Thank you for having Kris De Decker back! I visited his website after his first appearance on the podcast and my jaw dropped. Please keep inviting guests who point us toward an elegant simplification.
Nate, I’ve listened to every single one of your podcasts - I enjoy learning from you and your guests and I’m truly grateful. In saying that, I think it would be interesting/beneficial to hear a no-holding-back description of what life during TGS might look like/feel like. Something visceral to translate all of the scientific evidence into something more tangible that people can calibrate their expectations towards. Perhaps the topic of a roundtable discussion? Love what you’re doing man, much of the world is waking up to this message and it’s fascinating to watch it unfold before our eyes.
It would be a mad max culture for awhile if we didn't nuke ourselves or radiate ourselves to death with nearly 500 nuclear power plants going Chernoble on us. It would be interesting to hear but our predicament is truly dire.
I'm in Japan! I LOOOOVVVVEEE the public baths. The neighborhood ones cost less than $5, the upscale spas cost between $10 and $200 (the latter including an awesome massage and fantastic food). My husband and I go regularly. ❤ Also, my Japanese father-in-law used a hot water bottle in-between his blankets and futon in winter in Hokkaido until he passed away a few years ago. We do not use heat at night in winter, but in Tokyo-metro it's not that cold and my bedroom only goes down to about 16C. Totally doable.
It is comforting to know that the most beautiful minds on the planet working together to create a sustainable future for the greater good. However, if this podcast would have gone viral, this channel would be shut down post hast and the Guardia Civil in Barcelona would be on the way to pick up Kris. Our economy is based on the sale of a false individualism that directly opposes the Principle of sharing. Sharing will be a cornerstone of societies for future generations to come. That's why I have to thank you both, for sharing your valuable economic time, here on this platform, for free. Some could see this behaver as a form of madness, how much money you both loose by wasting valuable time. I say, the future is bright because of people like you. People who know how to value their time. Thanks for that
@@thegreatsimplification Thank you. I see you as a creative engineer working on the paving of the very road leading to paradise. Constructing the algorithm for the consciousness needed to support the new paradigm forthcoming. Somebody said, Thy kingdom come, and then I've heard, those who came last will be first. In this case, I'm eternally grateful you haven't gone viral. I am honoured by your reply and will pray for your empowerment
My grandparents were born in the 1870 and 1880 we didn't use water bottles we used bricks heated on a potbelly stove wrapped in towels until they cooled a bit. I remember sleeping in a screened porch at -35 degrees with four other cousins in the same bed, and being very comfortable not the least bit cold. my grandmother would remove the towels from the bricks after about an hour. then bring more hot bricks every two or so hours. certainly a lot of work on her part but how else could you accommodate 30 people in a small space. It truly is a wonderful memory one I quite fondly remember
I have a smooth seat-sized piece of soapstone that swings by an iron (or steel) loop. It was meant, I was told, for people riding home in their carriages to take from near the stove or fire and put under their seat. A man in my church remembers using big rocks they took from the creek to set in front of the fire and then take with them to bed.
On the other side of the temperature spectrum, I use cold-water foot baths to keep cool in summer! Also, as someone who uses communal baths in Japan, I do cold-water baths and saunas and over the years, I am much less sensitive to hot or cold weather. I'm especially noticing it this year as people keep saying, "It's so hot and humid", but I'm not feeling it! I feel fine!
Fun fact: Billions of people (and another hundred thousands currently around me) do not even have the money for a bike to make it fun. We romantic Westerners like to believe that people who never experienced our affluence will enjoy to be a bit more frugal. Living in Africa, I might just say: Sorry. Wrong.
Hopefully relatively little of such romanticism or belief here. Comment was just for Nate, who may put all the groceries weight backpack > saddle > buttocks for 10 miles. Indeed a western comment in a western context, but also meant as a low tech comment in dito context.
While it's true that not everyone in developing nations can afford bicycles, it's important to recognise that the appropriate technology movement is not solely about affordability. It's about using technology that is suitable, sustainable, and contextually appropriate for a given society or community. In the west, climbing down from car culture to cycling culture would be a immense leap forward in environmental and social causes. You should read 'Small is beautiful' - E. F. Schumacher if you don't understand why appropriate technology takes that view, it's eye opening.
@@vexy1987 Been there - done it (literally). And I agree with you that it is appropriate for a given society or community. It is just my experience that people now around me, and probably Billions more, do not seem to find this an appropriate approach.
