[p2p-research] ecotechnic future
Michel Bauwens
michelsub2004 at gmail.com
Wed Jul 21 10:00:15 CEST 2010
HI Joss,
very interesting points, my interest is, how can we insure to have some form
of p2p networks, that are cheap enough to produce and maintain, so that they
can remain functioning even in the context of peak oil deglobalization of
the material economy,
is anyone working on this?
perhaps this is something that Sepp should focus his investigations on in
the future?
here's a summary of greer below, I have selected those comments, below in
the copy-paste, that deal specifically with the future of the internet
Michel
source is
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2010/03/logic-of-abundance.html
<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-differences-and-commonalities-between-shared-code-for-immaterial-production-and-shared-design-for-material-production/2010/07/20>
Will the internet survive energy
contraction?<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/will-the-internet-survive-energy-contraction/2010/07/24>
[image: photo of Michel Bauwens]
Michel Bauwens
24th July 2010
If I’m right about the end of the internet, it won’t be an immediate event
— rather, costs will rise and access will diminish over time. Whether public
libraries are restocked during that process, or whether private libraries
become the next information nexus, is a good question *…* What I’ve
suggested is that as costs rise and pressures for control escalate, it will
gradually become an expensive luxury used mostly by government, big
business, and the rich, while everyone else falls back on less sophisticated
methods of interaction. It could straggle on for some time before resource
shortages or sociopolitical collapse or any of a dozen other things finally
pulls the plug.
*1.*
Obviously a very serious
challenge<http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2010/03/logic-of-abundance.html>to
our assumptions here at the P2P Foundation, by
*John Michael Greer*:
*“Given the modern world’s obsession with economic issues, one of the best
examples of this reshaping of assumptions by the implications of cheap
concentrated energy has been the forceful resistance so many of us put up
nowadays to thinking about technology in economic terms. It should be
obvious that whether or not a given technology or suite of technologies
continues to exist in a world of depleting resources depends first and
foremost on three essentially economic factors. The first is whether the
things done by that technology are necessities or luxuries, and if they are
necessities, just how necessary they are; the second is whether the same
things, or at least the portion of them that must be done, can be done by
another technology at a lower cost in scarce resources; the third is how the
benefits gained by keeping the technology supplied with the scarce resources
it needs measures up to the benefits gained by putting those same resources
to other uses.*
*Nowadays, though, this fairly straightforward calculus of needs and costs
is anything but obvious. If I suggest in a post here, for example, that the
internet will fail on all three counts in the years ahead of us – very
little of what it does is necessary; most of the things it does can be done
with much less energy and resource use, albeit at a slower pace, by other
means; and the resources needed to keep it running would in many cases
produce a better payback elsewhere – you can bet your bottom dollar that a
good many of the responses will ignore this analysis entirely, and insist
that since it’s technically possible to keep the internet in existence, and
a fraction of today’s economic and social arrangements currently depend on
(or at least use) the internet, the internet must continue to exist. Now
it’s relevant to point out that the world adapted very quickly to using
email and Google in place of postage stamps and public libraries, and will
doubtless adapt just as quickly to using postage stamps and libraries in
place of email and Google if that becomes necessary, but this sort of
thinking – necessary as it will be in the years to come – finds few takers
these days.”*
*2.*
Greer continues with the more general point that we have become addicted to
exceptionally cheap energy, and thus a logic of abundance in the physical
world, which is now deeply rooted in our worldperspectives:
*” It’s been fashionable to assume that the arc of progress was what made
all that energy available, but there’s very good reason to think that this
puts the cart well in front of the horse. Rather, it was the huge surpluses
of available energy that made technological progress both possible and
economically viable, as inventors, industrialists, and ordinary people all
discovered that it really was cheaper to have machines powered by fossil
fuels take over jobs that had been done for millennia by human and animal
muscles, fueled by solar energy in the form of food.*
*The logic of abundance that was made plausible as well as possible by those
surpluses has had impacts on our society that very few people in the peak
oil scene have yet begun to confront. For example, many of the most basic
