The Wheels Come Off the United States of America

[OldSchoolGamer]

With today's employment numbers, I think I can safely say that something I've been predicting for the past ten years or so is finally coming to fruition (if you can call it that): the United States is on the skids.

The signs are everywhere, even aside from those numbers, the worst since 1974.  After strenuously denying the existence of a recession, after blustering that "the fundamentals are sound," the Bush Administration has, at long last, simply run out of bullshit.  It was definitely a deflated, defeated George Bush the Second who admitted that there was a recession and even went so far as to apologize to the nation he'd spent much of the last eight years glad-handing while anally probing.  But at least he did apologize...so perhaps I misunderestimated the man.

Indeed, if bullshit were some sort of valuable commodity that one could base an economy on, America could recover from its predicament, and that right quickly...but alas, it isn't.  What our economy is actually based on are around $470 trillion (that's right, trillion with a "T") in derivatives that are based on an amorphous miasma of NINJA mortgages, overleveraged commodities, and who knows what else that probably wasn't actually worth anywhere near $470 trillion even before the recent slide in equities.  Even if one wanted to be wildly optimistic--I mean, "Pollyanna-on-uppers"-optimistic--and say that financial pile of paper was only overvalued 10%, that would leave a $47 trillion hole that even the current $8 trillion bailout doesn't even come close to patching. 

And this is all happening despite the recent slide in energy prices...a slide that is almost certainly going to be short-lived.  We got a taste of the future earlier this year as our reality check bounced: the last big oilfield (by historical standards) was discovered in the 1980s, with discoveries having peaked two to three decades earlier.  They're not making any more oil (at least in commercially significant quantities), but they're still churning out more people who want to drive cars, eat meat, and buy, buy, buy.  For about two and a half decades there, the sheer quantity of oil allowed us the fantasy of pretending the supply was unlimited, but reality is now asserting itself, just like it did when the last of the "unlimited" supply of passenger pigeons croaked.  Oil is in fact a finite resource, and while we're still several decades from pumping the last barrel, right now we're pumping about all the oil per year we're ever going to, and it's all downhill from there.  America is hard-wired under the assumption that oil will always be cheap, and that all we have to do is drill more holes in the ground to get more.  Well, it's not that simple...as we'll shortly find out.

We're in for some very bleak years here in the U.S.  A lot of chickens are coming home to roost, and they're going to unleash a veritable blizzard of chicken-shit across our economy, and our society as a whole.  Where things go from here largely depends on our reaction.  If we are willing to question our cherished assumptions about how economies should work and how cancerous growth of economies is neither natural nor assured, and work to decouple the physical economy from the financial economy while accepting reduced consumption, we may recover in several years (though we'll be staring a critical oil shortage in the face).  If we fight to regain the "American Way of Life" that is in fact the root of the problem, we may well lose our country along with our standard of living. 

Most people under 30 or so in fact have little loyalty and patriotism...not least because they were raised on the neoconservative mantra of "every person for themselves" and "whatever profits me is right and good."  If you're running a company that's been the anchor of a community for forty years, but all of a sudden realize you could save a thousand bucks per head per year by moving to Mexico, then you go for it because globalization is good, right?  Well, apparently the neocons didn't bother to think that one through, because if they had, they'd have realized it's a short philosophical step indeed from that to, "well, if my country is on the rocks, who cares, I'll just find another one or let it crumble and be replaced by something else; I've got no skin in this game."  So, don't count on the same sense of patriotism and "American-ness" that held the country together through the Thirties to hold America together through this color version of the Great Depression.

The bottom line is that I don't think there's going to be a United States of America by 2025, at least in anything like its current form.

[The Overlord]

Don't write off the good old US of A quite yet, I'm sure plenty of people were thinking or writing similar to what you just posted as the Great Depression got going full swing. What we're facing today; it ain't shit compared to the World War era; we got through that and we'll get through this. We might have to transform again to do it, but Americans are innovators and survivors, and nothing gets those skills going like adversity.

So I'll take your sweet little vision of national apocalypse and file it under duly noted. Some people just aren't going to ever get it, but most will figure out that the American way has to be retooled in the face of what we must deal with.

Darwinism is going to be a deciding force here (yes, even here in the Deep South, sorry Bible Thumpers…even you). Those that adapt to the changing times will survive, perhaps even thrive. Some will fall, but we're already seeing that as national airlines and mediocre store chains fold. If anything, here's a tremendous opportunity to trim off the fat...and the US has put on a spare tire of a waistline in the past few decades. In some ways I look forward to the restructuring.

[RubySlippers]

As a Libertarian I believe the government only has two obligations. One is to defend the nation from invasion. Two to regulate business to prevent fraud as in they should have seen these derivitives, studied them and banned their sale with the related "swap" deals that covered them. The same with mortgages proper they could easily have banned variable rate ones or at least had full discolsure of them with proper basic credit needs by the party before taking one out. The government if it has to I feel should micromanage business practices from what accounting methods are legal to mortgage loan practices to at least a basic level. And I would move to bring back a tariff system say Nike a US firm makes shoes in China and imports them why not slap on $50 a pair in a tariff and if they are made IN the US then no tariff. Do that for all goods. China does this already and I say if we want to keep jobs here then you have to make it attractive to make goods here in the US. We could allow some limited exemptions to promote trade if goods are made abroad and imported from foreign companies and the like, it was done before.

[Mathim]

I think projecting 2025 is being ridiculously optimistic, actually. I don't think it's any sort of coincidence that the Mayan Calendar is counting down to 2012, and with tempers flaring all over the world and impatience growing, I think "Better safe than sorry" is a mantra we can all embrace. Arm yourselves, don't bother hoarding since it'll get stolen while you sleep, and make sure you know who you can trust in a life or death situation.

[The Overlord]

Arm yourselves, don't bother hoarding since it'll get stolen while you sleep, and make sure you know who you can trust in a life or death situation.

There's ways to safeguard your crap when you're asleep.

[Oniya]

There's ways to safeguard your crap when you're asleep.

Including sleeping on top of it, and taking sleep-shifts with those people you can trust in a life-or-death situation.

[The Overlord]

Including sleeping on top of it, and taking sleep-shifts with those people you can trust in a life-or-death situation.

Or rigging it to blow if someone touches it.  :)

[Oniya]

I know how to make a pressure plate system.  I prefer to put the explosives far enough away that my stuff will still be usable after the blast wakes me up.

[Inerrant Lust]

Actually, the dollar is (perportionally) better off now than many other first world powers' currencies. We suffered a hit a few months ago while most other currencies remained strong, but now they're startng to follow...

Plus, the thing about globalization is... if America goes kaput, so do most other nations. Even if we're reduced to the bronze age, chances are that everyone else will be in the stone age. It's just the way the world is now. Most modern economies are tethered to one another, so no nation can really collapse without taking a few others down with it, especcially not one as large as America.

So, I say 'Relax', 'Chill'... Even if we do get collosally boned, we won't be alone. We've been through worse, as Overlord said.

[Oniya]

Even if we're reduced to the bronze age, chances are that everyone else will be in the stone age.

And the SCA is probably miles ahead in their training than everyone else.

[The Overlord]

Plus, the thing about globalization is... if America goes kaput, so do most other nations. Even if we're reduced to the bronze age, chances are that everyone else will be in the stone age.

I feel so much better now.  :P

[OldSchoolGamer]

The problem is that what we're about to go through is going to be significantly worse than the 1930s.  

Miserable as the Great Depression was, that whole crisis was one of imbalance and poor distribution of resources.  We still had abundant natural resources: plenty of petroleum, coal, metals, farmland, water, and so forth.  We had a strong sense of national identity.  We had the American values of thrift and hard work.  The problem was economic imbalance and a speculative bubble bursting.

Now, we have a government that is for all intents and purposes, bankrupt.  We rely on other nations for most of our resources, especially oil, at a time when oil production worldwide is in decline.  For all the talk of alternative energy and "drill, baby drill," there is no alternative to oil that is scalable to anything near what we would need to run the country, at least without decades of R&D.  Even assuming full production and complete disregard of environmental concerns, we simply lack the domestic oil reserves to even come close to substituting for what we import now.  And even if we could somehow magically run the energy needs of the country off of ethanol and solar and wind, there's still the central, essential role oil plays in the chemical industry: plastics, fertilizer, pharma, asphalt, etc.

The bottom line is that, unlike the 1930s, we're facing a severe economic imbalance AND a sharp, imminent decline in the amount of energy per capita that we as a civilization are going to have access to.  We're going to be needing to expend considerable energy, money and resources retooling our nation to run on far less energy...just when energy, resources and money are going to become scarce.  This is in contrast to the 1930s, when the scarcity was only money, and the Roosevelt administration could just print more and build more factories, roads, farms and so forth.  Back then, we could drill more holes, dig more mines, dam more rivers, cut down more forests, whatever we needed to get more, more, more of the natural resources to supply the infrastructure expansions of the WPA and other New Deal programs.  Now, we're increasingly tapped out, facing critical issues that can't be solved by the paradigm of either the Left or the Right.

[The Overlord]

Well then, grim necessity ever being the mother of invention, we better get our asses in gear and get all that alternate energy technology out there. Solar, fuel cell, hydrogen, geothermal, wind, hydroelectric, etc.

The real bitch of it all is that around every one of us, the latent forces of the universe exist, we just need to harness them. Now's the time clean up our act.


P.S. @ TyTheDnDGuy. I know what you're about to say; it's not practical, it can't be done. But it has to be done, and that's why it will be.

[Mathim]

That's not what was said, what was said was there's no going back and there's no looking forward. We will never continue the current standard of living we're in and even if the government or whatever urges people that things aren't as bad as all that, when things turn Soylent Green on us, we're going to go nuts and we'll have to start pretending we're in a zombie apocalypse survival scenario, except the zombies will have knives and guns and be able to think, at least in a primal sense.

I read somewhere that the amount of resources for making solar energy panels is at its peak so we won't be able to do much more with solar. Wind, I don't know but it's probably not going to help much. Think about it-we're going to have to kiss our computers, heaters, cars, etc. goodbye and try to make do without. How many people in this country rely implicitly on those things right now? A good freaking chunk, I would imagine. Now how is a bankrupt government going to welfare-babysit them until they figure out how to retrain everybody to make themselves useful in the interim?

I stopped relying on fossil fuels a while ago, replacing my car with a bicycle and I've developed some good skills about it (maintenance, etc.) And I have a heavily armed, military-trained sniper friend I can bunk up with. I don't know about the rest of you but I like my odds of survival a lot better than most other people I know. It won't do this country or any other country a bit of good to keep going at this pace. We should start using what resources we have remaining to downgrade everything and focus on just keeping the human race going, not the space-case race.

[Valerian]

I read somewhere that the amount of resources for making solar energy panels is at its peak so we won't be able to do much more with solar.

Hrm?  Can you back this up?

[Oniya]

There was a friend of mine whose parents had made their house so energy efficient that the power company was literally paying them back.  They had solar heated water pipes in the walls, and then insulated the insides of the walls with quilts.  It may not be powering the house with solar, but it's a way of using solar power to eliminate the need for other forms of energy for heating.  From camping, I can tell you that heating water with solar doesn't need fancy panels.  You need an absorbing surface (matte black, metal if possible) and a source of sunlight.  I can get that at the local Home Depot.

[Trieste]

Gawd, you people are depressing.

People have been predicting the end of the world since it began. People have been spewing gloom and whatnot since there was a word to express the concept. The world is not going to implode on itself and cease to be. It may change, but that's not an inherently scary concept unless you give into the hind-brain fear of change, even innovative change.

It's really, seriously all about perspective. And apparently (for some) all about blowing people up. :P

[Zakharra]

 I've noticed that. It's like some people can't wait for the 'END OF THE WORLD!!' to happenm. So pessimistic.Have a little faith that we will get past it. I do not thinkit will se an end to materialism, since that has what has spurred a lot of technology, besides wars. Will it change culture? Yes, somewhat, but there will be ways found to get more energy to fuel the technology and devices we want. They are not just going to go away. People want Ipods, computers, cars, and other modern things. Like flushing toilets, refridgerators, central heating.

