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Related: About this forumNow this looks like an interesting read...
The History and Future of Technology: Can Technology Save Humanity from Extinction?It came up under my Google Scholar alert for "liquid plutonium."
I downloaded it, and hope I'll find time to at least excerpt it. It's rather long, over 800 pages. I seldom read any book from cover to cover.
Issues considered:
Benefits
Along the way, you will consider
If the human race can survive without fossil fuels
If we can decarbonize completely
If we can stabilize the global climate before it is too late
If solar and wind power alone can be self-sufficient
If we will need conventional nuclear power
If our descendants in 2120 will have thermonuclear fusion
If our descendants in 2120 will ride in private automobiles
If nuclear families will live in private suburban houses
If there is a viable technological strategy to recovering biological diversity
What technologies can protect us from future mutant viruses
If artificial intelligence will permit robots to become our future masters
Along the way, you will consider
If the human race can survive without fossil fuels
If we can decarbonize completely
If we can stabilize the global climate before it is too late
If solar and wind power alone can be self-sufficient
If we will need conventional nuclear power
If our descendants in 2120 will have thermonuclear fusion
If our descendants in 2120 will ride in private automobiles
If nuclear families will live in private suburban houses
If there is a viable technological strategy to recovering biological diversity
What technologies can protect us from future mutant viruses
If artificial intelligence will permit robots to become our future masters
About the author:
Professor Ayres holds a PhD in Mathematical Physics from Kings College, University of London, a MSc in Physics from the University of Maryland and a BA, BSc from the University of Chicago. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Economics and Political Science and of Technology and Operations Management at INSEAD, the international graduate business school.
He joined INSEAD in 1992, becoming the first Sandoz (now Novartis) Chair of Management and the Environment, as well as the founder of CMER, Center for the Management of Environmental Resources. He directed CMER from 1992-2000. Since retirement he has been a visiting professor at Chalmers Institute of Technology in Sweden (where he was also a King's Professor) and Institute Scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. He remains active, producing publications on topics ranging from Industrial Metabolism and Industrial Ecology, through Environmental Policy and Environmental Economics, to Energy. Professor Ayres is the author or coauthor of 21 books, most recently including The Economic Growth Engine (2009, with Benjamin Warr), Crossing the Energy Divide (2009, with Edward Ayres) and Bubble Economy (2014), Energy, Complexity and Wealth Maximization (2018) and On Capitalism and Inequality (2020).
He joined INSEAD in 1992, becoming the first Sandoz (now Novartis) Chair of Management and the Environment, as well as the founder of CMER, Center for the Management of Environmental Resources. He directed CMER from 1992-2000. Since retirement he has been a visiting professor at Chalmers Institute of Technology in Sweden (where he was also a King's Professor) and Institute Scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. He remains active, producing publications on topics ranging from Industrial Metabolism and Industrial Ecology, through Environmental Policy and Environmental Economics, to Energy. Professor Ayres is the author or coauthor of 21 books, most recently including The Economic Growth Engine (2009, with Benjamin Warr), Crossing the Energy Divide (2009, with Edward Ayres) and Bubble Economy (2014), Energy, Complexity and Wealth Maximization (2018) and On Capitalism and Inequality (2020).
I never heard of him until now.
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Now this looks like an interesting read... (Original Post)
NNadir
Aug 2021
OP
dweller
(23,632 posts)1. That last chapter sounds fun ...
🤨
✌🏻
Lettuce Be
(2,336 posts)2. Wow, I can't wait to hear your summary
That looks fascinating
lapfog_1
(29,204 posts)3. Robert Silverberg postulated a potential solution in 1970
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Inside
we turn the vast majority of land mass into forests and farmland... and we live much more energy efficient in Urbmons or Urban Monads - basically huge single structures where the vast majority of humanity lives and works.
Of course he also postulates that human population grows exponentially from current levels and that is unlikely without using the resources from the rest of the solar system. Yet to be seen if that can be done cheaply enough.
we turn the vast majority of land mass into forests and farmland... and we live much more energy efficient in Urbmons or Urban Monads - basically huge single structures where the vast majority of humanity lives and works.
Of course he also postulates that human population grows exponentially from current levels and that is unlikely without using the resources from the rest of the solar system. Yet to be seen if that can be done cheaply enough.
NNadir
(33,518 posts)4. It sounds like something out of the 1970s.
Back then people even took Amory Lovins seriously.