The Cactus Lens: A Clearer View

Until recently there have been 3 main lenses through which to view our overshoot predicament: debt, energy, and ecology.

Each lens exposes a different aspect of the picture, but not the complete picture.

Each lens focusses on different threats, with different time frames, and different consequences, and each lens suggests a different optimal response.

Overshoot awareness varies by lens and group within society. Awareness of leaders is generally higher than citizens, and in some cases this is deliberate and warranted because broad citizen awareness of the debt and energy threats would increase the probability of short term collapse.

For leaders and citizens that see through any of the lenses, their understanding tends to be incomplete, which has resulted in plans of action that will not help, or that make the situation worse.

This incomplete understanding is caused in part because the issues are very complex, and in part because some aspects of human overshoot have no acceptable or feasible solution, and in part because of the human tendency to deny unpleasant realities, as explained by Dr. Ajit Varki’s MORT theory.

Hideaway, a frequent contributor at un-Denial, Peak Oil Barrel, Our Finite World and other sites, recently introduced a new lens we have named cactus, which focusses on all non-renewable resources and the complexity required to extract them.

I think the cactus lens provides the clearest view of what is going on, what we should expect in the short to medium term, and what we should do.

The cactus lens changes what is in the best interests of citizens to understand.

The debt and energy lenses suggest citizens should remain in the dark.

The ecology lens suggests it does not matter what citizens understand because the ecology threats are longer term than debt, energy, and cactus, and because awareness of ecology issues have not and will not improve anything of substance due to the nature of modernity.

With the introduction of the cactus lens, it is now in the best short term interests of all groups: countries, leaders, and citizens, for awareness to be as widespread as possible.

Achieving broad cactus awareness will be difficult because it is very unpleasant, and therefore will be blocked by our genetic denial behavior, however I propose one idea to start the discussion on how we might spread cactus awareness.

Awareness Lens: Debt

Theory:

  • Modernity requires abundant credit;
  • Because most of our mines, machines, technology, and structures require significant up front capital to build;
  • Which requires a fractional reserve debt backed monetary system;
  • Which is now used by every country in the world;
  • Which by design requires economic growth to not collapse;
  • Because money is loaned into existence and growth is needed to pay interest;
  • Which means our economic system requires infinite growth on a finite planet;
  • Which of course is impossible and means we should expect growth to slow and prosperity to decline, as they are;
  • Culminating in a dramatic and harmful economic reset;
  • However modernity will survive and will rebuild until the next bubble pops.

Status :

  • Quite a few citizens see through the debt lens, maybe a significant minority.
  • Most aware citizens assume the reset is a ways off in the future.
  • Some people prepare to weather a storm with cash, gold, bitcoin, or sardines.
  • Others trust or hope that central banks will print enough money to kick the can past their expiry.
  • Leaders understand and acknowledge the debt problem but are careful to not cause panic because herd emotions could trigger a reset.
  • Leaders are also careful to not explain the driver of the debt problem, energy depletion, as will be discussed in the next section on the energy lens.
  • The debt threat is closer and more severe than our leaders let on as demonstrated by:
  1. Social unrest everywhere is rising because living standards are falling and the wealth gap is widening.
  2. Geopolitical tensions are rising.
  3. Democracies are oscillating between wider extremes.
  4. Most countries have historically high levels of growing debt.
  5. Growth has slowed, and the only growth possible now comes at the expense of adding more debt than the growth it buys, which is unsustainable.
  6. No political party in power anywhere reduces their deficit or balances their budget because it’s now impossible without crashing their system. The US DOGE effort lasted 5 months before leaders gave up and juiced the deficit to new record highs.
  7. Central banks work hard behind the curtain to keep our everything bubble inflated, and to prevent any significant correction of stock or asset prices. When I was young it was normal for the economy and stock market to experience cycles. We don’t permit cycles anymore. Today there is so much debt and so little growth that a significant correction will result in a reset (aka crash).
  8. Printing bazookas are used to blast any threat before it builds momentum, like the banking system repo problem that covid provided cover for unprecedented money printing.
  9. Our leaders tried but failed to use covid as an excuse to implement the tools needed to manage an economic reset like digital ids/currencies for rationing scarce necessities, and for enabling negative interest rates, and tried via “The Great Reset” propaganda campaign to get us ready to accept nationalization of assets (aka “you will own nothing and be happy”). They will try again.

Implications:

  • The debt lens implies a zero-sum game: In a no growth world, one country’s gain is another country’s loss.
  • Our leaders believe that a country that succeeds in harming its competitors will experience less damage from an economic reset. The goal is to ensure opponents reset before you do, on the assumption that this will prevent or delay your own reset by gaining control of more growth generating assets and markets.
  • Hence we see the weaponization of tariffs and trade, regime change operations, and proxy wars intended to weaken or capture opponents.

Conclusions:

  • A debt reset is mathematically inevitable and will reduce the standard of living for the majority via deflation and/or inflation.
  • Debt resets are hard to predict and control because herd emotions drive the process.
  • Leaders have good reasons to not want citizens to be aware of the seriousness of the debt problem.
  • Leaders are operating on the assumption of a zero-sum game.
  • In the cactus lens section we’ll see that the zero-sum game assumption is wrong, which means the current strategy will make things worse for all countries.

Awareness Lens: Energy

Theory:

  • Modernity requires abundant net energy;
  • Which is the energy that remains after using energy to extract and refine energy;
  • Because all of our food, water, minerals, technology, products, and services are produced and delivered by machines powered by energy.
  • Diesel is the keystone energy that powers our vital mining machines, tractors, combines, trucks, trains, and ships.
  • Renewable energy is not a solution to non-renewable depletion because renewables require abundant non-renewable energy t0 build, install, maintain, and augment for 24/7 supply.
  • Discovery of new fossil energy reserves is much slower than depletion of existing reserves, and the gap is growing.
  • The quality of non-renewable energy reserves decline as they deplete;
  • Which means net energy is falling;
  • Which explains why growth is slowing, and prosperity is declining, and debt is growing faster than GDP everywhere.
  • We should expect the trend to continue and accelerate.
  • Leaders believe modernity will continue for those countries that have access to energy.

Status:

  • Few citizens see through the energy lens.
  • There are many false energy beliefs in wide circulation including net zero, peak oil demand, abiotic oil, green energy, renewables outpacing fossils, hydrogen economy, nuclear renaissance, space mining, circular economy, etc., etc..
  • These beliefs are nonsense not grounded in sound science or economics, but the issues are complex, and it is difficult for a citizen to determine the truth, especially with deliberate misdirection from leaders, and with MORT driven hope and denial driving behavior.
  • Denial is a strong force that fogs the energy lens because, short of a near zero probability miracle, there is no solution, and the outlook is steadily worsening living standards.
  • Most leaders, with help from their energy aware militaries, understand what is going on, and know the energy threat is imminent. Evidence for this includes:
  1. Inflation of energy intensive products, like food, is high; energy intensive infrastructure is not being properly maintained; energy intensive manufacturing, like weapons, is struggling to keep up with demand despite plentiful printed money available; war is shifting to lower energy methods like drones; and as also seen through the debt lens, debt is accelerating, living standards are falling, the wealth gap is widening, geopolitical tensions are rising, and democracies are at risk.
  2. The EIA this year announced that fracked oil is peaking. Fracked oil is the unexpected savior that bought us an extra decade after conventional oil peaked.
  3. Leaders do not want their citizens to panic, or to spook the stock market bubble which depends on growth, so they do not discuss the energy problem, and work hard to distract citizens with nonsense like optimism for a renewable transition, or by stoking emotions over socially divisive issues.
  4. Trump reversed his no more regime change promises after being sworn in and briefed about US debt and oil forecasts.
  5. Every country with significant exportable oil reserves that is not controlled by the US empire is either under attack or being regime changed including Russia, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and Nigeria. Even friends with oil, or close to oil, like Canada and Greenland, have been threatened with annexation.
  6. Propaganda is successfully being used to convince citizens that regime change operations are to prevent terrorism or drug trafficking, not to control oil.
  7. China is stockpiling strategic oil reserves.
  8. A few countries, like Germany, made an honest attempt to run their economies with renewable energy, but it’s now obvious to leaders everywhere that the renewable dream has failed. German leaders now want war with energy rich Russia.
  9. The UK, having drained its own oil reserves, now wants war with energy rich Russia.
  10. Hail Mary investments praying for a miracle are being made in AI and nuclear energy.

