Tag: a step farther out

ASFO 2025–04–19

Stardrive! When will we get it, and how? Perspectives on a “nuclear battery” and an “all–woman spaceflight” ; a little more about tariff and non–tariff trade barriers and their utility, the adage “de minimis non curat lex”, and the straw–man of the “US–made iPhone” ; and likely–final remarks on the gold standard.

Supplementary Show

2025–04–22 “Evolution is not confined to the organic man, but consists of the combined man and his environment.” The title piece from Utopia or Oblivion (1969) by R Buckminster Fuller. Also a recommendation for another book, Carry On, Mister Bowditch (1955) by Jean Lee Latham.

ASFO 2025–04–12

Yuri’s Night! Find your local party. Mail Call! The significance of the prospective new power reactor at the University of Illinois. And more thoughts about industrial policy, world trade, and the old adage “it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end”.

Supplementary Show

  • 2025–04–15 “Anyone can use the telephone. Any two can have any kind of telephone conversation they want. They can call themselves communist, capitalist, or any other kind of name. The telephone works for either. But the telephone shrinks the world for both, and disasters can be averted by means of it, and when disasters occur it brings swift help from great distances.” More from Utopia or Oblivion, continuing with How to Maintain Man as a Success in Universe.
  • 2025–04–18 “The men and women who work on television get and hold their jobs through their diction, good vocabularies, confident tone, and pleasing personalities.” The conclusion of How to Maintain Man as a Success in Universe.

ASFO 2025–04–05

Anxiety about my upcoming return to the USA basically de–railed this show. I didn’t get to the things I was more interested in talking about, such as a recently–announced “nuclear battery”, because I felt the need to explain why the sudden imposition of large import duties can have a seriously damaging effect on a national economy, and even on the world economy in case of cascading retaliation. But I did manage to carve out some time to criticize the German educational system, and offer a critique of schooling generally.

ASFO 2025–03–29

Support your local library! No solar eclipse for me — such a travesty. Family emergency, an earlier return to the USA than planned, and anxiety about when I may be able to leave again ; effects of weather on my outreach efforts ; reflections on the limits of “ephemeralization” ; a discussion of the rise of the anti–nuclear movement, and some text I am going to have to use again.

Industrial democracy depends upon industrial prosperity. No amount of workers’ skill or capital equipment can produce that prosperity unless there is fuel for the furnaces and motive power for the machines. This is true, irrespective of the political arrangements within a country, or the economic structures of production, distribution, and consumption within an industry.

Indeed, “industry” in the modern sense can hardly be better defined than as the application of inanimate energy to the operations involved in meeting the needs of human life. It is exactly the resulting vast multiplication of the effectiveness of labour which makes possible the abolition of social class boundaries and child labour, the equality of the sexes, universal education, and all the other elements of social and economic democracy, without which political democracy means little. Any people who would enjoy these blessings, which are widely regarded as the birthright of the modern world, must therefore first make provision for adequate supplies of energy.

Good stuff, huh?

ASFO 2025–03–22

Can the lack of classical education be blamed for the failure of democracy, in the Soviet Union or elsewhere? Probably not, but it’s a nice thought all the same. Also, more Dental Drama™ ; a coda to last week’s show ; local outreach; and I offer a new approach to nuclear energy for the new German government, with a new slogan : “Pro–Nuclear is Pro–Europe”.

WHEREAS, conforming to the basic law of the European Union as embodied in the Treaty of 25 March 1957 establishing the European Atomic Energy Community, the German Federal Republic shares in the common responsibility of maintaining the economic and political security and stability of Europe by making the maximum effective use of nuclear energy in industry, a responsibility bearing equally upon the States and the Federal Union, to be discharged in the international context of economic and foreign relations, as well as through the common European institutions, and within Germany through the activity of government at all levels ;
THEREFORE the Bundestag recognizes that all legislation or policies of the Bund or the Länder of contrary purpose are ab initio of none effect, in particular, any prohibition on the operation of existing nuclear fission power stations, or the construction and operation of new stations, in conformity with internationally–adopted safety standards and appropriate planning procedures ;
AND FURTHERMORE, the better to discharge the aforesaid responsibilities, the Bundes Ministerium shall without delay offer all spent nuclear reactor fuel now held within Germany, except where subject to special international agreements providing the contrary, to the Euratom Supply Agency for reprocessing and ultimate re–use.

That will put the cat amongst the chickens!

ASFO 2025–03–15

Beware the Ides of March! I’m not yet back to doing a full show yet, but please accept these few minutes of commentary about geopolitics, the latest semi–successful lunar landing mission, my dental well–being, and the potential of “generative AI” to provide an always–on, personalized cult leader for anybody who is even remotely, momentarily susceptible. Exciting times we live in, to be sure!

Supplementary Show

2025–03–18 “Quite clearly, Man is coming into a completely new ecological relationship to his Earth, and quite clearly, we are accelerating into an entirely new relationship of Man to Universe. In speaking to you I have to take that statement as my fundamental premise, not just as an interesting aside. The problems of our moment are as unprecedented as they are vast. The solutions will have to be unprecedented and vast.” Picking up again with Utopia or Oblivion by Fuller, we finish Geosocial Revolution and begin How to Maintain Man as a Success in Universe.

ASFO 2025–02–01

Starting very late, about 15 minutes in as a matter of fact. I share some sensitive personal information about my family and friends, which is always a mistake, and lay out my expectations for the coming month, explaining why I may not be available to do shows regularly.

ASFO 2025–01–25

The present world situation, it is clear, is unsatisfactory — although hopeful signs are there to be seen for those who will but look. But why are those who have it all the most unsatisfied? Also, mixed news from Canada, stupid news from Chile, and even stupider, colossally stupid, news from Britain ; new additions to our archive of scanned nuclear–energy public–information materials ; and if you’re going to be in the Dallas area 14—16 February, come up and see us at FenCon.

Supplementary Show

2025–01–28 “With these interlinkages of the lever and channeled energy, Man is now in the wealth–making business, which is to use his brain to get nature’s vast energy patterns to do the energy work of supporting and regenerating him.” More from Geosocial Revolution in Utopia or Oblivion.

ASFO 2025–01–18

Has the capitalist owner–class, like its mediaeval equivalent (albeit with far less tangible reason), embraced the delusion that it represents a higher order of life than the working class? Will the USA, as a result, see a wave of CEO shootings in the coming year? Are our measures of historical time obsolete in the face of increased human life expectancy? Also, a little bit of astronomy, a little bit of space travel, and Mail Call! Two postcards from Canada this week, and a letter from Australia.

Supplementary Show

2025–01–21 “The fundamental and prior problem of Man’s surviving successfully on this little sun–orbiting spaceship, ‘Earth’, cannot be solved by political theory and is not to be left to the politician’s ultimate lever — war — hot, subversive, cold, or cool.” More of Geosocial Revolution from Utopia or Oblivion by R Buckminster Fuller.