Changing the Vocabulary

by Bill Joy




  1. My expertise is in the design of efficient and reliable computer hardware and software systems. This requires the systems to be well-designed, manage their resources, and be "robust" so that problems can be quickly identified and resolved.

    I wonder if we can apply principles used to design these systems to the larger problem of sustainability. Without information about "total costs" I don't see how to do this. It would be quite a job to determine these costs, but it would be interesting to explore what we could do given such information.

  2. Forcing companies to pay for externalized costs in a world of nation-states and multinationals seems quite problematic.

  3. In the computer industry, my company forced a change in vocabulary: from the "closed" vocabulary of proprietary systems, to a more cooperative vocabulary of open systems and standards. This new vocabulary was first ignored, then demeaned, then adopted and finally subverted. Pretty soon everything was "open", but its meaning had been lost. A lot of behavioral change occurred before the new vocabulary was trashed.

    I view the current fight for sustainability as a fight to change the vocabulary, and thereby change points of view. The old vocabulary of unlimited growth and development is not sustainable. A tactic of the opposition is to make words associated with sustainability into four letter words: wetlands, endangered species, etc.

    I think the clash between the old linear world and the cyclic sustainable world is most apparent when comparing word lists. We see this every day in our local newspaper here in Colorado as a fight between development and preservation. Preservation wins are often by attrition, by making things too hard and take too long to change. This causes what is called "Aspenization", where limiting land development makes housing very expensive and forcing the working people "downvalley".

  4. If we insist on measuring happiness as GDP then we can't win.


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