Ephemeralization against the bureaucracy
<p>Segway inventor Dean Kamen unveils his next act, and it&#8217;s a doozy.<br />
He&#8217;s invented two devices to address the <a href='http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/16/technology/business2_futureboy0216/index.htm'>power<br />
and clean-water</a> problems in the Third World &mdash; essentially, a<br />
rugged still and a generator that burns cow dung.  But the real<br />
challenge to conventional thinking is Kamen&#8217;s (rightly) contemptuous<br />
dismissal of conventional development economics, and his plan to<br />
end-run govenments.</p>
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<p>What makes Kamen&#8217;s invention possible is the phenomenon Buckminster<br />
Fuller called &#8216;ephemeralization&#8217; &mdash; the replacement of bulk<br />
matter by design information as technologies get smaller, lighter, and<br />
more clever.  Of course the most dramatic example of this is the<br />
microchip, and the huge number of ways computer-mediated<br />
communications increasingly substitute for pushing around matter and<br />
energy &mdash; but the phenomenon is everywhere.  I haven&#8217;t seen the<br />
blueprints for either device, but does anyone want to bet against the<br />
proposition that they&#8217;re a helluva lot smaller, lighter, and more<br />
ingeniously designed than their nearest functional equivalents would<br />
have been in 1960 or 1980?</p>
<p>No?  No takers?  I didn&#8217;t think so.  Modern life is so saturated<br />
with ephemeralization that we hardly notice it any more.  Think about<br />
the weight difference between your first cellphone and the one you<br />
have now &mdash; then think about how they compared to the big old<br />
Bakelite-encased wireline handsets of the 1960s.  As we learn how to<br />
ephemeralize more and more of our technology, we downsize and<br />
decentralize it because that&#8217;s the cheap and effective way to go.<br />
Entire countries are now opting out of building telephone landlines.<br />
Why bother, when cellphone towers are cheaper and less obtrusive?</p>
<p>Kamen is taking the next logical step: downsizing and<br />
decentralizing the power and water infrastructure.  And look at the<br />
way he plans to do it; not by enlisting governments, but by tapping<br />
local entrepreneurialism.  Says Kamen: &#8220;Not required are engineers,<br />
pipelines, epidemiologists, or microbiologists,&#8221; says Kamen. &#8220;You<br />
don&#8217;t need any -ologists. You don&#8217;t need any building permits,<br />
bribery, or bureaucracies.&#8221;</p>
<p>Yeah, baby!  Techno-libertarians like me have been saying for<br />
thirty years that the free market would someday simply compete the<br />
State out of existence.  Kamen, bless him, is actually setting out to<br />
<em>do</em> it &mdash; or, at least, to demonstrate that the heavyweight<br />
physical and bureaucratic infrastructure many of us think we need to<br />
provide &#8216;public goods&#8217; like clean water and power is an actual hindrance<br />
rather than a help.  Today, Third-World villages; tomorrow the world.</p>
