This could solve the single biggest problem with decarbonizing civilization and averting climate catastrophe, which is how to transport energy in various conveyances. Ground vehicles, Aircraft, and Ships, all must carry their energy with them and simply burning ammonia creates nitrous oxide which is far worse than carbon dioxide. Separating the hydrogen and nitrogen in Ammonia and releasing the nitrogen back into our largely nitrogen atmosphere while burning hydrogen which produces mostly water as a byproduct could, indeed, change the world and avert a very bad future for humankind. Very exciting and good writing from Loz Blain. Thank you.
You can build a very large ship and accelerate it with Space Solar Power to some percentage of the speed of light out of the solar system. Store enough nuclear energy and reaction mass to slow it down once it reaches its destination. And that is how you get to another star in however many centuries it takes. A small group living their lives on the ship and providing future generations of passengers is the only option at present. The far more likely scenario is not only reversing aging giving human beings an indefinite lifespan, but also freezing them without damage. Star travelers would thus look forward to thousands of years in which to explore other worlds and since almost all of the transit time would be spent frozen, they would be alive tens of thousands of years after they left Earth. Artificial intellects would eventually create Starships capable of flying close to the speed of light using artificial small black holes. The time spent frozen would then only be a year or so at a time.
Exploration across these thousands of years would only be incidental to the common task of resurrecting all life and then ascending to a higher plane.
It can be done by using hydrogen/oxygen reusable rockets sending factory tooling to the Moon and building the components in lunar factories. It is the only real solution to climate change.
“We are energy independent, we are food independent, we are in a good place”- but Christiane asks why all the corporations are axing people. As a capitalist, Galloway loves to trivialize what the news makes a big deal out of.
“I am a believer the faster you fire people, the faster you can rehire them.”
What the hell is he talking about?
He uses Musk as an example of a religious figure that is failing which is good at least.
“This notion that there is a super-being, I have found that this notion never proves out.”
Space Karen reinstated Trumps twitter account today. Unforgiveable.
I have always thought a way freeze people without damage would come first and then there would be a race to reverse aging while millions would be frozen and stored to keep them from dying. Maybe we will not have to freeze anyone.
Money has become the demon-god of this world. There is little doubt of this in the early 21st century. Neoliberalism has become the driving force in civilization and now threatens to burn it to the ground by way of Climate Change. What immediately comes to mind is the Fermi Paradox and the most likely solution that technological civilizations quickly and inevitably self-destruct. Biological life may be just too stupid to survive. We believe we are intelligent, but this does not seem to be so. That old liberal saw that education solves all problems does not hold when the idea of truth itself is destroyed. The Orwellian firehose of falsehood that is now corroding the structure of our civilization is not being addressed. And I trace the evil back to simple greed.
The complexity of reality is such a hard feature to overcome both individually and collectively that we, as a species, may well be doomed. Our Darwinian survival strategy is based on fiction, not fact. We imagine the best possible future and then change this lie into truth. But if we look too far into that future, we find the opposite of life short circuiting the whole project. All are driven mad in this sense. I suspect an indefinite lifespan would bring sanity and It is the only path I can see; that our survival as a species depends on our survival as individuals. As long as we are submerged and slowly drowning in existential madness, there is no hope. If I die, we all die. If you die, we all die. We will cease to exist, and the universe will continue in silence. This is what our radio telescopes seem to be telling us. That the majority of our efforts as a race should be united and focused on reversing aging is an idea that does not exist. And so, I believe, as long as that idea does not exist, we certainly are doomed to extinction and perhaps far sooner than anyone imagines.
In terms of politics, there is no mystery if our organization is contemplated outside of the left and right cultural echo chambers. The closest humankind has come to a fully functioning society was undoubtedly the American mixed economy in the middle of the 20th century. Sadly, democracy as a collective check against institutionalized sociopathy is a concept the majority of humankind chooses to ignore, or at least is easily distracted from. The only device capable of interrupting the rise and fall of empire, the boom-and-bust cycle of capitalism, and the only path to a sustainable future. Calls for a “Green New Deal” and a “New Bretton Woods” go unheeded. Oligarchy, Autocracy, Plutocracy, in all their guises, and Fascism, are on the march again. Darwinian economics will end us like dinosaurs.
But…there is hope. Or I would not be writing this.
When considering the end of anything it is helpful to revisit the beginning. The very beginning of this thing we call democracy can be traced back to ancient Greece.
