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#76 2024-06-11 15:29:18

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,365

Re: kbd512 Postings

For kbd512 re latest post in Vertical topic...

Awesome!  If we had a "like" feature running, I'd be wanting to increment the value.

However, YouTube uses a simple "Like" and it is possible to turn it off, which is interesting.

I just scanned your post and will return to read it carefully later.

However, it ** was ** fun to be reminded of the history of gun launch systems.

One name I didn't catch was Dr. John Hunter, whose name has not reached household name recognition level yet, so I'm just reminding you Dr. Hunter is ** out there " for consideration.  He built working guns for Star Wars, and has been trying to built a ** real ** launcher ever since.

He was planning (and may still be planning) to use hydrogen for the fluid. The reason is velocity... Unlike the Vertical Launch Assist concept, he was going for LEO, which hydrogen gas can facilitate.

(th)

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#77 2024-06-16 07:25:25

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,365

Re: kbd512 Postings

For kbd512 re latest post in SSTO topic...

Your post included a reference to the use of spark plugs for pre-burners...

For all who might be interested in kbd512's reference ...

https://space.stackexchange.com/questio … -preburner

The discussion at the link above includes a flow diagram for the Space Shuttle, in addition to attempts to answer a question about how pre-burners work.

There are probably other references for this detail of rocket system design.

(th)

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#78 2024-06-28 11:47:37

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,365

Re: kbd512 Postings

For kbd512 re post about compressed air automobile design ...

https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 45#p224745

Your post included mention of acceleration from/by a 12 horsepower machine.... Your solution is interesting, but the situation seems (to me at least) to offer an opportunity for a lightweight electric acceleration/braking package.

In a scenario where you run out of air (as could happen with the limited range) a small electric system to limp home might be worth the additional expense.

Under normal circumstances, it could provide the acceleration you've identified as needed, and the ability to store energy from braking might prove useful in hilly terrain.

(th)

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#79 2024-06-28 13:20:44

kbd512
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Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,852

Re: kbd512 Postings

tahanson43206,

Air powered vehicles don't need any electric motors, batteries, or brakes.  Pneumatic brakes are used to stop heavy trucks and trains, but in a light vehicle power-assisted braking is largely superfluous.  All that stuff is a great way to add weight and cost, but not much else.  Regarding acceleration, I already stated that we're using a flywheel- another simple mechanical device which requires no electronics or electricity to operate.

When Teslas run out of electricity, a tow truck operator in a diesel powered truck brings a diesel powered generator to recharge the battery.  If you had a hose to transfer air between vehicles, then you don't need a heavy diesel powered generator.  Anyone else in an air powered car can stop by to recharge your vehicle's air tank with a lightweight rubberized hose, by connecting it to their vehicle's air tank and opening the valve.

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#80 2024-06-28 15:37:26

GW Johnson
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From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,796
Website

Re: kbd512 Postings

Kbd512 is quite right. 

There is some kind of car manufactured in India that uses a compressed air motor.  As near as I understand,  the range of the thing is quite limited,  even compared to lead-acid batteries,  much less lithium batteries.  I could be wrong,  but that is the impression I got reading about this air-powered car,  some time ago,  now.  The brand name was Tata,  or something pretty close to that.

Compressing the local atmosphere to usable pressures in such a device is way more difficult on Mars than here on Earth.  It needs something like around 3-5000 psi to be practical,  or around 200-300 standard atmospheres.  On earth from near 1 atm ambient pressure,  that's a compression pressure ratio of near 200-300:1.  You do that with multi-stage positive displacement machines,  and they are inherently heavy and power-consumptive.  We call them air compressors. 

On Mars you still need the same compressed pressure (200-300 atm) to make the air motors work the same way they do here,  but the local ambient pressure is only in the vicinity of 0.006 atm.  That makes the required compression ratio nearer 160 times higher than on Earth,  or near 32,000 to 48,000 : 1.  There is no way to do that with a positive displacement compressor.  You will need a machine more closely resembling an extreme vacuum pump, infamous for very high power consumption at very little throughput massflow indeed!

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2024-06-28 15:39:31)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#81 2024-06-28 18:16:28

kbd512
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Re: kbd512 Postings

One aspect of these "green energy" ideas that are baffling to me is why so many people believe, mostly without evidence or in direct contradiction to available evidnece, that one aspect of energy efficiency or "green-ness" translates into overall efficiency or "actually  being environmentally friendly".  Electricity flows through a conductor wire very efficiently.  That aspect of electricity is highly efficient.  Well, zippity doo-dah!  Every other aspect of generating, delivering, and consuming electricity are wildly inefficient.  50% of all the energy sunk into mining is done exclusively to mine Copper.  We extract 3,000,000,000t of Iron ore per year using 7% to 9% of all the energy sunk into mining.  We extract about 20,000,000t of Copper ore per year, and that consumes 50% of all the energy that goes into mining.

