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The problem is that high-energy regimes can crowd out low-energy designs that actually produce better outcomes in terms of well-being. As with food calories: e

The problem is that high-energy regimes can crowd out low-energy designs that actually produce better outcomes in terms of well-being. As with food calories: either for an individual or a population group, if you don't have enough, more is very, very much better. This is not the same as more being always better. Sometimes the same or less in a smarter implementation produces better outcomes, and sometimes it takes a regulatory shove to get there. Societies that require everyone to have a car just to have a basic acceptable level of mobility and participation, and which expect even moderately high performers to fly multiple times a year, case in point. Huge amounts of energy deployed for marginally better outcomes. The mistake is in observing a strong positive correlation on part of the curve, and extrapolating that to interpret it as a linear relationship. There are parts of the world which still need a lot more deployable energy. Getting household white goods to the majorities in poorer countries, etc. The same additional amount in the hands of the top 80% or so of Western hands would be frittered away to no noticeable benefit - we could get by with a lot less.

gottorf 3y ago
> The same additional amount in the hands of the top 80% or so of Western hands would be frittered away to no noticeable benefit - we could get by with a lot less. We could, but getting by with less out of choice is much better than getting by with less out of deprivation (like you said, "if you don't have enough, more is very, very much better"). And if your solution involves a large group of people depriving themselves to benefit those on another side of the world, I'm afraid there's no historical evidence to suggest that it will work even a little bit. > sometimes it takes a regulatory shove to get there. Almost all the time, additional powers granted to the government for that regulatory shove are not relinquished. Virtually all the time, a government that is powerful enough eventually becomes tyrannical. We have to weigh that very real possibility against the cost of what appears to be inefficient outcomes.
- Earw0rm 3y ago
  By definition, if you have enough, it's not deprivation. And, at an individual level, deprivation isn't really something you can do to yourself (barring extreme circumstances, eating disorders, religious asceticism and suchlike). This does get more complicated when it's a societal level choice. You might feel subjectively energy-deprived at a very different point to me. At the same time though, a well-designed low-energy regime isn't perceived by its citizens as despotic. There's very little call (nowadays) to smash Houston-style freeways through Europe's semi-pedestrianised neighbourhoods. Curiously, this was not the case in lower-information times, but the intersection of high bandwidth/discoverability and walkability is a much bigger topic. Now I'm old enough to remember Eastern Bloc totalitarianism, and I find the current Gen Z fashion/fetish of all things DDR/Soviet vaguely tragic, but the outcome of the path we're on right now is at least equivalent to tyranny, at least for the three billion or so people at the pointy end of it all.
  - gottorf 3y ago
    > At the same time though, a well-designed low-energy regime isn't perceived by its citizens as despotic. There's very little call (nowadays) to smash Houston-style freeways through Europe's semi-pedestrianised neighbourhoods. Despotic it may not be, yet people vote with their feet. Way more Europeans leave their delightfully walkable cities to make a living in Houston than the other way around[0]. 650k Germans, 180k French, and 90k Dutch lived in the US in 2017, compared to 140k, 50k, and 30k Americans living in the respective countries. And despite the ugliness of Houston's monstrous freeways, it at least grows and takes newcomers: Metro Houston nearly doubled (grew 70%) from 2000 to 2020, compared to (the metros of) Berlin only 5%, Paris 13%, and Amsterdam 14%. Broadly, I see current European policy as a defensive posture, one looking to maintain things as they are in all aspects: climate, population, wealth. There doesn't appear to be the same appetite for change and growth. It's as though they've decided that the way things are now is the best it'll ever be, and anything more advanced (that is, requiring more energy expended per capita) is somehow immoral. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it. [0]: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/interactives/global-migrant-stocks-map/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/interactives/global-migra...; obviously, I don't mean literally Houston itself.
    - Earw0rm 3y ago
      No shortage of Americans in the fairly walkable, and notably English-speaking, UK. Paris, London and Berlin of 2023 are markedly different in so many ways to, say, 1983. Berlin was in two different countries back then, and if you tried to cross, you died. Much of London was still semi-derelict from WW2 and post-war economic changes. Perhaps a history measured in millennia means a little more patience around change. Perhaps Europeans don't see the struggle for more wealth as the most important thing. And looking at life expectancy trends in the developed world (as a very crude proxy for wellbeing).. perhaps they might be on to something.
    - mistrial9 3y ago
      .. and less than 24 hours later, on YNews ‘I Don’t Want to Be Here Anymore.’ The Economic Cost of Houston’s Heat (wsj.com)

