An ethical problem today is a technical problem tomorrow
Why our internal strife today is likely to be a non-issue tomorrow
#1: An ethical problem today is a technical problem tomorrow.
In his book The Beginning of Infinity, British physicist-philosopher David Deutsch recounts a turbulent time from the late 1960s. The earliest color televisions used cathode-ray tubes where a beam of light would be incident on a phosphorescent screen and light it up in green, blue, and red. The color red on the phosphor screen came from europium, one of the rarest metals on earth.
As color television began revolutionizing life and leisure for millions around the world, a question came about: how long could we continue mining europium to service the indulgences of the rich? Note that monochrome television technology needed no europium, making black-and-white sets cheaper, hence the class distinction.
Color televisions separated the wasters from the rest.
Owners of color television sets were seen as frivolous who used up limited reserves of a rare earth metal for a cause no nobler than their personal pleasure. Manufacturers that wanted to cash in on the surging demand for televisions were cautioned against their greed. Commentators warned about dire prospects ahead. We were fast approaching the limit of what the earth offered us (to build color televisions, in this case).
Yet, none of this was new to the human race. Our earliest ancestors feared they would run out of wood to burn. They probably vigorously debated how much forest cover to leave for their children and grandchildren. Until they discovered coal. Once they could commercially mine and consume coal, a thought crept in: what if we run out of coal?
We have since gone on to discover crude oil, and then uranium. And so on and so forth it will be. Only the transformation of things from useless to useful, from rocks to resources, from matter to energy will occur much faster than it has thus far. Although a good few millenia separates us from the cavemen, in only a fraction of that time our current ways of life will be outdated.
We are the cavemen of tomorrow. The resources we are worried about running out of will barely register in the collective consciousness of tomorrow’s generation. Our squabbles will be non-issues tomorrow.
#2: A finite-resource model of the world (aka the scarcity mindset)
A lot of what has passed as humanity living beyond its means can be traced to a finite-resource model of the world. This model of the world is endlessly nerve-racking. It keeps reminding us: We only have so little left. We are fast approaching the limits of what the earth has to offer us. All of us understand the import of this warning regardless of the particularities of the dilemma.
A good lens to explore this model would be to look at a class of elements we call rare earth metals. The current scarcity problem extends to all seventeen rare earth metals on the periodic table. They are not easy to procure and they are being used in more objects for human consumption than ever before. Neodymium, terbium and dysprosium are used in the magnets of wind turbines and computer hard drives; yttrium is necessary for fuel cells and fluorescent lamps; and a number of rare earth metals are used in nickel-metal-hydride rechargeable batteries that power electric vehicles.
And global supply chains are shipping a lot more of everything from smartphones to automotive cells than before.
It is natural to say: let’s cut back on our consumption. Being frugal is only a temporary reprieve. No matter how carefully we live, we will eventually run out of resources. Unless we find new resources and new applications for them. And that can only happen through new knowledge.
Just as coal was useless to wood-burning man, who knows what is there around us that we have not yet figured out how to make use of? And who’s to say we cannot venture beyond earth to meet our needs? Look at where we started from and where we are today. Knowledge is what makes resources out of rocks. And human knowledge is unbounded. This is the essence of the infinite-knowledge model of the world proposed by David Deutsch.
The color-television-as-guilty-pleasure generation feared running out of europium and that fear led to a division of society on ethical grounds. They assumed, just like we do so today about so many things, that our knowledge of the universe had capped. And that humanity would not create any new knowledge from that point on. That is a rather pessimistic view of the world, and also unwarranted given the evidence.
Just look at what happened to cathode-ray-tube televisions. Where did they go?
#3: Betting on an infinite-knowledge model of the world
Rare earth metals, unlike what their name imports, are not rare. They are available in abundance, just not found in high concentrations, making the processes of their extraction and purification expensive and time-consuming. Because of these high costs, rare earth metals are a geopolitical hot button. China, more “naturally” blessed than other countries, has been accused of hoarding these rare metals.
Yet, nothing in its consumable form is naturally occurring, as physicist and podcaster Brett Hall argues in his Theory of Knowledge podcast. It is humans who dig the ores from the earth, make metals and plastics out of them, make cars and computers of the metals and plastics–in short, no resources are naturally occurring. We create everything.
To the extent it is true that resources are not naturally occurring but are artificially created by humans, the only thing making this possible is human knowledge. Consider how we continue to use europium today, but in ways wholly different to the 1960s. Far from the days of being used as red phosphors in picture tubes, europium today is used to manufacture low-energy light bulbs, control rods in nuclear reactors, and superconductor alloys. This pattern extends to the rest of the rare earth family as well. Progress in rare earth chemistry has led us to an insight: rare earth metals are like magic fairy dust that lend extraordinary properties to ordinary metals. The properties of rare earth metals remain the same but their applications have multiplied.
How did this happen? Through the regular scientific process of expanding the horizons of our knowledge. Back in the 50s when monochrome television sets were de rigueur, rare earths piqued the curiosity of some scientists. These pioneers were probably gawked at by peers and superiors alike who questioned their sense in committing their careers to the exploration of uncharted territory. But the uncharted-ness was precisely the reason that drew this cohort.
Today rare earth scientists are recognized worldwide. Their march, like the march of other scientific explorers, will continue to allow mankind to make more from just what is available around us, and maybe beyond that as well.
Human creativity and ability to know more about its world is unbounded. Our explorations will continue to open up avenues for us. We don’t need more resources to save the world, knowing that nothing in nature comes packaged as ready to use. We need better knowledge to create something of utility out of what is available to us.
A number of pressing questions that our society finds itself in the throes of are the result of inadequate knowledge. What is unreachable today will be proximal tomorrow.
The earth is finite. Human knowledge is not.
#4: If human knowledge is infinite, why do global problems persist?
If all dilemmas are the result of inadequate knowledge, why do we continue to struggle to implement solutions for global problems? There are two reasons I would proffer.
We are acquiring new knowledge and arriving at solutions faster than before but we do not know which ones to prioritize. For example, the prospects of ecological collapse fail to stir us into action the same way the thought of ISIS taking over the world does, though there is unanimity that the chances of irreversible environmental damage are significantly higher. Even when we do agree on the key issues threatening human existence, that agreement itself seems to herald a natural end of the process. It is as if we were arguing merely to bring everyone to a consensus, and now that we all acknowledge that nuclear war or climate change is life threatening, the conversation has lost its driving force. We are distracted as a species.
The second reason is that the incremental pace of technological adoption in society cannot nearly match the acceleration in technological innovation. New technologies are emerging much faster than we can implement them at scale. Our political and social institutions, our laws, our public machinery move linearly forward unlike technology that advances exponentially. This is leading to what technologist Azeem Azhar calls an exponential gap.
A couple of years ago, few had heard of mRNA technology. Almost no one knew that mRNA research dated as far back as 1980. It took a raging pandemic, on top of the 40 intervening years, to finally accelerate the commercial administration of the first authorized mRNA vaccine. What other knowledge and technologies do we have with us that are gathering dust?
Today, questions swirl around equitable vaccine distribution. And they will do so until we figure out a better way of protecting ourselves against mutating viruses, much the same way questions on how we should address global hunger, power means of transportation, and produce sustainable computing power ring in our ears today.
Before we drown in cynicism, let us zoom out for a moment. These questions are inevitable as we push against the constraints of existing knowledge. History tells us that what is science fiction today will become science tomorrow.
Further reading/listening
Are we running out of resources?
Rare Earth Metals: Will we have enough?
Cost of of metals used in hi-tech devices soars as China limits supplies
A whole new world for rare earths