This is a comment by Hideaway with a CACTUS example from the Iran war that I haven’t seen anyone discuss.
I expect there are thousands of examples like this that will become apparent in the coming months.
To repeat my core CACTUS message: If you value modernity and want to keep it going as long as possible, we must spread awareness of CACTUS.
Because our leaders are CACTUS blind, they are destroying modernity for all countries, while believing they are protecting modernity for their own country.
USA has plenty of oil, so states the leader…
How much drill pipe does the USA have?? It manufacturers most of it’s drill pipe, so everything is OK.
Except it isn’t. Where does all the high grade steel come from that has to be used to make these pipes? The answer is mostly from Asia, plus some from Mexico and Canada, with a bit from Europe. Try over 65% from Asia.
Where does Asia get it’s high grade iron ore from?? Mostly Australia and some from Brazil, across the world.
What happens if this supply gets cut because of too expensive or unavailable diesel, bunker fuel and jet fuel (Australia’s iron ore production comes to a halt without jet fuel, as the mines are mostly FIFO (Fly In Fly Out!! from Perth 2,000km away).
Australia produces around 65% of the high grade iron ore sent to Asia, with Brazil providing most of the rest.
How long before China, Japan, South Korea stop exports of high grade finished billets and steel products, with no high grade iron ore coming into the country?? Not long at all, they will look after their own industries first, like every country is already doing.
Basically within 6 months most of the drilling in the USA will slow to a crawl or stop altogether as drill pipe becomes scarce. They could only make much weaker pipe in the USA because of the low grade iron ores full of impurities, without the processes in place to make this high grade. Nobody does this as it’s always been cheaper to just import low price high grade steel or iron ore to make high grade steel.
BTW how is anything repaired in the Gulf, if China and other Asian countries stop exporting all the high grade steel and steel products needed to repair everything?
It’s a nice catch 22 we are setting up with this war, Australia can’t export iron ore or grain without fuel, China/Asia can’t supply the finished products for repairs without the iron ore, the gulf can’t fix their broken infrastructure without sending oil to refineries in Asia, which need enough for their own citizens before they can send products to Australia. Also the gulf countries need to feed their own people with Australian grain to have the manpower to do the repairs, which leads to fertilizer that can’t leave the gulf, or LNG that gets turned into urea in China, that, that, that.
None of the media, nor any of the experts really wants to look at the real picture, some are starting to get ‘bits’ of it.
It’s denial at its finest…
April 4, 2026 addition
This post is just mainly about steel and iron ore, it could easily be about diesel, fertilizer and grains exported, or LNG, naptha and plastic packaging and insulation for electrical wires, or the sulphur route. The point being that if anyone thinks they are ‘safe’ anywhere in the world, then just wait until the feedback loops hit you unexpectedly, as no-one is interested in following the full ramifications of all the feedback loops.
As a recent example of how complex self adapting energy dissipative systems really work, we had the example of cyclone Narelle across Australia recently. It gained strength in the Coral Sea to the North East of Australia, drifted West reaching category 5 before hitting the mainland, where it lost intensity. This is likely just like the world economy that lost intensity during the depression of the 1930’s and during the second World war.
Then Cyclone Narelle went across the gulf of Carpenteria, picking up strength with a new energy source of warm sea water. This is also just like the world economy picked up strength again with the new energy source of oil allowing more coal and gas to also be gained in the following 25 years.
Then Cyclone Narelle again hit land across the Northern Territory and Northern Western Australia, again losing energy intensity, but still had enough to reach the warm ocean waters as it kept heading west. The world economy also lost intensity as the peak of USA oil production hit in 1970 and during the oil crisis of the early-mid 1970’s up to around 1982, with stagnant energy availability and vastly increasing costs.
Once again Cyclone Narelle picked up intensity as it travelled South West off the Coast of Western Australia in the warm tropical waters, just like the world economy picked up strength again from new oil fields of Alaska, the North Sea, lots of efficiency gains, then a massive increase in coal production from China, and huge increases in LNG production and transport over the next 25 or so years.
Then finally Cyclone Narelle made landfall around Exmouth on the Western Coast of Western Australia, moving South East across land where it finally dissipated as it lost enough of its energy sources to turn into a rain depression without much energy by the time it went South across the southern coast of Western Australia, totally dissipated.. The world economy has also likewise probably hit an event where so much energy is lost that the entire system can break down and dissipate into a minimal energy system, which is not good for the 8.3B humans part of this energy dissipative structure we call civilization.
All very good points Hideaway. That cyclone analogy was very good
Full interview of clip posted below. Marandi starts at about 19:40.
Fast Eddy says the Artemis II mission has been faked. At least he’s consistent.
Almost sounds like the US is taking a page out of Germany’s WW2 playbook.
