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.
Daily roundup from No1.
When confused, follow the money.
https://no1sdailydigest.substack.com/p/daily-digest-2026-04-17
It’s not our imagination.
People really have become stupider post-covid thanks to the leaked bioweapon and it’s gene therapy antidote that was coerced into billions that did not need it.
So stupid in fact that the majority doesn’t care that no one has been held to account for killing about 20 million people, and they push the stock market up after Hormuz has been closed for 7 weeks.
https://philipmcmillan.substack.com/p/the-post-pandemic-neurological-shift
Yikes!!!!
Day after day more unhinged from reality.
AJ
It’s hard to believe it’s real. Who says things like that?
That man clearly needs a psychiatric evaluation.
Israel is not in charge.
Israel is a handy tool of the the US for dirty work and for having someone to blame for your war crimes.
Russia and China agree.
I might not understand inflation, compounded interest, or even big numbers in general… but I’ve never needed to be told that Israel is not in charge of the US. It’s flat earth shit. I’m still having trouble believing it’s this big of an issue.
Fox news carefully explains the Iran war strategy, objectives, and status.
Preptip:
Hideaway is now dipping into cactus biology…
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2026/04/15/322-gentlemen-and-players/comment-page-1/#comment-51502
Canadian Prepper interviewed Chris Martenson.
In case you’re wondering, this is a good interview.
Peak oil boys discussed the Hormuz closure today.
Dan the Energy Man Presentation:
Simon Michaux Presentation:
John Peach Presentation
Thanks for the great summary Rob. Been busy setting up the garden for winter crops so not so much time for online stuff. Un-denial is the go-to for accurate (as much as is possible) relevant news updates.
Our government here still saying fuel supply is sweet. Diesel now close to $4/litre average = a lot of pain in the supply chain.
Can’t remember where I got this link. Good essay… but before the author decides that he’s got it all figured out, I’d tell him to go read Ligotti.😊
https://gonzobingdu.substack.com/p/everyone-i-know-in-america-is-miserable
Some paragraphs I liked best:
Yesterday, I started this podcast about why space colonization is a fantasy.
I listened to this today while pruning blueberries. It’s an exceptional discussion on many levels.
1) Dreams of colonizing another planet may be the most extreme example of reality denial ever. It will never happen for many obvious reasons. “Imagine you want to be a brain surgeon and the only effort you make towards that goal is planning which car you’ll drive to work in.”
2) We already live on an amazing space ship and we’re trashing it.
3) We already live with intelligent aliens and we are killing them all.
4) DJ White is the real deal if you’re looking for inspiration on how to live a good life, or want ideas on how you might make a difference with CACTUS awareness.
There are many great quotes in this discussion that could be added to the sidebar in case anyone wants to take notes while listening.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-16/geelong-oil-refinery-fire-live-updates/106570266
There apparently was a fire at a refinery in Australia.
This was what Monk posted about yesterday and see Hideaway’s response.
https://un-denial.com/2026/04/03/by-hideaway-drill-steel-one-of-many-iran-war-cactus-triggers/comment-page-4/#comment-119249
https://twitter.com/IRANinTJ/status/2044138040650805495
FYI to anyone that wants to post a link from X.
Copy & paste the link, then change “x.com” to “twitter.com”.
I paid US$15 for an addon so we wouldn’t have to do this and it didn’t work.
As a brazilian, I can only laugh. The government has been claiming left and right that we won’t be much affected by the Hormuz crisis thanks to ethanol. I still wonder, considering the widespread corruption and lies, how can anyone still believes a word that comes out of our politicians (specially our president).
Once or twice a year Canadian Prepper says something intelligent.
My mum just sent me this info graphic. From Charlie Garcia on substack. Never heard of him but he speaks as if is certain
Everyone I follow and respect expects the US to resume the war shortly.
US might try to capture Kharg island but most knowledgeable people think that would be another even bigger blunder.
The second politicians start talking in millions of litres, I knew we were in trouble. Oil, diesel and petrol are talked about in bbls/d, so any deviation from this is and has been deliberate spin…
LOL!! Reminds me how I feel when I read about some hyped-up new oil field discovery with a potential for one billion barrels… Oh goodie, a whopping ten days of global BAU.
I could see this liters thing catching on to give the masses a better feeling of unlimited oil. And of course the US will use quarts to make it more confusing.
When we’re watching the news at dinner time, I bitch every time there’s a story involving millions, billions, or trillions. Which is like half of their stories. We humans don’t need to be hearing these astronomical numbers. We’re like Dr Evil when it comes to grasping this shit.
ps. I wonder if Dr Evil’s character was inspired by this douchebag:
Incredible, this was huge headlines here. One days worth. We are so energy blind.
100 million liters per day seems crazy high for a little country like Australia so I checked and it’s in the ball park.