Q: Why do we sink so much energy into producing Copper ore?
A: If we tried to substitute Aluminum for Copper on a per-ampacity-limit of electrical conductor wire basis, then the energy consumption associated with making more Aluminum would be 3 times higher than the energy sunk into producing more Copper, despite the fact that Aluminum with equivalent ampacity weighs half as much as the Copper.  We already do produce a lot more Aluminum than Copper, about 3 times as much, in point of fact.  If we produced even more, that requires even more energy.

Engineers aren't dumb.  They are choosing the lowest energy / lowest cost materials, whenever those materials are available, which is why they still choose Copper over Aluminum.  When you start talking about electric motor-generators of the size installed in large hydro dams, then and only then do you see a weight and energy savings benefit by choosing Aluminum over Copper.  If you pull a stupid stunt and try to use Aluminum in an EV motor, then the motor weighs about twice as much and is significantly more expensive.  Most engineers think that's kinda dumb, and I happen to agree with them.  The major problem is that we're running short of Copper.

Since there are no "magic physics" to throw at mass, volume, and counter-electromotive force problems related to a thicker conductor further away from a magnetic field, that's a pretty fundamental technology problem.  We know how to make highly efficient and power-dense electric motors.  That is not the problem here.  The problem is that with such devices rapidly approaching 100% efficiency, there are no more efficiency improvement left to exploit.  What you're left with is high energy costs for the metals, the increasing scarcity of the metals from depletion of the best ore deposits, and not a lot of good alternatives for mass manufacture at the scale required to make everything electric.

Apart from electric motors and conductor wires, then there are the issues with electronics.

1. Electronics require specialty metals in short supply.  There is very little about solid state electronics manufacturing that is cheap, except at significant scale, energy-efficient, or environmentally friendly.

2. Recycling modern solid state electronics is mostly an exercise in futility, with the energy input beyond what is required to extract virgin ore / metal.  This is important for merely having the metals available to make newer generations of electronic devices.

3. If anything goes seriously wrong with the electronics, that happens at the speed of light.  Virtually all electrical devices more sophisticated than AC induction motors require electronic control.  Modern solid state electronics are fantastic while they work, and then they're not when they don't.  There's almost nothing that can be done to repair them, and certainly not in an economical manner, which is why we generally tell people to go out and buy a new one.

4. If solid state electronics were made from very common and low-energy materials and environmentally friendly processes, then treating them as disposable would be less of an issue.  All of the most advanced designs are made from very exotic stuff, using very exotic processes.

5. Just as there is no plan for when we run out of Copper, there is no plan for when we run out of the hydrocabon fuels that prevent every renewables grid on the planet from crashing at least once per day.  The follow-on "storage plan" to replace hydrocarbon fuels is based upon nothing more than happy talk and ignorance-based beliefs, or "let's throw more money at the problem to see what happens".  Well, we already know what happens.  That money and effort is sucked into the engineering equivalent of a black hole.  Nothing escapes from it.  It's an all-consuming endeavor that has nothing of lasting value to show for all the time and money spent.  We've arrived at a total non-solution- something which will never work at a human civilization scale, for lack of both input materials and energy.

If you're like me, and you genuinely care about both people and the environment, then you see this current state of affairs as insufferably stupid.  We're stuck on this "go out and buy the shiny new electronic gadget so then you'll be green"- whatever that's supposed to mean.  It looks like more ignorant consumerism from where I'm sitting.  If you have plenty of disposable income and are looking to blow it on something while telling everyone else that you have more money than they do, and you're better than them because you have more money, then go out and buy an EV or cell phone made with environmentally sustainable slave labor or whatever.  It's all rather meaningless.  The "greenest" thing you could possibly do with your money, short of investing into agriculture or planting trees or something similar, is probably nothing whatsoever.

You can't "believe" valid engineering solutions into existence.  That's not how valid math, science, or engineering actually works.  For the most part, we get major technological advancements within some category of technology about once per human lifetime, maybe twice if you're lucky.

That takes us back to air powered vehicles.  If we truly want a practical motor vehicle that consumes less or has less environmentally-destructive consumption, then you can't continually demand an-ever increasing amount of input energy and materials while still accomplishing those objectives.  They're opposing engineering requirements.  They are not compatible with each other.  That's why I call EVs, photovoltaics, and Lithium-ion electro-chemical batteries, "entropy machines".  In order to make those devices do what they do, highly disordered matter and/or energy has to be converted into the highest ordering we're capable of imparting to the materials or energy sources that make these machines function.  Doing that is very consequential, with respect to the amount of input energy required.  The science that we have and know how to reduce to repeatable engineering practices or processes makes that unavoidable.

