On 02/11/2024 23:23, rbowman wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Nov 2024 19:23:44 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>
>> If air travel becomes impossible high speed rail would suit the USA
>> perfectly. Plenty of empty space.
>>
>> I think current top speeds are around 200mph.
>
> The US struggles with low speed rail.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
>
> https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-21/high-speed-rail
>
> That's the poster child for screwing up high speed rail.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acela
>
> Acela is more successful but when it averages out at 70 mph it isn't
> exactly high speed. The problem with plenty of empty space is that it's
> more or less empty. No large metropolitan areas, no ridership, no money.
>
> This city has two train stations and no passenger service. The Milwaukee
> Line is gone completely. The station is the home of the Boone and Crockett
> club abd much of the right of way has been converted to bike trails.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_station_(Northern_Pacific_Railway)
>
> The other still has tracks. The coal trains wave as they pass by.

Don't panic. The same is true of all countries - rail suffered because
cars came.

BUT the Japanese have high speed trains running through empty places to
full ones just the same

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen

I am not saying that right now its all easy peasy profit making stuff.
Just that trains already exist that will, on the standard rail gauge, do
200mph or more.

The USA already has the transcontinental tracks, they just need upgrading.

The key feature is that most passengers now choose air, because its
cheap, and the freight gets hauled by road or very slow train.

These are economic decisions.

If high speed rail freight became cheaper than a truck, people would
switch to it.

And if fuel travel became too expensive, and electric cars didn't have
the range, then concerting main roads to railways, and putting the
electric cars on board a train to recharge, is not so stupid.

The history of transport is absolutely dominated by economics. Sailing
ships were way cheaper than a horse and cart. Trains were cheaper and
faster than a stage coach or the Pony express.

In the UK we built canals, which were cheaper than horse and cart, but
then the railways came, and they were even cheaper, and finally we had
motor vehicles and they were cheaper still.

If it turns out that high speed rail is cost and time competitive with
aircraft, that's what we will get.

--
"I guess a rattlesnake ain't risponsible fer bein' a rattlesnake, but ah
puts mah heel on um jess the same if'n I catches him around mah chillun".

On Sun, 3 Nov 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Sat, 2 Nov 2024 22:08:51 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 2 Nov 2024, rbowman wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, 2 Nov 2024 11:44:25 +0100, D wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Sat, 2 Nov 2024, rbowman wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, 1 Nov 2024 22:30:39 +0100, D wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there was a
>>>>>> significant demand for labor in plantations across the Americas and
>>>>>> on islands such as Mauritius and Réunion. This demand fueled a slave
>>>>>> trade that affected many African communities. While much of this
>>>>>> trade involved individuals from coastal regions or areas further
>>>>>> north, it also extended into southern Africa.
>>>>>
>>>>> With a whole continent full of indigenous labor they imported
>>>>> Africans.
>>>>> The truth is while the Cherokee didn't have a problem enslaving
>>>>> people from other tribes they saw the value of buying Africans
>>>>> instead. When they headed to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears they took
>>>>> their African slaves with them.
>>>>
>>>> Really? So indians bought negro slaves? Had no idea! In europe,
>>>> indians can do no wrong, and their history is held up as a paragon of
>>>> eco-friendly and just, which was crushed by the bad white man.
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1842_Slave_Revolt_in_the_Cherokee_Nation" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1842_Slave_Revolt_in_the_Cherokee_Nation
>>>
>>> That's still having repercussions.
>>>
>>> https://www.npr.org/2011/09/20/140630565/americas-2nd-largest-indian-
>>> tribe-expels-blacks
>>
>> Amazing! That would never slip past swedish censorship!
>
> It isn't exactly shouted from the rooftops in the US. The present day
> problems are not exclusive to blacks. Being on the tribal roll can have
> distinct advantages particularly with the tribes that run casinos. In this
> area Métis have the same problem. Indians are as racist as whites so the
> half-breeds don't get on the rolls and they may not be accepted by the
> whites either.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> M%C3%A9tis#M%C3%A9tis_people_in_the_United_States

Nothing new under the sun I see. In sweden the sami people are always busy
crying crocodile tears in order to get government money for their highly
loss making reindeer business which is "traditional". On top of that they
want to claim northern sweden as their land and forbid every business,
hunting and fishing expedition there.

