In light of the emerging lessons from Japan

Here's a Canadian take on the political discourse that's happening in the world. Canada is about to head into a federal election - a perfect opportunity to debate the significant issues of the day, right?


In light of Japan's agony, the first sentence of that last paragraph bears re-reading. "Our institutions are failing us in anticipating the consequences of the various catastrophes we actually know are coming.

If our institutions have failed us so spectacularly regarding a catastrophe a blind man should have seen coming, how effective will they be in addressing the myriad of abstract, longer-term threats that are no less catastrophic but don't condense into easy sound-bites with identifiable villains? All of us who have been watching the global climate change debate already know the answer.

So what's the answer to this dilemma? Well, I'm pretty sure it's neither political nor technological. As Dobbin points out above, political thinking has no reference points for this debate. And technological thinking got us into this predicament in the first place. Like every major confrontation humanity has had with the natural world down through our history, it will be up to individuals - us, you and me - to take the necessary action to protect ourselves, our families and our communities.

Our success in this endeavour will depend in large measure on two things: how aware we are of the true nature of the threats we face, and our success at keeping corporate-owned governments from fucking things up (whether through ignorance, incompetence, malfeasance, or just living on another planet) as we try to adapt to the flood of change.

I'm not sure that lessons will emerge for several months.

They're hosed for the next couple of decades no matter what they do.

The big lesson from this doesn't need a review board to identify.

For the last two hundred plus years we humans have had a nasty tendency towards short-term thinking, risk minimization and trusting to luck, while figuring we have natural systems from biology to geology pretty well figured out. All the while we've been developing ever more powerful world-changing technologies in this fog of hubris and denial.

The big lesson is that we're not Masters of the Universe, and that we might have better luck if we stopped behaving like we were.

The lesson is humility.

The big lesson is that we're not Masters of the Universe

Well sure... but that has little to do with nuclear power. That's just the general condition.

The Canadian election hasn't been called yet, but there's a sense that it will be in the early summer.

Yes, hubris is a general condition, but sometimes it comes more sharply into focus when events present an object lesson like this. I'd love it if people could generalize from Fukushima Daichi 1, 2 and 3 to the broader question of why we act as though we've got everything on the planet under our control, when we manifestly do not.

You wrote, "For the last two hundred plus years we humans have had a nasty tendency towards short-term thinking, risk minimization and trusting to luck, while figuring we have natural systems from biology to geology pretty well figured out. All the while we've been developing ever more powerful world-changing technologies in this fog of hubris and denial."

There is a lot of truth there for those who will listen. Trusting that a 40 year old reactor that is based on a 50 year old design would be adequate in a time when global climate change is causing far stronger storms, never mind the fact that Japan gets around 9,000 earthquakes a year, is just plain wishful thinking. Japanese authorities should have replaced their oldest reactors long before now. But the anti-nuclear factions have made it impossible for rational debate and logic to prevail.

We have many reactors right here in the USA that are just as old and we need to begin a fast-track approval for the Generation IV reactors such as LFTR, Pebble Bed Modular Reactor, and SMRs so we can replace those old reactors and avoid a similar situation here in the USA.

Don't those come under the heading of "ever more powerful world-changing technologies"? What makes us think that hubris isn't at work in their design? Denial, perhaps?

Any time higher levels of technology are introduced to solve problems caused by a lower level of technology, we should be asking ourselves if we have really thought things through.

"Hubris (pronounced /ˈhjuːbrɪs/), also hybris, means extreme haughtiness or arrogance. Hubris often indicates being out of touch with reality and overestimating one's own competence or capabilities, especially for people in positions of power."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris

The content of your posts give one the impression that you sit in judgment of all technologies, past, present and future, giving a "Caesar's thumbs up" to some and thumbs down to others. Perhaps that's just how I read it...

Pray tell, what have we not thought of in those passively safe designs?

I choose to think that humans have a right to be warm in winter and not die of heat prostration in summer, that humans have a right to communicate with each other --and that means the internet and 4G and LTE nowadays,-- that humans have a right to healthful foods and clean air and water. Maintaining all of those in the coming decades is going to take far more electrical generating capacity than we have even today.

