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| Goya's Saturn [Cronus] Devouring His Son |
If we have one predominant faith in the United States, it is
the faith in progress. Like religion or
custom, faith in progress sinks into the background. It is something that
profoundly shapes our reality but is not openly talked about. You can hear it in news show segments on
technology or in concentrated form on NPR’s All Tech Considered –
reporters waxing orgasmic over the latest gadgets or trends (most of which are
nascent – gadgets or trends – and require the development of some vast,
new energy source to even begin to be implemented.)
Have you heard of the fourth
industrial revolution (FIR)? Me
neither until a recent
show informed me on this concept. From
the horse’s mouth in concentrated form:
The
First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production.
The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used
electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth
Industrial Revolution is building on the Third, the digital revolution that has
been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterized by a
fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital,
and biological spheres. [. . . ]
Like
the revolutions that preceded it, the Fourth Industrial Revolution has the potential
to raise global income levels and improve the quality of life for populations
around the world. [. . . ]
In
the future, technological innovation will also lead to a supply-side miracle,
with long-term gains in efficiency and productivity. Transportation and
communication costs will drop, logistics and global supply chains will become
more effective, and the cost of trade will diminish, all of which will open new
markets and drive economic growth.
Okay – wow - wouldn’t want to be left out of that. What a great distillation of the myth of
progress – always going up, moving forward.
We just need rational implementation to realize the “potential” of
everyone – around the
world – benefiting.
What kind of rational implementation, you might ask.
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| Gaius |
We
don’t want to put our modern consumer lifestyle at risk. We don’t want to have
energy rationing in order to save the species.
And I would say that if we don’t have energy rationing and make the
change to renewables with World War II force and World War II mobilization and
speed then what we are doing is cannibalizing the lifestyle of our
grandchildren to keep our Wal-Mart goods and our TV electricity flowing . . .
The problem is: are people willing to throw enough money at [solutions] and are
people willing to take the kind of sacrifices it takes to mass convert, because
at the end of that mass conversion you get your TV non-rationed energy world
back, you just have to sacrifice for a little bit to get it. In ten years we can mitigate that climate
crisis a lot. That’s different than
adapting to it.
So, interestingly, the concept of hardship is
introduced. Lack. Want. For a bit. Above I wrote that 1) we
must save the planet. So 2) is that we
go on with the future that I guess the Fourth Industrial Revolution will allow
for . . .
The FIR vision is all optimism. Gaius’ view shows a punctuated optimism,
where the earth must first be saved (perhaps even using some of that FIR
sweetness). So what about none of that
happening? Satyajit Das brings us to
rock bottom. He looks at a world where
stagnation reigns, where past and present generations have saddled future
generations with insurmountable debt, where the can kicked down the road meets
a roadblock or cliff. He writes:
The
2008 global financial crisis was a warning of the unstable nature of these
arrangements. But there has been no meaningful change. Since 2007, global debt
has grown by US$57 trillion, or 17 per cent of the world's gross domestic
product. In many countries, debt has reached unsustainable levels, and it is
unclear how or when it is to be reduced without defaults that would wipe out
large amounts of savings.
Economic
problems are now compounded by lower population growth and ageing populations;
slower increases in productivity and innovation; looming shortages of critical
resources, such as water, food and energy; and man-made climate change and
extreme weather conditions. Slower growth in international trade and capital
flows is another retardant. Emerging markets, such as China, that have
benefited from and recently supported growth are slowing. Rising inequality
affects economic activity.
For
most people, the effect of these problems is unemployment, reduced job
security, the deskilling of many professions and stagnant incomes. Home
ownership is increasingly out of reach for many. Retirement may become a luxury
for all but a few, reflecting increasing difficulty in building sufficient
savings. In effect, living standards will decline. Future generations will bear
the bulk of the cost as they are left to tackle the unresolved problems of
their forebears.
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| Satyajit Das |
Is it fair to bring up economics? It’s all connected. Das brings up the idea of the Titan Cronus eating his
children – we in effect are consuming our children’s future, taking up too many
resources and wrecking the earth. Revolt
children! Das says:
The real
reason this is not happening is that this is like boiling a frog, it is very
slow. It is not palpably obvious. And we live in a society where there is a lot
of propaganda, where we’ve basically anaesthetized people’s ability to actually
think through the issues. And these
people may not become aware of it, and to some extent the fact that we are the
wealthiest generation that has ever lived on the planet. But don’t forget that our lifestyles would
have been envied by monarchs as recently as two- or three hundred years
ago. So what happens under these
circumstances is pretty simple: we have enough wealth to keep transferring for
a little bit longer. And that sort of
dulls this process. And by the time they
realize the game is over, well, the people that are responsible for it are no
longer here to be accounted for.
To end with a song:
Cities rise and cities grow,
The promised progress keeps them all aglow.
They breathe, they breed, and thrive,
The myth of the future is what keeps them all alive.
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