The unpublished notebooks of J. M. Korhonen

Russian industrial mobilization cannot alter the outcome of the war

Posted on September 21, 2022 by J. M. Korhonen

Could the Kremlin regime mobilize the Russian industry to produce enough war material to tip the scales in the war? In brief, the most likely answer is “no.” Russia does not have the industrial base required to produce enough modern weapons fast enough to prevent the Kremlin from losing the war, and converting civilian industry to war footing takes too long and is unlikely to even succeed due to sanctions and export controls limiting Russian access to modern machine tools and components needed for modern weapons. Even the Russian capability to keep its existing heavy weapons in working order is doubtful, and re-activating even somewhat modern Soviet-era stocks in sufficient numbers will be difficult.

The Russian civilian industry cannot make up for these gaps. It should not be expected to produce appreciable quantities of any weapons before late 2023, even if it is speedily mobilized. As I explain later in detail, converting civilian manufacturing to weapons production takes time and generally requires new tooling and machine tools. Conversion and training of the workers for the new tasks, not to mention obtaining raw materials, take time, and quantity production is unlikely to be possible in less than six months.

Furthermore, the weapons that the civilian industry can produce with the tools available are probably limited to simple light infantry weapons, such as pistol-caliber PPD or Sten submachine guns of World War II fame, light mortars, mines, etc. Improvised weapons of dubious battlefield utility, such as “armored cars” made by armor plating civilian vehicles, may also be possible. However, even simple assault rifles like AK-47s, which fire a higher pressure cartridge and thus require more complicated mechanisms compared to simple pistol-caliber submachine guns, may be difficult to produce in larger quantities in factories and workshops that have produced only civilian goods.

Heavy weapons that are absolutely essential for any hope of battlefield success, such as artillery, tanks, and infantry fighting vehicles, not to mention missiles or airplanes, are almost certainly next to impossible to produce with the tools available in civilian factories. Of course, the easier and speedier option that will probably tempt many Russian officials facing pressure from the Kremlin is simply to frame a photo shoot of “war production” for propaganda purposes.

The Russian defense industry was in trouble even before the war

The existing Russian defense industry is unable to produce modern or even simplified heavy weapons and their ammunition at a rate sufficient to alter the outcome of the war. Analysis of captured Russian weapons shows that by and large, advanced Russian weapons are dependent on electronic components sourced from abroad. These are not easy and in some cases probably even cannot be replaced with electronics that Russian domestic production can supply. Post-2014 export controls have also hindered Russian access to modern machine tools and other equipment necessary for domestic manufacturing of weapons components. The lack of imported parts reportedly caused Uralvagonzavod, the largest armored fighting vehicle manufacturer in Russia, to cease the production of modern T-90 and T-14 tanks already in March. Other reports suggest that the plant is now fully occupied with repairing vehicles damaged in Ukraine.

Post-2014 export controls seem to have caused considerable problems for the Russian arms industry. A study published in 2021 suggests that Russian defense industry production increased until 2016, but has been declining since. The study argues that this is mainly due to wear and tear of fixed assets, such as machine tools, and lack of renewal investment. Furthermore, production infrastructure in general is aging. Buildings and supply lines, such as electric, water, and gas lines, are in poor condition and their failures hinder production. Considerable renovations would be needed to repair them to good order. To further complicate the problem, the Russian defense industry also suffers from recruitment problems and a decline in the human capacity as old, skilled workers retire and accumulated experience is lost.

Gregova et al (2021), “Actual problems and limiting factors in the development of the Russian military-industrial complex.”

For example, in 2021, the aforementioned Uralvagonzavod tank factory’s Nizhny Tagil plant apparently delivered only 34 modernized T-72B3/B3M main battle tanks to the Russian army, a distinct decrease from its 2011-2020 average output of 160-170 modernized tanks. These comprised the majority of modern Russian tank production. The main if not only additional source for main battle tanks, the other Uralvagonzavod plant in Omsk, supplied between 2017-2021 at most 45-50 modernized T-80BVM tanks in total.

Sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine are causing further problems. Even Chinese electronics manufacturers are now wary of supplying Russia, lest they lose their access to lucrative U.S. and European markets. Even though sanctions and export controls are never airtight, they complicate considerably any attempts to produce modern weapons in the quantity that modern war consumes them, as well as attempts to retool civilian production for military purposes.

Before the war, the Russian defense industry was able to produce approximately 650 armored fighting vehicles of all types per year. Even this pales in comparison to the absolutely massive losses the Russian military has already suffered. At the time of writing, there is photographic evidence for the loss of at least 1155 main battle tanks, 1280 infantry fighting vehicles, 924 armored personnel carriers, 464 support or command post vehicles, and 1611 unarmored vehicles, among a total of 6202 vehicles and pieces of equipment that can be documented as destroyed, damaged, abandoned or captured by the Ukrainians. Actual losses are, of course, greater. Considering that the Russian army had probably about 1900 modernized main battle tanks before the war, such losses in about seven months are nothing short of devastating.

Factory capacity is insufficient even for maintenance

Even the equipment that remains in Russian use requires regular maintenance and a steady supply of spare parts. Heavy military equipment is maintenance intensive and requires total overhauls far more often than e.g. civilian cars. For example, even if T-72 tanks are used and maintained carefully and spare parts are readily available, their engines require factory overhaul after no more than 1000 hours of use. Considering the endemic corruption, poor discipline and morale, and general malaise afflicting the Russian military, it is unlikely that heavy equipment is used or maintained carefully, or that sufficient spare parts are available when needed.

The majority of heavy vehicles and other equipment the Russian military is now using in Ukraine probably need major overhauls by the end of 2022 if they are to remain combat capable outside very limited uses, such as static pillboxes. This probably helps explain why the outstandingly successful Ukrainian counter-attack captured more tanks and other heavy weapons than many actual militaries possess in total: it seems likely that many of the captured vehicles were not really ready for action.

Similar problems have been reported to plague the main strength of the Russian army, its artillery. Artillery tubes wear out when firing, and the quality of Russian tubes seems to be subpar, causing tubes to wear out or even fail catastrophically far earlier than they should. Lack of machine tools has already hindered the construction of replacement tubes. Eventually, tubes wearing out faster than they can be replaced will lead to a marked decrease in the firepower and effectiveness of Russian artillery, even if the Russian logistical system can keep the units supplied with ammunition. The reports that Russia is buying artillery ammunition from North Korea suggest that domestic industry cannot meet this challenge.

Furthermore, the very efficient destruction of artillery supply dumps in particular by Ukrainian long-range fires has greatly complicated Russian supply problems and already led to a marked decrease in Russian artillery fire. As supply dumps have to be located beyond the reach of ever longer ranged Ukrainian weapons, and as supply vehicles are steadily destroyed, Russian capability to keep its front-line troops sufficiently supplied diminishes and may even collapse altogether. There seem to be indications that many units do not even receive enough food.

Under these circumstances, mobilizing thousands of practically untrained reservists is unlikely to lead to lasting successes. While considerable stocks of Soviet-era equipment remain and could theoretically be reactivated for the reservists, most of it has been stored in poor conditions. Theft of valuable components is so endemic that crucial electronic equipment had been stolen from the flying nuclear command posts or “doomsday planes” as late as 2019.

Even if sufficient repair depots and factory capacity are available and replacement parts can be obtained and supplied to these depots, re-activating stored equipment takes time. One estimate suggests that re-activating a relatively simple T-62 tank (originally introduced in 1961) takes 1-2 weeks of work in a dedicated repair depot. More modern T-72 and T-90 tanks need 1-2 months, and the most complicated T-80 tanks may need even three.

The regime in the Kremlin is no doubt aware of these problems, but it is not clear what it can do to alleviate them. A recent decree ordered the construction of two tank repair plants that could in theory speed up the repair, maintenance, and re-activation process. However, a more careful reading of the degree shows that merely finding directors for these plants and registering their charters are going to take five months. Unbelievably, further four months are then needed to register the new institutions in the structure of the Ministry of Defense. In other words, the facilities would not even begin to be built before the summer of 2023, and there is no word how much time the construction is expected to take. At least one source believes that the initiative is just a sham intended to conceal the deficit in the state’s treasury and no actual plants are ever going to materialize.

While the examples above concern armored fighting vehicles, it can be safely assumed that more complex weapons such as aircraft and missiles are not going to be easier to produce or re-activate. It is not an exaggeration to believe that even under favorable circumstances, the Russian defense industry will need a decade merely to make up for the losses suffered to date.

Civilian industry cannot be simply switched to war production

As already noted, these deficiencies cannot be made up by converting civilian industry to war production. The experiences from industrial mobilizations during the world wars in particular show that with some minor exceptions, civilian manufacturing can produce only the simplest weapons and equipment. Even though many modern tools, such as computer-controlled machining centers, are more flexible than the tools used in the 1940s, modern weapons are also more complicated. In practice, any large-scale conversion of civilian production towards military ends requires new tooling and new machine tools. For example, the WW2 retooling of Studebacker car factory for aero-engine production could use only 414 of the plant’s existing about 3000 machine tools. Of these, 350 were simple drill presses.

There is a widespread but erroneous belief that the U.S. car industry for example simply “switched” to producing tanks and other weapons. In reality, the existing production lines were removed and stored for future peacetime use, and entirely new production lines were constructed in now-empty factories. This was only possible thanks to substantial machine tool production in the U.S., aided by the machine tool industry’s expansion due to pre-war British and French orders. Post-war studies and plans for industrial mobilization emphasise the importance of machine tool production if similar projects are attempted again, and note that the lead times of machine tools and tooling have a major impact on the rate that civilian manufacturing can be converted to war production.

