Tesla is already planning factories to produce millions of humanoid robots. Right now the robots are able to take pixels from a video feed of a human doing an activity and translate that into movements, the sea change this represents cannot be overstated. Tesla built a car factory from muddy field to first cars in 15 months so in the next 3-4 years there will be a production rate of millions of these humanoid robots that can do any physical task a human can do. This changes everything and is why I don't agree with Zeihan after 3 years
@@dutch1777realI agree, but I think that's only realistic whether we like it or not. The reins of power are very firmly held and reinforced by Jack-booted thugs. There is zero chance that, as things get worse and scarcity of different types rise, that anyone holding those reins will make decisions that anybody on any TRUE Left would see as positive. So having someone largely apolitical speaking with some knowledge is a net positive. If he were to point out each thing that is awful and inequitable at each step he'd be wasting a lot of breath. Basically, at the start of every video if there were a disclaimer stating "This video is made already granting that nearly everybody I'm going to be talking about is evil or at least amoral and acting from a hostile scarcity mindset. With that in mind, here are the best guesses as to how these actors will react" that would pretty much close the gaps.
Whenever Peter Zion starts to talk about a subject I know something about, he shows that he doesn't know what's going on. He's brilliant at making it look like he knows exactly what's happening. He's always entertaining, though!
I was waiting until the end because I was hoping to pounce in the comment section when I thought Peter Zeihan was going to miss GMOs, but honestly, I think he nailed it. That is why I listen to this hiking channel with great geopolitics.
Right! Few make the distinction of the various uses of the modifications…there have been some splicing that no doubt wasn’t compatible with the human digestive/immune system (and those will become less important as the more precise application methods can target individual plants with judicious use of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides…hopefully less problematic versions) …many instances of GMO are basically more advanced and precise methods that are current scientific methods of hybridizations, which humans have been doing since they started purposely planting seeds!
I was part of it. I worked for Pioneer Seed company in my youth (45 + years ago) detassling corn to create hybrid strains. There were no child labor laws. Lol
Trouble with gmo is they engineer it so the seeds don't work and you have to go back to the company that made them in the first place. There more ways to tackle this. Better use of water for one and hybrids that are more resistant to warmer weather and pests
@@johndoe-vc1we It is a sucky kind of move; is it copy protection? But as synthetic biology tools get cheaper this kind copy protection is likely not going to be very effective, it will be easy to bypass. And do large scale farmers even harvest their own seeds? Super poor third world farmers may do this.
@newtunesforoldlogos4817 EPA/DHA. There is a version of canola that can produce that. It would be very good for health and relieve the pressure on the worlds fisheries as there is nowhere close to enough fish. No one seems to be using this so far even though it already exists. There was a purple tomato which had a beneficial flavonoid in it. They engineered that thing, but it just went nowhere. GMO for better health, I think we should go all in on this one. The problem is marketing and public perception. And the anti GMO faction of morons out there on both political extremes wich want to stop GMO’s. There is no reasoning with such people. Hopefully no state sponsored efforts get behind them.
I work in biologic drugs (aging.) Since I've started walking and talking like Peter ...great insights started happening behind the scenes. Walking is good for creativity!
Peter has a gift of digesting many streams of information, arrange and synchronize them into a single train of thought, and deliver the result with his excellent communication / presentation / writing skills. Hats off.
Er, all he's doing is regurgitating Establishment talking points now. He needs to dive back into the data, if he wants to continue to be interesting or useful.
I can't believe that Peter does not have over 2 million subscribers. He is a brilliant and important mind and most folks choose to watch drooling idiots on you tube. Rock on Peter!
He is not pushing the NPC blaming and shaming. Apocalyptic religion is not a constraint in his analysis. And he is not a filtered thirst trap. The views will be kind of lower. We are very lucky to have his analysis.
I unsubscribe every time he writes a garbage piece like this outside his wheelhouse. This is extreme drivel. He is deeply uneducated on every topic here but shale.
The guy has been making Videos for like a year now and already has 500,000 subs lol, he had around 100k when i found out about him half a year ago. Let's not pretend he is some underappreciated and hidden gem who doesn't get any views.
For a guy who knows so much, he is never in the office :) Good to hear Peter say "Ma and Pa shops" To me the four ingredients of innovation are : 1) A place to tinker. 2) A reason to tinker and 3) Time to tinker and 4) Materials to tinker with. From Charles Goodyear making vulcanized rubber in the kitchen to Jobs/Woyzniac making the Apple. When citizens are stress and "tapped out" they reduce their tinkering. Yes many still do but the number drops.
@@hellbythedashboardlight1730 That is so 2010 - people are non binary now Even BlackRock is getting push back for not being more progressive. People/agenda over profit or something like that.
its Ok, the US has one critical capacity in which it is unmatched- the ability to import the right people at the right time. They make the market place for ideas (where capital and customers are abundant) - so the people with the ideas DO come to play there. Its unmatched in scale and durability and if we are lucky it will save us from being overtaken by the soft-under belly of western cultural apathy which (ironically) grew from the original successes of this very model. If we are really lucky, California will just fall off the map and they can start again woke-free.
Good question! I imagine that in some way, they are. I know the term Small Modular Reactors usually refers to reactors that connect to the power grid. But people who have work experience on nuclear submarines might be some of the best people to work on SMRs and really get that technology up and running and producing green energy.
As someone who is in the tech space, his knowledge there is touch and go. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that's true in other areas that I'm less familiar with.
I'm an IT professional. I didn't learn about all types of artificial neural networks, but the ones I learned about are extremely easy to run and would do with even old hardware. Teaching the network is more demanding.
@@chillfill4866and what chips do azure/aws use? 😊 Zeihan is right about the chips. Google reported the operational cost for an AI is multiple times (3x times, IIRC) larger than the current Google Search operationl cost.
@@SunandarNGusti Zeihan's right that good hardware (mostly Nvidia, fabbed by TSMC) is required for neural network training at useful scale and speed, but his conclusion seems bonkers. Yes, there's high demand and limited supply, but @chillfill4866 is still correct: through cloud computing services, companies don't need to buy their own chips to do AI. They instead can buy time on azure or AWS. Sure, there's price pressure to the upside, but this is not going to hamper well-funded companies in any meaningful way. VC funds invest their own (or wealthy clients') capital... they're not as impacted by interest rates. The notion that AI is less likely to have a significant impact because chips are expensive & so is capital... absolutely bonkers take.
@@SunandarNGusti True, but Google search operational cost is negligible. Training of very large nets is extremely computationally intensive, but evaluating them is cheap. You will be able to get a ChatGPT-like LLM that runs on a phone within a few years.
@@SunandarNGusti And the current operational cost is so cheap they allow you to do it thousands of times a day for free, in return for a *tiny* amount of advertising. Tripling its cost for a productivity boost to workers (literally doing many repetitive parts of their job for them, as ChatGPT can do) is absolutely table scraps compared to the price of saving those worker's time.
US farmers are already doing inputs based yield expectations on a small scale vs. farm field wide. Its the plant genetics that is changing big time. I was at Purdue in 1998; the corn guru there said no way we can top 700 bushel an acre ever; 350 bu/ac be tough to do. 2019 corn yield record holder hit 619 bu/ac!!!
Sure, yield numbers and breaking yield records is fun and impressive, but what price are we paying in terms of long-term health issues regarding the lack of (truly independent) long-term health data surrounding GMO/Genetically Modifed Foods, soil nutrient depletion, and the prolific use of toxic herbicides/weed killers and pesticides(?)
@@__WJK__ I'm happy to see a rising number of people focusing on soil health and increasing yields by getting the right microbial ecosystem. Elaine Ingham and David Johnson (Johnson-Su bioreactor) have shown very impressive results.
Farming has always had a trade off between production and ecological damage. It's how civilizations rise and fall. Anyway..I remember walking in corn fields in the middle of the afternoon when the close to 30 foot stalks would completely blot out the sun for all intents and purposes..Very easy to get lost out in those fields. We were hunting for marijuana growing along the fence lines back then..My, how things have changed..😅
My biggest issue is that he'll never illustrate a picture how he can be wrong on everything. AI could really cure of us any loss of intellectual capital. We can crazily boost immigration with unskilled labor to bolster debt spending//consumer spending. On top of all those medical advances and advanced assistance from AI means a lot of people could put off retire into their theoretical 70s.
Ageism in tech is a huge problem. I'm in my 60's and I have to do my innovation work in manufacturing automation, not at the "cool" Big Tech and start-up companies.
If it makes you feel any better Big tech seems old school at this point too, and robotics and construction technology seems cool to me and my buddies.... -32 year old
As 63-year-old Software Developer I can relate. There is, apparently, no ideation activity after age 40. I've found that I'm probably better off working for myself. Best to you.
