Me too.

Not really Kaiser Wilhelm, but I did learn a long time ago to never give up hope until you are taking your final breath. A real life example of that is the journey for rescue Shackleton made after his ship got frozen and then crushed in the ice when he went to explore one of the poles (south, I think). It is the most amazing true story of hope and perseverance I have ever read in my life. I know I wouldn’t have been able to make it at the age I am now, but even as a tough young man, I am not sure if I was that tough. I think I read about it in Smithsonian magazine within the past few years (might be longer, the older I get the worse my time sense is). I have read fictional examples that influenced this attitude as well, but for most people fictional heroics holds no influence in the real world. When you plant a seed, it either sprouts where you planted it or not at all. When you plant the seed of an idea, it may not sprout either, but could also sprout somewhere completely unexpected. As I said above, “not in my lifetime”, but the idea probably won’t sound so out there when or if robots are doing almost all labor. As you probably know, people with nothing to do usually end up causing trouble eventually, out of boredom if nothing else. The government can either offer them labor or leisure, but they will have to choose one to offer. If labor is off the table due to the robots, it will have to be leisure. Doesn’t mean we wont still be productive, it just means nobody will ever be forced into doing something they do not want to do just to survive. A sci-fi book I read from the 70s imagined it would bring in a golden age for humanity because every single person could pursue their passion, not labor for a lifetime at something their heart was not into. It envisioned huge advances in every field of the Arts and Sciences.

Interestingly Kaiser Wilhelm, I did the opposite. I lived for the moment in my early years. Now I am just living. I had always thought I would for sure be dead by 40 from cancer or something equally crappy due to the nasty, chemical laden job (Methyl Ethyl Ketone, Methylene Chloride) I held from ages 16-20 so afterwards I partied hard and was quite social. I look back quite fondly on my under 40 days, I had lots of fun. My closest friend passed in 2016, and I haven’t had a stable income for some years now so I am not doing much of anything right now but waiting for some penny stock investments I started investing in 9-12 years ago to finally pay off big time. My record on penny stocks is good so far, so it is not as crazy impossible as it sounds. First penny stock investment in 1996 earned 9x (17 years later). Last big penny stock payoff for me was in 2020 (at 7 years and 2.4x). Every single completed investment I have made with over $100000 so far (from 2013 on. Not all were penny stocks. 4 closed out, 1 still in progress-a penny stock, my largest single investment to date. Can I make it 5 of 5? A big gamble, and yes I worry about it) has paid off 1.5%-240% from 1 day (1.5%) to 7 years later (240%). I have come close to huge, life changing payoffs a half dozen times since 2013 (sold early or late or passed on a good one, like $10000 in Tesla I decided against at $7-$8/share in 2013), but have never quite managed the Big One yet. And all my losses so far were smaller investments of only $1000- $25000 (6 of those so far, approximately $50000 total). As you can imagine, I did not care too much about retirement in my younger days, though I still saved 10% of my pay through 401Ks (start investing as soon as you can, kids). Figured even if I never got to use it, I could leave it for my parents as a thank you. Did not feel like getting attached to someone if I would only have a few years with them. Even if others think 20 years is a long time, even when I was young I knew it was a blink of the eye (history and the Foundation Trilogy taught me that). Never found anyone I was on the same page with, either. My longest attachment was my first, (4-1/2 years) before I split with her at age 22. After that, I decided no marriage, no kids. 20 years ago I realized I just do not like people enough to spend 24/7 with anyone forever so I am happiest alone. My largest current investments (2) are looking quite promising now but it has taken longer than I target for, so I am rather tight on money currently. No guarantees of course, but their futures look bright. I realized just a few years ago I tend to invest too early. I appear to see the potential long before anyone else does, and it does not matter how good the company potential is if people have not heard about them. Next time I have money to invest (if I have money to invest, no guarantees) I will try to invest a bit closer to the time of their success (which usually means they made a profit for the first time, but not always). I should have a good idea on the ultimate success or failure of my 2 large investments in a few more months. Looks like I am competing with Dazed and Coinfused for longest posts on this site lately, though perhaps my posts are a bit more cohesive (sorry, everyone. I expect I will get it out of my system soon and again become more of a silent observer, as usual. Tip for people who do not want to trigger a long post from me-I have much less to say here when the subject is strictly coins -only 17 years of coin knowledge vs. 60 in general-, with just a handful of exceptions). My sympathies for your losses Kaiser Wilhelm, I know how you feel. Every year that passes, you will miss them more, not less. 

