Hope vs Futile Despair: A Dynamic Landscape of Change

Modern Europe is the best illustration of the economic impact of negative demographics. Greece is the bleeding edge of Europe, where Greek women have no babies -- but immigrant women who cannot pay are making up for the lapse.

Evo & Proud
This map shows where a natural increase is taking place -- and it certainly isn't in Europe.

Mark Steyn writes that Europe itself is racing its old churches to the graveyard. It isn’t just the churches that boarding up the windows. It’s the factories, the schools and the families.

The problem with the advanced West is not that it’s broke but that it’s old and barren. Which explains why it’s broke. Take Greece, which has now become the most convenient shorthand for sovereign insolvency — “America’s heading for the same fate as Greece if we don’t change course,” etc. So Greece has a spending problem, a revenue problem, something along those lines, right? At a superficial level, yes. But the underlying issue is more primal: It has one of the lowest fertility rates on the planet. In Greece, 100 grandparents have 42 grandchildren — i.e., the family tree is upside down. In a social-democratic state where workers in “hazardous” professions (such as, er, hairdressing) retire at 50, there aren’t enough young people around to pay for your three-decade retirement. And there are unlikely ever to be again.

The New York Times featured the town of Laviano in Italy. Only half its houses were occupied. But any closures of its churches were the least of its problems. It’s problem was even worse: it didn’t have enough kids to keep the schools open. The newly elected mayor “racked his brain and came up with a desperate idea: pay women to have babies.”

Laviano is not unique in Italy, or in Europe. In fact, it may be a harbinger. In the 1990s, European demographers began noticing a downward trend in population across the Continent and behind it a sharply falling birthrate. …

For the first time on record, birthrates in southern and Eastern Europe had dropped below 1.3. For the demographers, this number had a special mathematical portent. At that rate, a country’s population would be cut in half in 45 years, creating a falling-off-a-cliff effect from which it would be nearly impossible to recover. Kohler and his colleagues invented an ominous new term for the phenomenon: “lowest-low fertility.”

What happened? The problem as Steyn succinctly puts it, is that socialism not only “runs out of other people’s money”, as Margaret Thatcher once put it. It simply runs out of people. Future historians, if there are any left, will puzzle over how this came about. The economists will have an easier time explaining it. Through some process, socialism has apparently increased the discount rate to the point where the future is consumed for the sake of the present. Not only is investment taxed to feed consumption, tomorrow is hocked to pay for today.

If the fiscal deficit is the direct monetary expression of this high discount rate, the collapsing population is its equivalent demographic expression. Both are saying the same thing, in different terms. In incentives terms, the future is no longer real; so people don’t save up for it nor do they have any incentive to sacrifice for it. _BelmontClub

Inquirer
This image shows what a population pyramid (age cross-section) looks like after a long period of replacement level fertility.

NationMasterThis image shows Japan's population pyramid in 2050. Low fertility societies grow a large crop of old people and a very small crop of young people to take care of them. This what Europe, Russia, and Japan are quickly becoming. It is the Canada, Australia, and East Asia of tomorrow.

Europe will not be colonising Africa and Asia again, anytime soon. European immigrants will not flow into the New World in large numbers, as they did in the 1800s and early 1900s. Even worse, Europeans will not lead the brave march into the abundant future of advanced science and technology.

Global R&D via NewEnergy&Fuel
This bubble graphic shows where science and technology R&D is being spent. Here is a PDF report showing Battelle's near term projection for global R&D spending. R&D spending in Europe will be essentially stagnant, while spending in Asia is supposed to drive future growth in R&D.

Nations that are collapsing due to debt and demographics are not likely to look toward the future. They are far too busy paying for the mistakes of the past and dealing with their expanding debt of suffering today.

More on the future of Europe

Thoughts on the spiritual dimension of a demographic collapse

We see natural cycles of growth and collapse occurring in the economic dimension, and on the scale of entire core populations of nations and regions. More vital populations push older, less vital populations out of the way. Ethnic groups disappear, languages die. It is the way it has always been, but somehow it feels different when it is happening to you.

One thing that is not allowed in a sick and dying society, is the direct naming of the problem. Far better to deny any problem, or to divert one's attention by means of high tech gadgets, gee-whiz! futurism, or a fatalistic nihilism of inevitable doom. Anything to prevent the massive energy of a sleeping and distracted people from waking up in time to change its plotted fate.

This Is Your Brain Under General Anaesthesia

Neuroscience has often benefited from natural experiments—patients who lose their ability to remember, produce language, or regulate their emotions after parts of their brains are damaged or have to be surgically removed. Anesthesiologists preside over an analogous experiment every day: they watch elements of consciousness disappear. Under general anesthesia, for instance, patients lose pain perception, awareness, memory, and the ability to move. An anesthesiologist can influence each of these changes in different ways by varying the dosages and types of drugs used.

"By taking away different functions that we associate with consciousness," Brown says, "we might be able to start piecing together parts of the jigsaw puzzle." Neuroscientists could begin to do for consciousness what they have done with memory and language. _TechnologyReview

EEG Spectrum Under General Anaesthesia
Real time EEG monitoring is a useful adjunct to other ways of monitoring the anaesthetised patient. With better spatial resolution, EEG imaging of brain activity can make every surgical procedure a natural experiment in the mechanisms of consciousness.

EEG-based brain monitors are already a common sight in operating rooms; some anesthesiologists track the brain activity of their patients with commercially available monitors that use algorithms to transform EEG signals into crude indexes. (Others track only physical signs such as heart rate and blood oxygen levels.) But few of them, he says, spend time looking at the raw EEG data.

...As patients enter an anesthetized state, the normal pattern of low-intensity but high-frequency waves shifts to one of less frequent but more intense pulses—as if the constant chatter of the brain had given way to a chant. The location of activity shifts from the back of the brain to the front. Although it's possible to take patients into such a deep state of unconsciousness that their EEG is essentially flat, in most cases bursts of EEG activity alternate with periods of relative inactivity that can last for minutes. The brain processes appear "highly organized," he says. "There are very regular patterns in time, and very regular patterns in space."

...some drugs will decrease the frequency of brain waves seen in EEG readings, resulting in slow, regular oscillating waves across large areas of the brain. Other drugs cause certain areas to show fast, regular oscillations. Because anesthesiologists usually give a cocktail of drugs to each patient, these effects can happen simultaneously. The result, says Brown, is like a jammed signal: "Either way, [the different parts of the brain] can't communicate."

Over the past few years, other EEG studies have supported the idea that anesthesia doesn't simply shut the brain down but, rather, interferes with its internal communication. Mashour's research, for instance, has shown that feedback between the front and back of the brain is interrupted during general anesthesia, leading to a disconnect between different brain networks. That feedback is thought to be important for consciousness. _TechnologyReview

Clearly there are many ways to disrupt brain networks, and normal waking consciousness. Hypnosis has been used as "anaesthesia" during painful surgeries for over a hundred years. It will be fascinating to review the EEG pattern of such a surgery, for comparison to other anaesthetic agents.