The required skillset is wildly different, I can attest to that from being a webdev myself and having talked to a bunch of people who program embedded software. I would say this is less ageism and more that younger devs have no interest in programming in old, user-unfriendly C or whatever the machines often run on.
Hey old timer. Thanks to people like you, my dad has been able to automate almost 98% of his factory’s daily operations. He only has 70 workers in a given rotation nowadays. Whereas, he had around 900 back in 2005. You guys are awesome.
Speaking of innovation, how about a video that discusses the game-changing advances that plasma-bit drilling is likely going to have on the well drilling industry, in the very near future, especially regarding geothermal wells(?) Really enjoy the channel and your insight, keep up the great work!
Peter your inspirational talks have changed my life. Just keep it up! My question, on your multi day hikes, what’s your kit list? I struggle keeping my pack lite. And your right about everything else so ………….
Honestly, I think we're sufficiently underutilizing the technologies we DO have, that a slowdown in the rate of raw innovation (and an increase in the rate of operationalization) might actually do more to help than hurt. I can think of hundreds of workplaces and processes that can be mechanized, automated, and robotized to a MUCH greater degree than they already are. And if we have a shrinking workforce, that removes the main objection we have to it, which is that it takes away people's jobs. The worst thing we could do right now is mass-import workers to replace the ones retiring. If we do that, the pressures driving down birthrates will never go away.
This is the first time that I've heard the KGB connection. It would be nice to see some evidentiary confirmation on that, but it seems plausible. Most Greens are not communists. They are more like useful idiots.
There are those who rationally observe and analyse environmental damage and those who have a non-scientific, lets say irrational approach. It is important to distinguish between the two. The fossil fuel industry has an obvious absolutely massive incentive to spend a great deal of money doing their best to conflate the two.
I work at a company that actually came up with a change to PCR (although its not called that because the way it works is different). This tech can be placed on a small chip and genetic testing for things like viruses or small genetic sequences can be done in 8 to 15 min under isothermal conditions. The chip is hooked up to a device that can almost immediately inform a doctor of the results of the test.
PCR was never meant for diagnosing illnesses though. You can search for what you want with PCR and find it, depending on how many cycles you run. It's meant for genetic testing to see family relationships, criminal forensics, and research, not diagnostics.
@@LRRPFco52yep - which is what's so great about PCR from a political perspective. You can get any predetermined outcome you want. Just make it more or less sensitive and voila.
@@LRRPFco52 That is true. What I think @ajmaynard92 meant to say is that the doctor can have a limited genetic profile of his patient to help him determine if the patient has any genetic markers for any particular illness. Or a profile that can help determining course of treatment if for example particular drugs are known to cause side-effects linked to particular mutations. If what @ajmaynard92 mentioned is true it may be truly a revolutionary technique. Although it does not sound like anything new to what lab-on chip was promising for last 30 years. However, recent advances in AI, microfluidics, and bio-chip design indicate that it may be true.
Except when SPRINTING, I was always told when training to run at a speed at which I could hold a conversation. It's all about learning breath control. See the Aussie aboriginies and how they play the Didgeridoo for mastery!
"Where in the World is Peter Zeihan and his crystal ball....?" The behavior of homo sapiens throughout the ages has not changed enough to accomadate anything other than time in a capsule. The evolution painstakingly, differentiates technological advances just ahead of throwing a weighted spear to it's target with less drag then the previuos throw. Finding an individual who is willing to put a finger into some of the abstract carnage at present, can be like that of a gifted child who will excel to become a beacon, should anyone be interested. Thanks Peter, always enjoy the outdoors with you. Stay safe!
This is one of those epic Peter videos that hits you when you least expect it. Wish he'd include a bibliography so I could do a deeper dive on some of the topics.
Enjoy listening to your thoughts and general knowledge of current events and history. I live in cedar rapids and will be staying at Golden Colorado for abit to enjoy what Colorado has to offer!
Your videos are great, I actually feel like I've learned things about the world that few others bother to even think about. And all the while you are laying down the knowledge you are just casually strolling through a different wilderness ever time.
This is the kind of news and scientific updates that i live for! Instwad of the usual crazy western alarmism about how everything is wrong and the workd is ending, i am so happy to see a westerner reporting in the ongoing beneficial scientific innovation and research.
Zeihan's remark about the KGB origins of the environmental movement struck a nerve. One thing that has irritated me about environmentalists pretty much my entire life has been their sense of defeatism. As in, there is no way to solve the environmental crises we face unless we devote ourselves to a puritanical regime of self-negation which no one would agree to. It individualizes the problem, as in small micro-decisions of middle-class Americans are root cause of the problem, reflecting how Communist regimes would harass, torture, and kill people who indulged in relatively innocuous middle-class pleasures. And there is a lot of implicit hatred of the West - notice how so much of the climate change self-flagellation ignores the shameless contributions of China to carbon emission. Finally, one thing I have noticed when I respond to these articles is how anti-practical they are. As in, I will recommend increased funding for R&D, increased regulation of polluting industries, a more coherent redefinition of ESG in the financial community, and increased input of environmental concerns into foreign policy decisions, and I will be called selfish, narcissistic, capitalist, etc. By the way, I am all these things - an unapologetic capitalist interested in the betterment of myself and my loved ones, and I have a hopefully well-deserved high opinion of myself, sometimes. I think the tragedy of environmentalism is that the problems are very real, but the people voicing these concerns have no interest in a real solution. They simply want to punish the people they hate.
I had wondered if the Green Party was supported by the Soviet Union/Russia. People tend to underestimate and discount the effectiveness of propaganda. The internet and AI allows it to be deployed, disseminated and even individually targeted. Yet no one wants to admit they could be affected by it… “No, not me. I’m an independent thinker.”
Yep....the Greens certainly did some serious damage to Germany's economy. But now they've unfriended Moscow and moved quickly to deliver weapons to Moscow. Ironically Putin had first hand experience with the RAF subversion campaign in West Germany.....but let's hope that he overplayed his hand when he tried the same KGB playbook in Donbas and Ukraine. Slava Ukraini ✌️🇺🇦
Having lived in Colorado for a few years, I found it beautiful hiking there. I live on the east coast so West Virginia has become my go to hiking and camping spot. Needless to say, we just bought land and are moving there.
Master Zeihan just explained in a few minutes; what took me an entire 6 months to research and validate.👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 This is the power of have access to actionable Data and experience with different industries and processes.
I just wanted to take a moment to say how amazing your video was! I was really impressed with the quality of the footage, the editing, and the overall presentation. You did a great job of explaining the topic in a clear and concise way, and I learned a lot from watching your video.
Well done. The ag future forecast is something I assumed, but now I know what the contributing factors are that will lead to the ag production evolution & growth. My granddad had 220 acres, a tractor, a plow, & manure spreader for the family farm here in Iowa. He used the shared Co-op cultivator & seeder for planting and outsourced the harvest to a combine company.. The only fertilizer he used was manure. His corn & soybean yields were just enough to feed the hogs & cattle he raised, with some left to get some cash by selling to the local grain elevator to put on the market. He'd be amazed at the corn yields & tech today. 😀
This is why I subscribe to Peter’s content - the wide-ranging broad scale treatise on the geopolitical impacts of a humming bird flying over a beaver dammed creek, is what is so cool…. Literally the flight of a bumble bee can influence a pipeline lol
A simple rebuttal: 1. Fewer and less skilled people are needed for high tech projects than ever given the utility of existing automation products and the legacy tech experience in Gen Xers and millennials, which did not exist at scale before 2010 2. Less capital is needed than ever for software innovation given the progress in open source software, copilot programs, and new development languages and platforms. 3. Existing robotics tech can and will massively streamline manufacturing at scale and reduce associated costs for countless products. This will be capital intensive, but the returns are enormous since maintenance is cheaper than wages and benefits, so it will definitely attract the needed capital - see the Midea acquisition of Kuka. If you don't think the largest manufacturer of electrical goods acquiring the market leader in industrial robotics is a sign of manufacturing going full auto, I don't know what to tell you. 4. Most commercial chips can run UX for AI apps, and cloud providers already have massive supplies of server side chips 5. Server side chips for AI will be manufactured in the US at scale within 5 years. 6. Supply chains for chips can be streamlined and localized/friend shored within that 5 years and it's already starting
Hey Peter, I enjoy your snippets. I wanted to find out where you find a lot of your information. I have my own channels, however every now and then you will provide information about a topic that I have not personally found myself. I do read Academic journals from time to time, in conjunction to things like statistics from the WEF, World Bank, Treasury and so forth. Merely curious if there were any other recommendations you were willing to provide? Thanks :)
Easy. He makes stuff up. While entertaining, he's not a reliable source of information and anything he says should be taken with a rather large grain of salt. When you have an opinion on everything you're bound to be right occasionally, but that does not mean very much.
