Yours is an extremely interesting reply and a fascinating futuristic piece.
I cannot judge from a technological point of view whether your predictions will prove out but certainly we agree that the changes brought about by technology, especially in the energy space but also in the digital world will be profound. I have pointed out the analogies to the sweeping changes imposed on the crofters, the tenant farmers of Ireland, the Luddites by the Industrial Revolution.
Changes of some sort of another are coming and they are coming rapidly the question for conservatives is, how do we accommodate this change in liberty? If conservatives are not in the forefront of protecting liberty, the left will exploit the changes to impose tyranny. The model against which we must work is the global warming fraud which the left uses to reshape society entirely. They will try the same when real technological change comes. They are trying to control the Internet now, for example.
I have more confidence in James Madison understanding the digital revolution and the energy revolution and their implications for liberty than I do every bureaucrat in Washington.
The short hand way I have to say what we’re talking about here is that the greatness of the USA was founded on the twin pillars of limited government and unlimited resources. That the era of unlimited resources ended technologically in 1970 when US oil production peaked. This has had an effect on the political domain of pushing the political world toward unlimited government.
The context in which Madison wrote the federalist papers was not a world limited resources in which the victors squabbled over tiny stuff. There was an enormous continent out there with enormous riches and boundless land.
While the frontier closed in 1890 or so, rapid technological and industrial change had the effect of opening up vast new resources. This period as I mentioned ended in 1970.
We are in the opening years of a reversal of the trend of limited resources because of changes in technology. We are moving toward a period of unlimited resources. This will have an effect in the political world as well. It will tend to make it easier to push for limited government.
Therefor the twin goals of the pubbies should be toward unlimited resources and limited government. The way you get to unlimited resources is to collapse the price of energy and water everywhere. *The most direct approach to achieving that is byo lftr msr portable nuclear reactors.*
I too agree that the whole climate thing is a fraud.
However, its only a matter of time before the numbers start to work in a big way for solar and wind—solar especially. Solar does something very unique. It takes people off grid. My brother drives Amish around the country. The Amish Stepped away from technology 100 years ago most especially because they didn’t want to be tied to the grid. So their houses are lit at night by kerosene. (Rockefellar made his first millions by the sale of kerosene around the USA back in the 1870-90’s.) But solar enables the Amish to generate power on their own property= which means they are not dependent on the grid. So some of the bishops allow it. For the same reason some Amish bishops will allow internal combustion engines to power the pumps for dairy milkers but they won’t allow the pumps to be powered by electricity.
In my opinion while renewable energy is good for the same reason that its good to have diverse sources of income—however renewables won’t deliver any time soon —drastically cheaper energy than coal. That’s what’s needed. Drastically cheaper energy. That’s what drives civilization.
If the pubbies were smart —which they generally are not — they would promote 4th generation portable lftr nuclear reactors which promise to cut the cost of electricity to 1/4-1/10th the cost of current cheapest coal. And then the pubbies would promise to push the sort of technological development that would collapse the cost of energy and water and thereby turn the deserts green. That would nearly double the habitable size of the USA and triple the habitable size of Mexico.
All this stuff is going to happen anyway. Its just a matter of who gets the credit.
If the pubbies affix their brand to cheap energy and green deserts — then they have more political power to promote limited government.
Changes of some sort of another are coming and they are coming rapidly the question for conservatives is, how do we accommodate this change in liberty?
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If the pubbies were smart —which they generally are not — they would promote 4th generation portable lftr nuclear reactors which promise to cut the cost of electricity to 1/4-1/10th the cost of current cheapest coal. And then the pubbies would promise to push the sort of technological development that would collapse the cost of energy and water and thereby turn the deserts green. That would nearly double the habitable size of the USA and triple the habitable size of Mexico and double the size of the habitable earth.
Sadly the Chinese read US research on the topic 4 years ago and walked into the USA —and with the DOE’s blessing —took all the research the USA had accumulated on the subject. Now the Chinese have the lead in this research.