Creations of human artifice In the twenty-first century, the question most of us ask when disaster strikes is not "How could God let that happen?" but "Who screwed up?" This is a salutary development: We take responsibility for the world we live in. Whether or not our world is the best of all possible worlds, it is a world we have made for ourselves. We live in an engineered landscape, on an engineered planet. Our cities and farms, our dwellings and vehicles, our power plans and communication networks—these are all creations of human artifice. If we don't like it here, we have only ourselves to blame. Brian Hayes, Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape humanityinfrastructuretechnologydisaster
When it goes wrong Kris: It's not my fault when it goes wrong. Jeff: Yes it is. Shane Carruth, Upstream Color lovedisaster
Hints towards a non-extractive economy An Article by Matt Webb interconnected.org There’s a movement called the circular economy which is about designing services that don’t include throwing things away. There is no “away.” A non-extractive economy is going to look very different to today’s economy. These points feel opposed somehow but they are part of the same movement: With CupClub, it’s all about infrastructure. With the battery-free Game Boy, it’s untethered from infrastructure: once manufactured, no nationwide electricity grid is required to play. We’ll need better tools to track and measure. There will be new patterns for new types of services. New technologies to build new products. New language. So it’s fascinating seeing the pieces gradually come together. Introduction to Permaculture economicsrecyclinginfrastructure