We are still quite a long ways from developing the perfect anaesthetic, and from understanding human consciousness in all its states and varieties. But if western civilisation can hold up for just a few more decades against all of its internal and external enemies, some marvelous tools for enhanced health, cognition, longevity, and more, are on the way.

Architecture Without the Architect

The initial key to a successful out-migration of humans into the solar system and the larger universe, is the ability to prepare the ground ahead of human colonists. When human settlers arrive on Luna, Mars, Titan, and other potential colonies, they should find working habitats and vital infrastructure waiting for them.

Here are a few basic ideas on complex systems and autopoietic self-organisation which will likely form the foundation for more advanced techniques of seeding complex systems in hostile environments. The slides come from Rene Doursat, who lectures at Ecole Polytechnique and specialises in complex systems and morphogenetic engineering.

Complex systems and networks possess some interesting properties which distinguish them from most human-made systems and networks. It is the goal of morphogenetic engineers such as Rene Doursat, to learn to incorporate many of the more desirable properties of complex systems into systems which could be co-created by humans.

Complex systems can arise on multiple levels, all the way from subatomic particles up to the very universe itself. These systems tend to be decentralised, emerging from a more disordered substrate by the means of self-organising principles.

The individual agents vary between complex systems, depending upon the level on which they operate. Low level complex systems can act as agents themselves, of higher level complex systems.

Complex systems can display an intricate and highly functional architecture -- without having had the "benefit" of an intelligent architect. This self-organising architecture of complex systems acts as an inspiration for possible architectures of future complex systems which might be evolved and co-created for use by humans.

Such novel complex systems could serve to allow the survival and prospering of humans in locations which would ordinarily not support such complex animals which evolved in a much more suitable location (Earth) for their needs. In other words, the "seeds" of human-enabling complex systems could be delivered to hostile -- but strategically important -- locations, where they will proceed to build human-friendly micro-environments, habitats, and infrastructures.

Such intricate yet robust systems would necessarily need to be evolved and grown in a self-organised fashion, using the materials on hand. And yet these "system seeds" must be designed to serve their specialised function.

Naturally, there is the opposite approach which must be considered: A re-designed human animal more suited for the hostile environments likely to be met in space and on other space bodies.

Rene Doursat has looked at biological design (PDF) in ways which might be applied to such a project, in the future.

Such concepts can be applied to biological bodies AND biological brains, as well. In fact, the functioning of the human brain itself is a good example of decentralisation, emergence, and self-organisation -- a prototypical complex network.

So while human designs up until now have tended to possess rather simple and straightforward architectures, at the same time humans are capable of comprehending the nature of complex, evolved systems. The idea of incorporating the properties of complex systems into human designs is not so far-fetched, perhaps in part because of the way our brains work.

The understanding and harnessing of complex systems to human purposes, is a grand project. It is worth spending a good deal of time on, in the future.

More ideas from Rene Doursat

Previously published at Al Fin, The Next Level

Syncopated Ghost Whispers Haunt Your Internal Web

Long Distance Brain Network Macaque PNAS
Above, you see an early depiction of the "long distance network" of the brain, connecting different brain centres with each other. The complex visualisation was compiled using information obtained from the study of the macaque brain.

The Human Connectome Project is hard at work producing images such as this, using an MRI technique known as diffusion tensor imaging.

With 100 billion neurons, each with around 10,000 connections, mapping the human brain will be no easy feat, and charting every single connection could take decades. The HCP will tackle the lowest hanging fruit first: charting the major highways between different brain regions, and showing how these connections vary between individuals. To do this they will combine several imaging tools including something called diffusion MRI, which maps the structure of the white matter that insulates the "wires" of the brain, and also resting-state MRI, which measures how brain regions oscillate in unison as a result of shared connections. _NewScientist

Cortical parcellations (PDF) such as the above, use another MRI technique. This method of brain visualisation separates different cortical domains which serve particular functions.

These brain images are presented for purposes of orientation and grounding. They may help to picture the various nodes and connections presented in the abstracted images and schematics.

Above, you see some of the brain areas involved in three important brain networks: Default Mode, Salience, and Central Executive. When viewing such fMRI "activation" images, it is helpful to mentally superimpose the connections between the activated brain centres. More on the three pictured networks:

The default mode (DMN) or default brain network (shown in blue) is what your brain does when not engaged in specific tasks. It is the busy or active part of your brain when you are mentally passive. According to Bresslor and Brennon the “DMN is seen to collectively comprise an integrated system for autobiographical, self-monitoring and social cognitive functions.” It has also been characterized as responsible for REST (rapid episodic spontaneous thinking). In other words, this is the spontaneous mind wandering and internal self-talk and thinking we engage in when not working on a specific task or, when completing a task that is so automatized (e.g., driving a car) that our mind starts to wander and generate spontaneous thoughts.

...The salience network (shown in yellow) is a controllor or network switcher. It monitors information from within (internal input) and from the external world arounding us, which is constantly bombarding us with information. Think of the salience network as the air traffic controllor of the brain. Its job is to scan all information bombarding us from the outside world and also that from within our own brains. This controller decides which information is most urgent, task relevant, and which should receive priority in the que of sending brain signals to areas of the brain for processing.

...Finally, the central-executive network (CEN; shown in red) “is engaged in higher-order cognitive and attentional control.” In other words, when you must engage your concious brain to work on a problem, place information in your working memory as you think, focus your attention on a task or problem, etc., you are “thinking” and must focus your controlled attention. _BrainClockBlog

We have talked about the default mode network previously, and will devote future time to the integration of various overlapping -- as well as mutually exclusive -- networks.

Now, we are getting close to the "brass tacks" of how separate brain nodes communicate synchronously with each other via the connectome. The brain functions as a hierarchical network, and depends upon analogous -- but different -- mechanisms of ensemble activity at different levels of the hierarchy.

... when multiple neurons spread all over the brain are tuned in to a specific pattern of electrical activity at a specific frequency, then whenever that global activity pattern occurs, those neurons can act as a coordinated assembly."
The researchers pointed out that this mechanism of cell assembly formation via oscillatory phase coupling is selective. Two neurons that are sensitive to different frequencies or to different spatial coupling patterns will exhibit independent activity, no matter how close they are spatially, and will not be part of the same assembly. Conversely, two neurons that prefer a similar pattern of coupling will exhibit similar spiking activity over time, even if they are widely separated or in different brain areas. _SD

One of the many things that makes understanding the brain so difficult, is the fact that so many things are happening all at once, on so many different levels -- both in serial and parallel format. Almost all of the things that go on in the brain occur on the unconscious or subconscious levels. Consciousness, as we know it, is something of an over-rated evolutionary accident.

Video via Kevin at Brain Clock Blog

Finally, watch ghostly whispers moving through the human brain as it is put through its paces.