Needless to say, the current center government is getting tired of it,
since it risks stopping mining, so my hope is that they will be bought of
with some more reindeer money, and hopefully that waste can be terminated
soon as well.

But, then the socialists will come back, and the money will start rolling
again.

On Sun, 3 Nov 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Sat, 2 Nov 2024 22:03:34 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> I also have sometimes thought that one "super power" of christianity is
>> forgiveness and (in theory) an end to family feuds.
>>
>> If your ead Njals saga you can see the power of the family feud and how
>> damaging it can be to society when more and more people are dragged into
>> it.
>
> Jesse Byock is an archaeologist at UCLA and has focused on Iceland.
> Iceland and its Things are sometimes held up as an example of a
> libertarian society. In one of his books Byock characterized it as a
> society of feuding farmers.

Yes, iceland is often used as an example of a libertarian society, but it
can also be used to show that in some instances, libertarian societies
tend to collapse into medieval fiefdoms, or, they are not able to defend
themselves and are taken over by the biggest neighbour.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatfield%E2%80%93McCoy_feud
>
> Feuds weren't limited to Iceland. I can understand feuds. No blood was
> shed but after a perceived slight in the positioning in a funeral
> procession my mother never spoke to my uncle again. Likewise, after a
> disagreement about the care of their aged mother my father and uncle never
> spoke to their sister again. It made Christmas interesting.
>
> I'm not sure Christianity ever took completely in Germans where 'never
> forget and never forgive' is more likely.

It is interesting how a religion needs to be watered with some blood
before it starts to mellow. Islamd is 600 years behind christianity so I
think they need a home grown crusade or two, before they start to mellow
as well.

On Sun, 3 Nov 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> On 02/11/2024 21:01, D wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 2 Nov 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>>> On 02/11/2024 10:40, D wrote:
>>>> I'd like the experience of crossing the ocean to be more like a cruise
>>>> ship. It might take 1 to 3 days or so, but you could walk around, and
>>>> enjoy a Michelin star restaurant on board.
>>>
>>> Not in an airship. What you want is a nuclear powered passenger liner.
>>>
>>> Weight no problem. Massive horsepower no problem. Should be able to cruise
>>> over 50mph.
>>>
>>> So probably 2 days to make the trip.
>>
>> If you have the money, let's do it! ;) How does the economics of nuclear
>> powered vs diesel powered look?
>
> Oh, its competitive. Once the reactor is built, fuel costs are trivial., Its
> all cost of capital and maintenance. Its possible that the reactor might have
> a 'lifetimes supply' of fuel from the get go.
>
> The real problem is international anti-nuclear outcries . US built a ship -
> the NS (nuclear ship) Savannah - but many people would let it dock. It wasn't
> cost competitive then, due mainly to its novelty and the need for specialist
> crew that needed training, but with today's oil prices it would be.
>
> One of the advantages of nuclear is that fuel costs are so small as to be
> irrelevant that the highest feasible speed is also the most profitable,
> allowing more passenger miles per year, which means a better return on
> investment the faster it goes.
>
> Russia has a lot (7 IIRC) of nuclear powered icebreakers. So the technology
> exists.
> And nuclear submarines account for around 400 estimated nuclear vessels, and
> the US has aircraft carriers and other craft powered that way.
>
> The UK is also interested...
>
> https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/british-navy-considers-nuclear-powered-surface-ships
>
>
> ...This is a neat report on the economics of nuclear powered bulk carriers.
>
> https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/new-study-considers-nuclear-powered-bulk-carriers
>
> Like nuclear reactors for big data. the interest in nuclear ships is coming
> from people with deep enough pockets to buy political support.
>
> That offsets the political support for green tech bought by equally deep
> pocketed renewable interests.
>
> I put some thoughts down on paper on this some years back.
>
> Nuclear powered electric trains doing 200mph+ would be faster than aircraft
> inside the USA because of the lower time spent in the ground access the
> aircraft - driving parking security etc etc.
>
> Nuclear powered ships wont break any speed records, but with fuel prices
> likely to escalate, a more likely outcome is that if you really need a face
> to face with someone the other side of the world, use whatsapp, but if you
> want to physically get there, have a leisurely 3-4 day trip. In comfort.
>
> Using physical packet switched technology on railways (every parcel or box
> has a barcoded 'packet protocol' address) and packets and parcels are
> automatically sorted by routers onto next hop railway destinations, with the
> final 10 miles being done by electric vehicles..
>
> These are the 'we've run out of cheap diesel, gas and AvJet' technologies
> that could all work.
>
> I suspect this will all come to pass because it is inevitably the best way to
> do stuff in a post fuel world.
>
> Bit by bit as the market dictates.
>
> Nuclear ships are absolutely on the cards right now. Bean counters are
> counting, and coming up full of beans.
>
> Ditto for small reactors powering data centres, especially in colder parts of
> the world where the waste heat would be valued and the thermal efficiency
> slightly higher.
>
> It is pointless to wait for governments. But it is fortunate that serious
> money needs serious power and has determined that renewables are as much use
> as a wet fart in a desert when it comes to reliable 24x7 power.

