[Schadenfreude]

In The Age Of Batshit Crazy Machines

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ran Prieur', 'W')hat about the crash of industrial civilization? Won't the wars and plagues and famines and energy shortages and breakdowns of central control also break down the acceleration of information processing? As with the value question, they have two lines of defense: First, it won't happen. John Smart of Acceleration Watch writes, "I don't think modern society will ever allow major disruptive social schisms again, no matter the issue: the human technocultural system is now far too immune, interdependent, and intelligent for that." Second, it doesn't matter. They argue that the curve they're describing was not slowed by the fall of Rome or the Black Plague, that innovation has continued to rise steadily, and that it's even helped by alternating trends of political centralization and decentralization.

Imagine this: the American Empire falls, grass grows on the freeways, but computers take relatively little energy, so the internet is still going strong. And all the technology specialists who survived the dieoff are now unemployed, with plenty of time to innovate, free from the top-heavy and rigid corporate structure. And the citadels of the elite still have the resources to manufacture the next generations of physical computers, the servers and mainframes that compile the information and ideas coming in from people in ramshackle houses, eating cattail roots, wired to the network through brainwave readers and old laptops.

Can this happen? Many accelerationists -- if they accept the coming crash at all -- would say something like "this must happen"....

[copious.abundance]

Humans could experience a mass die-off not because we've all "died off," but because we've all downloaded our minds into computers and abandoned our bodies.

[jlw61]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Schadenfreude', '[')url=http://www.ranprieur.com/essays/machines.html]In The Age Of Batshit Crazy Machines[/url]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ran Prieur', 'I')magine this: the American Empire falls, grass grows on the freeways, but computers take relatively little energy, so the internet is still going strong. And all the technology specialists who survived the dieoff are now unemployed, with plenty of time to innovate, free from the top-heavy and rigid corporate structure. And the citadels of the elite still have the resources to manufacture the next generations of physical computers, the servers and mainframes that compile the information and ideas coming in from people in ramshackle houses, eating cattail roots, wired to the network through brainwave readers and old laptops.

[Schadenfreude]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jlw61', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Schadenfreude', '[')url=http://www.ranprieur.com/essays/machines.html]In The Age Of Batshit Crazy Machines[/url]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ran Prieur', 'I')magine this: the American Empire falls, grass grows on the freeways, but computers take relatively little energy, so the internet is still going strong. And all the technology specialists who survived the dieoff are now unemployed, with plenty of time to innovate, free from the top-heavy and rigid corporate structure. And the citadels of the elite still have the resources to manufacture the next generations of physical computers, the servers and mainframes that compile the information and ideas coming in from people in ramshackle houses, eating cattail roots, wired to the network through brainwave readers and old laptops.

[Ivan_M]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Schadenfreude', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jlw61', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Schadenfreude', '[')url=http://www.ranprieur.com/essays/machines.html]In The Age Of Batshit Crazy Machines[/url]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ran Prieur', 'I')magine this: the American Empire falls, grass grows on the freeways, but computers take relatively little energy, so the internet is still going strong. And all the technology specialists who survived the dieoff are now unemployed, with plenty of time to innovate, free from the top-heavy and rigid corporate structure. And the citadels of the elite still have the resources to manufacture the next generations of physical computers, the servers and mainframes that compile the information and ideas coming in from people in ramshackle houses, eating cattail roots, wired to the network through brainwave readers and old laptops.

[hironegro]

Moore's law only applies to proccessor capacity. There are still bottleknecks in memory and software. Not to mention Moore's law is going to end in 2021. Even though we have advanced greatly in AI, we aren't even close to primitive "commonsense reasoing"

[kakkerlak]

*cough*

Moore's law is not a law. It has nothing to do with science.

[bodigami]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kakkerlak', '*')cough*

Moore's law is not a law. It has nothing to do with science.

[Iaato]

Here's the science regarding the energetics of information.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')Transformity of extracted information (examples: a seed, code, or house plan) is higher than the same information within the system it is operating (corresponding examples: a plant, a computer, or a house). Values are large where information is widely shared (examples: genetic plan of life, bible). Emergy of generating new information from precursors can be huge, as in evolution."

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hironegro', 'M')oore's law only applies to proccessor capacity. There are still bottleknecks in memory and software. Not to mention Moore's law is going to end in 2021. Even though we have advanced greatly in AI, we aren't even close to primitive "commonsense reasoning"

[seldom_seen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'J')ohn Smart of Acceleration Watch writes, "I don't think modern society will ever allow major disruptive social schisms again, no matter the issue: the human technocultural system is now far too immune, interdependent, and intelligent for that."

[bodigami]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Iaato', '
')(...)
http://dieoff.org/page170.htm#info

John Smart ain't so smart. The internet is an extremely labor intensive system; electricity, silicon chips, maintenance hungry computers and servers, and millions of people tap, tapping away at their keyboards exchanging ideas. Incredibly rich emergy value, but very ephemeral and one of the first things to go in the descent.

Information in seeds, genes, and house plans are ways of sharing information that can create new entities within the system and develop useful information, thus the value of this information is extremely high. PStarr is right about his fly on the wall in that "genetic information is developed in interaction with environmental processes over geologic time represents the memory of the earth as a whole" (Odum, 1996, 230). Our internet is not as sturdy as the earth's gene pool of diversity.

[hironegro]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kakkerlak', '*')cough*

Moore's law is not a law. It has nothing to do with science.

