"Solving" Energy

Though we constantly think about the future, no one truly knows what it holds. And anyone who tells you otherwise is (i) trying to sell you something, (ii) crazy or (iii) a meteorologist. Indeed, a little green guy once told me "always in motion is the future." Awesome dude. Terrible english.

But, given current trends, I do have a prediction for the nearish future. Indeed, I fully believe that most people alive today will see this come to fruition.

I've mentioned this briefly before, but the world's best and brightest have been making great strides in fusion energy technology. As of December 2022, we have achieved a net positive reaction; it now takes less energy to start a fusion reaction than it puts out. Now, it seems like every month or two, various countries take turns breaking the record for how long a reaction can be sustained. And each time, it's not being broken by a little, but by double, triple, or more (recent example).

Pictured: What hopefully won't happen.

It's funny how most people aren't concerned with this when this will fundamentally change what it means to exist on this planet.

Up to this point, numerous struggles and conflicts have to do with the creation of or stockpiling of energy. Obvious examples include things like the Gulf War and other recent conflicts in the Middle East, but it goes back much further than that. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the primary sources of energy were food and human labor. It's easy to think of wars over those.

A clear example of this is the US Civil War. Don't get me wrong, people were super racist; racism was even baked into the Confederate constitution. But racism was hardly isolated to the southern US (see this f***ed up part to the Indiana Constitution that wasn't repealed until 1881, sixteen years after the Civil War ended). One of the reasons the southern US was willing to go to war over slavery was because slavery was what powered the south's largely agricultural economy. In this sense, it was (at least partially) a war over energy.

Going back even further, numerous wars were fought over bringing in citizens (and their associated productivity). From Alexander the Great to Attila the Hun, countless rulers and warlords were obsessed with taking resources from others.

Pictured: Labor is still energy.

With fusion, we can create enough clean energy for... everyone. Heck, we can create more energy than current governments and corporations could possibly find use for. And with modern technology, we can turn this new, practically infinite source of energy into just about anything. Energy would no longer be the limiting factor of what we can design or build.

There are a few downsides I am predicting though. First, it's also only a matter of time before someone thinks of how to weaponize this technology. Technically, we have already weaponized fusion in the form of an H-Bomb. But the amount of energy that created here could dwarf the devastation of that - and that leveled an entire city. Also, many governments' GDPs and corporations' bottom lines comes from the extraction and sale of energy (or taxation thereof). You can expect a lot of self-interested pushback from these parties in the form of lobbying, scare tactics and even (hopefully not) war.

In the end however, progress always wins. Those who try to stay competitive with outdated sources of technology will be left in the dust. Older forms of energy simply won't be viable in a post-fusion world. I am hopeful for the future of mankind after it is unshackled from being limited by energy.