In 2200, the Philippines will be the last nation standing
Analysis and Opinion
By Joe America
Global warming is coming on strong, fires and floods, super-storms galore. The Philippines gets it. The nation is battered by huge storms. And storms all in a row when the winds are right. Unbelievable amounts of water fall from the skies.
Let me project forward. This is not easy. In fact, it is bound to be wrong. Consider it complete fiction if you like. But if there are lessons here, take note. We can check back again in 2200.
“In a Warmer World, Expect the Wet to Get Wetter, and the Dry, Drier” says the Earth Institute. So we can confidently figure that the Philippines will get wetter. And windier. And smaller as oceans rise by untold meters.
This is good news! All the Philippines needs to do to persist is manage water and wind. The drier parts of the planet have it tougher. Many regions are done for. Mars in the making.
The Philippines merely needs to avoid getting nuked to oblivion, an unfortunate eventually that, in my scenario, will turn China, the US, Russia, and Iran into dust and struggle, no longer the lords of power and control. They’ll be busy fighting their own climate demons.
In the Philippines, we will see the following trends emerge:
- Buildings will be built stronger to shed wind, wires will be moved underground, and repair will be an ongoing infrastructure investment.
- Rivers will become bigger and more dangerous. Towns will stop citizens from building near them, or on risky steep slopes. Bridges will be higher, longer, stronger.
- Agriculture will shift to self sustenance. Few tree crops, lots of rice and ground crops, and pigs galore.
- Coastal cities will move inland and upland while pursuing a delaying action by building seawalls.
- More dams will be built to store water for dry periods and for export, for hydroelectric power, and to help control flooding.
- Manila will flood and pump, flood and pump, and eventually scatter to neighboring high grounds. Cebu will also move uphill. Davao will sink into the ocean, and good riddance.
- Government will be taken over by aggressive white dudes from Australia to commandeer the water and manage the nation to success.
- The Philippines will be known as the Pearl of the Planet.
- The Capital of the World will move to Baguiao.
- Filipinos will go back to making lots of babies, and earth will be better for it.
Now what lessons can we extract from this fiction?
- Order LGUs to prioritize land use planning.
- Move development away from oceans, rivers, and steep slopes.
- Build windproof buildings and cities.
- Plan bridges for future water volumes, not current water volumes.
- Build dams.
- Get good at sea walls, water channelling, and pumping.
- Plan for food self sufficiency.
- Speak English.
- Retain a sense of humor.
____________________
Cover photo from Columbia Climate School in the article “In a Warmer World, Expect the Wet to Get Wetter, and the Dry, Drier” by The Earth Institute, photography credit Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
BBM wins over Leni
Trump wins over Kamala
Reality must be confusing for you, Joe
Not really. It is not me who is confused, it is voters who vote against their own best interests who are confused.
ahem, filipino voters are so humdingers that they confused many people, insipidous, surreptitious, and even splendiferous voters are. voting against their own best interest is a luxurious exercise they loved to perform. because they can! them humdingers inc.
and because the government is so tied up with the status quo and so powerless to act as true gatekeeper, incumbents deemed incompetent stay in office. impeachment serves no one, sabi. it must serve us then, we in D and E are no ones!
so bring it on! de lima et al has filed impeachment rap vs the vp.
We need a marching slogan. “Right on!” or “Power to the Ds and Es!”
those who can march, march; those who can wheedle, wheedle and those who fake names on receipts as in mary grace piattos are called to explain, and those whose signatures as in kokoy villarin varies on each receipts signed are deemed suspicious. and those who are closely aligned with the vp therefor partial must abstain during voting on her impeachment trial. namely, bong go, bato de la rosa, robin padilla, imee marcos, cynthia villar, mark villar, jinggoy estrada and jv ejercito. the senate president should see to it and uphold the dignity of the senate.
I was going to do a tweet this morning labeling the ‘ridiculous people’ in government. You nailed most of them. Going outside the Senate, we have Martires, Remula, Guevarra, and others too numerous to mention.
What a coincidence, Ksmbahay. I was just fantasizing about a lineup of usual suspects. 😦
ahem, I was fantasizing of cutting off their heads!
“Government will be taken over by aggressive white dudes from Australia to commandeer the water and manage the nation to success.“
As a big movie buff, I know how its like to see your favourite medium be invaded by Aussies, Joe. Naomi Watts I don’t mind so much. but the rest of them. the worst. especially the Hemsworth brothers and Iggy Azalea. first order of business should be to get rid of Aussies. then your follow thru w/ your 1-9. Speak English still. but don’t do it for Aussies (they don’t even speak English, they speak some kind of gibberish).
