I am not speaking about Don calling me a "reductionist": that I am used to.
We have disagreed about interpretations of systems and models since the
early days of PRNCYB, and I respect that difference of opinion. I just find
it ironic that I am being called a "reductionist" in the context of a
debate where I emphasize the importance of emerging intelligence, value
systems and social organization, while others reduce the whole problem to
matter and energy, that is to say, first year thermodynamics. As to Norman
calling me "closet nazi", I think it is wiser not to react to that. It just
confirms my suspicion that Norman is not really interested in informed
discussion, but just wishes to pigeonhole people and their positions in his
preconceived categories of "good" and "bad". As a "bad guy" I don't think I
could ever convince him of anything, so I will no longer try.
Let's move on to more interesting matters: Tom Abel's alternative vision of
Humanity 3000.
Tom:
>I, for one, found your answers to the Humanity 3000 questions to be
>astonishing. Ditto to the reactions that you posted from colleagues for =
>their
>general agreement with the tone and direction of your answers, despite so=
>me
>nitpicking.
>
>One way to characterize your answers would be as =93idealist=94, which is
>contrasted with =93materialist=94 social theory, as in the writings of
>anthropologist Marvin Harris. In essence, you appear to believe that ide=
>as
>direct sociocultural trajectories--material resources and political-econo=
>my be
>dammed.
In a way, I was also surprised that nobody made this criticism, as I had
kind of expected it. This means that I am ready to answer your criticism.
First, the statement asks for "critical factors", which I interpret as
factors that may make a fundamental difference for the future of humanity,
depending on how they evolve. Although physical constraints on the amount
of energy and resources are of course very important in determining what
will be possible and what won't, they are by definition fixed and therefore
will not make any difference. There is no way the total amount of coal or
oil on this planet can be changed: therefore it is not "critical" in the
above sense. It is as if you would claim that gravity is critical factor,
because we cannot do anything without it. But we know that gravity will
always be there, and therefore we can ignore it in devising alternative
scenarios for the future.
So what is critical in this respect?The way we *use* these given reserves
of resources. That use, in my view, depends on 3 critical factors: 1) the
efficiency with which we transform resources into products or work. This
depends mostly on science, technology, organization, knowledge, in short
what I have called "intelligence"; 2) our motivation or stated goals to
save/waste resources, that is, a consensual system of values; 3) a
political system which ensures that our agreed-upon goals of saving/wasting
resources will also be implemented on the ground, that is, that no
individuals or groups can selfishly deviate from the agreed-upon aims, e.g.
by burning up much more fossil fuels than their neigbors. These are exactly
the factors I mentioned in my Humanity 3000 statement, although, mostly
because of lack of space, I did not emphasize the resource issue.
Given the current trends in these critical factors, should we be
pessimistic about the future of resources? I believe not. Concerning factor
1), long term statistics clearly show that the efficiency with which we use
resources increases spectacularly. This is what Buckminster Fuller called
"ephemeralization": we are doing ever more with less less resources. The
real "thermodynamic" limits on the extraction of energy are still a very
long way: the theoretical maximum efficiency of energy extraction is still
orders of magnitude higher than the efficiency we have now.
I quote from my paper (with Jan Bernheim) on "Global Progress"
(http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/Progress.html), which discusses these
issues in more detail than I can do here, and which I would recommend to
all the pessimists in this discussion.
" Ephemeralization explains the stable or declining prices (corrected
for inflation) of physical resources and energy. The decline is
particularly evident if the value of a resource is expressed as a
percentage of the average income (Simon, 1995). The richer people become,
the less they need to spend on basic resources such as food, energy and
materials. This refutes the widely accepted pessimistic predictions
(Ehrlich, 1976) according to which our resources are near to exhaustion.
This was illustrated by a famous 1980 bet (Tierney, 1990) between the
economist Julian Simon, who wagered that the price of a $1000 worth of 5
natural resources would decrease, and the ecologist Paul Ehrlich who betted
that they would increase. In 1990, ten years later, all five resources
chosen by Ehrlich as being near to exhaustion, had effectively become
cheaper, providing Simon with a handsome 600$ gain.
No one can deny that resources such as oil, coal, copper or tin are
finite, but that does not mean that we will ever suffer from their
depletion. Because of technological progress, fueled by market demand,
resources are used ever more efficiently, so that ever smaller and more
difficult to reach reserves can be used ever more productively. If any
resource would come near to exhaustion, which is unlikely, given the
enormous reserves, it could still be either recuperated through recycling
(e.g. rare metals) or substituted by other resources (e.g. energy from oil
can be replaced by solar or nuclear energy, both of which are in practice
inexhaustible). "
Concerning factors 2) and 3), there the trends are unfortunately not as
forceful. Global discussions such as the Rio summit have until now produced
little consensus on objectives and even less on methods to monitor and
police their implementation. Regarding resources, this is presently the
most critical factor, although with the growing ecological consciousness
worldwide, I remain optimistic that such a consensus will be found,
although we may need some minor ecological catastrophes to kickstart the
process.
>The current trajectory is slowed growth, heading toward contraction. Oh,=
> not
>as quickly in the west, which has self-organized an
>economic-military-legal-financial system which extracts energetically
>productive resources from the rest of the world. But just look at the re=
>st of
>the world. The Asian contagion, the latest collapse in Brazil, the colla=
>pse of
>the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, civil and ethnic wars abound.
I believe these throubles have nothing to do with lack of resources, but
with lack of (collective) intelligence, adapted value systems (e.g. a value
system that says that non-Serbs are inferior, or that you should just try
to make as much money in as short a time as possible without thinking about
long-term investment, are obviously unsustainable) and political
organization. That is why the Western nations, where the latter factors
have had more time to develop, are much less sensitive to such crises, not
because they have more resources. This does not mean that the Western
nations don't have a lot to learn themselves, as they obviously do.
>1) What is the role of =93neo-liberal=94 free-market economics in capturi=
>ng the
>last remaining stores of world timber, metals, and fossil fuels for the
>maintenance of the current life-styles of core economies, and to the detr=
>iment
>of world peripheries?
Interesting question. I believe that there must be curbs on free-markets if
we wish to use resources more efficiently on a global scale, although on a
local scale, the market can be very efficient.
>2) Is there any chance that world-wide communications/computer networks t=
>hat
>depend upon a high-technology, high-energy infrastructure and regional
>political stability will survive for long in a contracting world economy?=
First, I don't believe the world economy will contract, for the reasons
mentioned above. Second, even if it did, a global computer network is one
of the easiest and most useful things to maintain, as it uses practically
no energy or materials, but very much facilitates communication,
collaboration, etc. Just compare taking a car or plane to go and meet a
business partner, or communicating with him/her via the net. If you want to
save energy, you would obviously prefer the latter. The Internet by its
very design is also very robust and can survive most of it network nodes
going down at any moment.
________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Francis Heylighen, Systems Researcher fheyligh@vub.ac.be
CLEA, Free University of Brussels, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
Tel +32-2-6442677; Fax +32-2-6440744; http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html