A rule of thumb learned during the U.S. WW2 industrial mobilization is that both building a new factory and retooling an existing civilian one for war production takes about 18 months. 12 months are needed to dismantle the existing production line or construct a new factory and install a new production line. Further 6 months are needed to train the workers and work out the kinks in the production system. No substantial output should be expected before 18 months. Again, this timetable assumes that sufficient machine tools, tooling, and other supplies are readily available and that workers can be found. While based on experiences 80 years in the past, this timetable fits quite well with timetables achieved in e.g. wind power industry today, where a new wind power plant factory needs 1-2 years to construct and begin initial low rate production. 18 months is probably a reasonably realistic rule of thumb even today.

In conclusion, it is very unlikely that the Russian domestic industry can supply even simple “mobilization model” weapons in large quantities before late 2023, no matter how much pressure the Kremlin applies. Production of new weapons of sufficient quality in quantities sufficient to materially alter the outcome of the war is extremely unlikely. Even large-scale re-activation of the Soviet stockpile is doubtful at best.

Speedy Ukrainian victory is in everyone’s interests

We should therefore focus not on what Putin and his cronies can do, but on what we can do to them. The thoroughly cynical regime in the Kremlin is completely oblivious to human suffering and will do whatever it can to delay its inevitable demise. It will certainly not hesitate to throw untrained, ill-equipped reservists into the meat grinder just to delay defeat. Against battle-hardened, extremely motivated Ukrainian forces, who receive more advanced equipment by the day, Russian reservists using barely functional 1980s-era junk (if that) can do little but die. That, however, is of no concern to the Kremlin. Even now, its military leaders are throwing away their soldiers in meaningless, militarily useless, “robotic” piecemeal attacks against entrenched Ukrainian defenders. Such “leaders” are unlikely to hesitate to waste the reservists in a similar manner to please their superiors.

Russian military could not force a decision with its best troops and weapons. It certainly cannot do so now. The Russian forces can however cause completely unnecessary bloodshed to Ukrainian defenders and to the civilians in occupied areas – and, of course, to themselves. While Putin will lose a prolonged war as well, a quick Ukrainian victory would also be cheaper for everyone concerned, ordinary Russians included. The faster the Russian military is made incapable of further operations and driven from Ukraine, that is, defeated, the faster the killing will end. While the removal of Putin might precipitate a Russian withdrawal or a ceasefire, there are no guarantees that his successors would actually be willing to end the war and not just regroup for another attempt. The defeat of the Russian military, particularly its land and air forces should therefore be the objective until solid proof of an actual change in Russia emerges.

Fear of escalation should not control the thinking in Europe and in the United States. Putin has already lost and is going to be defeated. If he is going to escalate to delay the defeat, he will eventually do so. The quicker the Russian military’s ability to wage war is destroyed, the less time the Kremlin’s regime will have to prepare or use any nasty surprises. Militarily, the only threats the Kremlin can pose to the rest of the world are nuclear weapons. While their use cannot be ruled out, they cannot produce a military victory for Russia either, and bombing civilians has yet to win a war. Any use of weapons of mass destruction could not be overlooked by the U.S. or China. A retaliation could well demolish the Russian military, the Kremlin’s ability to control its population, and what is left of the Russian economy – even if no nuclear weapons are used in response.

It is now not only the right thing to do, but in the West’s own best interests to supply Ukraine with whatever weapons, equipment, and other help they can possibly use. Even the most modern weapons the Western militaries, Finland included, reserve for their own use should be sent if they can be used. If they cannot be simply donated, a lend-lease arrangement where any remaining weapons are to be returned after the war and lost weapons paid for should be used. The weapons of the West have been forged for this exact purpose. This is the moment to use them.

15.6.22 Book review: The Invention of Humanity (Stuurman 2017)

Posted on June 15, 2022 by J. M. Korhonen

Stuurman, Siep (2017). The invention of humanity: Equality and cultural difference in world history. Harvard University Press.

This is an important book that, in my opinion, ought to be read by everyone who is seriously interested in greater equality, or wants evidence that human thought has proceeded towards greater equality over time: slowly and unevenly, but nevertheless:

“When a sufficient number of people believe that all people are fellow humans, or even equals, those beliefs become social facts on a par with other social facts, as much a part of society as political power, material wealth, and the force of arms. Whenever a sufficient number of people embrace universal ideas of common humanity, the limits of the thinkable are extended and new courses of action appear on the horizon.”

The book asks how people came to see others as fellow human beings, or even as equals. Its narrative weaves through the history of how the deeply ingrained ethnocentrism was surmounted, and how the vision of all humans being basically alike was arrived at.

The theoretical framework of the book relies on two ways to question cultural difference: 1), the notion of “common humanity”, which Stuurman argues transforms the stranger into a fellow human being, and which he proposes to define as “culturally significant similarity:” all human beings share one or more attributes, origins, obligations, faculties, or potentialities. How this could begin, in Stuurman’s view:

“An incipient notion of common humanity became thinkable when humans began to demarcate themselves from animals, imagining a hierarchy of sentient beings with humans at the apex of the pyramid. By enumerating the attributes that distinguished humans from animals, such as speech, morality and reason, they summed up the faculties all human beings were supposed to share.”

(Note that studies in comparative or evolutionary cognition strongly suggest that this hierarchy, modeled after Aristotle’s “scala naturae”, is largely an artifact of human insecurities – see e.g. the works of Frans de Waal – and in itself a hierarchy is problematic because it always implies some are less valuable than others.)

and 2), the “anthropological turn,” which invites us to see through the eyes of others and deconstructs the semantics of the familiar and the alien.

Stuurman traces the development of the notion of common humanity starting from the “Axial Age” and the great religious and philosophical texts of antiquity, including Stoicism and Confucianism (Chapter 2). Chapter 3 discusses how the early historians of the Axial Age, namely Herodotus, Sima Qian, and Publius Cornelius Tacitus discuss their respective empires and their “barbarian others.”

Chapter 4 advances the timeline to the Medieval Islam, again focusing on three exemplary case studies: the comparative study of civilizations of Al-Biruni, who discusses the differences and commonalities of two great civilizations; the common quest for God along different theological avenues of Attar, who argues that all people can engage in the quest for God; and Ibn Khaldun’s new theory of history, where the interactions between sedentary and nomadic peoples are the engine of history.

Chapter 5 examines the Atlantic Frontier and the limits of Christian equality in the age of exploration. Case studies in this chapter include the protest against the Spanish treatment of the Native Americans voiced by the Dominican friar Antonio de Montesinos (1511); the justification and critique of the Spanish Empire by Francisco Vitoria in the mid-sixteenth century; the criticism of Spanish rule by Bartolomé de Las Casas (1514-1566), José de Acosta’s Natural and Moral History of the Indies (1590), which served as a foundation for most 17th century writing and research about America; and finally, Michel de Montaigne’s deconstruction of the notion of the “barbarian”, when the atrocities of Europeans are compared to the supposed “barbarians.”

Chapter 6 proceeds to the Enlightenment. Stuurman notes that the Enlightenment saw the invention of the modern notion of equality, but also the invention of the modern notion of inequality, much like the invention of the ship also became the invention of shipwreck. The Enlightenment discredited the traditional and theological justifications of inequality, such as divinely ordained hierarchies, but introduced what Stuurman argues are four modern discourses of inequality: 1) political economy, which justified inequalities in terms of utility and productivity; 2) theories of gender, which justified gender inequalities on the grounds of women being “naturally different”; 3) racial classification, which treated humans as animals and therefore subject to taxonomies of natural history (note that here the “scala naturae” and its hierarchies really become problematic); and 4) the most consequential of them all, the notion that ordered human subsistence modes and societies into a scale of “more” and “less” advanced stages of human development.

The discourses 3 and 4 together produced an ideology where Europeans represented the vanguard of humanity that had a mission to “enlighten” the “lesser races”. Given that we are still suffering from the problems engendered by this ideology, this chapter is in my opinion among the most important of this book. Stuurman discusses the intellectual history of this period, making the chapter (and the book) a valuable companion to Graeber’s and Weingrow’s more recent “The Dawn of Everything” and its discussion of the Indigenous roots of the Enlightenment thought and social critique. Stuurman identifies Francois Poulain de la Barre as one of the first recognizable Enlightenment political philosophers; Poulain challenged (among others) those philosophers who had justified male supremacy as “natural” and develops a general critique of prejudice and custom, wedded to an environmentalist social psychology.

Chapter 7 looks at the modern equality and scientific racism in the nineteenth century. It begins with the three revolutions that proclaimed the equal rights of “all men”; the American, the French, and the Haitian. The advance of modern equality, however, was an intermittent and uneven process, and after Napoleon in particular there was also a backlash, as modern discourses of inequality were marshalled to defend the existing power structures. Stuurman examines, for example, the critiques of slavery by one born into slavery, Frederick Douglass, and the criticism of colonialism by a victim of colonialism, the Indian Dadabhai Naoroji. He also highlights John Stuart Mill’s inconsistencies: Mill was a critic of despotic authority, but he could not bring himself to apply the same standards to the British “civilizing mission” in India – which relied on precisely the sort of despotic authority Mill criticized. Mill basically succumbed to racism, saying in effect that some “backwards peoples” need to be “civilized”, even against their wishes.

Chapter 8 centers on the decades between 1880 and 1940, marked by the ascendancy of the color line and scientific racism; but also by the growing power of anticolonialism, antiracism, and democratic ideas in Asia, Latin America, North America, and Africa. In Europe, democratic ideas gained much ground until the 1920s, but declined almost everywhere in the interwar years. However, the Russian Revolution increased the expectations of global emancipation to the peoples in colonized lands. Exemplars are drawn from e.g. W.E.B. Du Bois, Gandhi, and Franz Boas.

