Well said Ed.
I come from a church background so I guess I see human short sightedness
and stupidity as normal and unsurprising. Christian theology teaches
that this is a broken world on the wrong path. I'm making efforts to
reach some influential people in the church net works I'm in so they
don't take the wrong side of things when cold fusion 'pops out of the
box' and surprises millions.
Edmund Storms wrote:
Wesley Bruce wrote:
Jed and Ed interesting string. I happen to have a degree that
includes both the economics and environmental subjects your covering.
I've learned a few interesting things over the years.
* Very few technological and environmental disasters have occurred
that were not predicted and thus preventable. I can't think of
one. Even Enron's fraud and collapse was predicted by people
(Austrian economists) that guessed early on that they were (had to
be) fraudulent. The original shuttle design had an escape pod
bridge with extra heat shielding but it added several tons. It was
dropped from the design so she could carry more tons of cargo.
I have come to the same conclusion, Wesley. However, the resulting
disasters are having increasingly greater global consequences. No
longer are only the stupid or willful who make the mistakes paying the
price. Because nothing can be done to stop the process, it does not
take much foresight to predict exactly what will happen to
civilization in the future. Many science fiction writers have already
explored this subject and the future does not look good.
* Convenience beats commonsense every time so our solutions must be
convenient. The inconvenient solution such as recycling everything
is beaten by the convenience of a single rubbish bin.
I suggest this depends on how valuable the rubbish is. In many poor
countries, people make a living separating rubbish after it has been
dumped in a single "bin". This combines convenience with commonsense,
as long as you are not the separator. Even in rich countries, scrap
steel is separated because it is sufficiently valuable.
* Technological solutions don't come when the greens, the lobbyists
or even the public clamor for them or when the investor invents
them. It comes when the society is willing to invest and pay for
them. We are on that threshold with oil at $50 a barrel. This
actually means they seem to come late from the greens and the
Lobbyists point of view. Frustratingly late from the inventor's
point of view but its perfectly on time from the point of view of
the market. Governments don't seem to have had an influence even
in a time of war; even they have to pay the going rate eventually
either in favors (which cost them dearly later) or cash.
While the solution may be realized when needed, implementing the
solution takes time. Everyone now knows that generating energy from
nonorganic sources is practical and necessary. However, to make the
change will take years while many bad consequences will continue to
accumulate. A leader is supposed to have the ability to think ahead
and anticipate problems and solutions that are unknown to the ordinary
person. Instead we get leaders who see a problem only after it is
obvious to a moron, or is this perhaps a mild exaggeration?
* If there's land to migrate into or conquer its economicly viable
to run an ecosystem down to desert to build up the resorces to
launch the campain. The desert makers of history are not short
sighted they often had their sights set on someone elses land.
I suppose this has occurred in the past. However, what is the present
excuse? In spite of being rather bitter and cynical, I nevertheless
would like to see a rational debate and acknowledgment of the serious
problems that we all are facing. Hopefully, my comments can generate
some discussion on Vortex. After all, the usual discussion of the
various scientific theories will have little importance if these
social and economic problems are not solved.
Regards,
Ed
- Re: Are things really getting too complicated? Wesley Bruce
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