A Call for Universal Human Dignity

Preamble

As we stand on the shoulders of giants and the progress of human innovation steadily ratchets up the ceiling on the realm of possibility, human society must vigilantly attend to the foundation on which that innovation was permitted to thrive, lest both crumble. As we continue to accrue the technological capital to allow a few in our society to approach a power that our ancestors would have considered god-like, we have the responsibility to ensure that even the lowest among us are able to live beyond the means of the kings of those same ancestors. It is with these sentiments that a call is issued for society to pursue and preserve a universal dignity for all of its members.

Tenets of Universal Human Survival

While nature abhors permanence and no individual being will live forever, the threshold of dignity cannot be bestowed upon someone who is unable to survive. Therefore, to support human dignity, these tenets of Universal Human Survival should be sought first and foremost for current and future generations.

1.          Clean Water, Air, and Food

2.         Basic Healthcare and Exercise

3.          Personal Safety and Shelter

4.         Reproductive Agency

Tenets of Universal Human Dignity

To ensure that no person is subjected to mere subsistence or servitude and that each person is able to experience as dignified an existence as nature will allow, a mutual bond between humans living in a free and modern society must concede the following tenets of human dignity to each individual member of society so long as it does not preclude the survival or dignity of another or put an undue burden on the society as a whole or the environment that supports it.

1.          Information and Education

2.         Communication and Expression

3.          Organization and Identification

4.         Mobility and Exploration

5.         Creation and Productivity

The Call

Similar to the physical laws of the universe, human society must counter entropy with work to prolong the values that we hold most dear. It is only through persistence of innovation and quality of character that human greatness can forestall the perils of time. By asking to ensure the rights of current and future generations, these Tenets do not leave room for waste, sloth, or pollution. However, where and whenever circumstances and technology permit, society should endeavor to cleave the tenuousness of human survival and dignity from unstable economic pressures, leaving only as much linkage as is necessary to perpetuate the institutions and systems that support Universal Human Dignity.

This is the first section of a longer document I wrote, originally published on the Revolutionary Peace Blog.

Data Privacy & Decoupling Communications Utilities

Hello Readers,

I will start by acknowledging that this is the topic is a little outside of the sphere of my normal sustainability discussions. However, as more and more communications and data privacy issues have come to light over the past year, I have become increasingly concerned about the social and political ramifications of what governments and certain corporations are doing on the Internet. Because of the prevalence of these issues in the news, I will limit my preambulatory commentary.

The Internet is a technology and a concept that is so far beyond the wildest imagination of people in the 18th and 19th centuries that we need to explicitly address it in the US constitution, so that societal expectations for the Internet are clear. Therefore, I propose that we amend the US constitution to address and protect the inherent, unwritten freedoms that have thus far been the hallmark of the public Internet. While I will not attempt to offer specific wording for such an amendment, I suggest the following tenets of an amendment:

• Decoupling Communications Utilities: There should be a clear distinction between media content providers and communications infrastructure providers. In the same way that many states have now 'deregulated' electricity markets by drawing a line between owners of electric generators and grid operators to ensure that monopolies are as limited as possible, the Internet should be similarly segregated. It should be illegal for owners of communications infrastructure (e.g. broadband networks, cable providers, telephone lines, cellular networks) to create, provide, and develop the data or media content that is transmitted across its own infrastructure. Similarly, communications infrastructure owners should not be allowed to offer preference to content providers or charge variable rates based on the type of content that is transmitted.
• Data Privacy from the Government: The United States Federal government should pass and enforce laws that promote the active protection of the data, content, and information that is created, held, and transmitted by its people. As a matter of the Rule of Law, this protection requires the US government to provide a transparent judicial mechanism for reviewing attempts by US government agents to acquire citizens' data (as though data were physical property) as provided for by the 4th Amendment of the constitution.
• Data Privacy from Corporations: The US government should pass and enforce laws that protect its citizens' data from foreign and domestic corporate interests. The invasive and often secretive nature through which data is collected and redistributed over the Internet is unacceptable. Recognizing that some citizens may be interested in risking the trade-offs related to disclosing their data to reap the potential benefits of 'big data', it might be fair enough to create an opt-in 'tracking allowed' list. Such a list could allow people to be tracked when corporations explicitly notify them that they (and their data) are being tracked and where their data is being sent. Furthermore, corporations should be required to regularly provide their users access to a record of all the data that has been collected about themselves. Finally, people should be able to opt-out of such a list at any time for any reason without the possibility of legal action.

I'm sure their are many other possible issues to address with regard to the Internet. However, I have found the above issues the most troubling with the greatest possible 'slippery slope' consequences.

Regards,

Sean Diamond

TED Talk - smart building materials

Hello Readers,

I thought you might enjoy watching this TED Talk about smart building materials, which provide passive air conditioning (reducing energy consumption).



Cheers,
Sean

Solar: to wait or to install?

Hello Readers,

I recently had a conversation with a potential customer about installing solar PV. The customer was asking whether it makes more sense to wait a few years before installing solar or to install solar now. In particular the customer was curious whether upcoming technological improvements would mean that waiting a few years will result in a better payback.

In any event, this was my response (as part of an on-going conversation):

I take your point, but it was never my intention to indicate that the technology won't improve. I certainly expect that it will. It is simply a matter of timelines. If you read the article carefully, it says that such panels are just about to be developed and 39% efficiencies have be seen in the lab. To put this in context, that means that it will likely be 10-15 years before manufactures actually have such devices on the market (and at a reasonable price). 10-15 years is about half the life of a system, and it is about double the amount of time it takes to payback the costs of the system.

