The TOA radiative imbalance does not affect CO2 fluxes, directly. It only does so indirectly, by affecting temperatures. We know from ice core data that both over glaciation cycles and over shorter climate cycles such as the RWP 🡖 DACP 🡕 MWP 🡖 LIA, 1°C of average temperature change could only affect atmospheric CO2 levels by at most 10-15 ppmv (and even that was only after long equilibration periods).

But the atmospheric CO2 level has risen by 112 ppmv just since 1958 (when precise measurements began).

Obviously we haven't had 112/15 = 7.5°C of warming since 1958 (and we also haven't had hundreds of years to equilibrate).

What's more, CO2 levels continued to rise (at an accelerating pace!) during the 1950s through 1970s, as temperatures FELL. So obviously the rise in CO2 levels wasn't caused by rising temperatures. (It was caused by the post-WWII boom in industrial production.)

What's more, we know that both the oceans and the soils (as well as the terrestrial biosphere) are currently net removers of CO2 from the air, not net producers of it.

The sole reason for the ongoing increase in CO2 level is that human CO2 emissions currently exceed the net rate of natural CO2 removals.

The TOA radiative imbalance does not affect CO2 fluxes, directly. It only does so indirectly, by affecting temperatures. We know from ice core data that both over glaciation cycles and over shorter climate cycles such as the RWP 🡖 DACP 🡕 MWP 🡖 LIA, 1°C of average temperature change could only affect atmospheric CO2 levels by at most 10-15 ppmv (and even that was only after long equilibration periods).

But the atmospheric CO2 level has risen by 112 ppmv just since 1958 (when precise measurements began).

Obviously we haven't had 112/15 = 7.5°C of warming since 1958 (and we also haven't had hundreds of years to equilibrate).

What's more, CO2 levels continued to rise (at an accelerating pace!) during the 1950s through 1970s, as temperatures FELL. So obviously the rise in CO2 levels wasn't caused by rising temperatures. (It was caused by the post-WWII boom in industrial production.)

What's more, we know that both the oceans and the soils are currently net removers of CO2 from the air, not net producers of it.

The reason for the ongoing increase in CO2 level is that human CO2 emissions currently exceed the net rate of natural CO2 removals.

The Dopamine-Cortisol Loop The "anaesthetic" effect described is a neurochemical hijack. When you experience the "deep, vibrating anxiety" of the Empire (comparison, inadequacy), your brain's Amygdala floods the system with cortisol. This is pain.

To manage this pain without solving the root cause, the brain seeks a rapid counter-agent: Dopamine. The "infinite feed" is engineered to provide variable ratio reinforcement—unpredictable hits of dopamine that temporarily numb the cortisol response.

However, this creates a Homeostatic Imbalance. Your brain downregulates its natural dopamine receptors to handle the flood from the screen, meaning you eventually need more scrolling just to feel normal. You aren't "relaxing"; you are trapped in a Hypo-Arousal State (numbness) to avoid the Hyper-Arousal State (anxiety), completely bypassing the Window of Tolerance where true rest occurs.

https://www.reading.ac.uk/news/2025/Research-News/Ocean-surface-warming-four-times-faster-now-than-late-1980s

https://dasklima.podigee.io/132-dk132-der-grund-fur-die-erwarmung-der-meere

Studie: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/adaa8a

https://x.com/Chronotope/status/1828785701732663335

Crypto miners are being paid not to mine to ease energy production/consumption cycles.

Related to protection money for the mob

re: https://x.com/curious_founder/status/1828511303788322888/photo/1 on The Economist's article about crypto mining in Texas o/a 2024-08-27

Many confidence games rely on information imbalance in the gaps between old and new ways of doing things.

This was certainly true in the 19 C. as well as with technology changes in the 20th and 21st C.

• In his book, The Master and his Emissary,
  • McGilchrist explains what happens when left and right hemisphere are out of balance and the left hemisphere takes over
    • namely, disaster
  • this will be the third time the imbalance manifests

This is specific to USA. I wonder if anyone has compared performance in Canada, especially in engineering. The difference in the approaches to accreditation suggest to me that this may not be as much a problem. That is, since getting a license is harder in the US, then it may be that many students study engineering but then don't go into engineering. I'd like to see the numbers for just engineering. I'd like to see corresponding numbers for Canadian engineering. And I'd also like to know the numbers for the subset of students that then actually go on to a career in engineering. I wonder if the effect will still be present, and what the Canadian numbers would show.

Yates, C., & Feil, E. (2021, February 1). Will coronavirus really evolve to become less deadly? The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/will-coronavirus-really-evolve-to-become-less-deadly-153817

students’ main source of self-declared frustration is the teammates’ commitment imbalance

imbalance in quality of individual contributions leads to frustration. There is no situation of pure knowledge or skills or development symmetry: There are no two individuals in the world with the same knowledge (Dillenbourg, 1999).

Agarwala, Hemlata, and Sandeep Kaur-Ghumaan. ‘Agarwala and Ghumaan_Covid-19_Impact of Covid-19 on Women in South Asia’. PsyArXiv, 23 July 2021. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/6ycqz.

There's an interesting information imbalance that creators have with online content. It's easy for their content to travel around, but it's much harder for them to tell where that content has been.

It would be interesting if more systems used webmention then text creators could include invisible links as a possible solution for those who are too lazy to reformat or strip them out in content farm manner.

As human beings, we naturally seek a sense of equilibrium.