Now this looks like an interesting read... [View all]

[NNadir]

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

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).

I never heard of him until now.