Considering the history and culture of America, I don’t think it’ll be that hard to drum up support. You’d think it was mostly an older generation thing… but unfortunately those generations were breeders.😊
What gives? What are you doing in a Kraut uniform?
Volksdeutsche.
Come again?
My family answered the call. All true Aryans should return to the fatherland.
Welp, guess we’ll find out tomorrow whether the modernity is about to end this week or if it can limp on just a little bit longer.
What a time to be alive…
Evacuate them to where exactly? How do you evacuate tens of millions of people on such short notice?
FYI, I received an invitation from a representative of Wilderness Front to contribute an essay. They appear to be a deep green organization founded on the principles of Ted Kaczynski.
https://www.wildernessfront.com/the-manifesto
They are not in my wheelhouse but may be of interest to some of you here.
https://www.wildernessfront.com/
Tim Watkins today reminds me why I have about 10,000 tea bags in my prep stores.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2026/04/05/you-cant-make-a-cup-of-tea/
Still trying to figure it out, but I’ve noticed a correlation between being supportive of US aggression and war crimes, and having Jewish ancestry.
It’s the strangest thing, and I don’t want it to be true because I hate racism.
https://www.kunstler.com/p/not-bluffing
I am amazed to watch Jim’s decent into non critical thinking. I have no idea why he is so locked into certain thought patterns. He certainly seems to be very obsessive about his views and reluctantly changes them. I think he suffers from thinking that he is the smartest person in the room sometimes.
I listen to a podcast with him, Tom Luonga and Dave Collum whenever they come out and it is only Dave that really seems to have a sense of what is going on and at least open to other ideas about the reality of the situation. I even wrote to Jim about it telling him about most Australian’s view of Trump and how much it differs from his view. He won’t have a bar of it. He sees Trump as the US’s only chance to set everything back to rights.
Funnily enough I always gauged what would happen in the world by it being the reverse of what Kunstler thought would happen. Mostly seems to be a good strategy when it comes to all the crimes he thinks will be prosecuted and those responsible for the US demise, the Russia hoax, covid lies and other crimes will go to jail. Trump will prevail. I wonder how long it will take him to realise Trump is only in it for himself. Even most of the comments on that post think Jim is wrong.
It is interesting that he can’t even see through the energy lens that this situation is going to rapidly increase the Long Emergency he wrote about. It seems all of the major writers I used to listen to on peak oil (Kunstler, Orlov, Greer and Martenson) have little to say worth listening to on the subject anymore. Lucky to have this blog to have exchanges. I like to think that we are the most critical thinking on these and willing to change our minds if new info comes along.
There is something profoundly troubling about Israel.
It’s a tiny country at the center of almost all the trouble in the world.
People for Israel literally live in a different universe and regardless of education and intelligence are impervious to rational thinking.
How much more evidence do we need from Brandon before we all just say, yep, Dr. Varki’s MORT is true?
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2026/04/02/321-dont-mention-the-war-part-two/comment-page-1/#comment-51200
More from Hideaway on the same thread.
Iran uses lego for propaganda because US citizens are too stupid to understand anything else.
Steven Bartlett interviewed Steve Keen today.
Bartlett irritates me like Tony Robbins irritates me. One self-help secret after another for infinite happiness.
I used to be a big fan of Steve Keen but not so much any more. Keen’s kind of like Nate Hagens perpetually discussing evidence but never drawing a clear conclusion.
I listened to the conclusion to find out where Keen’s awareness is at these days.
He thinks the highest probability outcome of the war is that Iran will use its conventional weapons to destroy Israel’s nuclear weapons. He did not discuss what would happen after this, not did he mention Israel’s nuclear armed submarine.
On how citizens should respond to the war he thinks everyone should install solar panels so they can survive without oil, and they should grow food.
I shit you not.
Good one.
MAGA
Make America Go Away
Shanaka Anslem Perera is a mysterious guy.
On the one hand, he writes some of the best Iran war coverage. On the other hand, he writes way more than is possible for a single human, and his tone has an AI smell.
I asked an AI for his biography and got nothing of substance back except that he’s written a book.
If you know anything about this guy let us know.
https://substack.com/@shanakaanslemperera/note/c-239087479
I agree something unusual going on…..
The vast range of detailed background? All assembled in the few weeks since the war started? I smell AI with some backing by more than one clever dude.
Also, I haven’t read his other stuff yet, but this large entry had lots of causal links, and seemed quite silent on the ripple effects on the U.S. Intentional? Even without explicitly acknowledging the complexity trap, the next steps down the road and impact on the U.S. is pretty obvious, but he did not go there. ???
Further- Nothing can be assumed to be as it seems anymore. This could be misdirection and psyops from any number of players, but also, the five eyes see all this shit, and the analysts are not stupid, how could our admin. still be on this world destroying path? I just don’t see a rational end goal.