There will be choices to be made: stick with coal and global climate change, ocean acidification, extreme weather and toxic pollutants will be the end of us all; or choose a green power source like LFTRs, PBMRs, or SMRs, along with as much renewable energy as we can possibly build. We need an end to coal and oil as soon as possible. We can't wait for one silver bullet to be built up enough to take the place of coal and oil in our daily lives; we'll all suffer extreme consequences if we take too long. As I've said before, we need all of our swords in this fight and the fact that global climate change is only just starting to get ugly (and will get worse as the decades progress), we cannot sideline any solution that does not add green house gases just because we don't like it as much as another.

When we've built up enough solar, wind, geothermal, tidal power, and wave power to take over the job of the nuclear power plants, then by all means let's have that debate then. But let's save this friggin' planet first, ok?

until we can get to a point that we don't need nukes we replace our older nukes with LFTRs.

We have only 100 years of Uranium left, and that's at present day levels of usage. I believe that we need double the generating capacity in nuclear power than we have today: we currently get 20% of our electricity from nuclear; we need to double that at the very least. So we will have even fewer years of Uranium at our disposal (that estimate does not include China's reactors either) and Uranium is only found in a few places around the world so it's going to be a political issue at some point in the future. Thorium has a 1,000 year supply and is found in every country in the world, even in sea water. So which energy source sounds more logical to use?

LFTRs (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors) should be a part of our energy mix as should Pebble Bed Modular Reactors and SMRs. These should all be mass produced to bring per-megawatt costs down. The current nuclear power plant construction methods are far too expensive and need to end. That is why I only support modular and/or mass produced nuclear power.

know we should be replacing our older nukes with them. I suspect GE is making a bundle of money on fuel rod assemblys and will fight tooth and nail to keep it going.

I've heard that some countries (South Africa, actually) have canceled their PBMR research and some would have you believe that the modular reactors are all dead because of it. I don't know that to be true. South Africa hasn't been the incubator of a whole lot of the technologies we hold dear today, have they? So they couldn't pull off a highly complex nuclear reactor design... and the gasps of surprise come from... whom? I'm just saying that the technology leaders in this world are the USA, China and India and that is how it is. There's nothing wrong with being any one of the hundreds of other nations that aren't the top dogs.

It seems clear to me that the construction companies are inflating the costs of each new nuclear power plant far beyond what is rational, far beyond whatever new government regulation is imposed. Mass produced components for LFTRs or entire mass produced reactor units such as a Pebble Bed Reactor or an SMR will take the opportunity to inflate prices away from the construction contractors. They wanted to be greedy. Good. They just lost their entire future earnings potential. Too bad. If we allow the contractors to set whatever price they want then we're sure to pay through the teeth for each new reactor --and there will be very few built and global climate change will continue unabated.

Here is a short history of their greed:
The article goes on to attempt to excuse the industry for multiplying the costs but shows that neither the regulations nor inflation should have accounted for more than a doubling from 1970 till 1988, the end of the study. Yet we have a 15-fold to 30-fold increase in plant construction costs. Strange, isn't it?

But if we mass produce the reactors and allow the contractors to build only the concrete and steel bunkers to set them in, there is very little room for thievery and greed; and contracts should place the burden of all construction mistakes and delays upon the contractor and all sub-contractors only. If you take away the economic incentive to inflate the costs and put in their place disincentives with real monetary penalties, lo and behold, I believe you will find projects coming in on budget and on time. Mistakes and lack of quality or failure to pass inspections would also be solely the responsibility of the contractors.

And mass producing things makes them cheaper and better with higher production numbers. The industry is still treating each new nuclear plant as if it's a custom construction project, much like a Lamborghini is hand crafted from a tiny run of production parts hand-made by craftsmen. Those days need to end for the nuclear industry.

We need a thousand new nuclear power plants in the USA alone. I'd like them all to be Thorium cycle reactors that are mass produced in factories all across the USA. But I'd accept SMRs or other mass produced reactors as long as the costs are kept under control and they are passively safe designs.

I don't think that more technology is the answer to any of the problems we face. I think technology as a whole (not just a particular technology) tends to be the problem more often than the solution.

You write, "I choose to think that humans have a right to be warm in winter and not die of heat prostration in summer, that humans have a right to communicate with each other --and that means the internet and 4G and LTE nowadays,-- that humans have a right to healthful foods and clean air and water. Maintaining all of those in the coming decades is going to take far more electrical generating capacity than we have even today."

