Millions of "invisible" people, if they were to read your post, would be grateful. Thank you for highlighting their importance to the safety and well being of us all.
Your Invisible People are also the Forgotten Man described by author Amity Shlaes as the ones paying for everyone else’s welfare while never having been asked. So they keep the world running and also have to pay the bills.
I'll look for the book, thanks. I'm not so sure about not having been asked -- I mean, these are all paid jobs and nothing but, I expect, necessity, could force one into such a job. And I'm sure there are many drillers, linemen, and truckers who like their jobs, demanding as they are.
It’s a very well written book. The premiss is A and B get together and decide D needs help so A and B take money from C to help D hence C is the Forgotten Man who is forced to help D
For those of us who have read Ayn Rand's seminal work "Atlas Shrugged", this should all seem familiar.
The "Elites" Rand created in that work of fiction have come to exist in our day and age, but with "Saving the Planet" as what blinds them to the works of the "invisible people" who make the world run instead of "equality of outcome", although that is another arrow in the leftist's quiver.
Not al all cheesy. Ii don't think this topic will come up among the extraterrestrials at the WEF. They are too busy stealing the planet to have any idea how it works.
Dear Irina, great post! just imagine if these people turned up at their jobs with the predictability of renewable energy: some days nobody would be there, the other days you couldn't drop a pin in the office.
In any case, many thanks for highlighting that the really important people are not in Davos giving pointless speeches (https://tinyurl.com/2p8yn7cx) about industrial plans that don't yet exists.
Thank you so much, Viktor! What a wonderful analogy and so apt! You're right, the really important people are not in Davos and they're not in government buildings across the world. I wish more of us realised this.
By the way, did you notice how many times the article noted "Storms are likely to become more intense, more frequent and last longer as climate change progresses".
Is there any factual basis for this widely shared belief?
I think it's a very popular talking point and my only criticism of the story. It's just kind of appropriate to include it whenever you report on anything that has to do with the weather. It is treated as fact although it isn't. I mean, remember last year's hurricane season in the U.S.? Nothing to write home about. Australia didn't burn this summer, either. U.S. winter storms were, I'm being told, the usual but they are being treated as extreme weather for narrative purposes. And so on and so forth.
We could think of the farmers who plant and tend to the growth of food, risking their investment against flood, timing of rain, and market prices at harvest so that we can be nourished. Ranchers and those who ply the oceans for our protein. Transportation services to move the food to markets for purchase and consumption before it spoils. Thank you for writing this!
It is a great subject to demonstrate before younger people all the dependencies of so-called modern life. They take all as granted and ignore the work needed to just keep it running.
And the students in the school where my wife works want ALL become "managers".
I agree with you that those who make civilization work deserve our respect and admiration. I suspect that the future for such appreciation is bleak if there is truth in "Reality Honks Back", a good read regarding an emerging class divide between "Physicals" (those whose work is related to matter) and "Virtuals" (those whose work is of a purely informational type). https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/reality-honks-back
--quote--
[T]he Virtual ruling class has a vulnerability that it has not yet solved. The cities in which their bodies continue to occupy mundane physical reality require a whole lot of physical infrastructure and manpower to function: electricity, sewage, food, the vital Sumatra-to-latte supply chain, etc. ...
[T]hose truckers represent the total reliance of the ruling elite on the very people they find alien and abhorrent. To many of the Virtuals, this is existentially frightening.
I think one of the reasons Elon Musk gets so much hate from the establishment is that until his recent Twitter buy, he was a member of the Physical class because his work directly related to building machines that do stuff in the real world -- even if Musk wasn't personally turning.a wrench on the Tesla or SpaceX assembly line, his type of work there was definitively Physical.
Twitter is 100% virtual and so when a Physical came in with a Physical's sensibilities and evicted Virtuals from their own seats of high power, he represents a clear and present danger to Virtuals' economic and cultural hegemony, even their very viability, because while a Physical can do the work of a Virtual, the reverse is not true. Thus the hate.
Ironically, it's the average person - the "invisible person" - whom our self-anointed superiors of the WEF are so terrified of that they're working to control his population growth.
As a nerdly person who finds social situations (somewhat) stressful, I have occasionally quipped, "I don't much like people, but there's about a billion of them in my supply chain."
It's important to recognize that one has a supply chain ultimately composed of people necessary to make stuff and provide services.
Are there really a billion in my supply chain? Strictly speaking, probably not, but there are some things (e.g. microelectronics) which simply aren't economical to do without a market in the hundreds of millions or larger. It costs tens of billions of dollars to build a semiconductor chip foundry now days, yet the silicon pours out at a few dollars or even pennies per functional die. That can never work, without vast markets to serve.
