New blog entry: The Pivot: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2025/10/the-pivot-1.html
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Discussion
+1 insightful.
The one quibble I'd have is "the end of Moore's law" - which has been predicted for 20 years now. The reality is technology moves in s-curves, and yes - the semiconductor S-curve is near the end, we won't get another order-of-magnitude improvement in photolithography - but there's multiple S-curves, and photolithography itself was a paradigm shift, and there will be others. Honestly - we grossly underutilize the insane amounts of power we have, hardware outstripped software practice in like the 80's. And the new S-curves in software are paradigm shifts, not process - the inventions of things like the web and PKI and (sadly) cryptocurrency. Guarantee you 20 years from now in computing there will be a new big thing, basically unanticipated right now - and it'll run on the hardware that exists today.
This turned out to be unexpectedly optimistic in a long-road-ahead solarpunk kind of way..
@cstross As you say, the geopolitics is going to be “interesting”. Renewables insulate countries with minimal fossil resources from global energy prices, wind and sunshine are free after all (well until a hedge fund can figure a way to monetise them). You may need to import panels/turbines, but doing that every 25 years is much more secure than having to constantly import fuels. This has really been the main drive behind China’s “electrify everything and use renewables to do that” strategy.
@cstross And happy birthday.
@cstross Great essay. Good news, renewables have caused the peaking of fossil electricity generation in H1 2025. Growth in global solar and wind generation now outpaces growth in electricity demand leading to a 0.6% reduction in coal generation and 0.2% for gas.
I have hope, but idiots like Trump, Badenoch and Farage make me so bloody angry when they double down on zombie technologies like coal, gas and nuclear.
FWIW wholesale solar is 9.8c/W last time I checked.
https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/solar-and-wind-met-all-electricity-demand-growth-in-h1-2025/
@cstross I still feel we are living through 1989, but in reverse. One generation after winning over the soviet empire because of economical neglect, the US seems to be collapsing because of political neglect…
@cstross happy birthday for the weekend, fella. Hope it’s a good one 🍻
@cstross Also note that Switzerland largely switched to PET-R, i.e. recycled PET for bottles, which is significant as up to now, PET was recycled into lower value plastics…
@cstross
Happy almost nearly birthday!
Happy almost nearly birthday!
("HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY" I believe Owl spelled it for Eeyore)
@cstross Spot on, absolutely brilliant!
There is a new world waiting to be born. It's delivery will be messy and painful. But we must be ready to help envision and build that future!
@cstross It would be nice if we could replace cryptocoins and generative LLM AI with aluminum-coin. And its close relative magnesium-coin.
Turning electricity into aluminum (and/or magnesium) actually produces something useful. For example, it can be used to store electricity during the daytime and produce electricity at night.
Or, of course, we can't have nice things.
@cstross Solid analysis. I have a similar sense.
Add to the material crises the widespread sense of No Future, to quote the Pistols, leading to a secular mental health crisis, especially among the young.
We can't go on like this.
@cstross typo in the date of Deadnought 1095 > 1905?
@cstross Happy birthday. Rock on, les vieux.
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