The Reed That Bends

At one time, academia was a "safe zone" where thinkers and researchers could speak truth to authority in the sacred pursuit of Truth.  Today, universities are setting up "safe zones" where students are protected from the Truth, and the trend is to turn entire campuses into these "zones of ignorance."

It is not so much the willful stupidity behind this calcification of higher education - anyone who wants a real education can find the books easily enough - but that it implies the imminent collapse of society.

Any structural engineer can tell you that the more rigid a building is, the more likely it is to collapse due to earthquake or strong winds.  Throughout history and within the context of the natural sciences, those groups and species that were the most rigidly locked to their environment were the ones least likely to survive a catastrophe.  Whether it is a single construct, society or an entire phylum, the more rigid it is, the more susceptible it is to extinction.

We have seen corporations, empires and civilizations vanish almost overnight because they could not adapt to new realities.  The phenomenon is related to the old proverb that 'the tighter you squeeze, the more sand slips through your fingers.'

This near-certainty of collapse is why people who study history don't really worry about such things as political or social systems.  Those that become overly rigid and authoritarian are doomed to fail for the simple reason that they can't adapt.  The one thing that is certain in this Universe is that things change - environments, circumstances, events.  There are forces beyond the control of even the most powerful systems.  No system or organization can control every variable, and at key points in history, even the smallest factors can lead to major shifts, a tautology known as the "butterfly effect."

While it is frustrating, even dangerous, to live through the rise and fall of rigid systems, it is a fact that they will fail.  It is the hubris of those running the systems that make them blind to their own doom.

In nature, we see entire species that become so finely adapted to their environment that even the slightest change can wipe them out.  Unable to cope with change fast enough, the new variables overwhelm the species and they vanish.  We can see this plainly in the Younger Dryas epoch.  In the space of 500 years, the climate went from glacial to tropical worldwide.  Almost instantly, in geological terms, half the megafauna of Earth were wiped out, due entirely to their inability to adapt to whatever changes caused such a major change.  This is the rule, not the exception.

These types of examples apply at both the micro and macro levels.  Whether we are talking about mom-and-pop businesses, or Lehman Brothers, it is not the size but the rigidity in the system that causes collapse.

What we are witnessing today is the calcification of many of society's institutions.  The more control that is exerted over the way people think and act, the more likely the system is to collapse.  It may seem tediously slow when one is in the middle of these types of changes, but in historic terms, it will seem amazingly fast, much as the fall of Roman or Mongol empires seems to students of history now.

Some time back, we wrote about the inherent mistake in the thinking of "preppers."  They almost universally tend to lay in vast amounts of supplies and expect to be able to ride out massive changes in the environment in their homes.  Yet, we recently saw the error in this thinking when Hurricane Matthew came along.  If one is running from an oncoming storm, it is impractical, if not impossible, to carry all those supplies.  Thus, most of the effort and expense of prepping was wasted due to rigidity of thinking.

Everything comes to an end, and the less flexible something is, the more likely and swift will be the collapse.  The massive efforts to surveil and control large populations, and to narrow their thinking through social institutions are doomed to fail.  It is the very rigidity with which these systems seek to control humanity that is the seed of their destruction.  The more rigid they become, the easier they are to topple.

Since the earliest records of civilization, we see that the human condition and nature has barely changed, despite massive leaps in philosophy and technology.  We are pretty much the same creatures our distant ancestors were.  Therefore, all these systems that deny the very nature of humanity can never succeed, because nature always overcomes or it dies because of its failure to adapt.  Those who survive are the ones most open to all possibilities and do not artificially limit their thinking to imposed sets of rules.

We are in a time of great change at every level.  All of the institutions that are doomed to fail are reacting by becoming more rigid, since that is the only response of which they can conceive.  In 50 years, we today will hardly recognize what the world has become.  Those who will survive are the ones least locked into dogmatic thinking.

Think of the difference between when your body is stiff and achy, versus when you are limber and flexible.  In which shape would you prefer to be if a wild animal is running straight for you?

It applies to the mind, as well.

