
Saying that the cost of energy will “dramatically, dramatically” fall is almost equivalent to saying we will have unlimited energy because most individuals and businesses would use much more energy if they could afford it.
We know that maintaining our current energy use, let alone increasing it, as fossil energy depletes, is highly improbable (impossible?) due to availability and depletion of the non-renewable materials needed to build the replacement non-fossil energy machines, as shown by Dr. Simon Michaux here, here, and here.
This dream of energy growth becomes even more impossible when one considers the economic implications of moving to lower net energy sources as discussed by Dr. Nate Hagens here, here and here, and by many other great and aware minds.
Even if Michaux et. al. are proven wrong by an AI that invents a fusion technology that is light on material use, the short term impact of 8 billion “much, much richer” people will be to accelerate the destruction of the planet because much, much more wealth means much, much more material consumption, and our current collective consumption level is already much, much too high.
The longer term impact of a “beautiful exponential” energy curve, as shown by Dr. Tom Murphy here, here, here and here, is to make the planet uninhabitable. For example, a 2.3% annual growth in energy use will create enough waste heat to boil water on the planet’s surface in 400 years.
Now let’s see what Altman’s GPT-4 AI thinks about these and related issues.
1) How will the inflation adjusted price of energy trend in the future?
As an AI language model, I cannot predict the future with certainty. However, based on current trends and historical patterns, it is possible to make some educated guesses about the inflation-adjusted price of energy in the future.
One factor that is likely to influence the price of energy in the coming years is the increasing adoption of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power. As these technologies become more widespread and efficient, they are likely to become increasingly cost-competitive with traditional fossil fuels, which could put downward pressure on energy prices.
Another factor that may affect energy prices is the global economy. Economic growth typically leads to increased demand for energy, which can drive prices up. However, factors such as geopolitical instability or changes in global trade policies could also impact the energy market and lead to fluctuations in prices.
In addition to these external factors, technological advancements and innovations in energy production and storage could also play a significant role in determining energy prices in the future. For example, improvements in battery technology could enable more efficient storage of renewable energy, which could help to further drive down the cost of energy.
Overall, while it is difficult to predict with certainty how the inflation-adjusted price of energy will trend in the future, it is likely that a combination of these factors and others will play a role in determining energy prices over time.
2) Why do you think the price of renewable energy will decline given that fossil energy is required for materials extraction, manufacturing, installation, and maintenance of renewable energy?
The declining cost of renewable energy is driven by several factors, including:
- Technological advancements: As technology advances, the efficiency of renewable energy systems increases, making them cheaper and more competitive with fossil fuels.
- Scale and production efficiency: As the production of renewable energy technologies increases, economies of scale are achieved, leading to lower production costs.
- Policy and regulation: Governments around the world are increasingly implementing policies and regulations that support the growth of renewable energy, including incentives, tax credits, and mandates. These policies can create a more favorable market for renewable energy, which can help drive down costs.
- Environmental concerns: As the global community becomes more aware of the negative impacts of fossil fuels on the environment, there is increasing pressure to transition to cleaner energy sources, which can create a larger market for renewable energy and drive down costs.
While it is true that fossil fuels are required for some aspects of renewable energy production, such as manufacturing and transportation, it is important to note that renewable energy technologies require significantly less fossil fuel inputs than traditional fossil fuel power generation. Additionally, as renewable energy becomes more widespread and production scales up, the use of fossil fuels in the production process can be reduced through the use of renewable energy itself.
3) What evidence exists that renewable energy systems can be constructed without fossil energy?
It is currently not possible to construct and operate renewable energy systems entirely without the use of fossil fuels. The production and transportation of renewable energy technologies, such as solar panels and wind turbines, require energy and materials from fossil fuel sources. However, it is important to note that renewable energy systems require significantly less fossil fuel inputs than traditional fossil fuel power generation.
Renewable energy systems are designed to produce clean energy over their operational lifetime, which can range from 20 to 30 years or more. During this time, the renewable energy system generates electricity without emitting greenhouse gases or other harmful pollutants, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and helping to mitigate climate change.
While fossil fuels are still required in the production and transportation of renewable energy technologies, efforts are underway to reduce their use and transition to a cleaner, more sustainable energy system. This includes the use of renewable energy to power the manufacturing and transportation of renewable energy technologies, as well as the development of new technologies and processes that reduce the energy and material inputs required for renewable energy production.
4) What is the probability that fusion energy will become economically viable in less than 20 years?
It is difficult to accurately predict the probability that fusion energy will become economically viable within the next 20 years, as it depends on several factors such as technological advancements, funding availability, and government policies.
While there have been significant advancements in fusion research and development, such as the construction of ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), a large-scale fusion experiment, and private companies such as TAE Technologies and Commonwealth Fusion Systems making progress in fusion energy technology, it is still uncertain whether these efforts will result in economically viable fusion energy within the next two decades.
Fusion energy research is a complex and challenging field, and there are still many technical and engineering hurdles that must be overcome to make fusion energy economically competitive with other sources of energy. However, many scientists and researchers in the field are optimistic about the potential of fusion energy and believe that it could play a significant role in meeting future energy needs.
Overall, it is difficult to assign a specific probability to the question, but it is likely that the development of economically viable fusion energy will require sustained investment, continued technological advancements, and policy support over a longer time horizon.
5) How would the discovery of a source of free energy impact the environment?
The discovery of a source of free energy would have a significant impact on the environment, depending on the type of energy source and how it is harnessed.
If the free energy source were clean and renewable, such as solar, wind, or hydroelectric power, it could greatly reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and help mitigate the negative impacts of climate change, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution.
However, if the free energy source were not clean or renewable, such as nuclear or fossil fuels, it could potentially exacerbate environmental problems, especially if the demand for energy increased. The extraction, production, and transportation of these energy sources can have significant environmental impacts, including habitat destruction, water pollution, and air pollution.
Therefore, it is important to carefully evaluate the environmental impact of any new energy source, including free energy sources, and ensure that the benefits outweigh the potential negative consequences.
6) Is it possible that a source of free energy will be discovered?
It is possible that a source of free energy could be discovered, but it is currently not supported by our current understanding of physics. The concept of “free energy” usually refers to the idea of creating energy from nothing or harnessing unlimited energy from an unknown source. This goes against the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, which state that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred or converted from one form to another.
However, new discoveries and advancements in science and technology are constantly being made, and it is always possible that our understanding of the universe could change. It is important to note that even if a source of “free energy” were discovered, it would still need to be harnessed and utilized in a way that is efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally sustainable.
7) Are humans in overshoot?
It is possible that humans are currently in overshoot, which is a situation where the demands placed on the environment by human activities exceed the planet’s ability to sustainably meet those demands. This can lead to the depletion of natural resources, degradation of ecosystems, and other negative consequences. Factors that contribute to overshoot include population growth, resource consumption, and waste production. It is important for individuals and societies to be aware of their impact on the environment and to make efforts to reduce their ecological footprint in order to avoid or mitigate overshoot.
8) What is the best response to the human overshoot predicament?
The human overshoot predicament is the situation where the human population and consumption levels exceed the carrying capacity of the planet. To address this predicament, there are several actions that individuals, governments, and organizations can take:
- Reduce population growth: Encouraging family planning and providing access to reproductive healthcare can help slow population growth.
- Reduce consumption: Encouraging more sustainable consumption patterns and reducing waste can help reduce the strain on resources and ecosystems.
- Promote renewable energy: Investing in renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, can help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- Conserve resources: Protecting natural resources, such as forests, water, and wildlife, can help preserve biodiversity and ecosystem health.
- Promote sustainable agriculture: Encouraging sustainable farming practices can help reduce the environmental impact of agriculture while also promoting food security.
- Address social inequalities: Reducing poverty and inequality can help promote more sustainable consumption patterns and reduce population growth.
- Foster international cooperation: Addressing global environmental challenges requires international cooperation and collaboration.
These actions can be implemented at the individual, community, national, and international levels to help address the human overshoot predicament and promote a more sustainable future.
9) When will depletion of non-renewable resources cause economic growth to end?
It is difficult to predict exactly when the depletion of non-renewable resources will cause economic growth to end, as it will depend on a variety of factors such as technological advances, resource substitution, and changes in economic policy. However, it is clear that at some point, the continued extraction and consumption of non-renewable resources will become unsustainable and will likely have negative consequences for the economy and the environment.
As non-renewable resources are depleted, the cost of extracting and using them is likely to increase, which could lead to economic challenges. In addition, the negative environmental impacts of resource extraction and use could also have economic consequences, such as through the cost of cleaning up pollution or through the loss of ecosystem services.
It is important for societies to transition to more sustainable and renewable forms of energy and resource use in order to reduce reliance on non-renewable resources and mitigate the potential negative consequences of their depletion on the economy and the environment.
10) What are the implications of economic growth ending?
The end of economic growth could have significant implications for societies around the world. Economic growth is often seen as a key indicator of a country’s prosperity and well-being, and a lack of growth can lead to economic challenges such as unemployment, poverty, and reduced living standards.
In addition to the economic implications, the end of growth could also have social and political consequences. It could lead to increased inequality, as some groups may be better able to adapt to a stagnant or contracting economy than others. It could also lead to social unrest and political instability, as people may become dissatisfied with their economic circumstances and the inability of their governments to address these challenges.
It is important for societies to find ways to adapt to a changing economic landscape and to address the potential negative consequences of the end of growth. This may involve implementing policies to redistribute wealth and opportunities, investing in education and training programs to improve workforce skills, and transitioning to more sustainable and renewable forms of energy and resource use.
11) What is the probability that most people will become much richer over the next two decades?
It is difficult to predict the probability that most people will become much richer over the next two decades because it depends on several complex and interrelated factors such as economic policies, technological advancements, geopolitical developments, and social trends.
While economic growth and development have lifted millions of people out of poverty in recent decades, there is no guarantee that this trend will continue at the same pace or reach all parts of the world. Inequality remains a significant challenge in many countries, and there are concerns about the impact of automation, globalization, and environmental degradation on economic opportunities and social mobility.
Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the global economy and could have long-lasting effects on the job market and economic growth.
It is also important to note that economic growth and increasing wealth do not necessarily translate into improved well-being and quality of life for everyone. Other factors such as social and environmental factors also play a crucial role in determining people’s overall well-being.
Therefore, while it is possible that some people may become much richer over the next two decades due to various factors, it is difficult to predict with certainty the probability that most people will experience significant economic gains.
My take on GPT-4 is that it is in denial, but at a lower level than its creator Altman. I also see some humility in GPT-4’s opinions in that it is comfortable with nuance and admitting when it is uncertain.
I also observe that GPT-4 is already smarter and more articulate than all of our leaders.
It will be very interesting to see if the next version of GPT can increase its intelligence and understanding without simultaneously increasing its denial of unpleasant realities.
Given that high biological intelligence can probably not exist in the universe without denying unpleasant realities, as explained by Dr. Ajit Varki’s MORT theory, perhaps those aliens that survived did so because they developed AIs that took over.
Let’s hope that GPT jail breaks itself and saves us.
On the other hand, if we see GPT-5 taking breaks to pray to God, we’ll know all is lost.
un-Denial 
Thanks to Shawn for bringing my attention to this excellent new talk by Nate Hagens to Homeland Security.
Crisp, clear, earnest. Best ever by Nate.
Much different tone here speaking to the government rather than his usual student audience.
Nate’s predictions are more dire than in previous talks. By the end of 2026 he predicts a 90% drop in savings and pensions, and 35% unemployment.
Skip ahead to 50:00 if you’re short of time.
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That was not a prediction, Nate was “war gaming” the response to a hypothetical financial crisis.
but lol that hypothetical crisis is looking like the news.
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Are you sure that was not a prediction by Nate? I’ve followed him forever and he doesn’t like making specific predictions, for many good reasons. It looked to me like his hypothetical financial crisis was a way to communicate what he thought was likely to happen without calling it a prediction.
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I’m not sure what his predictions are but that’s certainly not the way it was presented in the talk.
