Deep thoughts from XKCD.com

The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.

Image and text from xkcd.com , one of my favorite social commentaries

..hades in a handbasket....

Appalling spy machine gets appalling new functionality, Obscure blogger deletes account in protest and blogs about it in the third person... No one notices, (no one even reads the blog post, until now) inadvertently supporting the bloggers heretofore untested hypothesis that social networking services as popularly implemented are more oriented toward self gratification and social autoeroticism than meaningful social interaction.

Semi-stable, Quasi-Islamic state thumbs its nose at non proliferation treaty, proceeds to increase weapon-usable uranium production. "Allah is pleased,"  non-crazy people deeply concerned.


Have a nice day!

Google, Apple, Web, Privacy.

With all the recent ruckus over Google and Apple location tracking on their respective mobile OS's, I feel reluctantly compelled to add my two bits.

Wow.... Really?

It is hard to imagine that people are all up in arms about this. I honestly thought that nobody cared - and I think that maybe Google and Apple were caught off guard in this respect as well. With all the information sloughing off from the average web user, who would have thought that anybody cared about a little location logging?

I had no idea that the apathy was mostly ignorance or denial - it seems  that people are concerned about privacy after all, but are totally ignorant about the real, omnipresent threats to their personal information online.

So, to enlighten those of you that are not counted among the Digirati.....

Did you know that when you visit most commercial websites, tracking cookies are installed on your computer that make it possible to monitor what pages you view,  to send you targeted advertising based on your surfing habits?

Frequently this information is tied to a unique identifier that specifically identifies you, the real person, along with your approximate location, home address, neighborhood demographics, and property tax information.

This info, along with your IP address (and physical connection point to the internet) is all hoovered up and stored on servers all over the planet, sold around to various marketing companies, and has virtually no regulatory oversight. 

Make no mistake, any time you are online, from laptop, cellphone, or your home / work machine, there are a handful of companies that know exactly where you are and what you are doing on the web, and this information they use and sell as they please.

Then there are social networking sites like Facebook, where not only your information is exploited but also the information about your relationships, friends and social networks too.

Let me show you scenario number one, a very simple and altogether too possible example of how this knowledge about your relationships can be exploited and sold:

When Brandy visits her favorite social networking (social spying) site, Spybook.com reads the tracking cookies that indicate that she also spends a lot of time chatting at hot singles.com. Spybook.com also knows that she is married to Tim.

(edit - see comments for more detail on technical aspects of this)

From this information, they send Brandy advertisements on how to meet hot single guys in her area, and where to buy stunning, discounted lingerie. Ok great....

But....they also send targeted advertising to Tim (also a happy spysite user) about how to know if his partner is cheating (is she suddenly buying a lot of new lingerie?), how to track a cheating partner with a button sized GPS tracking device, and an introduction their selection of local divorce lawyers.

It is worth noting that Spybook.com also knows that Brandy has surfed the web from a local super 8 hotel during lunchtime, while Tim was online at the office....but Spybook.com doesn't even know that they know this yet. Some other company will notice this five years from now when they buy the data from Spybook.com to look for things that they find to be of interest.

Really.

Just like that.

Then, when the Spybook.com tracks Tim visiting the divorce lawyers pages, they start with the "hot singles" in his area too, along with promoting infidelity paranoia among his male friends, who will be doubtlessly looking a bit more carefully at their own relationships....one can see where this starts to cross the line from opportunistic exploitation to vague social manipulation.

Before you write this off as paranoid (ok, it is a -little- paranoid) ... ever been to a website that had ads that were eerily appropriate, even if in a caricature of real life?

The Facebook 'like' button is another good example of this technology. Any time it exists on a webpage - any web page - it is sending back to the Facebook.com database that you, the registered Facebook user, are viewing that specific page, at that specific time from that specific machine, at that specific location.

And no, you don't have to click on anything for this to happen... but, if you do, well, what a goldmine!
If you click 'like' then the article or comment becomes part of your dossier, to mine for information that can be used to further understand your most basic motivators and marketing vectors.

Now imagine what can be done with this information, along with your geographical habits, spending history, and all those tagged photos of you....did you know that any of them taken from a cellphone may also have date, time, camera direction and GPS location imbedded in the meta-data?

Now, of course, all of this information is also available to government agencies, investigators, and anyone else with a budget or the ability to obtain the information, whether legitimately or not.

To make matters only slightly worse, if your computer or browser gets infiltrated by spyware then it can extract even more information.

In my experience as an IT professional, I can safely say that more than 75% of the computers that I encounter are carrying spyware of some kind, usually knowingly installed by the user .....browser toolbars, anyone?

Information usually collected by spyware, besides browsing history, includes your web searches (Google, Bing, and Yahoo already do this anyway, of course), and in the case of black-hat spyware, all your keystrokes and browsing history, credit card numbers used online, etc.

With so many of us intentionally or unintentionally giving away the most intimate of details to the highest bidder (and to that hacker guy in eastern Europe), I find it curious that the Android / Iphone tracking issue raised such an alarm....it really is the least of our worries.

That said, it would be a good thing, I think, to set standards for the collection and protection of personal information, and to require specific, plain language opt - ins for the use of such information. Plain language, instead of the legalese never-read "terms and conditions" that we are all so familiar with.

An opt-in that you had to approve, prior to any website collecting personally identifiable information, (especially to any 3rd party)  would be a powerful tool for consumer protection. Perhaps an opt-in that popped up every 10 times it collected your information, which you could then make permanent for one year - or something like that.

Of course, you can just turn off cookies, but that will eliminate a great deal of the functionality that we have come to expect from the modern web.

Maybe these suggestions are foolish or poorly thought out....please feel free to post your suggestions.

Facebook responsible for judgement day failure?

Well, I'm back from my brief hiatus in the mountains of Brazil awaiting the rapture, and although deeply humiliated at not being among the chosen, I find that I am in good company.

As a matter of fact, it seems that almost no one has suddenly vanished, ascended, or otherwise risen to the holy of holies.... which leads me to question, was judgement day yet another failed experiment?

Enduringly, if not endearingly, intractable - humanity has a long and tumultuous history of disappointing our creator.