Chapter 9 contains (among other things) a very useful history of the inclusion of a radical and non-racist discourse of equality in the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the theorization of post-colonial equality by Aimé Césaire. These alone make the chapter well worth reading; the discussion of how colonial empires, Great Britain in particular, tried to prevent the inclusion of language suggesting of truly universal equality into the Charter of the United Nations is almost hilarious. (London would have prevented such ideas as they had done in the Versailles peace conference, but felt embarrassed because both British and the world opinion would associate a categorical rejection of racial equality with Nazism.)

Of particular importance is the background to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It shows how the document was a product of thorough consideration and cross-cultural compromise that was agreeable to almost all the signatories. The Declaration is not a “Western” document, even though its language about individual rights is mostly drawn from Western philosophy. As Stuurman shows in the book, the fundamental views of common humanity and personal dignity have always been shared throughout the world, even if the individualistic conception of the human person is somewhat of an European peculiarity (although see Graeber and Weingrow 2021, who suggest that the Enlightenment ideas may have not been so “European” after all). On the other hand, without the participation of the colonized peoples in the drafting of the document, the language may not have ended up as radically egalitarian as it ultimately did. As Stuurman notes when discussing a 1947 UNESCO survey that attempted to canvass the global views on the matter,

“A broad consensus existed on the need for truly universal rights, irrespective of race, skin color, sex, religion, and language. Apparently, there was cross-cultural agreement about the desirability of a list of universal rights but not about their philosophical or religious grounding.”

Finally, in an epilogue, Stuurman gives a cautiously optimistic view of the future, based on the fact that people can evidently start from very disparate ideas of common humanity yet still come to largely the same conclusions about equality.

In the long run, equality simply makes more sense than inequality. To quote:

“Viewed in the long run of history, discourses of inequality display less consistency than discourses of common humanity and equality. They have assigned inferiority to ever-different ideas, customs, and categories of people. The boundaries they drew were changeable and subject to the contingencies of history. Discourses of inequality may appear realistic because they refer to factual, empirically verifiable human traits and differences, but for that very reason they are vulnerable to a critical examination of the purported “facts.”
The history of the other component of equality discourses, the anthropological turn, further impairs the “realism” of the inequality discourses. We have seen that even under conditions of extreme inequality, as in the sixteenth-century European conquest of America, the doctrines of inequality were fiercely contested. Besides references to common humanity, the inversion of the gaze had a powerful equality effect. Bartolomé de Las Casas invited his audience to realize that the Native Americans’ belief in their gods was as deep and sincere as the Christian belief in the Trinity. Michel de Montaigne advised the Europeans to take a good hard look at their own religious wars before triumphantly celebrating their superiority over the benighted cannibals. Two thousand years before, Herodotus made the lapidary remark that the Egyptians called all speakers of foreign tongues “barbarians.” A couple of centuries later Sima Qian demonstrated that the Chinese condemnation of the customs of the northern nomads was paralleled by an equally critical view of China on the part of the nomads. As every frontier is two-sided, all cultural hierarchies are susceptible to inversion. Given the changeability of cultural boundaries and the ever-varying classifications of humanity in the history of inequality thinking, the conclusion follows that hierarchical judgments of one culture about another are always historically contingent. Ultimately, then, common humanity represents the Archimedean point of the moral history of humanity.”

Posted in Notes in process | Tagged Aime Cesaire, Al-Biruni, Antonio de Montesinos, Attar, Bartolome de Las Casas, Book review, Dababhai Naoroji, Equality, Francisco Vitoria, Francois Poulain, Franz Boas, Frederick Douglass, Gandhi, Herodotus, Human rights, Ibn Khaldun, John Stuart Mill, Jose de Acosta, Michel de Montaigne, Siep Stuurman, Sima Qian, Tacitus, United Nations, W.E.B. Du Bois | Leave a comment

27.5.2022 – What is good in life, on feedback loops possibly leading to collapse

Posted on May 27, 2022 by J. M. Korhonen

In early 2002, I had an epiphany. I had been depressed for months and queried whether there is even any point in living any more: in the long run, we are all dead, and whatever we achieve will crumble in the sands of time. In a century, barely anyone will even know that you ever existed.

What convinced me to keep on living was a realization that there are indeed some things worth doing. Among them is striving towards long-term survival of intelligences capable of love, empathy, curiosity, and creativity. That epiphany has guided my career choices ever since. (I however agree with the critics of the longtermism movement that there are some very dangerous strands of thought within this movement, mainly because too many people in the movement tend to dismiss the sufferings of the present and the near future in their calculations of some possibly attainable Greater Good in the far future, and in their near-sycophantic adulation of billionaires and other “Great Men.” That is the stuff the nightmare totalitarian dictatorships have always been made of.)

That said, existential risk or x-risk and collapse studies have ever since been close to my heart. Here’s the newest news.

UN Warns of ‘Total Societal Collapse’ Due to Breaching of Planetary Boundaries, Nafeez Ahmed, 26 May 2022. Byline Times.

https://bylinetimes.com/2022/05/26/un-warns-of-total-societal-collapse-due-to-breaching-of-planetary-boundaries/

“the human material and ecological footprint is accelerating the rate of change. A potential impact when systemic risks become cascading disasters is that systems are at risk of collapse”.

Refers to Thomas Cernev’s report “Pandemics, Climate Extremes, Tipping Points and the Global Catastrophic Risk – How these Impact Global Targets” (https://www.undrr.org/publication/global-catastrophic-risk-and-planetary-boundaries-relationship-global-targets-and):

“From the scenario analysis… it is evident that in the absence of ambitious policy and near global adoption and successful implementation, the world continually tends towards the global collapse scenario.”

Cernev’s paper identifies four potential pathways ahead:

“In all of these scenarios except for ‘stable earth’, the achievement of global targets and accompanying frameworks is negatively impacted,” the report states. “Furthermore, in the absence of change, scenarios ‘Earth under uncertainty’ and ‘Earth under threat’ tend towards that of ‘global collapse’.”
“The paper explains that, by adopting a systems analysis, it is possible to see how “the crossing of one planetary boundary systematically results in the crossing of others”. They are crucial to providing a ‘safe operating space’ for human societies to develop within a stable earth system, “with the passing of these boundaries subsequently, and most likely resulting in societal destabilisation and potential GCR events”.”

Nafeez Ahmed wrote in 2017 a primer “Failing States, Collapsing Systems: BioPhysical Triggers of Political Violence”, where he pointed out that the process of global societal collapse is likely to accelerate as a self-reinforcing feedback loop between what he calls “human system destabilisation (HSD)” and “earth system disruption (ESD).

https://www.academia.edu/34816514/Failing_States_Collapsing_Systems_BioPhysical_Triggers_of_Political_Violence_SPRINGER_BRIEFS_IN_ENERGY_

“In this feedback loop, earth system disruptions – in this case, triggered by breaching of planetary boundaries – destabilise social, political and economic institutions. This, in turn, inhibits successful policy responses to ESD, leaving the planet vulnerable to further ESD outbreaks.
The result is a feedback effect in which HSD and ESD occur in an amplifying cycle with the potential to culminate in a dramatic loss of complexity in the human system – what might be defined as a collapse.”

This is a conclusion that is easy to concur with. I just note here that as a whole, the threat is not so much in any single major event, but in a multitude of relatively minor (many still catastrophic) events that are all driven by the same logic: the need for individuals in a highly, and increasingly, competitive society to outcompete the others.

In such a society, where 1. winning the competition may yield considerable gain of status, and 2. losing or abstaining from the competition may mean considerable loss of status, it is in my opinion very difficult to limit the exploitation of the Other (both other humans, and other species) for private gain, and to limit the use of potentially dangerous technologies. Thus, a competitive, highly unequal society almost certainly exacerbates the feedback loops between HSD and ESD, and hinders cooperation that is necessary for the setting of the limits to exploitation.

Conclusion: we need to limit competition and share resources more equitably to “depower” the HSD/ESD feedback loop.

I would encourage everyone to read Giorgos Kallis’s very good short book “Limits” for more considerations about what I believe is the key problem in our time: how to set limits for exploitation, and how to prevent the limits from being undermined by the competitive pressures. I fully agree with Kallis: the natural world (or “the market”) will not set the limits for us in time to prevent very serious damages. We must learn to limit ourselves.

https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=29999

Posted in Notes in process | Tagged Ahmed Nafeez, Cernev Thomas, climate change, collapse, Energy, Environment, Feedback loops, HSD/ESD loop, Kallis Giorgos, Limits, Longtermism, Planetary boundaries | 1 Comment

20.5.2022 Friday – On extinction risk, commons risk, “natural disasters”

Posted on May 20, 2022 by J. M. Korhonen

Extinction risks or X-risks are an interesting research topic that, however, has its own share of problems. I have one article in the works about some of its blind spots, and will be getting back to the topic later. Meanwhile, here’s something on classifying extinction risks, based on the following paper:

Cotton‐Barratt, O., Daniel, M., & Sandberg, A. (2020). Defence in Depth Against Human Extinction: Prevention, Response, Resilience, and Why They All Matter. Global Policy, 11(3), 271–282. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12786

The paper classifies extinction risks based on a version of “Swiss cheese model” of accident causation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model), namely by asking three questions:

How does the risk start causing damage?
How does it reach the scale of global catastrophe?
How does it reach everyone?

Like in the Swiss Cheese model – pictured below – the risk can be avoided if it can be stopped by any one layer of defense. If a dangerous process can be recognized and prevented (layer 1), OR if it can be responded to (layer 2), OR if societies are resilient enough (layer 3), the end result won’t be human extinction (or some other undesirable outcome).

So far, this is pretty bog standard accident causation stuff. To me at least, the most useful part of this paper is the classification of risks, especially Figure 2 of the paper, which classifies the risks based on origin:

This dovetails with my thinking and actually helped to improve it. I used to classify catastrophic risks into “consumption risks” and “unilateralist’s risks”, but the words used here work better.

