3 ms·

I absolutely agree with the article in the sense that this sort of "industrial literacy", or rather just "system awareness" is necessary to make proper judgment

I absolutely agree with the article in the sense that this sort of "industrial literacy", or rather just "system awareness" is necessary to make proper judgments about the techno/societal mechanisms that we utilize and wish to modify, but I absolutely disagree with its tone of holier-than-thou justification of the current mode of industrial civilization. It does the classic naive-libertarian pirouette of pointing at the state of the world as it is, justifying it in terms of its historical determinants, and thus claiming it as inherently natural and unavoidable. There's a whole lot of hidden assumptions behind every single statement in the article that are left unclarified (for obvious reasons, which the rest of this comment section has already dug into). So yes, proper understanding the functioning of the civilization we live in is absolutely crucial, and at present, sorely lacking. But let's not stop there and think of it as the end goal.

bzbarsky 6y ago
> and thus claiming it as inherently natural and unavoidable Where do you see that in the article? What I see is a call to basic understanding of the current state of the world and how it got there as a prerequisite to being able to propose changes in a sane way. They are not saying the current state is "inherently natural" (and it's not, any more than the state of northern Europe in 1350 was "inherently natural") or "unavoidable" (it has clearly been avoided in the past, and will likely be in the future, which will likely look upon the way we live in ways similar to the ways we look at 1350 northern Europe). > But let's not stop there and think of it as the end goal. It's the minimal starting point, not the end goal, and that's what the article is saying as far as I can tell. So I think you're in violent agreement with the author here.
- theon144 6y ago
  Eh, kinda. There's a lot of stuff hidden in there that I would violently disagree with, for instance: >[synthetic fertilizers are] needed for for agricultural productivity, because all soil loses its fertility naturally over time if it is not deliberately replenished No it doesn't, it only does when you do agriculture the way current industrial society practices it, it's not in any way "needed" for food production as such. >[synthetic pesticides are needed to protect] from pests [...] will ravage entire fields if given a chance Sure they will, because monocultures are terrible! And synthetic pesticides doubly so. But this is also not a requirement for scalable food production. >hauling water from the well for drinking Water supply is not a twentieth-century invention, nor an industrial one. >cooking every meal from scratch This is blatantly false, both because cities have offered public dining for much longer than industrial civilization, and cooking a meal from scratch does not require industrial civilization either. >That plastics are produced in enormous quantities because, for so many purposes—from food containers to electrical wire coatings to children’s toys—we need a material that is cheap, light, flexible, waterproof, and insulating, and that can easily be made in any shape and color (including transparent!) Conveniently, all these plastic products aren't single purpose, which constitutes the biggest chunk of all current plastic production; not because we couldn't do without it, but because it's cheaper than the alternatives. >That automobiles are a lifeline to people who live in rural areas (almost 20% in the US alone), and who were deeply isolated in the era before the car and the telephone. As others have pointed out, this is also self-fulfilling; the automobile allowed people to live that remotely in the first place, it's not a solution to a problem, it's what allowed the problem to emerge at all. And so on and so on; the current techno-economical system is presented solely, and in the author's own words, as "a set of solutions to problems". This is simply incorrect, and it necessarily presupposes that these problems exist somehow independently, waiting for a technology to solve it. This is why I see it making similar claims as do "naive-libertarianis" (whom I should note, I think of as separate from libertarianism in general), in that it looks at the way incentive systems are set up at present, but instead takes it as the starting point, failing to reflect on what the system doesn't take into account because it literally doesn't "see" it (e.g. every "social cost", or environmental costs). In other words, yes, industrial civilization is absolutely needed to support, well, industrial civilization. But I don't think it's necessary for the "modern standard of living".

bzbarsky 6y ago

> and thus claiming it as inherently natural and unavoidable Where do you see that in the article? What I see is a call to basic understanding of the current state of the world and how it got there as a prerequisite to being able to propose changes in a sane way. They are not saying the current state is "inherently natural" (and it's not, any more than the state of northern Europe in 1350 was "inherently natural") or "unavoidable" (it has clearly been avoided in the past, and will likely be in the future, which will likely look upon the way we live in ways similar to the ways we look at 1350 northern Europe). > But let's not stop there and think of it as the end goal. It's the minimal starting point, not the end goal, and that's what the article is saying as far as I can tell. So I think you're in violent agreement with the author here.

theon144 6y ago
Eh, kinda. There's a lot of stuff hidden in there that I would violently disagree with, for instance: >[synthetic fertilizers are] needed for for agricultural productivity, because all soil loses its fertility naturally over time if it is not deliberately replenished No it doesn't, it only does when you do agriculture the way current industrial society practices it, it's not in any way "needed" for food production as such. >[synthetic pesticides are needed to protect] from pests [...] will ravage entire fields if given a chance Sure they will, because monocultures are terrible! And synthetic pesticides doubly so. But this is also not a requirement for scalable food production. >hauling water from the well for drinking Water supply is not a twentieth-century invention, nor an industrial one. >cooking every meal from scratch This is blatantly false, both because cities have offered public dining for much longer than industrial civilization, and cooking a meal from scratch does not require industrial civilization either. >That plastics are produced in enormous quantities because, for so many purposes—from food containers to electrical wire coatings to children’s toys—we need a material that is cheap, light, flexible, waterproof, and insulating, and that can easily be made in any shape and color (including transparent!) Conveniently, all these plastic products aren't single purpose, which constitutes the biggest chunk of all current plastic production; not because we couldn't do without it, but because it's cheaper than the alternatives. >That automobiles are a lifeline to people who live in rural areas (almost 20% in the US alone), and who were deeply isolated in the era before the car and the telephone. As others have pointed out, this is also self-fulfilling; the automobile allowed people to live that remotely in the first place, it's not a solution to a problem, it's what allowed the problem to emerge at all. And so on and so on; the current techno-economical system is presented solely, and in the author's own words, as "a set of solutions to problems". This is simply incorrect, and it necessarily presupposes that these problems exist somehow independently, waiting for a technology to solve it. This is why I see it making similar claims as do "naive-libertarianis" (whom I should note, I think of as separate from libertarianism in general), in that it looks at the way incentive systems are set up at present, but instead takes it as the starting point, failing to reflect on what the system doesn't take into account because it literally doesn't "see" it (e.g. every "social cost", or environmental costs). In other words, yes, industrial civilization is absolutely needed to support, well, industrial civilization. But I don't think it's necessary for the "modern standard of living".