Diminishing Returns

Diminishing Returns. Is technology helping us avoid collapse, or is it helping drive us into collapse?

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Economic Collapse
• Technology
• Solutions

[hitssquad]

5:33 "Now there's been a series of fatal accidents caused by this technology"

Are you familiar with the FARS website?

w w w-fars. nhtsa. dot. gov

Did you notice the fatality-rates have been going down for at least half a century...

google. com/images?q=highway+fatality+­rates+1950

...and especially in the last half-decade? This most-recent plummet is due to the recent rapid-adoption of ESC...

iihs. org/ratings/esc/esc. aspx

...a safety technology that requires throttle-by-wire.

[bigcollapso]

@hitssquad What I was arguing is the mankind seems hardwired to increase complexity, even in the face of decreasing EROEI and diminishing returns. The fact that the car companies are pushing technology with such low returns even as their business are becoming insolvent due to decreasing EROEI seems crazy. Some of them are still increasing complexity and planning for "recovery" ,it's just nuts. But then again, it seems wired into many, like a bee colony.

[yogiudo]

Great video by the way. Just a thought. If I could be a devils advocate for a moment. If you assume for example that the steering wheels where removed from the automobile, and the gas pedal and the breaks, and the cars on the road were driven by a large centralized computer, that would potentially remove the need for stop lights, road signs, stopping or slowing down en route, traffic jams, and a variety of other problems that exist now and are not particularly efficient.

Who knows?

[bigcollapso]

@yogiudo And this would SAVE energy compared to putting the cars on a train???

[TheNewRenaissance]

All technology are tools. Tools have no inherent benefit or detriment, that is in how they are used. The application of a tool is only a reflection of the intent, awareness and level of responsibility of the one using it.

[bigcollapso]

@TheNewRenaissance This is precisely my point. We need to think more and not just implement everything that we can. Thinks should not become necessary just because they are possible.

[yogiudo]

@bigcollapso It might if we had to build that many rail ways.

I am fairly confident that laying ash-fault is more efficient than smelting iron.

I could be wrong though.

Neither here nor there cause its all going to fall apart

[whippoorwillss]

quicksand.

[yogiudo]

I should state that unless this is the final goal and a clear strategy exists to achieve this goal it is highly unlikely that the scenario I have provided could ever exist.

[emmazedbend]

I used to get upset about the state of our police and social service doing such an appalling job, and then I applied this principle and realised they too are subject to the law of diminishing returns rather than just being malevolent, which is what I had first concluded.

[ad2181]

Excellent point, mechanical is better, they want to improve gas mileage using computer control. What they didn't account for is something wrong in the con troller state machine or the state machine can be faked out by bad or noisy input.

[ad2181]

For example, a GM car with the thermal sensor disconnected or using a bad connection, it applies full choke, bucks and stalls, very dangerous when this occurs, trying to cross lanes of traffic, it can get you killed. The state machine see's only a cold engine assumes the engine need full choke even though your going 20mph the it been running for the last hour. Stupid programmers.