...but I think – and this is where the real crux of the matter lies for me – that this approach would send the wrong signals... If cheap and ‘clean’ energy were available to us, the salvation of the global economy would once again be sought solely in growth. And that, in my view, is completely wrong. After all, we in the ‘First World’ have long since reached the limits of growth. Basically, everyone is already provided with the things that make life easier – nobody needs more than three fridges, five TVs or x cameras ;-) And what does a growth-oriented industrial society do then? It has to sell ever more frivolous products in ever shorter cycles... The result: we are wasting our resources at an ever-increasing rate on ever more trivial things... Alternatively, we could motorise a billion Indians and two million Chinese – with all the risks and side effects such as energy shortages and climate change... When I look at developments over the last few years, I unfortunately find more and more products which, on the one hand, nobody actually needs, but which, on the other hand, neither use our resources carefully nor are necessarily positive for most economies... This ‘growth at any price’ is not exactly new. To me, Kodak is a prime example of this. What would the ‘photography scene’ look like today if, for example, Kodak hadn’t repeatedly ‘blessed’ the photography world with new formats and technologies without any pressing need, which nobody actually needed... None of these “test-tube formats” survived – neither Instamatik films, pocket films nor disc films caught on. Instead, in the wake of these “innovations”, renowned companies went bust or promising projects were “cancelled” because of them... And all this because Kodak was desperate to grow...
Wolf,
You’re shifting the level of the discussion here – quite skilfully, by the way. That’s allowed. But let’s keep things separate for now.
We have discussion A: the topic of “energy”. It starts with the fact that many people in the discussion don’t know, haven’t understood, or don’t want to understand what energy actually is. Energy is, to put it simply, “nature’s money” (albeit in an ideal financial system). Energy neither increases nor decreases; energy is neither dirty nor clean; energy can only be “generated” where it is lost elsewhere. Like the lottery, so to speak. We would be here (“would be”, if expertise rather than political prejudices and vote-winning “were” the determining factors; but we “are” in the realm of dumbing down the public) on, believe it or not, relatively safe ground, and this can be discussed quite well, as long as the frothing-at-the-mouth faction doesn’t feel the need to have their say.
But your topic has now also, and above all, become Topic B: the Indians, the Chinese, global production, growth and ‘the energy shortage’. ‘A political song, a nasty song’, to quote, for once, Goethe, whom I hold in little regard. You won’t stop the x-trillion Chinese from buying a moped, and once they have a moped, a car with a four-cylinder engine, and once they have that, one with an eight-cylinder engine. As for Kodak: they wanted ‘unique selling points’. So every ten years or so, they simply created the most idiotic system possible. I completely agree with you on that.
But in my view, one shouldn’t draw hasty political conclusions based on what is desirable for the world and humanity, along the lines of “nuclear power is evil”. None other than Karl Friedrich von Weizsäcker noted around 1978 that the greatest potential for catastrophe for humanity lay in the burning of fossil fuels, and argued at the time (against the tide) that nuclear power would be a sensible interim solution for the next two to three hundred years. But that takes us back to square one, and nobody seems willing to argue on a technical level. Instead, ideologies are springing up from all corners, and ludicrous action plans are spinning their wheels in every possible direction, as if the insights of cybernetics had never existed. We now even know how overwhelmed (the standard state) politicians and other people react when faced with a situation that is clearly controllable via cybernetics: they turn the wheel hard. And that is always the direct route to disaster.
Best regards
Hans
