Two weeks ago, Chris flew to Spain to speak at the 2012 Gold & Silver meeting in Madrid. He gave his latest, streamlined version of the Crash Course titled "Unfixable".
GoldMoney was a sponsor of the event and recorded the presentation, which has subsequently been put onto the Internet. The wide pickup and positive reaction have been a real pleasure to see.
If you're one of the few who has yet to run across it, here it is. Of particular note is how deftly Chris handles the Q&A segment, which starts about mid-way through.
If it's been a while since you've watched the Crash Course, you'll find this good fuel for recharging your 3E sensors.
Great job, Chris!
cheers,
Adam
Update: GoldMoney has since released another video discussion between Chris and GoldMoney founder James Turk, covering the future of Europe, the global banking crisis, sound money and a number of other topics:
Chris,
I’ve been a member of this site for some time and I visit it daily. I have to say I have tremendous respect for your ability to think logically and with restraint (not skepticism) but healthy realism on the issues that are at hand. As a mechanical engineer working in specifically the energy research field I have to say there is a great degree of insight your presentations could make even to people of incredible academic background and skills.
It is truly an age of incredible engineering challenges, scientific and application. But the clarity I get when I digest the material you provide allows me to think as an engineer, to deduce steps, make reasonable assumptions and come to some sort of solution.
Prior to, and I believe without this resource, I would feel much more subject to the eager and loud whims of many voices who lack a more grounded and scientific thought process.
Thank you, I will be sharing this particular video for it’s information density many time.
This is a good 30-minute-or-so condensed version of the (roughly) 3.5 hour crash course and 317-page book. It’s definitely more approachable.
The Q&A section after is excellent, with Chris addressing and rebutting the most comment points people might raise. That was golden and well worth watching.
I highly recommend passing this out!
Side Note: Again, I suggest as I did when the book was announced, that the original Crash Course videos look a little tired. They should be updated to reflect current events and statistics, charts and graphics, and more refined phrases and arguments Chris may have picked up since. The numbers and figures presented are rather outdated now. Updated charts would be even more dramatic today. Yes there’s a book, but the book is 317 pages long and requires purchase - it’s not someting you can spread to the masses the way the original Crash Course brought us here.
Poet -
Your feedback (and that of others) on the freshness of the Crash Course has not gone ignored. Updates as well as new video content (lots of it) are on the roadmap.
Some of this new content will be available with the launch of the new site early next year. Look for the rest to roll out across the remainder of 2012.
So which question got the book?
Thanks for posting the video. The presentation was excellent as expected, but I was also impressed with how Chris handled the Q&A, rattling off key data to support his position. His demonstrated mastery of the subject makes his views more convincing. He looked very sober-sided and a bit grim though, unlike his usual genial self. A few more smiles would have helped alleviate the heavy topic. Great job though.
[quote=Adam]Poet -
Your feedback (and that of others) on the freshness of the Crash Course has not gone ignored. Updates as well as new video content (lots of it) are on the roadmap.
Some of this new content will be available with the launch of the new site early next year. Look for the rest to roll out across the remainder of 2012.
[/quote]
Good to hear Adam. I’m sure you folks have put a lot of work into these projects.
Travlin
FNKRoue, I second your comments. The fact that Chris does not come from an energy background (as far as I know) makes the Crash Course, when it came out, ever more visionary.
As another mech. engineer working in the field of energy, what I find interesting / astonishing / distressing is that the majority of even so-called "experts" in these related fields just don’t seem to be able to put 2 and 2 together to grasp the predicament we are in. The answer to fossil fuel shortages? Dig more out of the ground! The answer to food shortages? Cut down more forest and throw more fresh water and fertilizers on it! Even amongst the hundreds of employees in my office, the greater picture of "where is all this energy coming from?" just isn’t addressed. We need work, and we want to grow the company, and we get that work by building more machinery to gobble up more natural resources. We have our place in the overall machine of the neoclassical economics-modelled economy and even though the people I work with are fully capable of grasping these concepts if they decided to put in the effort, it is not part of our mandate and even if we did understand what’s coming, what else is an engineering company going to do?
