We are able to say that communist central planning failed because we can compare its results with those of capitalism. We can look at nighttime photos of the Korean peninsula; we can contrast Soviet bread lines with the groaning shelves of an American supermarket.
30 years ago I was an anti-nuclear activist. However as I learned more about nuclear power the more I realized I was wrong. I still travel in the same anti-nuclear (anti-gmo etc) circles. Over the last few years I have noticed that I am less of a voice in the wilderness. So to your point I am hopeful.
One argument I use is to remind my eco friends who are critical of "climate change deniers" that they say such people should attend to the scientific consensus. Why then I ask do you reject the overwhelming evidence of the safety of nuclear power or GMOs. At the time of Fukushima I was arguing that more people died every month in coal mining than died from the Fukushima accident
Genetically modified crops seem like another place where environmental groups were successfully able to motivate popular distrust and limit a technology and where we might wonder what could have been. Actual GMOs don't seem too game changing, and certainly genetics in general has failed to live up to the promise it seemed to have in the 90s, but I wonder if the relatively simple and relatively low risk field of plant genetics could have gone much further if it was encouraged rather than restrained.
Nov 17, 2022·edited Nov 19, 2022Liked by Brink Lindsey
Another link is that the "Promethean" attitude became associated with a kind of problem denialism in which (to exaggerate) the response to a problem -- safety, environmental harm, inequality -- was not "Right! What's the least cost way to deal with that?" but rather, "Bad messenger! Bad!" This led to an "alliance" between legitimate and illegitimate complainers.
I grant this does not explain the existence of the "illegitimate" complainers, which is a larger cultural phenomenon.
And that inflection in energy use probably IS just a response to oil price shocks. Presumably we should hope to see a re-establishment of the upward trajectory when enough energy production does not require oxidizing carbon atoms.
Nov 18, 2022·edited Nov 18, 2022Liked by Brink Lindsey
I share Brink’s sentiment. I fully agree with his view of prevailing statism and anti-Promethean backlash. However, I think that he is confused and still does not see the full picture. Statism, risk-aversion, and backlash against the idea that humanity should remake the planet to suit our needs, are all important pieces of this picture. As well as suffocating bureaucracy, which he alludes to here, but fails to clearly discuss.
Signaling is the most important missing piece. As people get richer, they satisfy more and more their immediate physiological needs. So now they are not forced to worry that much about a world of atoms around them and start thinking about other stuff. While Maslow’s pyramid is underrated, it is built on a very idealized view of human nature. The biggest change as you go upward in the pyramid of preferences is a shift from physical and objective concepts to various forms of signaling. Together with economic stagnation, this turns everything into a zero-sum game over relative status.
“Elephant in the brain” by Robin Hanson is a perfect explanation of this point. He argues that as humanity gets richer, it becomes ‘status-drunk’ and abandons growth for the sake of navel-gazing and status-seeking.
50 years ago most kids wanted to build up world around them. That's why they wanted to be builders: inventors, engineers and entrepreneurs. Now kids mostly care about winning in signaling and status-seeking games. So they dream to become influencers with millions of followers, and spending their life talking about food/pets/memes.
I'm a contrarian here. The Techno-utopians have got it wrong. This issue is not our failure to innovate and advance, it is the inability of humans and human systems to keep up. All technology has it upsides and downsides -- Nuclear power, AI, genetic engineering, social media -- all have huge potential for destruction. A slowdown, IMO, is appropriate and welcome. Add to that the fact that human fulfillment goes beyond having enough stuff -- it includes ideas like justice and wisdom and self-actualization -- ideas that technology is unlikely to deliver for us.
The link or at least A link was the naïve instinct to mitigate environmental harm by controlling, regulating the specific technology that produced the harm rather than controlling regulating or in particular taxing the harm itself. In the naïve "environmentalist" approach one does not weigh the environmental harm against the benefits of the activity of which the harm is a by product, or does so only in the crude way of reducing the harm as much as "feasible."
Very well researched and presented. Our weaponization of guilt from our successes has also played a role. The public self flagellation has manifested itself in oodles of regulations with lists of things we are told we should not think or say.
Have you ever seen the show For All Mankind on Apple TV? It actually explores an alternate history in which this anti-Promethean backlash never happened and imagined some heights we.could have achieved.
Other countries like France and Japan have been making heavy use of nuclear technology for decades. Although it doubtlessly contributes to their prosperity, and the lack of carbon emissions is a solid benefit, it doesn't seem to have been sufficient to bring them much closer to the Henry Adams curve. Exponential change levels off and turns sigmoid eventually (in the best-case scenarios).
I hate to be critical because I very much follow the spirit of this essay, but referencing "cold fusion" is pretty sus. I've never seen any reason to think the concept is fundamentally nonphysical.
