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I'm excited too. Let's not say technology is moral though, because that backfires later when we want to make the case that "it's just technology, and can be use

by jpttsn 9y ago

I'm excited too. Let's not say technology is moral though, because that backfires later when we want to make the case that "it's just technology, and can be used for bad or good."

simonsarris 9y ago
Quite seriously, post-oil technology is a moral imperative. Putting people on a cruise ship is not a moral action, but getting them home safely is. The discovery and initial widespread use of oil was not moral. But now that we're here, getting off of it's dependency is, because it cannot last forever at current technology levels and without it we cannot feed seven, eight, etc billion people. If we discover no new technology, if we do not switch off of oil, it slowly gets more expensive and depleted, and then billions die because the population cannot be sustained without the intensive energy needed to produce food and transport it. So that's what I mean: It is a moral imperative that we create tech to replace oil (or at least as a stop-gap, find more as we've been doing). We think of the future too little, but those human lives are just as real. https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/the-moral-technology-6413ca8449c9 https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/the-moral-technology-6413ca... (As I said elsewhere, if you say "we'll always find new and cheaper ways of extracting oil," then you already agree with me, you just picked a different technology. We still have the moral imperative to find that technology.)
- Fricken 9y ago
  We don't need new technology to alter our consumption as a civilization, though. We need to change our attitudes and habits. There's this assumption everyone needs to drive around in their own personal automobile, and EVs provide a marginal benefit over gas powered vehicles, but it's still a 3 ton hunk of metal being used to move what is usually a single occupant and does nothing to curb sprawl and the energy costs associated with that. How about bicycles, trains, and higher density, walkable development? There's nothing fancy or high-tech about any of this, it's all waiting for us to implement it whenever we feel the moral imperative to do so. As far as I'm concerned it also leads to a higher quality of life, but many who grew up with cars and the burbs have a difficult time imagining things any other way.
  - simonsarris 9y ago
    Electric transportation is not just cars to get to work. If 8 billion people all rode bicycles 100% of the time, you still need oil to grow and transport the food. Without any oil, most of them would still perish. Oil gets more expensive over time without new technology. You're trying to downscale the problem, but you do not eliminate it that way. Our population numbers are oil-supported no matter how we live. The moral imperative is to make them something more renewable-supported, before it is a crisis. Just because the crisis is many decades out does not make it less moral. We still need new technology, or else.
    - Fricken 9y ago
      Getting people off meat would eliminate the lion's share of the problems with our industrial agricultural system. Again, it's not a technology problem, we could stop eating meat this afternoon if everyone was onboard, instead of waiting for some fantastic new technology to come around. I'm not against new technology, but deferring responsibility to breakthroughs that may or may not arrive in time strikes me as another form of bikeshedding. I've been hearing about the electric vehicle revolution for a quarter century, it has yet to arrive in any meaningful capacity. Throughout our history our biggest problems have been problems related to scarcity, so we're hardwired to think in those terms. Even though our problems are now problems of abundance, the default is to think that to solve this we need more of something. More technology! Build more factories, more steel, more lithium, more cobalt, we need a whole new industrial ecosystem to replace the one we've got! We're really good at managing scarcity. We're clueless about managing abundance. Of course, nobody likes the idea of less, it violates all our best instincts. Humans are highly adaptable, but we rarely adapt willingly if it's perceived to be a step down. That's the moral problem of our age, in my opinion.
      - jackmott 9y ago
        until we then add even more people to the earth and arrive at the same problem. all these kinds of solutions need to be coupled with population management solutions.
      - 9y ago

by jpttsn 9y ago

I'm excited too. Let's not say technology is moral though, because that backfires later when we want to make the case that "it's just technology, and can be used for bad or good."

simonsarris 9y ago

Quite seriously, post-oil technology is a moral imperative. Putting people on a cruise ship is not a moral action, but getting them home safely is. The discovery and initial widespread use of oil was not moral. But now that we're here, getting off of it's dependency is, because it cannot last forever at current technology levels and without it we cannot feed seven, eight, etc billion people. If we discover no new technology, if we do not switch off of oil, it slowly gets more expensive and depleted, and then billions die because the population cannot be sustained without the intensive energy needed to produce food and transport it. So that's what I mean: It is a moral imperative that we create tech to replace oil (or at least as a stop-gap, find more as we've been doing). We think of the future too little, but those human lives are just as real. https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/the-moral-technology-6413ca8449c9 https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/the-moral-technology-6413ca... (As I said elsewhere, if you say "we'll always find new and cheaper ways of extracting oil," then you already agree with me, you just picked a different technology. We still have the moral imperative to find that technology.)

Fricken 9y ago
We don't need new technology to alter our consumption as a civilization, though. We need to change our attitudes and habits. There's this assumption everyone needs to drive around in their own personal automobile, and EVs provide a marginal benefit over gas powered vehicles, but it's still a 3 ton hunk of metal being used to move what is usually a single occupant and does nothing to curb sprawl and the energy costs associated with that. How about bicycles, trains, and higher density, walkable development? There's nothing fancy or high-tech about any of this, it's all waiting for us to implement it whenever we feel the moral imperative to do so. As far as I'm concerned it also leads to a higher quality of life, but many who grew up with cars and the burbs have a difficult time imagining things any other way.
- simonsarris 9y ago
  Electric transportation is not just cars to get to work. If 8 billion people all rode bicycles 100% of the time, you still need oil to grow and transport the food. Without any oil, most of them would still perish. Oil gets more expensive over time without new technology. You're trying to downscale the problem, but you do not eliminate it that way. Our population numbers are oil-supported no matter how we live. The moral imperative is to make them something more renewable-supported, before it is a crisis. Just because the crisis is many decades out does not make it less moral. We still need new technology, or else.
  - Fricken 9y ago
    Getting people off meat would eliminate the lion's share of the problems with our industrial agricultural system. Again, it's not a technology problem, we could stop eating meat this afternoon if everyone was onboard, instead of waiting for some fantastic new technology to come around. I'm not against new technology, but deferring responsibility to breakthroughs that may or may not arrive in time strikes me as another form of bikeshedding. I've been hearing about the electric vehicle revolution for a quarter century, it has yet to arrive in any meaningful capacity. Throughout our history our biggest problems have been problems related to scarcity, so we're hardwired to think in those terms. Even though our problems are now problems of abundance, the default is to think that to solve this we need more of something. More technology! Build more factories, more steel, more lithium, more cobalt, we need a whole new industrial ecosystem to replace the one we've got! We're really good at managing scarcity. We're clueless about managing abundance. Of course, nobody likes the idea of less, it violates all our best instincts. Humans are highly adaptable, but we rarely adapt willingly if it's perceived to be a step down. That's the moral problem of our age, in my opinion.
    - jackmott 9y ago
      until we then add even more people to the earth and arrive at the same problem. all these kinds of solutions need to be coupled with population management solutions.
    - 9y ago