Core Sublime Articles

ignore for now – to be completed…

Philosophy & Theophilosophy

  • A

History & Cliodynamics

World System: Economy, Society, Demography

Global Geopolitics & Trends

Limits to Growth

  • A

Technology & Singularity

  • A

Politics & Metapolitics

  • A

There Will Be War!

  • A

Collapse & Apocalypse

Europe: The Fractured Continent

  • A

United States: The Waning Superpower

  • A

Middle East: House of War

  • A

Asia: The Great Reconvergence

  • A

Eurasia: The Sisyphean Loop

  • A

Peripheries: Latin America & Africa

—————————

Global Trends

Economic Crisis (esp. re-USA)

Geopolitics & International Relations

  • Decade Forecast: 2005-2015 (Stratfor) -
  • hard – 10 yrs have discontinuities; China meltdown, cessation of US-jihadi war, Russian resurgence, American dominance, geopolitical shift from Middle East to Eurasia & Western Pacific. USA: space, naval dominance; economic boom; 9/11 –> expansion into C. Asia vs terrorism / intensification of Eurasian resistance / demographic disadvantages, leading to partial disengagement in H1 & reorientation to E. Asia to meet new challengers; aging problems from 2015 only; slight recession in H1 (lol!); demographic boom and cheap credit due to baby boomers nearing retirement age (not EU); immigration; trade deficit not problem as it merely represents surge of profitless Asian exports to maintain cash flow for ineffective banking systems –> sectoral hurt, but frees up US resources for higher-productivity areas; Chinese crash, step-back from US debt will crash $ and recession, but growth continues. World economy: like pre-WW1, “period of unprecedented global economic prosperity and growth…increasing fragmentation and tension in the international system”; instability & prosperity; US strength based on demography & near-retirement baby boomers leave big room for capital – Japan is aging into oblivion, as is much of Europe (“population chimney”) – resistance to immigrants from ethnics; credit shortage in Japan from 2005, in US from 2015. East Asia: remilitarization of Japan, instability in Indonesia, the flashpoint of NK, and a “deeply troubled China, increasingly torn by domestic strife, with a government, in the face of it, alternating between brutal repression and helplessness” – has deep problems in SOEs, 13.1% unemployment, inequality, foreign encroachment, like in end of dynasties: stayed only by US war on terror diversion; China divided into coastal import/export in densely populated coastal zones with FDI, the remains of SEO-based Maoist economy in interior & north-east rustbelt (SOEs employ 375mn of 750mn workers and control 57% of industrial assets!) – continuously enlivened & bailed out by preferential bank loans; 500bn $ + of bad loans & SOEs continue unreformed to provide “iron rice bowl”; waves of protest & corruption (+ sex imbalance); –> 1) sudden, painful reforms (S. Korea post-1997) – hard due to less nationalism / ethnic discipline, 2) Jiang & Xiaoping: continue mercantilism, socialism & repression, 3) Jintao – more regulation / levelling, redirect FDI to internal, etc, 4) new Maoism; will veer between 2 & 3, the former being favored in hard times; ideological enerverment (materialism); mismanagement, corruption & Asian (growth not profits) & Communist (social control over profits) – “If China slows its opening and reforms — the most likely path, albeit done in a subtle Chinese way — FDI will begin to dry as foreign investors shift away from China. When FDI dries up, growth in the import/export economy will slow down. When growth slows down, social stability issues will become more pronounced, since there will be less and less money to pump into the SOEs. Capital flight by Western investors already has begun, with Asian investors making up the difference, but they will be unable to sustain adequate levels for very long.” … lower FDI –> strains with coastal elites / extortion under guise of corruption crackdown to maintain cash flow to SOEs –> disincentives, capital flight. Loss of central control, nuclearized warlordism –> Japanese leadership: powerful navy, expanding air force (refueling), will exploit fall of Chinese center by supporting coast / Taiwan; united Korea. Russia / former USSR: internal decline; geopolitical reversal towards national statism;

