When Velocity Approaches Zero: Iran's Crisis Through the Lens of Living Civilization

December 30, 2025

Iran's Central Bank Governor resigned yesterday amid protests triggered by the rial hitting 1,420,000 per dollar. The merchant class is striking. Security forces are deploying tear gas in Tehran's bazaars. International observers are calling it a potential tipping point for the regime.

But what if we're watching something more fundamental than political upheaval? What if this is a civilization encountering the geometric limits of how it coordinates itself?

The Pattern Beneath the Headlines

For the past 25 years, I've been studying how civilizations coordinate - how they transform individual actions into collective outcomes. The framework I call "Living Civilization" looks at coordination systems through a specific lens: are they building from verified present positions (wealth-based) or extracting from imagined futures (debt-based)?

Iran's crisis reveals this distinction with unusual clarity.

Understanding Capital as Velocity

In the Living Civilization framework, Capital isn't money or assets. It's velocity - the rate at which Stock (resources, goods, capabilities) moves through time to generate Work (actual transformation of reality). The relationship is simple:

Stock × Capital → Work

When sanctions cut Iran's oil exports, they didn't just reduce revenue. They reduced the velocity at which Iran's primary Stock could move through the global economy. When inflation hits 48.6%, it reduces the velocity at which currency can facilitate exchange. When energy shortages force power cuts, it reduces the velocity at which energy Stock can do Work.

What we're witnessing isn't just economic crisis. We're watching Capital (as velocity) approach zero across multiple domains simultaneously.

The Dual-Rate Trap

Iran operates two exchange rate systems: a state-regulated rate for businesses and an open-market rate for ordinary citizens. This isn't just policy choice - it's an attempt to maintain two different consensus realities.

In Living Civilization terms, this reveals a critical design parameter: frequency of recording. How often does a coordination system update its shared understanding of reality?

When the gap between official rate and ground truth grows too large, when the recording frequency can't track actual dynamics, the consensus field tears. The system fragments into incompatible realities. Some participants operate in the world described by state rates. Others operate in the world described by market rates. Eventually, these worlds diverge so far that coordination becomes impossible.

The protests we're seeing aren't just political dissent. They're what happens when enough participants stop accepting the official consensus and start coordinating around ground truth instead.

Why the Merchant Class Matters

The bazaaris - Iran's traditional merchant class - have historically been regime supporters. Their strikes now signal something crucial: the people who understand Capital flows at operational level are reading velocity collapse in their own ledgers.

They're not making ideological statements. They're responding to physics. When velocity approaches zero, when Stock stops moving through their shops, when the currency can't reliably facilitate exchange across even 24-hour timeframes, they see the geometry before political analysts do.

This is the difference between extraction thinking and building thinking. Extraction can maintain narratives divorced from ground truth for extended periods. But people handling actual Stock, facilitating actual exchanges, measuring actual velocity - they encounter reality constraints directly.

The Debt-Based Pattern

Let's map Iran's trajectory through the debt vs. wealth lens:

Debt-based coordination extracts from imagined futures:

• Sanctions block access to future oil revenue
• Government spending assumes future capacity to service obligations
• Dual exchange rates imagine a reality different from ground truth
• Economic policy targets perception management rather than capacity building

Meanwhile, present position degrades:

• Energy infrastructure can't maintain current output (rolling blackouts)
• Currency can't maintain store-of-value across days
• GDP forecast: -1.7% (2025), -2.8% (2026) = negative velocity
• Water shortages compound energy shortages compound economic contraction

The geometric trap closes: When you extract from tomorrow while today keeps shrinking, you eventually run out of geometric room to maneuver. The imagined future and degrading present converge. All the complexity collapses into a simple question: Can this system still generate Work?

When Capital (velocity) approaches zero, the answer becomes visible to everyone simultaneously.

What Wealth-Based Looks Like

I'm not advocating for any particular political outcome in Iran. I'm holding Hecate's torch at the crossroads to illuminate the paths available.

A wealth-based coordination system would operate from fundamentally different principles:

Build from verified present position:

• What energy capacity exists now?
• What resources are actually available?
• What can be reliably recorded and verified?

Single consensus reality:

• One exchange rate reflecting actual market dynamics
• Recording frequency that matches natural coordination timescales
• Transparency about constraints and capabilities

Capital as generative velocity:

• Stock moving through time generates Work
• Work builds capacity rather than extracting from it
• System evolves based on what's actually possible, not what's politically desired

This isn't utopian thinking. It's physics. The universe has been building complex systems for 13.8 billion years using wealth-based principles. Stars don't extract from their futures - they build from present nuclear dynamics. Ecosystems don't imagine tomorrow's energy - they coordinate around today's photon flux.

Debt-based thinking is the anomaly. It's only possible because consciousness can imagine futures and then make claims against them. But imagination doesn't change physics.

The Confluence We're Witnessing

Iran isn't unique. They're just hitting the wall faster than systems with more buffer. What makes this moment significant is the confluence:

• Military setbacks (regional position weakening)
• Economic collapse (velocity approaching zero)
• Energy crisis (can't maintain present capacity)
• Water shortage (resource constraints tightening)
• Merchant class defection (operational-level consensus breaking)

When multiple constraint surfaces converge simultaneously, the system has no geometric room left to maneuver. This is what "the Great Filter" looks like at civilizational scale - not nuclear war or AI apocalypse, but coordination systems encountering their own geometric limits.

The Path Forward

The question isn't whether Iran's current coordination system survives. The question is what comes next.

Will it be another debt-based extraction system with different management but same geometry? A new regime that still tries to extract from imagined futures while present position degrades?

