[Jack]

Regarding the Peak Oil Problem, from the article:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Even if we did throw money at the problem, it's not certain we could fix it. One of the strangest portents of the end of progress is the recent discovery that humans are losing their ability to come up with new ideas.

Jonathan Huebner is an amiable, very polite and very correct physicist who works at the Pentagon's Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California. He took the job in 1985, when he was 26. An older scientist told him how lucky he was. In the course of his career, he could expect to see huge scientific and technological advances. But by 1990, Huebner had begun to suspect the old man was wrong. "The number of advances wasn't increasing exponentially, I hadn't seen as many as I had expected — not in any particular area, just generally."

Puzzled, he undertook some research of his own. He began to study the rate of significant innovations as catalogued in a standard work entitled The History of Science and Technology. After some elaborate mathematics, he came to a conclusion that raised serious questions about our continued ability to sustain progress. What he found was that the rate of innovation peaked in 1873 and has been declining ever since. In fact, our current rate of innovation — which Huebner puts at seven important technological developments per billion people per year — is about the same as it was in 1600. By 2024 it will have slumped to the same level as it was in the Dark Ages, the period between the end of the Roman empire and the start of the Middle Ages.

[aldente]

Excellent article that you found there Jack. Again and again it all seems to fall back on the question when "our" train - as far as one identifies with it- is about to derail:

[NEOPO]

in a word "lllllllllllovely"

thanks for the link.
thanks for the pic.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 's')even important technological developments per billion people per year

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 's')even important technological developments per billion people per year

[Omnitir]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 's')even important technological developments per billion people per year

[stu]

I've actually got the original article. It's from the Sunday Times magazine supplement and is the main feature. On the cover is a scene of Trafalger Square deserted and looking post-apocalyptic.

This is the most mainstream article in the UK that I've seen so far.

[Eli]

I think the best argument for why we may be headed for a new dark age was presented when the Author talked about human nature and that technology does not improve it but is just an embodiment of it.

The human race started using antibiotics and the atom bomb at just about the same time. A chat room just like this can be used to share ideas or war plans world wide.

[Dezakin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')o, if Huebner is correct, it is most unlikely that technology will save us.

[Free]

Very good point.

People that unquestioningly admire technological and scientific advances almost in a fashion of idolatry are mostly the ones who have no idea of science what-so-ever.

Like the ones who say:"Look some years ago we saw people using small communication devices on Star Trek, and now we use mobile phones!" Then they extrapolate this "sci-fi" to everything else they saw on Star-Trek, from space ships to telekinesis.

They have no idea that the mobile phone is possible because it is not conflicting with basic laws of nature, and that it was possible from the moment on some guy created electromagnetic waves with primitive sparks and then later the transistor was invented.

For them, technology is "magic". And because one kind of "magic" seems possible for them, they think all kinds of magic have to be too.

[strider3700]

I'm firm believer that inventions are rarely set out after and then located. Usually something is discovered and then uses for it are located later. Necessity is not the mother of all invention, random playing is.

Most of the major advances in technology by the US in the 1800's and early 1900's came from rampant patent abuse as englands inventions where outright copied and then improved upon without any legal costs or consequences. From all of this came new ideas and devices.

Today something as stupid as clicking a button to submit an order online can be patented and anyone that infringes charged. If you truely want rampant and rapid inventing dump all patent protection and let it be a free for all. People will make things and try to make money off of selling the first few rather then hoping they can lock in the market for the next 20 years off of their idea.

[rogerhb]

Has any one seen the UK series by James Burke "Connections"? He takes inventions then follows the invention rather than concentrating on a field and watching what happens just in that field.

The paths followed becomes a real tangle of zig-zagging across applications as different uses are found for the invention, improvements and follow-ons, often something the original inventor would never have dreamed of.