Implications:

  • The energy lens implies a zero-sum game: In an energy scarce world, one country’s gain is another country’s loss.
  • Our leaders understand their country’s prosperity requires non-renewable energy, and that it must be secured by any means necessary, including taking it by force from others.
  • Countries are preparing for war by increasing military expenditures, even at the expense of social services demanded by citizens.
  • Nuclear arms treaties are being abandoned, and the arms race is restarting.
  • Lessons learned during the cold war about the dangers of nuclear war are being ignored, and red lines are increasingly flirted with.
  • It’s hard to imagine how nuclear war can be avoided given that everyone’s survival depends on oil, and the zero-sum game assumption of our leaders.

Conclusions:

  • Modernity requires growth, and there is not enough oil left for everyone to grow.
  • Leaders have good reasons to not want citizens to be aware of the seriousness of the energy problem.
  • Leaders are operating on the assumption of a zero-sum game.
  • In the cactus lens section we’ll see that the zero-sum game assumption is wrong, which means the current strategy will make things worse for all countries.

Awareness Lens: Ecology

Theory:

  • The resources consumed, and the wastes generated, and the habitats occupied, by the large and growing population of humans, is displacing other species, and causing damage to ecosystems faster than can be repaired by the planet’s recycling systems.

Status:

  • The 8,230,000,000 humans, plus their 35,000,000,000 livestock, plus their billions of pets and other freeloaders like rats, now weighs 80 times more than all wild land mammals combined.
  • Humans use 30-40% of the net primary productivity of all sunlight hitting the planet, plus 16,000,000,000 liters per day of ancient sunlight stored as oil, plus 11,000,000,000 cubic meters per day of ancient sunlight stored as natural gas, plus 24,000,000,000 kilograms per day of ancient sunlight store as coal.
  • The sixth mass extinction is underway.
  • Seven of nine planetary boundaries critical for survival have already been crossed including climate change, biodiversity, deforestation, fresh water, nitrogen cycle, pollution, and ocean acidification.
  • We have already passed the 1.5C safe limit and are on a path to a 3+C temperature increase that is incompatible with civilization and agriculture by the end of this century.
  • Biodiverse forests are being replaced with mono-crop agriculture.
  • Fisheries are in decline.
  • Sea level rise will damage many cities over the next century.
  • Glacier loss threatens the survival of several countries.
  • Chemical toxins and microplastics are harming the health of all life including humans.
  • Awareness of leaders and citizens about the ecological problems varies widely.
  • Most people are aware of some of the problems, but also tend to superficially simplify them down to one issue, CO2, that can be fixed with solar panels and electric vehicles.
  • Few are aware of the breadth and depth of the problems.
  • Many people deny the severity of the problems and/or that humans have caused the problems.
  • Almost everyone denies the implications of the ecological problems, and the fact there is almost nothing that can be done to address them while maintaining modernity and our population.
  • Every effort, by every country, and every organization, and every citizen, to address the above problems, has failed, and will continue to fail, at least until something forces an involuntary change to population and lifestyles.

Implications:

  • The view through the ecology lens is dire.
  • The long term implications are worse than those seen through the debt and energy lenses because we are damaging the ability for any human lifestyle to thrive, and are also harming many other species.

Conclusions:

  • Life threatening ecological problems, for the majority of people, are further in the future than the imminent problems seen through the debt, energy, and soon to be explained, cactus lenses.
  • All of the ecological problems are caused by the human species footprint which is the product of lifestyle and population.
  • None of the ecological problems can be addressed without reducing per capita consumption or population, and the debt and cactus lenses show that modernity requires growth, which means the ecological problems are a classic predicament, a problem without an acceptable solution.
  • The energy and cactus lenses show that growth will not continue, and the human footprint will soon shrink, which means there may be an improvement to future ecology trends.
  • Many of the ecological problems we have created will repair quickly when the scale of the human enterprise shrinks.
  • Some ecological problems will take a very long time to repair, and adaptation of surviving species will be required.
  • As will be discussed in more detail in the next section, if we somehow became aware that the scale of humanity was going to decrease in the not too distant future, no matter what we do, then we might be able to motivate ourselves to address several ecological issues that would improve the quality of life for the survivors, such as burying nuclear waste, and protecting biodiverse forests and marine ecosystems.

Awareness Lens: Cactus

CACTUS = Complexity Accelerated Collapse of a Thermodynamically Unsustainable System

The phrase “we’re cactus” is Australian slang meaning something is ruined, broken, or finished, often used to describe a situation where progress has stopped, such as a vehicle that won’t start.

The expression likely originated from the infamous prickly pear cactus, which once infested large parts of Australia before being controlled by the introduced Cactoblastis cactorum moth.

This slang is part of a broader set of Australian expressions for something being in disrepair or useless, including terms like “boonted,” “clapped-out,” “had the chad,” “had the bomb,” and “kaput”.

While “cactus” as a metaphor for being broken or ruined is well-established in Australian English, it is not commonly used in other English-speaking regions.

Theory:

  • Modernity requires abundant minerals and energy.
  • The majority of minerals and energy we use are non-renewable and finite.
  • Recycling is economically and/or technically impossible for most minerals.
  • For those minerals that can be recycled, there are losses in the recycling process that still result in long term depletion.
  • The quality of mineral and energy reserves decline as they deplete, because we always harvest the best quality reserves first.
  • Mineral and energy extraction technologies must increase in complexity to compensate for falling reserve quality to maintain flows of resources. For example, compare modern directional drilling now required for fracking with early oil rigs. Or the giant trucks and other machines now required to haul and process low grade copper ore.
  • Rising complexity increases the materials, processes, skills, locations, and number of people needed to design and manufacture the technologies.
  • Rising complexity requires a growing market to support the increasing cost of designing and manufacturing technologies. For example, a smaller population would not buy enough phones to make a TSMC factory in Taiwan viable, and therefore the advanced chips needed for oil exploration and extraction would not exist.
  • A growing market requires a growing economy and population.
  • A growing economy and population increases the consumption of all minerals and energy.
  • Wastes generated by the growing economy and population create increasing frictions to further growth.
  • This self-reinforcing complexity growth system drives an increase in mineral and energy flows until technology, markets, and population can no longer keep up with growing waste frictions and declining reserve qualities, and a critical mineral or energy becomes unavailable in the quantities required.
  • Scarcity of the critical mineral or energy triggers a system wide technology breakdown cascade because many technologies depend on it, and many other technologies depend on those technologies, via an ultra-complex network of dependencies.
  • The unavailability of many technologies then causes many more mineral and energy flows to become unavailable in the quantities required because the quality of remaining reserves makes extraction difficult or impossible without the latest technologies.
  • This self-reinforcing collapse of complexity, technology, and resource flows is certain at some point in the not too distant future and will result in a supernova end to modernity and civilization.
  • Nothing can be done to prevent this outcome, just as nothing can be done to prevent the collapse of a star.
  • It’s not possible to have modernity without infinite growth on a finite planet which means modernity will be short lived everywhere in the universe.

Hideaway responds:

  • Hence the logical solution to the Fermi Paradox. Species that reach modernity anywhere do not last long enough to detect others, that have also reached modernity, spread through time.
  • Given the age of our galaxy of around 13.6B years, and if it took 3.6B years for the first species to reach modernity, then if each lasted from 100 years to say 400 years at best, there could have been 1 every million years giving a total of 10,000 for our galaxy and none would ever detect another.
  • Even if 10 or 20 had popped up at the one time, just through chance, and were more than 400-500 light years apart, they would never know of the other’s existence.
  • Just by shear chance, some might detect others, but the odds of any one civilization detecting another is extremely small.
  • Say we did detect another civilization somewhere in the close area within say 1000 light years. So what? By the time we tried to communicate back to them, the odds of their collapse is high.