Or does this crisis create space for wealth-based alternatives to emerge? Systems that build from verified positions, maintain single consensus realities, and treat Capital as velocity that generates Work rather than extraction that depletes Stock?

Why This Matters Beyond Iran

Every debt-based coordination system faces this same geometry eventually. Some have more buffer (reserve currencies, resource abundance, technological capacity). But the pattern is universal:

1. Extract from imagined futures
2. Present position degrades
3. Recording frequency mismatches reality
4. Consensus tears
5. Velocity approaches zero

The United States carries $38 trillion in debt against imagined future GDP. China's property sector extracted decades of future value. Europe coordinates through mechanisms that assume continued growth. Each system has different timelines, different buffers, different crisis triggers.

But the geometry is the same.

Iran's crisis illuminates this pattern with unusual clarity because their buffers are thin, their constraints are tight, and their velocity collapse is happening fast enough to observe in real-time.

The Torch, Not the Path

I position myself as holding Hecate's torch at the crossroads - illuminating choices rather than prescribing paths. Living Civilization provides a framework for understanding coordination systems, not a political manifesto.

What I observe:

• Debt-based systems eventually encounter geometric limits
• Wealth-based alternatives are possible but require different infrastructure
• The transition between coordination paradigms is civilizational-scale challenge
• We're living through this transition now, not preparing for it later

What readers must decide:

• Which system makes sense for your context?
• What coordination infrastructure exists where you are?
• How do you verify ground truth in your domain?
• Where do you have Exit rights, Fork capability, Evolve potential?

Iran's crisis doesn't tell us what should happen. It shows us what happens when extraction meets constraint, when imagined futures collide with degrading presents, when velocity approaches zero.

The rest is choice.

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Chad Lupkes is developing "Living Civilization," a comprehensive framework for understanding civilizational coordination and the transition from debt-based to wealth-based systems. This analysis represents ongoing synthesis of real-time events through that framework.

The views expressed here are observations, not prescriptions. They're intended to illuminate patterns, not advocate outcomes. Your civilization, your choice.

The $137 Billion Question: Why China's Mega-Dam Ignores Better Solutions We Already Have

On December 27, 2024, China approved construction of what will become the world's largest hydroelectric dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet. The project will cost an estimated $137 billion—four times the investment in the already-massive Three Gorges Dam—and aims to generate 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, roughly three times Three Gorges' output.

The announcement triggered immediate concerns from India and Bangladesh, where the river (known as the Brahmaputra) provides water for hundreds of millions of people. Environmental groups warned of ecological devastation in one of Earth's most biodiverse regions. Tibetan communities face displacement from what they consider sacred land.

But beyond the geopolitical tensions and environmental risks lies a more fundamental question: Why is China pursuing the most expensive, highest-risk option when cheaper, faster, safer alternatives already exist?

The answer reveals something profound about how we approach civilizational-scale challenges—and why we so often choose the wrong path.

The Official Narrative Doesn't Add Up

Chinese officials frame the dam as essential for several goals:

• Energy security and electricity generation for growing demand
• Carbon neutrality targets for 2060
• Economic development for Tibet
• Grid stability through baseload power

These are legitimate objectives. China's energy needs are real and growing, particularly with the expansion of energy-intensive technologies like artificial intelligence and electric vehicle manufacturing.

But here's what doesn't make sense: China possesses the world's most advanced renewable energy industry, has already exceeded its 2030 clean energy targets six years early, and in 2024 alone installed more solar and wind capacity than the entire world combined. The country has essentially solved the technical and economic challenges of large-scale renewable deployment.

So why default to a mega-dam that won't be operational for over a decade, carries catastrophic failure risk in one of Earth's most seismically active zones, and costs nearly three times what distributed alternatives would require?

What We Know Now That We Didn't Know Before

To understand why better alternatives exist, we need to recognize how dramatically the energy landscape has changed in just the past few years.

The Solar Revolution Is Complete

In 2024, China added 277 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity in a single year. To put that in perspective, that's more than twice the total solar capacity installed in the entire United States by the end of 2024. The global benchmark cost for solar electricity has fallen to around $38 per megawatt-hour in China—and continues dropping 2-11% annually.

Solar is no longer expensive or experimental. It's the cheapest form of new electricity generation in almost every market globally.

Battery Storage Crossed the Economic Threshold

The cost of battery energy storage fell by a third in 2024 alone, reaching $104 per megawatt-hour. China deployed 80 GW of storage capacity by year-end, with costs projected to fall another 35% by 2060. Four-hour utility-scale battery storage is expected to drop below $100/MWh by 2026.

This matters because batteries solve what used to be solar and wind's fatal flaw: intermittency. The sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow—but now we can store energy economically when it does.

Virtual Power Plants Work at Scale

Perhaps the most overlooked development: China has pioneered "virtual power plants" (VPPs) that aggregate millions of distributed resources—rooftop solar panels, battery systems, electric vehicles, even household air conditioners and water heaters—into coordinated networks that can respond to grid needs in real-time.

In Jiangsu Province, China is developing the world's first gigawatt-scale residential VPP. In Pinghu, a VPP with 242 MW of regulation capacity saved approximately $960 million in infrastructure investment. Demand response programs reduce peak load by 25-40% while cutting overall system costs by 39%.

VPPs enable the grid to flex dynamically rather than requiring massive overcapacity to meet rare peak demands. They turn consumers into active participants rather than passive recipients.

We Know How to Coordinate Across Borders

The technology for transboundary water monitoring, verification, and cooperative management exists and has been proven in multiple regions. The institutional frameworks for benefit-sharing from shared river systems are well-established in international law. The diplomatic tools for de-escalating regional tensions through cooperative resource management have decades of track record.