These issues are complex and it takes a sound understanding of energy, engineering, ecology, economics, and sociology to really come to grips with them all. And then on the other side we have the media … The current situation is as much an education in how the human mind can be influenced in certain directions under the proper conditioning and suggestion (and television "programming"), even when undeniable evidence to the contrary is presented. I am sure we can alll speak to this from personal experience.
Martensen is brilliant in the methods he uses to make difficult concepts easy to digest. I teach public speaking at a California State University. I will be incorporating this speech into my lecture for next semester. The field of rhetoric needs to bring more attention to these core concepts. I am working to do my part as an academic.
I have suspected as much in the past, but this video confirms for me the following:
Chris’s IQ is off the charts. Truly in the 99.99% range. His thoughts are so well ordered that he speaks off the cuff as if he is reading from a book.
Chris has a photographic memory. His command of facts is incredible.
Chris is the opitome of a believable expert witness. His tone of voice, demeanor and body language portray complete veracity.
In short he is the ideal person, with the ideal message, at the ideal time. That such people step forward in times like this, in the spirit of altrusim and decency, gives me hope for our future.
I have suspected as much in the past, but this video confirms for me the following:
Chris’s IQ is off the charts. Truly in the 99.99% range. His thoughts are so well ordered that he speaks off the cuff as if he is reading from a book.
Chris has a photographic memory. His command of facts is incredible.
Chris is the opitome of a believable expert witness. His tone of voice, demeanor and body language portray complete veracity.
In short he is the ideal person, with the ideal message, at the ideal time. That such people step forward in times like this, in the spirit of altrusim and decency, gives me hope for our future.[/quote]
Guns trump cheque books.
I follow these issues daily. I have yet to read anything that disuades me from a die back scenario on some large scale.
Top soil depletion cannot be remedied by throwing money at fields. Add to that the coming oil scarcity and climate change leads me to the suspicion that agriculturally marginal area will have extreme problems with fertility and processing. Global grain supplies are already strained.
Money flows faster than oil. If there is another oil shock, currencies will fail. For those who depend upon selling their labor for money to buy food, things will get dicey. In four minutes you suffocate. In four days you die of thirst. In four weeks you starve. There are currently no massive networks for the distribution of commodities and labor save markets in the developed countries. Typically, there is a three day supply of food in any urban area. In the off seasons, the next harvest is months away. Even people in areas that produce commodity crops will be in trouble for want of access and processing.
How far will the well armed countries go to protect their resources interests around the world? As nation states falter, will regionalism replace nationalism? Will California stop shipping vegetables east? Will Montana stop shipping coal south? Or will these networks collapse for want of currency?
4. The next oil shock will likely cause some states to fail. The unrest that can foment such outcomes is already happening. In an interlocked global system, how many states can fail before the rest of the dominos fall down?
5. If you follow Michael Ruppert (I don’t buy everything he says), the 2013 time frame for the next oil shock may be the make or break point for all his lifeboat builders and the rest of us, too. It seems plausible that if one is not prepared to grow a significant part of your own food, establish trade networks with your neighbors, and learn what the heck is going on here, one could find oneself in a big pile of doo-doo.
6. This suburban landscape is like a millstone around our necks. It’s possible that it alone may be the biggest impediment to getting through the rough patch. It’s amazing that we have build deserts around all of our cities. Here in the Bay Area, large tracts of land were in production as late as the 1960’s. Now, paved over and usless.
A few years ago I stumbled upon the Crash Course youtube series. It’s synthesis of macro trends resonated strongly in my thoughts on global systemic interdependence and the systems non-linear response to small perturbations.Since then the macro scale indicators are all consistent with core Martenson themes. I am convinced Chris is correct that the system will contract.However, on a macro scale, I remain deeply concerned over HOW our contraction will occur.
What I find missing in Chris's materials (and in many others arguments), is a direct analysis on the implications of systemic energy contraction on world population.