At first, we were dealt with pretty heavy handedly.  Cast out of the garden, victimized in history's single most famous act of genocide, and wandering around in the desert for two generations should have taught us something, or at least one would think so..... but self preservation has proven to be an insufficient motivator, and it seems that pragmatism began to creep into the plan.

As part of the new deal (apparently arrived at after a significant period of anger management therapy and new age books) dramatic, if somewhat grisly, but still cryptically generous overtures were made, and slowly but surely some of us started paying attention.

For the next two millennia, one could get the sense that a certain entertainment value was lacking, or perhaps the embarrassment of failure kept us in the celestial closet, but for whatever reason interactions with the Creator have been pretty low key for a while.

Even though we haven't had any good laughs or even any good fights recently, we have always known that the clock was ticking, that the time to clean the fishbowl was coming. We have persistent reminders everywhere we turn that life is fragile, that one swipe of His mighty hand doth smite but good, whether it be earthquakes, tornadoes, or asteroids. So it is written. We will know the year and the season, but not the day ....  until now.

Apparently due to a clerical error on His part, despite admonishments that we would not know precisely when the last act would open, one of us ever pesky humans figured it out, and not only the day, we got it down to the exact second. Apparently, 15 times 1000 plus 412 divided by Jesus works out to 6:00 PM EST, but to no avail.

It seems that no one was qualified. What does this mean? Has He lost interest? Car trouble? Has He become obsessed with Facebook, to the point that He no longer has time for other hobbies or real relationships? (you should see His Farmville Farm - HO-LY SHIITE!)

Could this somehow be related to Sony's PSN outage, and could Anonymous have had a hand in this (or at least some fringe members?) Why wasn't this in the Wikileaks release? Could this have been some kind of a government conspiracy to stop Judgement Day? The lack of any allegations of WTO involvement in the "mainstream media" is pretty damning, if you ask me.

The nagging spectre here that nobody seems to want to talk about is that maybe the numbers just weren't good enough. After all, what would His friends say? Ten? You got Ten? 4 Billion years, unlimited resources, and Ten? Here, let me try! He would never be invited to any of the good parties after that.

....better just to take a deep breath, reassess the options, and put it back in the closet. There has to be a way to make this work. Fun pets, pfft. In your own image - right! Sea monkeys were better than this.

Still, one is inclined to wonder,  is this bad news or good news, and where do we go from here? Will we get another chance in 2012? So many questions, so few good answers.

PROTECT IP Act : A win for lawyers, epic fail for I.P. holders

Sen. Patrick Leahy's PROTECT IP act is an excellent example of what happens when someone (or worse, a group of someones) tries to solve a problem that they do not understand.

The private litigation aspect will create a mountain of frivolous lawsuits, keeping the lawyers happy, while real Intellectual Property protection will suffer irreparable damage, and piracy will advance to a whole new level.

The problem is that this bill, and any like it, are based on the idea that the government controls the internet. Unfortunately, it would be more true to say that the government controls the government controlled internet.

Efforts to take down offending websites have already met with new, game changing tools that allows web surfers to browse "taken down" websites as if nothing happened.

This incremental loss of official control of the WWW namespace came as a direct result of ignorantly crafted policy, and it represents an unprecedented and irreversible loss of centralized control.

This is a critical trend that we are likely to see more of, and could ultimately result in a web space that is not controllable by any central authority, and is a much more secure and efficient tool for IP infringers, while dealing a critical blow to companies operating on the "official" WWW.

Regulators and litigators would be much better off not forcing their adversaries to go underground, because once down the rabbit hole, construction will begin in earnest on the darknet, and there will be no  way to put that particular genie back in the bottle, short of shutting down the internet in its present form.

Websites promoting infringing content are just the beginning - there already exist anonymous payment systems, distributed, anonymous data stores, and more - they have just not grown much because the above ground versions worked for just about everything.

With increasing pressure to the namespace and supporting services, the corresponding underground alternatives can only grow in popularity, functionality, and efficiency, not only making cybercrime safer and less traceable, but also directly hurting legitimate services.

Unfortunately, many politicians are more interested in appeasing special interests than in learning about the subject matter that they are attempting to govern, so we will probably continue to see these counterproductive, lawyer friendly "solutions", instead of intelligent, insightful leadership and policymaking.

I guess it all boils down to the fundamental problem with confronting asymmetrical situations with a symmetrical mindset : Asymmetry.

I for one, for lack of a better idea, intend to sit back and smile while the idiocracy builds the high speed encrypted cyberpunk internet, using the talented, endless labor pool of rebellious youth and eastern European hackers.....

Lets look at something for a minute:

The War on drugs : An in demand physical substance that must be transported by actual people across actual borders, with guns and stuff. In the 40 years of the official WOD, the market has increased, drugs are stronger, cheaper, and more pure than 40 years ago, and adolescent drug use is exactly where it was in the 1970's.

In summary, in the WOD, we have spent roughly $2.5 Trillion dollars* training our adversaries and perfecting their systems, turning a persistent social problem into a persistent social problem promoted by a multi billion dollar criminal enterprise with its own armies. Yeah Team.

Now, How about a war on piracy**, or should I say a war on copies of music and movies: An in demand, costless product that can be moved invisibly , undetectably, and uninterceptably around the world in seconds, can be hidden with mathematical perfection in encrypted data streams and on free, hijacked repositories worldwide, and it moves on its own through existing transfer mechanisms, no guns required.

The only downside is that there is not very good security on the consumer side, and the distribution mechanisms are still a bit clunky - but not to worry, the US government is about to launch into a multi-billion dollar program to train the distributors, improve the quality of their software, and refine their systems.

Oh, good. Finally, my tax dollars advancing the plight of humanity - I haven't felt this good since we started hiring community college dropouts to grope 12 year olds in the airport - Bad Touch, TSA!

Did that seem cynical to you?

* (over $1T directly, not including jail time for personal possession or funds to other governments like Columbia and Mexico for their drug interdiction (distribution?) efforts)

** not a war on REAL piracy, because that wouldn't get campaign funding from special interest groups like the RIAA...

See these stories for recent tragedies in the real war on piracy:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41715530/ns/world_news-africa/t/four-american-hostages-killed-somali-pirates/

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/01/pirates-hijack-danish-yacht-with-three-teens-aboard/

Intellectual property rights holders do the wrong thing … Again.

