I am becoming more and more convinced that the tech singularity path will be rapidly self-terminating. This direction relies on total digital surveillance and control of the vast majority of the world and remaining human population. This requires us to be permanently connected with powered up device and technologies... i.e. it is inherently energy consuming. If there are rolling blackouts of power then the control mechanism break. Yet the planned path seems to only lead to an imherently low energy and hence low tech world.
Recall, we defined anti-knowledge as "when a theory doesn't match, explain or predict the real world observations, the real life world is taken as being wrong, and the theory is upheld!!!", and we said that this is rife in our society currently, in part due to the siloed nature of expertise due ultra-specialization, which is inherent in the Tech singularity.
I inadvertently came across another stark example of this, in a presentation by Prof. Simon Michaux of the Geological Survey of Finland. He simply added up all the minerals and metals which will be needed to replace all fossil fuel plants with renewable energy, wind turbines and solar panels, and replace the vehicle pool with electric cars. It seems that none of the technocrats planing the goal of phasing out fossil fuels thought to do these basic sums [so are operating on anti-knowledge].
Michaux's findings are stark, and a little frightening, but point to the dream of net zero/green revolution being highly unrealistic.
According to his sums, for the first generation of renewable energy infrastructure, we would need:
4.5 trillion tonnes of copper, which at todays rate of extraction, would take 190 years to mine. Of course, we could vastly increase our copper mining activities, at the expense of burning more fossil fuels and significantly increasing mining pollution, but even if we did that, the known reserves of all the copper in the world amount to 800 billion tonnes, i.e. 20% of the total needed. Even then, this first generation of renewable infrastructure would need replacing in 20 years.
Michaux goes on to do the same sums for all the other metals needed, e.g. Nickel: 940 billion tonnes, which would take 400 years at current mining rates, and the world only contains 10% of this amount, or Lithium: 944 billions tonnes, which would take 10,000 years to mine, and the world only contains 2% of this amount.
As far as I know, no-one has been able to dispute Michaux's figures, and he would need to be many orders of magnitude to wrong for the solution to become workable.
What was clear from his presentation is that our glorious technocratic leaders are operating on anti-knowledge, and are likely to drive of us off a cliff in their steadfast pursuit of a solution which is unreal. I'm not sure what is most frightening here: that they know full well these numbers, and are going to drive of us off the cliff anyway, or they don't know or understand the implications of these numbers, and are totally incompetent.
Nov 9, 2022·edited Nov 9, 2022Liked by Harrison Koehli
Grand slam homer, Harrison!
For my money. Langan (and by extension you) really nailed it here:
"To bring this about, it is not enough to merely distribute a cognitive avoidance mechanism out of which the moneyed elite can buy and bribe their way as usual, given the absence of a well-defined alternative direction in which humanity can proceed; rather, an alternative direction must be defined and universally distributed in cognitive and attitudinal form. In short, in order to have a meaningful mass awakening, the content of the awakening must be defined and distributed to the members of humanity, thus immunizing them against parasitic mind control. Because this content must be spiritual, the involvement of religion is unavoidable."
This statement perfectly encapsulates the reason I started my own stack. Not only is it insufficient to play this game on their turf, by their rules, using their language; it's counterproductive to the point of devolution. A new language model (or, at least class of modalities) must be deployed widely in order to advance the Human Singularity.
This was particularly helpful to me. I'm still working on my "Devil" series, but was stuck on how to best describe the fluctuating relationship between actuality and potentiality. Langan seems to have hit on something like that with "telic recursion". Thanks for introducing him to me.
(And I agree; ponerology cannot fall by the wayside here. I think its role is more important than ever, and if anything should be expanded.)
"“parasitic divergence” — i.e., an organized divergence of humanity into a parasitic overclass and a relatively impoverished underclass serving as its mind-controlled host," does sound very much like the trajectory we are on, and not, unfortunately, the human singularity option that Langan puts on the table.
However, even the very fact that we are here writing and talking about this with eyes wide open gives me hope that the technocrats will not be able to sustain such a situation - there is a vitality in human nature (along natural and spiritual laws) that will oppose such a grid of control and oppression. If this 'singularity' of technocracy happens, I believe it will be momentary - not a 'black hole' which suggests a fixed state from which we are unable to escape.
Besides, as a Christian I believe God will not allow such a thing to perpetuate, but it will come to an expected end as He reclaims his turf from such godless parasites.