[Schadenfreude]

It's hard to get a discussion going about the trend of highly advanced and rapidly advancing technology here on PeakOil.com. People's minds snap shut when you bring it up. It's threat to their preconceived idea that industrial civilization will crumble in the relatively near future due to dwindling energy supplies.

It's entirely understandable that people do not find "The Singularity" to be a plausible future event but to completely disregard the powerful trend of advancing technology is just silly. According to the Doomer scenario, advancing technology must soon reverse itself in the face of declining energy supplies. But I think it's more realistic to foresee that global society will become greatly more innovative in the face of such dire circumstances.

No one knows the future and the future inevitably surprises.

If you were to hold my feet to the fire and force me to predict what will happen in the next few decades, I suspect we could see times get much tougher in the developed world, some frightening die-off numbers and resource wars in the undeveloped world, and an incredible spurt of adaptation and use of high technology globally. The energy cliff will be more gradual (with subsitutes and conservation factored in) and we will reach a new ecological/technological/energy equilibrium with our culture of technological advancement intact and growing.

[bodigami]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Schadenfreude', 'I')t's hard to get a discussion going about the trend of highly advanced and rapidly advancing technology here on PeakOil.com. People's minds snap shut when you bring it up. It's threat to their preconceived idea that industrial civilization will crumble in the relatively near future due to dwindling energy supplies.

It's entirely understandable that people do not find "The Singularity" to be a plausible future event but to completely disregard the powerful trend of advancing technology is just silly. According to the Doomer scenario, advancing technology must soon reverse itself in the face of declining energy supplies. But I think it's more realistic to foresee that global society will become greatly more innovative in the face of such dire circumstances.

No one knows the future and the future inevitably surprises.

If you were to hold my feet to the fire and force me to predict what will happen in the next few decades, I suspect we could see times get much tougher in the developed world, some frightening die-off numbers and resource wars in the undeveloped world, and an incredible spurt of adaptation and use of high technology globally. The energy cliff will be more gradual (with subsitutes and conservation factored in) and we will reach a new ecological/technological/energy equilibrium with our culture of technological advancement intact and growing.

[hironegro]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Schadenfreude', 'I')t's hard to get a discussion going about the trend of highly advanced and rapidly advancing technology here on PeakOil.com. People's minds snap shut when you bring it up. It's threat to their preconceived idea that industrial civilization will crumble in the relatively near future due to dwindling energy supplies.

It's entirely understandable that people do not find "The Singularity" to be a plausible future event but to completely disregard the powerful trend of advancing technology is just silly. According to the Doomer scenario, advancing technology must soon reverse itself in the face of declining energy supplies. But I think it's more realistic to foresee that global society will become greatly more innovative in the face of such dire circumstances.

No one knows the future and the future inevitably surprises.

If you were to hold my feet to the fire and force me to predict what will happen in the next few decades, I suspect we could see times get much tougher in the developed world, some frightening die-off numbers and resource wars in the undeveloped world, and an incredible spurt of adaptation and use of high technology globally. The energy cliff will be more gradual (with subsitutes and conservation factored in) and we will reach a new ecological/technological/energy equilibrium with our culture of technological advancement intact and growing.

[Schadenfreude]

It's always interesting to look at what happened to technology during WWII. On both the German and Allied sides, the development of high technology was utterly amazing. But WWII was a significant social disruption and unifying mobilization of peoples. We haven't even begun to see anything nearly equivalent as the result of recent energy price moves. The MSM isn't even talking about it all that much.

Still, if you look for it, you can find plenty of buzz over sustainability and alternative energies already. People are already innovating and making plans for an energy-reduced future. I wouldn't write-off entirely new energy sources like fusion until such efforts have proved fruitless even when the pressure for results is intense.

Still, it seems hard to argue about the full range of resources that are rapidly being depleted because of human overpopulation and hyper-consumption. I was listening to Nate Hagens from The Oil Drum talk about this briefly here today ( I know, it's a year old). So this is why I think that there could be both a population reduction as well as dramatic advancement in high technologies. The trend of rapidly advancing tech is just too profound to ignore.

I even think that somewhere a deliberate population reduction plan must be contemplated as a contingency - much like there must be a contingency plan for the invasion of Canada somewhere in the Pentagon. somewhere, somebody is asking the question: is it possible? How quickly could it be accomplished? Could the societal disruption of population reduction be minimized? How would it be explained to the survivors, etc.

Maybe afterwards, the future will be a mix: Low-tech, energy-efficient, self-sustaining communities in which it is possible to live in a more relaxed communal way, alongside extreme high-tech campuses of one sort or another. Who says ultra high technology is necessarily dependent upon industrial civilization and overshooting population?

Personally, I think it is indelibly human to advance through the application of the scientific method. It's a trick we've learned that we could never now unlearn.

[bodigami]

I actually think that some form of technocracy, where those that know how to design and engineer technology are basically magicians for the rest... this can even happen in some for of ecocity... but all this "magic solutions" are thin air now; just a possibility.

Schadenfreude, maybe some of us have some sane level of skepticism towards technology-only "solutions" that doesn't advance our harmony with nature and our spiritual development... technology by itself is cold and gray...

[dohboi]

I'll plead guilty to some pretty strong luddite tendencies (as I type this on my laptop)

But I think people are soon going to have their cell phones (or blue teeth...) implanted into their sculls. Communications technologies are always highly prized by humans. Human language itself is essentially a communication technology hard wired into our brains and our physiology (much to the detriment of our ability to do the most basic functions of living things--drink and breath--simultaneously).

I don't like the idea, but I think it is possible, especially for the elites, who will continue to have considerable power post peak.