More likely Filipino-Australians and Filipino-Canadians will run the future Philippines, which will be under the Yulo dynasty, descended from Carlos Yulo and Filipina-Aussie Chloe San Jose. 😉
That’s probably a better reason to speak English post apocalypse , Ireneo.
Sea walls are all the rage right now for NYC, for Philippines probably go with floating cities ala Singapore (trash to islands).
Elevate badjaos/negritos and lumads to high positions.
As for sense of humor, it should be limited to just pull my finger and knock knock jokes, all other jokes should be censored.
Joe , if we’re doing FICINT now, I have ideas for articles. but they involve clones of Inday Sara in the future. like lots of them.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2021/march/ficint-anticipating-tomorrows-conflict
“FICINT is “the combination of fiction writing with intelligence to imagine future scenarios in ways grounded in reality.” Since the coining of the term in 2015 by August Cole, coauthor of Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War, FicInt has developed a framework of guidelines that center around the “no vaporware” rule. Vaporware is technology that has been imagined, but is not yet created. To ensure that FicInt remains feasible and grounded in legitimate technology, all technology included in the story must be developed or in development. In addition, FicInt character behavior should be based on past real-world situations. Finally, FicInt should use appropriate facts and research to justify the narrative.”
You seem to be 80/20 fiction. Get it 50/50, and relevant to the Philippines, and it will likely get published.
It might involve Olfactory Ethics, Joe. with just a little bit of clones. but this woman just went viral on Twitter, causing me to be really interested in her work. cuz its really a 3rd world issue. not so much 1st world, and why she’s getting so much flak from 1st worlders. but in that Korean film “Parasite” there was a scene where the rich pinched their nose in the presence of DE Koreans. and i totally got that scene, vis a vis Ethics. theres this musty moldy smell prevalent in the Philippines wherein if your clothes don’t dry quick enough said smell ensues. also present in structures. Mango Ave. was this, both the establishment & girls, as well as smell of shabu in short time motels, etc. body also emits an odor if you’ve done meth. don’t get me wrong lots of people smell over here too, especially if you take public transportation, gov’t buildings, etc. but its not interpreted as an ABCDE issue. its usually like Oh that guys coming from work, or she’s homeless etc. nothing like that “Parasite” scene where pinching your nose carries a lot of meaning. like A vs. D.
And this is related to the current blog cuz of your number nine: Retain a sense of humor. like pull my finger jokes. related to pull my finger jokes, is also Do you smell fire?, and the other person breathes deeply sucking up your olfactory molecules into his nostrils causing some quantum process which transmit love/hate feelings into neurons. thus Ethics.
Odors or scents are indeed reflections of the people who generate them, but like skin color, age, gender, or body shapes, ought not be held against them. I once rode a crowded shuttle bus from the plane to the terminal in Spain, and had the occasion to spend it next to a diminutive and hefty woman in black who smelled much like someone had rammed a garlic clove up my nose. So what? Well, it affected my life and she became a character in a book I tried to write, with much international intrigue, and she still infests my memory banks. Perhaps she remembers me for being so fucking tall. Researchers scrounge for knowledge in the strangest of places. Publish or perish.
Well, it affected my life and she became a character in a book I tried to write, with much international intrigue, and she still infests my memory banks.
This was my inspiration, Joe.
The future lingua franca will be Aussie Taglish.
At least no worries is very close to walang anuman and De Nada. Just one example I can think of . I will bugger off now, this might be bollocks and nitwit and not Fair dincum.
Canadians don’t need the water, but they may need the labor. They will also be one of the last nations standing.
Aussies are rednecks of a sort, alternately hospitable or inhospitable based on who is UU president. They love/hate the US, and even wayward Americans who stop by. But they have a problem, environmentally, drying up and burning. Water is in the Philippines, and they know the Philippines. So for them, colonize to get the water, or become a lot like Mad Max.
australians are apparently going to drink their own waste water including those from the sewerage. they’d recycled waste water and after several testing, found it safe to drink: colorless, odorless and pollutant free. and many houses in australia have water tanks to collect rain water, water to flush the toilet, water for the garden, to wash the car, and water for the laundry. and when there is severe drought, aussies are only allowed 4minutes showers every couple of days, and not allowed to fill up or top up their swimming pools.
and no worry about mad max, he does not take shower and likes to walk around stinky and unwashed, haha.