At the end of his book Disunited Nations, in the acknowledgements section, he finally does state a lot of the sources for his info. I just finished reading it two days ago.
I think one of the big areas that will see innovation increase is in the low capital cost areas that people can play around in. low capital being $500-10,000 dollars, which is part of why we have seen such a major boon for ai as much of the ground work can be done on 500-10,000 dollar computers that you can buy at a store. Organic/sustainable/resilient agriculture being another area that is seeing and will keep seeing major improvements, as we see indoor growing and small plot farms starting to be developed and building in automation. It's all those areas of development that have been ignored for the last 60+ years.
so if there is almost no roof to productivity of land in farming, what are potential bottlenecks... fertilizer, seeds? Also, can overproductivity create dumping problem (mostly political, what to do with these newfound excess production)
@@effexon dumping problem is almost certainly something of concern. not sure on what the roof to productivity of land is, but one section of land use that can be shifted is the 50 million acres being used for lawns, as well as the 8 million acres of parking lots (of which many of those 2 billion parking spots could be turned into anything else). Water use is probably the biggest bottleneck in agriculture, (lawns are a heavy user of water as well) however that will be more of a concern of crop selection. Following that would be capital for buying many of the improvements. Seeds is not a real bottleneck, though there is an artificial legal bottleneck since seeds are patented and the way those laws work are a mess. The next big bottle neck is actually in testing speed.
Thanks for a great analysis of potential remedial technologies. I would love to see you discuss this topic specifically in relation to demographic collapse and any subsequent security issues…
Rolls Royce already has modular Nuclear Power units and probably others too. Geothermal breakthroughs are incredibly promising with the tech barriers seemingly overcome very recently. See George Monbiot on precision brewing for foods.
Go check out Last Energy's design, it's tiny and uses almost entirely off-the-shelf parts. They're not designed to power whole huge cities without a large array installed, but one or two of them can easily power a power-hungry factory or similar facility.
agreed -- these are worthy innovations that make a lot of sense. But I think Peter is talking about things that will scale, that will make a crucial difference. Geothermal has been promising for decades, and precision fermentation is fantastic, but requires for mass-implementation that folks give up meat. Which they don't, all things being equal.
I don't think things will be as bad as you make them out in terms of lack of tech workers in the future. I remember in the 80's attending a colloquia, as a physics grad student, telling me that there are no jobs for us, (the largest cohort in US history). And the over capacity was at least a factor of 2. And that was in an age of generally lower scientific and technical awareness in the general public. Things have changed so much. There are so many outlets of information and free education from top notch universities, even with the declining population I think we are gonna be just fine.
with automation and AI reducing need for people in many places and people can only buy so much stuff and digital content, problem can quickly become opposite... meaningful tasks for most of people... afterall lot of things stay pretty stable what we use in daily life... unless you are filthy rich, only need one phone,computer,apartment/house and car/vehicle per adult person... others are for spareparts/backup in case things break but as things get better over time, no sense to keep 10x stock for everything.
@effexon Good point. In general as various sectors automate, fewer people are needed. If StarLink ends up replacing all networking on the planet, with relocation of servers to orbit, that would represent a dramatic decrease in people needed in that sector. Just as agriculture has seen a huge decline people needed in the sector, so it will and is happening in other sectors.
@@gkochanowskyI'll also add that meaningful tasks that society and peers are willing to give monetary compensation... so far it is either business owner or salary worker, no other way is accepted (just look how bad comments people get when they do neither, even if they think there is no job worthy of their time or location where no jobs exist... so even if they grow their own food and things like that, society aint ready for this kind of change...) and there is very little discussion, Andrew Yang is one of few talking what to do ... this is already one reason fentanyl and other problems are so prevalent but will be even greater.... then famous saying of Ford CEO from 100 years ago comes to mind, workers cant buy car if salaries are not high enough, but this time who pays that salary. 2/3 of people or more in this situation and there is simply no purchase/consumer power to keep small business open (for that business owner path). People talk of population decline and assume things go along as before in 1990s or 2000s(Zeihan and many talked this was based on technological boom thinking, which is over by now).
@@effexon Eh, we'll see. Once a smart phone became a must have, smart watches became luxury items. In Norway and Sweden, back before they invited in tens of thousands of muslim refugees, is was normal to have a small house in the city and an older, larger extended family house in the country to visit during the summer holidays. People always seem to find new things to want.
@@AUniqueHandleName444sure but then free market prices something always above most of people ... if it is not luxury watch/smartwatch, it can be electric or food again. Im 3rd gen country people ie Im only tourist there, no strong links to countryside anymore so essentially I dont have that bigger house. Need to have exceptional economic boom to sustain all that property. I dont see that coming any time soon, not in that scale it was 70s to 90s.
Great overview, Peter. Your timeline prediction regarding Nuscale is right on the mark. You didn't however mention any of the other companies (non American) that are also on the cusp of getting regulatory and prototype approval, companies like Moltex, Elysium and Thorcon, to name a few. Perhaps you'll mention Small Modular Reactor/Molten Salt Reactor competition and the industries' effects on the "green" revolution in another video? I noted too, that there's a lot of ground clutter (fallen trees, etc.) on your hike.
QUESTION FOR PETER You've talked a lot about the impacts of Boomers mass-retiring. But what are the impacts of them mass-dying, and of all their retirement savings being inherited?
I'm retired, and baring a fatal accident, I intend to spend every dime of my considerable savings on myself. Only my grandchildren will inherit anything (and just enough for college).
@@Indrid__Cold I actually wonder what the stats and demographics are on who will inherit the wealth of the soon-to-die Boomers. You are right, many of them are jealous of their own children for being still alive and will look for ways to burn it up or leave it to harmful nonprofits.
@@TheSateef Nuclear Reactors - High capital cost with a long slow return. The fracking is almost the opposite. Little mention has been made here of need for various innovations. The world needs to eliminate the greenhouse gases. Maybe, the SMRs are on the way to alleviate this issue.
@@daniellarson3068 SMR's and MSR's are the way to go, certainly. What's holding them up is the regulatory swamp each startup has to go through just to get to prototype stage. The best analogy I can come up with is that the startups have to convince the government to change its railroad regulations to make them compatible with airline industry because the technologies are so different and that takes time - lots of time.
@@paulbradford6475 You can blame the government OR you can blame those who pull the strings and controls the government. You simply have to ask yourself who would be hurt if we had less expensive cleaner energy? A generation or two back they were doing all kinds of research and building small test reactors all over the country. Around the end of the 1970s, that all kinda stopped. Was it a conspiracy to stop nuclear power development? Nah. Just excellent PR from some corporations. The government will respond to pressure to alleviate excess regulations, but that pressure must be brought to bear. Government is a tool. It can be a tool for the common population or for special interest groups. I guess we ought to pressure our regulators to be more practical.
Where I'm from in Ontario, we've had the greatest reliance on nuclear power generation in Canada for decades. They've recently started construction of 4 SMRs at the Darlington site on the shore of Lake Ontario (which had been scheduled for decommissioning). When all 4 older reactors were online at Darlington, the plant kicked out 3.5 GW. The new SMRs will produce 1.2 GW when done. Still a way to go, but progress nonetheless. I have friends working in the academic and implementation areas of nuclear power generation. SMRs are challenging because the nuclear phobic greens really try to highlight their high capital cost and slow return as their argument to avoid full adoption. And then there's the demonstrated ineptitude of our virtue-signalling federal government that so enjoys meddling in provincial affairs (ask Alberta) ... But, I have to give credit where due, they did come through with almost $1 billion for the Darlington SMR project. Fracking isn't an option here, and IMO, neither is solar (weeks and weeks of cloudy weather in winter) or wind (tried it and all it resulted in were some of the most expensive electric bills around). Maybe we'll actually become innovators in something... Despite evidence that innovation in Canada has been in steep decline for decades.
That was very interesting. Technology in all fields of endeavour rolls on. One caveat. Regarding farm activity and probably other occupations, farm equipment, including heavy equipment like tractors, is becoming more software dependent. Much of it proprietary. When your tractor won’t star because of a software glitch the solution is not available at your local supplier. For some it requires a company tech to come out to fix the problem. They are not around every street corner and it can take days or weeks for the fix. That can be costly at harvest time. That 1990 JD does not have those issues.
