Dom Alhambra

When I say that a serious look at our pre-historical ancestors will open up avenues for us to move toward a sustainable future, the typical response comes off as something like “so we should just give up all technology and go bushwhacking?” I respond, conceding that improved technology can at least serve as a stop-gap to mitigate the damage we are doing right now. But it is not the end solution; only people can save the world.

This is not in the same line of the old “guns don’t kill people…” mantra, but instead that literally no amount of technology we produce will enable to live sustainably on this earth—on the spiritual level. And this not speaking in the religious-spiritual sense, but in the sense of feeling integral to the earth—that one is inseparable from our environment. Technology cannot assert our unsegregated existence with the environment; it can only mediate our currently disconnected relationship. With technology, we can now choose if it can shorten or lengthen our lifespan, we can choose whether or not parts of it become our tools of convenience. Technology is the assertion that our environment is a passive entity for exploitation by our active devices.

I emphasize active with italics because our definition of activity is distorted. Imagine a field of straw grass with a tree in the middle: for our definition of activity, absolutely nothing is happening. This is because I did not introduce any entity that is modernly considered having agency. In this vision, there is no person acting upon the earth, so nothing is happening. Yet if the importance of our environment is equal to our own existence, then it is obvious that hundreds of thousands, if not millions (billions?) of actions are taking place among a tree and straw grass: Each and every organism in this picture is thriving, converting energy from the sun into usable matter to grow and procreate and spread. Our global culture is accustomed to believe that activity only exists when humans enact their will upon the earth. Because actions by all other lifeforms are hypothesized to stem from “genetic instinct” their qualifications for existence are subordinated by our own.

Technology is a product of this thinking. Technology is always a tool of activity, one that manipulates the materials and lifeforms of our earth to enact the desires of our species and culture. Up to the 20th century, the development of technology appeared to endlessly improve our status on this earth; instead of “surviving”, the common person was able to “thrive”. This is because the human population on this earth using all of this technology could sustain its side effects: 200 million, 1.2 billion, 4 billion people could only produce so much pollution and extreme effects on the environment. But now we are approaching 9 billion people with access to nearly the same amount of technology, and find ourselves in a pickle.

If I applied the most stereotypical Silicon Valley question “will it scale?” upon technology, I think we will have to answer “no”. We could not survive 9 billion people using vehicles—battery or gas-fueled—nor could we even deal with 9 billion refrigerators running. While some complain that economic inequality is the primary failing of global civilization, one can also argue that it is the only thing keeping our global society from destroying its environment with technology. This is not to argue for the economic subjugations of people around the world; it simply highlights an observation that our luxury goods seem to ask for more environmental destruction than that which is more accessible.

9 billion solar panels and wind turbines and hydro-whatevers are also asking for inordinate amounts of plastics, metals, fossil fuels, and physical space to use, until the next billion humans arrive. And the next. And the… Someone may calculate a sane amount of solar panels for our current lifestyle, but does not account for the technology that will be taken for granted next generation, requiring even more alternating currents. I think people enjoy the fantasy stories of a finite amount of people put on spaceships or otherworldly colonies, based on the optimistic assumption that the population will remain stagnant and supported by the same level of technology in perpetuity. It is easier to understand, and does not ask the question: “will it scale?”

In conclusion, I believe that technology will need to be our stop-gap, like fighting fire with fire. But technology is not the solution to saving the world. It will be the choices we make as philosophically-driven human beings that will make our lives sustainable or ready to drive off a cliff. It is when we can find the sustainable methods of spiritual living that unlock the ability to not rely on technology to mitigate environmental destruction.