13-04-2026: CUÁNTA VIRTUD EN LA SIMPLE VISIÓN

 

 

I don’t know but we should make life all too tame if we had our own way, and should miss these impulses in a happier time.

How much virtue there is in simply seeing! We may almost say that the hero has striven in vain for his preeminency, if the student oversees him. The woman who sits in the house and sees is a match for a stirring captain. Those still, piercing eyes, as faithfully exercised on their talent, will keep her even with Alexander or Shakespeare. They may go to Asia with parade, or to fairyland, but not beyond her ray. 

We are as much as we see. Faith is sight and knowledge. The hands only serve the eyes. The farthest blue streak in the horizon I can see, I may reach before many sunsets. What I saw alters not; in my night, when I wander, it is still steadfast as the star which the sailor steers by.

Whoever has had one thought quite lonely, and could contentedly digest that in solitude; knowing that none could accept it, may rise to the height of humanity, and overlook all living men as from a pinnacle.

HDT

April 10, 1841

La vida no examina ni prueba, solo concluye.A cada momento 

 

EL CAMINO ORDENADO DE LA GUERRA ("DE VERSALLES A LA CIBERNÉTICA" (II))

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Mao interview with André Malrux (1965)) 

If, therefore, we really want to know what are the significant points in history, we have to ask which are the moments in history when attitudes were changed.These are the moments when people are hurt because of their former "values".

(...)

Similarly, the important question about history is: Has the bias or setting been changed? The episodic working out of events under a single stationary setting is really trivial. It is with this thought in mind that I have said that the two most important historic events in my life were the Treaty of Versailles and the discovery of cybernetics. 

(...)

 From the point of view of the people who started the mess, it’s not so crazy; they know what happened and how they got there. But the people down the line, who were not there at the beginning, find themselves living in a crazy universe, and find themselves crazy, precisely because they do not know how they got that way. 

(...)

You will notice that everything I said about history and about Versailles is a discussion of organized systems and their properties. Now I want to say that we are developing a certain amount of rigorous scientific understanding of these very mysterious organized systems. 

(...) 

The stance that I have taken in choosing what is important in history—saying that the important things are the moments at which attitude is determined, the moments at which the bias of the thermostat is changed—this stance is derived directly from cybernetics. These are thoughts shaped by events from 1946 and after. 

(...) 

But pigs do not go around ready-roasted. We now have a lot of cybernetics, a lot of games theory, and the beginnings of understanding of complex systems. But any understanding can be used in destructive ways. 

This lecture was given April 21, 1966, to the “Two Worlds Symposium” at Sacramento State College.

Gregory Bateson ("From Versailles to Cybernetics") 

 

EL HELIO Y LA CADENA DE SUMINISTRO DE LA IA (Veron Wickramasinghe: "Atoms come before the bits"))

 

The physical supply chain that powers every artificial intelligence system on earth passes through a single chokepoint that has been effectively closed since early March. Not a data bottleneck. Not a software constraint. A 21-mile strait between Iran and Oman through which 30 percent of the world's LNG and 20 percent of its oil once flowed.

The chain that connects a bombed gas facility in Qatar to a GPU shortage in Santa Clara runs through helium extraction plants, semiconductor fabs, memory packaging lines, and LNG carrier shipyards. And every single link passes through the same country: South Korea. A country that is now simultaneously losing its oil supply, its gas supply, and its helium supply from the same chokepoint.

 

This is the story of how a missile strike on an LNG facility in the Persian Gulf becomes a constraint on every AI training cluster on earth.

 

The chain starts with a noble gas.

Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe and one of the rarest on Earth's surface. It is produced by the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium deep in the planet's crust. It migrates upward through rock over billions of years and accumulates in the same geological traps that hold natural gas. You do not manufacture helium. You extract it as a byproduct of natural gas processing, or you do not have it.