I saw video that AI based precise fertilizer/watering equipment use nvidia hardware... and they are similar with attitude locking everything possible .... issue with these heavy machinery comes as those are big investments and after 10 years someone still using it has hard time finding software or spare parts with computerized machinery and "computer" boards breaking first Productivity naturally goes down but JD or other big corpo securing that position has no intention to help in this regard... so will economy stagnate or go down without yearly QE money printing as it is weaker signals already visible (ie human activity is many places hindered or blocked with those ways). This means more unemployed people scenario.
On the more grounded side, installing modular nuclear reactors on the site of former coal fire stations would go a long way toward sidestepping NIMBY related issues - or so you'd think.
You could try explaining to locals how they were exposed to more radioactive material in smoke from the coal plant than they will be from a nuclear replacement.
Robotics is a category that stretches across multiple of the listed categories that I think will have an enormous impact in the near future. As mentioned a lot of robotics doesn't necessarily require great amounts of processing power. Robots with "lower end" processing will improve many parts of our daily lives.
I agree with Peter that AI is bound by the chip power and quantity. However, if deep learning with VCSEL proves to be as effective as reported just a month ago, that restriction is no longer there.
Also, you may need more power for training. But an AI that is already trained my not need as much power, especially if it's tailored for a specific task. Buying a pre trained AI and using it in your workplace may require only a fraction of the CPU power as the place that trained and developed it.
@christopherbelanger6612 VCSEL promises higher output at lower energy cost. Its essentially a processor based on light. And yes, quering the model takes far less power than training it, since you only need to calculate the model output for your data. Setting up the model with weights and biases is usually what takes most of the computing power.
All this talk of AI has reminded me to actually start my RGB to LCH model. Like mentioned here output calculations on neural nets are low-cost, essentially just a series of dot products; a multiply accumulate instruction handles them well. So well that I think an AI doing the conversions with multiply accumulates can out-perform the regular transformation algorithm involving a floating point divide on hardware without a floating point divide instruction. (ie cheap ARM chips) Fortunately I'm loosely supervised at work so I can sneak this project in.
I believe SMRs have a number of competing programmes worldwide, thr US has several in the mini and micro size space and the UK has at least the one with Rolls Royce, I think possibly more too. I would envisage the European continent has some of its own, if Germany doesn't have a programme in progress this would be very odd indeed.
Germany doesn't do nuclear. Sweden has an innovative lead-cooled concept. Of course France and Russia have designs too, and the UK. But that's kindof it, in Europe.
Germany doesn't have a nuclear programme for anything as yet, the greens have squashed it, funny enough however Germany in the current energy crisis is mining and burning lignite coal at a greater rate than previously which over its lifetime will kill far more of its citizens with pollution than all of the nuclear power plant accidents in the World, but why would the greens or any eco group let the facts get in the way of dogma. Rolls Royce are in the second phase of their reactor but a working one will not arrive until the 2030's, assuming they get the finance!?!
@@davocc2405 afaik Siemens built all of the reactors in Western Germany. But Siemens has been withdrawing from nuclear since 2011, just honoring some old obligations and wrapping up things, and I don't think there's much left and I'm very sure that they have no active SMR programme that will compete in the market with NuScale and others.
Hey I love the pack! It looks exactly like mine! Love this pack. So light. Your brain looks like it’s unzipped or broken, hope you didnt lose anything.
Using AI is a massive boost to productivity.. I can code a program in 1 day what would have taken 2 weeks. Maybe don't need so many young people in this industry anymore ✌
@@nom_chompskyno, but you can cut months off of the design process for the steel mill and streamline the construction process using AI tools which will save time and money
Peter's approach is great for understanding geopolitical strategy because the macro-level geographical, economic, and even political forces which are amenable to quantitative analysis are the best tools governments and corporations have for thinking about these things. But they're less useful for explaining trends in innovation, which is strongly influenced by more intangible phenomena like culture and law.
SpaceX made access to space 10x cheaper - with the *Falcon 9* Now with *Starship* they can do that *again* (prob by 2026, since F9 development to commercial use was cca 8-10 years. Starship began in 2016) Big stuff is gonna happen besides sats and tourism! (also Starship is estimated to be able to do 150t to 250t to LEO, compared to F9's 13t)
The eventual problem with AI is that by the time a company gears up their whiz-bang AI product or software, the speed of innovation will render that product or software obsolete. Companies are going to have such a hard time deciding WHEN to jump into a given market, because the next innovation that renders their current technology obsolete is going to be just weeks, days, and eventually HOURS away.
Speed of change may change but marketplace dynamics has always been a challenge. Get the product and timing right with a marketing spin that works is how great wealth is generated. Hyper competitive world.
Small Modular Reactors 1:55
A.I. 3:41
Outer Space 5:28
Biologic Drugs 7:25
Shale Revolution 8:40
Agriculture 11:30
I run an Ai company. But I wanna be more like Peter, running around in the middle of nowhere - commenting on everywhere 😊
@@jungtarcphI dont. U think that an ubiquitous soul if still human is anti natural and unhappy. I also disagree the order list.
approx.. 0:10 Charlie the unicorn and candy mountain reference? !!
Chuck my man, you are a LEGEND 🫡
Hazel Chocolate?
Going for a morning hike with Peter while getting a master class in world affairs really makes my day. Thank you Peter!
I look forward to Peter's video every morning. He has a great outlook on the world
*American isolationist outlook on the world
Especially given he’s always in a new part of it every video 😂😂😂
As a backpacker myself I love to see him on so many trips. He would be a hoot to sit around a campfire or at some sunset overlook with.
Tesla is already planning factories to produce millions of humanoid robots. Right now the robots are able to take pixels from a video feed of a human doing an activity and translate that into movements, the sea change this represents cannot be overstated. Tesla built a car factory from muddy field to first cars in 15 months so in the next 3-4 years there will be a production rate of millions of these humanoid robots that can do any physical task a human can do. This changes everything and is why I don't agree with Zeihan after 3 years
is odd no mention of nano science, which puts paid to the rest
The best of breed, Peter gives such a great overview of where things are going and why, without being overly political or divisive. Big fan
yes
Mostly.... Heh
He's worth listening to, but he lies by omission and his solutions are invariably big government, big corporation ones.
@@dutch1777realI agree, but I think that's only realistic whether we like it or not. The reins of power are very firmly held and reinforced by Jack-booted thugs. There is zero chance that, as things get worse and scarcity of different types rise, that anyone holding those reins will make decisions that anybody on any TRUE Left would see as positive. So having someone largely apolitical speaking with some knowledge is a net positive. If he were to point out each thing that is awful and inequitable at each step he'd be wasting a lot of breath. Basically, at the start of every video if there were a disclaimer stating "This video is made already granting that nearly everybody I'm going to be talking about is evil or at least amoral and acting from a hostile scarcity mindset. With that in mind, here are the best guesses as to how these actors will react" that would pretty much close the gaps.
Whenever Peter Zion starts to talk about a subject I know something about, he shows that he doesn't know what's going on. He's brilliant at making it look like he knows exactly what's happening. He's always entertaining, though!
Peter is like Gandalf wandering in the woods talking to trees and birds it is so cute somehow. Hi Peter.
Comment of the day!
Of course. And Russia is Mordor and Putin Sauron.
I think you mean Radagast the Brown.
@@Roboticpycotic😂 great analogy.
I was waiting until the end because I was hoping to pounce in the comment section when I thought Peter Zeihan was going to miss GMOs, but honestly, I think he nailed it. That is why I listen to this hiking channel with great geopolitics.
Right! Few make the distinction of the various uses of the modifications…there have been some splicing that no doubt wasn’t compatible with the human digestive/immune system (and those will become less important as the more precise application methods can target individual plants with judicious use of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides…hopefully less problematic versions) …many instances of GMO are basically more advanced and precise methods that are current scientific methods of hybridizations, which humans have been doing since they started purposely planting seeds!
I was part of it. I worked for Pioneer Seed company in my youth (45 + years ago) detassling corn to create hybrid strains. There were no child labor laws. Lol
Trouble with gmo is they engineer it so the seeds don't work and you have to go back to the company that made them in the first place. There more ways to tackle this. Better use of water for one and hybrids that are more resistant to warmer weather and pests
@@johndoe-vc1we It is a sucky kind of move; is it copy protection? But as synthetic biology tools get cheaper this kind copy protection is likely not going to be very effective, it will be easy to bypass. And do large scale farmers even harvest their own seeds? Super poor third world farmers may do this.
@newtunesforoldlogos4817 EPA/DHA. There is a version of canola that can produce that. It would be very good for health and relieve the pressure on the worlds fisheries as there is nowhere close to enough fish. No one seems to be using this so far even though it already exists. There was a purple tomato which had a beneficial flavonoid in it. They engineered that thing, but it just went nowhere.