Energy & Mineral Depletion

Economic Theory & Trends

Pollution & Climate Change

  • Pacific garbage patch from spiegel

Technology & the Singularity

Collapse & Apocalypse

Demography

Military & Security

There Will Be War

Cyberwar & Cyberculture

Global Regions

United States & N. America

China & East Asia

  • The Geopolitics of China: a Great Power Enclosed (George Friedman) – Han China is an island surrounded by buffer regions and physical obstacles, with its heartland defined by low-lying, humid plains hosting fertile rivers. Traditionally expanded when strong to neutralize the nomadic threat; unstable border with Vietnam; hilly jungle with Burma; locked away from India by the Himalayas; has long, narrow bridge into Central Asia via the old Silk Road; vulnerable borders with Russia, with potential for a flashpoint between Blagoveschenk and Vladivostok. China has these geopolitical objectives: 1) maintain unity in the Han Chinese heartland, 2) maintain control of the buffer regions – Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia & Manchuria, and 3) protect the coast from foreign encroachment. It faces an eternal trade-off between impoverished unity and decentralized inequality: if China opens up and uses the coastal cities as an interface with the rest of the world, they become rich, their interests align with those of foreigners, and there appear separatist tendencies which lead to decentralization and state collapse; if it remains closed,it suffers from impoverishment because of its overpopulation (has 20% of the world’s people on 7% of its arable area). Its key priorities today are to a) be able to neutralize the US Navy using missiles, subs & satellites, b) project power into SE Asia (sea power) and Central Asia (energy), c) keep its buffers, including N. Korea, and c) balance out the coastal / internal disparity through stronger central government.
  • East Asian Alliance (Eamonn Fingleton) – Unnoticed by the West, China and Japan have been cooperating since the signing of a friendship treaty in 1978, based on technology transfer (Japan provides knowhow despite its usual technological protectionism – in steel, petrochemicals, semiconductors, plasma screens), trade flows (capital-intensive Japan and labor-rich China are complementary), foreign aid (economic, NOT humanitarian, in nature – 60% went to transport infrastructure), values (deflection of Tiananmen criticism as “Chinese domestic affair”; shared interest in state capitalism, xenophobia & national sovereignty) and foreign policy (recognized China in 1971, agreed to WTO admission in 1999). This drive towards a new world order not dominated by the Judeo-Christian West is artfully concealed, e.g. the Yasukuni shrine visits begans weeks after Xiaoping’s April 1979 visit.
  • The Geopolitics of Thailand: a Kingdom in Flux (George Friedman) -
  • Organized Crime in China (Stratfor) -

Russia & Eurasia

Middle East

India & S. Asia

Europe

  • The Rise, Fall, and Rise of the Reich (Peter Zeihan) -
  • The German Question (George Friedman) – Germany does not want to be at the frontlines of the New Cold War and will seek an accommodation with expansionist Russia, thus weakening NATO.
  • The Geopolitics of Sweden: a Baltic Power Reborn (George Friedman) – with its cold climate and internal communication lines, the Scandinavian Peninsula’s population was always concentrated along the southern coasts. This is where Sweden emerged as a maritime Power based on riverine trade within the Hanseatic region. It naturally dominates Norway and its maritime traditions enable a flexible military posture in Europe. Finland serves as a buffer against Russia. Because of Sweden’s financial domination of the Baltics, friendly relations with NATO, and advanced military-industrial complex, its prospects of containing a weakened Russia are good.
  • One Nation under CCTV (Anatoly Karlin) -
  • Xenophobia Rising (Stratfor) -
  • Organized Crime in Italy (Stratfor) -

Latin America

Africa

Prophets of the Postmodern Testament & other philosophies

  • Armageddon (Anatoly Karlin)
  • The Case for Nuclear Winter (Bob Dolan)
  • Are you Living in a Simulation? (Nick Bostrom)
  • Postmodern Jihad (Waller R. Newell) – radical Islamism is a fusion of the European postmodern, Third World socialism and the aggrieved Muslim ego, which embrace technology to shatter the iron cage of modernity and violently return the people to a purer past of collective austerity in acts of revolutionary resolve. They share their longing for an imagined past of blood and struggle with fascism, Nazism and Pol Pot (e.g. Falangists: “long live death!”, Islamists: “we love death”; many Islamic radicals are old, ex-Sorbonne Marxists who compare themselves to the French and Russian revolutionaries. The relationship goes the other way, influencing Foucault, Derrida, the “new international”, etc. While the “armchair nihilists” limit themselves to deconstructing texts, the Islamic terrorists aim to deconstruct the West.
  • Infinite Ethics (Nick Bostrom)
  • On Nihilism (Jean Baudrillard)
  • The Precession of Simulacra (Jean Baurdillard)
  • The Spirit of Terrorism (Jean Baudrillard)
  • When the Party commits suicide (Slavoj Žižek)

