No offense, but I understand that this is just too vague to keep my interest. Let's try again in another thread, and thanks for the chat. — Jake

None taken. This is a political philosophy forum, and I'm seeking to do political philosophy - not chemistry and technical drawing. I can't give you any better answers than I have in that regard, but I can explain why science is the right answer - and how accepting that a scientific understanding of reality has the authority of truth, provides a political rationale for the application of technology on merit.

Your position, that technology itself is inherently problematic, is a position I've encountered, but haven't argued against before. It's sneaky nihilism - and I only ever found one cure for nihilism. Reject it, because... why not? It's not as if nihilism supports any value that requires one accept nihilism - so just walk away. Dare to hope.

I'm sorry BitterCrank, if you're getting the feeling I'm avoiding your posts. I'm not - at least not deliberately.

Here is your problem:

You are assuming that "the truth" is crisply, concisely, and clearly stated in clean Helvetica text and that the upshot of seeing the truth is equally obvious. That's not the way truth usually appears. More likely than not it will be laboriously spelled out in obscure language and printed in some barely readable obscure font (figuratively speaking, you understand). Then one has to figure out how to implement the truth that one has understood (correctly or not). — Bitter Crank

Interesting question. 1633 - Galileo has just published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems - proving, by a ''hypothetico-deductive methodology" that the earth orbits the sun and not the other way around. He was arrested, tried, and found grievously suspect of heresy - and it's suggested, by the care taken in subsequent works by other philosophers - Descartes, Rousseau - that this had a chilling effect on purely rational inquiry.

In due course, the sum effect was to divorce science as a burgeoning understanding of reality, from science as a means to technological power. However...

The interesting question is whether this was done knowingly, or did they truly not see or understand that Galileo's hypothetico-deductive method was the means to valid knowledge of a reality, they believed was Created by God. I like to believe they were as blind then as we are now, to the significance of valid knowledge of reality - that it was a mistake, and that they were concerned principally with the offense against the prevailing authoritative religious rationale, and did not even glimpse the value of an ability to establish valid knowledge.

In regard to your question, the point is - that it's the method that should have stood out as something cosmically significant, not any particular factoid about who orbits whom.

Even now, a coherent scientific understanding of reality has only really come together in the past fifty years, since the advent of computer technology - allowing for number crunching and the communication of large amounts of data. But there was ample opportunity before then, to recognize the magic in the method - and infer the profound importance of the truth of Creation systematically revealed by these means.

The value of electricity makes almost any location cost effective. Put a solar farm on that corn field. The electricity will be worth far more than the corn. A wind turbine doesn't take up much space on the ground, maybe 400 square feet. There is nothing you can grow on 400 sq. ft. worth as much as the electricity produced from that one turbine-bearing mast. — Bitter Crank

I'm not an electrical engineer - I'm a philosopher. I've pointed out two dozen times that I'm only seeking to prove in principle that it's technologically possible. It's not fair to expect schematics and a business plan. I'm one man trying to correct a 400 year old philosophical error in the political history of my species, as a means of absolving science of the heresy of which it was accused, that in turn made it a whore to capitalism and a lobbyist on the steps of Congress - when it rightfully owns the highest authority, and should command at least some share of the enormous wealth and resources it has made available.

but I can explain why science is the right answer - and how accepting that a scientific understanding of reality has the authority of truth, provides a political rationale for the application of technology on merit. — karl stone

Ok, I get that this is your position. I'm just suggesting that this assertion may need some further clarification. So far, it's just an assertion. As example, a theist might claim "the Bible is the word of God", much as you are claiming "a scientific understanding of reality has the authority of truth". You are "seeking to do political philosophy". Making assertions, on their own, is not really philosophy.

Your position, that technology itself is inherently problematic, is a position I've encountered, but haven't argued against before. — karl stone

You're helping me better summarize my position concisely. Which is good, because I usually bury it in a mountain of words.

=============

SUMMARY: My position is that

1) the abilities of human beings are limited....

EVIDENCE: Thousands of hair trigger nukes aimed down our own throats, a literal gun in our mouth, which we rarely find interesting enough to discuss.

2)... thus, the powers available to human beings must also be limited.

EXAMPLE: We limit the powers available to children based on the realistic understanding that their ability to manage power is limited.

