by Tanada » Fri 13 Oct 2017, 07:39:34
vtsnowedin wrote:Tanada wrote:I still think human labor will make a big comeback in a truly post peak economy. Not necessarily in the short term, but years down the road when people accept it is cheaper to pay two guys to cud down your tree rather than use a gallon of gasoline in the chainsaw engine plus the pint of bar oil to keep the chain lubricated.
The petroleum energy slaves are great, as long as they are cheaper than the worker just trying to get enough to feed themselves+spouse/family.
You picked a poor example there. Considering the amount of wood you can cut down and block up running a gallon of 50;1 gas through a sharp saw, gas would have to be north of $150 per gallon before I'd park the saw and take an end on a cross cut blade. It certainly will be years before that happens.
If you read my second sentence carefully you will note I specified "Years down the road".
I do not expect this change to take place overnight however as a historian I look at decadal time scales, as well as singular events. People keep touting the robot revolution when human labor will be extinguished. All such projections are based on one fundamental root, energy to build, maintain and operate that machinery will be cheaper than hiring a half starved day laborer to do the same task. Sooner or later your chainsaw will need new parts, or need complete replacement. In a world where energy is very expensive you will be faced with the choice of spending a lot to maintain or replace that chainsaw, or paying the hungry local laborer meals and a few coins to do the same work. Farm hands and ranch hands never got rich, but they also never went hungry and had at least a shed to sleep in out of the rain and snow. That is what the world looked like before cheap energy from coal arrived in the early 1800's, and it had looked like that for at least 3,000 years everywhere there was agriculture. Sure some places were much nicer for laborers but even 3,000 years ago a hired shepherd could count on meals and a tent to sleep in and escape the weather.
I should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, write, balance accounts, build a wall, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, pitch manure, program a computer, cook, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.