The end is near

[notme]

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/event/220752

[culexevilman]

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/event/220752

seems like we are at the endpoint of fiat system...

[notme]

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/event/220752

seems like we are at the endpoint of fiat system...

There seems to be strong consensus that the tools are in place to dismantle the largest banks and most of the congress people are urging the regulators to use them.

[marcus_of_augustus]

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/event/220752

seems like we are at the endpoint of fiat system...

There seems to be strong consensus that the tools are in place to dismantle the largest banks and most of the congress people are urging the regulators to use them.

Without criminal charges for the long string of abuses, obscenely blatant wrong-doing and outright theft and transparently complicit 'regulators', the trust and faith needed for a functional financial system will be absent for a long while.

[notme]

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/event/220752

seems like we are at the endpoint of fiat system...

There seems to be strong consensus that the tools are in place to dismantle the largest banks and most of the congress people are urging the regulators to use them.

Without criminal charges for the long string of abuses, obscenely blatant wrong-doing and outright theft and transparently complicit 'regulators', the trust and faith needed for a functional financial system will be absent for a long while.

They were talking a lot about firing the board and replacing them with a team who's goal is to unwind the institution, but not much talk of criminal charges.

[DobZombie]

oh well, once the US is out of the way the rest of the world can start doing something useful.

Instead of our leaders doing whatever the United States what to do, we can have...
-a decent economy,
-stop spending money on useless american military bullying,
-stop filling our air with shit

[macsga]

How interesting is this really? When talking about progress and new types of governing we definitely have to look to the main problem out there: ENERGY! Look at where we are now? Applied science of producing energy comes forth with Carnot Cycle (1823) instead of ANY new direct type of converting mechanical/chemical/nuclear energy to electricity. Well. Are there any NEW ways?

Well... truth is; there ARE new INDUSTRIAL ways of producing energy efficiently:

Solar: http://www.infiniacorp.com/en/home/
Nuclear: http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/MIT-Develops-Meltdown-Proof-Nuclear-Waste-Eating-Reactor.html
See this also about new type of small nuclear FISSION reactors before Fusion comes along within 30 years from now:
http://www.ted.com/talks/taylor_wilson_my_radical_plan_for_small_nuclear_fission_reactors.html

This late guy really got me you know. He's like 21? Watch the whole video. It worths it.

The answer to new governing techniques is ONE: S&T (Science & Technology).
I was born in Greece, studied in the US; (frankly I never stopped studying and I'm in my mid 40s). Greece is the place where democracy was first applied. I deliberately didn't use the word "invented". No one is able to invent a way for the many to be able to govern themselves... THEY CAN'T! Democracy, as any other good or bad way of governing is based in ONE thing: Supply.

If you're hungry, you cannot think. If you're looking for food, you don't have the time to study or observe. You don't get better. Ever wondered why the world became so fast, so advanced within the last 200 years? Because we solved the food problem. You think scientists really care about deflation or inflation of the economic system? THEY DON'T! They only care about their lab and their piece of work. Progress became available when we were able to produce energy and then found a way to produce food for the masses. This requires ENERGY!

Where do we go next?
I guess the next step is to tighten the energy production with our money circulation...

Rings a bell?  

[MoonShadow]

http://www.ted.com/talks/taylor_wilson_my_radical_plan_for_small_nuclear_fission_reactors.html

This late guy really got me you know. He's like 21? Watch the whole video. It worths it.

Great kid, very smart.  But that isn't an original idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_4S

[macsga]

http://www.ted.com/talks/taylor_wilson_my_radical_plan_for_small_nuclear_fission_reactors.html

This late guy really got me you know. He's like 21? Watch the whole video. It worths it.

Great kid, very smart.  But that isn't an original idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_4S

No, it's a bit different. The idea is to use depleted nuclear waste (ie: plutonium) together with its relevant salt (ie: Ca or Na). The metal forces the nuclear waste to form a high temperature which in a few minutes turns the salt to its liquid form. The heat continues on and a Stirling device converts the produced heat to energy via adiabatic process thus not losing energy. The reactor can go on for as long as 30 years...!

So basically it's a brand new idea... I hope he manages it to actually form it. He even hopes to release it as creative common or public domain. Amazing!

[MoonShadow]

http://www.ted.com/talks/taylor_wilson_my_radical_plan_for_small_nuclear_fission_reactors.html

This late guy really got me you know. He's like 21? Watch the whole video. It worths it.

Great kid, very smart.  But that isn't an original idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_4S

No, it's a bit different. The idea is to use depleted nuclear waste (ie: plutonium) together with its relevant salt (ie: Ca or Na). The metal forces the nuclear waste to form a high temperature which in a few minutes turns the salt to its liquid form. The heat continues on and a Stirling device converts the produced heat to energy via adiabatic process thus not losing energy. The reactor can go on for as long as 30 years...!