Great post. Langan nails it in his assessment of humanity's predicament. His CTMU was influential in my own spiritual development, but -- as you say -- it is not generally accessible. I'm not sure how it can be distributed more broadly.
Most thinkers continue to strive for an "organic" mechanism to produce results that seem significantly inorganic (intelligently created). I can sympathize with their anxiety to find a totally non-religious explanation for the origins of matter, etc., but having intelligence (thought) itself predate physicality actually results in a simpler and more workable theory of life.
Just a quick correction on an aspect of the CTMU you explained in the article. Telesis is not non-physical as you say it is. It transcends the physical and would more aptly be described as metaphysical. Other than that, I think you presented CTMU concepts very well for your article.
Thanks for listening, and for your reply both of which pretty much provide an explanation for what we are witnessing. It’s funny cause I thought intellect would have prevented this from happening, rationalizing, believing what you see to be the truth versus a false narrative.. it is really surprising to me that more people are not awake. What is it going to actually take to shock them into reality but by then it will be too late. Everything that is being done to restrict our freedoms is being done under the guise of “for our security and safety.” Are people really so weak now as to value their lives above all else no matter the cost, so afraid to lose their lives and their creature comforts that they will gladly and willingly sacrifice all of their freedoms to be “kept safe!” I was scared too through all of the fear porn of the last 2.5 years but I got over it cause my brain wouldn’t let me be as I just had to know what the hell was going on and what we were living through. The people are like sheep saying really makes sense to me now, one leads all of the rest follow unquestioningly.
"There are probably limits as to how far such a dynamic can develop, however."
That limit would be where enough mechanics, technicians, engineers, and scientists decide they'd rather work on their neighbor's shit than work on some rich psycho's shit.
They seem to have missed that this technocratic nightmare they desire requires an awful lot of "useless eaters" to keep running, lol.
I don't know when Mr. Langan wrote this. It is only in this article that I am aware of his existence, but what he says is not new. I am an insistent reader of Juan Domingo Peron and what Langan says was already said by Peron in his doctrine, and specifically in his very short book; The Organised Community:
This Notebook contains the complete text of a work that expresses the doctrinal basis of the National Justicialist Movement: The Organised Community, by Juan Domingo Peron.
The First National Congress of Philosophy opened on March 1949 in the city of Mendoza. It was organised by the National University of Cuyo, whose rector was a prestigious philosopher: Dr. Ireneo Fernando Cruz. The dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Buenos Aires, Dr. Coriolano Alberini, the Reverend Father, Dr. Octavio Derisi, Professor Eugenio Pucciarelli, Dr. Carlos Astrada, Professor Miguel Ángel Virasoro, Professor Nimio de Anquin, and other important Argentine philosophers worked together with him in the preparation of the Congress.
The Congress was attended and supported by world-renowned specialists in the field such as Karl Jaspers, Benedetto Croce, Gabriel Marcel, Martin Heidegger, José Vasconcelos, Julián Marías, among others.
To close the Congress, Dr. Ireneo Fernando Cruz invited the President of the Nation to take the floor. It was then, on 9 April 1949, on the stage of the Teatro Independencia in the city of Mendoza, General Juan Domingo Perón, at 6 p.m., closed the Congress with a lecture that expressed the basis for the with a lecture expressing the philosophical basis of his thinking, which was entitled "La Comunidad entitled "The Organised Community".
Extracts from the book:
XVII
¿Will the happiness which man longs for belong to the realm of the material, or will man's soul aspirations achieve the path of perfection?
That it matters to activate the genesis of a thought capable of envisaging future human evolution is shown by the meaning of life today.
There is a laborious task in full swing, aimed at substantially modifying the conditions of life for the sake of general happiness. It is important to know whether this happiness belongs to the material realm, or whether it is to be thought of as the realisation of man's soul aspirations and the path of perfection for the social body.
But when we ask ourselves again whether the direction of this thought should be horizontal, or whether it should be vertical at the same time, we must first examine, at least in search of indications, the panorama before our eyes.
We immediately notice a disturbing symptom in the universal field.
Warning voices often point to the danger that technical progress will not be followed by a commensurate advance in the education of peoples.
