Will The New iPhone Bring About The End Of Civilization As We Know It?

So Apple has released the latestversion of the iPhone, whoopee-do. Pardon me while I ignore all the hype and question whether this really is such an important event in world history but it could be very significant as a pointer to the end of human civilization as we know it.

Didn’t we just have an iPhone released that was supposed to be the best phone on the planet? Oh, maybe that was a year ago. A whole year, wow. So what has changed since?

Sure, the iPhone looks cute and it is a beautifully designed little thing but does the world really need another 110 million mobile phones thrown in the rubbish bin because a thinner, faster, improved screen version has been released? Hopefully, the old models will be recycled but is the the great achievement of the human civilization, to be able to come up with another wasteful technology product that everyone feels they must have and then replace, every six or twelve months?

The success of the human race may prove to be its downfall. Like a virus that grows and grows until it eventually kills its host we have come to dominate our home planet. We have bred and increased the population to the point where the resources of the planet are being stretched to supply our needs and our needs have grown along with the population.

Once we would have been happy to have enough food to eat and enough wood to build a shelter and keep warm. Now, it seems, we have to have homes and lives full of technology that is draining not just our capacity to provide the energy to power all these gadgets but it is also draining us of the limited time we have every day.

Thre was once a time when a product had a limited lifetime. That time was usually limited by how long it would last before finally breaking down. With todays efficient design and manufacturing that is far less of a problem and manufacturers have had to find another way of convincing us it is time to replace a product.

The result is a constant stream of new releases. Just like with the washing powder adverts of years ago, each new version of our phones, computers, TVs and cars is New And Improved but can life be sustained at this pace?

Humans have been successful because we have been able to think ahead and learn from our mistakes and we are naturally lazy and always look for a better and easier way of doing things. We have developed technology that has enabled us to improve our health, our comfort and our lives to a degree unimaginable to people of a few generations ago but how much longer can this go on at the incredible rate of change we are experiencing these days.

A thousand years ago at a time when the Romans were conquering Europe people no doubt thought of it as the end of the world and for many of them, it probably was, but in those times change took decades or even centuries. Looking forward it is impossible to imagine what changes there might be in the next thousand years but one thing is very clear. We cannot go on as we are doing right now.

The popluation is growing enormously and there are few undiscovered places left to be exploited to supply our growing needs. Our demand for resources grows exponentially though the supply of those resources is finite and reducing as we use them. In the past plague, pestilance and wars kept the population in check while local supply of food and resources limited the possibilities of the local population. Now the worlds resources are available to all, at a price, but the cost is more than just money.

We have been on a consumption binge that has lasted twenty or thirty years but the financial impact of this became clear when the world financial system came close to collapse. Hopefully, we are working our way out of the problems that caused but it is easier to print money to sort out a fnancial crisis than it is to find the minerals and food to sort out a world short of both.

The simple fact is that we cannot continue as we are now. The new iPhone may be a magnificent example of man’s ingenuity, design skills and technological achievements but we need to face up to the fact that we need to reduce our consumption of the resources available to a far more manageable level if we want future generations of humans to have any chance of having a happy and healthy life.

The resources we are throwing away will not be replaced. When they are gone nothing will be left for the future. It may not happen within our lifetime but if we have any concerns for future generations then we should be thinking about the long term consequences of our actions now.

Boundary Change Causes Confusion

Having lived in the same house for the last 29 years I suddenly discover that I have been moved by the boudary changes for this election and rather than voting for my MP for my local area based around the town that is about 5 miles away I am now voting for an MP based in a town 25 miles away and a town I have only visited once in the last 20 years.

I don’t pretend that sorting out the boundaries to create evenly matched constituances is an easy task but I feel almost disenfranchised. I have never heard of the people I will now be asked to choose between. I have absolutely no connection with the area where the MP is based and it comes as no surprise that I haven’t even received an election leaflet through the door let alone met my prospective MP.

Big government has been making people feel less and less connected with the people who decide our fate in London and the expenses scandal people emphasised how far removed from ordinary people our supposed representatives in Parliament really are. Now, in my case, I have been even further removed from any connection whatsoever with the person who is supposed to represent me.

We Have No Ships – Efficiency Gone Mad

Thanks to the closure of the UK airspace to commercial flights and a similar situation throughout large most of Europe there is suddenly a huge demand for Ferry crossing across the Channel. Many of these services have been cut back as the competition from air travel and the Channel Tunnel has reduced the demand for these services.

For years now we have been hearing how everything should be super efficient, how we should cut waste and surplus capacity and run services in the most efficient way. Obviously, it makes sense to avoid any unnecessary waste of time, money and effort but I have always questioned whether it is true that a 100 efficient system has no spare capacity.

A perfect system is one that always works and copes with any problems that occur. Running a perfect system means that whatever happens the system always achieves its aims and purpose.

It is unlikely that even if the competition had not reduced capacity on ferries that there would have been sufficient to easily deal with the problems of bringing so many stranded travelers home to the UK but there would have been more capacity and more bookings available.

Obviously you cannot run empty ships just in case an unprecedented situation such as the complete closure of UK airspace were to take place but it seems reasonable to think that whichever government is in power would be ensuring that there were plans in place to cope with natural disasters and unprecedented events.

We have relied on ‘the market’ to decide what travel facilities are available and as we know from the financial crisis, the market, on it’s own, does not work to the benefit of the population at large it works to benefit those who work within it.

Efficiency reduces flexibility. A 100% efficient ferry service would not have any spare capacity at all and nobody would be getting home right now. We have previously seen the channel tunnel capacity reduced through weather problems last winter and a fire a year or two ago. We need to have some flexibility in travel options. We may not all use ferries often but we do need some way to allow them to successfully operate so the option exists when we need it.

The government have been keen to promote air travel and additional runways are still on the cards for both Heathrow and Stansted but I cannot recall anything at all being said about ports and ferries. Maybe I missed it but I suspect not.

The arguments about efficiency also apply to government, particularly at this time with an election soon and the various parties talking about significant cuts to publics services and the civil service.

Yes we need to save a lot of money but exactly what will be the cost in terms of peoples lives severely damaged through the loss of jobs and income. How well will the country be able to cope in the next natural disaster that brings chaos to the country when we have decimated the various services that we might require.

It’s all very well saying that frontline services will be preserved and it will be cuts in support services and backroom staff but how do you keep fire engines on the road if you reduce the vehicle maintenance support staff. How do schools manage to run well if their support staff is reduced and teachers have to do more of the support staff jobs.

There are no simple answers and there is no doubt there are lots of ways savings can be made which will have less impact on the front line services politicians are so quick to claim they support but make no mistake, these coming cuts will reduce flexibility and make us as a country even less able to cope with unexpected problems than we can now.

In recent years we have had several significant natural disaster scenarios occur. The events may not be comparable to the earthquakes and Tsunamis other countries have to cope with but floods and severe winter weather we have experienced have stretched local and national services to their limits. It might appear to make financial sense not to have any reserve capacity for anything at all and hope for the best but it is sensible, and surely the duty of government, to ensure we have the flexibility to cope with unexpected events when they do occur.