But that is not what the customer wanted nor how the technology developed. So instead of 6 or 12 computers we have more than probably one hundred million (depending on how you define a computer) meaning the Borroughs executive was only off by a factor of ONE MILLION!! And he was not a madman, he was simply projecting forward based on the direction of the industry at the time he made the projection.

You are leaving out an important piece to this illustration. Companies figured out they could make more money...lots more money...if they sold personal PC's instead of mainframes. It is not necessarily the customer that lead this innovation, but the industry striving for a profit.

And herein lies the problem with paradigm shifts. Some shifts are by choice and humans have some control over them (like the evolution of the PC industry) while others are not by our choice and control.

In larger paradigm shifts like the transition to new societal energy systems, the end point of the shift may eventually bring enlightenment and improvement to the situation, but the transition will hurt like hell.

I don't entirely disagree with you RC, and I think your post reinforces facets of what Nate is saying, that being 'gloomy' may not be in one's best interest, or saying it in another way, that by being more optimistic than perceived facts of the situation merits, seems to confer survival advantage. The way I understand it, a black swan could bring good or bad. Certainly aliens landing and plopping down ready made fusion reactors all over the place could be considered a black swan.
When reading your post though, It occurred to me that the specific example you bring up may in fact have a lot to do with energy supply itself.
If perhaps, abundance leads to more individualistic focus, and scarcity to more collective allocation of resources, it shouldn't be a surprise that computing went towards personal computing as the world's energy resources were increasing.

It seems to me your main point is that the future is very unpredictable, both in scale and detail. I would add that our ability to foretell the future works in short bursts, until some underlying equilibriums that we can't see, change.

If I define cornucopian as the idea that after the transition there could emerge a sustainable and technical society
but with a far smaller global population, and I define doom, as the forces that refuse to scale down (leading to a greater collapse) then I see that these forces will be like two ships passing in the night.

The transition is their passing, and one ship may sink to the bottom, but it seems clear that the rotting carcass ghost ship, that is 'BAU' as we like to call it, is destined for the slimy weeds.

The transition bottleneck will most likely be ugly no matter what we do. It's already ugly. It has been ugly.
Until we humans can figure out how to collectively control our own breeding it's all just academic.
Otherwise even if we survive, we're just destined to repeat.

So I'm an optimist, in the sense that, eventually, I think we'll figure it out, when we finally get bored
with the drama.

-g

I simply beg people to consider...they don't have to accept this contention but just consider the possibilities implicit in them: Try to picture the possible paradigm shifts that could occur in energy and in the reduction of fossil fuel use, and in the development of materials over even the next 30 years. Just look at some of the most recent developments without the lense of dire doom and gloom on, just for fun, and consider the possibilities implied.

I cannot see the possible paradigms. That's part of how paradigm shifts seem to be - largely incomprehensible from the context of another, existing paradigm. So I plant trees. I build the soil in my garden. Over the last week I built a forest garden for my chickens - over time I hope to get up to 100 birds per year mostly self-supported on a 2 acre plot in Maine.

The name of the beast is resources and it slouches toward us; the center cannot hold, but what comes next I cannot guess. Maximizing possibilities - building resiliency and options - seems the best thing to do.

My reward may be nothing more than the lush green mid May explosion I see outside today. It may well be someone stealing my birds. More likely someone stealing my Doomstead. I can imagine bits and pieces of all sorts of ways things may turn out. The pretty blond woman I met in the supermarket last night isn't in any of them; she drove off in her new Jeep - a Chrysler, hello??? - complete with Thule roof racks for bicycles and kayaks.

I spend way to much time in the state capital testifying on various bits of legislation. I know my suggestions will never be implemented - not in my lifetime, at least - but my aim is only to seed the plot. For example, if the discussion is about windmill farms, I talk about ownership - munis and community investment trusts - prohibitions on export of power - footprints and horizons. If it's about dams and the KWh generated, I talk about the much greater emergy of the eels and the atlantic salmon the State of Maine is dooming to extinction, and all the other parts of the web of life they take with them. GMOs - where farmers talk about right to grow whatever they want, I talk about my right as a farmer NOT to grow whatever I DON'T want. All that is about seeding the plot before a paradigm shift; maybe providing some meme fertility for the next succession species. And I hand out packets of mangel seeds. [Nate, yours are on the way.]

Windmills, ownership, GMO, etc... I never end up on winning side for any of those issues, because the discussion is always framed in terms of how difficult the business environment is and how we need to give up/compromise/lower standards or whatever so that business can prosper. That it's our prosperity that is killing us - the Thule kayak rack on the Jeep - no one wants to hear that.

cfm in Gray, ME

Thanks RC,

To be honest, I'm not all that fussed if the world takes a step or two back. A warm sunset beats an episode of "wheel of fortune" any day (is that show still running?).

No doubt your computer example is an interesting one, but I wonder if there WERE a few that saw the change coming, as Peak Oilers exist today (perhaps there's some hand-written letters filed away here and there). So again, in a lesser-hydrocarbon world I simply wonder about scale...

How many barrels of oil in the coming years (we need bang for buck, right?) will be consumed to build the renewables that sustain our planet's expected population for the next generation? And the generation after that? And maintain/replace all this wonderful new gear?

Sure, fusion-battery aircraft and mirrors in space for the solar-powered copper-diggers (or whatever) may come along and I'll continue to cross my fingers that you're right. What else is there to do? But as it stands, I simply don't see "scale" in current government/big-business commitments for the forseeable future.

Regards, Matt B