I think we "know enough" at this point to state with a high degree of certainty that demanding more order / less entropy from our energy generating or consuming machines can only have one result- more energy and materials consumption, at rates we cannot sustain using what we have and what we know.  The most obvious solution to that problem is to back-track in the opposite direction when the result produces machines which last longer, require less energy-intensive materials inputs, and less energy and technology to maintain.

Do you know what practical aspect of transportation that a car provides, regardless of what powers it?

A machine capable of transporting people and cargo far faster, and thus more efficiently with regard to time, than human muscle power alone could reasonably accomplish.  That is why we rode horses, and eventually invented self-powered cars.

A car that runs on compressed air is less impactful to the environment, relative to internal combustion engines or electro-chemical batteries and the machines required to recharge them, as we presently use them.  Air goes into the car, and then air comes out of the car as it's driven.  After we're done "using" the air, it goes right back to where it came from.  We briefly take the air from the Earth's atmosphere, and then we give it right back.  The "battery" is the enormous supply of air surrounding us no matter where on the surface of the planet we happen to be.  That means the supply of "fuel" to power an air powered car, is not limited to what we can dig or drill out of the Earth.  Until something truly cataclysmic happens, that fuel supply will remain available for our use, forever.

How does this differ from hydrocarbon fuels or electro-chemical batteries?

A number of energy-intensive transformative processes are required to create both of those energy stores.  Additionally, both what we take and what we put back are very different to each other.  Often times, the byproducts or other consumables are toxic and have various undesirable environmental effects.  Using air as our energy store, we don't need to dig nearly so many giant holes in the Earth to obtain the gases, liquids, or metals.  We don't even need electricity to compress the air that powers the cars.  We can connect a sCO2 gas turbine powered by a solar thermal array, directly to the air compressor, and then use the waste heat from air compression to transform liquid water into steam, recapturing at least some of the energy from compression or producing a byproduct that humans consume in enormous quantities- fresh water or hot fresh water required for cooking / cleaning / bathing / industrial processes.  That is how you work with physics, rather than against it.  You use the available resources, rather than what you wished you had more of.

Even by using compressed air and steam and steel vs polysilicon, it's not all sunshine and rainbows, but it most certainly will be far less environmentally impactful than the non-viable alternatives.  Beyond what is obvious about which energy sources and conversion methods are most viable to scale-up to the degree required, I also want our next generation of mechanics and engineers to tinker with these emergent natural energy technologies, so they can figure out how to make them more efficient.

I've heard mechanics and engineers assert that electronic fuel injection can do a better job of fuel economy than a carburetor.  Why should it be the case that we cannot make a mechanical device that can accurately meter fuel to within some fraction of a percentage point of the efficiency of electronic fuel injection?  Have we ever really tried to build such a carburetor, or have we simply "asserted" that it cannot be done without taking all of our modern materials and machining tolerances into account?  I think that's likely to be more of an assertion than an inability.  Since we haven't actually tried, we don't actually know.  You make things as simple or as complex as they need to be, but no simpler and no more complex.  If there is no practical way to make something work without electronics, then use electronics.  If there's no way it would work without being electrical, then make it electrical.  If it works just fine as a mechanical device and sees very little practical benefit from being powered by electricity or combustion, then use natural energy.  It really is that simple.

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#82 2024-07-02 07:11:15

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,365

Re: kbd512 Postings

For kbd512 re ongoing development of a concept in the Fix Automobile topic...

This post is offered to try to encourage you to continue developing your ideas...

It seemed to me (as I read your latest post) that you are beginning to soften (slightly) the hard edge of idealism to create the perfect car for the masses.  It seems to me that adding some electrical capabilities will lead to a product that is actually competitive instead of just a curiosity.

In the Real Universe, you are up against companies that have been competing with each other for decades, so they have honed the ability to find the most attractive possible product for the customers.

I note that self driving cars are gaining acceptance. If your design is less expensive to operate than the vehicles they are using now, the lack of some consumer amenities may be of lesser concern.

In other words, I'm wondering if looking for a niche where your design would fit well might be a way to obtain the massive financing you need to pull this off.
***
Another topic: Story by Rick Kazmer • 1d • 3 min read

Rick Kazmer is the named author of the claim that the performance is 200 times more efficient.

Two times more efficient is possible. I'm wondering if the error occurred because the writer does not know the difference between 200% of something, and 200 times something.

In any case, the new concept is probably worth a closer look, because it reminds me of work I have already seen on the advantages of a spherical solar energy collector.

(th)

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#83 2024-07-02 08:54:46

kbd512
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Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,852

Re: kbd512 Postings

tahanson43206,

Despite the ignorance-based idealism coming from a minority of the general public regarding self-driving cars, likely the same people who think a 200X gain in photon conversion efficiency is possible from a plastic Christmas tree ornament, nobody actually knows how to make one, and no government has granted approval for such technology because none of the extant AI-enabled vehicle control computers have proven capable of preventing entirely avoidable accidents.  As I said before, though, I'm not looking to sell electronic toys to wealthy people, nor compete with companies already doing that.