ways that modern industrial societies handle energy make sense only if
fossil fuel energy is so cheap and abundant that waste simply isn’t
something to worry about. One of this blog’s readers, Sebastien Bongard,
pointed out to me in a recent email that on average, only a third of the
energy that comes out of electrical power plants reaches an end user; the
other two-thirds are converted to heat by the electrical resistance of the
power lines and transformers that make up the electrical grid. For the sake
of having electricity instantly available from sockets on nearly every wall
in the industrial world, in other words, we accept unthinkingly a system
that requires us to generate three times as much electricity as we actually
use. *
*In a world where concentrated energy sources are scarce and expensive, many
extravagances of this kind will stop being possible, and most of them will
stop being economically feasible. In a certain sense, this is a good thing,
because it points to ways in which nations facing crisis because of a
shortage of concentrated energy sources can cut their losses and maintain
vital systems. It’s been pointed out repeatedly, for example, that the
electrical grids that supply power to homes and businesses across the
industrial world will very likely stop being viable early on in the process
of contraction.”*
*3.*
After showing that national energy grids that waste two-thirds of their
energy may not be viable in many places, Greer then makes a plea for
distributed energy infrastructures, with a maximum amount of renewable
energy to be produced at the local level:
*“As the age of abundance made possible by fossil fuels comes to its
inevitable end, a great many things could be done to cushion the impact.
Quite a few of these things could be done by individuals, families, and
local communities – to continue with the example under discussion, it would
not be that hard for people who live in rural areas or suburbs to provide
themselves with backup systems using local renewable energy to keep their
homes viable in the event of a prolonged, or even a permanent, electrical
outage. None of the steps involved are hugely expensive, most of them have
immediate payback in the form of lower energy bills, and local and national
governments in much of the industrial world are currently offering financial
incentives – some of them very robust – to those who do them. Despite this,
very few people are doing them, and most of the attention and effort that
goes into responses to a future of energy constraints focuses on finding new
ways to pump electricity into a hugely inefficient electrical grid, without
ever asking whether this will be a viable response to an age when the
extravagance of the present day is no longer an option. *
*This is why attention to the economics of energy in the wake of peak oil is
so crucial. Could an electrical grid of the sort we have today, with its
centralized power plants and its vast network of wires bringing power to
sockets on every wall, remain a feature of life throughout the industrial
world in an energy-constrained future? If attempts to make sense of that
future assume that this will happen as a matter of course, or start with the
unexamined assumption that such a grid is the best (or only) possible way to
handle scarce energy, and fixate on technical debates about whether and how
that can be made to happen, the core issues that need to be examined slip
out of sight. The question that has to be asked instead is whether a power
grid of the sort we take for granted will be economically viable in such a
future – that is, whether such a grid is as necessary as it seems to us
today; whether the benefits of having it will cover the costs of maintaining
and operating it; and whether the scarce resources it uses could produce a
better return if put to work in some other way.*
*Local conditions might provide any number of answers to that question. In
some countries and regions, where people live close together and renewable
energy sources such as hydroelectric power promise a stable supply of
electricity for the relatively long term, a national grid of the current
type may prove viable. In others, as suggested above, it might be much more
viable to have restricted power grids supplying urban areas and critical
infrastructure, while rural hinterlands return to locally generated power or
to non-electrified lifestyles. In still others, a power grid of any kind
might prove to be economically impossible. *
*Under all these conditions, even the first, it makes sense for governments
to encourage citizens and businesses to provide as much of their own energy
needs as possible from locally available, diffuse energy sources such as
sunlight and wind.”*
*4.*
One of the most interesting answers in the comments is from Mash:
In a nutshell, he argues that:
If we end up with a true dark ages of NO technology, maybe we’ll lose the
internet. But the very nature of it makes it one of the most resilient
networks we’ve created. Because it’s not really “a” network. It’s a lot of
little networks connected together, forming something that people find
massively useful for information transfer.
