Severe Mental Incarceration

A friend of mine said about the NextEra-HELCO docket (the proposed purchase of our local electrical utility by a large corporation based in Florida), as he looked at my t-shirt supporting a co-op alternative to that power transfer, “Oh, I see you’ve drunk the Kool-Aid.  I agree with Mina Morita.  She said this decision is about economics and physics and that’s all, you know.”  

I was ashamed of him for being such a simple-minded reductionist. I was even slightly ashamed of Mina Morita, as much as I admire her.  (Mina Morita is prominent locally, having held important state-level political positions in energy and the environment, and known for her thoughtful pragmatism.)

There is a sense in which I could agree with him, it is just about “economics” and “physics,” if we were to take “economics” and “physics” in their fullest meanings.  If by “economics,” we would be talking about the most effective and carefully considered use of our limited physical resources so as to minimize further environmental degradation of our island and global commons, the distribution of costs and benefits fairly and appropriately among energy users, and the continuing work on our system of symbolic exchange so that it helps us to move us towards our social goals, and if by “physics” we would be talking about the attempt to discern the nature of physical reality and how it relates to our symbolic systems, then yes, of course, this decision is about economics and physics.  

I know that’s not what he meant though.  What he meant by economics was whether NextEra (the name by itself says it all) could provide a projected lower cost of energy per a kilowatt based on their “purchasing power” and “economies of scale.”  And by “physics” he meant, basically, burning stuff to turn it into electricity and running it down wires.   All important, practical considerations, of course, which can be reduced to boxes and functions in Excel, and therefore must be true and real and  logical, right?  But nine spreadsheets out of ten are as fantastical as a Maxfield Parrish painting. I hope that this civilization is about more than spreadsheets, because if that’s what our mental abilities have devolved to, then we have put ourselves into a prison of little black Excel boxes.   That will be impressively logical but truly pathetic of us.  

I, for one, am not going to back myself into that corner. Which doesn’t mean I’ve drunk any kind of Kool-Aid.  Especially not the kind that turns you into someone that only sees the world as economics and physics.