Status:

  • A tiny minority of people see through the cactus lens.
  • The cactus view of modernity has not been widely discussed.
  • The closest work that I can recall reading is that by David Korowizc where he discusses the extreme complexity and fragility of modern supply chains, and the risk of their breakdown with energy shortages. Korowizc advocates building more resiliency into our system, but I don’t think he stated clearly that modernity will soon end no matter what we do, as Hideaway’s cactus lens does.
  • The ground breaking Limits to Growth work of Dennis Meadows et. al. assumed collapse could be avoided by adopting a steady state population and economy. Cactus shows this assumption is incorrect. Any dependence on any resource that is not naturally recycled by ecological systems will eventually result in a collapse back to a state that is not dependent on the resource.
  • Other important overshoot aware people like Jay Hanson and Jack Alpert discuss the certainty of modernity’s demise, but do not focus on the non-renewable resource extraction complexity growth system to conclude that modernity will end in a supernova.

Implications:

The cactus lens provides several profound insights that create a clearer view than the debt, energy, or ecology lenses.

List every non-renewable resource that civilization depends on.

ChatGPT:

Fossil Fuels: Oil, gas, coal, oil sands, shale oil/gas, peat.

Nuclear Fuels: Uranium-235/238, thorium, plutonium (derived).

Metals: Iron, aluminum, copper, nickel, cobalt, lithium, zinc, lead, tin, silver, gold, platinum group metals, titanium, molybdenum, tungsten, vanadium, niobium, tantalum, chromium, manganese, rare-earth elements (all 17 REEs), and many others.

Industrial Minerals: Phosphate rock, potash, sulfur, borates, fluorspar, gypsum, halite, graphite, silica sand, feldspar, kaolin, etc.

Construction Materials: Limestone, aggregates (sand & gravel), clay, granite, marble, slate, stone.

Geologic Water: Fossil groundwater aquifers.

Biological/Ecological Resources (functionally non-renewable): Topsoil, old-growth forests, biodiversity, coral reefs, major fish stocks.

  1. The first key insight is that modernity depends on many non-renewable materials, not just energy, and they are all critical for the technologies that enable modernity. Cactus is thus a much wider lens than the peak oil view.
  2. The second key insight is that modernity requires growth, not only because of the widely understood need for abundant credit as explained by the debt lens, but also because extraction technologies must increase in complexity to compensate for falling reserve qualities. This growth requirement is physical and non-negotiable, and unlike debt, is not digits in a computer that can be reset.
  3. The third key insight is that the requirement for growth, coupled with the inevitable decline in reserve qualities, creates a self-amplifying feedback loop for every one of the many non-renewable resources we depend on, which creates many possible failure points, and the extreme complexity and interdependencies of the technologies we use to extract minerals and energy guarantees a catastrophic failure of the entire system at some point.
  4. The fourth key insight is that this growth and collapse process is certain for any system that is dependent on non-renewable resources. This means there is no possible sustainable solution for advanced civilization anywhere in the universe, because advanced civilization is not possible without non-renewable resources.
  5. The fifth key insight is that there will be no recovery of modernity after the collapse. The quality of many of the remaining non-renewable resource reserves will be so low after the collapse that many resources will be unavailable without advanced technologies and abundant diesel, and there will be no way of rebuilding those technologies because their development required higher quality resource reserves. Surviving humans will return to their hunter gatherer origins.
  6. The sixth key insight is that the zero-sum game strategy that the debt and energy lenses inform our leaders to use, will reduce the time to collapse, and will not optimize the quality of life for the time that remains. War, for the last 10,000 years, was a good response to scarcity. War, today, will create scarcity for the entire planet.

Conclusions:

Given that our leaders see the world through debt and energy lenses, they are operating on the assumption of a zero-sum game:

  • My country will do better if I damage the economy of my competitors.
  • My country will survive or grow if I take energy from my competitors.

The cactus lens shows us that a zero-sum game strategy will not achieve the desired outcomes.

Instead, zero-sum game strategies will reduce the time to collapse, or reduce the quality of the time that remains. Examples include:

  • Wasting resources, fragmenting the market, and decreasing efficiencies by trying to duplicate and reshore manufacturing.
  • Making it more difficult to maintain complexity by fragmenting the global trade system through the encouragement of BRICS and by imposing trade sanctions.
  • Wasting resources on bigger militaries that won’t help.
  • Wasting resources on climate change policies that won’t help.
  • Wasting resources by subsidizing renewable energy that won’t help.
  • Increasing the chance of violent harms to many by blaming other countries and/or immigrants for hardship caused by resource depletion.
  • Ignoring international law when it conflicts with a zero-sum goal.
  • Sanctioning Russian energy.
  • Blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline.
  • Restarting a nuclear arms race.
  • Risking disruptions to middle east oil flows, and destroying respect for leaders, by supporting the genocide of Palestinians.
  • Funding a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
  • Provoking China to withhold rare earth minerals.
  • Provoking China to stockpile oil.
  • Regime changing Syria.
  • Regime changing Iran.
  • Regime changing Venezuela.
  • Threatening to invade Nigeria.
  • Pissing off Canadians so not a one will buy a US product. 🙂

The cactus lens points us to a positive-sum game strategy.

Modernity is a global system of unimaginable complexity dependent on resources, technologies, processes, and skills sourced from 6 continents. A complex component will often travel back and forth between continents many times in the process of converting its constituent minerals into a finished product. Almost every country plays a roll in the complex web that sustains us.

Modernity depends on millions of interdependent components, each with a uniquely complex supply chain, and modernity’s aggregate supply chain is far too complex for any leader, or even a computer, to predict the consequences of disrupting the matrix to achieve a zero-sum game goal.

The risk of unintended consequences is high given that zero-sum game strategies will tend to focus on depriving energy and thus damaging the entire economy of an opponent country.

Plans to reshore manufacturing will make things worse. We don’t have the surplus capital or debt headroom needed to achieve this without damaging something else, and it will be very wasteful of non-renewable resources by creating capacity greater than the market can absorb, thus reducing the time to collapse.

The cactus lens shows us modernity will eventually collapse permanently, taking down every country in the process. There is nowhere to hide, and there is nothing we can do to prevent this. No country will be immune.

With cactus awareness and a positive-sum game strategy we could:

  • Make wise decisions that delay the collapse so we can enjoy more of modernity’s benefits, or at least avoid doing stupid things that accelerate the collapse.
  • Do some things to optimize quality of life until the end, or at least avoid doing stupid things that worsen quality of life.
  • Consider doing some things that might improve the quality of life for the post collapse survivors.

Actions that might delay the collapse and optimize quality of life until the end include:

  • Avoid conflicts and wars that harm citizens, damage supply chains, and waste non-renewable energy and minerals.
  • Stop the subsidy of renewable energy that wastes non-renewable resources and reduces the time to collapse.
  • Stop wasting money on climate change policies that will not change the outcome.
  • Put the Sulphur back into ship fuel.
  • Strengthen global governance and conflict resolution via UN like organizations.
  • Renew and improve treaties to reduce the risk of nuclear war.
  • Remove barriers to trade.
  • Encourage well regulated immigration to optimize global labor.
  • Allow market forces to optimize the global economy for maximum efficiency.
  • Adopt digital currencies to enable fairer and more efficient money printing, and to manage the fair rationing of scarcities.
  • Provide sound lifestyle and dietary advice with encouragements to help citizens improve their health and quality of life, and to reduce the healthcare drag on economies.
  • Fairly enforce laws to encourage law & order and good behavior.
  • Provide open and honest communication to citizens so they know what is going on and why, and no longer feel like they are being gaslit by wizards behind a curtain.
  • Provide meaningful and rewarding goals to citizens, like asking them to volunteer to rehabilitate habitats and soils to help post-collapse survivors.
  • When signs of the final collapse become visible, provide a painless end of life kit to any citizen that wants one to reduce their anxiety.

