Maps from The End of the World Is Just the Beginning | Hacker News Reader

Maps from The End of the World Is Just the Beginning

zeihan.com

88 pointsmooreds123 comments

As I recall the crux of the argument is that the U.S. is well positioned to weather upcoming turbulence of the 2020s - 2030s. The exact amount of turbulence is where I'm less clear but as I recall it's: demographic (falling birth rates, aging societies); climatic (obviously); political (the book was written BEFORE Russia's invasion); and maybe a few others. One of the interesting bits is how weak China is with their aging society and diminishing view of technology.

Anyway, I think the book is _generally_ on target and personally I have a much more optimistic view of the U.S.'s prospects over the next century. But that being said there will be black swan events and potentially seismic shifts from processes and technologies already in the pipeline: AI and CRISPR being forefront in my mind.

Speaking of black swans. One decently sized meteor strike could cause lots of destruction. Imagine Tunguska in a populated region.

That is a lot like a hurricane or tsunami. The rest of the world seems able to ignore those. Unless of course it hit (e.g.) TSMC.

Here's the "about page" for the book these maps are drawn from: https://zeihan.com/end-of-the-world/

The book focuses on strong US demographics, commodities, food, energy, security and supply. Few countries globally have this. Globalization meant you could relay on other countries for pieces you are missing. A reduction in globalization creates pressure in countries without “self-sufficient” capabilities.

The major political consideration of zeihan's is that us security overwatch is ending.

The thesis is that the economic-political relationship in the US empire of the late 20th c is reversed: most empires used military power to be economically extractive (inclusive of the US in the early 20th c); during the cold war the US empire flipped: it used economic power in the opposite direction to 'bribe' countries into a political alliance against the USSR (evidenced by how the US has the lowest international trade to GDP ratio in the alliance); note how the us didn't have a mercantilist relationship with any of the countries it invaded (Korea exploits the US, Vietnam, Serbia, even Iraqi oil goes to a French company)

If you believe this thesis then in the coming years, and you believe the US will decouples/is decoupling from internationalism (I have been convinced), then his prognostications seem reasonable. A lot of the arguments (demographics e.g.) are pretty hard to argue against.

I enjoy his work, though I occasionally find contradictions. He says the US has favorable demographics through having plenty of millennials and suggested the UK was not so lucky, but they look roughly the same to me? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_Kingd... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta...

Germany and China, on the other hand, both do have a huge drop off from the baby boomer generation onward and I wonder how they'll cope with that.

Not that I have a perfectly photographic memory, but I can't recall him ever presenting the UK pyramid chart in any of his presos.

To me what stood out most starkly was how few black and hispanic people are found in older cohorts. It seems to imply they die much younger.

Chris rock on social security:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=190928444840463

That doesn't play, for me. I tried to find it on YT, no luck.

It's from this bit of one of his shows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq6Ez8oYDrU

Thank you. Nobody can argue with Chris Rock.

I recently read the book and have been rereading parts of it just to try to better grasp the big picture he describes. It's an impressively large number of moving parts that Zeihan tackles in the book. His latest was my first read of his, and going back to his older works - I now realize that the new book is not all new work. He talks about "the Order" (the security overwatch you refer to) that was a result of Bretton Woods system [0] in the mid-40s.

He does weave a very compelling story about how the United States, under this system, basically competed against itself to open up a freely operating world trade market. Since we opened up these global trade routes to have no impediments, we lost a lot of market opportunities in the low technology manufacturing sectors because we created a system that allowed those things to be made cheaper elsewhere due to the open availability and dependability of said routes. But Zeihan indirectly talks about in the book how the US, through "the Order", leveled up and pushed these less desirable manufacturing out and elsewhere in the world which allowed the US to level up in the process.

But the crux of the problem is that the last 60ish years, under this "Order" was only possible due to the US preserving this unimpeded open trade platform. And that the last 4+ Presidencies have mostly ignored the framework with which this financial golden age was built on - and now we're starting to see a number of things coalesce (aging / declining population, climate issues, resources availability, etc) which is giving us a glimpse of the system starting to falter - accelerated by the global pandemic.

It does appear that the US is decoupling from internationalism after you read his work and start to see the news through these context of the ideas presented. An example might be the push for chips to come back to the United States, as of recent. While there are only a few regions in the world that can make bleeding edge chips today - the fact that the US is not capable of producing these in quantity and relies on other countries creates risk is Zeihan's "post-Order" world.

While it's a fantastic read I don't think Zeihan, himself, thinks that he'll be right on all fronts - but the scary part is that he doesn't need to be to end up with very similar end results. This will mean many countries globally will end up in the horrible position of famine due to international trade and shipping being the core component that keeps some of these inhabited areas propped up.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system

> If you believe this thesis then in the coming years, and you believe the US will decouples/is decoupling from internationalism (I have been convinced),

This seems to be a popular notion but I don't see strong evidence for it. There is a visible anti-interventionist constituency in the US for the first time in decades but that doesn't mean it actually has any significant ability to sway foreign policy.

In fact, if American history is any suggestion, this constituency is unlikely to have its way as there have been much larger and better organized pluralities in the past who again and again were ultimately overcome by the interventionists.

Zeihan's argument is that the pinnacle of us engagement was Bush I. Clinton's international engagement was mostly superficial and the only deal he got done was NAFTA, which is regional, not internationalist. Bush II's major international engagement was fighting wars. Same with Obama (though a rapprochement with Russia was tried under HRC watch -- that is clearly out the window for the near term). Trump was definitely disengaged -- he spearheaded decoupling from China and withdrew from the military engagements of his predecessors. Biden is so far more or less continuing the trump foreign policy with the exceptions of Ukraine (duh) and returning to Kyoto -- though the US was well on its way to meeting Kyoto obligations organically, and much of Europe is very likely barely not going meet kyoto

To me this is an utterly superficial reading of American foreign policy. It's like saying Nixon was an isolationist because Vietnam ended on his watch. It's like saying McDonald's is going out of business when it closes one struggling location.

Trump nor Biden wound down U.S. involvement around the globe other than the two highly visible deccenial quagmires in the middle east. Neither pushed for reforming the FISA system which has created a legal parallel legal pipeline for spying. Neither have discussed winding down the blacksite network for rendering foreign nationals around the globe. Neither have renounced the drone programs. Neither even ultimately renounced any of the mutual protection treaties the U.S. maintains. Neither have renounced intelligence sharing. Neither have renounced arms sales. Neither have announced any significant foreign policy stance changes other than some doubling down on positions that already existed. It's a red hot garbage thesis which sees open war and nation building as the only two pillars of power projection that matter.