=============

My position isn't nihilism. As the children example illustrates, it's just common sense.

My primary objection to your thesis is that it appears to be a form of science worship, which I judge to be just as problematic as clergy worship. Both science and religion have their valid uses, but I'm wary of all attempts to paint either as a "one true way".

I believe I can prove you wrong, but it's a lengthy argument. I can show you the causal relationship between the evolving organism and reality, that proves the necessity and rightfulness of science as truth. If you're prepared to attend to the argument, I'm prepared to sit down and write it - but have found generally, that lengthy disquisitions are often ignored.

Begin with a newly formed, sterile earth - still hot and steaming. Merely physical forces acting on chemical elements... forming compounds, we now know, as a consequence of the valencies of the chemicals, and the structure of the compound, can replicate. DNA is a twisted ladder like structure, that unzips down the middle - and each half, as a consequence of valency - that is, the tendency of particular chemicals to bond with other, particular chemicals - then attracts those chemicals from the environment and replicates the unzipped, missing half of the structure.

Life! Of sorts. But life in the sense that, from this point an important principle kicks in - and that is, the organism (or structure of molecules) has to be correct to reality to survive.

We will now jump forward in time, skipping over the cause and effect of the processes by which proteins are formed, and cells are formed, and the incorporation of mitochondria - and so on and on, it's horrendously complex, to how this principle plays out in life as animals. Note however, that development from a mere structure of molecules to animals, took about 3 billion years, was achieved by incremental, generation after generation, causal steps, that entirely transformed the chemical composition of the atmosphere of the planet more than once. The process didn't skip ahead.

By these means we get to animals. Now consider, for instance, how a bird build's a nest before it lays eggs. Is that because it knows and plans ahead? That seems unlikely. Rather, it's because birds not imbued with an instinctual behavioural imperative to build a nest were rendered extinct. Behaviourally, the bird is correct to the chronological direction of events playing out in an entropic reality - and this in turn, is manifest in the correctness of its physiology to reality - built from the atom up in relation to the same principle. Be correct to reality or be rendered extinct.

Now let's skip ahead again to consider homo sapiens - the only intellectually aware animal we're aware of. Do you see where I'm going with this?

Hydrogen is simply not a good energy carrier for a few reasons. First, it's not a liquid or solid at ambient temperature, which is a big inconvenience. Second, hydrogen is so small it diffuses through most metals causing micro-fractures leading to failure; solving these problems to power a rocket or in industrial processes can be solved ... but scaling to a transport infrastructure this problem is essentially unsolvable. Third liquid hydrogen boils off and easily slips through the tiniest cracks between parts making it extremely difficult to make a hermetic sealed hydrogen system at a lab level and simply impossible at an infrastructure scale. Hydrogen floats to the top of the atmosphere where it acts as a potent green house gas. — boethius

:up: Interesting. Thank you for the hydrogen fuel explanation. As you know... as far as vehicles go, the century old Diesel engine can be made to run on vegetable oil, only needing additives to prevent viscosity in cold weather. And newer engines which can run on several different fuels, including ethanol, are an encouraging presence. The fact that this doesn’t seem to be a national priority is certainly NOT encouraging. Oil companies, auto manufacturers... blah blah blah. It makes me think of the recent situation with stevia being labeled as dangerous by soft drink manufacturers. That is, until they were ready to offer some stevia products of their own. I understand industries want to succeed, but when they sabotage progress the results are predictable.

Other technologies that are more energy efficient are happening of course. The recent explosion is the availability of cheap LED light bulbs for personal and commercial use is amazing. Less energy used, longer life of bulb. I just bought a four-pack of study plastic, very bright bulbs at MallMart for about $3.
Nice to see a potential beginning of the end of planned obsolescence.