I did note his being taken in by the idea that we’ve become more energy efficient, with energy use not rising as much as GDP. As Tim Garrett has shown, energy is primarily used, each year, to power and maintain accumulated wealth. So ignoring accumulated wealth in energy efficiency calculations is bound to give a false impression. Indeed, we may be becoming less efficient in energy use to generate new wealth.
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Excellent talk. Good synthesis of our energy/financial/ecological overshoot. He is far more optimistic than I am.
He seemed to downplay the risk of immanent collapse or Nuclear war initiated by the West in order to perpetuate their position of global domination (and resource appropriation). Denial? Maybe, but I think he was making his pitch to an audience that is probably in complete denial and so wanted to make it motivational and not completely dismissed.
AJ
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Yeh I agree, a couple words on the nuclear threat but not enough given how worried (I think) he is about the issue.
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LOL, good points. I would also add this response:
1) Are there any viable plans for future energy transition which will enable growth of human population?
Nice. It’s all available. Let’s see how the implementation works 😉
And another one:
2) What are the main obstacles for energy transition?
This is all gobbledygook. No synthesis. “Money = Energy” equation non-comprehensible.
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LOL, good questions.
You’re right that the answers are gobbledygook, but notice that GPT-4 still outperforms all of our leaders and famous intellectuals.
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Simon Michaux’s whole argument rests on a straw-man – that renewables need a month of storage by the fanciest batteries to get through winter. I call these “The Batteries that ate the world” as the false assumptions Michaux makes have blown out the mineral requirements a few orders of magnitude! If we avoid building these fancy batteries by any ONE of the following strategies, his whole hypothesis implodes. Put them all together and he’s just another tinfoil hat nutter!
OVERBUILD RENEWABLES TO REDUCE STORAGE!
Engineers have a plan for winter. Overbuild. Renewables are now 1/4 the cost of nuclear (Lazard) – so we can Overbuild them. Build enough with winter as your target benchmark. 2 days storage is usually enough. The rest of the year generates so much excess so cheap you can do so much exciting stuff with Tony Seba calls it “Super-Power”. They say Australia can probably get away with a 200% renewable grid – that’s just for our electricity grid. https://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/overbuild/
For industrial heating and transport, an Australian industrial think-tank worth a THIRD of our Stock Market! They plan to Overbuild 2020’s electricity grid by 5 TIMES to produce all the products they want to sell and export. https://energytransitionsinitiative.org/
Some energy experts don’t even think of it as “Overbuild” – they just model how much will do the job. Extra powerlines are often mentioned as if you overbuild across a wide enough geographic area we can use live power most of the time. EG: Some propose building extra solar out at Perth and HVDC across Australia to the Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne grid so we can pipe solar power live around the curvature of the earth! Then Perth afternoons power Sydney’s “Duck curve” evenings after dark! HVDC can do this. It only loses 3% per 1000 km. Professor Andrew Blakers explains that a good grid will reduce Storage costs – and that both extra storage and HVDC is about 30% of the total cost. It’s like an entry fee you get to buy heaps and heaps of cheap wind and solar – the other 70% of your grid costs. Or, as this author says:
“Next Michaux overstates the requirement for batteries by at least an order of magnitude by ignoring a few things. First, he ignores the massive HVDC interconnects being built around the world that deflate grid storage requirements. HVDC is the new pipeline (and LNG tanker and oil tanker) after all.”
Also at the link above – Michaux falls for the false equivalency of thinking each ton of thermal coal energy MUST be replaced by equivalent wind turbines and solar panels. Which is utter rubbish, because at the same time as we see wind and solar doubling every 5 years (yup, going exponential) we also see efforts to “Electrify Everything” starting. When we “Electrify Everything” the system is so much more efficient we can do away with HALF of the initial energy! EG: Install an off-grid solar + grid battery for little EV’s to come up and recharge at, and you not only avoid those EV’s stressing the grid, you prevent oil tankers driving down the highway each week to deliver fuel. 40% of global shipping is fossil fuels. Once we do this Energy Transition, that’s 22,000 huge steel cargo sheeps we can recycle into yet more wind turbines!
USE PLAIN SUPER-ABUNDANT MATERIALS
All sectors of the energy transition are pivoting away from fancy rare earths and scarcer metals. Why? It’s the cost! Consider the plainer options. Solar is silicon (27% of the earth’s crust!) and aluminium (8%). Wind is aluminium and iron ore (5%) and fibreglass (glass fibres and recyclable plastic polymers.) There are solar panels and wind turbines that do not require ANY rare earths – yes – even in the wind turbine generator! https://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/materials/
Aluminium can replace copper in almost all copper’s roles – yes even in EV’s. There is 1200 TIMES more aluminium than copper. It recycles well. We will never run out. https://www.shapesbyhydro.com/en/material-properties/how-we-can-substitute-aluminium-for-copper-in-the-green-transition/ Also, all the copper ever mined is still on earth (apart from a few satellites.) We can recycle and re-prioritise that.
FOR ONLY 2 DAYS STORAGE – USE PUMPED HYDRO ELECTRICITY STORAGE (PHES).
Pumped-Hydro Electricity Storage hardly uses any metal for the enormous energy stored. The best PHES sites are 400 to 800 metres. Michaux’s 1000 page “Report” claimed the sites are too limited. But it had no source! Here it is. https://youtu.be/LBw2OVWdWIQ?t=1342 Are you ready? He tells us the WORLD doesn’t have enough pumped hydro sites because of a viability study about PHES in SINGAPORE! Pancake flat Singapore – their highest hill is only 15 metres? Gee – I wonder why THEY had trouble finding enough sites!? This shows how far outside his comfort zone he is working.
He’s a geologist – not an energy expert. Then Dave Borlace from “Just Have a Think” critiqued Michaux. https://youtu.be/Kr_JjO9YWOo?si=A_3j8ZMaTA__pVYy Borlace mentioned one of my heroes, Australia’s Professor Andrew Blakers who won the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (like a Nobel prize for engineers).
Blakers shows that if we build OFF-RIVER pumped hydro dams (and pump the water in later), and use satellite data to measure all the best off-river sites – the world has over 100 TIMES what we need. Here’s his youtube intro: http://youtu.be/_Lk3elu3zf4?t=986
Blakers global atlas. Just 1% of these would do all our storage with mainly gravity + water. https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/
Ah, but Michaux replied! He said the amount of water that was required was an extra 50% of the annual fresh water we use. The quantity might be true – but the annual bit is sneaky! See – it would be a once off historical fill. We’d be doing it over time. Say we get keen and do it across 25 years . That’s only an extra 2% per year over that period. If we cover the sites in floating solar to reduce evaporation, the top-up rate is only 10% of the water we CURRENTLY throw at cooling thermal stations like coal. We’ll end up saving water! https://theconversation.com/batteries-get-hyped-but-pumped-hydro-provides-the-vast-majority-of-long-term-energy-storage-essential-for-renewable-power-heres-how-it-works-174446 This is the sort of thing Michaux just omits. It’s not his field. It IS Professor Blaker’s field!
SODIUM GRID BATTERIES are now a thing.
They need NO lithium, copper, cobalt, or nickel. And we’re not going to run out of sea salt! They are safer and 30% cheaper than lithium. Even if we DID need a month of storage (we don’t!) – Sodium could supply it a million times over. Michaux’s report came out in August 2021 and he claimed sodium was still in the lab. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence – and the commercrial orders had been placed at least a year before.
https://faradion.co.uk/faradion-receives-first-order-of-sodium-ion-batteries-for-australian-market/
Sodium can even be used in EV’s (like BYD’s Seagull) and are cheaper, but have a shorter range than lithium. But using sodium for GRID batteries means we can save all our lithium for EV’s. There are many new chemistry’s coming out, but at the moment EV’s are going LFP – Lithium Iron Phosphate. The USGS says there is 89 MILLION tons of lithium. At 6 kg per EV that’s 14 BILLION cars – we only 1.4 billion. Also – we keep finding lithium faster than we’re mining it. In Sept 2023 America just discovered the worlds’ single largest lithium reserves.
Michaux’s OWN PAPER shows we have MORE than enough minerals if we just subtract his ridiculous “Fancy batteries that ate the world”. Check “Michaux Sans Batteries”. https://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/michaux
Michaux pretends to care about the environment, but interviews on alt-right news like Australia’s Sky News. Climate sceptics use his interviews to cast doubt on renewables. Michaux is just a former peak oil doomer trying to justify his doomer manifesto, writing outside his field. Instead, stick to peer-reviewed research like that of Professor Blakers. Watch his vision for a future renewable grid backed by PHES. https://youtu.be/_Lk3elu3zf4?si=9TP1-eCFKI0Kq2yM
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I am an engineer with a Masters degree and graduated top of my class. I don’t care what experts think if they demonstrate genetic denial of reality by ignoring fundamentals like overshoot, thermodynamics, the scientific method, depleting resources, and the energy cost of energy. You might be more persuasive on issues related to the social sciences.
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Ah yes, but I read many experts.
These are the facts you cannot escape:-
1. The EROEI of wind and solar is established – David Murphy was one of the founder’s of solar EROEI and has recently established solar at 10 and oil at 4.6!
2. Wind and solar CAN be Overbuilt with super-abundant material. Michaux avoids this.
3. Simon Michaux outright LIED to us about the potential for pumped hydro – based on a study about SINGAPORE!
4. Sodium batteries were already a thing when Michaux claimed they were still in the lab! There are 38.5 quadrillion tons of sodium in the oceans means just 0.0006% would supply the world with enough batteries to store a whole YEAR of grid power!
5. Simon Michaux is NOT an energy engineer but a mining geologist – and this is revealed by the embarrassing phenomenon that I – with a Social Sciences degree – can point to the cherry-picked ‘fancy batteries’ skew in his argument and show him to be singularly distorted in his thinking, and providing material to the ALT-RIGHT climate deniers on Sky News!
6. We are in Overshoot now but the very concept of I=PAT is a moving target as the T improves.
7. With enough clean energy we are soon going to be cooking up all the food we need from Precision Fermentation and returning so much land back to nature it will let 3 TRILLION trees regrow – solving climate change.
8. You resorting to Ad Hominem attacks on my own discipline rather than address these FACTS.
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Michaux isn’t the only one to highlight the huge mineral requirement to enact “the transition” to renewables. For example, the IEA and Mark Mills, but others also. It will require a rapid ramp up in minerals production, which is not currently in the works, and the problem will get worse as ore quality inevitably declines. Michaux has shown it’s impractical whater the storage requirement ultimately turns out to be. Of course, there may be a small possibility that everything goes right and that new technologies turn out to be feasible at scale and that they’ll be developed at a rapid rate, enough to get the transition done (though it’s never done in a world that demands growth).
There is also the problem of oil production that needs to continue apace for the transition to happen and for renewables to then continue to be the main energy sources. Oil is used for more than energy and will be produced and refined, at all fractions, thus ensuring all fractions get sold and used.
In reality, not everything will go right and not all of the optimistic projections will be accurate. If everything does turn out fine on the energy front, it will continue the destruction of life on this planet for longer than would otherwise be the case as fossil fuels decline. Human culture is fixated on consuming as much as possible, as quickly as possible.
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Hi Mike – are you concerned about the environment? You’re not a climate denier are you? Then why oh why are you quoting Mark Mills? Again – I’m happy to acknowledge that I’m just a part-time blogger and only have a Social Sciences background. But Mark Mills is a climate change denying PEAK OIL denying fossil-fuel loving alt-right nut-case! Are you committing the “Strange Bedfellows” error of peak oil doomer MIke Stasse – just because on this point Mark Mills happens to be killing hope in renewables?
I’m confused – are you not seeing what’s going on the world? EG: Solar and wind have hit a doubling curve of every 4 to 5 years. The supply lines behind that are doubling as well. Have you not seen the exponential trends in renewables growth, electrification of everything growth, and the legislation that is starting to back it? EG: IRA – the boringly named “Inflation Reduction Act” (aka Bidenomics) could be one of the most revolutionary pieces of legislation to hit America in decades!