I’m going back for more………
Please let us know if you come up with plausible explanation.
Even his book is mysterious.
Published last year yet not available on z-Library. Everything is on z-Library.
Book is listed on Goodreads but strangely has zero reviews.
One review on Amazon but it smells fake.
Some sanity in the US gov.
Maybe… but all I see is that good old American fakeness shining through with her. So thick it makes the whole thing seem staged. Like a bad Ron Howard script or something.
Or maybe she’s just innocently insane from all that Jesus bullshit.
Definitely not suggesting she is in the middle of the bell curve for sanity.
https://twitter.com/AdameMedia/status/2040957777493840283
Interesting (and less stressful than geopolitics) video on what humans were able to build with metal hand tools, and a LOT of high quality wood.
I’ve just spend a lot of time reading this blog…
https://shanakaanslemperera.substack.com/p/the-last-molecule-standing
He covers a lot of different feedback loops, but doesn’t quite go into feedback loops of feedback loops all along the chain, plus uses different measurements of gas/LNG going from bcf to bcm to tonnes of LNG, whereas my preference is for putting all energy products into the one category of MWh or TWh worth of energy. Everything is much more easily comparable using a common unit IMHO.
It’s really part of Rob’s questions below about tungsten, helium, sulphur, plastics etc. It’s all part and parcel of the same overall problem, less fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are not just energy, they are a range of products as well, which always gets left out of any renewable discussions as it’s too inconvenient and for that matter current energy discussions.
All the extra products just add to the overall problems (predicament) of the current Middle East War. There are extra feedback loops involved and they do interact in different parts of our globalised system of civilization. Every new constraint adds another layer for civilization to overcome.
The analogy with a human body for example would be for the main blockage being an artery in the heart, while at the same time having a blockage in the brain and another in a kidney, lung and liver at the same time. Perhaps a body could overcome one or 2 if small enough, but the others like the blockage in the kidney, lung and liver are likely to create toxic compounds circulating within the body likely to enhance the blockages in heart and brain, making it much harder for the body to overcome all the problems together.
In other words multiple shortages are more likely to get us closer to the tipping point of full dissipation of energy within our system of civilization.
None of us has a chance of knowing exactly where the tipping point really is for civilization, until it happens. We may be close, or well past or nowhere near, due to feedback loops we just don’t consider. Thorough analysis puts us a lot closer right now than we were in the middle of February.
I realistically can’t see a way forward right now that doesn’t have us past the tipping point for our modern civilization, but there is no way I know and understand all the interactive feedback loops of modernity, nor have all the required information, so could be wrong.
There are certainly great signs we have not past just yet like banning mining of Iron ore in Australia, saving fuel for farms trucks and food distribution. It might just be a matter of time. Time, I’m sure plays a part in whether civilization can recover or not.
People discuss the sulphur being important for sulphuric acid in mines in the DRC and Zambia for copper and cobalt production, but fail to mention the sulphuric acid is used for oxide ores, which is just around 20% of world copper production. The other 80% also relies on sulphur for the xanthates used in floatation, so the effect over time is 100% of copper production, depending on where these products are manufactured and their source of both an alcohol and CS2. China produces most of the world’s CS2 from mostly imported natural gas for the carbon and the sulphur as product from refining of heavy crude oil…
The above author and piece, leave yourself an hour or 2 to read and comprehend it all, goes into way more details that get hard to absorb, yet even when discussing the years wait for the BAHX units required to fix the LNG trains, made by only 5 companies around the world to very exacting metrics, leaves out what happens to their production with energy shortages in their countries, Aluminium shortages, sulphur shortages, etc, etc. Just look at the list of countries where these specialist pieces of equipment are made… Germany, Sweden, France, United States and Japan.
Where does Chart Industries of the USA get it’s raw materials to make these BAHX units from. Answer is mainly USA and Canadian companies. Where do the raw ingredients come from, which is Bauxite as we are discussing a mainly Aluminium product.. Answer Australia, Brazil and Guinea, all transported by bunker fuel, after being mined with diesel, sent to China or Brazil for processing into refined Alumina, before being transported to high energy centres in Canada, Norway the gulf to produce Aluminium..
What could possibly go wrong in a world of less diesel and bunker fuel?? As attributed to Samuel L Clemens in the movie “The Big Short”….
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
USA going alone self sufficient LOL, LOL
For every renewable fan out there, not so many here at Un-denial, as civilization savers though, here is what A.I. really states about what we humans are really doing…
“Every “fix” we propose (Green Ammonia, Carbon Capture, Circular Economics) actually increases the complexity and the energy requirements of the system. We are trying to fight entropy by creating more entropy.”
Holy Crap, what a great read. Who is this guy?
My favorite money shot from the report:
“the maximum cascade failure per unit of disruption.”
