Great post, Paul, The Machine Stops is a must prophetic read. Your post brought to mind Emerson’s saying “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” I will display my little mind here. I did a bit of admittedly amateur statistics showing how meat, milk, fish, and egg production could be halved and still leave plenty of per capita ani…
Great post, Paul, The Machine Stops is a must prophetic read. Your post brought to mind Emerson’s saying “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” I will display my little mind here. I did a bit of admittedly amateur statistics showing how meat, milk, fish, and egg production could be halved and still leave plenty of per capita animal protein. In a response you criticized that type of mathematical reasoning and now here is a post with that type of math reasoning as a central point!
Paul acknowledges that quantitative reasoning can be useful. Sometimes, though, it can conceal more than it reveals, and currently a lot of quants are using their expertise to try to answer the wrong questions, questions that benefit the economic system while harming the biosphere. Specifically, Paul has verbally supported me when I told him my heart is telling me to pursue a quantitative career in the near future, so while I can't speak to his critique of your work specifically, he does not appear to be against quantitative reasoning in and of itself in my experience.
Let me try and explain what I think the difference is. As Daniel says below, I've never suggested quantifying is not sometimes useful or necessary. The left brain has its place, as much as the right - as long as both are in service to what matters. The problem at present is that the left-brain - Machine thinking - has colonised everything.
So in this case I think that quantifying at least some of the state of the problem can be useful. The same goes, say, for using climate science to show us the extent of climate change, or zoology to show us the rate of extinction. We have to be cautious about how we use these numbers - but they can be useful, as I say here, in helping us to tell a story.
I think that this is very different, though, from trying to quantify the world in order to manage it. Once we begin to say 'there are x calories in the world, and that could feed us all', we're in to a story that is dangerous. It may be factually correct, but the implications are that [a] it would be desirable for us to control the world in this way and that [b] we could do it. I spent years as a greenies listening to people arguing that because it was theoretically possible to stop climate change it must be feasible. That's where the maths becomes dangerously misleading.
Interestingly, Limits to Growth originally laid out three possible futures, and its authors spent decades telling us to follow the better ones. Their arguments were impeccable and their facts correct, but it didn't matter. We were always going to take the easy, and thus worst, path, and we're going to keep doing that.
I wish motive reading was easier, my motive in my stab at statistical analysis wasn’t to advocate control but to make a case too many people wasn’t the root of our problems and that deaths of billions wasn’t the solution we need though it may happen regardless.
The web is a curse for any kind of subtle understanding. I wasn't suggesting myself that you were advocating control, just that that way of seeing is usually used for that end. Certainly we can both agree that mass death is not our preferred solution to anything!
Okay, I laugh at myself as I type this, I will now let go of taking your comments so personally and being defensive! :):):) From my understanding of ecology, a wise and loving relation ship with the earth, regenerative agriculture, and meeting the true real basic needs of humanity the earth can healthily support our billions and the earth can even be a richer more alive place because of those billions. But that is not a likely near future I realize :(
My comments are never to be taken personally. After all, none of us can really 'personally' criticise anyone we've never met - another of the curses of the web is that we can behave like we know people that we don't know at all. If I am sometimes too sharp I apologise.
As it happens, I do agree that it is, in theory, entirely possible even for seven billion people to live well enough with what we have. If only the world worked in a way that was designed to look after the interests of both people and nature, wisely and with compassion .... a man can dream.
Great post, Paul, The Machine Stops is a must prophetic read. Your post brought to mind Emerson’s saying “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” I will display my little mind here. I did a bit of admittedly amateur statistics showing how meat, milk, fish, and egg production could be halved and still leave plenty of per capita animal protein. In a response you criticized that type of mathematical reasoning and now here is a post with that type of math reasoning as a central point!
Paul acknowledges that quantitative reasoning can be useful. Sometimes, though, it can conceal more than it reveals, and currently a lot of quants are using their expertise to try to answer the wrong questions, questions that benefit the economic system while harming the biosphere. Specifically, Paul has verbally supported me when I told him my heart is telling me to pursue a quantitative career in the near future, so while I can't speak to his critique of your work specifically, he does not appear to be against quantitative reasoning in and of itself in my experience.
Ha, it's a fair challenge!
Let me try and explain what I think the difference is. As Daniel says below, I've never suggested quantifying is not sometimes useful or necessary. The left brain has its place, as much as the right - as long as both are in service to what matters. The problem at present is that the left-brain - Machine thinking - has colonised everything.
So in this case I think that quantifying at least some of the state of the problem can be useful. The same goes, say, for using climate science to show us the extent of climate change, or zoology to show us the rate of extinction. We have to be cautious about how we use these numbers - but they can be useful, as I say here, in helping us to tell a story.
I think that this is very different, though, from trying to quantify the world in order to manage it. Once we begin to say 'there are x calories in the world, and that could feed us all', we're in to a story that is dangerous. It may be factually correct, but the implications are that [a] it would be desirable for us to control the world in this way and that [b] we could do it. I spent years as a greenies listening to people arguing that because it was theoretically possible to stop climate change it must be feasible. That's where the maths becomes dangerously misleading.
Interestingly, Limits to Growth originally laid out three possible futures, and its authors spent decades telling us to follow the better ones. Their arguments were impeccable and their facts correct, but it didn't matter. We were always going to take the easy, and thus worst, path, and we're going to keep doing that.
I wish motive reading was easier, my motive in my stab at statistical analysis wasn’t to advocate control but to make a case too many people wasn’t the root of our problems and that deaths of billions wasn’t the solution we need though it may happen regardless.
The web is a curse for any kind of subtle understanding. I wasn't suggesting myself that you were advocating control, just that that way of seeing is usually used for that end. Certainly we can both agree that mass death is not our preferred solution to anything!
Okay, I laugh at myself as I type this, I will now let go of taking your comments so personally and being defensive! :):):) From my understanding of ecology, a wise and loving relation ship with the earth, regenerative agriculture, and meeting the true real basic needs of humanity the earth can healthily support our billions and the earth can even be a richer more alive place because of those billions. But that is not a likely near future I realize :(
My comments are never to be taken personally. After all, none of us can really 'personally' criticise anyone we've never met - another of the curses of the web is that we can behave like we know people that we don't know at all. If I am sometimes too sharp I apologise.
As it happens, I do agree that it is, in theory, entirely possible even for seven billion people to live well enough with what we have. If only the world worked in a way that was designed to look after the interests of both people and nature, wisely and with compassion .... a man can dream.