[doshaa]

The goal here is to scale things to what is needed and in a way that is feasible, i doubt solar panels would've been feasible as a scaling method for energy during that time, much less electric cars, or even less likely, farming strategies and equipment that are ecologically less 'problematic'.

not only that but the destructive nature of it was also wonderful to society overall, our living standards skyrocketed to an unfathomable degree during said revolution.

talking about the ecological destruction -while an important aspect- is irrelevant to the argument of scale to meet people wants and needs.

Think about it this way, would you be talking about the ecological destruction in an 1800s meeting to scale up farming and husbandry efforts to meet the demands of that time?

If the answer is yes, then would you be willing to delay/postpone the efforts until there are better technologies that are more ecologically friendly to exist and then accept/allow these efforts?

If the answer is no, then it is , like i said, irrelevant.

[natmaka]

> The goal here is to scale things to what is needed and in a way that is feasible

I beg to differ. As far as I know we scale up things in order to benefit from economies of scale. And we do so because the 'technical system' underlying our civilization leads us to always want 'more'. J. Ellul, among others, wrote about this.

> i doubt solar panels would've been feasible as a scaling method for energy during that time, much less electric cars, or even less likely, farming strategies and equipment that are ecologically less 'problematic'.

Indeed.

Note: some of those ways (solar panel/electric cars/farming strategies/...) have flaws (bad side-effects), some of them catastrophic, we aren't aware of, but will discover (just as all fossil fuels, which enabled the Industrial Revolution, do have catastrophic side-effects.

> not only that but the destructive nature of it was also wonderful to society overall, our living standards skyrocketed to an unfathomable degree during said revolution.

Claiming that those effects were beneficial is acceptable. However it IMHO doesn't balance the bad side-effects (current climatic challenge). Saving (or enhancing the life) of some doesn't justify creating a major risk for others (later).

> talking about the ecological destruction -while an important aspect- is irrelevant to the argument of scale to meet people wants and needs.

The case may be about obtaining anything (even a population) 'big' without economies of scale (or, to put it bluntly, without a technical system), I doubt so, and our ability when it comes to detect bad future side-effects of selected solutions (IMHO this ability is near zero). That's the reason why I think that what works for humans (and maybe for each and every complex life form) is a society built upon small groups, and more generically that everything that (in our society) works for long and without any major blunder is done by and for such groups. In more than a way L. Kohr showed it.

> Think about it this way, would you be talking about the ecological destruction in an 1800s meeting to scale up farming and husbandry efforts to meet the demands of that time?

I would, indeed.

> If the answer is yes, then would you be willing to delay/postpone the efforts until there are better technologies that are more ecologically friendly to exist and then accept/allow these efforts?

At the time: no, however knowing what I know now I would plead for a very (VERY!) progressive (time and space) implementation (precautionary approach).

> If the answer is no, then it is , like i said, irrelevant.

I understand your point, mine sits on the "let's avoid committing the same error twice" principle.