@@arvidsfar1580 Thanks for responding and pointing that out. Nate's podcast would appear tailored to western audiences, even if it draws wider appeal, so forgive us for our blind spots and take such well intentioned advice in the spirit that it is given!
Insightful entrepreneurs ought to be designing new communities for futuristic minded people 😀 or families who see Communal variations to living wisely and economically 🎉
I have bought metal hot water bottles from Japan. They are larger than the standard rubber bottles and are still warm in the morning. I'm also expecting them to last longer and to be less prone to leaking. I think the Japanese have lots of good ideas about keeping warm efficiently.
1:07:00 Vancouver BC (Canada) has an electric trolley bus system. It works fairly well inside the main city, but the regional bus system also uses diesel buses (and is experimenting with others) because of a few limitations. The first issue is that if you are trying to connect between regional centers at higher speed, usually on a bigger road or highway, a) it is harder to provision the overhead power lines and b) the trolley buses work best at speeds up to about 50 km/hr, NOT highway speeds. Secondly, the bus fleet in Vancouver has a tough time with steeper hills. Third, it requires some additional training of the bus drivers (and safety regulations) to reconnect the overhead power line "pantograph" when they become disconnected, which happens fairly often, especially at route intersections or going around corners. Fourth, when it snows in winter, the overhead lines can sometimes be problematic if they ice up. Trolley buses also seem to be the first to have to pull off to the side of the road if snow starts sticking on the roads, while diesel buses have more power and traction to keep going a bit longer in those conditions. I don't know exactly how much of a headache it is to maintain and operate a large overhead electric wire network, but I suspect that the transit authority is also always looking for a simpler, lower maintenance system, especially when winds often knock over urban trees which then take down power lines. Overall, electric trolley buses are a viable component of a metro transit system, but don't work as the ONLY solution.
Great Episode, awesome ideas, thank you! One comment and one request for future discussions: 1. Vancouver, BC, Canada is another example of an electrified trolley bus system that’s still in place, in an affluent country and city. It was built in 1948 and, rather than being dismantled, has been upgraded (with newer buses that improve accessibility for people with disabilities, among other things) and even extended in places to meet the subsequently built Skytrain lines. The other advantage of these buses, not mentioned, is that if you get caught behind one as a cyclist, you don’t get a face full of fossil fuel exhaust! 2. I’d love to hear more in your discussions with guests, when appropriate, around accommodations or solutions accessible to people with disabilities. Before becoming disabled myself, my energy use was very human powered (walking to work and other places, biking with a trailer to haul groceries and other goods), but since becoming disabled those options aren’t available to me. I now have to use cars much more frequently for trips longer than my wheelchair can handle (or in inclement weather) and/or for where public transit is not available or reliable. Powering my home use energy through cycling or any other exertional activity is not an option for me. And I see sometimes in discussions around degrowth an increased value in the energy or products people can produce themselves, which I fear is just transferring some of the current sociological pitfalls of tying people’s worth to their level of production (energy or otherwise). I think it would be really interesting to hear the discussions around disability being had in the circles your guests inhabit while doing such great work in thinking about our future. Even bringing up the question might highlight that these discussions are not actually taking place and show it’s an area where more attention is needed if we’re interested in an equitable future.
I use a quart-sized canning jar as my water bottle - even knitted a cozy for it! We also recently installed a rocket-stove with the exhaust going through a massive cob bench. The thermal mass of the bench helps keep the room warm by radiant heat well after the stove goes out. The communal living, shared facilities can be seen in the co-housing model. I would also recommend the classic book A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander et al. It has some great patterns for shared living spaces!
Thanks for this. I'm tired of people talking about what we can't do, and won't be able to for a sustainable future. When the energy should be dedicated to solutions/strategies/plans to build one.
I remember the 1970s well…especially when all that cheap ass Saudi oil hit the U.S. and caused all the alternative energy source funding to dry up. Lol
Great to see Kris back! I love appropriate tech, no matter how dark things seem here at the precipice, these kinds of conversations just prove that declining energy surplus isn't all doom and gloom! We need to shift the paradaigm beyond rationing energy by price so we can ensure everyone gets what they need to be comfortable and live with dignity, the alternative is many will only have energy poverty to look forward to. Great to hear you got an ebike Nate! My job at the moment is working on promoting a shift from private cars to (e+)bikes for transport.