Despite what people are saying, there is still plenty of oil around and will be for the next century at least. There IS more that will be found and tapped. The technology is there and the price will come down as it's used.It isn't the end of the world people, it's just a bump in the road. How people deal with it will say whether it's a speedbump or a large pothole.

[RubySlippers]

I figure we have over a century before we have to worry, by then I likely will be dead of natural causes so who the hell cares. Let the next generation and the one after that worry about where they get their energy.

For all the doom here the air is cleaner, water cleaner and entire US is well off once we get back on track, we survived the last Great Depression and will survive this economic downturn. I'm more conserned about the government pissing away untold billions giving it to private interests with no accountability and pissing it away on green tech which we don't need and on infrastructure projects (mostly roads) just to make work. And if the world economy does downshift a notch or two that is not a bad thing people should learn to be happy in the US without all the latest tech gadgets and things.

[Valerian]

I figure we have over a century before we have to worry, by then I likely will be dead of natural causes so who the hell cares. Let the next generation and the one after that worry about where they get their energy.

For all the doom here the air is cleaner, water cleaner and entire US is well off once we get back on track, we survived the last Great Depression and will survive this economic downturn. I'm more conserned about the government pissing away untold billions giving it to private interests with no accountability and pissing it away on green tech which we don't need and on infrastructure projects (mostly roads) just to make work. And if the world economy does downshift a notch or two that is not a bad thing people should learn to be happy in the US without all the latest tech gadgets and things.

Uh, I'm fairly sure that a sizable part of the reason why the air and water are cleaner is because of that green tech that you seem to be so against.  Yes, some of that isn't working out as well as hoped and predicted, but that's why people are working on it now, before the need becomes acute.  If we don't experiment with and develop these technologies while we have the time, then we really will have some very serious and frightening issues to handle.

We have a century or so before we MUST become dependent on something besides fossil fuels; but we have to build the framework for those alternatives NOW.  Again, don't forget that green technologies need workers, too.  Money invested there will create jobs, just as surely as investing in other infrastructure.

[Zakharra]

 I think what she is against is the somewhat rampant desire to force us into green technologies before they are 1, ready, and 2, despite the fact that some of it might not work well of be more damaging to the enviroment/economy than what it's 'replacing'.

I'm for cleaner air and some regulations can spur developement, but it is very unlikely we will be off of fossil fuels in my lifetime. Oil is simply far too useful to be replaced fully and coal and natural gas/propane too abundant and useful as well. Until those resources can be replaced with something that at the least comes close to equalling them, I do not see them being used wilingly by many people.

[Valerian]

Well, I'll wait for Ruby to clarify that... but that's also part of my point, actually.  Granted, in some cases I'm sure there is forcing going on, and that's not something I'm in favor of; but these things do have to be tested in the real world, and some of that is going to involve missteps.  That's what we need to sort out before the need becomes dire.

Of course we won't be off fossil fuels in the lifetime of anyone now living, most likely, but we do have to keep decreasing that dependence.

To get back to something mentioned earlier, to the best of my knowledge the potential of solar power is still great.  That, at least, is being very underused as things stand, and increasing the tech there would be very useful, I think.

[Aysleen]

The problem is that what we're about to go through is going to be significantly worse than the 1930s. 

Miserable as the Great Depression was, that whole crisis was one of imbalance and poor distribution of resources.  We still had abundant natural resources: plenty of petroleum, coal, metals, farmland, water, and so forth. 

I was taught a different history in school:

http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/timeline/depwwii/dustbowl/dustbowl.html

19 states were hit hard by a horrible drought, causing the loss in huge amounts of farmland, jobs, and homes, which added to the problems back then.

[Aysleen]

There was a friend of mine whose parents had made their house so energy efficient that the power company was literally paying them back. 

This is becoming very popular and abundant in California.  All our local energy companies will do this in fact if your house is set up properly for it.  I think its awesome, and all new construction should be made to include these energy conservation utilities.

[Trieste]

I figure we have over a century before we have to worry, by then I likely will be dead of natural causes so who the hell cares. Let the next generation and the one after that worry about where they get their energy.

For all the doom here the air is cleaner, water cleaner and entire US is well off once we get back on track, we survived the last Great Depression and will survive this economic downturn. I'm more conserned about the government pissing away untold billions giving it to private interests with no accountability and pissing it away on green tech which we don't need and on infrastructure projects (mostly roads) just to make work. And if the world economy does downshift a notch or two that is not a bad thing people should learn to be happy in the US without all the latest tech gadgets and things.

In addition to the point Valerian made, part of the reason we got through the Great Depression was because the government made work for people. Roads... canals... we have a lighthouse near here that I suspect was a Depression project... and actually, all those civil projects provided some awesome infrastructure for us that is only a pain now because we haven't kept it up, or because whatever it is wasn't designed to handle 20th-century volumes of people.

I was taught a different history in school:

http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/timeline/depwwii/dustbowl/dustbowl.html

19 states were hit hard by a horrible drought, causing the loss in huge amounts of farmland, jobs, and homes, which added to the problems back then.

Ja, I believe the Dustbowl is believed to be just as responsible for the Great Depression as the stock market cash.

[Zakharra]

 I'm for that, as long as it's put forth in a reasonable manner, rather then as some have said in other posts and I've read on other forums, forced on us.  When anyone says something is being done 'for the good of us all/for the People/ for your benefit', I always get suspicious since that usually means, 'I'm going to force it down your throat and you WILL like it!', in many instances.

[Trieste]

I'm for that, as long as it's put forth in a reasonable manner, rather then as some have said in other posts and I've read on other forums, forced on us.  When anyone says something is being done 'for the good of us all/for the People/ for your benefit', I always get suspicious since that usually means, 'I'm going to force it down your throat and you WILL like it!', in many instances.

Can anyone say, "No child left behind"?

*pinches self and flees before she causes a hijack* Augh! I couldn't resist, I'm sorry!

[Oniya]

This is becoming very popular and abundant in California.  All our local energy companies will do this in fact if your house is set up properly for it.  I think its awesome, and all new construction should be made to include these energy conservation utilities.

I think it's something widespread, if people think to ask about it.  These people lived in the DC Metropolitan area.  My point was more that you don't need the big shiny panels on top of your house in order to benefit from solar, whether or not the 'amount of resources for making solar energy panels is at its peak'.

[Zakharra]

 Here's a question, what IS Green technology?  That keeps getting mentioned without much explaination.  

cleaner air and enviroment keeps getting mentioned as a result of 'green tech', yet is it really?  Is green tech merely a more efficient power plant? Better cleaning systems on factories?  Is being cleaner in the manufactoring/production of something Green?

Can anyone say, "No child left behind"?

*pinches self and flees before she causes a hijack* Augh! I couldn't resist, I'm sorry!

*nod* That's what I mean. The intention might be good, but the process can turn out less than stellar.

[Mathim]

All I want to know is-do you guys believe that the future (even if it's after a century as some of you believe) will look more like Futurama or Star Wars, or that it will look more like Soylent Green or Idiocracy? Seriously, the latter two are inevitable, we're (and by we, I mean the human race) not going to have a bright, Futurama-y thing to look forward to.

[Moondazed]

I don't see the point of putting so much energy into negativity, personally. I do the things that I can to have an impact, and there's no way around the fact that we could influence things if enough people took an interest.  Will they?  I don't know.  Do I think they will?  Probably not, but I will not let go of the shred of hope that things can change.

[Trieste]

All I want to know is-do you guys believe that the future (even if it's after a century as some of you believe) will look more like Futurama or Star Wars, or that it will look more like Soylent Green or Idiocracy? Seriously, the latter two are inevitable, we're (and by we, I mean the human race) not going to have a bright, Futurama-y thing to look forward to.

I think it's going to be a combination of Waterworld (once the ice caps melt) and this way cool futuristic society that's like how they describe it in Star Trek. We will have discovered how to live on our world without sapping its resources and will have become a united planetary government allowing for globalization without costing ethnic diversity.

I don't think we'll be able to go back in time to save some whales, though. Hopefully we can save the whales before we have to. :(

Here's a question, what IS Green technology?  That keeps getting mentioned without much explaination.  

cleaner air and enviroment keeps getting mentioned as a result of 'green tech', yet is it really?  Is green tech merely a more efficient power plant? Better cleaning systems on factories?  Is being cleaner in the manufactoring/production of something Green?

My understanding (and it could be different for someone else) is that 'green' technology and methodology is aimed at reducing what people call our 'ecological footprint'... our impact on our environment. It's anything that contributes to making sure that when we leave, we are doing the environmental equipment of leaving things as we found them - or hopefully a little better.

It's like how they told you as a kid that a campsite should look better when you leave it than it did when you arrived, even if you found it in a sorry state.

[Valerian]

Mathim... I'm going to quote this, because it looks like you didn't read it.

People have been predicting the end of the world since it began. People have been spewing gloom and whatnot since there was a word to express the concept. The world is not going to implode on itself and cease to be. It may change, but that's not an inherently scary concept unless you give into the hind-brain fear of change, even innovative change.

It's really, seriously all about perspective. And apparently (for some) all about blowing people up. :P

I doubt anyone seriously expects a Futurama-style future in the least.  All we're trying to say here is that it isn't going automatically going to look like a Mad Max flick, and people aren't necessarily going to start beating each other over the head with clubs to grab the last potato.

If you took all the time you spend writing posts like that here and used that to do something positive for the world -- any part of the world, not just the environment -- I suspect we'd all feel better.

[Mathim]

Humanity doesn't deserve that. We've damned ourselves over and over so many times. Besides, as long as the stupid and base outnumber the wise and enlightened there's really nothing that can be done about organizing that type of Waterworld society (which would be pretty cool, though...) I mean, it's like Day of the Dead-the stupid army guys screwed everything up in the end and the few smart people were backed into a corner and didn't have much to fall back on, even in that apocalyptic world.

[Valerian]

*smacks forehead*  Okay, fine.  We don't deserve that.  So, exactly why are you posting all this, then?  Seems like a waste of your time if we're really all doomed, and you won't even get the chance to say "I told you so."

I think it's something widespread, if people think to ask about it.  These people lived in the DC Metropolitan area.  My point was more that you don't need the big shiny panels on top of your house in order to benefit from solar, whether or not the 'amount of resources for making solar energy panels is at its peak'.

That's what's known as passive solar, I believe, and it really can work wonders for houses; so by extension, I see no reason why it can't also be used to help defray the costs of maintaining larger buildings.  It's things like that, incorporated into new building work, that can really make a difference in the long-term, and from what I understand, it isn't nearly as expensive as people often think.

[Mathim]

Let me ask this then-is it wrong to prepare for the absolute worst, when there's a fair chance it's going to happen? No one seems to have a back-up plan if s*** hits the fan. I mean, look at the Walmart trampling incident on Black Friday. Like I said then, if you think that's bad, then what happens when there are food shortages or food starts costing so much that most of America, who are impoverished, can't afford it? People aren't rational enough not to panic in situations like that, at least, not most people, especially those who grow up with a sense of entitlement like most Americans.

[Moondazed]

Do you feel that negativity is a form of preparation?

[Mathim]

I call it being realistic but you can call it what you will. After all, when it happens I'll be making the best of a bad situation, won't I?

[Moondazed]

Humanity doesn't deserve that. We've damned ourselves over and over so many times. Besides, as long as the stupid and base outnumber the wise and enlightened there's really nothing that can be done about organizing that type of Waterworld society (which would be pretty cool, though...) I mean, it's like Day of the Dead-the stupid army guys screwed everything up in the end and the few smart people were backed into a corner and didn't have much to fall back on, even in that apocalyptic world.