What's missing isn't knowledge or capability—it's political will to choose cooperation over control.

The Alternative: A Distributed Wealth-Based Approach

Here's what China could do instead of building the Yarlung Tsangpo dam—for less money, in less time, with better outcomes:

Option 1: Distributed Solar, Wind, and Storage ($40-60 billion)

Deploy 60+ gigawatts of solar and wind capacity distributed across Tibet and surrounding provinces, coupled with battery storage for reliability. At China's current benchmark costs:

• Cost: $40-60 billion (less than half the dam)
• Timeline: 2-3 years to full deployment (vs 10+ years for the dam)
• Capacity: Equivalent 300 TWh/year generation
• Risk profile: No single catastrophic failure point; graceful degradation if components fail
• Modularity: Can begin operating in phases immediately, not after complete construction

China already knows how to do this. The country installed 360 GW of wind and solar in 2024. Scaling to 60 GW specifically for this region is well within demonstrated capability.

Option 2: Nationwide Virtual Power Plant Infrastructure ($10-30 billion)

Invest in the digital infrastructure, smart meters, and control systems to aggregate distributed energy resources into coordinated virtual power plants across the eastern provinces where electricity demand is concentrated.

• Cost: $10-30 billion
• Peak load reduction: 25-40% through demand response
• System cost reduction: 30-40% through optimized dispatch
• Consumer benefit: Households receive payments for participation
• Grid resilience: Distributed intelligence rather than centralized control

This approach addresses grid stability more effectively than adding baseload capacity in a remote location, because it matches generation and demand dynamically rather than requiring massive transmission infrastructure.

Option 3: Tibetan Local Energy Commons ($10-20 billion)

Instead of extracting Tibet's resources for transmission elsewhere, invest in community-owned renewable energy systems that serve local needs and enable local economic development.

Deploy 10-20 GW of solar, wind, and micro-hydropower (run-of-river, non-dam) with ownership structures that keep value local:

• Cost: $10-20 billion
• Ownership: Local cooperatives and communities
• Use: Local industrial development, heating, agricultural processing
• Employment: Permanent local jobs in installation, maintenance, and operation
• Cultural preservation: No displacement, no destruction of sacred sites

This is actual development rather than colonial extraction disguised as modernization.

Option 4: Transboundary Cooperation Framework ($2 billion)

Establish genuine water-sharing agreements with India and Bangladesh, including:

• Joint monitoring and verification systems
• Shared early warning for floods and disasters
• Benefit-sharing mechanisms for any hydropower development
• Binding dispute resolution procedures

The infrastructure and institutions for this cost a tiny fraction of the dam, while eliminating the geopolitical tensions that could lead to far more expensive conflicts.

The Complete Package: $62-112 Billion

Implementing all four options together would cost $62-112 billion—potentially $25-75 billion less than the dam alone, delivered in one-third the time, with distributed benefits and resilient failure modes instead of catastrophic single-point risk.

The Real Cost of Centralized Gigantism

The Yarlung Tsangpo dam isn't just expensive in dollar terms. Consider what else it costs:

Catastrophic Risk in a Seismic Zone

The dam site sits at the boundary between major tectonic plates in one of Earth's most seismically active regions. The strongest earthquake ever recorded on land—magnitude 8.6 in 1950—occurred just 300 miles away.

A dam failure would release what Indian officials have called a "water bomb" capable of devastating downstream regions in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, and Bangladesh, affecting hundreds of millions of people. This isn't hypothetical risk—it's engineering reality in an unstable geological zone.

Distributed renewable infrastructure doesn't create this risk profile. A solar panel that fails affects a few buildings. A wind turbine that fails affects a small area. There is no scenario where distributed renewables create a single event capable of killing millions.

A Decade of Opportunity Cost

The dam won't be operational until the mid-2030s at the earliest. Meanwhile, China could deploy equivalent distributed capacity within 2-3 years. That means seven years of additional carbon emissions, seven years of electricity shortages during peak demand, seven years of foregone economic development.

When you can solve a problem in three years, choosing a ten-year solution isn't prudent planning—it's institutional inertia.

Ecological Destruction in a Biodiversity Hotspot

The Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon—three times deeper than the Grand Canyon—contains some of Asia's tallest and oldest trees and the world's richest assemblage of large carnivores. Chinese ecologists have warned that construction activity alone, even without flooding, threatens irreversible damage to ecosystems that have evolved over millions of years.

Solar panels on existing structures or degraded land don't destroy primary ecosystems. Wind turbines can coexist with wildlife when properly sited. The ecological footprint of distributed renewables is orders of magnitude smaller.

Geopolitical Escalation

India is already planning counter-dams on its side of the border, which environmental experts warn could be equally destructive. The weaponization of shared water resources creates an arms race of infrastructure projects, each more damaging than the last, driven by security concerns rather than energy needs.

Cooperation frameworks eliminate this dynamic entirely. When benefits are shared, there's no incentive to escalate.

Why Smart People Choose Bad Options

If the alternatives are cheaper, faster, safer, and more effective, why would China choose the dam?

The answer lies in understanding the difference between two fundamentally different approaches to solving problems:

Centralized extraction operates by borrowing from an imagined future, concentrating control, externalizing costs to peripheries, and creating single-point dependencies. It privileges top-down legibility and control over distributed resilience.

Distributed creation operates by building from verified present resources, distributing control to where knowledge lives, localizing benefits, and creating multiple redundant systems. It privileges adaptability and resilience over centralized command.

The dam is centralized extraction. Distributed renewables, virtual power plants, and cooperative frameworks are distributed creation.