The complexity of technical progress requires sensitive pupils and a strong temperament. If we take the skyscraper or the ocean liner as a symbol of modern life, we must immediately foresee the spiritual stature of the being who is to dwell or travel in it. There is no room for rhetorical of escape, because what is at stake here is nothing more and nothing less than the scale of magnitudes, according to which man can adequately rectify his own proportion in the face of the growing bustle of his surroundings.
The life that accumulates in the big cities offers us with distressing frequency the spectacle of that danger to which awakened brains have given the terrifying name of "insectification". It is true that the physical does not diminish or increase the intimate proportion, for this consists precisely in the self-esteem which man possesses; but it may happen that, in the absence of moral categories, a progressive loss of confidence and a gradual progress of the feeling of inferiority in the face of the external giant may take place in his mind. [...] In the consideration of the supreme values which shape our contemplation of the ideal, we notice two great possibilities of adulteration: one is amoral individualism, predisposed to subversion, to selfishness, to a return to lower stages of the evolution of the species; the other lies in that interpretation of life which attempts to depersonalise man in an atomising collectivism.
In reality, both operate in the same way. The negative factors of the former have, in the latter, been derived to a superior organisation. The disdain for the reason of others and intolerance have only passed from one hand to the other. Under a freedom that is neither universal in its means nor in its ends, without ethics or morals, it is impossible for the individual to realise his ultimate values, under the pressure of the selfishness of a few minorities. In the same way, under materialistic collectivism taken to its ultimate consequences, this probability - the great probability of existence - is taken away from him by an ever-expanding and always hypocritically reasoned mechanical imposition.
Hey I just read today’s news and wanted to share Rex Murphy’s piece again. The fact that bringing in tanks was mentioned but “explained” away as “a joke”, and text message “joking” how about a mini Tiananmen Square moment makes me shudder.
I am becoming more and more convinced that the tech singularity path will be rapidly self-terminating. This direction relies on total digital surveillance and control of the vast majority of the world and remaining human population. This requires us to be permanently connected with powered up device and technologies... i.e. it is inherently energy consuming. If there are rolling blackouts of power then the control mechanism break. Yet the planned path seems to only lead to an imherently low energy and hence low tech world.
Recall, we defined anti-knowledge as "when a theory doesn't match, explain or predict the real world observations, the real life world is taken as being wrong, and the theory is upheld!!!", and we said that this is rife in our society currently, in part due to the siloed nature of expertise due ultra-specialization, which is inherent in the Tech singularity.
I inadvertently came across another stark example of this, in a presentation by Prof. Simon Michaux of the Geological Survey of Finland. He simply added up all the minerals and metals which will be needed to replace all fossil fuel plants with renewable energy, wind turbines and solar panels, and replace the vehicle pool with electric cars. It seems that none of the technocrats planing the goal of phasing out fossil fuels thought to do these basic sums [so are operating on anti-knowledge].
Michaux's findings are stark, and a little frightening, but point to the dream of net zero/green revolution being highly unrealistic.
According to his sums, for the first generation of renewable energy infrastructure, we would need:
4.5 trillion tonnes of copper, which at todays rate of extraction, would take 190 years to mine. Of course, we could vastly increase our copper mining activities, at the expense of burning more fossil fuels and significantly increasing mining pollution, but even if we did that, the known reserves of all the copper in the world amount to 800 billion tonnes, i.e. 20% of the total needed. Even then, this first generation of renewable infrastructure would need replacing in 20 years.
Michaux goes on to do the same sums for all the other metals needed, e.g. Nickel: 940 billion tonnes, which would take 400 years at current mining rates, and the world only contains 10% of this amount, or Lithium: 944 billions tonnes, which would take 10,000 years to mine, and the world only contains 2% of this amount.
As far as I know, no-one has been able to dispute Michaux's figures, and he would need to be many orders of magnitude to wrong for the solution to become workable.
What was clear from his presentation is that our glorious technocratic leaders are operating on anti-knowledge, and are likely to drive of us off a cliff in their steadfast pursuit of a solution which is unreal. I'm not sure what is most frightening here: that they know full well these numbers, and are going to drive of us off the cliff anyway, or they don't know or understand the implications of these numbers, and are totally incompetent.
Grand slam homer, Harrison!
