Notes from the Megamachine

As this goes to press, I just finished listening to an episode of the “Planet Money” podcast, an impromptu daily show that NPR has cooked up in the past few weeks solely to offer in depth coverage of the financial crisis.  And also, one of my few remaining “guilty pleasures” from the broadcast media, This American Life, has also turned itself, evidently “for the duration”, into This Global Economic Bust (or something that might as well be called that).  It’s all kind of reminiscent of the period right after 9/11 and the Anthrax Attacks, but at least that period of intensity ended with the cornering and capture “loss of relevance” of Bin Laden at Tora Bora.   This looks like it could go on in some some form for many months or even years.  The way the financial has captured people’s attention must be closer to the reaction people had to the long-forgotten “real” wars the US fought (as opposed to any war against Iraq or Panama), or perhaps even to the Great Depression itself.  Also as in wars, we have our Generals, both field and armchair, offering commentary on the unfolding crisis and having every word they say hung on and analyzed–in this case such luminaries of various levels of true sagacity, as Warren Buffet, George Soros, Nouriel Roubini, Robert Rubin, and on and on…The financial crisis has even pushed the increasingly slapstick and irrelevant Presidential campaign out of the headlines.

And, on balance, this is probably a good thing.  Here at megamachine.org we’ve often said things that, admittedly, sounded a bit harsh, or scathing at Americas expense.  While I showed (ahem!) a certain amount of prescience about the way events would unfold, for example here and here, it gives me little pleasure to gloat over that foresight, when the whole structure of society teeters and threatens to take me and everyone I care about down with it.  I genuinely hope that the US views this incident, which I don’t believe in and of itself will be fatal to a satisfying way of life, as a wake-up call to get its head out of its a** and start the long delayed projects of building a decent transit infrastructure, and making arrangements for a less energy-intensive future.  With the political turnover about to take place on Nov. 4, there is a slim chance–slim but not nil–that will start to happen.  Well enough soft-hearted sentiment for the time being–back to making catcalls at our “leaders” from the peanut gallery!

As you can see, he did not give it the title I would have chosen, “Pirate this book”, but something much wonkier and more boring.

Nevertheless I doubt it’ll be long before an enterprising individual with a scanner takes him up on the above injunction.

Just as the big media publications like the New Yorker, New Republic, and National Review have their vacation cruises for loyal fans, the staff here at megamachine.org decided to lead a trip where dedicated readers would have a chance to rub elbows with the great writing and editing team that makes Megamachine what it is.  Only problems are…Megamachine doesn’t have enough dedicated readers yet to fill a cruise ship (rowboat, maybe?), and we only have one writer/editor/publisher, i.e., your humble servant heatkernel, i.e. me.

Undaunted, I decided instead to lead a bike tour through the Loire Valley this summer.  Even though I could only get two loyal readers to sign up–ok, I admit, even they were personal friends–I believe that the tour contributed to the essential mission of the Megamachine organization. Enough so that the photo-essay describing the trip as the (ahem!) Great Thoughts which the participants of the Loire Valley Bike Tour ruminated on during the trip deserve a series of posts.  So without further ado, we begin with…

Paris:

(from the Louvre)

For those who have stumbled upon this post wondering what what this is all about. . .the link will tell you about the Doomer subculture (which is not the official ideology of this blog, but worth a thought nonetheless.)

A friend with whom I hadn’t been in touch for quite a while wrote me, and in the course of the ensuing discussion wrote…

I actually went quite communist for a while, but came to a semi-conclusion that nature…doesn’t work in terms of equality.

I figured I’d post my reply, since it’s been quite a while since I tried to set down my thoughts on such broad issues in print, and I have nothing better to post at the moment.

no, equality doesn’t work, because humans are animals, after all, and are thus subject to the dictates of evolution, natural selection, etc. Thus the natural historical development of elites, commercial semi-elites, and the majority herds, tied more (as in the case of India) or less (as in the last century in the West) explicitly to birth.

but, unlike wildebeest, humans are also social and spiritual beings, and thus the toiling masses do not have to accept their station in life. They have the option of organizing themselves, to take whatever they can, or simply smash up the system in pique, if nothing else works.

So, in order for some sort of equilibrium and order to be achieved, it is necessary for said masses to believe in some sort of ideology. Be that ideology animistic mythology, Abrahamic religion, Marxism, or Nationalism, it has to promise its believers with some sort of compensation for suffering, be that eternal life, reincarnation, union with the universe, or martyrdom for Utopia on earth.