You may choose to think that, but a more dispassionate look at history contradicts that view. We have come to think of these as "rights" only within the context of modern Western culture, which is a very recent (and arguably temporary) development in human history. The time period within which we have come to demand such benefits as "rights" is less than two hundred years - out of a civilization stretching back over five thousand years and a human history that goes back hundreds of thousands of years. Thinking of them as rights is in fact part of the brush we've used to paint ourselves into the corner humanity is now in.

I don't expect you to "get" this perspective, because our world views are essentially orthogonal in this issue. But that's where I'm coming from. From my point of view, saying that LFTR is a better technology than PWR is like saying that lethal injection is a better form of execution than the guillotine. It may be true, but at the end of the day I'd rather not have either, thanks.

Your posts remind me of a friend I had in high school in that respect. He believed in Social Darwinism and survival of the fittest; that all of our technology has made us "soft" and "unworthy" of survival. I'm not sure if your opinions go that far but your posts seem to point to an opinion that we should give up all of these "scary" technologies and go back to a simpler existence.

Now, I like to "rough it" when I go camping for a weekend but that's about it. I don't want to have to hunt for food or grub in the dirt with a stick to get at the roots, grubs and worms (yummy though they may be). I don't want to depend on wood fires, nor live in a cave.

Or did you not mean that we should regress quite that far back? Where does your world view draw the line?

I start off from a basic Zen Buddhist position that everything in the universe is a manifestation of an underlying Oneness - that we are all connected, we all cooperate to form this reality and are all, at some level, identical. I also believe that the reality we perceive is at the same time completely real, a complete illusion and completely non-existent.

Springing from that position of Oneness, I'm partly a Deep Ecologist. I believe that all life on the planet has an intrinsic value that doesn't depend on its position in the food chain, and that humans have wreaked a lot of unnecessary havoc on non-human life. We are life just like all other life on the planet. As a result I don't think human beings have "rights" any more than dolphins or paramecia do. To believe otherwise strikes me as pathologically anthropomorphic. We do have learned behaviours and values that spring from our culture and education, but they are also constrained by our biological nature and the baroque cultural systems we have built up to give ourselves the illusion that this is the only possible way for humans to live.

Add to that precisely half of anarcho-primitivism. I believe A-P has a lot of value to say about where we've been, but precisely nothing of value to say about where we ought to be going. I believe that we as a species are fundamentally alienated from reality by our self-awareness. I also believe that most of our cultural/technological structures, from pointed-stick agriculture to political systems and microchip design are both a reflection and a reinforcement of that essential alienation. We have an innate fear of chaos that drives us to try and control all aspects of our reality, no matter how Quixotic and injurious such urges are. However, I believe that the arrow of time (in this reality, anyway) flies only one direction, and that we can't go backwards. There is no purpose in wishing we could, because it's impossible, and anyway our destiny is in the future, not the past. At the same time I believe that the more technologically bound our lives become the more alienated and unfulfilled we become. And yes, I recognize and accept the inherent paradox of writing these words on a computer. I don't believe in giving up on technology, though specific technologies should be rejected if they are seen to be doing more harm than good.

I believe that people are inherently cooperative and altruistic, and function best in small communities. The optimum size of a human community is probably defined by Dunbar's number (about 100-150).

I also believe that our social culture is shaped by our evolved neuro-psychology, particularly the competetive, hierarchic orientation of our reptilian brain and the social herding influences of our limbic system. I believe that people in general tend not to be rational, but instead are rationalizers. Much of the work of our neocortex is devoted to coming up with acceptable rationalizations for decisions that have already been taken unconsciously by our reptilian and limbic brains. People tend to be more rational as individuals or in small groups than in large ones, which explains politics in general.

I am very anti-hierarchic and anti-authoritarian. I'm intensely egalitarian (though I will cop to some arrogance that can get in the way of that from time to time). Although I work in a hierarchical organization I will never rise up the ranks very high because I have an allergy to the exercise of power over other people.

My morality is entirely relative, though I believe in the absolute nature of some essential part of our beings.

I believe that humans have been generally happy throughout our history, even in the direst of circumstances, and as hard as it is for us to conceive we would continue to be so even if our situation changed for the worse.

That's enough for now, I think. Does it help?

