TAPPING INTO HUMAN POTENTIAL
Created | Updated Dec 11, 2009
The following is the text of a letter that I wrote some time ago to the inventor Trevor Bayliss..The key new idea was the creation of new generation "playgrounds" designed for the over fifteens to "let off steam" in a way that would make a positive contribution to communal life.
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Back in the 1970's I wrote to DR. Schumacher, having read "Small is Beautiful" . I commended his ideas. But I also pointed out that the Intermediate Technology that his organisation was creating for the Developing World would always tend be seen there as an inferior, cheap, second best affair if we did not use it in the UK. In order for his message of sustainability to really develop, it had to be shown that Intermediate Technology was the way forward for everyone, because, as he had demonstrated quite clearly, we could not afford to carry on using up the Earth's finite resources at the same rate. Since that time the global environmental impact of that profligacy has become apparent, which only strengthens the case.
At that time of Oil Crisis I argued that we faced two energy problems. One was the well-publicised one of the rising cost of energy, the foreseeable end of fossil fuels, and the real costs of nuclear power. The second, however, was the misuse or disuse of human energy in a well-nourished population that was full of labour-saving devices, and means of transport that moved people around, in some cases in arm-chair comfort. This had real implications for our health. Our sins of omission lay in the failure to use our bodies, so that they became redundant. And our sins of commission consisted in pumping all kinds of things in to our bodies, not least high calorie foods rich in energy that we did not use.
What the times called for, I suggested, was a return to technologies that made use of human energy like bicycles, capstan's and clockwork, possibly linked to new micro-electronics that would allow the human energy to be held in store or converted into an electric charge. I was therefore delighted when a few years afterwards you developed the wind-up clockwork radio.
The times have changed. Many people did take to their bicycles. Others took to jogging, and marathon running became a major charity fund-raising activity. At the same time a whole new generation of exercise machines was developed for home or gym use, using old-fashioned activities like walking, cycling, rowing. Many of these are designed to transfer energy calories from the person to the equipment, so why not into the electricity system?
It is only recently that we have begun to break away from our enslavement to the single massive solutions that the late Victorians so loved, and there are now many ways in which individuals can input small amounts of electricity into the national grid- solar panels, gas boilers, mini-windmills. All it requires is a meter plugged into the mains A/C current that measures how much more you put in than you take out. And this kind of technology would obviously offer a tremendous potential for use in a the home and in health clubs and gymnasia, if the equipment was modified in order to use rather than merely exhaust human energy. For health clubs this could offer the prospect of considerable expansion. At present such institutions have to recruit mostly from the fairly affluent sections of society. That exclusivity may be an added attraction for some. But the kind of adaptation that I have suggested would enable members to in effect pay for, or at least towards, their membership through the credits they could accumulate if they really try hard enough. I would envisage technology very similar to the loyalty card schemes or Air Miles. Moreover government subsidies might well be available for the setting up of such centres in some of our deprived areas where many of the problems of lethargy and obesity are at their worst.
As I have written to a number of people, I discovered through a recent reading of Field Marshall Montgomery's 'Memoirs' that the term 'we've had it' came into the English language in the aftermath of Dunkirk. I was struck because I am being told on a daily basis at the moment that this country is finished or has had it. Many people, it seems, feel like giving up and getting out if they can. What is the answer? Montgomery was in no doubt in 1940. What was needed was a drive for physical and mental fitness. He was very fond of a verse from Kipling that noted that many nations had sunk without trace and the cause of it was that they were just not fit. Catherine Tate is currently amusing TV audiences with her character who is constantly saying "Am I bovvered, though!". For many of us this is at best tragi-comic. We live in an age of "the failure of intelligence" when someone can quite seriously suggest that the Moon landing did not take place because they could not have worked out the Mathematics without computers. Does anyone learn how to use slide rule anymore?
In keeping with the times and background that he came from, Montgomery believed that the fate of a country is bound up with its virility, and the current series of TV programs by Professor Winston highlight the personal consequences of our declining virility. Obviously we can allow virile and energetic people to immigrate to Britain to counter some of the worst of the effects, but then we see that those who are content to be free-riders, lacking the mental and physical fitness to make a success of their own lives, may form the hard-core of a yobbish culture that finds an outlet for twisted and perverted energies for the lack of anything better to do.
The second element in Montgomery's solution was teamwork, which has gone so much out of our experience. Not only was it very important during the war, but a post-war generation grew up in a culture of school games and PE for all in the new national program of secondary education. Many factories as well as schools had playing fields and teams. So it was probably no accident that we won the Football World Cup in 1966 through the virtues of this war-time and post-war generation. Those times have gone, and Arsen Venger has pointed out recently that his club would love to sign English apprentices, but English boys are just not up to it physically and mentally.