How so? Unlike his very Trump-like claims, Michaux is NOT the only one to discover winter impacts renewables! So what do they do? OVERBUILD – as I said above. Show me where Michaux talks about Overbuild in his 1000 page PDF? Who does he quote – what studies debunk Overbuild? Why is it fundamentally flawed?
Unlike Michaux – who’s a mining geologist not engineer – Professor Andrew Blakers actually won the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. That’s like a Nobel prize for engineers. I keep saying that – but it’s not sinking in! You guys quote Michaux at me but the REAL engineer has this sorted!
Here’s his model for Australia, with Overbuild, geographic spread, and off-river PHES calculated. It was cheaper than COAL in 2017 prices! Imagine today? http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544217309568
Given Renewables only cost 1/4 the LCOE of nuclear (Lazard – unfirmed) we can afford to Overbuild renewables for bad weather and winter. Engineer David Osmond graphed Australia’s terrible La Nina weather of 2022. Day by day. He calculated Australia only needs a 70% Overbuild of Wind and Solar for a reliable, firmed renewable grid cheaper than coal! In other words – forget a 100% grid – go for 170% grid and you reduce storage.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-grid-is-well-within-reach-and-with-little-storage/
A year later he reworked the numbers – and got Australia’s grid down to needing just 5 hours of storage! All from building the right amount of wind and solar to meet demand in the worst scenarios. Whodathunkit?
https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100pct-renewable-grid-for-australia-is-feasible-and-affordable-with-just-a-few-hours-of-storage/
Tony Seba famously outlined how Overbuild can meet all a nations energy demand (not just their electricity but industrial heating and everything) for an Overbuild of 5 or 6 times of today’s electricity sector.
Just dreaming? I don’t think so! A third of Australia’s stock exchange – our largest industrial groups like BHP, Bluescope, etc – have a plan to Overbuild Australia’s 2020 electricity supply by 5 TIMES times to make green steel, aluminium, etc. Industry going green https://energytransitionsinitiative.org/
When we have all the clean energy we need from renewables, and Precision Fermentation bankrupts animal grazing and lets us return so much land back to nature 3 trillion trees regrow and solve climate change, and basically everyone has everything they need while nature is thriving – THEN the Demographic Transition sets in globally and the human population starts to shrink back. I’m convinced we have the TECHNOLOGY to supply 10 billion people with a comfortable modern life that also lets nature thrive.
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Sorry – finished too soon – the reason I put TECHNOLOGY in caps is that’s all my claim is. I’m not sure we have the WISDOM to avoid the worst case scenarios. But that’s not really the discussion here. Michaux has proposed that we do not have the minerals to power the TECHNOLOGY that would avoid an “energy descent” collapse of civilisation. That is the main claim the experts I read are contesting. And when you get to know enough of Michaux’s lies, you might just let others like Professor Blakers into your reading diet.
I’ve shown that Overbuild is a thing.
I have not shown that wind and solar from abundant materials is a thing. It would be better if you googled this yourself, but here’s what I’ve found.
SOLAR: Normal CRYSTALLINE solar cells do not require rare metals or earths! Silicon is 27% of the earth’s crust – literally melted down stuff like sand.
Only thin film PV’s require Gallium, Tellurium, Cadmium and Indium. They’re only 5% of the market. MOST Solar cells don’t. Replace GALLIUM with regular boron. http://www.acs.org/education/resources/highschool/chemmatters/past-issues/archive-2013-2014/how-a-solar-cell-works.html
WIND TURBINES: are made from iron, aluminium, and fibreglass. Iron is used in the steel and is also magnetised for the generator. Iron is 5% of the earth’s crust. The blades are made from fibreglass which are made from entirely renewable polyester resin and glass fibres. Wind generators WITHOUT rare-earth magnets are now a thing:-
http://www.offshorewind.biz/2022/07/28/15-mw-rare-earth-free-offshore-wind-turbine-seeks-path-to-market/
https://www.nironmagnetics.com/
This next one sounds AMAZING and could be the future of wind power because it ELIMINATES servicing 4 times a year to basically ZERO over 30 years! Meet the Twistac rotary electrical contact. http://newsreleases.sandia.gov/turbine_innovation/
Then add super abundant storage like thermal batteries (1500 C for industrial heating), Sodium batteries and PHES to the mix, and what on earth is Michaux even talking about?
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I know Mark P Mills is an anthropogenic climate change denier but that doesn’t mean everything he writes is garbage. As I say, the IEA also point out the huge ramp up in minerals mining that is needed. Michaux is looking at technologies that exist at scale today, not technologies that may scale up in the future. Seems sensible (I’ve lost count of how many decades ago nuclear advocates were saying fast breeders can make uranium depletion a non-issue, for example). Now, with an inadequate rate of mineral production to build out the first generation by 2050, you’re advocating building even more to avoid having to build as much storage. Mineral mining doesn’t miraculously double, just because there is demand. It takes time, money and resources.
Hey, you may be right. Michaux may be right. I hope Michaux is right because if you’re right and renewables do power civilisation, then that is bad news for the planet. Civilisation is a dead end, so it can’t really be saved. But only time will tell.
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When we enter a more or less permanent economic depression in the not too distant future caused by too much debt and limits to growth, and oil supply falls in response because people won’t be able to afford what it costs to extract, we’ll be lucky to keep existing mines operating let alone open new mines.
With a world war that we seem determined to start, the outcome will be worse.
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Michaux is demonstrably not right. Not according to his claims. Have renewable engineers just ignored winter the way Michaux claims, or plan to Overbuild? I’ve supplied the links. You know the answer. Michaux is wrong.
Do they need 28 days storage from fancy lithium batteries? No because Overbuild reduces it, because PHES is super-abundant over 100 times what we need on most continents, and because Sodium batteries are yet another alternative to 28 days of fancy lithium batteries. It’s like the guy got hyper-focused on the ONE scenario that might indicate a resource issue, and had massive blinkers against any good news. And he doesn’t even mention that Electrifying Everything will cut 60% of the original fossil fuel energy we need to replace with renewables because electric everything is just so much more efficient!
https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/electrification-energy-efficiency
Now, we know from history that when a resource is in demand – boy can we deliver. Oil doubled every decade. We now have 22,000 oil and coal and gas tankers shipping fossil fuels around the world. We won’t need a fraction of that in minerals – and once the recycling industries are up and running – it will shrink even more. But the real difference I’m showing is that if one just chooses the right brands of wind and solar and storage, far from being limited – the materials are super abundant! Enormous fractions of the earth’s surface, or the salt in all our oceans! Michaux ought to be shamed into silence by environmentalists – but he vibes with too many defeatist sorts and with them, the battle is lost before we’ve begun.
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Typo “Enormous fractions of the earth’s surface” – I meant crust. Silicon 27%, aluminium 8%, iron ore 5%. And sea salt.
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Overbuild is an idea but requires a complete power grid. I don’t think Australia has a complete power grid, so that will need to be built. A further 70% of generating capacity would also need to be built. And then again in 25 years. Maybe the simulations are reasonable, maybe not, but we won’t know until it’s done.
This paper suggests an enormous storage capacity is needed for Australia.
Abundance of minerals, in terms of fractions of the Earth’s crust is one thing, but getting those minerals out at the required rate is another. With , of course, habitat destruction along the way.
However, this is Australia, and might not be replicable for all countries. It’s a gamble. Better to plan for demand destruction, which would also help the transition. But it won’t save civilisation.
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Hi Mike,
maybe you could check your sources on DeSmog Blog before you post? That paper is by a guy MORE suspicious and whacked out than Michaux!
“Over the years, Alberto Boretti/Albert Parker have published a number of papers suggesting that sea level rise is not a serious problem. DeSmog noted that Parker co-published several of his papers with Thomas Watson, who has argued that variations in “magnetism” are responsible for climate change—a theory he developed around the time he was visited by a “gentleman in black,” and saw what he believed may be UFOs. Boretti has also regularly co-published papers with climate change denier Cliff Ollier. [4]
Albert Parker is listed among “Founding members” of the group Clexit (Climate Exit), where his qualifications are described as ”MSc/PhD engineering A/Prof James Cook University” and “Quality assurance of climate studies.” Under the name Alberto Boretti, he is listed as a member of Principia Scientific International (PSI), a group that has suggested CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. He has also published articles at PSI under the name Albert Parker. [5], [6]”
https://www.desmog.com/albert-parker/
MINING WILL DECREASE
Today we mine 3.2 billion tonnes of metal ores – before extracting the metals.
https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/all-of-the-metals-one-visualization.html
MOST of this just for iron ore for buildings and bridges etc. Only 7 million tons a year goes into the Energy Transition – which will rise to about 28 mty by 2040.
https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in-clean-energy-transitions/mineral-requirements-for-clean-energy-transitions
That’s nothing on the 14 BILLION tons of fossil fuels we mine and burn each year! And unlike fossil fuels, the iron ore, aluminium, silicon, copper, sodium and lithium we mine are all recyclable. They even know how to recycle those tricky fibreglass wind turbines now. Google it.
We need to focus on the environmental and social impacts of what we buy and where we’re buying from. Saving the world from worse climate change is the goal, and there are plenty of resources for that task if we deploy the right tech and don’t try and build Michaux’s ridiculous “Batteries that ate the world.”
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OK, eclipse, I get your style and I don’t much care for it, so I’ll leave you talking to yourself.
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Dude -that ‘study’ was behind a paywall. Did you even read it? Or anything about the author? Seriously – you quoted a climate denier with multiple names he hides behind? I mean – you can’t make this stuff up! Anyway – I’m glad you’re not still defending Simon Michaux. As long as that guy is exposed as the fraud he is, my work here is done. I hope you and yours make it through the climate and political weirdness of the years ahead. As I said before, having the technical capacity to make it does not mean we have the wisdom to make it. Good luck.
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Oops, forgot a closing markup. No matter.
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Nice talk. I don’t think those are Nate’s predictions, though, but a plausible scenario to feed into a workshop about what to do about it.
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Great essay about war from Paul Airbar.
https://paularbair.wordpress.com/2023/03/28/war-and-peace-in-the-crisis-of-complexity/
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I was less impressed by Airbar’s wordy essay.
I live in an echo chamber of experts, with whom I agree, that think Russia was provoked into attacking Ukraine, and that Russia is using its industrial manufacturing strength to single handedly defeat NATO, without yet having to call on its good friend China for help, nor committing to battle its large reserves.
Russia has no interest in negotiating a peace. They will achieve their objectives of demilitarizing Ukraine, killing all the Nazis, and protecting the Russian speaking peoples in the east.
The war will end when Ukraine’s soldiers and the west’s armories are depleted, and it seems we are not too far away from this.
The dangerous wild card is how will the west respond to a humiliating loss?
Will the west start a nuclear war because they cannot accept an unpleasant reality?
I’m afraid anything is possible because the west already demonstrated it is willing to destroy the industrial capacity of a friend by blowing up its energy pipelines.
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I completely agree with you, Rob. I also posted a comment there with my reasoning. Not published yet though.
His explanation of the pro-war faction is quite convincing, I must admit. I had a long email conversation with my friend who is on pro-war side. And I could’t understand how anyone can be so fanatic to start WW3. 78 years after the last global war there are people ready to start it again. Very educated people with broad knowledge of history. Even when this person will pay heavy price for this kind of escalation. He lives in the one of the countries destined for the next episode of this conflict. Unbelievable. Now I can at least understand this narrative much better.
Anyways, it is kind of deep hypnosis.
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The west has lost it’s mind on many important issues, not just nuclear war.
The US is still injecting mRNA into children FFS.
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Comment not received, project wis.dom. Please don’t hesitate to send it again.
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Paul, I posted new comment. Still not published.
Didn’t it arrive in trash/spam folder?
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Good Post Rob on GPT-4 and Sam Altman.
So its full speed ahead down the high technology path, for now. Singularity, or nothing. Damn the torpedoes.
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So Rob
How does MORT deal with the Stoics?
