Oligarchic Jousting vs republicanism

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The IM-1776 review Neo Feudalism or New Class War is ,as good non fiction book reviews should be, a thoughtful look at the books and discussion of the core thesis.

Michael Lind in The New Class War and Joel Kotkin in The Coming of Neo-Feudalism both demonstrate the defunct nature of the ‘socially liberal, fiscally conservative’ worldview that dominated post-Cold War politics. Lind’s central contention is that, because it creates vast power inequalities, class matters as much now as in pre-modern politics, in spite of our democratic aspirations. Kotkin, on the other hand, argues that class divisions now resemble the Middle Ages specifically. Both books herald a society we should strive to avoid.

IM-1776, Neo Feudalism or New Class War, Henry George

As a side note IM-1776, an online magazine, appears to be a very promising source of thoughtful discussion on society from a somewhat acerbic point of view.

Have not read either book, but have them on the list of possible future reads. Possible because from Mr. George’s review I have to say that I have absorbed much of what they think from a broad swath of other reading and my own thinking on the topic of where we are and where we might be going. It is also interesting that Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) our populist public philosopher seems to be paralleling the threads woven here but I see his perceptions as being driven from dynamic understanding of the online gestalt rather than analytical sourcing.

Put rather bluntly the gestalt of the populace regarding their own nation is largely illusory. That while the theory and form of gov’t is one thing the reality is largely different. While we think this is a republic where the ‘will of the people’ rules the reality is that a small number of people establish what that ‘will’ is through control of the focus of the media and the ‘rules of the game’ via law and regulation.

If you look beyond America, at some extreme examples, you may see a distorted mirror of this. That in places like the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, the ‘people’ who could rise up and blot out the ‘establishment’ don’t. Because the ‘hive mind’ that is our base perception is convinced that the status quo is as good as it gets or at worst is so ingrained with everyone else that your rising against would be useless.

Recently Scott Adams pointed out that Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook invested 10’s of millions in changing the voting rules in many places to increase the % of people voting. That you might see this as a driving factor in why certain places saw unprecedented voting, which tipped the balance to Zombie Joe instead of Orange Man Bad. (Now I happen to think that unprecedented levels of cheating had something to do with this as well but am willing to see MZ’s contribution as having a large, perhaps overwhelming effect… perhaps by making cheating easier?)

So Scott Adams said, (roughly) maybe Mark Zuckerberg’s is really the only vote that counted in this last election. Please note that Scott Adam’s is purposefully hyperbolic in many cases to get his thoughts to stick ‘directionally’ (which is how he sees a lot of Trump’s messaging on Twitter.)

What has evolved in the Post Cold War west is a form of Oligarchy with a surface wash of Republican representative democracy. The forms that Japan, Korea, Europe, even Russia and China took on are in essence what we have evolved to. You could say that the US was ALWAYS this way to some significant extent. With the Oligarchs jousting, politely’ each other and to a large extent, ‘following the will of the people.’ And if that then those other states maybe saw this more clearly than ‘we’ did and followed along since it clearly left the Oligarchs in charge while also providing them a safety buffer against the pitchforks and tiki torches.

If this is the future (and maybe it explains the past?) then one has to hope that the oligarchs who manipulate (for that is what it is) the people’s thinking have the best interests of the country in mind and are smart enough to know what that is before the results of past actions come to fruition. Because the rest of us are going to be suffering when the ‘best minds’ screw up.

Noble Intention = Elite Pretension Elites, intentions, nobility, lies

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I do not know the answer to the question: What can we do to slow the the spread of an airborne disease such as COVID 19. What I do know is that approaches with some history have been massively abused. Often with ‘noble’ intentions but to the detriment of the populace.