Because of a quirk of fate, for the last 50 years, the West has been able to get by without such an ideology, because it was going through the very peak rate of resource exploitation and energy consumption. Virtually everyone was able to see themselves or, at worst, their own children (never mind descendants) as potential members of the elites, and were provided by a quasi-socialistic state with a certain “floor” level of living standards and care, more or less in exchange for conformity and not making trouble. This situation though has been only a temporary respite. As we now enter the inevitable down-sloping part of the resource-extraction curve, we will have to re-learn collectively the value of such ideologies that were thrown away into the wastebasket, apparently forever, but in actuality, only temporarily.

Let us hope that the ideology emerging from this is as conducive to human flourishing as possible.

I don’t have much time to post these days.  Here is a distillation of my thoughts on the present energy-financial-geopolitical situation (this was posted at the point when oil is $140 a barrel, after the collapse of Bear but before that of Lehman, and as the S&P goes below 1285):

It’s clear something’s going to have to give.

I still wonder if the US isn’t going to throw the dice

    and just go all out trying to conquer the ME and Central Asia

on the theory that “those damned A-rabs are holding it [our oil] back.

I think that attempt at conquest will fail.

BUT,

   there IS a fair amount of oil under the ground

in Iraq, Iran and Kazhakhstan

if it were all developed

in the way that Saudis developed the fields

at their height it could definitely buy some time problem is

we would not be able to impose sufficient stability

I mean, what I can’t get over is that Iraqi oil production

is still below what it was under Saddam and Oil for Food

how is it we are not able to get that production back up?

even though I opposed to invasion

and occupation etc.

I still would like to see us get that production back up by any means

and give a good cut to the Iraqis

but, we wouldn’t do that, of course

yeah, that’s really the thing

about the place

if the “surge” were really a success

wouldn’t oil production have recovered to 2002 levels?

I just would like to understand the mind

of Cheney

like, what would he have to say about that?

if he is really the evil genius some people think

I would think we would have just carpet bombed Sadr City, Najaf, and every

other resisting area

and grabbed the oil

by now

I think he is just truly dim

or maybe was smart but lost part of his brain

and then I’m reading about

how the US elite has stymied exploration of Iranian

gas and oil

by putting harsh sanctions

on any business that partners with the regime there

as a net thing

I think the peak has been brought forward overall

by US foreign policy

could be a conspiracy

but more likely

they just truly did not believe Peak Oil

would ever be a big deal

because the economics/business mentality

blinded them to anything resource-like

resource-depletion related

they=US foreign policy elite

if there is such a thing

look, even Pat Lang

still doesn’t get it

and he’s clearly one of the smarter, better intentioned ones

and this is not tough stuff really

any farmer or mechanic should be able to understand the concept

I guess the wrong kind of advanced education can really be harmful

to the intelligence

 …….

I should just repost these IM observations to my blog

w/o any editing

I’m too distracted these days to post to it regularly

 ……

The Shipping and Receiving department of megamachine.org has informed me that the promised review copy of “World Made by Hand” has arrived from James Howard Kunstler.  Expect more on this new novel to appear here in the next few days.

That’s how it appears right now.

As much as the Democrats may “deserve” to win this next Presidential election on the merits, given the personal nature of US politics, they still are going to lose to McCain unless they select a more popular nominee.  Here are the head-to-head match ups of the two leading Dem candidates against McCain, via The Votemaster:

Finally, Cook/RT Strategies just released some head-to-head polls for the general election. Here they are.

Democrat	Pct	Republican	Pct
Clinton	41	McCain	45
Obama	45	McCain	43
Clinton	48	Romney	42
Obama	50	Romney	41

 If McCain is the GOP nominee, he beats Clinton but loses narrowly to Obama.

Not only that, but in the electoral college vote, which is the only thing that counts anyway, all indications are that Obama’s advantage, vis-a-vis Clinton, would be magnified.  Why?   A glance at the new color-coded maps at Electoral-Vote.com shows that Hillary’s big victories have been in safe Democratic states like NY and California, while Obama has been triumphing all over the place in battleground states like Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota.  This would allow Obama to convert his popular vote advantage more easily into an electoral-vote advantage, and head-off a repeat of the disastrous 2000 Bush-Gore situation.  Further, Obama, not Clinton, has been winning in all the traditionally Republican bastions such as the Deep South.  This would also help because McCain would be forced to devote resources to shoring up his support in those states, thereby diverting those resources from swing states.

And note that all these numbers are before the Republican attack machine gears up.  So if you want any chance of defeating the GOP in Nov. and you’re a dem primary voter, it’s pretty clear who to vote for.  Just for the record, I think Obama is no saint or savior, I’m just saying for informational purposes…

A preoccupied vegan named Hugh
picked up the wrong sandwich to chew.
He took a big bite
before spitting, in fright,
“OMG, WTF, BBQ!”

For more along these lines see the Limerick database.