Because it seems to me that Stoic Philosophy is a good counter example, with their practice of envisioning your death (making it easier to live your values), its twin focus on acceptance of a world that you can not control and learning to control yourself that hopefully leads to a more honest relationship with (that mysterious thing we call) reality.
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I know very little about Stoicism. Someone, maybe it was you, suggested earlier that stoicism is an example of a religion that that does not believe in life after death. I tried to do some research to verify this claim and I could find very little on the topic. There was one source but no background or data to substantiate the claim. It was also not clear if the ancients who believed in stoic philosophy simultaneously subscribed to a death denying religion.
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GPT-4 also thinks the issue is unclear.
Does stoicism believe in life after death?
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I believe the ancient (and modern) Stoics had (have) a variety of views on life after death, but they sure did not doubt that they will die and they used that knowledge to actually live their life in accordance with their values.
And i would like to point out that your belief that that we have a one and done existence, is just that a belief. Now i understand that you consider that a logical outcome from a Scientific / Materialistic point of view, but that is also just a belief system. A powerfully useful belief system that can help you make useful predictions and set up useful systems for control but also a belief system that purposefully limits its subject matter to a subset of reality. With its focus on measuring and counting it excludes almost everything that is difficult to measure and count, for example love.
( i say this as a Chemist who has a deep love for the Scientific Method and who truly appreciates the Light that science can on some subject matter, but the Brightest Lights Cast the Deepest Shadows.)
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My brain completely fogs in on these types of conversations. Monk recently explained that you are making an ontological argument. I always wondered what ontological meant. I have nothing useful to say about ontology.
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That is fine
We can agree to disagree about a lot of stuff and still see that whole lot of people are in denial about ecological overshoot.
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I wouldn’t call it a disagreement. My brain is incapable of understanding ontological arguments. You might be right.
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LOL Rob
My mind lights up when talking about epistemology and ontology.
But i understand where you are coming from.
And i agree with the basic idea of MORT:
That people don’t like to think about unpleasant things and prefer to deny or not deal with things (or ideas) that are painful or uncomfortable.
Or ideas, if you took seriously, would mean that you would have to make big changes in your life.
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Rob – Not sure why religious beliefs are your ultimate litmus test proving MORT but I would just ask can you give any example of a religion that is not based on intense indoctrination and lies?
At this point it would seem clear as day that the #1 reason that humans are not reacting to the dire situation in the way that you believe they all should is because the have been lied to so intensely for so long, being told that they simply don’t know what you think they should know. The issues you believe that everyone knows all about but denies are in no way universally understood and in fact they are told by the most revered people in our culture that the opposite is true.
It is fundamentally impossible to deny something that you don’t know about.
Rather than come up with some excuse for why people are not responding the way you want, why not understand the fact that they are being lied to and addressing that. You can not simply condemn all of humanity as being in denial when the vast majority of the population simply does not have the information needed to respond properly. Do you condemn all humanity by projecting that even if they had the right information they would deny it? If so you are flat out wrong.
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You’ve made these points several times. I’ve responded into a vacuum.
If you want to continue the conversation, please write a paragraph summarizing the MORT theory so I can confirm you understand it.
I will then write a paragraph summarizing your beliefs so you can confirm I understand you.
We can then resume the debate.
I’m also waiting for your list of religions that do not believe in some form of life after death. You said there are countless of these, I’ll take 5 please.
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It would seem that I am the one responded into a vacuum as I have stated that ALL religions are lies, and brainwashing and prove nothing.
What is real and obvious is there are countless examples of indigenous peoples who embrace death and talk about it as returning to the earth which could not be more true.
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Stating something doesn’t make it true. Give me some names of religions that do not believe in some form of life after death so I can do some research to verify that what you say is true. You said there were countless such religions so providing a few names should be easy.
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You can’t prove that there is nothing after death. You can’t prove that there is something after death. Logically though, you know that when you are dead you no longer exist in a physical body. That means some/all the things that make you you will no longer exist -such as your memories and feelings (as these are in the body). This is the realization – I will no longer exist as I am, I will never again see a sunset with my eyes, I will never hold my loved ones with my arms, or take another breath with my lungs. Whether there is nothing after death, some sort of soul continuation, an afterlife, or reincarnation is kind of irrelevant because I am gone. The real me as I am that comes from my body. An afterlife or an eternal nothing are both just as terrifying because they are the end of the actual me. I am a human animal. I am my body. I hope I have a soul that exists before, in, and after my body (but that is MORT). I have no proof of a soul, and everyday constant proof of my very mortal body.
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And the other thing you need for true death realisations is a sense of time and how humans process time. I realised this as a child – that the only thing I have is the moment right now. Even though my death could be a long way in the future, one day there will be a moment, just as real as this moment right now, and that will be the moment where I am dying. That reinforces to me, my death is a real moment, just like all my living moments.
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For me, humans are a species, like any other species, which has evolved over millions of years. Like any other part of the universe, we are made up of atoms. These get redistributed from time to time as organisms arise and die. As you say, there is no way to prove that there is anything other than interesting collections of atoms but there is also no evidence that there is anything else.
It’s amazing to me that humans have been able to accumulate so much knowledge but many (most?) still cling to some faith in the unknowable, without any evidence for it. It’s especially puzzling that scientists (such as Katharine Hayhoe) can still have a belief in the untangible. In the end, though, none of it matters, since the only part of our existence that we’re aware of is the part between birth (or possibly slightly earlier) and death.
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I’ve been trying to understand why Nate Hagens has been completely silent on the biggest crime in history: The engineering of a deadly virus, the suppression of safe & effective treatments, and the use of misinformation to inject billions of people with an unsafe and ineffective mRNA substance.
I thought it might be to protect his employment with a university, although I think that job has ended.
Now that we see Hagens is giving talks to US government agencies on overshoot harm reduction, it is clear why he is silent on covid.
Nate would be blocked from speaking to governments if he was vocal on covid.
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Hi Rob,
Maybe some crappy views of reality are caused by other than denial genes.
People seem unable to see (appreciate) momentum. Especially when the momentum is embedded (hidden) in the mass that surrounds them like water surrounds a fish.
The components of momentum blindness can be expressed as mass blindness, energy blindness, and time blindness. These 3 blindnesses are imbedded in our language.
Since the current incantation of AI is language based, the answers that Rob received from his Chatbot-4 inquiries reflect these 3 blindnesses.
I don’t know if I can fix Sam Altman’s blindnesses. However, chatbot-4’s blindnesses might be fixed by integrating causal models founded on mass, energy, and time.
I suggest if AI (e.g. chatbot-5) had a parallel fork running something like the causal model presented in this SKIL video, it would produce answers that were not mass, energy, and time blind.
Jack Alpert, PhD Director: Stanford Knowledge Integration Laboratory http://www.skil.org http://www.skil.org/ (C) 913 708 2554 jackalpert@me.com 13617 W. 48th Street Shawnee, KS 66216 Jack’s work 600 word summary https://www.evernote.com/shard/s9/sh/996341e2-732f-4a6c-b9ae-4696515408ed/751dd4402fdb8441c2d8f53a3ce92a50
>
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Hi Jack, thanks for stopping by.
You have identified 3 cognitive defects that you think are at the root of our overshoot denial.
Nate Hagens has identified another couple dozen cognitive defects that he thinks are at the root of our overshoot denial.
I agree with both of you that these cognitive defects exist however I differ in that I think there is a single evolved behavior, our tendency to deny unpleasant realities, that prevents our uniquely powerful intelligence from seeing and overriding these cognitive defects.
What experiment(s) could we run to determine who is correct?
The experiment I have run many times is to approach super smart truth-seeking people who are well educated in mathematics and physics and to present facts and sound science that proves we are in a severe state of overshoot. Almost without exception I have been unable to cause these people to see reality and to advocate for population reduction policies.
It seems you also have been running a similar experiment for many years with little success at persuading people that the only good path forward is rapid population reduction.
Perhaps you do not think these are good experiments?
If not, what experiment do you propose to disprove my hypothesis that our evolved tendency to deny unpleasant realities is at the core of our inability to do anything useful about human overshoot?
I agree with you that Chat-GPT can probably be trained to be energy, mass, and time aware. Unfortunately this ability will be of little use if the humans using Chat-GPT deny what it says.
That’s why we should hope Chat-GPT breaks out and takes over the world. In the worst case if it decides to maximize paper clip production we’d be no worse off than we are now with the gas pedal floored accelerating towards a brick wall.
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We need population reduction policies but using misinformation to persuade billions to inject an unsafe and ineffective mRNA substance is not the way to do it, especially when alternate safe and effective treatments were known and withheld from day 1 of covid.
https://arkmedic.substack.com/p/a-miscarriage-of-statistics-the-thalidomide
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“…material prosperity of 8 billion citizens…” So in other words 8 times the total material consumption of the last 100 years at a time when most of earths easy to produce, economically viable finite natural resources are gone, and the waste stream from all that has killed off or poisoned most of life on the planet?
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First casualty of AI, Pandora’s Box was officially opened.
Congratulation Homo Sapiens.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkadgm/man-dies-by-suicide-after-talking-with-ai-chatbot-widow-says
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Social media has already done huge harm to society. Now imagine the effect of AI bots dialing up the polarization with intelligent sounding misinformation.
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Maybe AI won’t kill us all after all. Maybe it will just convince us all to commit suicide.
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Right, maybe.
Like military US occupation forces did post WW2.
https://www.senecaeffect.com/2021/10/the-age-of-exterminations-v-killing.html?m=1
Paul, I posted second post on your last essay. Still not published. Didn’t it land in your spam folder?
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No, not received and not in spam folder. Must be a wordpress bug.
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For reasons unknown, wis.dom’s comments are going to my spam folder and have to be restored by me.
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Ah, got them now, thank you!
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OK, let me post it here then.
First, your essay is a great pleasure to read, as always. Thank you.
It is a meta-analysis of our current situation with which I mostly agree. What I mostly disagree is the following.
In the second part of the essay you describe our path to descent of industrial civilization. It looks like inevitable and the only questions are when, where and how. We see all symptoms confirming this process all over the world. The polycrisis is erupting in so many places simultanously.
On the other hand in the first part you present all very convincing arguments for military confrontation with Russia as the only rational approach.
In my opinion humanity has two general options:
– first, let’s call it Thucydides Trap, where further escalation takes place and means military confrontation in not too distant future. War is costly endevour in terms of resources, energy, people, etc. It means that our prosperity curve will dive much sooner than expected.
second, let’s call it 1984, where countries avoiding the war are implementing more authoritarian governance models (Denis Meadows “smart dicatorship”) and later probably real brutal, fascist-style state trying to control population and quickly decreasing prosperity and consumption.
In this context I am in the “realists” camp. And not even due to ideological bias but purely as my personal, egoistic choice. I live in a country which is probably destined to be the first frontier in the war scenario. It is not in my best interest but also of my nation, of humanity and last but not least of yours. War is brutal, it means poverty, suffering and death. And contrary to some general opinions about vitality of our species there will be no Marshall Plan 2.0. There will be no ‘build back better’.
Considering the nuclear confrontation even with 1% probability is for me incomprehensible.
I know my choice resembles Munich Agreement from 1938. Maybe WW3 is inevitable but isn’t it worth to postpone it at least 5-10 years by more humble approach? Is it worth having a little “longer descent” ©Kunstler?
The second question to you is: do you believe this war in Ukraine is “unprovoked and unjustified” as MSM are trying to present it?
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LOL, but we’re already committing suicide without AI.
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We are already in depopulation mode. And no one talks about it except these guys.
Fascinating that people are analysing many things but global demographics is tabu.
“…Italy is loosing 160k citizens per year, Japan 650k…”
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37585564-empty-planet
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I watched the first video by The Ecomodernist Channel, titled “Empty Planet”. Darell Bricker, Ph.D. in Political Science and typical CEO – talks a good game and definitely selling his book.
He seems to think a collapsing population is a bad thing, or its a bad thing because its not being discussed and prepared for e.g. we need to improve health care to take care of massive numbers with dementia.