Fully agree that human muscle power is going to have to be a part of the energy mix (I am personally fond of old technologies powered by a crank or a pedal), but my biggest fear there is that, if current power relationships and expectations of a high energy future persist, we might see a resurgence of another one of history's innovations, aka slavery. (Which is, you know, human muscle power.) That might allow the ruling class to maintain a certain level of energy consumption, with current fossil energy slaves being replaced by actual slaves. It might be hard to imagine right now in the West, but I don't think it's entirely outside the realm of possibility. And it is why I think it's so important to disabuse as many people as possible of the idea of a high energy future, because the more people cling to it, the higher the chances that they'll find terrible ways of meeting that expectation.
Supposedly there are more slaves in the world now than in 1860. A function of a larger population but it goes by many names. I regarded the military draft as slavery and fought against it until it ended.
Current power is such as a direct result of slavery. Everything we do and use in the first world is utterly dependent on the colonization and enslavement of what we’ve labeled the third world. What we’ve labeled the third world because our forefathers created the “third world”, those nations have already been colonized and stripped of their resources. Everyone remarks on how great it is that the price of solar is dropping. No one seems to know this is due to countless millions of slaves toiling their lives away in toxic lithium mines that will eventually kill them. The cell phone in our hand, the laptop on our table, our “clean energy” car, every last luxury we take for granted only exists through the robbery and subjugation of other human beings, and the entire living world: Human habitat. There is no path forward for homo-petro-techno-colossus. Humility and grief are required to proceed.
Slavery was not just human muscle power. Slave labor requires a certain amount of mental capacity and dexterity. Driving oxen is not just muscle, its skilled labor. Planting seeds or picking cotton is not just muscle power. If solely muscle power is needed humans are not a good choice as animals are much stronger and less dangerous to employ.
Wonderful interview! I, of course, shared the link. I hope you have Kris back often. A few things to mention, though. Your suggestions and speculations seem to me to be oriented largely toward cities. I understand that, but I think that decentralizing the human population is even more important than these great ideas that you present. Of course, many of your suggestions would work just as well, or better, in villages, but "Flight from the City" deserves mention. See Ralph Borsodi. In fact, I would like to see someone like Kris or Greta Thunberg actually make that move to publicly leave their city and take a minimalist lifestyle to the countryside, where he or she would remain in the public eye. A little like what you have done, Nate. Also, though you, Nate, have recently interviewed Kim Stanley Robinson as an example of a writer of narrative fiction that contributes to "the cause", I feel that you need to do something like that again. Robinson's "Ministry for the Future" is not going to be the work that energizes cultures worldwide to shift their paradigm, and that is what is needed so that ideas like Kris's (and Borsodi's ) can be joyously put into practice. We need a true, masterful story teller who is devoted to the cause. We need a work that affects culture the way "Heidi" did. Finally, if Kris would actually consider, with a few of his friends, leaving the city environment, probably many places in Asturias would serve him well. But I could recommend to him a very specific site in Galicia, more about which I would gladly share.
Kris De Decker is a very understated genius I love his website and his approach. We need to break up our solutions into high tech, low tech and no tech. Each has its place and the place of low tech has been encroached on by high tech, good on the brilliant Mr De Decker for restoring low tech to its rightful place.
I always thought that outfitting ones domain, in my case with a mix of small essential energy types like solar or wind or hydro or fossil energy and small scale biomass is the key to the future. I personally have been utilizing used solar panels starting with my garden agrivoltaics set up and water irrigation along with two small shed shops. Each shop is operated with solar charged cordless batteries. My neighbors do stop by to ask questions. This is how it works thousands of times over and grows from there.
Interesting to hear about "heating the people, not the space". Here in Scotland a large part of the housing stock is old and difficult to insulate, making the "heat the envelope" method very inefficient and expensive, even with a level of retro-fit insulation. An alternative approach has been mooted, following a study in Edinburgh. The study showed that people are comfortable when active in the home (e.g doing housework) at an air temperature as low as 14 deg C (57 F). Use of low wattage infra red panels (ca 200-500 W) locally (e.g near the TV or under a desk) provided enough comfort for times when one was sedentary. The lower air temperature meant less loss of heat through the walls and windows, as the thermal gradient was less. Looking at home design shows on TV, and architectural magazines, the approach to energy efficiency of choice with new-builds still seems to be the "Heat the envelope" Passivhaus approach. A friend of mine lives in one and, to be fair, his heating costs are next to nothing. What bothers me though is: a) The embedded energy and raw materials needed to construct this type of dwelling, and b) The extraordinary size (in terms of sq feet) that the owners of these houses seem to think they need.
Another fantastic home run with this discussion Nate. You and your guests never fail to "give me hope to go on, like Jerry Lewis." ** Exactly what I wanted to hear, before I even knew I wanted to hear it. As usual. Now, if I could just figure out how to attach a figurative firecracker to these podcasts such that more of my GenX and Boomer buddies would perk up and take notice...