The amounts of energy consumed by the typical western lifestyle (and that must continuously grow in energy and resource consumption!) is just so enormous that it's simply impractical to live the western lifestyle if convenient energy and minerals are not simply lying in the ground to be dug or pumped out. But if you get rid of waste you get rid or (most) mining, (most) personal large vehicle transport, (most) road construction and maintenance, (most) meat consumption, (most) of suburbia, (most) of the airplane transport and (most) industrial mono-culture farming as (most) people just have a garden and community farm they participate in on the same land area they are currently wasting on lawns and roads (solving many problems). Sure, some of all these things can make sense when needed, but if you look at the numbers there's simply no economic reason to make solar power to make jet fuel to fly people to New Zealand to visit the sets of the Lord of the Rings; so, if you mandated a renewable jet-fuel (through a fossil tax internalizing the true cost of fossil jet fuel into it's price) ... only actually useful flying would tend get done, which if you think about is a very small amount. Likewise, you could mandate less meat consumption overnight (i.e. again, internalizing the real cost into the price people pay for meat) and so people could still eat meat ... they'd just eat a lot less. And so on for every climate or otherwise environmental problem. Nearly every problem can be solved essentially overnight by internalizing it's real cost, people would consume it less or organize their lives to do things for themselves as it just saves too much money not to do it (like a personal garden). Of course, what the true cost is can be debated, but assuming we get it right, then by definition the problem is solved through internalizing the true cost.

What happens the next day? All these industries contract, the capitalist system is thrown into chaos, people's identifies as car riding, suburban house owning, rapacious meat eaters with a job in one of these industries that fly across the globe for a few selfies ... gone. This is the core of the ecological problem and why no politician has done anything about it. Huge push back from existing entrenched industries on one side and on the other identity crisis for a large part of their constituents.

Why (should have) a politician do something given the social upheaval it implies? Because the problems don't go away, and a bunch of social upheaval is far better to live through than the collapse of ecosystems and prolonged global conflicts it will induce (is inducing) and both these factors simply getting continuously worse and worse over time (not some switch that we then adapt to).

The light at the end of the mine shaft is that the system isn't sustainable and so will end. — boethius

:up: Agree 100%. Intelligently and clearly written. Thank you!

The issue of “true cost” is vital. If people wet their pants when someone suggests regulations for corporations because “the economy is too big and fragile to let fail!”, then we will continue to be stuck in this loop. No, excuse me. Not “loop”... downward spiral rather.

Take a larger view. in the years of WWII 1939-1945, horses were indispensable. Why? For one, they don't use oil. For two, they are strong. For three, they can be used flexibly. Four, Germany and the USSR still used horses for various purposes in 1938, and horses were part of military planning.

Spot the horse!
Spot the tanks! — Bitter Crank

:up: Thanks for adding some interesting historical context and insights to this thread, imho. Spot on as usual. Great photos too!

Perhaps the problem is that people simply dismiss the most obvious sources how changes happen: through the market mechanism and through technical development. If we can produce energy far cheaper than we get from fossil fuels, we simply won't use those fuels as we earlier did. It surely isn't a political correct idea, relying on the market, but we should think about it.

Let me give a historical example: whale oil.

Early industrial societies used whale oil for oil lamps, lubrication, soap, margarine etc. During the 19th Century this lead nearly to the extinction of whales in the seas and fewer whales meant that the rise the price of whale oil went up. By technological advances the role of whale oil was taken over by the modern petroleum industry and also vegetable oils, which could provide far more oil with a far cheaper price than the whaling industry could. Kerosene and petroleum were far more reliable and became more popular than whale oil and basically could provide energy to the combustion engine revolution, which never could be supplied by whaling. And the whales? Their numbers actually bounced back by an unintensional act of environmental protection by the World's most famous vegetarian: Adolf Hitler. By starting WW2 and by unleashing the German Kriegsmarien in an all-out war on the Atlantic, Hitler (and the Japanese) unintensionally saved the whales as this stopped whaling for a few years and gave the whales a well needed chance rebound in numbers even before banning of whaling was introduced. That a lot of countries have banned whaling simply shows the marginal importance of whale oil and whale meat in these countries.

Hence when we try to make up legislation and create complex mechanisms which the industry and the consumer has to adapt to, perhaps we should first look at how we can steer market forces in the right direction that they themselves can make the change. And this steering can be done by technical innovation. Oil companies do understand that they are in the energy business and if fossil fuels cannot compete with other energy sources, that's it. Then there simply is no future for them in the oil and coal business. If they don't make the change, they'll go the path as Kodak. Hence oil companies can even themselves make the hop to alternative energies. They have already changed from the conventional oil fields for example to shale oil, which basically is a totally different operation. Let's not forget that Peak Conventional Oil has already happened.