So proud!! This clip is gold.
After all my TDS and hatred/fear of the war, finally some George Carlin level of fun entertainment. (probably not so much if you live in AU)
You dont need complex explanations Why this will collapse.
We need oil for healthcare plastics and petrochemicals. Some day it is none, but people and the system wants more. It is incompatible.
https://jogh.org/2024/jogh-14-03035/
Fortunately a lot of the healthcare delivered today has no impact on the physical world, like for example the mother who takes her child with a cold to the family doctor.
When sugar becomes scarce and expensive we can probably fire 50% of healthcare workers.
Not how this works. Healthcare is higly material not only at point of care. Have you seen a petrochemical plant?
You need refineries, massive industri for chemical feedstock, massive industrial plants for API wich again is transported to new industrial facilities where tablets is made. Tablets is also made with ingredients from mines around the world.
Many of this processes is made possible becouse of sulfuric acid.
All this workers is supplied with local farmers. If local diesel stops, they will not go to industrial facilities to make pharmaceuticals.
Sorry I wasn’t clear. I agree with you.
What I was trying to say is that a big portion of health care services do nothing to change the trajectory of health. They could be eliminated and there would be no change to the well being of society except some people would no longer have jobs.
Was looking at this picture of the growth rate of the Big Mac. LOL, yeah I’m bored. I think the whole world can be summed up in this graph. It’s so funny & bizarre that only a miniscule portion of the population (like 0.001%) can see something like this and instantly know that it can’t continue like this forever.
The price of a Big Mac has grown from just $0.45 at its 1967 debut to a national average of approximately $6.01 in 2026. Costs $7.29 where I live.
This line made me laugh (and reminded me of the famous Seinfeld episode😂)
ps. I think my memory is correct here: Renaee has never eaten McDonalds, ever! How cool is that.
Remember I did qualify that – I have never eaten a Big Mac before, but I have eaten from the McCafe at road stops, and had a couple of McMuffins in my time, but that’s about it. So can’t quite pass that purity test 😉
Back in my teenage years, our small town put up a fight not to allow a McDonalds in and won, now this year they are building one, and the town is welcoming it in, desperate for the business.
It shrinks! Needed a good laugh after a cry
It’s been many years for me too since I ate at McDonalds.
Fast food in incredibly expensive now. I do not understand why people eat there.
I can make a beautiful healthy burger at home straight out of the freezer in 8 minutes with a 1/3lb grass fed beef burger that has only one ingredient, beef, on a toasted cheese covered bagel, also straight out the freezer, for a total of $2.20 + $0.67 = $2.87.
In case you don’t know this trick, put a frozen burger into a small frying pan with a little butter at medium heat for 4 minutes, flip and cook for another 4 minutes, and it will be perfect.
The 8 minutes is exactly the time it takes to heat up and gently toast a frozen bagel in a little countertop oven.
Not to quibble ( well, yeah, I’m quibbling 🙂 but are those inflation adjusted numbers? That is the first thing I look for when I see graphs.
Numbers were not adjusted. Here’s an updated graph.
Guess I don’t understand inflation at all because I’m confused why this graph makes it look like there is barely any growth.
Sabotage in Australia?!
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/fire-breaks-out-at-viva-energy-oil-refinery-in-victoria-australia/EBAUEQRKBFCEPG3YJOU7UM5WZI/
No sabotage, it has been an accident waiting to happen according to a bloke I know that worked there for 20 years on the tools. He left as he was nearly killed when a crane fell a few years ago, missed him by 1 metre, but also because all the new guys were working out of the manuals/computer screens of how the refinery worked, while all the older guys were being replaced, who knew all of the work arounds and fixes of the processing plant over the last few decades, that were not in the official manuals..
Funnily enough I was driving around the refinery on the Highway/Geelong bypass last night around 8.45PM and it was very noticeable the extra clouds of gas/steam/whatever pouring out of the refinery in an unusual manner, from a number of different places. This was 2 hours before the reported ‘start’ time of the fire.
This refinery is more than 70 years old, ran on very specific types of heavy crude oil, mostly from the Gulf countries and has probably been importing whatever they could get hold of recently, which would likely be slightly different to the specs is rated for.
What could possibly go wrong when you have an old patched up plant, with most/all the old guys that worked there being retired, new guys working from the now redundant manual, with a slightly off spec crude supply….
There is no conspiracy at all, it’s just a sign of our times and one of many cascades of failure that can be expected, but not exactly predicted in advance. Only in hindsight will we understand why something failed.
Modern civilization itself is very, very, fragile and brittle, while most people have convinced themselves it is robust and resilient. I suspect we are about to learn a very hard lesson about this..
Thanks for all the intel HideAway. It couldn’t have happended at a worse time.
One of the things my former employer did was bid on and execute refinery turnarounds. A turnaround is when a refinery unit is shut down for major maintenance.
