Under communism we will still have sports.

Step away from the goddamned lathe, Yog

How about this one

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/america-just-quietly-admitted-cant-crush-russias-economy-bw-120125

DSA does not in any way fill the role PSL has decided to take up. Again, PSL is not a militia. It does not engage in physical confrontation and it does not encourage physical confrontation. It is not a decentralized leaderless org that is immune from disruption by the state. It is a mass movement building engine along Leninist revolutionary lines.

If you think PSL and DSA are equivalent, then your obviously poorly informed and if you’re poorly informed and also encouraging people to abandon the PSL then you’re a wrecker

No they didn’t. PSL is not a militia. They defined their strategic boundaries and have been consistent with those boundaries for years. They do not engage in physical confrontations and they do not go toe to toe with police forces.

Telling people to physically engage ICE is not only irresponsible as a party but grounds for federal investigations and disruption of the party itself.

It’s literally Harvard

The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs is the hub of Harvard Kennedy School’s research, teaching, and training in international security and diplomacy, environment and natural resource issues, and science and technology policy.

Like literally it’s the race-science white supremacist nazi-friendly ivy league school of the USA.

The fact that you got triggered by their choice of domain name is on you, not on them.

Oh fuck it’s Rainer coming at us. Gonna give this a read and see how far off base he is. This guy went full on PatSoc and started going after PSL in a totally disingenuous way and I can’t trust anything he’s written since.

https://www.russiamatters.org/news/russia-ukraine-war-report-card/russia-ukraine-war-report-card-nov-26-2025

This report from the Harvard Kennedy school indicates that Russian forces gained 258 square miles of Ukrainian territory between end of Oct and Thanksgiving, with half of those gains in the week running up to Thanksgiving. I can’t find data for gains over the last 5 days, but the rate of Russian gains is increasing.

So wild that this is such a widespread phenomenon and yet Ukraine can’t seem to resist the onslaught of … unarmored and unarmed soldiers who eat nothing but tree bark and have to scavenge for their weapons and ammo.

Ukraine must be in really bad shape if they can’t defend against that, huh?

When was the last time China invaded another country?

Also regarding Russia, you do realize that the US intelligence community has been quite consistent in their analysis that Russia does not have the materiel to invade multiple countries, right?

Yes. This matches my thinking as well.

The rare earth problem can’t be addressed. China will decide how it plays out. In one sense, it seems like they will string the US along. In another it seems like they will just let the US starve. In another it seems like they’ll just let it flow as long it serves their development goals. I have hunches, but really it’s up to their strategies.

One way it could work is that China becomes an exporter to the US for these things in a sort of mutual agreement for the US bubble to maintain. It could be that a.i. in the US is running off Huawei in 3 years. I don’t really know.

I think it’s all doomed for the US project. But it’s not next year unless something big happens. And it’s unlikely to be in 2027, but things are operating on a 3-month cycle so 2027 could be the year given what happens next year. I don’t really know.

I just think the US has sufficient positioning, sufficient reserves, sufficient capabilities and capacities, and sufficient drice to innovate that it can keep this going for a while.

If we drop the K and add Ethiopia we get RINCE.

But we should drop the N not the K…

Burkina Faso?

KRIBF

Oh Brazil gives us KRIB

Thailand could give us TRIK

Oh we need Cuba

RICK

Russia, Iran, Cuba, Korea.

Rule

No CRINK shaming

When Ukraine is brought back into brotherly communion, we can have ICRUNK

Scale of data center doesn’t matter for water consumption when the cooling system is a closed loop, which is what data centers are moving too. Evaporative cooling doesn’t even work for the current crop of GPUs, it doesn’t transfer heat fast enough. So there are multiple pressures against evaporative cooling and towards closed loop liquid cooling. That’s an example of investments going to something real - the cooling solutions is one of those areas that orders are going to go up for and there will be non-tech investments in it in order to capture profit from the irrational exuberance of the a.i. gold rush.

I have seen the technologies changing in the data center world due to my work. I am aware that there are actual changes happening and that literally the CEOs of some of the inglorious 7 are having private meetings about these specific topics with people who are allocating capital to solving these specific problems. It’s not pure theater.

It could be too little too late, bit it’s not merely hand waving. There’s mobilization actually happening on the ground.

I think this analysis misses a critical point, pretty early.

He states that US manufacturing for the components needed, like steel and copper (not to mention other critical components like fiber, coolant, etc), is 30% more expensive, at least. Which is true.

Then he says that on one side big tech is sucking up all the world’s capital and on the other side manufacturing is collapsing.

But clearly these things are deeply interrelated. Big tech, with all of that capital, is going to put out orders for manufacturing. Those orders will go everywhere, including China. But clearly some of those orders will end up with US factories, European factories, LatAm factories, etc.

So the manufacturing sectors of the West clearly have an opportunity to take on new orders, and that will drive secondary investments as people try to position themselves to receive the money big tech is spending. Sure, you can’t build every type of factory needed in 1 year, but it’s entirely possible for people to put down 5-year bets right now to build new factories in LatAm, where it’s cheaper, and in the meantime max out what manufacturing is still present in the West.

