Ed,
You either misunderstand me or, more probably, I haven't explained myself
very well. Yes, we will always need the sorts of objects you've mentioned
-- "cars, trucks, tanks, aeroplanes, guns, and girders for tall buildings"
-- but we won't necessarily have to make them out of metal, nor use
concentrated sources of energy such as the fossil fuels on which we
predominantly rely today.
So far, ever since man discovered the formation of copper and bronze in the
embers of his camp fires 5,000 years ago, we have gone along the fairly
straightforward and simple route of making more and more objects from metal
ores, refining them by means of expensive forms of energy and bulk methods.
(True, plastics have become important in the course of the last century,
but these are relatively simple organic products made by rather similar
methods of applying concentrated forms of energy.)
Instead, sophisticated organic products in the future, quite as strong and
versatile as present objects (spider's silk is stronger than steel), will
be able to be produced by gentle applications of energy (that is, sunlight)
via DNA-controlled methods of production. Now there seems to be no reason
why the production of objects made by DNA-processes should not be
concentrated into specialised regions as now, and traded halfway across the
world as now, but there seems to be no pressing economic reason either why
they should. It seems to me that DNA-controlled production ought to lead to
a more financially evenly balanced world than now. Any country with a
reasonable level of sunlight (that is, anywhere) and of clean water will be
able (in the longer term future) to make anything at all -- no matter what
the metal or energy resources it has or doesn't have.
Furthermore, if each region or even each fairly small locality is able to
make almost all of its material products in situ then we can hope that a
rich diversity of cultures will once again have a chance of surviving
instead of the uniform McDonaldisation of today.
As for your last comment about the con artists returning at some stage, I
agree -- unless we have full disclosure of all communications within
business. I've mentioned this in my other posting to Karen ("Or poorer") of
this morning.
Keith
At 17:15 27/10/02 -0500, you wrote:
>Keith, interesting stuff. I like the concept of "metal bashing industries".
>Because we will continue to need cars, trucks, tanks, aeroplanes, guns, and
>girders for tall buildings for someone to blow up, somebody, somewhere will
>have to keep bashing metal. It may not be necessary for them to do in the
>rich world. They can do it in China (unless they get rich) or Mexico
>(unless they get rich too). We will also need houses, so we'll have to have
>"board and brick bashers". I think that will have to be done where we live,
>so there will still be people who can do things among us. We will also need
>energy - oil, gas and coal for the time being, but surely, if Rifkin is
>right, hydrogen at some point (flogisten(sp?) bashers?).
>
>People in the poor world now make our clothes. Why shouldn't they make our
>cars and fridges (perhaps, largely, they already do)? What will be left for
>us? I take your point about education. But at some point the dominant way
>we think may not be about how we do things, but about what we do next to
>keep the bubble going. If we don't make things anymore, how do we keep
>ourselves rich, ahead of the pack, so to speak? We've recently been in a
>stew about con artists in big business and have gone to some lengths to
>purge ourselves of them. But we should not worry, they'll be back.
>
>Best regards, Ed
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Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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