We knew which refineries were poorly run and dangerous (usually the independents, barely making it) and bid, or chose not to bid accordingly. Usually, the big names kept very well maintained units, but hands on knowledge is essential, especially as older refineries can often let the as-builts get out of date, and only the operators know where that added bypass or other kludge was installed.
Corrosion is the constant enemy of refineries, as well as refractory erosion, and when finances are tight, the refinery management will try to stretch the turnaround and maintenance schedule as far as they dare, as turnarounds cost money and stop production.
Sometimes, they delay too long, and pay a higher price. So glad I left all that behind.
I am feeling pathetic and teary today. Really coming to terms with no hope and no future is very hard sometimes. The freedom of nothing left to loose escapes me, Why can’t I be ok with right here and right now? I don’t want to spend every day frantically trying to ‘prepare’. A failed doomer AND a failed prepper. I’m just going to go for self care and relaxation. I am exhausted.
As a (young) person in arguably worse situation (based on what I gathered from your posts here over the last year or so), you probably did what you could. That’s pretty much it.
“Preparing” for collapse is impossible, since no matter what you do you will be affected. Being a “doomer” about it is also pointless, since most of this stuff is non-actionable, at least at the individual level. Best you can do is to apply some heuristics and leave the rest to luck while cultivating emotional detachment. In a sense, life has always been like this, although that’s probably a shitty consolation.
Take care, Renaee.
I haven’t really bothered preparing for collapse. It might be useful to reduce my energy consumption, but if CACTUS is true, surviving might actually be worse than dying early.
I’m sorry you’re having a bad spell Renaee. I’m struggling too. Best therapy for me is immersing myself in something I enjoy like a hobby or project and focusing on it to take my mind off other things.
Maybe it would help if you didn’t think of prepping as preparing for the end of the world but rather just a productive zero risk exercise to save some money by buying a little extra when there’s a sale because we know for sure there will be food inflation in our future.
That’s pretty much what I was about to post Rob, using different words bur realistically the same meaning..
As @Nobody stated, and I agree with Fast Eddy on this, you can never be prepared for collapse, because it’s going to be an event that’s never happened before from this height of civilization and disconnect from our natural food sources. Plus it’s not possible to plan for every facet of the collapse, so no real point in worrying or getting upset about it, just go about your usual business and do the things that make you happy or give a sense of achievement..
Thank you all – your support and wise words are very welcome and help a lot. I’m just letting all the big feelings around it flow, and will move through this. It’s good to be able to vent.
Hideaway, I think part of the reason I was also more upset than usual was hope creeping back in. In my ‘spare time’ (ha) I have been reading and thinking a lot about the work being done in NZ to prepare and how this could be done here. I wonder if you can let me know your thougths about this paper, and if any of it is relevant to our situation in Australia? I also reached out to a woman who runs a podcast called Reskilliance, she started it up with this intro:
“Reskillience is a podcast about the hard, soft and surprising skills that’ll help us stay afloat if our modern systems don’t.
Sparked by a Dave Pollard article that outlined 20 essential skills for adapting to civilisational collapse, I got curious about how to cultivate them (in the face of much distraction, self doubt and existential terror)…
…and whether whimsical/impractical types (like me) can find our niche in the apocalypse.”
She is a very talented interviewer and has had some great guests on the show. She let me know that this weekend they are recording a session from David Holmgren who will do a Q n A and give his take on our situation. Given he has spent his life time writing about the Energy Descent Future, I am very curious to hear what he has to say.
I think I know what you will say in response – we’re Cactus! But it seems I still can’t help myself to want to be involved somehow in making it less horrific and have some way to soften the blows on the way down, to our inevitable extinction.
So here is the opening few paras of Nathan’s paper and here is the link that you have to download to read.
Executive Summary
New Zealand is currently experiencing the largest energy shock in its history. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the destruction of Gulf refining infrastructure, and cascading Force Majeure declarations across our entire supply chain have placed NZ’s fuel supply in a structurally precarious position. As of late March 2026, only 18 days of diesel were physically onshore.
This white paper does not address the politics of that crisis. It attempts to address a harder question: if diesel supplies contract severely or fail entirely for an extended period, how do we feed ourselves and maintain access to safe water?
This is a worst-case planning exercise. Worst-case planning does not predict the worst case will occur. It means the cost of preparation is less than the cost of being caught without it.
The findings draw on peer-reviewed research by Boyd, Wilson, and colleagues at Adapt Research Ltd and the University of Otago – specifically their 2024 work on mitigating fuel dependency in NZ agriculture (Risk Analysis, 44:2360-2376) and their 2025 work on urban and near-urban food production under catastrophic conditions (PLOS One). Those papers were written for nuclear winter and global catastrophe scenarios. The Hormuz crisis has brought those scenarios materially closer to the present.