Commons risk in particular is a notable one: it means risks from activities that people know to be dangerous, but engage in anyway. In econo-speak, this is a tragedy of the commons type situation where negative externalities are not internalized by the actors. Sustainability problems fall into this category.

Note however that I’m not very happy with the decision to put “natural risks” into a separate category, especially since the authors then just note that

“To be able to prevent natural risks, we need research aimed at identifying potential hazards, understanding their dynamics, and eventually develop ways to reduce their rate of occurrence”.

There is considerable research evidence suggesting that “natural disasters aren’t natural”: what this seemingly counterintuitive phrase means is that most if not all natural processes create hazards at best, but whether hazards (or risks) turn into disasters depends on human acts of omission and commission (O’Keefe et al., 1976; Wisner et al., 2011.

In other words, risk turns into disaster because people are vulnerable to the risk, and this vulnerability is often even directly created, and at least exacerbated, by inequalities. The poorest and the most marginalised are routinely the most vulnerable, simply because they lack the means to secure enough resources to e.g. live in less hazardous locations or build their homes durably enough. The same dynamic applies to e.g. pollution and other environmental risks (Cushing et al., 2015; Farzin & Bond, 2006; Mohai et al., 2009; Torras & Boyce, 1998). Disasters are thus caused more by socioeconomic than natural factors, to the extent that many researchers believe the term “natural disaster” shouldn’t even be used at all, and the United Nations Office for the Disaster Risk Reduction (UNIDSR) officially phased out the term in 2018 (Chmutina & von Meding, 2019).

References cited

Chmutina, K., & von Meding, J. (2019). A Dilemma of Language: “Natural Disasters” in Academic Literature. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 10(3), 283–292. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-019-00232-2

Cushing, L., Morello-Frosch, R., Wander, M., & Pastor, M. (2015). The Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Health of Everyone: The Relationship Between Social Inequality and Environmental Quality. Annual Review of Public Health, 36(1), 193–209. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031914-122646

Farzin, Y. H., & Bond, C. A. (2006). Democracy and environmental quality. Journal of Development Economics, 81(1), 213–235. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2005.04.003

Mohai, P., Pellow, D., & Roberts, J. T. (2009). Environmental Justice. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 34(1), 405–430. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-082508-094348

O’Keefe, P., Westgate, K., & Wisner, B. (1976). Taking the naturalness out of natural disasters. Nature, 260(5552), 566–567. https://doi.org/10.1038/260566a0

Torras, M., & Boyce, J. K. (1998). Income, inequality, and pollution: A reassessment of the environmental Kuznets Curve. Ecological Economics, 25(2), 147–160. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0921-8009(97)00177-8

Wisner, B., Gaillard, J.-C., & Kelman, I. (2011). Framing disaster: Theories and stories seeking to understand hazards, vulnerability and risk. In B. Wisner, J.-C. Gaillard, & I. Kelman (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of hazards and disaster risk reduction (pp. 18–33). Routledge.

Posted in Notes in process | Tagged Accidents, Cotton-Barratt O., Disasters, Environment, Existential risk, Research | Leave a comment

19.5.2022 – Bitcoin, Tether, Beanstalk

Posted on May 19, 2022 by J. M. Korhonen

Jessica McKenzie writes about the less known trend in Bitcoin mining. Bitcoin miners and fossil fuel firms, which increasingly tend to be the one and the same thing, are buying gas-fired generators and use them right next to gas wellheads. End result: to solve the crypto sudokus, fossil gas that would otherwise not be extracted and burned, is extracted and burned.

I wrote about a bitcoin mining trend that isn't getting nearly enough attention.

Bitcoin miners/fossil fuel companies—they are increasingly one & the same—are buying portable generators, hauling in server farms in shipping containers & mining bitcoin right at the wellheads
— Jessica McKenzie (@jessimckenzi) May 17, 2022

(My assessment of cryptocurrencies in Finnish is here: https://jmkorhonen.fi/2021/11/02/mista-kryptovaluutoissa-ja-lohkoketjussa-on-kyse/ )

(In English, from 2018: https://jmkorhonen.net/2018/01/12/my-professional-opinion-as-a-blockchain-researcher-i-dont-see-the-point/ )

(Why cryptocurrencies are inherently not very good fit for renewable energy: https://jmkorhonen.net/2018/05/25/bitcoin-is-not-a-good-fit-for-renewable-energy-heres-why/ )

Prof. Nicholas Weaver’s interview: why cryptocurrencies should die in fire. Good explanation if you are unfamiliar with the problems of cryptocurrencies. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/05/why-this-computer-scientist-says-all-cryptocurrency-should-die-in-a-fire/

This especially is important to understand:

“Tether is almost certainly what we’d call a “wildcat bank.” So, back in the 1800s, we didn’t have the Federal Reserve. Do you ever wonder why those pieces of paper in your pocket are technically called “bank notes”? It’s because the original model was not the government issuing pieces of paper. The government only issued coins. But heavy or bulky coins are hard to deal with. So you take your coins to the local bank, and they would give you a banknote, literally an IOU saying “if you want a $1 gold coin, take this IOU back to the bank and you get this dollar gold coin.”
What happened is, basically, fraudulent banks sprang up. They were called wildcat banks because they’d often have animal pictures on the bank notes. What they would do is take deposits and issue pieces of paper, completely unbacked. And when state bank regulators would come along, the wildcat banks would have barrels of coins that were fake. All but the top layer was just junk, with a top layer of gold coins. Or they’d cart around a barrel to all the branch offices just ahead of the inspectors.
And Tether is clearly doing the same thing. Because if Tether was backed by real money, this would mean that there is some $80 billion worth of money from institutional savvy investors that wanted to invest in the cryptocurrency space, but didn’t want to just buy in CoinBase. So they had to go to this third party that has been caught lying about its reserves, run by who-knows-who—the CEO is basically MIA. [Slate reported in 2021 that he “hasn’t been seen in public in years.”] It keeps its reserves in the Bahamas. Why would you invest that way? It’s just complete nonsense. “

Speaking of Tether: Their general counsel Stuart Hoegner used to be Director of Compliance for Excapsa, the parent company of poker site Ultimate Bet. Ultimate Bet allowed some of the players on their site access to a “God Mode” where they could see other player’s cards.

(Source: https://bennettftomlin.com/2021/03/27/before-bitfinex-and-tether/ )

Absolutely not suspicious at all! (It is also worth noting how many people who used to make their money fleecing gamblers are these days involved in the crypto industry.)

On a more hilarious note: one of the “decentralised” financial applications, Beanstalk, found out the hard way why letting people purchase votes is a bad idea. Beanstalk was controlled by a vote by the holders of “governance tokens”, which could be bought and sold. Someone figured a way to leverage loans to purchase the controlling 51 % majority – and promptly used his newfound power to drain 182 million dollars from the Beanstalk fund.

In the real world, similar exploits are not easy. While someone could, for example, acquire a controlling majority in any publicly traded company, there are laws and regulations protecting the minority stockholders. In the crypto circus, there are none.

https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/04/17/attacker-drains-182m-from-beanstalk-stablecoin-protocol/

Posted in Notes in process | Tagged Beanstalk, bitcoin, blockchain, Tether | Leave a comment

On the Kremlin’s imperialism

Posted on February 23, 2022 by J. M. Korhonen

Greetings from a Finnish leftist! The international situation has apparently left many people in the English-speaking countries confused. I originally wrote this thread in Twitter in the hopes of sharing a perspective I believe is widely although certainly not universally shared in Finland, most leftists included. This is a slightly edited version, for clarity.

What we see happening in Ukraine right now is, to put it bluntly, Russian (or more precisely, the Kremlin’s) imperialism. If no other evidence convinces you, I beseech you to read a translation of Putin’s speech on 21st February 2022. He rails about NATO, but pay attention to how he is talking about Ukraine, effectively denying its right to independence and negating the agency of its citizens.

The current crisis has very little to do with NATO, and almost everything to do with Putin’s desire to reinstate the Russian Empire, particularly the “inalienable part” – Ukraine. He has consistently maintained in public that it was a “mistake” to “allow” the former Soviet republics to become independent.

He has also implied that Lenin made an error in 1917 when he let the former Russian territories “go.” One of the countries that gained independence from Russia in 1917, by the way, was Finland.

What Putin seems to fear the most, rightly so, is that democratic revolution reaches Moscow. Thus, democracy itself is a threat to him. It is very difficult to believe that he is really afraid of NATO military forces. We can objectively demonstrate from historical record that the deployment of NATO forces to countries close to Russia used to be laughably minuscule before the “color revolution” in Ukraine spooked Putin in 2014.

Only after Putin’s blatant 2008 and 2014 breaches of post-World War II convention of not redrawing the map of Europe with a sword did NATO even step up military deployments. Still, the deployments were mostly cosmetic, and have not markedly altered the balance of power.

The post-2017 “enhanced forward presence” in the Baltics, for instance, consisted of four battalion task groups. Independent analysts have now counted about 125 similar Russian army groups massing along Ukraine’s borders.

The most powerful nuclear weapon states in the world have little to fear from an attack by other nation states. But what frightens Putin and his band of kleptocrats is the very real possibility that the Russian people decide to get rid of them. The recent events in Byelorussia, where the dictator would probably have been ousted by his people if he hadn’t received help from the Kremlin, must only have reinforced Putin’s fears.

Democratic, successful countries bordering European Russia are a menace to him personally. They show the Russians an alternative, and can even serve as sanctuaries for dissidents that Putin would like to invite for a tea by the window.

This is the reason why Putin is doing his best to undermine the European Union, for instance. Democracy failing is exactly what his anti-democratic propaganda has been claiming for years. To help his dreams become reality, he cynically supports the European and American far right, up to and including support from clandestine intelligence services and financial assistance. Failing Europe would be a boon for Putin, and a divided Europe is a weak Europe whose individual countries can be threatened or corrupted from within.

