War on Science, 2

I'd still like comments on my previous post (Divining), but I'll post this anyway. I found a flyer on a table in Kensington Market, Toronto. Of course, it's ironic that I'm posting this online using software that is in continual development. Anyway, here's what it says:

Advancing Technology Causes
Scarcity, Poverty and Environmental Damage

We are now seeing the negative economic consequences of environmental damage and resources running dry. The result is that people are falling towards and into poverty. Advanced technology has become unproductive and is creating this condition of economic decline.
Technology uses resources and as more technology is used, more resources are used. Actual economic output declines as a larger proportion of resources go into keeping the technology going rather than into actual usable output from the economy. This is going on while the total available resources are fixed or declining. It is no surprise that the expansion and progress of technology is making us poorer.
The economic effects of technological progress:

• 10% of electricity is now used to run computers.
• The energy of .9 kg of coal is used to generate and transmit 10 megabytes of data.
• The use of computers is doubling every 8 years.
• The use of computers is growing at such a rate because computers are increasingly becoming able to do any type of job.
• Productivity stopped increasing in 1976 and has now started to decline.
• Decreasing incomes, in particular low paying jobs, are becoming the norm.

Natural resources are the basis of all economic activity and wealth generation. An ever growing use of increasingly powerful computers means that the depletion of resources is accelerating.
The current situation in which we are now getting poorer instead of richer as time goes on, is the result of the greater growth of resource use by technology in recent times. Unlike previous technologies, which could only do a limited number of things and which could expand to only a limited extent, computers can keep on replacing more and more human activities and the growth of resource use is accelerating. This creates increasing poverty.
The impact has reached the point that economic output per person is now shrinking. It should be remembered that the amount of economic output is overstated by the commonly quoted Gross Domestic Product (GDP). GDP is greater than the actual economic output because it does not subtract the amount of equipment that is continually being worn out and/or replaced. The actual amount of economic output is the Net Domestic Product (NDP) which is GDP minus Capital Consumption. NDP per person has been decreasing at the same time as GDP per person has been increasing. In fact, GDP overstates the size of the economy by about 15%. The decline in economic conditions and standard of living is clearly shown by the decline in economic output, once the correct measure of economic output, Net Domestic Product, is used.

Technological progress means much greater problems in the near future.
Until recently, we have not faced a condition of long-term economic decline. Since this is a new thing, we should realize how much worse it could get.
Automation is different from other technological changes because it is not limited to shifting some fraction of resources from one use to another, but will continuously absorb ever increasing fractions of available resources and reduce the well being of people on an ongoing basis. This would cause much greater poverty than previous economic declines and the poverty would be for everyone.
Of the greatest concern to environmentalists and people concerned about economic conditions and poverty, should be the expansion of technology that results from advances in computers, as opposed to the unintelligent technologies of the past.

A sustainable economy will stop the economic decline
A sustainable economy, which means a stable economy, is an improvement over the declining economy we have now and are expecting in the future. An economy in which output is not shrinking is the solution to current and even greater future poverty.
Less use of technology and less development of new technology will be a major component of a stable, non-shrinking economy and an environment which is not endangered.

Solutions are low tech
Environmental solutions that are low tech will be preferable. Environmentalists should attempt to create a sense of achieving a condition in which there are not increasing technological impacts on nature and on the economy.

• Support the natural world and propose environmental solutions that do not involve high tech.
• Criticize the diversion of resources into research and development of technology.
• Some of the most advanced developments in technology, especially further advances in computer technology, should be seen as very negative for people and the environment.

Please make use of the low tech approach in your activities, and you can contact us as follows to get more involved:

Coalition Against Technological Development
Contact: Stuart, and if you want the details I'll give them out if I trust you.