Five headline findings:
Dairy farming requires roughly seven times more diesel per calorie of food produced than wheat. Under severe fuel rationing, the livestock model collapses before the cropping model does.We are entering winter. The realistic window before significant new crops reach harvest is six months. That gap must be planned around, not assumed away.Low-cost greenhouse structures using locally available materials (timber framing, polythene or twin-wall polycarbonate) can extend winter growing significantly and should be deployed now.NZ’s seed supply situation is poorly understood at a regional level. Cataloguing it is an immediate priority. Significant seed can still be flown in if we act quickly.Safe water is as important as food. Household rainwater storage and securing water treatment chemical stocks are low-cost, high-return actions that can be taken this week —
Lastly, I talked to my partner who for his job (contracts management at fed dept of defence) deals extensively with local govt and says they are the absolute worst in doing anything and responding to correspondece that is directly affecting their businsess and it can take years to get closure on issues. he said that trying to write to them with any of these ideas, like in Nathan’s paper, is delusional and no one will look at it = and I have to agree.
Value your thoughts.
Hi Renaee, I’ve been mulling over this for a while as I don’t want to appear to negative, but I can only state reality as reality.
It appears to me written by an economist, with no clue as to how the real world works.
This first bit…”Dairy farming requires roughly seven times more diesel per calorie of food produced than wheat. “
What are the assumptions?? That everything is normal as it operates today.. Now let’s change just one variable, a lot less diesel..
Sorry no longer real or close to real!!
The inbuilt assumption is that only diesel availability changes, yet the wheat farm uses herbicides and fertilizer to gain the yields that it does. What happens when none of those are available either??
Then the next bit about building greenhouses with polythene and twin walled polycarbonate in a world where plastics are likely going to be more constrained than diesel very quickly..ahhh!!!
The point being we have an entire system, not bits of a system that we can just change one variable and keep moving forward assuming just one change. That is not how the world works at all. Everything is so complex that it’s idiotic to change just one variable and think you have bases covered..
Going back well over 30 years ago, when I was the state secretary of an organic certifying body and on the certifying committee, I can remember the practices on organic grain farms, compared to the poor practices of ordinary grain farms that used a quick single spray of roundup to kill weeds then a week later sowed and fertilized in one quick easy pass, no ploughing or turning the dirt, planted right into the stubble.
The organic farms, ploughed in, or rotary hoed in the cover crop, waited a fortnight then ploughed or rotary hoed in any weed germination, then sowed the seed, using at least triple the fuel of the ‘conventional’ farmers. This was regarded as sustainable and better practise by the organic movement..
Now think of the not much diesel, not much fertilizer and not much herbicide, and no prior legume cover crop, when thinking of the wheat farm, instead of just not much diesel…
Sorry to be such a Debbie Downer…
I do get the interdepency and complexity of cactus, I get it entirely and it seems obvious to me. But he is recommending these things that can be done now before they become materially unavailable and impossible to do. Much like many of us are doing on a personal level to prepare while we still can, anticipating that all sorts of things at Bunnings and supermarkets etc will no longer be there. And he is just encouraging people to adopt them on a broader scale while they still can, with govt support and advocacy to do so. I think he has a very strong clue how the real world works, and studied alongside Nicole Foss, who is in the same area in Sth NZ.
I think the more broader question for me is, is there any reason to expect that local authorities would be open to any of this stuff, and that is where I now think no. I chatted to my buddy in NZ yesterday about it all, and she said to me, ‘I’ve written many letters to govt in my time and the only letter I would write to govt now is to advocate for free VAD kits for any citizen who wants one’, just like in Rob’s original cactus essay.
And a permaculture model would never recommend broad acre farming, it’s just not doable on any level. And it’s a monocrop, so completely against the principles. But given 80% of our calories come from these broad acre crops, that’s a bring problem.
So it’s not a downer your response. I have been falling through another layer of acceptance, it seems I am still bouncing around in bargaining sometimes, bargaining for a bit more time.
And I am still going to listen in to David Holmgren tonight. I think it’s being recorded in a public venue in Daylesford somewhere, then will be edited and released for viewing.
Remember he has a great chat with Michael Dowd on post doom – so he is fully aware of overshoot and likely is expecting a die off, it’s just that public figures are careful in how they word these things.
but face plant moment, in this talk below, he does talk a bit about the collapse of the Roman Empire as a guide – so possibly scratch everything I said!! I don’t know, but will report back what i hear.
Thanks for your honest reply, i always prefer to be in reality than hopium.
I took the scenario to be when diesel was in short supply, not a future planning tool. Diesel is in short supply but so are plastics, fertilizers, herbicides etc that get imported, so suggesting for the whole community to change from x to Y, doesn’t cut it for me.
