NOT growing up in the USA I have a very different take in the idea of class. I knew my place at one time…
There is the perception that the USA is a classless country where you could be, do and achieve anything. On some level I always knew this is nonsense there really are " fortunate sons so to speak ", but I hear it said now loud and clearly by a lot of people.
I am not sure this is a good thing or if it should scare the crap out of me.
I never worked for British Steel, but this song from my youth rings in my ears because I knew I would be a cog in a big machine and in the end I actual worked in a steel mill. Those where some of the happiest days in my life…
I did not mind having a place in the grand bargain of doing what I was told and I would be cared for in my secured rung of the ladder. Some SOB smashed my iron rice bowl so to speak and I have not respected the people at the top ever since. Now however I sense real anger on my rung and hear the people below Really bitchin about it down there…
Just saying is all…
Yes, some are more free than others. Sign over gate to Auschwitz: Arbeit Macht Frei.
Does technology liberate in order to enslave?
“Well the first War of the Machines seems to be drawing to its final inconclusive chapter - leaving, alas, everyone the poorer, many bereaved or maimed and millions dead, and only one thing triumphant: the Machines . J R R Tolkien.
Will the blockchain’s promise of financial liberation be coopted by the state to enslave citizens with digital currencies?
The story is told that The Times of London at one point early in the 1900s posed this question to several prominent authors: “What’s wrong with the world today?” The well-known author G.K. Chesterton is said to have responded with a one-sentence essay:
I AM, ALWAYS HAVE BEEN, I AM, ALWAYS PRESENT, I AM, ALWAYS WILL BE. The Hebrew word in the Bible that means this, is YEHOVAH, This is the Personal Name of GOD. YEHOVAH God spoke it at Mount Sinai to Moses to tell Pharaoh, YEHOVAH SAID Let My People Go. Pharaoh did not listen and he paid for it with his life. The Pharaohs of this world system now better listen or they will pay for it too. YEHOVAH DOES NOT CHANGE.
I can say also that I am being so Blessed now that I know His Name, and speak His Name when I pray to Yehovah and in His Son’s Name Yeshua. This has changed my life completely for the good.
Bob
In the early 1990’s I could buy new 20 foot steal delivered for less than buying scrap. Well, it’s a bit complicated because I had to buy more but it was cheaper per foot. Those were the days. Around 2010 it became too expensive (don’t remember for sure the time period) so switched to scrounging. So I have not checked on larger scale new steel prices for a long long time. Don’t even care to check.
On another subject; This isn’t 1095, during the crusades, we have a lot to be thankful for - still. It would be a sad day to see the victim syndrome infect my friends. Life has always been a challenge and it will always be a challenge. No bed of roses on this planet. Now lets pick our selves up and place one foot in front of the other.
That is for sure, it can’t get any better is what I think. And still it does. That is what I tell my children, enjoy, this is the best time of your life and everything is possible. You are in the middle of a energytransition, new business models, etc. I see young guys around me going sky high. How? Cut out everything in between and sell direct via Faceboek and Instagramm. And work like grazy off course, nothing is free. With the new energy, new markets are rising, new jobs etc. Don’t stay in the old, you will be left behind. I just don’t know what to do with these strange prices. My racks are full and paid, just needed that one pack for efficiency and got a heart attack. Early holiday is ok too when there is no material. Go with the flow, but I don’t know the direction of the flow at the moment. I don’t want to swim upstream , it makes me tired.
Hello JoepK,
Flow change? Flow direction? Speed of flow change?
Denying that the current energy supply’s must/will change is suicide. As you say hang-on to the last moment and you will be a 90% loser sooner or later.
But be an early adopter carries an even greater risk at 95-99% fails; shaking out too.
Many many examples historically. And personally of these.
So just then the current uncertainty is really just the disruption in the speed of flow change.
And at times it is wise to step out of the flow, and wait.
Wait for clarity to arise.
Trying to PUSH the speed of change is the exhaustion.
50 years for ships to completely change from sail to steam.
30 years for heavy rail to change from steam to electric. Light rail already had.
Takes a few decades of time to use up all of the old hardware. Still profiting from the existing skilled manpower.
Takes a few decades to establish the extensive systems in hardware and manpower skills to replace even a percentage of the pre-existing.
The wind terbine parts arrive monthly at our port from Europe and China’s.
We now have regional technical training colleges for wind power…
Always here in the USofA for the last 170 years it is having one foot in the established known past. One foot forward tentatively into the future. Stairs climbing in the dark. Feel up/forward carefully.
BOTH feet stuck past . . . . or BOTH leaping forward are the failures, and disappointed.
Regards
Steve unruh
Joep, wise words. It would of been a real game changer for me, when I was a young man, if I could have sold a product directly to the end customer - world wide too boot.
Thanks for the energizing words and that includes the words that I did not quote.
