Harry Veeder wrote:
Corrupt and fascist regimes will always find some wealth to exploit. If not oil then diamonds or food or ...
Some things are easier for corrupt people to exploit than others. Oil and diamonds happen to be particularly easy. Food can be grown anywhere with little capital, so it is more difficult to exploit.
A reduction in gasoline consumption can reduce CO2 emissions, but I don't think it should be touted as means to bring about world peace and freedom.
It is not a panacea, but I think it would contribute a great deal to peace and freedom. Sometimes, technology does make huge beneficial contributions to human happiness, after all. (And sometimes it makes millions of people miserable.) We tend to take technology for granted, and forget how much it has done. Without 19th and 20th century technology, slavery and child labor would still be economically beneficial -- so they would still exist. Famine would still be common. The proof is that in the parts of the world where 19th century technology has not penetrated, slavery and famine still flourish, unfortunately. Of course there are other causes, mainly political.
As I said in my book, cold fusion plus political and social reforms could revolutionize life for everyone, everywhere in the world. Wind, solar and fission together could also bring about great changes, although nothing remotely as good as what cold fusion can accomplish, because the cost is so much higher. This is not a utopian vision, or escapism. People who feel it is have no sense of history, and no feeling for how radically different life is now, and how much it can still change.
- Jed
