Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19981228185134.00bf6d90@mail.monmouth.com> Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1998 18:51:34 -0500 From: Wilbur Streett <mailto:WStreett@MAIL.MONMOUTH.COM> Subject: Re: eMergy and discomfort To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
At 06:07 PM 12/28/98 -0300, you wrote: >>I remember when there used to be a reason to read this list.
>
>>Wilbur
>>Wilbur
>
>Wilbur Wilbur
>
>Jay is indeed one of the reasons to read this list: let me try to
>explain, in my words, what his analysis has to do with this list.
Nothing?
>I am a third-world subscriber who is interested in economic development.
>What Jay calls “economic-development-as-we-know-it” is not the same as
>reducing hunger, disease and grinding poverty in countries like mine. It
>is about providing a livelihood for first-world development
>practitioners. It is a bitter irony for people I identify and work with
>that their needs are defined, and projects mounted to meet them, in
>terms that bear little relation to their reality and their knowledge of
>their reality. This insulting exploitation is essential to the system of
>raising public funds in the name of poor people so as to provide ways to
>keep rich people rich, even while the cause of the poverty, misuse of
>global resources, is perpetuated by the way ALL the project funds are
>spent, not just the high percentage that finds its way back into
>first-world pockets individual and corporate.
Then why don't you just subscribe directly to Jay's list and continue the conversation with him there?
However, Economic Development isn't the topic of this list. Or perhaps you should petition the moderators of the list to change the name.
>When, therefore, we see someone like Wilbur attempt to shut someone like
>Jay up, we are reminded who always defines the terms and sets the bounds
>of discussion on “development”. It’s the economists and the development
>professionals, who make their living from poor people’s poverty. “The
>poor you have always with you” and precisely because their
>well-advertised condition provides employment to so many whose expensive
>education fits them for no productive activity. If it was only the fate
>of the poor that mattered, it would go on for ever.
That's a pretty amusing statement that you make about me. I don't make a living at all at this point. I stopping working for everyone else and started working for myself more than a year ago. I didn't define the state of the world, I just grew up in it. I'm doing something to empower more people than any "economic development" discussion will ever do. Indeed, I'm not particularly interested in money in the traditional "capitalist pig" sense, if I were, I wouldn't be looking for a discussion of "Technology Transfer in International Development" on this list, but instead would just be consulting at my hourly rate.
>But what Jay is saying to the development profession is that it can’t go
>on forever, because global resources, starting with oil, are finite.
Jay's hyperbole, which has no basis in fact, isn't saying anything to development professionals. Indeed, he used to preach the "global warming" myth as well, which a few people other than myself have figured out is just that, a myth. One of his arguments used to be that Oil was the causal factor of "Global Warming".. This is an old issue between Jay and I on this list. The list is archived.. You can check out the previous discussions..
>Supply can only respond to demand if resources are available to extract,
>transform and deliver goods. You can create value by inventing or
>redefining needs, (see also Wilbur’s remarks on microcash) but the cost
>of delivery is ultimately energy. The first world system isn’t
>sustainable on current solar energy, and it can’t go on using the
>world’s resources of stored energy, because they will be exhausted in
>the foreseeable future.
Say's who? Jay? There is no basis for this assertion. Oil resources are at an all time high. The effeciency of Oil usage has been increasing every year. Russia has a boatload of unused nuclear resources.. and there are a vast number of alternative fuel sources and energy available right now, if it were economic to use it. Oil is cheap and abundant, that's why we're not using alternatives.
>For the first time we can all foresee that:
>that’s Jay’s message. The system must come to a halt, maybe even before
>Wilbur’s retirement. Unless, of course, the development professionals
>find a way to preserve their livelihoods: as always they will put a lot
>of effort into looking after their own interests, which have always had
>priority over the reality of the “beneficiaries” of “development”. Now
>their own interests, including their children’s welfare, are threatened
>by unsustainable resource use, but that is hard for them to admit
>because it’s more comfortable to go on talking about nuts-and bolts
>technology transfer with no limits.
You seem to think that is something new? And what does any of this hyperbole have to do with Technology Transfer in International Development? Maybe you need to read the Peter Principle and other treaties on the corporate world.
>Technology Transfer! For the whole world to be sustainable, it will need
>a reversal of the dominant models,
Hardly. Care to supply some proof? Care to show how any of this has anything to do with Technology Transfer? Technology is the study of useful techniques.. not the corporate monolith is evil. In case you haven't heard, there are a variety of dominant models, some that will indeed fail, and some that continue to achieve greater and greater global dominance. But there is no proof that Oil is the causal factor in this, and it certainly has nothing to do with TTIID.
>including “to totally junk the
>present economic system”. This means economists and such who run the
>“Technology Transfer” development system must find new ways to make a
>living. We have seen enough of them to know they won’t do this
>voluntarily, at least on any time-scale that will make the necessary
>difference. But someone has to offer them the alternative, as Jay tries
>to do. When we see them try again to dictate the terms of the
>discussion, it is hard to be optimistic.
Jay doesn't supply any alternative.. indeed, he doesn't even make his base case, and it's not on topic for TTIID. Jay has his own list, and his own web site. That doens't mean that TTIID is supposed to be the Oil depletion will destroy the world list.
So if you can't supply some sort of relationship to TTIID for the posts that Jay has, then why should we believe that your position has merit?
Wilbur
-------------------------------------------- Putting A Human Face On Technology ;-) --------------------------------------------