 

Qatar's three helium plants at Ras Laffan produce approximately 2.3 billion standard cubic feet per year: Helium 1 (660 million scf, online 2005), Helium 2 (1.3 billion scf, the world's largest, online 2013), and Helium 3 (400 million scf, online approximately 2021). That is roughly one-third of total global helium supply, according to the US Geological Survey's 2026 Mineral Commodity Summaries, which puts Qatar at 33.2 percent of world production.

 

All three plants have been offline since March 2, when Qatar halted LNG production following the outbreak of hostilities. The helium plants cannot operate independently of the LNG facility because helium is extracted from the natural gas stream during cryogenic liquefaction. When the gas stops flowing, the helium stops flowing.

 

QatarEnergy CEO Saad al-Kaabi confirmed on March 24 that the missile strikes reduced helium output capacity by 14 percent, with repairs expected to take three to five years. The planned Helium 4 plant, targeting 1.5 billion standard cubic feet per year and over 50 percent engineered before the crisis, has no confirmed restart timeline.

 

One-third of the world's helium. Removed from the market by the same missile strikes that took out 17 percent of global LNG supply. From the same facility. In the same week.

 

Helium is not a party balloon gas. It is the most critical process gas in chipmaking.

In semiconductor fabrication, helium performs functions that are difficult or impossible to replicate with any other substance.

 

Its most critical role is cooling silicon wafers during plasma etching. The etching process carves nanoscale circuit patterns into silicon at temperatures that would damage the wafer without precise thermal management. Helium's thermal conductivity is roughly six times higher than nitrogen and nearly nine times higher than argon. Only hydrogen is higher, but hydrogen is reactive and flammable, making it unsuitable for use in proximity to plasma chemistries. Lam Research, one of the world's largest etch equipment manufacturers, has acknowledged that nothing besides hydrogen matches helium's thermal conductivity, and hydrogen's reactivity disqualifies it. For backside wafer cooling during etch, there is no practical substitute deployed at scale today.

 

Semiconductors now consume roughly 21 to 25 percent of global helium, up from 6 percent in 2015. That share is growing fast as EUV-based manufacturing scales and chip geometries shrink. The semiconductor industry is the fastest-growing consumer of helium on earth, and it is now the most exposed.

 

South Korea's triple exposure.

South Korea imports 64.7 percent of its helium from Qatar, according to Korea International Trade Association data for 2025.

 

South Korea is home to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which together dominate global memory production. SK Hynix commands 62 percent of the High Bandwidth Memory market by shipment volume as of Q2 2025, per Counterpoint Research. Samsung holds 33 percent of global DRAM market share. Combined, these two companies produce the majority of the memory chips that go into every AI training system, every data centre GPU, and every high-performance computing cluster on earth.

 

HBM is the single most critical constraint in the AI hardware supply chain. It is the component NVIDIA cannot build an H100, B200, or Blackwell Ultra without. SK Hynix is NVIDIA's primary HBM supplier. In the first half of 2025, NVIDIA accounted for 27 percent of SK Hynix's total revenue, approximately 10.9 trillion Korean won, per TrendForce. UBS projects SK Hynix will capture roughly 70 percent of the HBM4 market for NVIDIA's next-generation Rubin platform. HBM capacity is sold out through 2026 across all major suppliers. There is zero slack.

 

Bank of America defines 2026 as a memory supercycle, forecasting the HBM market to reach $54.6 billion, a 58 percent increase year over year. This is the market that South Korea's energy crisis now threatens.

 

Now layer the other exposures.

 

South Korea imports approximately 70 percent of its crude oil from the Middle East. 

 

Seoul implemented mandatory fuel rationing on March 25: a one-day-per-week vehicle ban for 1.5 million government vehicles, enforced by licence plate number.

 

QatarEnergy declared force majeure on long-term LNG contracts with South Korea on March 24. Gas generates approximately 26 percent of South Korea's electricity. Those contracted molecules, which were supposed to flow reliably for decades, now carry a force majeure notice that could last five years.