I find there's a much simpler argument that, incidentally, leads to a similar conclusion but without the necessity of any conditionals (such as internationalism). Our power was primarily derived from our economic superiority. Even in cases of hard power, our military was and is little more than a reflection of our economy. We're much smaller than other nations such as China and India, but an overwhelming technological and developmental edge largely nullified that difference in the past.

But that technological edge has been shrinking for decades, and there's no need to think this trend won't continue indefinitely. And as technological differences shrink, economics starts to become more of just a function of population size. And 340 million will never be able to maintain a competitive balance against 1.4 billion. We can already see this happening in many ways today, most innocuously from "American" companies increasingly kowtowing [1] the line. Beyond the fun wordplay, the word has an appropriate etymology.

When the next great economy is already able to casually influence the backbone of our economy - the backbone of our power, it largely signals the end of one hegemonic influence and the unfortunately probable advent of another.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowtow

Quantity is a quality all on its own.

But I would hesitate to draw such a simple conclusion that #of people a country has simply translates into more success because there are numerous factors at play.

I agree there are many other factors in play, but the question is how do those factors compare with population? We can answer this objectively, or at least as objectively as equating GDP with economy, allows us to do. This [1] is a list of countries by their GDP per capita. It's quite surprising how closely all countries tend to fall together. The difference between Greece and the US in terms of economic output per person is less than a factor of 4.

With China having well over 4x the population of the US, this sets a more visual benchmark: should China achieve the aggregate output/capita of Greece, they will have overcome the US economy. Of course the catch is we're speaking in nominal terms. Looking at something like the GDP per capita, in PPP terms [2], can help indicate how difficult a journey this will entail. A country like South Korea has a low GDP but is likely hitting closer to the tail end of their rapid growth phase. In spite of having a very low nominal GDP, they have a very strong domestic economy with an output/capita rivaling the West, in terms of local spending power. There is less low hanging fruit, for them to pick, than their GDP would suggest.

But China is in a different bucket. Their economic output remains low per capita in both PPP and nominal terms. They have substantial room for rapid upward growth and continue to go in that direction. They will certainly overcome the US, and in the longer term picture they will likely end up with a larger economy than the US and EU combined. I'm anything but a cheerleader for this outcome, but I don't see any realistic scenario where this isn't the case.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...

China is slated to only have 2x the population of the US by 2050.

It’s similar to the idea that throwing more people at a problem gets it done faster. China will overtake the U.S. in terms of GDP as it continues to urbanize but it’s not going to 4x the US. In order to 4x the US they’d have to have, say, 4 Googles. 4 Apples. 4 Boeings. There just isn’t enough people or planet for that to occur.

Likewise the same logic would apply for a country like India.

Demographics are big. But Zeihan also evaluates countries based on their geography, taking into account things like energy supplies, food production, and navigable rivers.

And in all those factors, the US has enormous advantages over basically everyone. The US has more navigable river than the rest of the world combined, no nearby threats, is self-sufficient in energy and food, has great ports on both oceans, and is better off demographically than most other advanced countries.

China on the other hand has horrible demographics, and imports 85% of its fuel and agricultural inputs. It has a large navy but only 10% of it is deepwater-capable, plus it's hemmed in by fairly hostile island nations with lots of antiship missiles. China has become a great economic power largely because the US has kept shipping lanes open, and China relies on that to this day.

Were China as intrinsically disadvantaged, or the US as advantaged, as you frame it - then this would be quite a strong argument further in favor of the view that as technologies equalize, economic output becomes dominated by population. The economic gap between the US and China per capita continues to shrink at an exponential rate. This is the US GDP/capita divided by the Chinese GDP/capita for the past 40 years in nominal terms:

1990 - 75x

2000 - 38x

2010 - 11x

2020 - 6x

As China has more than 4x the population of the US, 4x is the cutoff where they will also have a larger economy in nominal terms. They've of course long since greatly surpassed us in PPP terms.

US GDP/capita : https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-...

Chinese GDP/capita : https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/gdp-per-capi...

Most of China's production is on behalf of the US and other countries. It enriches the political elite and Americans, but does not directly benefit the rest much.

Yes but you're missing my point (or rather Zeihan's). China's disadvantages have not mattered, but only because the US protected global trade. Because of that, since WWII it hasn't mattered whether you had all the resources you needed, or a navy to protect your shipping lanes. If the US stops doing that, then China's disadvantages will suddenly matter a lot.

On the other hand, demographics hasn't been a problem for China in previous decades because their demographics were fine until recently. Now their population is retiring in large numbers and they don't have many kids growing up to replace them.

Zeihan stans regurgitating 101 Zeihan US strong PRC weak argument, and forget that in geoPOLITICS, the political component is as important as geography. Natural advantages can only do so much if they are squandered. Even Zeihan concedes this. Also some basic media literacy when evaluating his claims designed to sell expensive dinners to wealthy American exceptionalists. Rudimentary critical analysis like:

>US has more navigable river

Go do a search of country with most internal navigable water ways, it's PRC with more than 2x of US. This is basic tier fact check. US technically has a lot of exploitable waterways, but PRC has much more significant urban/manufacturing clusters linked via the waterways. Vs US waterways are primarily used for transport of bulky primary Ag goods... barge freight in US is massively underutilized because US is systemically bad at infra upkeep (drediging / maintenance etc). Politics > geography.

>has great ports on both oceans.

Has great port potential but poor quality ports due to inability to build infra and reliance on human labour. Go look at list of port rankings, PRC has 8 out of top 10. Like does it really matter US has deep water coasts to accomodate 10,000 world class ports when economics preferences consolidating large scale ports. Or that PRC infra capability can simply dredge out huge port projects at still fraction cost/time of US building on the most ideal site. Politics > geography.

>is self-sufficient in energy

Only on the most surface analysis. US is self-reliant in the sense it has resources in the ground that are economically exploitable. Versus PRC with massive imports to maintain production, implication being US can trivially choke PRC inputs via blockade/embargo (act of war)... by targetting shipping. Here is the reality, US is only as self sufficient as 130 vunerable refineries can process petro products which sustains everything including ag inputs. In event of war, which those musing US blockading PRC shipping forget actually will be, PRC can retaliate by compromising these refineries with cyber warfare, or in event of full escalation conventional hypersonics. There's a reason Biden told Putin/Xi that he considers cyber attacks on US infra comparable to initiating physical war. In age of vunerable networked infra nodes, during an actual shooting war, US is more vunerable and less self sufficient than EVER simply because adversaries like PRC has the capabilities to compromise critical CONUS infra. Like gunpower ended actual fortresses, network and conventional global strike capabilities ended Zeihan's fortress america. Politics (PRC indigenous defense drive) > geography.

