Piercing the technology bubble

17 Comments on "Piercing the technology bubble"

ghung on Sun, 26th Oct 2014 9:22 am 



“There is no substitute for the much-needed political mobilization of the people in every congressional district to expand proven local efforts and spark a national discussion and transformation of our presently inverted priorities and plutocratic dominations.”

The masses will have to be awakened from their industrial stupor, their sense of entitlement and delusional distractions, or given new pipe dreams more powerful than the ones that already have a tight hold on the collective psyche. People have a strong tendency to hang on to their investments, even if they are failing.

JuanP on Sun, 26th Oct 2014 9:47 am 



Excellent and depressing article. I could literally feel myself getting depressed as I read it, but I finished it anyway.

Nony on Sun, 26th Oct 2014 10:21 am 



I didn’t read it because it lacked line breaks for the paragraphs. I’m also skipping the Ebola scare. 🙂

sunweb on Sun, 26th Oct 2014 10:38 am 



I was raised in Miami actually Hialeah. In 1968 after just completing a
BS in Anthropology for Florida State and having read psychology since 11
years old, I was fishing on the causeway between Miami and Miami Beach.
I looked at the skyline of Miami and realized that it could not
survive. Civilization asked too much of human adaptation and
disconnected us from nature. From that point on a went on a journey to
where I am now. Then in 1972, I read Limits to Growth which reinforced
from a materials point of view, what I new from the human one. It is
all unfolding and it could be no different.

Now, my partner and I are creating/building an orchard/garden with passive solar buildings including a greenhouse with glass not plastic (we are still getting tomatoes at the end of October in Northern Minnesota) and a root cellar that kept our cabbage until April of this year and our carrots and potatoes until the end of June. Our goal is to give the next generation at least a leg up. Hard to tell what is coming or when.

Plantagenet on Sun, 26th Oct 2014 10:49 am 



Good to see that the same folks who denounced Bill Clinton’s push for globalization in 1996 are still at it today. Now, 18 years later, its easy to see that globalization has been a disaster for the US, hollowing out the middle class and resulting in a low wage–low education —minimum wage society.

JuanP on Sun, 26th Oct 2014 11:12 am 



Sunweb, I live in Miami Beach and couldn’t agree more. This is one of the least sustainable places in the world. It is much, much worse now than it was back then. Right now there is a huge construction boom going on with cranes and concrete trucks everywhere. I am dumbfounded by the waste of resouces I see around me on a daily basis.
And the people here are all delusional denialists!

ghung on Sun, 26th Oct 2014 11:19 am 



Here you go, Nony. Not quite the silver platter you apparently expect, but maybe it’ll do.

“This weekend, October 25 and 26, I will be joining leading critics, from the United States and abroad, of corporate-controlled technologies, who are also proponents of appropriate technologies for the people (Vandana Shiva, Anuradha Mittal, Helen Caldicott, Wes Jackson, Bill McKibben), convening at the historic Cooper Union Great Hall on “Techno-Utopianism and the Fate of the Earth”.

The speakers are highly knowledgeable. Some of their prior warnings were ignored by policy makers. Unfortunately, many of these warnings were, in retrospect, understatements. The chief organizer of this gathering is Jerry Mander who heads the International Forum on Globalization (see IFG.org for the entire list of programs).

In 1996, Mander and Edward Goldsmith brought together several prominent writers to contribute essays to the book titled The Case Against the Global Economy. These analysts made predictions about the damaging effects of relentlessly single-minded corporate power and their corporate-managed trade agreements like the WTO (World Trade Organization) under President Bill Clinton and the newly ratified NAFTA. Eighteen years ago, these chapters seemed provocative and extreme to knee-jerk “free traders.”

Reading these essays now, with knowledge of the subsequent effects of these agreements on workers, education, culture, energy, environment, media, food supply, pharmaceuticals, land use, the patenting of life forms, developmental colonialism and democratic processes, makes the book prophetic. Eighteen years ago, many wrote off this book as an exaggeration, when in fact it underestimated the damage to people of various economic statuses from both developing and developed countries caused by unbridled corporatism.

William Greider’s chapter, titled “Citizen GE,” remains one of the most brilliant succinct overviews of a global company’s avaricious reach ever written.

