Happy B-Day NLO

 AML Dad

Merry Christmas to my friends in the East!

 Wow, there is still a Christmas Spirit! Even if only one side seems to be able to  appreciate it...

It's a crazy World.  Let's all pray for peace.

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How did I do? Let's look at the 2022 prognostication post...

 Well 2022 was a very interesting year for most of us.  I like to think about geopolitics and the way the World interacts in general.  I suppose since I was a child I have always wanted to understand the cultural significance of the regions, and being Orthodox, have always wondered about the reasons we can't seem to co-operate.  Life's walk has taught me some marvelous lessons about people.  This planet is an amazing place.  Well let's see what a years prospective looks like on those predictions.

1. Mobility energy breakthrough - the solid state battery will emerge as the clear winner negating the need for all of the exotic metals and finally returning rhodium to its rightful status as a so-so - whaddya do with that stuff kind of element.

Meh, boutique success and if developed will need much more time and R&D dollars.  Like a lot of things, this is do-able but at what cost - Bonk. 

2. Dystopian application of technology will create a global backlash for law makers to enact civil liberty protections - one always follows the other - but intoxicating power takes time to subdue. Don't forget the genie is out of the bag and good guys and bad guys are out there.  If your gonna keep bad guys from bad digital things you eventually need real laws for everybody. Sorry silicon valley si-pals, the wild west is gonna have to get tamed. 

I'm going to claim this one.  The over reach of most World governments and cherry picking winners and losers in elections has had a pretty significant effect on the average person.  Populist candidates are currently non-gratis. Trust is gone in medicine, government and media - and searching for the truth is now a very strong ideological yearning.  Most people want to understand why the many deceptions are so prevalent. On the other hand enlightenment is occurring. Global cheap energy and critical resource depletion  is now understood by more and more people to be at the root of the mania.  DING.

3. New building and transportation codes will slowly be rolled out as a result of acknowledged learning about airborne virus infection pathways.  Re-circulating air in common occupant spaces not so good, electrostatic scrubbers good... UV-C 260 nanometer lighted air filtration good...  Mass transit health related codes are ancient or non-existent, time to integrate some easy low tech - low cost public health improvements.  Really, how many times have you caught something from a flight?  Too many times for me and way easy to improve.

LOL, now this would have happened (I think) if we really had a problem rather than a manufactured "event".  BONK.

4. Tensions flare in the Malacca Straight as  the idea of building your own island and weaponizing it catches on... yeah, it's been done before. Tit for Tat, expect it. Japan, Australia and India probably have ideas of their own.  I dunno, they say good fences make good neighbors. 

Yeah, this came true and has evolved to posturing for new geopolitical partnerships. DING.

5. Blow back on all things digital.  I'm not sure what it will look like, but I think enough folks have lost enough income to maybe bring into focus the down side of silicon valley.  

This is happening in a pretty significant way although never reported in the common media. DING.

6. The US re-discovers S. America.  Trade agreements start to ramp up. So does tourism. 

Sort of.  I see a lot of tinkering going on that makes me believe the re-discovery is well under way. DING.

7. US agriculture booms as Brexit opens up a huge 60M people opportunity for export of high quality agriculture to the UK. Gas up the John Deere - it's gonna be big! 

Yup, also include natural gas - I didn't see that coming.  But yup, DING.

8.  IoT expands into pet products.  Expect to see an "iCollar" for your cat or dog to be worn in place of their old ID tag.  Yup, new ways to train - imagine giving your pet voice directions from across a field or from work.  Apps that plot where they are, cameras to show what they see, no longer just a license dangling on a d-ring - but a digital record any smart phone can read through a blue tooth app... New possibilities, a renaissance in pet training. Books will be  written! 5G and your Dog...  Do you Know your Cat's URL?  The Cat as Witness...  LOL - endless marketing po$$ibilitie$.  Pure gold for PETCO, CHEWY and infomercial producers.  Maybe even enough oomph to displace pharma in the US tv ad business! 

An under-served market that I still think will grow because the corporate miesters haven't yet discovered that they could use pets to data mine house holds.  Yeah, that puppy over there is listening to your every word and so is the "algorithm" LOL, not yet but soon!  BONK.

9. Geophysicists will publish some amazing science on the natural course of global climate change that will achieve escape velocity from the talking heads and politicians...   It's good to know what really happens from the prospective of those who do the research, take the data and validate theory with replication.  See my earlier post about the "fact of the matter."  I believe climatologists are cranky enough not to allow their science to get politicized.  Talking  heads onthe other hand... just read what's in front of them with the tonal inflections and banter their producers write in the margins of their scripts... 

LOL, not in current time, where climate is more political science than real science.  But yet some publications have made it into the public square. Nobody is reporting on ice melts but yet...  DING.

10. Northwest Passage picks up volume as satellite based solutions for avoiding sea ice are found.  Oooooee the trek from Asia to Europe gets shorter and waaaay less expensive.  I wonder if new cities will emerge up there?  Real estate in the frozen North must be a real bargain right now!

Nope, climate cooling has made this a not yet moment... BONK.

11. BONUS - natural mutation of the COVID - 19 virus reduces it's lethality to a bad cold by the end of the year.  It is shedding RNA, just not as fast as MERs or SARs...  Let us hope. 

This had to happen, so an easy DING.  Although pharma is still trying to scare your pants off.  But there are other reasons for that.

Well, 7 of 11 - call it 64%.  A tad better than a coin toss.  BUT, if I reflect on the learnings of the last year and did this over I could have done - maybe 80%.  

What about 2023?  Well, me thinks more competition for lower cost energy will continue to drive and accelerate a lot of changes,  Policy that favors (no matter by what means) less births, less air travel and an evolution towards technocratic or certainly less democratic governance is likely to cause a lot of unrest.

In my humble view, production decline of cheap oil is around 5% the rule of 70 suggests that in 14 years or so we'll have half as much available to us at the same time many critical minerals are of lower grades requiring more energy to concentrate.  Considering all strategic governments are smart enough to sit on reserves (save something for the eventuality of war, or more generally for the future) things look very serious.  Oil and gas have a power density that isn't easy to replace with solar or wind in a timely manner and while supporting the rates of consumption we have.  Indeed we have a population that is huge and voracious in its consumption.  That has mostly been driven by economic models that depend on growth. That must change as various functions of scarcity kick in.  Seneca cliffs in all sorts of diverse areas will have to occur.  Governments will use a variety of tools to attempt to manage a decline in GDP including the legislation of policies to destroy demand.  GDP growth by the way, is a requirement for all of your investments to yield positive results!  So my advice for what it's worth is... Try not to be in debt, plant a garden, learn about and participate in your local community.  Be as energy independent that you can be.  In the same way that a train is much more efficient in moving goods and people than a fleet of fuel guzzling turban engine airplanes - learn to slow down.  Physics wins every time.  Unfortunately politicians are not very bright or truthful so how these challenges are met is more about lobby groups and manufacturing chaos than applying systems engineering.  Buckle up, 2023 and the next decade or so will be bumpy as old ways of doing things necessarily go away because they are unsustainable.  So is any economic system based on growth.  There's the rub, making a profit on misery doesn't sit well with most folks.

I've been running pyWorld3 on spyder and I have discovered that it wont be easy to avoid the outcomes of the Limits to Growth "business as usual simulation."  It would take cooperation on a Global scale and resilient populations that are willing to change rather than be led by an economic system that needs to grow at any cost - even through violent means.  Sigh, deception and totalitarian methods look more like the path our ruling classes are on.  

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