[FRIAM] Conversations with George

[Marcus Daniels]

Say 10k people in Los Angeles if it was a well-planned terrorist attack. 

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of steve smith <sasmyth at swcp.com>
Date: Thursday, June 5, 2025 at 6:37 PM
To: friam at redfish.com <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Conversations with George 


Marcus wrote: 

But we don’t all need yachts because the green ammonia shipping lets the goods come to us? 

I don't think of mega-yachts as being maintained for fetching groceries (or Cybertrucks or Christmas dolls or other plastic junk)? 
<rant about material transport> 
I live 100 yards away from the famous Otowi Bridge "whistle stop" on the Chile Line that Edith Warner manned for the boys school, Bandalier, San I, El Rancho... but the whole rail was decommissioned and relocated to Burma (where they also used narrow gauge). 
I don't think there was a huge volume of freight going through that stop, especially near the end when truck travel was likely displacing... the auto bridge at the location was built in 1924 (100 years ago)! Current pueblo population is similar to to 1600s when there were no long-distance material transport. Today there is a constant stream of Amazon, UPS, FedEX trucks in and out, but nothing compared to what streams by on it's way to Los Alamos! Of course it is only fair that trucks head the other way to WIPP loaded with canisters contaminated glovebox gloves. 
</freightRant> 
<discursive fantasy about self-reliance> 
Folks used to get along "just fine" without global supply chains of the style currently in use, and in fact apparently *critical* to most of us now. I can't guess what I'd find absent in my life within weeks of a collapsed global supply chain, but it would probably be more than iPhones, Xmas Dolls, and off season Strawberries. For all my attempts at self-reliance, I suspect I'd last only a week or two longer than the average... Assuming my gun-bristling neighbors don't shoot me on Day 1 to take my chickens and solar panels... they won't likely be ready to turn me into long-pig-jerky for a few more months... or maybe they'd give me enough respite to build out a full Crusoe suite of DIY defenses by which time I'd be ready to make jerky of them and collect their guns and ammo for the waves of walking dead from TX and CA to come later? Palisades and deadfalls and spike-pits and such? Probably not. 
</discursion> 
And there could be a lot less of us. 

Especially if there are releases of ammonia-fuel similar to the 2000gl diesel spill in Baltimore Harbor today. 
<deathByAmmonia> 
6000gl ammonia (based on 1/3 volumetric relative energy density) would be quite the tragedy? If *not* anhydrous (i.e. 30% solution in water) it would be (much) more of an environmental than human disaster though... so a few safety precautions would nicely shift the risk from humans to other parts of the biosphere... fewer people would die in the first hour or day of acute symptoms but maybe just as many down the line of much more chronic/latent conditions? 
</ammoniaDeath> 
But Senator Ernst reminds us "we will all die' and therefore we should "get right with God" or somesuch. Brilliant! (Occupy Heaven!) 
<StephenKing story cautionary tale> 
I recently watched Stephen King's the Stand mini-series and saw that his estimate was 92.4% death rate or a reduction from 8B to < 1B which was last seen (I think) in pre-pre-industrial (ca 1800) times. It appears an abrupt reduction in population leaves a plenitude of material goods to indulge in (or fight over)... don't need global supply chains for the hard-goods for years or decades? See discursion above! 
</SK story review> 



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