Is technology really going to rise or fall in years to come
I guess, here told the answer to it all
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This essay examines the why and how of technology's fall, and also the post-technological future.
People may say ..i have a love-hate relationship with technology
But,I believe we can think outside the box (and abandon the box), and gain perspective even in our world of addiction to material, manufactured and disposable things.
Why is this important? The reasons are ecological.. we cannot avoid the scientific facts, and there are moral reasons as well.
Mother Nature does not give second chances.
Extinction is part of evolution of all life, so we must face that humans are nothing special. In fact, their cleverness in manipulating the environment was helpful only up to a certain point in our "pre-history"; it has resulted today in our going over the ecological precipice.
With all I know and feel, I believe we are looking at the technological world starting to crash to the ground.
We will experience it falling around us and upon us. We have not seen much of this yet. For those who are not sure
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let's consider what happened when humanity left behind the simplicity of relying almost solely on hunter-gathering and burning downed logs for fire for cooking, light and warmth
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• We engaged in coal-burning -- a result of clearing Western Europe's forests for more agriculture -- with the various machines and processes for maximizing the use of this polluting, non-renewable "resource."
• We developed nuclear power which is inseparable from nuclear weapons technology.
• We became dependent on petroleum in all its forms and the net-energy bonus that allowed for exponential population growth.
• We developed plastics from petroleum which are wonderfully convenient and apparently cheap, but are killing much life in the oceans and are taking an invisible but deadly toll on us as well. Some of the problems: endocrine disrupters, poisons from manufacturing, from burning e.t.c
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Because the reasons for petrocollapse and world-wide famine have been well explored in Culture Change and elsewhere, suffice to say that the end of abundant petroleum will trigger collapse. It is already happening, no matter what name is put on it (e.g., meltdown).
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Humans are the technology species, and always will be. But life and history go in cycles, such that the agricultural and industrial revolutions will pass. They are being quickly ushered out by the plug being pulled on petroleum supply. The consequence of petro-gluttony and individualistic consuming will result in a crash of all petro-fed populations. The technology that remains will fit into a non-petroleum lifestyle. Much petroleum will remain in the ground, but will no longer be accessible when the oil industry is crippled by collapse.
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When we think of technology nowadays.. we typically think of the fancy laptop computer, I'm reluctantly typing on. But there's a whole range of technological products and systems that fall into the category of short term, and into the category of sustainable. Short term would include the continental electrical grid, with its reliance on extreme computerization and financial-sector vulnerability. Any small systems running on battery power may fail unless there is pedal-power generating, solar photovoltaic cells, wind generation.
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Our task is to reach out to all sectors for all who might be finally open to a radical critique and getting off our butts: to walk away from a failed experiment, on to a sustainable future that relies on community and nature's health.