There are so many illogical fallacies in the above that I don't see how you can call that realistic.  Whether or not 'humanity has damned itself' is subjective, and it's not realistic to base your hypothesis on a horror movie ;)

[Mathim]

Nor is it wise to delude oneself into thinking everything's going to be okay. Even if it's all fine and hunky-dory for you, a whole hell of a lot of people are going to be suffering in the meantime until things pull back together, IF they do. I just tend to dwell on that more than others. I suffered a lot growing up and it kills me inside knowing others are doing the same, and now it's just going to keep getting worse.

[Trieste]

Mmh.

I don't know what the purpose of the original post was exactly other than expression of an idea ... but I can't help but feel that this has gotten off track.

[RubySlippers]

We have cleaner ,by far over say the year 1900, and water because of public demand and health reasons. Water before treatment used to kill people and air was face it like China now. We had a river by Lake Erie catch fire. I'm all for reasonable and sensible use of technology when there is a demand by the citizens to do something we just aren't there yet for alternative energy.

May I ask a typical solar system that is inefficient, uses toxic acid batteries to store power and vulnerable to storms which are sometimes large in Florida (hurricanes) cost $25,000 a system not including maintenance ,more or less, I think. So why should a homeowner spend that kind of money for a system that likely will need repairs, raise home insurance rates (a big concern in Florida) and that cost more per kilowatt to produce power. Than say a coal fired power plant which is the standard technology, is actually pretty clean with the right technology and produces power cheaper by a large amount. Where is the free market practical incentives unless government pays for it which is suing OUR tax dollars to pay for such a impractical technology.

As for the US worst case scenario we can ration gas, we produce more food than any other nation on Earth we can feed our people just fine and sealing our country off can be done. If nothing else we can use food to buy the support of China who may need opil but need to feed over a billion people. The US is we have to stand alone can do so rather well. Its the poorer nations in unstable areas you have to be concerned about. We can prorduce enough oil for our industrial use and necessary transportation if we had to. Cars would just have to be electric and some infrastructural changes made.

Likely with standard modest research in fifty years or a century you might get there and when such a system is cheaper people will use them say a panel system is really sturdy and costs $5000 to put into a house producing better power then you will get people to use them.

The infrastructure ok I get spending on but why highways in my area we have been looking for a regional light rail for decades and never had the money instead of more highways why not push mass transportation and giving everyone free high speed internet access that would likely spur on improvements better in the economy.

[Valerian]

Passive solar systems don't use any batteries or pumps or other parts that can go wrong or be vulnerable to storms, though.  This involves using the design of the house itself (locations of windows and trees, awnings, insulation, etc.) to help gather and store solar energy.  It's easiest when building new buildings, of course, but it can also be retrofitted into older homes.  So that, at least, is far from being an impractical technology.

I'm not sure electric cars will ever actually be practical -- does anyone know more about that?  But yes, investing in more public transport should definitely be encouraged, alongside alternative energies.

[RubySlippers]

Try but passive solar requires sunlight, nighttime demands some way to store energy or a power production capacity in the grid of an area. And how much do all these features cost I know my parents are middle class and would have a hard time paying for a fancy house. I did see an example house on tv that was a million dollars what the hell are they thinking an average lower middle class family couldn't afford that. One must assume a certain percentage of the population are going to be earning say $30,000 - 40,000 a year so in my mind a how would have to be relatively inexpensive paying a typical fixed rate twenty to thirty year mortgage. Is the technology there yet? Say you can build such a home for $125,000 for a modest non-McMansion home.

The kind of home most people really could afford at that level using standard practices, 20% down and payments that are sensible.

[Oniya]

With solar-heated water used as a means of cutting heating costs, the energy would be stored in the water, which would be in insulated pipes/tanks.  As I mentioned in my initial post, the interior walls were also insulated with quilts.  Perfectly non-impact in an environmental sense.  From what I remember, the house in question was also not a mansion by any stretch of the word (seriously, a smaller house is going to be cheaper to heat than a 30-room mansion).

[Trieste]

Try but passive solar requires sunlight, nighttime demands some way to store energy or a power production capacity in the grid of an area. And how much do all these features cost I know my parents are middle class and would have a hard time paying for a fancy house. I did see an example house on tv that was a million dollars what the hell are they thinking an average lower middle class family couldn't afford that. One must assume a certain percentage of the population are going to be earning say $30,000 - 40,000 a year so in my mind a how would have to be relatively inexpensive paying a typical fixed rate twenty to thirty year mortgage. Is the technology there yet? Say you can build such a home for $125,000 for a modest non-McMansion home.

The kind of home most people really could afford at that level using standard practices, 20% down and payments that are sensible.

The computer you are using was, in its earlier iterations, hundred of thousands of dollars and the size of a room.

Things improve. They get smaller, cheaper and easier... until the 500sq. ft. computer becomes a simple 1sq. ft. 4-pound laptop like theone I'm using.

[Valerian]

It does take nighttime storage of the energy into account, and apparently can be very efficient.  I know it works here in northern climes, so I would think it would do even better in the southerly areas.  I'm no good at the technical details, but I could post the site I was looking at if anyone's interested.

The beauty of using this for new homes is that sometimes, at least, it literally doesn't cost any more.  You need to use a house design meant for this, but the actual, physical construction costs from 0-15% more, according to what I was reading.  So it's possible it may cost a little more, but it doesn't have to cost a million dollars or anything like that, unless you're building a large, expensive home to begin with.

Edit: And I've been beaten to it, but here it is anyway.  Heh.

[Zakharra]

 Mathim, you are coming off to a lot of people as 1, very pessimistic in automatically assuming the worst will happen, 2, seeming to -want- the worst to happen, 3, wanting to be able to shoot/hurt someone as soon as it happens.  All your posts have more or less been, 'The world is Fsked! It's time to kill to survive and I think that is cool!'  

there's really nothing that can be done about organizing that type of Waterworld society (which would be pretty cool, though...)

You seem to almost have a fetish for the end of the world in apocalyptic ways. Waterworld, Mad Max, Zombie invasions....

*shakes head*


On to other things,

The infrastructure ok I get spending on but why highways in my area we have been looking for a regional light rail for decades and never had the money instead of more highways why not push mass transportation and giving everyone free high speed internet access that would likely spur on improvements better in the economy.

Mass transit only works in heavily populated areas. Out side of the cities, it is an inefficient way to travel. The highways get a lot of focus because of the volume of traffic on them. Including personal vehicles and all of the service vehicles/trucks. Everything you buy ends up travelling on a truck at some point. The rails only carry the goods so far. From there they need to be dispursed to the factories/stores/shops that make/sell the goods.  Plus as much as people like the mass transit, it operates on a schedule(when it sticks to it). Where as with a car, you hop into it and go where you need to, when you need to. You are not stuck if you miss the scheduled train.

Where I live, mass transit would not work for most of the people because we all live spread out. Maybe 1/4 of the county population is in the cities and in Idaho, most are spread across the state. Washington is more concentrated, but the eastern part of the state has 1 large city, many smaller ones and a large number that live far from population centers. Mass transit is simply not efficient.

Now a line that runs between the cities, that might be more worthwhile. IF people can be persuaded to use it. There in lies the trick. Getting people to use mass transit.

[Zakharra]

 How do homes like that work in the northern areas? I mean the passive solar heating? For 4 months, it's cold with snow. There isn't a lot of sun or solar heat put out to heat anything until the spring rolls around.

[Valerian]

I can't possibly summarize the details of how it works, since I don't understand them myself, but I was looking at this page.  If it works in Wisconsin, it can work anywhere!  Heh.

[RubySlippers]

The computer you are using was, in its earlier iterations, hundred of thousands of dollars and the size of a room.

Things improve. They get smaller, cheaper and easier... until the 500sq. ft. computer becomes a simple 1sq. ft. 4-pound laptop like theone I'm using.

True but face in the microcomputer was a dramatic and innovative technology created by the free market overall. Government may have using research and using it first started the ball rolling but ultimately it and the internet were technoolgies that grew due to market demand. People and businesses liked having computers the internet came out and developed because of demand. Not by government handouts and foisting them on people.

Like I said I'm sure the technology will be popular when its cost effective to use, that is the whole thing coal and oil are cheap and until the citizens start demanding green energy they will not really push it forward. Clean water stopped diseases, clean air people wanted and the government responded and so forth.

And in Tampa Bay its one of the largest population areas in the state a light rail makes sense over building roads if we can get people on them, that is true.

[Valerian]

This passive solar energy IS cost effective to use.  All new home builders have to do is ask for it.

[Trieste]

True but face in the microcomputer was a dramatic and innovative technology created by the free market overall. Government may have using research and using it first started the ball rolling but ultimately it and the internet were technoolgies that grew due to market demand. People and businesses liked having computers the internet came out and developed because of demand. Not by government handouts and foisting them on people.

Like I said I'm sure the technology will be popular when its cost effective to use, that is the whole thing coal and oil are cheap and until the citizens start demanding green energy they will not really push it forward. Clean water stopped diseases, clean air people wanted and the government responded and so forth.

And in Tampa Bay its one of the largest population areas in the state a light rail makes sense over building roads if we can get people on them, that is true.

What Valerian said. Also, how could the prospect of having the power company pay you not hold popular appeal? It's a sound business investment when you look at it that way because over the cost of years, it will pay for itself, much like rechargeable batteries. That alone is the sort of thing that will drive it along until it will be developed to the point that it is affordable as a matter of course by more than entrepreneurs... same as most all technology.

[OldSchoolGamer]

If you are financially able to retrofit your home or business to be more energy-efficient, by all means do so, as this will definitely help your bottom line in the low-carbon world to come.

However, economics isn't called "the dismal science" for nothing, and a little math reveals the impracticality of such retrofitting as a scalable solution.  Let's say a retrofit costs $10,000.  That seems reasonable enough, right?  I mean, that's on a par with putting in a new kitchen or most other mid-level remodeling projects.  Well, for a medium-sized city of 200,000 homes and businesses, you're looking at $2 billion.  For a state with 2 million homes, $20 billion.  For America as a whole, with 100,000,000 homes, that's a cool trillion dollars.

Except that it would, in reality, cost far more than that.  To retrofit millions of homes at the same time, or even within a few years of each other, would cause shortages of the resources needed for the retrofit.  Shortages drive prices up.  Not that we can even afford a trillion now, with the deficit ballooning.  The states certainly can't.

So we're right back to the ethanol dilemma.  Ethanol is a viable fuel for farmers and some small agriculture-centered communities.  Try and scale it beyond that, and you place strains on resources, like land, and end up spiking the price of the commodities required to produce ethanol to the point that ethanol is no longer a viable solution.

While some individuals may be able to afford retrofits, as a nation, we're largely going into the upcoming energy shortage with the infrastructure we have today.

[Trieste]

Except, the way it works is that you have a guy who does retrofits for a living (*resists Joe the Retrofitter sarcasm*). He gets four contracts a month, and he's taking care of 48 retrofits a year. When he's doing all these retrofits he gets better at them, and the men who work for him get better at it. They make fewer mistakes, they use fewer materials. Maybe they discover that, while traditional wisdom requires that they use six roof panels, five roof panels suits just fine, cuts the cost for the customer, and allows them to get jobs done more quickly, allowing them to make more money. They are then able to get more bids because they can charge less than their competitors who are doing things by the book at 6 panels. Competitors catch on ... and they come up with their own shortcuts. Some work, some don't.

But the cost comes down.

And that's not even taking into account any particular advances lab-side. That's not even accounting for industrial advances, or new installation technology.

The more something is in demand, the cheaper it will become. This is also economics...

And economics is called the dismal science because they desperately want people to think of them as a science. I am offended by this. *stamps foot, then puts away soapbox*

[RubySlippers]

Not exactly basic economics dictates that the increased demand for the retrofits will increase the costs of materials as more people do this to earn a living, so likely any savings from the labor would be quickly eaten up on the materials end. So the other responder is correct.