More information on brain networks at The Brain Clock Blog: The brain as a set of networks: Fine tunning your networks

TEOTWAWKI Flea Market: Trading Post Apocalypse

Source
What kind of trade goods should you stockpile, in case the world ends? What sort of items are nearly indispensable in a crisis, but are compact and easy to store and transport? Survival Blog offers a list of 25 candidates for high value trade goods in a post-apocalyptic society:

1. Alcohol...[miniatures]

2. Coffee...Sales price--three pouches/cups for a silver dime.

3. Tobacco products...

4. Ammunition...

5. Lantern mantles...Get 50 or so, sell for a silver dime each in your store. (At the current rate of about 24:1, that's a good one for you). You might also want to stock a couple of dozen lamp wicks.

6. Miniature bottles (1/8 oz.) of Tabasco sauce.... Sell two/three for a silver dime.

7. Toothpaste and dental floss....

8. Beano....

9. Antacid tablets....

10. Salt and pepper....

11. Chapsticks.....

12. Rechargeable batteries....

13. "Free lunch." This is another good one. Consider this your "loss leader" and a promotional strategy to attract customers. As you get your "store" started (the first week, maybe), offer customers a "free lunch"--a tasty bowl of chili beans or spicy noodles and a drink of "bug juice" (that's the red Kool-Aid)--for the first 25 customers or so as a promo strategy. After a few days, you can transition to a paid lunch--a dime or quarter in silver (recycling some of that silver change you put into circulation by buying from other merchants and from your customers).

14. The "bug juice" is another good idea. The water we filter/boil/purify may not taste so good and a sweet drink will be big, especially with the kids. I just priced these at the grocery store--packages (unsweetened) of cherry Kool-Aid are $.27/ea. and make two quarts. I bought 100 packages (compact; takes up very little space for the value). Your post-TEOTWAWKI sales price might be a silver dime for three or ten for a quarter.

15. Butane lighters...Sell individual lighters for a dime each or three for a quarter.....

16. Books.....

17. Pool shock.... "Pool shock" is calcium hypochlorite, a dry powder, sold in one pound packages for swimming pool sanitation. This chemical is remarkably effective at sanitizing water. "Recipes" I have seen online state that a grain or two will sanitize a gallon and that a pound package will treat 65,000 gallons...A one pound bag is about $5....

18. Hand sanitizer...Sell those for a silver dime each (or maybe three for a quarter). Also buy several large bottles--two liter dispensing bottles of their private-label version (same stuff--thickened ethyl alcohol--as the branded product)--for $7.95.....

19. Mice/rat traps and poison. This one should be obvious--When the garbage piles up, the rodents will respond to the "stimulus," too....

20. Sunscreen. Again, everyone will be spending a lot more time outside. Around here, even leathery beach people need sunscreen. This is a great dollar store purchase. Several of our local dollar stores have SPF 15 and 30 in six and eight oz. bottles for a buck. Get a couple dozen bottles; sell for a silver dime each.

21. Bike tire repair kits. As soon as the gasoline supply chain fails, all sorts of old bikes will be dragged out of garages and basements. Many (most?) of these will have flat tires and few folks will have tube repair kits--but you will. Again, check the Big Box stores for kits--a couple of bucks each. You might want to get a dozen; sell for a silver half. Bring your tire pump to your micro-store and offer "complimentary" air.

22. Insect repellant. Living in near-jungle as I do, this one has special significance. I go through a number of Off spray cans every year working in the yard. With all the extra time we will be spending outside hauling water, gathering firewood, manning our Micro Store, and so forth, the bugs will be eating better than anyone. Check your local dollar store for deals on repellant. Price accordingly.

23. LED headlights (for your head, not your car)....I would stay away from the ones with "button" batteries and go for the ones that take AAs or AAAs. Depending on your cost, they would sell for about a silver quarter each or a quarter and a dime.

24. Sta-Bil or Pri-G. Consider this liquid plutonium. Get at least a dozen of the small bottles (treats five gallons of gasoline); sell for a [silver] quarter a bottle.

25. Hard candy. Another great promotion item--Get a couple of bulk jars at one of the warehouse clubs and give away candy to the kids (or to the parents to give to the kids) when they come to your store. These will bring everyone back sooner. A plastic jar of 200 "Atomic Fire Balls" was $6.95 at Sam's (the boys love these) and a similar size jar of Gummi Bears was $7.95. _SurvivalBlog

An interesting list for future shopkeepers of the post-doom world. What you are looking for in trade goods, is something that will pry precious silver from stingy fists. A lot of people who may be well stocked in necessities, may give a great deal for relatively frivolous non-necessities, if the cravings hit.

And what about useful light weight "tools" for the post-apocalypse? Here is a short list of 6 from survivalcache.com:

1. Duct Tape

The fame of duct tape has taken on a life of it’s own. What can you even say about it? (or it’s big brother Gorilla Tape, from the folks that brought you Gorilla Glue)

2. Zip Ties

From handcuffs to lashings and a thousand other ways to tie stuff together, you should have a stockpile of zip ties in every shape and size.

3. WD40

“If it moves and it shouldn’t; use Duct Tape. If it should move and it doesn’t; use WD40″

4. Rope

For those larger jobs that zip ties and duct tape just aren’t going to handle good rope is endlessly useful.

5. Knife

A knife is the bread and butter (pun intended) of every survival tool kit. You really should have one on your person at all times. For a list of good survival knives click here.

6. Pry Bar

or Utility Bar. You can pry, hammer, lift, smash, and just generally mess stuff up. (I need to do a full write up on the Stanley Functional Utility Bar or “FUBAR”) _SurvivalCache

In the comments section at the above link, many people mentioned the multi-tool as an essential post-TEOTWAWKI tool. Some preferred kevlar sail repair tape over duct tape. Others mentioned condoms, tampons, and sanitary pads. And then there are shovels, edge sharpeners, guns, and more. Portable musical instruments such as harmonicas, ukeleles, penny whistles, etc. could also find a market in a world suddenly without many popular entertainments.

Needless to say, anyone who could turn scrap iron into useful tools, implements, and connectors would find a ready market.

Smart, profit-oriented after-doom traders will particularly want to focus on the human vices: alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, marijuana, and items related to sex and gambling. A whisky still and fermenting tanks for beer would make good investments for a trading post.

Growing and selling herbs for seasoning and medicines could also prove a profitable venture for one who knew what he was doing. Soap and candles might also prove useful compact trade goods.

The list is almost inexhaustible. But it is good to consider things like this, if for no other reason than to refine your own prepper's list.

Turning Corn Into Chemicals: Gevo Goes for Profit & Survival

Government mandates and subsidies in the energy field have been largely ineffective, or worse -- destructive. Subsidies to big solar energy firms have resulted in multiple bankruptcies, subsidies to big wind energy projects are resulting in making Warren Buffet richer, but are raising electricity costs and making overall US energy security much worse. And government mandates and credits for cellulosic biofuels are turning out to be worse than useless -- as bio-butanol maker Gevo has discovered.

As the difficulty of producing cellulosic biofuels cheaply becomes apparent, a growing number of advanced-biofuels companies are finding it necessary to take creative approaches to their business, even though that means abandoning some of their green credentials, at least temporarily, and focusing on markets that won't have a major impact on oil imports. This is hardly the outcome the government hoped for when it announced cellulosic-biofuels mandates, R&D funding, and other incentives in recent years.

