Mike Carrell wrote:
We've gots lots of people and more on the way. They will need to make a living. Doing what? Living where?
If I were the dictator of the world I would keep everyone busy! I have tons of homework assignments, as I said in Chapter 20 of the book. As for where to live, I think there is plenty of space on earth. We are wasting most of it. People say Japan is crowded, and it does give that impression, but most of the land is vacant, and the population density is lower than in many European countries, yet these European countries have more green space and larger houses.
In the US, we could save vast amounts of space and millions of hours of frustration and wasted time by implementing video telecommuting and satellite offices. This would reduce time spent commuting and reduce the need for roads. Nearly everyone could live within five minutes of the office in decentralized corporations, and many people could work right of their houses, with full-time real-time connections to colleagues, bosses and subordinates. The other day I uploaded a link here to a Washington Post article about an office in Washington, DC where the receptionist and general secretary is a woman in Pakistan connected via a widescreen TV. She is running the office, scheduling meetings and appointments, and phoning sandwich stores to deliver lunch. Most accountants, editors and programmers in the US could work in small satellite offices connected to the main office. It takes thousands of times less energy to maintain a telecom link day than to drive a car. An 8,000 mile link India consumes only milliwatts of power.
peat bogg wrote:
"If the population were not so high, the problems described here would not exist."
Of course we must address the population explosion. But most of the problems described here could be greatly reduced or eliminated now, even with the present population, and even with present day technology. Problems with air pollution, water pollution and cramped "rabbit hutch" housing were far worse in Japan in the 1960s, yet the population was smaller then. New problems such as concrete rivers have grown worse since then, as I said, but the crowding is way down. The average new apartment or house is much larger, and it has its own bathroom and refrigerator. Public baths have all but disappeared. There is really tons of space. Even trains are much less crowded, because the ticketing technology improved. Oddly enough, the ticket and transfer gates were the main bottlenecks and the source of the famous crowded cars people pushers. If we change our work habits, adjust our expectations a little, and adopt new technology, we can fix all of these problems.
Quoting my book, again, in Chapter 16:
"Reducing population will reduce pollution. The two problems are linked, obviously. All else being equal, the more people there are, the more pollution they cause. But all else is never equal. The amount of pollution produced per capita can vary tremendously. In most nations, including the U.S., there is still scope to reduce it dramatically."
Think about expectations. Why do people expect they will be allowed to travel at 30 to 60 mph through urban neighborhoods to jobs 10 miles away? Because they are used to doing it. Because that method of commuting worked well in 1920, and 1960, and we are in the habit of living this way. People think it is their right to zip through my neighborhood at breakneck speed. They think they have no choice. We "need" to waste gasoline because that is the only way to live and work in Atlanta. Why? Because the workers and corporate executives have no imagination, and no knowledge of the virtual office technology that people in Pakistan, India and Korea are using. We have fallen behind Pakistan, for crying out loud!
This is not a real, physical "need," like the need for water. We could stop wasting energy and time in traffic jams starting tomorrow if we were forced to -- if OPEC cut off our oil, for example. This is a purely imaginary need caused by mental paralysis. We resemble that poor wretch Michael Jackson, who is $100 million in debt and feels driven to spend $30 million more a year. He is a prisoner of wealth! He feels compelled -- by addiction and fear -- to throw away $82,000 a day on things that bring no happiness or satisfaction or value. We are prisoners of fossil fuel and other obsolete technology -- driven to waste fuel, and time, air and land even though this brings us mainly misery, frustration, wasted time, accidents, carnage and death.
As I see it, the biggest problem, and the source of these weird self-destructive expectations, is that people have no knowledge of what can be done. They lack imagination. They do not understand technology and they know nothing about how people live in other countries, and nothing about history. Primitive people who have no writing, and ignorant modern people who know only what they see on TV, are both stuck in the eternal present. Knowledge of the future is only given to those who have some memory of the past.
As Ed Storms said, many people think it's perfectly okay to build big-box Wal-Marts in every town and village, eat nothing but junk food, and sacrifice everything to profit. Others are in despair seeing these trends, yet they cannot think of any way to escape them, except by going back to nature and living in poverty. That was the Jimmy Carter hairshirt solution: put on a sweater and feel guilty. Both sides are wrong, and both are imprisoned by ignorance and fear.
Mike wondered:
Our technical society removes drudgery, more goods for less work, so we can ?????
I can think of a million things we should be doing.
Have we lost our way, or is this a passing phase?
Not me! I may be wrong, but I know exactly where I think we should be going and what should be done.
- Jed