GMO for better health, I think we should go all in on this one. The problem is marketing and public perception. And the anti GMO faction of morons out there on both political extremes wich want to stop GMO’s. There is no reasoning with such people. Hopefully no state sponsored efforts get behind them.
I think this guy loves walking in nature
He is living the life. He has freedom
Literally all I want to do is wake up and go hiking hahaha this man is living my dreams
It’s the only way he stays so calm 😂😂😂
He‘s a wood nymph
@@KjiehTVhe is not only hiking, he is mainly processing information and colorado forests and wilderness is only the scenography 😊
I work in biologic drugs (aging.) Since I've started walking and talking like Peter ...great insights started happening behind the scenes. Walking is good for creativity!
Diffuse mode cognition! For sure!
Peter has a gift of digesting many streams of information, arrange and synchronize them into a single train of thought, and deliver the result with his excellent communication / presentation / writing skills. Hats off.
Well said!
Er, all he's doing is regurgitating Establishment talking points now.
He needs to dive back into the data, if he wants to continue to be interesting or useful.
Can we get Peter, Victor Davis Hanson, Thomas Sowell and Jordan Peterson together on stage for a few hours? PLEASE 🙏
@@gusgrimm7533 Definitely. Peter could use some better influences in his life than whatever Establishment shills he gets his politics from.
Without notes, while hiking yet
I can't believe that Peter does not have over 2 million subscribers. He is a brilliant and important mind and most folks choose to watch drooling idiots on you tube. Rock on Peter!
Oo trust me he will get there, this year alone he reached like 100.000 subs already. This guy's channel will continue to grow.
He is not pushing the NPC blaming and shaming. Apocalyptic religion is not a constraint in his analysis. And he is not a filtered thirst trap. The views will be kind of lower. We are very lucky to have his analysis.
I unsubscribe every time he writes a garbage piece like this outside his wheelhouse. This is extreme drivel. He is deeply uneducated on every topic here but shale.
The guy has been making Videos for like a year now and already has 500,000 subs lol, he had around 100k when i found out about him half a year ago. Let's not pretend he is some underappreciated and hidden gem who doesn't get any views.
People will watch Doom and gloom videos far more often than they will subscribe to them.
Excellent summation of where things are, at the moment. Well done Peter!
For a guy who knows so much, he is never in the office :)
Good to hear Peter say "Ma and Pa shops" To me the four ingredients of innovation are : 1) A place to tinker. 2) A reason to tinker and 3) Time to tinker and 4) Materials to tinker with. From Charles Goodyear making vulcanized rubber in the kitchen to Jobs/Woyzniac making the Apple. When citizens are stress and "tapped out" they reduce their tinkering. Yes many still do but the number drops.
In modern America, it would be ma and ma or pa and pa shops because heterosexuality is now passe and lame hahaha
@@hellbythedashboardlight1730 That is so 2010 - people are non binary now
Even BlackRock is getting push back for not being more progressive. People/agenda over profit or something like that.
its Ok, the US has one critical capacity in which it is unmatched- the ability to import the right people at the right time. They make the market place for ideas (where capital and customers are abundant) - so the people with the ideas DO come to play there. Its unmatched in scale and durability and if we are lucky it will save us from being overtaken by the soft-under belly of western cultural apathy which (ironically) grew from the original successes of this very model. If we are really lucky, California will just fall off the map and they can start again woke-free.
That's (as usual) a seriously wide range of knowledge. Thank you for sharing.
BTW, are "modular nuclear reactors" what the USN uses?
Good question! I imagine that in some way, they are. I know the term Small Modular Reactors usually refers to reactors that connect to the power grid. But people who have work experience on nuclear submarines might be some of the best people to work on SMRs and really get that technology up and running and producing green energy.
@@mntlblok submarine reactors use weapons grade radioactive materials and are staffed 24/7
As someone who is in the tech space, his knowledge there is touch and go. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that's true in other areas that I'm less familiar with.
@@AUniqueHandleName444 tech space is pretty wide, care to bring it back from the orbit of Uranus?
I'm an IT professional. I didn't learn about all types of artificial neural networks, but the ones I learned about are extremely easy to run and would do with even old hardware. Teaching the network is more demanding.
And to teach, just plug in to azure or AWS. I think zeihan got it wrong with AI.
@@chillfill4866and what chips do azure/aws use? 😊
Zeihan is right about the chips. Google reported the operational cost for an AI is multiple times (3x times, IIRC) larger than the current Google Search operationl cost.
@@SunandarNGusti Zeihan's right that good hardware (mostly Nvidia, fabbed by TSMC) is required for neural network training at useful scale and speed, but his conclusion seems bonkers. Yes, there's high demand and limited supply, but @chillfill4866 is still correct: through cloud computing services, companies don't need to buy their own chips to do AI. They instead can buy time on azure or AWS. Sure, there's price pressure to the upside, but this is not going to hamper well-funded companies in any meaningful way. VC funds invest their own (or wealthy clients') capital... they're not as impacted by interest rates. The notion that AI is less likely to have a significant impact because chips are expensive & so is capital... absolutely bonkers take.
@@SunandarNGusti True, but Google search operational cost is negligible. Training of very large nets is extremely computationally intensive, but evaluating them is cheap. You will be able to get a ChatGPT-like LLM that runs on a phone within a few years.
@@SunandarNGusti And the current operational cost is so cheap they allow you to do it thousands of times a day for free, in return for a *tiny* amount of advertising.
Tripling its cost for a productivity boost to workers (literally doing many repetitive parts of their job for them, as ChatGPT can do) is absolutely table scraps compared to the price of saving those worker's time.
US farmers are already doing inputs based yield expectations on a small scale vs. farm field wide. Its the plant genetics that is changing big time. I was at Purdue in 1998; the corn guru there said no way we can top 700 bushel an acre ever; 350 bu/ac be tough to do. 2019 corn yield record holder hit 619 bu/ac!!!
The corn yield contest winner is applying an impractical and wasteful amount of fertilizer. Not indicative of new norms.
Sure, yield numbers and breaking yield records is fun and impressive, but what price are we paying in terms of long-term health issues regarding the lack of (truly independent) long-term health data surrounding GMO/Genetically Modifed Foods, soil nutrient depletion, and the prolific use of toxic herbicides/weed killers and pesticides(?)
@@__WJK__ I'm happy to see a rising number of people focusing on soil health and increasing yields by getting the right microbial ecosystem. Elaine Ingham and David Johnson (Johnson-Su bioreactor) have shown very impressive results.
Farming has always had a trade off between production and ecological damage. It's how civilizations rise and fall.
Anyway..I remember walking in corn fields in the middle of the afternoon when the close to 30 foot stalks would completely blot out the sun for all intents and purposes..Very easy to get lost out in those fields. We were hunting for marijuana growing along the fence lines back then..My, how things have changed..😅
@@martinoamello301730ft tall corn 😂
Not quite as optimistic about this tech stuff as Peter Diamandis, but still a valuable perspective. The world needs more than one Peter.
My biggest issue is that he'll never illustrate a picture how he can be wrong on everything. AI could really cure of us any loss of intellectual capital. We can crazily boost immigration with unskilled labor to bolster debt spending//consumer spending. On top of all those medical advances and advanced assistance from AI means a lot of people could put off retire into their theoretical 70s.
We could use a few more Peters. We already have too many Dicks.
Ageism in tech is a huge problem. I'm in my 60's and I have to do my innovation work in manufacturing automation, not at the "cool" Big Tech and start-up companies.
If it makes you feel any better Big tech seems old school at this point too, and robotics and construction technology seems cool to me and my buddies....
-32 year old
As 63-year-old Software Developer I can relate. There is, apparently, no ideation activity after age 40. I've found that I'm probably better off working for myself. Best to you.
The required skillset is wildly different, I can attest to that from being a webdev myself and having talked to a bunch of people who program embedded software. I would say this is less ageism and more that younger devs have no interest in programming in old, user-unfriendly C or whatever the machines often run on.
Hey old timer. Thanks to people like you, my dad has been able to automate almost 98% of his factory’s daily operations. He only has 70 workers in a given rotation nowadays. Whereas, he had around 900 back in 2005. You guys are awesome.
Anyone put off from hiring you due to your age is bullet dodged. I feel for the young person who got the job because they are in for a ride.
Speaking of innovation, how about a video that discusses the game-changing advances that plasma-bit drilling is likely going to have on the well drilling industry, in the very near future, especially regarding geothermal wells(?) Really enjoy the channel and your insight, keep up the great work!
THIS
Peter your inspirational talks have changed my life. Just keep it up! My question, on your multi day hikes, what’s your kit list? I struggle keeping my pack lite. And your right about everything else so ………….