Notice that nothing on the above list requires a change in lifestyle for the majority, or the overriding of evolved behaviors like the Maximum Power Principle, or singing kumbaya, or sharing everything equally, or eating bugs.

Limits to growth are breaking our democracies. Citizens know their standard of living is falling, but do not understand why, so they vote for the politician that most credibly promises a better life, but leaders are powerless to improve living standards, which breeds politicians that are superb at lying, but not well suited to optimizing a complex problem. Then when the leader does not deliver, the citizen is pissed off, and next time votes for someone more extreme that blames the immigrants or the Chinese, and so on, which accelerates us in the wrong direction. The only way to break this path to despots is awareness.

With cactus awareness we will understand the comforts we enjoy are rare in the universe, are very fragile, and will soon be gone forever on this planet. This could lead to gratitude and care to not cause a premature collapse.

Cactus awareness will create strong pressure between countries, and by citizens on leaders, to not break things.

If we understand modernity will soon be gone for everyone no matter what we do, there will be less need to dominate and win, and more need to enjoy and cooperate to extend the good times.

Humans are an innovative species. With cactus awareness there would be many people thinking about what could be done to buy more time. Maybe we should use this resource for this rather than that? Opposition to change from people who have to give something up might be muted if they understood the change will buy a few more good years.

Some ideas to improve the quality of life for the post collapse survivors will be difficult to decide and implement because many of these will conflict with the goal of delaying collapse as long as possible. On the other hand, if we collectively understand collapse is inevitable, it might be easier to say set aside some forest or wildlife habitat, or bury nuclear waste, knowing that your children or grandchildren might benefit.

Imagine the effect of cactus awareness on philanthropy. What might billionaires with children do with their wealth if they understood modernity will soon be gone? Perhaps they might buy up biodiverse rainforests to protect them.

Shifting from the current zero-sum game strategy to a positive-sum game strategy will be very difficult.

Cactus is very unpleasant. Genetic denial, as explained by MORT, will be in full force resisting cactus awareness.

On the other hand, almost everything going on in the world today is also very unpleasant, and many people are losing their minds because nothing makes sense.

In a strange way, cactus may be less unpleasant than what we are currently asked to believe, because the cactus story at least agrees with what our eyes see, and provides reasons for gratitude when times are tough, so maybe there’s a chance for cactus awareness.

We evolved in small tribes that in times of scarcity had to fight other tribes to survive. There are no attacking aliens to unite us.

The cactus lens does point to a common threat that will kill almost everyone, but most people won’t believe it.

When times get tougher, as they surely will, leaders will have zero chance of adopting a positive-sum game strategy unless a majority of citizens see the world through the cactus lens.

Those of us that are cactus aware should start brainstorming how to spread cactus awareness.

Here’s one idea:

We could recruit the powerful institutions that were created by MORT: religions.

Cactus awareness will be fantastic for the life after death businesses. All religions will boom with growing memberships, donations, and tithes.

Religions therefore could be self-interested and enthusiastic allies for spreading the cactus gospel.

Religions also have the perfect infrastructure and skills needed to spread an idea like cactus and its positive-sum game belief system.

A likely roadblock to our leaders embracing the cactus lens is the big money behind financial institutions that depend on good news for their pump the bubble business model.

I’m thinking that it shouldn’t be too hard to get them on board. The cactus lens doesn’t say everyone has to live like poor monks in a cave.

Cactus tells us the end will be painful but mercifully quick, so those so inclined can party on like it’s 19991 in a glorious bubble until the last day…

1The highest net energy we ever enjoyed was in 1999 when about 4% of energy was needed to extract energy. Today it takes about 10-15% of energy to extract energy, and the ratio is continuing to rise.

944 thoughts on “The Cactus Lens: A Clearer View”

  1. This channel admits to be fronted by an AI and claims the scripts are written by an experienced silver trader that prefers to remain anonymous.

    When I listen to the phrasing and tone I’m hearing similarities to the BRICS AI I liked so much and that was recently banned from YouTube.

    My hunch is this channel is from the same source, maybe the Chinese version of CIA.

    I intend to monitor it for a while and I’ll let you know if my opinion changes.

    I like propaganda that tries to hurt an enemy with truth.

    Probably because I’m sick of swimming in denial, and the lies from western governments.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. A reasonable hypothesis is that China is selling US treasuries and buying silver to hurt the US, and is stirring up shit in the market with this YouTube channel to amplify their actions.

      Does anyone have a different explanation?

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    2. I watched this channel once and probably won’t listen again I heard him say a few things that were outright wrong and easily falsifiable. I’ve learnt over the years through bitter experience that is possible to waste an inordinate amount of time down rabbit holes.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  2. This video was released today from an affiliated BRICS AI channel and explains what’s been going on behind the scenes in China and US since the start of this year to control strategic minerals like silver.

    It’s very interesting to watch this with cactus awareness.

    You can see forces rapidly building that will damage global supply chains and the ability to sustain the complexity growth needed by modernity.

    Silver was once known as a quiet precious metal, associated with coinage, jewelry, and long-term savings rather than crisis or conflict. It sat in the background of the global economy, steady and largely ignored by the public. Today, that same metal has moved into the center of geopolitical tension, government intervention, and national security planning. What happened?

    This documentary looks beneath the headlines to examine how long-term vulnerabilities slowly formed out of sight. Rather than focusing on day-to-day market noise, the video explores how dependence, policy decisions, and global competition quietly stacked pressure over time. What appears sudden is, in fact, the result of years of structural imbalance.

    The question now is whether this shift marks a permanent decline in stability, or whether awareness and action can still change the outcome.

    IN THIS VIDEO, WE COVER:

    How silver became strategically essential
    Why dependence created hidden risk
    The role of government intervention
    Global competition for critical resources
    The real-world impact beyond markets

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    1. As someone that has been investing for decades, I haven’t bothered to watch a single one of all the AI generated slop on silver, nor any other video on it. Right now both gold and silver are at price multiples compared to other commodities, way outside historic norms.

      A friend of mine who is big into silver, and sends me link to all these videos, despite me clearly stating the facts tried to argue that gold and silver have been manipulated into too lower prices for decades. All I explained to him is that this anomaly is not just in decades, it’s in centuries. You can buy more, oil, wheat, sugar, cocoa, copper, or hogs, cattle and sheep for an once of gold or silver, than any time in history.

      On every prior occasion when gold and silver have been overpriced, a return to the norm happens, relative to other commodities. Either, massive inflation in everything else, while gold and silver go sideways (as in losing their spending power), or gold and silver crash in price..

      Just a reminder that back in 1980 silver reached $50/oz, with gold topping out around $880 in futures markets. By 1993 silver was around $3.40/oz and gold had fallen to $285/oz by 1985..

      By being out of kilter with all other commodities, tells me the current boom has nothing to do with currencies, it’s a mania with everyone thinking it’s about currencies. If currencies did collapse it will only be because all those other commodities along with everything else rising super rapidly in price and scarcity. AIMHO of course..

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      1. Very interesting, thanks.

        I’m not thinking about the price and whether its too high or too low.

        I’m thinking about the effect on supply chains of geopolitical controls on the flow of critical minerals.

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        1. Rob, that bit you stated earlier “You can see forces rapidly building that will damage global supply chains and the ability to sustain the complexity growth needed by modernity.”

          ….is what rings true with me. it’s what is likely to explode the price/cost of everything else if supply chains start locking up. Hence the other commodities all start to catch up to gold and silver, reducing the ratio between gold and silver and the rest, while everyone concentrates on the dollar values….

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      2. For once, I disagree with you.