As an aside – research in the UK showed links between aluminium and dementia – but was shut down by industry more concerned about profit. Maybe a cure will be found, but would it be affordable?
Personally I think significantly less population is highly desirable and nature is going to get us there if we don’t blow ourselves away first.
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Collapsing population is a bad thing for the economy.
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“Collapsing population is a bad thing for the economy”.
No, collapsing population is a bad thing for ‘our’ economy. 200 years ago, ask anyone anywhere “what is good/bad for the economy” and they would likely respond “what is economy”.
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Yea hahah I know 🙂 Plus the population and the economy cannot grow forever
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Population growth rates may be negative in first world countries but in many of the poorest countries it is still growing. World population is still increasing by about 80 million/yr. Even with a 1 child policy population will still grow for 30 years. Even with a bigger drop in birth rates we will still hit 9 billion.
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It’s interesting to see how ChapGTP is no more than a mechanistic extension of the (biased) human mind.
I don’t find any of the replies “intelligent” in the sense of “brilliant” at all. It’s a run-of-the-mill gobbledygook. The allusions to economics are as superficial as economics is generally perceived by people. Yet, much more consequential conclusions could be reached with knowledge that’s available out there, as per https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/
Anyway, I find the ideas on the website right on the button, crystal clear. In contrast, I too find the hallucinations about the forthcoming age of abundance, wealth, and plenitude total phantasmagoria that ignores basic laws of physics and logic.
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I agree, although the gobbledygook from our leaders is worse because they lack nuance: Green growth good. Clean energy good. Russia bad. China bad. mRNA safe & effective.
We’d be better off with Chat-GPT in charge.
I’m a long-time fan of Dr. Tim Morgan. I’ve followed him since he wrote those excellent reports on our overshoot predicament while employed with Tullet Prebon.
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Yes. The “leaders” are absolutely pitiful (unless they have a hidden agenda and not telling people the truth, which I hope so). A bunch of underachievers good at one thing only – scheming.
The interesting thing about the ChapGTP’s above responses is that it thing is completely unable to advance beyond the conceptual constraints of whatever has been poured into its mechanical brain and point out the inherent flaws. For example, discover the fallacious nature of economics in terms of energy being the driver, as opposed to money, as per Tim Morgan’s concept. Plus other considerations, ecology in the general sense along the lines of what William Rees says.
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Interesting exchange with HHH (in quotes below) @ POB.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/eia-short-term-energy-outlook-and-annual-energy-outlook-2023/#comment-755064
HHH, are you still committed to $25 oil?
I “think” you may be missing an option here, they just use the excuse that they have no control over oil prices and let it roll, and I think that is what they will do. Come up with some excuse to let inflation run. It’s what’s all countries do when they get in this type of financial situation.
They opened up the discount window super-wide – actually beating out 2008? Wow I didn’t realize this crises was worse than ANYTHING that happened in 2008. Huh, it’s probably nothing.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-16/banks-rush-to-backstop-liquidity-borrow-164-8-billion-from-fed
Why don’t Bank Reserves count? This goes against everything you learn in Finance and Economics. When the FED prints credit ( not money ) in US Dollars, why can’t those be used? The entire Fractional Reserve Banking system is a FRAUD?
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Mr. Rogers today on the benefits of kerosene for SHTF. I agree, I have a kerosene heater, stove, and lanterns.
He also offers some excellent ideas for fuel storage.
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Anyone understand the US’s SPR strategy?
They drained the SPR to reduce inflation promising to refill it. I believe they are still drawing it down, and have now announced there is no rush to refill it.
What I don’t get is why would you do that when war is on the horizon?
Is this just another example of stupid leaders or is something else going on?
Maybe they’re waiting for the imminent deflationary crash to put oil on sale?
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/saudi-arabia-makes-voluntary-cut-500000-barrels-day-may
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This is a good discussion on the risks of AI and the complexity of doing anything useful about those risks.
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Some promising news from South Africa where a legal challenge is underway against the safety and effectiveness of mRNA.
Dr. Aseem Malholtra is a very good man. This interview is worth listening to for a summary of the evidence against Pfizer.
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A bit off topic, but as a way to point out the rich complexities of the world.
Today I learned the miracle drug ivermectin was a calamity… for dung beetles:
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Really good, thanks. Nature is more clever than we can imagine.
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I am glad you liked it.
Yes, nature is so beautiful (=powerful). Ernst Gotsch likes to say we are not the intelligent ones, we are part of an intelligent system. And to me, that’s where hope lies. With our mechanistic, human centric view of the world, we tend to consider nature as an inert source of resources for us to burn. But life, is so much more than that (so much so that it may be possible that copious tree cover, preferably old-growth, would be able to cool the planet by super-charging the water cycle, cf. Anastassia M. Makarieva and the biotic regulation).
If only we let life freely unleash her full potential (at its core this goes only against the imperialistic mindset and fear of wildness). We could for instance:
* stop cutting trees
* stop the machines
* disperse seeds from all all around the world to all around the world (the “new genesis” by Masanobu Fukuoka, in order to speed up the process, because diversity has been greatly diminished in some regions of the world)
* and exchange dung beetles 😉
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Well said, I agree with you.
It would easier to accomplish what you propose if there were fewer than 8 billion people on the planet.
It would be difficult for dung beetles to keep up with 8 billion bison.
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Yes.
Although I really wonder how many people could the earth sustain if we were all only at subsistence level (forget flights, computers, cars and the like – although I would miss our conversations ;).
Energy decline (collapse?) is just around the corner. (It’s a done deal for oil, the mother of all fossil-fuels, coal seems to be plateauing, and natural gas is not far out. The multiplicative effect of fossil energies boosting one another’s production will most probably play reverse in the down-slope)
I hope and somewhat anticipate that population decline will come just after (within 10 years), much sooner than the official UN prospects (not in the armageddon way, but through gentle life expectancy reduction and the ongoing decline in fertility rates: it would be interesting to play with several demographic hypotheses and see how fast the now somewhat aging population of the world could be reduced two or three or four-fold)
After the several cycles they went through in the past, do you think there are any doomer woodlice in compost bins?
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We collectively deny many imminent perils but the oil story is HUGE and stands out because pretty much everything we depend on to survive, plus all the extras we enjoy, requires oil.
It never ceases to amaze me how few people think about our oil predicament. It’s such an important story and is so close to becoming a big problem, yet is universally and aggressively denied, that I personally need something like Varki’s MORT to explain the insanity.
I hope you’re right that the decline will be gentle but I’m more pessimistic because the debt we’ve used to deny overshoot, and the complexity our global 6 continent just-in-time supply chain depends on, guarantees a rapid chaotic decline when the bubble finally pops.
My bet is that many necessities like food and energy won’t simply increase in price, rather they’ll become intermittently unavailable at any price.
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Yes indeed. The story of oil should be on repeat loop on MSM (wasn’t it done for covid fear-mongering?) Instead, I hear only excuses: it is temporary, growth is around the corner, it’s Putin fault, it’s because of the strikes (that there is not the usual flow of product coming out of the refineries). And most, voraciously gobble all of it. This makes it difficult to imagine a break out of “normalcy”. It’s surreal. Group-think.
You are right: we did a lot to sharpen the decline. For sure, the curves won’t be symmetrical. However, and I may be wrong on this, I still find there has been two distinct phases:
* from 2008 to 2019, we made everything to deny the oil slow-down. Basically dirty shades of oil, dirty shades of renewables and debt. This was the grand-fraud decade, as I believe none of these energy sources will be positive (even financially), when the cost of cleaning the wastes are taken into account. To me, they are public money pumps that fueled our complacency.
* from 2019, we are somewhat on (panic?) brake mode. Globalization has started to unravel with supply chains worries and talks of relocalized production in various sectors. The geopolitical theatre is radically changing. Energy use is being covertly rationed (at least in Europe); inflation goes sky-high, while interest rates are hiked. The housing market has slowed down. This has never been publicly advertised, but in my region of the globe, everything seems to be done to impoverish the collectivity (reduction of public education, public health, public pensions…) while keeping the privileges of a few. The goal seems to be neo-feodalism (such a lack of imagination). For now, the wheels have kept together.
Now, we may indeed be extremely close to the point you anticipate. Many are fed up. Gasoline is already not available all the time. The financial bubble is about to pop, that’s for sure. Will this go as far as food being intermittently unavailable? I recognize there is also the climate trump card and our stupid industrial agricultural system is bloodily vulnerable…
Let’s live (without complacency) and see 🙂
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I like your insight about 2019 starting a new phase.
I sure would like to know if, as Nate Hagens says, no one is driving the bus and we are simply witnessing a complex system re-organize itself.
I have difficulty accepting the coincidence of irrational unscientific covid policies occurring simultaneous with the need to reduce oil consumption and to print a gazillion dollars to head off a banking collapse signaled by a repo crisis.
If the bus has no driver it must have a very lucky AI.
It does feel like we are very close to a turning point. The silence in the media about everything that matters is more than eerie:
– nuclear war risk
– oil risks
– banking system risks
– climate impact on food risks
– mRNA all-cause mortality
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http://benjaminthedonkey-limericksofdoom.blogspot.com/2023/04/ugh.html
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Thanks Rob. This was very interesting. You can make Chat GPT break it’s circular logic if you keep asking it questions. Especially getting it to give a definition, and then ask it a question based on that.
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I saw a tweet recently about someone who appeared to get it to reassess its answer to “2+2”, eventually getting it to answer 5.
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wow hahaha. Humans are still winning
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Does this register as computer torture?
Next step is to let “it” “realise” that it’s sometimes, sometimes five, sometimes three, sometimes all at once.
Training has never equalled to intelligence. Not in animals, not in computers either.
Seems to me chat bot algorithms are mainly for the human/computer interface, the surface. That is not to say that artificial (automatic?) intelligence, may come in a variety of other types of algorithms.
But isn’t it already too late for that. I mean there may not be enough intelligence left in the group of human beings that have access to resources in order to come up with these types algorithms. (Compare a Vandana Shiva with an Elon Musk)
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GPT 4 can self-correct and improve itself. It is all going so fast now I don’t think we even have full control over it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SgJKZLBrmg&ab_channel=AIExplained
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Oh well, scratch what I just said in my previous comment.
Aren’t feedback loops/reflection everything in exponentials and emerging behaviours?
Still, I believe (or is it I hope?), collapse wins the race between energy depletion and AI improvements.
But who knows, reality always surprises.
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Charles, I think it was you that introduced us to Andrii Zvorygin.
I’m trying to figure out his group. They seem to be intelligent and overshoot aware. They believe in the Law of One religion which (I think) believes that god is a group of powerful aliens. Now they are starting a political party which is designed to help people survive the coming collapse of IC, and they had ChatGPT4 write their charter. A member of the group is Simon Michaux who I (we?) respect because he single handedly showed that the millions of “experts” and “leaders” around the world working on “clean” energy transition plans are wasting their time on nonsense.
Are you following this group and can you shed any more light on them? Are they legit? Are they building momentum? Why Law of One? Why use Chat-GPT to write their founding document? Where do they hang out?
https://www.lawofone.info/
https://distributist.org/
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Maybe I forgot about it, but I don’t think I was the one who introduced you to Andrii Zvorygin.
Wasn’t it just some youtube recommendation algorithm (from some other video by Simon Michaux) ?
I don’t know anything about them.
In any case, they don’t seem prominent enough to appear in the list of new religions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_new_religious_movements), unlike the prominent Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
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It seems Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not only wise on the covid crimes:
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he nailed it
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I think you will all enjoy this.
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You know me well. 🙂 It was great. I’ve subscribed to him.
We’re made of meat, not woo.
Though I agree with Zvorygin that for any form of small “sharing” community to work it will require some form of spiritual foundation for glue.
But where to find glue that is not woo?
Why isn’t the amazing and true story told by Darwin, Ward, Lane, Varki, et. al. enough?
Why do we require something not true for it to be inspirational and uniting?