For my money. Langan (and by extension you) really nailed it here:
"To bring this about, it is not enough to merely distribute a cognitive avoidance mechanism out of which the moneyed elite can buy and bribe their way as usual, given the absence of a well-defined alternative direction in which humanity can proceed; rather, an alternative direction must be defined and universally distributed in cognitive and attitudinal form. In short, in order to have a meaningful mass awakening, the content of the awakening must be defined and distributed to the members of humanity, thus immunizing them against parasitic mind control. Because this content must be spiritual, the involvement of religion is unavoidable."
This statement perfectly encapsulates the reason I started my own stack. Not only is it insufficient to play this game on their turf, by their rules, using their language; it's counterproductive to the point of devolution. A new language model (or, at least class of modalities) must be deployed widely in order to advance the Human Singularity.
This was particularly helpful to me. I'm still working on my "Devil" series, but was stuck on how to best describe the fluctuating relationship between actuality and potentiality. Langan seems to have hit on something like that with "telic recursion". Thanks for introducing him to me.
(And I agree; ponerology cannot fall by the wayside here. I think its role is more important than ever, and if anything should be expanded.)
Excellent summary. You've gotta get Langan on the podcast.
How very interesting!
"“parasitic divergence” — i.e., an organized divergence of humanity into a parasitic overclass and a relatively impoverished underclass serving as its mind-controlled host," does sound very much like the trajectory we are on, and not, unfortunately, the human singularity option that Langan puts on the table.
However, even the very fact that we are here writing and talking about this with eyes wide open gives me hope that the technocrats will not be able to sustain such a situation - there is a vitality in human nature (along natural and spiritual laws) that will oppose such a grid of control and oppression. If this 'singularity' of technocracy happens, I believe it will be momentary - not a 'black hole' which suggests a fixed state from which we are unable to escape.
Besides, as a Christian I believe God will not allow such a thing to perpetuate, but it will come to an expected end as He reclaims his turf from such godless parasites.
Thank you for this great post Harrison.
Dammit! Every time my intellectual hubris starts whispering into inner ear, a knock-out blow comes dealt 🤦
~~
💬 The result: a finely tuned universe where [...] your keys are where you left them—usually.
↑↑ A mind-boggling black-hole-grade density of meaning tightly wrapped in ten-cent words; the poor osmium is humbly smoking in desolate corner.
Great post. Langan nails it in his assessment of humanity's predicament. His CTMU was influential in my own spiritual development, but -- as you say -- it is not generally accessible. I'm not sure how it can be distributed more broadly.
Most thinkers continue to strive for an "organic" mechanism to produce results that seem significantly inorganic (intelligently created). I can sympathize with their anxiety to find a totally non-religious explanation for the origins of matter, etc., but having intelligence (thought) itself predate physicality actually results in a simpler and more workable theory of life.
Just a quick correction on an aspect of the CTMU you explained in the article. Telesis is not non-physical as you say it is. It transcends the physical and would more aptly be described as metaphysical. Other than that, I think you presented CTMU concepts very well for your article.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/trudeaus-national-emergency-was-pure-concoction-of-political-convenience?fbclid=IwAR3Qk5mp5zGYqrWS1z03JaroMUOdfNuwyuKVrIXLzk5KGW-G5WlPp7taOfE
This describes what actually happened so much better than I could, ❤️ Rex Murphy
Thanks for listening, and for your reply both of which pretty much provide an explanation for what we are witnessing. It’s funny cause I thought intellect would have prevented this from happening, rationalizing, believing what you see to be the truth versus a false narrative.. it is really surprising to me that more people are not awake. What is it going to actually take to shock them into reality but by then it will be too late. Everything that is being done to restrict our freedoms is being done under the guise of “for our security and safety.” Are people really so weak now as to value their lives above all else no matter the cost, so afraid to lose their lives and their creature comforts that they will gladly and willingly sacrifice all of their freedoms to be “kept safe!” I was scared too through all of the fear porn of the last 2.5 years but I got over it cause my brain wouldn’t let me be as I just had to know what the hell was going on and what we were living through. The people are like sheep saying really makes sense to me now, one leads all of the rest follow unquestioningly.
"There are probably limits as to how far such a dynamic can develop, however."
That limit would be where enough mechanics, technicians, engineers, and scientists decide they'd rather work on their neighbor's shit than work on some rich psycho's shit.
They seem to have missed that this technocratic nightmare they desire requires an awful lot of "useless eaters" to keep running, lol.