The book moves into proposals for “relocalization” of economic systems, currencies, communities and agriculture. Mr. Mander views this weekend’s conference as a jolting update and call-to-action for urgent redirections away from the secretive, proprietary corporate science/technology that serves the narrow intersects of short-term commercialism at the expense of humans and broader global values.

The corporate giants intent on domination through governmental proxies, shared monopoly power and propaganda, are not what the philosopher/mathematician Alfred North Whitehead had in mind when he said that a great society is one in which “its men of business think greatly of their functions.” For the corporate bosses, no matter how evident the stunning unintended consequences of their dominion, still march to the imperatives of quarterly earnings, stock prices and executive bonuses.
With such narrowly based yardsticks to measure their success, it is no wonder that the global corporations today, such as energy, drugs, “defense,” banking, mining etc. – are power-concentrating machines driven to defeat, diminish or co-opt any forces advancing contrary civic, political or economic values.

One of the least noticed, uneven struggles is that between corporate science and academic science. Unlike academic science, corporate science is not peer-reviewed, except by the ruse of some well-compensated and corrupted academic scientists – a practice known to both the tobacco and drug industries. Corporate science is secretive (aka proprietary), politically-empowered and intensely media-promoted. It is intrinsically linked to protecting and promoting commercially profitable pursuits that are often hazardous or harmful to people and the environment.

An example is Monsanto Corporation, which encompasses a global drive to use patent monopolies and political influence to change the nature of nature. Monsanto’s unlabeled, genetically engineered crops are widely unregulated, as noted by Scientific American, which said: “Unfortunately, it is impossible to verify that genetically modified crops perform as advertised. That is because agritech companies have given themselves veto power over the work of independent researchers” (July 20, 2009).

Thus, corporate science is largely immunized from proper public accountability. This leads to rapid engineering applications without the rigorous testing and peer-reviewing process required by its more moral counterpart, academic science. It is these rapid engineering deployments, as well as their misapplication and public propaganda that the Cooper Union convocation seeks to address. There is a precedent for this work. The polluting internal combustion engine was rarely challenged until the nineteen-sixties when a Caltech scientist connected its emissions to smog.

A major part of the Cooper Union conference on “Techno-Utopianism and the Fate of the Earth” will relate to what Mr. Mander calls “Which Way Out? Ingredients of Change.” Interestingly, there is no panel or topic focusing on the fundamental reality that there is no ethical or legal framework within which these technologies must operate. Consider GMO seeds, nanotechnology, weaponized drones, synthetic biology, medical robotics, weapons systems, surveillance devices and more! Where is the regulatory law? Where is the civic discussion of what these “machines” and technology portend for our societal and moral values?

There will be numerous presentations that urge local self-reliance, community businesses, “Indigenous Values and the Rights of Nature,” “True Cost Accounting,” and “Steady State Economics.” But there are limits to the efforts of individuals who promote local self-reliance in the civic sector. Mundane obstacles, such as Congress, cannot be ignored. The governmental arm of giant corporatism and its influence on our indentured politicians stifles initiatives to displace commercialism and corporate power.

There is no substitute for the much-needed political mobilization of the people in every congressional district to expand proven local efforts and spark a national discussion and transformation of our presently inverted priorities and plutocratic dominations (see IFG.org).

Kristen on Sun, 26th Oct 2014 12:48 pm 



Florida is definitely a consumer state and seem not to be a big comtributed to the arts.

It’s amazing that it’s only been forty years since the development of superfunds to assist with cleanups of toxic waste. Our bodies are still contaminated with unknown chemicals because so many new ones are allowed to be on the market untested like dietary supplements.

Sadly technology will continue its rapid ascent into the mainstream. Look at the way the media clowns write about “Apple Pay” like its some sort of miracle of God. Newsrooms are looking more like advertisements every day.