and explains why this is so:
*” “The internet” is not really “gmail” or “blogger” or “facebook” or
“wikipedia”. It’s not even the sum of these things. It’s a way in which you
can get sophisticated networking algorithms given some very simplistic
mechanisms. (eg: “if you have too many packets, just drop whatever. make the
ends figure out when and what to retransmit”)*
*And “the internet” isn’t really about universal connection. Anyone who has
lived in a remote country knows how “the rest of the world” can disappear,
but your local sites can continue to function.*
*So, the devolution of the internet may happen in a very similar manner to
the way it originally grew.*
*Back in the dim dark ages even some of the “central” servers connected to
each other on an irregular schedule, and during the time they were
connected, exchanged information, and then disconnected once more. (eg:
UUCP).*
*Remember, part of the goal of “the internet” was to continue to provide
useful service even in the face of damage. So maybe that damage is
widespread, maybe it gets worse, but there is something useful to be gained
just from having your computer connected to your neighbor’s computer.*
*And that’s another part I think you’re missing. Information will always be
transmitted SOMEHOW. You think we’ll go back to paper. I suppose it’s
possible – if we lose the capability to create ANYTHING electronic (and
maybe that will happen someday). But before we get that far, we’ve got a lot
of intermediate steps. Think about the telegraph. Places connected with
unreliable wires that required a lot of effort to maintain – but it worked
because people wanted to be able to say hello.*
*Now take all the knowledge we now have about using simple networking
methods (“the internet”), and reduce what we have available to use it with
in steps.*
*First of all we might lose the “available everywhere”. Undersea cables get
cut, satellites fail, the infrastructure as a whole turns into continents of
connectivity separated by vast oceans of distance.*
*Next maybe we lose the reliability. The longer distances (like between
cities) have connections – sometimes. Maybe an unreliable wire. Maybe a weak
radio link.*
*But somewhere along that line we have local areas of connectivity – maybe
something like a local telephone exchange (except now that we know how, why
would we make a dedicated voice service instead of a data service? Now we
know how to make voice look like data, and make that voice easier to handle
by doing so)*
*And we have unreliable connections over the long distances. But in “the
internet” we have created the exact formulas that allow us to use those
connections to continue the information transfer in the most useful way
possible.*
*If we end up with a true dark ages of NO technology, maybe we’ll lose the
internet. But the very nature of it makes it one of the most resilient
networks we’ve created. Because it’s not really “a” network. It’s a lot of
little networks connected together, forming something that people find
massively useful for information transfer.*
*Once you see those intermediate steps of devolution, your questions of “3
essential economic factors” have a lot more answers. It can still go totally
black – but that’s a LONG way down.”*
*6.*
Also in the comments, Pasttense writes:
*“The internet is going to survive because it is the most energy efficient
technology. Carpooling to work vs mass transit? The more efficient is
neither–telecommuting from your home is better. Likewise consider an email
vs mailing a letter. A few electrons vs all the energy to cut the tree, move
the tree to the papermill, create the paper, move the paper to the envelope
factory, manufacture the envelope, move the envelope to the wholesaler, move
the envelope to the retailer, your trip to purchase the envelope, the
envelope’s trip to the post office, to a sorting center, to a couple more
sorting/postal offices, the carrier’s trip to your mail box…*
*As to the efficiencies vs inefficiencies of the grid; note that the
generating capacity to serve a million separate households in an off-grid
manner is going to be many, many times the generating capacity you need via
a grid because of the economies of load-sharing.”*
*7.*
A correspondent from Thailand adds:
*“For over a decade I’ve lived in a region of the world where I can
experience first hand how people live without an electric grid.*
*Except for refrigeration, it is quite possible. Most have a car battery.