Cellulosic biofuels still cost much more to produce than either corn ethanol or gasoline. One reason is that startups have had trouble raising enough money to build the large-scale commercial plants needed to lower costs. That's in part because their technology is unproven, and in part because there's no guaranteed market for cellulosic biofuels yet.

Additionally, government mandates that were meant to help create a market for cellulosic biofuels have so far been ineffective; it's typically cheaper for the fuel providers affected by the mandate to purchase credits rather than biofuels. And finally, supply chains for cellulosic materials aren't yet well developed, so companies face a challenge when they try to lock in reliable access to them. _TechnologyReview

Luverne, Minnesota Corn-to-Butanol Plant

Gevo's strategy addresses all these problems. Besides relying on corn in order to overcome supply challenges, the company is reducing capital costs by retrofitting existing corn ethanol plants rather than building new ones; the retrofit of the first plant, in Luverne, Minnesota, will cost about $40 million, a fraction of the hundreds of millions it costs to build a new plant. And rather than making ethanol, Gevo is making butanol, which can command a higher price—especially for use as a feedstock for the chemical industry. Gevo expects that it can make butanol from corn—a readily available feedstock—for significantly less than it costs to make it from petroleum.

Gevo plans to start operations at Luverne within the next six months or so and hopes to produce 17 million gallons of butanol per year there. Most of it is destined for Sasol Chemical Industries, which will sell the butanol to make chemicals.

Butanol can be converted into a wide range of chemicals for making plastics and other products that are now made with oil. Gevo already has an agreement with a major maker of synthetic rubber, and last week it announced a partnership with Coca-Cola to develop plastic bottles made entirely from plants. _TechnologyReview

Versatile Bio-Butanol
Gevo is smart to pursue the high value product which can give them early profits and help the company to survive through these tough early days of advanced biofuels.

There is nothing wrong with using corn (maize) for production of chemicals, since overall production of maize is quite flexible. The additional market in chemicals and fuels gives farmers another market for their product, and helps to maintain stability of price.

Most US corn is used as animal feed, and even after being used to produce bio-chemicals and biofuels, the dried distiller's grain can still be fed to animals as a high protein feed. The oil from the corn can be used for other uses, including food.

It is important to point out that both cellulosic fuels and high value cellulosic chemicals are highly likely to become huge markets in the future. The use of corn will only continue as long as it is more profitable to use corn than to use cellulosic biomass. Eventually corn will lose its advantage in this area -- and at that point, it is likely that much less corn will be planted, as farmers move to other crops to follow the markets.

Those who harp on the tired old "food vs. fuels" refrain are almost certainly people who have never farmed for a living, and who have never had to balance profit and loss in a productive enterprise. Most people who sing that song do so for reasons of political activism, rather than out of any desire to arrive at the actual numbers involved.

But the truth of the matter is that the chemicals market offers higher profits to advanced biofuels producers than the fuels market offers. And that is where many of these companies are certain to go, in the beginning.

The arrival of massive proved reserves of unconventional natural gas is likely to delay the large-scale profitability of advanced biofuels for a number of years -- if not decades.

Beijing Faces a Delicate and Dangerous Balance of Crises

What makes the future look particularly bleak is the lack of escape routes. If Chinese investors panic and rush for the exits, they will discover that in a market awash with developer discounts, buyers are very hard to find. The next three months will be a watershed moment for a Chinese investor class that has been flush with cash for years but lacking a place to put it. Instead of developing a more balanced, consumer-based economy, an entire regime of Beijing technocrats — drunk on investment-led growth — let the real estate market run red hot for too long and, when forced to act, lacked the credibility to cool the sector down. That failure threatens to undermine the country’s continued economic rise.

Real estate woes are already sending shockwaves through China’s broader economy. Chinese steel production — driven in large part by construction — is down 15 percent from June, and nearly one-third of Chinese steelmakers are now losing money. Chinese radio reports that half of all real estate agents in the southern city of Shenzhen have closed up shop. According to Centaline, more than 100 local government land auctions failed last month, and land sale revenues in Beijing are down 15 percent this year. Without them, local governments have no way to repay the heavy loans they have taken out to fund ambitious infrastructure projects, or the additional loans they will need to keep driving GDP growth next year.

In a few cities, such as coastal Wenzhou and coal-rich Ordos, the collapse in property prices has sparked a full-blown credit crisis, with reports of ruined businessmen leaping off building rooftops; some are fleeing the country. _Patrick Chovanec

Outside analysts must read between the lines of what information the authoritarian governments in Beijing allow to leak out. But it is becoming more clear by the week that Beijing did not anticipate the power of the tiger which was unleashed when China began to pursue world-class industrialisation.

Entrepreneurs in China who have gotten rich by exploiting the government-fed demands to build cities and infrastructure to house the coming wave of residents are now getting out of China while the getting is good. Back in June Forbes magazine wrote that 60 percent of China’s high-net-worth individuals are either considering emigration or have already left the mainland for safer havens elsewhere. Global Financial Integrity estimates that the sums of money that have already left the country are huge, exceeding $2 trillion dollars through 2008. Such a financial exodus has naturally been criticized by the Chinese government. Writing in the communist newspaper Global Times, Zhong Dajun protested, “We have been working hard to develop the economy in the past 30 years, but now these elite members of society are fleeing with the majority of the wealth.”

It’s the financing of those efforts to “develop the economy” that is the problem. The Chinese government’s plan to move 350 million people from rural areas into cities required building those cities in advance. Here was their perfect opportunity to use the Keynesian approach to create wealth out of paper: The government set up 10,000 investment companies to build them, and provided financing through banks funded by the government. It would put people to work, stimulate the economy, and “provide for the common good” on communist terms. It was also designed to foster a change in the economy from rural to a demand-driven consumer society. It was “jump-starting” to a degree never seen in history — “pump-priming” to push the economy ahead.

The pending implosion is the natural result of such efforts. Twenty new cities were being built every year, but few citizens were moving into them. “Ghost cities” they were called, and thanks to Time magazine’s photographer, Michael Christopher Brown, pictures of them can be seen here and here and of empty apartment buildings here. _New American Bob Adelman

It was a grand plan, and many people still believe that it may succeed. Whether these same people are still throwing their money into Chinese investments or not is another question.

In 2008, China sent over $700 billion to states to invest in things like roads, trains, bridges, housing and entire cities. Some of these projects were bridges to nowhere. Although the government estimates that public debt as a percentage of GDP is just 17%, Bloomberg estimates that it is at 80% because of fixed investment.