Five hundred years before the time of Christ, an Athenian named Cleisthenes established a new form of government where authority over the state, and by extension the population that made up the state, was exercised in part by each citizen by way of their individual vote. Democracy meant that if ten of the richest or most powerful citizens of a state voted to stop being taxed or start a war, even if they owned almost all the land and held all the wealth, if eleven citizens voted to continue to tax or not start a war, then even though these eleven citizens were far less powerful, a hundred times less wealthy, then their will would be carried out and not the will of the rich and powerful. Democracy arose because in matters of property and warfare, it was inevitable that a small minority would amass all wealth and power and control all others with that wealth. This minority would inevitably seek more wealth by going to war, which would of course be fought by those they controlled. The ultra-violence of the Greek city-states showcases this cycle-of-greed mechanism. Democracy in Athens lasted less than a hundred years before it began to be corrupted by a resurgent aristocracy and oligarchy. This idea and example of Democracy was not lost to history though and eventually…. America became a nation.
Redistribution of wealth and restraining the corrupting effects of power caused by morbid wealth were the key ideas of Democracy. Truth and the rule of law were and are, 25 centuries later, the two prerequisites for a functioning Democracy. As populations increased by orders of magnitude and the complexities of technology created a very different world, the basic essentials of a modern “Representative Democracy” have become clear. Two of these essentials are a media (the fourth estate) trusted to tell the truth and a self-correcting process to maintain a rule of law providing the greatest good for the greatest number. Representative Democracy also requires an Academia that allows the most intelligent, ethical, and morally righteous individuals to be equipped to be elected and represent the citizenry.
It is obvious the greatest good for the greatest number is best expressed by universal healthcare and allowing the most righteous to be elected is best enabled with free public education (the Nordic Model). It should also be obvious why these elements of democracy- redistribution of wealth (progressive taxation), regulation (anti-trust, environmental, and labor laws), health care (universal), and education (free)- are all opposed by oligarchs. The response to the citizenry taking steps to limit the power of oligarchy was the Corporation. This entity, with its appointed board of directors and shareholders is a kind of faux-democratic zombie, that is, not a living being but affecting the world like one, that allows oligarchy to thrive despite any attempted democratic checks and balances on obscene wealth and power.
Oligarchs, to a large extent, now control the fourth estate, and the Truth, that first prerequisite, is now being corroded and warped to the point where trust is being lost. The second prerequisite, “A self-correcting process to maintain a rule of law providing the greatest good for the greatest number” is the second target when destroying a democracy. The rule of law being enforced, and effective laws, are what create all the other necessary elements listed: redistribution of wealth (progressive taxation), regulation (anti-trust, environmental, and labor laws), health care (universal), and education (free). In America we see the supreme court, the highest court, has been corrupted and is now in the process of serving an incipient Oligarchy. “Orwellian”, a term used to describe the warping of human society by requiring individuals to accept opposites of reality such as “hate is love” and “war is peace”, can now be accurately applied to much of the activities of vested interests manipulating the public. This profound algorithmic psychological manipulation in the service of greed is a threat not just to democracy. Billions of human lives are at risk from a climate catastrophe that goes largely unaddressed due to these cyber-agents of human greed.
If the cause is to be named, then Neoliberalism is the most accurate identifier. This ideology has made money the demon-god of Earth and is the common feature of civilization in this early 21st century of human history. It is the device by which almost all influence is wielded, and all evil manifests. By applying Darwinism to Economics, the unholy cancer of Neoliberalism is slowly killing any chance of a better world for our children and children’s children. When profit replaces human life, which it surely has, then we are an endangered species. By making the meanings of the words “Freedom” and “Greed” interchangeable, by making redistribution of wealth synonymous with theft, society is degrading and devolving, and we all can see it, though many refuse to understand what is happening and prefer an alternate reality. Democracy is being changed into the strong eating the weak and this is truly Orwellian in that this cannibalization by zombies is what it was created, long ago, to end.
“It’s OK to be white….left on the internet to be found and taken down the rabbit hole with.”
“The thing about any kind of conspiracy theory, or an idea, or any of these things is, they work, they go viral, when they play on something that feels true. Right? You don’t get conspiracy theories that don’t resonate in some way with some kind of part of someone’s experience…. what happens is, when it resonates online, then, if the resonance gets strong enough, they’ll go into the real world and do something. -And this is where…in order for it to…lead to something like January 6th, you need, in real life, there to be some kind of spectacle, or violence.”