Putin also controls a formidable propaganda machine, which apparently has been very successful in selling many leftists a story of poor Russia being threatened by evil NATO and thus forced to mass the second greatest invasion force seen in Europe since the end of the Second World War – against non-NATO Ukraine.

(I personally cannot see how the Ukrainians even could be responsible for NATO’s actions even if the above was true, any more than those wedding parties the U.S. has droned over the years were the responsibility of Al Qaida or the Taleban.)

But in reality, the fact is that NATO has not “enlarged” itself: the fact is that democratic countries close to Russia have wanted to join NATO. I hope you ask yourself: why?

Why do you believe the Baltic nations – Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia – were desperate to be admitted to NATO? Why does NATO remains popular in these countries?

Do you really believe that people in countries like the Baltics are evil warmongers who just want to have a go at the Russians? Or that they are poor simpletons bought or duped by some ominous NATO cabal planning to subjugate the Russians?

Or would a more plausible explanation be that people in countries bordering Russia have been for years genuinely concerned that resurgent Kremlin could do precisely something like the Kremlin has now demonstrably done in Georgia and in Ukraine?

I for one used to oppose NATO membership for Finland. I hoped the Kremlin would stop after the first two overt uses of military force, in 2008 and 2014. It did not do so.

Now I’m among those in Finland who are saying that the facts have changed and the opinions need to change as well. There has been a tremendous outburst of public support for Finland’s NATO membership. Because we want to avoid a war.

I firmly believe violence is not a solution, and that a sustainable world cannot be built with it. But sometimes the democracies need to find their spine. I’m still a reservist in the Finnish army and yesterday I voluntarily reviewed my wartime tasks and mobilization packing list, just in case.

Back in the 1930s, democracies turned their backs on democratic Spain. For years I’ve wondered, could the history have turned the other way if they hadn’t? What if they had shown more solidarity when solidarity was needed?

Even if a war could be avoided by yielding to the Kremlin, I really fear what that would mean for the Nordic social democratic experiment. You see, what “finlandization” actually means is a circumscribed quasi-democracy.

A country that is at the mercy of the Kremlin, like we were during the Cold War, may be nominally democratic, but only as long as the people are careful enough to only choose candidates that are acceptable to the Kremlin. I could well write another piece this long about the various downsides of finlandization, but I spare you for now. Just consider this: yielding to the Kremlin means that parties and politicians who like the Kremlin gain in power.

Which politicians would those be?

Right now, the nationalistic-conservative far right is the favorite of the Kremlin. More European countries would end up like Hungary, dominated by the far right who proceed to sell off the country’s assets, like public health services, to their cronies. If this development is familiar to you, check what those selling off your national assets are saying about Ukraine now.

Of course, Putin is nothing if not an opportunist, and he cynically exploits the left as well, if we let him do so. His troll farms and state-controlled media do not create division or controversy as such, but they are very good at amplifying whatever discord there is. The goal of modern era propaganda is not to make you believe the propagandist; it suffices that you drown in conflicting information and cease to believe in anything. When nothing is true and everything is possible, the public falls into apathy – which suits the powerful just fine. Being neutral in a situation where the powerful seek to oppress the weak means that you take the side of the powerful, just as Desmond Tutu once said.

Since Putin’s funds are largely based on Russia’s exports of fossil fuels, Putin also has a very strong interest in keeping Europe hooked on fossil fuels. The climate denialism the far right espouses is therefore another reason for Putin to support them. There are many good reasons for ending the world’s fossil fuel addiction as soon as possible, but this dependence on tinpot dictators is surely a good one as well.

If Europe is again divided into individual states and spheres of influence, democracy would be curtailed all around Eastern Europe. In Finland, our social democracy could effectively end in the typical far right mismanagement and crony capitalism. With it, the experiment to create a sustainable social democracy would suffer, and probably end as well. I may be biased, but I truly believe that experiment could have a lot to offer to the world. If the Nordic experiment then fails, what does the left has to offer to the world then?

Ukraine is not a perfect democracy by any means – no country is – but if it is subjugated under the Kremlin’s autocratic shadow, what are the odds their democracies and freedoms could improve? Especially when we are seeing what the Kremlin’s puppet in Byelorussia is doing.

This is fundamentally a struggle between democracy and autocracy. It is taking place both between democracies and autocracies, and within democracies and autocracies. I lament that many in the left reflexively take the side of autocracy, even though I understand the power of propaganda and the blunders and crimes the U.S. for instance has committed in the past. The world does not revolve entirely around the United States, neither in good nor in ill, and in a world of nearly eight billion people, the political lines are rarely drawn as neatly as in political study circles and theories. This is particularly true in the border regions of former or aspiring empires.

We can easily multitask and denounce the U.S., Russian, and Chinese imperialism simultaneously, for instance.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

For the Russians reading this, let me reiterate: Europeans do not hate you nor wish you or Russia ill. We would greatly prefer peaceful, mutually beneficial cooperation for the betterment of all humanity. But we will not compromise on our fundamental values and freedoms. Democracies may seem soft on the outside, but if pushed, the pusher may find that “soft” can also mean “tough”, just as “hard” may also mean “brittle.” Democracies have faced down worse autocrats before, and prevailed.

Thank you all for reading, and in solidarity from Finland!

PS. For evidence that the above represents a widespread sentiment even among the Finnish left (with the exception of being openly pro-NATO, where I’m an early adopter), see for instance this recent editorial of the People’s News, the Finnish newspaper traditionally close to the Left Alliance. It lays the facts as I too see them: right now there is one warmonger in Europe, and his name is Putin.

Posted in Politics | Tagged Europe, Finland, Kremlin, NATO, Russia, Ukraine | 6 Comments

A Very Short And Fairly Understandable Introduction to Models

Posted on June 29, 2020 by J. M. Korhonen

Created Monday 29 June 2020

At …and Then There’s Physics , there was a post about the recent Nature comment on a “modelling manifesto”, “Five ways to ensure that models serve society”.

I’ve despaired in the past about some of the uses and abuses of models in research and, in particular, as blunt political instruments used to bludgeon the hoi polloi into submission. For some years, I’ve been thinking that there should be a course or a resource that teaches what everyone should know about models in science and how they can be used for, ahem, multiple purposes. So I immediately latched on Jean Goodwin’s comment:

ATTW, One audience I have in mind for the Manifesto is undergrads. I’ve been wanting for a while, and even more since March, to put together a course called something like Modelling: Critical Thinking & Communication. Entry level, larger enrollment. Non-STEM majors would learn about the kinds of questions they should be asking to probe models that they encounter, used or abused, in policy arguments. STEM majors would learn how to communicate what they know to nonspecialist audiences–which basically means answering all those questions in advance. By the end, everyone would be able to use words like “sensitivity” and “boundary conditions” a bit more cogently.

But I haven’t gone forward with this, since I’m missing resources: in addition to things like a modeller-colleague to co-develop the course and some “spare time”, there aren’t a lot of readings/tools/resources that would work. The Manifesto would–it’s on an issue that students will recognize for at least a few years, it’s written at the intelligent layperson level, it pretty much says some things that are well known (to me, that’s the biggest critique of the piece) in vivid language, and it has a couple of claims so questionable that a bright undergrad will call them out. Which is as it should be, since critical thinking is an aim of the course.

What resources would y’all suggest? They need to:
– stick with the big picture, not your fields’ latest squabbles
– be decision-relevant in some way
– mostly fall within US undergraduates’ background knowledge, and if there are technical sections, they need to be cut-able without too much harm
– overall, represent various approaches to modelling in diverse disciplines
– short! and as my students say, “fun”

I have an elementary “Introduction to the Scientific Method”-type course coming up again this fall, and would be interested in developing this theme at least a bit further. Anyone else? Let me know here or on Twitter, @jmkorhon_en !

Resources, gathered from the thread above:

In Praise of Computer Models

https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2019/01/29/erics-memes/

http://www.bnlawrence.net/academic/2020/05/software1/

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/models-science/

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/simulations-science/

Books, suggested by Brigitte Nerlich

Harré, R. 1960. Metaphor, model, and mechanism. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 50:101-22.
Harré, R. 1970. The principles of scientific thinking. London: Macmillan.
Hesse, M.B. 1966. Models and analogies in science. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Hughes, R.I.G. 1997. Models and representation. Philosophy of Science 64:325-36.
Ravetz, J. 2003. Models as metaphors. In Public participation in sustainability science: A handbook, ed. B. Kasemir , J. Jäger , Carlo C. Jaeger , and M. T. Gardner , with a foreword by W. C. Clark and A. Wokaun. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Wartofsky, M.W. 1979. Models: Representation and the scientific understanding . Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
Yearley, S. 1999. Computer models and the public’s understanding of science: A case-study analysis. Social Studies of Science 296:845-66.

Max Black’s Models and Archetypes

Posted in Notes in process, Simulations | Tagged Modeling | 2 Comments

What if we really tried to save our civilization? An introduction to Plan B

Posted on January 9, 2020 by J. M. Korhonen

Our society and, indeed, our way of life is facing an existential threat. The situation is grim, but not hopeless.

These words could have been used to describe the threat faced by the world’s democracies in 1939, and they could describe the threat today. Eight decades ago, the menace of totalitarian autocracy unleashed a world war that democracies had no guarantees of winning. This decade, the danger of climate crisis is becoming similarly tangible. More and more people are beginning to realize what all the scientific studies actually mean: a distinctly, uncomfortably, non-zero chance that there are people presently alive who may live to see the end of democracy and civilization. As Joachim Schellnhuber, a professor at Potsdam Institute and one of the leading climate scientists in the world, put it in September 2019, the business as usual carries with it at least one in ten odds of civilization’s collapse. At the same interview, professor Schellnhuber also stated that rectifying the situation would take at least 20 years of hard work, and that we have only 30 years left to act.

