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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (41526)	9/19/2012 7:01:16 PM
From: axial	Respond to of 46821

No problem, Frank. We differ on aspects of the future. It's a question of what happens when synergies turn negative. While there have been short-term dips - wars, disease, recessions - since the Industrial Revolution began 250 years ago, man's ascent has been a steady increase in consumption, especially energy. We haven't discussed concurrent increases in population, environmental degradation, climate change and resource depletion: these parallel the rise in energy cost. Many dismiss all signs of accelerating decline. Simultaneously they see technology as savior, while I see it at best as a mitigator: vital to those who emerge successfully from the greatest transition in human history. People speak of a better future. They promise things like repatriation of jobs without considering energy and resource implications in an economy with decaying infrastructure that can't meet today's needs. Where is the money to decommission ageing nuclear plants, never mind build new ones? As demand for electrification increases against the rise in copper prices, will cheap alternatives appear? Temporarily, maybe. Permanently? No. It's a gradual slope, still with no general perception of change. People assume the experience of the last 250 years or so will continue with minor adjustments. Why not? They've never known anything different. Neither have their fathers, or their father's fathers. Growth and technology are the religion of our time. I have no faith in mankind's current trajectory, but great faith in human resourcefulness and adaptability -- attributes that will be needed by those who emerge from the transition. Accelerating decline, almost imperceptible now: admitted, an outlier view. Unpalatable, instinctively rejected by most. Heresy. Apologies, and I'll take these ideas to a new thread: The Vortex. Regards, Jim