I've worked in the water sector for 32yrs and I occasionally poke fun at some of my pals who work for management consultant/accountancy firms. What have you made today, what have you done today that has made a direct improvement to the lives of people? It tends to stop them😄 They are also amazed when one does the most basic DIY task.... on almost anything. They have important jobs but I remind them some are more important than others I could get by (probably) with them but they'd be dead without me 🤣🤣🤣 Jordan Peterson talks about the miracles of society. (no offence intended to any management consultants out there, only joking!!!)
Absolutely true. There is a chapter in "World War Z" when society begins to rebuild itself after the zombie apocalypse and roles switch: people who have been doing low-paid, menial jobs before now become instructors to all the management folk who don't know how to change a light bulb or plant a tomato. Interestingly, the author slips in the suggestion that many former managers feel happier as farmers/shoemakers/whatever. It's fiction but it did make me think.
Guess which country is trying to eliminate those jobs held by the invisible people? In Kanada it's called the Just Transition.
THEORY - From the Environment Canada website:
"A “just transition” is an approach to economic and environmental policy that aims to minimize the impact on workers and communities, in the transition to a low-carbon economy."
REALITY - The independent Ottawa digital news service Blacklock’s Reporter revealed last week that the federal government itself believes there will be “significant labour market disruptions” in sectors of the economy employing 2.7 million Canadian workers — 13.5% of the nation’s workforce.
I did see references to the Just Transition in my news feed but left looking into it for another day. The Trudeau government has been scoring win after win, haven't it?
"......It’s not “just” a temporary dislocation as part of the energy “transition” to renewables. And it is certainly not – in terms of the poorest in the advanced and developing world – a “just transition”.
We love your country but especially the invisible people producing the grain in AB, SK and MB who feed so much of the world and the AB and SK energy and mining workers.
Great post. The definition of "critical workers" indeed.
Food is also primary energy, thus I'd add farmers and truck drivers.
Thank you. Farmers and drivers are definitely right up there, too.
Millions of "invisible" people, if they were to read your post, would be grateful. Thank you for highlighting their importance to the safety and well being of us all.
I didn't think about that but I hope it finds its way to some of them, now that you mention it. I am the grateful one.
Your Invisible People are also the Forgotten Man described by author Amity Shlaes as the ones paying for everyone else’s welfare while never having been asked. So they keep the world running and also have to pay the bills.
I'll look for the book, thanks. I'm not so sure about not having been asked -- I mean, these are all paid jobs and nothing but, I expect, necessity, could force one into such a job. And I'm sure there are many drillers, linemen, and truckers who like their jobs, demanding as they are.
It’s a very well written book. The premiss is A and B get together and decide D needs help so A and B take money from C to help D hence C is the Forgotten Man who is forced to help D
I see it's set during the Great Depression, as well. Definitely looks worth a read. Thanks again!
Thank you for posting this, Irina! I am going to try to get it out to some Vermont outlets.
Grateful that you notice!
Thank YOU. I would be very happy if it reaches more people!
You’re very welcome and thank you for Substack and all of your effort that goes into it
For those of us who have read Ayn Rand's seminal work "Atlas Shrugged", this should all seem familiar.
The "Elites" Rand created in that work of fiction have come to exist in our day and age, but with "Saving the Planet" as what blinds them to the works of the "invisible people" who make the world run instead of "equality of outcome", although that is another arrow in the leftist's quiver.
.
Life imitates art, once again.
Bingo
Both the fictional and real versions of the actions and desires of these people can be summed up in a single word:
Hubris.
Not al all cheesy. Ii don't think this topic will come up among the extraterrestrials at the WEF. They are too busy stealing the planet to have any idea how it works.
How could it, when it's all about "money, money, money, money".
Dear Irina, great post! just imagine if these people turned up at their jobs with the predictability of renewable energy: some days nobody would be there, the other days you couldn't drop a pin in the office.
In any case, many thanks for highlighting that the really important people are not in Davos giving pointless speeches (https://tinyurl.com/2p8yn7cx) about industrial plans that don't yet exists.
Thank you so much, Viktor! What a wonderful analogy and so apt! You're right, the really important people are not in Davos and they're not in government buildings across the world. I wish more of us realised this.
By the way, did you notice how many times the article noted "Storms are likely to become more intense, more frequent and last longer as climate change progresses".
Is there any factual basis for this widely shared belief?
Following this substack source, even the IPPC does not support the argeument about raising numbers:
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/just-the-facts-on-global-hurricanes
A reference to the IPPC is at the end of the article.
Thanks! it is definitely a widespread narrative in climate change reporting
I think it's a very popular talking point and my only criticism of the story. It's just kind of appropriate to include it whenever you report on anything that has to do with the weather. It is treated as fact although it isn't. I mean, remember last year's hurricane season in the U.S.? Nothing to write home about. Australia didn't burn this summer, either. U.S. winter storms were, I'm being told, the usual but they are being treated as extreme weather for narrative purposes. And so on and so forth.