Yeah, he maybe doesn’t fully express the cactus complexity in so many words, but I think he’s almost there. This went way more granular than what Hideaway shares here, but then it’s a VERY long entry. We’d all glaze over if Hideaway shared that level of detail here.
The depth and range of his assessment of what happened and what it revealed was impressive.
As I mentioned in a comment on another post, I was involved in the cryogenic petroleum business, and this all looks spot on from what I knew.
In the normal world I used to believe in, guys like this would be on retainer to our government, and feed this kind of analysis upstream to advisors to our government, so strategy and policy would be wisely chosen BEFORE action was taken.
Ah those simple days.
So it goes.
He’s a mysterious guy. I have serious doubts that he is a single human.
See my comment here:
https://un-denial.com/2026/04/03/by-hideaway-drill-steel-one-of-many-iran-war-cactus-triggers/comment-page-1/#comment-118823
The truth is coming out on what really happened this weekend.
The US operation was not to recover a downed airman. It was a mission to recover enriched uranium that failed.
The failure explains Trump’s unhinged rant this morning.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/its-official-us-boots-on-ground-deep
This morning when I read about this rescue on the ABC news webpage, I just laughed as the story had to be fake. The USA blew up numerous of their own aircraft because of mechanical failure so as to not leave behind specialised electronic equipment..
Either they have the worst maintenance crews ever, the most unreliable aircraft ever, so the story was fake. I initially put it as being shot down, but when the evidence of the location came out, not in the remote South West, but South of Tehran, then it’s obvious that something else was happening, apart from usual misdirection..
All I’m doing is laughing at the next instalment of fiction given to us by the media, like the minister that came out today claiming Australia had done deals with Singapore, Japan and South Korea to keep the fuel products flowing until into May, when he failed to mention that they would all likely call Force Majeure, when they don’t have the crude imports themselves…
I am glad to have you there laughing about the ABC – as they drive me nuts and I don’t know why I keep reading, I guess I still want to know what the mainstream think or predict. I thought the same re Chris Bowen’s announcement of secured fuel into May. And the article they did re the ‘rescue’ reads like a movie script.
George Tsakraklides banned me from commenting. Not sure why. Might’ve been when I compared him to that idiot Christine Webb. Or maybe he lurks here and didn’t like me calling him a doomer pussy. Oh well, I’ll still give him credit when he writes something good. Like this one:
Humans are not a species. LOL. What the hell are we?
I think I’ll just stick with grave robbers.😂
ps. Nate Hagens said he has a new series coming up about oil… what it is, how it was created, etc. I’m looking forward to it.
Doomer pussy might explain the ban. 🙂
Comment on zerohedge:
🔸 ️Jan 18: “Iranian patriots, help is coming. We are moving in.”
🔸 ️Feb 28: “We are launching the decisive operation. It will be very fast.”
🔸 ️Mar 2: “We will win easily.”
🔸 ️Mar 3: “We have won the war.”
🔸 ️Mar 7: “We defeated Iran.”
🔸 ️Mar 9: “Strike Iran. The war is almost over—clean and decisive.”
🔸 ️Mar 12: “We have won, but not completely yet.”
🔸 ️Mar 13: “We won the war again.”
🔸 ️Mar 14: “We need help to open the strait.”
🔸 ️Mar 15: “If you don’t help, I will remember it.”
🔸 ️Mar 16: “We actually don’t need help—I was testing loyalty. If NATO doesn’t help, consequences will follow.”
🔸 ️Mar 17: “We don’t need NATO help and don’t want it. No Congress approval needed to exit NATO.”
🔸 ️Mar 18: “Allies must cooperate to open the Strait of Hormuz.”
🔸 ️Mar 19: “US allies must step up and help open the strait.”
🔸 ️Mar 20: “NATO is cowardly. We may phase this out.”
🔸 ️Mar 21: “We don’t use the strait. Others need it, not us.”
🔸 ️Mar 22: “Final warning. Iran has 48 hours. Iran is finished.”
🔸 ️Mar 23: “One more week, then we bomb power plants.”
🔸 ️Mar 24: “The war is nearing its end.”
🔸 ️Mar 25: “We are negotiating with Iran.”
🔸 ️Mar 26: “Iran is begging for peace. They gave us a gift. We delay strikes on power plants.”
🔸 ️Mar 27: “I and the Ayatollah will jointly manage the Strait of Hormuz.”
🔸 ️Mar 28: “Regime change has occurred in Iran.”
🔸 ️Mar 29: “Negotiations with Iran are going extremely well.”
🔸 ️Mar 30: “We are prepared to destroy Iran’s oil and energy infrastructure and occupy Kharg Island.”
🔸 ️Mar 31: “We are ready to end the war without opening the strait.”
🔸 ️Apr 1: “War ends in 3 days. We will bomb them for 2–3 weeks back into the Stone Age.”
