I think Michah is using a lot of big words - which is okay because he is obviously an intelligent guy and he uses them well - to say that it's past time we stopped fiddle fraking around with dinky heat engines and started using the simply awesome energies that are flowing by us daily to expand our civilization.
Right. I have in mind a really keen system that uses the earth's gravity to hurl cargo into space via an improbable ribbon. I even know some guys that want to build one.
We now understand that we live on the surface of a giant gravitational engine that is continuously emitting thermal radiation and electromagnetic fields and that that giant gravitational engine is revolving around a much larger thermonuclear fire ball that is constantly bombarding us with a large spectrum of electromagnetic radiation. We are swimming in a see of energy. What is called for is an intelligent putting to work of that energy as we alter the human-machine civilization and its environment toward Telos.
Right. I have in mind a really keen system that uses the earth's gravity to hurl cargo into space via an improbable ribbon. I even know some guys that want to build one.
This is now beginning to take place through the construction of apparatus capable of transforming solar radiation into electricity and other more usable forms of energy such as ethanol an hydrogen. As this transformation takes place in the coming decade human economic activity will be fundamentally altered because the energy that powers technological change will no longer be a scarce commodity but will be virtually unlimited – thereby making the speed at which change is possible virtually unlimited.
