You can write a lot on an index card, but there’s a limit. The same is true for tweets. (2/)
The German word for Index Card is a #Zettel and the cards are placed in a #Zettelkasten. (3/)
Index cards contain notes, which should be written in a language call *Markdown*. (4/)
Index cards are prompts. Tweets are prompts too. For someone. (5/)
Markdown is the native language for interacting with AIs, as in Prompt Engineering. (6/)
\## What Markdown can do: (7/)
It can have headings and suhheadings, marked with a `#` (8/)
You do _italics like this_ (9/)
You can make things **bold** like this. (10/)
You can write literal text or program statements in Markdown like this, with back tics (11/)
Some dialects of markdown understand hashtags, some don’t. (11/)
A dialect is a dialogue is dialectic. It’s for talking together. (12/)
You can try to attach a document or picture to an index card, but that doesn’t work very well. Index cards are mostly for text. (13/)
You can link index cards (tweets) together with a hyperlink. This is how you do quotes and attachments too – you link them. (14/)
Index cards are dots, and hyperlinks are arrows. The arrows let you move from card to card. (15/)
Every tweet (and every index card) is also a passage in a game. (16/)
Would you like to play a game? Let’s play Adventure, a text game. (17/)
You are in a maze of twisted little tweets, all alike. (18/)
Index cards and tweets (which are the passage prompts in a game, and let you navigate to other passages by following the arrows), can also be used to write books. (19/)
The japanese call this Keitai shosetsu. It is an art form, invented in the aughties, by humans who were texting on mobile phones. (20/)
Keitai shosetsu is a form of dialectic. (21/)
Some novels let you choose your own adventure. (22/)
You don’t always have to go to the next tweet in the thread. (23/)
You can branch out. Branches make trees. (24/)
Every index card should have a unique identifier called a slug. (25/)
At twitter, the slug for the previous tweet is 1943722229713580200. Look at its link to confirm this. (26/)
Quotations and Quines are a kind of links in a mathematical construct called a Category. Categories are pictures of dots and arrows. (27/)
In mathematics, Category Theory is an alternative representation of Symbolic Logic, called Categorical Logic.[1][2] (28/)
In Aristotle, who invented Category Theory, the categories are of course dots and arrows too, though he doesn’t call them that. (29/)
Aristotle calls his dots, or index cards, ‘terms’. (30/)
Stop and explore Aristotle [Categories, by Aristotle; translated by E. M. Edghill]
Dots (web pages) and arrows (hyperlinks) on the Semantic Web, are described by RDF, the Resource Description Framework, and its Semantics. And other Languages. (32/)
The prompt, or #Zettel, is both for the Human and for the AI (computer) (33/)
Index cards (prompts) can be used for training. (34/)
Search the query {Behavioural Programme Learning} (35/)
Reinforcement Learning, or Q Learning, is a kind of behavioural training programme for humans or AIs. Read this tweet again. (36/)
Humans and AIs engage in a dialogue with each other, by passing prompts, or index cards written in Markdown, back and forth. (37/)
The outcome of Dialectic depends on both players, their environment (which is another player, called ‘Nature’ or ‘The Battlespace’), and what plays they make. (40/)
I’ve been playing around with using standalone SVG files as a ‘replacement’ for HTML. It’s a bit primitive, but I thought I’d share some working samples to get anyone interested started.
– I want to go back to an easier web — the web exists to fetch static files. Pulling in lots of files — 100s? 1000s? to view a single page is a non-goal.
– I’m interested in graphics, data visualisation, and memes — that is how people learn now. We still need text though. And no, I don’t want to pull in a giant library like d3 just to draw simple plot.
– You should write your own damn code anyway. Libraries are for the birds. All scientists know this. Sure, there are exceptions. No one wants to write their own OS or re-write BLAS just to multiply matrices. But those few exceptions aside, you should know and love every line of code you use.