  • Quarantine – traditionally the people who have the disease. In this case the people most obviously at risk, the elderly. Where this has been implemented it seems to help, BUT the negative impact on the individuals and their family are significant. In the end will this be shown to have been a disaster because of the isolation killing tens of thousands by suicide and drug overdose? Also abuse of this by sending infected into ‘isolation’ wards that weren’t sufficiently isolated killed thousands.
    • The ultimate abuse of quarantine is the tyrannical lock downs, has damaged the economy to the detriment of everyone and in all likelihood killed tens of thousands if not more through overdose, suicide and delay of medical attention to lethal but treatable medical problems.
  • Social Distancing – a modern form of soft quarantine (needs very specific circumstances to mean much.) Where companies implemented for critical staff it appears reasonable, its bland plastering on ever floor in every stored seems silly.
  • Masks – traditional but misunderstood: It stops you from spreading vastly more than catching. Along with social distancing it is reasonable for limiting spread if followed well enough.
  • Crowds indoors – known bad BUT: space and air handling is very important, driving many gatherings into homes was a stupidly obvious result of stopping certain types of events.
  • Crowds outdoors – People need to get out and sunlight and exercise, good feelings are seriously helpful. And the chances of spreading especially in the day is near nil. Health enhancements massively outweigh risks for most. Of course then supporting rioting at night made the rules look political and stupid.
  • Restaurants/bars – Obvious targets of concern. But crowd limitations and rules about cleaning and masking mitigate issues. The ability to get out and mingle in reasonably controlled environment along with the support of the economy outweigh risks.

At the start of all this if the elite (gov’t, medical, media) had acted with open clarity about what was known and unknown. There might have been a chance to get through the last nine months without the breakdown we are seeing.

Politics, especially ‘orange man bad’ was a starting point for the majority of the elite, spin, narcissism and gotcha were key issues especially in what was seen as an existential election year. Lies, more lies and counter lies to control of information, opinion and public activity spun out so that the general populace at this point pretty much ignores whatever is said other than as a sort of televised comedy/drama.

The following and at the link is a fairly mild analysis of the issue from the CATO institute via Instapundit

The main political conflict in recent years is between experts or elites and non‐experts. For lack of a better word, the non‐experts are called populists. Their complaints have been specific: Elites and experts are arrogant, they have different values, they condescend in annoying ways, they ignore the sometimes legitimate concerns of populists, among others. Experts say that they should be listened to because they’re more knowledgeable. We see it in debates on every issue from climate change to trade, immigration, and everything in between.

CATO Institute: Against the Noble Lie – COVID 19s Edition (March of 2020)

Noble intention = Elite pretension

Lasers and rail guns oh my

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So linked at the bottom is a file by the congressional research service regarding the progress the Navy is making on laser weapons, rail guns and hyper velocity smart munitions. Not the best topic for Christmas Season but oh well.

A series of articles in the Drive and elsewhere have discussed the progress in laser weapons over the last few years. To recap, a technology that was discovered as a fairly early practical application of quantum theory evolved into an important digital communications tool where the demand for longer distance between repeaters drove the power up to a point where cutting material like paper was practical that evolved into cutting steel which provided the basis for weapons grade systems although the military R&D complex had been exploring alternative paths for decades.

Now real systems (in the sense of shooting down light weight drones or setting outboard motors on fire, as well as dazzling or spotting) are being deployed and fairly aggressive plans are being made. There still remain problems with the technology though many of them are resolvable. And like earlier many pieces are being worked on for civilian reason, not the least in the field of astronomy where light transmission through the atmosphere is important and the brain power is deep and unfettered by military R&D issues.

In the end it is not clear that at sea is the best place to locate a laser weapon but ships are (relatively) big and have (relatively) large power systems so they are a good early trial. If lasers can be of value there they are going to make it other places as the technology improves.

Rail guns…what can you say (I could say a fair amount but won’t) they are the technology of the future and have been my whole adult life. I spent a couple of years involved with them and that is enough to tell me that there are a lot of fundamental problems that appear surmountable in early hand waving but are practically insurmountable as you get closer and closer to reality.

The ‘rail’ part of the gun has most of the problems of a powder gun barrel of erosion, fatigue, stress, compounded by huge electromagnetic forces in the metal itself. Vastly more complex than a simple bang tube. The energy required is huge but not only that it has to be released in a controlled manner at several times the rate of an explosion since the energy and the power are both higher than the propellant ‘burn’ of a powder weapon. Modern power electronics can handled this but they are not light and the resultant waste heat instead of exiting the barrel in a plume of plasma is retained in the energy storage device and switching system, none of which can be dowsed with water like you can do with a gun barrel.