For institutions built on centralized control, distributed alternatives feel threatening even when they work better. A virtual power plant controlled by millions of households is harder to command than a single dam controlled by a state-owned enterprise. Solar panels owned by communities keep wealth local rather than extracting it to centers of power.

The dam isn't being built because it's the best solution to China's energy needs. It's being built because it reinforces existing power structures—even at enormous financial cost and catastrophic risk.

What This Reveals About Our Civilizational Moment

The Yarlung Tsangpo dam decision is significant beyond China's borders because it represents a pattern we see repeated globally: when faced with challenges, we default to the familiar approaches that created our current systems rather than adopting the newer, better tools we've developed.

We know how to generate clean electricity cheaply. We know how to store it. We know how to coordinate distributed systems at scale. We know how to cooperate across borders. We know how to structure local ownership of infrastructure.

The knowledge, technology, capital, and proven models all exist. This isn't a case of hoping future innovation will save us. The solutions are here, now, working at scale in multiple contexts.

Yet we still choose mega-projects that take decades to build, create catastrophic failure modes, extract wealth from peripheries, and escalate geopolitical tensions.

Why?

Because the institutions making these decisions were shaped by an era when centralized gigantism was the only option. When distributed generation was expensive and unreliable. When battery storage was science fiction. When coordination across millions of actors was impossible without top-down command.

That era is over. The constraints that justified centralized extraction no longer exist.

But the institutions remain, along with the careers, expertise, and power structures built around the old paradigm. And so we continue building 20th-century solutions to 21st-century problems, at enormous cost in money, time, risk, and human flourishing.

The Path Not Yet Taken

Imagine if China announced tomorrow a different plan:

"We will invest $87 billion over the next three years to deploy distributed solar, wind, and storage across Western regions with community ownership structures that keep economic benefits local. We will build virtual power plant infrastructure to coordinate these resources efficiently. We will establish binding transboundary water agreements with India and Bangladesh that create shared benefits rather than unilateral control. And we will demonstrate that the path to genuine energy security lies not in megaprojects that concentrate risk, but in distributed systems that concentrate resilience."

This would be revolutionary. Not because the technology is new—it isn't—but because it would represent a fundamental shift from extraction to creation, from borrowing against imagined futures to building from verified present wealth.

It would also work better, cost less, finish sooner, and eliminate catastrophic risk.

The question is not whether we have the tools to make better choices. We do.

The question is whether our institutions can evolve quickly enough to use them—or whether we'll keep building dams in earthquake zones because that's what we know how to do, even as cheaper, safer alternatives sit unused in our collective toolkit.

What You Can Do

If this analysis resonates with you, consider:

1. Share this perspective with others who care about energy policy, climate solutions, or infrastructure investment. The alternatives to mega-projects need broader visibility.
2. Support distributed infrastructure in your own context—rooftop solar, community energy cooperatives, demand response programs. These solutions scale through adoption, not mandate.
3. Demand transparency from institutions making infrastructure decisions. Ask: "What alternatives were considered? What are the full lifecycle costs and risks? Who benefits and who bears the costs?"
4. Build bridges across borders, disciplines, and communities. The solutions to our biggest challenges require cooperation that our current institutions often obstruct.

The Yarlung Tsangpo dam will likely be built. The momentum of large institutions is hard to redirect once commitments are made. But the next mega-project can be questioned. The next $137 billion can be directed toward distributed alternatives. The next catastrophic risk can be avoided.

We have the wealth—the knowledge, technology, capital, and proven models—to make better choices.

We just need the wisdom to use it.

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The author is writing a book on civilizational systems and the choice between extraction-based and creation-based approaches to shared challenges. This analysis draws on research into energy systems, distributed infrastructure, and institutional decision-making.

The Texas Paradox: How Lab-Grown Meat Bans Undermine the Dream of Mars

When the same states cheering for SpaceX ban the food technology we'll need to get there

On June 25, 2025, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed legislation banning the sale of lab-grown meat, making Texas the seventh state to outlaw cultivated protein. "This ban is a massive win for Texas ranchers, producers, and consumers," declared Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. "Texans have a God-given right to know what's on their plate, and for millions of Texans, it better come from a pasture, not a lab."

Eight months earlier, on October 13, 2024, SpaceX successfully launched Starship's fifth test flight from Boca Chica, Texas. Governor Abbott was there, celebrating Texas as the launchpad for humanity's multiplanetary future. "Texas is leading the charge to the stars," he proclaimed.
No one seems to have noticed the contradiction.

The Unasked Question

If we're serious about becoming a spacefaring civilization—and the billions being invested by SpaceX, Blue Origin, and others suggest we are—then we need to answer a simple question: What are we going to eat?

The same legislators celebrating rocket launches are banning the food technology that would make permanent space settlement possible. They're cheering for the destination while outlawing the journey's most essential supply.

Consider what it would take to have beef on Mars using traditional ranching:

For cattle, you need:

• Pastureland (in pressurized habitats or domed environments)
• Water systems (scarce on Mars, expensive to transport)
• Grain/feed production (requiring more land, more water, more infrastructure)
• Waste management (for tons of manure in closed environments)
• Veterinary facilities
• Slaughter and processing equipment
• All of the above multiplied by your desired herd size

For that grain, you need:

• Arable land (Martian regolith is toxic and lacks organic matter)
• Pollination systems (no bees in space)
• Additional water
• Fertilizer production
• Pest management in closed systems
• Harvesting and processing equipment

Now imagine you want fish for variety. Suddenly you need:

• Ocean-like aquatic systems (thousands of gallons)
• Temperature and salinity control
• Phytoplankton cultivation (requiring light systems)
• Zooplankton to feed the phytoplankton eaters
• Small fish to feed the larger fish
• Breeding and spawning infrastructure
• Water filtration and recycling
• Everything an ocean ecosystem requires, maintained artificially

The capital costs are staggering. The system complexity is absurd. The resource consumption is prohibitive. And this is for a single protein source.