Nony on Sun, 26th Oct 2014 1:45 pm 



ghung, shake your manly hand. I read it. 🙂

Davy on Sun, 26th Oct 2014 3:07 pm 



G-man, I was one of those in awe of Globalism in the 80’s believing development through knowledge, markets, and technology would lift the entire world into a new world order. It is part of the reason I moved to Europe. I walked the walk. I was aware of AGW and PO but they were a distant problem to be solved. Look at me now a full blown doom and prep and ex 1%er. That for me should say something. I am making my statement with my life. I commend you G-man for you participation in a very important meeting of minds. I wish I could be part of it. Good luck

bobinget on Sun, 26th Oct 2014 7:30 pm 



There hours ago:
TUCSON, Oct. 26 (UPI) — Microbes released from melting permafrost may be one of the most significant factors in accelerating climate change.
A newly discovered microbe appears to be releasing massive amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, as permafrost succumbs to rising global temperatures.

Scientists from the United States, Australia and Sweden discovered the microbe in the permafrost soils of northern Sweden early this year. The microbe, currently named Methanoflorens stordalenmirensis, had not been previously identified, and scientists discovered it releases huge amount of methane from melting permafrost.

Methane only makes up about nine percent of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but it can hold up to 21 times more heat in its molecules than carbon dioxide can.

“If you think of the African savanna as an analogy, you could say that both lions and elephants produce carbon dioxide, but they eat different things,” said senior author Scott Saleska, an associate professor in the UA’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and director of the UA’s new Ecosystem Genomics Institute. “In Methanoflorens, we discovered the microbial equivalent of an elephant, an organism that plays an enormously important role in what happens to the whole ecosystem.”

The scientists say having a better understanding of how much greenhouse gas comes from these kinds of microbes will help with climate change predictions and modeling.

bobinget on Sun, 26th Oct 2014 7:37 pm 



Sunweb, I moved from Coconut Grove to Oregon 35 years ago to grow blueberries.

Went ‘home’ a few years ago and promptly got lost in a maze of coke fueled building boom.

One up on you ‘cracker’. Oregon is way further from Miami then Minnesota.

Makati1 on Sun, 26th Oct 2014 8:19 pm 



bobinget, we are only starting to realize the world around us is not what we thought it was. In our egoist* vision of the world, we assumed we knew everything we needed to defeat Mother Nature at her own game or at least to do an end-run and win. Well, I think it is “Game Over”, not, “Game Won”.

I think we have tilted over the first domino in the game of survival. Now we will watch, in horror, the increasing speed of collapse as we move forward. I truly hope, for the sake of my grand kids, that it is not complete and they will have a chance. It is not looking that way, as I see it.

* EGOIST. 1: a believer in egoism. 2: an egocentric or egotistic person.

DMyers on Sun, 26th Oct 2014 8:33 pm 



We’ve painted ourselves into a corner with technology. That is the scary fact people don’t want to talk about.

Our public records are inscribed on digital media. Our bank records are the same. All in the name of simplicity, efficiency and prevention of duplication.

There is no way out. If the grid goes down, our technology is paralyzed, and so is the entire system.

Makati1 on Mon, 27th Oct 2014 1:52 am 



DMyers, I believe that you need to think about that “If” in your last statement. I think, and would bet a months income, that it WILL go down and probably before 2020.

Everything that relies on ones and zeros will be vaporized into nothingness. A zap from the sun could do it in seconds. Governments may take a bit longer, but I see it happening. That is why I have nothing that depends on the internet. It is a convenience, not a necessity for me. I hope it is for you also.

Davy on Mon, 27th Oct 2014 8:07 am 



D, great point on the dangers of ever increasing complexity. Wow, just imagine a slate wiped clean when much of the record of the last 20 years are digitally erased. Maybe this is a good thing because it will force a new beginning. The scary part is getting from here to there with a population overshoot of a factor of 10. Let us face reality without a complex economy to support us we can probably only support 1BIL people. The most important factor to a species survival in a bottleneck situation is degree of shock and the duration of that shock. Can we as a global people pull together to adjust and mitigate the global pain? We know this will be global pain because ALL locals are codependent on the global. This codependence may vary but in most cases the vital elements of food, fuel, and goods and services are dependent on a complex interconnect global structures. This will be a true test of our humanity. Will we turn on each other or work together. It is as simple as that.

Keith_McClary on Tue, 28th Oct 2014 11:32 am 



BTW, it’s by Ralph Nader.