That shows the dire straits they are in, and why they will seek water from places with lots of it. As to odors, LCX is currently obsessing over them, so I leave that in his realm.
currently, australia is having torrential rains kuno and have its fair share of flooding, its dams are full of water. and water restriction has been lifted.
Good to know. The Philippines is safe for now.
Maybe we should limit ourselves to the last line and retain our sense of humour?The rest reads like Asimov.
Don’t forget how big & diverse China and Russia actually are. They can and will move whole population centers. They have done it before. Especially Russia it is easy as everybody speaks the same language and has the same culture thanks to Stalin who was ruthless in moving people. They will not sink, drown or perish. China might loose a few million people, but they have enough. Russia cannot afford to loose many people because they have a significant birth deficit.
But, let’s look at the suggestions:
Building seawalls and dikes? As a Dutchie, I know how expensive and tricky that stuff is. With the coastline as-is, Philippines can only delay disaster for a few years. They are doing it in my area and it is pathetic. It looks nice, but 30cm rise and they are toast.
Moving away from rivers etc? Having lived in South Africa, I have seen harmless rivers become unmanageable torrents, destroying everything in their way. Even here, after all these warnings over the recent decades, the latest rains have played havoc. You need to move FAR away, build BIG dikes. Expensive.
Moving away from the sea?Sure. But where to? Into the mountains? You said yourself that mountains and landslides will become tricky. Agriculture land will become very, very rare and people will fight for it. Hey, land disputes already the major reason for killings (maybe since Duterte, drug deals became the no.1, I don’t know).
Moving Manila?You mentioned LGU’s prioritizing land use. I worked for a while in planning here. Read about the CLUP (the Comprehensive Land Use Plan). It is a law that every LGU should have a CLUP. There is a perfect manual (about 25cm thick A4 designed by Germans in support of Filipino planning) and I have only seen ONE CLUP worth it’s weight, that was the North of Panay after Duterte got mad in Boracay and they had to redesign everything. For the rest, planning is just not done as planning means accountability and eliminating corruption.When I look to the Yolanda damage, basically no plans changed. Even worse, the HLURB housing centres, mainly paid for by foreign aid are build on flood prone areas (because that could be sold easily at extremely high prices).When I left Manila by ferry last month, I saw extensive buildings on low lying area’s. Highrise buildings. Well, from the 3rd floor to the 25th floor will probably be „safe“, but Manila is not Venice, I do not think people are planning to go to the office by boat. LOL..The current attitude is still: Build on available land at minimum cost. And in Philippines, that is land prone to flooding.
Build dams to store water?Great idea.They should do it already now.Let’s face it, the simple dams already have been build. The ones which you can build with a bulldozer, a few trucks and a few hundred people with shovels.Now, we need those beautiful bigger dams up in the mountains. The ones which are 50 to a hundred meters high. Generating power and storing massive amounts of water. Brilliant engineering works. Only problem is that they take 50 years from concept to design to construction. And you can build only one or two at the time.I recently visited the Lesotho Highland Water Project which started in 1980 and might (might!!) be completed in 2040. And I would classify Lesotho as less corrupt to Philippines, so here, it might take even longer and more money might get lost.
Invite the Aussies to come here and rule? Give me some time so I can stop laughing…..It will be difficult to think of 2 cultures more different in attitudes than those 2.Better lock away the Filipina Sheila’s….Oh, no need for that, those girls already left for China to work there (in view of the serious woman deficit due to the one-baby policy).
What you are suggesting is to abandon almost ALL existing infrastructure and start anew somewhere in the mountains.And build dikes and dams.Quite costly, I would say. How many years did it take to build the critical infrastructure in developed countries? About 150 years? We better get started tomorrow then. There is no money (desire, commitment, vision) to develop plans for existing needs, how much less for a complete rebuild of all infrastructure.
There is no doubt in my mind that Darwin had a very good point:He was of the opinion that the species which will survive are those who are most able to adapt to changing situations. Not the species who are most advanced.And in that department, The Philippines scores very high.I remember a speech by Fidel Ramos about the Asian tigers. Where the journalist asked why The Philippines was not so sensitive to collapse compared to other Asian countries after the Asian Tiger Bubble started to burst. Ramos answered that The Philippines had a simple economic structure based very much on agriculture and distributed governance, making it more flexible and adaptable and therefore not sensitive to a crash of the Asian Bubble. Simplicity rules.And that is probably still the case.When Manila will drown, Cebu will go swimming, Iloilo will look line Venice, Baguio is blown to the moon and Davao is alike Atlantis, there will be scores of Filipinos who will grow their fruits and veggies like their grandfather did, who will butcher their pig at a wedding and tend their chickens. Those Filipino’s who are now ignoring any law, for whom planning is a joke and who fight with their brothers about the borders of their inherited lands.In short: my neighbours whom I like and respect a lot for their resilience and joy de vivre….Sure, a few million will perish, but The Filipinos will survive. The land will look very different, but there will be Filipinos everywhere.