Agreed.

If I understand it right, geosynchronous orbit is the way you get the top platform to stay at the same place relative to the planet. It would obviously need some kind of maneuvering thrusters to make sure nothing knocks it out of place. I would assume you do not raise the cable from the planet, you lower it from orbit. Also what are the odds that the cable would break at the top of the elevator rather than nearer to the bottom. I think the most stress would be in the lower portions. The bottom platform would have to be hardened like our underground military bases are today, just in case something happened. And of course, the platform base would need to be in an isolated area. Another thing that makes it more feasible (not necessarily practical yet) is all the advanced sensors we would have to monitor the stresses on the cable, something we did not have when the idea was first thought up. When someone calculates the value of one of those asteroids, I doubt we will able to convince the powers that be that it is too dangerous. I think an asteroid in orbit around the moon for example, would be pretty safe. Break off smaller chunks to send to Earth. Look at how many space rocks are floating around with no control currently. Handling our precious metals asteroids might even help us learn how to deal better with any strays. That recent test where we changed the course of an asteroid was quite encouraging. Honestly, I do think we are anywhere near a space cable yet, but we are certainly a lot closer than we were when it was first discussed. It is still all theoretical. Remember too, advances do not go forward at a steady pace, there are long periods of small or no advances, then bam, a big jump. It might be closer than any of us believe. Great responses, Craig!

I’ve seen the Space Cable theory on some of the science shows. It always looks so easy and practical when done as a cartoon, but when real life enters into the equation, things get difficult. How thick would the cable need to be to transport material, including humans, to space? I’m sure it would have to be thicker than 14 gauge. And how would one get such a thing 60 plus miles up to outer space and attach something to it that must rotate at 1000 mph (the same speed as the planets rotation.) One of the shows that elaborated on this futuristic concept was for potential disasters that could occur. Let’s just say for the purposes of brevity that you wouldn’t want a broken cable impacting with our planet! There are some serious people working on some great projects, after all we now have the Webb telescope out in space sending back amazing images. But it seems we are more concerned about what is the definition of a woman or man. And of course, Trump.
I don’t think we want an asteroid composed of heavy elements like gold or platinum anywhere near Earth. A certain comet, comprised of ice and rock, hit our planet 65 million years ago. That wasn’t a good thing for the life of dinosaurs.

Hi Craig,
Thanks for your comments, by the way. They do foster discussion. Good point about the weight of the gold. I believe we can solve it though, if we put our minds to it. Perhaps get it into a decaying orbit and some kind of parachute, after it is deep enough into the atmosphere, instead of letting it burn up or crash into earth, which we would not want to do unless it was small. And how much gold would we want to evaporate to accomplish that? Perhaps freeze a large amount of water around the chunk before it goes into the atmosphere so the water burns off instead of the gold? I am confident we could make it land about where we want it to if we really want to, like a desert or a mountain. I remember one of the new rocket designs was trying to be able to land upright gently under its own power. Perhaps attach rocket engines to small chunks of the asteroid so it could land gently by itself. Someone with the expertise can decide how large or small the chunk the would need to be to make it worthwhile. I also remember the space elevator idea from old sci-fi novels. I have not looked at any of the science behind it for years. We did not have a material strong enough to be the “cable” last time I looked , but we might be getting closer now. I am obviously just throwing ideas out here, and I am not an engineer or anything, but just remember lots of things people thought were once impossible are not anymore. I could say the actual solution is above my pay grade, and beyond my ability to solve, but there are lots of people on this planet smarter than I so I am not ready to dismiss the idea.
As I am honest, I would actually prefer if money was not secret in any way. I do not judge people by how much they make or do not make. I never believed income should be secret, even when I was 20 years old (40 years ago). I would like to point out there never would have been a pay disparity between women and men if pay was always transparent. It would sure do wonders for the dark money that is destroying our system of government currently. I have had a common sense question for our supreme court ever since they ruled “dark money” was some form of “free speech” If foreigners are not allowed to contribute to political campaigns, how are we supposed to know they are not, if we are not allowed to know who is giving money to who? Freedom does not mean chaos. I never meant complete unfettered freedom. I always liked that saying “your freedom ends where my freedom begins”. Enjoy your day, Craig. I imagine we will be conversing again.