The digirati among my readership might well read this as: Is the Mafiaa Fire browser plug-in a signpost on the road to croudsourced DNS decentralization?

While the RIAA should read : Bumbling idiots, lawmakers, and ICE fail to understand the basic nature of digital distribution, further erode control of intellectual property rights in the process.

There is a sea change underway, and it is not just starting.....time to read the writing on the wall.

Digital intellectual property rights management requires a new paradigm to understand. The old ideas about distribution will not work, traditional ideas of copyright are unenforceable, and attempts to maintain the status quo ultimately will prove to be economically nonviable.

Before I wax ad nauseum on this subject, let me first explain that I am fundamentally pro intellectual property rights, and fundamentally pro information freedom.

IP rights fuel innovation, make creativity profitable, and are a cornerstone of the technological age.

Without intellectual property rights as a valid paradigm, most of the really cool innovations since the 1950's would only exist in the smoke clouds of a hippie drum circles, “hey maaaan, wouldn't it be cool if.....”, because everyone knows that all of the really good ideas actually originate in hippie drum circles....

...And, well lets face it, without IP rights making profitable distribution possible, very few ears would have listened to Bob Marley, Cheech and Chong, the Grateful Dead, or any of the other great founts of hippie inspiration, which arguably lead directly to the invention of potato chips, cellphones, the Internet, military grade encryption, and stealth fighter aircraft.

The problem for the current IP rights paradigm is this:

1. Digital distribution makes creating infinite, exact copies costless, and distribution through croudsourced mechanisms is similarly economical.

2. Encryption is breakable, or irrelevant, when one has access to both the encoded and unencoded data streams, such as in the case with DVD's....they are encrypted, but to play them one must be able to decrypt them – so, in the end, the decryption becomes trivial, because the end user has access to both the encrypted and unencrypted stream. This makes copying a straightforward technical problem unhindered by the main benefit of encryption, namely the mathematical asymmetry of encrypting vs breaking encryption.

3. Encryption makes distribution of legitimate and illicit digital goods effectively invisible and untraceable. Strong encryption is as effective at securing communications as is gravity for keeping things from floating off into space. In either case, a herculean effort is required to defeat them in any meaningful way, and the cost of dropping an object or encrypting a data stream is nearly infinitely less then the cost of lifting the object or decrypting a stream without the key.

This stands in stark contrast to the old paradigm, in which:

1. Physical, analog distribution requires significant investments in infrastructure and transportation. Copies made from copies invariably suffer loss of quality.

2. Physically securing the product in such a way as to prevent its theft is trivial and well understood.

3. The transport of stolen, counterfeit, or unlicensed material is observable, traceable, and interceptable, and will lead to the likely apprehension and incarceration of those involved

It is easy to understand that failing to change ones basic ideas about distribution mechanisms, business models, and security measures would be disastrous in any industry facing this type of problem (opportunity) , but for some unknown reason, this extreme shortsightedness is exactly what we are seeing in Media Distribution.

These death thrashes of the Ould Guard would perhaps not be so bad, as so goes the evolution of creatures, both creatures of flesh and creatures of commerce, but the damage that is being done on the way down is what both concerns and delights me. (One small, dark corner of my heart leans to the anarchistic side)

The problem (opportunity) is this:

Industry organizations, such as the RIAA and their ilk are effective at causing policymakers, lawyers, and government agencies to do stupid things that in their net effect will be a clear detriment to their own best interests, and to the interests of all who would benefit from a functioning Intellectual Property system.

Thanks to the these shortsighted organizations, we have better mechanisms and an entire global subculture dedicated to the easy, efficient, untraceable distribution of unauthorized copies of digital goods.

It goes something like this:

In the beginning: BBS, Dump sites, FTP - Only the technically literate were involved, awkward and risky to use.

Industry response : Defend traditional distribution, shut them down!!!

Community response : P2P file sharing – Easy to use, low barrier to entry, more difficult to control.

Industry response : Defend traditional distribution, shut them down!!!

Community response : Bit-torrent – Easier to use, low barrier to entry, no centralized structure to control. Higher performance, more secure, made distribution nearly free.

Industry response : Defend traditional distribution, shut them down!!! Sue the file sharers! (except a few, like Netflix, who figured out that this would kill them if they did not find a way to compete with free distribution, which they have done quite effectively)

Community Response: Use peer blocking and encryption to make themselves difficult or impossible to track....Development of completely new anonymous networks such as Darknet, which exist one layer below the regular “interwebs” and could, if pressed to improve, become a complete alternative webshpere.....

Industry response : Defend traditional distribution, Shut down their (the file indexers and search engines) websites!!! Aha! Now we have DHS (ICE) on our side!!

Community response: Alternative, community based DNS, (Mafiaa Fire)..... effectively taking control of the webspace itself away from centralized authority.......This is the first step toward croudsourced namespace administration, without a traditional centralized authority, that can work alongside the existing infrastructure. This is a viral technology / ideology, make no mistake – If the “idiots that be” keep censoring domains, soon only people with these additional namespace protocols will be able to access the uncensored Internet, and any computer, browser, or software that does not support this will be seen as being cripple-ware.

Probable Industry Response: (insert shortsighted, ineffective measure here)

Inevitable Community Response : Decrease centralized network control, improve security and anonymity, improve distribution efficiency, etc.

The pattern here is this... Industry applies an ineffective measure, which is in turn answered by an improvement in the illicit distribution infrastructure, which as it offers more and more value and access, becomes more and more mainstream, further fueling innovation within the sector.

This is not a battle that can be won within the dominant paradigm. The fundamental mathematics underlying the problem are making the moves, and math is really difficult to argue with.

The current dangerous precedent of taking down (popular) domains via name service suspension will, if continued, result in a viable alternative namespace system which will be impossible to control. Similar attacks on this system in turn will be answered with increasingly sophisticated technical measures, which could ultimately result in an entire alternative webspace, possibly fully encrypted and inherently anonymous, which would then serve as a viable competitor to the primary webspace. This could be the death knell for even forward looking business models such as Netflix.