Unlike The Netherlands probably where a few hours without electrical power already classifies as a major disaster or the USA where the preppers will start taking over (exaggerated, I know, but still… LOL).
No need to ship the Aussies to Philippines. Get us some Hawaiians instead to re-introduce the navigation skills the old folks used to have.
And until that time:Let’s stick to your advice and have some fun with my neighbours and a beer (or coffee from the backyard).And not worry too much because our house is at 35 meters, the seawall is 1.5 m thick, we survived Yolanda with only a few scratches on the walls, the solar will keep the beer cool and the chickens keep laying their eggs. Anyway, the chance that I will make 2200 and check my assumptions is not very high.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZbKHDPPrrc
And enjoy Christmas because it is still unique in the world how we do it here.
Some comments:
1) in Metro Manila, they will simply abandon the lower floors of tall buildings when the sea rises.
Likewise, what are now Skyways will become main roads.
The levels close to the sea will be where the poorest live and where all the garbage lands.
2) Isn’t Dutch bluntness and Indonesian indirectness also very contrary, or was it complementary?
Fil-Aussie Chloe, Carlos Yulo’s girlfriend, also rubs many Filipinos the wrong way.
I predict Fil-Aussies running the Philippines.
3) Yes, the Filipinos of today who are masters of adjusting to anything will form new communities in all parts of the country.
There will be stranger mixes and weirder languages that will be created as different people flee uphill and adjust.
The alleged mix of sailors of Spain who jumped ship and went uphill in Albay, natives who refused to pay taxes to colonizers and Agta who stayed uphill who might have been my ancestors were hardy folks for sure.
Get us some Hawaiians instead to re-introduce the navigation skills the old folks used to have.
Rising Sea levels is a Nationsl Security Concern
https://maritimereview.ph/rising-sea-level-a-national-security-concern/
Our Beach Tourism will be hit.
https://maritimereview.ph/sea-level-rise-and-the-philippine-beaches/
Definitely coming, for sure. I think the nation will always have beaches, but the resorts might get taken out. They’ll have to move uphill like everyone else.
The beaches will only move a few meters, but will still stand and remain. Thanks
Worst case, SM North will become SM North harbor.
all filipinos must now learn to swim. we are surrounded by big bodies of water and yet so many filipinos dont know how to swim and drown.
Nah. They know how to lay cement so they’ll be fine.
dont trust them D and E to lay cement, they bum and scrounge on cement mix, and rip rap give way.
Remember this post?
Indeed. I wonder when Manila will figure it out.
My aunt who lives in Japan for decades now fear for the country especially Tokyo. Those underground train tracks are everywhere that the earth moves slowly without their knowledge. Their subway system is the most modern one in this world. As for the Philippines, those reclamations that they are doing right now might be a big problem in the future. Wala ng dadaluyan ang tubig the natural way. Sad scenario for us all.
Yes, those reclamation areas better be piled high. Well, maybe they will have a 50 or 75 year lifespan. I think a whole lot of people think global warming is not a big deal.
Funny!
Glad you enjoyed it Donald.
They plan to refreeze the Arctic?
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2448831-plan-to-refreeze-arctic-sea-ice-shows-promise-in-first-tests/
Then big business plans to push through with the Arctic Sea Lanes.
https://www.marinelink.com/blogs/blog/russia-to-open-arctic-shipping-route-in-2024-for-urals-crude-oil-101489
I’ll believe refreezing when I see it big time. Good for Russia. Makes sense.
ay, medyo kinabahan ako nuon, the president reported unusual russian sub seen in west phil sea, and I thought we have a ‘red october’ episode, hindi pala. mere passage lang pala ‘yon, the russian sub having finished its military exercises with malaysia was en route back to homebase in russia. funny that, we didnt hear about the sub firstly traversing west phil sea en route to malaysia, we only hear about it on its way back to russia. if the sub firstly passed by west phil sea, it was undetected; only the second passage was detected.
Interesting that. Well, I suspect a lot of traffic is out there, underwater. At least they aren’t stealing fish.
they could well be cutting off undersea communication cables, like what china is suspected of doing in europe. a chinese super tanker is alleged to have dropped its the anchor and dragging it along the seabed, ripping off communication cables from their moorings.