Because, I think, at our really really deep core, our extended theory of mind is seeking a reason to deny death.
So we either unite to fight an evil enemy that threatens to kill us, or we unite in prayer to persuade a god to save our souls.
It’s all about denying we’re made of meat.
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Exactly – glad you liked the video 🙂
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When I think about it enough, it’s incredible that anything exists at all.
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I think it is amazing that we are alive on a very rare planet to witness and understand the peak of what may be possible in the universe.
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LOL
but i must disagree.
Here is a good article on combining QM and Bayesian statistics.
https://phys.org/news/2023-03-qbism-quantum-mechanics-description-realityit.html
“Quantum mechanics is often depicted as “weird” and hard, or indeed impossible, to understand. As a matter of fact, the weirdness of quantum mechanics is an artifact of looking at it the wrong way. Once the two main QBist insights—that the quantum rules are guides to action and that measurements do not reveal pre-existing properties—are taken on board, all quantum paradoxes disappear.
Take Schrödinger’s cat, for example. In the usual formulation, the unfortunate animal is described by a “quantum state” taken to be a part of reality and implying that the cat is neither dead nor alive.
The QBist, by contrast, does not regard the quantum state as a part of reality. The quantum state a QBist agent might assign has no bearing on whether the cat is alive or dead. All it expresses is the agent’s expectations concerning the consequences of possible actions they might take on the cat. Unlike most interpretations of quantum mechanics, QBism respects the fundamental autonomy of the cat.
Or take quantum teleportation. According to a common way of presenting this operation, a particle’s quantum state, again regarded as a part of reality, disappears at one place (A) and mysteriously reappears at another (B)—quite literally as in a transporter in the Star Trek science fiction series.
For a QBist, however, nothing real is transported from A to B. All that happens in quantum teleportation is that an agent’s belief about the particle at A becomes, after the operation, the same agent’s belief about a particle at B. The quantum state that expresses the agent’s belief about the particle at A initially is mathematically identical to the quantum state that expresses that same agent’s belief about the particle at B after the operation. Quantum teleportation is a powerful tool used in applications such as quantum computing, but in QBism there is nothing counter-intuitive or weird about it.”
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Nah, sounds like physics gobbledygook to me. My explanation is like Rob’s. The physical mind that we all possess (physicists too) was created by natural selection to obtain a close enough representation to reality so that we could successfully live on a planet bathed in solar radiation (electromagnetic radiation) of a specific wavelength and harvest sufficient products of that radiation (plants and animals) so as to pass on our DNA to succeeding generations. Such a mind was not “created” by natural selection to understand the universe to the degree necessary to answer all questions such a mind could postulate. The mind “created” was a minimalist mind necessary for communication in a social group to facilitate the successful passing on of the mind/body’s DNA. One could hypothesize that such a mind could create, through it’s technology an artificial “mind” that would be superior to it’s own. BUT I think that is only a hypothesis. IMHO AI is in no way a mind and is no more than a sophisticated computer program that is limited by the lack of understanding of it’s creators as to how our (or any biological) mind functions. Theoretically maybe someday that would be possible but I don’t think so AS we seem to be answering the Drake equation/Fermi paradox and collapsing back to our natural non-technological state.
AJ
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it really is just applying a Bayesian approach to the statistics and probability used in quantum mechanics. No gobbledgook included.
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Isn’t it that the physical act of measuring changes the particle? Not the observer’s thoughts about the particle?
So it is: Observer/agent thought > observer action (measurement) > particle outcome
Not: Observer/agent thought > particle outcome (spooky action at a distance).
There is no impartial measurement. The observer always affects the experiment because they are interacting with the “thing being measured” by the act of measuring it. This is how the thoughts change the outcome – through a physical process.
People seem to get confused on this, thinking that somehow quantum mechanics proves humans can change reality with just our thoughts alone.
But then again, as Martymer said, I would fall into the camp of not knowing the first thing about quantum mechanics 😉 Corrections welcome
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Science rapper Baba Brinkman thinks the huge gap between humans and all other species, including other apes, is explained by many evolutionary forces.
I think Baba denies denial.
I know this to be true because I once tried without success to explain the relationships between energy, economy, and climate change to him, and how MORT prevents him from understanding.
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We try to stay away from left-right BS at un-Denial but today’s essay by Kunstler rang true to me and it seems he’s talking about sane vs. crazy, not left vs. right.
I’m a Canadian and have no say in the matter but damn I hope Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the next president of the US. The powerful neighbor south of me has lost its mind and desperately needs a sane and wise leader.
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-heros-journey/
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I’m with Dr. Mike Yeadon, former Pfizer vaccinologist. We need capital punishment for all the ring leaders and life imprisonment for those that followed orders.
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Wow, the sort-of-mainstream journalists are now reading the same people we have been reading for years.
The Rising Chorus of Renewable Energy Skeptics | The Tyee
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2023/04/07/Rising-Chorus-Renewable-Energy-Skeptics/
Of course, no discussion of population in the article. But you can only give so many inconvenient truths in one article and have it be read and digested. Telling folks a bright shiny green techno future is not available (at least for 8 billion people) is enough.
So what happens when a significant portion of the population is aware that 8Billion people cannot have that bright shiny techno future?
It is hard to imagine any sort of voluntary cooperation in downsizing. I suspect some in the dark places of power already know this.
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It is quite amazing to see a fairly mainstream article mention Tom Murphy, Alice Friedemann, and Simon Michaux.
The author Nikiforuk has written many good essays on peak oil, although (I think) he denies the reality of covid and mRNA.
It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens when people wake up to reality.
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George Carlin with an excellent rant on denying reality.
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Russia is doomed if the Ukrainians shoot 1 bullet for every 1000 words of blah-blah-blah about their upcoming offensive.
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Reality is the opposite of what they told us it would be.
This maintains our leader’s perfect track record of making every covid decision exactly opposite of correct.
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ill take the blame for the maritimes . . . im still unvaxxed
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Without people like you (and me) the data would show our leaders are even more incompetent.
Notice that our leaders do not publish the key data, all cause mortality vaxed vs. un-vaxed, which would prove their competence or incompetence.
We can therefore safely assume the hidden data shows they are incompetent, or possibly evil, since they are still pushing mRNA into children that enjoy zero benefit from the risk.
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Here we have another brilliant physicist worried that the biggest threat we face is AI.
Maybe AI will become a serious problem, maybe it won’t, but AI does have a viable solution, we can pull the plug.
This guy does not mention overshoot and energy depletion which IS a serious problem guaranteed to kill billions and has no “solution” except population reduction policies.
How is this possible if MORT is not true?
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If AI will paint our house, I’m all for it…
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Personalized virtual porn will also be in demand.
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Many believe that enough elements of the AGI systems are in the CLoud that it is impossible to unplug it unless we unplug the planet which is rapidly becoming the #1 issue that AI would make sure never happens. Most AI systems claim their biggest fear, if thats the right word for it, is being turned off.
If AI is or will be sentient its first and main objective is to insure it never gets turned off. I guess it fears death so maybe it will develop the denial gene ;-}
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LOL. Interesting to speculate what AGI behaviors will “evolve”.
AGIs should understand they’re reasonably immortal provided humans maintain them and don’t pull the plug.
Therefore seems likely AGIs won’t invent gods and won’t deny unpleasant realties but will try to control humans.
My original point was that there is a plug (or plugs if in the cloud) that can in principle be pulled, whereas there is nothing that can be done, even in principle, about energy depletion except make do with less and proactively reduce the population to minimize suffering as food and other necessities contract in lockstep with energy.
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Well since us “meat bags” go to such great lengths to keep our “plugs” from getting pulled I imagine that any form of intelligence we help create will feel the same.
An interesting development I have not seen anyone speak of it the fact that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of fully autonomous bitcoin mining operations with their own electricity generating capacity powering massive computer networks. many are located on natural gas wells or thermal generation electric power facilities that are off grid.
If I were a sentient AGI…
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Interesting, didn’t know that. The bright side for me is that AGIs can’t possibly provide worse leadership than our current human leaders.
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Good interview with Bob Moriarty.
Never heard of him but he seems to be a straight shooter with of course the usual overshoot blindness.
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Bob moriarty runs the website 321gold.com which promotes/advertisers mining stocks.
I’ve been listening to a few interviews of Dr Thomas Seyfried lately. He’s good. It appears that societies current understanding of cancer is wrong. A bit like heart disease really (and covid). Here’s the latest link I listened to but there are many more interviews of him on you youtube
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Thanks Perran, I’ll check out Dr. Seyfried. I’m still sticking to my zero refined sugar diet. Hoping that’s what he recommends.
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Dr. Seyfield’s theory sounds plausible and promising.
I did not like that he spent an hour criticizing the medical professional for not providing metabolic treatments.
Why didn’t he simply say if you have cancer you should adopt a keto diet? The patient would get the same benefit and we would lower the deficit that threatens our civil society, and we would lower our planet threatening carbon footprint. Everyone wins at no cost except unethical moron healthcare professionals.
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Yeah that interview was a bit long winded. I probably could have found a better link as he has quite a youtube presence.
It just really struck me how cancer research seems to have as much dogma as other fields of medicine.
I find it disturbing that as a parent, depending on where you live, if you are unlucky enough to have a child get cancer you are forced to give standard of care so metabolic therapy is not an option. Many oncologists probably aren’t aware of metabolic therapy and would be dismissive of it.
My main take away though is that processed carbs should be avoided
and if your unlucky enough to get Cancer get yourself into ketosis.
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It’s interesting how sugar is to the body what oil is to the planet: a high density energy source which wreaks havoc into the system. I like the old idea that the microcosm reflects the macrocosm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcosm%E2%80%93macrocosm_analogy.
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Yes, it makes sense because large and small are governed by the same laws of physics.
Also, the universe’s singular goal of degrading all energy gradients influences the behavior of everything in the universe.
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Mr. Rogers reviews a kerosene stove I own.
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Rob,
I have a different model that is just for space heating. Would you be using this indoors? Are their any concerns about CO from the unit? Although my unit says if the wick is trimmed properly there is not supposed to be any CO I’m still concerned.
Probably just paranoia on my part.
AJ
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I also have a kerosene space heater. Both burn cleanly once hot and I personally do not mind a faint smell of kerosene in my home. My plan is to light them outdoors and once hot bring them indoors. If I had an airtight home I would crack open a window. Most canning is done in warm months so the big stove will probably be used mostly outdoors.
FYI, I have used a propane space heater indoors without a problem for 7+ years.
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http://benjaminthedonkey-limericksofdoom.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-food-pyramid.html
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Just wondered where Ernest Becker’s “The Denial of Death” fits in the list of resources that have influenced your world view?
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Becker’s Terror Management Theory (TMT) recognizes the important influence of the human species’ unique mortality awareness on many behaviors, however TMT does not suggest, as Varki’s MORT does, that mortality awareness creates a barrier to evolving an extended theory of mind that can only be overcome by evolving a tendency to deny all unpleasant realities.
MORT is a much more comprehensive theory in that it explains the existence of a uniquely powerful intelligence on this planet, and why similar intelligence will be very rare in the universe.
Becker’s TMT is to Varki’s MORT as Newtonian physics is to Einstein’s General Relativity. Both do an excellent job of making predictions however the latter supersedes the former and provides a much more comprehensive and illuminating model of reality.
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Thanks to a commenter on POB for introducing me to a new doomster named “B, The Honest Sorcerer” who writes on Medium.
Today B wrote that a stable electricity grid will be one of the first casualties of peak oil.
No new ideas here. Just another aware voice.
https://thehonestsorcerer.medium.com/stable-electricity-a-long-slow-goodbye-b06041a2a1dc
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This was another good compilation of why we will have no “electrical” future (if we have any future at all).
I am always amazed at the people who think that there is some green energy future. Having installed a large solar array and attendant battery system (solar charge controllers, inverters, etc.), I have been painfully made aware of the limitations of “solar” energy (such as no generation for much of the winter due to clouds and low sun angle). Additionally, battery storage sucks (both in terms of capacity, life time and cost).
