UTOPIA IS HERE

MODERNITY VERSUS POSTMODERNITY
An analysis and an opportunity

Imagine a town with a population of 100 which has an oil well in its centre from which the inhabitants extract oil using a rope and a bucket.

In all the times that they have tossed ropes tied to rocks down the well, no one has been able to find the bottom, and so, although everyone knows it must have an end, the well is perceived, in fact, to be bottomless. The best strategy for the town, and that which will prevail, is that everyone access the well freely (voices of doom will not be heeded, no one will permit, and it would make no sense to, that access to an apparently unlimited source of energy be restricted). The price of this oil would be tied to that of its extraction and transport, and with it the town would develop, investing more and more, including all kinds of random explorations, some of which -without being able to predict exactly which- may eventually permit chance access to new sources of energy.

One day an especially skilful person shows up with a very peculiar sensor: a long rope made using a new technique, an engineering wonder that permits the rope to not be just long, but to be extraordinarily longer than any other.

In the midst of great expectation, he drops the rope, tied to a rock, down the well. The rock slowly sinks… the rope appears to be about to end…
Nevertheless, when only a few feet are left, when it seems that, once again, the mystery will be left unsolved, the rope slowly starts to lose tautness. It has hit the bottom of the well.

At that very moment, the town’s strategy will change.
If there are no other towns or perspectives of finding other oil wells, based on the processes described above, the competition for the remaining energy will begin.
What has happened? The town has moved from a modern to a postmodern phase.









Postmodern Phase

-The disposable energy has a limited appearance.

-There is a competency for the possession of the energy, rather than for its use.

-The possession of the energy will tend to concentrate in a few hands.

-The price of energy becomes speculative.


-The approach becomes “for you or for me” (Zero-sum)

-Future has a final date, a limit.

-Utopias disappear as long as they become unfeasible.


-The already existing resorts are optimized. Art and philosophy, confronted with the “no future”, become self-referential. The Big Stories disappear. The artist, in order to survive, associates to dominant classes, representing their aspirations, and forgets utopian ideals, seeing as unachievable.




Modern Phase

-The disposable energy has an unlimited appearance.

-There is a competency for the use of energy, not for its possession.

-The possession of the energy is spread, democratized.

-The price of the energy depends on its extraction plus transport towards destination.

-It is possible the “for you and for me” approach (Non Zero-sum)

-There is a future

-Utopias of the kind: energy for everybody, richness for everybody, are acceptable.

-New avant-gardes and philosophical trends are generated, looking for new ways of expression. If there is energy for everybody, let´s ask for freedom for everybody, generating archetypes that represent them




The differences between expansive phases (with energy of unlimited appearance) and recessive phases (after the moment the rope hits the bottom of the well) can be applied to any historical period. Greece or Rome shared out lands as long as new conquest seemed endless. But when the new territories to conquer started to be scarce, the fight for its possession started, and with it, the concentration in the possession of that land and the increment of the differences between rich people -the owners of the land- and the disinherited.

Historically, expansion equals democratization, and recession hierarchies and, eventually, tyranny.

In our historical period, from second war two until 1970, oil had an unlimited appearance (new resources appeared constantly), and this fact came together with a new utopian modernity. From 1973 this situation changed, expressed this fact by the creation of the oil cartel. The world entered a postmodern era that persists until today.

This phase is about to change with the availability of access to a new energy of unlimited appearance: hydrogen, the new “energy for everybody”. But the mechanisms for an ordered transition to a Hydrogen era have not been designed yet. This offers an immense opportunity not only financial and industrial, but also philosophical and artistic.

From the “EXPANSIONIST MANIFESTO”
http://www.energybulletin.net/11961.html

Alfredo Colunga
Alfredo\_colunga@telecable.es

www.alfredocolunga.com