I, too, believe that we are all connected in the grand scheme of things; that we all came from the same place and we will all return there when our time here comes to an end. I believe that while we are here, however, far too many of us forget that connectedness and seek fortunes/power/fame/glory at the expense of others, sometimes at the expense of everyone and every thing on this planet, living or not.

I grew up a small town boy so I also agree that people seem to be more "human" in small towns versus the big cities but I think that part of that effect is magnified because 95% of people are basically good and would do good deeds if given proper societal structure; it is the remaining 5% that cause the crimes and the inhumanity. The danger of today's society is that the top richest people are nothing but the criminals who never got caught (or were able to buy there way out of jail time). They are sociopaths just the same as the muggers or serial killers are. The only difference: they are above the law.

As to the inexorable march of technology, I don't see that as a problem. I see each step forward in technology as a piece of the puzzle, connected to and dependent upon all the pieces that have come before it. There used to be a BBC series called "Connections" that started each program with a piece of technology or important scientific concept that we depend upon today and followed the links in the chain of knowledge that enabled that thing or idea to come about, often starting back in the dark ages or even the stone age. As our knowledge increases, the missing pieces in our knowledge get filled in, enabling an advance in technology that had been previously impossible.

Some of our "advances" have come with unforeseen consequences (like DDT, Dioxin, CFCs, and the original Freon to name but a few) but later inventions have been able to replace those and undo the damage caused by them. Like the ozone hole caused by using CFCs as propellants in aerosol cans and other industrial processes; we banned them and found other ways to do the same things. Had we not used advances in technology and a careful application of accurate scientific data we would be facing a much higher incidence of skin cancers today. But we embraced the new technologies, changed our practices (freon used to be vented to the atmosphere during refilling the air conditioner at your home or in your vehicle, for instance) and now there is no hole in the ozone layer.

That sums up my view of technology: there are stupid ways to use it and good/wise ways. We need to end the use of stupid technologies (coal power plants, fossil fuel burning vehicles, wasteful appliances, etc.) and replace them with wise technologies (Thorium cycle nuclear plants and other mass produced nuclear power plants like SMRs, solar PV, solar thermal, onshore wind, offshore wind, geothermal power, tidal power and wave power, electric cars, and PRT), as well as making and enforcing rules for energy efficient buildings, LED lights instead of mercury-filled CFLs or incandescents that waste 80% of their energy usage as heat. Geothermal heating and cooling is a technology that isn't new but should be the new standard for heating and cooling homes, apartments and commercial buildings because it saves up to 70% of the energy to do the same job.

Continuing the use of stupid and wasteful technologies just because we're "used to them" or because that's how it's always been done is the height of hubris. Embracing new technologies that replace dangerous coal and oil is just good common sense.

I think the place where we part company is over the question of technology's role in increasing our impact on the planet. I see technology as a fundamental enabler of our devastation of the planet, and I don't think that improving techolnogy or increasing its level will help. To me the "T" term in the I=PAT equation is very significant, and I don't think that it matters whether a particular technology can be replaced by one that's "better" in some way. In my view the continuous accretion of both "positive" and "negative" technologies over the years has been the primary enabler of our destruction of other species and the fouling of our own home. The expansion of our technological capability has led to led directly to the extirpation of non-human species, the draining and pollution of the world's water supplies, the increase in atmospheric CO2, the decimation of the oceans, the rise in environmental toxicity - the whole sad litany of human encroachment.

While fossil fuels have played an enormous role in our depredations over the last two hundred years, the accelerating effects of technology can be seen far back in history - all the way to the annihilation of competitive species by early humans with pointed sticks. Such evidence makes me think that the situation can not be "cured" by simple technological refinement. Every technology is a double-edged sword, with costs and benefits. We bitch like hell when the costs of a technology (like fracking, coal mining or nuclear power) are socialized while the benefits are privatized. It doesn't take much of an ecologist to see that the same situation applies to technologies that accrue benefits solely to human beings while burdening non-human life with the costs. I argue that such an assessment applies to any technology that increases human activity, reach or capability - including technologies that appear benign at first glance such as wind or tidal power. The damage they cause through the enhancement of human activity may be one step removed compared to the direct impact of fossil fuels or nuclear power, but is no less real because of that.

Human have feathered our nests at the expense of all other planetary life for at least the last 10,000 years. We have alienated ourselves from the world around us and damaged our own spirits in the process. Will anything ever be enough for us?

