The Focus Fusion Society Forums General Transition Issues A new war fuelled by cheap plentifull energy?

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #616
    Breakable
    Keymaster

    Currently Oil is the key to prosperity and riches.
    We can see how wars a waged to claim more of it.

    Just wondering if the energy becomes plentiful and cheap and
    all the resources in the world will become affordable,
    what will the governments come after next? Land?

    #4221
    JimmyT
    Participant

    One universal truth about commodities is that they tend to be exchangeable for other commodities: Cheap energy begets inexpensive fresh water (whether thru desalination or redistribution); which in turn begets aerable land thru irrigation.

    When you make a basic commodity like energy cheaper by two orders of magnitude interesting things happen. Suddenly commodity exchanges like energy for land or energy for available mineral ores, which were previously not feasible, become downright attractive. This is the principal reason that the tentacles of this project are so far reaching.

    It also makes war for any resource less likely. People always find reasons to fight wars. But the underlying reason is quite often resources, even if race or religion is given as the pretext.

    #4223
    Aeronaut
    Participant

    Stealing land for its own sake will never go out of style, unfortunately.

    #4227
    Rezwan
    Participant

    And I’m still not convinced that Religion is just a pretext in many cases. Or ideology. There’s this “uber alles” thing going on with people. I’m not sure people are that rational. There’s an imp in the works.

    #4229
    Breakable
    Keymaster

    Religion can also be a cause for war. I did not believe there are fundamental Christians until I saw some video of their boot camp on you-tube.
    I just hope as many people as possible will convert to atheism, or we might have yet another “Holy” war…

    #4234
    Aeronaut
    Participant

    Rezwan wrote: And I’m still not convinced that Religion is just a pretext in many cases. Or ideology. There’s this “uber alles” thing going on with people. I’m not sure people are that rational. There’s an imp in the works.

    The reason for war always traces back to one or a few people who want what is not rightfully theirs. Everything else is packaging the idea so it can be sold to enough people to get group-think to kick in. No matter how enlightened the human race would like to see itself, the primitive part of the brain is still the decision maker.

    #4260
    Phil’s Dad
    Participant

    War is unfortunately Humanity’s natural state. Whether it be on the smallest scale (a toddler snatching a toy from another), a corporate / financial war, or a full scale invasion (a handful of grown up toddlers persuading their followers to snatch what they want) it is what we do. Any history book I have ever read describes a series of wars.

    Peace has to be worked for constantly; like running up an endless, fast moving down escalator. Be assured there will be a fight over who controls this energy – don’t think just making it work will be enough. (This is why I strongly favour a distributed energy future rather than a centralised / transmitted one, what ever the technical or economic arguments; and why starting by replacing existing generators on the transmission grid may not be the best first step to implementation.)

    There will always be some who have to control others; people who feel diminished by the success of others rather than celebrating it.
    For example both sides of the climate change battle want to control us. Inexpensive, safe, sustainable energy will force the controlling individuals to find some other way of exerting their influence – but they will. It is who they are. It is who we are.

    FF will not bring world peace; it will just give us a different reason to fight. :down:

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.