There is not a self-driving car on the planet which will not cheerfully plow through a child-like mannequin, or the back of a parked emergency services vehicle.  This should tell everyone that such technology still doesn't operate similarly to the way a human brain does (but with better precision).  At the point where it truly can factor-in all involved variables, it's no longer modeling reality, it's simulating reality.  All high-precision and high-fidelity simulations are enormously compute-intensive.  There are compute devices with the raw power to do that, but all of them would consume inordinately more power than the power required to move the car.

Human brains are low-precision exaflop computers that use 25W of power.
Silicon-based high-precision exaflop computers use 25,000,000W of power.

That means a "human-brain-like" AI supercomputer required by a true self-driving car, to make decisions with human-brain-like judgement capabilities, would consume 1,667X more power, per hour, than the 250W that a Tesla consumes per mile, at 60mph.  If we can reduce the power required by another 6 orders of magnitude over what Silicon-based computers already achieve, then we can implement self-driving cars with a high degree of confidence that the vehicle won't do inexplicable dangerous or destructive things.  Until then, nobody who is sane and rational is going to allow a waiting-to-be-proven-faulty computer program to slam their expensive electronic toy into the back of a Police cruiser.  Don't misinterpret that.  There are people dumb enough to do just that because they have false beliefs about what the tech can do, but then they lose their expensive electronic toy, their driver's license, and potentially their freedom after the Police file charges against them.

Since there are very real physics-based limitations which prevent that from happening using Silicon-based microcircuitry, until we invent a fundamentally new CPU technology, similar to the Star Trek "positronic matrix" installed in Data's brain, AI-enabled self-driving cars are unlikely to be allowed on the roads.  Recall that even within the realm of Star Trek science fiction, Data was a very unique / one-off creation from the 23rd century, and that nobody else in Starfleet was able to replicate what was going on in Data's "artificial brain".  I think you're going to be waiting for quite awhile before self-driving cars can truly drive themselves without known hardware limitations and previously unknown software limitations causing such vehicles to slam into stationary objects or other moving objects like pedestrians.  There will never be a shortage of low-information and low-IQ people willing to subject themselves to ill-conceived "science experiments", but knowingly subjecting them to such experiments is both highly unethical and immoral.

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#84 2024-07-13 19:19:39

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,365

Re: kbd512 Postings

It's good to see you back online.  I've heard from a member who was concerned about you and other families in Houston.

I am surprised by your report that the home solar system did not (as I read your report suggests) provide power during the utility outage.

If you have time and the subject is of interest, please write up a post or two about your experience.  Surely you got ** some ** benefit from having a roof full of power.

(th)

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#85 2024-07-14 08:21:46

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,431

Re: kbd512 Postings

That is due to the size of the power wall.

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#86 2024-07-14 11:43:36

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,365

Re: kbd512 Postings

For SpaceNut re #85...

Does kbd512's installation include a Power wall?

For kbd512 ... if you have time, please add a bit of detail about your experience with the solar installation.

(th)

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#87 2024-07-14 12:22:19

kbd512
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Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,852

Re: kbd512 Postings

tahanson43206,

My installation includes 2 Tesla PowerWalls and more than twice as many solar panels as most homes have, 67 panels, I think, or 76, I forget which.  Most installs, according to the actual installers, are about 30 panels.  We did have power to run 2 box fans overnight and the refrigerator for a couple of those days (we started the fans at midnight and then all power died around 7AM, and would then come back online at 9AM, if it was sunny, or it wouldn't come on at all if it was overcast).  Everything in the refrigerator still had to be tossed out, and for 3 days there was no power at all from the solar system, panels or batteries.  Solar panels don't produce any usable power, even when it's really sunny and hot outside, but also overcast.  If there's no direct sunlight, then commercial photovoltaics don't work, period.  This setup is clearly designed for one thing only- chopping the peaks off that prototypical daily sine wave "function" representative of prototypical power demand in a hot and generally sunny place like Texas.

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#88 2024-07-15 09:38:12

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,796
Website

Re: kbd512 Postings

Kbd512:

Is your system set up to do net metering?  If so,  it is essentially on the utility side of the isolation switch.  It cannot power you during an outage;  that requires it be hooked up on your side of the isolation switch.  Them's just the rules in Texas for doing net metering.  Any battery or generator needs to be on your side of the isolation switch,  to cover you for outages.

We are doing a solar installation out here on the farm near McGregor;  both the ranch house and the farm shop,  which have two separate electric meters.  We are doing it as net metering,  because that's what makes the econ0mics look good.  So I will have to install a generator on my side of the ranch house isolation switch,  to cover outages,  which are far less frequent with the co-op than the big utility that serves the cities around here.  I already have a small generator for the shop,  and will have to hook it in,  the same way.