🔸 ️Apr 2: “We destroyed three major bridges. Why haven’t they called us yet?”
🔸 ️Apr 3: “We control the Iranian space, despite fighter jets destrucion”
🔸 ️Apr 4: “We are giving Iran 48 hours to surrender. Wait, I need to rush to hospital.”
🔸 Apr 5: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah”
Hideaway frequently uses the plastic used to insulate electrical wire as a possible CACTUS trigger.
No longer hypothetical.
https://substack.com/@shanakaanslemperera/note/c-238486809
Lately, there is something I hate in the way these sentences are structured. For instance:
Or from Lyle’s latest (https://lylel.substack.com/p/the-year-the-west-runs-out-of-slack):
Do you see what I mean? Or is it just me? I think it’s the “the” and something else which I can’t really pinpoint: it renders an impersonal and grandiose tone at the same time. So lifeless, characterless…
Is this because people are just giving some data to some AI and then it is writing their texts? Or is it just a temporary fad?
I see it everywhere and I hate it.
I assumed they are using an AI to write for them but I don’t know if that is true.
Immediately makes me question the integrity of the author.
Thank you.
I feel there is an insidious consequence to this laziness: out of mimicry everybody is going to start writing and thinking like that, especially foreign speakers like me.
I heard somewhere that powerpoint already shaped our way of thinking, reducing it to linear bullet-points.
Maybe this is the next step in the levelling down.
In that, I am thankful for Trump, for arduous times will forge unique individuals and force us to find creative niches.
LOL. I’m glad you brought this up. And glad Rob sees it too.
It’s absolutely everywhere. I refer to it as the BRICS youtube channel that got shut down… because that’s where I think it started.
That style works beautifully for doomer and fear mongering content… but it stands out and is hilarious in other genres. I saw it the other night when I was reading a Martha Stewart type article for dinner ideas.😂
https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/17.0.2/svg/1f923.svg
Well, that was a failed attempt at an emoji.
It’s not just you, I know exactly what you mean, and could give many examples, I had noticed the same thing and I wonderered if it’s AI mimicing the person or the other way around, or both influencing each other.
Interesting that you noticed it in Lyle Lewis’s writing, as it is only his recent essays that have this style, not his book. It’s a kind of ‘mic drop’ style and it always follows the pattern you identified:
The something something did not blah blah
It did blah blah instead.
It’s independent of the brics YT channel, other places and writers too. Though that channel made it super obvious.
Thank you.
Maybe that’s what they mean by AI cannibalizing itself.
Maybe new patterns emerge, I read somewhere that some inventive whale comes up with new tracks and then it propagates, to be replaced by new ones when it has reached everyone. Something like that.
I wished I had learned solfege so that I could write down the various small tunes that birds are singing in this time of the year. I wonder if they stay the same from a year to the next, or what kind of concert it would give by assembling them, so that it pleases the saturated human ear… Wasn’t there a renowned classical music composer doing just that?
I had to look up what solfege was, having a feeling it was something I might have learnt in brownies/girl guides. But I was mixing it up with Semaphore. So google tells me
“Guido of Arezzo, an 11th-century Benedictine monk, is the foundational classical composer and theorist who created solfège (ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la) to help singers learn chants by sight. Derived from the hymn Ut queant laxis, it revolutionized music education, later evolving into “do-re-mi” and becoming essential in Kodály and Fixed-Do methods.
So I learnt something new today. I thought do re mi was made up in The Sound of Music 😉
Not sure re the composer, but this guy comes to mind as someone recent, eclectic and very talented, if ever I am in need of a happy cry – this clip does it! I can imagine him with his little blue birdie on his shoulder…
Trump extended the deadline again. Now we have 52 hours left to buy more sardines.
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/iea-heads-warns-panic-hoarding-asia-trump-tells-iran-open-fckin-strait
you have been super busy scanning the news this morning Rob. It’s all a bit too much for 8 in the morning 😉 I’m off to the pool and will digest more later in the day. I think I have become numb to the threats and countdowns.
I hope you are still in good spirits and life and work is continuing on. How is the farm? Must be a busy time of the year.
An animal is most dangerous when cornered. I am not talking about Iran…
We need something like a medical emergency to recover from this mess.
Aluminum is another possible CACTUS trigger.
Maybe Hideaway can comment on the significance?
Bangin’
https://twitter.com/_InfoGram_/status/2040754876951769546
Tungsten is apparently another CACTUS trigger.
Maybe Hideaway can shed more light on the implications?
Is China reducing tungsten exports? Why?
Historians will write that the US empire was not defeated and did not collapse, rather it committed suicide.
A new strategy by Iran?
Make your enemy so mad they lose their minds and do something really stupid that exposes them.
They’ve got Trump’s number.
This is a whole new level of crazy.