Then we must add in the "sleaze factor" the percentage of contractors that will cheat people, use substandard parts and labor and take contracts and just not do the work which will drive up costs. More of this if the government is sticking our money into the system we see that with Medicare when they sell power wheelchairs to everyone at retail price when I could get the same chair on-line paying myself and save 20% or more.

Big projects like this in big programs like Al Gore would like not just invites but will cause corruption and wasted money - want proof where did the banks spend the $300+ bilion the government gave them they aren't saying now are they.

On the plus side I do agree eventually the tech becomes viable and people will use it but its going to be a pain getting there and who says people can afford this even at $10000, with the economy the way it is. If I see one glimmer it will increase contracting jobs and get people employed but I'm not sure if that alone is worth it.

[Valerian]

First, a big ditto to what Trieste said.  As far as I know, the materials for the retrofits are fundamentally the same materials that would be required for nearly any remodel -- there's nothing that bizarre or rare involved.  Besides, to grow the economy, in any way, always requires increased use of materials and labor.  You can't make anything from nothing.

And most of all, no one ever said that passive solar was the one thing that would save the world.  That's only one way to help the situation.  While the remodels are going on, and new buildings are starting out with the technology in place, there will be other things happening as well -- and some of them will be as basic and inexpensive as people becoming more conscious and careful with the way they live.  To take probably the most basic example, spend two dollars on a couple of cloth shopping bags and never have to worry about using paper or plastic again.  That's only a drop in the bucket, you say?  Well, multiply that out among millions of people like Ty did, and it makes a huge, huge difference.

Yes, some of the measures will have to be big projects, and of course there will be waste and outright corruption sometimes.  That always happens, whether government is involved or not.  But other measures cost literally next to nothing, and are very small, person to person and neighborhood to neighborhood.  Those will be just as important in the end.

[Trieste]

Reading Ruby's post and having gotten some sleep, I notice that something I posted probably need clarification.

The more something is in demand, the cheaper it will become. This is also economics...

Should probably point out that I'm referring to the long run, here, not the short-term rarity increase. The way things work in theory is that they go into high demand, but remain in the same supply, which drives up the price. The supply is increased to meet the demand, and the price begins to come down. The supply catches up with and exceeds demand, the price hits a low and demand may or may not decrease due to the item no longer having a perceived rarity. Demand goes down, market is flooded with low-priced item for a while, then supply slows down because demand is no longer there. If you have a circular system, that would be when demand once again started to peak.

That's what I was referring to - I know the price would be high at first. Just to make that clear.

[OldSchoolGamer]

I just about split a gut laughing at the stock market today.  Here we had the worst manufacturing reading since the Seventies, basically indicating the U.S. manufacturing sector was somewhere between asleep and in a coma, and the Dow popped like 200 points.  What were they doing, handing out uppers on the NYSE trading floor?

[Silk]

The funny thing is that there is alternatives for petrol, granted nowhere near the same quality but more often than not people need to get out of their 1 to 60 gas guzzler cars, end of the day all that matters is that you get to your destination.

I mean they can run a car on methane gas, that's right run the car on your own waste, even cow crap! There are plenty of options its just that nobody bothers to attempt them.

[RubySlippers]

The problem is the US relies on gasoline taxes to pay for the roads, bridges and transit systems and they are already looking to alternative taxation systems to get the money. For example a GPS system that would tax per mile of travel between fill ups of whatever you use. So I suspect any saving would be eaten up when they tax higher and if the fuel is more expensive than gasoline it will be another hit on the average person in the US. No one said if any of these new technologies would be as easy to get, process and trasnport as gasoline and be as efficient at producing energy for what it costs to process them. And Ethenol is full of red herrings like using up food production land for fuel, it biodegrades, is a weaker energy source, more farming to grow corn the standard crop in the US needs more pollutants and water.

Your better off having a large efficent coal power plant producing electricity and having all electric cars with the pollution per mile calculated, they did that when the EV1's were debated in the 1990's and it was clearly cleaner than gasoline.

[OldSchoolGamer]

The bugbear that haunts alternative energy of all kinds is scalability.  The dismal truth is that there is no source--not wind, not solar, not cow farts, not ethanol--that can be ramped up to anywhere near what we need to run our civilization on anything near the scale we're accustomed to.

Take solar power.  Solar definitely has a niche.  Putting a few square meters of solar panels on the roofs of, say, 200,000 homes and businesses in Las Vegas would definitely help on those hot, clear summer days that are so common there.  Figure 10% efficiency, plus the tilt, and you'd get 100W per square meter, at ten square meters a pop...that's 2 million square meters at 100W a piece yields 200 megawatt-hours of electricity between, say 10:00am and 4:00pm.  That's nothing to sneeze at. 

But then the sun gets low in the sky, and by 6:00pm or so that's already dropping way off.  Or a thunderstorm rolls in.  And that's the rub.

EDIT: As far as passive solar homes, if you can afford to build one, yes by all means do so. 

Consider wind.  There are some geographic areas where it makes sense.  Near where I live, about three out of four summer days, there's a sea breeze.  Put windmills in the gap in the coastal range, you'll get fairly reliable wind during summer afternoons and evenings.  But not all the time, and when winter comes, the sea breeze drops off to almost nil...

The bottom line: we need strong conservation now, and a Manhattan Project-style push for thermonuclear fusion as a power source.  It's the only energy source even on the drawing board with the lifting power to run our Information Age civilization.

[The Overlord]

The bugbear that haunts alternative energy of all kinds is scalability.  The dismal truth is that there is no source--not wind, not solar, not cow farts, not ethanol--that can be ramped up to anywhere near what we need to run our civilization on anything near the scale we're accustomed to.

Two points here-

1. I may sound like I'm going in circles and delivering the same old counterpoints, but unless you're in high echelon government or science and engineering, you simply don't know how scalable it is. Saying we can't sustain on alternatives is a moot point now; we have to do it, end of story. The house is burning and instead of whining 'no I don't have a big enough water bucket', you start using the buckets you have while you work on bigger ones.

2. Second point, the key phrase here was 'run our civilization on anything near the scale we're accustomed to'. We probably can't now; likely a solution is going to require us to meet the planet halfway.

[RubySlippers]

Two points here-

1. I may sound like I'm going in circles and delivering the same old counterpoints, but unless you're in high echelon government or science and engineering, you simply don't know how scalable it is. Saying we can't sustain on alternatives is a moot point now; we have to do it, end of story. The house is burning and instead of whining 'no I don't have a big enough water bucket', you start using the buckets you have while you work on bigger ones.

2. Second point, the key phrase here was 'run our civilization on anything near the scale we're accustomed to'. We probably can't now; likely a solution is going to require us to meet the planet halfway.

To reply in order to your points -

1. Its not a big issue in my lifetime now is it? Oil and natural gas and coal will likely not run out altogether for a century by then I will likely be dead so why is this my problem that is for the next generation now isn't it let them worry about this and all. We can work on alternatives if they are free marketwise working and people want them but this is really a non-issue in the United States there is no real big demand to Go Green if there was we could do that. But with oil cheap, coal cheap, nuclear power ok not as cheap but available and our high energy demand culture I don't see a major shift happening anytime soon.

2. Humans = Dominant Species Why should I care what we do to the planet providence gave us oil and coal and natural gas and uranium to harness and use and until they are depleted I see no reason to worry.

[Oniya]

To reply in order to your points -

1. Its not a big issue in my lifetime now is it? Oil and natural gas and coal will likely not run out altogether for a century by then I will likely be dead so why is this my problem that is for the next generation now isn't it let them worry about this and all.

I'm going to assume from this statement that you don't plan on having children?  Just because the oil/gas will last until after you die doesn't mean that it will last until after your children die.

There are two points that people seem to be bringing up as a reason not to switch over - one is that it will take too long to become cost-effective, and the other is that we have 'enough' to last through our lifetime.  Even assuming that the latter point is correct, wouldn't that be the best time to research and develop new energy sources: when we apparently have the resources to last us until the new sources become more feasible - which they won't be if we wait until we run out of oil/gas before we start working on them.

[The Overlord]

To reply in order to your points -

1. Its not a big issue in my lifetime now is it? Oil and natural gas and coal will likely not run out altogether for a century by then I will likely be dead so why is this my problem that is for the next generation now isn't it let them worry about this and all. We can work on alternatives if they are free marketwise working and people want them but this is really a non-issue in the United States there is no real big demand to Go Green if there was we could do that. But with oil cheap, coal cheap, nuclear power ok not as cheap but available and our high energy demand culture I don't see a major shift happening anytime soon.

2. Humans = Dominant Species Why should I care what we do to the planet providence gave us oil and coal and natural gas and uranium to harness and use and until they are depleted I see no reason to worry.

Actually, I'm so befuddled by the lack of foresight, reasoning and wisdom in this post that I don't even think it deserves a full response. And that's as nice as I can put it.

I will say only this-

We are the dominant species on Earth....FOR NOW. What nature has shown us is that nature can swat us off the face of the planet like a cow swats flies off its ass. A response like yours I hear every so often, and it makes me really truly wish we get taken out as a species. Completely.

For all our progress, we're apes. To paraphrase George Carlin, we're too busy killing our neighbor because he prays to a different invisible man in the sky then we, or something almost as foolish.

All I say is if we screw it; if we take the paradise of life in the universe called Earth and frack it up, then we've blown our evolutionary wager. We'll have had our shot and utterly wasted, and we'll deserve to go down with all the species we drive into extinction. We’re just so fracking cocky we will deserve a good hard kick when we finally get one.


I will say this once for everyone here that isn't getting it.


WE BELONG TO THE EARTH NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND...IF ENOUGH OF YOU BELIEVE OTHERWISE THEN WE'RE FRACKED. ALL OF US.


I will not excuse the red type because right now it matches the color of my face when I read this post. I will say this much more; when the shortsighted of the species drive us into the extinct book, if I'm around I'll look death in the eye and laugh knowingly that all my fellow humans are going down with me.

[Zakharra]

 We're not going to run out of coal for many centuries. There are huge stocks of it in the US. I agree that we should look for alternative sources for energy, but simply put, ones like wind and solar are limited. wind throws off ice in the winter, kills hundreds of birds that fly right through the blades and the turbines cannot be put in some areas that are best for them. Solar is limited to daytime only.

Nuclear is a clean resource and the used fuel can be stored safely. As is coal. Clean burning plants can be made that will provide enough electricity for all.  Geothermal is a possibility since as I understand it, the US and N. American tetonic plate over all, is thinner than the European and Asian ones. The Yellowstone basin would be a excellent place to put large scale geothermal plants. Fusion reactors is another promising way, if it can be done.

The elevtric cars that people have been bringing upo have to get their power from somewhere. Which means massive power plants burning something as fuel to produce the electricity. In addition to the machines we have that require power.

At some point I hope we can get by the enviromentalists and get a effective reusable shuttle/orbital vehicle going so we can expand into space. There are many resources, metals and ores, floating around that are just waiting to be gotten. Plus with access to unlimited solar radiation, huge city sized solar panel fields can be made and used to power space stations, smelters and heavy industries in space. All without polluting the planet.  The solar fields could even be used to channel energy to the earth in microwave beams for clean power. As long as the damned beams shut off the moment they loose the relay from the earth based recieving station. Wouldn't they maker excellent weapons for terrotists and hackers..

What some people are objecting to, is the push for alternatives to be used now, despite the damage to the enviroment, economy and feasability of scale.

Ethenol is an excellent example of that. To get the ethenol the US along needs, requires a huge amount of farmland. with factory style farming to get the yields needed to begin to come close to the needed amount, plus it removes land from food production, requires constant use of fertilizers, equipment, and herbicides. Then there is refining and the fact ethenol cannot be shipped through pipes like oil or gas. Making it necessary to use trains or trucks to haul the fuel. Which does degrade and isn't necessarily any cleaner than the gas it is replacing, or as effective in the tank either.

[OldSchoolGamer]

I'll agree ethanol is a dead end.  It has limited, small-scale uses (like for farmers themselves, or maybe small agriculture-centered communities) but as a general transportation fuel for use by everyday Americans, it's a non-starter.