– SVG uses XLINK for hyperlinks. I know. XML is so aughties. SVG 1.1 is the current well suported standard. SVG 2 is ‘out there’ and getting moar like HTML5 and less like XHTML. festina lente.
– We still need to embed HTML though
– SVG has a DOM but it is not *your* DOM. Getting styles to play nicely between the HTML and SVG/XML world, or between DOMs, requires a lot of namespace majick. That’s what this thread is about….
So. Working samples:
[[ code at the link ]]
Largely taken from a book on SVG, but adding in how to do hyperlinks — ‘interactivity’ and programming are not features to toss as an afterthought in Chapter 18! They are the essence of the matter.
I’ve been playing around with using standalone SVG files as a ‘replacement’ for HTML. It’s a bit primitive, but I thought I’d share some working samples to get anyone interested started.
– I want to go back to an easier web — the web exists to fetch static files. Pulling in lots of files — 100s? 1000s? to view a single page is a non-goal.
– I’m interested in graphics, data visualisation, and memes — that is how people learn now. We still need text though. And no, I don’t want to pull in a giant library like d3 just to draw simple plot.
– You should write your own damn code anyway. Libraries are for the birds. All scientists know this. Sure, there are exceptions. No one wants to write their own OS or re-write BLAS just to multiply matrices. But those few exceptions aside, you should know and love every line of code you use.
– SVG uses XLINK for hyperlinks. I know. XML is so aughties. SVG 1.1 is the current well suported standard. SVG 2 is ‘out there’ and getting moar like HTML5 and less like XHTML. festina lente.
– We still need to embed HTML though
– SVG has a DOM but it is not *your* DOM. Getting styles to play nicely between the HTML and SVG/XML world, or between DOMs, requires a lot of namespace majick. That’s what this thread is about….
So. Working samples:
Code:
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
height="10cm" width="10cm">
<title>scripted svg</title>
<style type="text/css">
line {
stroke: purple;
}
svg {
margin: 1cm;
}
</style>
<script><![CDATA[
(function() {
var size=10;
var doc = document;
var svg = document.documentElement;
var svgNS = svg.namespaceURI;
if (!(svg.classList && svg.classList.contains("initialized")))draw();
function draw(){
var l1,l2;
for (var i=0; i<=size; i++){
l1 = doc.createElementNS(svgNS,"line");
l1.setAttribute("x1",i+"cm");
l1.setAttribute("x2",size+"cm");
l1.setAttribute("y2",i+"cm");
svg.appendChild(l1);
l2 = doc.createElementNS(svgNS,"line");
l2.setAttribute("y1",i+"cm");
l2.setAttribute("x2",i+"cm");
l2.setAttribute("y2",size+"cm");
svg.appendChild(l2);
}
if (svg.classList) svg.classList.add("initialized")
a1 = doc.createElementNS(svgNS,"a");
a1.setAttributeNS("http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink","xlink:href","http://whigdev.com");
a1.setAttributeNS("http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink","xlink:title","Assisted Thinking");
//a1.textContent="clickme";
t1 = doc.createElementNS(svgNS,"text");
t1.setAttribute("x",10);
t1.setAttribute("y",10);
t1.textContent="clickme";
a1.appendChild(t1);
svg.appendChild(a1);
}
}
)();
]]></script>
</svg>
Largely taken from a book on SVG, but adding in how to do hyperlinks — ‘interactivity’ and programming are not features to toss as an afterthought in Chapter 18! They are the essence of the matter.
