12

Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology by Eric Brende

Excellent. An MIT graduate student decides to live in a Mennonite-like community where technology is carefully scruitinized before its use is allowed. Brende's hunch is that though technology is supposed to make our lives easier and higher in quality, all technology is not created equal. Some technology actually leads to more work, more stress, and less enjoyment of life. Living in Africa, his tale is especially poignant.

For example, to wash clothes, he and his wife heat up water on the gas stove and put it in a hand crank washing machine that he claims does just as good a job and isn't too hard to operate. Amy and I set our buckets in the sun, dump some soap in, and in an hour each week our laundry is done. Then it line dries. It doesn't really bother us, that hour, and we use much less water and energy achieving the same result. We also save money and get a little workout That water and energy we just saved also just made someone else's life easier because now there is less demand for those two commodities (less demand that's not good for the economy...that's not the point). Therefore, washing clothes in a bucket is a technological advance over a washer and drier. Would I add a hand crank to my bucket? Yes, that would be easier without any major negatives. Would I add a motor? Perhaps, if the energy it required was small and easily provided by my habitat. Would I add a direct water line, drain, and electric heater? No.

Washing my own clothes, I've realized that cotten is really the only fabric I own that is hard to clean. My more technological synthetics just need a rinse and all the stains are out. That's technology that's worth it. If I didn't have any cotten to wash, I could use three 5 gallon buckets of cold water with a little soap each week and be done with the laundry in under an hour. That's comparable in time to modern laundry and way more efficient.

Those are the kind of conflicts of interest Brende points out. Technology has many hidden negatives such as cost, use of resources, maintenance, etc. that sometimes make tasks more difficult. Being a practical sort of guy, I like this thinking. True engineering takes as many factors as possible into account, so we need to review each new piece of technology to see if it's truly engineered or if it's sequiously engineered.

Also, Brende reminds us that we are social beings and one of his simplest, most profound discoveries is that work isn't work when you're amongst friends. "Working" the fields is an opportunity to hang out friends. Canning vegetables is a party. It sounds silly and perhaps obvious to some, but many Americans have forgotten this as they sit in cubicles 8 hours a day, or traffic 2. Many people dream of a sinecure and when they get it end up unhappy and bored. Humans are social beings and technology shouldn't interfere with that.

Bon travail M. Brende.