The task ahead can be summarized very briefly. Global greenhouse gas emissions, most notably carbon dioxide, have to fall significantly. The only viable strategy for doing this is simple: electrify everything and clean up electricity generation. Those activities that cannot be electrified have to be restricted according to the availability of low-emission fuels, such as electrolytically produced hydrogen and synthetic methane, or discontinued altogether. At the same time, we have to turn deforestation into reforestation, globally, and reduce material consumption in order to halt and reverse the ongoing, currently accelerating and extremely worrisome loss of biodiversity. We also have to transform our current agricultural practices, transitioning away from a system that is utterly dependent on fossil fuel “energy subsidies”. All this has to happen while we simultaneously ensure that the transition does not exacerbate economic and social inequalities, nationally or globally.

JOS YRITTÄISIMME PELASTAA MAAILMAN(1)

After decades of inaction, some are now surprised that we no longer have further decades for inaction. There is still time, but major changes have to be initiated within this decade. For example, our energy production system has to rapidly transition from its current, fossil fuel dominated state to almost completely zero emission system. This is just one of the necessary measures, and by no means sufficient by itself, but it serves to illustrate the vastness of the challenge.

Below is a rough diagram exploring what a sustainable energy system of the future might look like. In the diagram, I’ve assumed that the global energy generation increases from its current power level, about 18 terawatts (TW), to 30 terawatts, in order to end energy poverty once and for all. (This figure is not a result of any specific calculation, and only serves to illustrate the magnitudes.) As a rough guesstimate, one could assume that one half of this might be delivered by wind power, about one third by solar, and the remainder would come from a mix of hydropower, nuclear energy, and other sources.

JOS YRITTÄISIMME PELASTAA MAAILMAN(2).png

In this case, assuming conservatively that wind turbines last on average 25 years before replacement and depending on average power, the world would have to build up the capacity to construct and install something between 400 000 and 700 000 wind turbines annually, in perpetuity. Such a construction capacity would permit us to build and upkeep between 9 to 15 million wind turbines globally, and deliver about 15 terawatts of average power.

In 2018, approximately 20 000 wind turbines, averaging at about 2.5 megawatts of nameplate capacity, were installed in the world. In other words, we would have to increase the production of wind turbines 20- to 30-fold. (Assuming that world energy use does not increase from its present levels, an 11-fold increase might be enough.) A wind turbine would have to be manufactured and installed every minute, on average. If this sounds like a phenomenal undertaking, it is because it is one.

Nevertheless, we know that such an undertaking is doable. For instance, between 1939 and 1944, United States alone increased its aircraft production 32-fold, from less than 3000 aircraft in 1939 to a peak of 93 600 aircraft in 1944. Additionally, the numbers alone do not tell the whole story: where the planes of 1939 were mostly light, 1- or 2-engined civilian models, the vast majority of those produced in 1944 were massively complex, up to 4-engined war machines bristling with the latest technology. At the same time, the forges of democracy delivered up to 50 cargo ships per day, two fully equipped aircraft carriers per week, and a tank every 26 minutes. All this was achieved despite disruptions and material shortages caused by the war, while over 12 million youth of prime working age, nearly 9 percent of the whole population, were away, fighting on air, land and sea in every corner of the globe.

B-24 Liberator bombers on assembly line at the Willow Run plant. At its peak, the mile-long assembly line of this Ford-operated factory, completed in 1941, delivered a flight ready bomber every 59 minutes. Willow Run was just one of five B-24 Liberator assembly sites, and B-24 was just one of many heavy bombers produced during the war.

This miracle was achieved through mass production on a truly epic scale. As factories retooled to produce immense quantities of standardized products, more expensive machinery became profitable to install. This capital deepening, and learning by doing as workers learned to use their tools more efficiently, worked wonders. In 1941, a B-24 Liberator took between 200 000 to 300 000 person-hours to complete; by the end of the war, 18 000 sufficed. (As a comparison, in current dollars, the cost of a B-24 is about the same as the cost of a 2-3 megawatt wind turbine, and from manufacturing point of view, the B-24 is significantly more complex, containing some 25 000 distinct parts or sub-assemblies compared to about 8 000 in a wind turbine.) Similarly, when the first simplified Liberty cargo ships were completed in 230 days, the type was considered to be very fast to construct: by the end of the war, an average Liberty ship had taken mere 11 days to build, and the record from keel laying to launch was four days, 15 hours, and 30 minutes.

A key to this miracle was cooperation between the industry and the federal government. The government was the customer and paid for the products, controlled prices to combat speculation and inflation, and occasionally stepped in to resolve disputes and allocate scarce materials or workers. The work itself was performed by private enterprises, who received fair pay and sustained healthy yet not excessive profit margins. On occasion, the federal government subsidied firms directly, and in general, tax regimes were adjusted to favor investments in war production.

As far as average citizens were concerned, the war did result to some privations. Gasoline and rubber, for instance, were rationed. However, less than half of the total US industry was ever mobilized for war production, and life at the home front continued with far less disruption than in any other country involved in the war. Work was plentiful, and wages increased by 70 percent. Many previously excluded groups, such as women and persons of color, found paid employment for the first time. All in all, the mobilization effort laid the foundations for the prosperity of the 1950s, and cemented the status of the United States as the world’s pre-eminent economic power.

No law of nature prevents us from conducting a similar mobilization today. If we wanted, we could easily increase the production of clean energy sources and carbon-free transportation by 30 or even 40-fold. Compared to the situation in 1940, what the industry of 2020 can achieve is nothing short of magical

It is even possible that large scale mobilization would eventually turn out to be the cheapest way to transform our infrastructure. Currently, we are constructing the low-carbon infrastructure in bits and pieces. Production is small-scale, made to order, with little to no standardization. This is most likely a major reason why low-carbon infrastructure is more expensive than dirty, polluting, fuel-guzzling fossil fuel infrastructure. If we standardise the production to a few basic models and concentrate our powers to manufacturing epic quantities of each one, the undeniable advantages of mass production, capital deepening and learning by doing are unleashed. It’s completely possible that as a result, low-carbon infrastructure becomes cheaper than our current dirty alternatives, even before any carbon taxes are factored in.

After all, mass production does not have to be limited to power plants, even though I used them as an example. Just as the American industry produced not just planes but innumerable quantities of ships, tanks, weapons and equipment, we could mass produce immense quantities of simplified electric scooters, tractors, and cars, electrifying not just our transport but our agriculture as well. Electrolysis plants for clean hydrogen could well be mass produced, slashing the costs of this critically important piece of clean infrastructure. Electric trains need no further introduction, and in the near future, it might be possible to build short-haul electric aircraft to clean up regional transportation. These are just some examples of the products that climate mobilization could deliver.

State-coordinated mass production on an epic scale is also the only card we haven’t even tried to play. So far, we have utterly failed in our attempts to stave off the climate crisis. For three decades, we’ve produced little more than talk about theoretically optimal climate policies, letting precious time to slip by our fingers. Concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continues its relentless march upwards, from dangerous to very dangerous. Even though some recent policies have raised our hopes, an accurate summary of current policies is “far too little, far too late.”

For this reason, beginning in January 2020, we will begin to develop a practical plan for climate mobilization. We do not know whether and to what extent the lessons from the world wars are really applicable to our current predicament. Therefore, we have to study the subject without prejudice. The United States war mobilization is, after all, an “existence proof” that a society based on private enterprise and (relative) democracy can, if it so wishes, refocus its industrial might to repel an existential crisis. The history of the US war mobilization can also provide instructive for policy makers across the globe. Contrary to what many believe, the war mobilization began in earnest nearly two years before Pearl Harbor, and President Roosevelt had to use all his considerable political skill and influence to push through the required legislation. The debates would be familiar to everyone who has followed the climate mitigation debate. For instance, when Roosevelt asked in May 1940 – a year and a half before Pearl Harbor – the industry to deliver 50 000 warplanes per year, the responses included “that is impossible”, “it’s far too expensive”, “why should we care for the troubles of faraway peoples?”

Four years later, those 50 000 planes were delivered in little more than six months. What if similar approaches, adapted to our current predicament, would deliver similar results?

After all, transition to a sustainable society is a task we have to do, a task we know how to do, and a task we will do. The only alternative is an eventual collapse of global civilization. In order to help us in that task, a network of researchers and specialists now under construction shall therefore prepare a plan, as concrete and comprehensive as possible, for how the European Union at least could refocus its industry towards repelling the current existential threat to democracy and our way of life. In other words, we shall produce a draft plan for staving off the end of the world as we know it, should our politicians choose to stave it off. Of course, we know that such a plan will need time for political groundwork, and therefore we set the nominal start date, the H-hour so to speak, to 2030. This gives the current environmental policy paradigm a decade to produce results, but also gives us at least somewhat prepared backup plan, just in case the policies that have failed us for the last 30 years continue to do so.

Having said all that, it is nevertheless imperative to remember that technology alone cannot “solve” the sustainability crisis. Unless we simultaneously retool our societies as well, no amount of wind turbines or electric cars can deliver anything but a temporary respite. Unless we can set hard limits to environmental degradation, sooner or later we will cross some dangerous threshold. Retooling our societies requires that we abandon societal mechanisms that make the destruction of our only life support system seem like a rational choice for an individual. Unless we can do that, some other sustainability crisis will be the end of us, even if we manage to stop dangerous climate change. Sustainability crises are interconnected, and we are facing potentially equally serious biodiversity crisis, and that we have altered the planet’s nitrogen cycle in an unsustainable manner. Dwindling freshwater supplies are already causing local problems, and the phosphorous cycle is out of balance in an alarming manner, all while our near-exponential growth is also approaching four other critically important “planetary boundaries”. For these reasons, it is certain that the future will see a societal change as well: the only questions remaining are whether this change is voluntary and planned, or involuntary and forced upon us by physics.