San Francisco cable cars are propelled via a constantly moving cable buried in the pavement. The car operator grabs the moving cable with a device and the car moves along with it. To stop, the car disengages from the cable temporarily.
I bought a new truck camper in 2019, which happened to have room for two deep-cycle 12V batteries in parallel. The truck's (a 1st Gen. Cummins 12-valve that I run on 50% filtered used vegetable oil) alternator is constantly charging the batteries when the truck is running anyway, so I've never even entertained the thought of solar panels on my camper. When I travel to trade shows each weekend (my job), I have way more power stored than I ever even use (The refrigerator is like a "smart fridge," running on either propane/12 VDC, or 120 VAC ("shore power). It's actually nice at times to have a working fridge outside your house.
@erwin643, Would you mind me to pass on your post to my family in the north of Namibia? A place where it will become difficult to even find a stable, grid-based electric outlet? A farm with no electricity at all? You might still like it, as I do. But hey...
Nate here in British Columbia, Canada we have Hydro Electric power. I use < 9kwh of Electricity per day on avg all year round because I have Nat Gas for Hot Water & Heating. I have no AC except for two fans. If the temp gets above 30 degs C, I fill my bathtub with cold water and place a fan on a platform above the tub and blow chilled air around my apartment (570 sq Ft). My Electricity cost is < $1.00 per day. Hard to motivate myself to pay for solar panels, charger, battery & inverter to provide my electricity needs right now. I only have to turn my heat on for an average of 3 days per winter when temps get to - 5 degs C. I just wear a sweater. My apartment is on the ground floor above the building gas boiler so I get the residual heat and I'm on the south side of the building. I ride a 200cc ICE scooter since 2006. I enjoy your channel very much. Thank you for the great informative guests. If BC, Australia & the USA would stop selling our coal reserves that would go a long way to help. The USA and Canada needs our Oil Sands heavy oil for refining, to get those lower temp products that Art B talked about that makes our current life style function. I would love to be around 100 years from now when Science finally discovers that humans are a minor player in the cycles of climate change. Could we improve our treatment of our planet? YES most definitely, but will we? NOT until we have to.
I really enjoyed this discussion. Coming after the recent EV discussion with Simon Michaux, it offers some great ideas to help us with the resource gap highlighted by Michaux's work.
I have watched several podcasts of late and this is the one that gives me hope. Getting away from geopolitics and the lack of energy calculation factor in the economies we see there are practical measures in communal sharing that have been put in place before. Personal heating and cooling methods I was unaware of the efficiency of radiant heating. Although I used a hot water bottle last winter! Ordinary life could be grand in sharing with others, if we could only shake off the sociopath politic and false celebrity gods in our culture. Health and mental benefits. Its odd as we get older the simple life becomes more attractive it seems to me.
Excellent discussion. Kris De Decker is one of my go-to guys for new ideas and practical experiments. The multiple shared-space concepts Kris mentioned will have their chance soon enough because of the underlying demographics of energy decline leading to recession, depression and collapse. I have to say that I am not as sanguine about collapse as Nate (at 1:00:00 or thereabouts). Our economic system is soooo hypercomplex and needs sooooo much energy to keep it going, it is more likely than not to collapse rather than a manageable decline that preserves the current mashup of state-level societies.
I've read Kris's work for years. It is good to see and hear him. He reminded me of "Appropriate Technology" ideas from the 1970's. I used hot water bottles on my back for years, but they all started leaking after a few months. I switched to electric hot pads, but really wish I could find a high quality durable water bottle.
Have you tried rice or cherry seed sacks? If you have a microwave (which I guess is a fair question on this channel) they're fairly easy to heat. I used them as bed warmers (I heated them and put in the middle on the bed while getting ready, and then moved them to the bottom as I got in to keep my feet warm)
a communal kitchen would not work for many, so much needs to be communicated in order for that to work. Who cooks when? maybe this could work for seniors or those who don't cook much or have small children. Great talk! I enjoyed as always.
Really? A simple time sheet with allocated blocks that you book weeks in advance would suffice. Clean up after your done. Not that complicated. I used to be a part of a machine shop that operated the same way. "Desirable" hours would be allocated on a rotating basis.
I'm all in for shared workshop or laundry room, or communal spaces (funny enough, higher end projects have more of those, like a gym, for example), but shared kitchens? Hell, no. Not only I'm overprotective of my cookware, and I think it would be a hassle, but if you've ever been, even as a visitor, to a shared flat, you know that's a big no-no.