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#89 2024-07-22 06:50:20

tahanson43206
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Posts: 19,365

Re: kbd512 Postings

For kbd512 re compressed air energy storage systems...

Thank you again for the inspiration to pursue the question with Calliban....

Calliban started us off with a 1000 liter tank and 10 bar.  I then attempted to discover the energy store that might be possible using modern automobile practice, up to 300 bar.

If you have time, please evaluate a 7 tank system that (apparently) can hold 336 kwh of energy.

I understand that we might not get the full 336 kwh back out due to inefficiency of the air motor, followed by the inefficiency of the generator, but I'm hoping you will find this scenario worth a few minutes.

(th)

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#90 2024-07-22 07:19:16

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,365

Re: kbd512 Postings

For Calliban re encouraging post in Compressed Air topic...

Your post mentioned economies of scale, and that sure does seem to be an important factor in how this series might turn out.

One observation I would offer is that a home energy storage system that is affordable at the outset might provide a cascade effect, because the need for ultra-reliable energy backup for homes is an almost universal need in the US.  I can't assess the potential in other regions, where group projects may be more culturally acceptable.  I just moved from a home with a 14 Kw Kohler backup system that runs on natural gas. It has proven extremely reliable over the past number of years, but I think that a compressed air system could be even more reliable, and it would not depend upon the natural gas supply.

As I understand the concept, a compressed air system would be charged from the grid or from renewable sources if they are available, and it would remain stable and ready for years at a time.

Such a system would still require installation of the home electrical interface that the Kohler company provides as part of their service.  You probably recognize Kohler as a high end backup service that offers home generators as an afterthought.  Most of the market appears to be absorbed by Generac which is a mass produced alternative.

Both companies might be candidates to market, distribute and maintain compressed air energy storage systems with the home power interface.

(th)

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#91 2024-08-03 17:31:09

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,365

Re: kbd512 Postings

For kbd512 re Post on Potassium battery technology...

Thanks for looking for possible advantages of this technology as compared to the current front runner, Lithium.

I get the impression Potassium may prove better in the fixed installation market, which would free up valuable lithium for mobile applications.

Your observations about possible use in submarines remind me that there are civilian applications where non-lithium batteries might prove useful.

(th)

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#92 2024-08-09 11:51:33

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,365

Re: kbd512 Postings

For kbd512 re Post on Chinese demographics....

One of your recent posts included mention of the impact of the "One Child" policy on demographics of China.

If you have time (and I know your time is limited) and if the subject is of interest, please develop your ideas about how the "One Child" policy may impact China's future.

This is (or at least it seems to me to be) a complex subject, and not everyone is qualified to make predictions in this area, but you may well be one of them.

In another topic I just posted about another of many recent research and development successes in China.

As you develop your prediction, please include consideration of how development of AI may impact the future for Chinese citizens.

I understand the Japanese are attempting to harness AI and robotics to attempt to deal with their population woes. 

We may have a topic about population trends ... I haven't looked but that would be a good place to put a prediction along these lines, if we have one.

(th)

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#93 2024-08-10 12:21:27

kbd512
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Re: kbd512 Postings

tahanson43206,

The greatest impact is to their own future economic and societal prospects.  China says they want to become "a great nation".  That requires people, not merely ideas and machines.  None of the ideas shaping their daily lives over the past century have come from China, to include communism.  That means instilling "Chinese ideas" about what it means to be Chinese and what a "better China" means must be passed to the younger generation, else the ideas are lost to time.  As for the "engine of society", all economies are ultimately powered by people, not machines.  All "fundamentally new ideas" flow from people, not machines.  People use the machinery society has built for them, in conjunction with their own ingenuity, for economic (trading or selling and creating new things of tangible value for the rest of your fellow humans) and quality of life benefits.  Those machines (farms, power plants, ships, aircraft, roadways, pipelines, etc) won't run unattended for a single week, and some won't run at all for any length of time without people.  The moment people stop manipulating them, the machines or systems begin to degrade in total carrying capacity and throughput over time.

Once lost, it's really hard to get a capability back- clearly not impossible, but never swift or easy, as our microchip manufacturers quickly discovered after COVID.  After you lose something like chip production capacity, even for one lousy year, it took more than two years to restore it, starting with all the machinery maintained and operating making other chips, and with skilled workers who could return to work and resume production.  Imagine having to shutter an entire plant for a decade for lack of workers, skilled or otherwise, and then having to reestablish that capability.  It will not happen fast, it won't be cheap, and a herculean education effort will need to be undertaken.  In their hubris, the chip manufacturers thought they could restore lost production inside of 4 months.  It took about 24 months.  The machines never stopped and workers kept producing, they just quit making automotive chips for a year to focus on chips for medical devices and appliances.  If the machines ever truly "shut down" and all the workers had to fill other jobs, it would be an unmitigated catastrophe.