Onward . . .
P.S. The above “old saying” was always used for humor to break up the burden of a bad day. Not meant as a truism.
Yup I think we are seeing that at the moment. There have been some battery recalls in the EV market Hyundai and GM both have issues. But I suspect they will sort it out before the new battery factor comes on line they announced for 2023 the other day. I would say the next 5 years will show us what technology works in mass production EV. I am not really in a rush to jump in before the companies have made their first mass production runs.
Stopping your air boat where you are surrounded by tall weeds and not blowing yourself up by gasoline fumes ? I can recall blowing up a lead acid battery and dissolving my good suit .
Found out there’s a few sawmills in my area. Going to ask them and all the carpentry shops if they need someone to take their “waste” wood off of their hands.
I remember a smoker destroying a local gas station . Gasoline was being delivered to the station at the time and the tanker truck also burned up . Some people have had their cell phone explode while holding them or have a battery explode in a pocket . Electric vehicles maybe safer then gasoline powered vehicles . I think gasoline vehicles have become safer in last 50 years but margin between cost and safety is thin .
I think if gasoline was introduced as a fuel and a product today it would have a hell of a lot of regulatory hurdles. You probably would not be allowed to even handle the stuff…
In Oregon you are not! You can get pretty hefty fines for pumping your own gas. Its sort of funny to see Oregonians who cross into another state, and just sit in their cars for ages, expecting someone to come out and start pumping their gas for them. Diesel is a different matter, and I guess if you ride a motorcycle the attendants will let you fill it up yourself. I like to imagine that some hapless teenager spilled gas on a particularly surly bikers seat, and word got around about what happened to him.
I don’t think anybody really understands how much road motor fuel the USA actually needs to burn in order to maintain our civilized lifestyle.
We all have sort of gotten used to the idea of trillions of dollars being printed etc. A trillion is incomprehensible to me. Our energy use is measured in quadrillions of BTUs which is a 1000 trillion. An entire order of magnitude more than what we’re talking about for dollars.
I understand that the central planners have to make announcements that sound like they’re going to do something. Cutting the United States emissions by half, has to affect road motor fuel usage. And saying we’re going to reduce diesel fuel usage, is like saying we are not going to use an excavator to dig out a basement, but we’re going to use a hand shovel. There simply is no replacement for this amount of energy being used. It’s my contention that batteries actually take more energy because of the constant entropy involved in their production and charging. My basis for this can be seen with the addition of emission controls on diesel truck engines. Free burning engines use less fuel then engines with emission controls. Or another words the older engines got better fuel economy. Either way you look at it the more we try to get away from diesel fuel the more we are going to burn.
“With good reason, the Emergency Response Guidebook for responders recommend that if a tank , railcar or tank truck containing a flammable liquid (including liquefied gas ) is involved in a fire, the area should be isolated for ½ mile (800 meters) and public evacuation should be considered for that distance ,”
Same setback we have for a wind turbine .
EV have extra registration fee .
Hard to beat the price of what you pump out of the ground . Sunlight is free , wind is free . Transmission is impossible .
While that is certainly a possible future path you seem to be assuming that no matter what the fuel of the future is we will still transport light finished goods several thousand miles via trucks and roads. Thinking further out if there is finally a penalty for diesel fuel,just in time warehousing, and offshoring all the technologies that are waiting in the wings can finally mature. As an example my partner just broke a tiny part on her wireless headphones. Going online we found the file to 3d print a replacement for what will amount to about 10percent of the cost of a new set. We will have a fully reconditioned pair with no waste, no packaging and minimal transport. Extrapolate that to a society and it is transformative. Right now with cheap fuel and no penalties for destructive overseas production small scale locallized manufacturing does not have a chance. That is the future I believe in.
Cheers, David
Fair enough David. Are you off grid? I am. To run our 3d printer is a different kind of power. It has to be constant for the entire time of the print. My son has become an expert in printing with disruptions in power, filament tangles, and bed problems. He doesn’t ever think about where that power comes from. I have to. By far, the most reliable source of electricity for his printer is road motor fuel.
I agree that disruptive technologies need to be implemented. I look forward to them. I don’t think fossil fuel is going away. I will believe it when all the boomers cede their railbed right of ways and they put the tracks back in. Otherwise the food is coming to our stores with diesel trucks, and that’s how it’s going to be.
I heard a hilarious comment from a guy on 80meters last night…he saw no reason for a solar array in his area because he didn’t think he got enough sun. I live 400 miles north. I just bought another kw of solar panels. He is on grid , I am not. Grid clouds his thinking. He isn’t going to change. I have to. This off grid stuff is just not efficient enough. The thing that captures me about it, is the fact that after the initial capital investment I make no payments. That is the thing that I like the most.
No one comprehends how deeply embedded ff is in our civilization.
