REFLECTIONS ON INTERDEPENDENCE

The technology timeline indicates humanity is becoming more specialized and
increasingly interdependent. We are all more dependent on each other today than
ever before in history. The reason is advancing technology deriving efficiency from
specialization, not generalization. The main impetus in this direction came from
harnessing energy, entering the industrial age, and specialization of our work efforts.
Now we rely on the megafarm for our food, and most of us do not even know how
to milk a cow or slaughter a hog or bake bread.

This state of affairs has its up side. When more people are freed to do intellectual
work, and can collaborate more easily, technologies tend to grow, and cooperative
humanity is blessed with better medical care, food production, living conditions,
and standard of living. But interdependence has its dangers as well. Ponder the
consequences of losing our utilities (electric power, fuel, water, or telephone) for an
hour, a day, a weekend, a week, a month. How long does it take for chaos to develop?
An hour without power is just an inconvenience; read a book by candlelight or even
talk to your family. A day starts to get worrisome. The food in the refrigerator is
starting to thaw, and the hot water tank is cooling as the house reaches ambient
temperature. A weekend is now troublesome. It is time to leave and find somewhere
with air conditioning, lights, operational gas pumps, food preparation, communications
(TV, Internet, radio). If the electrical outage continues in a widespread manner
for a week, we are now desperate for food, physical comfort, and assurance that
things are being brought back to normal. I do not know if most unprepared urbanites
could make it for as long as a month. I hope I never have to find out, although the
tragedy of Hurricane Katrina offered a glimpse into these possibilities. Our modern
urban infrastructure has become so reliable as to be taken as an entitlement. It was
established and is perpetuated by the cooperative expertise and efforts of many.
Unlike the past, we are users of technologies and networks that individual users
cannot maintain. Today, technology products and systems are the culmination of the
efforts of many minds and resources, but they are only superficially understood by
their users. If the computer crashes, all most know to do is to reboot. If the car will
not start and the problem is more complicated than fuel or a battery, it is time to
call the tow truck. If the TV is inoperable, it is easier to buy another than try to
diagnose and repair it. Combine that thought with the design strategy of planned
obsolescence (a design approach that considers product failure or future feature
advancement as an opportunity to create repeat customers). You end up with a
populace running a constant race to keep more and more things operational that are
less and less reliable. At times this situation becomes most frustrating!

Our society goes to great lengths to make things inordinately easy. Velcro
replaces the skill of tying shoes. Automatic sensors turn on our faucets and flush
our toilets in public places. Food is preprocessed so that it can go directly from
refrigerator to the table with only an unskilled pass through the microwave. Constant
media access replaces the quiet imagination. The calculator and the cash register
perform all of our mathematics without our need for the skill. The need to learn
spelling is superseded by the ever-present spell-checker, and fortunately, the grammar
checker catches most egregious spelling errors.

Still — most of us of seem to think it is worth it. We are the beneficiaries of
many and vast collaborations. Technology is raising the standard of living comfort
level so high that the natural struggle that strengthens character, physique, and mind
is being diminished in our culture. Are we mentally more capable as our interdependence
avails more free time? Are there rational limits to dependency? The
metaphor of the animal within a zoo where all needs are provided may be pleasant
for a generation, but it may compromise foundational skills to the point that survival
without modern conveniences is threatened.

On a positive note, because of the advance of technology, even the poorest in
our society experience creature comforts that surpass all who lived on Earth before
the nineteenth century. Our society as a whole is more aware and able to prepare,
adapt, and respond to unexpected challenges (storms, disease, etc.) than ever before
in history. The available energy augmenting human physical capability, combined
with instantaneous global communications and expanding mental leverage, creates
opportunities for community growth that could never have been imagined by those
preceding us. Techonomics provides a key to unlocking those opportunities by
discerning judicious utilization of precious financial and human resources.