Industrial humanity uses fuel and tech to eliminate labor. This
approach cleverly suited a world empty of laborers and replete with
fuel, mineral resources and air to pollute into. But in our current
world, now emptying of fuel, mineral resources and air to carbonate, and
full of workers willing to labor, we can all do better together by
altering the tech we use to that which employs more of our plentiful
labor and uses up less of the now-scarce fuel and resources, as well as
less of the air we depended on for climatic stability. I tip my hat to
Herman Daly and Hazel Henderson, from whom I learned this.
Some argue that the future holds less work and more leisure or unemployment, but this supposes industrialism somehow continues eliminating labor with resources and tech. While that has certainly predominated in the past, we know this can not continue, since resources are growing scarce. Air, into which to burn carbon, is the first limit, and our past stable climate is an early casualty of industrialism. Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide can not continue. Either industrialism will end the agriculture industrialism relies on, by altering the climatic stability farmers need; or in a green future, fuel will be used less, and labor more. Any robotic replacement of human labor would rely on industrialism’s dependence on finite resources, hence must be fleeting. The sooner we acccept the essentiality of labor in our green future, the better.
Is USA a special case? Does USA's dependence on industrial agriculture now bode slack labor tomorrow? Or can we assure the now-jobless USers of green jobs?
Some argue that the future holds less work and more leisure or unemployment, but this supposes industrialism somehow continues eliminating labor with resources and tech. While that has certainly predominated in the past, we know this can not continue, since resources are growing scarce. Air, into which to burn carbon, is the first limit, and our past stable climate is an early casualty of industrialism. Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide can not continue. Either industrialism will end the agriculture industrialism relies on, by altering the climatic stability farmers need; or in a green future, fuel will be used less, and labor more. Any robotic replacement of human labor would rely on industrialism’s dependence on finite resources, hence must be fleeting. The sooner we acccept the essentiality of labor in our green future, the better.
Is USA a special case? Does USA's dependence on industrial agriculture now bode slack labor tomorrow? Or can we assure the now-jobless USers of green jobs?
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