 

South Korea is losing three supply lines simultaneously. Oil. Gas. Helium. All from the same chokepoint.

 

The country that fabricates the memory chips that make artificial intelligence physically possible is being energy-starved by a war it did not start, in a strait it does not control, over a conflict between nations it has no leverage to influence.

What the chipmakers say and what it means.

The United States produces 42 percent of global helium but cannot rapidly scale. The former Federal Helium Reserve in Amarillo was privatised in June 2024 and can no longer serve as a government strategic buffer. Russia's Amur Gas Processing Plant has design capacity roughly equal to Qatar's entire output but faces Western sanctions. Algeria produces only 5 to 10 percent of global supply. Tanzania's emerging helium projects are years from commercial production.

 

Phil Kornbluth estimates a minimum three-month disruption to helium supply chains, plus two months for logistics normalisation. If the conflict extends beyond six months, the structural deficit has no easy solution.

 

Taiwan's quiet vulnerability.

Taiwan generates approximately 43 to 47 percent of its electricity from natural gas, the single largest source in its power mix. The island imports nearly all of its energy. It has no domestic oil, no domestic gas, and no domestic coal of significance.

 

TSMC, which fabricates over 90 percent of the world's most advanced logic chips (sub-3nm), consumes roughly 9 to 10 percent of Taiwan's total electricity, a figure S&P Global projects could reach 24 percent by 2030 under a high-growth scenario as EUV lithography scales. TSMC's electricity consumption has more than doubled since 2017.

 

With Hormuz closed and Qatar offline, global LNG prices have surged 40 to 60 percent. Taiwan must now compete with Europe, Japan, South Korea, and China for a diminished pool of spot LNG cargoes. Every dollar increase in LNG cost translates to higher electricity generation costs for an island that runs nearly half its grid on imported gas.

 

The world's most important chip factory runs on imported gas, on an island with no strategic depth, in a region where the gas just got 50 percent more expensive.

 

The feedback loop nobody has connected: South Korea builds the ships.

Here is the connection I have not seen in a single piece of analysis from Fortune, Bloomberg, Tom's Hardware, or any of the publications that have covered the helium angle.

 

South Korea does not just make chips. It builds the ships that carry the gas that the rest of the world needs to replace Qatar's output.

 

South Korean shipyards, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, Samsung Heavy Industries, and Hanwha Ocean, delivered 248 LNG carriers between 2021 and 2025, versus 48 from China. That is an 83.8 percent share of LNG carrier deliveries over the past five years, per BusinessKorea. Korean yards currently hold approximately two-thirds of the global LNG carrier orderbook by value, with LNG vessels accounting for 52 percent of their total backlog at $71.3 billion, per VesselsValue.

 

A single 174,000-cubic-metre LNG carrier costs $220 to 260 million at current pricing. Construction takes 30 to 36 months from steel cutting to delivery. Korean yards have orderbooks extending through 2028. New orders placed today face delivery in late 2028 or 2029.

 

There are circuit breakers. South Korea is restarting five nuclear reactors and easing coal restrictions. Shipbuilding is moderately energy-intensive, far less than steelmaking or semiconductor fabrication. There is currently an oversupply of LNG carriers, with approximately 60 idle ships providing buffer. Any disruption to shipyard output today would only affect deliveries in 2028 to 2029, given build timelines.

 

But the strategic risk is real. If the crisis extends for years, not months, Korean shipbuilding competitiveness erodes. Orders migrate to Chinese yards that are already capturing a growing share of the market. The 84 percent Korean dominance of LNG carrier deliveries begins to fracture. And that fracture arrives at exactly the moment when the global energy system needs maximum carrier capacity to compensate for the Qatari shortfall.

 

The timeline.

If the Hormuz closure and Qatar outage resolve within 60 days, the impact on semiconductor production is likely manageable. Stockpiles hold. Alternative helium sources partially compensate. Energy prices retreat. The market exhales.

