110: Geoffrey West, part 3: Using science to create a vision for the future
My third conversation with Geoff covers using his research to figure out what to do.
I start with a few questions on how to create a vision for the future based on his research. Can we change our growth trajectory, currently leading to ever-accelerating growth, without sacrificing the superlinear growth that makes cities and presumably culture stable? Recall that sublinear growth leads to companies’ and animals’ limited lifetimes.
Without leadership, it seems inevitable to me that we’ll reach collapse. Leadership—changing cultural beliefs—seems our best hope. Creating new technology keeps us on the same track. We’d have to work hard to stay off the track we’re on.
He talks about how futurists from generations ago predicted technology would free up so much time we wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves. History shows we found the opposite. The research I’ve seen on technology creating efficiency has led to more pollution, not less.
Listen to the conversation to see what we can do.
Read the transcript.