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Can Technology Destroy Us?
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Can Technology Destroy Us?
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Published in:
- The Northwest Technocrat, No. 319, 2nd quarter 1990.
- an article reprint, later distributed under the name Technology and Survival
Scanned in and lightly proofread by trent.
Technology, the application of science to industry, has given us a lifestyle unheard of even hundred years ago. In the uncontrolled quest for profit, it has also brought about unimaginable changes in the Earth we require to sustain ourselves.
The question is: CAN WE SURVIVE BY CONTINUING TO OPERATE AS WE HAVE IN THE PAST?
It would be impossible, and entirely insufficient, to attempt to explain the broad scope of Technocracy's concepts in a few words. This informational article is only to inform the reader in a very general way of the basic tenets of functional governance of the Continent of North America and to impress upon the reader the necessity of familiarizing oneself with the total program of scientific government through a study of Technocracy's abundant literature.
A distinction should be made at the outset between Technocracy Inc., the organization, and Technocracy's Technological Social Design. Technocracy Inc., is a research and educational organization formed in 1933 as an outgrowth of the Technical Alliance, a distinguished group of scientists, engineers, economists, and educators formed in late 1918 to study the effects of technology on our social structure. For some 14 years this group gathered data and came up with the following conclusions:
On the basis of these findings, Technocracy, Inc. has formulated a plan for a scientific social design, a Technocracy in working form.
Simply this: the Price System -- which Technocracy defines as any system that operates on debt, and uses a medium of exchange to distribute goods and services -- that we have relied on for thousands of years is breaking down in the face of advancing technology. We must either choose to adopt a system of operation in keeping with our technologies, or continue to see a rise in debt, taxes, crime, pollution, hunger, homelessness, and a growing list of other social and environmental problems.
In dealing with finite resources, it should be obvious that we cannot continue to measure them in terms of something as unstable as negotiable currency. We can churn out paper currency as long as the trees hold out, but we can't create a planet.
A scientific operation of the physical plant of our continent would place the management of our resources and technology squarely in the hands of the technicians most qualified, not in the hands of politicians and business interests, as they are now.
As technology increases our ability to consume resources, and we maintain a throw-away society to protect our Price System economy, we must ultimately choose between an inappropriate system and our survival.
Money, no. Science and technology, yes. Businesses deal in profit and seek out needs to exploit. If they can't find a need, they create one, a practice that has resulted in the creation of a multitude of non-essential enterprises, and a gross wastage of irreplaceable resources.
In reality, a high standard of living depends on the availability of resources and the development and equitable apportionment of them. Money does not do that; money is a means of distributing a scarcity.
Science makes no moral judgment, nor does Technocracy pass any judgment on the monetary system. Technocracy only deals with what is workable and efficient. And Technocracy's findings certainly can't speak as loudly as the deteriorating state of our planet and our worldwide standard of living as to the ineffectiveness of the world monetary system.
Everything. Bear in mind that conditions dictate actions. Except for psychopathic behavior, every anti-social incident we witness -- every act of violence, every drug deal, every theft, every time someone is cheated or robbed -- is indicative of a need not being met. Taken as a whole, they indicate a societal trend, and every trend has an underlying cause. The increase in these incidents we are witnessing doesn't mean people have become bad, just that the breakdown in the system forces them into an unnatural predatory state.
For the simple reason that, so far, through things as varied as wars and drug trade, we have managed to inject enough revenue to keep our debt structure going. Also, the fact that business and politics haven't found a way to use the program to their advantage probably has a lot to do with it. These things, plus the fact that things haven't deteriorated to such a state that people start looking for hard solutions. But we're getting there.
No, it is confined to the land area of North America and its environs, for no other reason than that of geography. There are physical barriers in the form of oceans that separate us from the rest of the world. This does not mean that we intend to disregard the rest of the world. If asked, we can, no doubt, find ways to help other people without dictating to them.
The biggest roadblocks to Technocracy's efforts are the concepts of debt and the tendency of the operators of the monetary system to view the individual solely as a revenue-generating device. This, along with much of our crime, and most of our unmet material wants would disappear when each person is guaranteed a high standard of living as a right of citizenship, free of the demands of a Price System.
Thousands of years of human conditioning have convinced us that we need a huge, non-real economic structure to supply our needs, and 'hat we must slave away to support it. This is a particularly hard point to get across in a sy,-item which is trying hard to salvage itself by injecting an unprecedented sense of money-consciousness.
No, because up until the early part of this century, such a system would not have been possible. The labor-for-wages system still worked.
And so, incidentally, did people.
It is the social responsibility of each member of a society to be of some benefit to that society, totally in accordance with his or her individual capabilities. This can be done with a minimum of effort, and does not mean that in doing so we must enslave ourselves to an economic structure which daily proves itself ever more incapable of social responsibility.
Our problems are technical, not political or economic. Elected officials simply do not have the know-how to deal with them. They know how to legislate the actions of people, not the workings of the earth. Moreover, each elected official would be committing political suicide if he failed to address the parochial interests of his own constituents. His entire attention has been in seeking office and therefore is incapable of approaching the problems of the continent as a whole.
An appropriate analogy of a legislative approach to a physical problem would be that of a drowning man who has ignored the "No Swimming" sign. We can't save him by shouting and pointing to the sign or by threatening him with a fine. He doesn't need laws or someone trying to sell him a life preserver. He needs saving. So it is with our social and environmental problems. Why look to the system that caused these problems to remedy them?
As far as consumer and environmental groups go, each must dance to the tune of the financial structure. As an example, a recent publication of one particularly popular environmental group featured an article on the necessity of minimizing pollution by cutting back on the operation of private automobiles. In the same issue, it carried two separate advertisements for automobile manufacturers.
Bear in mind that the Price System, which was born in the days of hand tools and oxcarts and can only exist in a condition of scarcity production, that is, goods being withheld from people to maintain profit margins, has been living on borrowed time. Continuation of the Price System can only result in higher prices and taxes, more cheaply-made goods, further cutbacks in human services, the concentration of money into fewer hands, your children's educations and your welfare being directed by huge, profit-oriented corporations, more environmental degradation, more prisons, more crime, more substance abuse, wars -- all the things at which we shake our heads and click our tongues and then finally write off as the inevitable prices we pay for our freedoms.
First, and most innovative, would be a replacement of our Price System with an energy-based economy, in which each individual would be guaranteed an equally high standard of living, based on availability of resources, and distributed through a personal, non-transferable certificate, much like a credit card but without the debt. A removal of money would automatically cause a dramatic drop in all money-related crime and a number of other social problems that are basically financial in nature. For the first time in history, production would be based entirely on need, not on profit. Also, for the first time in history, we would start living, not struggling to make a living.
Under a scientific system. "I owe, I owe, so off to work I go" would be replaced with "I'm needed, so off to work I go." Not quite as lyrical, but much more inspiring.
With totally automated factories operating twenty-four hours a day with their production keyed to consumer demands during the previous 24-hour period, with an integrated continental transportation system; with environmental protection; with balanced loads on roads and recreational facilities; with continental water management, with environmentally planned city centers with efficient quality housing, with abundant food and state of the art medical care -- and with the opportunity to work at a job you like, not one you need to survive. With conditions like this, we should see a blossoming of creative expression. Technocracy estimates that, at present, by clinging to the Price System, we are ignoring what could be enjoyed -- individual consuming power equivalent to an annual income of $82,000 (1989 estimate). No insurance, no lawsuits, no taxes -- all as a right of citizenship.
In short, survival, in the best style possible.