It sounds lovely but from what I know it’s a fantasy. Would love to get some feedback. If it has already been discussed please point me to the discussion.
Thanks so much.
AKGrannyWGrit
Sure seem to be making a move, and it’s rattling markets. Asian markets were pounded. Is there anything amiss I’m not seeing? Things moving under the surface? I see the dollar is down a bit, and oil futures too, but that’s typical for any given day, I think.
AKGrannyWGrit wrote:
It sounds lovely but from what I know it’s a fantasy. Would love to get some feedback. If it has already been discussed please point me to the discussion.
Thanks so much.
AKGrannyWGrit
If we look at the great economic paradigm shifts in history, there's been at least seven major economic paradigm shifts. They share a common denominator. At a moment of time, three defining technologies emerge and converge to create what we call in engineering a "general-purpose technology" that forms an infrastructure that fundamentally changes the way we manage power and move economic activity across the value chain. And those three technologies are new communication technologies to more efficiently manage the economic activity, new sources of energy to more efficiently power the economic activity, and new modes of mobility, transportation logistics, to more efficiently move the economic activity.In bold he shows he gets it. New sources of energy to more efficiently power the economic activity. That's also code-speak for "high net energy." Then he veers off into a complex web of ideas that somehow the internet of things plus some fancy new high tech stuff is going to allow us to somehow, magically, use low EROEI alt-energy to replace fossil fuels. I think that's complete rubbish, an unproven fantasy that has literally zero real-world examples to support it. The high-tech world he envisions is not a divine right but a happy by-product of having an enormously complex economic system coupled to a lot of people with plenty of free time on their hands to build, maintain and improve on all that complexity. Complexity itself is a by-product of surplus energy. Not the other way around. And he's still addicted to the growth paradigm. As if that's the thing that needs to be preserved and enhanced. It's very 20th century thinking for such a visionary guy. Another pulled quote:
When I got to Berlin, the first question I asked the Chancellor — she'd only been in office for a couple weeks — I said, "How are you going to grow the German economy" — and this is crucial — "when your businesses are plugged into a second industrial revolution infrastructure of centralized telecommunication, fossil fuel, nuclear power, internal-combustion transportation for roads, rail, water and air transport, and we know that the productivity in that infrastructure peaked, and all the major industrial countries over the last 10 to 15 years?" In other words, there's nothing more that you can get out of this.Why do we always need to grow or to "get more out of this"? What happens when there's no more growth? What then? This is such an obvious question to ask that - well - I get annoyed. It leads to this hopium-infused grand finale (which I am sure is very popular with current politicians):
On that first day I discussed with her [Merkel] this emerging third industrial revolution infrastructure that we had been developing for the EU. A convergence of the communications internet, which has matured, with a digitized renewable-energy internet. And both of those internets converging with a digitized, automated GPS, and soon completely driver-less, road, rail, water, and air internet, to create three super internets — communication internet with 5G, renewable-energy internet, automated-transport internet — to manage power and move Germany. And the most important part of this is those three internets ride on top of a platform called the Internet of Things.Jeebus! He's talking about complexity layered on top of complexity layered on top of even more. Also, WTF is a "digitized renewable-energy internet"? That's some grade-A BS jargon right there. Why? Because there's precisely zero of it anywhere at present. And don't give me any of that "but Google is running some of its server farms on renewable energy!" because Google is doing no such thing. They are buying electricity from hydro dams exactly zero of which have been built using electricity of any form let alone renewable. Further Google is using components (servers, cables, etc.) exactly zero of which were mined, built and transported using renewable energy. For guys like Rifkin these things just magically appear, ready to plug into a utopian alt-energy future but they apparently know nothing about the entire scope of the supply chain. Actually, I suspect they know that very well, but also know that saying such things won't get them to later name-drop about important meetings with chancellors and earn big paychecks. The truth is we're still using mostly fossil fuels and when those begin to go away our economic complexity will begin to suffer and wilt. Then the complex layered "internets on top of internets" he's promoting will prove to be impossible to maintain let alone advance. The only places that will be able to even try this will have to do so at the expense of other areas of the world that will be cut off from access to the remaining high net-energy FF supplies. That's the game that's playing out right now...
Chris, thank you for taking the time to provide a comprehensive explanation. Members of my family work in a Telecommunications and “The Internet If Things” is the up and coming technology and focus so someone like Rifkin gives one pause for more thought. His talk was lively, encouraging and provided solutions, unfortunately like big juicy worm on the end of a hook, there is a catch and I just couldn’t bite. It’s useful to ponder alternative ideas and deconstruct them so as to encounter possibilities we haven’t thought of. At least for me as I love those “ah-ha light bulb moments”.
Thanks again!
AKGrannyWGrit
Wait, a mainstream article saying things we’ve been saying for years? No doubt if it happens, they’ll still claim to have had “no idea” it was coming:
There Could Be a Financial Crash Before End of Trump’s First Term, Experts Say, Citing Looming Debts
Yeah, no shit sherlock. Welcome to the party, but I’m afraid we’ve eaten all the salsa already waiting for your dumb ass to finally show up…
Sorry. I’m particularly surly and snarky tonight, which isn’t a good combo.
We absolutely should reform the banking system, but we also have to be eternally vigilant because new criminals will come along and pay the government (another set of criminals) to make their crimes legal.
See what I mean?
https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/reality-check-lose-me-the-money/
Despite the fact that Philly is the poorest large city in the United States, it’s hard to ignore the amount of money it hemorrhages in feats of fiscal malfeasance. Those losses have become so significant that the city’s own Controller has blasted its accounting practices as the worst among the top 10 largest cities. That’s clearly a designation no city would want, least of all one with such a high skyline profile as Philadelphia. And, yet, its elected leaders have barely budged towards reform since we fully grasped the magnitude of its dire budgetary straits. The assumption is that if you’re charged with that much level of abject financial loss as a government, you’d be frantically racing towards some form of correction. Philly should be panicking, especially in the wake of a national Recession that did it no additional favors—and left the city still begging for a recovery. Instead, we have relative calm over at City Hall. There was much more vein-popping and political maneuvering in the reaction to Controller Rebecca Rhynhart’s finding of nearly a billion dollars in accounting errors than there was an immediate reflex to fix it. City finance jobs have oddly remained in place when there’s need for house cleaning. The absence of alarm is remarkable. There is little remorse from either Mayor Kenney or City Council on the subject. Some blame also falls on a public that has yet to make loud demands for a reckoning. It’s very likely Philly will enter a fresh election of citywide posts without the lost or wasted money being a major campaign issue. Indeed, people make more protest noise over statues, bullet-proof glass and streets named after mayors than they do over Philly’s inability to hold itself accountable for basic governing functions...Read the details, then weep. Do you think pensioners will get everything they worked for and were promised? "Welcome to the Hunger Games. And may the odds be ever in your favor."
...only this time through the house is on fire.
https://taibbi.substack.com/
Great article, thank you Edwardelinski!
In George Orwell book 1984 I remember there was a time-out for “hate” when all citizens would shout, snarl and condem a specified entity to hate. We are not that far off from Orwell’s book these days. Sooo who shall we hate this week???