Preamble & Background
My name is Scott Stoness.
I retired in late 2023 after a 40-plus career in the energy and utility sectors, including as Vice President of Finance, Regulatory, Compliance, and External Relations. I hold a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Master of Business Administration, and my ongoing reading focuses heavily on politics, economics, physics, and pressing macroeconomic issues.
Throughout my career, what I valued most was making a tangible, constructive difference—such as playing a lead role in developing major, nationally critical infrastructure to deliver Canadian oil to tidewater. I achieved this by navigating through external noise, corporate dynamics, and political realities—solving complex problems with the help of math, physics, and logic to keep projects grounded in fact.
In retirement, my joy comes from my grandchildren, hiking, snowshoeing, backcountry skiing, travel, and landscape and wildlife photography. But I retain a deep need to keep my analytical mind engaged with complex, real-world systems.
Over the last two decades, I have watched systemic problems compound: population polarization, institutional and constitutional friction, and the deep politicization of climate adaptation and energy policy. Unfiltered, balanced analysis has become nearly impossible to find. Most pundits operate with clear economic or ideological biases, forcing the public to make sense of competing extremes—while social media algorithms inadvertently channel people into self-reinforcing feeds to keep them engaged. This dynamic preys on human tribalism—leading less-informed audiences to follow group consensus blindly, while highly educated audiences rationalize policies without consideration of their biases.
Statement of Purpose
I have realized that I occupy a rare and privileged position: I am mostly free of economic, career, and social pressures.
I have a retirement plan that works and no corporate ladder left to climb. I am largely indifferent to ideological labels or social media slurs—whether being tagged as right-wing, left-wing, insensitive, or nationalist. I can speak the truth as I analyze it, essentially free of professional consequences.
This Substack exists at the intersection of public policy, international relations, engineering math, logic, and economics. My goals for this publication are simple:
* Analyze Controversial Systems: Tackle complex issues—including energy transitions, compute infrastructure, governance, and policy—not through left-versus-right ideology, but through first-principles math and objective logic.
* Provide an Unbiased Resource: Offer readers an analytical framework unencumbered by tribal allegiances or corporate spin.
* Intellectual Engagement: Keep my mind active in a constructive, disciplined manner while contributing meaningful data back into the public domain.
* Non-Commercial Focus: Execute these audits for intellectual integrity and public utility, rather than financial gain.
I welcome constructive comments and suggestions. I am willing to post your views if they meet the goals above, or link to your posts.
Self-Disclosure & Declared Biases
No analyst is entirely without bias. In the spirit of transparency, here is the personal background, lived experience, and baseline philosophy that shape my perspective:
Roots & Experience
* Northern Upbringing: I grew up in a remote mining town in Northern Canada. My mother was a nurse and my father was a chief pilot for a mining company. I spent my youth canoeing, trapping, and snowshoeing alongside First Nations, Métis, and working-class families in a rugged environment with significant social challenges.
* North American Heritage: Aside from a five-year stint in the United States, my career has been based in Canada. My family has lived in North America for over five generations—including an ancestor who served as an Indian Agent across the Prairies before becoming Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, and a great-great-grandmother among the first European settlers in the Okanagan Valley.
* Personal & Family Life: I am a Caucasian male, happily married for approaching 35 years to a supportive wife, and the father of four successful adult children (two CPAs, an architect, and an engineering technologist).
* Cognitive Perspective: I am an introvert who leans mildly to the autism spectrum, having consciously developed the social skill sets needed to navigate executive corporate environments over four decades.
Core Philosophy & Worldview
* Libertarian Inclination: I believe in maximum personal autonomy. So long as an individual’s actions do not harm others, I am indifferent to where they fall on the spectrum of gender, race, or lifestyle choices.
* Social Safety Nets vs. Growth: I support modest, targeted social safety nets (such as quality public education, support for handicapped, and basic support to give disadvantaged youth a fair start). However, true human and economic progress requires personal agency—it is driven by self-realization, hard work, and healthy family dynamics, not indefinite state subsidies. Furthermore, social support must be balanced against economic growth: higher tax burdens suppress GDP and diminish a society’s long-term capacity to fund safety nets, with total tax rates exceeding ~ eg 45% crossing the threshold from public utility into economic expropriation.
* Free Speech & Open Inquiry: While I respect the desire for civil discourse, I strongly favor the absolute right of individuals to speak, question, and explore controversial topics without state coercion or targeted social cancellation.
* Surveillance & AI Risk: I am deeply concerned by the growing public acceptance of state surveillance under the guise of safety. Government use of advanced computing and AI to monitor, model, and shape citizen behavior poses an existential threat—creating tools that allow democracies to slide toward authoritarianism.
* Geopolitical & Systemic Realities: I view authoritarian regimes (most notably China and Russia, alongside shifting global powers) as active risks to individual liberty, leverage, and economic sovereignty, particularly as AI technology is weaponized to project state control.
