Today’s Saturday report runs about one-tenth the length of a typical novel — and that’s before you count the 37-page ChartPack and the separate Over-the-Horizon report. Seriously.
A lot of UrbanSurvival readers have never taken a Peoplenomics subscription. Fair enough. But what you’re missing isn’t simply “more George.” It’s where we have room to follow an idea all the way through to its sometimes ridiculous — but coldly logical — conclusion.
Today’s report is a good example. We start with the weekend news scan, move through the ChartPack and our Over-the-Horizon work, then wander into the economics of energy conservation, clothing, AI data centers, water chemistry, greenhouse production, building science and even bread. And somehow, by the end, they all turn out to be variations on the same problem: what happens when we measure the wrong thing — or fail to measure the input that actually matters?
And sometimes the cold logic of the future produces conclusions you probably won’t find in the morning newspaper:
“We will only see climate as ‘getting real’ when Amazon starts listing a CLO rating beside every article of clothing — and mileage ratings for shoes.”
Sounds like a joke. Except clo is a real engineering measure of clothing insulation. Once you follow that through thermostat settings, peak electrical demand, data-center consumption, clothing manufacture and household behavior, the joke starts looking suspiciously like economics.
And after the news and market analysis, there’s another rabbit hole this week: Strategic Fiction — my proposed name for stories (like my recent novels) that start with something plausible and follow the consequences farther downstream than comfortable people normally would.
Strategic Fiction: Fiction, but plausible enough to be concerning.
That’s what Peoplenomics is for: following the numbers — and occasionally the ideas — past the point where everyone else stops.
$40 a year. About 77 cents a week. And subscriber copies of my latest books are included.
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PS — This week’s content worked out to 6-millionths of a dollar per word…in case you were wondering!
I renewed the PN sibscription this week. I appreciate you putting up with me.
I appreciate you putting up with me, too! Let me know what your ponders produce…