The Engineering Reality

Space habitats demand closed-loop systems. Every gram of mass matters. Every liter of water is precious. Every watt of energy is calculated. The efficiency losses in maintaining entire food webs—where you feed grain to cattle that convert perhaps 10% of that energy into meat—are simply unacceptable.

This isn't ideology. It's engineering.

NASA knows this. They've been researching alternative protein sources for decades. The ISS experiments with cellular agriculture. Every serious long-duration mission plan includes synthetic nutrition as a necessity, not an option.

But apparently, Texas—home to SpaceX's Starbase and its Mars ambitions—believes we can ranch our way to the stars.

The Ocean We're Destroying

The absurdity becomes even clearer when we consider Earth's oceans. We're currently fishing them toward extinction—90% of large fish populations are gone since 1950—to harvest perhaps two dozen species at commercial scale. Industrial fishing destroys entire ecosystems, creates vast dead zones, and generates billions of tons of bycatch for what? Salmon dinners. Tuna sandwiches. Shrimp cocktails.
And we think we can replicate this in space?

Build ocean ecosystems in orbital habitats? Maintain the full food web from phytoplankton to apex predators? Transport and manage billions of gallons of saltwater? All to have fish tacos on Friday?
Cultivated meat offers an alternative: identify the specific proteins, fats, and nutrients we value, and synthesize them directly. No ocean required. No ecosystem maintenance. No extinction.
On Earth, this is controversial. In space, it's mandatory.

The Precedent We're Setting

Here's what makes the bans particularly shortsighted: we're not just protecting current industry—we're actively preventing the development of technology we'll desperately need.

The companies working on cultivated meat aren't just creating Earth-based alternatives to traditional agriculture. They're developing the closed-loop biological systems, the bioreactor technologies, the cellular understanding that will be essential for space food production. Every innovation in cellular agriculture is a step toward sustainable space nutrition.

By banning these products before they can even reach market, states aren't just protecting ranchers—they're delaying the development of space settlement infrastructure. They're choosing short-term political gains over long-term civilizational capability.

Imagine if early automotive pioneers had faced state bans protecting horse breeders and buggy manufacturers. "Automobiles are unnatural. We have a God-given right to know our transportation comes from a stable, not a factory." The argument sounds absurd in retrospect because we can see how it would have delayed inevitable technological transition.

The lab-grown meat bans will age the same way.

The Innovation Disconnect

The states leading these bans—Texas, Florida, Alabama, Nebraska, Montana, Mississippi, Indiana—have positioned themselves as pro-innovation, pro-space, pro-future. Florida hosts Kennedy Space Center. Texas hosts SpaceX's Starbase. These states celebrate every rocket launch, every mission milestone, every step toward human expansion beyond Earth.

Yet they're banning the food technology that expansion requires.

They're saying: "Yes to billion-dollar rockets. No to cellular agriculture." "Yes to Mars colonies. No to sustainable protein synthesis." "Yes to humanity among the stars. No to the nutrition systems that would make it possible."

The disconnect is remarkable. It's as if the same legislators championing renewable energy were simultaneously banning solar panel development to protect coal miners. The immediate constituency wins the battle; the future loses the war.

What We Actually Need

Let's be clear about what cultivated meat represents: it's not about replacing traditional agriculture on Earth (though it might). It's about developing the capability to produce nutrition from base materials in resource-constrained environments.

This technology enables:

• Protein production without maintaining food webs
• Closed-loop systems for long-duration missions
• Scalable nutrition for growing space populations
• Independence from Earth-based supply chains
• Adaptation to any environment (orbital, lunar, Martian, asteroids)

These aren't luxury features. They're requirements for permanent space settlement.

When Elon Musk talks about making humanity multiplanetary, when Jeff Bezos envisions millions living and working in space, when NASA plans Artemis moon bases—they're all implicitly assuming we solve the nutrition problem.

We can't solve it by exporting traditional agriculture. The physics doesn't work. The economics doesn't work. The engineering doesn't work.

The Real Question

So here's what Texas and the other ban states need to answer:

Are you serious about space, or is it just theater?

If you're serious—if you genuinely believe humanity's future includes permanent settlements beyond Earth—then you need the food technology you're currently banning. You need synthetic nutrition, cellular agriculture, closed-loop biological systems. You need innovation in how we produce protein, not protection of how we've always done it.

If you're not serious—if space is just good PR for rocket launches and tourism—then the bans make sense. Protect the current industry. Celebrate the spectacle. Let someone else worry about the boring details of actually living in space.

But you can't have it both ways.

You can't cheer for Starship while banning the innovations that would stock its pantry. You can't celebrate Mars missions while outlawing the technology that would feed Mars colonists. You can't position yourself as the state leading humanity to the stars while preventing development of the systems that would sustain life there.

The Path Forward

The irony is that Texas has everything needed to lead in cultivated meat technology: research universities, biotech expertise, available capital, entrepreneurial culture, and political will for innovation. Instead of banning this industry, Texas could be incubating it—developing the food systems that SpaceX rockets will eventually carry.

Florida could be positioning itself as the home of both space launch and space nutrition. The state that sends humans to orbit could also feed them there.

These states could choose to lead. Instead, they're choosing to protect. And in doing so, they're undermining the very future they claim to champion.

The dream of becoming a spacefaring civilization is inspiring. The investments are real. The technology is advancing. The vision is achievable.