Fascinating! Great that someone is trialling, and learning ways to live the kind of simplified, energy meagre lifestyle that we will soon all be compelled to live. I expect that Kris's knowledge and experience will, at some point in the not-too-distant future, be hugely beneficial to all.
While listening to this conversation I couldn't help but compare it to the exuberant and/or ominous discussions of AGI that are currently circulating. Is there any possibility that it might be a topic for a Reality Roundtable discussion? Truth seems harder and harder to find. You and your astute guests seem to be a sincere approximation of it. And we appreciate your efforts.
As someone who has been using an ebike for transportation in a rural area for 5 years, I am certain you will love it. Though, I recommend panniers over a backpack. Plan to level up to a cargo bike, so you can transport bags of chicken feed as well! We ride our ebikes to our farmers market, towing a trailer of bread and produce. It's quite the conversation starter and a really accessible way to talk about energy.
I went down this path. When I moved to Kaikoura, I knew that large earthquakes happen every couple of hundred years, and as I expected to live here for a couple of thousand years, when we did renovations to the house, I instructed the engineer to "make it stand up to a Richter 8.5". We had a 7.8 6 years ago. I was prepared. I had Solar energy, reserve food, reserve water, extensive gardens. I was self sufficient for months. Nobody else was. No way could I defend my meagre resources against starving hordes. We all need to take reasonable precautions to be self sufficient for reasonable periods, but we also need to have systems that do reasonably ensure that everyone has what they reasonably need (locally, regionally, nationally, internationally, globally). Nothing less than this actually works long term. Yes, we are running out of fossil carbon, and yes it was an amazing resource, and it gave the average westerner a mechanical equivalent of 200 slaves, without anyone actually being in physical slavery. But that was a limited energy source, and as we all know here, it will end, so we need alternatives. Alternatives are possible, but the economic and technological transition will not happen simply as the result of market forces. Waiting for markets alone to solve the problem will crash the entire system, and there is no coming back from that. Elon and teams are doing a lot of useful things, and it is worth looking in detail as to what he is doing, and all the levels of difficulty involved, and the rate of evolution in technology and systems. We do not have to "go back to stone age" and we do need to go beyond the current set of ultra wasteful systems that result from the embedded growth obligation present in the current financial systems. They are not sustainable. Many of the current overly simplistic paradigms of understanding must change, if we as a species are to have a long term future. We all, necessarily, are strongly biased by evolution to prefer simple answers, and we have to accept that for the evolutionary bias that it is, and also accept that there is nothing simple about our current situation. Simple is not survivable. We must accept and embrace the complex, with all of the uncertainties necessarily present in that, because those uncertainties are actually a whole lot safer than the entirely illusory certainty that we get from overly simplistic models and understandings. It is hard. Simplify where possible, certainly. I have an electric bike. I use it where I reasonably can, but I still have a car, and as the nearest city is two hours drive for me, I still have an ICE, and a little ICE 4WD to get to some of the places we need to go for our wildlife studies. The planned obsolescence that is necessary to maintain the current economic system, needs to be replaced with items designed for maximally efficient use of materials and energy, which in most cases means long life and easy servicing. The economic system needs to change, at multiple levels. That is doable, and it will meet a certain amount of resistance from many who are doing very well within the existing economic systems. That is actually a deeply complex aspect of this deeply complex problem space. Simplification alone will not save us, and we all need to make reasonable efforts to simplify and be as responsible as we reasonably can, all levels, all domains. Freedom is a fundamental aspect of being human, of being able to search the unknown for the useful and the survivable; but freedom without constraints is necessarily destructive (the literal bull in the china shop). Exactly where an appropriate balance is in any specific context can be extremely context sensitive. Too little freedom, we die, as we are not creative enough to deal with the ever changing reality that we exist in. Too much freedom and we destroy the very constraints that make pattern at our level possible. Looked at another way, this same thing can be characterised as the role of competition and cooperation in evolution, where competition can be seen as freedom, and cooperation can be viewed as constraints. It is not one or the other, it is both, necessarily, and both must be in a balance that is appropriate to the specifics of the context, and even seemingly minor changes in context can demand massive changes in that balance. We need to accept diversity, humility, and the need to engage in eternal enquiry, and successively useful approximation; and we cannot get there from the classical simplistic notion of "True/False", it demands greater complexity than that. Responsibility is essential for survival, being constantly on the alert for what constraints are actually required in any specific context, and any particular level. Central control is not an optimal solution. Optimality for intelligent agents demands devolved responsibility, with every agent using their intelligence applied to the specifics of the contexts they find themselves in. This is true at every level. Every golfer knows that trying to consciously control their golf swing is not gong to end well. What works is giving the subconscious a clear picture of the desired outcome, then handing over control to the subconscious for execution. At the social level, control needs to be at the level of individuals, provided that those individuals are acting responsibly, and are working within sets of constraints that do have a reasonable probability of socially survivable outcomes. We must accept uncertainty and responsibility, each to the best of our limited and fallible abilities, if we are to have any reasonable probability of long term survival (and for me that is essential).