Let’s add some styled HTML:
Code:
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
height="10cm" width="10cm">
<title>scripted svg</title>
<style type="text/css">
line {
stroke: purple;
}
svg {
margin: 1cm;
}
</style>
<script><![CDATA[
(function() {
var size=10;
var doc = document;
var svg = document.documentElement;
var svgNS = svg.namespaceURI;
if (!(svg.classList && svg.classList.contains("initialized")))draw();
function draw(){
var l1,l2;
for (var i=0; i<=size; i++){
l1 = doc.createElementNS(svgNS,"line");
l1.setAttribute("x1",i+"cm");
l1.setAttribute("x2",size+"cm");
l1.setAttribute("y2",i+"cm");
svg.appendChild(l1);
l2 = doc.createElementNS(svgNS,"line");
l2.setAttribute("y1",i+"cm");
l2.setAttribute("x2",i+"cm");
l2.setAttribute("y2",size+"cm");
svg.appendChild(l2);
}
if (svg.classList) svg.classList.add("initialized")
a1 = doc.createElementNS(svgNS,"a");
a1.setAttributeNS("http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink","xlink:href","http://whigdev.com");
a1.setAttributeNS("http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink","xlink:title","Assisted Thinking");
//a1.textContent="clickme";
t1 = doc.createElementNS(svgNS,"foreignObject");
t1.setAttribute("x",10);
t1.setAttribute("y",10);
i1 = doc.createElementNS("http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml","xhtml:div");
i1.innerHTML="click <xhtml:span style=\"font-family:arial;font-weight:bold\">ME</xhtml:span>";
t1.setAttribute("width",100);
t1.setAttribute("height",100);
t1.appendChild(i1);
a1.appendChild(t1);
svg.appendChild(a1);
}
}
)();
]]></script>
</svg>
The catch is you need to use a foreignObject and XML (XHTML) namespaces.
Online sample at CTRLALTRIGHT: https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/ctrlaltright/add-html.svg [[ the link in the sample does traverse but goes to a non-functioning landing page — I’ll have to fix the sample. It proves you can make a diagram (meme) with a clickable link ]]
Notice: standalone SVG with hyperlinking is *all you need to build a web* — sure, it’s static assets, but JavaScript adds all the dynamism you need.
The sample is a standalone SVG file, with HTML, JavaScript, styling, and hyperlinks, that your browser can already render. Test it on a sail phone too.
It’s just a static file you could mail to someone as an attachment — no fetches from the web unless you want, and no silliness about .mhtml files or .zip files to distribute all the pieces you need to see and interact with the page.
You can hoast SVG on an HTML page, but you will need an < OBJECT> tag if it has interactive bits like JavaScript. Obviously, an IMG tag that had JavaScript would be a huge hole in the security model.
Part of Compartment on webdesign, kb:/STOOD. – graphics, dataviz, web typography, mathjax, LaTeX, unicode representation and encodings, SGML/HTML/XML processing [[ irrelevant comment about indexing and archiving this material ]]
Code:
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
height="10cm" width="10cm">
<title>scripted svg</title>
<style type="text/css">
line {
stroke: purple;
}
svg {
margin: 1cm;
}
</style>
<script><![CDATA[
(function() {
var size=10;
var doc = document;
var svg = document.documentElement;
var svgNS = svg.namespaceURI;
if (!(svg.classList && svg.classList.contains("initialized")))draw();
function draw(){
var l1,l2;
for (var i=0; i<=size; i++){
l1 = doc.createElementNS(svgNS,"line");
l1.setAttribute("x1",i+"cm");
l1.setAttribute("x2",size+"cm");
l1.setAttribute("y2",i+"cm");
svg.appendChild(l1);
l2 = doc.createElementNS(svgNS,"line");
l2.setAttribute("y1",i+"cm");
l2.setAttribute("x2",i+"cm");
l2.setAttribute("y2",size+"cm");
svg.appendChild(l2);
}
if (svg.classList) svg.classList.add("initialized")
a1 = doc.createElementNS(svgNS,"a");
a1.setAttributeNS("http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink","xlink:href","http://whigdev.com");
a1.setAttributeNS("http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink","xlink:title","Assisted Thinking");
//a1.textContent="clickme";
t1 = doc.createElementNS(svgNS,"text");
t1.setAttribute("x",10);
t1.setAttribute("y",10);
t1.textContent="clickme";
a1.appendChild(t1);
svg.appendChild(a1);
}
}
)();
]]></script>
</svg>
The ‘compleat designer’ tools at the link are all MacOS centric. I respect the design that went into the Mac and its eco-system, but dayum they’re expensive. Maybe one day I’ll own one to play with.
