Podcast on "Techno-Fixes", Scientism and apocalyptic thinking (incl. "singularity")

[auroraglacialis]

I am incredibly busy these days, trying to publish my second scientific paper, but while working and commuting, I do still listen to some audio and came across this one, which I will use to speak for me, because especially episodes 31 and 37 are basically saying what I tried to bring across in many posts. So Instead of writing a lot, I will give you these links

[ Episode #31 // Simplifying Complexity ] | Extraenvironmentalist
and
[ Episode #32 // Apocalypse Never ] | Extraenvironmentalist
and
[ Episode #37 // Techno-Fix ]

These episodes feature interesting interviews with scholars and scientists about humanity.
Episode 31 is with archaeologist Dr Joseph tainter about how societies become increasingly complex as a reaction to problems but eventually run into the problem of "diminishing returns" on investments. He looks at the situation with oil (EROEI) but also in terms of energy and society in general and draws comparison to the Roman empire. He also states that we are already past the peak or many things, among them human innovation and happiness as he did a study the history and found that the per-capita number of inventions (patents) has declined for many decades now and an increase in innovation can presently only come from putting more and more people on the job. He also looked at the statistics on happiness and found a 1950ies peak happiness in the US with a decline thereafter as complexity increases more than the gains.
Episode 32 looks at different myths of apocalypse with utopian outcomes. This includes especially the 2012 myth, but also the "singularity" as a form of apocalyptic thinking.
Episode 37 was very very interesting, but Dr. Michael Hüsemann has a strong german accent. It is about how technology does not by itself save the world, the environment, society. He also describes how technology is NOT neutral and not simply a tool but has values attached to it depending on who created it. He does not want everyone to "go back" but draws attention to the problem of a growth economy in context to the failure of technology and increased efficiency to deal with the resulting problems, in fact technology and efficiency actually are shown to increase the problem of resource depletion and environmental desctruction. He proposes a steady state economy as a solution. In that context, technological improvements and increases in efficiency could actually diminish the impact of humans on the planet instead of fueling further economic growth and by that further increase of human impact.

I strongly recommend episode 37!