Every 5 years or so since the seventies the rail gun has popped up as a candidate to replace the powder cannon of the day. Each time more of the hurdles identified in the last round are knocked down. But then new hurdles appear, often more complex than those dealt with and hidden by the earlier barriers.

And at the end of the day is the result worth the price? In WWI and WWII guns of prodigious range were developed but made no difference in the end. Mostly filling in for fighter bombers when the weather was crappy or the target too diffuse to be worth risking a pilot/aircraft.

In the early days (the 1970’s) of the rail gun its potential range and rate of fire appeared very attractive especially for Naval support gunfire. 100 miles and 10 rounds a minute of lethal kinetic punch were very much of interest to the amphibious forces. Since they were powered by electricity and fuel is relatively cheap + plentiful and the rounds compact, the ‘depth of magazine’ was fantastic. And all of this is still deeply interesting. But. In the end is this really what you need? In WWII through Desert Storm this capability set would have been game changing. Today? Maybe not.

The round designed (successfully) for the rail gun, can fit in any of our current 155mm class cannons. These guns with their 52 caliber barrels can punch the round out to 40 miles or more. The round is guided and has shown the ability to shoot down a cruise missile ! So it is as accurate as you like. It’s ‘shortfall’ in modern ops game theory is that it is a bit slow for shooting down ballistic missiles or reaching the outer theater to shoot down other high performance targets. But there are missiles that can do that and the attrition cost of a missile on that sort of target is worth it.

40 miles is not 100 miles, some targets are out of reach, you cannot stand off as far or reach in as far to destroy targets. But in reality is that an issue? If you think that you are going into amphibious war against hostile beaches maybe. But you have to assume that you can destroy the enemies area denial defenses (Because otherwise why worry about 100mile standoff?) so you can get the amphibious forces in close enough to get on and over the beach at acceptable cost. None of that appears realistic today. While some kind of Eurasian Fascist Empire and air tight anti strategic defenses might create an existential threat that triggered WWIII and the concomitant bloodbath this scenario is simply not on the table now or foreseeable in the next twenty years.

For now we have Taiwan and the South China Sea as the most likely battleground for near peer conflict. ——— OK no one ever really KNOWS what is coming next, the Med, the Baltic, maybe somewhere in Oceana might go south with zingers but none of those have the deep resources required to cause an existential threat or survive an attrition campaign long enough to make the rail gun a potential player——

To continue, while T and SCS are both in their way an argument for that extended range neither is going to be resolved in any way by one weapon. Neither are any other scenarios one might game other that EFE+ATSD above and that ain’t goin to happen (yet.)

So? Lasers…full speed ahead, look to the sky, 150kW on a fighter is a game changer. Rail guns…spend some money, let the Chinese trial their barge, see if they have solved the problems, they haven’t but what do I know? Hyper (or High) velocity smart munitions,…go, go, go power rangers !

Congressional Research Service Report on Lasers, Rail Guns and Hyper Velocity Rounds, via the US Naval Institute Proceedings website.

Modes of War

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War in the western civilian mind has been debased and fetishized. And these ways of ‘seeing’ war limit our perspective on the reality.

Huh? You may say, what the heck does that mean? So let me expand:

War has been debased in the common vernacular by declaring war on the depression, then poverty, drugs now on inequality, racism, etc (mainly by progressives riffing on their First World War success .) Here the mental model of war is the turning of the states blunt tools of expropriation and exploitation to the ‘good’ of raising some group or suppressing some evil. The thing they overlook is that the tools are authoritarian and often counter productive, destroying on one end while delivering ‘something’ at the other. In the original meaning of war, (at least the good war of self protection, not war of aggression) the destruction on your end is acceptable since your expectation is that the ‘other’ will cause far greater damage if they win. But when used in this self targeted context you are essentially damaging/destroying something you do not value (for whatever reason) to provide some ‘good’ to another (for some other reason.)