The permaculture literature has presented much better solutions than the ones discussed here for heating and cooling people. Please speak with Geoff Lawton
Heating: Kacheloffen, kang ovens Cooling: Plants, house design aligned to wind, convection with curtains, solar chimneys, evaporative coals There are many other techniques using water for cooling systems that encourage evaporation and condensation based heating systems
As much as I love ❤️ these thoughts and ideas, they would require - it seems to me - a slow, gradual unfolding of temperatures and world peace. 🌎 In my mind I'm not sure the future will unfold gracefully. We can only hope. I few years ago I attempted to imagine US citizens willing to slide backwards to a semi automatic life style. My unimaginative brain couldn't get beyond horses! 😂 Your versions discussed here are actually desirable. ❤😊
I agree. The thing I am scared of the most is social cohesion breaking down. People expect the future, for themselves and their children, to be more prosperous than the past. We've seen how angry people get at being asked to wear a mask to protect others from a deadly virus, or not eat meat, or have shorter showers, or drive smaller cars etc. We've also seen politicians promising that only they can turn the fortunes of the country around and make it 'great again'. I just don't see how these things play out well in a society that is so in denial about the problems we face, let alone the potential solutions.
When it was dependant on human power, how important was the structure of labouring management to seasonal weather? Did law over ride human nature at that point or did everyone somehow understand how their livelihood was dependant on the group or individual skill and effort? Wow, thanks Kris and Nate. In some ways you both touched on aspects of my questions. Have a wonderful Winter or Summer Solstice Everyone! 💛
absoultely they did. Glad you mentioned the solstice. It will be a winter solstice for me and my wife this year and we plan to celebrate it for the first time ever as we embark on our great return to seasonality
The "Flintstone" type of technologies discussed here add a degree of poignancy and ominous realism to The Great Simplification that I had not anticipated. That term has seemed euphemistically benign to me.This conversation has uncomfortably deepened my understanding of its implications for the future. And yet I know that I still don't really "get it". Not really.
Well, in the sense that you use, I do get it too. And I don't want it either. But take one more sense-making step further and you are in a labyrinth of disbelief and incomprehension.
My entire adult life until I was 40, I never had a laundry machine in my own apartment. I considered it the height of luxury if there was one in the building. Dish washers are completely superfluous, btw. They don’t save labor. We wash our dishes by hand before we put them in the machine. Why not just dry them and put them on the shelf. Again, until age 40, I never had a dishwasher. And I live in the USA!
Dag Kris, hi Nate, hola from Huelva. Thanks for this new Great Simplification chapter. 🙂 I wonder if instead of, or in addition to trolebuses, trams with superchargers "charged only" in passenger stops as in downtown Sevilla/Spain wouldn't be a possible solution.🤔 My point is that you don't need a catenary nor posts to sustain it. This visually is much roomy, not constrained and probably requires less materials/energy to build, install and maintain the posts and the overhead lines. Yes I know, cyclists should cross rails perpendicularly though. It also would allow to plant living & breathing ground covers underneth (unfortunately not in Sevilla so far 😔). Kris, would in this case superchargers trams require more materials + maintenance and last less than trolebuses? Thanks in advance. Bien à vous. 🙋🏻♂️
1:05:05 troley buses. We had them in Ecuador, I think for public transportation with established/fixed routes it is a great solution. Seems cheaper/easier to implement than trains and YES you are not lugging dumb batteries all over for no reason.
We need to leverage our evolution too. I heard on the Huberman Lab Podcast that our bodies have cool and hot cycles to signify sleep. Our bodies get cooler as we get closer to sleep. It's why it's best sleeping in a cool room. Similarly, as dawn approaches our bodies warm up signaling to the system, it's time to get out into that cold room and wake up. Also, our palms, bottoms of feet and face are more or less conduits to rapid heating and cooling of our core temp. It's why in cold we rub our hands together to generate heat, or stick our feet outside the covers at night to cool us down.