It is as I always say... when politics and reality collide, reality always
wins in the end. The chinese communist party accepted the market, because
they had to.

I wonder if ships would be a good fit for a smallr SMR-reactor, that is
welded shut with all the fuel for its lifetime? I also wonder what the
environmental effects would be if such a ship would sink and the outer
layer would slowly corrode and break down. On the other hand, the ocean is
big, so any potential leakes would probably be absorbed without any effect
at all. Add to that the fact that sunk cargo/cruise ships in todays
world seems to be pretty rare.

When it comes to trains, just imagine a global vacuum tunnel system with
trains reaching every country on the planet without any sonic boom!
Completely unfeasible economically at present I guess, but a fun idea I
read in some science fiction book from the goldenera of science fiction.

On Sun, 3 Nov 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> On 02/11/2024 21:03, D wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 2 Nov 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>>> On 02/11/2024 10:44, D wrote:
>>>> Really? So indians bought negro slaves? Had no idea! In europe, indians
>>>> can do no wrong, and their history is held up as a paragon of
>>>> eco-friendly and just, which was crushed by the bad white man.
>>>
>>> In reality every culture that has agriculture as its base needs a lot of
>>> dumb stupid labor till it can afford tractors...and the easy way to get it
>>> is to be a warrior, smash a neighbouring tribe and enslave its members.
>>> And hold them down by force.
>>>
>>> Only the advent of Christianity, that promised the enslaved to be
>>> especcailly favoured by God, changed that.
>>>
>>> Saved no end of violence.
>>
>> I also have sometimes thought that one "super power" of christianity is
>> forgiveness and (in theory) an end to family feuds.
>>
> It was the oil that lubricated the wheels of superpowers. Christianity
> superseded tribalism.
>
> It allowed huge number of people to co-operate together in large nations with
> a single moral code.
>
> Unlike Islam, it also encouraged free choice and self determination. God left
> you the power to decide which path to follow, and there were many 'paths to
> god' allowed. Well mostly.
>
>> If your ead Njals saga you can see the power of the family feud and how
>> damaging it can be to society when more and more people are dragged into
>> it.
>
> Well look at Putin. What a pointless senseless war. He isn't afraid of the
> afterlife is he?

Putins mental health is deteriorating over time. I don't even think he
shares a view of reality with most of the other people on the planet and
his stable of sycophants are too afraid to say or act (at the moment).

I hope that he will have his Brutus-moment, when the sycophantic stable
gets tired of him and want to come out to play in Monaco and the french
riviera again. There just needs to be a new Tsar so there won't be a power
vacuum, and the Brutus-crew must be assured of continued power, so a lot
of dealing going on at the moment I suspect, in deepest secrecy.

> "Gimme your country"
> "Why should I?"
> "Because if you don't I'll smash it so you don't have it anymore either"
> "What good is that?"
> "The next country will surrender immediately"
> "That's what Hitler said....and Hirohito"
>
>
>

On Sun, 3 Nov 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> On 02/11/2024 21:07, D wrote:
>> In terms of crime of ex-military, another factor could be what they did and
>> experienced while in the military, and how well prepare they were to enter
>> society again after the military.
>
> A lot of organised crime post WWII was ex military, they basically having
> been taught to do it.
>
> Also we had many many tramps (hobos) - ex servicemen suffering from what we
> would now call PTSD, that simply couldn't deal with peace time.
>
> Not many came back from war undamaged in some way. If they came back at all..