Some wealthy families have two. When the battery is drained, they leave it
out on the roadside, and every morning a motorcycle with a trailer comes by
to pick up the battery, charge it, and return it before nightfall. The cost
for this service is about 30 US cents. This is all rural villagers really
need. The battery provides power for lights, phone charging, a fan if
necessary, and generally a television set. Except for refrigeration,
electric grids are a luxury.*
*The question always comes up as to why an enterprising individual does not
set up his own grid, or why the government doesn’t do it, and the answer is
always the same. Theft of the power lines. Unless you can keep them
continuously live, they will be stolen and sold for scrap. Only the mafia is
immune from theft. During the commodities spike in 2008, Thailand suffered
from a high tension power line that blew over in a storm. The reason was
because bandits had stolen 6 of the 8 steel bolts that stabilized the tower.
It cost over $300K USD to repair. The bolts probably fetched $50 in scrap
value.”*
*8.*
We conclude with how John Michael Greer responds to the above challenges and
critiques:
*“the internet is very useful, therefore it will be maintained.”*
*That simply fails the logic test. Usefulness and maintainability and
viability are separate ideas, with no necessary connection.*
*Doubtless the Roman messenger relay system was very useful. Important
military intelligence was conveyed quickly back to Rome, which was able to
use that information to direct troop movements, and adjust political and
diplomatic responses to events. And the infrastructure of a vast network of
all-weather roads from one end of the Empire to the other was vital not only
for military purposes, but the enormous trade it enabled of raw materials
and finished goods, which supported the cost of the network and made the
centralization of the Empire possible.*
*And yet, that system ceased to work. Despite it’s obvious value as a
communication and commercial resource, the cost of maintaining the roads,
bridges and fortifications, and manning the fortresses was so great that
eventually Rome gave it up. In urban areas, where it made sense, the network
was maintained or even expanded. Outside of those areas, much of the system
was simply lost, the roads swallowed by forests, mudslides, wandering
rivers, fields and weeds, the fortifications falling to ruin and scavenged
for building materials, the bridges succumbing to earthquake and flood.*
*True, telecommuting is more efficient of power than the current system of
physical commuting. But perhaps the choice will be not between telecommuting
and a 30 minute drive, but between walking a mile or two to work and not
having a job. And what if there simply are no jobs? The current system of
employment is only about 250 years old. Prior to that, most people were
peasants, slaves, farmers, artisans and merchants. And frankly (I say this
as a telecommuter) any job you can do via telecommuting may well be too
abstract for the post-peak future.*
*Email may be more efficient overall than snail mail, but what if there’s no
route to host? What if one end or the other of the communication has no
computer, or no internet connection, or no power? What if your primary goal
for the day is to split enough fence rails to keep that @#$%@# goat in, or
to scrounge enough 36ga copper wire to build a new RF modulator, rather than
to cruise for pron and respond to JMG’s latest attempt to appeal to the left
side of your brain?*
*Also note that the postal system can be and has been run entirely on muscle
power. The same cannot be said about email.”*
On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 11:00 PM, Joss Winn <joss at josswinn.org> wrote:
>
>
> On 20/07/10 10:45, Michel Bauwens wrote:
> > hi joss,
> >
> > you could be right, hypothesing on greer's point of view, that our p2p
> > approach has a fatal flaw, it is it's reliance on the further existence
> > of networked communication,
> >
> > but precisely because greer himself posits a long and phased descent, I
> > think it is likely that even when the globalized peak oil regime
> > collapses, local communities will have enough resources to adapt or
> > modify the new universal info and communication infrastructure ...
>
> I think that's a fair point. Greer's descent is decadal reaching into
> the next century. We are living it right now and still maintaining a
> robust communications network. Greer thinks we're in for a future of
> low-tech and, as you mentioned before, is an advocate of appropriate
> technology as a way to ride the collapse.
