Technical Innovation 2030 – Part 1

We’re in an odd moment technologically speaking.  The only thing anyone talks about is AI.  It’s the alpha and the omega.  It will bring on the singularity or it will usher in a golden age where we all live like the Eloi in H.G. Wells’ “Time Machine.”  On second thought maybe that would be the singularity since being lunch for troglodytes doesn’t sound like much of a golden age (unless you’re a troglodyte that is).

But I think it’s time to start looking beyond the glory of AI and begin to think of what comes next.  After all, in a manner of speaking AI is kind of like this century’s electronic calculator.  It made engineering work much more efficient but it didn’t eliminate the need for humans to look for answers to problems that needed to be solved.  It just made the process faster.  So once all the tech companies get through firing their engineers and computer scientists the industrial world is going to find that they’re still going to need to design “stuff” and solve new problems that are supposed to make the world a better place.

And contrary to present expectations AI isn’t going to plan and design the next bridge that spans a couple of miles across a bay or between mountains.  Sure, the engineers will use AI to find out the state of the art in civil engineering but eventually a human being will have to sign off on the drawings and take the legal responsibility that the bridge won’t collapse and kill a bunch of people.  And only an idiot would assume that the answer that AI gives him is worth risking prison time without making sure that he knows that the answers are correct.

So, let’s put AI into the category of modern tools and instead look at what problems are in our near future to solve.

Regardless of what everyone has said for the last thirty years, solar and wind energy are not the future energy sources we need.  But there will come a time when hydrocarbons will not be sufficient.  So, I would say that a replacement for oil and gas is the largest technical problem that humanity will face toward the end of this century.  But that means it’s already long overdue to start working out the details of what that will look like.  There may be several technologies that will exist.  I’ve questioned (and not just in a fictional setting) whether geothermal might become a significant source of global energy but if I were to make an educated guess, I’d say that nuclear fission will be the main energy source.

But just because fission has been a stable part of the energy grid in places like France for more than half a century doesn’t mean that the form currently employed is even close to what will power the world for the next century and more.  The science and technology of fission power is in its infancy.  The research in the United States that was going on in the 1950s and 1960s was strangled in its crib by the whole anti-nuclear movement of the time.  There will need to be a rebirth of nuclear power technology that will combine government, industry and academia.  And it will require energy policy to be handled by intelligent people in government.  And that is something we haven’t seen in half a century in this country.  Because it is a massive effort.  Eventually we will have to decide whether battery technology is a better storage medium for things like transportation than something like synthetic hydrocarbons or hydrogen.  And these questions should be answered based on efficiency and other important factors like safety.  But definitely not decided by idiots like Al Gore, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Let’s see what’s next after power in Part 2.

Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 25JUN2026 – More Commies

Photog said

“Well, nothing new here. Republicans have been screwing up elections since I was a kid.”

Indeed there is a reason they have their sobriquet of the Stupid Party, I just wish they wouldn’t work so hard to earn it.

Is this the apocalypse? I don’t think so, yet. These victories involve ONLY the motivated party types. For example Ms. Chevalier (the most egregious of the DSA winners) won on a vote of 66k voters where the number of voters for the district is north of 750K. What She and the Maine Senate Democrat say is the Democrat party is hurting hard and is afraid to tell the DSA/Socialists to take a long walk off a short pier. The reason for this is their base is shifting. They ticked off the working folks, and many of the Hispanics with favoring other ethnicities (e.g. Sub Saharan Africans) and ideologies (Trans, Islamist, and the underemployed white bourgeoisie wannabes). The Wannabes are young enough and have been inundated with enough nonsense to think Socialism can work and their problem is Nasty billionaire/trillionaires stifling their potential success. The Islamists view the Democrats as useful idiots and a way to power. The other part of the new base loves them some graft and happily provide a cut back the Democrats and the Democrats are hurting for money after Kamala bet the house on a 20-1 shot and a really nice Hermes purse and unsurprisingly lost.

For the present, this lives in the Cities. The hipster wannabes love a city and its close environs (E.g. Cambridge and Somerville in Massachusetts), at present the grifters stay in that vicinity as grifting is harder in suburbs and exurbs where everyone is in everybody else’s business. Islamists, for the present, seem content to be near cities mostly for the conveniences like halal markets and mosques, though those seem to be spreading. As the Hipsters age out will they move to the burbs/exurbs and have kids? For a lot of them I think the answer is no. So we need to keep an eye on cities and subsidies of them. In particular when (not if) New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago Baltimore et alia come to be bailed out at the Federal level The President in charge has to respond like Gerry Ford and say, Drop Dead!!!

The people with a big problem are the Democratic Party. Their leadership Either makes Methuselah look like a spry youngster or can’t even render the dignity of a cat falling off a couch. Hakeem Jeffries is next on Mamdani’s hit list, and as more DSA types get in they’re going to start holding the reins in the Democrat party. If the Democrats had any brains they would not officially caucus with ANY DSA person, However if the DSA types put the Dems over the top for the house in the 2026 election, the Dems’ lust for power will (foolishly) overwhelm their fear of taking a shiv in the back. I think things could get ugly if we get there as DSA could control the Democrat party. The only good news is that DSA control would almost certainly result in a 2028 slate for president and representatives that would be shown the door in all but the blue cities, likely resulting in a McGovern or even Mondale class defeat.