...Construction has played a big role in the country’s full employment and urbanization strategies. “The people you see climbing bamboo scaffolding in Shanghai all came from the interior of China and they are now moving back,” said Kalish. “It happened in 2008 when the country lost about 20 million manufacturing jobs because export markets were basically closed off because of the credit crisis. About half of them moved out of the coastal cities and the rest were laid off. The stimulus package got most of them back to work quickly, but a lot of those migrant workers stayed in the interior cities because wages had improved along with working conditions. China is changing and with it come a host of new problems. _Forbes

Even with all its problems, it is still not very difficult to find China boosters who talk up China at every opportunity. But where are they putting their own money, personally? No one seems to ask them that.

Problems are flaring up across China, as Beijing faces its once a decade transition of power. More on that particular problem from Gordon Chang

And once again, global investors must face the question of what happens to commodities and currency markets should the Chinese economy take a significant nosedive? Do your investments take that possiblity -- along with a possiblity of the collapse of the Eurozone -- into consideration? They should. The secondary fallout from a cascading collapse of economies presents both hazard and opportunity.

Image credit via Forbes

A Ronery Rife: Kim Escapes Earth in Tiny Spaceship

Kim Jong Il has slipped the surly bonds of Earth, shuffled off his mortal coil, boarded his tiny spaceship, and blasted off to plot future dictatorships in the sky. Just as well. He was so ronery in Pyongyang, living among yes men, flacks, and adoring worshipers.

The world now awaits the appearance of Kim III, latest in a dynastic line of North Korean dictators ruling over a nation that is in danger of forgetting why it has to suffer so much, for the sake of a hereditary gang of cockroaches.

No matter. Tears are flowing like a river in Pyongyang. The people are without their deity, who has flown away in his tiny ship, never to return. Will the new deity wield the same magic touch of death and destruction over North Korea as his father and grandfather have done? Or will the cult of Kim outlive its appeal to the long-suffering North Koreans?

Best to take this sad saga for a cautionary tale. It seems it is possible to take a small, vital, ethnically homogeneous people of high IQ and proven accomplishment, and turn them into isolated, quasi-automatons, voluntarily deceived, deprived, and underfed.

What it's like inside North Korea

Casting a Spell of Governance: What a Fool Believes

It used to be that tribal leaders; i.e., governments; would throw a few virgins into the volcanoes to placate the gods and prevent eruptions. Now governments in developed countries want to throw their economies into the cauldron in repentence for their prosperity. It all stems from some cultural notion that if one makes a sacrifice then surely one will get something in return. For millenia religions have been organizing sacrifices to placate the gods and everyone of those sacrifices has been a complete and total waste. The names have changed [but] the game is the same.

_Backcasting Climate Models, in reference to climate reparations.

Thinking of government officials as witch doctors may take a bit of getting used to, but it will take you dangerously close to the truth of the matter. Neither witch doctors nor government officials understand the complexity of the issues with which they deal. And each has his own ulterior motives in creating outcomes which augment their power and prestige, and wealth.

But do you want to know the truth about those who hold power over the lives of everyone you care about, including yourself? You would have much less cognitive dissonance if you would merely believe everything the witch doctors government, media, and academics tell you. If you just tell yourself that they wouldn't take drastic measures which adversely affect your future, unless there were a good reason for it -- you will sleep better at night.

Take the drastic measures that Mr. Obama and the UN IPCC wish to take, in order to tame a naturally chaotic climate: They wish to transfer trillions of dollars from Europe and North America, to third world nations and emerging nations. They wish to use the UN as an intermediary, for purposes of distributing the funds. The UN, the most corrupt institution on the planet. They say, "Trust us, we know what we are doing. We are acting on the basis of the very best climate models that modern science can devise."

But how good are these models which the thoroughly corrupt UN is using to try to convince us to impoverish ourselves?

The general shape of the model value line is "sort of" the same as the observation line, but it misses the global warming which occurred from about 1915 to about 1938 and the global cooling from 1940 to 1960. In terms of the temperature change over the entire period the model is pretty good, being only 12 percent too small. However looking at the graph the two curves cross at six points and it appears to be just a coincidence that one of the crossings was close to the end of the backcasting interval. At about 1955 the error would have been about 200 percent. This indicates that the measure of performance should be some average error over the backcasting period. However clearly the Hadley Centre model is superior the model of the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis. However it is not certain whether even the Hadley Centre model is sufficiently accurate to have any relevance in economic policy decisions. In particular, it does not seem accurate enough to be the basis for the developed countries imposing a trillion dollar a year cost to their economies. And that trillion dollar a year cost may end up being a trillion dollar a year transfer to the governments of developing countries for the purchase of their carbon emissions quotas. _Backcasting Climate Models

The climate change caper is only one of the many pieces of wool which our witch doctors governments, media, and academics are trying to pull over our eyes. Associated scams include the great wind energy scam, the great solar energy scam, the great overpopulation and resource scarcity scams, and so on.

We can choose whether to accept the current "spell of governance" which is being cast by the unsavoury crew of controllers, educators, and information disseminators. But it takes a lot of work to replace programmed "knowledge" with verified knowledge. Particularly when we are bombarded by programmed "knowledge" from all quarters, 24 hours a day.

Every child should be given the power to determine the truth of matters which are important. It is time to stop raising herds of trusting sheep, and to begin raising clear thinking human beings who can see through the illusions of the spell casters. Children must be given the power to verify the truth in a wide range of situations.

The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is the process of its validation. _William James PDF

As long as humans trust "authorities" to tell them what to believe, they are no better than primitive tribesmen who put themselves and their families at the mercy of witch doctors. Time to make a real change.

Knowledge Is a Scary Thing; Most People Shy Away from It

"Very few really seek knowledge in this world. Mortal or immortal, few really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds -- justification, explanations, forms of consolation without which they can't go on. To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner." -- Ann Rice, in The Vampire Lestat _Source

I ran across the Ann Rice quote on page 28 of this slideshare presentation on energy policy. This is a theme that has been covered repeatedly in the Al Fin blogs: the truth is both dangerous and difficult to find and assimilate.

If the truth were not so dangerous and destabilising, there would be no need for the layers of bureaucracy in governments, academia, big media, religion, and corporations.

The control and obfuscation of the truth is a growing industry in the modern world, and far more instrumental in determining your beliefs than you would like to think.

It is not important what you believe. It is only important that you learn to think and judge the relative trustworthiness of information, relative validity of arguments, and relative likelihood of conclusions. The process of testing ideas, arguments, and beliefs has been ignored (or blocked) at the highest levels of policy-making on national and global levels. Unless that suicidal approach to policy-making is changed, economic and societal ruin are inevitable.

This is one example of obfuscation of truth by insiders, which could lead to significant economic destruction at the trillion dollar level. Similar obfuscation of "truth" is occurring on a daily basis at every government office, in every big media outlet, in large numbers of university and K-12 classrooms, and inside your own head.

First you need to realise that "truth" is a verb, rather than a noun (an ongoing dynamic process rather than a static object).

A million years of biological evolution did not prepare most humans for this rapidly growing and critical challenge. But it is important that as many people as possible be empowered with these skills -- the earlier the better. Once the brain has fully matured -- around age 25 or so -- most people are reluctant to change their minds.