        Others may be jumping on the bandwagon now, but I have been writing about what was going to happen in a series of articles for many years.

        https://futurocienciaficcionymatrix.blogspot.com/2025/10/a-punto-de-activar-defcon0-o-lo-que-es.html

        The price of silver exceeding $50 implies the loss of control of the fiat system. Paper money returns to its intrinsic value (zero), while solid assets multiply their value relative to a benchmark (fiat money) that is worth less and less. Trust is everything in paper money, and once lost, it cannot be regained.  

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        1. Is anyone aware of what is happening?

          Can no one warn of the consequences of a movement that has already begun and, if not stopped immediately, threatens to blow everything up?

          If the bond market collapses (and this is what they have to avoid), nothing will ever be the same again.

          And if they intervene, as they always have, gold and silver will skyrocket, leaving confidence in the system in tatters and ushering in an era of inflation. It’s not because assets are rising in price, it’s because the system used to price them is collapsing.

          https://futurocienciaficcionymatrix.blogspot.com/2026/01/y-por-fin-aqui-llega-el-colapso-del.html

          Quark.

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          1. Thank you for explaining quark.

            We may now have an answer to why all our leaders are losing their minds…

            I will be brief, for a long time I have warned of several indicators that threatened the fiat system. Most important was the price of silver, specifically, exceeding the level of $50 per ounce.

            It’s not that silver is a fundamental element for human survival, it’s that it has been the most controlled asset (more than gold) for the last 45 years. In that period they have not stopped manipulating it, preventing it from reaching the price that corresponds to it through the supply and demand market. Even five years of permanent deficit were wiped out in price formation.

            The importance of the $50 level was not just another reference. Overcoming it meant that for the first time, the system lost control and if they could no longer sustain it, the value of money would tend, in a rapid succession of movements, to its intrinsic value, zero.

            Of course, said like that it seems outrageous, but the system had limits. Excess emissions cannot be infinite and when a critical point is reached, the system begins to fail. Nobody realizes it, but the loss of purchasing power is continuous and just passing on a reference can make it clear that the system is collapsing.

            For a long time we have been with the frog boiling, but the frog just died …

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          2. Hi Quark, not sure who you are disagreeing with, but I think we are all pretty much on the same page. From your linked post…..

            ” The insidious loss of purchasing power will grow until it becomes clear that the cost of groceries skyrockets in terms of euros or dollars, and when this realization spreads, hyperinflation could enter our lives overnight.“

            This is exactly the way that gold/silver to other commodity ratios return to normal, while the other method is the price of gold and silver crashes, just like it has in the past like 1980.

            I agree the odds of hyperinflation seem much more likely this time, than back then, but I’m not prepared to call it an absolute certainty just yet, just from the systems ability to confuse so many in regards to timing of collapse in the past.

            While we still have energy increases and efficiency gains throughout the entire system, then the complexity and size of the system can still grow. Efficiency gains include things like increased inequality, A.I. taking jobs, quality of goods decreasing with shorter working lives etc.

            Once we get to a real world of scarcity, with 80% of developed countries in urban areas and over 50% of world population in urban areas, as we currently have, gold and silver will lose value relative to actual food, clothing, shelter and warmth/coolth depending upon where in the world people are. That brings the ration of G+S back to other commodities.

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        2. October 7, 2025

          This graph shows the deviation of growth in the form of GDP, with respect to debt. For the financial system to be stable, debt growth would have to be similar to debt growth, to avoid monetary devaluation. Issuing more monetary units than necessary to match growth to debt implies a devaluation proportional to the deviation. When this deviation reaches a certain breaking point (which no one knows a priori), the system explodes. That breaking movement is about to be reached. 

          We have been where natural growth has disappeared for many years. There is only artificial growth that generates the uncontrolled issuance of debt to finance absolutely everything. And therefore, at some point the breaking point is reached, where fiat money loses trust and then reaches its true intrinsic value, i.e. zero. Backless money is worthless.

          Another breaking point that is about to be reached is the shortage of certain raw materials. Oil (2027), copper (2027), silver (2021), they present or will present permanent shortages in the coming years. A shortage that cannot be resolved by printing more debt. If the final phase of the financial system holds up a little longer (we already know the special “inventiveness” of the all-powerful BCs), it will collide head-on with the weakness of the supply of fundamental raw materials, causing a debacle that has probably already begun incipient.

          The historical solution is wars and the law of social cycles he already warned us of the arrival of a period dominated by wars and dictatorships.

          Everything fits, like when we need to place a few pieces of a puzzle, which for a long time has been incomplete.

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  3. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/east-coast-blackouts-ai-data-centers-b2899669.html

    East coast could soon get rolling blackouts during summer because data centers have pushed electric grid to the limit

    The East Coast of the United States could soon experience rolling blackouts as AI data centers gobble up more and more electricity, pushing the grid to the limit, according to a new report.

    PJM, the organization that services nearly 70 million people in a 13-state corridor stretching from Kentucky to New Jersey, may be forced to trigger power outages during high demand periods, such as summer heat waves or winter freezes, The Wall Street Journal reported.

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  4. Not sure who I got this link from. I went into it blind and turned out to be some great entertainment.

    Aftermath: Population Zero is a Canadian special documentary film that premiered in 2008 on the National Geographic Channel. It speculates what the earth, animal life, and plant life might be like if humanity no longer existed, as well as the effect that humanity’s disappearance would have on the artifacts of civilization.

    I noticed that some versions on youtube have a different narrators voice. This is the one I watched. Great video quality, but kind of a lame narrator. If you can find a good quality with the scarier narrator’s voice, I’d go that route.  

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    1. I would think that geothermal and all the other industry of mining can’t really scale up much more even with more energy. Liebig’s law will hit somewhere. Electrification just can’t get the resources it needs even with i pulse tech.

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      1. The brilliant physicist Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder disagrees with you. Today she argues geothermal is rapidly improving and is the future of energy.

        MORT is amazing.

        Geothermal energy – using the heat from within the Earth to generate electricity – has been around as a concept for decades at this point. But recently, geothermal technology has improved by leaps and bounds, and it could be poised to become a major source of renewable energy alongside solar and wind power. Not only this, the technology can also be used as energy storage. Let’s take a look.

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    1. the more I check on this guy’s statements, the more I think take with a ‘grain of salt’. From latest USGS report on titanium…

      South Africa, Canada, Australia, Madagascar, Kenya, Mozambique, and Norway were, in descending order by import value, the leading import sources, accounting for almost 90% of the mineral concentrate import value. Imports of titaniferous iron ore, containing less than 35% tiO2 , from Canada (classified as ilmenite by the U.S. Census Bureau) were 46 t in gross weight and were valued at $20,000. Exports of titanium mineral concentrates increased in 2022 to 262,000 t from 54,100 t in 2021 (tables 10, 11)

      https://pubs.usgs.gov/myb/vol1/2022/myb1-2022-titanium.pdf

      I don’t always agree with USGS numbers either, but a better source than some broad statements from this guy…

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        1. A lot of titanium is not going to China at all for refining or anything else, it been a deliberate policy for a few years for defence purposes. Seems a lot goes to Nippon Steel who make and ship the high grade alloys, plus Osaka Titanium and Toho Titanium in Japan. Something like 90% of the USA imports of refined titanium is refined in Japan..

          I’m very skeptical of most claims of something I know nothing about, and then go and check if some convenient off the cuff comment by someone is accurate. I learned a had lesson in this over 20 years ago when dealing with the highest levels of the public service, when at a particular important meeting, one of the people trying to get an agreement on something raised the point off how we’d all agreed to the XYZ document the previous year, so this was a natural follow on, to get a vote passed.

          No-one there had this document with us, (one of dozens) yet did remember it. The vote was passed, based on what the person had been saying. I went home, found the older document, which was only a discussion document, never passed or ratified by anyone as it was a too fast too radical change back then, and still was. I sent an immediate email to the person, about any evidence he had that the document was passed, that the vote that day had been based upon. I received no reply, and a day or so later in another smaller meeting of more senior members, told them all in no uncertain terms, that the prior vote was going to be rescinded based on false information, given by someone that talked a smooth game and was trusted by people as being independent, when the whole time he was being paid to drive an agenda. So my eyes were opened a lot by such events..