I may not have been clear enough, but in our JIT world, all these things are possible for an individual or a few individuals to do, but for a community, like the size of NZ, no not even close, there is a run and shortage of all those things mentioned very, very quickly.
It also ignores feedback loops. What happens if you are the only one in your area that did plan ahead, beat the crowd and built your greenhouse for winter vegetables leaving none of the twin walled plastic in the shop or warehouse, with your big visible greenhouse full of food.
Will it be the looters or the authorities that punish you?? It’s all non linear feedback loops..
By the time articles like that are being promoted, as everything is about to become much scarcer, it’s already way too late for NZ as a whole to do any of it, unless everything gets back to normal and be ready for the next different crisis. But of course if that happens there was no need, as the crisis is over.
In scenario preparation, it means buying a whole lot more ‘stuff’, to be prepared for a variety of possible scenarios, most of which wont happen. What if the happening scenario was one where the climate did an abrupt shift, while diesel is short and growing wheat was no longer possible, how do the planned options work then??
I know its hackneyed to say this, but try exercising. I hate exercising, but once you get in a rhythm it really helps a lot. I suffered from depression for years until I started getting serious about exercising. Shoot for an hour every day or two of at least brisk walking, outside is better (summer is coming up so you can get some sunlight too!). I’m not alone, I know several people in my friend group who have struggled with depression, collapse related or otherwise, that became manageable with regular exercise.
You can also justify it as preparing for collapse because if you’re in shape you’ll be more physically capable. Being able to run a couple miles comfortably or walk long distances will probably be more useful than a lot of other preparations you can do, and even if we all luck out and the collapse never comes, you’ll still feel better mentally and physically! No matter what you decide to do, hope you feel better soon.
Good advice, I get exercise in the garden, which sometimes feels like back breaking labour more than exercise – I have been trying to dig up lawn to make new garden beds, then I go to the pool and spa to recover. But some long walks or bike rides would be good. I found a bike the other day, one of those ones with the gears removied, a fixer i think it’s called, and it’s in great condition, so I am going to do that. Thanks, it’s mainly just the lack of acceptance of our situation, that seems to build up to some intolerable crescendo of panic/exasperation and then dissipates (a bit like Hideaway’s cyclone).
Oh I totally get it. I’ve had similar issues before. In fact I’d say most of the people on this board understand what you’re talking about. Exercising won’t get rid of it entirely, but your baseline will be higher so you’ll be more resilient when those realizations come.
As far as what to do, I find aerobic exercise like bike rides or long walks/hikes (or runs depending on your physical condition) work best. I lifted weights for a long time and it helped but I find my mental health is best when I’m doing aerobic exercise to the point where I’m out of breath at least 3 times a week, which I’ll admit can be hard to stay motivated to do, but it does help a ton and it is a lot more enjoyable if you have a place you like to run, hike or bike ride outside!
Maybe I’m just lucky, but the active parts of my days are the absolute best parts of my days. Getting out for a walk, a hike, a bike ride, a skate or a ski is the joyful part, and there’s no question my mental health depends on it. It’s likely key for the sedentarian to start slow, with reasonable expectations. No pain no gain is false. Push yourself, but not to the point of pain. Enjoy the process and don’t worry about the destination. Just being on the path is a win.
Ya that’s good advice! Most of my adult life I’ve lived in cities where exercising outside after work can be either inconvenient or dangerous (gotta love car culture), so I go to the gym as a way to get my exercise in. I don’t like going to the gym but I like what I get out of going. I grew up in a more spread out area where I could go for runs out in nature and it was great.
And ya, I had a coach in high school who used to say “consistency beats intensity”. Even working out lightly (whatever that is for you) every day is better than trying to push yourself to the limit a few times and then giving up
Not alone.
I think Berletic’s story is much tighter, but I thought this was pretty good. If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, the gist of it is from 18:00 – 25:00. About how the US is setting itself up for huge advantages in a world of energy shortages. (yes, I know. CACTUS will have something to say about that)
If Richard is correct, then I still have the same old question… is the rest of the world gonna sit back and watch this unfold or will someone finally step up and put down the big bad wolf? nuke the wolf… hey, that sounds like a good campaign slogan.
Just a heads up that Medhurst is pushing a theory he thinks explains US behavior, however at the center of that theory is an energy blind assumption that invalidates his entire idea.
He thinks US has plenty of oil to supply the world and US is trying to capture oil business from middle east countries.
Another post from the Avatar that is worth considering.
https://theuaob.substack.com/p/the-avatar-and-the-entropy-dump-why
The Avatar Function: Plausible Deniability for the Apocalypse
Herein lies the ultimate utility of the current President.