But we can't get there while banning the food technology we'll need to survive once we arrive.

Somebody needs to tell the governors cheering for rocket launches that they're simultaneously outlawing the systems that would make those rockets meaningful. We're not going to ranch our way to Mars. We're not going to fish our way to orbital habitats. We're not going to pack ocean ecosystems into lunar colonies.

We're going to synthesize what we need from base materials, using closed-loop biological systems, with efficiency impossible in traditional agriculture.

That's not a threat to ranchers. It's the price of admission to the stars.

The sooner we recognize this, the sooner we can develop the technology that makes permanent space settlement actually possible. The longer we delay—protecting current industries while celebrating future dreams—the longer those dreams remain just that: dreams.

Texas can lead humanity to space, or it can protect its cattle industry. It cannot do both.

The choice should be obvious. The contradiction shouldn't exist. But here we are: banning the future in the name of the past, while celebrating the journey we're refusing to prepare for.

Someone needs to connect these dots before it's too late.

When "You Are Not Entitled to a Response" Becomes Government Policy

 A response to ProPublica's documentation of systematic obstruction

https://link.propublica.net/view/638cee32f4a4ae40600dedf1ppqxo.29zf/9e6ef6c9

ProPublica just published something remarkable – not the investigative story they set out to write, but the story of what happened when they tried to write it. For two months, reporters attempted basic journalism: calling press offices, emailing questions, trying to reach officials making decisions about public education. The response? "You are not entitled to a response from us, or anyone, ever."

That line deserves to be quoted in full, because it represents something more significant than one spokesperson's hostility. It articulates a philosophy that's metastasizing across government institutions: the idea that those wielding public power have no obligation to explain themselves to the public.

But there's something deeper happening here that we need to name.

The Infrastructure Nobody Sees

We talk a lot about infrastructure – roads, bridges, power grids. We understand that when infrastructure fails, everything built on top of it fails too. But we rarely think about information infrastructure the same way.

Information infrastructure isn't just servers and fiber optic cables. It's the systems and norms that let us verify claims, test assertions, and distinguish what's actually happening from what we're told is happening. When ProPublica sends detailed questions to the Department of Education, that's information infrastructure working. When press offices respond with context or corrections, that's information infrastructure working. When officials who make decisions can be reached for comment, that's information infrastructure working.

When a department spokesperson declares journalists "not entitled to a response," that's information infrastructure being deliberately dismantled.

Three Dimensions of Information Breakdown

The ProPublica article documents three simultaneous failures, each reinforcing the others:

Connection failure: Press phone lines disabled ("temporarily closed" for months). Personal cells declared off-limits. Home addresses labeled "intimidation." Every pathway for direct communication systematically severed.

Agreement failure: The basic social compact – that public officials should respond to questions about public actions – explicitly rejected. Not just ignored, but theoretically denied: "You are not entitled to a response."

Structure failure: The institutions supposedly designed for transparency (press offices, public information officers) maintained as facades while rendered non-functional. The appearance of infrastructure without the function.

When all three fail simultaneously, you don't just have unresponsive government. You have information silos – sealed systems where claims flow outward but verification cannot flow inward.

Why This Matters More Than You Think

Here's what's easy to miss: this isn't about whether you trust ProPublica or distrust the Trump administration or vice versa. It's about the substrate that makes trust possible at all.

Think about it: How do you know what's actually happening inside the Department of Education? You can't go there yourself. You can't examine the documents. You can't interview the decision-makers. You're dependent on information infrastructure to carry verified facts from there to here.

When officials can make claims ("most transparent administration in history") while blocking every attempt to verify those claims, you're not in a disagreement about facts. You're in a system where facts cannot be established. Where everything devolves to "who do you believe?" rather than "what can we verify?"

This is how democracies spiral into dysfunction – not through dramatic coups, but through quiet infrastructure decay. When verification becomes impossible, coordination becomes impossible. When coordination becomes impossible, we fragment into isolated groups, each certain of their own truth, unable to find common ground because the ground itself has been removed.

The Spiral ProPublica Documented

Notice the pattern in the article:

1. Journalists attempt normal verification

2. Officials obstruct and ignore

3. Journalists escalate to direct contact (as they must)

4. Officials reframe escalation as harassment

5. Obstruction is now justified as self-defense

6. Future verification attempts are chilled by threat

Each turn makes the next turn worse. Each refusal demands more aggressive verification attempts. Each aggressive attempt justifies more aggressive obstruction. The spiral tightens.

But here's what the article also shows: ProPublica kept trying. For two months. Through obstruction and insults and threats. They sent FedEx letters. They called cell phones. They knocked on doors. Not because they were harassing anyone, but because that's what verification requires when normal channels are deliberately destroyed.

The North Carolina GOP communications director told reporter Doug Bock Clark: "I'm sure you're aware of our connections with the Trump Administration and I'm sure they would be interested in this matter. I would strongly suggest dropping this story."

The VA Secretary accused reporter Vernal Coleman of "stalking" for knocking on a door.

These aren't bugs in the system. This is the system working as redesigned – to make verification so costly, so risky, so personally threatening that journalists stop trying.

What We're Actually Losing

The First Amendment protects speech. It protects the press. But it doesn't protect the infrastructure that makes speech meaningful and press effective. Officials can claim anything (protected speech). Journalists can report anything (protected press). But if the verification mechanisms connecting them are destroyed, both freedoms become hollow.

You end up with a strange paradox: everyone's speech is protected, but nobody can verify anyone else's claims. Maximum freedom, minimum truth. Maximum noise, minimum signal.