As for building huge things in space...wonderful idea, but it's not going to happen.  One need only look at the cost of building the International Space Station (billions of dollars) and scale up for building much bigger things.  Look up the cost of putting a pound of mass into orbit and you'll see what I mean.

The energy shortage on Earth is going to have to be solved on Earth.  We need a new Manhattan Project to harness thermonuclear fusion.  Then we can have cheap, abundant energy again, and then we can look at tackling more ambitious projects in space.

[RubySlippers]

Actually, I'm so befuddled by the lack of foresight, reasoning and wisdom in this post that I don't even think it deserves a full response. And that's as nice as I can put it.

I will say only this-

We are the dominant species on Earth....FOR NOW. What nature has shown us is that nature can swat us off the face of the planet like a cow swats flies off its ass. A response like yours I hear every so often, and it makes me really truly wish we get taken out as a species. Completely.

For all our progress, we're apes. To paraphrase George Carlin, we're too busy killing our neighbor because he prays to a different invisible man in the sky then we, or something almost as foolish.

All I say is if we screw it; if we take the paradise of life in the universe called Earth and frack it up, then we've blown our evolutionary wager. We'll have had our shot and utterly wasted, and we'll deserve to go down with all the species we drive into extinction. We’re just so fracking cocky we will deserve a good hard kick when we finally get one.


I will say this once for everyone here that isn't getting it.


WE BELONG TO THE EARTH NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND...IF ENOUGH OF YOU BELIEVE OTHERWISE THEN WE'RE FRACKED. ALL OF US.


I will not excuse the red type because right now it matches the color of my face when I read this post. I will say this much more; when the shortsighted of the species drive us into the extinct book, if I'm around I'll look death in the eye and laugh knowingly that all my fellow humans are going down with me.

Humans are rather hardy as a species I'm sure someday we will settle down likely after serious wars, environmental demands likely hitting poor nations and key resources deplete at that point humanity will have our finest hour or die out, I won't be around to worry about it most likely.

Since the simple fact is your not going to get China and India on board I see zero reason to think we can stop global warming we should focus on adapting to it as a nation working on our survival long term now. Unlike the poor nations we have many advantages and can stand alone if we had to it just may hurt some. I'd rather be in the US when the shit is flying than in some shithole in Africa which is going to be hit hard.

[OldSchoolGamer]

Unlike the poor nations we have many advantages and can stand alone if we had to it just may hurt some. I'd rather be in the US when the shit is flying than in some shithole in Africa which is going to be hit hard.

I understand your logic, but I'm going to play devil's advocate here and say that the Third World might actually make out better than you think.

When the cheap-oil blowoff of the 20th century unwinds completely, the death of cheap oil is pretty much going to hit societies with a hardness proportionate to how much they prospered during the boom. 

A farming village in Nigeria doesn't rely on 3000-mile caesar salads and driving four miles out of suburbia to buy a loaf of bread.  A fishing village in Mexico probably would by improved by the death of oil, at least in the long run, as the overfishing of fisheries would be far less likely without petrol to run big drift-net fishing boats.

On the other hand, can you imagine Las Vegas or Phoenix without cheap air conditioning?

[Zakharra]

I'll agree ethanol is a dead end.  It has limited, small-scale uses (like for farmers themselves, or maybe small agriculture-centered communities) but as a general transportation fuel for use by everyday Americans, it's a non-starter.

As for building huge things in space...wonderful idea, but it's not going to happen.  One need only look at the cost of building the International Space Station (billions of dollars) and scale up for building much bigger things.  Look up the cost of putting a pound of mass into orbit and you'll see what I mean.

The energy shortage on Earth is going to have to be solved on Earth.  We need a new Manhattan Project to harness thermonuclear fusion.  Then we can have cheap, abundant energy again, and then we can look at tackling more ambitious projects in space.

Make a few power plants to make liquid hydrogen and oxygen, which are used on rocket fuel. The reason the ISS is taking so long to build is because it's mainly being done by governments. They are controlling how, why, when and where it's parts are built. Hand an ambitious company or consortium of companies the incentive to build a space station and refueling depot in orbit and I can say it would be done a lot quicker than the ISS is being built.

Engines can be designed to be more efficient, but unless we get over the hurdles of the more inefficient rockets/shuttles, it'll be a hard road to step into space. That's if the environmentalists don't get the space program shut down for atmospheric pollution.

Reliable fusion reactors could be a few years off or decades, so waiting just for them before doing other things in space is a potential stumbling block. Like a 5-year plan, with specific layouts on what's to happen when and where. The question also comes to mind, how much would the project be funded with?

[The Overlord]

Humans are rather hardy as a species I'm sure someday we will settle down likely after serious wars, environmental demands likely hitting poor nations and key resources deplete at that point humanity will have our finest hour or die out, I won't be around to worry about it most likely.

Since the simple fact is your not going to get China and India on board I see zero reason to think we can stop global warming we should focus on adapting to it as a nation working on our survival long term now. Unlike the poor nations we have many advantages and can stand alone if we had to it just may hurt some. I'd rather be in the US when the shit is flying than in some shithole in Africa which is going to be hit hard.

Yes, perhaps we will reach the semi-Utopia given to us in Star Trek, where we've got past our troubled, extended adolescence as a species and gone into the rest of the solar system confidently because we've learned how to treat the home planet correctly. I can only hope we reach this pinnacle as it will truly be our finest hour and history can look back at the day when human civilization finally became civilized.

However, I'm concerned how many other of nature's beautiful species will be there to share it all with us; I'm afraid a lot more than just humpback whales will miss the guest list.  >:( >:( >:(


This will sound extremely heartless but China and India I’m not so concerned about; their main problem is size, and if they don’t hop on board, the overpopulation problem will correct itself in the end. Try getting all your tech help and crap at Walmart from another supplier; they'll be far too busy as nations building caskets.

[Zakharra]

 China and India have a readymade way to solve most internal problems, including overpopulation. China has what? 100 million young men with little prospect of finding wives? I can see them arming and training them and using them to expand their territory. In search for resources like the oil fields in Central Asia. India.. might tear itself apart in a civil war. The problem is they are armed with nukes.

[OldSchoolGamer]

Now we enter January, the month of Obama's inauguration.  For all the talk of change, Obama seems poised to pick up right where Bush left off in pumping as much fiat money into the economy as possible in a vain attempt to resurrect it. 

Contrary to cheesy science fiction, you can't bring a corpse back to life no matter how many volts you pass through it.  But you can make it twitch and jerk in some bizarre imitation of life, and probably we'll see the stock market do just that in the coming weeks.  However, just like the corpse eventually gives off a stench that makes its "dead" status impossible to ignore, so the hard data on employment and GDP for the end of 2008 will confirm the economy went belly-up. 

The problem is that this "recession" is not cyclical, but rather structural.  The cheap energy and easy credit that built the consumer-driven, mall-centered American economy are gone.  The government can produce more paper wealth with the printing-press (note that every republic that's gone that route has gone kaput, and we officially started with the bailouts), but oil is what it is. 

Really, if the America I was born and raised in hadn't turned into a nation of media-saturated, apathetic overfed clowns, we'd have realized long ago that things ain't what they used to be.  In 1970 a working man could support a mortgage, a car note, a wife and two kids.  Now, after the bean-counters got the bright idea of having us compete against Chinese slave labor and Japanese drones and Southeast Asian peasants, two working spouses get foreclosure notices left and right.  And anyone who has looked at food prices knows the official inflation statistics ought to be perforated, put on a roll, and hung next to commodes across the land. 

My advice to anyone reading this, especially Americans, is to begin preparing for the failure of the government and economic systems we have taken for granted lo these many years, and to do so soon.  Like, right now.  If you have land and water, plan on gardening this year...and pretty much every year after that.  If you don't know how to grow your own food, learn how.  (For instance, I plan on growing tropical fruits indoors against the day when cheap transportation of oranges and other tropical fruits may no longer be possible.)  Inventory your personal skill-set, and consider ways you could become involved with the underground (read: non-conventional, localized) economy.  Remember: the crash of Big Everything doesn't mean we're all going to die.  It simply means our lives are going to be reorganized and reprioritized. 

[The Overlord]

China has what? 100 million young men with little prospect of finding wives? I can see them arming and training them and using them to expand their territory. In search for resources like the oil fields in Central Asia.

Problem is that they can't really use it. Any large countries that have the capacity, namely Russia or India, will use WMD's or something nearly as horrific to blunt a club that big.

Russia has proven historically they'll endure tremendous hardship to kick out invaders; they'll bleed China white if it comes to it. A battle of China vs. India is going to be the mother of all attrition battles that will make the casualties from the biggest Eastern Front battles from WWII look small.

Should they push east and take Japan; well easier said than done, and the US will jump in. The US has the capacity to hand the Chinese devastating casualties in the hundreds of millions. You don't play pillow fight with a country the size of China, if you're doing your job you've wiped at least 20 million of them in the opening days of the war, but it's a moot point because war between us would take out the global market and it's not going to happen.

China has the capacity to expand but any major aggression will slit its own throat.

[Oniya]

Russia also has General Winter.  Napoleon and Hitler both ran into that issue when trying to invade Moscow.  Land wars in Asia have always been a losing proposition.

[The Overlord]

And moving and feeding an army of that size through the Russian hinterland is going to plain out suck. The Germans waited until late June, a smart general would launch earlier in the year but the Russians can play a delaying action and attrition game to keep you there until winter has you by the balls.

The one thing that's been pointed out in recent years is that China has a massive standing army but it's mostly a stay at home army. Had the US and China gone into the battle over Taiwan scenario, the US could still drop more troops in Taiwan from across the Pacific even while denying a Chinese beachhead.

Now, as China's GNP rises, I'm sure it's retooling toward one of the requisites of a superpower; the ability to project massive force abroad and deliver a sledgehammer blow, as the US did in Iraq. However, that sort of thing doesn't happen overnight, and even possessing that ability in no way assures a strategic superiority over its two potentially greatest rivals, once the natural resources start dwindling in Asia.

[VandalSavage]

...Land wars in Asia have always been a losing proposition.

It's the most famous classic blunder, with 'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line'.

Land war in Asia is also one of my favorite topics, because it is so horrible.  Unfortunately, there seems to be little prospect of it between China and Russia soon.  As was noted by Overlord, most superpowers find it more cost effective to project their power through the threat of WMDs and smaller local land grabs.  It is highly unlikely that China is going to be strolling into Central Asia in search of oil or natural gas any time soon.  After all, top of their list is taking back The Nation, Formerly Known As Formosa.

No, most nations in the opening phases of the 21st century will be trying to snatch up some local territory - like Russia is with its former satellite states.  The Big Conflict will not be over who has the actual resources, but who has the technology to manage them as the population and GDP of superpowers swells beyond sustainable limits.

[The Overlord]

 After all, top of their list is taking back The Nation, Formerly Known As Formosa.

I'd err on the side of caution and consider Taiwan small but mighty, and quite capable of being a very sharp thorn in the side of China, should they elect to try and take it. I think that's a guerilla war even the largest standing army could do without.

[RubySlippers]

I don't any of this as an issue for the US for all our faults we tend to keep MAD as a viable defense any nation or group of nations threatening us with a full scale invasion would meet our nuclear capability and end all of us. Pretty effective reason not to ever go into a total war scenario and it has worked so far.

Actually I would set aside our differences and join with China with their population and our technology we would have the greatest power bloc ever seen and be able to hold off any threat. And if we aren't knocking heads together we can focus on making sure we stay on top and keep the rest of you properly intimidated. I don't care about their human rights record that is inside their nation its no one elses business but China's and its citizens. We should focus on the areas we must both be concerned with and can agree on which are likely many if we stop making ourselves a nuisance over a few internal matters in China that are none of our business.

[VandalSavage]

I'd err on the side of caution and consider Taiwan small but mighty, and quite capable of being a very sharp thorn in the side of China, should they elect to try and take it. I think that's a guerilla war even the largest standing army could do without.