If a polite, rational, ‘Deep State’-approved technocrat sat in the Oval Office and executed this strategy—intentionally blockading global energy straits, starving allies and adversaries alike, and levying a 15% extraction fee on the entire planet to save the American core—it would destroy the ideological legitimacy of the American project forever. It would expose the ‘Strong Enlightenment’ narrative of universal liberal progress as a predatory lie.
The Institutional Mass requires a Linguistic Heat Shield. They need an ‘Avatar’ who draws all the fire.
This is why the Deep State hasn’t ‘fixed’ the Trump problem this time around. In his first term, the global system still technically functioned, and his erratic behaviour was a threat to the extraction machine. Today, the machine is broken, and his behaviour is the perfect camouflage for a controlled demolition.
Let me be explicit about what this does not mean. There is no secret committee of evil masterminds in a windowless room pulling the Avatar’s strings. The permanent bureaucracy is not omniscient, nor is it unified. The behaviour I am describing—the tolerance of chaos, the exploitation of unpredictability, the willingness to let the Avatar absorb the backlash—is emergent, not directed. It arises from the sum of countless local optimisations: a trade official calculating tariff revenue, a naval officer enforcing a blockade, a financial analyst hedging diesel futures. Each actor is rational within their own compartment. None sees the full thermodynamic picture. The system does not need villains to produce brutal outcomes. It needs only compartmentalised cognition and a shared Gr imperative to survive at any cost.
If there were evil masterminds, they would never have chosen such an extreme, self‑destructive strategy. A rational cabal would preserve the Asian supply chain—because they would know the US needs those microchips. The fact that the system is burning its own dependencies is the surest proof that no one is at the wheel.
Thanks, I read it carefully, twice.
It looks to me like the author collected the crazy events we all see and do not understand and then constructed a story to explain what is going on using sophisticated phrases to give it the air of intellectual brilliance.
I also smell AI assistance.
I call bullshit.
If I was going to construct a plausible story to explain what is going on, I would focus on MORT induced energy blindness, CACTUS ignorance, end-of-growth monkey brain panicking, and C- social science graduates running our governments.
“If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.”
You don’t need dubious maths and big words to describe what’s currently happening, at least that has always been my impression of Newbury’s writing.
don’t forget psychopath leaders as well.
Yes, and citizens that believe anything they are told.
The only thing I can conclude with certainty about the Iran war is that no one has a clue what will happen, and almost everyone is underestimating the damage to the global economy that will occur when the resource buffers are soon emptied, and how long it will take to restore normalcy after peace is achieved.
I tried getting AI to predict the most probable outcome but received garbage despite several attempts. Garbage in garbage out I guess.
I think there’s a lot of censorship and propaganda going on right now, which any AI skimming the web will key in on. Ever since the ceasefire I’ve heard a never-ending stream of BS coming from trump and most news outlets. Trump and the news agencies are saying the straight is open, while at the same time saying its blockaded, and if you go to the bottom of the article it may or may not admit only a few ships if any are actually transiting the straight. None are acknowledging the long-term implications of this, just saying some hopium about the straight being open soon.
There’s also a reflexive feedback loop with the stock and futures markets. Oil has gone up, but only to prices that were commonplace even a few years ago, so it isn’t shocking yet, just annoying. There must be a huge amount of manipulation causing the spread between physical crude prices and futures, I just can’t think of any other reason for oil futures one or two months out to trade at a discount to spot when it’s clear that even if the straight opened tomorrow there will be supply issues in a couple months. Then people look at the stock market which is shooting straight up and they conclude that “intelligent” big money investors and insiders know something that nobody else does. They don’t realize it’s all just momentum chasing at this point. The stock market is central to Trumps strategy of mollifying criticism. Most americans are convinced that the market still functions rationally (sometimes I’m guilty of this as well), so when it goes up it amounts to a positive referendum on Trump’s policies, insofar as this irrational thought process goes.
Peter Thiel, the eminence grise behind much of the security state, sold a ton of his holdings all the way back in february. The rest of the epstein class is probably using this most recent rally to dump their holdings at all time highs ahead of the collapse that will come when reality kicks in. I could be wrong here, but I just don’t see a way that this ends in anything other than global depression at this point. We are living through the worst case scenario and everyone has been convinced that it’s fine because for a couple months their savings wont be impacted and they’re only going to have to pay an extra $20 a week for gas. You have to remember that most people, at least in the US, don’t care about world events at all unless it directly impacts them in some way. The longer Trump can keep people distracted and markets going up, the more time he has to act with a free hand in Iran.
Joe Kent explains the (only?) path to delaying CACTUS but does not mention oil for USD.
How come everyone including the most informed insiders ignore the core issue?
This is not normal.
I think this is just so he can get more TV time by going to Beijing. That or his staff is getting him to gaslight us so that when Iran rejects negotiations or continues its tollgate on Hormuz he can launch the war anew.
AJ
Doubling down on crazy.
