[p2p-research] ecotechnic future

[Kevin Carson]

On 7/16/10, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:

> could you have a look at this
> http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2010/07/09/the-information-age-meet-john-michael-greer/,
> which refers to a review,and say something about how ecotechnic fits with
> your own vision and that of lewis mumford whom you often quote in your work?
>
> thanks for considering it,

I'll look into it.  As I recall vaguely from reading his blog, Greer
is a primitivist sort along the same lines as Kirk Sale, who's hostile
overall to high-tech stuff.  And as much as I admire his work, Dave
Pollard is much the same way:  seeing the assorted Peak Everything
crises leading to a post-tech future.

If this is indeed Greer's orientation, I'd probably have to use him as
a foil or straight-man for Mumford.

What I don't understand about these guys is how they miss the obvious:
 how digital technology and the network revolution are at the heart of
what's creating the potential for a low-impact, less
resource-intensive economy.  Green and high-tech are allies against
mass production and the mountains of deliberately obsolete goods
piling up in our landfills, and against the globalist economic model
of truck/containership warehouses linking points of production and
points of consumption thousands of miles apart.

If any single thing reduces the need for fuel, it will be shifting
wherever feasible from the movement of material to the movement of
information.  Despite all the talk of how big the carbon footprint of
server farms is, compare it to the carbon footprint of the low-hanging
fruit they could replace:  replacing business air travel with
teleconferencing, replacing most white-collar commutes with working at
home, the sharing of digital designs with relocalized neighborhood
manufacturers, etc.  If it's looked at in those terms, then the
servers and communications infrastructure are worth their weight in
gold, and will (along with freight trains) be given all the rationed
fuel they can use even when fossil fuel ouput is at 20% of present
levels.

-- 
Kevin Carson
Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
http://mutualist.blogspot.com
The Homebrew Industrial Revolution:  A Low-Overhead Manifesto
http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com
Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html