Ah, probably not ripping them out just yet, but knowing precisely where they are. China for sure has done so. We will know war has broken out when the internet and phones go dead.
If I can read about this maybe someone from the DOST will too.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/29/covalent-organic-framework-carbon-capture-powder
So far.
https://www.pcaarrd.dost.gov.ph/index.php/quick-information-dispatch-qid-articles/possibility-for-carbon-dioxide-sequestration-in-the-philippines-studied
I think these projects chip around the edges but aren’t enough to help much.
Does the Pros outweigh the Cons of land reclamation?
https://www.scmp.com/yp/discover/news/environment/article/3068496/are-benefits-land-reclamation-worth-environmental
I think each project should consider the weather and sea level rises 100 years forward, and fit within urban master planning. The Manila Bay projects seem rather obscene to me, when added up.
I no longer think developing Eastern Luzon will help if they do not storm proof or flood prove it.
https://maritimereview.ph/developing-the-eastern-luzon-strategic-seaboard/
Good point. Well, maybe nature will put in the canal we talked about.
Aside from AsVen, the long stalled proposals are the Quezon canal and the one in Zamboanga.
Nature might create more like elephants creating their own channels and badgers (?) creating their own dams
more Filipinos should get into Dugongs, karl.
dugongs are for Digong fans.
LOL! but good excuse too for maritime policing.
Wow! Thanks for the manatee map, LC. Look at the Sulu Sea; it is a veritable heaven/haven for those peaceful creatures. There should be a treaty by UNESCO, Malaysia & Philippines to foster & sustain a supersize marine preserve for the benefit of all.
INDOPAC command can totally use this as excuse too, sonny!
Growing up, popular tales spoke of “sirena” as mermaids, I used to follow comic book story such as DYESEBEL (1953/PH), ONDINE (2009/USA). (Mildly surprised to know that SIRENIA is a taxonomic class/Order).
I’m more a Marvel slash X-Men guy myself, sonny. so had to Google these titles/characters. but possibly connected to this Harvard study… (below).
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381405238_The_cryptoterrestrial_hypothesis_A_case_for_scientific_openness_to_a_concealed_earthly_explanation_for_Unidentified_Anomalous_Phenomena (Good reading, sonny!)
Oh yes, beavers.
I love beavers, karl.
Beavers are close to human. They just can’t play guitars.
Haha, that’s the guy who inhabits the pond in my sister’s back yard in the mountains of Northern Colorado. Unless the cougars ate him. It’s rather wild land.
In my first forays into Southeast Asia during my elementary years, I distinctly recall the constant humid heat being suffocating compared to the Mediterranean climate I’m used to. Even those with the luxury of air conditioned living situations, humidity hits like a brick wall of heavy, sweltering heat once one steps outside. Over time with subsequent travel and work in Asian countries, I noticed the effects of climate change to be accelerating. The “ber” months that are marked by the Amihan traditionally were the best months to visit the Philippines due to the cooler weather, but nowadays Filipinos, especially the marginalized, are suffering under the heat even in the midst of December with beads of sweat running down the faces of every passerby. Climate change has brought more frequent calamities: stronger typhoons, sustained rainfall, flooding from urban runoff and bad river management, increased urban heat domes. All exacerbated by badly thought out human behavior and lack of government intervention. In a nation that often collectively sighs “it must have been God’s plan,” there are still many low budget actions that can help mitigate the worst of climate related damage.
For example, I used to be able to wade for ulang in various Luzon rivers but encroaching urban pollution and human littering have all but eradicated these delicious crustaceans in Luzon unless one travels to far flung provinces. Likewise I enjoy spearfishing in the coastal waters, something elders told me that locals used to do for subsistence needs but now fisherfolk need to ply waters much further away. As I traveled through more virgin provinces whose resources have not be yet despoiled, I noticed the rivers that had healthy populations of ulang and apta/yapyap freshwater shrimp (koros in the native Ilokano) experienced less flooding and overflow of river banks during heavy rains. The same observation occurred when I was searching for unspoiled mangrove forests to hunt for alimango and shells in the mud flats and swamps. Wherever healthy mangroves existed, storm surge and coastal flooding was much less than places where the mangroves had been cleared to reclaim land.