This is what philosophers might call a "failure mode" – a way complex systems break down that looks like it's working until suddenly it isn't. The forms remain (press conferences still happen, press releases still flow), but the function collapses (nothing can be verified, nothing can be challenged, nothing can be corrected).

The Choice We're Not Discussing

Here's the thing nobody's saying clearly: we're at a decision point about how we want our information systems to work.

One path: Officials and institutions operate in sealed environments, making claims we cannot verify, blocking attempts to examine their work, vilifying those who try. Information flows one direction. Trust becomes tribal. Coordination becomes impossible.

Another path: We recognize that verification isn't harassment – it's infrastructure. That the "right to verify" isn't some reporter's privilege but a public necessity. That institutions wielding public power have an obligation to submit to public examination, not because it's comfortable but because it's how we prevent the spiral toward sealed-system dysfunction.

We're choosing right now, whether we realize it or not. Every time an official declares "you're not entitled to a response," every time a verification attempt is reframed as stalking, every time institutional opacity is defended as appropriate, we're choosing the first path.

What This Requires of Us

If you're reading this and thinking "well, ProPublica is biased anyway" or "those reporters probably were harassing people," you're missing the point. This isn't about trusting ProPublica. It's about whether anyone can verify anything when institutions decide verification is optional.

If the Department of Education can refuse all questions, can the EPA? Can the Pentagon? Can your state government? Your city council? Your school board? Can corporations refuse shareholder questions? Can hospitals refuse to explain medical errors? Can anyone who wants to avoid scrutiny simply declare verification attempts "harassment" and seal themselves off?

Once you establish the principle that those wielding power don't owe explanations to anyone, ever, you've dismantled the infrastructure that makes accountability possible. You've chosen the spiral.

Building Better

There's another way, but it requires something we're not great at: recognizing that verification infrastructure is as essential as physical infrastructure, and just as vulnerable to decay.

It requires establishing – culturally, legally, institutionally – that the "right to verify" is foundational. Not unlimited (genuine harassment is still harassment), but presumptive (attempting verification is not inherently harassment just because it's persistent).

It requires understanding that when we block verification pathways, we're not protecting privacy or preventing harassment – we're destroying the substrate that lets us coordinate as a civilization.

It requires building information systems that work like healthy ecosystems rather than fortified silos. Where information can flow, be tested, be challenged, be refined. Where errors can be corrected. Where claims can be verified. Where trust can be earned rather than demanded.

The alternative is what ProPublica documented: a slow spiral into sealed systems, where everyone makes claims, nobody can verify anything, and we fragment into mutually incomprehensible tribes, each certain of their own truth, unable to coordinate on anything.

The Question Before Us

When the Department of Education spokesperson wrote "You are not entitled to a response from us, or anyone, ever," she posed a question to all of us: Is she right?

Are journalists – and by extension, citizens – entitled to responses from those wielding public power? Is verification infrastructure something we maintain as essential, or something we allow to decay as inconvenient?

Your answer matters. Not in some abstract philosophical way, but in immediate practical ways. Because the infrastructure that lets ProPublica verify what's happening in the Department of Education is the same infrastructure that lets you verify anything about anything. When it fails for them, it fails for you.

We can rebuild it. But first we have to recognize it's broken. And that requires looking past the immediate political allegiances and seeing the structural pattern: the systematic dismantling of our capacity to know what's true.

That's the story ProPublica documented. Not what's happening in the Department of Education, but what's happening to our ability to know what's happening anywhere.

And that should concern all of us, regardless of which administration we voted for.

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This response draws on emerging frameworks about information systems and civilizational coordination. If these ideas resonate, stay tuned – there's more coming about how we might build systems that work better than the ones we're watching fail.

Will Bitcoin replace the US Dollar? Depends on our choices.

In July, 1944, the Bretton Woods conference decided to lock the value of the US Dollar to $35 per Troy Ounce of AU-79. That lasted for almost 30 years, and those 30 years were some of the greatest decades of economic growth in our history.

Call me optimistic, but WHEN Bitcoin gets to a value of $1 Million per BTC, it means that 1 USD will equal 100 Satoshis, the smallest unit of the Bitcoin protocol. We will have a choice whether to take advantage of that conjunction, or we can ignore it. If we ignore it, we will have another opportunity at $10 Million and another at $100 Million per BTC.

If we take advantage of that opportunity, and lock the USD value to the value of Bitcoin, the Dollar will once again become a viable global transaction currency that everyone everywhere will be able to trust to keep its value over time.

I'm not expecting the US Government to take advantage of the conjunction. And we will see the complete collapse of our national economy and our place in the world. I hope I'm wrong.

That's a Moray lyrics

Something caught my eye this morning, so I did a quick search for lyrics.  Found a few.

That's A Moray
Malcolm Higgins

when you're diving at night, and your feet feel the bite,
that's a moray
when your hand's in the cave, suddenly you'll need saved,
that's a moray
when you blubber and scream, but you have a bad dream
that's amore
when he hits all your fingers, with teeth that are stingers,
a moray...

that's a moray that's a moray

little fella

when he bites on your thumb, takes a chunk of your bum,
that's a moray
when you reach in his cave, he's all bravo and brave
he's a moray

and it's not how it feels, and you know you have eels,
that's a moray....
scuzza me, but you see, let them be, or you'll see
lotsa morays.......