Honestly, I think we're sufficiently underutilizing the technologies we DO have, that a slowdown in the rate of raw innovation (and an increase in the rate of operationalization) might actually do more to help than hurt. I can think of hundreds of workplaces and processes that can be mechanized, automated, and robotized to a MUCH greater degree than they already are. And if we have a shrinking workforce, that removes the main objection we have to it, which is that it takes away people's jobs.
The worst thing we could do right now is mass-import workers to replace the ones retiring. If we do that, the pressures driving down birthrates will never go away.
Always appreciate someone who can plainly state the origins and motivations of the Green Cult.
This is the first time that I've heard the KGB connection. It would be nice to see some evidentiary confirmation on that, but it seems plausible. Most Greens are not communists. They are more like useful idiots.
There are those who rationally observe and analyse environmental damage and those who have a non-scientific, lets say irrational approach. It is important to distinguish between the two. The fossil fuel industry has an obvious absolutely massive incentive to spend a great deal of money doing their best to conflate the two.
Peter continues to lead the WFN, Work From Nature movement. I’m joining!
Excellent video. Incredibly informative on a broad range of subjects.
*I want to walk in nature with Peter!*
I work at a company that actually came up with a change to PCR (although its not called that because the way it works is different). This tech can be placed on a small chip and genetic testing for things like viruses or small genetic sequences can be done in 8 to 15 min under isothermal conditions. The chip is hooked up to a device that can almost immediately inform a doctor of the results of the test.
That’s cool
PCR was never meant for diagnosing illnesses though. You can search for what you want with PCR and find it, depending on how many cycles you run. It's meant for genetic testing to see family relationships, criminal forensics, and research, not diagnostics.
@@LRRPFco52yep - which is what's so great about PCR from a political perspective. You can get any predetermined outcome you want. Just make it more or less sensitive and voila.
@@LRRPFco52 That is true. What I think @ajmaynard92 meant to say is that the doctor can have a limited genetic profile of his patient to help him determine if the patient has any genetic markers for any particular illness. Or a profile that can help determining course of treatment if for example particular drugs are known to cause side-effects linked to particular mutations. If what @ajmaynard92 mentioned is true it may be truly a revolutionary technique. Although it does not sound like anything new to what lab-on chip was promising for last 30 years. However, recent advances in AI, microfluidics, and bio-chip design indicate that it may be true.
@@LRRPFco52 he said it was not really a PCR so this may not apply.
This was one of the best
Screw the Geopolitics man, someone tell me how this man can hike, think & speak at the same type without fainting
..he had me at hiking!
specially at the altitudes he is at most places
He's been doing a lot of hiking lately. I'm beginning to think he's retired. Usually he's hop-scotching around the world.
Except when SPRINTING, I was always told when training to run at a speed at which I could hold a conversation.
It's all about learning breath control.
See the Aussie aboriginies and how they play the Didgeridoo for mastery!
try it sometime, you might find great results!
"Where in the World is Peter Zeihan and his crystal ball....?" The behavior of homo sapiens throughout the ages has not changed enough to accomadate anything other than time in a capsule. The evolution painstakingly, differentiates technological advances just ahead of throwing a weighted spear to it's target with less drag then the previuos throw. Finding an individual who is willing to put a finger into some of the abstract carnage at present, can be like that of a gifted child who will excel to become a beacon, should anyone be interested. Thanks Peter, always enjoy the outdoors with you. Stay safe!
great video peter, always informative and realistic
Always well-reasoned and thought provoking. Thank you Mr. Zeihan.
This is one of those epic Peter videos that hits you when you least expect it. Wish he'd include a bibliography so I could do a deeper dive on some of the topics.
Love your multi-tasking Sir!
Peter for president! Can we have a real option for once?
And lose his daily updates?! No way.
I love our walks and talks together. I'm smarter, more fit, and might even be better-looking now. 😎
Honestly,....this human being IS a national treasure!
Peter Zeihan never disappoints
I'm beginning to think you don't have a house mate.
Imagine Zeihan is just a homeless raving lunatic
@@sbek1337Bro😂😂😂 that is hilarious to think about and completely changes the context of all the videos when you frame it that way lmao
@@sbek1337lmfao
He has a big house in Colorado.
@@codynoyes yeah so does the beggar outside the local 7-11
Zeihan makes me wanna explore mother nature
Enjoy listening to your thoughts and general knowledge of current events and history. I live in cedar rapids and will be staying at Golden Colorado for abit to enjoy what Colorado has to offer!
Thank you
Your videos are great, I actually feel like I've learned things about the world that few others bother to even think about. And all the while you are laying down the knowledge you are just casually strolling through a different wilderness ever time.
Love the Serengeti sunglasses, Peter!!
This is the kind of news and scientific updates that i live for! Instwad of the usual crazy western alarmism about how everything is wrong and the workd is ending, i am so happy to see a westerner reporting in the ongoing beneficial scientific innovation and research.
Why 'western'?
This Guy says that the world is going to collapse and billions are going to starve to death
Excellent work continues here, thanks.
Thanks again for another educational, informative video - and the awesome vistas!
really good video, thank you
Zeihan's remark about the KGB origins of the environmental movement struck a nerve. One thing that has irritated me about environmentalists pretty much my entire life has been their sense of defeatism. As in, there is no way to solve the environmental crises we face unless we devote ourselves to a puritanical regime of self-negation which no one would agree to. It individualizes the problem, as in small micro-decisions of middle-class Americans are root cause of the problem, reflecting how Communist regimes would harass, torture, and kill people who indulged in relatively innocuous middle-class pleasures. And there is a lot of implicit hatred of the West - notice how so much of the climate change self-flagellation ignores the shameless contributions of China to carbon emission. Finally, one thing I have noticed when I respond to these articles is how anti-practical they are. As in, I will recommend increased funding for R&D, increased regulation of polluting industries, a more coherent redefinition of ESG in the financial community, and increased input of environmental concerns into foreign policy decisions, and I will be called selfish, narcissistic, capitalist, etc. By the way, I am all these things - an unapologetic capitalist interested in the betterment of myself and my loved ones, and I have a hopefully well-deserved high opinion of myself, sometimes. I think the tragedy of environmentalism is that the problems are very real, but the people voicing these concerns have no interest in a real solution. They simply want to punish the people they hate.
Really optimistic outlook, you made my day
What a wonderful time
😃
I had wondered if the Green Party was supported by the Soviet Union/Russia. People tend to underestimate and discount the effectiveness of propaganda. The internet and AI allows it to be deployed, disseminated and even individually targeted. Yet no one wants to admit they could be affected by it… “No, not me. I’m an independent thinker.”
The USA took a lot of damage in the Cold War. Some of it is ongoing.
Yep....the Greens certainly did some serious damage to Germany's economy. But now they've unfriended Moscow and moved quickly to deliver weapons to Moscow.
Ironically Putin had first hand experience with the RAF subversion campaign in West Germany.....but let's hope that he overplayed his hand when he tried the same KGB playbook in Donbas and Ukraine. Slava Ukraini ✌️🇺🇦
One french intelligence officer claimed that Greenpeace was funded by KGB
Dr. Joseph Tainter, University of Pennsylvania has a great Series on this great Topic of the End of Innovation.
Keep up the Excellent work Mr. Zeihan.
Having lived in Colorado for a few years, I found it beautiful hiking there. I live on the east coast so West Virginia has become my go to hiking and camping spot. Needless to say, we just bought land and are moving there.
Brilliant and fascinating
I lived off this guys opinions while in college. I loved his books and he has great views on globalization, manufacturing, birth rates etc etc.
That is some serious cardio fitness to deliver that summary while hiking with a backpack. 🤣And as always - chocked full of useful insights
Master Zeihan just explained in a few minutes; what took me an entire 6 months to research and validate.👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
This is the power of have access to actionable Data and experience with different industries and processes.
Good one thanks
I just wanted to take a moment to say how amazing your video was! I was really impressed with the quality of the footage, the editing, and the overall presentation. You did a great job of explaining the topic in a clear and concise way, and I learned a lot from watching your video.
Plus, hiking at Altitude!!!!
Jeez, Peter. My knees hurt just watching your videos! 😂😂
Well done. The ag future forecast is something I assumed, but now I know what the contributing factors are that will lead to the ag production evolution & growth. My granddad had 220 acres, a tractor, a plow, & manure spreader for the family farm here in Iowa. He used the shared Co-op cultivator & seeder for planting and outsourced the harvest to a combine company.. The only fertilizer he used was manure. His corn & soybean yields were just enough to feed the hogs & cattle he raised, with some left to get some cash by selling to the local grain elevator to put on the market. He'd be amazed at the corn yields & tech today. 😀
I've only recently discovered Mr. Zeihan and have been avidly binging on all of this amazing knowledge. I'm addicted.
