Taking from nature

Photo by Morten B

When we look at the history of technology, it is not uncommon to think it is an enemy of nature. It’s easy to consider even basic analogue technologies like the fridge as something that takes from the world. These devices are constructed, used and then thrown back into the world as pollution. Then we start again. We take from the world, we consume, throw away and again and again.

That linear understanding of technology is very modern, because it developed after the Second World War. For a long time, however, technology was circular. In fact, for most of human history, we couldn’t throw away anything, because there was nothing to throw away. Everything had to be reused, recycled or repurposed, because everything was precious. Of course, this kind of circular economy was very poor compared to our modern, consumption-based and linear economy.

Using digital technologies to help the environment

These days, digital technologies are able to marry these elements of human economies. Indeed, there is a synergy possible between green and blue technologies. Even though some may find it counter-intuitive, technology, primarily digital technology, can be a great friend to the environment.

Overall, digital technologies enable us to do three things that are very environmentally friendly. They enable efficiency, doing more with less. They increase our efficacy, doing more with what we already have. They also encourage innovation, doing different things that were unthinkable until yesterday.

Efficiency, efficacy, innovation – three things that transform the relationship between technology and the environment. These attributes of digital technology allow us to change the relationship between technology and nature. This relationship, which was strained in the past, becomes a healthy marriage, as it were.

Mutually beneficial technologies

Green and blue technologies are the best possible partners for each other. Moreover, it’s not just the blue helping the green but also the green helping the blue. Indeed, we must begin carefully considering all blue technologies: mobile phones, social media and so forth. After all, quantum computing and artificial intelligence are on the horizon.

Moreover, green technologies can help us understand the infosphere that we are currently creating as a new environment. This infosphere is quickly becoming the new environment in which we live our “onlife” experience. In this infosphere, digital technologies can be better understood from a green ecological perspective. So just as blue technologies support the environment, this is how a green environmental perspective will benefit our digital experience.

The next human project

What kind of society do we want to be? We cannot just leave a legacy. It is time for us, especially after the pandemic, to look back and ask ourselves how we will move forward. We have inherited a great legacy from the past, but we need our own project. We can build on past chapters, but our generation deserves its own chapter.

Photo by Papamoon

That human project for us could consist of the green and the blue. This suggestion is supported by an ecological understanding of the blue and digital support of the green. This environmental approach will enable us to do something extraordinary that needs to be done anyway. We can save ourselves and the world on which we live at the same time.

Overall, the green and the blue make a great marriage. This union is made possible by digital technologies, and it enables us to develop an ambitious project for the 21st century. This project involves nothing less than saving the world and saving humanity. That is not a small task, but it could be our generation’s Normandy landing. Indeed, that’s what digital technologies enable us to do, if we use them properly. However, we don’t have much time to act.

Ensuring success

If you have a project, you need to manage it properly. This is true of any project – a party with many friends or a big project for an entire nation. This type of management is called governance. How are we going to manage or govern the human project? Who organises the party? Who organises the nation? These are all important questions.

Governance is necessarily social. It is what we do together, and it’s fundamental to a successful project. This is true of the marriage between the green and the blue. The human project also requires governance. Yet, effective governance will not happen overnight. It requires effort and work. This good management is what politics is about.

Proper politics

Indeed, the moment requires politics focused on society. It cannot be centred on its own interest. This type of politics requires individuals who know what they are doing; expertise and competence are essential. This is not something to be done by populists who don’t know what they are doing.

Also, it needs to look at the future in terms of a long-term time horizon instead of relying on short-sighted motivations. That kind of politics is what we need today.

Confronting our problems

Yet, you often hear that politics is unnecessary, unethical or somehow dirty. This leads to a paradox. When we need more coordination and therefore more politics, we also have the wrong kind of politics around.

Why is that? In the nature of the society in which we live, our society is increasingly well-off, enabling people to mind their own business more than in the past. I do my things, and you do your things. Currently, our society encourages this type of circumstance.

Nevertheless, society is facing more complex global problems that require more coordination. While our society allows us to mind our own business, we need massive collaboration to cope with our problems. Indeed, how can this paradox be broken?

A more civil society

We need more input from civil society. We must understand that my interest and your interest, even if pursued in the most ethical ways, are not sufficient. We need to have a common shared project as well as our individual projects. Indeed, the lesson we learned from the past is a good lesson – a society that protects individual projects is good – but a better society is one that also has a common project.

We require a human project for the 21st century for our society. We can achieve this project thanks to the incredible technologies we’ve developed that we can use for good. Likewise, we need effective governance and not politics based on self-interests. Our politics must be based on a common interest and see solidarity as an essential value.

Managing inequality

Photo by Gorodenkoff

Of course, there are many divides between rich and poor, between those who can afford things and those who cannot. There is the so-called digital divide between those on the wrong side of the digital revolution and those on the right side. These are all part of inequality.

However, digital technologies are the source of enormous wealth. There is an excellent solution to this problem if – and it’s a big if – we have the political and economic means to distribute that wealth properly. If we can manage this, digital technologies can help us monitor the proper distribution of wealth. For instance, imagine what digital technologies can help us determine when it comes to taxation alone: who pays what, who’s paying too much, who is avoiding paying enough and so on.

Indeed, because digital technologies handle data so effectively, they can help us manage wealth more effectively. That way it can be distributed more intelligently and in a fair way.

Discover more about

Blue and green technologies

Floridi, L., & Nobre, A. (2020). The Green and the Blue: How AI may be a force for good. OECD Tackling COVID-19 Project.

Floridi, L. (2020). The Green and the Blue: A New Political Ontology for a Mature Information Society. Philosophisches Jahrbuch 2, 307-338.

Floridi, L. (2017) Hyperhistory, the Emergence of the MASs, and the Design of Infraethics. In BBVA OpenMind, The Next Step: Exponential Life. Turner Libros. 320-351.