Electrical Energy: Sound Scientific Solutions

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A compact scientific exposure to electrical energy solutions. You may learn -- as Al Fin did -- that everything you think you know, just ain't so.

When Everyone is Thinking the Same Thing, Someone is Not Thinking

He, who has learned to doubt and to ask questions where the norms forbid it, can never stop the habit. As such, every creative person is building bridges to those masses of people who are tied up helplessly by the pressures of peers and society. His is a step out and above the group. And however strong the creative person is enchained by conventions, he has unshackled himself on his way as a free and autonomous personality. As such, he may have cleared a new path for his group, his society and perhaps humankind in order to transform culture and to create space for other free personalities who want to set new goals.--Franz Oppenheimer (1864-1943)
_Tahoe is Walking On

The established order is always threatened by innovation and creative ideas. That is why the persons who display a great deal of creative talent and potential for disruptive thought are generally either co-opted, marginalised, or disposed of in some way.

The lopsided ideological nature of modern media and the modern professoriate and intellectual celebrities, suggests that almost everyone is thinking the same thing. Which means that almost no one is actually thinking.

A lot of people are emoting, and intuiting. But few are thinking.

And that is a huge problem, when modern societies are faced with the huge problems of debt and demography, among others.

If you are wondering what people and societies can do to get themselves out of this groupthink conundrum, this would be a good place to start.

Burt Rutan, Elon Musk, and Paul Allen Assemble Giant Stratolaunch

The plane would be capable of flying up to 1,300 nautical miles to reach its launch point. SpaceX would provide a shortened version of its Falcon 9 rocket for the next phase of Stratolaunch's route to orbit. Wentz described it as a "Falcon 4 or 5." The multistage booster would be attached to the plane using a mating and integration system developed by Dynetics, and released during the mothership's flight at high altitude. After release, the 490,000-pound rocket would light up to send commercial and government payloads weighing up to 13,500 pounds into low Earth orbit. _Alan Boyle

Seven years after winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize, software billionaire Paul Allen and aerospace guru Burt Rutan are teaming up with SpaceX and other top-flight rocketeers to create an air-launched orbital delivery system. They say the venture will require the construction of the largest aircraft ever flown.

Allen unveiled his new company, Stratolaunch Systems, at a Seattle news conference today. It marks his first space venture since the partnership with Rutan to build the prize-winning SpaceShipOne rocket plane, which became the first privately developed craft to reach outer space in 2004.

...Allen agreed that his latest venture won't come cheap. He said he'll spend "at least an order of magnitude more than I put into SpaceShipOne." Allen's investment in SpaceShipOne was estimated at $25 to $30 million, which suggests he's prepared to put at least $250 million to $300 million into Stratolaunch. _CosmicLog

This is one of the unconventional types of space launch systems that Al Fin and his friends talked about as young boys. It allows for a wide range of orbital insertions not available to a single ground launch site. And by making a significant part of the launch system completely re-usable, it should help reduce launch costs.

It never made sense that Paul Allen would simply walk away from the private space scene after his successful partnership with Rutan won the space X Prize. The new partnership involving Elon Musk's SpaceX is something of a surprise, however, and a good omen for private space enterprise.

The ship will be built at the Mojave Spaceport, New Mexico, while the rockets will be built by SpaceX in Hawthorne, California. The integration—which includes the mating system—will be built by Dynetics Space Systems in Huntsville, Alabama.

What cargo will it launch?

Initially, they will launch cargo to orbit, but not to the International Space Station. In the future, the system may launch human crews up to six people. At this point, however, they haven't decided to do this yet. _Gizmodo

h/t Next Big Future More here

More: Coverage of the press conference from Hobby Space Be sure to glance through the comments.

Is There a Cure for African Backwardness?

SubSaharan Africa is historically the most backward region of the world. Of the 42 poorest nations listed by the UN in 2010, almost all are located in SubSaharan Africa.

1. Zimbabwe	22. Tanzania (United Republic of)
2. Congo (Democratic Republic of the)	23. Djibouti
3. Niger	24. Angola
4. Burundi	25. Haiti
5. Mozambique	26. Senegal
6. Guinea-Bissau	27. Uganda
7. Chad	28. Nigeria
8. Liberia	29. Lesotho
9. Burkina Faso	30. Comoros
10. Mali	31. Togo
11. Central African Republic	32. Nepal
12. Sierra Leone	33. Papua New Guinea
13. Ethiopia	34. Mauritania
14. Guinea	35. Madagascar
15. Afghanistan	36. Benin
16. Sudan	37. Yemen
17. Malawi	38. Myanmar
18. Rwanda	39. Cameroon
19. Gambia	40. Ghana
20. Zambia	41. Bangladesh
21. Côte d'lvoire	42. Kenya

2010 United Nations via InfopleaseThis is not a recent, or temporary phenomenon. Remains of human ancestors were first discovered in Africa. But if you click on the timeline of civilisations below, you can see that civilisation did not arise until after humans migrated out of Africa into Eurasia. And ever since, Africa has remained essentially the same, while the rest of the world pushed civilisation ahead by fits and starts.

As an African....if you are honest with yourself you come to realize, and admit the truth: central to this continent's backwardness are its people. Precisely the mentalities which most Africans approach life with. This is making a blanket statement obviously, because a hundred percent of any people cannot have a uniform view on any one issue. But by and large, too many black Africans are too willing to wallow in the blame game, to point accusing fingers at everyone but themselves. They are people who seem totally unaware that as grown human beings they (and other Africans like them) are to a large extent responsible for the choices they make, and how such choices impact their lives. They are utterly unwilling to accept facts that may contradict their world view, which is the dangerous and false idea that we are backward because other people are making us so; that these other people "will never give us a break and allow us to develop our societies so that we too can live in better material conditions..." _All Africa

There is a lot more than low IQ to blame for African backwardness and failure to civilise and develop a homemade high tech infrastructure. High disease rates, high rates of corruption in government, low executive function and poor impulse control -- all these and more combine to create the perfect storm of perpetual backwardness.

Africa stayed where it was for millenia - they didn't invent an alphabet and written language, neither did they make use of wheeled transport except in isolated cases. These are two of the corner stones of any technological society. Engineering is based on mathematics. Another discipline Africa knew nothing of.


Look at the facts. Then find an answer that fits the facts. If newer facts force one to update or abandon one's answer, so be it.


Statistically, any society needs a certain percentage of its population that is mentally agile. These people will be responsible for the bulk of all the advances of that society. I don't know what that percentage is - my guess is 10 - 15%. Africa does not have the required number of these achievers able to lift the whole society. And that's it.


Africans are not responsible for this state of affairs. None of us made ourselves. _WikiAnswers

You can find a large number of news stories about how quickly Africa is lifting itself out of poverty. But the future of Sub Saharan Africa is more accurately written in "The Coming Anarchy" than in the wishful whimsies coming from the politically correct skankstream.

"High" GDP growth rates are easy to achieve when you are starting from nothing. You must look at the source of Africa's wealth -- oil, diamonds, precious metals, uranium, etc -- and follow where the wealth goes. To Swiss bank accounts? To London townhouses and villas on the Med? More importantly, where is the human capital of Africa going? Overseas to the wealthy nations? Or is it staying at home to try to raise the native human capital of Africa? Be honest.

