Peering into my crystal ball

Reader Jonathan H. wrote "Any thoughts on what the next cycle will be?

I think we're not far from it starting, the big question is how bad things will get before they get better, and how much of the world will be affected."

Tough questions!

I cannot offer much clarity because there is far too much mud churned up in the water. Much of it intentionally churned up, incidentally.

Huns and Vandals and Vikings swarming over the wall

My guess, and it is only a guess, is that much of the world will see barbarians destroying everything they cannot understand, raping, pillaging, looting and burning.

Many of those barbarians will be natives. The slight hiccup we saw with regard to the supply chain foreshadows that possibility. MOST of what was stalled was non-essential crap from China and people lost their minds because stores no longer had enough merchandise to have over-stock sales.

For the most part people have no understanding of the technology that surrounds them. Let me repeat myself "...barbarians destroying everything they cannot understand, raping, pillaging, looting and burning."

Tribalism seems to be winning. We have straight-up tribal peoples and we have people regressing to tribalism to survive.

From here...

One path is that we become intensely local. We pull up the drawbridge. Stop going to The City. We don't treat our chest pain or cancer symptoms or infections beyond what the local sawbones can do. Strangers are closely watched. If they offend any of the locals then they disappear in the dark-of-night. If a local family vouches for them and the stranger turns out to be a "revenuer" then the family disappears.

Another path is even grimmer. Nukes are detonated by the scores or hundreds. Fall-out is added to the scenario.

On the other end of the spectrum is a soft-landing in a renewable-energy future. The reasons why this seems improbable are many. Will people (once again) accept the sun as the ultimate clock? Will 95% go to bed when the sun sets and wake up with it rises? This is also an intensely local society. No flights to Miami to see the grandchild. It is also materially poor: Two sets of stained work-clothing and one set of "church clothes". Will they be content walking to work at a job that is extremely physical?

The people who are the biggest cheerleaders for renewables have no understanding of how fossil fuels undergirds their lifestyle. They envision a renewable energy future as identical to our current lifestyle but "way cooler" and with more trinkets and stuff.

It is not that we will run out of oil and coal in a flip-of-the-switch way but that energy will (eventually) become so expensive that they will be reserved for the most marginally profitable enterprises like war, synthesizing fiber, pesticides and medicines.

The primary factor mitigating AGAINST any kind of soft-landing is Government intervention. Businesses will not invest because they perceive too much uncertainty. Keystone-on, Keystone-off, Keystone-on, Keystone-off. Ethanol-on, ethanol-off, ethanol-on. Wind-on, wind-off, wind-on, wind-off...

The rational path is to provide modest subsidies to fund pilot projects that advance the technology. Test-bed projects.

Government metastasized to where they pick winners to enrich their favorite people. Any production or technology advancement is incidental, accidental and to be avoided because that upsets the apple-cart.

"I think we're not far from it starting, the big question is how bad things will get before they get better, and how much of the world will be affected."

Like they say on Wall Street, the market can remain irrational longer than short-sellers remain solvent. Trying to guess timing is a no-win exercise. The risk is that you might set a for-certain date in your head and then have your readiness collapse the day after that date passes.

I will be thrilled if I slip my mortal coil before the ugliness goes exponential. I have prepared my children to the extent of my capabilities. What happens after this is for them to sort out.

How bad will it get? Our government and media already lie to us solely out of habit. Our medicines kill and maim the youngest and most hale. Our food is air, grease, salt and flavor. Our children are indoctrinated to hate us. Men lose their livelihood because they said the word "nigger" in 1997.

Man is very adaptable. Communism seemed inevitable late in the Industrial Revolution. And then Organized Labor seemed to spontaneously rise and provided a counterbalance to the power of the Industrialists. Marx was furious because he was no longer the messiah. He hated Unions.

I think the home-schooling facet of the Covid response is huge. As Soros is the new Marx, Home-schooling is the equivalent of Organized Labor. Factory-schooling is the equivalent of a secular madrassa producing radicalized suicide bombers intent on destroying society.

It is possible that the next set of elections is blatantly stolen and enough formerly rank-and-file Democrats decide to "cap" their party officials and election workers*. How many Secretaries-of-States and County Election Commission officers would need to be executed to change the course of events? How many pissed off victims executing Woke judges, DAs and Police Chiefs? 

Probably not very many.

An unlikely agent of salvation. The arch-type liberal was content to let the leaders engage in their personal fantasies as long as Moore's Law improved their lives every year. It is easy to share wealth when the tide is raising every boat.

Bullies are bullies because they can get their jollies with zero risk, zero cost. The "Italian solution" creates risk, creates potential costs. The object of an object-lesson is to plant the seed that "The next one could be you". The object lesson changes behaviors.

*Eaton Rapids Joe does not promote or advocate violence. I am merely observing out that in a universe that is infinite, events that seem are extremely improbable are really inevitable.