Let us know if you want to help!

Twitter:

@jmkorhonen

jos-yrittc384isimme-pelastaa-maailman

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Posted in Economy and the Environment, Energy, History of technology, Politics | Tagged Climate, Environment, Plan B | 1 Comment

Book review: McAfee (2019), More from Less

Posted on November 15, 2019 by J. M. Korhonen

This is an interesting book which could be a good book if its key message – that technology and capitalism will decouple economic growth from resource use in time to prevent serious ecological disruption – were supported by research. This, unfortunately, is not the case.

Decoupling is not exactly a subject that has never been studied before. There exists a voluminous body of research that has used better methods and covers far more ground, both theoretically and empirically, than this book. The conclusions of this research stream are fairly clear, as a recent, comprehensive and well-worth-the-read overview of decoupling research (Parrique et al. 2019) shows: while some decoupling is beyond doubt happening, there is no sturdy evidence that could permit us to believe that necessary decoupling is going on. If we wish to continue our present course and economic growth patterns, we would need to see decoupling that is 1) absolute, 2) deep enough, 3) fast enough, 4) permanent, and 5) global. This is not what research shows.

This book’s central message is basically demolished by a single open access article in PNAS (Wiedmann et al. 2015). Using far more sophisticated methods, informed by past research on the topic, and covering the value chains and countries far more extensively than this book, the researchers concluded that if the total materials footprint of industrialized countries, USA included, has decoupled at all, the amount of absolute decoupling is insignificant. I cannot find any reference to this rather fundamental piece of research in the book, nor can I find any references to any recent studies that are more critical about decoupling claims. In fact, I can’t find solid evidence, either in references or in the text, that the author is even aware of such research. As such, I do not believe that the book’s thesis could ever be published in a reputable peer reviewed journal: existing research has already covered this ground repeatedly, with better methods, and in a more critical fashion.

In a positive note, the author is very clear that market fundamentalism – letting capitalism run amok – is emphatically NOT an answer to the environmental crises, and that we need a strong state to regulate and control the economy, repair market failures and price the externalities. There is ample evidence that of all socio-economic systems we have tried so far, this approach – sometimes known as the Nordic model – has the best track record of both creating and somewhat equitably distributing wealth. That said, I’ve already noticed that many proponents of this book won’t notice these caveats, and instead claim that McAfee suggests unbridled capitalism as the answer.

However, despite rather serious flaws in the key argument, I have no doubt that the book will become a bestseller. We humans are so desperate to believe that nothing needs to change.

Technology in a Post-Growth World: Lessons from the 1970s AT Movement

Posted on May 13, 2019 by J. M. Korhonen

Hello again! This post about lessons we could learn from the 1970s Appropriate/Alternative Technology movement is derived from a presentation I gave at Helsinki Sustainability Science Days 2019, 9.5.2019. The entire presentation can be found here.

The above presentation and this essay are an outgrowth of my innocent plan to just write up some short notes about technology for would-be authors who are interested in developing an internally consistent, believable and positive vision of a future sustainable society. We need such positive visions more than ever: I for one am 100% convinced that the vast majority of humans, those in the rich countries included, could have a far more meaningful and happy lives in a society that scales down and earnestly starts its way towards sustainability. However, big changes are always scary, and I do not blame anyone for being afraid: the coming change may be the biggest one since the Industrial Revolution, and it may unfold quickly in some places. To keep our wits with us, we need positive visions – and if they are grounded in the latest research and decades of experience, they tend to be more convincing.

(As a context, note that this was presented at “Degrowth and Postgrowth” track, so I won’t be spending time on defending degrowth as such.)

We humans are a technological species that lives in an increasingly technological society. No matter which kind of a future we have, if we have a future, then it’s safe to say it’s going to be technological at least to some extent. We cannot even survive without technology, let alone thrive.

However, the “shape” of that technology remains an open question. Is our future going to be a high-technology one, or an Arcadian agricultural vision? Lately, there has been increased academic interest in the role of technology in the transition towards post-growth, sustainable society, as is evidenced by e.g. a 2018 special issue on degrowth and technology in the Journal of Cleaner Production. In brief, the basic question remains the same as it has been in critical technology studies for decades: is technology a friend or a foe, and what kinds of technologies might be “compatible” with the ideals of degrowth?

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This question matters, because, as noted above, we humans are a technological species. Scholars of technology generally agree that it is hard, if not pointless, to separate technology and human society: our technologies are shaped by our society, and our societies are shaped by our technologies. What these technologies then are, and what values they promote or inhibit, is therefore an important question. If not for anything else, discussing what kinds of technology a future sustainable society might use would help that most valued profession, authors, to come up with more internally realistic, positive visions of the future. (See Doctorow, 2017 for one great example.)

Despite the question’s importance, the discussion related to “degrowth technologies” has been largely theoretical in nature. This is somewhat odd, because there exists a well developed body of research and experience from an earlier attempt to develop a technological choice to the current, destructive growth machine. This alternative movement had many names, such as “radical”, “intermediate”, “soft”, or “low impact” technology, but perhaps the best known names were the Alternative or Appropriate Technology movement.

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While the movement is mainly remembered today from its inordinate fondness towards small scale biogas production and its endless designs for “self sufficient” living, what has been almost forgotten is that for more than a decade, this movement produced an alternative, compelling and very successful narrative for the use of technology. Instead of gigantic technological infrastructures that today remain largely hidden from the view and the thoughts of an individual consumer (and “consumer” tells you what is the position of an individual in this scheme), the AT movement advocated for human-scale, understandable technologies that ordinary humans could at least begin to control. What’s more, the movement was extraordinarily successful when compared to most counterculture movements today: at its heyday, its leading figures were invited to meet presidents and royalty, and its ideas were discussed seriously in bodies like the United Nations and the OECD.

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What this movement sought was to change the technology-practice of our societies so that research and development would be aimed towards human-scale technology, that is, ensuring that technology is compatible with its psychosocial and biophysical context. In other words, the movement sought appropriate technologies and, even more fundamentally, the option of technological choice that went beyond which of the ready-made, prepackaged technological ensembles one would purchase. In brief, the movement sought to democratize technology, while at the same time working towards reducing the human footprint to nature to sustainable levels.

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While the roots of this movement can be traced to the 1800s and even beyond, the critique towards “technological society” inherent in the movement began on its earnest in the 1930s. I would argue that the 1950s DIY movement was in its way a precursor as well: taking control of technology in an increasingly technological age was and remains a subtly subversive act. More generally, the AT movement drew its inspiration from spreading disaffection with modernity and was influenced by e.g. Gandhian philosophy of voluntary simplicity; experience in Asia and Buddhist philosophy were fundamental to the intellectual development of the one person who might be called the father of the AT movement, British-German economist E.F. (“Fritz”) Schumacher.

Schumacher’s book Small is Beautiful (1973) jump-started a movement that had been bubbling under in the countercultural settings of the 1960s. By arguing that we humans could and should choose technologies and even entire technological systems (ensembles) to suit our needs, instead of taking as granted the technological ensemble offered by the corporate-capitalist world, Schumacher perhaps inadvertently tapped into a vast reservoir of resentment towards modernity. Much as it is today, this resentment had built upon radical changes in the people’s lives, the feeling of powerlessness in the face of faceless systems and corporations, and a rising awareness that the system was not and perhaps could not be sustainable.

However, by the late 1980s, the AT movement had largely disappeared from the view. Critics such as Rybczynski (1980) and Willoughby (1990, 2005) note that the movement was to an extent a fad that had never really defined what “appropriate” technology is; others (e.g. Harper & Boyle 1977) lamented the movement’s focus on technological gadgets rather than political and societal action. It should be noted that while the movement produced all sorts of fanciful schemes for “appropriate” living, it also produced major successes: the entire practice of eco-design largely stems from the ideas first tested in the AT movement, and AT schemes such as utilization of passive solar heat are increasingly standard practice in the construction business. The vision of a sustainable yet comfortable future the AT movement espoused was technically viable and surprisingly popular: what really killed the vision was the rise of radical, anti-environmentalist, pro-business right-wing politics in both the United States and in Europe. Combined with decrease in the price of oil and coal, the alternatives to alternative technology became simply too cheap and convenient, as long as one didn’t have to look under the hood to see the damages this path was causing.

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While the grand vision died, the AT movement, however, survived, if in a modified form. Various authors have noted that without the AT movement and its questioning of technological choice, and its attempts to bring technological choice to the people instead of having experts to decide, we would not have the current science and technology studies (STS) practice. Quite possibly, we wouldn’t have the hacker culture nor personal computers: the entire hacker culture was to a very large extent motivated by the desire to democratize technology, and was deeply connected to the broader AT movement as well (Markoff, 2005; Turner, 2006). The AT movement was also the testing ground not only for energy and building technologies that are now becoming standard, but also what has become the entire eco-design field, as well as prefiguring recently rehashed ideas such as “bottom of the pyramid” or “frugal” innovation by decades. A movement of such importance should not be forgotten as easily as we have done so. Perhaps, as Greer (2013) suggests, we do not want to look at the future we once had but squandered.

Yet look again we must. We are now again coming face to face with issues we brushed under the carpet in the 1980s. The AT movement was mostly correct in its prognosis of the humanity’s predicament, but an unhappy coincidence of political and geological factors permitted us to remain blind to its observations for more than three decades. I believe it is high time to bring the idea of technological choice back to the table, and start having a serious, adult discussion about what our technological society is really for. Are we building a society whose purpose is to let a few super-billionaires play rocket jockeys – or should we focus our creative energies towards bettering the lives of ordinary people, with technologies they can use as tools and not as components in a vast technological machine?