>has horrible demographics

China actually significantly better off demographically TO COMPETE with US vs just about everyone else. Yes there's broad demographic decline, but S&T investements and academic reforms has massively grown the segment of educated / skilled talent. Huge population base effect = PRC generating something like 4.5M STEM talent with exploding pHDs, about all OECD combined. This is multitude more than US can generate domestically + immigration. PRC is only getting better demographically equipped to challenge US primarcy. Think of how JP/SKR/TW consistently moved up value chain, destroyed US lead in semi, even though most they had shit tier demographics but moved up value chain by converting new gen disproportionately into STEM. PRC is doing that with 20x more talent and will be going after every sector. What else does declining population imply? Less import dependancy and more strategic options. Politics (PRC investment in human capita) > demography. Granted does not negate, but there's demographic divident political hacks at PRC scale.

>large navy but only 10% ... >US has kept shipping lanes open, and China relies on that to this day

This is whoefully out of date, PRC has been building mid-tier sized European navy every year, hulls of surface combatants are all blue water capable. But ultimately PRC simply choose not to take on global commitments and freeloads off the US... because why would they not. Apart from courtesy anti piracy, and foreign port visits, PRC likes to stay within IndoPac and turn SCS into Chinese lake. With PRC ship building capacity, it would be trivial for PRC to build a replenishment fleet comparable to USN and replace US policing duties, which would open up global basing options for others who want to freeload off PRC. Ergo US has to fulfill commitments or else they lose hegemonic competition/perks to others who are willing. Now go look at USN readiness / retention decline and the sad state of the fleet due to massive over commitment / tasking and ask yourself why PRC would stop an adversary while making mistake. Or circle back the PRC global hypersonic developments and translate that to port strikes, the TLDR is USN naval assets are single deployment assets, less if replenishment fleet gets scrapped.

>fairly hostile island nations with lots of antiship missiles

Zeihan was wanking about surrounding PRC with AShMs at a time when US policy / wonk writings thought this was a great idea (it is), but when US foreign policy tried implement said 1st island chain plan last couple admins, they found very few takers. TLDR is majority of ASEAN/region is neutral and no one is really suicidal enough to be PRC missile sinks in a Sino-US war. Right now the only takers is Japan, TW, and maybe SKR. And bluntly, if you look at current/trending force balance differential in region and future PRC military aquistions, PRC doesn't even need a navy to completely destroy major US ally in the region, who are all islands and existentially vunerable to import disruptions. Not to mention these allies are more liability in actual war... because PRC attacking them will trigger security commitment in 1st Island Chain where US does not want to fight.

>China has become a great economic power

This is peak US exceptionalism wank, China has become a great economic power because it exploited US failures in domestic and foreign policy. People want to think it's US benevolence when it's actually US incompetence that built modern PRC. There's a reason why US vs PRC competition is about systems and not just geographic blessings. It's not geography that's massively failing US, it's the politics. Whatever you think of PRC/CCP politics, so far it's closing the gap faster than US can contain.

I've read all of Zeihan's books, and you may be emphasizing different points than those he focused on.

>US has more navigable river

You may be right. You quoted the poster, who said they quoted Zeihan. Are both countries blessed in this regard? I guess this affects transport, like you mentioned, and farming. I don't remember these particular details from the book, I'm sure he's written hundreds of words on the rivers in these two countries. Does China have enough fresh water, and farmland they can irrigate? If so, then this might not be as big a deal as other factors for these two countries.

>has great ports on both oceans.

You mentioned how many large ports China has. I assume that is because they have been exporting so many manufactured products to so much of the world over the last couple decades. Zeihan seems to make a case that this might not be true for long, due to demographics (there will be more Indian labor, Mexican labor local to the U.S., Columbians and Vietnamese working even cheaper, better Japanese robots, etc) and also due to changing circumstances of international shipping (if the U.S. stops securing shipping around Eurasia where does that leave China? Can they reach their trade partners? Import resources? Do they have capable enemies that they will have to deal with?)

>is self-sufficient in energy

Zeihan made a big deal out of the U.S. fracking developments over the last ten years. He didn't mention this is the context of war with China. He said that because of the end of the cold war and recent advances in fracking it is not longer in the interest of the U.S. to police the worlds oceans, secure the Middle East, etc. He said that would leave other countries, like China, India, Japan, countries in Europe, etc. in a position where they need to secure their own oil supplies, oil still being a very important energy source, and trade routes. All these other countries have enemies and friends. He's saying that the U.S. can withdraw as much as it wants, for the most part.

>has horrible demographics

Zeihan has talked about demographics a lot. Not just China but many other countries will be dealing with the consequences of lower birthrates - an aging and shrinking population. As countries become richer their birth rates go down, eventually below replacement rates. There won't be as much young labor, nor middle aged investors, and there will be more elderly people to take care of. How dependent are our systems on growth? What happens in various places when population and gdp are shrinking? He says that China will have it's hands full over the next ten years dealing with this, but that the U.S. has a large generation of 30-somethings that postpones our "decade of reckoning". Different countries are in different demographic situations. Japan is a rich country that is currently dealing with this situation. Russia is dealing with this also, but not doing so well.

>US has kept shipping lanes open, and China relies on that to this day

You mention that China now has a deep water navy. Based on my reading of Zeihan, I assume they will have a chance to put it to use eventually. Depending on how things go they may need to secure oil shipments from the Middle East, and they could be in competition with Japan and India for that and other resources.

>fairly hostile island nations with lots of antiship missiles

I just don't recall Zeihan talking much about the U.S. going to war with China, certainly not for world domination, like the cold war with Russia. He seems to be saying that there's no reason for the U.S. to start a confrontation with China, that long term it makes sense for the U.S. to continue the trend of withdrawing. I assume he's talked about a possible conflict around Taiwan, but it wasn't central to the trends he focuses on. I know that shortly after sanctions were imposed on Russia, after the Ukraine invasion, he talked about how similar sanctions might affect China, and how that may affect China's thinking on Taiwan in the near future.

He said the U.S. was most likely to approach future conflicts like the recent conflict in Ukraine, using sanctions, weapons, and intel to support allies when it is in our interest, but not sending troops.

>China has become a great economic power

I don't think anyone would deny that. The last few decades in China have been amazing! Unprecedented in history.