For now, China has a much better educated workforce than they did in recent decades past (1970s to 2000s), but that doesn't automatically translate over to improved quality of life.  As Peter Zeihan stated, they went from very little industrialization, to a fully industrialized society, and now back to de-industrialization inside of a single human lifetime.  Food is now scarce there(again) and they're having to change focus to feed everyone.  COVID was a foul-up over here.  COVID became a death sentence for people who didn't even get COVID over there.  Since they effectively started with nothing, it's a monumental undertaking to get to where they are today.  If more than half the people in the country are nearing retirement age or simply on their way out of this world because time marches on (we all get old and die), and retirement age is much lower in China than in the US (around age 55, IIRC, because they work themselves to death), then eventually the total quantity of available goods and services must shrink, for simple lack of buyers and sellers.  That severely affects the prospects for all immediate future generations.  Nowhere is it written that quality of life and technological progress can only move in one direction, and history is replete with examples where both declined dramatically in a few short years, whereas it took decades or entire generations of effort to move the needle in the direction most people want it to go.

Europe was destroyed during WWII, in about 5 years.  It took the rest of the century, about 50 years, to get back most of what they lost.  To this very day, even with immigration, their population has never recovered.  We will never know what may have been possible, because so much progress was simply erased by unthinking / uncaring acts, virtually overnight.  It's irretrievably "lost" to history.

When you quit having children, you quit having a future.  Some people might think we have too many people, but those people also tend to be anti-humanists (people who hate other people), very shortsighted (no concrete understanding of the world beyond the "never-ending now"), and very selfish ("The Imperial I").  Well, what about "you"?  What are you leaving to humanity writ large after you're dead and gone?  Oh, let me guess, you're going to "live forever".  No.  You're not.  So then, what is it that you intend to "give back", in return for everything the rest of humanity (your parents, teachers, everyone else who keeps society running for your benefit, friends, lovers, and even your enemies) have left to you?  If you're half-way competent and compassionate towards others, then you learn pretty quickly that the world does not revolve around you.  If enough people haven't learned that by the time they're young adults, then society eventually falls apart.  We "regress", rather than "progress".  These are the "Turning Events" I referenced in the politics section of the forum- the combination of morals, socialization / "social culture", conflicts, and economic circumstances that broadly define successive generations.

An incredible number of people across the entire planet are no longer having any children at all, and the past two generations didn't have very many children across multiple decades.  There was no "Baby Boomer" generation in Europe.  It's going to become increasingly difficult to secure capital and labor to do anything at all.  Labor might think this gives them an "upper hand" in negotiations for wages, but merely increasing the cost of living while devaluing the money supply (inflation is only another definition for debt destroying wealth) cannot produce organic economic activity that drives progress.  That is what Calliban meant by "wage stagnation since the late 1970s".  We had a very fleeting real wage increase under President Trump, but then the Democrats destroyed that with spending programs that produced nothing for the Middle Class except more poverty.

Why The Elites Can't Solve The Demographic Crisis

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#94 2024-08-10 14:20:41

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,365

Re: kbd512 Postings

For kbd512 re Post #93

Thanks for this lengthy post, and for all the thought that into it. This post is just to offer thanks.  The NSS North Houston meeting is going on right now, so I'm planning to study your essay later, and hopefully before Sunday's NewMars meeting.

(th)

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#95 2024-08-11 22:04:50

kbd512
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Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,852

Re: kbd512 Postings

Triggernometry - The True Cost of Family Breakdown - Melissa Kearney

Throughout this entire interview, there's plenty of talk about fathers not being present in the home, but not one lousy word uttered about women making better decisions about who to have sex with, since that always includes the possibility of creating children, assuming they don't outright murder their own children before they're ever born because they're entirely unwilling to accept any burden as a consequence of their own behavior and poor decision making skills.  There's certainly no talk about how our modern "strong and empowered" women are the number one cause of single parent households.  Thanks to no-fault divorce laws, women initiate divorces 70% to 80% of the time.

She talked about the decline in teen pregnancy rates, calling it "The MTV Effect", without acknowledging that the real reason teen pregnancy rates have plummeted is that young men and women these days treat each other almost as if the opposite sex was "the enemy".  The number of self-reported 30+ year old male virgins in America is now over 30%.  If you can even find a 30 year old woman in America who is still a virgin on her wedding day, then one of three things is likely to be true about her: she's not an American by birth and hasn't been mangled by our profoundly anti-social culture, she has a deeply religious father in her life who she actually respects and listens to so that she refuses to give her body to someone who refuses to commit to her, or she's lying.