Above all, once there are far cheaper energy sources than fossil fuels and the recycling of plastics is done on a massive scale, then indeed can the last remnants of fossil fuel reserves be left underground. Then the eco-friendly policy is quite easy to adapt. — ssu

Good stuff. Thanks for sharing it. Hopefully, it won’t take complete disaster to rouse us from our slumber. Disasters have a strange effect of making us act like humans. But what will open our minds, thaw our heart, and energize our bodies?

Mass mobilization, causally speaking, requires a conjunction of opportunities which I feel is not within the reach of many of us. Add to that the fact that most people with the right number of audience aren't bothered by environmental issues. I'm talking about celebrities.

So, it seems to me, those of us who are concerned about the world are left with no choice but to do our stuff at a much lower social stratum e.g. we can raise te awareness of our family or friends or community. We then hope that our efforts spread out from their. — TheMadFool

:up: Yes, agree. There can be no change in outcome until there is change in action. There will not be a change in actions until there is a change in thinking.

What happens the next day? All these industries contract, the capitalist system is thrown into chaos, people's identifies as car riding, suburban house owning, rapacious meat eaters with a job in one of these industries that fly across the globe for a few selfies ... gone. This is the core of the ecological problem and why no politician has done anything about it. Huge push back from existing entrenched industries on one side and on the other identity crisis for a large part of their constituents. — boethius

I disagree. I wouldn't suggest internalizing the true cost. But if you did, the very value of money itself would adjust - just as it adapted to oil price shocks in the past. Rather I'd suggest, seeking to limit the implications to a narrowly focused, feasible and necessary endeavor - like funding renewable energy infrastructure.

Ahhh, the Malthusians - they are persistently gloomy. Thomas Robert Malthus FRS was an English cleric and scholar, influential in the fields of political economy and demography. He's famous for pointing out the discrepency between the geometric rate of population growth 2,4,8,16 etc, against the arithmetic rate 1, 2, 3, 4, etc, at which agricultural land could be increased. He predicted this would inevitably lead to mass starvation. He was wrong. Clearly, people are problem solvers. They multiply resources with knowledge and technological innovation. I don't need to read Knustler's book to know he's wrong. I can see the arithmetic of his argument a mile away - and while seemingly logical, it just doesn't model reality. — karl stone

Thanks for starting this interesting thread with your original post. You do make some good points on what is both an important yet often overlooked topic.

But imho, dismissing a book by its cover like you practically did with Kunstler’s book is sawing off the branch you’re sitting on because you happen to be in a tidying mood. In general, thoughts that are overly dismissive can and probably will be dismissed. But whatever! Carry onward. :blush:

Thanks for starting this interesting thread with your original post. You do make some good points on what is both an important yet often overlooked topic.

But imho, dismissing a book by its cover like you practically did with Kunstler’s book is sawing off the branch you’re sitting on because you happen to be in a tidying mood. In general, thoughts that are overly dismissive can and probably will be dismissed. But whatever! Carry onward. — 0 thru 9

My manners are appalling, and I'd apologize, but I have something to say that's difficult for people to hear. I can't apologize for the tactics employed to put that idea across, but at the same time it's absolutely not my intent or desire to hurt anybody. I'm sure it's a wonderful book! With a dreadful conclusion!!

Dare to hope. — karl stone

A good 'mission statement', provided we are not relying only on hope. :chin: If we hope, but carry on as we have been, well, nothing will change, and hope will achieve nothing? By all means hope, but let's hope that the constructive efforts we make will result in worthwhile change? :wink:

[Kunstler] predicted this would inevitably lead to mass starvation. He was wrong. — karl stone

He was? There have been many mass starvation events in my lifetime, although none of them took place in my own country. <relief> Scarcity of food and water are causing more problems all the time.... :chin:

It would be helpful if you made yourself aware of the argument set out in the thread. It's arguably quite an important argument, and you're doodling on it.

My manners are appalling, and I'd apologize, but I have something to say that's difficult for people to hear. I can't apologize for the tactics employed to put that idea across, but at the same time it's absolutely not my intent or desire to hurt anybody. I'm sure it's a wonderful book! With a dreadful conclusion!! — karl stone

“You are passionate Herr Mozart, but... you do not... persuade.” :wink:

(Just a joke). Seriously though, no problem. I just think you might actually appreciate Kunstler’s writing. I haven’t read the book @Bitter Crank was referring to, but i was impressed and inspired by an earlier book of his, The Geography of Nowhere.