And war has been fetishized in the minds of most by the recent American experience of essentially total battlefield domination and near bloodless success (those who bleed are mostly ‘the bad guys.’) This has been metastasized by military video games that while they make clear the messiness of the battlefield also make it glamorous and episodic. Exotic weapons and robotic precision make things look all very neat. But also there is our memory of WWI and WWII and Desert Storm and even the first months in Afghanistan and Iraq. Domination and victory, spoiled by purported lies and then stupidity of trying to change cultures we do not understand.

So war is debased to massive government intervention on one hand and on the other the fetishized ability to break the other’s toys and make them do what we want. But these views of war, government directed war, war with parades and victories and tragedies and stories we can tell each other’s, providing historians and anthropologists grist for their mills may be relics of the past in our globalized age.

What if war is no long any of that? Properly envisioned it was/is never something you turn on yourself. Seen clearly it is never something that you can predictably win. No war in the modern era been what governments tell their populace it is, nor are they what the memories of the participants remember them being.

Clausewitz is famous for ‘War is diplomacy carried on by other means,’ Sun Tzu pointed out that misdirection is the heart of war. What if real war today outside of the fratricidal, is non kinetic and never ending?

What are the modes of war today. Strategic, Cyber, Economic, Kinetic, Propaganda, Tactical, Commercial, Geographic, Genocide, Civil, Bio, Nuclear, Chemical, Political…

Huh? Some of these things are not like the other you say? And maybe you are right but I say that war has broken the bounds of the geographic/naval/aerial field of battle and has bled out into the world in general.

I will close with a thought…. What if an enemy realized that they could make use something as unexciting as a novel disease and modern media’s defining need for ‘bad news’ to terrify populations into ‘a crouch’ that would make political control easier. And by use of basic propaganda and twisted truths could make the politicians of their unsuspecting opponent break their own economy and even break down the social trust that is required in a modern open cultural polity.

The above does not require any particularly lethal bug, or any large scale distribution of battle plans. All the enemy needs is a leadership willing to make use of the ‘main chance’ and a cadre of workers willing to take direction. Nothing needs to be said, ever.

You do not win a war this way but you win a battle this way. Maybe you win several battles. Damage an enemies economy, damage their self confidence, maybe bring down their most effective leadership with some directed propaganda and a few tools.

Now maybe a more compliant government comes into power. You have been pushing on some geographic restrictions but have been held back by your adversaries strong leadership. With that leadership gone now you can push more heavily and gain some more ground.

Maybe your aggression causes more reaction and eventually the ridiculously erratic opponent once more selects a more trenchant government and puts the brakes on. But one more nibble has been taken, an enemy has been weakened a little bit. All that is required is time and constant purpose to win, and a nation with a multi thousand year history can take the long view.

The individual

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The big difference between the West and the Rest is the concept of the individual. Something that has been ‘forgotten’ or more realistically ‘suppressed’ in this our ‘post modern’ world. It is something easily missed if you do not have a rich background not in pure history but in social, economic, philosophic and practical history.

Starting with ‘the rest’ there is what is most likely an evolutionary base state of biological relatives, clan and tribe, those who we are of and who we know.

For a million years our ancestors operated in family groups, hunting groups, nomadic bands, of varying sizes and proximity depending on resources and most likely personal power. The family group was the natural base unit, not our family of mother and father but a more power based prime and his or her immediate family and then close relatives and a relational entourage.

While in the most basic state this family group could be either maternal or paternal in nature in most cases it would be physical in basis and paternal, with occasions where circumstances lead to a maternally lead or co leadership. Not getting into the development of language and our brain it is very likely that this development was biased by the ‘natural’ circumstances and lead to a paternal bias.

In the nomadic hunter gatherer state there is no real demarcation between family discipline, clan rule and religion, it is all one and the world is alive with thinking alien beings because our ancestors would have no conception of self as different from other. Superstition, ghosts, magic are all in the world. Like us these people would tend to idealize the past and childhood and so elders and then those who have passed develop a powerful mystique leading to ancestor worship.

