14. November 2008 by Martin Suter.

Talk about conflicted. I filled up the tank this week and paid $2.09 per gallon of gas. It’s been a long time since a fill cost me under $35, and with the rest of the economy in the tank (no pun intended), a little part of me was OK with saving some money. But a bigger part of me is thinking: Stop the madness!

At $4.25 per gallon, it hurt to go fill up, and as a result, people’s behaviours changed. SUVs and pick-ups weren’t moving off lots, major car dealerships shut down, and those that manufactured the vehicles to feed this craving, The Big Three, have admitted that they’re no longer capable of being self-sustaining and are looking for government bailouts. Why are they dying? They have ignored innovation and resisted building high mileage fleets, choosing instead to convince the US public that it needs 8 cylinder, 8 passenger, 12 mpg behemoths that cost over a hundred bucks to fill.

Evolve or die. They didn’t evolve as the 20^th century came to a close, and in fact openly opposed evolution. It’s time to let the market economy do what it does, and allow the next wave of innovative start-ups room to transform the automotive industry in the 21^st century.

Politicians don’t do “tough love” well. No politician, blue or red, will risk alienating entire swing states, so I expect there will be some kind of package put forth. Personally, I think it’s keeping the patient with multi-organ failure on life support. Does anyone think that the tens of billions of dollars that will be spent to transform The Big Three or will we be extending the suffering? Imagine if, instead, a portion of that money was invested to build a national distribution system for renewables? Or hydrogen refueling stations?

The government needs to man up, and act with an iron fist in a velvet glove. Bail them out, if you must, but use it as an opportunity to avoid a national crisis that threatens our future.

1. Add a bailout tax of $2 per gallon, so that every American is paying a user tax commensurate with the vehicles they’re driving.
2. Tie all monies to real mileage targets that will make a difference, not the abysmally minor gains currently on the books.
3. Legislate that ten percent of all vehicle sales must by electric by 2015.
4. 50% of vehicles produced must be hybrids by 2013, etc.

Put some teeth in the package. Give the Big Three a choice: evolve or die.

Stop the madness.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter at iplicensing.net)

Posted in Energy | Print | 3 Comments »

10. November 2008 by Martin Suter.

Coming off an election where “elite” was an insult, “Joe the Plumber” was a hero, Obama was “too articulate” and Sarah Palin was sold as being capable of assuming the Presidency, I was despondent about how dumbed down America appeared to have become. Part of that comes from living in Florida, a southern swing state, where there’s tremendous gravitational pull for the worst of partisan politics, but it seemed to be more pervasive this cycle than in previous elections.

Then, last week, I travelled to Boston to take a 2-day course on “Technology Negotiation” put on by Harvard, MIT and Tufts. Spending 3 days in Cambridge was like a shot of adrenalin right to the brain, and I realized that there is intelligent life out there!

But not just intelligent, people with big brains thinking big thoughts. There are people who are smarter than Spock everywhere you look.

The program itself was excellent, with a top-notch faculty and about 70 attendees from all over the world. Lawrence E. Susskind, Dr. Hal Movius, and Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld spent the full two days working with us, answering questions and inspiring the group. During lunch on Day 2, several of us began discussing the nature of technology. I brought up a concept that I love by Nicholas Negroponte, who describes the transformation that is occurring as the move from the production of atoms to the production of bits. From “stuff”, to information, content and software. The implications are profound.

As I mentioned Negroponte’s quote, Joel C-G chuckles and says that his brother runs the “MIT Center for Bits and Atoms’ Fab Lab” lab at MIT and starts to describe some of the things they’re working on. Some of the research that is going on reminded me of Ray Kurzweil’s concept of “the singularity”, so I said, “It sounds like the singularity is near”, which is also the title of Kurzweil’s book. Joel chuckled again, and said that he lived two doors down from Ray in Boston.

It was like being brought back to life. I forgot how much I missed intellectual sustenance, and for 48 hours last week, I was able to refill the tank with the highest octane intellectualism that I’ve had the privilege of meeting in a long time.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter at iplicensing.net)

(PS – For anyone interested in learning more about the premise behind “The Singularity is Near”, TED.com has a 20 minute video of Kurzweil speaking about it. Watch it, and then go buy the book!)

Posted in Election, Disruptive Technology, Education | Print | No Comments »

4. November 2008 by Martin Suter.

So what do you think Sarah Palin, James Dobson, her pastors Larry Kroon and Ed Kalnins, Pastor Thomas Muthee, the Wasilla Assembly of God members and 30 million evangelicals are thinking this morning?

Apparently, the Big Guy voted Democrat.

In an interview with James Dobson, Ms. Palin indicated that she was “putting this in God’s hands, that the right thing for America will be done at the end of the day on Nov. 4.”

“When we hear along the rope lines that people are interceding for us and praying for us, it’s our reminder to do the same, to put this all in God’s hands, to seek his perfect will for this nation, and to of course seek his wisdom and guidance in putting this nation back on the right track.”

She went on to talk about her support for the Republican platform on three issues important to evangelicals: abortion, a constitutional ban on gay marriage, and banning embryonic stem cell research.

If, indeed, the outcome was in God’s hands, as Sarah and others claim it to have been, then there are only two possible conclusions.

God is pro-Choice, pro-gay marriage and pro-embryonic stem cell research.

 Or there is no God.

Take your pick. But Sarah, let go of the delusions of somehow being Chosen. You weren’t.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter at iplicensing.net)

Posted in Election | Print | No Comments »