The combination of these two things can defer the economic collapse being referred to. Even this essay talks about the timeline when referring to $1.5T in bonds by 2028 - 2 years.

Yes. There are critical gaps in the supply chain - magnets and chips in particular - but the shortages aren’t here yet, only the risks of shortages. The shortage that I’m most aware of right now is actually gas generators, where there’s a 1 - 2 year wait-list right now.

So I do think there’s serious problems, I do think that the system is hurtling towards collapse, but I don’t think it’s going to happen in 2026, I don’t think it’s going to happen in 2027. And until we know what happens in 2026, we won’t know what changes will attenuate the crises and extend the timeline.

Edit:

Part of the issue is that people are using historical data center examples for their analysis. The reality on the water situation is that evaporative cooling is being phased out, electricity usage overhead are coming down, new form factors are already being rolled out to increase power density while decreasing costs.

But the real problem is going to be in the real estate world. The hyperscalers do not own every data center. They have commercial leases for many of them. Those leases are obviously securitized by Wall St. And when those default, there will be a 2008 problem.

Yeah, sorry, I didn’t address the power plant point. These data center aren’t building gigawatts of power plant on site (except for the nukes). They’re building megawatts of power and their using existing gas generators and turbines and feeding the power directly into the data center. They’re not building traditional power plants to enhance the grid, they’re building off grid.

I live in Canada, I can tell you that Canada absolutely does not have spare capacity on this scale. Meanwhile, Canada is suffering from a lot of the same economic problems the US is.

I have it on good authority that in parts of Canada there is a massive surplus of electricity, as there is in a few regions in Scandinavia. They’re selling electricity at less then $0.05/KwH. This is mostly due to over building of hydropower in more remote areas. I’m not saying the whole grid is flush with power. I’m saying there are pockets of overproduction and the data centers are going to find ways of getting there.

And, you keep looping back to hydrogen and geothermal, but that’s decades away

It’s not. There are active projects right now, actually deployed right now. There are hydrogen fuel cells deployed right now. There are multi-fuel generators that take hydrogen right now. There are hydrogen production capabilities live right now. It’s decades away from being produced centrally, stored, and transported at scale, but data centers are capable of being built with modular capabilities completely disconnected from larger nonexistent infrastructure.

There are active geothermal projects happening right now. The US military is investing heavily in it, and data centers are already considered matters of national security. We’re going to see at least a dozen data centers powered entirely by geothermal within 5 years.

The demand for energy is already outpacing the supply now

This is true and not true depending on your meaning. The existing data centers are powered. The data centers being built are able to be powered for the most part AFAICT. The number of unstarted projects? Yeah, there’s a lot of demand there and they aren’t started likely because they are trying to figure out supply. The amount of capital in terms of potential data centers? Absolutely not enough supply.

But this will cause supply to expand. And as you say, vertical is very slow right now, so it will create pressure to go horizontal. A.I. may not be productive, but the race to generate more power and thus make a profit is going to be productive. In fact, it might be the single most important factor in the US developing new energy capabilities and capacities.

The spare grid capacity is at mere 15% right now, and that’s needed for stuff like extreme weather events such as heat waves. Data centers are starting to eat into this spare capacity already. The Pentagon has already been gaming scenario of mass blackouts caused by the growing energy demand. That’s why the whole Stargate project is has now stalled.

And as I keep saying, data center are literally being built off-grid to account for this. There’s a 2 year waiting list to get generators right now because the data center projects have bought up future production lines. But that demand is going to push more manufacturing of generators, and the whole suite is going to consume a ton of natural gas. But again, multi-fuel generators are on the way and that means we’re going to see not only natural gas but biogas and hydrogen as fuels that can be brought in at later dates.

But really, this is happening. Texas announced that no new data centers will be allowed to stay on grid in emergencies, so what’s happening right now is that thousands of acres of data center projects are being built without ANY connection to the grid, entirely on natural gas generators.

Remember, markets aren’t great ways to run society, but they are great at getting millions of people to work on large problems independently and produce a robust suite of options in the face of scarcity that limits profits. That’s what’s literally happening on the ground right now. I wouldn’t be surprised if safety regulations that have been slowing down other energy tech gets destroyed and a whole bunch of industrial disasters start happening as profit-chasers start loading trains up with fuels without proper equipment.

We agree that it’ll likely take a couple of years for all this to come to a head

Agreed

but I see no way a crash can be avoided at this point

I don’t think it can be avoided, I think it can be deferred. Given everything remains the same as it is right now, I think it’s less than 2 years. But I think the current developments I am aware of put us at 2 - 3 years. Within that time, there will be new developments. So it’s possible it could be deferred longer.

And it’s always possible there the crash will be triggered by some other economic event that’s unrelated to the AI bubble

I think that’s entirely possible. I mean, anything that shuts down Manhattan Island would probably do it. Or another major infectious disease catastrophe. Or the food supply being incredibly tight from this harvest (although we’ve got plenty of soy for everyone).