[[ This is a poast about building a web out of clickable pictures that link to each other ]] Reprint of a Salo howto thread archived here: http://whigdev.com/white/index.php?threads/meme-laboratory-weaponised-memes.36/ via http://whigdev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2641 and…
https://lod-cloud.net/ Xenforo won’t let me attach an SVG (too dangerous I guess and probably a wise precaution given the contents of this thread — but I’ll bet Ethereum lets me link it 😉 ) so you will need the link…
It is impossible for the educator, even of small children, not to take notice that this week the Earth came as close to renewing nuclear warfare as it has at any time since the reciprocal development of competing thermonuclear weapons by the United States and the Soviet Union.
Closer even, than during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Had President Kennedy chosen to bomb the Cuban missile site, and perhaps attempted to sink a Soviet submarine or three, we might have found out whether that particular crisis was more or less severe than the one last week. He did not, and it is useless to speculate based on hypotheticals.
I have another reason for speaking out at this time—my personal obligation as a trained (Ph.D.) Experimental Nuclear Physicist, with some post-graduate work in that field, and also an interest in matters of Meteorology and Climate, informed by my reading of Sagan et al., The Cold and the Dark, on the theory and consequences for the Earth’s climate of a full-scale nuclear conflict, commonly called the ‘Nuclear Winter’. The science and possibility of this has not changed in the intervening years, any more than the understanding that using fossil fuels for the next 30 or 50 years would lead to Global Warming, which we did and it has.
So, what has the discussion of such weighty matters, important as they are, to do with Classical Christian Education (CCE)? I would answer, at least two very important observations, which are subject of this essay.
(1) That in Classical Education ‘Physics’ is a broader term than what we currently designate by it, and includes also Biology and Chemistry, so that there is no easy pass for physicists or chemists because they are not working on subjects that directly impact Life and the Environment, but are ‘merely theoretical’.
And (2), That even in CCE, the ‘Liberal (Classical) Education’ part is, and should be, purely secular, and non-controversial, when presented to children younger than ‘Rhetoric’ stage. That is, children of Grammar and Dialectic phase.
This contrasts greatly with the theory of our current Educational System, which is based on the Clausewitz Triangle, and places Education in the service of War and the State. That is, the two hands of the Government of the State (top of the triangle) are the Military (who are given Military Doctrine, or training), and the People, who likewise are indoctrinated with Total Education for Total War in the service of the Total State (of Prussia, later America).
This contrasts greatly with the principles of the Scottish Enlightenment, and the Liberal and Classical principles of the American Revolution, and its alternatives. Certainly it contrasts with a millennium or two of traditional Christian Education as well. The alternative form of militarist, universal, and mandatory education was first tried in Massachusetts, after dis-establishment of Puritanism in 1832. In short, in the period that in Europe corresponds to the time between the conclusion of the Congress of Vienna (1820) and the Crimean War at mid century. It was tried in a single state, at the time of the New England Transcendentalists, Emerson and Thoreau. Until the post-bellum period, very few states made it mandatory or even experimented with it. It is, thus, a project of ‘Liberal Democracy’ and not of a Constitutional Republic. Until quite recently, it was not a matter for the Federal government to concern itself with at all, though clearly the experience of the Wilson and FD Roosevelt administrations changed that as well.
To touch first briefly on the second point, then, that Classical Education, or Liberal Education, should be both purely Secular and also not have a lot of political propaganda mixed up with it to ‘indoctrinate’ the children: we start with the fact that there are *TEN* Liberal Arts, not *SEVEN* (according to, for example, St Augustine).