There absolutely is such a thing as men who are unworthy of having a wife, always related to their behavior and acceptance of responsibility for others.  Being responsible for others is what makes you a man.  If you cannot do that, then no well-adjusted young woman with a father in her life would ever rely upon you as a provider and a role model for her children to imprint on.  At the very same time, at least 50% of the women in our society are equally unworthy of a relationship with a stable provider, based upon their own promiscuous or other attention-seeking behaviors.  Even amongst the women who don't literally sell their bodies on the internet or in-person in cheap hotel rooms for money, many more have anti-social media accounts where they post numerous photos of themselves wearing practically nothing.  No man worthy of said title wants to marry a woman who is advertising her body to total strangers for attention and money.  None.  It's a character flaw.  If you require constant attention and validation from people, the odds of you successfully remaining in a stable committed relationship are statistically near-zero.  That applies to both men and women, but I don't see or hear about nearly as many men posting pictures of themselves in a speedo with their butt in the air.

As women near 30 years of age, they suddenly "discover", much to their chagrin, that their "sexual marketplace value" in the eyes of the opposite sex, for anything besides sex itself, is functionally nonexistent.  This is because women of that age know full well that their ability to provide healthy children for their prospective partner is rapidly declining.  Men are also aware of this, because every time I watch one of these stupid and antagonistic "men vs women" podcasts, this is brought up by men.  Apart from men who have no intention of ever marrying them, young women won't give honest young men the time of day before they're already relatively wealthy and well-established in life.  By then, these established middle-aged bachelors have many more options available to them.  They universally don't choose older women who have already slept with 5+ people when the men couldn't even get a girl to agree to a date before all of their financial and career ducks were in a row.  If women cannot even provide healthy children, then there's not much else besides companionship they have to offer to their prospective partner.  Due to this fact, not education itself, we're on-track to have 45% of our young women single and childless by 2030.

Men are not wifing-up 30-something single mothers who had children with or repeatedly gave their bodies to multiple other men.  They made a deliberate choice to give their best years and their bodies to other men.  The remaining "good men" are telling these women who clearly lack character judgement skills, in no uncertain terms, by their actions, meaning not even bothering with dating them, nor giving them any other form of attention, that they're no longer eligible for a relationship with a good man who made better decisions.  No youth and beauty, no chastity, no willingness to follow his lead, no ability to create healthy children, and no moral character suitable for raising children, equals no stable committed relationship with a good man.  There may be plenty of other qualities women find attractive in the opposite sex which are also entirely unsuitable for a committed relationship.

The "stable college educated women" she routinely references have typically slept with 5+ people by the time they've completed their college degree, according to these same studies and surveys she values so highly, which neither shows strength of character and empowerment, nor merely some small measure of self-control.  For most women, sleeping with multiple men destroys their ability to pair-bond with a good man, who will be compared and contrasted with every other man she's slept with.  Whether or not a man has a college degree is entirely related to the typical belief most women hold about the ability of the man they choose to be with, to provide for them and their children.  They equate a college education with provisioning, rather than industriousness, which would be a man's willingness to work hard to provide for his family, regardless of circumstances.  Most of them also have wildly unrealistic expectations of men, which they are incapable of meeting themselves.

If a young woman wants a young man who makes more money than she does, is taller / faster / stronger than she is, and is willing to do anything to protect her from all harm, then there will never be anything remotely equal about their relationship.  Women need to stop pretending that represents "equality".  She's not "building" much of anything with him, because he already built it with his own sweat and blood.  She's merely waited at the finish line, found "her winner", and has decided he is worthy of her body.  So be it.  Women have that power, because they also have the power to create life.  Notice how there was no whining on my part about that little fact of life being "unfair"?  Life isn't fair and it never will be.  Men implicitly understand this.  Women need to at least act as if they do.  A woman gets to choose who she will sleep with.  A man gets to choose who he will maintain a relationship with.  Women need to learn to distinguish between a man willing to have sex with them and a man who is willing to maintain a committed relationship with them, until death.  Sex and relationships are two starkly different things.  Women use sex to establish relationships.  Men use provisioning to maintain relationships.

By the time most women have completed their education and have a stable career path, they also have far fewer good prospects for marriage, because men and women value different qualities in the opposite sex.  People who come from the upper socio-economic rungs of society may have enough money to "paper over" their misconceptions about the behavior exhibited by the opposite sex, but that still doesn't mean they've created a situation conducive to raising children capable of facing the various hardships of daily life.  This is the deeper-set portion of the problem.  Many men, good or bad, are perfectly willing to overlook a lot of less-than-desirable character and behavioral attributes a prospective life partner may have, but most women are not.  The more money and status a woman has, the fewer men she will find to be suitable partners for her.  The more money and status a man has, the more options he has.  A millionaire man is perfectly willing to marry a woman who flips burgers, if she has all the desirable qualities men look for in women.  A millionaire woman would scoff at the very idea of marrying a burger flipper.