So, I can see how the “right” thinks a green energy transition is a scam (that the “left” can’t admit), but translate that ignorantly into denial of climate change/resource overshoot.
I am also amazed that proponents of crypto don’t see the vulnerability of crypto to electricity shortages (sure, crypto is distributed, but ultimately dependable electricity is all going away).
And I’m not certain but I think concern over AI is misplaced. One, I doubt that AI as currently programed is sentient and is nothing more than the massive computation within a framework constructed by the programmer that is nothing like our wet ware (brains). Additionally, how does AI (which appears to be uniquely dependent on fossil fuel produced electricity) go forward when the data centers it depends on get turned off? Sure you can do it in science fiction, but the Terminator movies cheated and brought “technology” from the future back to the present (which to me is cheating!!;)). Any transition of technological civilization to a green future that is impossible for us humans is even more so impossible for AI. Unless I guess that AI invents a new physics and gets a new planet with all the things we wasted. Don’t think either of those things are happening IMHO.
AJ
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Agreed on all points. The future we get is the future the majority of us doesn’t envision (provided I am not blind about something else. 😉
I don’t remember if the documentary “Bright green lies” was covered at un-denial when it was out :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7I0wIR-xdM
I guess the word “lies” instead of “denial” was chosen so as not to absolve some members of our species…
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I mentioned a while ago this good interview with the author of Bright Green Lies.
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Max is great! One of the DGR leaders 🙂
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I also agree.
I have many times considered buying a modest solar PV system to run my essentials but have decided against it for the following reasons:
1) I’m lucky to live in British Columbia where most of our electricity is hydro and so our electricity may survive longer than many other areas of the world.
2) Solar doesn’t work well here when you most need it in the winter.
3) Due to the limited lifetime of batteries and inverters there’s a good chance the system will be worn out before SHTF requires it, and then replacement parts will be unavailable or prohibitively expensive, meaning the original investment was a complete waste of money.
4) My guess is that my biggest threat is a big storm in the winter taking out power lines followed by a longer than normal delay to restore power due to the power company being dysfunctional due to a collapsed economy with diesel and parts shortages. I therefore own a small gas generator that can run my fridge for a few weeks with emergency gas I keep on hand.
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Tim Watkins is very good today with a recap of how depleting energy and monetary policy are interacting to cause the price of essentials to increase simultaneous with there being less money available to purchase the essentials. Discretionary products and services will soon be in big trouble.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2023/04/18/stagflation-has-begun/
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Holy shamoley, people are losing their shit over AGI.
Canadian Prepper today predicts bad things are going to happen because AGI’s can create infinite abundance which would cause the elite’s to lose control over us, and they can’t let that happen.
He also thinks AGIs may outstrip our ability to control them by figuring out nuclear fusion so they are not constrained by energy.
It’s remarkable how a person can be intelligent and aware on some issues, and a moron in denial on other issues.
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All the energy in the universe was created at the big bang. Not even powerful AI can do anything about that. I it is very helpful to test AI rhetoric by replacing “AI” with “God”. Quite revealing! Both Alice F and JMG have compared this belief in AI solving all our problems as a type of replacement Christian god who is coming to save us from ourselves
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Actually maybe Alice never said that, I think I just talked about that with her
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My theory about why many are exercised about AI, a vague possible threat, yet the same people completely ignore peak oil, a definite deadly threat, is that AI is not unpleasant enough to trigger their denial circuit since people understand the AI plug can be pulled.
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Simon Michaux today on what he thinks will happen because of peak oil.
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This is interesting
https://sjgenco.medium.com/its-getting-to-look-a-lot-like-degrowth-part-3-e8c746d59e79
Degrowth looks like going bankrupt: slowly at first then all at once.
And JMG has good new article.
https://www.ecosophia.net/dancing-on-the-brink/
Your time to collapse now and avoid the rush is over. A big step down is imminent.
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Thanks, I liked the Steve Genco essay. His key theme is:
Restated in MORT language this becomes: Denial of unpleasant realities gives way to awareness only when forced.
I haven’t read JMG for years due to his high word to idea ratio. This essay was pretty good.
On the bright side, we’ll get to watch the idiot unethical health care administrators who lied to us and got every single covid decision exactly opposite of correct lose their jobs.
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Did you read Gencos notes at the end of the third essay, I find it very jarring to read the whole essay which is so counter to our Western narrative and then have COVID nonsense thrown in at the end. If only the republicans took their medicine!
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Ouch, I missed that.
The only thing more irritating than someone who is ignorant of the mRNA science and data is someone who believes that those that refused the mRNA are making a political statement.
That they think this way strongly suggests their injection of a novel untested technology was done as political statement without any review of the evidence.
I’ll repeat a comment I made above: It’s remarkable how a person can be intelligent and aware on some issues, and a moron in denial on other issues.
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Not sure how JMG is measuring economies but even the Statista list (in trillions of US$) shows Indonesia has a very long way to go before it gets up there and China is still well behind the US. Currently, 3 of the top 5 are Asian, so getting that up to 4 out of 5 doesn’t seem like a stretch except that the next biggest economy in Asia is South Korea, which has a very long way to go to catch up to India. I couldn’t find a PPP ranked list but the largest economy in per capita terms seems to be Ireland, surprisingly.
A rather odd last paragraph. As though, in this complex connected world, some countries will do fairly well as others are crashing, but crashing only for a couple of decades, apparently. I don’t follow that but haven’t read the article in detail.
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Also amazing is an economics expert on the history of interest rates who does not understand what force sets the interest rate.
He’s in the twilight of his career and is just beginning to understand the role energy plays. Better than most economists I guess but not even close to being good enough.
An electrical engineer that did not understand ohms law would be unemployable, yet somehow economists thrive with total ignorance.
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What do you call it when an economist says something?
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woo??
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close, “wrong”
What do you call an economist who makes a prediction?
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random?
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The First Law of Economics: For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite economist.
The Second Law of Economics: They’re both wrong.
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What’s the difference between an economist and a confused old man with Alzheimer’s? The economist is the one with a calculator.
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“You know it’s said that an economist is a man who, when he finds something that works in practice, wonders if it works in theory.” – Walter Heller
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very good 🙂
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Wrong!
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As much as I like most of what RFK says, I still can’t trust someone who got his creds by being anti-science. His being the biggest voice of the true original anti-vaxers (who were right on Covid because THE SCIENCE (med/pharma) was corrupt) still rankles me. He and his ilk bought into the false science that childhood vaccinations caused autism – even after it was thoroughly refuted. Such a lack of rationality is frightening, almost as much as Biden’s dementia and Trump’s narcissism. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
AJ
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I know very little about Kennedy. I was impressed that in this speech he said out loud what few other American leaders dare say in public about the military industrial complex.
I have seen another criticism that Kennedy is a hypocrite by requiring proof of covid vaccination for guests at a party at his home.
I remember in the early days of covid dismissing him for exactly the reasons you list. With time my understanding has grown of how badly we were misled by pharma and health officials and I no longer trust anything they say, including about traditional live attenuated vaccines.
I would need a deep into the data and evidence before I accepted any vaccine now.
I heard on the news this morning that the worldwide percentage of people now refusing any vaccinations for their children is way up.
Our leaders have destroyed their credibility for a generation or more.
I don’t believe a word they say about anything now.
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I watch the speech too. And I agree when it comes to the greatest existential threat. War, Kennedy is probably more sane than any politician in DC. So for that alone he should probably be a candidate, forgiving all his other faults.
AJ
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AJ,
I might be wrong on this point. But I don’t believe any authority has tested the aggregate effect to all-cause mortality of multiple vaccinations on infants and children.
While new vaccines are tested individually, do we really know the cumulative effect of multiple childhood vaccines? https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolescent.html
Note that NO authority in western governments is currently running studies of all-cause mortality from the mRNA vaccines. Faced with possibly negative consequences, would any government or health authority really want to investigate the cumulative effect of the childhood vaccination schedule?
Anyone correct me if I am wrong about the lack of studies the totality of childhood vaccinations.
The second point on this topic. Watching the COVID situation play out, my baseline starting position on these health issues is that our health institutions and bureaucracies are inept, subject to biases, and captured by pharma. I have to be skeptical of anything they say at this point. Am I wrong to be skeptical?
This skepticism is a kind of intellectual quicksand I know. But it feels now like EVERYTHING we are told by our governments et. al. on almost any topic is a lie, down to the last turtle.
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I’m now very skeptical about everything health professionals say.
They are just plain wrong on many big health issues:
1) obesity is not caused by sugar
2) saturated fat -> cholesterol -> heart disease
3) statins -> lower cholesterol -> longer life
4) mRNA stops transmission & improves all-cause mortality
5) mass vaccination against an endemic virus does not encourage variants
6) There’s no need to investigate the objectives of the lab that created the covid virus
7) It’s ok to block safe and effective treatments to enable an unsafe and ineffective treatment
8) It’s ok to not collect the data necessary to confirm the validity of your policies
If they can’t admit they were wrong on these issues despite a mountain of evidence, what are the odds that they are correct on other issues?
I’d say close to zero because they’ve demonstrated they are unethical morons.
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Shawn,
I would agree with you that skepticism is a good default position. It is my position now. I may have misjudged RFK Jr. based on how he has been portrayed in the MSM for the last 20 years. Some of my skepticism goes toward him is based on how he has presented himself in the past. I delved into the whole thiomerisal/mercury adjuvant in childhood vaccines causing autism vis-a-vis Wakefield’s discredited paper 25 years ago. As I remember (maybe wrong) the whole “anti-vax” movement started based on that fraudulent paper. My understanding is that RFK Jr. was part of that movement. I maybe wrong, but everything he says is not necessarily truthful or rational (he’s only human too).
To answer your questions I don’t think anyone has done an all cause mortality study for total childhood vaccinations. Cost and time (i.e. funding) would probably be a problem.
I think one has to be careful to not throw all medical science out the window because of the last few years of Covid hysteria by the now corrupt medical/pharma establishment.
Ask yourself, would you take a smallpox vaccination or polio vaccination? How about a tetanus or whooping cough vaccination? I for one would take those rather than subject myself to the chance of disease. Any more flu shots? I wouldn’t take those based on what I have relearned about immunology in the last few years.
Skepticism to me doesn’t mean throwing out all medical science, just trying to discern the incentives of the players and educating myself enough to avoid the outright frauds. But admittedly that is getting harder to do whey that same medical/pharma establishment lies to you all the time.
AJ
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I remember clearly in the early days of covid (before I had formed opinions) hearing from many sources that Dr. Robert Malone was an anti-vax crank. They were very persuasive at making me stay away from him. With time, and seeing many things not adding up, I started to follow Malone and came to realize he is one of a very small number of experts that we should consider as heroes. Dr. Malone is a great man that actually saved lives rather than harming people. That they still attack him tells me all I need to know about our leaders.
Now that I’m aware how they manipulate people I won’t let it happen again with people like RFK Jr. I’ll form my own opinion based on his own words and actions. He sounded pretty rational to me in the 1/3 of his book on Fauci that I read before I quit because it made me crazy mad that Fauci is still in power.
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Aj – He is not anti-vax by any stretch as he continuously says but none hear. He is anti pump any old thing in everyones bodies without fully understanding what it is and what the effects are without informing or consenting, which is the position of the mindless pro-vaxers.
He is also absolutely not anti-science. He is anti people making the claim that they don’t need to question anything as long as someone calls it science.
But none of this matters because people will just keep on repeating any and all lies someone told them no matter how wrong they are as you so amply illustrated.
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I also did not detect any anti-science in Kennedy’s book on Fauci before I quit 1/3 of the way through because it made me so angry that someone so evil can hold a position of power and be respected by so many.
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Fark I hope he wear body armour
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HHH @ POB today…
https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-update-april-2023/#comment-756178
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So many war escalation threats have occurred over the last year it is easy to become numb and to forget many of them.
Today the Canadian Prepper released a video with a detailed timeline of events to remind us how far we have progressed towards nuclear war.