It's a very important argument, but it's a very difficult one to address. You choose to see it as humans continuing to dominate and use our ecosystem exclusively for our own purposes, merely trying to do so with greater efficiency. I see this approach as incomplete, at best. I'm not doodling, I'm frightened. I will be OK (I'm 63 years old), but I suspect my grand-daughter will experience hardship, maybe much worse, in her lifetime.

This is a problem we've been aware of for many years. We just can't help ourselves. We can't stop just taking more and more and more.... There's a brick wall ahead, and we should be braking. But we're still accelerating. In some instances, our acceleration is still increasing! Doodling? I hope not. Terrified? Yes, frankly. :fear:

This is a problem we've been aware of for many years. We just can't help ourselves. We can't stop just taking more and more and more.... There's a brick wall ahead, and we should be braking. But we're still accelerating. In some instances, our acceleration is still increasing! Doodling? I hope not. Terrified? Yes, frankly. :fear: — Pattern-chaser

:up: Amen! Agreed. And well-said.

Homework? At my age? I've hardly the eyes for it anymore, and keep forgetting where I left my damn spectacles! I keep adding things to my reading list knowing both that I'd enjoy and benefit from reading them, and knowing I never will. I've read widely and quantitatively enough to make arguments I'm certain could be improved by further reading, but it strikes me that however much I do read there will be libraries full of books I haven't read if I live to a hundred years old and do nothing else besides. If you've read these books, please - it would be a very great help to me if you wrote a short, concise precis of the central arguments. Much more of a help than demanding if I've read X, Y, Z - and chortling into your brandy when I must admit I haven't.

Disagree. Braking is a terrible idea. Slow down? Have less? I think NOT!

- it would be a very great help to me if you wrote a short, concise precis of the central arguments. — karl stone

That is exactly what @Bitter Crank did, if you recall.

Disagree. Braking is a terrible idea. Slow down, have less? I think NOT! — karl stone

Huh? Now who is “doodling” on the thread? Care for some brandy? :snicker:

Actually, I'm trying to watch Poirot! I can leave that there as the bookmark of an idea I might elaborate on when I'm less at leisure and more focused. Aunt Emily seems to be going out of her way to establish an alibi.

Braking is a terrible idea. Slow down, have less? I think NOT! — karl stone

Then it is difficult to see how you can achieve the apparent aims of this thread.... :chin:

Braking is a terrible idea. Slow down, have less? I think NOT!
— karl stone

Then it is difficult to see how you can achieve the apparent aims of this thread.... — Pattern-chaser

Stated aims, I think you'd find if you read it. As are the means, and justifying logics stated. Where have I not been 100% apparent?

Stated aims... — karl stone

Then it is difficult to see how you can achieve the stated aims of this thread.... :chin:

I'm not an electrical engineer - I'm a philosopher. I've pointed out two dozen times that I'm only seeking to prove in principle that it's technologically possible. It's not fair to expect schematics and a business plan. I'm one man trying to correct a 400 year old philosophical error in the political history of my species, as a means of absolving science of the heresy of which it was accused, that in turn made it a whore to capitalism and a lobbyist on the steps of Congress - when it rightfully owns the highest authority, and should command at least some share of the enormous wealth and resources it has made available. — karl stone

Hey, I'm not an electrical engineer either -- nor do I know anything about finance. (I was an English major.) I think you've brought in quite a few technically possible schemes. Making hydrogen with solar power plants floating on the ocean is technically possible. But I don't think that connects with your mission of absolving science of heresy. If capitalism makes a whore of science, that's not the fault of science; capitalism prostitutes everything.

Granting science the highest authority is debatable because science doesn't produce truth about everything. It has the capacity to give us a truthful report on the physical, natural world. That's no small thing. It is gradually revealing how our brains work--that is most excellent. I trust science.

What science is not equipped to do is tell us what we should do. Science could help launch the industrial revolution by revealing how things work. It could not inform the first industrialists whether they should build steam engines, power looms, and railroads. Science revealed the nature of electricity; it could not reveal whether the telegraph, telephone, and light bulb were good ideas.