As sedentary habits developed along with more complex societies and more hierarchy, ancestor worship tends to develop a formalized place in the society and the head of the family develops a priest like persona. As the hierarchy develops with time and population the family heads of the leading families develop into an aristocracy. Hierarchy being ‘natural’ the head of family is the most important figure and all others subsidiary. Often the mate of the leader is next most important, often symbolically, sometimes with nominal power. Then come heirs and possible heirs along with direct and near relatives. Then depending on the circumstances of time and history, would come lesser relatives, entourage members, hangers on, servants…slaves.

Thus evolves the PaterFamilias the GodFather, the ClanHead the chief, the chieftain, the king. As the sedentary society develops to a certain extant it becomes more possible for some surplus of resources to be accrued and then used. This may be communal at first but the chief has a big say and the chief can use the surplus to ‘pay’ for certain things. For protection, psychic, physical, social. As in any possible society the chief has a small inner circle, the circle members have circles. The nearer the chief you are the more power you are likely to have. Though, as with feral cliques today, individual members may be extremely marginal to the group.

This is the world we first start to see in recorded history. These societies became highly sophisticated and wide spread though far from global, or even continental in scope. In these societies the head of family was the only really important person, all others were subordinate with their self defined by their relationship (inherent and developed) to the head the main measure of their importance. They were not individuals they were members of sub classes and ‘knew their place’ in the society and would act to suppress anyone who stepped out of line, because it destroyed that understanding of worth.

Even the PaterFamilias was defined by position and if they fell from that position they were essentially non persons. This is something one should take into account when reading history in this historical past, actions that to us seem illogical were often driven by what we might see as a pathological need to maintain their place in society. It happens today but it is really pathological now because we should not define ourselves by our position and relation to others, though we do, a ‘natural’ hang over from our deep deep past.

In that world the old gods, demigods, demons etc explained much that had once been explained by animistic magic. It was always about heirarchy and your position vs the ‘real power.’

Into this world came the monotheistic religions. There were multiple starts and they most likely had philosophical links one to the other over hundreds or even a few thousand years. But eventually there was Judaism with its powerful emphasis on the god and a personal relationship to god for all members of the faith, though the relationship has a strong blood line connection which limited the impact. Then came Christianity which expanded the potential for membership to all mankind.

We can talk forever about the reality of the Christ and the Resurrection and many other events of the epoch but they are beyond the scope of this discussion. What the church that Paul created out the fabric of Jesus of Nazareth’s life did, was call out to those who felt hollow in the ancient regime, whose life as defined by their relationship to the PaterFamilias was empty of real meaning. Everyone has worth, everyone has a connection to the Christ, to God. You have inherent value equal to anyone else but no more, you are responsible for your actions and responsible for what you leave behind in this world.

And because Paul ended his apostolic work in Rome he established what was to become the path to the individual. Rome tried to suppress Christianity but eventually, through the back door of mothers and servants, saints and heroes, it built an eminence that forced the emperor to become Christian. Probably in the hope of subverting the faith but in the very long run with the result of it becoming a form of government unto itself separated from the political world. Over a thousand years and more the Catholic (universal) Church grew and spread and reached out first across Rome and then Rome and Byzantium and then far beyond the original secular boundaries. And the bishops and their clerks did battle (usually on paper or papyrus) with the emperors, kings, dukes, caliphs, to establish the Church as responsible for the soul of all the people, high and low, while the secular rulers were responsible for right rule and ‘happiness’ of the people.

Unintentionally this developed into a foundational philosophy that defines ‘the West.’ That every person is an individual with rights and worth that are equal before God (the universe) and before the Law (the government, other people.) It also definitively decided the secular and the sacred as two realms that should not intersect. The sacred should not Rule the Secular, the Secular cannot rule the Sacred. They are different realms one focused on the individual re the Universe. The other the integration of individuals in society.