I agree with you that politics can be relevant. This is something Zeihan has talked a bit about. He's mentioned Argentina as being a country with a lot of potential, if they could get their politics together. He's talked a bit about internal China and U.S. politics. But he talked much more about the upcoming challenges, different for different countries, due to a changing world order, demographics, and geography. He said there were going to be a lot of failing countries in the next decade or two, more places like Sri Lanka. The world will not be as stable as it has been.

I wasn't sure why you talked so much about a direct confrontation between China and the U.S. If anything Zeihan seems to be predicting that China has demographically and economically peaked, and that they are likely to implode in the next ten years.

I consider Zeihan to have an interesting perspective on all this. I take him as pessimistic food for thought.

>Zeihan's books

General digression on Zeihan: His books are... fine for pop geopoltics. Zeihan "thought" is also an ecosystem of books / lectures / newsletters / videos where his predictions are crafted to appease his differnt paying audiences based on rudimentary geopolitic prognosis (geography+demography is not new framework) and superficial arguments and sometimes just bad data. Strafor trained him to be a good salesman. His US stronk, PRC weak arguments has been largely uncritically parroted by PRC collapsists, an ever trending topic due to ongoing Sino-US competition. Zeihan makes a lot of predictions (with mediocre hit rate)... about many countries, more from perspective of geopolitical potential frequently divorced from actual political realities. Apart from US domestic politics, he's not a particularly deep subject matter expert in other countries, including PRC, but many none the less latch onto onto his napkin analysis and combine it with other superficial PRC collapse / doomed talking points. Ultimately it's pop geopolitics, like there's a reason he hasn't given talks at any prominent PRC focused think tanks or policy circles where at least 10+ years ago, he's (well Strafor) was memed as more marketting than useful analysis.

>navigable river

Both are blessed. Major rivers and taming them is what made Chinese empire. Zeihan's thesis around PRC rivers is focused on history of flooding of farmland heavy Yellow river in north, concentration of industry around more easily navigtable Yangtze/Pearl rivers in south. How north/south divide historically caused political /regional power arrangments that are easy to fracture (China broke again meme), and historically massive disasters when river misbehaves. Notes CCP undertakes massive infra/water works/transfer projects to stitch everything together (pre CCP historically as well). His basic TLDR is China has to spend massive resources to bribe provinces to unified and China has been fractured longer than it has been unified historically (false), and spending all this money on infra projects = PRC will stay capital poor (lol), and it's also why PRC buys (bought) so much superior US tbills, implying USD is keeping PRC political unity afloat. This is message sold to US exceptionalist/China collapsist. Meanwhile PRC capital accumuluation has increased massively while reserves have shrunk to historic lows (2T at time his writing 2008, 4T peak 2013, now 1T).

In comparison, what does he say about US waterways, oh it's great, links up with farm land and coasts, protected by elements because geography, links strait to gulf/east coast. I think he literally used the word "perfect", don't need any extra infra or management, why even have a highway system, but we built one anyway because US so rich, #1 etc etc. Nevermind US corp engineers also historically conducted massive infra/water management projects, and inability to build/sustain "extra infra" in decades after to present makes these waterways severely underutilized / never properly exploited. Nor that US states have vastly different Federal funding/dependency... almost as if US Gov has to bribe states to keep country cohesive. Meanwhile PRC state/infra capacity actually exploiting waterways thoroughly, controlling previously massively catastrophic flooding that previously killed MILLIONS, now hundreds (which Zeihan has tweeted about as if it's omen of coming collapse). Zeihan magnifies US potential vs PRC risks.

In terms of water, PRC via Tibet headwaters has some of the greatest hydro resources in the world but PRC is water stressed (1.4B population does that), but central gov doing massive water transfer (north/south) to alleviate. There's plenty of articles about US water crisis as well. Hard to say long term, but PRC ag hasn't been particuarly impacted but this is where politics > geography, with caveate that PRC population decline will trend towards less pressure / managable crisis over time.

>ports/diversification

PRC isn't particularly export dependant (currently ~20% vs peak of 30%+ vs US 14%), export heavy / dependant is like 30-40+%. As for demographics, PRC automation installation of industrial robots last few years is larger than US/JP/SKR/GER + around the next 14 countries combined. For cheap labour, PRC companies diversified lowend/light industry to region first to emesh them into PRC supply chains via companies controlled by PRC. The TLDR is PRC is strategically outsourcing some stuff (low end labour, high pollution sectors) to make region more dependant (cooperative model), while all signs point it maintaining manufacturing domestically for internal market. In terms of resources, everyone has lots of raw global inputs to defend. Ergo PRC rapidly building up navy (most ships right now while US hulls projected to decline). I argue they can defend against anyone except USN out in open waters, while aquiring capabilities to deter Sino-US war (likely over TW) in meantime. Meanwhile, PRC has near monopoly on various rare earth processing that will take decades for others to reshore.

>fracking ... >didn't mention this is the context of war with China.

Not in books as far as I know. But he's rationalized fracking/energy security in remarks/interviews over PRC at mercy of US blockade because US now energy secure talking points, which now prevalently informs the ever popular PRC is vunerable to blockade narrative. As for US withdraw / serve as offshore balancer, US can do that, but all developments in recent years have shown that PRC is exception to US FP indifference and US will be involved directly in PRC containment. The broader point is he believes energy self reliance + fortress America gives US almost impervious position of strength. But we are approaching point in history where US geography is no longer impregnable shield anymore. See recent US conniptions over PRC (global) hypersonic developement. PRC would of course be happy if US withdraws, but US energy security may/will be just as vunerable as PRC if there's confrontation.

>demographics

All this is true, but in context of great power competition between US/PRC, societies can manage different demographic pressures/patterns while relative gap in comprehensive power can still narrow/shift. Average PRC citizen can have a much shittier QoL vs US, but workforce and industrial policies can still be organized to be systemically competitive, if not more so. PRC can shrink to 1B people, with gen pop stuck in miserable East Asian work culture with poor safety net (though keep in mind PRC has highest savings/homeownership rate and relatively less reliance on welfare state), while still grow military to multiple times current size and move up value chain to increasingly threaten US primacy because there's still easy catchup growth and demographic divident in terms of disproportionate STEM talent vs past workforce that was mostly low skilled. PRC soon keeping hands full (for much longer than 10 years) doesn't mean PRC comprehensive power have peaked or PRC will undergo decline, or according to Zeihan, collapse.