          Now I don’t care who the expert is, nor their deep knowledge, I check, and as I find more mistakes in their narrative, they sort of go down way too fast in my believing anything they say if they appear to be driving an agenda.

          It’s also why I like people questioning any conclusions I’ve come up with, to try and make sure I’m not falling into the same trap of just picking facts and bits and pieces that support my arguments and ignoring other realities. It’s also why I spent so much time on searching for the truth on EROEI and working out the only method that takes into account all the energy inputs and has a consistent method of comparison.

          Oops, sorry for the rant..

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          1. Thanks for fact checking this and setting us straight Hideaway.

            Nate Hagens has a long history of not correcting guests that he knows said something untrue. He prefers I think an unthreatening environment in his interviews.

            However, given that Hagens instructed his production team to create two shorts from that interview to amplify the Titanium threat, I thought it reasonable to assume he had enough integrity to fact check the statement before deliberately amplifying it.

            I guess we can no longer assume Hagens has integrity. Let’s watch to see if he restores his integrity with an apology.

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            1. Nate Hagens has slipped a couple of times and actually called the future collapse, before correcting himself later to mention the great simplification, plus a small conversation I had with him and possibly yourself in the comments section last year on his Youtube channel, certainly made me think he does fully understand our predicament, but for wide audience appeal seems to still try and show hope.

              I’ll be kind and suggest he is trying to widen the overall message without scaring too many people and keep the ratings up.

              The more I understand our situation, the less inclined I am to spread the word. All I’ve ever received from friends and relatives about collapse is that, if it ever happens, they’ll just turn up at our place, which sort of defeats the purpose of letting people know, because if they did all manage to escape the city to our place, there is not enough, food, shelter, beds etc for more than a short period.

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              1. I agree Hagens understands collapse through the debt, energy, and ecology lenses.

                I don’t think Hagens sees through the cactus lens yet.

                I wasn’t talking about collapse when I said he rarely corrects guests that are wrong. I was referring to things like green energy, fixing climate change with PV and EV, steady state economy, circular economy, etc. etc.

                I think this a mistake. We have a surplus of bullshit channels. We need some 100% truth channels. His could have been the first.

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                1. Chris, where is that no BS channel of yours???

                  Possibly the real problem is that a real no BS channel on Youtube would be censored out of existence as happened during covid for anyone opposing the narrative, and perhaps Nate and team are aware of this…

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                  1. Yeh Chris, where’s that YouTube channel we were promised?

                    You were complaining about being bored last night.

                    Growing your 100% truth channel will keep you busy and provide purpose in your life.

                    You could start by interviewing all the regulars here. Except me of course. If would be great to have faces and voices to associate with the nicknames.

                    You could even keep the videos private to this group if you need some time to practice before going global.

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                    1. Goddammit Hideaway! You just had to bring that up didn’t you. And now you got Rob piling on. LOL

                      Talk about letting your mouth write a check that your ass can’t cash. Whew. Believe it or not the pipedream is not completely dead. I still practice once in a while. But I refuse to put out content that has zero entertainment value.

                      I do like Robs idea about keeping it private at the start. And having some undenialists on with me might help make it more comfortable.

                      But don’t hold your breath.😊

                      Liked by 1 person

  8. View this brief 2 minute speech by the US secretary of commerce through the cactus lens and it’s clear the time to supernova is being reduced.

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      1. Carney did not acknowledge it was a mistake that Canada followed corrupt and incompetent US healthcare and coerced our population, including children that did not need protection, to transfect themselves with a novel improperly tested mRNA technology so I don’t care what Carney says or thinks.

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        1. Mark Carney basically declared the end of US Hegemony and the “rules-based order”. That is a big deal, regardless of his position on MRNA.

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          1. Carney is basically saying that they will not be the US’s bitch. They will be China’s bitch.

            Carney is about as rotten to the core as you can get for a politician and big money insider.

            It is all BS. Stop letting your politics blind you to the fact that all any of them care about is power and position.

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            1. Carney is about as rotten to the core as you can get for a politician and big money insider.

              The political system in the US is rotten to its core in its entirety. I am not as familiar with Canadian politics, but the same may be true there.

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              1. What I am trying to say is that political corruption in the US, Canada and many other countries, is a systemic issue. If you have a political system that tolerates and rewards corruption, you will get corrupt leaders as a inevitable result.

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  9. When smart people disagree on US motives I’d lean to Brian Berletic as having the highest probability of being right.

    The US, Greenland, Europe row is the perfect method of selling a US-Europe “split” necessary for the US’ own publicly declared “division of labor” arrangement where it tasks an obedient Europe with feeding itself into the proxy war with Russia next while the US focuses more directly on China.

    In ALL​ other regards, Europe continues obediently serving US interests – from Iran to Venezuela to Russia and China – at Europe’s own complete, absolute expense.

    The idea that European nations need to bite the bullet because they “need” the US for “security” is absurd because Europe has no actual enemies except the ones the US forces it to create in service of advancing US primacy worldwide.

    Before the US forced it into a proxy war with Russia, it was getting reliable, cheap energy from Russia and it was the US, NATO, and Europe encroaching upon and threatening Russia – not the other way around – likewise regarding China.

    There is no real “row” of any kind – Europe has long since been captured by US special interests, this theater is for pushing/pulling the public along a path Washington’s European puppets are already obediently following and will continue following.

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    1. I tend to think it is the reverse Rob. Europe was the most advanced in the globalist agenda and was trying to take over the US and the Trump admin has thrown a spanner into that. Hopefully globalism is dead as we saw what it is in COVID.

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      1. You might be right on globalism nikoB, I don’t have a strong opinion.

        I tend to think globalism was cactus growth force pushing all countries towards optimization until scarcity and limits to growth derailed the train.

        I do know the covid virus was engineered by the US, and the mRNA transfection antidote was engineered by the US, and the fraudulent tests used to convince the world mRNA was safe and effective were conducted by the US, so I draw a different conclusion about covid.

        Covid was a US led operation top to bottom with vassals like Canada and Europe doing as they were told without engaging a single intelligence or ethical cell in their brains.

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  10. You’d think a 3 million person capital of a country without power in the dead of winter might be a lead news item but all the feeds I follow were silent this morning. We are so manipulated. Or maybe we actually don’t care about Slavs.

    Status of electricity supply in Kiev?

    Gemini: As of January 21, 2026, the electricity situation in Kyiv is extremely critical. Following a series of massive Russian missile and drone attacks—most recently on January 20—the city is experiencing widespread blackouts and heating failures amidst sub-zero temperatures.

    Current Outage Status

    • Blackout Scale: Approximately 60% of the capital is currently without electricity.
    • Emergency Outages: Standard hourly schedules are currently not in effect. DTEK and Ukrenergo have moved to emergency outages, meaning power can be cut at any time without warning to prevent a total grid collapse.
    • Hardest-Hit Areas: The Dniprovskyi and Desnianskyi districts are facing the most severe disruptions due to the direct destruction of local generation facilities.

    Critical Infrastructure & Utilities

    • Heating: Nearly 4,000 high-rise buildings are without heating. With temperatures reaching as low as -12°C to -14°C, this has created a humanitarian emergency.
    • Water Supply: While water supply has been officially “restored” to the city’s main network, many residents in high-rise buildings still have no water because the booster pumps required to reach upper floors have no electricity.
    • Critical Facilities: DTEK reported that power has been successfully restored to most hospitals and essential military/government infrastructure as of this afternoon.

    City Response & Impact

    Schools & Services: Many schools have been closed until February, and street lighting has been almost entirely eliminated to save power.

    Population Exodus: Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported today that roughly 600,000 people have left Kyiv this month due to the uninhabitable conditions.

    “Points of Invincibility”: Emergency tents and warming centers are operational across the city, providing residents with heat and a place to charge devices.