This post is remarkably perverse. Technologies like supersonic airliners and nuclear power failed because they turned out to have no operational need or business case (and often significant risks or drawbacks). I've told the nuclear story tersely at https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/why-nuclear-power-is-bad-for-your-wallet-and-the-climate, and more fully at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tej.2022.107122. Both explain why the nuclear industry's slow-motion collapse speeds climate protection by freeing up investment, grid capacity, talent, and attention for cheaper, faster, hence more climate-effective competitors. The extraordinary success of modern renewables (~300 GW/y, ~95% share of global net additions of generating capacity) and efficient energy use (about half of past and prospective global decarbonization) should be celebrated, not ignored or denigrated. But apparently Brink Lindsey considers some technologies praiseworthy and others injurious for obscure noneconomic reasons not explained and far from obvious, at least to this lifelong technological practitioner.
The most bizarre part of the argument seems to say that using less energy to provide the same or better services, by using it more effectively through smarter technology and design, is somehow harmful to society. I do not subscribe to an energy theory of value. Energy is a means to societal ends, not an end in itself. Using more energy than we need to do the job at least cost is mere waste.
The emergent suite of climate solutions depends strongly on better technology and design, aggressively developed, refined, and deployed. This results not from opposing technological progress, but from choosing technologies that make sense and make money. This essay seems just a fancy stew of sour grapes because the writers' technological preferences were invalided by markets. Sorry. But as you grieve the losers, just try the winners. You might like them.
I like nuclear power, but I am sceptical whether it will ever be really cheap because of the security issues which drive up both capex and opex. Solar is the cheapest power ever connected to the grid, and I can say with confidence that excessive regulation is why we don’t already have more cheap solar both connected to the grid and behind the meter. Same for wind, not quite as cheap but blows more at night. It is a shame for the US that Manchin’s permitting bill didn’t get up.
> how could the dominant reaction have been anything other than horror and anger at the scale of the casual, thoughtless destruction? How could the immediate response to “what is to be done?” have been anything other than to try to restrain the technologies that were causing and threatening harm?
I don't see how it's so inevitable. There aren't really what Lucas would call micro-foundations provided to explain this backlash, so how can we be sure of anything about it? Wouldn't mere change on the margin serve as a null hypothesis?
I'm also skeptical that the Holocaust is to blame. My understanding is that the Nazis themselves were already proto-environmentalists who were also anti-smoking before that cause got taken up in the US.
30 years ago I was an anti-nuclear activist. However as I learned more about nuclear power the more I realized I was wrong. I still travel in the same anti-nuclear (anti-gmo etc) circles. Over the last few years I have noticed that I am less of a voice in the wilderness. So to your point I am hopeful.
One argument I use is to remind my eco friends who are critical of "climate change deniers" that they say such people should attend to the scientific consensus. Why then I ask do you reject the overwhelming evidence of the safety of nuclear power or GMOs. At the time of Fukushima I was arguing that more people died every month in coal mining than died from the Fukushima accident
Genetically modified crops seem like another place where environmental groups were successfully able to motivate popular distrust and limit a technology and where we might wonder what could have been. Actual GMOs don't seem too game changing, and certainly genetics in general has failed to live up to the promise it seemed to have in the 90s, but I wonder if the relatively simple and relatively low risk field of plant genetics could have gone much further if it was encouraged rather than restrained.
Another link is that the "Promethean" attitude became associated with a kind of problem denialism in which (to exaggerate) the response to a problem -- safety, environmental harm, inequality -- was not "Right! What's the least cost way to deal with that?" but rather, "Bad messenger! Bad!" This led to an "alliance" between legitimate and illegitimate complainers.
I grant this does not explain the existence of the "illegitimate" complainers, which is a larger cultural phenomenon.
And that inflection in energy use probably IS just a response to oil price shocks. Presumably we should hope to see a re-establishment of the upward trajectory when enough energy production does not require oxidizing carbon atoms.
I share Brink’s sentiment. I fully agree with his view of prevailing statism and anti-Promethean backlash. However, I think that he is confused and still does not see the full picture. Statism, risk-aversion, and backlash against the idea that humanity should remake the planet to suit our needs, are all important pieces of this picture. As well as suffocating bureaucracy, which he alludes to here, but fails to clearly discuss.
Signaling is the most important missing piece. As people get richer, they satisfy more and more their immediate physiological needs. So now they are not forced to worry that much about a world of atoms around them and start thinking about other stuff. While Maslow’s pyramid is underrated, it is built on a very idealized view of human nature. The biggest change as you go upward in the pyramid of preferences is a shift from physical and objective concepts to various forms of signaling. Together with economic stagnation, this turns everything into a zero-sum game over relative status.
“Elephant in the brain” by Robin Hanson is a perfect explanation of this point. He argues that as humanity gets richer, it becomes ‘status-drunk’ and abandons growth for the sake of navel-gazing and status-seeking.
