SeeingRed [he/him]

Oh nice! I wouldn’t mind a re-read of it before jumping into volume 2. Especially if the language is easier to follow. Even just a re-read of some key chapters.

It’s so frustrating to read anything about IMF loans because most summaries are all euphemistic economic jargon. Then you read past the summary and while the material is still opaque, they’ll have snippets where they explain in plain language what they want.

I assume this is an attempt to re-shore manufacturing, especially if as many of us expect, many countries choose to take the tarrif hit so that they can keep trading in their own currency between eachother.

It’s a strategic bet, bring home some manufacturing while hurting those who defy the empire. It’ll certainly reduce the availability of certain goods in the US as countries choose other markets. This likely would help to encourage some level of reshoring, or at least increase pressure from the ruling class to force more coups of other countries to force them back onto the dollar system.

Whether this will backfire or not will is something that is very hard to predict.

This was certainly something. Many points were just horrible, but there was a sprinkle of good positions.

My takeaway was they seek to be connected with both west and east, which probably means connecting to the BRI. Improvements to employment (full employment?) and cost of living are also on the table. They recognize that America, and the west more generally is on the decline and that there is effectively no leadership in that space.

The far right wing screed against LGBTQ and immigration was really horrible to read. Just goes to show that the western culture of hate is alive and well. I’m sure there was more horrible stuff that they said, but I only skimmed the majority of the headings after I got through the first fee sections.

The fact that they are centering companies in their plan seems like a bad idea unless they plan to nationalize key industry (doubt). Maybe someone more well read could speak more to their actual plan here. We know that capital generally will reject full employment unless it is forced to do so. So they have contradictory goals. That being said, contradiction can obviously be managed if it is understood and there is sufficient power/will to do so.

You too!

Flow batteries seem very promising, but the chemistry required needs more scale/external funding to be viable.

There were some thermal battery retrofits for coal power plants using carbon and steam that looked interesting in principal, though cost and logistics are not fully solved problems, and the round trip efficiency was rather bad compared to other storage methods.

There were also some molten metal batteries that have been working towards useful scale over the past decade or so. They had cheap and abundant matetial inputs and significantly long charge discharge.

There are many neat options out there. I think researching and building out each as they become viable would help to improve system resiliency and long term viability.

Its a vague statement. Not specific enough to be true or false.

We can be more specific by saying something like, “inventions and ideas will become refined and widespread when they are beneficial, useful, and practical.” Or maybe “necessity is a crucible for refining ideas and inventions.”

Even these are only roughly applicable as a generalization and a statement could only be said to be true when given specific conditions and detailed investigation.

For example, the basics of steam power were understood back in ancient Rome, but they didn’t make any steam engines to convert heat to useful work. Why? Because they didn’t need to. They also likely didn’t have the requisite industry to make and maintain them in any useful capacity. The engine was invented before it was necessary, but it didn’t become widespread until material conditions made it useful.

Even ideas like socialism have existed for a very long time, but the only place we see it kicking off (so far, inshallah) is within the places that need it the most. Was it invented in those places? No. Was it refined through those struggles? Of course it was.