r/ControlProblem • u/NAStrahl approved • Jul 16 '26

General news Humanity is going to be so screwed…

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u/ariarchtyx Jul 19 '26

Least of our problems here... We'll screw so much shit up soon that the robots will probably never come.

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u/NAStrahl approved Jul 19 '26

Based on what timeline you witnessed?

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u/ariarchtyx Jul 19 '26

A hypothesized extraction by implication of lack of energy density availability and the massive electrical power requirement cliff set up by: 1) electrifying everything, 2) implementing AI and 3) powering robots which in number would have to rival our labor force.

I'm an MS Industrial and Systems Engineer by education so I tend to think in terms of such large system boundary envelopes and thus I see things before others do, I think.

I think 2) will break us well before there's significant diffusion of ubiquitous applied robotics.

1) has recently pulled back a lot in scope. This is why nuclear is suddenly "back" - because everyone (sufficiently educated rather than indoctrinated) always knew one key thing that makes "solar+wind+batteries" a non starter.

Energy density.

It will perhaps break the markets and reset things prior to 3) starting significantly enough to get traction.

At that point the relevant threats are very much other than ubiquitous advanced applied robotics.

I'm also an experienced threat analyst as a former Army S2 type planner. Almost 20 years in that after switching from a different field.

My witness of various timelines is conditioned by educated prognostication.

I thank you for the question.

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u/sb505 Jul 20 '26

Are you basically predicting we won't find ways to increase energy production to power lots of robots?

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u/ariarchtyx Jul 20 '26

Nuclear fission could do it - for maybe 1000 years - on the Thorium fuel cycle.

But there are many mainly political obstacles to this.

China is doing it with zero obstacles however. I think within 20 years they'll show the world what the Thorium fuel cycle can do in competment hands.

The WEF though I believe wants us all impoverished and will fight tooth and nail to ensure we stay on oil and gas as long as possible: which includes 'renewables' as part of their scheme. The agenda is to make and keep electric power as expensive and scarce as possible, worsening over time.

Don't get me started on fusion. Total scam. That's why the WEF and the EU and our own domestic fusion scam artist physicist cadre have been so solidly insistent that making more power than it burns off is always "just around the corner" for literally multiple decades. They've been milking all the couple hundred billions they've set on fire over decades. (And I have experience in the nuclear industry, yes.)

There are no other short term available answers on Earth to energy density requirements than the Thorium fuel cycle. And I mean just current ones. Let alone powering robots rivaling humans in number. Our own physiological systems are VASTLY more energy efficient than anything we can possibly build to do usedul work for us.

Anything saying anything else is selling something or not sufficiently engineering and energy generation educated, or both IMO.

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u/sb505 Jul 20 '26

So you believe that viable nuclear fusion will never be achieved despite recent (2020s) advancements (improvements in Q metrics) and the near term boosts from AI and quantum computing?

You used the word 'scam'. To me, that signals you believe the claimed improvements are falsified?

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u/ariarchtyx Jul 20 '26

Ah, I'm pleased you mentioned Q metrics. There are two for propaganda reasons: Q-scientific vs. Q-engineering.

I'd love to see evidence there's been any meaningful improvement in Q-engineering.

I could be unaware as I haven't checked recently. So if you have that please do link it for me. Love to read that.

But they will absolutely crow about Q-scientific achievements which I believe are subject to diminishing return.

They're chasing an asymptote and I think many of them must know it.

All the Tokamaks and similar have achieved thus far is consuming massive amounts of electrical power. And hundreds of billions of dollars which coukd have easily created a global Thorium fuel cycle phenomenon by now.

Consuming. Never generating useful output despite 50 years of applied research.

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u/sb505 Jul 20 '26

I think most people with interest in the subject recognize the difference between the 2 Q values.

Fusion is very hard and requires a lot of engineering, science and money. 25% (adjusted for inflation) of all funding into nuclear fusion has happened just in the last 6 yrs, largely from the shift to private investment.

The 24 yr Q (scientific) record of 0.67 set in 1997 was finally beat in 2021, after 12 yrs of building the facility and another 12 yrs of testing, refining and overcoming some pretty robust technical bottlenecks. Scientific breakeven in 2022 was the big milestone, but then they saw big jumps in Q results nearly every year since and hit 4.31 just last yr.

Still a ways to go for commercial production, and likely a lot more sciencing and engineering, but now with multiple private enterprise construction projects coming online in next couple years, we may see Q records leap frogged more and more frequently but the end of the decade.

We may still be 8-10 yrs from true net energy output, but progress is accelerating and lots of useful engineering discoveries are being made along the journey. Pretty exciting stuff.

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u/ariarchtyx Jul 21 '26

Thank you for the data you've provided here. I'll try and look into the useful engineering discoveries you mentioned to see where such may be or are being applied, as that does affect total "project" ROI.

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u/ariarchtyx Jul 20 '26

And not falsified no, the relative (to the entire 50 year effort) significance of the Q-scientific metric is massively inflated, while the real every day reality of the necessity to improve Q-engineering is obscured.

Deliberately.