American Empire: Pax Americana

[Alnitak]

Napoleon was defeated not by overwhelming numbers, but by better application of tactics to technology (or the other way around, depending on one's perspective), and by the power of industry.

So were the Turks. What brought both down was a decline in innovation.

The US remains #5 in innovation, and there is no indication our military or economy is going to get lazy in that regard.

Whatever happens, the balance of power must not tilt towards a power that is willing to wage a world war.

 

[EastMed]

I don’t know what the future holds for US hegemony.
But we might just be sleepwalking our way towards civilizational collapse.

A new study sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.

http://www.theguardian.com/environm...sation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists

 

[Alnitak]

I don’t know what the future holds for US hegemony.
But we might just be sleepwalking our way towards civilizational collapse.




http://www.theguardian.com/environm...sation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists

I absolutely agree. The currency of the Universe is energy, for without it you could not even print a dollar bill. Collapse of fossil fuel reserves is going to neuter the present state of civilization without an alternative. The future without oil is bleak. Agriculture and the primary economy will once again become the dominant division of labor. Major cities will evaporate. Higher education will be restricted to a tiny elite such as existed during the time of the American Revolution, and that is likely the period of technology we will return to.

 

[bankside]

Whatever happens, the balance of power must not tilt towards a power that is willing to wage a world war.

Well my point is that the balance of power must tilt away from any country that acts as though it has already won one. And that this would be better for both the world and the country.

 

[Alnitak]

Well my point is that the balance of power must tilt away from any country that acts as though it has already won one. And that this would be better for both the world and the country.

How would it tilt away without an opposing force?

 

[bankside]

In a multilateral world we would recognise that forces are not alway obliged to oppose.

 

[Alnitak]

In a multilateral world we would recognise that forces are not alway obliged to oppose.

Humans are way too tribal and territorial. We are no better than the dogs pissing on fire hydrants to mark their territory.

I don't think NATO could ever really stop a world war. Additionally, a global government will never be possible. The east is just illiberal, and will always be compared to the West, i.e. China and Russia will always align with tyrants and let them do pretty much whatever they want.

 

[Kulindahr]

I absolutely agree. The currency of the Universe is energy, for without it you could not even print a dollar bill. Collapse of fossil fuel reserves is going to neuter the present state of civilization without an alternative. The future without oil is bleak. Agriculture and the primary economy will once again become the dominant division of labor. Major cities will evaporate. Higher education will be restricted to a tiny elite such as existed during the time of the American Revolution, and that is likely the period of technology we will return to.

We have alternatives. We don't even have to run out of oil -- the US generates more than enough trash to make the oil we use.

 

[Kulindahr]

Humans are way too tribal and territorial. We are no better than the dogs pissing on fire hydrants to mark their territory.

I don't think NATO could ever really stop a world war. Additionally, a global government will never be possible. The east is just illiberal, and will always be compared to the West, i.e. China and Russia will always align with tyrants and let them do pretty much whatever they want.

I think the cycle in Russia can be broken. They missed the most recent chance, though, and I don't see any others coming any times soon.

 

[Alnitak]

We have alternatives. We don't even have to run out of oil -- the US generates more than enough trash to make the oil we use.

True, but I think they will need massive development before oil is seriously pinched, and it already is. We can only keep gas under four dollars for so long. Otherwise, there will be no energy to develop and implement the technologies to take over. It may be that we need to increase base load power and convert cars to electric power. Though that will be a serious problem for remote vehicles.

 

[TX-Beau]

If we stopped subsidizing gasoline and let it reflect actual market price, there might be some motivation for alternatives.

 

[Alnitak]

If we stopped subsidizing gasoline and let it reflect actual market price, there might be some motivation for alternatives.

It was my understanding that it was taxed.

Oh you mean the tax breaks on oil companies.

 

[TX-Beau]

yup, more or less, we basically pay them tax money to buy oil on which to make a profit. If we stopped, yes the price of auto fuel (among other things) would go up, and people would start seriously looking for alternatives.

Back when I lived in WEHO, the price of gas (2006? maybe earlier) shot up, and the buses were packed the one and only time I ever saw that in L.A.