There will always be bright, unemployed programmers looking to make a name for themselves. This inexhaustible, free labor resource, with an extremely asymmetrical mathematical advantage on its side, will not likely be defeated by an entity without literally unlimited financial resources, except by complete network censorship and the end of the Internet as we know it....which would likely result in an entirely croudsourced physical layer......

Ideas are impossible to put back in the box. Adapt or perish.

Read more about Mafiaa Fire Here:

http://boingboing.net/2011/04/15/mafiaa-fire-a-firefo.html

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/227267/mozilla_defies_dhs_will_not_remove_mafiaa_fire_addon.html

Dead Canary.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/imf-bombshell-age-of-america-about-to-end-2011-04-25?dist=countdown

Pre-rantal Advisory: Explicit scenarios: 

This post contains opinions of a dramatic, inflammatory nature, which cannot be cured by preparation H. The opinions in this post in no way represent the actual opinions of the author, who is way more paranoid than this, and regularly sleeps in a metal box to keep out mind control radio waves (ok, metal boat, water - but still)

The canary is not doing so well.

It seems to me that this is pretty much the wake-up call... the tipping point of a new economic reality is being reached, and the plans that seemed perfectly reasonable 5 years ago are no longer even relevant. Enjoy it while it lasts, and study Chinese....but most of all, focus on the potential big wins, and leave the little financial opportunities alone, they will not matter.

We would do well to leverage these next few years to secure a future not dependant on systemic stability. Food, shelter , relative security first, then an all out drive to secure a strong economic foothold.

Nothing less will likely work, as within a decade or so the buying power of a us citizen will likely be on par with chindia, so that only the wealthy will maintain what we think of as a middle class lifestyle, barring an -actual collapse- of the dollar, in which case we will just be totally screwed.

If you look around at economies that are dependant on the dollar to prop up their currencies, you can see that the real value of the dollar is falling so fast that soon less than a million a year won't do. Do you really think that gold is actually $1500 in anything close to 2006 dollars? Or maybe it could be that the worlds second (soon to be first) biggest currency is so far undervalued that it is hiding the actual weakness of the dollar and euro....hmmmmmm.....

So the probable reality is that when they take the pressure off the Ren, we will wake up to find that western currency dropped 30 to 50 percent in one day, and it will not likely stop there. The US would instantly be in default on foreign debt, and that will be the end of the dollar as the de facto trade currency, with the average Joe groping for balance like the TSA screening a cheerleading squad.

...look to the history books to find out what happens next. It wont be pretty for most of us in the west, though a few will do quite well. One thing for sure, Betting on the status quo is very unlikely to succeed. We have only to look at Russia to see what it looks like when a sprawling industrial power has the rug pulled out from under it.

Ah, but we're their best customer, surely they need us!!!

Weeeeeelllllllll that seems to make sense at first glance, but...Well......... it's one for the money, Two for the show, Three to get ready, Now go, cat, go....

On the off chance that that was a little abstract for some of you, let me elucidate a few salient issues, and draw some not too radical conclusions from them....

They are selling off Tbills at a rate that within 3 years they will own none....that pretty much says it all. They have pulled off the biggest wealth transfer in the history of the world by depressing their currency for so long, and when they have what they can get (which, it seems, will take them about 3 more years, by their reckoning), they will move to the second phase of a now nakedly obvious (to paranoid people such as myself)  plan - the property transfer phase.

First, the money. Then, once western currency is cheap in real terms, and buying starts to drop due to the depleted economy, they take the pressure off the Ren, and wallah, their fortunes double overnight, at the same time as our currencies drop like middle eastern protesters.

Step 2 is to buy companies, property, and infrastructure at fire sale prices, and basically they will own enough of America ( and western Europe) that we will never pose an economic or strategic threat. Next, move into production with highly skilled and newly cheap US (and western European) labor, and wallah!! Total success.

But, on the upside, the job market will be great, especially if you can understand and speak a little Chinese.

If i had to guess, which, unfortunately, we all do - This could be where we're headed, everything else is watch the hand......

Hopefully, we have a super secret economic plan brewing somewhere in the dank depths of the obamocracy, but....I think that is stretching the limits of optimism just a bit.

Happy birthday!

Remember when you were five years old and people could screw you over royally and you couldn't do anything about it because you were a blissful, runny-nosed five-year-old?

Happy 5th Birthday in the age of the new Corporakleptocracy!

But wait theres more! You will not only recieve a complimentary buggering, you will also recieve $10 a gallon gasoline, (check europe) and skyrocketing food prices to go along with your date, and all within the next few years!

Hooray for government by and for the corporation! All hail the stock ticker!

Enjoy the ride.

Energy, labor, and humanity – Past present, and future

Preface on accuracy:

No, this is not properly referenced. Yes, I did attempt to ascertain reliable values, expending considerable effort in research. Some of the numbers (the global cost of WWII, for example) are essentially WAG's, but by people who should be as qualified to make them as anyone. Many numbers are industry averages, some are from specific projects, where the age of the technology does not allow time proven averages.

Financial figures were adjusted to 2010 US dollars except where noted.

I would give +/- 15% (a 30% range) as a good estimate of the average accuracy of figures in this document, with certain historical parameters being much more accurate. Feel free to do exhaustive referenced research on any area represented, and I will gladly incorporate such data into future versions of this document.

If you find something to be grossly in error or misleading, please comment and provide counterpoint information and references. If you simply disagree, but do not have specific information, please find specific information supporting your point of view, if possible, prior to commenting.

First lets define some very basic concepts and their interrelations as they pertain to us in our current cultural context:

Labor

Labor is a transformational process performed using human, animal, or mechanically supplied energy. Wealth is a symbolic representation of labor, embodied in valuable goods or symbols representing valuable goods. It follows therefore, that wealth is a symbolic representation of applied energy (labor).

Energy

Nearly all energy on the earth is either derived from thermonuclear fusion or heavy nucleus fission, either directly or indirectly.

Most abundant are the various forms of solar energy, which is actually remote thermonuclear energy. It is expressed in sunlight, wind, and the non tidal movement of water. Sunlight can be chemically harvested as food or biofuels through photosynthesis, converted directly to electricity through photovoltaic processes, and used as a heat source for heating or motive power through thermal cycle engines. It is most widely used in it stored form, as coal, oil, or natural gas – all fossil biofuels.