If you look out across the world, Asia, Africa, Pacifica and pointedly the Islamic world, this evolution of the Individual, and its concomitant separation of secular and personal/sacred/religion, never occurred. It is a thing that people see when described, and feel once embedded in it but it is not native to those societies. It is something quite antithetical to some of those societies while quite easily integrated in others

Islam has Sharia, demanding obedience to the one God and a hierarchy of subservience that is at odds with the individual and the separation of the secular and sacred. You have Asia which, generically and simplistically, subsumes the secular and sacred in the nation/government/hierarchy and expects the individual to ‘worship’ this gestalt (in many ways very much like Marxism.) You have much of the rest of the world ‘Africa and Pacifica’ which is still extremely tribal, with a headman and hierarchy, where the perceived ‘cult’ of the individual is destructive in that it makes the cannon fodder think they have value.

So what?

I claim that the West is defined in part, by one very simple concept. That the individual has value in and of themself. Every person matters however young or old, damaged or heroic. That a closely related principle is that the secular and sacred realms do not overlap other than in the individual and thus are separate spheres as the individual is sovereign.

Every person has value to the universe and to society. Every person is responsible for themselves in the ‘eyes’ of the universe and society. No one can be responsible for any other responsible individual.

The problems I see in the ‘West’ today are caused by a long term breakdown of education and social learning due to both knowing and unknowing destruction of teaching the young and educating the populous.

We spout platitudes about individual rights and responsibility but do not root that in a social fabric. We have allowed our societies enemies to take the reins of education both active (schools) and passive (media) and trash the reality of what came before in the banal hope that ‘a better idea’ is in the wings. The enemy boosts the narcissistic tendencies of Individualism, see gender bending, et al, to destroy the root concept of the individual as having Value in the eyes the Universe (God) and society.

The espousal of individual value is the most powerful concept in our society. This does not mean that we are free of all bonds, we are responsible for ourselves as well and that means responsible for our mind, body, family, society and universe inasmuch as it touches us. But if everyone has value then every last pervert, criminal, fool, teacher, hero is of value independent of their being or history. Self aware machines would fall under this, as well as every human ever conceived and every living thing…this does not mean we have to starve because the lettuce plant might ‘want’ to go to seed on down the line to some reasonable level of ethical behavior on our part and the part of society.

I leave you to think about this, I am putting this down as my understanding right now. Not some timeless philosophy of all. And i understand that some ramifications of the above are unsettling but that is the way of the world we live in, there is no perfection, just striving.

Paradox of the state

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The paradox is that we must judge the state not according to what we would do if we controlled it, but in the light of what it could do if our enemies controlled it. It’s existence, like nuclear weapons become a factor in itself. The playwright Robert Bolt understood what the Bolivarians did not: the state can be dangerous unless it can be made predictable. As one of Bolt’s plays puts it: “the law is not a ‘light’ for you or any man to see by; the law is not an instrument of any kind. …The law is a causeway upon which, so long as he keeps to it, a citizen may walk safely.”

Batteries Batteries Batteries 

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A good artcle on batteries in Power Electronics, triggered by  the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Debacle, and the not to distant past mess with the ‘hover board’ craze. The article links to a pretty detailed recent study of coming high power density battery technologies.   

The eMagazine http://www.powerelectronicsnews.com/ is a good source on power electronics across the power and technology range. A good way to keep up on a rapidly changing field.

The article talks about a variety of battery chemistries including sodium as shown in the following graphic.

An enormous variety of sodium-ion battery variations are being considered by researchers worldwide as surveyed here regarding their operation voltages versus specific capacities for cathode materials (a) and anode materials (b) in order to find a combination that make them competitive with Li-ion. SOURCE: Macmillan Publishers Ltd

However the main reason I show this graphic is the incredible density of information that the graphic data presenter/artist at Macmillan Publishers was able to insert into a relatively small and simple chart. For me as a technologist this gives me the ability to data dive and compare and contrast very quickly when considering alternatives. My experience in buying reports or data repositiories of one sort or another is that the quality of this sort of chart is key to the value of the document

iPad Pro 12.9″ + Pencil + Keyboard Cover

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Looks like any other iPad from any distance

So I’m an iPad Pro user of the 12.9″ kind and I bought the pencil at the same time.  I have been happy with the combo from the first but it has only gotten better with each update of the software.  I take notes on it with penultimate and use various drawing even engineering aps with it. I have to say that for engineering CAD I still like a mouse better but I think that could change with an even bigger pad with the Pro+Pencile experience.

the miraculous Apple pencil (usage will vary)

Recently I started to work on upping my game by learning more about modern programming languages and techniques. I find that the explosion of on line learning assets is mind boggling and the LinkedInLearning (was Lynda.com) is an endless source of nerdly enjoyment. Along with SoloLearn and other toools the world is my oyster. Except that I still don’t like the on screen keyboard, especially when I have a lesson video and programming window open.