50 years ago most kids wanted to build up world around them. That's why they wanted to be builders: inventors, engineers and entrepreneurs. Now kids mostly care about winning in signaling and status-seeking games. So they dream to become influencers with millions of followers, and spending their life talking about food/pets/memes.
I'm a contrarian here. The Techno-utopians have got it wrong. This issue is not our failure to innovate and advance, it is the inability of humans and human systems to keep up. All technology has it upsides and downsides -- Nuclear power, AI, genetic engineering, social media -- all have huge potential for destruction. A slowdown, IMO, is appropriate and welcome. Add to that the fact that human fulfillment goes beyond having enough stuff -- it includes ideas like justice and wisdom and self-actualization -- ideas that technology is unlikely to deliver for us.
The link or at least A link was the naïve instinct to mitigate environmental harm by controlling, regulating the specific technology that produced the harm rather than controlling regulating or in particular taxing the harm itself. In the naïve "environmentalist" approach one does not weigh the environmental harm against the benefits of the activity of which the harm is a by product, or does so only in the crude way of reducing the harm as much as "feasible."
Suggest you read about Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky’s work in the 1970s about their cultural theory of risk perception.
https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520050631/risk-and-culture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_theory_of_risk
Very well researched and presented. Our weaponization of guilt from our successes has also played a role. The public self flagellation has manifested itself in oodles of regulations with lists of things we are told we should not think or say.
Have you ever seen the show For All Mankind on Apple TV? It actually explores an alternate history in which this anti-Promethean backlash never happened and imagined some heights we.could have achieved.
Other countries like France and Japan have been making heavy use of nuclear technology for decades. Although it doubtlessly contributes to their prosperity, and the lack of carbon emissions is a solid benefit, it doesn't seem to have been sufficient to bring them much closer to the Henry Adams curve. Exponential change levels off and turns sigmoid eventually (in the best-case scenarios).
I hate to be critical because I very much follow the spirit of this essay, but referencing "cold fusion" is pretty sus. I've never seen any reason to think the concept is fundamentally nonphysical.
Thorium Remix 2009 - LFTR in 16 Minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWUeBSoEnRk
The owners do NOT want energy to be distributed FREELY.
We could have inexpensive, safe and non polluting nuclear but...
Great article - thanks!
This post is remarkably perverse. Technologies like supersonic airliners and nuclear power failed because they turned out to have no operational need or business case (and often significant risks or drawbacks). I've told the nuclear story tersely at https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/why-nuclear-power-is-bad-for-your-wallet-and-the-climate, and more fully at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tej.2022.107122. Both explain why the nuclear industry's slow-motion collapse speeds climate protection by freeing up investment, grid capacity, talent, and attention for cheaper, faster, hence more climate-effective competitors. The extraordinary success of modern renewables (~300 GW/y, ~95% share of global net additions of generating capacity) and efficient energy use (about half of past and prospective global decarbonization) should be celebrated, not ignored or denigrated. But apparently Brink Lindsey considers some technologies praiseworthy and others injurious for obscure noneconomic reasons not explained and far from obvious, at least to this lifelong technological practitioner.
The most bizarre part of the argument seems to say that using less energy to provide the same or better services, by using it more effectively through smarter technology and design, is somehow harmful to society. I do not subscribe to an energy theory of value. Energy is a means to societal ends, not an end in itself. Using more energy than we need to do the job at least cost is mere waste.
The emergent suite of climate solutions depends strongly on better technology and design, aggressively developed, refined, and deployed. This results not from opposing technological progress, but from choosing technologies that make sense and make money. This essay seems just a fancy stew of sour grapes because the writers' technological preferences were invalided by markets. Sorry. But as you grieve the losers, just try the winners. You might like them.
GMOs are a more complex issue, but for those interested, my views from 22 years ago still seem valid: www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/botanies.html.
I like nuclear power, but I am sceptical whether it will ever be really cheap because of the security issues which drive up both capex and opex. Solar is the cheapest power ever connected to the grid, and I can say with confidence that excessive regulation is why we don’t already have more cheap solar both connected to the grid and behind the meter. Same for wind, not quite as cheap but blows more at night. It is a shame for the US that Manchin’s permitting bill didn’t get up.
> how could the dominant reaction have been anything other than horror and anger at the scale of the casual, thoughtless destruction? How could the immediate response to “what is to be done?” have been anything other than to try to restrain the technologies that were causing and threatening harm?
I don't see how it's so inevitable. There aren't really what Lucas would call micro-foundations provided to explain this backlash, so how can we be sure of anything about it? Wouldn't mere change on the margin serve as a null hypothesis?
I'm also skeptical that the Holocaust is to blame. My understanding is that the Nazis themselves were already proto-environmentalists who were also anti-smoking before that cause got taken up in the US.