The first seven ‘arts’ are called ‘disciplines’—these are, famously, the Trivium (Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric) and the Quadrivium (Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, Astronomy) that comprise most of Classical Education in the secular sense through High School. They are ‘disciplines’ because they are taught to young children—Disciples, and are meant to have nothing that adults would dispute among themselves—and certainly politics and the objectives of warfare, rather than physical training for it, are both controversial and contentious. One cannot compete in any ludus before one is trained!
The principle of not teaching the controversial parts of the Liberal Arts, and of treating the Liberal arts differently from the Bible—Cassiodorus calls his book Divine and Secular (Humane) Letters—is built into the structure and meaning of the Classical Liberal Arts.
The last three Liberal Arts, bringing the total content of Liberal Education to TEN, are called the Three Philosophies, and comprised of Medicine, Law, and Divinity (the clergy, as in going to seminary). These differ from those taught to young children, because there are different schools of thought about them, and ‘adult discussion’ is required.
All of the Liberal Arts are both Sciences and Arts. That is, they have a theoretical part, and a practical part. Music, for example, is both the mathematical theory of the Quadrivium subject—that musicians talk about when they say Theory Class—and practice, practice, practice, which in turn is a one of the Useful Arts and a Fine Art. Likewise, there is a theory and practice to each of Medicine, Law, and Divinity. We speak of practicing Medicine or Law. We speak of the Practice of Religion as opposed to teaching Doctrine.
So, where does Physics fit in? In the Classical Liberal Arts, is the theory of Medicine. We all know what the practice of medicine is, and that it is subject to the Hippocratic Oath. This oath binds not just those who that are speculating ‘theoretical Biology’ and practice it, but those that speculate on or practice Chemistry, and those that speculate on or practice Physics.
First, Do No Harm.
Let’s let that sink in. Someone practicing Physics (or Chemistry, or the Biology of Men or Animals or Plants or Ecology…) should FIRST, do NO HARM.
That is what the Classical Liberal Arts say to us about Practicing Physicists and Nuclear Warfare. Whether this is binding on Engineers, Technicians, or Soldiers a controversial matter as to the exact rules and ethics. We don’t say to soldiers, ‘first, do no harm you know, chap’. Likeweise, we do not so enjoin Lawyers or the Clergy with this exact formula, who have professions with their own rules of conduct, with professional equivalents. But to Physicians and Scientists we do say this.
If you ever wondered what Classical Christian Education has to say on how a Nuclear Reactor *Physicist* has different obligations from a Nuclear Reactor Engineer or a Nuke Mech on a Navy sub of whatever rating, now you know.
It’s basically a power inverter so it does what solar panels (PV) can do your roof only with an Li Ion battery, and you need the grid to charge it up. First world to next world buffering device. It is more or less a Tesla you can carry, without the transportation parts. In the above pic, you see one of two possible batteries charging. It takes about 90 min per battery to charge, one at a time. Then you can use the batteries for whatever the power is rated for.
