Wind

Wednesday November 9, 2005 - 1:05AM EDT

This new wind turbine is exciting. I think the whole world is moving towards clean renewable energy resoruces. Maybe in my lifetime all energy will be gotten from these kinds of places. It won't happen fast enough for me though. What if tomorrow all of our power came from renewable resources? Like wind, solar, ocean waves. Would energy price plumet so much that we could do other things. I'm remined of the book I read called Midas World. It was precisely about that. But what happened when energy become so abundant and cheap was disatrous. The world essentially consumed itself into oblivion until the planet was uninhabitable except by the robots people built. All humans lived in space.

Rampant consumption and consumerism has to be reeled in somewhat. The primary drive of humans needs to shift from getting stuff. That is what it is now. It is not good for the planet and humans. Maybe we could survive with that mentality but I argue that we would be better off not pursuing stuff. I think about the Google founders who are sort of known for eschewing extrvagance and material things. Funny part about that is that their entire business model is based on convincing people to buy stuff. So the money they get is from people wanting stuff. Is their effect on the other side balancing? I read a quote that it is something that they consider when they buy things. Its a tough nut to crack though. They still live in a support a society in which it can't possibly be equal. So what do they do? I don't know. They could give their entire fortunes to charity and it still wouldn't make a dent in the inequity manifested from the business structure. They are still organized like any other corporation although the atmophere internally is supposed to be markedly different. It is so tough for them because their business is so tightly linked to people buying stuff. Also their we can do it all attitude may not work out. I love their scanning books idea. Which created a bunch of hoopla with publihers. They were forced to scale it back. There seems to be a we can do it all attitude coming from Google though. I don't know what to think of that yet. They've come up with nothing really revolutionary. Their search engine is still the best product they have. But everything else they have so do other companies. I don't know where Google goes from here. There is talk of them getting into wireless internet access. However it sounds like they want to import their search engine pay per click model into that space. Again I'm ambivalent on them doing that. It reeks of what every other company does; wanting to shape everything they get into based on how they make money.

This makes me think about Bill Gates' charity efforts. It is an admirable personal mission but does his 40 billion spread out make a dent? I don't know. Seems like the method of change among charitable contribution is to pick an issue or set of issues and attack it with money. It is not the attacking with money that I'm criticizing here it is picking an issue. The narrow focus of charitable contribution may be diluting their effect. Habitat for hummanity is a prime example. Besides the fact that somehow people take trips to other countries to build a few houses how much does it help. Sure a few people get homes but so many more go without. It is a pathetic last ditch effort. Charity has never come close to equaling the amount of money spent by government on social programs. Yet there is so much emphasis on giving. I'd propose a smaller but broader approach to charity. None of this large issue tackling that spreads your contribution thinly for each individual. Take a neighborhood somewhere and buttress the in place government social programs to tackle all the issues at once. Turn a neighborhood into a self sustaining entity that can then increase your charitable power when you move to the next neighborhood. Hollywood and celebrities are a hot bed of charitable contribution. Every single LA neighborhood is not exactly a paradise. What if there was a concentrated effort over 10 years by all of Hollywood to pour money and resources into some of the worst LA neighboorhods. Screw all the personal charitable efforts by various people. What if everyone gave to Compton or Englewood to build it into a community of great stature. What if they poured billions in the schoool system and summer camp like programs for kids there. What if they poured billions into city beautification and increasing local business owenership. What if they poured billions into recyling and clean enegy sources. What if someone wanted to make Compton as beautiful as Malibu. These neighborhoods are bad because of neglect and that is the bottom line. People are broke and uneducated. I can't even imagine the massive improvments in a neighborhood with a well-funded school system. You could virtually eliminate gangs because you would give kids a decent place to go. What if all schools in Compton were air conditioned and had the best technology and teachers money could buy. I dare you tell me that wouldn't have an effect on crime rates greater than thing done up until now. I have little admiration or jubilation for any celebrity charitable cause or just charity in general.