The air we breathe should be free of course. Enough clean water to drink and for minimum sanitary needs should be guaranteed. A certain area of land that is free for anyone to walk on and pedestrian paths connecting the world should be a basic feature of human existence. The key to not freezing to death in northern latitudes and not dying of heat stroke in equatorial climes is energy. Electricity provides heat and light in the winter and air conditioning and food preservation in summer temperatures. Growing food everywhere possible and converting all biological and material waste into benign compounds that can go back into the environment is a prerequisite. People have to understand these things are just the bare essentials for humankind to survive. Climate change remediation, a basic living stipend, rent control, and free education and universal medical care are what follow. These things make up the only civilization that will not self-destruct.
If the million or so hard-core right-wingers think they can get away with it they are going to start murdering people in the tens of thousands and then the tens of millions if they win the initial battles. They want an all-white planet. It is as simple as that. Who started this?
“Twitter is a cauldron of elites, in a lot of ways…Elon Musk represents a kind of technocrat…and there is a growing number of folks who have this idea that, as technologists, they know more than other people. -I can tell you a lot of people in Silicon Valley have this sense that, hey, we are the ones that made this world the way it is and we know how it works and the government is broken, and the system is broken and this is a techno-monarchist mindset that is insurgent in certain very powerful circles.”
These neoliberal technocrats are not new. The super-rich have just repackaged themselves.
My comments on YouTube:
For me, personally, the most heinous example of the influence of technocrats was Elon Musk, some years ago, calling Space Solar Power “the stupidest idea ever.” This was because beaming solar power down from space to cure climate change is a project that is so immense it can only be undertaken by governments and is thus unattractive to “entrepreneurs” who cannot own it all. His plan to take over the internet with his own 40,000 pieces of space junk was the goal. Very sad in that space solar power is likely the only guaranteed solution to climate change IMO.
16:30 I have commented on popular space forums for years and finally gave up after being repeatedly banned from forums for simply criticizing spacex and “rocket jesus” as he has been called. The fanboys dogpile anyone not in the Musk cult relentlessly and hound them into silence, or, failing this, they email campaign moderators to ban critics. These Ayn-Rand-in-space toxic trolls, many of them also Trumpists, have essentially hijacked all the forums discussing space exploration.
The Republican base is highly motivated by the Big Lie and its ongoing hatred for what they perceive as the forces that are destroying American culture — immigrants, Black people, “cosmopolitan” city dwellers (often meaning Jewish people), feminists, liberals (aka “communists”), LGBTQ people and so on. The proliferation of crazy conspiracy theories feeds this hate and leads to the kind of violent attack that severely injured Paul Pelosi on Friday, as well as the ongoing threats against Democrats and civil servants. Republican officials, by and large, cannot quite bring themselves to condemn this. If anything, they wink and nod and suggest that it’s all part of the game: Democrats deserve this at least a little, they are prepared to win by any means necessary and, anyway, both sides do it too. No, not really. In fact, not at all. And on the vanishingly rare occasions when that may happen. Democrats step up and strongly condemn any such actions.
I do not see a clear message being sent containing the truth about America: Everything comes down to the rich evading taxes and regulation. The right-wing has spent, literally, billions over the last century to brainwash the public into voting for policies allowing the super-rich to become wealthier than they have ever been in the history of humankind. Absolute greed has made money the demon-god of this world and American democracy soon to end. Unless the neoliberal agenda is stopped, and reversed, less than one percent of the population will soon own everything. The 99 percent will be reduced to living in relative squalor as wage slaves.
Progressive taxation, financial and environmental regulation, and social safety nets, to include universal medical care and free public education, are the minimum requirements if America is to survive. We the people must decide if Democracy is the strong eating the weak or the greatest good for the greatest number. It is a choice that can only be made by way of the truth. Trust that a society is providing the truth and not lies to its members is the only ground on which any good thing can stand. Without this trust, without the truth, a society will inevitably descend into chaos and self-destruction. Those wishing for the “freedom” to become ultimately powerful first seek to destroy the truth and divide and conquer with lies those who would keep them from preying on others. And that, is the truth.
Minimum wage should be considered a “first job wage” for teenagers working part-time over the summer break. If wages had kept pace with productivity instead of flatlining during the Reagan Revolution the minimum wage would be 23 dollars an hour. That would be what teenagers working over the summer would get.
We are failing. By every measure. Capitalist Scott Galloway says we can fix it all. Can we? Stupidity killed the dinosaurs, and it looks very likely that greed will end our species.
Ice on the Moon 