In the urban areas, even squatters can afford cheap Chinese imported air conditioning units to try to escape the heat, yet as aircons are heat pumps, the more that exist in an area, the more that area will heat up. The increased ambient heat will cause the aircon to work harder, breaking sooner and consuming more electricity that is already a precious commodity with unstable power supplies. The urbanized cities are paved over with asphalt and concrete with little thought for flood control, causing even laughably light rain to flood the road medians for days. The elimination of green spaces also contributes to urban heat domes as the multitude of aircons and vehicles increase the local heat output, with no place to act as a heat sink. In a country with poor power supply, almost all power plants operate on petroleum products or coal “because it’s affordable” despite the abundant sunlight that could power solar panels that can be integrated into newer construction. I imagine with the vast malls alone, that occur with seemingly the same frequency as a Starbucks on every street corner in the US, could convert their rooftops to house solar installation to power the mall’s own needs and sell the excess generation to the local power grid.
Still, there are other methods for tackling climate change that is affordable for developing countries. For example, integration of cheap roadside rain gardens channel excess runoff, naturally cleaning polluted water to refill local water tables for wells many poor families depend on for non-potable water, with the added bonus of increasing the urban green areas and beautifying the city. By reducing the amount of rain runoff through rain gardens, the remaining runoff is more manageable to divert into flood control canals. In a wet and rain soaked country such as the Philippines, the population is only now understanding why flooding occurred at less frequency when large empty lots still existed before being built over by urban developments and migrating informal settlers. Those empty lots acted as sponges to soak up rainwater. In addition rainwater collection, as shared by Paul months ago can also help with water security and reducing runoff.
Everything shared here is relatively cheap to implement. I’ve done much similar improvements at on a smaller scale. Each project seems to not affect much but altogether will have a large effect. But of course, I reckon no politician will campaign on or stick their neck out to promote long-term projects whose improvements may be claimed by another politician later on. And so we will instead see land reclamation projects building up the “First World” half of the Philippines, while the “other Philippines” languishes, just out of sight.
Great ideas for water management. Although it can get hot and humid here, I was surprised upon arrival to find that for most of the year, and especially nights, it is quite comfortable here. Stay in the shade. Our place on Biliran is on the upslope heading to the mountains and is year’round comfortable. No air conditioning needed, but a blanket (sheet) at night is. Right now people don’t think INDIVIDUALLY of their part in the climate drama now being played out. It is a destructive ignorance, for sure. Well, ‘leaders’ are ignorant, too, or your ideas would be underway.
You probably eventually acclimated to the local weather. For me it was always a battle against the humidity every time I visit since the maximum I stayed was half a year. The mountainous areas of Biliran also were too hot for me. I felt fine in Baguio though since the mild climate is suitable even for avocados and delicate fruits such as strawberries.
If the recent COP26 meeting was any indication, world leaders will only make symbolic gestures when it comes to global climate health. Individual countries are doing more, like Biden’s IRA which is all but the “Green New Deal” rebranded, but that policy will face headwinds under Trump as stupid as throwing away all the economic benefits may seem.
The political problem at national and even localized levels is that politicians (even the “good” politicians) want to be given credit for their policies. It makes no sense in the short term calculus of democratic elections to plan out decades ahead when some other politician from an opposing party can just take the credit. Perhaps if one party dominated for a long time like the FDR’s progressive Democrats it can be done, but more likely than not humans need to face calamity before they start reassessing their priorities. I hope by then Mexico will be taking in climate refugees like in the film The Day After Tomorrow. I feel a bit bad for the Canadians though, who will become human popsicles.
Humans are de-evolving I think. AI will cross going up before the earth goes inhospitable. But computers will have to figure out how to mine and manufacture on their own if they want not to perish, too.
The condition humanity has now is one of abundance and decadence (as hard as that may seem for countries like the Philippines), even more so in Western countries. Humans have forgotten what it feels like to have scarcity of needs vs wants and so seek digital opium. Honestly it’s amazing that incoming college students now can barely focus long enough to read a paragraph, and professors are coddling that behavior.
I don’t buy into the AI hype. A lot of the “AI bros” are also “crypto bros.” These are the nihilistic mega-billionaires who have sought to take over developed countries as evident from the US elections, recent moves in Europe, and just the other day in South Korea. These “bros” misunderstand the sci-fi films that they admire so much, and don’t understand nor care about the cautionary tales in the films about a dystopian techno-corporate future. They also have lack of critical thinking and cadres of lawyers, engineers and accountant yes-men around them to help them fail upwards to the point of becoming the richest men on Earth. AI is only good as the source of the data that is ingested, and as General AI has been trained on social media posts and Google scraping, the output is garbage. I don’t consider generative images or video to be AI though. AI has been an abused buzz word. Military AI however is trained on very good data. That’s what will lead.