Also available is energy from nuclear fission, as both nuclear energy in power plants and in geothermal energy sources, which rely in fission processes deep within the earth. There may have also been rare natural occurrences of nuclear fission reactions at the earth surface.

Tidal energy, which is residual kinetic energy left over from the formation of the solar system, can also be utilized as an energy source.

There may be other forms of energy available to us as our understanding of physics progresses.

Solar energy energy is of primary importance to man and most multicellular creatures as the motive power in sustaining life, either directly or indirectly, through photosynthesis.

Energy is further used by civilized man as a source of motive power (labor) in the production of food and goods. It can be used directly as heat in a transformational process (cooking, cooling, heating of metals or plastics, etc) , or in the form of mechanical labor which is provided through thermokinetic conversion by engines or motors. Other uses of energy are chemical and atomic processes, but these energy uses are of relatively minor significance today, though they may one day grow to become more important.

From a socioeconomic perspective, energy directly applied (solar, geothermal, etc) to a transformational process replaces the labor required to (a – perform the process without the additional energy) or (b – gather fuel to supply the energy to perform the process), and in this way can be represented as a form of mechanical labor.

Either way, energy is applied to raw materials as labor (human, animal, or mechanical) to perform a transformational process. Labor may be again applied to further transformations until the desired end product is produced.

I will refer to fossil fuels as free stored energy. This is due to the fact that no investment is required to produce them, only extraction as a raw material, transportation, and processing is required. The amount of energy available from fossil fuels is grossly out of proportion to the extraction investment when compared to other forms of real time energy harvesting, such as solar power and farming. This is due to the extreme time concentration inherent in their use – millions of years of biological energy harvesting is being extracted in a span of just a few years. Concentration exists in other energy sources as well, such as hydropower, where the evaporative solar energy of an entire region is funneled into a single point of a single river or stream.

Materials

Fundamentally, all raw materials are free (ownerless) under current social systems (licensing agreements for resource extraction is an exception from this paradigm, but is still relatively rare, and usually benefits another party who has not paid for these resources). Labor is required to extract minerals from the earth through mining or farming, but the minerals themselves are freely available. As coal, oil, and natural gas are physical resources, they fall into this category as well.

Land is not free, but “land” is actually a license to use land, not the land itself. It is a payment for the labor involved in securing and maintaining stewardship, and for the potential value that that stewardship might bestow, in the form of resource collection, food (energy) production, or the collection of labor or goods or symbols representing labor (vassalage). Land value can also be speculative, in that the value may be derived from anticipated increase in value, but ultimately there must be resource extraction, energy harvesting (farming, geothermal, solar / wind / hydro power collection, etc), residency, or vassalage from the land to extract value.

In any rate, any value will ultimately be extracted in a symbolic representation of labor.

Now, for perspective, let us examine some rough estimates of our historical energy use:

Hunter gatherer

Per capita energy consumption limited to accessible environment, human food intake, and some animal food intake.

No significant excess production of food.

Social Structures following biological patterns – Clans, tribes

Toolmaking and physical technologies are our most powerful tool.

Significant hoarding of energy or energy symbols limited to nomadic raiders

Distribution of energy principally dependent on environmental factors

Human exploitation mainly limited to enslavement of captives

Average caloric use roughly 2000 - 5000 kcal / day

Primitive Agricultural society

Active collection and concentration of solar energy for food.

Energy consumption rises with animal husbandry and an increasing amount of animal motive power.

Refined and processed foods add to caloric cost of food production

Significant excess (food) energy production leads to a second class of humanity, those who derive their energy primarily from the energy gathered by others. This leads to the need for widespread symbolic representation of energy (wealth), which leads to the capability to hoard these symbols.

Collective effort (Government) becomes more critical to protect fixed assets and arable land, taxation begins. The need to keep records strengthens symbolic technologies, making further expansion of government practical.

Distribution of energy principally dependent on social factors

Average energy use 10,000 – 14,000 kcal / day

The dawn of empire

Social organization technologies become our most powerful tool

Significant amounts of animal, hydro, and wind energy used to process foods and transport goods.

The widespread acceptance of energy symbols (money) leads to the capability to govern, wage war, and exploit through vassalage. Nations, Empires, Global trade, and warfare as we understand it all result from this excess energy and its distribution.

Empires grow, and the technology of vassalage becomes refined. Significant portions of the energy consumed by most of humanity is confiscated to expand empires through conquest and to enrich the ruling class. Enormous energy is wielded by an elite few.

Global trade sows the seeds of financial rather than political empire....the East India trading company rises as the first significant corporakleptocracy.

Distribution of energy principally dependent on socio-economic factors

Average energy use 24,000 – 30,000 kcal / day

Steam – the mechanization of motive power

Science and technology become our most powerful tools.

Energy of combustion harnessed for motive power, per capita energy use rises sharply in the industrial world. Coal marks the beginning of significant stored carbon release from fossil fuels.

Mechanization begins to replace human and animal power as a primary motive power source.

The advent of mechanical labor creates a new social force – industry. The excess labor (energy) available from combustion is exploited to concentrate wealth for non-governmental entities. The rise of enterprise begins in earnest.

Demand for combustible materials quickly outstrips renewable supply in many areas. Vast reserves of coal are recognized as a more economical alternative to easily depleted forests. The transportation of energy rises as an industry unto itself. This huge source of stored energy, free for the taking, produces a paradigm shift in energy management.

The excess availability of stored free energy (labor) results in rising standards of living in many parts of the world.

Excess energy spills over from industry to domestic life in much of the civilized world. It becomes customary for enterprise to reap the entire primary benefit of free excess energy, with the population enjoying only the secondary effects with the exception of the industrial elite.

Using laws primarily drafted for public facilities (towns, bridges, etc), commercial entities begin to enjoy the rights of individuals, enabling them to transcend direct human ownership.

The meme of unlimited growth through the concentration of resources is widely accepted and idealized.

Population reaches 1 Billion, doubling in less than 1000 years.

Average energy use 70,000 – 90,000 kcal / day

Oil – concentrated chemical energy becomes nearly free.

Coal is replaced by refined crude oil and natural gas as the favored source of free stored energy. Petrofuels make possible the internal combustion engine – a portable, potent source of mechanical labor.

