That was fun! Thanks ??
I certainly agree with Chris (and Charlie Munger) that incentives strongly influence results. Chris’s go-to solution for police misconduct is that all settlement payouts for police misconduct should come from the officers’ pension fund, not taxpayer funds. Pretty soon police would be pressuring each other to perform better or get out of the profession. Neat solution.
I wonder, Chris, if you’d be willing to universalize that concept and include yourself in a similar system? Do you realize you’d be in the American Life Sciences Researchers’ Pension Fund with Tony Fauci and Peter Daszak? The settlements against them could run into the hundreds of billions of dollars, so I wouldn’t get too comfortable with your retirement plans just yet. ?
Expect it from the interviewee. He’s not big on women, either. I read his first novel and didn’t recognize any of the women as even humans of either gender or one of the neo ones… I don’t know what they were.
But excellent presentation. Quality studio. Nice parry, Chris.
A comparison between uk and US is a good one there. I suspect cops with itchy trigger fingers comes from the fact (to some extent) that you guys can own and carry weapons. Uk cops do not have that concern; we are totally disarmed. We can’t even carry pepper spray as that’s illegal! The cops don’t carry guns either (in general). I suspect this is a drawback to citizens being armed US style.
i enjoyed it very much!
About 1:05 Kunstler said “My generation grew up opposing the tyranny of the state. And now they’re just lying down for it. History is a trickster, baby.” Being a mid-pack boomer, I also have anguished over this sellout of values. But I think there is a simple answer. There never were solid values. As free young adults, while lauding our noblesse, we delighted in the passions and indulgences of youth. Peace and love, man. As middle age parents sweating for paychecks and responsible for our kids, the former penchant for self indulgence was replaced by a hard steer towards convenience. Zero tolerance, son. And as retirees we have seen to it that the financial pie is served at our chosen spot at the dinner table. Our enormous demographic mass ensured the political capture of our changing preferences.
The preceding Silent Generation had solid values borne of the sweat, tears and blood. My Boomer generation was born with these values but did not en masse live of or according to these values. (My, how the world rhymes sometimes.)
That’s a great point! Wonder what pension funds Chris is in?
Can’t think of a better person for your first guest in the studio. Always enjoy when my two favorite adults sit down for a discussion. I read the Long Emergency when it was first published and world made by hands series. I was already convinced we were on the road to being forced to a simpler lifestyle and those books encouraged me to double down on my efforts to make my family as resilient as possible. My thanks to both of you fine gentleman for your commentary and insights over the years.
I really doubt most people understand just how temporary the lifestyle we have today is going to prove to be. And what a one-and-done it will be in hindsight. Now that people have been given a chance - willingly or not - to get away from the mass-commuter life I think a lot of them will find ways not to go back. And probably couldn’t if they wanted to. It’s going to be an interesting couple of decades.
Just spent the last hour preparing a response to this excellent discussion and video…only to lose it. (reminder to self and others) copy your replies. Minus the huge accolades to Chris and Jim the gist of my previous response: Science and Faith are not at odds. Without some moral compass, i.e. Scripture, science like man will easily be corrupted. At the 36:00 mark this is touched upon. Why is it that “intellectuals” are reluctant to say and lend credence to the “G” word? Perhaps lack of knowledge or understanding of Scripture?
Insightful, profound, prophetic, witty, and humorous. The video is all of this and more. Please do follow-up’s with Mr. Kunstler, truly classic stuff. We are honored to share in the good you bring us. https://kunstler.com/
I’ve been reading Kunstler’s articles for a decade. His perspectives are interesting and I think he lives like one town away from me. I tried to read his book “world by hand” but the main character of the story was sleeping with his best friends’ wife which absolutely disgusted me. I could not sympathize with the character and just started hating him, eventually picking up the book started to feel like a grim chore and so I dropped it.
Too bad because it was good up until that point, and the story was engaging too. I just couldnt get past the casual infidelity. Im not even a prude or a very religious or morally righteous person but it was such a sleazy arrangement that it killed the book for me. Oh well, interesting dude anyway.
Off to prepare for a day of haying.
The audio version is now available and we will be sure to include in all posts moving forward!
If you dig in the html, you will find clues on how to get the mp3 file. Not sure how much Chris wants it to be downloaded so I will leave that to a reader’s exercise.
May I suggest that Mr. Kunstler (and Chris) take a look at TAE Technologies and Commonwealth Fusion Systems. This energy source is not as far away as Jim believes.
Will a sodium based nuke reactor and a quantum leap in battery tech save the day? Certainly, there will be incentives to innovate but will government get in the way to to protect crony positions? And why all the UFO talk…that is silly.
“Only mystery enables us to live” - a Spanish Surrealist
I believe KugsCheese refers to a molten sodium cooled reactor. This is heaping risk upon risk.
Chris and anybody interested getting energy in should check: the Thorcon nuclear reactor
- It is another example of where excellent science carried out at Oakridge (late 1950's) was denied for the benefit of coal, oil & gas and atom bombs.
- There is no ability to look after the environment without Affluence
Chris & Jim, As good as you guys are at describing the shadows on the cave walls (collapse of higher Ed, normalizing of mass lying, suppression of i********n treatments, insanity of energy policy, etc, etc), you only glancingly allude to the root cause of all this lunacy — which seems to clearly be a decades-long, resource-depletion-aware effort by the oligarchs to lead us into a dystopian future where they can still be on top. James Corbett’s work (corbettreport dot com) outlines this effort most clearly, I think. The most effective way to make the world a better place is to chop as close to the root of evil as possible. You guys are (very effectively) hacking off limbs, but I don’t think that’s enough at this point, as the iron fist of technocratic biosecurity-state totalitarianism tightens. — Dan (sorry for the mixed bag of metaphors)
The end of the Gates documentary from the Corbett Report, that eliminating Gates would stop nothing because of the huge reach of the organization, was profound. The whole documentary was eye-opening. I assume that eliminating Fauci would have the same null effect. They are both front people who were available to be thrown under the bus. The leaders are unknown people who insist that their names be in the news media three times only: birth, marriage, death. Even Catherine Austin-Fitts can’t figure out who they are.
I have no solution except Madeye Moody’s from Harry Potter: Constant Vigilance.