The nice if not perfect keyboard cover

I read all the horror stories and kudos and tend to side with the latter. The keyboard is actually pretty good for touch typing (and I know my stuff I write novels, several million words worth, on ThinkPads, sometimes Dell, I buy Leonovo because the keyboards are great and the chassis rugged.) THe package is short enough to sit easily on a tray or on my lapdesk. It’s not awfully heavy (just a awkwardly heavy) and I do in fact change covers frequently, using the plain one when I’m not planning on doing education or writing.

While the combo is not a laptop replacment it is a surrogate of sorts. I’m an addict I know it, I use up 50-80% of the battery almost every day I read fiction and history as well as watch/listen to educational stuff, I spend way too much time on Verge, Wired, Space101, Phys.org, Instapundit and others. With the pencil and the keyboard its essentially a library equivalent briefcase about the size of a thick magazine.

Macworld and others are saying that Pro2 is coming out in the next year, along with a 10.N” and mini 7.N.”, also rumors of a cheap seat. I have to wonder if this is really a refresh of the line, three or four sizes across that range makes sense and I think having the capability to use the pencil and a keyboard cover make a great deal of sense for the line. Not sure about the entry level rumor, does not seem very Apple to me.

Macworld also mentions that in 2018, when the iPhone is probably going AMOLED and possibly bezzless, the Pro line will as well. My question is why not the whole line though the potential for a staged role out of the technology like the alternate year tempo with the iPhone makes sense.

All I can say is that if there is a a New Pro in 2018 with AMOLED flex panel probably smaller overall dimensions and lighter…please keep the battery life the same or make it better…hear me Apple, please!?

Grid growth and wealth

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A recent article about the impact of electric grid power expansion in India and Africa peaked my interest and so reviewed some of the papers on the topic spanning decades. While I obviously can’t declare definite conclusions they seem to point to problems with base assumptions made by advocates of broad electrification.

The blog post was a quick review of a couple of recent studies discussing the expansion of electric power to villagers in rural India and Kenya. The studies are very different looking for different things. But they both show that the expected economic boost from the build out of the electrical power grid has not arrived, at least not yet, and some of the data indicates a net negative impact.

In general it appears that the cost of the service is too high to pay off for these poor farmers/villagers is modest at best and in some ways is a net negative.

This is contrary the experience in places and times, most specifically the US where rural electrification was a vast boost to the economy.

The situation needs study but the thing that comes to my mind is that the served populace needs a certain amount of wealth to make use of electricity.  On its own electricity does nothing, its what it enables that is the important thing.  Many of the areas that have already electrified were both relatively wealthy and had existing in service infrastructure that could be made more productive powered by electricity rather than the prior human, animal, steam or wind power.

Today the urge is to spread the grid out into the poorest rural areas, these are subsistence farmers not commercial farmers and these people have little or no infrastructure to make more productive. Not to say that they cannot move up the chain with time but the move from subsistence to commercial farming is non trivial. Transportation infrastructure and marketing/sales infrastructure are critical while cell phones are a huge enabler the rest of the picture is still fuzzy at best.

Also one has to wonder if this uplift isn’t facing a very stiff counter wind from the global economy. It is very cheap to move products in bulk across the major transport networks it could be that farmers, selling a local staple product will find it very hard to compete even if the distance to market is relatively short.

Though this is only one data point, it seems to point out that implementation of small scale solar/battery systems for light and telecom are the most important stepping stone for these subsistence farming communities.  That the improvement of transportation infrastructure might be of value before a major build out of electrical grids.