Metahistory, Cliodynamics and Historical Lessons for the Future

Core Books

  • Beyond Oil (Kenneth Deffeyes) – an excellent book with a simple explanation of the theory behind peak oil and an extended discussion of the (limited) potential for other energy sources to replace it. [notes]
  • The Last Oil Shock (David Strahan) – perhaps the best single intro to peak oil, it examines the murky run-up to the Iraq War, hi-lights Robert Ayres‘ work on the essential role of cheap energy in powering industrial civilization and offers ideas on how to get out of our energy bind. [notes]
  • The Party’s Over (Richard Heinberg) – emphasizes the crucial role of EROEI when looking at renewables and the critical importance of expanding energy supplies to maintaining industrial civilization. [notes]
  • The Long Emergency (James Kunstler) – the most alarmist of the major peak-oil books focuses on the collapse of the financial-credit system and the demise of surburbia in the post-peak oil era. [notes]
  • Energy at the Crossroads (Vaclav Smil) – a comprehensive survey of the energy flows in industrial civilization. [notes]
  • The Collapse of Complex Societies (Joseph Tainter) – a general theory of socio-political collapse based on the proclivity of human societies to over-invest into and incur declining marginal returns on complexity. [notes]
  • Six Degrees (Mark Lynas) – explores the (disturbing) effects of a degree by degree rise in global temperatures on the environment and human society [notes]
  • With Speed and Violence (Fred Pearce) – focuses on new research into “tipping points” in the climate system and includes detailed descriptions of the roles of clouds, global dimming and El Niño. [notes]
  • The Singularity is Near (Ray Kurzweil) – the exponential progress of technology (as manifested in Moore’s Law) will usher in technological revolutions in genetics, nanotechnology and robotics, culminating in the development of strong AI by 2029 and leading to human obsolescence. [notes]
  • The Decline of the West (Oswald Spengler) – a deep, seductive look at history through a civilizational prism. [wiki notes]
  • The Meaning of the 21st Century (James Martin) – characterizes the 21st century as a series of pitfalls like climate change, terrorism and war, yet beyond which lies a utopian future of cyber-cathedrals & happiness. [notes]
  • The Next 100 Years (George Friedman) – future geopolitics: the short-term Russian resurgence, a Chinese collapse, new challenges to US predominance from Japan, Turkey & Poland, the importance of space-based solar power and a fin de siècle demographic challenge from Mexico. [notes]
  • The Limits to Growth (Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers & Dennis L. Meadows) – systematic limits to industrial growth in the form of energy & mineral depletion, increasing pollution and overpopulation may lead to a global dieoff by mid-century. [notes]
  • Secular Cycles and Millennial Trends (Andrey Korotayev, Artemy Malkov & Daria Khaltourina) – a mathematical model for the rise and fall of civilizations in tandem with an exponential millennial growth trend. [notes]
  • The World without Us (Alan Weisman) – looks at what the world would be like without humans after different intervals of time; a good way to look at the world after a large-scale collapse. [notes]
  • Preparing for the 21st Century (Paul Kennedy) – approaches the global future by analyzing a) dominant trends like demographic growth, climate change and globalization, and b) the impacts of these trends on particular regions like the US, Japan, the developing world, and Eastern Europe. [notes]
  • When the Rivers Run Dry (Fred Pearce) – explains in detail what happens as the world’s rivers, lifeblood of agricultural civilization, run dry as glaciers melt and drought overtakes the world. [notes]
  • America Alone (Mark Steyn) – a basic, entertaining introduction to the (flawed) Eurabia theory. [review]
  • The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half of the 21st Century (John Brockman) – a collection of essays from prominent scientists on likely developments within their areas of expertise. [notes]
  • On Thermonuclear War (Herman Kahn) -
  • Empire of Debt (William Bonner & Addison Wiggin) -
  • The Prodigal Superpower (Steven Rosefielde) -
  • The End of History (Francis Fukuyama) -
  • The Clash of Civilizations (Samuel Huntington) -
  • The Pentagon’s New Map (Thomas Barnett) -
  • World Made by Hand (James Kunstler) – [review]
  • ONLINE Engines of Creation (Eric Drexler) – about nanomanufacturing.
  • ONLINE Industrial Metabolism (Robert U. Ayres & Udo E. Simonis) – looking at industrial society as an ecosystem.
  • ONLINE BRICs and Beyond (Goldman Sachs) – conventional economic projections indicating the BRICs will become the preeminent economic powers by the middle of the century.
  • ONLINE China Debates the Future Security Environment (Michael Pillsbury) – how Chinese geostrategists view the world.
  • ONLINE How the World will change with Global Warming (Trausti Valsson) – the Arctic will become the center of the world and human populations will have to migrate north.
  • ONLINE True Names (Vernor Vinge) – as the Singularity approaches, the distinction between virtual reality and fantasy will converge to zero.
  • ONLINE Unrestricted Warfare (Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui) – the increasing inter-connectedness of world society, especially as manifested in cyberspace, means that the distinctions between military and civilian systems, and peace and war, are disappearing.
  • ONLINE Power to the Edge (David Alberts & Richard Hayes) – the vital importance of interconnectedness and lower-level decision-making to success in future war.

http://www.singularity2050.com/2009/04/the-impact-of-computing-78-more-per-year-v20.html

http://www.singularity2050.com/2007/08/top-ten-transhu.html

http://futurist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/05/a_future_timeli.html

http://futurist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/02/a_future_timeli.html

http://futurist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/02/a_future_timeli.html

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/10/empire200610

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/12/banks200812

The Quiet Coup (Simon Johnson)

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