>navy,competition

I don't see where the competition is TBH, plenty of resources to go around for short/medium term and little appetite for war (except PRC/US over TW). As for PRC navy, it's doing more deployments abroad, but doesn't have any foreign security commitments. Like there's no reason to war with India, it's border skirmishes were fought with stone and sticks. Neither country interested in ruining "Asian Century". Japan only if they support US in TW scenario. Senkaku/SCS disputes not worth military/navy, relegated to "domestic" matter for coast guard. But yeah the Chinese navy will be used to do navy things for PRC security interests.

> recall Zeihan talking much about the U.S. going to war with China

No he's pretty firm offshore balancer, America can influence abroad at home while most world collapses without US order advocate. Surrounding PRC with missiles is talking point commonly associated with malacca blockade talk. But US bipartisian anti-PRC FP looks to be doubling down on interdicting directly in TW, because loss of TW risks collapse of US East Asian security architecture. Zeihan thinks PRC will collapse so why bother.

> pessimistic

For the audience his writing caters to (US exceptionalist), his pitch is (IMO) disguised pessimism - having rolled natural 20s on geography US has to work hard to fail, vs US competitors has to work hard to succeed (but here are surface analysis of why they won't). Like credit to him he does acknowledge US failings / challenges because the politics in US geopolitics has been underperforming, but he tends to trivialize US challenges with "at least our adversaries are doomed".

Hey! A fellow optimist. There aren't many of us around as far as I can tell, except I think there a lot of closet optimists who don't speak up because the dominant paradigm is to shout "we're all going to die!" to wake people up so they will some action. This wears off when repeated too often, so I think it has the opposite effect. For those from other cultures who aren't very familiar with Western parables, there are two about this: "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" and "Chicken Little"

It feels wrong to be happy that me and my country are going to (maybe) be (relatively) ok when the shit (that we threw) hits the fan for many other people and countries.

It’s okay to feel relief you can put your oxygen mask on before helping those nearby put theirs on.

...even if you're the one who made the plane crash in the first place.

It's going to be more like you put on the only oxygen mask in your seat row but you're the reason why there aren't more and also the reason why we need to use the masks in the first place.

No single person — no single nation, even — bears quite that much responsibility for climate change, let alone the other things. Too many people did too much for too long, the blame is diffuse over all of us.

But yes, we are a bit short on metaphorical oxygen masks.

Of course no single person or single group bears all of the responsibility, I was leaning on the already established mask metaphor in this conversation.

But if you mean "all of us" as in all people in the world? No we are absolutely not all equally to blame for this. And it is true that, overall, in general, the ones who disproportionately caused this, and disproportionally benefitted from it, will also be disproportionally protected from its worst effects.

Focusing on the diffusion of blame or the weakness of the metaphor without acknowledging that dynamic is cowardly imo.

Diffusion does not mean equality.

However, I would be surprised if more than a mere few million humans alive today are sufficiently harmless to the ecosystem that they can be counted as blameless. While I would of course accept that minors can’t be counted as at fault due to lack of power or awareness, I would say that in practice this also applies to virtually everyone, given the safe emissions level is 0.1% of actual emissions and that this means that even most eco-friendly food production isn’t friendly enough yet, let alone all the other things.

Still, I recon we can get there without loss of quality of life. I may be pessimistic about politics, but I’m optimistic about technology.

> It feels wrong to be happy

I think this is a common problem. Some of us sometimes feel guilty for being happy.

> the shit (that we threw) hits the fan

I'm not sure anyone is to blame because no one created human civilizations except all of us. My view is aligned with the human potential movement. As I understand it, we need a lot more work to overcome our tendencies towards what Catholics call the Seven Deadly Sins: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride. We are over-coming our primitive animal nature to something more intelligent and refined. Buddhists among others have a lot to say about letting our troublesome thoughts and emotions go and focusing on our resting nature. I like the Kundalini model for a nice way to visualize our human potential.

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

> My view is aligned with the human potential movement

And yet, it's largely the global north, and America in specific - a small subset of humanity - who will escape the reaping, even though they did a disproportionate amount of sowing, to keep the Catholic thread going I guess.

> Some of us sometimes feel guilty for being happy

That's not what they said. They said they feel guilty for being happy that others will suffer immensely while they get to skate relatively unharmed. I agree that some folks do feel unnecessarily guilty sometimes, but I don't think that applies here.

> And yet, it's largely the global north, and America in specific

Are you blaming Americans for China's environmental destruction because we buy their products? Americans have created systems that protect the environment that China could take advantage of

> They said they feel guilty for being happy that others will suffer immensely while they get to skate relatively unharmed

I can't do anymore than I am doing to correct wrongs. I'm not mad at the English currently alive because their ancestors starved my Irish ancestors and I don't feel guilty that some of my ancestors might have owned slaves. I want to be happy, but weirdly some people don't and are always finding reasons to be unhappy.

“I have noticed that a man is usually about as happy as he has made up his mind to be.”

- Abraham Lincoln

Look at the CO2 chart in the link above, China only recently became the biggest emitter and even then they make up maybe a quarter of CO2 emissions.

The vast majority of emissions and environmental destruction has been done by the global north, only recently has the rest of the world started to become the majority in this sense. You can’t just point the finger and forget all of history up to this point.

China is part of the global North. Beijing is located at 40 °N latitude.

I’m not sure if you’re just unfamiliar but, no, China is not part of the global north.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_North_and_Global_South?...

That's such a ridiculous definition as to be utterly useless for any real analysis. North Korea is "South" and South Korea is "North". Got it.

I can't believe anyone would take this stuff seriously. But I'm sure it's popular with the officious busybodies in some international NGOs.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I can see how it’s confusing, but it’s a fairly well understood term by people within geopolitical circles. Unless you believe latitude is the most important explanatory variable in geopolitics, I don’t think the edge cases are such a big deal as to prevent us from using global north/south as a shorthand.

> Are you blaming Americans for China's environmental destruction because we buy their products? Americans have created systems that protect the environment that China could take advantage of

Some of the systems may make products expensive, and the whole point of offshoring production to China (from the US and other places), so to make them inexpensively. Are consumers willing to start paying the externalities of climate change in their products (regardless of where they are produced)?

And as Kurzgesagt points out in "Who Is Responsible For Climate Change? – Who Needs To Fix It?", while China as a whole releases the most, per capita each citizen is relatively low(er) emissions (especially compared to the US). Further, the country with highest cumulatively/historically released carbon to date—which has led us to the climate change problem in the first place—is the US:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipVxxxqwBQw

> I'm not sure anyone is to blame because no one created human civilizations except all of us.

The West generally, and US specifically, tends to release much more carbon into the atmosphere than the countries that will suffer the most from climate change. The US further uses a lot more energy per capita than just about anyone else (in the Top 5?) in day-to-day life.