“dystopian techno-corporate future” – the Blade Runner movies are the scariest examples of that scenario. Loopers also tries to show what a world could look like where the state is practically non-existent and the corporate world and organized crime have nearly no boundaries anymore. Sure, the deep state left totally unchecked can become scary too, but a state can still be held accountable and has to be the mechanism to check the potentially scarier power of private entities.
Was just watching a bunch of Philip K. Dick videos trying to write some fiction for Joe, Ireneo.
Have not seen Pantheon S2 yet, but really liked S1.
Have you seen this one? Sun Ra (Philip Dick went to Berkeley HS and Sun Ra taught at UC Berkeley… I’m thinking theres something in the water there maybe, Ireneo) “the jig is up!!!” lol…
Also le Guin went to Berkeley HS (around the same time as Dick)
this was her dad:
The early sci-fi authors predicted the future well through allegory as they navigated the increasing corporatism of the post-war world. I grew up on William Gibson novels and spent plenty of time at the library exploring the older works of Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Aldous Huxley in between reading the Classics and Middle Age literature.
Anyone with critical thinking skills who has spent some time watching and listening to men such as Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Sam Bankman-Fried has to come to the conclusion that these are impetuous baby-men who have such ill-formed thinking processes that they would not survive without cadres of enablers. A god-complex along with Dunning-Kruger buoyed by endless money is a dangerous combination to collect in a handful of powerful people. Musk watches Blade Runner and thinks “omg cool flying cars,” rather than AI being a metaphor for our own humanity and thinks that the apparent absence of any government at all causing society to descend into nihilistic dystopia to be a good thing. Sam Altman watches Her and thinks “I want to have a sexy, perfect girlfriend who will obey my every command” rather than as an metaphor for the digitization of our world eradicating meaningful human connections. Or many of the Thiel-Musk universe being inspired by LotR despite only having a superficial understanding of J.R.R. Tolkien’s themes. Misunderstanding the Matrix series’ cyber-dystopia as “cool tech” rather than being a trans allegory of inner transformation embedded within sci-fi themes. We can go on and on.
A lot of these tech bros have abandoned the initial “Do No Evil” stance long ago once they insulated themselves with yes-men. Without good advisors and friends, we cannot easily obtain good information or have a check on our own biases. The tech bros are also moving towards tech libertarianism, or even beyond in a more scarier direction. Many, including Thiel and Musk are influenced by Curtis Yarvin, a crazy man far beyond libertarianism and veering into anarcho-libertarianism and who believes that most humans should be converted into energy sources (that’s right, killed off). I’ll take the so-called deep state in which imperfect as may be, is still accountable to the democratic system. I do think that bureaucratic process can be streamlined though over time.
My son is a Computer Science student but has vowed not to touch Chat Gpt and the like. He would prefer the search engines and hard work.
Regards to your son. Joe Jr has fond recollections of ogling the fish on the wharf, led by him. And the other characters there that day. One of whom warned him not to go into show business, haha. He’s thinking about finance.
Why not finance AND show business for Joe jr. Time & intelligence will sort themselves out. 🙂
He’s too young for the fates (or God’s will) to give him direction. He’s good at about everything, so who knows. Girls like him, too, so he won’t go through life lonely.
Thanks! Best Regards to Joe Jr and Mrs Joe and very nice and good to know. Showbiz…haha
Smart & wise your son, Karl. Search engines have less bias compared to results from algorithm-driven, massaged information, IMO.
Thanks Uncle!
Good on your son, Karl. That’s the way to think, equipped with critical thinking even in a field that uses quite a bit of automation. Probably over half of my team at work are developers and software engineers. I have the hardest time with their often close minded thinking when I need them to change direction. I usually have to entice them with methods that aligns with their biases in order to accomplish the needs of the business. Since your son is already thinking outside of the box, he probably will end up as not a simple developer but as a manager or tech architect. I myself take on those higher roles of project manager, solutions architect, software/network/enterprise architect and I don’t have a tech-focused degree. The liberal arts are very flexible when applied to different fields.
Hope you speak clairvoyantly.
If your son has time, I would encourage that he takes up a minor or dual major in some kind of Liberal Arts, such as Philosophy, Literature, Art, History, Psychology or Social Sciences. Liberal Arts places emphasis on critical thinking and outside of the box thinking that is very beneficial when working for large enterprises, especially Western-style ones.
Yes, I agree with that assessment. Spot on. Thanks.
karl,
tell your son about Neuralink! they’re hiring.
tell him critical thinking is over-rated, karl. just focus on imagination and creativity.