This is the truth, and why I'll try my best to follow any wars if russia
attacks where I live from the Bahamas. The trick is just to manage to get
out of the country if something happens. That could be tricky and I would
expect all highways and airports to be instantly clogged.

On 03/11/2024 10:16, D wrote:
> It is interesting how a religion needs to be watered with some blood
> before it starts to mellow. Islamd is 600 years behind christianity so I
> think they need a home grown crusade or two, before they start to mellow
> as well.

The more sophisticated Muslims - I have met many pretty OK Iranians with
degree level qualifications and so on - are fine. To them, Islam is a
cultural background, not immutable law, same as Christianity is to us.

It is the hordes of barely educated fundamentalists who are flooding in
from severely economically backward countries who represent the real
problem.

--
"When one man dies it's a tragedy. When thousands die it's statistics."

Josef Stalin

On 03/11/2024 10:24, D wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, 3 Nov 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

>> It is pointless to wait for governments. But it is fortunate that
>> serious money needs serious power and has determined that renewables
>> are as much use as a wet fart in a desert when it comes to reliable
>> 24x7 power.
>
> It is as I always say... when politics and reality collide, reality
> always wins in the end. The chinese communist party accepted the market,
> because they had to.
>
> I wonder if ships would be a good fit for a smallr SMR-reactor, that is
> welded shut with all the fuel for its lifetime? I also wonder what the
> environmental effects would be if such a ship would sink and the outer
> layer would slowly corrode and break down. On the other hand, the ocean
> is big, so any potential leakes would probably be absorbed without any
> effect at all. Add to that the fact that sunk cargo/cruise ships in
> todays world seems to be pretty rare.

SMRs are being developed FROM submarine reactors.

In reality any reactor is going to be massively shielded - there is no
weight issue on a ship - and massively isolated from the sea - and
presumably have failsafe SCRAM on sinking!

Most reactor products cease to be even interesting after a couple of
hundred years and iron will last that long underwater.

And the sea is a great shield. And also full of uranium already.

>
> When it comes to trains, just imagine a global vacuum tunnel system with
> trains reaching every country on the planet without any sonic boom!
> Completely unfeasible economically at present I guess, but a fun idea I
> read in some science fiction book from the goldenera of science fiction.

Not economically viable at the moment. More likely to use hydrogen
powered sub orbital rockets for those in a hurry.

--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

On 03/11/2024 10:27, D wrote:
> Putins mental health is deteriorating over time. I don't even think he
> shares a view of reality with most of the other people on the planet and
> his stable of sycophants are too afraid to say or act (at the moment).
>
Putin has always been a full blown dyed-in the-wool narcissist and
psychopath.

He is just conscious of running out of time, that's all.

> I hope that he will have his Brutus-moment, when the sycophantic stable
> gets tired of him and want to come out to play in Monaco and the french
> riviera again. There just needs to be a new Tsar so there won't be a
> power vacuum, and the Brutus-crew must be assured of continued power, so
> a lot of dealing going on at the moment I suspect, in deepest secrecy.

Yup. The eternal quandary of the political would be back stabbers - will
I in the end eliminate more rivals by betraying them to Vlad for
defenestration, or joining with them to wield the knife?

--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

On 03/11/2024 10:36, D wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, 3 Nov 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> On 02/11/2024 21:07, D wrote:
>>> In terms of crime of ex-military, another factor could be what they
>>> did and experienced while in the military, and how well prepare they
>>> were to enter society again after the military.
>>
>> A lot of organised crime post WWII was ex military, they basically
>> having been taught to do it.
>>
>> Also we had many many tramps (hobos) - ex servicemen suffering from
>> what we would now call PTSD, that simply couldn't deal with peace time.
>>
>> Not many came back from war undamaged in some way. If they came back
>> at all..
>
> This is the truth, and why I'll try my best to follow any wars if russia
> attacks where I live from the Bahamas. The trick is just to manage to
> get out of the country if something happens. That could be tricky and I
> would expect all highways and airports to be instantly clogged.

