Why does it feel that the evil sides globally are winning. Even evil people are winning. Why?
We are entering a major transition period, with many technological changes happening to disrupt the existing economy. One of the most important is the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
For hundreds of years, the energy economy has been a system where certain countries and companies controlled the locations on earth where fossil fuels are located, and had the technology to process the fuels. Fossil fuels by their nature require the user to buy “feedstock” as they go. The countries and companies that control fossil fuel production profit from this system and are some of the wealthiest groups in the world.
Renewable energy systems, such as solar, wind and batteries, require an upfront payment for the equipment. The cost of equipment for renewable energy is dropping every year. They can be located almost everywhere. There is no ongoing feedstock payment. Renewables break the fossil fuel industry model, and some of the wealthiest people in the world are scrambling to control governments to somehow retain their income flow. Currently their strategy is to delay implementation of renewables, but eventually they will try to create monopolies where they control the source of power and charge the customer about the same as they are paying now, with the utilities benefitting from the low cost of renewable power.
This is only one of the transitions happening at this time. There are many major disruptions coming from implementing AI in the economy, from electric vehicles and self-driving vehicles. There are probably many more transitions that no one is predicting or even imagining at this time. You can expect things to be crazy for a decade or more as these technologies change the way our economy, infrastructure and society is shaped.
and fossil fuels, that continued “subscription” model, is a massive incentive for war and disrupting competing suppliers. Solar does require copper (distribution) and sand plus a bit of silver, batteries just lithium phosphate and iron, and all of these are relatively abundant (sodium as lithium replacement even more abundant). More importantly, once you’ve bought your solar and batteries, you have fuck you energy: secure and independent.
War on Russia was a last grasp effort to keep diesel refining at maximum capacity, and attempt to capture Europe’s NG supply. Doesn’t matter how much Biden loved US O&G, he wasn’t going to be loved back.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a last ditch effort to recapture former Soviet territory before its oil and gas resources lose economic value.
Simply not credible. Russia has enough drilling sites available to it to serve decades of demand. It set clear reasonable red lines to avoid an invasion, and investing in developing resources on contested land is an extra, unnecessary, risk that makes such investment uneconomic. It is grossly unfair to impute imperialist objective to Russia’s special military operation which was purely to prevent rabid NATO expansionist evil.
Except for this war, global oil/liquid fuel demand is declining. But use in the war is just a massive, at least 3% of global diesel use, nevermind the terrorist attacks on refineries/depots/supplies. US aligned nations have simply wanted this war more than Russia all along, and it is unfair to fantasize Russian resource expansion as an objective.
The implementation of AI is an effort by those wealthies to increase the class divide and consolidate power. They see value in it beyond profits. It’s about omniscience and control. They just wrap it in what they think is a desirable package for the common folk and push it as though it’s a breakthrough technology (it’s not).
Self driving is just a dream that they won’t have to see a chauffer or God forbid take public transit and sit next to a plebian.
