I was talking with some colleagues recently, and we expressed our concern at Al ChatGPT. It’s one of those modern quandaries of technology. You plug in your topic parameters and the program writes the text for you. While the program might pick (cherry pick perhaps) the items included, the lack of critical thinking is a major flaw. When I write, I come from a place of knowledge and experience gained over decades. Along that path I also like to believe I garnered wisdom in what is appropriate and what is not. When I write my thoughts and ideas, I also bring a quality of breadth of things connected that AI would likely dismiss as unconnected. And while AI can be programmed to ‘see’ a bigger picture, it is the human mind that intuitively sees beyond the expected to reveal unexpected conclusions and ideas. Back in the early years of computers, there was a mantra – junk in, junk out. The computer was only as good, as the programming and the inputted data. Now computers are only as good as the algorithms’ that are programmed to give you what you ‘want’ or ‘expect’ to see. When you are trapped in a mindset, you cannot break out unless you are willing to explore with your own mind, thoughts and ideas divergent from your own. And more importantly, be willing to risk exposing your fixed belief systems and find new beliefs that show your mind evolving. Using ChatGPT as a tool is one thing. Being subservient to ChatGPT to do your work for you, is a path to perdition, and one in which mind-control is simple to do from those with nefarious agenda’s. The Moody Blues saw this way back in 1968 (message between 1:00-2:10).
Just over a mere century ago, we started to electrify the world. It opened up a whole new world for humanity. We have achieved more technologically in the last hundred years than in all recorded history. The technocrats that now run the world would have you believe that they always make the best decisions. They do, if the goal is to generate profits and build new technologies that capture the human mind. But, if you want decisions that express wisdom, and advance the human spirt and respect for all life on the planet, then you need minds that see the true big picture not the AI generated one.
Item five drives items 1-4 in a new technological world for Sustainable Living. But it demands we evolve our thinking from what is ‘profitably best’ to what is ‘ECOLOGICALLY BEST.’ Quantum energy (zero point) is theoretically possible; as expressed by Nikola Tesla and many inventive geniuses since – a great many who get readily discredited, die in strange accidents, or suffer inventor syndrome where they fear their ideas being captured by corporate systems. Inevitably, these ‘inventors’ die and take their ideas to the grave with them. I suspect quantum/zero-point energy is already a reality within sectors of the Military Industrial Complex, but they are not shared with the rest of humanity. As long as the Hierarchies retain control, we will not see such technology – it is one of the absolute disruptive technologies that would completely reset society as we currently know it. Until we can get these quantum technologies ‘Open-Sourced’ for everyone to check them out, we are stuck with what we currently have. Consider the world’s energy corporations and how they control the geopolitical structure of the planet. With quantum energy, that would disappear. If all your energy needs were met by a power unit the size of a shoebox and it never needed replacing, besides the initial purchase or charging rent for the box, how would you generate profit? And therein also lies the next problem, why do we need to generate obscene profits? This only makes sense for our current market-driven, materialist-consumer society that works from what is profitably best.
We cannot assume quantum energy already exists and will somehow flood the global markets anytime soon. This blind faith in technology is what got our planet into the pickle it is in. We have to work with what we currently have as our best ‘ecological energy options’ and develop more research into quantum energy options until their utility is finally realized. I have talked about Molten Thorium Salt reactors a bit already (See links 1,2, and 3) and also how a new localized energy infrastructure would work. Rather than go through the options again, let me describe a few different kinds of communities and ‘renewable’ energies that easily exist within them, independent of a national grid-system. The crucial point here is to detach from all expectations of how energy was generated on a national grid system – even when they included larger scale wind-fields and solar-farms. Future reliable energy generation will primarily be localized.
Molten Thorium Salt reactors would be a larger-scale energy generation primarily for industrial use, until the localized utilities and/or quantum energy comes online. Thorium is plentiful throughout the crust of the planet, thus negating the geopolitical control of large-scale fossil fuel and Uranium Reactor energy. While our manufacturing technologies are still in the crude “Heat, Beat and Chemically treat’ phase, larger scale energy generation will be needed. Thorium reactors are walk-away safe and the fuel (before or after) cannot be made into fuel for weapons of mass destruction. They will probably be centered near large manufacturing centers when more lower output renewable energy generation cannot quite generate enough energy. These will most likely be built in cooperative energy storage schemes such as hydro-pump storage systems in hilly/mountainous areas, or hydrogen gas storage production for use with private vehicles. Battery storage may be an option for transportation and storage, but the use of so many rare-earth elements will make these prohibitive to continue using, unless battery technology improves significantly.
Before I get to localized electrical energy generation, transportation habits will have to change drastically. Conservation and practical utility will have to be primary factors in how we develop energy systems. For many in the developed world this will a challenge – especially so in the USA away from city mass transit transportation systems. For starters, Oil as a resource is much too valuable in our everyday lives to be used for transportation fuel. In most cases that involve oil (and its derivatives) in the manufacturing process, we have no substitutes! Electric cars sound good, but the intense use of rare-earth metals will never make them more than rich-peoples’ toys – unless battery technology improves greatly and without the need for rare-earth metals. For transportation, I see hydrogen being the fuel of choice – lots of it nearly everywhere, even if we have to use energy to separate it from other elements e.g., electrolysis of water.
In an early post I cover energy options. Transportation will come down to the effectiveness of localizing mass transit in all urban centers and semi-rural urbanized areas. Hydrogen cars (Trains and hovercraft) for most remote rural communities. Once you remove oil as a burnable fuel source, hydrogen becomes more economically attractive in our current market economy, and definitely so in a sustainable economy. Heavy transportation could all be hydrogen fueled hovercraft or trains (possible solar electric hybrids if solar technology improves), which removes all road maintenance – but new hover-way containment corridors would be needed. Asphalt, made from oil, is a waste of oil resource, and hover-way concrete would never need repairing since you are hovering above it. I’m talking about a transformation of thinking where cars were as different as beasts of burden pulling carts and wagons had been for most of history. I’m sure blacksmiths were upset with the car, but as their jobs diminished, they learned new ways to practice their skills. We all will learn to adjust to a new kind of kinder society. It’s up to us to make the changes – no hierarchy is ever going to do it.
To Be Continued ……….
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