Concentrated, portable, free energy combined with the internal combustion engine feeds an exponential increase in energy consumption - pervasive use of mechanized motive power in industry, transportation, and food production immediately follows.

Synthetic fertilizers boost food production by a factor of three per land unit. Irrigation of previously non arable land becomes pervasive – agriculture now largely dependent on non – solar energy sources for support. Population reaches 6 billion as a direct result of increased food availability, seeing a sixfold increase in only two hundred years.

Mechanization further decreases human involvement in food production. Food production surplus is met with spiraling populations in undeveloped nations, largely dependent on non indigenous agriculture.

Industry grows exponentially, fueled by the store of excess energy (labor) embodied in fossil fuels. Corporations now wield more power and wealth than most nations. Transnationalism erodes national and cultural loyalty of corporate entities. As stock prices, rather than sustainable business models, become the primary feedback mechanism for corporate governance, profit becomes a moral justification in itself.

Distribution of information becomes increasingly centralized, and is largely operated by corporate entities.

Universal ownership of natural resources re-emerges as a valid paradigm, but is largely ignored as corporate industrial interests continue to grow financially and in their political reach. Improvements in lifestyle, attributed to industry, placate the majority of the civilized world as a validation of the corporakleptocratic meme.

The obvious fact that finite resources cannot be infinitely amassed is ignored, even made heretic in working class social circles. The idea that resources could be finite is depreciated as a valid paradigm.

Society at large accepts these fallacious memes, and consumption grows unchecked, fueled by the illusion of unlimited abundance created by the availability of free stored energy. Indications that resources are in fact limited are largely ignored because they are not accommodated within the dominant paradigm.

Outright denial that infinite consumption is not sustainable becomes a social value in parts of the western world.

Environmental damage becomes pervasive, food supplies in the oceans begin to fail.

Excess CO2 release from fossil fuels, and methane from intensive agriculture thought to be a contributing factor in rapid global warming.

Deforestation and ocean sterilization progressively decrease the ability of the ecosystem to release oxygen from CO2 and to fix carbon back to the soil and oceans.

Average energy use 200,000 – 250,000 kcal / day – this means that in the industrialized world, each of us consumes enough energy on a daily basis to feed 100 men, women, and children.. A family of four depletes energy resources at a rate equal to a good sized early agricultural village.

Post Fossil fuels – the next step

As the excess energy available from fossil fuels decreases, where will the wealth of industry and nations come from? What source of labor will be employed? What will happen when industry cannot simply prosper based on free concentrated wealth (energy) that can be pumped from the ground and easily transported and used?

Based on what we have seen in recent economic shrinkages, the portion taken by the ruling class (industry or government) is not likely to decrease, right up until the point of collapse. If that is to be the case, from where will the labor / cost shortfall be filled?

Global food supply barely outstrips demand, and additional room for agriculture comes at the cost of forest depletion or energy intensive irrigation. Since 70% of our current food production capacity is dependent on fossil fuels which are quickly being depleted even as populations continue to grow sharply, how will we provide sufficient food in the near future?

2008, for reference

Daily Food energy available per capita globally – roughly 3300 kcal

Daily Non Food energy available per capita Globally 51750 kcal

Post oil energy availability based on present infrastructure

Daily Energy per capita available (current capacity) without fossil fuels (but including coal) : 21550 kcal

Daily food energy available per capita without the use of excess energy (fossil fuels): 970 kcal

Percent of the population required to be directly involved with food production without the use of fossil fuels to produce that amount of food: roughly 60%......this is a huge logistical problem, because much of the population is very distant from the most productive agricultural areas.

Sufficient hydrogen production for the manufacture of synfuels, either from electricity or IGCC coal plants would make this situation much better. In order to have an uninterrupted food supply, we need an uninterrupted fuel supply, and we need fuels that will work in existing infrastructure.

Because of the high population, postindustrial man will have access to similar energy quantities as were used by early empire Man, but without the food availability, if we do not take drastic steps to change our energy conversion and consumption strategies.

Now lets look at some of the social issues associated with our present production – consumption paradigm:

Conservation

In the USA, nearly twice the energy per capita is used as in other industrialized nations with a similar standard of living (Japan, Germany). Clearly, there is room for progress. A 50% reduction in energy consumption in the USA would result in a 12% global reduction, a very significant gain.

While conservation has been a buzzword for a long time in western culture, it has been more about appearances than substance. Real progress has been made in energy efficiency of homes and vehicles, but much remains to be done.

Despite modest gains in energy efficiency, product consumption has continued to spiral upward, and there is substantial resistance to slowing this trend – it is inherently anti commercial. The culture of commerce has become parasitic in many aspects, encouraging wealth so that more can be harvested, effectively farming consumers to collect, and then spend, more energy, and enriching corporate coffers in the process - often with questionable benefit to the consumer themselves, and certainly at a detriment to the environment from which this energy and materials have been harvested.

If a true ethic of conservation can become a valid meme, or better yet, can be made to provide direct benefit to the conservator or a commercially interested second party, then we may begin to make significant strides in conservation.

Depreciating conspicuous consumption

It is easy to ignore that significant energy is tied up in the manufacture of goods – for example, medium technology density manufactured goods (appliances, cars) use approximately twice their weight in oil to manufacture, high tech goods much more (a cellphone requires nearly 20 lbs of oil to make).

As long as we continue to attach social value to the unmitigated acquisition of manufactured goods, it will be very difficult to mediate energy consumption and environmental impact. New memes of successful living need to be created and promoted, and unsustainable habits need to be reattached to negative social connotations, as these behaviors have a negative impact on us all.

Distributed energy production – the real benefit ?

Aside from the minuscule energy contribution that most home AE installations provide, there is an important social element. The homeowner comes to understand energy production and use, and gets a more accurate idea of the finiteness of an energy resource. It is hard to think of electrical energy as a finite resource when it comes from the wall in apparently unlimited quantities, even if you do have to pay for it. Neighbors are encouraged to think in terms of production and use, and awareness of energy as a resource increases.

The key factor - the tipping point, if you will – of distributed energy, will be when tangible quality of life improvements result from the application of renewable energy technologies. This could be in the form of subsidies, social aspects, or direct economic benefit.