With only cursory knowledge of closed system population growth cycles, it is very clear that planet Earth has already substantively exceeded its carrying capacity. If you believe in analogies, empirical animal population studies ranging from yeast growth in a petri dish to deer populations on an island, imply that the potential human population contraction could be 1-3B (heck, most of these studies show contraction to only a remnant). UN and most other population models apply extrapolated the western world’s birth rate rolloff to the developing world. The flaw, is that the western birth rate roll off is directly tied to a standard of living supported by cheap energy. Take away cheep energy, and the trend is very different than the politically acceptable conclusion of indefinite sustainment of 9B.
Paul Chefurka's prescient 2007 paper "World Energy and Population" (http://www.paulchefurka.ca/WEAP/WEAP.html) shows a population contraction to 6B by 2030 and ultimately to 1B by 2095. Chefurka's numerical energy and resource models are more conservative than Chris's data. Chefurka’s resource models are equally reasonable.
So, if we believe Chris’s trends are true, how do you contract human population by ~1B in a ~15year period?
If we here on these pages are to even start a discussion on what needs to be done, should we not begin with a clear-eyed view of the scale of the human implications? What are our options? Do we try to minimize the contraction? Do we maximize power in global central governments? Do we diffuse government power by de-centralization? Do we build walls around our our territorial claims? Do we stockpile/horde resources? To we prioritize preservation of our global ecosystem for indefinite sustainment of all life forms? In the absence of a deliberately developed framework, as a species we will likely default to our baseline animalistic reflexes - ie violence.
Objectively, the human animal has the technical power to destroy not only billions of people but also a significant percentage of higher order life on planet earth.
It seems to me that EVERYTHING in Chris's arguments is ultimately pointing to the central questions of HOW to constrain events during the inevitable rapid and sever population contraction.
Since I first watched the Crash Course several years ago, each time I consume this content I’m left with only one conclusion for the economy; deflation.
Yet, on countless occassions, Dr. M proposes an inflationary endgame in his reports and postings. This seems very contradictory and nonsensical to me from someone who’s primary contentions are:
The next 20 years are going to be completely unlike the last 20 years
The economy cannot continue to grow (implied)
Total debt is no longer growing exponentially
Peak Oil is unfolding
Dwindling resources
What gives Dr. M? How can there be anything but transient inflation in this predicament?
What I find missing in Chris's materials (and in many others arguments), is a direct analysis on the implications of systemic energy contraction on world population.
THough i am dutch living in france, 8 out of 12 month i make my living in Nigeria. Yep in the oil rich delta.
Nigerians are the most happiest people on our planet but it is also an incredible mess and very dirty. They are very optimistic that their future will be much bigger then it is now.
Unfortunately chris is mainly focused on how the developped world will be in for a chock.
I am also very concerned how the african countries will be stolen from their dream of being a developped country with plenty shops and consumables. An other economic crisis in the developped world will be a hammer slash for the "poor’ Africans.
I think your concerns are well founded. But, I am increasingly of the opinion that what we are "to do" is becoming beyond our control. We cannot feed the world, we cannot distribute decreasing energy resources equitably, we cannot stop 3rd world wars or famine or pestilence. Our power to be the world’s policeman is rapidly diminishing and increasingly stretching our resources.
The bottom line is to decide how we (US and western world in descending order) will respond to events beyond our control in the rest of the world. That seems to me to mean we will increasingly need to plan from a defensive posture. In other words, your question: "So, if we believe Chris’s trends are true, how do you contract human population by ~1B in a ~15year period?" is the wrong question. ‘We’ won’t contract population. All those animal population studies don’t rely on outside forces, nature takes its course.
The No. 1 determinant of human population growth is women’s education levels, which implies economic forces that look familiar to westerners. We cannot provide 1st world living standards to the billions living in 3rd world conditions. The earth cannot support that. And, the west has shown little interest in taking measures to make our lifestyles sustainable, like decreasing energy usage, decreasing our effects on climate and minimizing other environmental damage. So, to a very large extent we will just have to live with the folly of our indifference and make the best of it we can at a local level.
Excellent presentation Chris. Such mastery of a subject and its presentation is rare and the questions were handled adroitly. I shall pass this video along. I’m sure it will be very effective in spreading awareness.