If we want the latter, and I believe it would be the right thing to do, then some lessons from the 1970s are worth remembering. First, social change does not happen via technological change. A major blind spot for many – though by no means all practicioners of AT was the focus on technological gadgetry as the solution. This tendency has not disappeared: as e.g. Morozov (2013) argues, if possible we suffer even more from “solutionism”, or the faith of there being an app for that. Whenever a technocrat sees a problem, he (and it’s almost always he) also sees that there could be a technical solution. Unfortunately, this approach has never really worked, and it’s unlikely it ever will.

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Instead, technology should be seen as an amplifier of pre-existing tendencies (see e.g. Toyama, 2015). If the underlying societal structure tends to concentrate wealth, then new technologies tend to make wealth concentration more severe; if the society promotes well-being of its members, then new technologies tend to increase well-being.

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We could and should’ve learned that lesson back in the 1970s, but we chose not to. Probably a major reason for that is because technical fix to essentially social problems (like, say, poverty) is like the Dark Side of the Force: it’s the seductive path that brings fast results, but as with the Dark Side, these results tend to be illusory. As Morozov (2013) and Toyama (2015), among others, have documented, the Dark Side is nevertheless the default setting for most technologists and societal decision-makers. Again, the fear and revulsion of having to engage in politics is probably a major driver that leads people towards solutionism. However, if one wants to change the world, one should focus a lot more on the messy job of politics and civic engagement – and far less on technological gadgetry.

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Second lesson we should learn from the 1970s is that creating alternatives in the sphere of consumption is relatively easy, but creating alternatives in the sphere of production is far more difficult (Rybczynski, 1980). That is, we can relatively easily choose what and how we consume, e.g. whether we buy everything from a store or make do with second hand and whatever we can do ourselves. In the picture, I’ve tried to represent the “seamless web” of technology’s infrastructure by the pyramidical network: our individual consumption choices, even Appropriate Technology ones, tend to focus on individual products on top of the pyramid, not in how the the products are produced (the rest of the web).

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In the absence of political action, these limited actions are unlikely to influence the means of production: we may choose to buy less, but the infrastructure that is geared towards producing more remains. As long as individual choices do not result to significant changes in the sphere of production, any changes are not sustainable and will tend to rebound over time. The web will find new uses for its resources; this is, after all, what producers in a capitalist economy have to do to survive.

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Third, we really ought to know by now that we cannot forecast the unanticipated side effects of technology. Good ideas can have bad effects, and sometimes bad ideas can have good effects. Much of the Appropriate Technology literature stressed the need to better anticipate what impacts a given technology (or technological ensemble) would have on the people who have to adopt it. This is a worthwhile pursuit – as our tools become more and more powerful, we really ought to think much more carefully about the consequences of our actions – but we ought to abandon the idea that we could precisely engineer a technosocial system that would deliver the societal results we want like clockwork. Societies and technologies are simply too complex for that.

Instead, what we need is an acknowledgement that we have to be able to make constant adjustments based on feedback from the system. Our current means of regulating technologies date from the 1700s, and they are woefully slow-acting compared to the power and speed of our modern tools. There is a real and constantly increasing risk that we inadvertently use a tool that bites too powerfully before we even realize what is happening or can turn the tool off. This could perhaps be something from biotechnology, for instance, although plain old chemistry has already managed to spring us some very nasty surprises, and arguably social media is another out of control tool.

We also would benefit from favoring technologies that do not foreclose the future options. Megascale technologies tend to do just that: monocultures drive local seed varieties and related knowledge extinct, and massive construction projects create assets that must be run to their expected economical lifetime. However, since we cannot foresee technology’s full impacts, by the definition of violence offered by Hannah Arendt in her famous essay On Violence (1972), all technologies are “violent”. For Arendt, violence is the antithesis of real power, which is based on negotiating and persuading people to act together towards a common goal. Violence prevents such persuasion and replaces it with a necessity; thus, if a technology forecloses an otherwise possible course of action from future humans, it is “violent.” (Of course, there are degrees of violence and culpability.)

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Besides less violent and easier to control technologies, there might be another valuable distinction that could sometimes help us make better technological decisions. That is the distinction between a machine and a tool. For this essay, a machine could be defined as any tool that includes automation: a machine is thus a tool that limits its user to certain predetermined actions. A tool, in contrast, is more an extension and amplifier of its user’s capabilities and powers. While strict separation between machines and tools is impossible, especially today, one could nevertheless recognize that some technologies tend to make people into components of a vast machine, while others tend to be more empowering (cf. Coomaraswamy, 1946). We humans are famously unsuited for a life as a part of a machine, and at least some of the present alienation and disaffection in society must certainly stem from the fact that our technological machinery often treats people as components – sometimes low-cost, easily replaceable ones. Sweatshop workers who sew our clothes because training a robot to handle the variety would be more expensive are perhaps the perfect example, but machines control our lives (sometimes surreptiously) even in the wealthiest households. Choosing between a tool and a machine may not be always possible and is likely never easy, but when it is possible, we probably ought to favor tools over machines.

I originally started this paper with an intention to provide some ideas from the history and study of technology for authors who might be interested in developing much-needed positive visions of the future. The above sections may not have answered that question very well, and for that I apologize: however, forecasting is hard, forecasting the future is harder, and forecasting future technology is the hardest. I cannot really say how the technologies in a sustainable, post-growth world would look like. However, I have some guesses: the technologies are unlikely to be thoroughly simple. There are many very advanced technologies that provide genuine value relatively democratically, and these are likely to continue to be developed in most conceivable future scenarios (I leave out the total collapse one, because planning for that is largely useless anyway). However, unless someone pulls an energy rabbit out of the hat and develops an energy system that can truly replace cheap fossil fuels, it seems likely that the world economy will become at least slightly more local. What this probably means is an increase in the competitiveness of technologies that do not rely on global supply chains of raw material, semi-finished products, components, and skills. There is likely to be more regional variation, and if we can get on with really good ideas like Universal Basic Income, most probably a burst of creativity as local tinkerers and would-be inventors become more competitive against mass-market goods from China’s workshops.

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No matter what happens, though, we need to be able to implement social limitations to technology. Our tools are already too powerful for them to be governed the way we governed an axe and a hand-saw, and for the foreseeable future, it seems that our tools are becoming even more powerful. Tools themselves cannot say when they are misused, and it is up to us humans to say “enough!” when those overenthusiastic about novelty want to introduce yet another technology whose consequences are understood poorly, if at all. Technological innovation does not have to and will not cease: but directing it towards more humane ends and perhaps slowing the pace of change somewhat would very probably be a good idea.

All this is not because technology is inherently bad. As famous historian of technology noted a long time ago, technologies are neither good or bad (Kranzberg, 1986). Technology is the ensemble of tools and machines we use to pursue our ends, and we can choose the ends. Technological determinism is thus flawed: it is just as silly to claim that technology is inherently bad as to believe that technological progress is inherently good. To a very large extent, technologies are what we make them to be. However, technologies are also not neutral, and some technologies are probably easier to shape into “technologies with a human face” the 1970s pioneers wanted to gift to us, their children. It is now our task to pick up from where they left, and make a better future – a human-sized future – a reality.

REFERENCES

Coomaraswamy, A. K. (1946). Art and Swadeshi. Madras: Ganesh & Co.

Doctorow, C. (2017). Walkaway. New York: Tor Books.

Greer, J. M. (2013). Green Wizardry: Conservation, Solar Power, Organic Gardening, and other Hands-On Skills from Appropriate Tech Toolkit. Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers.

Harper, P., & Boyle, G. (Eds.). (1977). Radical Technology. London: Wildwood House.

Kranzberg, M. (1986). Technology and History: “Kranzberg’s Laws.” Technology and Culture, 27(3), 544.

Markoff, J. (2005). What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry. New York: Penguin.

Morozov, E. (2013). To Save Everything, Click Here: the Folly of Technological Solutionism. New York: PublicAffairs.

Rybczynski, W. (1980). Paper Heroes: A Review of Appropriate Technology. Garden City: Anchor Books.

Schumacher, E. F. (1973). Small is Beautiful. A Study of Economics As If People Mattered. London: Blond and Briggs.

Toyama, K. (2015). Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology (Kindle ed.). Philadelphia: Perseus Books.

Turner, F. (2006). From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth network, and the rise of digital utopianism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Arendt, H. (1972). On Violence. In Crises of the Republic. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Willoughby, K. W. (1990). Technology Choice: A Critique of the Appropriate Technology Movement. Boulder and London: Westview Press.

Willoughby, K. W. (2005). Technological semantics and technological practice: Lessons from an enigmatic episode in twentieth-century technology studies. Knowledge, Technology & Policy, 17(3-4), 11-43.

Posted in Economy and the Environment, History of technology, My publications, Notes in process, Politics, post-scarcity | Tagged Alternative technology, Appropriate technology, Environment, Environmental policy, History of technology, Politics | 1 Comment

The unpublished notebooks of J. M. Korhonen

Russian industrial mobilization cannot alter the outcome of the war

The Russian defense industry was in trouble even before the war

Factory capacity is insufficient even for maintenance

Civilian industry cannot be simply switched to war production

Speedy Ukrainian victory is in everyone’s interests

Further reading

15.6.22 Book review: The Invention of Humanity (Stuurman 2017)

27.5.2022 – What is good in life, on feedback loops possibly leading to collapse

20.5.2022 Friday – On extinction risk, commons risk, “natural disasters”

19.5.2022 – Bitcoin, Tether, Beanstalk

On the Kremlin’s imperialism

A Very Short And Fairly Understandable Introduction to Models

Resources, gathered from the thread above:

What if we really tried to save our civilization? An introduction to Plan B

Book review: McAfee (2019), More from Less

Technology in a Post-Growth World: Lessons from the 1970s AT Movement

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The Russian defense industry was in trouble even before the war

Factory capacity is insufficient even for maintenance

Civilian industry cannot be simply switched to war production

Speedy Ukrainian victory is in everyone’s interests

Further reading

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