Microagriculture

Perhaps the greatest potential benefit lies in microagriculture. It is low cost, energy saving, nutrition (or wealth) providing, and helps to secure the global food supply.

Microag has the potential to make people less dependent on the inefficient commercial food supply chain and reap the direct benefit of their access to solar energy without having to divide their earnings with corporate industrial interests.

Rather than put a solar panel on the roof for $5000, people all over the planet can put up a plant box and harness solar energy in the form of calories. 1000 Square feet of rooftop can create 1000kcal per day or more using strictly conventional growing techniques – and that can be doubled with advanced horticulture. Since traditional (industrial) food distribution averages 7 kcal / delivered kcalorie, 1000 square feet could yield 14000kcal / day in savings or – about 16KWH, almost exactly what a solar array of the same size would produce given a good sunny location – the main difference being that a 1000 square foot solar array costs close to 30 thousand dollars, and requires very little maintenance, where a 1000 square foot farm can be made for a few hundred dollars and will need daily TLC.

Additional annual benefits of 1000 square feet of intensive rooftop agriculture include : 250 - 500lbs of carbon fixing (a carbon free road trip!), 200 - 400lbs of oxygen released (enough for you to breathe for one or two months), and 30,000,000 BTU's of cooling, potentially decreasing the cooling load of the building itself by as much as 20%.

Outside of the urban rooftop environment, microfarming can easily supply the dietary needs of an entire family in a small space. ¼ acre (roughly 10,000 square feet) is easily sufficient to provide the basic caloric intake for a family of four in a good growing environment, using conventional growing techniques. This is not only practical, it is a sustainable template for global food production – even at 13 billion people, we will still have more than two acres per person available.

Technological improvements to make microfarming less resource intensive, yield more and a higher quality or variety of usable foods, require less time, and be more resistant to failure would be very well invested. In most socioeconomic environments, effective microfarming should yield sufficient direct and social benefit to become a self sustaining paradigm, given effective initial education support and meme shaping.

The pervasive presence of microfarming could significantly bolster global security in a famine threatened environment, both by providing food resources directly and by providing a template to increase food supply.

What can be done to address the effects of diminishing reserves of oil? How will we produce the energy that we need to support our growing population base? What are some of the potential problems associated with different energy sources?

Currently only coal, wind, nuclear, and solar power generation are definitely capable of meeting global demands into the foreseeable future.

Hydropower could be developed to meet nearly 10% of 2008 global energy use, but with significant environmental and social impact.

Global coal reserves could provide for the next 100 – 200 years, but in the environmental costs may be unacceptable if not carefully managed.

Based on economically recoverable uranium reserves, nuclear power could sustain current global consumption for only 5 years without breeder reactors, or roughly 200 years with breeder type plants – but this would involve the processing of very large quantities of plutonium and other weaponizable products, and would present an ever present environmental threat.

Both coal and nuclear technologies might provide a bridge solution while more sustainable technologies are rolled out. A system of incentives and tariffs may be required to ensure that transition ensues.

Geothermal is a difficult topic to research, and the answers often change depending on who you ask. The earth’s heat content is estimated to be about 10^31 joules. This is conducted to the surface by at a rate of about 45 Terawatts (Tw) and is fueled by an estimated 30 Tw of natural nuclear decay. This is clearly more than the 15 Tw required to maintain current production, but much of the energy is too diffuse to provide a useful resource for power generation. It is estimated that 2 Tw of production might be possible with sufficient investment. On the other hand, an MIT study in 2006 indicated that, using enhanced geothermal technology that includes energy stored by heat pumps and solar heating of the earth, it might be possible to provide for the entirety of global energy consumption, although the cost of doing so is not clear.

Wind and solar power are both technically more than capable of meeting global energy demand. At this time wind power appears to be the more cost effective option – but still unrealistically expensive for a short term implementation, and wind and solar power both suffer from intermittent output, requiring significant investments and improvements in energy storage and distribution technologies.

Replacing local combustion engines with distantly generated electrical power will raise some infrastructure problems of its own, but with modern hydrides, fuel cells, and hydrogen based synthfuels, they need not be show stoppers.

Some basic numbers for a sense of scale

$194.5 trillion = Global personal wealth, 2009

8.3 trillion dollars = US money supply, 2009

$14.3 trillion = US GDP, 2009

4.8 billion ounces = global gold supply, 2009

$1.9 trillion = annual global oil production, 2009

$.88 trillion = Annual US military spending

(total military related expenses, DOD only is $.68T) , 2010

Global cost of WWII, 2010 dollars $27 trillion (US Cost $5 trillion)

Total US cost of the Cold War (over 43 Years) $21 trillion

An overview of possible Replacement energy sources

Wind power, the most likely renewable energy contender

Cost to deploy wind turbines in the USA – $1.4Million per Megawatt

global energy consumption 15,000,000 megawatts,

less coal output at about 5,000,000 megawatts

=10,000,000 Mw to generate in order to replace oil and gas

0.33 availability factor gives 30,000,000 megawatts of installed nameplate (rated 100% output) capacity, or 20 million large turbines

at 1.4 million per megawatt, installed (in the USA) = 42 trillion dollars

Current global nameplate capacity is 158,000 Mw.

Turbine production would have to be ramped to 3,000,000 Nameplate Mw a year in a very short time frame. A 2x Cost expansion based on resource and production scarcity from accelerated schedule and remote location requirements can be expected. Large investments in additional power transmission and storage facilities would also be required.

Production / Demand timing is a limiting factor for wind power when it becomes more than 15% or so of the production capacity. Effective energy storage systems would have to be developed to utilize wind as a primary storage source. There could be very significant technological barriers to implementation, and costs could rise considerably from these estimates.

This project would directly employ approximately 5 million people for 10 years, including turbine manufacture.

Ongoing maintenance would require 500,000 employees to maintain the turbines.

$120 - $84 trillion

An overview of coal as an interim alternative

Approximately 3,000 each 4000 Mw Plants to be built to make up needed capacity

This would employ roughly 3 million people for 10 years in the direct construction of the plants, not including equipment suppliers. Global coal consumption would triple. Environmental damage would result from mining, but if carefully managed this could be mitigated down to short term effects.

