Great post Omega!
Yes, fusion power is an essential technological advancement that has the *potential* to save millions of human lives.
Why does fusion power represent a *potential* method for saving millions of human lives? Ultimately, as many members have posted, it is the responsibility of the individual to practice generosity, kindness, and goodwill.
G-7 nations are the only countries that possess the scientific knowledge, hardware sophistication, and financial and human resources required to build, operate, and maintain, massive particle accelerators and fusion plants.
This means G-7 members will be the first countries to successfully create and sustain a viable fusion reaction. Now comes political science. If information describing theory, blue prints, hardware, and operational instructions required for building, maintaining, and operating a fusion plant are publicly disseminated, the following scenarios could occur:
a) the public dissemination of knowledge instructing how to build, maintain, and operate a fusion plant could be obtained by "rouge" nations whose ideologies aren’t conducive with US foreign political objectives. Free energy means any city, state, or nation has the ability to reduce energy costs to near zero, thereby taking advantage of the *massive* costs savings incurred from forgone oil, gas, and green energy expenditures --- and investing it in other government institutions...be it military, infrastructure, ect.....we are talking billions-trillions of US dollars. With private energy expenditure dropping near zero, business booms, which creates a massive increase in private and corporate tax revenues, in addition to significant energy cost savings experienced by government institutions......which all translates to increased financial resources available for infrastructure, academia, and more important, military expenditure.
Any significant Rouge nation military buildup, represents a significant threat to US interests, and destabilizes existing global geopolitical balance.
b) Mass public dissemination of fusion power would upset our petroleum based economy. Every business requires energy. The majority of transportation systems and manufacturing facilities run on petroleum derivatives. When oil no longer becomes the primary fuel on which the global economy runs, there is a resulting massive shift in the global balance of power.
Why?
The answer lies in economics.
Countries who draw electricity from operational fusion plants would have the ability to become self sufficient in almost every sense of the word. Think about it for a second. Sub-Saharan Africa could be turned into an oasis growing every type of crop, imaginable under the sun. How?? Free energy.....free energy to run the desalination and water purification plants, free energy to pump billions of gallons of purified water thousands of miles to irrigate millions of hectors of land for argiculture and animal ranching, free energy to run agricultural equipment and agriculture processing facilities, free energy to fuel agricultural/animal transports from super farms to seaports...
What does this mean?
The standard of living enjoyed by citizens of developed countries is supported, in large part, by global exports. Globalization of trade has created enormous wealth for nations exporting advanced technological products unavailable in developing countries. When developing countries have the ability to become net exporters of agricultural goods, agriculture imports from developed nations drop, and the net wealth of poorer nations increase, due to agricultural and meat product alternatives provided by domestic sources. Developing nations would enjoy a steady increase in domestic economic strength due to massive commodity exports and minimal agricultural/meat/energy imports, which generates, indirectly, a government budget surplus. A Foreign government budget surplus *could* be allocated to securing technologies that further reduce domestic dependency on foreign exports. Foreign government procurement of automotive engineering technologies, metalworking technologies, aircraft construction technologies, and telecommunication technologies from nations like China and Russia become options. *If* developing nations possessing operational fusion power facilities chose to adopt an export based economy, which any nation would, the government would secure metal working technologies, automotive engineering technologies, aircraft construction technologies, and robotic engineering technologies that would eventually reduce *massive* import expenditures on foreign capital equipment.......
What happens when developing countries economies become increasingly self-sustainable?
Imports drop. 1st World exports to 3rd World countries drop.
What happens when developing countries exports drop substantially?
Massive domestic and international corporate downsizing occurs, which leads to widespread, inter-industry, domestic and global job layoffs. Decreased government expenditure on social services occurs, due to decreased tax revenues collected; which equates to the creation of domestic civilian unrest. And most importantly: decreased tax revenues reduce funding to military and intelligence institutions.
The broad dissemination of fusion power technology represents a significant and massive threat to existing national security objectives held by developed nations. When domestic government tax revenues are significantly reduced by increased foreign economic self-sufficiency, increased domestic government expenditure on military and intelligence institutions cannot be maintained.
US Military and Intelligence Institutions play a critical part in protecting the integrity of the domestic and global economy. Intelligence information prompts military action against foreign and domestic targets that threaten the efficient operation of the domestic economic machine and the economies of major trading partners.