It is imperative, therefore, that we rediscover the thrill of joining together and working as a team because we can achieve so much more than the agglomerate of the individuals working separately. I pointed this out to Dr. Schumacher, who acknowledged the idea, but pointed out in return that forces unleashed by collective endeavour could be very dangerous. That, however, is what power is all about. You cannot get power without being powerful, but we have a long experience of making use of the collective energy of groups of people. Capstans, treadmills, and harnesses are obvious examples. But surely, some peope would say, no one would advocate 'turning back the clock' and abandoning our labour-saving devices. Well, of course, Dr. Schumacher did. I remember a TV program in which he demonstrated the hand-mill that he used to grind the local cereals into flour. The context is everything.
In the 'Last Labourers' Revolt' in the south of England in 1830 one of the things that had caused bitter resentment was the practice of some overseers, who forced the paupers receiving relief to harness themselves to the parish cart. Then, like beasts of burden, they were offered for hire to the local farmers. So, in one parish where this was practiced the people resolved to expel the overseer. They knocked on his door and invited him to come out of the house with all of his belongings. The man and his belongings were placed on a cart. The horses were then detached and there was no shortage of volunteers to get into harness and pull that 'gentleman' and his affairs to the milestone that marked the parish border. There he was set down, with due civility, and warned never to set foot in the place again. Meanwhile the house, which went with the job of overseer, was pulled down stone by stone.
Effort expended in the name of fun and games, or in a good cause, is not the same as hard labour, and young people especially need to 'let off steam'. I believe that its was you who developed footwear equipped with soles that would generate power from walking and running. So what about a whole dance floor that was constructed for stomping on. It would give DJ' and performers something new to ask their audience.
One might find easier applications of the principle, however, in existing fair ground equipment. They are often large contraptions that move with exhilarating momentum. Before steam engines and electricity, fairground rides were human-powered, and many of these too could be modernised in order to generate electricity rather than consume it. The roundabout, for example, has obvious potential, while the gondola swing also could have a generating stroke in-built. A roller-coaster that was wound up to its release point by human muscle power could also be harnessed to some generating capacity. In brief anything that moves with its own momentum has a generating potential, and overweight people could find at least some role in helping to increase the mass on the ride element. Ballast too has its value.
Fairs were originally a combination of fun and serious economic activity so in a way this would be nothing new. And a permanent network of such sites offering free admission to young people, who were prepared ‘to work for the team’, might do something to address the constant complaint of young people that there is nowhere for them to go without having to lay out money, and nothing useful for them to do.
The lost secret of human success is real teamwork rather than slavish subservience. There was much in the recent Queen's Speech about re-building our communities. But in order to do that we must find a way to give everyone the chance to feel involved and capable of making a contribution that is more than just being "a cog in something turning" to quote Joni Mitchell. Such schemes as I have suggested would help people to help themselves, improve their communities, and ,who knows, help save the World by turning people into assets rather than problems.
************************************************************************
Back in the 1970's I wrote to DR. Schumacher, having read "Small is Beautiful" . I commended his ideas. But I also pointed out that the Intermediate Technology that his organisation was creating for the Developing World would always tend be seen there as an inferior, cheap, second best affair if we did not use it in the UK. In order for his message of sustainability to really develop, it had to be shown that Intermediate Technology was the way forward for everyone, because, as he had demonstrated quite clearly, we could not afford to carry on using up the Earth's finite resources at the same rate. Since that time the global environmental impact of that profligacy has become apparent, which only strengthens the case.
At that time of Oil Crisis I argued that we faced two energy problems. One was the well-publicised one of the rising cost of energy, the foreseeable end of fossil fuels, and the real costs of nuclear power. The second, however, was the misuse or disuse of human energy in a well-nourished population that was full of labour-saving devices, and means of transport that moved people around, in some cases in arm-chair comfort. This had real implications for our health. Our sins of omission lay in the failure to use our bodies, so that they became redundant. And our sins of commission consisted in pumping all kinds of things in to our bodies, not least high calorie foods rich in energy that we did not use.
What the times called for, I suggested, was a return to technologies that made use of human energy like bicycles, capstan's and clockwork, possibly linked to new micro-electronics that would allow the human energy to be held in store or converted into an electric charge. I was therefore delighted when a few years afterwards you developed the wind-up clockwork radio.
The times have changed. Many people did take to their bicycles. Others took to jogging, and marathon running became a major charity fund-raising activity. At the same time a whole new generation of exercise machines was developed for home or gym use, using old-fashioned activities like walking, cycling, rowing. Many of these are designed to transfer energy calories from the person to the equipment, so why not into the electricity system?
It is only recently that we have begun to break away from our enslavement to the single massive solutions that the late Victorians so loved, and there are now many ways in which individuals can input small amounts of electricity into the national grid- solar panels, gas boilers, mini-windmills. All it requires is a meter plugged into the mains A/C current that measures how much more you put in than you take out. And this kind of technology would obviously offer a tremendous potential for use in a the home and in health clubs and gymnasia, if the equipment was modified in order to use rather than merely exhaust human energy. For health clubs this could offer the prospect of considerable expansion. At present such institutions have to recruit mostly from the fairly affluent sections of society. That exclusivity may be an added attraction for some. But the kind of adaptation that I have suggested would enable members to in effect pay for, or at least towards, their membership through the credits they could accumulate if they really try hard enough. I would envisage technology very similar to the loyalty card schemes or Air Miles. Moreover government subsidies might well be available for the setting up of such centres in some of our deprived areas where many of the problems of lethargy and obesity are at their worst.
