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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> <a href="mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org</a> [<a href="mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org">mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Kelly Anderson<br><b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, September 10, 2013 3:00 PM<br><b>To:</b> ExI chat list<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] How Electricity Became a Luxury Good<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 8:14 AM, spike <<a href="mailto:spike66@att.net" target="_blank">spike66@att.net</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>There is a good possibility we will not start on it until it is too late.</span><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>></span>Yes Spike, please do define too late.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>></span>In Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, we have more fossil fuel BTUs than Saudi Arabia, though it does exist in hard to mine and transform rock shale form<span style='color:#1F497D'>…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Ja, all of these, but I was looking at the long term in the event that there is some fundamental reason why a singularity is impossible. For the record, I think a singularity is both possible and inevitable, but there is value in mapping out a future in which it is not, or a future in which the singularity takes longer than we thought, analogous in a way to nuclear fusion power.</span><span style='color:#1F497D'> We have coal and we have oil enough for now and the next decade or two, but then what?</span><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>The notion of a poverty trap is real. I have some distant cousins who are trapped in that now: they live way the hell out in a holler in West Virginia, and have only a vague notion of what a computer does. I can’t even communicate with them: I have no intentions of writing on paper and sending stuff with stamps on it. I did that with their grandparents, will not do it now. That represents a group of people genetically similar to me, who are in a poverty trap. They do not use the internet; they are on the other side of a chasm which I cannot or will not span.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>We can imagine scenarios where humanity gets caught in a poverty trap, or a memetic trap similar to what grips much of the middle east today. The collective dedication to Mormonism in those places traps both the believer and unbeliever alike, slowing progress and causing retrogression. If we don’t get something sustainable long term off the ground, I can easily envision most of humanity being far more concerned with their next meal than advancing science.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Regarding oil shale, oil sands, fracking, sure we can do all that, but what I am looking at is a long term solution in the event that the singularity doesn’t happen. These other things will work for our lifetimes perhaps, but what then? Also note that oil has made us comfortable and conservative. We don’t want to change things when they work so well. But China and India are coming, and they read the internet too. They want to live like we do. Imagine that. What happens to our oil reserves then? Our coal reserves?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>As an exercise Kelly, map out a future with optimistic models of current energy resources, and anticipating the technological rise of China and India. Where does it lead? Use top level estimates of greenhouse warming, just using top level first order approximations, and include increased radiation of heat with Boltzmann’s law. Where does it go? What happens if a billion Chinese people and another billion Indians want to drive SUVs? Then a billion more middle easterners get tired of being poor?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>