The silver bullet men: Saving the planet with technology

By and large these are the most earnest, dedicated, passionate people you could imagine. But, like anybody deeply infatuated with religion they tend to be smitten with an absolute, rock solid belief. They’ve found their Holy Grail.

And that’s the scary bit. Scary because I believe that there’s a strand of this magic pudding syndrome latent in every human breast. Don’t we all really want to believe that the finite world that we inhabit is a magic pudding after all, and that science will come to the rescue and if we just wait a bit then all will be well? Surely technology, which has provided for us so well in the past, will once again come to our rescue? If only.

So, what of the future? The problem as I see it, is that this gender phenomenon is much more than merely a subject of intellectual curiosity. It is, in fact, fundamental to whether or not we, as a species, are able to forge a sustainable and sane future. The very same masculine imagination that brought about our dominant nexus in history is right now determining how we progress through these precarious, uncertain times ahead.

Albert Einstein, the ultimate scientist, ever a deep thinker, understood this human pathology all too well. “You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it,” he warned. “You must learn to see the world anew.”

Yet the allure of the silver bullet is so strong in our collective unconscious that it is still manifestly determining our future, and blinding us to our potential fate – inhibiting us from making the necessary deep cultural and behaviour changes that we need to be making in order to survive and prosper.

At a time when our planetary civilisation is being confronted by a dizzying array of chronic problems – from climate change, to desertification, to ocean acidification, to depletion of major resources – the silver bullet men, the modern day alchemist, the allure of the elusive technical fix…may very well be our civilisation’s waterloo.

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[Author’s note: ‘Silver bullet’, ‘quick fix’, ‘miracle cure’, ‘holy grail’, ‘magic pudding’ – these are all metaphors describing the much same phenomenon. The Magic Pudding is an all time favorite classic of Australian children's literature. It tells of a magic pudding, which, no matter how often it is eaten, always reforms in order to be eaten again. The pudding is owned by three companions who must defend it against pudding thieves who want it for themselves.]