 

[Alnitak]

The premise of NASA's article is that no matter the advances in technology an economy will inevitably collapse under the poverty of its working class, whom will not be able to afford a quality education that sustains economic growth the rich abuse it for. Moreover, an undereducated workforce will be incapable of the innovation required to transition to alternative energy once oil runs out. In short, plutocracy snuffs itself out.

 

[bankside]

Humans are way too tribal and territorial. We are no better than the dogs pissing on fire hydrants to mark their territory.

I don't think NATO could ever really stop a world war. Additionally, a global government will never be possible. The east is just illiberal, and will always be compared to the West, i.e. China and Russia will always align with tyrants and let them do pretty much whatever they want.

Well, if I can torture a word to make a point, multilateral does not need to be omnilateral.

But to say that a certain region will always be a certain way or act a certain way with respect to things like human rights, strikes me as profoundly pessimistic. Dangerously close to imputing the political systems there to some kind of inherent trait of the population, rather than a malleable and improvable facet of culture. And a bit odd coming from a citizen of a country that holds things like the right to liberty to be an inherent trait, rather than, say, the propensity for suffering despotism.

 

[bankside]

We're aaaaalmost at the point where we can start applying Moore's law to solar panels.

If you had looked at the economics of the telecoms industry 25 years ago, they would have said "If Deng is serious about these reforms and they actually work, the amount of copper you'd need to mine just to lay trunk cables across China for telephone service would cause the global economy to collapse," and now everyone has smartphones.

I do not think there will be an energy shortage. I think the days of fossil fuel are numbered. People in unserviced parts of Africa want water. And then they want hot water. Eventually they will want hot water for steam showers and Jacuzzis. They will get it with flat-plate solar thermal collectors, with free energy instead of new fossil fuel capacity.

 

[Kulindahr]

It was my understanding that it was taxed.

Oh you mean the tax breaks on oil companies.

If it weren't for the tax breaks on oil companies, thermal depolymerization would be profitable enough to see plants being put up.

I wold like it, thinking that as I threw away an old pair of shoes it was going to the oil supply, plastic, rubber, cloth, and leather together.

 

[Kulindahr]

The premise of NASA's article is that no matter the advances in technology an economy will inevitably collapse under the poverty of its working class, whom will not be able to afford a quality education that sustains economic growth the rich abuse it for. Moreover, an undereducated workforce will be incapable of the innovation required to transition to alternative energy once oil runs out. In short, plutocracy snuffs itself out.

This bit could be straight out of one of my ecology texts:

"Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion."

It's talking about carrying capacity!


Science fiction has actually addressed this, describing a future in which the elite avoid collapse by the introduction of robots to replace workers. That's just another example of our having technology that could improve things for everyone but misued will bring deeper oppression than we've ever seen.

 

[Kulindahr]

We're aaaaalmost at the point where we can start applying Moore's law to solar panels.

If you had looked at the economics of the telecoms industry 25 years ago, they would have said "If Deng is serious about these reforms and they actually work, the amount of copper you'd need to mine just to lay trunk cables across China for telephone service would cause the global economy to collapse," and now everyone has smartphones.

I do not think there will be an energy shortage. I think the days of fossil fuel are numbered. People in unserviced parts of Africa want water. And then they want hot water. Eventually they will want hot water for steam showers and Jacuzzis. They will get it with flat-plate solar thermal collectors, with free energy instead of new fossil fuel capacity.

The mention of copper points to something we should be working on now (and private enterprise is starting to tackle): mine the asteroids for what we need here.

And get off this single planet, while we're at it.

 

[bankside]

The mention of copper points to something we should be working on now (and private enterprise is starting to tackle): mine the asteroids for what we need here.

And get off this single planet, while we're at it.

I think that is an incredibly extravagant and costly way to locate and retrieve conventional resources we're already familiar with.

We'll be much farther ahead to figure out some kind of nanoparticle robot with a captive genetically engineered microbe that produces some sticky enzyme that can glue moondust together. Then we just launch trillions of them at the moon, and in 800 years when they have finished enveloping the entire sphere in a greenhouse, we take possession of our garden world.

Exploration and development will be less about exploiting known 20th century resources, and more about figuring out how to use the resources we haven't even realised are resources yet.