jackofalltrades ,
@jackofalltrades@mas.to avatar

I learned a fascinating fact the other day.

It is estimated that during the Roman Empire 20% to 30% of Italy's population were slaves. For the empire as a whole that share was between 10% and 15%.

In these times, even modest Roman households might expect to own two or three slaves.

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jackofalltrades OP ,
@jackofalltrades@mas.to avatar

Today our global economy does not depend on slavery (albeit it has not been completely eradicated), but has a different, and more invisible, dependence.

Buckminster Fuller called it "energy slaves", to describe a dependence on mostly fossil energy, expressed in energy equivalent of work done by a human worker.

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jackofalltrades OP ,
@jackofalltrades@mas.to avatar

Here's the surprising part:

In our modern economy every human worker is complemented by about a hundred non-human "energy slaves".

This means that in our modern world the energy slaves do ~99% of the work in our economy.

3/13

jackofalltrades OP ,
@jackofalltrades@mas.to avatar

Take a look at this photo.

In 1860 it took two strong men to carry the rich lady around.

The smallest cars today have about 70 horsepower engines, which is comparable to 200 (yes, two hundred) athletes pushing the car.

4/13

jackofalltrades OP ,
@jackofalltrades@mas.to avatar

Another example: a single round-trip transatlantic flight requires more energy per passenger than the passenger can generate with their own muscles over their entire life.

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jackofalltrades OP ,
@jackofalltrades@mas.to avatar

We take these energy slaves for granted in our daily lives. They carry us around, heat our meals, pump water to our homes, clothe us, do the cleaning and washing, delivering our messages (including this one), and so on.

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jackofalltrades OP ,
@jackofalltrades@mas.to avatar

Humans always used exogenous energy, i.e. energy from outside of their body. Warming near a campfire or using oxen to pull a plow are all examples of that.

What's different today is that we tapped into ancient sunlight energy in the form of coal, oil and gas.

This energy was captured and condensed over millions of years, and we're burning through it in a span of just a few hundred years.

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jackofalltrades OP ,
@jackofalltrades@mas.to avatar

Tom Murphy calls our industrial civilization "a fireworks show, or a giant party", while fossil fuels and minerals are a "one-time inheritance".

Our energy use is unprecedented in human history. Nothing drives this point home better than this little chart, showing the "carbon pulse".

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