Incredible synthesis. The whalefall framing cuts through so much noise about multipolar transitions and new orders. The section on AI collapsing growth, energy, and sovereignty into a single metabolic constraint is prescient, I saw this firsthand in datacenter negotiations where cooling infrastructure became the real bottlenck, not compute itself. The point about America enforcing friction versus China sustaining continuation nails the asymmetry driving enrgy politics right now.
I long ago came to the conclusion that America was living off the carcass of a dead industrial giant...
I even wrote as much when I was pondering of geopolitical madness run amok 20+ years ago, mostly on Liberty Post (long defunct), nowadays I seldom add commentary to the black hole of civilization collapse, as it's all gone too awry & bizarre with the advent of antisocial media circuses...
If I had children, personally, I would probably be living a different life, but now I live on the fringes of a once great metropolis trying to save as many furbabies as possible from unfortunate humanity suffering under the weight of the techno-feudal overlords & the machinations of corrupt, greedy & criminal apparatchik minions.
What was once a high trust society has become a gargantuan tribal monstrosity fighting over scraps...
The high-grade, easily and cheaply extracted resources are in a long decline. Raising the "friction" cost of everything, rent-like, but this is granular, uneven. The US physical economy has been in decline since Y2k, and China has now turned that corner, while Russia is still expanding, and Iran, Venezuela and North Korea can economically expand if flow restrictions are removed.
Incredible synthesis. The whalefall framing cuts through so much noise about multipolar transitions and new orders. The section on AI collapsing growth, energy, and sovereignty into a single metabolic constraint is prescient, I saw this firsthand in datacenter negotiations where cooling infrastructure became the real bottlenck, not compute itself. The point about America enforcing friction versus China sustaining continuation nails the asymmetry driving enrgy politics right now.
How do you be everywhere now?
I long ago came to the conclusion that America was living off the carcass of a dead industrial giant...
I even wrote as much when I was pondering of geopolitical madness run amok 20+ years ago, mostly on Liberty Post (long defunct), nowadays I seldom add commentary to the black hole of civilization collapse, as it's all gone too awry & bizarre with the advent of antisocial media circuses...
If I had children, personally, I would probably be living a different life, but now I live on the fringes of a once great metropolis trying to save as many furbabies as possible from unfortunate humanity suffering under the weight of the techno-feudal overlords & the machinations of corrupt, greedy & criminal apparatchik minions.
What was once a high trust society has become a gargantuan tribal monstrosity fighting over scraps...
*Words fail; Love Is A Verb*
The high-grade, easily and cheaply extracted resources are in a long decline. Raising the "friction" cost of everything, rent-like, but this is granular, uneven. The US physical economy has been in decline since Y2k, and China has now turned that corner, while Russia is still expanding, and Iran, Venezuela and North Korea can economically expand if flow restrictions are removed.
We'll be doing this for awhile, unless kinetic WW-3 replaces this 5th Generation Warfare stuff. https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/republic-to-empire