The Rise of the Machines

On the Inevitable Thoughts blog, Colin Vanderbilt argues that the rise of the machines is already here, and maybe we need to take a step back:

“Our society has become awe-inspiring because of the technology we created and used, but there was a cost. We are now dependent on it. Our planet is the Tower of Babylon, and every single support beam is a piece of technology. Our tower will continue to get higher every year as everything gets ‘better’ and ‘progress’ continues, but let’s consider why we are convinced that we must build our technological tower higher?

Technology kills hundreds of thousands of people every year (cars, guns, industrial working conditions), it causes upwards of 50,000 species a year to go extinct, it poisons our drinking water and our bodies every day, it cuts down 13 million hectares of forest every year, and all this without any kind of artificially intelligent robots. Everything that we could possibly fear that robots will do when they rule the planet is already happening.”

Well robots are not really the issue, are they?    The gossamer thin layer we call civilization is much thinner than that, and has been for 150 years.

Within a few hours of losing electricity your house is a cold or overheated rock, your food is spoiled, and you have no way to cook.

Do you have a shovel that can really dig a hole? How about a sharp ax (and a file to keep it sharp)? Probably not, which means that you could not make a decent latrine in the woods or build a dug out house either.

Do you own a bicycle? Well, there's some transportation (so long as the tires last), but you won't be carrying much. All those "refugee carts" we see in the movie trailers have been gone for 70-years now. Still, when the "it" is on, a bicycle or canoe will be the only way out of town.

Have a fishing rod, extra line, lots of hooks, and a decent couple of guns with ammo? How about a few leghold traps (more important that the gun, I assure you)? No? Then you are not going to go the distance, no matter how much rice and oatmeal you sock away in a stack of 5-gallon paint buckets.

Of course, rather than prepare for the apocalypse and reject technology, maybe we should be building forward to a future where everyone is "off the grid" because everything is sustainable. Imagine a world in which you waste is recycled on site into energy, soil and food, and your energy is collected on site in the form of solar and wind and biogas. Imagine that what you need that you do not make is repairable with simple tools and does not break very often either.

Imagine.
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