He is certifiably insane, whether malignant narcissism or dementia in the extreme he is off his rocker – and you still see people on X saying his is doing 5D chess (more like 0D).
AJ
https://theuaob.substack.com/p/the-avatar-and-the-entropy-dump-why
And now deep thoughts… by James at Megacancer:
Interesting.
The magnitude of the Hormuz problem is creeping into mainstream discussion.
Steve Jermy has an uneasy awareness that the supply chain disruptions the US has triggered will be serious and long term.
He says it may be worse than the great depression but this time we don’t have the resources left to recover.
Russia, China, and possibly Iran are in the best positions to weather the coming storms.
Famine and starvation for 10’s of millions is likely.
Diesel is the key resource to watch.
We should expect an extended energy crisis.
He sees no sign that governments understand any of this or are preparing.
Ireland’s social unrest has been caused by fuel price increases. Imagine what will happen when fuel is not available at any price.
I skimmed the comments. Lots of normies get it.
100 Times Worse? Thawing Permafrost May Be More Dangerous Than Previously Thought
https://scitechdaily.com/100-times-worse-thawing-permafrost-may-be-more-dangerous-than-previously-thought/
I don’t like how the Hormuz situation is sucking up all the oxygen in the “Doomersphere”
How is the S&P 500 back at pre-war levels? I always heard markets were irrational but this really takes the cake. I’m having trouble getting good information on whether or not the Straight of Hormuz is open or not, I don’t think anyone really knows now that Trump has chosen to “blockade” the straight himself. The whole situation is absurd. I’m assuming a large part of the stock market gains in the last few days is just people chasing the latest rally trying to buy the dip. It’s worked the last 15+ years, so everyone’s been really well trained to do that. Frankly that’s the only explanation I can think of because from what I can tell there’s a shaky ceasefire that’s unlikely to last and the straight is still effectively closed except for a handful of ships.
Nothing makes sense.
Most governments are silent on genocide. Some like the UK prosecute their citizens for protesting against genocide.
Trump threatens to kill an entire civilization, and the house and senate take no action, and world leaders continue to talk to him.
Israel agents acting as US negotiators misled Iran’s leaders enabling the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader and his family, then are sent to the next round of negotiations as if nothing happened.
Trump publicly agrees to Iran’s demand for a Lebanon ceasefire, then hours later Israel brutally attacks Lebanon, and Trump denies he ever said it.
Trump posts a picture of himself as Jesus and the house and senate take no action. Trump says it was a picture of him as a medical doctor.
Hormuz is closed and most western governments are doing nothing to prepare citizens or to conserve.
No one talks about where Epstein got his money, or which men abused the girls.
Nothing is being done to prosecute the people that engineered a virus that killed (mostly via bad policy side effects) about 20 million people.
We have completely lost our way.
This is the kind of absurdity you see at the end of empires
Nothing in the markets make sense. The global economy will have to make do with less energy this year (at the very least) so there can’t be any growth this year (not even the downgraded 2% growth – effective recession – the the IMF forecasts in its worst case scenario). None. Businesses will go bust.
Eh, investing based on basic fundamentals is so old school. We’ve got millisecond speed algorithmic trading now, no need to worry. There are always fomo chumps to unload on when things start looking shaky.
Thing is, those algorithms were programmed by traders grown complacent by long bull markets with short correction cycles. The profound ignorance on energy dependence and how complexity will send full economies into free fall is the hubristic fatal flaw. It will be sad to see unfold, with resulting harm to all, not just speculators.
Go long on seed potatoes.
Trump this morning said the war was pretty much already over, gas prices will be back to normal, and stocks will be booming, before the midterms.
Sounds like I should buy some AI stocks.
Chris Martenson explains why we are being misled when told the US is a net exporter of petroleum. It’s true, but what is exported is not the forms of petroleum we really need, like diesel.
Even when you include all the natural gas liquids and label it oil to mislead people, exports have leveled off and are beginning to fall.
US government has been suppressing the oil price and their tricks will begin to fail in about a week.
US is draining its Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
It will be obvious in 2-4 weeks that US cannot replace Hormuz losses.
https://twitter.com/remi_philiponet/status/2044060202589208939
Hello , after reading this :
” Iran has built an oil pipeline whose terminal is located in an Indian port. ”
I’m starting to wonder if the article is all bullshit…
They didnt even finish this :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Pakistan_gas_pipeline
Because the usa goverment threathened Pakistan …
But how can you trust anything from wikipedia since it a an organ of MSM lies from the U.S.?? I don’t actually trust Pakistan either because they are beholding to the U.S.
AJ
The saga surrounding that gas pipeline was widely reported in Iranian state media; Pakistan did not complete its part of the project due to threats from the U.S.
Good catch, thanks.
I don’t know this guy but Steve Keen vouched for him so I assumed it would be ok. Now I won’t trust either of them.