>
> However, what interests me in particular, is the next 5-10 years, when
> liquid fuel production is anticipated to properly decline and the global
> peak oil theory is realised in practice. It will be interesting to see
> the initial effects of this so as to better extrapolate the long term
> impacts.
>
> The peak in 2008 of both price and total liquid fuels pushed up
> inflation and arguably contributed to the financial mess we're in now.
> (http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2009/04/consequences_of.html).
>
> The US economy appears to go into recession whenever oil prices are
> sustained over $85/barrel (http://netenergy.theoildrum.com/node/5304).
>
> This view accords well with Colin Campbell's anticipated effects. He's
> the guy the coined the term Peak Oil
> (http://stuck.josswinn.org/a-sequence-of-vicious-circles-and-gradually-t).
>
> If we are in for a future of these short cycles of rise and fall, rise
> and fall further - similar to Greer's Catabolic Collapse theory, then it
> is likely to have an impact on the affordability and accessibility of
> communications networks as well as their continued development and
> maintenance.
>
> More of a concern than whether we can use the Internet, is our reliance
> on just-in-time business models. Back in 2000, when the UK haulage
> companies went on strike over petrol prices, supermarkets started
> emptying out after a couple of days and people were panic buying
> (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/924478.stm).
>
> NEF has written a nice pamphlet called 'Nine Meals from Anarchy', which
> speculates on this further.
> http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/nine-meals-anarchy
>
> Food production and distribution, medicines, water distribution, and
> many other vital supplies and services, are dependent on oil.
>
> How this is handled by government and the rest of us, will be key and
> I'm interested in how P2P can help us respond, with or without
> widespread access to the net over the next 20 years.
>
> Joss
>
>
> >
> > what do other think, this is a very crucial point for the human future?
> >
> > Michel
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 4:15 PM, Joss Winn <joss at josswinn.org
> > <mailto:joss at josswinn.org>> wrote:
> >
> > On 19/07/10 07:08, Michel Bauwens wrote:
> > > Hi Kevin,
> > >
> > > feel free to take any take you want, though I believe that Greer's
> > > thinking is actually quite sophisticated and precise, and he's not
> at
> > > all a simple-minded primitivist ..
> >
> > I'd second that.
> >
> > >
> > > his current project is to create a huge commons for appropriate
> > > technology knowledge that could be used for local communities,
> > >
> > > I'm not sure what his take is on networked technology,
> >
> > I think he envisages its decline. I'm pretty certain I've read
> comments
> > to that effect. Here's a post which is typical:
> >
> >
> http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2010/03/logic-of-abundance.html
> >
> >
> > >
> > > his response to my emails were: "read my book" <g>
> > >
> >
> > I've read his Long Descent, which I enjoyed. For a shorter statement
> on
> > his collapse theory, see:
> >
> > http://www.ecoshock.org/transcripts/greer_on_collapse.pdf
> >
> > It's worth keeping in mind that for Greer, we are already in a
> process
> > of collapse - it is not something in the future but a historical,
> > observable fact. For Greer, Peak Oil, declining net energy,
> ecological
> > overshoot, financial collapse, etc. attest to this.
> >
> > I think he would support the pragmatism of P2P but find the
> centrality
> > of and reliance on networked communication to be its fatal flaw. If
> you
> > buy the theory of net energy depletion (http://www.esf.edu/efb/hall/
> ),
> > it suggests that the energy intensive lives of developed countries
> will
> > decline to a level that can be supported by fairly simple renewable
> > energy (remember that current renewable energy is built with fossil
> > fuels - a world of renewables built on renewables is not the same).
> >
> > As far as technology is concerned, Greer advocates stuff like
> home-made
> > solar showers and learning the use of a slide ruler:
> >
> >
> http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2007/01/principles-for-sustainable-tech.html
> >
> > Joss
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
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> >
> >
> >
> >
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> >
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> >
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> >
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> >
> >
> >
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> >
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