@@kirstinstrand6292 , what I mean by boots on the ground is that Kris is actually living the "solutions" he is proposing and testing what he is advocating. Theses "solutions" are usually super achievable without waiting for the next fusion breakthrough or complete reorganization of society.
One thing that pops up in my mind is the concept of ‘over engineering’. Maybe that’s a topic that can covered in a separate issue of this podcast? Over engineering occurs everywhere, even in very simple applications such as showers, but also in things like kitchen equipment, smartphones, cars, etc. It leads to excessive use of energy and unneccessary waste and complexity.
This is great! So inspiring. So many solutions! I’d add to it fixing mass transit rail system to get as many cars off the road and ground as many planes as possible.
I was in a room trying to sleep and the temperature was in the nineties. In desperation I took my t-shirt, soaked it, put it on and turned on the fan. I was very surprised about how cool I was. I slept fine.
I use hot waterbottles a lot during fall and winter. I use metal and plastic. I grew up with hot water water bottles during my teenage periods pain days. Very soothing.
"A psychopath on the sidewalk!?!?" - Nate Fun conversation. This stuff interests me but its pretty niche and most folks wouldn't indulge the thought until forced to. I know you already had Kim Stanley Robinson on as a guest... Most of his books feature concepts/contraptions like those explored in this discussion.
With regards to the health care system, it’s well known that 70% of health care spending is on chronic diseases that could largely be prevented by eating healthy foods.
coming to heat in the Alpes: the lower part was made of rock and has been a barn where the cow lived in winter. the ceiling was very thin so the heat rose up and under the roof there was brewing hay barn also emitting heat from above. it is really surprising how thin these ceilings have been. In Iceland the small living house was in the middle of barn house and hay house. what is the name of the sowjet. flats, can not remember.
Wouldn't the ice bottle in the bed (during summer for example) leave water everywhere - as water condenses on the surface? Is there a way to avoid/control that?
My wife and I have a 2017 Nissan Leaf, and the heating in that car is revealing. If you turn on the forced air heater, it reduces your driving range by about 10%. However, the car also features butt-heaters and a heated steering wheel, and if you just use those, it has no measurable effect on range, and will keep you pretty comfortable.
Listening to this, it is extraordinary how many sensible ways of living we have rejected against a background of cheap and abundant fossil fuels. From trolley buses to shared "utility" spaces; we've had them all in the past and survived and thrived. These are not backward steps. However, to re-adopt some of these more shared / communal ways of living will require sometimes painful cultural adjustment - more for some than others. For example, the "Steamie" (shared laundry space behind a typical Glasgow tenement block) had its own social mores, hierarchies and rituals, bullies and power-brokers. Get those wrong and you could be subject to a social ostracism that makes today's social media flame-wars look tame by comparison. In view of this, I do hope that folk have the opportunity to adopt these changes to lifestyle voluntarily and at a pace comfortable to them, rather than being coerced, either by edict or evangelical enthusiasm!
@58:00 is there any report available that evaluates these ‘shared facilities’ in living? Regarding ‘shared kitchens’: this doesn’t take into account ‘cooking as a hobby’ as opposed to ‘cooking to stay alive’. Preparing food may also be a ‘social activity’ but not for all of us and not all the time. @1:07 about trolleybuses: here in Utrecht, Netherlands, we have completed a tramline that turned out to be extremely expensive. I wonder how much would be saved if it had been realised as a trolleybus system instead of a tramline?
David Fleming was big on this sort of thing in Lean Logic etc. The slack and taut analogies in various economic modeling where a kind of purpose lead "slack" or inefficiency is made to add value in an otherwise smaller system etc.
@@torsteinholen14 Hah, in reality however, most who exercise regularly live healthier longer lives, in my early 30s I cycled a lot and was fitter than the average 18 year old. Look past the grey! ;)
this was great and fun to contemplate. I kind of think we stand a good chance of being much happier after the great simplification. my personal favorite lo-tech domain to think about is human powered aviation. if anybody has good information on human-powered ornithopters or anything like that, please let me know! i firmly believe that a flying system powered by the human body, similar to what Leonardo da Vinci designed, would be possible.
There was an engineering faculty contest somewhere pre-covid. One human stayed 'flying' for ~45 seconds, which is around 3-400 watts for a small human. The power ratio is a real challenge.