Africa's needs for food, technological assistance, monetary aid, outside medical support and intellectual uplift, is expanding as quickly as its rapid population growth. As long as the outside world supports the dark continent, we are nowhere close to reaching the theoretical limit to Africa's ability to absorb and dissipate outside help.

Africa needs to find ways to support itself, and build homegrown technologies and civilisations. But unless the stark underlying reality of African backwardness is acknowledged and addressed, Africa will continue to be the source of much tongue-clicking and head shaking.

Everything You Think You Know, Just Ain't So

Here are two ways in which we typically go wrong on a regular basis:

1. Cognitive hubris: each of us believes that his map of the world is more accurate than it really is.

2. Radical ignorance: when it comes to complex social phenomena, our maps are highly inaccurate. _American

We have learned from cognitive psychologists such as Daniel Kahneman that our intuition -- no matter how solid it feels -- is often built on a shaky foundation.

What's interesting is that many a time people have intuitions that they're...confident about except they're wrong. That happens through the mechanism that I call "The mechanism of substitution". You've been asked a question, and instead you answer another question, but that answer comes by itself with complete confidence, and you're not aware that you're doing something that you're not an expert on because you have one answer. Subjectively, whether it's right or wrong, it feels exactly the same. Whether it's based on a lot of information, or a little information, this is something that you may step back and have a look at. But the subjective sense of confidence can be the same for intuition that arrives from expertise, and for intuitions that arise from heuristics, that arrives from substitution, and asking a different question. _Edge

This phenomenon of "false expertise" is extremely common -- particularly among college professors, journalists, politicians, and others who are not typically held to a high standard of performance and proof. It is also a common part of everyday existence for virtually everyone.

Suppose you were to ask yourself how well you understand the world around you. How accurate is your map of reality?

If you interrogate System Two [slow, logical mind], it might reply, “There are many phenomena about which I know little. In the grand scheme of things, I am just blindly groping through a world that is far too complex for me to possibly understand.”

However, if you were to interrogate System One [fast, intuitive mind], it might reply, “My map is terrific. Why, I am very nearly omniscient!”

Evidently, in order to perform its function, System One has to have confidence in its map. Indeed, elsewhere Kahneman has told a story of a group of Swiss soldiers who were lost in the Alps because of bad weather. One of them realized he had a map. Only after they had successfully climbed down to safety did anyone discover that it was a map of the Pyrenees. Kahneman tells that story in the context of discussing economic and financial models. Even if those maps are wrong, we still feel better when using them.2

In fact, a number of the cognitive biases that Kahneman and other psychologists have documented would appear to serve as defense mechanisms, enabling the individual to hold onto the view that his map is the correct one. For example, there is confirmation bias, which is the tendency to be less skeptical toward evidence in support of one's views than toward contrary evidence.

System Two is evidently not able to overcome cognitive hubris, even in situations where one would expect System Two to be invoked, such as forecasting the difficulty of a major undertaking. _American

We have to rely upon our fast, intuitive, unconscious mind in order to get through a normal day. So much of our lives are performed on "auto pilot" simply because we cannot reason through every split second of our conscious lives. It would be a tremendous waste of very expensive conscious attention to do so.

And yet, so much of the time when we should give careful conscious attention to an action, choice, or verbal / written expression, we fail to do so. We are accustomed to trusting our intuitions, and we generally muddle through okay. But not always. And who can teach us when to take the time and make the effort to apply our consciousness, and when we can safely and effortlessly slide by on our unconscious intuition? That is where wisdom comes in.

Arnold Kling applies Kahneman's ideas to the political realm:

When two ideological opponents wind up on different hilltops, neither can believe that the other has sincerely arrived at a different conclusion based on the evidence. As Friedman puts it,

Consider the most reviled pundit on the other side of the political spectrum from yourself. To liberal ears, a Rush Limbaugh or a Sean Hannity, while well informed about which policies are advocated by conservatives and liberals, will seem appallingly ignorant of the arguments and evidence for liberal positions. The same goes in reverse for a Frank Rich or a Paul Krugman, whose knowledge of the “basics” of liberalism and conservatism will seem, in the eyes of a conservative, to be matched by grave misunderstandings of the rationales for conservative policies.5

Indeed, our cognitive hubris is so strong that, according to David McRaney, people believe they understand other people better than others understand themselves. He calls this phenomenon “asymmetric insight.”6

The illusion of asymmetric insight makes it seem as though you know everyone else far better than they know you, and not only that, but you know them better than they know themselves. You believe the same thing about groups of which you are a member. As a whole, your group understands outsiders better than outsiders understand your group, and you understand the group better than its members know the group to which they belong.

In our context, this would mean that liberals believe that they understand better than conservatives how conservatives think, and conservatives believe that they understand better than liberals how liberals think. According to McRaney, such beliefs have indeed been found in studies by psychiatrists Emily Pronin and Lee Ross at Stanford along with Justin Kruger at the University of Illinois and Kenneth Savitsky at Williams College. _Arnold Kling

These are very important insights which should be applied to our own everyday thinking. They could save you from a great deal of embarassment and unnecessary interpersonal friction. But just because "conservatives" and "liberals" make the same types of mistakes when judging the other side, does not make them equally right and equally wrong on every issue. Look for people who have changed their minds, and try to understand their reasons for changing.

Some changes may be a quasi-cohort effect. The old saying, "If you are a conservative at age 20, then you have no heart. But if you are not a conservative at age 30, you have no head," is a reflection of a common tendency for the "hard knocks" of life to beat a bit of conservatism into almost anyone, over time. If one is born into wealth, achieves early success, commits irrevocably to a cause in his youth, or acquires a sinecured position at a fairly early age, he is more likely to be able to avoid many of the uncomfortable changes in perspective which others may feel compelled to go through.

Simple observation over time demonstrates to most intelligent people that utopian ideas -- when implemented -- do not bring about the grand results they promise, but generally produce the opposite effect.

More on why this topic is important, to come.

Is There Anything A Smart Phone Can't Do?

video h/t MJ Perry
The ultrasound app for smart phones allows you to act as your own diagnostician. It is very useful for diagnosing vascular blockages, abdominal cysts, and obstetrical conditions. Highly recommended by Al Fin ultrasonographers.

More uses for smart phones and pads, adapted from a posting at Al Fin the Next Level:

Wired
Hand held devices are commonly used for media play, reading, web search and email, telephoning, as cameras, for playing games, etc. But hand held electronics devices can provide a wide range of functions that are more serious. The oscilloscope device pictured above is a serious instrument, useful for both hobbyists and researchers.