 

If the outage extends to six months, the picture changes. Korean helium stockpiles thin. Fab utilisation may be reduced by 10 to 30 percent as helium is rationed to the most critical process steps. LNG carrier construction timelines face cost and supply chain pressure. The compounding effects begin.

 

If Qatar's three-to-five-year force majeure plays out in full, the global helium market restructures permanently. South Korea's semiconductor industry must find alternative supply for two-thirds of its helium at a time when there is no marginal global capacity to absorb the shift. Prices do not just spike. They reset to a new structural level.

 

The severity depends entirely on duration. And duration depends on a war that nobody in Silicon Valley can predict or control.

 

The close.

 

The AI boom was built on an assumption so fundamental that nobody thought to state it: that the physical world would cooperate. That gas would flow. That ships would sail. That straits would stay open. That the atoms would show up so the bits could do their work.

 

Three wars in three years severed three supply lines. Russia. The Strait of Hormuz. Ras Laffan. Each one tore a piece out of the infrastructure the modern world depends on. And each one revealed a dependency that was invisible until it broke.

 

The dependency that just broke runs from a gas field under the Persian Gulf through cryogenic separation plants in Qatar through helium containers on cargo ships through semiconductor fabs in Pyeongtaek and Icheon through memory packaging lines that produce HBM stacks through NVIDIA's module assembly through data centres in Virginia and Oregon.

 

One supply chain. One chokepoint. One war.

 

South Korea makes the memory AND builds the ships. It is the single most consequential industrial economy in this crisis, and its exposure is triple-stacked: oil, gas, helium. If it stumbles, the AI supply chain stumbles and the LNG carrier fleet stumbles simultaneously.

 

Nobody in Palo Alto is watching the Strait of Hormuz. They are watching token-per-second benchmarks and context window lengths and AGI timelines.

 

They should be watching the strait.

 

Because the atoms come before the bits. And the atoms are stuck.

 

(Gregory Bateson: The Roots of ecological crisis (March 1970))

"THE HOURS OF DARKNESS" AND THE YOUTH OF LIGHT (14-03-2020+26-03-2020+26-03-2026, WILLIAM S. MERWIN)

THE HOURS OF DARKNESS (14-03-2020-26-03-2020): (INTENTA DECIR SOLO LO QUE NINGÚN OTRO PODRÍA DECIR POR TI) Sobre las medidas anunciadas ayer: $6 trillion / 330 million people = $18,0...

 

LAS HORAS DE OSCURIDAD

William S. Merwin

Cuando hay palabras

Esperando una vez más

Yo mismo estoy mirando

En los ojos de un viejo

Hombre que he visto antes

Que sostiene un largo bastón blanco

Mientras permanece delante de mi cabeza

Hablando de poemas y juventud

Detrás de él una sombra

Donde creí ver una cara

Pregunta si has pensado

Lo a menudo que regresas

A la cuestión de no ver

Al estado de ceguera

Lo nombres o no

quieres hablar de él

Tan a menudo como lo haces

Qué quieres decir con ello

Miro dentro del año

Que la reina negra pudo todavía ver

El año de las luces ajenas

Apareciéndosele y después marchándose

Con las otras

El año del venero de la oscuridad

Inundando

sin luna ni estrellas

Estuvo allí todo el tiempo

Detrás del ojo del día

Rumphius lo vio antes

El tuvo palabras para cada cosa

Antes de escribir

Del cangrejo ermitaño Estos

Vagabundos viven en las casas

De extraños que se maravillan

Acerca de dónde vinieron

Vermeij en nuestro tiempo

Nunca vio ninguna criatura

Viviente o fósil

Pero podría resumir por el tacto

La historia de un cauri

De 400 millones de años de antigüedad

Las marcas de sus ancestros

Y lo que conoció en el oscuro mar

Borges está allí hablando

Sobre el soneto de Milton

Y Milton oye las palabras de

Sansón a algún otro

Y Homero está hablando

de un paisaje sin horizontes

y el caballero ciego a quien nadie

pudo nunca tocar con una espada

dice en mi cabeza que hay

solo oscuridad

de forma que nunca me encuentran

pero yo sé dónde están

 