Keen used to be the only economist I respected because he understands the relationship between energy and economy, although lately he seems to have lost him mind and is pushing some form of MMT as the solution to energy depletion.
I can’t say anything about the tankers—there are a lot of conflicting reports—but as I said, the story about the pipeline seems made up.
Dr. Tom Murphy say evolution is (not) amazing and humans are (not) geniuses.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2026/04/dumb-geniuses/
h/t Mike Stasse
Sarah Connor wrote a good essay today, for a nice change without using an AI, on the illusion of US replacing Hormuz oil.
https://www.collapse2050.com/can-us-oil-replace-strait-of-hormuz-no/
Nate Hagens summarizes discoveries that changed his worldview.
https://natehagens.substack.com/p/essay-11-discoveries-that-changed
I wonder why the UK did not think of this?
Fake Jesus with a fake blockade.
If it’s actually true that you guys don’t have any nukes, then Mr MPP and I strongly disagree. But I’m sure they’ve got em. Their too smart to have overlooked that minor detail.
PS. I’m so out of my element with this goddamn prepping. I pulled the trigger on this water tank today.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/VPC-275-gal-Intermediate-Bulk-Container-IBC-Tank-IBC-275-1/206400348
Will be here in a couple days. The one I wanted was 165 gallons and $100 cheaper and the perfect fit for where I wanted to put it. But the website was showing delivery early June. I don’t have faith that civilization will still be normal by then.
I get bitched at when I bring home a new 5 gallon bottle. Wait till this monster shows up. LOL!! My handling process of these situations has gone from having a polite conversation before I make the purchase to now just saying “STFU and get out of my way until you’re ready to accept what’s coming.”
PSS. Listening to this song on repeat and drinking some wine. Good chance I’ll be crying by the time I get a buzz.😂
oh wow – you did it. Yep 275 gallons is 1000 litres and it is huge! I hope the fam does not blow their top.
Beautiful song and clip.
My archrival is still banging the drum for the fake Iran war. I think he’s gonna end up looking really bad on this. But I have to admit, I don’t disagree with anything he says here:
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/does-the-ministry-of-truth-exist
Everyone is discussing the fact that Vance was close to a deal on halting uranium enrichment and then Israel stepped in to override Vance and kill the negotiations.
So now everyone is angry at Israel for controlling the US.
What I’m pretty sure happened is CIA could not permit a deal that did not result in oil for USD so they had Israel pressure Trump with their Epstein kompromat, and the CIA stays clean and hidden in the background.
Israel happily did what it was told because they don’t want peace with Iran, they want US to escalate so Iran is destroyed like Syria.
Again a comment from “das gelbe forum”!
by Weimer
https://www.dasgelbeforum.net/index.php?id=683685These sky-high prices are intentional!!!
Since the pharmaceutical sector (in 2020, especially against China)
didn’t work out,
they’re trying the classic approach again (energy, oil, gas).
The Epstein clique (or the people behind them)
want to get rid of the mullah regime in Tehran.
They won’t give up until they do.
No matter how long it takes, how much it costs, or what damage is caused in the process.
Because the people driving this don’t have to pay for it.
The general public pays.
The powerful, on the other hand, always profit—from war as well as from reconstruction.
Once Iran is taken care of, it will continue—
once again against Russia and against China.
In endless variations and interludes.
We know that Russians and Chinese are very afraid—
of the showdown.
At the moment, control of the oil and gas market is the primary goal
(simultaneously serving as one instrument, among others, for consumer control).
They have almost achieved it.
People, populations, states, or the global economy, etc.,
are absolutely irrelevant in this GAME.
It is also completely irrelevant what the U.S. population thinks, feels, or does.
Civil unrest there will be accepted (everything is prepared for it).
Acts of terrorism will also be accepted. And even false flags will be organized.
The USA as a country, a state, and an economy is as insignificant in this context as Haiti.
(All that matters is that the military-industrial complex functions, including IT.)
It is therefore neither about the size of the USA nor about the collapse of the USA.
It’s all about world domination—
Right now, the poker chips are being laid out and the cards are being shuffled.
They haven’t been dealt yet, and the final round hasn’t begun.
5,000 years of world history are building toward their climax.
What a moment!
I struggle with this every day watching Trump’s shenanigans, but we have to keep reminding ourselves that Trump is not actually in charge.
CIA (with assistance from Israel) in coordination with big money (especially bankers) are steering Trump.
They are determined to force Iran’s oil to be sold in USD to protect reserve currency (which US standard of living depends on), and they want ability to redirect oil from China to US when fracked oil soon declines.
I don’t think Iran will back down, and Hormuz closure will soon cause global depression plus big political problems in US, which means US must escalate.
When US escalates, China must respond, which means we are on a path to WWIII.