We are in the current stuff chain mess that we are in because of communism — both real communist actors in the world and a more meta underlying spiritual crisis pushing people towards amoral materialism — intentionally subverting, subsidizing, enslaving, and otherwise seducing the free world into falling asleep about where our stuff comes from.
In this week’s Where Stuff Comes From Briefing: How and why Rare Earth Elements and Afghanistan are a massive opportunity for whoever seizes it (re: China). Cheers, Max What to Read and Watch About Rare Earths, Afghanistan and China: Afghanistan’s Mineral Resources Are a Lost Opportunity and a Threat China Has A Big Plan For Afghanistan And It’s Worth Billions China’s Behind-the-Scenes Maneuvering in Afghanistan – China Unscripted With the larger backdrop of the United Read more…
In this week’s Where Stuff Comes From Weekly: The U.S. energy grid is under attack, ransomware attacks will impact your stuff chains, and a NEW PODCAST episode: where rare earth elements come from. Cheers and gratitude, Max (CYBER) !ATTACK! On Largest U.S. Oil Pipeline! Over the last 20 years, our world has become extremely digitized. While we have a long way to go before every facet of our daily lives is totally digital, a tremendous portion Read more…
In this week’s Where Stuff Comes From Weekly: Space and GPS are critical parts of the stuff-chain, we need more semiconductors, and how the Texas ‘icepocalypse’ triggered a global plastics shortage. Cheers, Max Space: A Key Innovation Resource In The Cold War With China Right now, the most important geopolitical competition since World War II, is unfolding between China and the United States. Space and space adjacent infrastructure and tech are critical chess pieces on this Read more…
In this week’s Where Stuff Comes From Weekly: the most dangerous and most relevant parts of our ‘stuff-chain’ relationships with the Chinese Communist Party.
‘Where stuff comes from’ embodies deep first-principle physics, technological, philosophical, strategic, historical, and geopolitical considerations that will define the fate of governments, the present great power conflict, million of businesses in the United Staes and ‘allied’ countries, and every single individual around the world.
“Where Stuff Comes From” will slowly evolve into a modest attempt to tell compelling stories about how raw materials in the ground and in the sky are transformed through a thrilling web of global mining, processing, manufacturing, transportation, and sales machines into the products that we know and love (and that drive our civilization).
A Tale Of Timesharing: How Universities Enable Efficient Resource Utilization. Over the past 6 months, we’ve seen nearly every University in the country shift to online digitized learning. It’s clear that for the sheer and rote knowledge transfer part of education, digital lectures and learning schema are economically superior to the old-guard of in-classroom lectures. So why are students still heading back to campus this fall? Why attempt in-person reopening at all when students can Read more…
In this episode, Max sits down with Brian “Beam” Maue, co-founder of AFWERX. This wide-ranging conversation dives deep into the frontline innovation happening throughout the United States Air Force.
Gone are the days of steel and fuel defining world superpowers.
Today’s technological and economic superpowers earned their enviable positions based on their unique abilities to explore and utilize untapped parts of the periodic table (and the world) to unlock new technological capabilities made possible only by the most exotic of elements.
But right now, China controls 97% of the production of United States rare-earth metal imports.
Critical minerals source security is one of the greatest threats that the United States faces heading into this new decade. The country faces many challenges on the road to critical mineral independence, but with well-thought-out sourcing strategy and proper risk management, the United States federal government and industrial base will come out with a secure and reliable critical minerals supply chain.