Most other industrialized countries can achieve the same level of comfort and lifestyle as the US with much less energy use.

Yeah for me it's kind of an "optimistic for who?" question.

Well, if you're George Carlin you say "The planet will be fine. It's the people who are fkuced"

What is the shit we are throwing that you are talking about? Climate related?

You should read Zeihan's book. One of the main premises is that the US allowed for international peace (known as Pax Americana) via enforcing peaceful international trade with a large navy. Zeihan's position is that this was largely done for security post WW2, not financial benefit. The Americans pay a very high price for this international trade security.

There seems to be an overwhelming assumption from Americans that the US is destroying the world, but in many ways we've enabled the greatest time in human history by allowing peaceful cooperation.

I'm assuming your country is the US, and they're who you believe threw the shit in question.

I'm not sure if Cambodia et al would agree with the sentiment of "peaceful cooperation".

Peaceful cooperation amongst countries that are very important to world security. There was a peaceful cooperation amongst all major world powers, which is a drastic turning point from the prior few hundred years that bred indefinite wars amongst major world powers. Cambodia, and most other countries that have seen wars since the end of WW2, don't really matter on the world scale. Doesn't make the negative impacts on them any less real, but in general sweeping statements, the world did see peaceful cooperation.

Most of the optimism I see seems to be more along the lines of, "Well the science isn't totally perfect, so we might be OK if we just don't do anything". In the sense that I'm lazy and don't want to change any of my habits or do any work, then you could also call me an optimist. As far as what I believe is going to happen to the world in the near future - probably not.

Modern day activism tunnel visions on "raising awareness" which why we end up with so much virtue signaling and doomposting rather than substantial action.

Look at Montgomery bus boycott. Everyone remembers Rosa Parks, but in reality the boycott required coordination of tens of thousands of individuals doing mundane work. You had taxi drivers willing to drive people at break even prices. You had dispatchers to coordinate carpooling. You had people willing to walk several miles a day in the Alabama sun just to deprive the bus system out of a few cents. All this effort was expended for the relatively minor problem of segregation on buses. However, this paved the way for more substantial forms of change. Imagine how much quicker we would reduce greenhouse gas emissions if we put a similar level of effort.

Your claim is incorrect that it was written before Russia's invasion. The publication date is in June 2022.

That one, yes. But Zeihan's 2014 book predicted that Russia would invade Ukraine by the end of 2021. Missed it by two months.

Didn't Russia invade Ukraine in early 2014?

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

Yes, his 2014 prediction was that they would invade the rest of Ukraine by end of 2021.

I think it's understated how well the current U.S. centered alliance has worked. I've never seen a name for it (G7 Alliance, maybe?), but it's broadly Western Europe, U.S., Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea. There's no one treaty uniting all the countries, but there are many overlapping treaties and alliances, and they tend to act in concert (if you look at which countries have sanctioned Russia during the recent war, it's almost entirely this group). This group also has a massive amount of people, wealth, knowledge and productive capacity. And though the U.S. is the linchpin and definitely the most powerful member, members are free to disagree and no one member calls the shots.

It's also interesting, because there doesn't seem to be any competing power block. People talk about things like BRICS, but that's little more than a conference between countries that don't share much in common and often are rivals as much as friends.

> I've never seen a name for it

FWIW, this aligns pretty well with the OECD nations [1]. Might be a good starting point.

1 https://www.oecd.org/about/document/ratification-oecd-conven...

It's the American alliance, one world bound by trade under the US navy and military. But now the pax americana is threatened by at least 2 adversaries

Probably the most stark fact within that group is how the US has very deliberately abandoned most of its population to all the storms blowing through. That the worst-abandoned reliably vote to be abandoned just tells us how effective systematic propaganda has become, and how thoroughly the 0.01% controls it.

Directing the attention of the rest of the world's underclass has been an afterthought, but that is changing.

The alliance doesn't work for Europe. The original population in Western europe got irrevocably replaced by liberal politics. And now Europe is losing big with the Ukrainian conflict while being the main target in the case of a nuclear war.

The party winning is the Anglosphere. They have been doing well ever since keeping Europe dysfunctional.

Wait till continental Europe get the new member, and European Slavyanosphere includes one of the most powerful parts of former Soviet empire.

The original population of europe wasn't "replaced" since the roman republic era, so i don't understand.

And i dislike the liberalist myth, but at least its a more functional and useful myth than the feodal, monarchist or fascist myth that seems to come back nowadays.

> if you look at which countries have sanctioned Russia during the recent war, it's almost entirely this group

I don't know how you define western europe, but the sanctioning countries includes basically all of europe besides Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovivina, Macedonia and Belarus (of course).

It's on target regarding the current events, but he doesnt seem to heed his own message: deglobalization and the return to national (or something new?) identities is bad news for america which is a global empire. It's also good news for cohesive, homogeneous states. We seem to have entered at the end of the current globalizing cycle quite fast with russia's invasion, and other wars will follow.

The benefits the US gets from globalization come at significant cost: huge military expenditures plus a hollowing out of manufacturing and other local jobs, leading to a lot of social unrest. Globalization wasn't something the US did for its own sake, but as a way of bribing the world to help them contain the Soviets.

Nevertheless, the US will find the end of globalization somewhat unpleasant for a while. But unlike most of the world, the US is self-sufficient in food and energy, faces little direct military threat, and its largest trading partners are on its borders. In relative terms, the US stands to come out well ahead.

Being less homogenous is also an advantage. Almost every advanced country has terrible demographics. The less homogenous you are, the more you're able to attract immigrants to fix that. Despite periodic discontent, the US has long welcomed immigration and benefited by it. On top of that, US demographics aren't that terrible in the first place.

> to help them contain the Soviets.

Why would they want to contain the soviets if not to benefit from global trade? The benefits outweigh the costs very much, thats why they did it.

Surely the US stands to come out safe, it is a very safe country, but if it won't be richer anymore, it will also stop being an immigration hotspot. Immigration, globalization and empire building go hand in hand, and the past century was America's turn. But this construction seems to be dissolving.

I think you're drastically underestimating how much the US feared an expansionist USSR during the Cold War, and the worries just after WWII that the Soviets might just roll across Europe.

If things play out as Zeihan expects, the US will be a bit less rich, but will be far better off than anyone else in the world.

Supporting this was the one chart that caught my eye as I skimmed - Total Private Credit - at the very bottom row. The caption on the massive outlier line literally going off the chart at the top right is China: "No country has survived a credit build this large or fast. Ever.".