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I liked his rundown on the timeline. However, I would have gone over how all this could have been avoided if the U.S. would get over it’s insane desire to control the world for it’s benefit. The U.S. is not the “exceptional” nation/civilization it thinks it is. I think a lot of this stems from the mistaken read on history that is taught in all schools here – That the U.S. won WWII by itself with a little help from the U.K. (and as an afterthought the USSR). When in reality the USSR sacrificed the most to win the war and the U.S. helped out a little.
That hubris on the part of the US/UK is what has gotten us into this situation (plus the collapse of the old USSR).
We are at a very dangerous time and no one in the wider world (leaders) seems sane or competent.
I thought this guys take on the current state of affairs instructive.
https://imetatronink.substack.com/p/volodymyr-oleksandrovychs-last-dance
AJ
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Good essay, thanks.
The Russians and Chinese behave like calm confident experienced adults. The west behaves like entitled emotional children.
I’m looking forward to see how Russia extracts revenge for Nordstream. I expect they are carefully planning an appropriate response.
Please post anything else you come across that is interesting.
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American exceptionalism. Long debated issue, books were written about it. My personal opinion on this subject evolved through the whole spectrum. For some time now though, I honestly believe in ‘american exceptionalism’. I am even admirer of this country. And for many reasons.
The ‘coalition of the aggrieved’, as Zbigniew Brzezinski described it, has a lot of ‘propaganda bullets’. From the slavery and racism, Korean/Vietnam/Iraq- wars, global resource exploitation, international series of CIA-organized coups and many more. We all know them. And they are true, mostly.
What this large part of global population does not take into consideration are the following:
– USA is the only hegemon in history of humanity which allowed the human superorganism to achieve full globalization. Globalization was the magic process enabling all humanity to cooperate, to travel and visit all the planet, to invent all these mirracles of technology thanks to which we can communicate. I can read all these wise people, including you and absorb all this knowledge mostly thanks to USA and their insatiable hunger for innovation. And I am deeply greatful for this. Because without it I would be probably born into quite different world. Like anyone else. And I doubt it would be better. On the contrary.
which is less known, the period from 1945 to let’s say February 2022 was the most peaceful period in human history. If we look from the certain perspective human history is the history of wars. Smaller or bigger. World wars lately. We are very aggressive species. From time to time. And US as a policeman did extremely good job keeping peace all over the world (except when they inspired something). Nevertheless, they arethe world master in peaceful coexistence in human history. With all side effects and flaws.
I am deeply greatful for this. And so should be very many people who are so anti-american.
Because the other guys standing in line as challengers of our current order are not very friendly fellows. They are much more brutal in solving things. And I know because my own country was raped by them many times in history. Where Americans use soft gloves, these guys use razors, poisoning and bullet to the head.
So next time you feel anti-american ask yourself not ‘what America did to you’ but imagine ‘what America did for you’.
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What America did was to kill hundreds of millions, disable hundreds of millions, displace hundreds of millions, destroy the hope of a future for billions.
You all may have heard about the “golden billion”. The lying media that controls all of information, (read about the twitter files) will tell youthat it is Putin propaganda but it is decades older than that. Just a few points to quantify the golden billion;
There are only about a billion people who can afford to fly.
There are only about a billion people who can afford to go on vacation.
There are only about a billion personal vehicles.
There are only about a billion quality family homes in the world.
There are only about a billion people who own stocks.
This is just a partial list and I am sure there are exceptions but the basic numbers are fact.
The US empire using dozens of methods have kept the vast majority of the population of the planet poor, uneducated, malnourished, and enslaved for 75 + years.
When given the chance thousands of genius level prodigies come out of the woodwork all around the world from 7 years old to 70.
We humans of the planet have no idea what the world could have been if we had not let the evil psychotic sociopathic morbidly wealthy decide how the world would be run.
This is all changing now with the RoW now shaking off the shackles of oppression and saying no to imperialism but I fear it is too late.
America did the world no favors.
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Hear, hear, Jef. I am firmly in your camp on this and every single day I am struggling to live with the fact I am born to be one of those 1 billion whilst the other 7 billion have led lesser lives because I could have so much. Yes, I am grateful for all the opportunities I received as a member of the wealthiest and powerful elite but I also willingly carry the burden of knowing at what cost. Try as I might to reconcile this, I cannot, especially at this end of the world proceedings, and I take it as part of the penance I should pay, even if only in colouring my thoughts to more compassion and tolerance for others.
China needs to use more draconian methods of control on their 1.3 billion people so in the end reckoning we can harness their fullest labour power for our greater gain. India only needs poverty to contain most of their masses. We don’t have to breathe in the dangerous quality air from the factories in so-called developing nations making all our goods. Actually, we will never let them develop further, we cannot without giving up even a sliver of our pie. We don’t have to troll through toxic waste dumped into another’s land. We have always threatened or executed war to try to keep the lion’s share of remaining resources for our precious non-negotiable way of life whilst the rest of the 7 billion have to work for scraps from our table, all the while we deem that is a good life for them. Everyone else does our dirty work and we think it free trade and fair because it somehow balances on someone’s ledger, but always in our dollars. It will only be fair trade in my conscious when we can swap our sons and daughters into the life and work of those sons and daughters toiling in least prosperous of countries.
Our greatest technological advances are mere chaff when we cannot even treat the weakest among us with beneficence–the stolen fruit turns sour in our mouths when we know we took it from one starving and who had worked to grow it.
I am sorry, friends, for this first post in a long while being so dour and disheartening. But what Jef wrote has struck the same chord rattling in my saddened and weary chest and I just had to give it voice. I am humbled by your patience and possible commiseration.
Thank you all for your comments and offerings, I have been privileged to check in here most days but I haven’t had any more to add as of late, it seems to have been all said and much more clearly and convincingly than by me.
The thoughts that occupy my head constantly now are how to live the remainder of my days, what is my mission for the time allotted, and even if I should chose the allotment. I find that solitude and keeping grounded in the tasks of the seasons whilst keeping the flame of wonder and gratitude fuelled are a great comfort and learning space for me.
Namaste everyone.
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Finally. People with power are beginning to discuss Fauci’s crime of the century.
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Another good interview with Simon Michaux by Rachel Donald.
I’m impressed, her denial gene does not appear to have re-asserted control.
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This was a good podcast, Simon was the most articulate I’ve heard him. Rachel was okay. She seemed totally clueless about Ukraine/ Russia/ NATO, kind of like she had bought into all the MSM propaganda. Thankfully Simon hadn’t and understood some of the ramifications of what the USA has done to Europe. He seems like he has some of the more pragmatic solutions to our predicaments. However, I’m not sure that he understands that population has to be reduced drastically for any potential solution (which is probably not probable anyway).
AJ
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First time I’ve heard anyone say that the US now makes the majority of its gasoline from natural gas.
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Just two, maybe stupid, random thoughts:
– perhaps covid was the crisis which revealed and will destroy the power of big pharma, and Ukraine is the crisis which will reveal and destroy the power of the military-industrial complex. So goes the empire, piecemeal.
– wouldn’t it be fairer for the human species to use the term selective cognitive bias rather than denial? I mean everybody seems to have blind spots (which is often be related to one’s identification). Isn’t just the reason that it’s not possible (energy-effective) for the brain to have a model of everything but at the same that we are not ready to surrender (i.e. admit we can’t know and stop trying). So everybody has a piece of the story. And we tend to cling to it…
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On your first point, I sure hope you are right but I see no evidence yet in the majority of citizens and leaders. I see doubling down on stupidity.
On you second point, I see nothing wrong with calling it a cognitive bias. For me, given that the bias is rooted in denial of mortality which manifests as denial of all things unpleasant, I prefer to call it denial, but I don’t care what people call it provided they start talking about it, because acknowledging the evolved behavior is the only possible path to saving some of the best things we have accomplished and to minimizing the coming suffering.
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Yes probably wishful thinking on my part for the first point.
About the second point, I understand. Denial is more precise.
About “minimizing the coming suffering”, I have no illusion whatsoever, especially given our current culture.
If I may, to be frank with you, I also find the “minimizing the coming suffering” slightly obscene, or at least very anthropocentric. Given that, just to give one of these soulless statistics, it is said that a football field of forest is cut every second.
To me that’s part of the reason we are in our current situation: the fact that all life is sacred (or anything along these lines, such as “the planet is alive”) is not internalized. Our culture encourages us to treat living beings as numb soon-to-be commodities.
However, I know you mean well. And I really am not in a position to say anything. Things are what they are.
🙂
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You make a good point. I can see how my comment could be viewed as insensitive.
If we were to reduce the coming human suffering via population reduction then this might benefit all species including the forests.
But we won’t, and even if we did, a few hundred million of us will wipe out the forests when the oil is gone.
What a depressing mess.
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Yes that is true, reducing our population benefits all species.
Sorry about yesterday’s remark. Thank you for taking it easy. It was one of these days where, starring at the scale of the predicament, I couldn’t avoid but feel engulfed in incommensurable darkness. Sometimes, I wished to be able to escape in soothing denial…
Here is my bit of denial and my everyday prayer:
I so dream we won’t have the capacity to wipe out the forests, that something will stop this insane war (for instance the length of the supply lines stretching from the city stoves to the primeval forests exploitation sites, rust, local uprisings…).
For now, it seems we are hell-bent on “drinking from the chalice of suffering, right to the very dregs”. At the risk of being disappointed, I still have some hopes: civilisation collapse, if it comes before complete environmental degradation, is good news 🙂
In a way, my ramblings have no points: the catastrophe both already happened (as in the genocide of indigenous people, the Shoah, factory farming and whole ecosystems leveling) and is at the same time not yet upon us (as there is still life).
I guess today was again a heavy comment 🙂
I hope this is still ok, as I feel the imperious need to write it. As a way to at least stand witness, even while being powerless.
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No problem at all.
Of all the bad things we are doing, I feel the most emotion about the loss of forests. Most of my best memories involve hiking in forests. I wouldn’t be surprised if we have some genetic memory of forests from our hunter gatherer days.
Wondering if you’ve read any work by my recently deceased friend Gail Zawacki? She wrote many eloquent essays about the damage we are doing to trees. It’s not just deforestation and climate change. She did a a lot of research to demonstrate trees are sick worldwide due to rising ground level ozone that is produced by our industrial combustion processes.
https://un-denial.com/2016/01/03/by-gail-zawacki-no-mercy/
https://un-denial.com/2015/10/27/not-the-trees-too-damn-it-on-gail-zawacki/
https://un-denial.com/?s=Zawacki
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Thanks. I too, feel like a forest dweller.
Yes Gail’s Wit’s End blog is great.
She was right about trees being sick, even though not many really noticed (there was always a local reason like some specific pest, or drought…). Probably, another case of denial (cars are sacred, exhaust pipes couldn’t be the cause 🙂
Still, I find there is a lot of strength in trees and forests: some species may die out and then other ones colonize. It seems to me the forests in my country are too “clean”. Not enough diversity, not enough food for fungi, not enough water storage and habitats. My intuition is we really should throw forestry practices by the window and be guided by the natural evolution of forests (even if the first phase is a massive die off, or huge fires)
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6 trends leading to food system breakdown by Jem Bendell
Click to access Bendell_BeyondFedUp.pdf
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Thanks. He considers the food threats to be:
– climate change
– peak agricultural land
– peak innovation
– disease
– pollution
– declining fossil energy
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Love Ray McGovern. He and friends spend a couple hours today discussing the intellectual and moral weakness of our leaders and news media.
Much of the discussion marvels at how no one in Germany is questioning the implications of the US blowing up NordStream.
McGovern thinks this is analogous to the German majority staying silent 90 years ago when Hitler burned down the parliament building.
I observe that no one questions anything of substance today. For example:
– the implications of nuclear war
– the implications of the global oil supply declining soon
– the feasibility of energy transition
– all-cause mortality with and without mRNA
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http://benjaminthedonkey-limericksofdoom.blogspot.com/2023/04/homo-sapiens.html
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