Urban Ugliness – James Kunstler’s a LOUD voice

A Sunday morning musing to launch the blog and to test the platform.

I stumbled upon James Kunstler’s blog this morning as the toast toasted and the fried egg fried (hello arteries…sorry ’bout that). That led me to a TED4 presentation he did a couple of years back which was posted on YouTube. Rather than be directive – and narrow the search options – just Google Kunstler and TED4 and see what you find. There are some terrific clips of Malcolm Gladwell too. He’s definitely a Peak Oil advocate – and a very entertaining speaker. My eggs god cold as I watched the video. It’s terrific stuff about the blight of bad urban planning and dysfunctional urban design.

The Dystopian view of the future seems a prudent one to at least consider. There’s no point being in denial – there are changes afoot, the process is non-linear and while we might say we can predict the effect of, say, Peak Oil, really all we can do is have an educated (or not) guess. And any prediction comes with a subtext of the predictor’s intent and bias, which renders the whole thing about as reliable as picking a random punter at the racecourse and asking for tips.

The science seems, well, definitely indicative. What more can one say? The weather models seem to work well enough when run in test mode (a known weather event is “predicted” after the event using the system, which goes a fair way to validating the system at least).

But really, that all pre-supposes that perfect knowledge of the raw data leads to a perfect prediction: but we sure do not have perfect data. So what now? With a vast, complex system like weather/climate, the effect of even a minor oversight or omission in the computational models seems to create problems. Any deviation from “science” gives the climate change denial brigade and the interested parties and lobby teams urging them on, ammunition. Can’t see how that will pan out.

It’s no wonder the mainstream music industry did not predict the impact of digital on their business. When it was introduced, it seemed to be the answer to Everything – “perfect fidelity forever on a format that can’t be copied” . I’ve lost count of the number of ways that statement proved to be wrong.

It’s important to remember that predictions of any sort should be treated with the same caution as the weather forecast: it’s a matter of probabilities.

No chance for boredom in 2010.

CS