Yes - Taiwan is small, mighty and, usually, pretty well protected by international alliances.  I think that the Chinese will likely be pragmatic about it and decide that the disruption in business would outweigh prospective gains from trying to occupy Taiwan.

[Zakharra]

I don't any of this as an issue for the US for all our faults we tend to keep MAD as a viable defense any nation or group of nations threatening us with a full scale invasion would meet our nuclear capability and end all of us. Pretty effective reason not to ever go into a total war scenario and it has worked so far.

Actually I would set aside our differences and join with China with their population and our technology we would have the greatest power bloc ever seen and be able to hold off any threat. And if we aren't knocking heads together we can focus on making sure we stay on top and keep the rest of you properly intimidated. I don't care about their human rights record that is inside their nation its no one elses business but China's and its citizens. We should focus on the areas we must both be concerned with and can agree on which are likely many if we stop making ourselves a nuisance over a few internal matters in China that are none of our business.

Unfortunately the Chinese government is against many of the freedomes we in the US take for granted and are protected by the Constitution. Freedom of speech, religion, free assembly, the right to bear arms. None of which are allowed to the Chinese citizen. Joining with them would be problematic politically, economically and culturally at best.

I'd err on the side of caution and consider Taiwan small but mighty, and quite capable of being a very sharp thorn in the side of China, should they elect to try and take it. I think that's a guerilla war even the largest standing army could do without.

Yes - Taiwan is small, mighty and, usually, pretty well protected by international alliances.  I think that the Chinese will likely be pragmatic about it and decide that the disruption in business would outweigh prospective gains from trying to occupy Taiwan.

I think if they thought they could take the island, they'd do it. Whether the world wanted or not. Several nukes overhead delivering EMPs to knock out communucation, coupled with a massive invasion by ship borne troops, air strokes, a brief naval blockade, they could take the island. With massive casualties on both sides. In China's history, they have proven they are willing to take and inflict massive body counts to attain their goals, and with a few hundred million men, they have the bodies to spare.

Problem is that they can't really use it. Any large countries that have the capacity, namely Russia or India, will use WMD's or something nearly as horrific to blunt a club that big.

Russia has proven historically they'll endure tremendous hardship to kick out invaders; they'll bleed China white if it comes to it. A battle of China vs. India is going to be the mother of all attrition battles that will make the casualties from the biggest Eastern Front battles from WWII look small.

China has a much larger population than Russia. Vastly so, and they are not likely to invade Russia, but go south or west. Would they be fought? es, but remember China has WMDs of it's own. Far more than India has, and India has to keep a close watch on it's western boarder against Pakistan. Militarilly, China could take India

And moving and feeding an army of that size through the Russian hinterland is going to plain out suck. The Germans waited until late June, a smart general would launch earlier in the year but the Russians can play a delaying action and attrition game to keep you there until winter has you by the balls.

The one thing that's been pointed out in recent years is that China has a massive standing army but it's mostly a stay at home army. Had the US and China gone into the battle over Taiwan scenario, the US could still drop more troops in Taiwan from across the Pacific even while denying a Chinese beachhead.

Now, as China's GNP rises, I'm sure it's retooling toward one of the requisites of a superpower; the ability to project massive force abroad and deliver a sledgehammer blow, as the US did in Iraq. However, that sort of thing doesn't happen overnight, and even possessing that ability in no way assures a strategic superiority over its two potentially greatest rivals, once the natural resources start dwindling in Asia.

Depending who is in office and where the fight comes from. It's unlikely that the US would get involved in a mnilitary conflict. China is working hard to get the capability to neutralize the US in the Straits of Formosa. They want Taiwan back in a bad way and will try to get it as soon as they think they can take it. If that included killing off most of the population of the island, they'd do it and tell the workld to fsck itself, that it was a Chinese internal matter. A guerilla war in Taiwan is doomed to failure, since that would mean the extermination of the local population, or the forceful relocating of it.

[Valerian]

I don't care about their human rights record that is inside their nation its no one elses business but China's and its citizens. We should focus on the areas we must both be concerned with and can agree on which are likely many if we stop making ourselves a nuisance over a few internal matters in China that are none of our business.

I think referring to the problems in China as "a few internal matters" grossly misrepresents the situation there.  Dismiss them as purely internal if you like -- though personally I incline towards the theory that what diminishes one of us, diminishes all of us.  I can even understand preferring to ignore them for purposes of the current discussion.  But I'm a little surprised to see you treating their civil rights record as such a minor issue, when they're still disallowing so many things that we take for granted, as Zakharra mentioned.  Until they at least stop practicing infanticide on so many of their newborn girls, I'm not at all interested in joining with them in any sort of serious, socio-political way, even aside from all the legal issues.

If they want to work with us more closely on environmental and energy problems, then given the current state of things, it would be difficult to argue against that.  At this point, planetary survival has to trump other considerations.  But that doesn't diminish the seriousness of their internal issues.

And yes, I realize that all nations have such problems to one degree or another, not least the U.S.  China has even further to go than most.

[The Overlord]

I think if they thought they could take the island, they'd do it. Whether the world wanted or not. Several nukes overhead delivering EMPs to knock out communucation, coupled with a massive invasion by ship borne troops, air strokes, a brief naval blockade, they could take the island. With massive casualties on both sides. In China's history, they have proven they are willing to take and inflict massive body counts to attain their goals, and with a few hundred million men, they have the bodies to spare.


China has a much larger population than Russia. Vastly so, and they are not likely to invade Russia, but go south or west. Would they be fought? es, but remember China has WMDs of it's own. Far more than India has, and India has to keep a close watch on it's western boarder against Pakistan. Militarilly, China could take India


Depending who is in office and where the fight comes from. It's unlikely that the US would get involved in a mnilitary conflict. China is working hard to get the capability to neutralize the US in the Straits of Formosa. They want Taiwan back in a bad way and will try to get it as soon as they think they can take it. If that included killing off most of the population of the island, they'd do it and tell the workld to fsck itself, that it was a Chinese internal matter. A guerilla war in Taiwan is doomed to failure, since that would mean the extermination of the local population, or the forceful relocating of it.

Problem is, we're talking full-scale genocide or use of nukes here. China will not be able to do that without reprisal. The US, Russia, and India are capable of delivering a nuclear response, and yes that's the worst case scenario, but I really don't see a scenario where China doesn't face massive reprisals for it. If anything else we can put enough EMP's over them to send them back to the Dark Ages.

What it comes down to is that old moral about the dog that finds a bone and sees its reflection in the water; believing it found a dog with another bone. It grabs for it reflection and loses its real bone in the water. That's where China sits with the Taiwan situation; in an effort to gain the isle it risks losing everything. We'll just have to pray 6000 years of alleged Chinese wisdom will urge them to do the right thing.

With the booming economy and infrastructure on Taiwan, any efforts to take the island will also likely devastate it. Killing or relocating the population isn't going to get them anything but a dead island.


As far as the Straight of Formosa goes, not even an Obama administration is going to allow to get the upper edge there.

[The Overlord]

Yes - Taiwan is small, mighty and, usually, pretty well protected by international alliances.  I think that the Chinese will likely be pragmatic about it and decide that the disruption in business would outweigh prospective gains from trying to occupy Taiwan.

Exactly.

[Zakharra]

 If China thinks they can take it, they would and with the proper administration in charge in the US, they'd do it. Unless the President has a pair. It's very unlikely Japan would get involved. They'd have the threat of nukes headed their way to ward of any real responce by them. Russia? They wouldn't do anything. Hells, they'd probably provide intelligence to China since it would be a large blow against the US if Taiwan fell. Which helps Russia. Europe wouldn't get involved other than laying down sanctions that might or might not affect anything. no military response at all either. The UN, it'd be ignored.

China's responce would be 'It's an internal Chinese manner. Formosa is Chinese territory that was in a state of rebellion. It's been brought back into China now.'

The only nation that could stand up to China is the US, and if the then President, which could be Obama, does not have an iron will and determination to defend an ally against a nation that is 5 times our size, then Taiwan will be lost. China wil not care what the world thinks. They will take it period, if they think they can. Even if it means destroying everything on it. They can rebuild it later.

[The Overlord]

Even if it means destroying everything on it. They can rebuild it later.

Which would be dumb as hell, even for an egotistical dictatorship. Rebuilding it makes the point moot.

[Zakharra]

 You are forgetting national pride. They think of it as their land. Taking it back is paramount. You might think it's dumb as hell, but they do not. It's a matter of pride and nationhood. The last remmants of a civil war that hasn't ended even though the shooting has stopped. For now.

As it stands, no one but the US would come to Taiwan's aid militarily. Any attack will be sudden and massive. It's likely they'd goad N. Korea into attacking the south just to draw attention away from what they are doing/planning in Formosa. China is on the verge of becoming a superpower, as Russia is trying to reclaim that title too. Russia is allied to the US and would absolutely love to see our military taken down a notch by seeing Taiwan fall. Thereby -proving- the US is incapable of protecting or is willing, depending on the administration, to come to an ally's aid.

You are also forgetting the Chinese government does NOT think in a Western way. There's is an ancient culture that thinks and acts in a much different way that we do. Their reasoning is much different.

[The Overlord]

Using the Koreas as a pawn is going to end up going nuclear, and that's going to get everyone's attention. There's also a lot of ways that a country as capable as the US can hit an enemy, without firing a shot.

There are major differences in the relationship between the US and China vs. the old relationship between the US and USSR. American and Soviet economies were not joined at the hip; so trying to outspend one another on military toys isn't going to work. China, greedy that it might be, can't provoke the US without consequences.


Also, it's not just Chinese philosophy here; there is a marked difference between Western vs. Eastern and Middle-Eastern ideals. One of the biggest differences; regard or disregard for life, and the capacity to extinguish it for something that can't even proven. Life doesn't mean much on Asia.

If you widely export fighters that are willing to kill themselves and others in the misguided belief it's going to get you into heaven, you're a barbarian culture. Between China and the Middle East there's tons of different ways to marginalize women as second class citizens, from selective breeding to outright oppression.

I scoff at the arrogant Eastern alleged self superiority.


If the Chinese want to go for broke on Taiwan, then all means. They better start up production on body bags, because if they drag the West into it, they're going to need all they can get.

[Zakharra]

 That if, and it's a big if, the West gets involved. I cannot see the EU getting involved except for talk and sanctions. Russia would likely not do anything either. If China took Taiwan, it would blacken the US image and possibly drive a wedge against those allied to us. They'd use that in propaganda.

China is used to big wars and large body counts. There are people still alive who fought in in the chaos of Japan's invasion before WWII, during the war and afterwards when the communists took over the country. China's proven it is capable of what we consider ruthless tacics. Forced relocations of populations, mass slaughter. It simply comes down to the fact they consider Taiwan/Formosa theirs and they will try to take it back. They'd take the hit with trade. It's the leaders that run the country, not the people.

Also remember, China has long ranged nukes to. In any conflict, I doubt nukes would be used against China if none came flying to the US. If the only ones were used against Taiwan, as EMPs, there's be a crap load of screaming, but not much more than that. The US is the only significant opposition that China would face.

[The Overlord]

Also remember, China has long ranged nukes to. In any conflict, I doubt nukes would be used against China if none came flying to the US. If the only ones were used against Taiwan, as EMPs, there's be a crap load of screaming, but not much more than that. The US is the only significant opposition that China would face.

You've completely ignored Russia, India and the EU. All three are capable of causing China grevious harm in one form or another. Having the world's largest standing army in no way guarantees a victory for you.

[Zakharra]

 Russia has no beef with China. They are relative allies. Both against the US. India is no threat to China either. They have to keep a close eye on Pakistan, which is their biggest threat. They don't have many nukes either. The EU, doesn't have the will to fight a war atm. I seriously do not think they would attack with nukes first, or throw many around if nothing came their way. If the war stayed in the China area, they'd essentually do nothing.