Nope, not a new idea.  The 4S was specificly designed to run unattended for 30 year refueling cycles, and is quite capable of utilizing downgraded weapons fuel.  It can also use a Strirling engine at the surface generator house, although it's actually desinged to use a liquid salt to boiling water heat exchanger.  Stirling engines are more efficient, but they are also more expensive to build, so the 4S can do either.  The early test version, such as may eventually be built for Alaska, assumes that the waste heat is used for municipal hot water distric heating.  This is more commonly called 'cogeneration' and the total energy efficientyc is much greater than that of a Stirling engine producing electrical power alone.  And the 4S is just one example of this style of small, unattended reactor design, other companies have similar designs.  Another design that aims towards similar ends, but uses a classic deep pool unpressurized light water design is the SLOWPOKE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLOWPOKE_reactor), intended primarily for municipal district heating and is largely incapable of electric power geneartion because it niether operates at a high enough carnot efficiency to use a stirling nor is it designed to biol water for pressure, since it's an open top design exposed to atmostphere at the top and boiling water is used as super-critical limiting feature in the core.  It's literally impossible to 'meltdown' the core in this one, because it depends upon the presence of a precise amount of water in the core space for the proper regulation of neutron flux, and either the presence of steam bubbles, or the pressence of normal air (in the event of pool water boil-off) permits too much neutron flux to escape the core to maintain a critical reaction.

[macsga]

No arguments there; old idea, somewhat different... what's the point? Bring it on!! 

[xxjs]

So what is so special with energy? As long as the market is allowed to be free, there will be just enough for everybody who wants it.

[Dasneko]

This has got to be the most entertaining thread I have ever encountered. Please do go on! 

[marcus_of_augustus]

This has got to be the most entertaining thread I have ever encountered. Please do go on! 

Until the end?

I think it is something like we can't define it, but you'll know it when you see it.

[Zarathustra]

It will end as all civilised societies ended: with a collapse. I call it Tainter's Law. It ends by the diminishing return on additional investment in additional complexity. The difference to earlier collapses is the fact, that today 500 nuclear reactors will blow its nuclear inventory around the northern part of the planet as soon as nobody will cool them anymore.

This is a rediculous idea.  Again, nuclear power industry accidents across all of the history of the world do not exceed the amount of radioactive material that is launched into the atmostphere by the worlds coal plants in a single year, and we have been burning coal for almost 200 years, and seriously powering industry with it for over 100 years.  Modern nuke plants don't really 'blow', and even if 100 of them had leakage accidents similar to what happened in Japan (very, very unlikely) we still wouldn't exceed what humanity has already dosed our environment with over the past 100+ years.  That plant had a quadruple redundant emergency cooling system, which we now know isn't quite good enough for a 1:10K year tsumami wave.  It's certainly more than enough for a global economic breakdown,

Dream on! (your ridiculous dreams).
 Fukushima blew out a significant part of its inventory. In case of a black out of the whole power grid, which is a question of when but not of if (sun storm, economic collapse and  panic/revolution etc.), it would have blown out its inventory totally, and so would have all the other reactors. Power grids become more and more fragile to maintain the 50 Hertz, totally depending on the computerised, hypercollectivised communication system.
 Societies collapse, because societies are problem solving societies (Tainter). Each solved problem increases the complexity in the system, and increased complexity generates diminishing returns until the end (bifurcation point), when additional investion in additional complexity generates negative returns. Forget at least the northern part of this planet if this society will not end the nuclear industry.
Probably it won't, because society means collective stupidity, which until today always ended collapsing. This society will also end abruptly in a worldwide, globalised panic with worldwide bank 'holidays' and nobody will go to work anymore; not to the banks and not to cool the nuclear reactors. Nuclear reactors need each other to cool them, but after a black out you'll have to cool all of them. The collective stupidity will not be able to do this.

[Zarathustra]

We seem to have a problem deciding on how it will happen. But at least we can all agree that we have hopelessly screwed up the world.  

Yes, and the collectivised, civilised dreamers in the society still believe that 'engineers' - collectivised within a globalised hypercollective - will solve collectively those problems which they generate!
The problem of collectivised humans (society instead of self-sufficient communities) was never solved by even more debt and more complexity. That's an ahistoric, ridiculous vision, but it is the vision of the mainstream. Tainter's law prove(d) them wrong. Tainter's and Nature's law is at work and 'problem solving societies' disappear by an abrupt loss of complexity. The higher they climb, the deeper they fall.

[macsga]

We seem to have a problem deciding on how it will happen. But at least we can all agree that we have hopelessly screwed up the world.  

Yes, and the collectivised, civilised dreamers in the society still believe that 'engineers' - collectivised within a globalised hypercollective - will solve collectively those problems which they generate!
The problem of collectivised humans (society instead of self-sufficient communities) was never solved by even more debt and more complexity. That's an ahistoric, ridiculous vision, but it is the vision of the mainstream. Tainter's law prove(d) them wrong. Tainter's and Nature's law is at work and 'problem solving societies' disappear by an abrupt loss of complexity. The higher they climb, the deeper they fall.

I tend to agree to most of the part (and your pretty pesimistic point of view) but have to take a stand against you on the "engineers" part. The only colectivised in this world is the people who control the money flow. Engineers (and scientists in general) just produce. I really wanted to say this from the beginning; the question that tinkers my mind all this time is "what can we do to keep the progress going?"