Let me start out by stating that this [oscilloscope] doesn’t actually compare to the high-end models as far as sampling and bandwidth. You won’t use the iMSO-104 for extremely high-speed, GHz-frequency signal applications. Honestly, for home maker use, I don’t see this being an issue for a long time. Oscium provided a scope for my review and before it even arrived I thought of my list of features to look for and try out. So what were some of the things that I was looking for in using the scope? First, being based on an iOS device, I was looking for a simple and navigable interface. Check. The scope plots zoom just as you would expect with the common iOS finger pinches and spreads. The traces are easy to drag up and down as you would expect as are the measurement cursors. Measurement cursors! That was another item! In the video linked above, Collin shows how you can make measurements on an old CRT scope using the time per division and volts per division selection and visual cues. On some of the digital scopes I have used, you could bring up a cursor that would give you the time or voltage between the points. This scope includes those cursors and if you know what I am talking about it is just as easy to use and intuitive as you think. If you don’t: trust me, it is very intuitive.

The Oscium scope can also do all of those things you would expect from any scope: triggering, running measurements, the ability to freeze the display, screen shot, data capture, e-mail, and configuration saving. The unit supports a single analog probe and four digital probes, all included in the kit. You can run all five inputs at one time or select any combination to show. _Wired

Hand held iOS devices can also be used as scientific microscopes, EEG imaging devices, neurofeedback devices, and for a wide range of other instrumentation uses. iPads are even being used in hospital operating rooms to help surgeons to zero in on target lesions.

More unusual smartphone apps

Smart phones and pads are just beginning to be integrated into the everyday activities that humans pursue. The imagination is the limiting factor. Expect the market for imagination-expanding smart phone apps to begin heating up any minute now.

The Coming Human Die-Off: A Little Goes a Long Way

The idea of a coming great human die-off is gaining popularity among those of the lefty-Luddite green enviro persuasion. Whether the die-off will be triggered by resource scarcity, by a voluntary reduction of human fertility, or by more aggressive means, such a great die-off is being seen as a positive event by the trendy and green forces which have taken over most media outlets, Green NGOs, funding agencies, and large segments of academic institutions.

The great human die-off is being backed by some famous names:

“A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”
- Ted Turner, CNN founder and UN supporter

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill … All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.” - Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution, pg.75

“We must speak more clearly about sexuality, contraception, about abortion, about values that control population, because the ecological crisis, in short, is the population crisis. Cut the population by 90% and there aren’t enough people left to do a great deal of ecological damage.” - Mikhail Gorbachev

"I believe that human overpopulation is the fundamental problem on Earth Today” and, “We humans have become a disease, the Humanpox.” - Dave Foreman, Sierra Club and co founder of Earth First!

“If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.” - Prince Phillip, Queen Elizabeth’s husband, Duke of Edinburgh, leader of the World Wildlife Fund

Advanced societies are considered "soft targets," because their populations have become so accustomed to things running relatively smoothly. Just a bit of disruption can go a long way toward upsetting such societies.

It is becoming easier for individuals and small groups to trigger events which can lead to momentous calamity in the advanced world. Increased networking of vital infrastructure is making it easier for hackers to commit cyber-terrorism:

Cyber Terrorism

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Government pressure to create "smart power grids" to replace traditional grids, provides malicious hackers with a wide range of new targets to attack, at various scales.

The threat of an EMP attack -- capable of taking out continental scale power grids -- is likewise increased, as nuclear proliferation proceeds across the Pakistan-Iran-N.Korea axis (aided by China and Russia). As many as 90% of an advanced society can be expected to die within 1 year as a result of a large-scale EMP attack.

Chemical terrorism is another way in which advanced cultures could be targeted specifically. Coordinated chemical attacks using various vectors could decapitate leadership and expertise in several vital areas, leading to widespread paralysis of normal infrastructure. Such a paralysing strike might well be a set-up for a more devastating followup attack.

Increasing sophistication of inexpensive tools for "bio-hacking" are also making it more likely that individuals or small groups will create novel microbial agents of mass contagion.

Security futurist Marc Goodman says that synthetic biology will lead to new forms of bioterrorism — opportunities for the bad guys to create never-before-seen forms of bio-toxins. These bio-threats might be nearly impossible to detect because they can be customized to the genome of a certain person or groups of people. Goodman, who has long worked on cyber crime and terrorism with organizations such as Interpol and the United Nations, believes the potential bio-threat is greatly underestimated. “Bio-crime today is akin to computer crime in the early 1980s,” said Goodman at the Singularity University executive program this week. “Few initially recognized the problem, but one need only observe how the threat grew exponentially over time.” _WaPo

It is not necessary to target the third world, in order to achieve a high magnitude die-off such as is depicted in the chart above. The third world has become so dependent upon the technological infrastructures and products provided by more advanced societies, that if the advanced world goes, most of the third world will quickly follow.

The resulting world of much lower human population, will also be much less technologically capable than the world at present, in a quantitative sense. In a qualitative sense, however, most of human technology will be saved in digital and book form. This means that within 1 to 2 centuries after the great die-off, the higher intelligence populations of the presently advanced world would grow to a large enough size to begin implementing modern technologies on a global scale once again.

In other words, if lefty-Luddite greens are engineering the great human die-off to permanently eliminate high tech civilisations and infrastructures, their efforts will ultimately fail.

But that will be cold comfort for your children and grandchildren who will have to suffer through the bloody mess aftermath left to them by the possibly well-intentioned greens.

It is up to you to make sure that they survive that bloody mess. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Some of the above is cross-published from abu al-fin

More: The conspiracy zone...

SOME of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population....The philanthropists who attended a summit convened on the initiative of Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.

Described as the Good Club by one insider it included David Rockefeller Jr, the patriarch of America’s wealthiest dynasty, Warren Buffett and George Soros, the financiers, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, and the media moguls Ted Turner and Oprah Winfrey.

...They gathered at the home of Sir Paul Nurse, a British Nobel prize biochemist and president of the private Rockefeller University, in Manhattan on May 5. The informal afternoon session was so discreet that some of the billionaires’ aides were told they were at “security briefings”.

Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, said the summit was unprecedented. “We only learnt about it afterwards, by accident. Normally these people are happy to talk good causes, but this is different – maybe because they don’t want to be seen as a global cabal,” he said. _Prison Planet

These are some of the people with the ability to sway media outlets -- which they largely own -- along with NGOs, academic research and pronouncements via funding, and a significant number of elected officials, via campaign support, job offers, board directorships, and the funneling of significant investments.

It is not surprising that the super-wealthy would be concerned about population overgrowth, if they truly believed that it would bring about the end of the world. But it is a bit troubling when they deliberately take a cause such as "the great carbon hysteria orthodoxy and climate change crusade," wrap it into a trans-global agenda, and push it into the heart of each new generation's training and education -- from K-12 through university and beyond.

Does this mean that these people are intentionally contaminating third world immunisation efforts, so as to help bring about the great human die-off -- using the UN and NGOs as intermediaries? Probably not. I am acquainted with a lot of the people involved in such international programs, and do not believe for one second that they would be a part of such a travesty.

But now that we know that the richest of the rich have taken an interest in limiting -- and even slashing -- the human population of the planet, we may want to watch what they do more carefully, through their almost countless intermediaries.