She also talks about "black men" not being good fathers.  There are more married black men than there are married black women.  Black men are choosing to be fathers and raise children, they're just not choosing to marry black women.  I do wonder why.  Beyond that simple indisputable fact of life, I also happen to know that an increasing percentage of American men are choosing to save their money and find wives in other countries.  Furthermore, the rates of divorce between lesbian couples is higher than for heterosexual couples and gay couples.  Men who marry other men tend to stay married at higher rates than men married to women or women married to women.  In point of fact, women married to other women tend to be the shortest marriages.

MILLIONS Of Chinese Leftover Women Are Realizing Dating Is FUTILE At Their Age And Income

A divorced 40 year old Chinese man with a PhD, some university hotshot, meets a 38 year old MD surgeon.  She's never been on a date before, because her dumb parents told her to focus on her career, and the man won't speak to her after their date because she wouldn't answer some stupid question he posed about how she felt about his divorce.  The entire time I'm thinking to myself, you're both arrogant and conceited little diptwaddles who think the rest of the world is supposed to revolve around you.  You're literally perfect for each other.  I don't see what the problem is here.  Go on a few dates, get over yourselves, get married, and start making some smart babies before you no longer can.  I wanted to slap both of them upside the head and ask them why they're both so retarded.  How do you manage to become so highly educated and accomplished, yet so painfully stupid at the same time?  Helen Keller had better socialization skills before she was ever a fully grown woman.  Every possible advantage in life has been gifted to both of these characters.  Get the hell over yourselves and think about something besides yourself.  Adulthood only starts after real responsibility begins.  There is no greater personal responsibility than raising a child.  If you cannot do that, then you're only marginally useful to society, even after you were educated by some of the smartest people on the planet.  My pet rock has more going on upstairs than the both of them.  You know what else wouldn't kill ya?  A little humility, understanding, and kindness towards others.  Maybe stop rejecting potential life partners before knowing the most superficial things about them?  Just a thought.

There are, apparently, 120 million single women in their mid-30s in China.  They have advanced degrees, high salaries, and demand dowries that are an extreme multiple of the annual income of 90% of men in western countries.  One of them was asking for 7M Yuan ($980,000 USD) for her dowry.  The average marriage in China costs 330K Yuan ($46,200 USD).  She makes $6,000 a year.  She's very pretty, but she's a receptionist spelling out everything she wants while refusing to spell out what she's bringing to the relationship, besides herself.  Most of them will never find husbands, remain single until they die, and then their entire family line dies with them.  Chinese men state that they value youth and beauty, and that these women are not serious prospects for marriage because they cannot provide children.  These ladies can keep their standards as high as they feel is necessary, but if no men they actually want are willing and able to meet them, then they should expect to spend the rest of their life alone, or reduce their expectations to something more reasonable.  For a vanishingly small number of them, that might be a perfectly acceptable fate.  Learn to accept that men are also allowed to have their standards, especially if men and women are supposed to have any form of equality.

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#96 2024-08-11 22:25:57

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,852

Re: kbd512 Postings

This kid seems to understand that we're committing suicide:

Reality Based. - Society Is Broken And There Will Be a REVOLUTION! | @WhatifAltHist

Watch WhatifAltHist's video on "Mouse Utopia".  This is what I see happening to pretty much every country.

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#97 2024-08-12 06:12:13

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,365

Re: kbd512 Postings

for kbd512 re recent posts .... if we had a "Like" feature you would see your "Like" counts go up.

I'd like to propose we start work on the "Like" feature as soon as the new version of FluxBB (1.5.12) is up, running and accepted by the community.  We have already scoped out the broad features of the new addition to the forum environment.

I'm hoping there are no new technical issues to solve with the upgrade. It's just a question of finding the time.

Thanks again for helping to make Sunday's meeting one of the most productive we've had.  They are ** all ** interesting, but some are more productive than others.

(th)

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#98 2024-08-16 06:07:48

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,365

Re: kbd512 Postings

For kbd512 re new post about floating cities...

I am looking forward to reading your post carefully later today.  At first glance the proposal looks interesting on a number of levels.

In GW's topic, I've dropped off some preliminary impressions of what the cover of the proposed "Pilot" book would look like.  Since you are the only member with actual ** kids ** still at home, I'd appreciate your seeing if they might be willing to provide feedback.  I am planning to ask DALL-E to create covers for girls, in case ** that ** question comes up.

(th)

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#99 2024-09-03 17:07:17

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,365

Re: kbd512 Postings

For kbd512 re special request of Mr. Burk ...

I'm preparing to ping Mr. Burk again, now that the new week is underway.

before I do, please confirm that the item you requested is NOT already in place.

Chances that the request was fulfilled but we were not notified are low, but I'd like to be certain before I put in another request.

(th)

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#100 2024-09-03 17:17:13

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,852

Re: kbd512 Postings

tahanson43206,

I have no response back from Mr Burk at this time.  I also connected again to confirm that I still lack the privileges required to create a new database.

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