| This article is making a lot of unattributed claims on behalf “Silicon Valley entrepreneurs”: “the promise of technological fixes peddled by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs that seem to allow us to continue with business as usual.” “But if we are to listen to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and their allies in government and academia, we should not worry about changing our collective way of living on the planet: climate change is simply a problem that can be solved with “disruptive” new engineering innovations, from carbon capture and storage to electric cars.” The only direct quote is from an unnamed Tesla executive answering an unspecified question: “those are questions for philosophers—next question.” For all we know, he might have been asked why bad things happen to good people. Attacking whole groups of people for unspecified and unattributed proposals is a truly obnoxious rhetorical tactic. You can blame anything on anyone this way. Edit: I want to clarify that I think the thesis of the article, that engineering is used both to enact and obscure political outcomes, is true and important. The engineering problems described are a fine example of this dynamic, and I wish the author had stopped there, rather undermining this important argument in such an easily avoidable way. |