(this is not saying technology will save us, often an application an inventor "had not dreamed of" was "trivial" or "nothing at all")

[Russian_Cowboy]

There are some hard facts supporting the hypothesis that the rate of inventions is declining. I can come up with two. The first one is the shrinking salaries of research workers and growing unemployment among them. The second fact is more specific to the pharmaceutical industry:

[bobcousins]

Haven't we had this before? Anyway, this is all explained in Tainter's book Collapse of Complex Civilisations. I couldn't be bothered to go over it again, but it's been covered already.

The rate of technological innovation is declining, and it is significant. More importantly, the "bang per buck" is declining, which means we would have to put more money in to get the same rate of innovation. In fact, this may be one reason why the rate of innovation is declining.

Don't get me wrong, I love technology. But it really is running out. The Red Queen effect is there, you only have to look at antibiotics. The early innovations were mainly about macro scale thigs which gave a great bang for buck : steam engines moving bulk cargo. Do you know what held back the Roman Empire? Mass transit. Land transport was expensive. It cost more to transport grain over land from Southern Italy than it did to get it by boat from Egypt. The Romans would have loved to have steam trains.

Now, the clever stuff is scanning electronic microscopes which can position one atom. Wow! But it costs millions, and moving one atom at a time is not just slow, if you consider a gram of hydrogen contains 6x10^23 atoms.

So unfortunately, we are rapidly reaching the limits of our big earth moving technology. Moving single atoms will never be worth it. If we could truly genetically engineer stuff, things might be different, but we have barely even begun to understand how living things work, let alone build one. Directed evolution is a possibility.

It is true that discoveries have been made as much by chance, than by directed efforts. Unfortunately, this and the other myths of wondrous technological progress are exposed as false.

I see the usual suspects tip up to bang their drum of technological progress. If you love something, it can be hard to let it go, but sorry guys, not all science fiction comes true. The future will be less Star Trek, and more Soylent Green. Who knows, we may get another breakthrough, but its going to take a lot more than "one click shopping".

[Omnitir]

Okay, so lets just accept that technological progress is becoming more difficult (which I’m still not convinced it is), how does this guarantee the collapse of civilisation as we know it? Even if no massive Earth shattering tech breakthrough happens, what’s stopping previous tech-breakthroughs from being implemented in new ways to help solve our problems?

Here’s a thing that frustrates me about those opposed to us techno-optimists: they assume that we are waiting for some Star Trek like technology to come along and make everything fine. This is a load of crap! The fact is, the technology to save us from peak oil largely already exists, and has for many decades.

The requirements to implement a tech-fix to PO isn’t radical new developments in technology, it’s radical new changes in the way people think, in the way society functions.

That said, I’m still not convinced that there is some lack of technological breakthroughs. In recent months for example we’ve had massive breakthroughs in nanotechnology and also in cancer research.

And how can we rate the importance of technology breakthroughs? For all we know, 20 years from now people might hail nanotech as the most important technological development in human history.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omnitir', 'O')kay, so lets just accept that technological progress is becoming more difficult (which I’m still not convinced it is), how does this guarantee the collapse of civilisation as we know it? Even if no massive Earth shattering tech breakthrough happens, what’s stopping previous tech-breakthroughs from being implemented in new ways to help solve our problems?

[Omnitir]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Because each approach is like a sticking-plaster on a sticking-plaster. You end up with more sticking plasters than solutions to the actual problem.

[lotrfan55345]

Don't worry, I can turn it off for you.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omnitir', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Because each approach is like a sticking-plaster on a sticking-plaster. You end up with more sticking plasters than solutions to the actual problem.

[DefiledEngine]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Not necessarily. Not if the approach involves removing the original sticking-plaster first. For example, one technological solution to the problem of mass transit would be to replace some roads with modern rail systems. This is a technology developed a very long time ago, but slowly improved upon to the point where modern rail systems are extremely high-tech and energy efficient (and very fast). Another example would be implementing nuclear power solutions.

Examples of tech solutions to our problems coming about only through social change and public opinion, not some radical new breakthrough.