es la luz

que parece cambiar y ser muchos

ser hoy

para ondear como hojas

para reconocer los anillos de los árboles

para venir de nuevo

una de las estrellas viene

del día del cauri

otra es de un día en el jardín

vemos la juventud de la luz

en todas sus épocas

la vemos como brillantes

puntos de animales

hechos de la noche hace mucho

qué pequeño es el día

el tiempo de los colores

el impulso de su brillo

(Traducción Guillermo Ruiz)

23-03-1856+23-03-2026 ("LA ETERNIDAD QUE YO DETECTO EN LA NATURALEZA")

 

 

 

(THOREAU AND ALLAN DIBIASE)

in Thoreau’s Journal:

When I think what were the various sounds and notes, the migrations and works, and changes of fur and plumage which ushered in the spring and marked the other seasons of the year, I am reminded that this my life in nature, this particular round of natural phenomena which I call a year, is lamentably incomplete.  I listen to [a] concert in which so many parts are wanting. The whole civilized country is to some extent turned into a city, and I am that citizen whom I pity. Many of those animal migrations and other phenomena by which the Indians marked the season are no longer to be observed.  I seek acquaintance with Nature, ––to know her moods and manners….

I am reassured and reminded that I am the heir of eternal inheritances which are inalienable, when I feel the warmth reflected from the sunny bank, and see the yellow sand and the reddish soil, and hear some dried leaves rustle and the trickling of melted snow in some sluiceway. The eternity which I detect in Nature I predicate of myself also. How many springs I have had this same experience! I am encouraged for I recognize this steady persistency and recovery of Nature as a quality of myself.

 HDT

Escucho un concierto en el que tantas partes faltan. Todo el campo civilizado se convierte en alguna medida en una ciudad, y yo soy el ciudadano del que me apiado.Muchas de estas migraciones y fenómenos, por los cuales los Indios señalaron las estaciones, no se observarán más.Busco la intimidad con la Naturaleza, -conocer sus humores y maneras... 

Se me reasegura y recuerda que soy el heredero de herencias eternas que son inalienables, cuando siento el calor reflejado por la ribera soleada, y veo la arena amarilla y el suelo rojo, y oigo algunas hojas secas crujir y el goteo de la nieve derretida en una acequia. La eternidad que yo detecto en la Naturaleza también la sostengo de mí mismo. ¡Cuántas primaveras he tenido esta misma experiencia! Soy animado a reconocer esta ordenada persistencia y recuperación de la Naturaleza como una cualidad de mí mismo. 

(traducción Guillermo Ruiz) 

 

TODO ESTO SERÁ TUYO (MICHEL LEUNIG Y WALTER BENJAMIN)

¿UN LENGUAJE RÁPIDO A LA ALTURA DEL MOMENTO?

 

This is evidently the consummation of “l’art pourl’art.” Mankind, which in Homer’s time was an object of contemplation for the Olympian gods, now is one for itself. Its self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order. 

(WB, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction In: Illuminations, edited by Hannah Arendt, translated by Harry Zohn, from the 1935 essay New York: Schocken Books, 196) 

El capitalismo es una religión solo con culto, sin dogma.El capitalismo se desarrolló en el Oeste parasitariamente sobre el cristianismo, no solo en el Calvinismo sino también, como debe mostrarse, en los restantes movimientos cristianos ortodoxos-de tal forma que, al final, su historia es esencialmente la historia de los parásitos (huéspedes) del capitalismo.Comparar la iconografía sagrada de varias religiones de un lado con los billetes de varios países del otro: el espíritu que habla desde la decoración de los billetes. 