I assumed this Trump tweet was a parody created by Iran to piss him off. Then I saw it spread all over the web indicating it was genuine. I can’t find it on Truth Social so I had an AI confirm it is came from Trump. Yes it did.
Yikes!!!!
Speaker of Iran’s parliament.
[…] Pinched from the Undenial blog. […]
Stellar, you might enjoy Lyle’s newest piece. You seem to be fixated on this issue. My MORT barely let me read the essay.😊
The Year the West Runs Out of Slack
How drought, heat, and water loss are revealing a system already running on borrowed capacity
https://lylel.substack.com/p/the-year-the-west-runs-out-of-slack
Another post from the same Author
https://substack.com/home/post/p-180280942
Why “Overpopulation” and “Less” Are the Most Reviled Words on Earth
Good essay. The part you clipped kinda reminded me of what I was saying here about Old world meeting up with New world:
Worth reading the whole comment. It was the first time I brought King Kong into the doomasphere.😊
https://un-denial.com/2025/02/15/rfk-jr-confirmation/comment-page-5/#comment-111339
Summarize Iran war events for the last 12 hours.
Where are my manners? I don’t think I’ve properly thanked Team Trump yet for what they’ve managed to do in these last five weeks. I know some people will tell me that USA has been hated around the globe for a long time, especially ever since the WMD Iraq debacle… but I don’t think that’s accurate at all. And it’s certainly never been this high pitched before.
Imagine if an Obama type equivalent administration was in charge right now. Working from the same playbook. Doing the exact same attacks and missile strikes… the only thing different being the way the administration was communicating and bullshitting. I really do think it would be just another normal day right now. (yes, un-Denial and a couple other unpopular blogs would still be connecting the scary dots of the Hormuz Strait being closed)
But Team Trump is doing so poorly that I expect Hideaways complexity & CACTUS knowledge to catch up to mainstream media soon. We’ve already seen a huge influx of essays, comments, and tweets regarding the complexity.
Good for a chuckle.
I’m an engineer and I don’t think engineers are a good today as they were 50 years ago.
I’ll be gobsmacked if they land a human on the moon and bring it safely home before CACTUS.
That was part of a reply from me yesterday. I just saw this comment from Jan Bloxham today and it had me laughing:
He’s been trying to pull a Chefurka for a while. And just like me, he can’t do it. Stuck for life. Sentenced, living in detention.
Since my guest essay got such a short run (thanks to WW3), I’m posting this song again because it’s so damn perfect.
I’ve been talking in my sleep
I’ve been waking in my dreams
I’ve been living in the past
My good old faith is dead
ps. In case you’re wondering who the hell Jan is, https://gnug315.substack.com/
Just some thoughts. How will countries in Asia, particularly China, India and Pakistan, react to the Hormuz situation, once their economies start collapsing? Will they just sit by and let it happen?
How will Europe react when their remaining industry collapses? Will they demand that the US end the war? Would Trump even listen?
Great essay, and I’m sure this is just one of thousands of examples of the supply chain disruptions that either are or will soon be baked in. Trump and his cadre of imbeciles thinks that the US will somehow be insulated from a global energy crisis just because some parts of the US are net energy exporters.
Someone sent me this link and now I’ve spent the last hour watching youtube clips of these C-RAMs in action. Freaking crazy. Cannot imagine waking up to that sound. I’d be smoking cigarettes 24/7.
Edit: try this link instead Instagram
Not available outside the US.
What is C-RAM?
This comment appeared on OFW
” The Gordian Knot
There is a knot lying on the table. Not a piece of string you can casually untangle, but a tangle without beginning or end. Whoever pulls on it finds that everything moves with it. Whoever waits sees it tighten.
We call it, for convenience, an energy crisis. The price of Brent surges, tankers stall, refineries are hit. But that is only the visible thread. Pull on it and others follow: diesel, jet fuel, sulfur, fertilizer, food. What begins as a disruption in the Strait of Hormuz ends on a farm in Australia where sowing is postponed because there is no fuel.
This is not a chain of cause and effect. It is a web.
Within that web, physical and financial systems become entangled. Higher energy prices suppress production, lower production undermines growth, and without growth, debt becomes heavier. Markets respond, but not in a corrective way. They amplify the tension. Sovereign bonds come under pressure, credit tightens, funds close their gates. What was liquidity yesterday becomes illiquidity today. Price is no longer the signal. Availability becomes the boundary.
At the same time, geopolitics shifts. Alliances waver, military spending surges, countries seek autonomy in weapons, energy, and resources. Trust gives way to precaution. Trade routes become strategic risks. Payment systems become potential weapons. What was once an integrated system begins to fragment into blocs, zones, and competing interests.
And at the bottom of the system, reality appears without filter. Shorter working hours to save energy. Rationing. Panic, violence, criminalization. Not as exceptions, but as logical consequences of scarcity that can no longer be mediated by price. Where nothing is left to distribute, the mechanism of distribution itself disappears.
