Once I attempted to read Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat. I stopped when I felt that if I read the word collaboration one more time, I would flip out 451 style. Despite his bombast and loquacity, Friedman did deliver one salient point: telecommuting is real.
Malthusian population expansion models the end of human existence due to unchecked population growth and neo-Malthusian theory takes it a step further, leading us down the road to Idiocracy by deeming fertility the new ultimate determinant in natural selection.
Only one aspect of human existence is universal; there is only one thing that we have to do. That is to die. This too shall pass. Doomsday theorists babble forever on about how x, y, or z (see nuclear weapons, climate change, carrying capacity) will obliterate humanity and that they must be stopped, at all costs. The simple fact is that some day the last human will die. Honestly, it could be tomorrow or in a future so distant that we do not have the language to describe it, but it will happen.
In high school, I had an English teacher who professed one of the greatest lessons that one can learn. He encouraged "strength, not length." That is, no 20 page paper is superior to a 4 page paper based simply on it's burgeoning size. In any set of prose, you must clearly communicate your intent and describe it accurately and effectively to the reader. Do that and don't become mired in filler.
Although I took this lesson to heart in my academic writing, as the years have gone by, I have endeavored to apply it to my life in general. Human society, especially American society, is obsessed with quantifiable metrics, i.e. length. We define worth based on such metrics. We marvel that life expectancy was once in the 30's. Clearly, we must be better than our forefather because we live longer. But do we live better? Hard to say, and a debate for another time. The kernel here is that, given a lifetime of say 70 years, it is phenomenally likely to become complacent, to procrastinate. There is always another tomorrow, until there is not. Goals are not determined, let alone achieved. The filler of modern life (reality TV, XBox, McDonald's and Starbucks) comes to dominate. Instead of seeking a method to make our lives longer, we must instill the urgency to make our lives stronger.
This is not a self-help piece, but it is also not a treatise on the meaninglessness of ourselves based on existential angst. That being said and having recognized the inevitability of human extinction, perhaps we might, as a species, try to make some lemonade out of these quintillion lemons.
It is improbable to accurately predict peak oil. Certainly the most likely methodology would be pure luck. Let us agree that it is coming, that is perceivable on the horizon. Extrapolating from the Mathusian model, the continued reliance on oil will lead inextricably to its disappearance. As this watershed is approached, oil prices and, therefore, gasoline prices will continue to rise. Despite the wave of propaganda that auto and oil companies inundate us with via television advertising, there have been no radical innovations, no flux capacitors. As laymen we can distinctly discern the rising price of gasoline. This affects everyone who drives a car. While new technologies have developed to help mitigate this sharp increase, they have been as napkins sheltering us from the hail storm - relatively worthless. We cannot feel their effects. Even if hybrids et al continue to gain market share, it will be (barring an unforeseen discovery) decades before they predominate.
So here's the creamy middle. Automobiles will become a luxury. While families might still keep a car to vacation or relocate, car owners will morph into a minority. As gas prices become unbearable, cars, by the hundreds, will simply be abandoned on the side of the road. The aforementioned telecommuting will become the standard. Given the ease with which (ugh) collaboration can be achieved virtually, the burden of fuel prices and rush hour traffic jams will melt away. Big boxes will close up shop. The next generation will do its shopping online, nearly exclusively.
So we end up leading digital lives, bereft of human contact? Not at all. As more and more people find themselves constantly at home, the concept of neighborhoods returns to reality. While chillin' with the boys who live a half hour away by car becomes unwieldy, you actually know your neighbors' names once again. As American society has become a maze of crisscrossed lines, a wasteland of drive time, we have forgotten that all of those around us are people too. More than simply place holders, we will (literally) walk this world exchanging warm greetings with our brethren on our way to the town market for necessities. As the brown vans speed from house to house delivering smart phones and toilet paper and timber, as the terabytes float unseen past our faces, we will rebuild communities around green space and handshakes. Oh yeah, no more homeless problem. They'll just live in the cars.
Obviously, this does not solve the problem of unchecked population growth. Even the prospect of an endless roadside line of rotting auto frames seems untenable. But, for as long as it could last, this blend of 18th and 21st century sensibilities seems both attainable and worthwhile. It seems strong. I hope that I get to see it.
Go buy stock in UPS, yo.
Cheers.