This is why I subscribe to Peter’s content - the wide-ranging broad scale treatise on the geopolitical impacts of a humming bird flying over a beaver dammed creek, is what is so cool…. Literally the flight of a bumble bee can influence a pipeline lol
A simple rebuttal:
1. Fewer and less skilled people are needed for high tech projects than ever given the utility of existing automation products and the legacy tech experience in Gen Xers and millennials, which did not exist at scale before 2010
2. Less capital is needed than ever for software innovation given the progress in open source software, copilot programs, and new development languages and platforms.
3. Existing robotics tech can and will massively streamline manufacturing at scale and reduce associated costs for countless products. This will be capital intensive, but the returns are enormous since maintenance is cheaper than wages and benefits, so it will definitely attract the needed capital - see the Midea acquisition of Kuka. If you don't think the largest manufacturer of electrical goods acquiring the market leader in industrial robotics is a sign of manufacturing going full auto, I don't know what to tell you.
4. Most commercial chips can run UX for AI apps, and cloud providers already have massive supplies of server side chips
5. Server side chips for AI will be manufactured in the US at scale within 5 years.
6. Supply chains for chips can be streamlined and localized/friend shored within that 5 years and it's already starting
Hey Peter, I enjoy your snippets.
I wanted to find out where you find a lot of your information. I have my own channels, however every now and then you will provide information about a topic that I have not personally found myself. I do read Academic journals from time to time, in conjunction to things like statistics from the WEF, World Bank, Treasury and so forth. Merely curious if there were any other recommendations you were willing to provide?
Thanks :)
Easy. He makes stuff up. While entertaining, he's not a reliable source of information and anything he says should be taken with a rather large grain of salt. When you have an opinion on everything you're bound to be right occasionally, but that does not mean very much.
At the end of his book Disunited Nations, in the acknowledgements section, he finally does state a lot of the sources for his info. I just finished reading it two days ago.
Interesting. Thanks
I think one of the big areas that will see innovation increase is in the low capital cost areas that people can play around in. low capital being $500-10,000 dollars, which is part of why we have seen such a major boon for ai as much of the ground work can be done on 500-10,000 dollar computers that you can buy at a store. Organic/sustainable/resilient agriculture being another area that is seeing and will keep seeing major improvements, as we see indoor growing and small plot farms starting to be developed and building in automation. It's all those areas of development that have been ignored for the last 60+ years.
so if there is almost no roof to productivity of land in farming, what are potential bottlenecks... fertilizer, seeds? Also, can overproductivity create dumping problem (mostly political, what to do with these newfound excess production)
Yes - You will see innovation where people can dump their money. After all, there's a sucker born every minute.
@@effexon dumping problem is almost certainly something of concern. not sure on what the roof to productivity of land is, but one section of land use that can be shifted is the 50 million acres being used for lawns, as well as the 8 million acres of parking lots (of which many of those 2 billion parking spots could be turned into anything else).
Water use is probably the biggest bottleneck in agriculture, (lawns are a heavy user of water as well) however that will be more of a concern of crop selection. Following that would be capital for buying many of the improvements. Seeds is not a real bottleneck, though there is an artificial legal bottleneck since seeds are patented and the way those laws work are a mess. The next big bottle neck is actually in testing speed.
SMR's are the FUTURE!!!!! I'm a senior nuclear engineering major, My senior design project is about developing an SMR for use in the mining industry!
Thanks for a great analysis of potential remedial technologies. I would love to see you discuss this topic specifically in relation to demographic collapse and any subsequent security issues…
you suggesting US population dropping to half will entice some country to invade? with hitech (weaponry) comes very complex problems.
@@effexon not thinking esp. about invasion, but more about Peters warnings about resources in a dwindling population
Peter, you are Awesome, thanks so much for your knowledge and insights. Watch out for wildlife out there ok?
Let's play 'Where in the World is Peter Zeihan?'
Hiking is the best. So much beauty out there to see and hear. Can't do it on a machine.
Rolls Royce already has modular Nuclear Power units and probably others too. Geothermal breakthroughs are incredibly promising with the tech barriers seemingly overcome very recently. See George Monbiot on precision brewing for foods.
Are they as small as NuScales SMR's?
Geothermal on large scale is dangerous cooling the core too soon will mess up the earths magnetic field shield.
Go check out Last Energy's design, it's tiny and uses almost entirely off-the-shelf parts. They're not designed to power whole huge cities without a large array installed, but one or two of them can easily power a power-hungry factory or similar facility.
Paper reactors?
agreed -- these are worthy innovations that make a lot of sense. But I think Peter is talking about things that will scale, that will make a crucial difference. Geothermal has been promising for decades, and precision fermentation is fantastic, but requires for mass-implementation that folks give up meat. Which they don't, all things being equal.
Extremely knowledgeable and inspirational. Enjoying nature,exercising and just enjoying life.
I don't think things will be as bad as you make them out in terms of lack of tech workers in the future. I remember in the 80's attending a colloquia, as a physics grad student, telling me that there are no jobs for us, (the largest cohort in US history). And the over capacity was at least a factor of 2. And that was in an age of generally lower scientific and technical awareness in the general public. Things have changed so much. There are so many outlets of information and free education from top notch universities, even with the declining population I think we are gonna be just fine.
with automation and AI reducing need for people in many places and people can only buy so much stuff and digital content, problem can quickly become opposite... meaningful tasks for most of people... afterall lot of things stay pretty stable what we use in daily life... unless you are filthy rich, only need one phone,computer,apartment/house and car/vehicle per adult person... others are for spareparts/backup in case things break but as things get better over time, no sense to keep 10x stock for everything.
@effexon Good point. In general as various sectors automate, fewer people are needed. If StarLink ends up replacing all networking on the planet, with relocation of servers to orbit, that would represent a dramatic decrease in people needed in that sector. Just as agriculture has seen a huge decline people needed in the sector, so it will and is happening in other sectors.
@@gkochanowskyI'll also add that meaningful tasks that society and peers are willing to give monetary compensation... so far it is either business owner or salary worker, no other way is accepted (just look how bad comments people get when they do neither, even if they think there is no job worthy of their time or location where no jobs exist... so even if they grow their own food and things like that, society aint ready for this kind of change...) and there is very little discussion, Andrew Yang is one of few talking what to do ... this is already one reason fentanyl and other problems are so prevalent but will be even greater.... then famous saying of Ford CEO from 100 years ago comes to mind, workers cant buy car if salaries are not high enough, but this time who pays that salary. 2/3 of people or more in this situation and there is simply no purchase/consumer power to keep small business open (for that business owner path). People talk of population decline and assume things go along as before in 1990s or 2000s(Zeihan and many talked this was based on technological boom thinking, which is over by now).
@@effexon Eh, we'll see. Once a smart phone became a must have, smart watches became luxury items. In Norway and Sweden, back before they invited in tens of thousands of muslim refugees, is was normal to have a small house in the city and an older, larger extended family house in the country to visit during the summer holidays. People always seem to find new things to want.
@@AUniqueHandleName444sure but then free market prices something always above most of people ... if it is not luxury watch/smartwatch, it can be electric or food again. Im 3rd gen country people ie Im only tourist there, no strong links to countryside anymore so essentially I dont have that bigger house. Need to have exceptional economic boom to sustain all that property. I dont see that coming any time soon, not in that scale it was 70s to 90s.
Fascinating topics presented in an entertaining way. That’s what keeps me coming back. Great job.
Please don’t get killed by a bear on your hikes Peter 🙏 We need you.
Best video so far. Amazing presentation. Thank you.
Great overview, Peter. Your timeline prediction regarding Nuscale is right on the mark. You didn't however mention any of the other companies (non American) that are also on the cusp of getting regulatory and prototype approval, companies like Moltex, Elysium and Thorcon, to name a few. Perhaps you'll mention Small Modular Reactor/Molten Salt Reactor competition and the industries' effects on the "green" revolution in another video?
I noted too, that there's a lot of ground clutter (fallen trees, etc.) on your hike.
Rolls Royce too
You're right. I forgot Rolls Royce. @@milenko1965
An especially good video analysis.
QUESTION FOR PETER
You've talked a lot about the impacts of Boomers mass-retiring. But what are the impacts of them mass-dying, and of all their retirement savings being inherited?
I'm retired, and baring a fatal accident, I intend to spend every dime of my considerable savings on myself. Only my grandchildren will inherit anything (and just enough for college).
@@Indrid__Cold I actually wonder what the stats and demographics are on who will inherit the wealth of the soon-to-die Boomers. You are right, many of them are jealous of their own children for being still alive and will look for ways to burn it up or leave it to harmful nonprofits.
@@Indrid__Coldtypical Boomer - took from future generations and et only throws them some crumbs.