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      1. Russia is making Ukraine pay a price for not doing what it agreed to do in the Minsk accord, and subsequently for backing out of what was agreed at the start of the Ukraine war, and now for not surrendering when it’s been clear Ukraine lost the war many months ago.

        Russia has gone to to great lengths over the last 4 years to avoid civilian collateral damage. They are now out of patience.

        Compare this to the US genocide of Gaza where civilians are murdered every day, including after a ceasefire was agreed. Or the US murder of Venezuelan civilians in small boats.

        Notice that US does not have a border with Gaza or Venezuela, nor does Gaza or Venezuela have intermediate range nuclear missiles pointing at Washington.

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      2. Ukraine attacks energy infrastructure in Russia.

        Russia attacks energy infrastructure in Ukraine.

        It seems like there is a war going on there.

        Hopefully we will learn more soon.

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  11. The United Nations University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health just published a paper called
    “Global Water Bankruptcy: Living Beyond our Hydrological Means in the Post-Crisis Era”. It can be downloaded here.
    https://unu.edu/inweh/collection/global-water-bankruptcy

    Here is some of the brief:

    The planet has entered the Global Water Bankruptcy era. In many basins
    and aquifers, long-term water use has exceeded renewable inflows and safe
    depletion limits, and parts of the water and natural capital—rivers, lakes,
    aquifers, wetlands, soils, and glaciers—have been damaged beyond realistic
    prospects of full recovery.

    Billions remain water insecure. Nearly three-quarters of the world’s
    population lives in countries classified as water-insecure or critically water-
    insecure. Around 2.2 billion people still lack safely managed drinking water,
    3.5 billion lack safely managed sanitation, and about 4 billion experience
    severe water scarcity for at least one month a year.

    Surface waters are shrinking at scale. A growing number of major rivers
    now fail to reach the sea or fall below environmental flow needs for
    significant parts of the year. More than half of the world’s large lakes have
    lost water since the early 1990s, affecting around one-quarter of the global
    population that depends directly on them for water security.

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  12. Denial is the strongest force in the universe to the point where I can envision that I’ll see advertisements even on the last day of civilization.😂

    Zip had a good comment over at C&E. And Pan summed it up well: “the more limits encroach, the more our leaders will compensate by clinging to delusions of limitless growth.”

    Whoever ignores the laws of nature ultimately ends up dancing only with their own shadow.

    The Trump administration is steadily building a new ballroom as a metaphor for its envisioned world order, but has quietly removed thermodynamics and physics from the dance card. What at first glance appear to be separate episodes — drill baby drill, Venezuela, Greenland, deep-sea mining, and now even the Moon — turn out to be elements of a single, coherent pattern. This is not a strategy of expansion, but one of denying limits.

    Financial markets are beginning to feel this. The renewed wave of geopolitical threats and tariff rhetoric is no longer producing the familiar short shock followed by recovery, but persistent nervousness. Investors fear that this time the damage may be lasting. Not because tariffs themselves are new, but because they are being used as geopolitical weapons in a world where the rules are dissolving.

    The IMF’s warning about a potential spiral of escalation goes to the heart of the matter. Trade wars, territorial claims, and symbolic displays of power reinforce one another. They create no new value, but increase uncertainty, fracture supply chains, and raise the energy costs of everything that moves. That is precisely why gold is surging to record highs — not out of optimism, but out of distrust in paper promises.

    The Moon ambition fits seamlessly into this picture. Not as a technical project, but as a narrative escape. As terrestrial resources become scarcer, EROI declines, and extraction grows ever more complex and expensive, the stage is shifted. The Moon, the deep sea, or Greenland function as imaginary exits rather than real solutions. They suggest abundance where, in reality, only higher energetic costs exist.

    At Davos, Mark Carney called it a rupture, not a transition. That is exactly what markets are now beginning to price in. The old system of stability, cheap energy, and predictable growth is not coming back. Tariffs, resource politics, and territorial pressure are signals of a world trying to force value out of an economy where no new net energy is available.

    The dance continues, the music grows louder, but the floor is creaking. Those who ignore the laws of nature may still impress the audience for a while. The bill comes later — and it will not be paid in dollars alone.

    Let’s see who gets invited to the grand opening ball.

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    1. Exactly Chris.

      It is amazing to watch the blindness people have on overshoot. I read the Coffee and Covid blog to get a reading on what the positive spin on the Trump admin is doing. Jeff Childers has been a leader in the fight against covid issues and in that I find him very diligent but when it comes to energy he switches his brain off.

      “Now, 40 years on, there’s more oil than ever, and drillers are finding it far deeper than the deepest parts of the fossil record. In other words, oil is not brontosauruses that melted into goo. The now-accepted fact is —and I am not making this up— scientists don’t know where oil comes from. They’re baffled! And —I am not making this up, either— it comes back. Texas oilfields that shut down in the 1980s because they ran out of black gold are being reopened now and are flowing like rivers.

      Basically, and unsurprisingly, the experts were completely wrong about everything they assured us were facts about oil. Oil is, apparently, a renewable resource.

      That hasn’t stopped loony liberals from beating the “running out of oil” drum like they are in a heavy metal band.

      But according to the Fox-7 article, a massive, brand-new Permian Basin deposit was just discovered in Texas, containing an estimated 1.6 billion gallons of oil and an even more impressive 28.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. So.

      Never forget that time President Obama insisted that it was impossible to drill our way to lower gas prices. No, he said, we need wind, solar, and biofuels, whatever that is (it sounds smelly).”

      Now you would think that he would do a little research and maths to find out that the US uses 800 million gallons of oil a day. So this spectacular find is the equivalent of 2 days of oil for the US. Thank god Trump and the oil industry has saved them.

      The Denial is strong is this one.

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  13. I’m my own worst enemy

    Seems like that’s the law of the universe for anything cursed with full consciousness (aka: anything that cooks its food) 

    Ya, and just like everything else, very much possible to break free of this law at the individual level but absolutely impossible at the collective level.

    This song’s been my anthem for over twenty years. A little Gaia happy dance always sneaks out of me at the chorus parts.😊

    I’ve come to my senses
    That I’ve become senseless
    I could give you lessons how to ruin your friendships
    Every last conviction, I smoked them all away
    I drank my frustrations down the drain, out of the way
    So I sit and wait and wonder
    Does anyone else feel like me?
    Someone so tired of their routines and disappearing self-esteems

    I’ll sing along
    Yeah with every emergency
    Just sing along
    I’m the king of catastrophes
    I’m so far gone
    That deep down inside I think it’s fine by me
    I’m my own worst enemy

    I could be an expert on co-dependency
    I could write the best book on underage tragedy
    I’ve been spending my time at the local liquor store
    I’ve been sleeping nightly on my best friends kitchen floor
    So I sit and wait and wonder
    Does anyone else feel like me?
    I’m so overdosed on apathy and put down on sympathy

    Let the meaning slip away
    Lost my faith in another day
    Self deprecation seems okay
    I never thought I’d make it anyway

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  14. I posted an essay on Substack, which is really more of a book review in disguise, about the book Straw Dogs, by John Gray and compared it with Paul Kingsnorth’s writing on The Machine series of essays from a few years back. My essay also has a link to Undenial, to Chris’s essay on Fire/Humans not a species.

    And it has a hat tip at the end, to my friend Karen Perry. One line that stuck with me when she was interviewed by Michael Dowd was (and she was laughing when she said it) “We won’t last 3 days without the internet”, and said that it was the kill switch. I think she was one of the first that I listened to, who bust through the degrowth/long emergency fantasy, to see the supernova ending that we do here.

    https://renaeech.substack.com/p/the-automatic-dynamic-functioning

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    1. “Humans cannot live without illusions. For the men and women of today, an irrational faith in progress may be the only antidote to nihilism. Without the hope that the future will be better than the past, they could not go on.”

      ― John Gray, Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

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  15. Previous interviews of Chuck Watson by Nate Hagens have been outstanding because he’s a rare expert on nuclear war.

    I found today’s interview kind a lame.