Deja Vu Once Again

It's rather spooky really.

I have these memories burned into my brain from a year called 1968.  I was an impressionable 7-year-old with a father in politics, so I was in the center of a lot of things I didn't really understand at the time.

That year, the Republican National Convention was in Miami, FL, and my dad had just been elected to the Texas Senate after switching to the Republican Party (a revolutionary act in 1960s Texas controlled by the Johnson Machine).  Richard Nixon was the nominee and Eisenhower was one of the key speakers.  The date was August 5, so the notorious Democratic Convention was still two weeks away in Chicago.  But even still, there were violent protests, tear gas and plenty of unrest.

That year, it wasn't the Iraq/Afghanistan War, it was the Vietnam War.  Instead of five cops getting killed in Dallas, it was four students at the Kent State May 4th Massacre.  A month before that, Martin Luther King, Jr. had been killed, and a month after Kent State, Robert F. Kennedy was shot dead.

That year, there had been huge race riots in parts of Baltimore, MD, and the governor of Maryland, Spiro Agnew, had done a fair job of calming folks down.  That brought him to Nixon's attention and he ended up being the Vice President nominee.

The entire US was embroiled in the anti-war/pro civil rights movements, with one of the largest demographic groups in history - the Baby Boomers - coming of age and causing a major disruption to nearly every segment of society.  America society was dealing with significant issues on nearly every front - social, political, racial, religious.  The year 1968 was one of great upheaval.

A number of well-known writers and pundits, including Dr. Benjamin Spock, were indicted for telling folks to burn their draft cards.

The USS Pueblo with 83 souls on board was captured by the North Koreans for violating territorial waters.  Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes a Viet Cong prisoner captured during the Tet Offensive and the photo goes viral (see above).

Walter Cronkite declared the Vietnam War unwinnable.

US troops kill 500 men, women and children in My Lai, Vietnam.

Violence breaks out during King's March on Memphis, with a black boy dead and 60 people injured.

LBJ announces he won't run for president.

In Paris, the Student Revolt flares with violence and the infamous Bloody Monday riots.  The revolt spreads with nine million workers going on strike.  Eventually, de Gaulle calls out the military.

Andy Warhol is (mercifully) shot dead.  RFK is shot by Jordanian Muslim Sirhan Sirhan.

Prague Spring heats up in Czechoslovakia and Soviet leaders begin planning an invasion to suppress the movement.  Later in the year, 200,000 Soviet troops cross the border on the way to Prague.

LBJ gives his "guns and butter" speech while announcing a 10% hike in income taxes to pay for the war.

Abbie Hoffman calls on Yippies to come to Chicago to disrupt the Democratic National Convention.  During the convention, Chicago police cause a riot by beating protesters and launching tear gas into the crowd, forcing Mayor Daley to try and explain their actions to the world.

Women's libbers and NOW join forces to "burn" their bras at the Miss America contest (presumably before Trump owned the brand).

Mexican troops kill student protesters in Mexico City.  The Olympic Games in the same city are boycotted by several African nations to protest apartheid in South Africa, and two US athletes make headlines by giving the "black power" salute during their metal ceremonies.

LBJ halts the bombing of North Vietnam.  Richard Nixon beats Hubert Humphrey by less than 1% of the vote, while George Wallace pulls 14%.  The election is followed by national draft card burning and South Vietnam finally agreeing to join the Paris Peace Talks.

The year ends with one of the lowest unemployment rates for two decades and three men orbiting the Moon for the first time ever, making an immortal Christmas broadcast to the world.

As you read all that, you may hear some echoes with 2016.  The parallels are rather spooky, really.  Sure, the names have changed, but the currents and eddies seem familiar.  About the only thing the world hasn't seen yet is a wave of assassinations (gods forbid).

If we take the time echo as an indicator for the remainder of the year, we are likely to see some wild events in the coming months.  It's likely the conventions will be tumultuous, racial tension will remain high and a lame-duck president will try desperately to salvage his place in history.

As George Ure is fond of saying, history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme.

Buckle up folks.  Here comes the big dip!

