Forced Adoption of "Smart" Technology and Devices Will Contribute to Decline of West
In a few previous posts (such as link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4), I made the point that the dumb obsession of Western countries with “environmental issues” is contributing to their ongoing downfall. As many of you know, especially those who used to read my previous blog, I have long been an outspoken critic of the whole bullshit cult which is mostly commonly known as ‘environmentalism’ in the West. My strong opposition to this cult comes from a very basic and fundamental problem with followers of this cult- namely, that they believe and act as if their beliefs can change hard physical reality. This is why these retards believe it is possible to run a stable electric grid with wind and solar power or gasoline and diesel powered automobiles can be replaced with EVs. Some of you might think that many of these people actually don’t believe their green bullshit and are only pretending to do so to impoverish others. However, based on a careful analysis of their behavior and mindset suggest that the vast majority of these retards actually believe their own bullshit- which is not surprising given that human beings throughout history have believed in equally delusional shit.
To be clear, this does not imply that their actions do not have bad consequences. In fact, we have already seen some of these dumb ideas creating problems. These range from the reduced engine lives in many European cars caused by excessive wear due to stupid design choices (stop-start modes, excessive turbocharging) done to marginally increase fuel economy. Another dumb idea is the European delusion about banning cars running on internal combustion by 2035, which is causing the slow motion death of all major European car manufacturers. Of course, rest of the world (where actual economic growth is occurring) is rapidly detaching itself from the West and going their own way- and why not, western Europe is in the midst of a long term decline which is accelerating with every passing year. Let us face it, we have reached the point where civil engineering projects in India are far more likely to be finished on time and budget than Germany. The dumb theatre of COVID-19 lockdowns, masks etc has also greatly diminished the image of West in rest of the world. My point is that the dumb “environmentalism” of West is going to fuckup the lives of their own people.
With than in mind, let us start by revisiting one of my predictions in a previous post about Sodium Vapor streetlights being superior to their LED equivalents. In it, I wrote the following: “The allegedly longer life-span of LED street-lighting has not been verified under real-life conditions”. As it turns out, I was absolutely right. See.. I live in a fairly affluent city of over a million people which had the bright idea to replace its sodium vapor streetlights with LEDs in about 2018. When I wrote that original post on my old blog, I got some pushback along the lines of “color rendering of LEDs is much better” etc. Of course, even that is not true unless you are standing at a well lit street intersection- but it is beside the point. Over the past two years a good percentage of these brand new and expensive LED streetlights have either failed or malfunction to the point of being unusable. While these issues were obvious within a year of the shift to LED, it took a year or two more for the shit-show to reach levels that were too obvious to be ignored. So what is local municipality doing, you might ask.
Well.. in the beginning they did try to replace the malfunctioning LEDs, but things have now reached a point where complaints about these matters takes very long to be addressed- which has led to many people just not complaining any more. I live within one block of a major road in the city and the majority of streetlight in sight are dead and every month, it keeps getting worse. Of course, this does not pose any problem for cars and other vehicles since they have headlights but the whole area is starting to develop the feel of a malfunctioning third world country than anything in a developed country- which is ironic since those third world countries now often have far better and functional streetlights than the West. While I have not heard much about the long-term reliability of LED streetlights in the center of “environmental” retardism aka west Europe, it is likely not that different. Sure.. areas with more benign climate and more funds for replacing failed LED streetlights might have less issues with them, but the underlying technology and even the factories they are made in are identical to the ones on the road a block from my house.
So why did I choose this example to illustrate the problem with coerced adoption of “new” and “smart” technologies? Let us see.. for starters, nobody other than busy-body bureaucrats and their buddies selling this crap had any issue with the previous technology- namely, High Pressure Sodium vapor streetlamps. While color rendering of HPS lamps was not great, they gave of a lot of light at wavelengths the human eye is most sensitive. More importantly, they were already quite efficient and incredibly reliable over a large range of environmental conditions. You could pretty much install a HPS unit and count on it to last as long as the manufacturer claimed, with most exceeding those numbers by a healthy margin. In contrast, LED streetlight modules are full of complex circuity and fail at rates higher than even halogen vapor lamps, in addition to being far more sensitive to environmental conditions than either. All this is a lengthy way of saying that under real life conditions LED streetlight modules have a life of less than 10% of what they claim, and they malfunction even more frequently.
To put it bluntly, bureaucrats in many western countries forced people to abandon a simple and reliable technology in favor of one that is complex and failure prone. But as you will soon see, this is not unusual and is in fact an established pattern in West over past 2-3 decades. Let us talk the push for “smart” devices and technology in the dying West. Here is a question.. does anyone really require a “smart” TV which spies on your viewing habits and more- when it is possible to make the same appliance without all those extra components? Does your shitty Korean refrigerator from Samsung really need to connect with the internet to perform its real function? Did I mention that most Korean brands are now far less reliable than older American brands. Does you already crapified inkjet printer really need to be connected with some online store? Have you seen the malfunction rates and non-existent long-term support rates for “smart” boards used in classrooms? Do you know that all the extra electronics in cars which has made them far more expensive to repair has barely improved their safety and reliability (as measured in non-fatal/ fatal accidents per 100k miles or km) over past two decades. And yes.. the rates for both types of accidents have fallen for older vehicles as much as newer ones over that period.
The point I am trying to make is that all this excessive complexity, which bureaucrats and other cretins in the West are enamored with, has not increased the performance or reliability of devices and appliances from streetlights and cars to refrigerators and TVs to anywhere near the point where that investment in complexity is worth. Instead, this bullshit drive has left the West with increasingly fragile and unreliable technology. Let me remind everyone that electric and diesel engines for trains replaced steam once they often better and more reliable performance at a lower cost. Similarly, gasoline and diesel engines dominate land vehicles because they are more reliable and cheaper than the options. People started using electricity in their homes and factories because it was cheaper and more reliable than direct steam power or whatever else they were using. In other words, the natural process of technological evolution is always towards something which is more capable, reliable and cheaper. Now add in the rather poor demographic profile and other rapidly growing socio-economic problems for countries in West, especially Europe, it does not take a genius to figure out that taking this path is going to further speed up their demise.
What do you think? Comments?