My favourite saying involves a shovel that represents the sum of all of human technology: "When you have dug yourself into a hole that's too deep to climb out of, switching to a more efficient shovel won't help." I think we will have a lot more success if we just stopped digging so hard, took a rest, and tried to figure out why we're in this hole in the first place.

We find ourselves at the bottom of said hole today. We've been making the fossil fuel shovels for over 100 years and kept right on digging, faster and faster, deeper and deeper, until the toxic pollution from fossil fuels endangers the lives of everyone in that hole. Those are the clear facts of where we are at right now. We can't wish we'd never dug ourselves so deep; we have to deal with the reality of just how screwed we are at the moment. Your posts make me think you want to go back to the pick axe and shovel days because we could only dig a little farther down each year; but down we continue to go in that scenario.

I say that we find the equivalent of Mr. Otis and start making elevators that can carry us out of the hole; someone with a good enough idea, or a million someones with a million different ideas because one of them is going to succeed in getting us the hell out of this polluted and dangerous hole. Maybe an elevator alone won't do it. Maybe we also need escalators, spiral staircases, rope ladders and maybe even helicopters to get us all out of that hole.
Maybe we even need some of these: http://www.gizmag.com/first-commercially-available-jetpack/14423/

This is all metaphor, of course, for the life threatening situation we've put ourselves into by use of coal and oil, and our utter dependence on those sources for our daily existence (growing our food takes 19% of our annual oil consumption in the form of pesticides and diesel fuel). We need to build as many of the carbon-free energy sources as we possibly can. Writing off nuclear power because of whatever reason is like keeping 20% of your armed forces out of a fight when the enemy is going all out. We need every asset at our disposal or we will never win against the deadly fossil fuels.

As you say, it's dug, we're in here, and what are we going to do about it?

To torture the analogy just a little more, the first thing we need to do is realize we're in a hole, and that this is in fact a problem. A lot of people don't get that. They look around and say the problem is that there is dirt falling off the walls, or that there is water seeping in, or that the light is too dim, or that tree roots are making digging difficult, or that it's getting hard to hear their neighbour who is digging their own hole a hundred yards away. Most people don't have a clue that the problem is that we're in a hole.

Once we have realized that we are in a hole and that it's a problem, we can ask why we dug ourselves down here in the first place. This is important to know because the reason we're here may have a great bearing on how we decide to get ourselves out. Did we start digging because it's our nature to dig? Was it because we were trying to dig the foundation for a house? Was it because someone hired us and said, "Dig me a hole"? Knowing the reason may be important is because once we're out we might, for example, have an irresistible urge to start digging again. If it's just our nature to dig we might as well stay here and dig in this hole rather than start a new one. If the hole is for the foundation of a house maybe we can get out and go on with building the rest of the house. If it's because we've been hired to do it, what are the consequences of quitting when we get out - will we get fired and starve to death, can we tell the boss to shove his stupid job and walk off into the woods?

To me the question of why we're in the hole seems just as important as how we might get out. If there are 6.9 billion of us all frantically digging as fast as we can, will it help for some of us to climb out? Will those who make it out be able to help enough other people to wake up, stop digging and climb out before the planet is riddled with holes? Then, assuming we do get everyone out, will it help if we all just start compulsively digging all over again.

As I said before, I don't want us to go backwards to picks and shovels. I want us to ask ourselves why we're digging in the first place, what "digging a hole" really means in the current human context, and whether we need to keep on doing it. In the process, we should definitely try and keep from digging through tree roots, or killing the critters whose burrows we uncover. That's not a long-term sustainable answer, though. If we keep on digging we'll keep on killing, no matter how kind and careful we are. I'm not OK with that.

To torture an analogy to death...

From your earlier post, "My favourite saying involves a shovel that represents the sum of all of human technology: 'When you have dug yourself into a hole that's too deep to climb out of, switching to a more efficient shovel won't help.' I think we will have a lot more success if we just stopped digging so hard, took a rest, and tried to figure out why we're in this hole in the first place."

Then you asked, "Did we start digging because it's our nature to dig? ... Was it because someone hired us and said, 'Dig me a hole?' Knowing the reason may be important is because once we're out we might, for example, have an irresistible urge to start digging again."