As I have written to a number of people, I discovered through a recent reading of Field Marshall Montgomery's 'Memoirs' that the term 'we've had it' came into the English language in the aftermath of Dunkirk. I was struck because I am being told on a daily basis at the moment that this country is finished or has had it. Many people, it seems, feel like giving up and getting out if they can. What is the answer? Montgomery was in no doubt in 1940. What was needed was a drive for physical and mental fitness. He was very fond of a verse from Kipling that noted that many nations had sunk without trace and the cause of it was that they were just not fit. Catherine Tate is currently amusing TV audiences with her character who is constantly saying "Am I bovvered, though!". For many of us this is at best tragi-comic. We live in an age of "the failure of intelligence" when someone can quite seriously suggest that the Moon landing did not take place because they could not have worked out the Mathematics without computers. Does anyone learn how to use slide rule anymore?
In keeping with the times and background that he came from, Montgomery believed that the fate of a country is bound up with its virility, and the current series of TV programs by Professor Winston highlight the personal consequences of our declining virility. Obviously we can allow virile and energetic people to immigrate to Britain to counter some of the worst of the effects, but then we see that those who are content to be free-riders, lacking the mental and physical fitness to make a success of their own lives, may form the hard-core of a yobbish culture that finds an outlet for twisted and perverted energies for the lack of anything better to do.
The second element in Montgomery's solution was teamwork, which has gone so much out of our experience. Not only was it very important during the war, but a post-war generation grew up in a culture of school games and PE for all in the new national program of secondary education. Many factories as well as schools had playing fields and teams. So it was probably no accident that we won the Football World Cup in 1966 through the virtues of this war-time and post-war generation. Those times have gone, and Arsen Venger has pointed out recently that his club would love to sign English apprentices, but English boys are just not up to it physically and mentally.
It is imperative, therefore, that we rediscover the thrill of joining together and working as a team because we can achieve so much more than the agglomerate of the individuals working separately. I pointed this out to Dr. Schumacher, who acknowledged the idea, but pointed out in return that forces unleashed by collective endeavour could be very dangerous. That, however, is what power is all about. You cannot get power without being powerful, but we have a long experience of making use of the collective energy of groups of people. Capstans, treadmills, and harnesses are obvious examples. But surely, some peope would say, no one would advocate 'turning back the clock' and abandoning our labour-saving devices. Well, of course, Dr. Schumacher did. I remember a TV program in which he demonstrated the hand-mill that he used to grind the local cereals into flour. The context is everything.
In the 'Last Labourers' Revolt' in the south of England in 1830 one of the things that had caused bitter resentment was the practice of some overseers, who forced the paupers receiving relief to harness themselves to the parish cart. Then, like beasts of burden, they were offered for hire to the local farmers. So, in one parish where this was practiced the people resolved to expel the overseer. They knocked on his door and invited him to come out of the house with all of his belongings. The man and his belongings were placed on a cart. The horses were then detached and there was no shortage of volunteers to get into harness and pull that 'gentleman' and his affairs to the milestone that marked the parish border. There he was set down, with due civility, and warned never to set foot in the place again. Meanwhile the house, which went with the job of overseer, was pulled down stone by stone.
Effort expended in the name of fun and games, or in a good cause, is not the same as hard labour, and young people especially need to 'let off steam'. I believe that its was you who developed footwear equipped with soles that would generate power from walking and running. So what about a whole dance floor that was constructed for stomping on. It would give DJ' and performers something new to ask their audience.
One might find easier applications of the principle, however, in existing fair ground equipment. They are often large contraptions that move with exhilarating momentum. Before steam engines and electricity, fairground rides were human-powered, and many of these too could be modernised in order to generate electricity rather than consume it. The roundabout, for example, has obvious potential, while the gondola swing also could have a generating stroke in-built. A roller-coaster that was wound up to its release point by human muscle power could also be harnessed to some generating capacity. In brief anything that moves with its own momentum has a generating potential, and overweight people could find at least some role in helping to increase the mass on the ride element. Ballast too has its value.
Fairs were originally a combination of fun and serious economic activity so in a way this would be nothing new. And a permanent network of such sites offering free admission to young people, who were prepared ‘to work for the team’, might do something to address the constant complaint of young people that there is nowhere for them to go without having to lay out money, and nothing useful for them to do.
The lost secret of human success is real teamwork rather than slavish subservience. There was much in the recent Queen's Speech about re-building our communities. But in order to do that we must find a way to give everyone the chance to feel involved and capable of making a contribution that is more than just being "a cog in something turning" to quote Joni Mitchell. Such schemes as I have suggested would help people to help themselves, improve their communities, and ,who knows, help save the World by turning people into assets rather than problems.