Thought you lived in Sweden...

--
Renewable energy: Expensive solutions that don't work to a problem that
doesn't exist instituted by self legalising protection rackets that
don't protect, masquerading as public servants who don't serve the public.

On Sun, 3 Nov 2024 09:55:42 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> The USA already has the transcontinental tracks, they just need
> upgrading.

https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter5/rail-transportation-
pipelines/rail-track-mileage-united-states/

93,000 miles worth. It wouldn't be an impossible task and would make more
sense than pouring billions down Ukrainian, Israeli, and other rat holes.
For a sense of scale, the interstate system is about 47,000 miles.

> If high speed rail freight became cheaper than a truck, people would
> switch to it.

Intermodal is already in use for loads that are not time sensitive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodal_freight_transport

A company I worked for used a variation. There was a terminal in
Mississippi. Trucks would bring in furniture from the factories in the
southeast and it would be loaded into railcars. The railcars would then be
unloaded in Seattle, Helena, or other terminals for delivery. That worked
for mixed loads. Truckload freight was usually done with trucks. Since
many of the consignees didn't have rail sidings sending it by rail would
have meant a lot of extra handling. The company wasn't big enough to make
piggybacks feasible.

On 2024-11-03, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> On 03/11/2024 00:13, rbowman wrote:

>> I'm not sure Christianity ever took completely in Germans where 'never
>> forget and never forgive' is more likely.
>
> "God may forgive you, but I won't"
>
> That was allegedly said by an American pilot, to a novice first officer.
>
> "Put your trust in God, and Pratt and Whitney" is another famous quite
> from the same source, uttered on being told that the route involved no
> alternates whatsoever...

"Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition."

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

On 2024-11-03, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 02/11/2024 19:32, rbowman wrote:

>> On Sat, 2 Nov 2024 11:18:05 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>>
>>> Americans aren't really that good at inventing stuff.
>>>
>>> What they are good at is taking a design and throwing money at it to
>>> create a mass produced product that will sell to an enormous marketplace
>>> that all speaks the same language. Mostly.
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_inventions
>>
>> We've come up with a few things, like cupcakes and candy corn.
>
> The point is you don't actually *need* to come up with anything. Let
> Europe and Japan do the hard thinky stuff, and then just buy the rights
> to the technology once it looks like working.
>
> Who did Bill Gates buy MSDOS from?

Seattle Computer Products. Their "86-DOS" was originally called QDOS
(Quick and Dirty Operating System) because that's exactly what it was:
a quick-and-dirty port of CP/M so they could run things on their new
8086-powered S-100 board. It was turned into MS-DOS while bringing
along a lot of unnecessary cruft (e.g. that damned hex 1A end-of-file
marker, which was totally unnecessary in a file system that could
store file lengths to the byte rather than the sector).

The other reason corporations buy something is to bury it.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

On 2024-11-03, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> On 02/11/2024 21:07, D wrote:
>
>> In terms of crime of ex-military, another factor could be what they did
>> and experienced while in the military, and how well prepare they were to
>> enter society again after the military.
>
> A lot of organised crime post WWII was ex military, they basically
> having been taught to do it.
>
> Also we had many many tramps (hobos) - ex servicemen suffering from what
> we would now call PTSD, that simply couldn't deal with peace time.
>
> Not many came back from war undamaged in some way. If they came back at
> all..

Some became mercenaries because they just couldn't adapt to peacetime.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

On Sun, 3 Nov 2024 08:56:07 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> On 02/11/2024 19:32, rbowman wrote:
>> On Sat, 2 Nov 2024 11:18:05 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>>> Americans aren't really that good at inventing stuff.
>>>
>>> What they are good at is taking a design and throwing money at it to
>>> create a mass produced product that will sell to an enormous
>>> marketplace that all speaks the same language. Mostly.
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_inventions
>>
>> We've come up with a few things, like cupcakes and candy corn.
>
> The point is you don't actually *need* to come up with anything. Let
> Europe and Japan do the hard thinky stuff, and then just buy the rights
> to the technology once it looks like working.
>
> Who did Bill Gates buy MSDOS from?