Why?
Because any countries National Security ultimately rests in one thing: the efficient operation of the nations economic engine.
Without tax revenues generated from the proliferation of commercial enterprises, the national security of any state is weakened by the associated decrease in tax revenues available to finance National Defense Institutions. The primary purpose of the intelligence and military community, is to detect and subvert, domestic and foreign entities that threaten the efficient operation of the ruling government and the domestic economy, either directly or indirectly, and the asscoiated economies of its major trading partners. Contrary to popular belief, National Defense Institutions are meant to perpetuate the sovereign rule of the nation-state. Civilian protection is secondary in importance.
The relationship between domestic economic performance and national security objectives is a positive feedback loop:
1) domestic economy
generates
2) government tax revenues
enables
3) increased military and intelligence spending
used for
4) identifying, preventing, and "quelling" regional and global conflicts that threaten "National Security" = "Economic Security"
identifying, preventing, and quelling regional and global conflicts ensures the efficient operation of the "shared" economy and enables increased domestic corporate access to foreign markets
which causes
1) increasing domestic economy size
generates
2) increasing tax revenues (cycle continues indefinitely)
Why is this happening?
Your government and mine, are concerned primarily with ensuring control over domestic and foreign interests. Increasing domestic economic influence ensures the perpetuation of the existing nation state by creating a tax revenue surplus, relative to other nations, that can be allocated to further military and intelligence spending. The net government budget surplus, relative to other nations, is used to "stay ahead" technologically and militarily of foreign countries, thereby preserving national security. Thus, National security objectives; the bureaucratic phoneme through which intended domestic and foreign social/political control is expressed, is achieved through creating a massive military and intelligence establishment that detects, quells, and crushes potential threats to national economic interests.
What exists today, is an American, and emerging European Union, global economic hegemony, in which American and European Union monetary affluence and sheer military and intelligence power relies on the *efficient* operation of the domestic and global economy.
In order for developed nations to maintain their position of global affluence and control, relative to other nations, 1st world nations net exports to developing nations must remain high to generate the necessary tax revenues used to "out spend" foreign government investment in military and related technologies. Increased domestic military and intelligence spending, in turn, protects and strengthens the domestic economy and major trading partner economies, by subverting and intervening in regional conflicts before they are allowed to significantly influence the performance of the *shared* economy.
If fusion power technology becomes publicly available, a massive shift in the global geopolitical balance of power will ensue, due to a massive shift in world product consumption and international trade patterns.
The public dissemination of fusion technology will not be allowed because it has the potential to undermine the accumulation of American and EU monetary affluence, relative to other nations, by creating self sustaining, non import dependant, countries. Even if the information required to build, operate, and maintain a fusion reactor were publicly available, say through public dissemination on the net, the US would find a way to sabotage the facility and spin it as a "systems failure". Y? Because American, United Kingdom, Canadain, Western European, and Japanese civilian populations would violently protest the domestic general decrease in standard of living incurred by mass proliferation of fusion power technology. If any government choose to make fusion power publicly available to developing countries, that said countries military establishment would successfully orchestrate a political coup which would be supported by the majority of the civilian population.
Y is this all happening?
Proximate cause: The Oil industry and automobile industry generate trillions of US dollars in global revenue. Because oil has a significant cost incurred with its extraction, refinement, and distribution, developing countries governments are less likely to experience significant budget surplus's. High energy prices then inhibit rapid economic growth of developing countries, thereby increasing global strategic stability by reducing the total number of nations with productive capacities to create and maintain massive military, intelligence, and Weapons of Mass Destruction programs. Also, by utilizing all available fossil fuels before the inception of fusion technology, energy corporations and automotive corporations can continue to amass wealth due to the oligopolical structure of the energy and automative industry. Thus, by restricting the generation of energy extraction and automotive production revenues to a small group of corportations, an effective financial entry barrier for future energy and transportation competitors is created.
Ultimate Cause: TestBoy said it best - "Inequalities of the human spirit." Humans, in most instances, are greedy and self serving. This is why capitalism works so well. Most humans are highly motivated by personal loss and personal gain.
The answer lies with the individual. Making a change. Doing what they can. Although I’m too drained to talk about our options, Ill come back and we can debate this some more. See what we can do.
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