Any sanctions would be short lasting, if ever applied.

[OldSchoolGamer]

The Chinese are going to face two major potholes ("craters" is more like it) on the road to superpower-dom: the collapse of their export markets and the cheap oil that makes an export-driven economy viable.

Over the next couple of years, it's going to become apparent that almost as many bad economic bets were placed on eternal growth in China as were placed on cheap oil and easy credit lasting forever in America.

Those trillions of dollars in markers are going to have to be covered one way or another...

I'm betting that the next decade marks the birth of the Mother of All Rust Belts in China.

[The Overlord]

Russia has no beef with China.

You might have wanted to check your history before you posted this.

India is no threat to China either.

You're joking, right?

They don't have many nukes either.

All it will take for even a country the size of China is about six well placed bombs over their largest cities. Yeah they'll still have an army in the field, but the country will be an economic and social Titanic, just biding time until they go under.

The EU, doesn't have the will to fight a war atm.

Really?

I seriously do not think they would attack with nukes first, or throw many around if nothing came their way.

I reiterate: You don't need to nuke them to give them hell.

If the war stayed in the China area, they'd essentually do nothing.

I wouldn't put my money on that claim.

  Any sanctions would be short lasting, if ever applied.

Look, we can argue this all day. You're convinced you're right, I don't believe you are, and you’ve done very little to actually convince me here. The bottom line here is that we just won't know until we know.


...and between you and me, I hope we ever don't.  :-\

[Zakharra]

 TO, you are thinking from a western point of view. Russia has no real problem with China atm. Militarily, they are more aligned with China and would -love- to see the US taken down a notch. They'd butt head over some things, but if China went after Taiwan, Russia would stay at the sidelines.  They might even supply some intelligence to China on the side.

  Europe has shown no signs it is willing to fight a war. Especially against one that's half way across the world. The EU military isn't up to the task for one, nor do they have the quick response forces close enough to make any difference. Sanctions are all that they'd really do. It's debatable if those would even work too.

  India would be hesitent to take a shot at China since China would respond and India has more to worry about from Pakistan than from China atm. If the only nukes that flew at first, detonated over Taiwan, it's very debatable that anyone would respond. India has more problems inside that would tear it apart than China.With it's hindu and muslim population that are more than ready to kill eachother. Pakistan would love to bite off the rest of the Kashmir region.

China's biggest military threat is from the US. If they could stiffle us, they'd do it in a grab for Taiwan.

[Oniya]

If the only nukes that flew at first, detonated over Taiwan, it's very debatable that anyone would respond.

The problem I have with this statement is that detonating nukes above ground is going to result in fallout.  Depending on prevailing winds and other factors, that's going to affect more than just the intended target.  Any neighboring country that gets nuclear material rained down on it is likely to be ticked off, to say the least.

Am I wrong?

[VandalSavage]

Am I wrong?

No, you are correct about the concerns of environmental damage.  That has been a restraining factor against nuclear weapons use since Nagasaki.

The other, perhaps even more significant factor, is that the use of nuclear weapons in a world with several nuclear powers leads to them being a fair card to play:  Put simply, nobody uses nukes because it would make all other nuclear nations then plan to use nukes.  Even a limited strike by China against Taiwan would mean nations like India, Pakistan and the US would then feel not only free, but impelled, to use nuclear weapons in engagements.  Weapons of Mass Destruction are best employed as deterrents, and the strategic minds of the globe recognize this.  That is a primary factor in the development of weaponry like Fuel-Air Explosive munitions, which are tantamount in their effects to low-yield nuclear bombs - a kind of "safe" replacement for tactical nuclear weapons.

It is also the keystone of many nations' defense strategy: We have nukes, but do not use them, so that other nuclear nations don't employ them.

[Zakharra]

 Not necessarily. If the detonations were high in the air, they'd be used mainly for the EMP effect. Any radiation would be minimized since not so much stuff would be kicked up as a explxosion closer to the ground would do. Other nations would go on high alert, but they would -not- throw nuclear weapons if none where headed their way. The nuclear stratagy is 'You nuke us, we will nuke you'. China could avoid that if they just concentrated on Taiwan.

There'd be political consequences, but again, if the Chinese leadership thought they could do it, they would and to the hell with the rest of the world on a Chinese intrernal matter. They've proven they ignore what outsiders think often enough.

I do not see any nation tossing nukes around unless China starts throwing them at other nations.

That is a primary factor in the development of weaponry like Fuel-Air Explosive munitions, which are tantamount in their effects to low-yield nuclear bombs - a kind of "safe" replacement for tactical nuclear weapons.

Except it doesn't deliver a EMP, which is one of the main uses for a nuke.

[Silk]

"  Europe has shown no signs it is willing to fight a war. Especially against one that's half way across the world. The EU military isn't up to the task for one, nor do they have the quick response forces close enough to make any difference. Sanctions are all that they'd really do. It's debatable if those would even work too. "

Umm sorry? Not willing to fight in wars? Tell that to the European servicemen stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq, yeah were not fighting wars at all!

Again quick response? Iraq's and Afghanistan has a large bulk of Europe's forces, I'm pretty sure a mobilised army can quite quickly get remobalised when its not that far away if the need arises? i mean terrorist threat or outright invasion with the Geneva convention getting thrown out the window, Europe isn't some dumbfounded child who wants to play nice, just because we like to play by the rules in war, and not throw its rattle out of its crib every time something doesn't go our way.

[Zakharra]

 The European soldiers fighting are doing good.But they are not the mainstay in Afghanistan and Iraq. The single larghest contributor in the fighting, besides the local forces, are US service men. I'm not denegrating the soldiers. It's the Eurpoean leadership and population that I wonder about.

  Do they have the stomach for a war half way across the world? Europe doesn't have the infrastructure that the US does in rapid deployment. Could they? Yes, but the US has a 60 year advantage of being geared to fight the Soviets anywhere in the world and the military is structured to a size to do that. Military projection of power was a mainstay of both the US and Soviets. Europe as I understand it, was geared mainly to defend it's own land, not to project fleets and armies soutside of it's borders. With the then Soviet threat on the eastern borders, that made sense.

A army can be mobilized quickly, but getting it to the theater of clinflict in time, that's the problem. Any fight for Taiwan will likely be over in a few weeks. Aside from some stuff on the island itself.  At this time, the EU has not shown it is willing to attack a nation that has not attacked it. Also remember, Taiwan is not an independant nation, but is still technically a part of China. Which is my reasoning the Chinese can say, 'It is a Chinese internal matter, please go away.'

[Silk]

The only thing stopping Europe going on alot of wars is the tripping over itself. I know Britain isn't seen in a very good light at the moment because it said "sod the tape, this needs action now" when it came to Iraq, but then Britain is allways getting yelled at in both ears by the EU saying "Stay here!" and the Americans saying "Come help us!"

Alot of the European countries have alto of internal issues at the moment which doesn't help matters either, like Russia cutting Ukraine's gas supply which also gimps the rest of Europe, and other such things that do cause a problem, but end of the day, yes Europe prefers to defend, but it doesn't sit by if human rights are not upheld in a waring country.

[The Overlord]

TO, you are thinking from a western point of view. Russia has no real problem with China atm. Militarily, they are more aligned with China and would -love- to see the US taken down a notch. They'd butt head over some things, but if China went after Taiwan, Russia would stay at the sidelines.  They might even supply some intelligence to China on the side.

  Europe has shown no signs it is willing to fight a war. Especially against one that's half way across the world. The EU military isn't up to the task for one, nor do they have the quick response forces close enough to make any difference. Sanctions are all that they'd really do. It's debatable if those would even work too.

  India would be hesitent to take a shot at China since China would respond and India has more to worry about from Pakistan than from China atm. If the only nukes that flew at first, detonated over Taiwan, it's very debatable that anyone would respond. India has more problems inside that would tear it apart than China.With it's hindu and muslim population that are more than ready to kill eachother. Pakistan would love to bite off the rest of the Kashmir region.

China's biggest military threat is from the US. If they could stiffle us, they'd do it in a grab for Taiwan.

I hate having to quote myself but oh well.

The bottom line here is that we just won't know until we know.


...and between you and me, I hope we ever don't.  :-\

[Trieste]

Yes, Overlord, we know your opinion. This is the point where you let others express theirs, and add input if you have something new to say. :P

[The Overlord]

Yes, Overlord, we know your opinion. This is the point where you let others express theirs, and add input if you have something new to say. :P

And I believe Zak has made hers quite clear as well. We're going to disagree on this and that's pretty much the end of it. Further discussion on it serves no purpose.

*fires up City of Heroes*

[OldSchoolGamer]

One of the hallmarks of the post-industrial age will be the failure of "Big Everything."  From nation-states to Wal-Mart, we will discover (rather painfully) that the juggernaut of Information Age civilization is actually contingent on several key systems that either operate smoothly, as a gestalt--or they rather quickly fall apart.  One of those linchpin systems is the petrochemical industry.  Oil undergirds pretty much every aspect of modern civilization...including the transportation systems that we rely on to bring in food, supplies and spare parts.

This may actually serve to reduce war as nation-states become too absorbed in their own serious problems to play the Great Game against each other.

[The Overlord]

This may actually serve to reduce war as nation-states become too absorbed in their own serious problems to play the Great Game against each other.

One can only hope, should it come to pass. At least we'd be looking at our own issues instead of shooting at someone half a world a way, definitely the lesser of two evils.

[Oniya]

I was actually watching 60 Minutes last night (shock!) and learned something interesting.  The recent surge and collapse in oil prices was not driven by supply-and-demand economics, but by speculative trade on the commodities market.  This was made possible by that study-in-sleaze known as Enron, which lobbied successfully for deregulation of the commodities market just before they managed to jack up electricity prices across the Western US.

Let's hope that instead of the wheels actually coming off, this represents more of a 'flat tire' wake up call, which just requires some replacements and a realignment towards a more stable system.

[OldSchoolGamer]

Act I of the Fall of the American Empire is probably about halfway done now.

This first act of the "play" began with the vanishing of all the phony wealth in the derivatives, the subprime mortgages, the bogus "securities" based on said mortgages, and so on.  As all this money is sucked out of the economy, we are seeing epic declines in GDP, and businesses failing left and right.  This process, while well underway, is far from over, because the other shoe is about to drop: the crash in public-sector spending at the state and local level.  My state of California is wrestling with this now, and state spending is about to go off a cliff.  Moreover, there are talks of tax hikes, which will pull money out of the economy at exactly the moment when such a drain can least be afforded.  All of this will suck still more billions out of the economy, deepening the crash.  We could see this ricochet back and forth two or three times, as the public-sector spending crash causes waves of foreclosures and loss of private-sector activity, which depresses tax revenues, which necessitates still more spending cuts and tax hikes, and so on.

Act I ends when the crash...or, actually, the interconnected series of crashes...ends.  The crashes will end when assets are marked back to their true value, and demand reflects what real people working real jobs (at least, such as are left after the bloodletting is complete) can afford.  This means no more NINJA loans, no more fake money. 

Act II begins soon afterwards.  Act II could best be titled, "The Aborted Recovery."  As the massive disequilibria built up over the past four decades resolve, businesses and consumers will start to peek out of the trenches, and a slow, uneven recovery begins.  The recovery may be quicker if government acts to try and reflate the popped bubble of housing that helped caused the crashes of Act I.  However, the recovery will be doomed to fail.  Painful as the markdowns and revaluations and foreclosures and bankruptcies of Act I will be, they will fail to permanently address the most serious, intractable disequilibrium of all: the yawning (and growing!) gap between the amount of energy our civilization uses, and the amount of energy nature provides for us (oil).  If anything, the crash of Act I will make this worse by bringing oil prices down and destroying incentive to conserve oil and find new sources of energy.