What we should do is the province of philosophers.

I don't think science is much encumbered by charges of heresy. What encumbers us all is the grip of capitalist economics and ideology on most of the world. The operation of capitalism is observable and predictable; that's what Karl Marx did. Capitalism is apparently blind to the consequences of its own operation (or at least has major vision problems). Capitalists who are willing to prostitute science probably aren't willing to consult science for advice.

Therein lies a major part of our present problem.

We just can't help ourselves. — Pattern-chaser

In so many ways this is true. It's true because we are, after all, only very bright primates. We have drives which push our behavior in ways that our higher thought capacities can see are ill advised, but the drives remain in place -- they are deeply woven into our beings. Our drives were tolerable when there were fewer of us -- maybe 7 billion fewer. When we were a few hunter gatherers we could not get into too much trouble.

Then we settled down; we developed agriculture, built cities, organized governments, harnessed the energies of slaves and beasts to produce large surpluses of wealth (which accumulated in few hands), and began our more recent history. Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States by James C. Scott takes the view that a human urge to control led to the early states, and their exploitation of the people under their control. Scott has a deep libertarian streak, I suspect. I haven't finished the book, but I think he is going to name the State the Serpent in the Garden of Eden.

I'm not at all convinced, but there is certainly unhappy business at the very beginning of our more recent (last 10,000 years) history.

But I don't think that connects with your mission of absolving science of heresy. If capitalism makes a whore of science, that's not the fault of science; capitalism prostitutes everything. — Bitter Crank

It's difficult to get all the pieces to relate correctly one to another. Thanks for making the effort. But consider the opportunity foregone by the Church, in the stance they adopted on behalf of European thought - bearing in mind they were burning people alive as witches right through to 1792. Had the Church recognized the significance of science from 1630, and pursued it as effectively the word of God the Creator - science would own authority, and be pursued much more rapidly and systematically than it was.

Granting science the highest authority is debatable because science doesn't produce truth about everything. It has the capacity to give us a truthful report on the physical, natural world. That's no small thing. It is gradually revealing how our brains work--that is most excellent. I trust science. — Bitter Crank

I do not suggest seeking to recreate the consequences of that foregone opportunity overnight - we are who we are, and have to get there from here. Rather, I think we can recognize that a mistake was made, and make use of that realization, insofar as it's useful to us.

What science is not equipped to do is tell us what we should do. Science could help launch the industrial revolution by revealing how things work. It could not inform the first industrialists whether they should build steam engines, power looms, and railroads. Science revealed the nature of electricity; it could not reveal whether the telegraph, telephone, and light bulb were good ideas. — Bitter Crank

I do not accept human beings need telling what they should do. They need telling what's true. But the right and wrong thing is very deeply ingrained. It's a sense, like a sense of humour, or the appreciation of art. The aesthetic sense. I haven't trotted out the ought from is adjustment for a while now. Would you like to go through it?

I don't think science is much encumbered by charges of heresy. What encumbers us all is the grip of capitalist economics and ideology on most of the world. The operation of capitalism is observable and predictable; that's what Karl Marx did. Capitalism is apparently blind to the consequences of its own operation (or at least has major vision problems). Capitalists who are willing to prostitute science probably aren't willing to consult science for advice. Therein lies a major part of our present problem. — Bitter Crank

Marx saved capitalism. And thank goodness because it's close to a miracle. When you think about the billions of people pursuing their rational self interest, and how that all magically conspires to produce and distribute the goods and services people want and need; when you think about the political freedom it affords, and the tolerable injustice of it - to say nothing of the actually quite extraordinary promotion of human welfare worldwide, achieved by capitalism, clearly it must be a major part of any solution.

The reason capitalism is so often cast of the villain of the piece is that it provides one of our main motivations. But what we do is actually decided by a political and legal ideological architecture - in which the authority science rightfully owns goes unrecognized.

Had the Church recognized the significance of science from 1630, and pursued it as effectively the word of God the Creator - science would own authority, and be pursued much more rapidly and systematically than it was. — karl stone

Had that happened, that process would have given us more power sooner. How does this solve the problem that adult human beings, like their children, are imperfect creatures who can successfully manage only so much power? Or are you arguing that human beings can successfully manage ANY amount of power?