Carbon release is potentially a more difficult problem, but carbon sequestering technologies could eliminate 90% of carbon emissions, potentially reducing CO2 releases to less than half of current global levels with the replacement of some of the oldest existing plants.

Coal Options

“Clean Coal” (IGCC 90% carbon sequestering), zero sulfur.

$6m per megawatt Capacity, 100% availability factor (this may drop considerably, even to below $3 per watt)

$96 – $33 trillion

“Clean Coal” IGCC , zero sulfur.

$2m per megawatt Capacity, 100% availability factor (this may drop considerably, even to below $1.5 per watt)

Atmospheric CO2 pollution would increase significantly.

$22 – $16 trillion

Conventional Coal

$1m per megawatt capacity, 100% availability factor, standard emissions scrubbing.

Atmospheric CO2 pollution would increase significantly, and other pollutants would likely create significant secondary effects.

$11 trillion

Nuclear power to the rescue?

Nuclear power generation costs are similar to coal, with a higher infrastructure cost. Breeder reactors would be mandatory for a long term solution. A very very rough estimate of initial infrastructure costs would be:

$20 - 30 trillion

On a global scale, providing effective security and defense of these operations (lots of weaponizable plutonium kicking around) would probably exceed the cost of power production and would present a very significant, ever present security and environmental threat.

Geothermal a possibility?

Primary geothermal production capacity is estimated to be about 2 Tw. Assuming that the other 8Tw required could be made up by secondary sources as suggested by the MIT study, then Geothermal might come in at

$34 - 75 Trillion

Depending largely on the cost of the secondary sources. Large investments in distribution systems would also likely be required.

Unprecedented global investment will likely be required to avert collapse of the current system

Obviously, a huge investment is required for all of the possible solutions to maintaining energy output levels. Investment on this scale, if even a realistic possibility, is probably not possible without severe widespread economic effects, and although I am not an economist, it seems to me that the likely effect would be extreme global inflation.

Where would this money come from?

Some ideas that could fractionally contribute:

1.A 100% tax on all oil – energy revenues, with a corresponding 100% tax credit for renewable or clean coal infrastructure investment by companies affected by this tax.

2.Tax reduction for investors, employees, and executives of companies which invest more than 70% of their revenues into renewable or clean coal infrastructure investment.

3.Tax free bond issues for renewable or clean coal infrastructure investment

3.Conferring overflow tax benefits for investors holding more than a certain percentage of their portfolio in RE/CC infrastructure

3.Provide a 100% tax credit, up to taxes owed, for all energy related businesses, credited for RE/CC infrastructure..

7.Place a tarriff on electrical power, funding a credit for micro AE installations. Balance this tarrif so that property owners who install effective AE systems will be tariff neutral.

8.Tax credits for agriculture – windfarm colocation, to provide an incentive for free siting of wind turbines.

9.Tax credits for microagriculture food production, reflecting the energy savings

More Ideas needed.... please comment!

On Constants....

When we seek to explain the values of constants, we pick constants which are just plain numbers, because the ones tied to units (like the speed of light, a distance over time) are inherently intractable in their stubborn relationship with the units in which they are defined. Examples of unit-less constants would be the ratio of the masses of the muon and the electron, and the fine structure constant. But why are these constants constant, and why are they what they are?

One uneasy possibility is that physical reality contains domains with all sorts of different values for these constants, but that nobody is around to ask about them except in the rarefied subset of domains where they are just right to allow complex life to exist.

This is known as 'anthropic' reasoning (somewhat of a misnomer) , or more specifically in this case, as the “weak anthropic principle”, combined with a corollary assumption of the existence of other possible universes.

It is a postulate to which I subscribe, perhaps as much for my own entertainment as for any really good reason, but within which I find remarkable avenues of exploration and even occasional glimpses into the inner workings of the observable universe.

Of the many possibilities that this hints at, one of the most interesting is that we may not in fact be observers of a single universe, but rather of a narrow spectrum of possible universes that support our “continuity of consciousness”.

Continuity of consciousness is a concept I find useful to differentiate between three distinct types of possible universes:

1: Those in which we cannot exist at all

2: Universal states in we might be able to exist in a certain time or place, but which might not have supported our coming into existence in the first place, or support our existence from inception up to an arbitrarily short termination point, or support conditions favorable for existence only in an alternate frame of reference in space time, perhaps arbitrarily constrained.

3. Universes or universal states which support our existence end to end.

One interesting ramification of this is that at different moments or places (locations in space-time) we may be able to observe a slightly different spectra of universes, momentarily including those which specifically support our existence only momentarily.

I find it interesting to note the vague yet tangible connection between this idea and many of the less intuitive elements of quantum physics, such as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the interference pattern of single photons with themselves, “spooky action”, and many other small hints.

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle illustrates, among many other more important things, the fact that for an arbitrarily short period of time (directly related to the mass of the elephant in question) we can not be entirely sure that we are not sharing the room with an elephant, and that we can even detect the presence of this virtual elephant in the pressure that is exerted outside of two objects spaced closely enough together to exclude the elephants wave-function.

What is perhaps even slightly more troubling is that even when we can see, touch, and smell said elephant, we cannot be so sure of his exact position in any given instant so as to completely exclude the possibility that he is, at least in part, on the far side of Io, in orbit around Neptune.

This is very tantalizing fodder for thinking in terms of a spectra of universal states, and as good an excuse as any for not going into work in the morning. After all, no one can really prove that you are not actually at work, at least in any given instant....

But I digress....

There are other possible ramifications of this that can be imagined... such as the possibility of (ever so slightly) influencing the spectra of observable universes by our physical state, our actions, or maybe even our thoughts......And what about all that dark matter and dark energy.... Could it be that things beyond our space-time event horizon can be observed in an expanded spectra, due to their inability to influence our existence? If the observable spectrum of universes becomes more permissive as it becomes distant in space or time, wouldn't that have energy, and therefore mass?

There are countless philosophical, cosmological, and even potentially theological implications for this idea, which can also be expanded into alternate “interpretations” of universal states, but that gets so far into philosophy that it almost becomes pointless to discuss except to push back the limits of dark knowledge, that which we do not yet know that we do not know.

Hmmmmm.