218 comments on Book Review: World Made by Hand
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218 comments on Book Review: World Made by Hand
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Given that the Club of Rome gets some mention in "Lucifer's Hammer" (the technofairy is the key refutation to the COR thesis), I'm sometimes inclined to think of the story as a metaphor for the deleterious effects of fossil fuel scarcity. Just for the sake of literary exercise. :o)
After all, in "Lucifer's Hammer," people were aware of the approaching comet. There was plenty of disbelief in the possibility of a collision even up to the last moments before impact. And the available technology (even with people in orbit watching events unfold) was insufficient to prevent the outcome. Indeed, with a nuclear gift-exchange between China and the Soviet Union post-impact, certain kinds of technology made the situation worse. These details kind of mirror certain fears with regards to Peak Oil.
And thanks to Robert for the insightful review. I will pick up a copy of "World Made by Hand" and give the book a read.
-best,
Wolf in YVR BC
Lucifer's Hammer has provided a background of thinking for all these years. Of course events can never occur as foretold, but we can have a degree of certainty in the trends and behaviors. I recommended the book to the Vancouver Peak Oil Executive (VPOE) as a "backgrounder".
The most important lesson I got from the book, and one probably every TODer here knows, is don't count on your day job for survival and our technological society can be fleeting. Should things go bad rapidly (like RR, I don't think it will but its worth the mental exercise) we might find a way to maintain some form of our civilization. We will have a body of knowledge we can redeploy rapidly. Better or worse, who knows?
Why people feel obliged to slam a person because they had a disagreement is unprofessional and just plain rude. Denigrating because of one's education is also petty - after all, Toffler is just a journalist but he seemed to get a lot right. Besides, I like JHK. To steal a line from one of my favorite movies Tombstone, "I like Doc (JHK), he makes me laugh."