The answer came some time ago; I believe it was Alvin Toffler who stated it first:
We need to expand our society to a hyper society. First we need to make a colony to another planet. Then to all the planets of our solar system. A hyper society will come forth when we will have the technology to control our star's energy.

You see; seing black is like observing the mud of a car which runs through a wet field. Yes; there is mud that leaves behind; but also there's a road ahead...

Just my 0.00000002BTC

[Zarathustra]

We seem to have a problem deciding on how it will happen. But at least we can all agree that we have hopelessly screwed up the world.  

Yes, and the collectivised, civilised dreamers in the society still believe that 'engineers' - collectivised within a globalised hypercollective - will solve collectively those problems which they generate!
The problem of collectivised humans (society instead of self-sufficient communities) was never solved by even more debt and more complexity. That's an ahistoric, ridiculous vision, but it is the vision of the mainstream. Tainter's law prove(d) them wrong. Tainter's and Nature's law is at work and 'problem solving societies' disappear by an abrupt loss of complexity. The higher they climb, the deeper they fall.

I tend to agree to most of the part (and your pretty pesimistic point of view) but have to take a stand against you on the "engineers" part. The only colectivised in this world is the people who control the money flow. Engineers (and scientists in general) just produce. I really wanted to say this from the beginning; the question that tinkers my mind all this time is "what can we do to keep the progress going?"

The answer came some time ago; I believe it was Alvin Toffler who stated it first:
We need to expand our society to a hyper society. First we need to make a colony to another planet. Then to all the planets of our solar system. A hyper society will come forth when we will have the technology to control our star's energy.

You see; seing black is like observing the mud of a car which runs through a wet field. Yes; there is mud that leaves behind; but also there's a road ahead...

Just my 0.00000002BTC

I think these are hybris fantasies. Society will collapse before leaving the Earth.
And I think, not only the rulers (who controle the money flow) are collectivised.
The voters in total are also ruling the collectivist society. There is a symbiosis between the rulers and the conquered.
It's like a tumor. It proliferates until the host dies.

[macsga]

One more correction: The voters are ruled by the media. Media is controlled by the government. It's an Aeneus cycle (since I figured you like greek words...). That doesn't give the people the "free of charge" card - we also have a lot on our side to blame. But surely it's not a tumor symbiosis relation. I'd propose a model of viral infection with the exelixis being a DNA/RNA mixture where the viral body (rulers) infects the cell (voters) and stores future previral bodies.

Again, one who governs the world has nothing to gain from the lytic cycle. He has to infect and ensure his future is there inside the cell. On the other hand, you may be right of a possible terminal solution where the cell cannot handle the viral infection and fires up the lytic procedure... I just have to hope we'll be around to see it, one way, or another...

Cheers for your thoughts.

[Dasneko]

It will end as all civilised societies ended: with a collapse. I call it Tainter's Law. It ends by the diminishing return on additional investment in additional complexity. The difference to earlier collapses is the fact, that today 500 nuclear reactors will blow its nuclear inventory around the northern part of the planet as soon as nobody will cool them anymore.

This is a rediculous idea.  Again, nuclear power industry accidents across all of the history of the world do not exceed the amount of radioactive material that is launched into the atmostphere by the worlds coal plants in a single year, and we have been burning coal for almost 200 years, and seriously powering industry with it for over 100 years.  Modern nuke plants don't really 'blow', and even if 100 of them had leakage accidents similar to what happened in Japan (very, very unlikely) we still wouldn't exceed what humanity has already dosed our environment with over the past 100+ years.  That plant had a quadruple redundant emergency cooling system, which we now know isn't quite good enough for a 1:10K year tsumami wave.  It's certainly more than enough for a global economic breakdown,

Dream on! (your ridiculous dreams).
 Fukushima blew out a significant part of its inventory. In case of a black out of the whole power grid, which is a question of when but not of if (sun storm, economic collapse and  panic/revolution etc.), it would have blown out its inventory totally, and so would have all the other reactors. Power grids become more and more fragile to maintain the 50 Hertz, totally depending on the computerised, hypercollectivised communication system.
 Societies collapse, because societies are problem solving societies (Tainter). Each solved problem increases the complexity in the system, and increased complexity generates diminishing returns until the end (bifurcation point), when additional investion in additional complexity generates negative returns. Forget at least the northern part of this planet if this society will not end the nuclear industry.
Probably it won't, because society means collective stupidity, which until today always ended collapsing. This society will also end abruptly in a worldwide, globalised panic with worldwide bank 'holidays' and nobody will go to work anymore; not to the banks and not to cool the nuclear reactors. Nuclear reactors need each other to cool them, but after a black out you'll have to cool all of them. The collective stupidity will not be able to do this.

Do you know why Fukushima "blew"? Just asking because it was quite a silly string of bad coincidences stringed together. A one in a billion type of thing. There is no reason for any other modern nuclear powerplant to end up in the same way and given any other day of the week Fukushima itself would probably have been shut down harmlessly.