I don't know when Mr. Langan wrote this. It is only in this article that I am aware of his existence, but what he says is not new. I am an insistent reader of Juan Domingo Peron and what Langan says was already said by Peron in his doctrine, and specifically in his very short book; The Organised Community:
This Notebook contains the complete text of a work that expresses the doctrinal basis of the National Justicialist Movement: The Organised Community, by Juan Domingo Peron.
The First National Congress of Philosophy opened on March 1949 in the city of Mendoza. It was organised by the National University of Cuyo, whose rector was a prestigious philosopher: Dr. Ireneo Fernando Cruz. The dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Buenos Aires, Dr. Coriolano Alberini, the Reverend Father, Dr. Octavio Derisi, Professor Eugenio Pucciarelli, Dr. Carlos Astrada, Professor Miguel Ángel Virasoro, Professor Nimio de Anquin, and other important Argentine philosophers worked together with him in the preparation of the Congress.
The Congress was attended and supported by world-renowned specialists in the field such as Karl Jaspers, Benedetto Croce, Gabriel Marcel, Martin Heidegger, José Vasconcelos, Julián Marías, among others.
To close the Congress, Dr. Ireneo Fernando Cruz invited the President of the Nation to take the floor. It was then, on 9 April 1949, on the stage of the Teatro Independencia in the city of Mendoza, General Juan Domingo Perón, at 6 p.m., closed the Congress with a lecture that expressed the basis for the with a lecture expressing the philosophical basis of his thinking, which was entitled "La Comunidad entitled "The Organised Community".
Extracts from the book:
XVII
¿Will the happiness which man longs for belong to the realm of the material, or will man's soul aspirations achieve the path of perfection?
That it matters to activate the genesis of a thought capable of envisaging future human evolution is shown by the meaning of life today.
There is a laborious task in full swing, aimed at substantially modifying the conditions of life for the sake of general happiness. It is important to know whether this happiness belongs to the material realm, or whether it is to be thought of as the realisation of man's soul aspirations and the path of perfection for the social body.
But when we ask ourselves again whether the direction of this thought should be horizontal, or whether it should be vertical at the same time, we must first examine, at least in search of indications, the panorama before our eyes.
We immediately notice a disturbing symptom in the universal field.
Warning voices often point to the danger that technical progress will not be followed by a commensurate advance in the education of peoples.
The complexity of technical progress requires sensitive pupils and a strong temperament. If we take the skyscraper or the ocean liner as a symbol of modern life, we must immediately foresee the spiritual stature of the being who is to dwell or travel in it. There is no room for rhetorical of escape, because what is at stake here is nothing more and nothing less than the scale of magnitudes, according to which man can adequately rectify his own proportion in the face of the growing bustle of his surroundings.
The life that accumulates in the big cities offers us with distressing frequency the spectacle of that danger to which awakened brains have given the terrifying name of "insectification". It is true that the physical does not diminish or increase the intimate proportion, for this consists precisely in the self-esteem which man possesses; but it may happen that, in the absence of moral categories, a progressive loss of confidence and a gradual progress of the feeling of inferiority in the face of the external giant may take place in his mind. [...] In the consideration of the supreme values which shape our contemplation of the ideal, we notice two great possibilities of adulteration: one is amoral individualism, predisposed to subversion, to selfishness, to a return to lower stages of the evolution of the species; the other lies in that interpretation of life which attempts to depersonalise man in an atomising collectivism.
In reality, both operate in the same way. The negative factors of the former have, in the latter, been derived to a superior organisation. The disdain for the reason of others and intolerance have only passed from one hand to the other. Under a freedom that is neither universal in its means nor in its ends, without ethics or morals, it is impossible for the individual to realise his ultimate values, under the pressure of the selfishness of a few minorities. In the same way, under materialistic collectivism taken to its ultimate consequences, this probability - the great probability of existence - is taken away from him by an ever-expanding and always hypocritically reasoned mechanical imposition.
Hey I just read today’s news and wanted to share Rex Murphy’s piece again. The fact that bringing in tanks was mentioned but “explained” away as “a joke”, and text message “joking” how about a mini Tiananmen Square moment makes me shudder.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/liberals-make-mockery-of-canadian-democracy
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-mr-trudeau-the-truckers-deserved-a-meeting
Again Rex Murphy gets a lot said in a relatively brief article, I admire his succinct way of getting his points across.