Thus, if one were to hypothetically install a system today, 10-15 years from now that system will have earned enough money to pay for itself and an additional system! Not to mention the fact that the original system will still have another 10-15 years of generating capability! Also, beyond financial benefits, installing a system today would mean that 10-15 years worth of coal and natural gas generation will have been displaced by the time your new product could be installed.

Besides, 10-15 years from now those same manufactures will still be researching and developing the next new thing, so in that case why not wait 20-30 years before installing a system? Well, I think you can see where I'm going with this. You could spend forever waiting for perfection, or your could reap the environmental and financial benefits all along! I don't know if this explanation is enough to convince you, but for right now it's the best one that I have. And assuming that you have a basic understanding of climate change, peak oil, and/or the other environmental and geopolitical issues with fossil fuel and nuclear electricity generation, I don't know that I could make a more persuasive argument without including lectures from an entire college degree. Of course, if you are interested in those topics, I could certainly recommend a few books.

 

Well, readers, of course I want to know what you think! Is it worth it to wait a couple years for better technology? If so, how long should you wait? How do you balance waiting for technological improvements with the urgency of climate change and the benefits of having solar right now?

 

~Sean

In Tech We Trust

Hello Readers,

If you are coming to the website to find information about my dissertation survey, please see the post that will point you to all the pages you need. Otherwise, please read on about this post's discussion topic "In Tech We Trust" (no need to click anywhere, just scroll).

This week's post was prompted by a recent New York Times article by Elisabeth Rosenthal. The article highlighted America's technological optimism, the belief that given time and effort a technological fix can solve just about any problem we might get ourselves into. Ms. Rosenthal focuses on the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and she indicates that this event is a potential turning point away from America's blind optimism in technology.

She also points to Carbon Capture and Storage technologies (often referred to as CCS), which are being heralded by the coal industry as its future source environmental sustainability, as well as past technological fixes such as the "green revolution" in agriculture and vaccines for childhood diseases. However, she ends on the recent situation where an Icelandic volcano brought air travel over Europe to a literal standstill for several weeks. Overall, the message that Americans (and much of the rest of the world) continue to be absurdly confident in the ability of technological innovation to overcome the forces of nature that make our lives difficult (e.g. volcanoes, viruses, drought) is pretty clear.

However, I would like to ask about technology's ability to overcome our own habits and social expectations. The BP oil spill is an easy example to pick on, so I will use that. At this point, it is very easy to point to BP executives and managers and tell them they should have been more vigilant, more prudent, and more safety-conscious. And to make it clear: yes, they should have been!

Recently, the media has been pointing to BP's poor accident record and safety violations. However, I would be curious to see if any of the other oil companies have been doing any better or if BP is really a rogue oil company that was taking chances where no one else would. For some reason I am skeptical of the latter case.

In fact, I am particularly skeptical, because I have a hard time believing that BP is particularly exceptional in its expectation (or PR statements) that there was no way that anything would go so wrong that it could not be fixed. On the contrary, I think BP is the rule rather than the exception.

Take a moment to think about it. (I'll probably get some sampling bias on a blog like this, but...) Please take some time to answer these questions for yourself.

Do you believe/expect that man-made climate change is occurring (or will occur in your lifetime)?
Have you drastically changed your personal habits to prevent it from getting worse?
Have you taken action to ensure your community/state/country is doing all it can to prevent climate change from getting worse?
Do you expect that by the time things get really bad energy technology and other industries will have caught up with us and solved the problem?

If you are being honest with yourself (and you are American and you've read this far through my blog), your answers were probably "Yes", "Well, sort of", "I voted for that liberal candidate, does that count?", and "Yes". I realize that I'm generalizing, so I am likely not 100% accurate, but the point I'm trying to make is that we need to question our faith in the certainty of technological fixes. It seems as though technology has been keeping pace for so long, we as a society have stopped questioning it.

Although, it has not happened in recent historical memory, it is possible that unchecked social forces (read as expectations) can outpace technology and lead to societal downfall. Of course, in the age of globalization it is important to remember that there are several other unpleasant steps between where we are now and complete failure, so it is important not to see this as an all or nothing game.

On the other hand, I am not in favor of technological pessimism either. I do not think that the advancement of technology will necessarily result in a doomsday scenario. Instead, I would like to advocate a middle ground. In this middle ground, rather than relying on technology as a future fix for the problems we are creating today, we shape our society in a responsible manner that only relies upon what we already know we have.

We need to use an ex ante approach to technological solutions (i.e. mitigation using current and developing technologies) as much as possible rather than an ex post approach (i.e. expecting technology will allow us to adapt later). While simultaneously moderating our social habits and expectations until technology catches up with us in a manner that minimizes environmental damage. Otherwise, we will continue to build an environmental debt in addition to the current economic deficit we are running.

At this point, I would like to note that I am not suggesting which means of 'enforcement' is the most appropriate. I am an ardent believer in taking responsibility for your own actions. However, I recognize that in actuality that is not sufficient to ensure social progress, so I will leave this last point as an open-ended question: what will be necessary to move society from a blind to a cautious optimism in technology?

Thank you for your time!

Sean Diamond