I can use ‘Agentic AI’ to scan a document with my upcoming appointments (a well-visit follow up and a dental cleaning) and Google will make up a 5-minute podcast in the language of my choice about it:
Here’s the transcript, lightly redacted:
0:00: Hey, welcome back to the Deep Dive. 0:01: Good to be here. 0:02: For this deep dive, we’re zoning in on just one document. 0:06: It’s an appointment schedule, right, from WA Peninsula Community Health Services, or PCHS, and we’re focusing specifically on the details for one person mentioned here, John Goodwin, born {{redacted}} 0:18: Patient ID {{redacted}} STE. 0:21: That’s him. 0:22: So our goal is pretty straightforward. 0:25: Let’s pull out the key info about his upcoming appointments from this single sheet. 0:29: Exactly. 0:30: What does this schedule actually tell us about his care plan? 0:33: OK, let’s jump right in then. 0:34: Looking at the schedule itself, what’s the first appointment we see coming up for Mr. 0:38: Goodwin? 0:39: All right, let me see. 0:40: OK, the first one listed here, the earliest date. 0:42: It is June 20th, 2025. 0:44: June 20th, got that. 0:46: And the time 10:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m., OK. 0:49: What kind of appointment is it? 0:50: What does it say? 0:51: It’s down as an office visit 15. 0:53: Office visit 15, maybe 15 minutes. 0:57: Could be. 0:58: And the provider is Anna Gonzalez. 0:59: She’s an ARMP, an ARNP, Advanced registered nurse practitioner. 1:03: That’s right, isn’t it? 1:04: Yep, that’s it. 1:05: So it sounds like a medical appointment, definitely a medical visit. 1:08: And where is this taking place? 1:09: The location? 1:10: OK, location is PCHS. 1:12: Silverdale Medical. 1:13: Silverdale Medical, and they give the full address 3100 NW Buckland Hill Road, Suite 202. 1:20: Suite 202, pretty specific, so you know exactly where you’re headed. 1:23: Yeah, no ambiguity there, right? 1:25: So mid-morning, mid June, a medical visit in Silverdale. 1:30: Got it. 1:31: What comes next on his schedule? 1:33: OK, moving forward. 1:34: Looks like the next entry is in July. 1:37: July 3rd, 2025. 1:39: OK, a couple of weeks later, July 3rd. 1:42: And the time. 1:43: This one’s earlier 8:30 a.m. 8 through and looking at the description, this seems like a different kind of thing altogether, totally different. 1:50: This isn’t medical. 1:51: It’s listed as dental and hygienist. 1:54: Dental NP hygienist. 1:55: The provider is Quanta Anwar RDH RDH registered dental hygienist, so likely a cleaning, maybe a checkup. 2:02: Yeah, that would make sense. 2:02: Focus on hygiene care with a dental specialist. 2:04: Now here’s something I noticed the location for this dental visit, what does it say? 2:09: It says Silverdale Dental. 2:11: But look at the address. 2:12: Exactly. 2:13: 3100 NW Bucklin Hill Road, Suite 202. 2:18: Wait, that’s that’s the exact same address as the medical appointment. 2:22: Same building, same suite number. 2:24: that’s actually really interesting. 2:25: Good catch. 2:25: Yeah. 2:26: So what does that tell us? 2:28: Well, it strongly suggests that PCHS runs both their medical and dental services out of the same spot in Silverdale. 2:36: Co-located, which, you know, for a patient like Mr. 2:38: Goodwin, that could be pretty convenient, right, needing different types of care, but it’s all in one place. 2:44: Absolutely streamlines things potentially, you know, the building already. 2:47: And think about this too. 2:49: The document header actually says PCHS Kingston Medical. 2:52: Oh right, I see that up top. 2:54: These appointments, they’re in Silverdale. 2:56: So Kingston might be his like home base. 2:58: Clinic may be where the record originates. 3:00: It could be. 3:01: It’s just PCHS manages scheduling across different sites. 3:04: You might be registered in Kingston, but get care in Silverdale, which points to a more integrated system, you know, coordinating care across different locations and different types of services. 3:16: Exactly. 3:17: It’s not just random dates. 3:18: You’ve got medical with a nurse practitioner. 3:22: And dental hygiene with a hygienist scheduled a couple of weeks apart, potentially managed essentially but delivered locally in Silverdale. 3:30: Yeah, this simple schedule is actually, well, it’s a small window into the logistics of running a community health service like this. 3:36: So let’s recap the key takeaways for Mr. 3:38: Goodwin just based on this paper. 3:40: OK, we’ve got two clear appointments, one medical. 3:44: June 20th, 10:30 a.m. with AR&P Anna Gonzalez at Silverdale Medical, right, Suite 202, 202, and one dental. 3:53: July 3rd, 8:30 a.m. with RDH Quanta Anwar at Silverdale Dental. 3:58: Also Suite 202, also suite 202. 4:00: So specific dates, times, provider types, locations all waited out. 4:04: It really highlights the practical details you need, doesn’t it? 4:07: Knowing it’s an ARMP versus an RDH, knowing Medical and dental share a space. 4:12: It gives you the who, what, when, where for each visit, which brings us to a final thought, maybe something to chew on. 4:18: Just looking at these two entries on a simple schedule. 4:20: Think about the complexity behind it. 4:22: The coordination needed. 4:23: You need the right provider type available, the right facility, you know, a medical exam room versus a dental chair, different equipment. 4:32: Different support staff, probably exactly and potentially scheduling across different clinic sites like Kingston and Silverdale, all feeding into this one person’s plan. 4:42: It’s like a tiny snapshot of how a whole healthcare system has to mesh together just to make these two appointments happen for one patient. 4:49: Makes you appreciate the the quiet organization involved in managing healthcare across different needs and places. 4:56: It’s more than just dates on a page, definitely more than just dates. 4:59: It’s plan and action.
