Energy Vs. Technology

06.19.2005

Jim Kunstler, author of Clusterfuck Nation, is the author of today's quote of the day.

Google HQ was a glass office park pod tucked into an inscrutable tangle of off-ramps, berms, manzanita clumps, and curb-cuts. But inside, it was all tricked out like a kindergarten. They had pool tables, and inflatable yoga balls, and $6000 electronic vibrating massage lounge chairs, and snack stations deployed at twenty-five step intervals, with lucite bins filled with chocolate raisins and granola. The employees dressed like children. There were two motifs: "skateboard rat" and "10th grade nerd." I suppose quite a few of them were millionaires. Many of the work cubicles were literally modular children's playhouses. I gave my spiel about the global oil problem and the unlikelihood that "alternative energy" would even fractionally replace it, and quite a few of the Googlers became incensed. "Yo, Dude, you're so, like, wrong! We've got, like, technology!"

Yeah, well, they weren't interested in making a distinction between energy and technology (or, more precisely where Google is concerned, a massive web-based advertising scheme -- because it is finally clear that all this talk about "connectivity" just leads to more commercial shilling, shucking, jiving, and generally fucking with your headspace in the interstices of whatever purposeful activity one may be struggling to enact on the internet).

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Comments

Oil?

I think the real solution will be the economic one.

Oil prices going up will force the uptake of alternate energy.
If prices double from 60$ a gallon, then solar, wind, sea, and other power will become feasible solutions.

Power and Technology are intertwined - can't have one without the other, unless we include the cheap and nasty solar calulators (ok plastic is oil, but we can use other things for plastic).

USA is very split brained - the energy pc spec was great at reducing power usage for PC's. But it doesn't match the other side of the fence - the big abusive SUV's they use.

Economics will solve this - once it becomes expensive to buy oil, (and thereforce energy), it behooves the consumer to start thinking how to save.

Hit people in the pockets. Its the only way.

Lawrence / http://www.shanghaiguide.com

the long emergency

for those unfamiliar with James Knustler he is author of a book called the Long Emergency. Where he describes the implications of the iminent peak oil crisis and the affect on the U.S., specifically peak oil relative to the U.S.'s reliance on cheap oil for cheap transportaiton. I imagine that Jim's speech at Google-plex HQ went over like lead balloons considering that the generation of workers at Google have been signifigantly marketed the "car culture" more than any generation than before. I doubt many remember the oil embargo of 74' and subsequently 77'ish. Despite hitting the brick wall with this speech, hopefully the young google'rs will switch on the brain and consider the larger implications of Jim's speech and the differences between "technology" and "energy" and the plastic-ization of the current white house's saviour, the hydrogen economy. Happy motoring, while it lasts... :-)

To some extent, I think its f

To some extent, I think its foolish of Jim to assume that renewable energy is a pipe dream. On the otherhand, I think its foolish to assume that we'll discover cold fusion in a few decades, and that therefore everything is okay, because we'll have an unlimited supply of energy, and we can just plug in our cars at night once the oil runs out. After all, oil doesn't just run engines. Its a necessary compentent of circuit boards. No oil, no technology. Period.

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