Al Black
3 min readDec 15, 2017

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Impossible Utopia:

You think Utopia will come through “embracing transformational policies and systems like universal healthcare, unconditional basic income, blockchain applications, space exploration, nanotechnology, the shift to renewable energy, automation, etc.”

How many impossible things do you want today?

The demand for free universal healthcare would be infinite, and impossible to supply. The Laws of Supply and demand cannot be suspended, and limited resources must always be rationed, one way or another.

UBI is just Socialism in drag. It won’t work, never has, never will.

Blockchain has so far given us the criminal cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, whose primary reason for existence is paying for illegal drugs and weapons on the dark web, for money-laundering across borders, and as the payment scheme for ransomware: this one isn’t impossible, but I wish it was: cryptocurrencies should be universally banned, immediately.

Space Exploration doesn’t really go with the Socialist agenda which has always been to starve space exploration of funding so the money can be spent on welfare instead. You can’t have Space Exploration and UBI at the same time. Actually you can’t have the UBI at all, but attempting it will run the country broke so you won’t have anything else either.

Nanotechnology is still mostly smoke and mirrors, but could just as easily be used by Terrorists as weapons, as used by wise scientists to “transform” society. This one’s not quite impossible, but it is too early to make a call on it yet.

Renewable energy is useless without a really good solar battery: it just isn’t practical to have no base-load power when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun is down, or it is cloudy. You need to have a massive over-supply of electricity when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining to charge batteries to provide power in the night. Lithium-Ion batteries are the best we’ve got, and they are not very good: they need to be replaced every three years, and are made using rare earths that are mined in environmentally destructive ways. The best Solar Energy storage system we have right now converts solar energy (Light in plain English) into a long-term storage medium that, even after being stored for thousands of years, releases its energy on demand even without advanced technology to use it. As a by-product, releasing its energy also produces a beneficial plant food that is good for the environment. You have guessed it: of course I’m talking about Coal: Mother Nature’s own Solar Battery. Plants in both crops and nature now grow 17% faster than in pre-industrial times due to the Carbon Fertilisation effect: too much Carbon was sequestered underground in Coal and nature really needs it back, so a “shift to renewable energy” is actually not desirable. Burning Coal is beneficial to the natural world.

http://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2013/Deserts-greening-from-rising-CO2

Automation has been introduced decades ago, and so far we are inventing new jobs faster than we are automating other jobs out of existence. The one promise of Automation is that it may, by eliminating labour costs, bring manufacturing back on-shore from China and India, but clearly that won’t bring manufacturing jobs back with it.

I conclude that your Utopia is all mirage, not substance, and if not exactly impossible is certainly implausible.

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Al Black

I work in IT, Community volunteer interested in Politics, support Capitalism as the best economic system for lifting people out of poverty, Skeptical scientist.