Perhaps a totalitarian society will allow them to do so, but saying "It's different this time..." has a very poor record

I always found the conspicuous absence of India from the mainstream Geopolitical discussions weird.

India has:

- Largest arable land in the world.[1]

- Multiple productive zones like Ganga, Kaveri, Godavari and other basins that can support multiple crops a year.

- A good demographic dividend, due to a young population and a stable democracy.

- Favourable weather. Monsoons are highly predictable and are timed well.

- A competent workforce. Due to the sheer size, India can manage to find the required quota of productive workers.

- Favourable location. It sits smack in the middle of Indian Ocean with all major trade routes passing through its doorsteps.

- Good diplomatic alliances, albeit it’ll be harder to maintain the tight rope balance in the coming decades.

India might not be the most lucky nation like the US, and has several major challenges in store but nevertheless it is an interesting player.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_use_statistics_by_count...

I agree that we often don't see an Indian perspective in geopolitical discussions, but I think that's understandable. India faces difficult challenges internally and within its neighborhood. Extreme weather, overpopulation, and wealth disparity drive significantly more internal violence than the typical developed nation. India needs to spend proportionally more attention at home or on its borders (Sri Lanka, Pakistan, China, Bangladesh) than other nations. I suspect these issues limit its ability to contribute to the mainstream geopolitical discussion and allow others to generally predict how India will behave.

What is up with that Chinese debt load?

I have been reading a bit about the recent Covid lockdowns in China and the situation there sounds insane and unbelievable. How long can a country survive that level of totalitarianism?

I have to imagine it's mostly real estate stuff (business and residential)

Can't recommend this blog (from a professor in China) enough if you want to get smart about the Chinese economy: https://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/

Russia carried it from 1917 all the way to the 1950s, and even defeated Nazi Germany almost alone (albeit with substantial late manufacturing help from the US). China has way better mechanisms available to it than the SSRs did, and doesn't rely on any help.

Zeihan has compelling arguments. I like the way he integrates geography, especially knowledge of agricultural, mineral, and transportation advantages some countries have, demography, and economics. He overstates the "demographics is destiny" aspect of his analysis. Japan, for example, is navigating a demographic decline relatively well. China will probably have a more difficult time if only relative to the CCP's ambitions. But China can continue to improve the quality of life for Chinese people if they don't do anything really stupid and end up isolated like Russia.

What does China depend on from the rest of the world, other than markets and oil?

Food. But yeah, the oil thing is enough.

Food imports to China are pretty important. Surprised to see India as a major food exporter. And Russia. Soviet Russia was a major importer.

Do you mean aside from the trillions of dollars worth of yearly imports/exports? That's a pretty massive part of their economy.

Importing raw materials and exporting finished goods made from it falls under "markets". But they also import a lot of oil and coal for purely domestic use. Not clear what else.

> But China can continue to improve the quality of life for Chinese people if they don't do anything really stupid and end up isolated like Russia.

This is extremely unlikely. Half (HALF!) of China's 1.2B people will be dead by 2050. The CCP is almost certainly doomed to fracture/fail due to this factor alone. Additionally, Xi has elevated himself to cult-leader like status and killed every person who ever brought him bad news. No nation run like that will succeed for long.

Lastly, China imports vast quantities of food and oil and has a tiny navy. They are wholly dependent on the outside world - a point that Peter explores in greater depth in his earlier books.

> has a tiny navy

They have more ships than the US Navy, though they don’t beat it by tonnage. How can that be considered tiny?

There are a number of reasons why China's Navy is insufficient. A key reason is that it cannot defend China's oil supply. Not even close.

Ireland is ranked as the most food secure country in the world along with the United States.

https://impact.economist.com/sustainability/project/food-sec...

I'm curious about the methodology as this map marks Ireland simply as 'Food Insecure' with vertical lines. It would be like marking Norway 'Under Developed' -- it just screams something major has been overlooked.

As of 2002, Ireland consumed 3.4 tons of fertilizer for every ton it produced, that is to say it is extraordinarily reliant on imports. Keep in mind that the limited domestic production is itself heavily dependent on energy, the vast majority of which is itself imported. Additionally, more recent reports suggest that Ireland has become more reliant on imported fertilizers over the past 20 years.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.CON.FERT.PT.ZS?locat...

https://thatsfarming.com/farming-news/chemical-fertiliser-im...

On a similar note, The Netherlands are descibed as food importer. Sure we import a lot of food, but we export a lot more[1]!

[1] https://bestfoodimporters.com/food-imports-in-the-netherland...

In dollar amounts, yes.

But what matters in this analysis is calories, not value.

Fertilizer imports.

The US makes its own fertilizer, Ireland does not. Without fertilizer, crop productivity goes way down.

I always hear about Italy's old population but wow, that's a gigantic difference between 0-20 year olds and 45-65 year olds. Their social security system has to collapse, or be dramatically modified, at some point in the next 30 years, right?

The newer geneerations are aware of that but when it comes to social security they will actually have the upper hand: older people will need them. The precipitous drop in fertility rates happened in the '80s. Old people put a strain on the current youth, but in the future things will be more even. And btw , most countries will go through this bottleneck

the question then becomes: how do the young make use of the fact that older people need them? Forced requisition of assets? Wealth taxes on the elderly? Something else?

increased wages which make affordable things that are currenty very unaffordable, like housing. We are already seeing it as part of the "great resignation"

Yup, expect to hear about inflation for a long time!

A wealthy older person will not stay wealthy for long when minor repairs to their home cost a magnitude more than circa-2019.

This book came highly recommended by several people. I am only about 20% through it, but so far I have found it very underwhelming and full of unsupported claims.

The author keeps insisting that the "end is coming", but the only arguments given in support of this are the demographic collapse and the US withdraw from the world Order leading to de-globalization.

The demographic collapse is real, however it has been known for decades and many countries are taking real steps to mitigate it in the form of strong government support for raising children (netherlands for example) or looser restrictions to immigration. There is also no mention in this book that better standards of living and the shift away from manual labor are enabling many people to continue to be productive well into their retirement years.

The argument for the US withdraw from the world Order is even more puzzling as it flies in the face of all the events of 2022 which has seen the US reinforce its alliances and increase its participation in the world stage. In my view, the argument is a reaction to the Trump presidency, but I believe the Trump presidency is an aberration and not a trend for the future of US foreign policy. The US will always promote peace and world order, because ultimately peace is far more profitable than war.

Just my impressions so far. I'll keep reading it in the hope that it gets better.