@@DanielPareKin absolutely. i believe that mimicking bird flight dynamics is the only way to go; and i think there's probably things about bird flight we don't fully understand yet
We could use sand batteries or air compressed as baterries and only use eletricity for led lighting and 5v cellphones and other eletronic stuffs. Use biogas for cooking and power the refiferator. Use more air compressed tools (like blender, washing machine). We could use air compressed cars. Green hydrogen is a good solution too. Green Steam locomotives and steam solutions.
Regards "electric trolley buses", Milwaukee, WI has recently implemented a small fleet of electric buses (rubber tire/no tracks) that have big batteries, and rapid charging locations at pause points on the route. The prediction has been that charge points, and overnight charging are adequate to keep these buses running for a complete day-cycle. This system does not require the installation of overhead wires like a standard, historical "trolley". Chicago, IL probably has a larger number of the same buses. The buses apparently cost somewhere between 1.1, and 1.2 million US dollars a unit, plus associated infrastructure (substantial), but the maintenance/fuel costs will hypothetically be much less over time. My poor understanding of diesel transit bus costs suggest that electrics are something just south of twice the cost of a diesel bus, but the idea that they cost much less over time is plausible. A big bonus is where the electric/diesel buses can "nest" together on the same routes, providing reliable service, and a less "notchy" transition.
In my lifetime, a city not too far from here (Bradford UK) had an extensive trolley bus network, It was all torn out in 1972 to replace it with diesel busses.
Yup. I've been considering buying a blender or immersion blender. Now that I'm listening to this I've changed my mind and will be purchasing a hand-crank food mill.
Hi Nate, have you done a segment on tradeable energy quotas (TEQs)? British Government put some time and money around 2008 but it died a death prob due to petroleum lobby. Seemed a viable way to incentivise the demand side decrease in consumption. Also tried the DIY bike generator (ARTcycle Inc) and a mobile bicycle powered cinema. It failed due to lack of technical expertise. Advanced and developing communities need more off-the-shelf, stand-alone, human-powered energy sources available for the general population. There seems to be a large gap in the market that needs filling.
A McMansion where large bedrooms served an individual, a couple or parent and child, would share the kitchen and other spaces. Local zoning does not approve of non-family households in most areas, but that can be changed locally.
Sorry this is off topic, especially since it's the end of the world and everything but I think the guest is pointing his mic in the wrong direction. It's a side address mic, not front address (An AT 2020, I am guessing)
While I really enjoy Kris and think he is spot on with many of his ideas, the kommunalka or communal housing in the Soviet Union was generally reviled by the populace. Most soldiers are also keen on getting out of the barracks. Certain aspects of communal living could be adopted, but public spaces tend to create certain problems. With private spaces your mess is your mess, but in public spaces other people have different standards of hygiene. Also, with communally used equipment and appliances, people tend to beat the hell out of what is not theirs. This is why I never lend my tools out. Something eventually comes back broken or a socket is missing or stripped.
Interesting video as always. On the low tech theme, you may want to interview the engineer Philippe Bihouix that wrote a very interesting book about this topic
В Україні і сьогодні живуть у радянських комуналках, самі кімнати проживання - приватизовані, а от кухні, сан.вузли, антресолі - це все спільне. Але таких будинків дуже мало, здебільшого, зараз викупляється цілий поверх (3-5) кімнат і кухня з сан вузлом яка належить одній сім'ї, інший поверх - другій і т.д.
At first it seems silly but if 20 minutes of excecise actually contributed with any significance to reducing a power bill, that could be more popular. But not a significant thing. But a nice perk for getting your exercise. My dad wanted our own windmill. Id love to be able to generate some electricity, but solar panels are ridiculously expensive and not even currently be encouraged.
1:04:59 Kingston Upon Hull, England used to have trolley buses in the 1900s, as well as trains and trams. The public transportation back then was great and the design was classy. If we bring it back, we need to avoid the sterile plastic modern designs.
Based on the soon to arrive commercial office building meltdown, a creative redo of office buildings into group living rentals will be possible for those wanting to enjoy 😉 further city living. 😮 😅
Oh WOW - TOTALLY hit the nail on the head with how screwed up is our (US) medical system. Most excellent episode. And the 99% of people who can't be bothered with these topics - many will perish. Heartily approve your purchase of an electric bicycle - hope you experience is positive. I will suggest that ten miles is a bit beyond what is commonly accepted as the distance where people generally will include a bicycle in their transportation calculations.
Earth's systems will recover once we get down to 2 billion precious humans or less. Nate: consider used solar panels. Huge commercial solar farms routinely replace perfectly acceptable panels as technology improves power output and it's financially beneficial.