In The Blink Of An Eye

I want to look at something that has been on my mind for some time.  It's a thought experiment regarding global energy and replacement technology.  The premise is that a new and amazing technology has come along that generates huge amounts of electricity without pollution and with small amounts of cheap, readily available raw materials.

For the purposes of this exercise, we'll assume that Dr. Rossi's E-CAT device is real and viable and commercially available.  We'll also use publicly available data showing that ExxonMobil has a total of 75,300 employees, and extrapolate on that.  We'll also use ExxonMobil's 2014 annual revenues of US$32.5 billion, as a data point.

According to the Wiki-bible, the world consumed 13,371 mega-tonnes of oil-equivalent in 2012, or 5.6 x 10e20 joules from all sources.  Total energy expense for 2011, was US$6 trillion, or roughly 10% of the gross global output that year (likely more each year since).

With these numbers, we see that ExxonMobil's 2014 annual revenues are but 0.54% of annual expenditures.  Using that as a guide, then ExxonMobil's 75,300 employees could be seen as roughly 1% of the global energy labor force.  This would mean that there are about 70 million people worldwide employed in the energy industry, which feels about right, since that is approximately 1% of the world's population estimate.  Taking a WAG (wild-ass guess), let's say the global average annual income of all those folks is US$10,000.  That's an annual total of about US$700 billion in wages.  A sizable chunk of change, if you ask me, especially when you grab 30% for taxes.

Now, along comes Alternative Fuel X (AFX).  It can produce 1Mw of electricity per year for a cost of US$10,000, with little or no maintenance, in a space about the size of a 40-foot container.  Using a conservative estimate for Western countries, 1Mw can supply about 750 houses.  So, AFX can supply electricity to 750 houses for about US$14/year, plus the cost of transmission lines from the generator.

Houston, Texas, to pick a random example, has roughly 718,000 houses.  That means we need 1,000 of our AFX generators to supply every family in the city.  Since the AFX can be installed just about anywhere, we don't need high-tension power lines, sub-stations, or any of that really expensive and high-maintenance equipment to deliver power.  Just 750 high-capacity lines running from the AFX to each of its houses from the parking lot at the local strip center where the box is installed.  Total cost: US$1 million plus cable to install, and about US$500/year to maintain.

Each house now has ample power that is clean, quiet, virtually uninterrupted, and can be maintained by one or two guys in the neighborhood working an hour each week.  Total cost to each house is probably around US$20/year, plus tax.  At that rate, the generator is paid for in one year (no bond issues or other financing needed) and the cost of maintenance is included.

This is a whole lot of data to crunch in your head, and we haven't even gotten into all the ancillary issues, such as power plant workers, linemen, truck and tool manufacturers, even secretaries, real estate, and the thousands of other variables involved in running the computer you are using right now.

Can you imagine what a shock something like the AFX would have on the global economy?  We've only considered home electricity, since AFX wouldn't replace internal combustion engines - at least not right away.  Even if AFX replaced just 10% of global power consumption in the first five years or so, the ripple effect would be enormous.

The price of oil would become almost meaningless to most folks.  Entire job classifications would vanish.  Alternatives such as solar and wind would become useless.  A number of very large global corporations would see their revenues slashed.  Huge government bureaucracies would become even more pointless than they already are.  Municipal bond markets, tax revenues, environmental conservation groups and their bureaucracies...all suddenly unnecessary.

Furthermore, using more or less the same reasoning process, add the economic disruption that will be caused by robots, 3-D printing, add high-temperature super-conductors.  All of these technologies, including AFX are real and are coming to market very fast.

An AFX device in every parking lot, and a robot and 3-D printer in every home would replace just about every service and blue-collar job you can imagine.  It wouldn't take long before there are 3 billion unemployed and angry people in the world, no matter how cheap and wonderful the technology sounds.

Given all this, and the many other technologies that are coming or haven't been invented yet, and we are looking at a mass economic displacement that will be studied for thousands of years if humanity survives it.

And you wonder why the elites of the world are so desperate to preserve the status quo right now?