gottorf 3y ago

> The same additional amount in the hands of the top 80% or so of Western hands would be frittered away to no noticeable benefit - we could get by with a lot less. We could, but getting by with less out of choice is much better than getting by with less out of deprivation (like you said, "if you don't have enough, more is very, very much better"). And if your solution involves a large group of people depriving themselves to benefit those on another side of the world, I'm afraid there's no historical evidence to suggest that it will work even a little bit. > sometimes it takes a regulatory shove to get there. Almost all the time, additional powers granted to the government for that regulatory shove are not relinquished. Virtually all the time, a government that is powerful enough eventually becomes tyrannical. We have to weigh that very real possibility against the cost of what appears to be inefficient outcomes.

Earw0rm 3y ago
By definition, if you have enough, it's not deprivation. And, at an individual level, deprivation isn't really something you can do to yourself (barring extreme circumstances, eating disorders, religious asceticism and suchlike). This does get more complicated when it's a societal level choice. You might feel subjectively energy-deprived at a very different point to me. At the same time though, a well-designed low-energy regime isn't perceived by its citizens as despotic. There's very little call (nowadays) to smash Houston-style freeways through Europe's semi-pedestrianised neighbourhoods. Curiously, this was not the case in lower-information times, but the intersection of high bandwidth/discoverability and walkability is a much bigger topic. Now I'm old enough to remember Eastern Bloc totalitarianism, and I find the current Gen Z fashion/fetish of all things DDR/Soviet vaguely tragic, but the outcome of the path we're on right now is at least equivalent to tyranny, at least for the three billion or so people at the pointy end of it all.
- gottorf 3y ago
  > At the same time though, a well-designed low-energy regime isn't perceived by its citizens as despotic. There's very little call (nowadays) to smash Houston-style freeways through Europe's semi-pedestrianised neighbourhoods. Despotic it may not be, yet people vote with their feet. Way more Europeans leave their delightfully walkable cities to make a living in Houston than the other way around[0]. 650k Germans, 180k French, and 90k Dutch lived in the US in 2017, compared to 140k, 50k, and 30k Americans living in the respective countries. And despite the ugliness of Houston's monstrous freeways, it at least grows and takes newcomers: Metro Houston nearly doubled (grew 70%) from 2000 to 2020, compared to (the metros of) Berlin only 5%, Paris 13%, and Amsterdam 14%. Broadly, I see current European policy as a defensive posture, one looking to maintain things as they are in all aspects: climate, population, wealth. There doesn't appear to be the same appetite for change and growth. It's as though they've decided that the way things are now is the best it'll ever be, and anything more advanced (that is, requiring more energy expended per capita) is somehow immoral. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it. [0]: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/interactives/global-migrant-stocks-map/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/interactives/global-migra...; obviously, I don't mean literally Houston itself.
  - Earw0rm 3y ago
    No shortage of Americans in the fairly walkable, and notably English-speaking, UK. Paris, London and Berlin of 2023 are markedly different in so many ways to, say, 1983. Berlin was in two different countries back then, and if you tried to cross, you died. Much of London was still semi-derelict from WW2 and post-war economic changes. Perhaps a history measured in millennia means a little more patience around change. Perhaps Europeans don't see the struggle for more wealth as the most important thing. And looking at life expectancy trends in the developed world (as a very crude proxy for wellbeing).. perhaps they might be on to something.
  - mistrial9 3y ago
    .. and less than 24 hours later, on YNews ‘I Don’t Want to Be Here Anymore.’ The Economic Cost of Houston’s Heat (wsj.com)