Act III, the Oil Crash, will be far worse than Act I.  You see, Act I merely involved a matter of money.  Monetary imbalances usually resolve themselves within several months to a few years, if government stays out of the way and just makes sure no one starves.  The Oil Crash is different, for it involves a permanent shortage of a fundamental resource: crude oil.  And the shortage will impact just about every aspect of American life.  If you managed to keep your job and manage your finances decently, you could dodge most of the Act I "bullet."  Not so Act III.  In Act III, we will see the recovery aborted and the economy fall back into depression. 

[The Overlord]

Act I of the Fall of the American Empire is probably about halfway done now.

This first act of the "play" began with the vanishing of all the phony wealth in the derivatives, the subprime mortgages, the bogus "securities" based on said mortgages, and so on.  As all this money is sucked out of the economy, we are seeing epic declines in GDP, and businesses failing left and right.  This process, while well underway, is far from over, because the other shoe is about to drop: the crash in public-sector spending at the state and local level.  My state of California is wrestling with this now, and state spending is about to go off a cliff.  Moreover, there are talks of tax hikes, which will pull money out of the economy at exactly the moment when such a drain can least be afforded.  All of this will suck still more billions out of the economy, deepening the crash.  We could see this ricochet back and forth two or three times, as the public-sector spending crash causes waves of foreclosures and loss of private-sector activity, which depresses tax revenues, which necessitates still more spending cuts and tax hikes, and so on.

Act I ends when the crash...or, actually, the interconnected series of crashes...ends.  The crashes will end when assets are marked back to their true value, and demand reflects what real people working real jobs (at least, such as are left after the bloodletting is complete) can afford.  This means no more NINJA loans, no more fake money. 

Act II begins soon afterwards.  Act II could best be titled, "The Aborted Recovery."  As the massive disequilibria built up over the past four decades resolve, businesses and consumers will start to peek out of the trenches, and a slow, uneven recovery begins.  The recovery may be quicker if government acts to try and reflate the popped bubble of housing that helped caused the crashes of Act I.  However, the recovery will be doomed to fail.  Painful as the markdowns and revaluations and foreclosures and bankruptcies of Act I will be, they will fail to permanently address the most serious, intractable disequilibrium of all: the yawning (and growing!) gap between the amount of energy our civilization uses, and the amount of energy nature provides for us (oil).  If anything, the crash of Act I will make this worse by bringing oil prices down and destroying incentive to conserve oil and find new sources of energy.

Act III, the Oil Crash, will be far worse than Act I.  You see, Act I merely involved a matter of money.  Monetary imbalances usually resolve themselves within several months to a few years, if government stays out of the way and just makes sure no one starves.  The Oil Crash is different, for it involves a permanent shortage of a fundamental resource: crude oil.  And the shortage will impact just about every aspect of American life.  If you managed to keep your job and manage your finances decently, you could dodge most of the Act I "bullet."  Not so Act III.  In Act III, we will see the recovery aborted and the economy fall back into depression. 

You got it all scripted out before anyone else did, eh? Gratz...under a more concrete debate that would be impressive.



Don't take this as a personal flame because it's not intended that way: Over the holidays I had a discussion with my brother on this thread and your assessment of the situation.

I believe he called you out right: Guys like you sort of get off on these scenarios, in a way you're looking forward for all this to go down because in a total collapse of society, it's going to level the playing field, for princes, paupers, and everything in between.


What I do know for a fact is that you're a much bigger pessimist than even I, and here again I must extend some congratulations, because that takes some serious doing. Seldom do I meet anyone that dreams as darkly as I do.

[OldSchoolGamer]

I believe he called you out right: Guys like you sort of get off on these scenarios, in a way you're looking forward for all this to go down because in a total collapse of society, it's going to level the playing field, for princes, paupers, and everything in between.

:Nods:. 

He got a lot of it right.  You see, for reasons I'm not going to go into here, I have every reason to cheer the fall of government, particularly that of California.  I am a working man who keeps his nose out of trouble, yet the state government here has gone to great lengths to try and crash my life.  So, I relish the idea of it crashing.  Karma's a real bitch, and her payback can be sweet justice.

But truth be told, there's nothing really new in what I'm saying.  For decades now, people have pointed out that our civilization is recklessly overdrawing its natural energy "account" (and over-consuming other natural resources as well).  We now burn over four barrels of oil for every barrel we find.  Common sense and basic math tell us if a resource is used at many times the rate at which it is replenished, it will run out. 

[OldSchoolGamer]

For my fellow Americans still into the "word a day" vocabulary building thingie, the word of the day today is "deindustrialization."  Today's jobless numbers show an economy that is in full, unrelenting retreat.  And there is no end in sight.

And this is WITH cheap oil....

Here in California, the state government is already functionally bankrupt.  Politicians are acting less like educated leaders and more like crack addicts frantically tearing their homes apart to find the spare change for one more hit, a last fix before the black hole of full-blown withdrawal comes.

[Hyde]

were I do believe America is in a rough spot I do not believe us to be on the skids. I don't mean to sound overly patriotic or give the impression that I stand out on my front porch shouting "USA NUMBER 1" before I put my flag out in the morning but in my opinion America will be just fine. We have a very uncanny ability to take weakness and exploit it till we turn it into a strength. When the times get tough we roll out the big guns. During the world wars we sacraficed many things, switched our factories from cars to guns, trucks to tanks, baking soda to bullets. We changed alot and got ourselves through it. We'll do it again. It may take a while and sacrafice but there is one message I think the United States is clear on.

We will no go down without a fight....and we are good at fighting.

Will we be in the same form? Who knows...thats the wonderful thing about America. We adapt, move forward and secure our future. If survival means changing a few things.....then so be it. Our fathers accepted change, as did their fathers before them.

[OldSchoolGamer]

The problem is that cheap energy has been the engine behind America's vaunted exceptionalism.  We built a nation, economy and culture around it.  And soon it's going away.

Don't get me wrong: I do believe life will go on.  Yes, human ingenuity will push back.  However, I believe it will be too little, too late to save the civilization we have now.

As energy shortages begin to bite down in the 2010s, we will see a re-localization of our lives.  The 2020s, I believe, will mark the end of the United States as a national entity.  By then, the power and transportation grids will have expired, and without them, America cannot exist. 

Some parts of the country will do better than others at surviving this.  I believe the Pacific Northwest as well as the Appalachians and the Great Plains have the best potential.  The Southwest, especially the deserts, will do the worst.  What's left of Las Vegas and L.A. will probably find themselves de facto parts of Mexico, inasmuch as they are viable at all without infrastructure to supply water from afar.

[Zakharra]

 I doubt it will get that bad. We'll find other sources for cheap energy. Human inginuity is an amazing thing.

[Hyde]

and ontop of human inginuity add capatilist desires for wealth...there is enough motivation there to move mountains. Litterally. It may take a year or two were the economy is tough but we'll find something and the person who does....will be a billionare!

[Zakharra]

Some parts of the country will do better than others at surviving this.  I believe the Pacific Northwest as well as the Appalachians and the Great Plains have the best potential.  The Southwest, especially the deserts, will do the worst.  What's left of Las Vegas and L.A. will probably find themselves de facto parts of Mexico, inasmuch as they are viable at all without infrastructure to supply water from afar.

If America is that badly off. Mexico would be even worse off.

[Oniya]

It makes sense that the more rural areas - where people are used to being more self-sufficient and existing without the infrastructure - will weather the storm better than the more industrial areas.  Given that, there are certain areas of Mexico that will be just as devastated as the U.S., but there will probably be a larger proportion of the country that barely notices.  I doubt that Las Vegas/L.A. will become 'part of Mexico', for the sheer fact that the crash of an infrastructure is going to occupy the militaries too much to go expanding borders.

[OldSchoolGamer]

Yes, human ingenuity is a wonderful resource, but we must remember that cheap oil has been the direct or indirect source or enabler of most of the ingenuity of the 20th and 21st century thus far.  The transistor, the internal combustion engine, cheap electricity, microprocessors, powered flight, antibiotics, plastics, the Green Revolution--all are petroleum based.

As for the lower Southwest becoming part of Mexico, I meant more in a cultural sense.  Politically, the industrial nation-states' days are numbered, and by 2030 they will either be defunct, or at least looking at very profound downscaling.  The concept of "one size fits all" unitary federalism is another recent invention relying on a modern transportation and communication network, as well as an easily manipulated but reliable paper money.  Before these inventions, we were "these United States" rather than "THE United States." 

As the federal system literally runs out of gas, individual states will likely take a far more a la carte approach to their participation in These United States.  Certainly the days of the federal government being able to dictate things like drinking age, cannabis non-use and other such aspects of state law will expire.  Even some of the larger states, especially those with diverse cultures, may find themselves devolving more political control to counties and cities, with some of the more important, strategically-placed communities that manage to adapt to a low-carbon economy beginning to take on some of the appearances of classical city-states, if informally at first.

By 2030, there may still be a "United States of America" on maps, but its writ will likely extend far less even over its own territory than it has since, say, the late 18th century or so.

[Zakharra]

 Do nation-states have a shelf life then? I can see some problems coming up, but I do not see most large nations splintering. I'm not seeing us running out of gas either. There are still billions of barrels of oil out there. Offshore and in other places. The technology to get the oil will improve and we'll still have enough fuel to keep our civilization going. Other sources of energy will come up to. It's not like we're facing the end of all oil by 2015 or 2020, or something like that.

[Nessy]

There is the potential to never run out of oil or gas really.  Some would say it could never happen, but I am leaving room for the possibility of an unexpected event to occur, such as a natural disaster that wipes out the remaining stash. The last units of gas or oil wold not be simply burned up as we use it now, it would become so expensive that its consumption would drop to almost nothing (few could afford it). This would force us to seek energy else where. Most people who talk about running out of xyz resource work under the false assumption that consumption habits will never change, but they do.

[OldSchoolGamer]

We do not need to run out of all oil for civilization to crash...and indeed we never will.  Oil depletion is in fact an asymptote, not an actual condition we will ever encounter.

But running out of cheap oil is another matter entirely.  That is in fact in our near future.  And that will spell the end of our civilization and political institutions as we know them today.  America--and the rest of the industrial world--cannot exist without cheap energy.  Every advance our civilization has made has been predicated on our ability to utilize ever-greater amounts of energy.

[Silk]

In my opinion the pessamistic outlook on life is one of the greatest things about humanity, because its that attitude of life "could" be better has been the true driving force for humanitys development because people keep wanting things better, so they make it better, would the Xbox360 exist if everyone was quite happy to pay the same price for the Xbox at this stage for example? Then look at everything else, its the pessamistic and wanting to improve outlook on peoples lives that make these developments happen, because without it there would be no motivation behind it, this motivation to improve is why i think the oil crash will not be as bad as people assume.

[The Overlord]

If America is that badly off. Mexico would be even worse off.

I wouldn't be concerned about Mexico. That good old Texas pride that sometimes comes a little too close to arrogance for the other 49 states will pay off then; their former northern territory will be bristling with guns and attitude aplenty just daring them to come back in and try to take it.

Diverting west won't help either; the deserts of Arizona kills migrants now that try to cross it and avoid checkpoints. Try rolling an army through that when US forces are waiting for you on the other end. Good luck with that Pablo...

[OldSchoolGamer]

I doubt we're going to see an organized, state-sponsored attempt by Mexico to take American territory.  What I'm envisioning is more along the lines of mass migration...a slower, gentler but still very powerful demographic shift.

[The Overlord]

I doubt we're going to see an organized, state-sponsored attempt by Mexico to take American territory.  What I'm envisioning is more along the lines of mass migration...a slower, gentler but still very powerful demographic shift.

Of course we've been seeing that for years; the migration, it just hasn't become en masse yet.


A recent article I read, one of several that suggests climate change is occurring faster and more drastically then we predicted, implies that that's where the true migrations will begin.

As the equatorial nations heat and become less habitable, migrations toward the temperate regions and poles will begin. The problem is, the numbers involved; millions or even billions of migrants worldwide, can't be managed in the relatively short time that it will occur.

Thus, that's what will trigger global warfare. And of course, wide-scale war is population control. In some macabre way, things might just level out in the end.