Engineering the Planet

1
Engineering the Planet

• What Compels us to do so?

2
Consumption Pros and Cons

• This depends on how you want to index consumption
  personal consumption/affluence is different
  than production/consumption that indirectly leads
  to better society infrastructure and services.
• What matters is the rate of consumption relative
  to the resource base. Main problem is that
  short term market growth, which we value, wants
  high rates.
• Sustainability demands lower rates ? this is the
  clash of values.

3
Two Important Questions

• Is the highest form of enlightenment really
  consumerism on a global scale?
• Is the steady increase in global inequity worth
  the price of global consumption?

4
Key Historical Moments

• We are special (different than other animals)
• We are uniquely positioned at the center of the
  Universe (reflects our specialness)
• The Universe is ordered, logical and rational
• With the application of Reason, humankind is
  unbounded
• The Newtonian world shows us the machine and it
  is precise

5
Continued

• Life is a struggle competition is natural
  gradual change occurs (Darwin)
• Science now certifies ? Survival of the fittest
  and the engineering of society to protect that
  outcome (Spencer)
• The notion of uncertainty, as a valid and
  integral scientific concept, arises too late in
  this process ? we already have truth pathways
  established

6
The Science/Culture Interface The Nature of Truth

• Science a testable prediction is made which
  then adds to the soup of knowledge. Either the
  theory is completely wrong, or its partially
  correct and we move on.
• The Theory is never completely correct or
  provides a complete explanation. This is the
  essential difference between Science and Belief
  Belief systems supply a complete (and certain)
  explanation

7
Truth Continued

• The key to understanding the interaction between
  science and culture is to recognize and
  appreciate the vital role of measurements in
  constructing a knowledge pathway. That makes it
  different from a belief system, which requires no
  data or measurements to substantiate it.
• Knowledge based on measurement means that
  knowledge is both uncertain and subject to change
  when new and better measurements are made there
  is no room for absolute truth in this methodology

8
e/E a Vexing Problem

• E in principle, very much is a reasonable and
  moral set of values designed to produce a more
  fair society
• e ? however, the principles of E are usually put
  into the hands of the self-appointed elite to
  already know the best end state.
• At some point E needs to squash e

9
Choice Pathways

• Which world does humanity want to live in?
• One that is based on a belief system that is then
  projected on to the natural world to support that
  belief (this is the BIAS)
• One where scientific methodology and thinking is
  used to enable, on a planet wide scale, the
  enlightenment motto that all men are created equal

10
GOD
Certainty Entitlement Aarogance
Connectivity Of Atoms
HUMANS
HUMANS
NATURE
Wisdom Enlightenment Humility
Super Nova
ROCKS
TREES
TREES
ROCKS
Everything Is Connected to
Everything
Disconnected States