I'll tell you this: you nailed it with the second paragraph. We thought that having jobs was the end-all-and-be-all of human existence. That receiving a weekly pittance from some wealthy jerk who would just as soon see you die horribly for his entertainment as to hire you is what we should all strive for. Therein lies to root of our downfall. Once the wealthy got us all to believe the lie that we need them in order to survive it was all downhill from there.

We were, indeed, hired to dig the hole while the wealthy made all the profits by charging us for a place to live, charging us for food to eat, clothes to wear, even water to drink. All the while they kept us busily digging that hole on the threat of losing all the meager possessions we've been able to scrape together thus far, losing our jobs. Then they began to distract us by making incremental improvements in the shovels every year, mostly just the shape of the shovel head but also how it connects to the handle and the length of the handle itself, etc. Constantly changing the cosmetic look and feel of the shovels but never changing the core function: they all dig the hole, some taking a larger swatch out of the earth with each use but they all do the same thing. Profit builds upon profit and the rich keep getting richer and richer while the rest of us keep getting deeper and deeper in the hole.

Your post describes each of us in our own hole but the reality is that we are all in the same hole, together. All our fates are intertwined. You may slow down or even stop digging but if all your neighbors do not then you will suffer the same fate as they do later on.

The pundits think that we should now try to make the wealthy see that they can make a huge profit by filling in the hole. That's an uphill battle because the rich have had a 100 year history of coal and oil profits and they know that it's a sure-fire money maker. Some big players are jumping on the renewable bandwagon but they are a tiny minority. Something has to change in a dramatic, drastic way. We cannot rely on the rich to "decide" to quit trying to kill us all just so they can make more profits. We must put a huge tax on shovels (coal and oil) so that there is no longer any profit incentive --and we've only just this year taken away *some* of the government kickbacks to the fossil fuel industry; we've been paying them to kill us all these decades-- and make zero-carbon energy the cheapest form of energy. I don't believe that tiny incremental changes will help anything. We had our chance to do those tiny changes stretched out over decades when, in 1979, President Carter got his energy plan put into law which would have had us 100% energy independent and far more energy efficient long before the year 2000. Then Captain Corporate (Ronald Reagan) came along and saved the oil companies from the death that they deserved by working tirelessly to end every part of Carter's energy plan and successfully cast them as the worst ideas ever. I wonder how many people will correctly tie the death of the planet with its executioner: Ronald Reagan.

My pet "root cause" is power hierarchies. You can look to Ronnie Raygun and the Seven Sisters as a modern manifestation of this, but the roots of this behaviour go way back into history. Social hierachies always act as power pumps, moving power, wealth and autonomy away from the lower levels of the pyramid and toward its tip. This is the nature of hierarchy, and has been happening for many thousands of years. Look at the Enclosure Movement in England, medieval feudalism and manorialism, all the various empires that have existed around the world from the Akkadian Empire of Sargon the Great to modern-day corporate America, and all the constant sorry history of institutionalized exploitation in between.

Any socioeconomic system that permits an elite to deny the broad population access to livelihood, sustenance, power and autonomy (and uses the threat of more of the same as a means of enforcing compliance) shows exactly the same face as RR did with the Seven Sisters. In fact I would challenge anyone to point to a non-tribal social system that doesn't have this quality. It seems to be bred in the bone. We can regulate it to minimize its damage, but if we peek behind the curtain of any significant society on Earth, this monster peers back at us.

We can talk ourselves into ignoring the monster of hierarchy or even into liking it. We can convince ourselves that redecorating our jail cell and switching the honey pail for a flush toilet will make our captivity more bearable. But one attempt to walk out of the jail is usually enough to convince most people that acquiescense is the most prudent course, cognitive dissonance be damned.

As I've said before, reading a couple of books by John Zerzan can be a very effective antidote to the illusions of polite society.

That's a very nice insight. :thumbsup:

If you've not seen, thought you'd appreciate this article. I think it sort of touches on the first sentence of the final paragraph you referenced in the article above.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/03/13/japans-nuclear-crisis-lessons-for-the-us/the-price-of-fission-power

It's an uncomfortable moment...

In Marlowe's play, Faustus' tragic flaw is that he is blind to the possibility of his own salvation, or even the need for it. I believe that we have been similarly blinded by a combination our own psychological propensities and the cultural and technological structures we have built up around us. Comfort and power have their price.