All of this is still often described in terms of correction and adjustment. As if the system learns. As if shocks lead to a new equilibrium. But that assumes a stable foundation. A table that remains steady while objects on it shift.
That table is now moving.
The idea of antifragility—systems that grow stronger through stress—holds only within limits. Within a toolbox, within a controlled context. Beyond that, feedback ceases to be corrective and becomes entangling. Loops intersect, no longer reinforcing but obstructing one another. What remains is not dynamic equilibrium, but a Gordian knot.
The myth tells us that Alexander the Great solved the problem by cutting through it. This is often seen as decisiveness. But it is something else: a departure from the logic in which the problem existed. The knot was not untangled, but terminated.
Today, similar moments are being sought. Military, economic, political. Decisions that attempt to reduce complexity by bypassing it. But what disappears then is not only the knot, but the network that held it together. The threads remain, but no longer connected.
What emerges is not reordering, but fragmentation. Not a world rearranging itself into a new whole, but a world breaking into parts that no longer move in sync. Energy here, finance there, stability somewhere else. Without any guarantee they will converge again.
The Gordian knot is not a problem awaiting a solution. It is a condition that arises when systems become too tightly intertwined. Whoever tries to untangle it pulls it tighter. Whoever cuts it changes the world in which it existed.
And meanwhile, it lies there. Not as a riddle, but as reality.”
FYI, I added another section to the essay above from Hideaway explaining how the global economy is analogous to a weather system picking up and dissipating energy.
The merchant mariner Sal, that you linked to a while back, also covered the effects of Cyclone Narelle on West Australian LNG in one of his talks (starts 10 mins in). Towards the end he referenced the same map that Art Berman posted a while back, and sourced it to JP Morgan research. Of course he would not be able to make such an analogy as Hideaway and put together what it means, which is why he is still so chipper.
I also saw this same map in this guy’s talk, saying that all govt must have this info and asking why they are not acting upon it.
Then I awoke during the night and tuned into the live stream below. I don’t seem to be able to stop looking at the crash, can’t turn away. It’s the most remarkable time in history, the precipice before the fall, and most are blissfully unaware. I had to go to a shopping centre yesterday, to get those little cords that attach to my glasses so I don’t lose them, and it was like being on another planet inside that place, weird fake people in an artificial world.
Renaee, that Max Fisher video you linked to is very good, thanks.
I also can’t stop looking and I feel like you do. It’s like a very bad dream. Not only is everyone oblivious to an approaching storm, but I also can’t believe the atrocious behavior of the US government and the fact that the US news media and US citizens don’t seem to care. WTF is going on?
Yes – I feel sickened by Australia’s ABC who this morning loaded up their home page with the words “They are even handing guns to children” Propaganda, when all they should be doing is calling out the war crimes and genocide of the USrael.
Glad you thought the Max Fisher one was good. I’m going to watch again, as I mostly was just listening to it.
Sooner or later something or someone has to step in to stop Trump and the US – surely??
“everyone oblivious to the approaching storm” MORT and lack of CACTUS awareness.
For the first time in a couple of years I traveled to Portland (100+ miles) yesterday to visit “relatives”. OMG to sit for a few hours and not deride everyone’s utter ignorance about the future was torture. They were all planning vacations to Europe, Japan, Florida, . . . I casually mentioned THE WAR going on and everyone acted like that wouldn’t effect them. Sure they thought Trump was crazy but life in stupid land must go on forever. The awakening for all the normies will be brutal for all of us.
I’ll probably never get outside this little area again, collapse will see to that, amen.
AJ
Collapse early and avoid the rush…
I stay in a 20km radius of my home except to go camping a couple times a year 100 Km north in a less populated area.
i don’t think it’s an ‘analogy’ as much as an actual physical process that happens to all energy dissipative structures, as in a common theme across what appears to be totally different systems that all abide by the same rules of physics..
Whether it’s a star, with the largest being the most energy intense and complex, or a large animal, or an ecosystem, a storm or a civilization, the parameters associated with energy complexity and size seem to all act in a common fashion.
The largest ones of each category are easily the most complex, while the smallest are the simplest. The smallest ones seem to be able to persist for longer with less energy while the largest ones seem more likely to collapse catastrophically with a sudden removal of energy.
Hell only gets a single capital letter but GOD is all capitalized.
That’s how you can tell he’s a good Christian.
In a previous post you said it would take 30 weeks (i.e. 7 months) to reopen Hormuz. 😬
The 30 weeks was an estimate by a retired merchant mariner on how long it would take to restart shipping operations. That estimate was independent of the time it will take to repair infrastructure and normalize product production and trade.
one professor who try to find arguments for degrowth. Argues that all technology is embedded in colonialism. Ecological unequal exchange. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10455752.2025.2559085
Looks like an escalation is on for this weekend.