I got this one from edgar (RIP) , he use to always read the commentary sleep on it, then answer.
Since Carl Jung videos i’ve watched, been trying to access my subconscious, actually collective unconscious, so our unconscious! Greta’s always right, karl.
I still recall the times when the urban poor had space to plant kangkong, or have the classic “goat for sale,” or even raise pigs and chickens. Nowadays, it is pagpag for so many as there is hardly any space left for some minor degree of subsistence. But even the middle class and the rich are highly reliant on food imports. If the world indeed gets drier, these will get more and more expensive.
I hope with urbanizationthis would make a dent.
https://business.inquirer.net/493532/urban-farming-takes-root-as-a-strategy-for-food-security
Bahay-kubo kahit … ang halaman doon. My grandmother brought up 10 children with 17 combo of fruits & veggies from her garden & bartering with neighbors’ surplus. Sidenote: an old acacia stump housed philippine python that stole chicken eggs from layers in the house/silong ng bahay at night.
Kuya Sonny, there was a time when I stayed at the house of my friend’s lola in the province in the “room” above the silong. The wood was terribly rotted and while sleeping I fell right through the floor onto the silong below onto the chickens. I spent the next week building a new floor for their lola, haha.
Those were fun times full of energy & innocence.
Wow and yikes on the sawa.
Well the urban poor don’t really eat pagpag that much anymore, unless they are extremely impoverished (what we would term “homeless” in our Western countries). Most urban poor have somewhat ok houses, made with at least salvaged 2×4 wood planks and MDF fiberboard. Better squatter homes are made with plywood. Both fiberboard and plywood warp easily in the humidity though, so some squatters with better means can build walls with hardieflex, at least for outside walls. As the years went by I saw less barong-barong, the dwellers of which are usually associated with pagpag. Most of Tondo and the area around Smokey Mountain is now cleared for development. I think subsequent generations further removed from the province have forgotten how to grow simple subsistence food/vegetables. I tried to explain cheap methods of urban farming kangkong, kamatis, talong, chilis etc. in 5 gallon plastic buckets that are prevalent discarded, yet usually was met with empty stares. The lolas who grew up in the province were usually receptive, yet are old so cannot engage in that kind of gardening.
at home, we dont eat pagpag but we eat leftovers from last meal like rice, sabaw, etc. in supermarkets, they sell food close to their use by date much cheaper than the original price, i.e, bananas na medyo lamog na but still good to eat, also day old bread, no longer fresh but edible. same with fish and meat, those last remaining few unsold will get sold at cheaper prices just before market closes. food over their best before date can also be eaten, kasi best before date only mean food are no longer in their best quality, but still edible. different if there is mold.
those empty stares may mean they are high on drugs and not really oriented.
I also buy food that’s close to the “expiration date,” which is really a guaranteed freshness date. Today I bought beef that still had a fresh, red color yet was “marked down” since tomorrow is the sell by date. When I was still a quite poor university student, I even did “dumpster diving” before. If I was able to grab food that had just been thrown away due to the sell by date, it was still fresh and good. Sometimes the grocery store manager would feel pity for me and save some food like fried chicken or canned foods to give to me directly before it went into the trash so I wouldn’t need to rummage through the trash bin. It might seem demeaning but it was for survival while I focused on my studies, and well I’m still alive!
Leftover food from yesterday’s dinner is harder to eat later in the Philippines, especially if there is no ref to store the leftovers. Even with a lot of salt and suka in the food, during the summertime the food may have mold and panis/panos by the next morning.
subsequent generations further removed from the province have forgotten how to grow simple subsistence food/vegetables.
Joey, I think this is to be expected in many cases. If one was born or grew up under the same conditions, it is like skills (language, doing domestic chores, et al. these are wired-in with one’s skills storage memory bank.
apparently there is no need na magtanim upang mabuhay. todays filipinos have got a new hobby horse, and have learned to extract their own version of ‘equality’. if politicians can readily dip their hands into the kaban ng bayan and not be accountable for their own largess, people can too.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/2012835/fake-pwd-ids-cost-govt-p88-2b-in-taxes-in-2023
I think that’s right. Gardening may seem difficult or a waste of time as well. Personally I approach gardening as a hobby for relaxation and exercise, that has the added bonus of a bounty of vegetables fresh from the plants. Right now kangkong is very expensive in Southern California since it’s wintertime, but I have kangkong growing right outside in the backyard under a simple greenhouse I built with bent bamboo poles and polyethylene film.