Seattle Computer Products.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Computer_Products

That itself was a simple twist of fate:

https://bookjelly.com/the-tragic-story-of-gary-kildall/

CP/M-86 was arguably a superior OS but couldn't compete.

On 2024-10-30, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> Microsoft released its “AI Workstation” development platform for Windows.
> And guess what: WSL2 is a requirement.
> Can you say “slippery slope” ... ?

I believe the end will be a rewrite of Windows to be a user layer on top
of Linus, i.e. a proprietary M$ version of Wine.

On Sun, 3 Nov 2024 08:52:28 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> I remember those days. In the UK we had lightweight things like minis
> and Lotuses that would regularly compete against big American muscle
> cars.
>
> In the wet the muscle cars were tail happy dogs and the lighter more
> reactive cars would win.
>
> In the dry the sheer horsepower made things more balanced

I had a '73 Mustang which was the worst winter car I ever owned. Even on
dry pavement care was needed. When a friend would borrow it I could follow
her progress around town by the squeals as she burned out.

After Ford shrunk the Mustang in '74 I switched to GM products but I went
with the less muscular engines. A 6 cylinder Camaro or Firebird was
comfortable and fast enough for any practical use. I dod miss the straight
6 when they went to the V-6 though.

On Sun, 3 Nov 2024 08:54:10 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> One that did well here was the Renault 4. More lean than a drunken
> Irishman, but it still kept its tyres on the road.

Renault never did well in the US. The Dauphine didn't have the cachet of
the Beetle. The last gasp was the Renault Alliance built in conjunction
with AMC. I had a rental Alliance and it wasn't a bad little car but
Chrysler killed it when they bought AMC.

Citroen and Peugeot did little better. My brother had a Peugeot 404 he
liked but I think that was the last model to make it to the US. The
various US safety mandates and historically low sales didn't make it
attractive for the French companies to jump through the hoops.

John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
> According to Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid>:
>> On 2024-10-27, John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
>>>> My back-of-the-envelope calculation tells me that if we continue
>>>> to double our population every 40 years, ...
>>>
>>> You might want to get some numbers for your envelope more recent than the 1950s.
>>>
>>> Here's a good place to start:
>>>
>>> https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/900
>>
>> Thanks for the link. Let's see how hard the government works
>> (e.g. baby bonuses) to get that extra 0.5 child per household.
>
> I have no idea what you mean by "the government" when talking about
> world population, but national governments including China, Japan, and
> many European countries have tried to get fertility rates back up.
> They have all been complete failures.
>

I’m just wondering how much of the decline is individual choice and how
much is due to all the chemicals we keep pumping into the environment.

--
Pete

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 29/10/2024 15:18, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>> Which attempts fundmentally can be attributed to modern capitalist
>> theory that requires constant growth. Without new consumers,
>> how can the economy expand?
>>
>> Is it time for a steady-state economy?
>>
> The problem is that most modern economies have a social care and debt
> Ponzi scheme, that relies on more people earning more money to pay for it.
>
> Stop the new people and the scheme collapses.
>
>> https://steadystate.org/discover/definition-of-steady-state-economy/
>
> Well it will have to come eventually, but the transition will be painful
>
>

Productivity keeps increasing. You shouldn’t need more people when you can
fund it out of the change that falls into the couch cushions.