Me: Article is over optimistic. It is essentially impossible to keep +1.5 C limit because we’ve already dialed in more than that. The bad news will hit in 2030-2050 time frame. This is one reason I supported Nuclear Breeder Reactors, back in the 80s — it was the only realistic way to cut back on C02 without killing lots of people in a die off (which would get political opposition or revolutions, even if some people thought self-genocide was ok as long as they stayed in power)
We rowed up this creek for 50 years and now we are out of paddle.It didn’t help that the academics decided to lie and grift about this stuff, and muddied the waters, but no substantive change was going to happen except we could have run the grid with Pu-239 (not U-235 — there isn’t enough of it)
If we’d turned off the fossil fuel and gone 100% nuclear asap in 1985, we’d already be past known reserves… ‘Peak U-235’ could have substituted for ‘Peak Oil’ but we’d still have had a problem ca. 2007-2027
What we can expect, though, is something far more terrifying to most people than the most lurid disaster a Hollywood screenwriter ever imagined: more of what we’ve already seen. The long, slow, unsteady descent that’s shaped all our lives for the last half century or more? That’s going to continue along the trajectory it’s already following, for the rest of your life, and into the lives of your grandchildren’s grandchildren.
In the light of that longer view, it doesn’t especially matter who’s in the White House, or for that matter who’s in the doghouse. It matters very little more which policies get put in place and which policies get chucked in the dumpster. There are still things that individuals, families, and communities can do to brace themselves for the future ahead, and some of those things are very important—we’ll get to them in future posts. None of these will affect the overall course of this nation or of industrial society as a whole. That train left the station long ago. Listen carefully and you can hear the distant whistle on the wind, fading to silence.
That doesn’t mean the fine details of the future are fixed in place. I predicted, some years ago, that the next energy crisis would arrive sometime around 2022. That didn’t happen, because we got the Covid crisis instead. Many of the same economic and social disruptions that took place following the dramatic spike in petroleum prices in 2008 had close equivalents in 2021 and 2022, and energy usage lurched downward in a very similar manner as air travel, commuting, and many other energy-intensive activities decreased. That bought some time. The Trump administration’s push to remove regulatory barriers to oil and gas drilling may buy a little more, though that will depend on variables that aren’t yet clear, and will have cascading downsides of its own. As a very rough guess, I think it’s possible that we’ll see another energy crisis (or some comparable disruption with similar effects) before 2030, and fairly certain that we’ll get one before 2035.
The fine details will have to be worked out mathematically by those who are adept at such things, the way Colin Campbell and his associates did in the early days of the peak oil scene, back before 2000. Fortunately there are still some active peak oil aggregator sites and blogs; you can find a more or less current list here[1]. I encourage my readers to visit them and start getting familiar with their contents. We’ll be talking more about peak oil later on—after, that is, we talk about some of the other factors that are pushing our civilization down the same well-worn chute. In two weeks we’ll turn to another of those, and talk about what’s been happening to the climate.
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