> trying to plan for managing the fallout
Put in a less polite way, they're preparing for the metaphorical pitchforks and torches held by mobs of the common people which might manifest themselves in a more kinetic format.
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Yes. My hope is that the rare earths shortage, memory shortage, and current focus on munitions will delay the era of drone-based policing until after the crisis.
I suspect the crisis isn't a short term economic shock but a long term decline from resource decline, possible water/food shortages amplified by climate blow back. Something that will not end in your lifetime or the next generations.
Military's, intelligence agencies and actuaries have been warning about this for decades now and their language is getting very direct on this and the time lines nowadays.
If you have ever been caught in a rip while swimming, there is a moment when you suddenly getting a sucking sensation as you transition from stable waters into an outward flow. I am starting to think we are in that transitional phase on global stability, that the 2030's are not going to be a comfortable time for many.
They are ensuring that potential disruptors can be reigned in if needed. To try and stop things from being even more unpredictable, for better or worse. Buckle up.
You don't build long term surveillance systems and billionaires don't build bunkers for what they think of as a temporary tough situation.
Fair, perhaps I should have said until after the crisis passes its most acute phase. I expect the eventual energy and climate system shock to result in mass unrest and many excess deaths. Meanwhile wars are almost guaranteed, which will further stretch resources. If we make it out of the initial crisis without a strategic nuclear war, we may settle into a period of extended decline that’s relatively stable, though very unpleasant.
I once read about a programming language designed for modelling dynamic numerical systems. The example given was world demographics. It was written in the 1980s or 90s. The output showed quality of life peaking in the 2010s, population peaking in the 2020s or 2030s, and then quality of life and population plummeting.
Could you please link those warnings? I’m interested in institutional forecasts of such challenges in the upcoming decades.
No problem at all, thanks for asking! Two from this year both from the UK.
I really wish I had kept all the others from the US, Europe, Aus/NZ etc. It is a very common theme but they are largely kept quiet and only typically (partially) released through freedom of information requests.
This one from Actuaries UK was one that set off alarm bells. As they advise the insurance industry, they are structured to be politically neutral. The key takeaway is the impacts of 3c temperature rise by 2050 on page 9. The reason this is an issue, we are currently on target to hit that with us likely to pass 2c mid next decade with the rate of warming increasing.
https://actuaries.org.uk/media/r3cporjb/planetary-solvency-c...
This one from the UK government is all about addressing national security regarding this issue. Typically they are advising that they secure their food supplies and hardened up boarders in the next 5 years. Funnily enough Brexit may have given them the power to enforce this much more than they would have otherwise had. But that just means they have built a unique flavor of oppression.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nature-security-a...
I have said it for years now about a lot of countries. They will welcome immigrants with open arms, those arms being machine guns, rockets and drones.
I recommend the Energy Skeptic blog, they often provide sources and links to papers: https://energyskeptic.com/
They also pass my personal test of not advocating for dumb feel-good ideas. Recently they published a well-sourced article on why the US rail system isn’t a good candidate for electrification.
Another great one, at least the earlier stuff was 'Do the Math' by Tom Murphy.
Was all about just doing the math on energy transitions. He wasn't anti renewable technology but did want to point out how scale is a problem that few understand.
My favorite number of his is, that at 3% growth year over year, we would need all the energy of the Milky way galaxy by the year 13,000. As the galaxy is 100,000 light years across, this would defy physics itself.
Seconded, that’s a good one too. I also recommend Jem Bendell as a palate cleanser, his work is fluffier but it’s all about finding ways to thrive during decline rather than succumbing to doom and gloom.
"Rare earths" aren't rare, they're just hard to separate and produce quite toxic & radioactive slag (they're the bottom 2 rows of the periodic table and "rare earth" mines & refineries that were operating in the US are now SuperFund sites). Due to CEOs offshoring work, most of the refining is now done in China. And the Chinese don't want to keep exporting the bare metals, they want to export the things made from those metals - like motors and electric cars made from those motors.
And the "memory shortage" is a byproduct of the AI datacenter bubble. Which is a disaster that will crash the economy.
This is needless pedantry. They are not technically rare, yet we do have a shortage due to China’s tit-for-tat response to our sanctions, and we seem unwilling to invest in the industry needed to secure a domestic supply.
And regardless of the causes of the memory shortage, there is indeed a shortage, which will hopefully help to prevent the mass deployment of drones here at home.