Imho his latest book isn't the best starting point. He justifies his basic thesis more in earlier books, but in the latest he just reviews it and moves on to new material. The argument is not just a reaction to Trump; he lays it out first in The Accidental Superpower, published in 2014. (This book is fascinating in its own right, covering a broad sweep of history starting from ancient Egypt.)

Zeihan's predictions don't extend much past the next decade. Governments can enact policies to encourage childbearing but it will still take 20 years to make a 20-year-old. Immigration is another matter of course, but for many countries, cultural issues make that difficult. The US does a pretty good job of assimilating immigrants and giving them a fairly equal place in society. Many other countries do not, and that makes them less attractive to immigrants.

Internationally, the US has definitely stepped up more this year. But during and shortly after the Cold War, the US fought serious wars to defend the borders of other countries, maintaining our credibility as global security guarantor. I don't think we're near so dedicated to that these days. We'll sanction, and share weapons and intel, but that's relatively cheap.

I found it surprising how little lithium goes into an electric car, vs. e.g. copper, nickel, and graphite, and how much zinc goes into a wind turbine. The zinc is for corrosion control.

The place of soybean and pork production, vs. the rest of food staples, was also surprising.

Can we please start calling "rare earths" lanthanides?

Lots of interesting ideas, but some potentially dangerous generalizations as well. Zeihan claims the midwest is an ideal productive farming environment but recent increases in damaging storms have driven one midwestern farmer I know out of the business.

The challenge will be that it’s somewhat straightforward to model beneficial agriculture climate geographies but challenging to model catastrophic volatility. Note how calm the Gulf hurricane season has been; very unexpected.

One farmer anecdotes are not very useful when talking about global trends. Though painful for the farmer on a human scale, of course.

The European spheres of influence is also bogus in Eastern Europe. Eastern Poland under Russian influence. Bulgaria and Romania under Turkish and Russian influence. Greece, a failed state?

There is a map (Global Solar Potential) which suggests that much of China and the Philippines has the 'potential' of the UK (ie negligible).

What fascinates me is how this is measured. I mean Jakarta gets as much sunlight falling on it as anything else pretty much on the equator.

Has anyone read the book and might be able to explain - I am guessing something like jungle vegetation blocks sunlight down at ground level, or lots of cloud cover.

But interested.

Jakarta has very frequent cloud cover, especially in the dry season, maybe June-Sept.

You can see by checking out satellite views, just click the day back repeatedly to get an idea: https://zoom.earth/maps/daily/#view=-6.0915,106.56352,9z/dat...

It seems that much of the area isn't favorable in either Solar[1] or Wind[2] power.

The methodology page on solar[3] looks solid. "Shading by terrain features is calculated using high-resolution elevation data and calculated terrain horizon. Shading driven by buildings, vegetation and obstacles is not considered;"

[1] https://globalsolaratlas.info/map

[2] https://globalwindatlas.info/

[3] https://globalsolaratlas.info/support/methodology

I have read the book and its prequel "The Accidental superpower". The book is written from a very strong US centric viewpoint, which by definition makes it susceptible to bias and oversight about regions like South and South East Asia, Africa etc. He gets his facts right about many things, but some of his non-US centric claims come across as unsubstantiated and border on speculation.

It is a fine read in parts, but I would be wary to take this as the handbook of the coming future.

Global solar potential is badly skewed: deserts are a lousy place to put solar panels. Their only advantage is that overcast is rare. The best sites are tropical and sub-tropical calm fresh water with limited overcast, to float panels on.

It is probably worth making a reservoir to float them on, even in a desert. Nobody knows how long floating panels will last, because there hasn't been time. Warranties assume they are very hot all day.

Not read the book but I believe the notable lack of solar potential compared with similar latitudes in North and East China is due to air pollution.

There was a paper that estimated that China's installed PV could generate 10% more power (up to 30% more regionally) if they cleaned up the air.

Obviously a bit of a virtuous cycle.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-solarpower-pollutio...

Italy birth rate is actually a hopeful sign from the environmental perspective. Humanity cannot continue the uncontrolled growth and unsustainable consumption of resources.

We have a unlimited source of energy generator up in the sky. Humans need to get their act together and resist the urge for anti-human arguments. IMO we need to get going more than ever towards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale#Type_I

I predict that in 2040 there are going to be "space enviromentalists" that will try to prevent humans from exploring space in the name of keeping it as is.

Solving fusion power would be a watershed moment for humans and that's where the focus needs to be. The other one is Cancer that needs to be eradicated.

While I agree with where humans should be putting their minds to solving cancer and the energy problems facing us currently.

The problem of "unlimited energy generator" of the sun is that on the ground it is intermitted based on day/night and clouds, meaning we would have to create a surplus of energy during the day and store it for later use. We have been working on batteries, but there has been promise at using air or water "batteries" as well via compressed air or Pumped Storage Hydropower (PSH).

I would highly recommend reading both Bill Gates's How to Avoid a Climate Disaster and Vaclav Smil's How the World Really Works, both of which have really shown what needs to happen to solve both our climate and energy problems going forward.

I read the Great Reset by Klaus Schwab. I felt so repulsed by it and will do everything in my power to push back on that non-sense.

I want human race to flourish and tackle problems, not regress back to the caves.

Completely agree there, I want to see humanity take the leap and become a type 1 and then a type 2 civilization.

It is mind blowing to me that the first diesel engine installed on a ship was 1903 and where we are 122 years later already touching space. I can hardly wait to see what the next 50+ years bring. It will be hard and I am sure we will have some growing pains, but going back is never an option.

Why is OPs sensible comment being down voted?

If you disagree, then post a reply saying why you disagree. Down voting is meant for posts that detract from the conversation, not because you disagree with something and can't be arsed posting a reply.

This isn't Reddit FFS.

Its basic Malthusianism which everyone on this board has seen debunked countless times. When people post low-effort doomsaying, they don't always deserve intelligent replies

there are far better ways to fix the environment than reducing humans.

But another reason why it 's good: more capital in fewer hands

It is only a hopeful sign if you believe humanity can successfully navigate a demographic inversion the likes of which it has never seen before, while managing the changing climate.

I do not see how this could be the case.

I agree.

A dramatic example, but I imagine a solid state battery (and the following generations) will be harder to design if half of the research team has to care for their senile mothers.

That happens in Italy?

Sorry for any confusion, I was responding to this:

> if you believe humanity can successfully navigate a demographic inversion the likes of which it has never seen before, while managing the changing climate.

I agree with the comment above mine, I do not believe we can manage this. With less population, specialization, and attention available among the polluting countries, I see those countries (such as Italy) reverting to things that are easier to manage.

Likely more stuff we can just grab out of the ground and burn.

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