Doomsday ranting, etc.
I read a blurb just now about how china is down to 12 days worth of coal reserves:
which got me started on a (another) doomsday spree. I checked a couple facts, and found out that china has 22 years left of coal at current usage, assuming linear growth (which it isn't, exponential growth will likely shorten that number a couple years.)
Which is good news for us, because we have twice as much coal as them and are using it much slower, so we can sell shit to them once their mines peter out.
Which is bad news for us because China is going to be the other rising world superpower looking over the ocean at our crumbling world superpower once peak oil brings our lazy, shittly planned country to its knees. And they'll see our giant yummy coal mines and institute operation Yankee Riberation or something and take our coal.
It'll be interesting to see how well our religious fanatics measure up to the pros like the Viet cong and Muslim fanatics who have kicked out ass over the years.
Unfortunately for my doomsday nut side, nothing as sexy as a giant resource war is going to happen. Barring massive advances in fusion power, biofuels, or something else awesome like affordable solar I see the middle east going more and more to shit over the next two decades as everyone wants more oil. Dumbasses will finally realize fission works just fine with modern reactors that are far more efficient and less prone to meltdown than the 45 year old designs we use now. Fortunately for us most of the worlds uranium is in places that like us.
All in all we're just going to see our country get poorer and poorer and our ability to fuck with everyone elses shit going away until we start looking at lot more like the former soviet union- in crushing debt, a government some degree of totalitarian, and an angry populace looking back on the good old days that were actually much better. And on top of that, our country isn't nearly as well set up to take an oil crash or sudden descent into poverty as they were- suburbs and 12 lane superhighways are going to seem very silly when no one can afford to drive their car.
On the plus side, we're still dangerous enough to be taken seriously no matter what shit our economy dives into. Which is a good thing because 5,535 nukes are going to be the only thing preventing you from paying the $30,749.25 that you and every other American citizen owes the world. Hopefully no one invents a missile shield they think works...
I've got more shit to prophesy doom about but I'm tired and I've got class annoyingly soon. I just want to point out I'm glad I live by a metro stop, I like to garden and I will hopefully have a degree in something useful. I don't envy people with degrees in shit like History or English or something else with only aesthetic value when the whole world realizes how poor we actually are. I don't mean to throw my field of choice in other people's faces but in a modern economy the power of a country (excepting only oil reserves) is roughly proportional to the number of engineers and scientists they graduate each year- and our good friend China is graduating (depending on the numbers you look at) 3 times as many as we are. That's another time bomb waiting to go off in our face.
So move somewhere with a public transportation system, plant a garden, vote someone who won't make us owe even more money, don't go into debt yourself and if you're really crazy, buy American widgets and become an engineer :p
which got me started on a (another) doomsday spree. I checked a couple facts, and found out that china has 22 years left of coal at current usage, assuming linear growth (which it isn't, exponential growth will likely shorten that number a couple years.)
Which is good news for us, because we have twice as much coal as them and are using it much slower, so we can sell shit to them once their mines peter out.
Which is bad news for us because China is going to be the other rising world superpower looking over the ocean at our crumbling world superpower once peak oil brings our lazy, shittly planned country to its knees. And they'll see our giant yummy coal mines and institute operation Yankee Riberation or something and take our coal.
It'll be interesting to see how well our religious fanatics measure up to the pros like the Viet cong and Muslim fanatics who have kicked out ass over the years.
Unfortunately for my doomsday nut side, nothing as sexy as a giant resource war is going to happen. Barring massive advances in fusion power, biofuels, or something else awesome like affordable solar I see the middle east going more and more to shit over the next two decades as everyone wants more oil. Dumbasses will finally realize fission works just fine with modern reactors that are far more efficient and less prone to meltdown than the 45 year old designs we use now. Fortunately for us most of the worlds uranium is in places that like us.
All in all we're just going to see our country get poorer and poorer and our ability to fuck with everyone elses shit going away until we start looking at lot more like the former soviet union- in crushing debt, a government some degree of totalitarian, and an angry populace looking back on the good old days that were actually much better. And on top of that, our country isn't nearly as well set up to take an oil crash or sudden descent into poverty as they were- suburbs and 12 lane superhighways are going to seem very silly when no one can afford to drive their car.
On the plus side, we're still dangerous enough to be taken seriously no matter what shit our economy dives into. Which is a good thing because 5,535 nukes are going to be the only thing preventing you from paying the $30,749.25 that you and every other American citizen owes the world. Hopefully no one invents a missile shield they think works...
I've got more shit to prophesy doom about but I'm tired and I've got class annoyingly soon. I just want to point out I'm glad I live by a metro stop, I like to garden and I will hopefully have a degree in something useful. I don't envy people with degrees in shit like History or English or something else with only aesthetic value when the whole world realizes how poor we actually are. I don't mean to throw my field of choice in other people's faces but in a modern economy the power of a country (excepting only oil reserves) is roughly proportional to the number of engineers and scientists they graduate each year- and our good friend China is graduating (depending on the numbers you look at) 3 times as many as we are. That's another time bomb waiting to go off in our face.
So move somewhere with a public transportation system, plant a garden, vote someone who won't make us owe even more money, don't go into debt yourself and if you're really crazy, buy American widgets and become an engineer :p