We could think of the farmers who plant and tend to the growth of food, risking their investment against flood, timing of rain, and market prices at harvest so that we can be nourished. Ranchers and those who ply the oceans for our protein. Transportation services to move the food to markets for purchase and consumption before it spoils. Thank you for writing this!
And the tool makers, they're a part of the foundation of civilization too.
And farmers know best how risky it is to be entirely t the mercy of the weather, too.
Thanks, Irina, for your post.
It is a great subject to demonstrate before younger people all the dependencies of so-called modern life. They take all as granted and ignore the work needed to just keep it running.
And the students in the school where my wife works want ALL become "managers".
I agree with you that those who make civilization work deserve our respect and admiration. I suspect that the future for such appreciation is bleak if there is truth in "Reality Honks Back", a good read regarding an emerging class divide between "Physicals" (those whose work is related to matter) and "Virtuals" (those whose work is of a purely informational type). https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/reality-honks-back
--quote--
[T]he Virtual ruling class has a vulnerability that it has not yet solved. The cities in which their bodies continue to occupy mundane physical reality require a whole lot of physical infrastructure and manpower to function: electricity, sewage, food, the vital Sumatra-to-latte supply chain, etc. ...
[T]hose truckers represent the total reliance of the ruling elite on the very people they find alien and abhorrent. To many of the Virtuals, this is existentially frightening.
I think one of the reasons Elon Musk gets so much hate from the establishment is that until his recent Twitter buy, he was a member of the Physical class because his work directly related to building machines that do stuff in the real world -- even if Musk wasn't personally turning.a wrench on the Tesla or SpaceX assembly line, his type of work there was definitively Physical.
Twitter is 100% virtual and so when a Physical came in with a Physical's sensibilities and evicted Virtuals from their own seats of high power, he represents a clear and present danger to Virtuals' economic and cultural hegemony, even their very viability, because while a Physical can do the work of a Virtual, the reverse is not true. Thus the hate.
Ironically, it's the average person - the "invisible person" - whom our self-anointed superiors of the WEF are so terrified of that they're working to control his population growth.
As a nerdly person who finds social situations (somewhat) stressful, I have occasionally quipped, "I don't much like people, but there's about a billion of them in my supply chain."
It's important to recognize that one has a supply chain ultimately composed of people necessary to make stuff and provide services.
Are there really a billion in my supply chain? Strictly speaking, probably not, but there are some things (e.g. microelectronics) which simply aren't economical to do without a market in the hundreds of millions or larger. It costs tens of billions of dollars to build a semiconductor chip foundry now days, yet the silicon pours out at a few dollars or even pennies per functional die. That can never work, without vast markets to serve.
Fatih Birol must have had the week off!
Joking aside it is nice to just feel gratitude once in a while- thanks for writing this.
I've worked in the water sector for 32yrs and I occasionally poke fun at some of my pals who work for management consultant/accountancy firms. What have you made today, what have you done today that has made a direct improvement to the lives of people? It tends to stop them😄 They are also amazed when one does the most basic DIY task.... on almost anything. They have important jobs but I remind them some are more important than others I could get by (probably) with them but they'd be dead without me 🤣🤣🤣 Jordan Peterson talks about the miracles of society. (no offence intended to any management consultants out there, only joking!!!)
Absolutely true. There is a chapter in "World War Z" when society begins to rebuild itself after the zombie apocalypse and roles switch: people who have been doing low-paid, menial jobs before now become instructors to all the management folk who don't know how to change a light bulb or plant a tomato. Interestingly, the author slips in the suggestion that many former managers feel happier as farmers/shoemakers/whatever. It's fiction but it did make me think.
Guess which country is trying to eliminate those jobs held by the invisible people? In Kanada it's called the Just Transition.
THEORY - From the Environment Canada website:
"A “just transition” is an approach to economic and environmental policy that aims to minimize the impact on workers and communities, in the transition to a low-carbon economy."
REALITY - The independent Ottawa digital news service Blacklock’s Reporter revealed last week that the federal government itself believes there will be “significant labour market disruptions” in sectors of the economy employing 2.7 million Canadian workers — 13.5% of the nation’s workforce.
I did see references to the Just Transition in my news feed but left looking into it for another day. The Trudeau government has been scoring win after win, haven't it?
Great comment.
In our very first piece, we wrote:
"......It’s not “just” a temporary dislocation as part of the energy “transition” to renewables. And it is certainly not – in terms of the poorest in the advanced and developing world – a “just transition”.
https://envmental.substack.com/p/environmental-energy-and-economics
We love your country but especially the invisible people producing the grain in AB, SK and MB who feed so much of the world and the AB and SK energy and mining workers.