There's a thing on the reef, with big shiny white teeth - it's a Moray
If he's big and he's mean, and he's slimy and green - it's a Moray

Put your hand in the crack and you won't get it back - It's a Moray
When you're movin' your hands, best take care where they land - Watch for Morays

When some teeth catch your eye. and an eel wriggles by - It's a Moray
when something, bites your fin, and throws off your trim - It's a Moray

Keep your fingers in tight and you won't have a fright - It's a Moray
When you're moving by feel and then up pops the eel - It's a Moray

When an eel bites your thigh, as you're just swimming by - It's a Moray
When you scream, and you beg, but it still bites your leg - It's a Moray

Watch you don't get a shark, When you search, after dark - for amore
When you're out of your depth, and you run short of breath - that's amore air

When he's fanning his gills, Better head for the hills - It's a Moray
when your light, in the night, gets swallowed out of sight, - It's a Moray

When your horse munches straw, And the bales total four - That's some more hay.
When you're down and it's dark, Over there - that a shark?, No - It's a Moray

When you ace your last test, Like you did all the rest - That's some more "A"s!
When your boat comes home fine, And you tie up her line - That's a moor, eh?

When you've had quite enough, Of this daft rhyming stuff, that's "no more!", eh?

Don't believe the hype.

Instead, dig for the evidence.

In late May, I had researched enough about bitcoin to be willing to start dipping my toes into this new economic paradigm.  There are a lot of videos from "experts" who are saying that the value of a bitcoin could get as high as $10k, $50k, $100k or even higher.  After searching for some kind of perspective I found a post and a video that pointed out that when you put the price of bitcoin on a logarithmic scale, it tracks the creation of coins based on the original design.  That sold me.  It showed the bubbles as bubbles that popped, and showed the increase in value as par from the design.

So, starting in June, I started putting small amounts into bitcoin, with no real plan at that point what I was going to do with it.  I was getting messages from some friends saying that they were involved in some exciting things, and I did some research.  The potential was there.  Our finances were at a point where we could take a risk.  And I started getting excited about the possibilities.  My wife, bless her heart, got sick and tired about me being excited all the time without actually doing something about it, and pointed out that we could afford to take a risk.  "Just do it!!!"  Ok, fine.  I did.

Over the months of June and July, I bought 2btc, 1eth and 1ltc.  Not a small chunk of change for that time period.  And then I launched into some investments.  Trading, mining, one crazy site that flopped because it was silly.  I didn't lose much.  The bigger question is what I have gained.

A lot.  This is real, folks.  I know there is hype out there.  I have not paid any of my bills yet with bitcoin, but I'm planning to.  I haven't actually pulled any of the gains into US dollars yet, but I will.  More than anything else, I'm just having fun watching it grow.  And it is growing faster than anything else that I have ever tried.

I've been an invester for 17 years, learning slowly, growing my portfolio slowly, and planning for the long term.  I'm taking that mindset and experience into cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, etherium and interesting ideas like coss (Crypto-One-Stop-Solution).  I have not seen energy like this since the late 1990's when the Internet first came online.  Since Facebook really started building in 2006 after going public.  Anyone who thinks that this is a bubble is going to be kicking themselves in 10 years.  Because this train is moving.  Where exactly it is going, nobody can say.  Because nobody knows where this Administration is going to take us either.  But I'm going to place my bets on this new version of currency and what it can do to my bottom line.  I have a plan for 1 month, 6 months, 1 year and 10 years.  If you're interested, let me know.

It's time for me to start something new.  Join me, if you want to.  I'll see you at the top.

On Bitcoin and Taxes

Dear Congresswoman Jayapal,

I am getting into investments using cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, and I have been researching how to pay taxes on the gains from various investment opportunities in that industry.  The IRS has come out with some guidelines related to virtual currencies, most notably "Notice 2014-21".  I have a number of questions that I will be addressing directly to the IRS on the subject of income taxes and capital gains taxes, but I wanted to bring your attention to one aspect of the Notice that caught my attention, with the hope that you will be able to consider the implications and draft legislation to address my concern.

I would like to present two of the questions from Notice 2014-21, questions 6 and 8:

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Question 6: Does a taxpayer have gain or loss upon an exchange of virtual currency for other property?

Answer 6: Yes.  If the fair market value of property received in exchange for virtual currency exceeds the taxpayer's adjusted basis of the virtual currency, the taxpayer has taxable gain.  The taxpayer has a loss if the fair market value of the property received is less than the adjusted basis of the virtual currency.  See Publication 544, Sales and Other Dispositions of Assets, for information about the tax treatment of sales and exchanges, such as whether a loss is deductible.
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Question 8: Does a taxpayer who "mines" virtual currency (for example, uses computer resources to validate Bitcoin transactions and maintain the public Bitcoin transaction ledger) realize gross income upon receipt of the virtual currency resulting from those activities?

Answer 8: Yes, when a taxpayer successfully "mines" virtual currency, the fair market value of the virtual currency as of the date of receipt is includible in gross income.  See Publication 525, Taxable and Nontaxable Income, for more information on taxable income.
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The first question is dealing with capital gains, the difference in value between when the virtual currency is bought and when it is sold.  The second question is dealing with taxes upon generation of the virtual currency.

This would mean that gains from mining, even cloud mining contracts that people may purchase around the world, need to be tracked for tax purposes so that the fair market value of the coins generated by the mining can be determined according to basic accounting rules, whether that be First In First Out or some other method.  However, it also means that any transactions conducted in bitcoin for real world goods and services would be subject to capital gains taxes on the difference between when the coin was generated and when it was exchanged for real currency or goods and services worth fair market value.  That sounds to me like double taxation.

I would be interested in discussing this at some point if you are interested and in town.  I know that a lot of people are getting into these currencies, and ensuring that the rules are fair would make it easier for a lot of people to pay the taxes they owe so we can get on with growing the economy.

Also, I wish that the taxes we paid on bitcoin generation like mining could be paid IN bitcoin.  That might actually be kind of cool.  Might also help balance the federal budget.  Just a thought.