WE'RE BAILING OUT THE BILLIONAIRES AGAIN It’s getting to be rather a bad habit around here. And it all started with the Magna Carta. Bear with me. Many more qualified people have explained the ins and outs of the recent bank failures in our crazy financial system, here and here. I also have talked about the energy implications of money before. I don't want to talk about FDIC insurance. I want to talk about story. MONEY IS A STORY It's a story we made up when we moved beyond a barter economy. It's a brilliant story! I make cloth, and you grow apples. I want apples, but you don't need cloth. So I give you a tiny piece of metal instead, trusting that eventually somebody is going to need cloth and will replenish my stores of metal. None of us need the metal for anything, but it stands in for everything we do need. Evolve that miracle system long enough, and apparently, you get pure imaginary money where we don't even need the little pieces of metal, and we just tell each … [Read more...] about Why Money is Just a Rollicking Good Story
Not that energy the other one
How to Make Music & Babies with Sunshine
Last week, I talked about how complexity is our true sticking point, not endless energy (from fusion or anywhere else). WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU DON'T HAVE ENOUGH COMPLEXITY? I'm struck by this question whenever I can fortify myself to dip into the news (see my article about outrage addiction). We talk about the energy crisis and oil and gas and fracking. Then we talk about climate change and CO2 emissions. Then we talk about the economy and inflation. Then we talk about a childcare crisis (at least in the US). And then we talk about our crumbling infrastructure and skyrocketing debt. And we do this like we are talking about different things. THEY ARE ALL THE SAME THING. How are they possibly the same thing? Let me explain, and in the process, hopefully, I can pull back the curtain and reveal the wizard behind our economy, and our governments, and our art, children, health, everything on earth, really. His name is Dan. But let's start at the beginning. DAN THE HYDROGEN … [Read more...] about How to Make Music & Babies with Sunshine
We’ve Had Enough Energy Since 1870. What Have We Done With it?
Last time, I imagined what a world with endless energy might be like in light of the new fusion breakthrough. This is one way an author can world-build a totally new civilization: you take one variable like the energy supply, change it, and see how it might affect everything from the morning coffee to marriage customs to the global economy. But lest you think our problems would be solved with enough energy (without the downsides of torching the world), I don't think it's going to be that simple... WE'VE HAD ENOUGH FOR OVER A CENTURY According to some sources, we've had enough energy to feed, house, clothe, and care for every human on earth since about 1870. Yes, it came with the downside of torching the world, and no, we haven't actually done that with our munificent bounty, but not enough energy is not our problem and hasn't been for a while. The problem and opportunity, and challenge, are what we build with that energy. The true constraint is taking that raw energy … [Read more...] about We’ve Had Enough Energy Since 1870. What Have We Done With it?
How to World Build a New Future with Endless Energy
A scientist made a tiny sun on earth a few days ago, and it took less energy than it produced. It's been all over the news with good reason. It's huge. Endless energy for everyone! Well, maybe. Someday. It's important to note that sustaining a tiny sun on earth may never be possible; though we said that about the energy! At the very least, this solution is decades and decades away. If it ever happens, what does it mean? Let's do a little world-building, shall we? One of the most fun and important steps of writing speculative fiction is, well, speculating. Change a variable in your made-up world and play out all of the implications on money, religion, gender, power all of it. Variable: We now get energy from fusion, not from ancient dead plants. What does a world like that look like? POWER INDUSTRY I feel like this would be the least changed, ironically, since it doesn't fundamentally change electricity. We already have the grid. We even have real estate for … [Read more...] about How to World Build a New Future with Endless Energy
Two Competing Uses for Trees and How We Got These so Wrong
“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth.” ― Herman Hesse, Wandering What is the function of a tree? At least, what is the function for one ice age primate that has managed to take over the globe? For almost half of our history, they have been bed, shade, safety, and food. And then that changed. I talked about how we can solve problems by seeing the function of things apart from what they're meant to do. Of course, trees don't need to have a function or be useful to humans to have perfectly worthy lives. In fact, the farther away a tree is from a human, the safer it is. THE OLD STORY: HUMANS TAMED FIRE Even now in our air-conditioned lives, we make sure to tell our children the story: humans tamed fire and dominated the earth. I think this may be one of the oldest stories in our oral tradition, sometimes called an ur-myth, because it's in every single culture. It has reached the level of … [Read more...] about Two Competing Uses for Trees and How We Got These so Wrong
How Radar Started a War and Condensers Started a New Age
AVALANCHES OF OPINIONS There has been an avalanche of opinions and think pieces about the future. I have written before about the dangers of taking these accounts at face value. But we just can't help ourselves. BRAINS LOVE STORIES That seems like a positive statement. Especially coming from an author who spends all her time writing stories. But it isn't. We make meaning out of anything and everything. This concept is ubiquitous in modern psychology and difficult to trace to a specific source. There are thousands of articles that reference the concept and yet no single origin. Essentially we create a logical chain of cause and effect for everything that happens in our lives (even though the universe is mostly random chaos). Sometimes we know we're doing it and name it, like with superstitions. We know that we didn't get the job because of the tie we wore, but it's better to be safe than sorry at the next interview and wear it. Or astrology where we know that a … [Read more...] about How Radar Started a War and Condensers Started a New Age
Life is just dirt and sunshine
Photo: fotomanu_93 Here are some tricks to help see the existing world in new ways and hopefully shine a different light on the water we’re swimming in and come up with new solutions in the existing world. Or just make you giggle. Fundamental #1: Life is dirt and sunshine, full of ocean. Every bit of energy, movement, heat, light, thought, and life in the world comes from our sun (with very few nuclear exceptions). It shines down on the world; the plants take dirt and marry it with that sunshine and fill it up with water; we eat the plants and break down those bonds to make ourselves. Complex life is just dirt and sunshine full of ocean. And it’s not just that we do this once; we run out of ocean every few minutes and sunshine and dirt every few hours. We are constantly remaking ourselves and trying to maintain our own complexity. And we will eventually, inevitably fail, decaying back into just the dirt without any ocean or sunshine, and we know it. It … [Read more...] about Life is just dirt and sunshine