    I listened while grunting 10 cubic yards of compost onto garlic beds via 5 gallon buckets because the field was too wet to use machinery or wheelbarrows.

    Maybe I didn’t concentrate enough but it felt like a long dry clinical explanation of escalating geopolitical risks and then concluded everything will be ok because “I’m an optimistic person by nature”.

    No, you idiot, you are governed by MORT which created our species.

    Humans have shaped the world more than any other species in existence, largely due to our ability to coordinate and work together as a unit – in other words, to govern ourselves. This means that, while human societies are at the center of the many crises we face today, we are also the key to navigating through them safely. But this is only possible if we’re able to hold the foundations of our governance together: communication, agency, and remembering our shared humanity. What is the current state of our ability to do this, and what policy mechanisms and agreements are needed to navigate the turbulent decades to come?

    In this Reality Roundtable, Nate is joined by geopolitical risk experts Mark Medish and Chuck Watson to discuss the increasing strain being placed on human governance as a result of escalating conflicts between nations and state leaders. Together, they delve into the intricate foundations of our modern governing structures and why it is critical that we reinforce existing international treaties and agreements in order to avoid the worst outcomes for all of humanity. Mark and Chuck also discuss the history of nuclear arms control – including the upcoming expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) – and how artificial intelligence threatens to disturb the tenuous peace built in the 20th century. Ultimately, they emphasize the need to renew public awareness and education on the importance of governance and the need for our leadership to engage in diplomatic negotiations in an increasingly complex world.

    Despite the media’s focus on laws, regulations, and technology, why do people and our shared humanity still lay at the center of good governance and decision making? Where are our current leaders failing us, and does the average citizen still hold agency to influence the trajectory of global events? Lastly, what do we risk by abandoning trust in our fellow citizens and nations, and what opportunities are still available to rebuild our confidence in each other?

    About Mark Medish:

    Mark Medish has over 30 years of professional experience in policy, law, finance, and strategic communications. Medish served at The White House as a Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director on the National Security Council, as well as at the U.S. Treasury as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Affairs. He also worked in senior positions at the State Department (USAID) and the United Nations (UNDP). Medish is Vice Chair of Project Associates Ltd., a London headquartered strategic consultancy with offices in Europe, the Middle East, East Africa, and the U.S. He is also a founding partner of the Mosaiq Law Group in Washington, D.C., and a co-founder of Keep Our Republic, a non-profit civic education organization promoting democratic governance and rule of law.

    About Chuck Watson:

    Chuck Watson has had a long career in international development projects as well as military and intelligence work, with a specialty in natural and human-made disaster modeling. He worked for the US Air Force, was an attaché to US Ambassadors to the Middle East Robert McFarland and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Chuck is also the founder and Director of Research and Development of Enki Holdings, LLC, which designs computer models for phenomena ranging from tropical cyclones (hurricanes) and other weather phenomena, earthquakes, and tsunamis, as well as anthropogenic hazards such as industrial accidents, terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction.

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  16. @Rob Mielcarski,
    This film sheds light on the deep and systemic corruption in US politics.

    Is political corruption this bad in Canada as well?

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    1. When I was young like you I was a fan of Chomsky. I read many of his books and listened to many interviews.

      Later in life I realized Chomsky has no clue about the biophysical reality of how our world works, and he thinks politics is the core problem we face, so I quit following him.

      I don’t pay much attention to Canadian politics, especially after covid. My sense is corruption is less here but our leaders are universally stupid.

      There is one party in Canada that promises to hold the covid criminals to account but they got 250 out of 19,000 votes in my riding so our citizens seem to be as dim as our leaders.

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  17. After reading all the new comments above about the increasing weirdness of the world, politicians, threats etc, I come back to something I first stated a couple of years ago about Covid and all it’s strange happenings around the world..

    It’s all a distraction from the big issues of energy and material shortages looming causing complexity collapse, all closer and closer, with the debt system and increasing inequality hiding reality in plain sight as the median people on average become worse off.

    It’s mostly circuses of distraction and the jostling between the ‘world leaders’ will come to something somewhere, but there is nothing any of us can do about where whatever lands, and in the big picture, when collapse comes, none of us will care if Trump, Putin or whoever our current leader or the opposition is in charge.

    Collapse is collapse, those ‘in charge’ will only be in charge at the beginning, not when everything is collapsing.

    Expect everything to get weirder and weirder as we get closer to the end. That means whoever is in charge, in your area, wars of no sense at all, lots of taking for themselves all over. New tougher rules and regulations on everything. Stricter policing and military patrols, with way less leniency with every govt department that likes control over anything you do. Probably lots of extras could be added, but basically a less kind world we live in.

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    2. Nice one. Upthread you said “The more I understand our situation, the less inclined I am to spread the word.”

      I’m getting that way too. Don’t get me wrong, I want everyone to know what I know just for the entertainment & misery factors. But I also know that it takes years to grasp and fully understand this shit. So what’s the point of spreading the word? Even if I’m locked in and miraculously give the greatest one-hour collapse TED talk to my friends/family…so what! When I’m done with my speech, they’re back to their clueless lives. Cuz as we all know, there’s only like 0.0001% of the population that has what it takes (defective denial genes?) to keep going down this overshoot rabbit hole on their own. 

      And this comment of yours made me think of a Martin Butler piece from earlier today. (h/t dave at megacancer). It’s short, here’s the whole thing:

      The Mickey Mouse Consciousness

      It really is worth remembering that your daytime experience takes place within a Mickey Mouse consciousness, a product of random evolution. This consciousness is a joke aimed almost exclusively at ensuring, as far as possible, that you survive long enough to have kids and rear them, hence the two tyrannical drivers in your life: the survival and procreation drives. Beyond this, you serve no purpose as far as nature is concerned.

      It is really very important to remember that your Mickey Mouse consciousness (MMC) gives you access to nothing that might be termed profound. If something affects your survival and procreation status, your MMC will detect it. A forty-ton truck heading your way, a festering wound, hunger, a smile from a member of the opposite sex, a wallet stuffed with cash lying on the pavement, and your MMC will immediately alert you. What is more, your MMC has no access to “truth” because your senses and mind only run on one track, the survival and procreation track, and a representation of the world that serves these drives is quite adequate. You don’t need to know anything deeper than which foods are nourishing and how to tie your shoelaces.

      Bearing all this in mind, we should remember that the MMC is a bit of a joke when we start to get weighed down by things. Remembering we are in an MMC should act as a circuit breaker on our identification with things. We might even reach a point where we disdain events and things in the MMC and wake up from its hypnotic effect when we remember to. It might feel that everything in the MMC is important, but how can things be important in a consciousness randomly generated by evolution that has such a limited remit, namely, survival and procreation? There is nothing of any importance in the MMC unless you are wedded to survival and procreation, and if you are, then poor you.

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  18. Quark is very good today with an explanation of geopolitical strategies seen through the lens of resource depletion.

    Not mentioned is the cactus perspective that everyone’s complexity depends on everyone’s complexity which means running away from each other will shorten the time to collapse.

    https://futurocienciaficcionymatrix.blogspot.com/2026/01/el-arte-de-retrasar-lo-inevitable.html

    Two friends are barefoot camping in the jungle, when they hear the terrible roar of a hungry lion. One of them bends down and begins to put on sneakers. The other tells him, 

    – But what are you doing? Do you think you will run faster than the lion?

    And the friend answers him.

    – I don’t have to run that fast, just run faster than you.

    The joke is a good example of the current world situation.

    The lion is the scarcity of resources and the friends are the different political blocs (or nations). We just heard the roar and everyone tries to escape in their own way. The idea is that each bloc or country must endure as long as possible, obtaining as many resources as it can, in the hope that the last one keeps everything and will be able to survive much longer.

    “Tying your shoes” is equivalent to invading Venezuela or the Chinese policy of replacing fossil fuels with electrified systems or whatever is necessary. Europe, which has taken longer than necessary to notice the “roar”, has hesitated between the American or Chinese strategy and has remained in no man’s land, so the lion can catch it faster.

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