Ephemeralization against the bureaucracy <p>Segway inventor Dean Kamen unveils his next act, and it’s a doozy.<br /> He’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 — essentially, a<br /> rugged still and a generator that burns cow dung. But the real<br /> challenge to conventional thinking is Kamen’s (rightly) contemptuous<br /> dismissal of conventional development economics, and his plan to<br /> end-run govenments.</p> <p><span id="more-262"></span></p> <p>What makes Kamen’s invention possible is the phenomenon Buckminster<br /> Fuller called ‘ephemeralization’ — 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 — but the phenomenon is everywhere. I haven’t seen the<br /> blueprints for either device, but does anyone want to bet against the<br /> proposition that they’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’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 — 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’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: “Not required are engineers,<br /> pipelines, epidemiologists, or microbiologists,” says Kamen. “You<br /> don’t need any -ologists. You don’t need any building permits,<br /> bribery, or bureaucracies.”</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 — or, at least, to demonstrate that the heavyweight<br /> physical and bureaucratic infrastructure many of us think we need to<br /> provide ‘public goods’ like clean water and power is an actual hindrance<br /> rather than a help. Today, Third-World villages; tomorrow the world.</p>