Jeff, You are right about there being large asteroids in space composed of gold and platinum that would crash the price of those metals to pennies if we could mine them. But there would be a gigantic leap from finding such an asteroid and bringing the metals back to earth via spacecraft. Maybe with A.I. developing at breakneck speed, a solution for an advanced energy source to propel spacecraft could be discovered. Of course, since A.I. is silicon it could warp the structure of all internet sites and information. Does anyone on this site use online financial sites for banking or investments? Do you want the government knowing everything about yourself and your activities? I sure don’t.
“Drop the whole freedom thing?” Why do you think all these illegals are pouring into our country? I know nothing lasts forever, but before we simply become cattle, there will be a real civil war.

Hi Craig, if we want to undercut their domination of gold production and the money they earn from it, we need to get cracking on mining in space. I think it is possible in as little as 20 years, depending on how successful Bezos or Musk are with their rockets (I sure hope we can trust Musk, his deep China ties do concern me. I read 40% of overall Tesla production comes from his Shanghai plant alone). China and Russia are against everything America stands for (and both have been since the 1940s. Nothing has changed there, even if Trump assures us it has), so I do not think we should even try to pretend they are our friend. They are obviously not bothering to pretend anymore, why should we? As soon as we mine (or even announce we found one nearby, I suspect) a gold asteroid, or mine it on another planet in the solar system, the price of gold will drop like a stone. Of course, right now it looks like China is more serious about space exploration than we are. I have heard rumors that they might already have a secret moon base. Not sure if I believe it, but I bet they are working on one. Meanwhile, over here we are fighting amongst ourselves over whether an individual gets to determine for themselves who they are, how others address them, who owns a pregnancy and what we read. China and Russia both have decided the proper answer to all those questions (maybe every question) is “the government”. Should we follow their lead and drop the whole freedom thing?

Hi Kaiser Wilhelm,
With our advances in robotics, our businesses are starting to get excited about replacing humans entirely. That is why I hope someday (not in my lifetime, that is for sure. The majority of jobs will have to disappear before we take the idea seriously) people will be able to get on board with the idea of a universal income (in my opinion, a minimal income that will allow you to survive but not live in luxury. You will have to do something constructive with your money or yourself if you want more than just survival). The first step to determining if such a thing is even feasible is to determine just how much profit do American businesses generate in total in one year. I have never seen such a stat. For us to ever talk intelligently about universal income that is the very first data we need to see. It looks like somewhere between $4-$5 trillion a year in profits could cover such a thing with todays population. Someday (assuming WWIII doesn’t put us back to the stone age first), there will be no real full time jobs for people except for luxury service type jobs, where the wealthy (even with universal income, there will still people with more than the average) will want to differentiate themselves by being served by people, not robots like all the common people get served by; or artistic type jobs (handmade!). The scary part of that future is the robotic war machines that will never disobey an order, no matter how fundamentally wrong the order is. We have already started down that path. Don’t get me started on the new Space Force, where we have now decided to export our petty wars to share with the rest of the galaxy and the military industrial complex along with it so they can make infinite profits (infinite space, infinite need for more weapons. I can hear their drool hitting the floor as I type this). If there is a Star Trek type Federation in Earths future, we just set ourselves on the bloody path to it instead of the peaceful one.