Can Technology Save the Planet?

[Linnea]

Can Technology Save the Planet?

Sierra/ July 2005

Our opposable thumbs got us into this mess, and they can help get us out, says futurist and science fiction writer Bruce Sterling.

Massive technological change is coming. Are we ready? Given the pace of technological innovation we have experienced in the past 50 years, by mid-century we will have an infrastructure as radically different from today's as industry in 1900 was from that of 1700.

If we handle the huge transition correctly, it will be worth cheering. In 50 years, nature will be less oppressed, culture will be wiser, government will take new and improved forms, industrial systems will be more efficient and capable, and business will be less like a rigged casino. Purveyors of art, fashion, and design will see what went on nowadays and bust a gut laughing in derision. Our children and grandchildren will get up in the morning, look at the news, and instead of flinching in terror, they will see the edifying spectacle of the world's brightest people transparently solving the world's worst problems. This sounds utopian, but it could soon be everyday life.

To achieve this victory, we need to understand technology with a depth of maturity that humans have never shown before. We tend to obsess over newfangled discoveries: the radio age, the space age, the atomic age, the computer age. We need to stop fussing over these tiny decades-long "ages" and think historically and comprehensively, employing technology as a means to preserve the web of life rather than for its own sake. The Iroquois considered the impacts of their decisions on seven generations, and so can we.

Thanks to information technology, we can already track what previous generations have sown. According to the United Nations' Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a four-year research effort by more than 1,300 scientists, nearly two-thirds of the world's ecosystems are being degraded because the human race is living beyond its means. Without substantial changes in policies and practices, they contend, Earth faces an environmental disaster that will threaten all people in the 21st century. Understand this timeline, and there are only three basic kinds of technology that are truly worth our attention. None of them is entirely possible now. It is our task to invent them.

Fascinating and hopeful article:
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200507/technology.asp

[Dale O Sea]

Good article Linnea. Thanks for sharing.

I don't think we will be able to "imagine the unimaginable to avoid having to live with the unthinkable." as the author suggests is necessary, without some kind of unimaginable kick in the ass to get us going tho. The shock of that realization, if our tiny, resistant-to-change minds can even go there, would be like adding ice cubes to the proverbial frog's simmering pot..

[Linnea]

Agree, Dale. We are bubbling away in the pot. However - look at how much has already been achieved. We are on a race for survival - no doubt. Power and Greed seem to trump our best efforts at every turn, but there is tremendous hope!

[Lord Moon]

I'm much more pessimistic than you are... we cannot control the technoligy we have already...

It seems that most of this technology has been perverted in the search of power and world domination....the more technology advances the more risk we face from ourselves.......

until we recognize that we are the problem, our economic system, our political system...and the way we raise people who are psychically crippled by the time they reach adult hood then eventually we will be doomed....

Yes we are on the cusp of fantasic technological change, but we're still cavemen at heart....if nuclear war heads would have been available in the civil war I believe that General Lee, and General Grant would have used them for any number of reasons....

unfortunately it's pretty clear that the majority of humanity is simply insane...and believe themselves to be quite rational....yet we've used our technological advances to create thousands of nuclear warheads with which to incenerate children, biological weapons that would eradicate mankind... and enough sane sounding lies to make it all seem quite reasonable.....

I am actually more afraid of the scientists than the polichickens....for after all the scientists have given over the responsibility for their creations to people who they know to be sociopaths.....

I just don't think that Homo Sapiens will ever have the stability to create a truly great civilization, like the Krell, we're too violent and have a penchant to walk off cliffs following unreasonble political delusions...and feeling ok about it as long as were accompanied by large groups of people who believe in the same delusions we do...

[Linnea]

I understand your pessimism, Lord Moon - but consider this. Of what possible constructive or creative use does it have?

Because we are lonely, shall we not seek company? Because we are hungry, shall we not eat? Because it is growing dark, shall we not light fires?

Shall we continue to cower in fear and accede the light to the darkness?

Courage, my friend!

[Lord Moon]

or creative use...but then I'm not into functionalism....

it just means that I'm always P.O'd about all the crazy people there are...

[palosheights]

i'm with lord moons' sentiments.

99.9 pct of all people are nice, caring, normal people and that includes drug addicts but give money or power to a person and they then think/know what is good for the other 99.9 pct

just know more nanny laws, let people live their lives they way they wish.

andy

[Linnea]

Yah, me too. If we had no optimism at all, I guess we wouldn't even post our thoughts. It is constructive to be angry, and to continue to share information. We can still envision alternatives.