Too far, too soon

2024-10-05

This is entry 5 of 100 for #100DaysToOffload.

It seems to be that a lot of the 20th century, and now a lot of what has happened in the 21st century, is going too far, too soon, with a new technology. It seems we have a bad habit with going all in on a new technology before realising that it might be a bad idea if taken to extremes, and then being stuck in a position where it is hard to back out. For instance:

• Agriculture: we have gone all in on industrial agriculture with heavy tillage, fertilisers, pesticides, modified and F1 crops, etc. This gave us very good yields for very little labour, but has come at the cost of the natural ecosystem, and even at the expense of the very land we want to farm. We are now realising this is bad, and transitioning back to "regenerative farming", but for many plots of land the damage is already done.
• Urban transport: we went all in on the car, as the main mode of transport: we even built huge great ugly structures to accomodate them. This is despite having good public transport (trams, trolley buses) and heavy bike ridership. We now realise that this was a terrible mistake, and are trying to return to the older modes of transport: but by this point, we are so far gone, it is incredibly difficult to get even minor progress.
• Plastic: We went from paper and renewable materials to, after the war, huge quantities of plastic for packaging. We now have almost everything in plastic: after all, it's so cheap! The harm is enormous, but it's hard to pull out now.
• Production: we have increased the amount of production to incredible levels. We now produce so much, and yet cannot consume it all; we have huge levels of food waste, as well as so many clothes and other knick-knacks from abroad. We produce so much without thinking about the end consumer: as a result, we have absurd quantities of waste.
• Oil: we have built entire economies on the back of oil; yet the damage to the planet is obvious to see. We are too far into it to pull out now.