Best plan for the present seems to effectively lie back and think of England. The Senate has stopped the clock on Iran and Trump/Vance seem unwilling to, as the video game says, finish them. Financial woes (especially high energy costs) will favor the Democrats as well as the usual advantage of the party in opposition in a mid term election. And 2028 may not be pretty, as there seems to be some Vance/Rubio disagreement around Iran, and Vance seems unwilling to let go of certain previous supporters (e.g. Tucker Carlson). The only saving grace is that at present there is no one on the Democrat side that has other than a very difficult path to 270 electoral votes (short heavy manipulation of cities in the purple zones). Maybe this will light a fire under the Senate for the Save act, but the Republicans are the stupid party…

The Dictatorship of the Proletariat

 

So yesterday three communists won the Democrat primaries for three seats in the US House of Representatives that represent districts in New York City.  And they weren’t even close.  Two of those seats had sitting Democratic law makers that were defeated and the other one saw the current Brooklyn Borough President defeated.  None of these communists were seasoned politicians.  One of them was a graduate student.  What they have in common is that Mayor Mamdani assured New York City voters that they were card carrying communists who would soak the rich and bring about the workers’ paradise on Earth that is Karl Marx’s vision of communism.  Workers of the world unite!  You have nothing to lose but your 401K!

Now, the punditocracy is fighting over whether this is a sign of the apocalypse or not.  And who knows?  After all there are plenty of young people who have seen all prospects for normal life with careers, families, homes and prosperity disappear for them.  So why shouldn’t they throw their support behind charlatans like Bernie Sanders, AOC and Mamdani who claim they’ll take money from the rich and give it away for free to the poor?  Of course, as we know, that will end up crashing the economy right down to the ground as the Russians, the Chinese and the Cambodians discovered to their sorrow.  But why shouldn’t we get our turn in the barrel?

Well, there’s no use in worrying about something that can’t be helped.  Those three house seats will be occupied by commies in January.  How that will differ from the Democrats that occupied them before seems minimally important.  They won’t vote any way differently from their predecessors.  All that will change will be the use of Marxist rhetoric in their press releases and the disappointment of their constituents when nothing tangible will occur after they’ve taken up their residence in the Capitol.

But what is important is whether Trump and the Republicans manage to get gas prices down sufficiently before November to sooth the voters’ nerves before the midterms.  If he allows the Democrats to take back the House and the Senate this will hamstring his efforts to get his agenda enacted over the last two years of his term.  But of course, once you’re in a shooting war with the Iranians it’s probably a cinch that they’ll pull a stunt right before the election just to put the kibosh on Trump’s plans.

Well, nothing new here.  Republicans have been screwing up elections since I was a kid.  What I feel is more important is that the administration does everything it can to encourage companies to employ Americans in good paying jobs.  How he manages to do this is not my field of expertise.  He’s tried tariffs.  Maybe now he should try legislation that rewards companies with lower taxes if they employ more Americans.  Whether that is considered communism, national socialism or noblesse oblige is completely irrelevant as long as it makes this a more prosperous and happier place for my descendants to live in.

More Antifa News – Prison is in Their Future

Down in Texas, the Antifa cell members that attacked an ICE facility last Fourth of July were sentenced for their parts in the attack.  The man who shot a police officer in the neck got one hundred years in prison.  The shortest sentence of the eight was thirty years for a conspirator who wasn’t present but hid evidence from the police.  The rest got fifty-year sentences.

Okay, no one, not even I can say that these defendants were treated too leniently.  That’s throwing the book at them.  And not only did they get what they deserved but this will be an extremely powerful deterrent to other Antifa gangs who try to act up in red states.  Of course, in places like Portland, Oregon and Minneapolis, Minnesota the judges and prosecutors are leftists and very unlikely to punish Antifa to the full extent they deserve.  But even in these deep blue areas these sentences are going to throw the fear of God into these psychopaths.

It was interesting to hear how the shooter in Texas tried to justify what he had done.  He claimed that he shot the officer because he thought the officer was about to shoot one of the protestors.  So, in his mind he was the one defending the law and the police were the criminals.  Well, apparently the jury and the judge didn’t quite see it that way.  Maybe they figured that police officers were entitled to carry their guns without being shot by terrorists who were attacking a federal law enforcement facility that was carrying out its lawful activity of deporting illegal aliens.

I wonder how long the shooter will actually serve?  I looked up the federal sentencing guidelines and other than some small good behavior reductions he has to serve the whole sentence.  So, unless the next Democrat president pardons him he’s going to stay behind bars for the rest of his life.  And since he’s 33 years old that could be a very long time.  And I’m good with that.  That officer that got shot in the neck and his family probably aren’t upset that this nut will be safely behind bars for the better part of the twenty first century.  As for the rest of the Antifa maniacs that got very lengthy sentences, well there needs to be a penalty for being stupid enough to help a guy who’s willing to shoot it out with the police.  And they are paying hefty penalties indeed.  You rarely hear of fifty-year sentences for even some murder convictions.  I would say the judges were making a point.

Now without a doubt the convicts will appeal their sentences and that is something I’ll be keeping an eye out for.  The fact that it’s Texas this is happening in leads me to believe that even shortening those sentences will still leave the convicted Antifa members with a very long time to think over what they did.  So, this is a story where justice triumphed and chaos and anarchy took it in the neck.  About time.