--
Pete

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 30/10/2024 09:59, D wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 30 Oct 2024, rbowman wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 29 Oct 2024 21:43:13 +0100, D wrote:
>>>
>>>> Many centuries left. We'll mine the ocean floors, we'll reach for the
>>>> stars (or at least asteroids). Eventually we'll expand beyond the earth.
>>>> The people predicting crashes and famines have been wrong every time,
>>>> except for when alternatives to capitalism has been tried. Then there
>>>> have been real famines.
>>>
>>> I worked summers for the NYS Dept. of Education and the basement
>>> corridors
>>> were filled with pallets of newspapers. (and 5 gallon buckets of water,
>>> reusable as toilets after the Ruskies attacked) I don't know if they were
>>> waiting to be microfilmed or stacked and forgotten.
>>>
>>> I mostly read the funnies and old ads but I found a trove of 1929
>>> editions. "The fundamentals are sound!" as they took the express route
>>> down from the 30th floor.
>>>
>>> I love a good science fiction yarn but I realize the space travel
>>> genre is
>>> mostly fiction. The dystopian worlds run by AI probably aren't.
>>
>> Well, it is future, so by design fuzzy around the edges. But looking at
>> the history of the planet, and the fact that despite being capable of
>> destroying our planet several times over, we've managed not to do so
>> (with all the crazy people in power) gives me enormous hope. Yes, I'm an
>> optimist!
>
> Oh we wont destroy the planet. Just our own civilization
> Read Joseph Tainter.
>
> He lays it all oy very plainly. A society finds a better way to exploit
> nature. It grows, and extends, as it does so it needs rules and
> regulations laws taxes and competent bureaucrats. Then its resource base
> starts to get strained, and it needs even more complexity and
> bureaucracy to keep it going.
> Eventually the quality of people needed to keep it going also runs out.
> And it collapses into autonomous fragments.
>

It’s a little scary how dependent we are on single sources for things. The
NC floods impacted both what’s apparently a single source of ultra-pure
quartz and a major supplier of IV solution. Apparently the quartz thing
turned out not to be too bad, but the IV problem is forcing people to
postpone operations, etc.

You would think we would have learned something from the great baby-formula
shortage, but I’m beginning to think it’s only IT that designs redundancy
into things. For everyone else it’s cross your fingers and hope.

--
Pete

D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, 30 Oct 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> On 29/10/2024 20:43, D wrote:
>>> The people predicting crashes and famines have been wrong every time
>>
>> Indeed. That's why the Mayan Empire, the Aztec Empire, The Roman Empire, the
>> Mongol Empire, and the Islamic caliphate, along with the Ming dynasty are
>> still with us and the Bronze Age collapse simply never happened.
>
> Oh but they are. Today they are called mexicans, italians, greek,
> arabians etc. and from a material and quality of life point of view,
> they've never had it better.

Sure, now, but for a while it must have been hell.

>
>> Those that fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it.
>
> This seems to be the truth.
>

--
Pete

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Oct 2024 18:33:03 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> We will descend into near barbarism under Islam ...
>
> Just a note that Islam played its part in propagating the culture of
> learning inherited from the ancient Greeks, back when the Christians’ idea
> of “learning” was making elaborately-illuminated copies of their holy
> books.
>

Yes, they used to have an actual civilization, but they apparently trashed
it somewhere along the line. I’m still not impressed with the nouveau riche
middle eastern countries. They have essentially the Trump version of
culture. Talk to me when the have art and music, and science that isn’t
derivative.

--
Pete

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Oct 2024 18:33:25 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> But as we've done in the past, we learn the lessons, start again. End of
>> civilization? Hardly. A bump in the road, definitely.
>
> I haven't read Tainter but I have visited most the the Chaco culture sites
> in the US SW. Chaco Canyon is particularly impressive, in the size of the
> primary site and the network of roads to the outliers. The roads are
> enigmatic. There is no evidence the Ansazi used the wheel although there
> are children's pull toys that show they understood the concept.
>
> The culture is gone. The same can be said for the Mound Builders in the
> eastern US. You might say civilization was alive and well in contemporary
> Europe, but it was vanishing in the Americas about a millennium ago.
>
> He was a one trick pony but Miller's 'A Canticle for Leibowitz' os the
> more likely account of the future.
>

I’ve never understood why native Americans didn’t use the wheel. Maybe the
Incas, because mountain trackways aren’t to conducive to wheeled traffic,
but besides Chaco the Mayans and the Amazonian civilization had roads with
no wheels. I also don’t understand why there was no American bronze age
when they certainly used metals, including copper.

--
Pete

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Oct 2024 12:43:03 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> Oh but they are. Today they are called mexicans, italians, greek,
>> arabians etc. and from a material and quality of life point of view,
>> they've never had it better.
>
> Tell that to a mestizo picking lettuce in central California.
>

Still probably better. Poor people today have things that royalty couldn’t
even dream about in the old days - indoor plumbing, instant hot water,
lights at the flip of a switch, refrigeration, entertainment at your
fingertips.

--
Pete