Charlie StrossMar 16

RE: https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/116232524241982831

Additional note: when foodprices rocket, that is ALMOST ALWAYS the trigger for civil unrest and revolutions. (The other is a fiscal/tax/revenue crisis, caused by government turning into rent-seeking by the rich *and* trying to fund a war simultaneously, as with the French Revolution.)

Does this look familiar to you, too?

Show threadGraydonMar 16

@cstross Right-to-repair is a huge issue for farm equipment.

One of the reasons is not so much that the OEM prices are high is that the stocks of spares are sized based on the order rate against the high prices; you order it, they make it, and you get it many weeks later.

Combine "the software servers are down" with "the supply chain to the plant that makes spares is disrupted" with "fuel prices are too high for profitable farming according to the financial system" and food supply shrinks.

Show threadGraydonMar 16

@cstross What I think people don't get is that the farm skillset in the US is in old people (on the whole and by and large), COVID has been hard on them, and the ethnic cleansing has taken away big chunks of the skills base.

Compelled system change in a context where you've got some patrician landowners and invalidated-axioms agribusiness and not much else is not going to hold together so well. Then throw in the extreme weather events, plural, the US has already had through the Midwest.

Show threadGraydonMar 16

@cstross A lot of this has been driven by a desire to re-open Russia's sales channels so they can afford their war of conquest. (Dropped sanctions by the US, calls from the EU right, etc.)

We're seeing late stage Carbon Binge efforts to use military force to be the last supplier standing.

What we aren't seeing yet is the Coalition to Decarbonize; I think we're gonna, and then we're going to see military efforts to prevent any such thing.

Society insists you buy gas, even when there isn't any.

Show threadCharlie StrossMar 16
@graydon I suspect the "Coalition to Decarbonize" is going to be led by China, as a matter of Party Doctrine (if my read on Xi is accurate), with India and the EU joining in for hopefully-obvious reasons. That's half the world population right there, with nukes and a large military-industrial complex.
Show threadGraydon

@cstross I don't think India can join. Too much incumbency.

It's kinda strange, really; is Xi's ruthlessness and the tottery state of China's economy a consequence of "get with the program or else, comrade" or is he doing the bloody-handed tyrant power consolidation thing? is it going to be possible to distinguish these cases in Xi's (or my!) lifetime? Probably not.

Mar 16 at 1:40pmWeb
Show threadGraydonMar 16

@cstross The "every empire established since the late medieval has exploited a power source" take goes slaves (Spain; slaves existed since time immemorial, but not the way Spain did it); coal (Britain); oil (US); electricity (China).

It's not that neat in the historical record but there's a lot to be said for it as an analysis, even before it makes George H. W. Bush the greatest villain in human history.

One of the exceedingly frustrating things is that anyone else could go electric anytime.

Show threadBruno NicolettiMar 16
@graydon @cstross The slaves thing is surely somewhat older than the Spanish empire. c.f. Ceaser’s conquest Gaul.
Show threadGraydonMar 16

@bjn @cstross Having slaves, yes. Enslaving the conquered, also yes.

Spain's use of slaves as feedstock rather than assets? Not purely novel ("sent to the salt mines" is also ancient) but as a systemic element? Arguably novel.

Show threadBruno NicolettiMar 16
@graydon @cstross Slaves were totally systemic in the ancient world and one of the drivers for Roman and other imperial expansion. Bastards have been around forever.
Show threadGraydonMar 16

@bjn @cstross Slaves and slavery were systemic, yes.

The Spanish Empire "these are industrial feedstock" take and mechanisms can be argued for being novel; I do not have the expertise to have a strong opinion about the argument, but find it at least plausible. (How well one can really make the distinction between "is this capital or a consumable?" looking at Roman practices is a tough and circumstantial question.)

Show threadCharlie StrossMar 16

@graydon The verdict of 100-year-plus history may be that the UK got lucky by having the Brexit referendum before things got bad globally—as of 2026 there's a wide majority who think it was a terrible idea and want back in with the large, moderate neighbouring bloc.

(Situation weirded by (a) fascist ratfucking, bankrolled by the oligarchs, and (b) a gigantic protest vote (maybe as big as 60% of the voting electorate) saying "none of the above" to the old incumbent parties in an FPTP system.)