@@badchefi Gave 'em a 32 trillion kiss...
@@badchefispending IS giving. I would have thought that most viewers of this channel would understand basic economics.
Tour de force, Peter!
Over 700 SMR’s built since the late 1940’s - not all for military use. Even easier to build SMR’s on land than on ships … Otherwise I’m with you 100%
its frustrating MNRs are so slow to get into action, the technology has been around for decades.
@@TheSateef Nuclear Reactors - High capital cost with a long slow return. The fracking is almost the opposite. Little mention has been made here of need for various innovations. The world needs to eliminate the greenhouse gases. Maybe, the SMRs are on the way to alleviate this issue.
@@daniellarson3068 SMR's and MSR's are the way to go, certainly. What's holding them up is the regulatory swamp each startup has to go through just to get to prototype stage. The best analogy I can come up with is that the startups have to convince the government to change its railroad regulations to make them compatible with airline industry because the technologies are so different and that takes time - lots of time.
@@paulbradford6475 You can blame the government OR you can blame those who pull the strings and controls the government. You simply have to ask yourself who would be hurt if we had less expensive cleaner energy? A generation or two back they were doing all kinds of research and building small test reactors all over the country. Around the end of the 1970s, that all kinda stopped. Was it a conspiracy to stop nuclear power development? Nah. Just excellent PR from some corporations. The government will respond to pressure to alleviate excess regulations, but that pressure must be brought to bear. Government is a tool. It can be a tool for the common population or for special interest groups. I guess we ought to pressure our regulators to be more practical.
Where I'm from in Ontario, we've had the greatest reliance on nuclear power generation in Canada for decades. They've recently started construction of 4 SMRs at the Darlington site on the shore of Lake Ontario (which had been scheduled for decommissioning).
When all 4 older reactors were online at Darlington, the plant kicked out 3.5 GW. The new SMRs will produce 1.2 GW when done. Still a way to go, but progress nonetheless.
I have friends working in the academic and implementation areas of nuclear power generation. SMRs are challenging because the nuclear phobic greens really try to highlight their high capital cost and slow return as their argument to avoid full adoption.
And then there's the demonstrated ineptitude of our virtue-signalling federal government that so enjoys meddling in provincial affairs (ask Alberta) ... But, I have to give credit where due, they did come through with almost $1 billion for the Darlington SMR project.
Fracking isn't an option here, and IMO, neither is solar (weeks and weeks of cloudy weather in winter) or wind (tried it and all it resulted in were some of the most expensive electric bills around).
Maybe we'll actually become innovators in something... Despite evidence that innovation in Canada has been in steep decline for decades.
Loving the shades.
That was very interesting. Technology in all fields of endeavour rolls on. One caveat. Regarding farm activity and probably other occupations, farm equipment, including heavy equipment like tractors, is becoming more software dependent. Much of it proprietary. When your tractor won’t star because of a software glitch the solution is not available at your local supplier. For some it requires a company tech to come out to fix the problem. They are not around every street corner and it can take days or weeks for the fix. That can be costly at harvest time. That 1990 JD does not have those issues.
I saw video that AI based precise fertilizer/watering equipment use nvidia hardware... and they are similar with attitude locking everything possible .... issue with these heavy machinery comes as those are big investments and after 10 years someone still using it has hard time finding software or spare parts with computerized machinery and "computer" boards breaking first
Productivity naturally goes down but JD or other big corpo securing that position has no intention to help in this regard... so will economy stagnate or go down without yearly QE money printing as it is weaker signals already visible (ie human activity is many places hindered or blocked with those ways). This means more unemployed people scenario.
@@effexon All the more reason not to buy the new stuff.
Fascinating presentation, thank you.
On the more grounded side, installing modular nuclear reactors on the site of former coal fire stations would go a long way toward sidestepping NIMBY related issues - or so you'd think.
You could try explaining to locals how they were exposed to more radioactive material in smoke from the coal plant than they will be from a nuclear replacement.
@@jakeaurod That was my thinking, but that's merely logic. No telling if it would be persuasive in the end.
Brilliaant.
Robotics is a category that stretches across multiple of the listed categories that I think will have an enormous impact in the near future. As mentioned a lot of robotics doesn't necessarily require great amounts of processing power. Robots with "lower end" processing will improve many parts of our daily lives.
Limits of innovation. Directly related to freedom and liberty of citizens. If innovation is lacking, there is a reason.
I agree with Peter that AI is bound by the chip power and quantity. However, if deep learning with VCSEL proves to be as effective as reported just a month ago, that restriction is no longer there.
Also, you may need more power for training. But an AI that is already trained my not need as much power, especially if it's tailored for a specific task. Buying a pre trained AI and using it in your workplace may require only a fraction of the CPU power as the place that trained and developed it.
@christopherbelanger6612 VCSEL promises higher output at lower energy cost. Its essentially a processor based on light. And yes, quering the model takes far less power than training it, since you only need to calculate the model output for your data. Setting up the model with weights and biases is usually what takes most of the computing power.
All this talk of AI has reminded me to actually start my RGB to LCH model. Like mentioned here output calculations on neural nets are low-cost, essentially just a series of dot products; a multiply accumulate instruction handles them well. So well that I think an AI doing the conversions with multiply accumulates can out-perform the regular transformation algorithm involving a floating point divide on hardware without a floating point divide instruction. (ie cheap ARM chips) Fortunately I'm loosely supervised at work so I can sneak this project in.
Excellent topics to think about with context and analysis included. Also, great inspiration to get off the couch, thanks Peter!!
I believe SMRs have a number of competing programmes worldwide, thr US has several in the mini and micro size space and the UK has at least the one with Rolls Royce, I think possibly more too. I would envisage the European continent has some of its own, if Germany doesn't have a programme in progress this would be very odd indeed.
Germany doesn't do nuclear. Sweden has an innovative lead-cooled concept. Of course France and Russia have designs too, and the UK. But that's kindof it, in Europe.
@@jesan733 who built Germany's existing reactors though?
Germany doesn't have a nuclear programme for anything as yet, the greens have squashed it, funny enough however Germany in the current energy crisis is mining and burning lignite coal at a greater rate than previously which over its lifetime will kill far more of its citizens with pollution than all of the nuclear power plant accidents in the World, but why would the greens or any eco group let the facts get in the way of dogma. Rolls Royce are in the second phase of their reactor but a working one will not arrive until the 2030's, assuming they get the finance!?!
Canada has a program aiming for production in 2029.
@@davocc2405 afaik Siemens built all of the reactors in Western Germany. But Siemens has been withdrawing from nuclear since 2011, just honoring some old obligations and wrapping up things, and I don't think there's much left and I'm very sure that they have no active SMR programme that will compete in the market with NuScale and others.
Hey I love the pack! It looks exactly like mine! Love this pack. So light. Your brain looks like it’s unzipped or broken, hope you didnt lose anything.
Using AI is a massive boost to productivity.. I can code a program in 1 day what would have taken 2 weeks. Maybe don't need so many young people in this industry anymore ✌
Maybe won't need too many old people either. 🤖
Your code must be garbage
@nom_chompsky you cant even code code properly with it
@@nom_chompskyno, but you can cut months off of the design process for the steel mill and streamline the construction process using AI tools which will save time and money
Peter's approach is great for understanding geopolitical strategy because the macro-level geographical, economic, and even political forces which are amenable to quantitative analysis are the best tools governments and corporations have for thinking about these things. But they're less useful for explaining trends in innovation, which is strongly influenced by more intangible phenomena like culture and law.
SpaceX made access to space 10x cheaper - with the *Falcon 9*
Now with *Starship* they can do that *again* (prob by 2026, since F9 development to commercial use was cca 8-10 years. Starship began in 2016)
Big stuff is gonna happen besides sats and tourism! (also Starship is estimated to be able to do 150t to 250t to LEO, compared to F9's 13t)
really?
ruclips.net/video/4TxkE_oYrjU/видео.html
!!!NASA ITSELF!!! stated that when they contracted spacex the launch cost for them went up...
The geopolitical insights are a nice addition on this travel channel
Peter almost makes me want to get out on a nature walk then I remember where I live😂
Happy Trails Peter! And please keep making these insightful videos.
The eventual problem with AI is that by the time a company gears up their whiz-bang AI product or software, the speed of innovation will render that product or software obsolete. Companies are going to have such a hard time deciding WHEN to jump into a given market, because the next innovation that renders their current technology obsolete is going to be just weeks, days, and eventually HOURS away.
Speed of change may change but marketplace dynamics has always been a challenge. Get the product and timing right with a marketing spin that works is how great wealth is generated. Hyper competitive world.
Brilliant. Thanks Peter