Walter Benjamin (“El capitalismo como religión”, procedente del fragmento 74 del Volumen VI de las obras completas. Traducido de la traducción inglesa de Chad Kautzer) 

 

Benjamin said, one century ago, in advance, why Thiel came to Roma to preach the Antichrist: capitalism developed parasitising cristianism and now it must kill any remnant of it.

 

La construcción de la vida se encuentra actualmente mucho más en poder de los hechos que de las convicciones. Y además en concreto de unos hechos que casi nunca han servido de base a convicciones. Puestas así las cosas la actividad literaria verdadera no puede pretender desarrollarse en el que es su marco literario: eso es, al contrario, la expresión más habitual donde se muestra su esterilidad. La actividad literaria relevante solo se puede dar cuando se alterna del modo más estricto la acción y la escritura, al cultivar esas modestas formas que corresponden a su influencia en las comunidades más activas mejor que el ambicioso gesto universal del libro: a saber, las octavillas, los folletos, los artículos en revistas. Sólo ese rápido lenguaje puede surtir un efecto que se encuentra a la altura del momento"

(Walter Benjamin, Calle de Dirección Unica. Traducción de Jorge Navarro Pérez)

Dios nutre a los hombres; los desnutre el Estado 

WB 

(In Capitalism as Religion, Walter Benjamin argues that capitalism functions as a religious system.Unlike Max Weber, who saw capitalism as shaped by religious origins, Benjamin contends that capitalism is itself a religious phenomenon, replacing traditional religions by offering answers to existential anxieties such as "cares, torments, worries." He avoids offering definitive proof, claiming the time for such analysis has not yet arrived.

The author identifies three characteristics of capitalism as a religion. First, capitalism is a "pure religion of the cult," probably the most radical religion that has ever existed. Every element of the cult makes sense only in direct relation to the cult; utilitarianism takes on a religious connotation. The cult has no dogma or theology of its own. Second, the capitalist cult is never interrupted, it continues permanently, "sans rêve et sans merci"; in capitalism, both weekdays and holidays disappear, resulting in "an extreme tension of joy".Third, the cult bestows guilt, so it is probably the first cult not aimed at redemption but at accusation.)

 

God bless this tiny little boat, 

And me who travels in it. 

It stays afloat for years and years, 

And sinks within a minute. 

And so the soul in which we sail,

 Unknown by years of thinking, 

Is deeply felt and understood 

The minute that it's sinking. 

Amen. 

Michel Leunig

 

 

CHARLIE CHAPLIN, SANAE TAKAICHI Y JON STEWART ("SHOULDER ARMS")

 

Why Intelligent people are always alone - Alan Watts pic.twitter.com/uhoUJvC0V4

— Leaders 𝕏 Junction (@LeadersJunction) February 24, 2026

 

 

“There are situations when one owes solitude to other people, if only not to bother them. But, more than this, the multitude needs solitaries as it needs postmen, doctors, and fishermen. They go out and they send, or bring, something back—even if they send no word and vanish finally from sight. The solitary is as necessary to our common sanity as wilderness, as the forest where no one goes, as the waterfall in a canyon which no one has ever seen or heard. We do not see our hearts. I do not expect to be all that solitary for, as a paradoxical person, I am also gregarious and favor the rhythm of withdrawal and return.” 

 ― Alan W. Watts, Cloud-hidden, Whereabouts Unknown 

This is evidently the consummation of “l’art pourl’art.” Mankind, which in Homer’s time was an object of contemplation for the Olympian gods, now is one for itself. Its self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order.

(WB,  The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

In: Illuminations, edited by Hannah Arendt,
translated by Harry Zohn, from the 1935 essay
New York: Schocken Books, 196)

 This is believed to be the first comedy film about war

Charlie Chaplin monta guardia en Valencia (19-03-2026)