Disruptive Technologies? Really? (Tad Patzek On FIRE, I-Things & The Madness Of McKinzey)

[hatrack]

My dear old friends from McKinsey & Company have come up with their view of the world's top technologies. As a historical note, beginning in the mid 1980's and through the 1990's, McKinsey was instrumental in irreversibly damaging the U.S. oil and gas industry. McKinsey was hired by the scared oil & gas managers to do a hatchet job on the researchers and operations staffs across the U.S. and - for a lot of money - did a awesomely devastating job.

Suffice is to say that the oil and gas industry in the U.S. will never again have the same breadth and depth, ever. This statement of fact has some interesting connotations when it comes to operating in the ultra-difficult, super-inhospitable environments, which seem to enter into our future. In fairness to McKinsey and several other consulting outfits, they acted as expensive external tools used by management to execute (no pun intended) the already agreed upon plans, as in: "What do you want me to conclude, boss?" But I digressed. So here is how the research arm of McKinsey, their Global Institute (MGI), sees potential benefits from a variety of technologies:


By 2025, these 12 technologies identified by McKinsey have the potential to deliver economic value of up to $33 trillion a year worldwide. Source: The New York times. Image based on Exhibit E3 in McKinsey's 178 page report, "Disruptive Technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy."

EDIT

But wait, there is more insidious nonsense. Let's look at the MGI claims that the mobile internet, automation of knowledge work (as in layoffs of professionals), internet of things (as in shutting down small stores around the world), cloud, advanced robotics (as in layoffs of industrial workers), etc., will increase the current global GDP of roughly 70 trillion USD by 50%. What do these technologies have in common? Oh, yes, they all use astronomical quantities of electricity and other forms of mostly fossil fuel power, as well as clean water and rare-earth metals. Without the cheap, reliable, uninterrupted fossil fuel power, ample clean water, and more rare metals than exist on the Earth, the projected growth of these resource-devouring technologies will remain on the glossy pages of MGI reports. So how does one square their estimate that the fundamental enabling technologies (oil and gas exploration and production) will contribute a measly 0.6 trillion of U.S. dollars, but their high-order derivatives will contribute tens of trillions of dollars? Isn't it all upside down? Like an inverted pyramid of the increasingly imaginary activities of our society, such as insurance and financial services?

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LtJkO-rpfYE/UaDSuH9qj1I/AAAAAAAAAiE/5Xc2Y7f5VrM/s400/Ecological+economists+view+of+GDP.jpg

An inverted pyramid of activities of a modern society. Those that matter the most, agriculture and forestry, mining, oil & gas recovery , and utilities are at the very bottom in terms of their importance, while finance is at the top. No wonder that this pyramid is unstable and must tip over. Image adpated from Dr. Kurt Cobb, www.resilience.org/stories/2007-07-29/upside-down-economics

In summary, there is much more to life than staring at your iPhone that is connected to the Cloud and the Internet of Things. Too many experts from McKinsey and elsewhere seem to think that life is like an iPhone screen. But here is the bad news: Life does not care about iPhones, iPads, and similar. Life will go on regardless and the upside-down pyramid will fall as it must, no matter how hard people like me and their children will try to slow down this fall.

EDIT/END

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-05-30/disruptive-technologies-really

[Demeter]

1. Amen

Preaching to the choir, though.