Many good points Jed, except perhaps your conclusion "We have free will" which may be something we can't help thinking :)
Talking about Cold Fusion and climate, it just occurred to me that unlimited cheap energy of non solar origin for the masses will necessarily promote global warming, unlike solar cells, wind power or biomass burning for example. Have you quantified this in your prospective work? Michel ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jed Rothwell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]>; <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2006 12:20 AM Subject: Re: [Vo]: New Segway Products > Edmund Storms wrote: > >>Unfortunately, free energy would not solve the problem. Free energy >>would mean the Middle Eastern countries would be even poorer than >>they presently are. > > Probably, but that will be their choice, and the outcome will be their fault. > > >>The countries have long since exhausted the environment of useful >>minerals, the climate is too dry for extensive agriculture, and most >>of the soil is poor thanks to centuries of poor management. > > As I pointed out in my book, with cold fusion you can make any > climate as wet as you like, with a massive desalination project. You > can also reverse soil depletion, and for that matter, you can grow > all of your food indoors and not worry about the land (although I > hope people will worry about it, and take care of it). All of these > things can be done, but whether they will be done or not is a matter > of choice or free will. > > >> A country needs to produce something the rest of the world wants. > > I do not think that will be as true in the future. I think people > will be more autonomous, particularly in the far distant future when > manufacturing is done entirely with robots and local resources are > intensely recycled using high-energy techniques. However, any country > anywhere can produce something the rest of the world wants. Places > like Japan and Singapore have practically no material resources. If > resources mattered, Japan would be dirt poor and Mexico would be one > of the wealthiest countries in the world. > > As I said in the book, and just this week translated into Japanese: > > "Many people have a sneaking suspicion that cold fusion must be too > good to be true, because nature never does something for nothing. > They think everything is difficult, and there is always a price to > pay for the bounty of nature. Resources are now and always will be in > short supply, and we must therefore compete with others to get our > share. Such people are mired in a stone-age mentality. The only > resources we lack are knowledge and science. Knowledge is power, and > with it we can unlock the unthinkably vast material and energy > resources of the earth, and ultimately of the entire solar system. . . ." > > All notions of wealth and poverty, and probably the entire notion of > economic systems will become meaningless in the distant future. This > is the trend of history already, as I point out in chapter 21. By the > standards of the past, all of us in the first world are fabulously > wealthy and we all have godlike powers. > > In some poverty-stricken third world countries in Africa politics, > corruption, war, overpopulation and lack of resources have kept > people in misery against their will. But in the Middle East countries > such as Iran, Iraq and Egypt there is plenty of wealth and education. > These people have, in effect, chosen to make themselves miserable. > Their problem is culture, history and politics, not religion. Muslim > people in India and in the US are as wealthy as anyone else. As a US > Army general said the other day regarding Iraq, they have to choose > whether "they love their children more than they hate their > neighbor." So far, they have chosen hate. But that may change. You > never know what people will do next. We have free will. > > - Jed > >