However, usually the way you solve that problem as an empire is you expand your extraction and lebensraum, and the US is actively on that path in Latin America. I think the USA will have real trouble fighting a jungle war in Venezuela, but I think there’s a real risk of the US gaining breathing room through use of military force from Mexico all the way South.

The job numbers in the US are looking terrible

Jobs only matter for 2 reasons: production and money circulation. Most Americans aren’t productive anyway, working instead on paper pushing, marketing/advertising, sales, etc. So that’s not useful. The jobs numbers are a real problem because money is not circulating downward. That’s solvable with government intervention. It’s solvable by hiring more into military roles (ICE, local police, national guards, military, etc). It’s solvable by pushing people into the fields to replace the deported immigrants. Money flowing to the working class is one of the easiest things for a modern government to solve. They can literally just create the money in their accounts and suddenly consumer spending will be up and management jobs will come back. Jobs programs are in the USA’s history and they are part of the fascist playbook as well. I fully expect there to be a jobs program at some point in the next 5 years.

the tariff war is putting pressure on the whole economy

Honestly, I don’t even know if this is the biggest problem. The problem is that the US has lost the economics game globally and is no longer competitive enough to charge a sufficiently high price to maintain profits. We’re going to have reorganize the economy in the US to be a hermit kingdom that eats what it produces. We’re being isolated. All of the West is being isolated. The tariffs can be lifted at any time, and I don’t think it will reverse the macro trend that causing the economy to collapse.

While stock markets don’t care about the lives of the working class, we should not make the same mistake. At the end of the day people have to make ends meet. As Lenin put it, every society is three hot meals away from chaos.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying ANY of this is good. I’m trying to temper your predictions of imminent failure with the factors that will allow this shit show to continue far longer than you expect it to.

Generally you’re right, but specifically there are issues with what you’re saying.

First the grid. Of course the grid can’t be fixed on these time scales. That’s why the data centers are building their own power plants. Some are natural gas. Some are nuclear. They are even buying old decommissioned or moth balled nuclear plants and starting them back up for just the data center. The grid doesn’t need to be upgraded.

The value of a.i. is obviously not in commerce. The US sees it as a potential strategic game changer for both domestic police state management and for peer conflict. The business model is DoD funding.

The construction is also not constrained to the US. US companies are building nearly anywhere within the US hegemonic sphere of influence. There’s a lot of surplus power hiding out there, especially around hydroelectric plants. Canada in particular overproduces electricity significantly.

There are also a bunch of underdeveloped opportunities, like hydrogen and geothermal, that while they couldn’t meet full demand, will be given massive cash injections and any amount of progress will create some market exuberance. A single large scale geothermal project could create a large off-grid campus for dozens of data centers. Do that a few times and the geothermal industry starts getting larger.

I agree it’s a losing battle, but I think each attempt to solve will give them a few more months, and they have dozens of attempts to make.

All great points, but have you considered a National Counsel of Corporations?

The problems you raise have been solved before. The state takes over the management of the companies in order to keep the markets happy. It helps that 80% of the stock market is owned by one single bloc (https://welcometothemachine.co/)

Yes we are absolutely running up against physical limits, but again, that just means more innovation is going to be done. Sure hydrogen takes a lot to bring online, but Microsoft alone could probably fund bringing that fuel source online in a big way. To you point, they won’t because they aren’t saviors, but it’s not too far fetched to imagine the USG forcing companies to contribute to a strategic energy fund.

What’s happening right now is that people are building natural gas power plants on campus with the data centers. I can imagine coal plants coming back for the purpose.

Of course it will all run up against chip scarcity.

I think we’ve got at least 2 years before any one particular scarcity becomes a pin prick to the bubble. I think it’ll take 3 years at least given the current state of play, and in those 3 years a lot can change.

And as for profit, the USG is probably doing a lot of Keynesianisms right now paying defense companies to develop strategic artificial intelligence, so all of the startups going nowhere isn’t necessarily the bellwether of pin prick.

Also, I wasn’t saying that downward wage pressure would create the conditions for the same people to be rehired by the same companies for the same positions. I was just saying that downward wage pressure creates new economic opportunities for margins. In essence, downward wage pressure at scale creates upward pressure on the rate of profit. Certain labor jobs may become more viable if wages continue to fall. And we’ll need labor since clearly the US is way behind on factory automation.

I think China can keep labor prices low enough to make this difficult or impossible for the US. But that’s why the US keeps trying to decouple. In the meantime, I imagine the US will start doing a lot more exploitation of low wage labor in Latin America. But then, factories just can’t be built fast enough.

I think potentially what I am pointing to is that the USA might be 2 years away from a total economic collapse and there’s a large faction of the ruling class working to extend that time line via various means.

And the reason I think they are is because there is nowhere else for them to go. The only military potentially stronger than the US is China and China isn’t going to allow EuroBourgeois to setup shop fully in China (unless it’s a nice big trap).

So for better or worse, the owning class has to make it work in the US or it’s all over. And that means every single technique is going to be applied to get another 6 months and another and another.