Steve Fuller on Upwing vs Downwing Ecology
Description
Steve Fuller:
""UpWingers (or “Blacks”), above all, anticipate futures of greater energy consumption. They tend towards technological solutionism, their view of the future is in the accelerationism/singularitarian spectrum. Politically, UpWingers tend to follow the American Right’s libertarian view of freedom, and the Left’s view of transcendent humanity. Human potential is unlimited and chaos can be tamed. UpWingers might wave away DownWing concerns as being surmountable. Black is the sky.
DownWingers (or “Greens”), broadly, anticipate futures of reduced energy consumption (through efficiency or destruction, if you’d like). They tend towards localization/resilience thought, their view of the future can range from declinist to hack stability (and even accelerationist in some respects). Politically, DownWingers tend to follow the Left’s view of communitarianism and the Right’s sense of natural order. Human nature is limited and chaos should be avoided. DownWingers might accuse UpWingers as hand-waving away complex problems with the dismissive answer, “We’ll think of something.” Green is the Earth."
(http://www.fogbanking.com/upwing-downwing/)
Discussion
Fogbanking:
"First, the essay that outlines the Carson/Greer argument is useful for naming some other members in both corners, introducing me to the anarchic philosophy of economic mutualism and other proponents of catabolic collapse. Skipping ahead to the ephemeralization argument:
According to Carson, the problem with the theory of catabolic collapse is that it ignores what he calls “one of the most central distinguishing characteristics of our technology: ephemerality.” The classic example from Buckminster Fuller, he writes, is the replacing of “a transoceanic cable system embodying God only knows how many thousand tons of metal with a few dozen communications satellites weighing a few tons each.”
“It’s quite true that the mass-production industrial civilization that peaked in the 20th century is falling into ruin, failing to invest in upkeep at sustainable levels, and generally eating its seed corn — just as happened with Rome. The difference is, the Interstate Highway System, the civil aviation infrastructure, and the old electrical grid aren’t something to mourn. They’re something that would decay anyway, because they’re increasingly irrelevant to the kinds of production technology and economic organization the emerging successor society will be based on.”
Thanks to technological advancement in recent years, Carson argues, distributed infrastructure — including distributed renewable energy and distributed manufacturing enabled by peer-to-peer open source design— is making that same collapsing infrastructure obsolete.
“Metaphorically speaking, we live in the early days of an emerging economy in which peasant villages — with a Star Trek molecular replicator in each cottage — lives in the shadows of the decaying aqueducts.”
[…]
Greer takes issue with the idea that the ephemeral technologies Carson mentions are really less resource intensive, arguing that we only think they are because of mistaken accounting. Satellites are not possible without a space program, and space programs require so much infrastructure that it’s ludicrous to suggest that they require fewer resources than transoceanic cables. As for the Internet, “Descend from the airy realms of cyber-abstractions into the grubby underworld of hardware, and it’s an archipelago of huge server farms, each of which uses as much electricity as a small city …”
This is actually a fascinating facet of Greer’s thinking. He argues often for the hidden energy and infrastructure costs to modern living. He asks questions like: how much money and oil-based products does it cost to get more oil (we can’t seem to get at oil anymore with our bare hands and simple tools…)? How many oil-based products does it cost to install and maintain solar infrastructure? How much energy does it cost to get more energy?
The answers he comes up with are something less than uplifting. I’m not qualified to say whether this view is justified.
Where Carson sees a world of increasing efficiency, Greer sees increasing hidden costs. Where Carson sees certain improvement Greer sees unmanaged complexity. Where Carson sees sustainability, frankly, Greer doesn’t.
The Carsons of the world see Humans as being capable of transcending and manipulating nature. The Greers of the world see Humans as natural creatures with limits- social limits, cognitive limits, physical limits… "