You posted this yesterday.
Do you understand what it means? Because I don’t: if you click on the flightaware links, the airplanes seem to be in different locations of the globe.
Thank you.
After I posted it I debated whether I should delete it because of the reader context that was added later. Will Schryver has a good track record of integrity so I checked and confirmed there were many military flights underway so I left it up despite that image being wrong.
Thank you for the explanation. The image was misleading. I didn’t understand.
It seems like he is now the voice of Iran – I hope he is safe and will not be assasinated.
It is crazy that he is a USA citizen as well – what a world we live in
The hidden hand of MPP operates in mysterious ways.
Trump is incoherent which makes it impossible to negotiate with him.
Tropic Thunder music – very clever. Watching the end of the world in lego format like NikoB said. Just can’t believe it. Pray (if we were religious) for Iran tonight.
Oh!! the dopamine rush I just got from all these posts.
This is too good to be true. Gonna find out that it’s all made and produced my BlackRock or something. All part of their devious master plan.
First good news I’ve seen in a while.
No one has been sent to prison for killing 20 million people (illegal GOF leak + mRNA + withholding effective treatments + ineffective treatments) but citizens are quietly waking up.
https://www.aussie17.com/p/breaking-biontech-shuts-down-its
Some ramblings from a mad man. I’m all over the map tonight.
1. Is it possible the only thing holding this house of cards global civilization (with USA getting the lion’s share) together for this long was because Americans are better at being fake? Especially with the bullshit goodwill posturing and respectability of their pc politicians and diplomats.
Obviously, you have to be good at bullshitting in order to consume 25% of the worlds natural resources with only 4% of the population… but you also have to be good at not pissing off everyone.
The peak of this fakeness was Obama. The GOAT. But now for the first time we have a hardcore outlier. Instead of saying good things about you & your country for the cameras and then going into the war room to figure out how to take advantage of your country… these guys tell you what a shit hole country you have and how they’re gonna blow it up.
Of course there has always been a never-ending amount of high profile, easy to hate, men in US history. Rumsfeld and Cheney were two of my favorites. But when I go back and listen to their old clips, its prude compared to these guys now.
World leaders don’t mind getting the shit end of the stick, as long as they’re ego doesn’t take a hit. Trump and his administration are unique. I say no to the 25th.
2. Regarding full consciousness, the Cognitive Revolution began about 70kya. Seems like the Toba eruption from 74kya did something to speed up the process of humans utilizing their full consciousness. The super volcano shellshocked them into cooperation or something.
Thought I was onto an original and very cool idea with this, but AI quickly put me in my place:
3. Who are your top five people that have helped you to see the bigger picture. Just to rule out a lot of the normal names, let’s have the starting point be after you had already attained a Bill Rees / Nate Hagens type awareness level.
In order of when I ran into them, mine are:
Rob, Hideaway, James from megacancer, Thomas Ligotti, and Martin Butler
ps. This beautiful song popped up in my head while writing this. Probably because my subconscious wants to jump in Tracy’s fast car with her and fly the hell out of AZ before we run out of water.
You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so we can fly away?
We gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way
I remember when we were driving, driving in your car
Speed so fast, it felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped ’round my shoulder
And I-I had a feeling that I belonged
I-I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone
I’m not as harsh as you about the US.
All countries prioritize self-interests but I remember when I was young that the US was often a force for good.
The US founded the UN, help to create and respected international law, respected its constitution, rebuilt countries they harmed in war, helped poor countries in need, acted as a peacekeeper, and had leaders and diplomats with integrity.
All of that is gone. The US today is a lawless untrustworthy rogue bully that is agreement incapable with three presidents in a row that lack manners and can’t form a sentence.
Rob, how much of that ‘goodness’ was due to lots of excess energy, and no-one really understanding the situation fully, that the excess energy was what drove the good times, and that it had to come to an end.
Ignoring climate and environmental concerns for a minute, if we still had lots of $5-10 oil, with growing availability, easily available from multiple sources around the world, which would make coal, gas and every material much cheaper as well, then the world as a whole would be a much nicer and friendlier place, with all sorts of international goodwill, at least IMHO..
For sure plenty makes people nicer.
However there are many poor countries today experiencing scarcity that have leaders that behave with dignity and integrity and that can form a sentence.
The civil-rights and equal-rights movements in the U.S. sprung up in the 1950s and 1960s, coincidentally during the period of energy abundance. It will take endurance to maintain them, as we enter the era of energy scarcity
I agree, but how can I ignore the climate and environment? Nothing is possible without those.
Sat night viewing – diving into some M Butler – how is this one for a random pick?
if a better suggestion, let me know.
(still thinking bout top 5 people)