Consumption is evil! Limits are good!

I hate people telling me how to run my life, and this piece by Thomas Sowell is a perfect illustration of the problem:

One of the latest examples is a recent ruling by one of the many busybody commissions in California that people who build houses, or just remodel their homes, will in the future have to have more fluorescent lights and even install motion sensors to control lights — all in the name of saving energy.
Motion sensors? Yes. If you are in a room where motion sensors control the lights, sitting still for a while will cause the lights to go off automatically.
The idea of the anointed busybodies is that we lesser people often leave the lights on when we walk out of a room, thereby wasting energy. The answer, as in so many other cases, is to impose their superior wisdom and virtue by forcing us to do a Good Thing — in this case install motion sensors to turn out the lights automatically when there is no one moving in the room.
If you are one of those people who just likes to sit still and think for a while, or perhaps listen to music or watch television, look for the lights to start going off if you are in California — and get used to having to wave your arms or shake your legs in order to get them to come back on again.But it’s a Good Thing.
The world is full of Good Things, which is why there are so many laws and regulations increasingly intruding into our lives and restricting what we can do, even in our own homes. The vision of imposing Good Things means an ever-growing petty tyranny.

Hasn’t it occurred to these people that the more electricity one uses, the more one pays? Pacific Gas and Electric’s energy bills charge a higher rate depending on how much energy is used, akin to the “progressive” taxation system. So, people are already penalized for wasting electricity. If they pay more than it’s worth for it, isn’t that a Good Thing? Obviously, it’s not good enough.
But why stop with electricity? Couldn’t body temperature sensors be used to determine how much heat we need? Timers on all faucets so that we don’t spend too much time showering or brushing our teeth? A time limit on running all automobile engines, enforced by a shutoff switch after a certain period of time? A limit on how many times a toilet can be flushed during a day?
It might save even more energy to simply have mandatory power blackouts whenever the bureaucrats see fit.
The real problem, of course, is humanity itself. There are too many people, and they take up too much space, consume vital natural resources, and above all, they live too long. Surely there must be a way to shut them down too?
Yes, here it is:

The future youth-crazed culture goes to the ultimate extreme and people voluntarily (more or less) go to their sweet rest at the age of thirty. A liquid crystal time-out device in the palm of the hand (presciently anticipating RFID implants) shows the world where you are on the short time line of life.

Thirty is long enough, but of course we can’t implement that radical of an idea right now. Perhaps eighty would be a good place to draw the line.
We have to start somewhere!


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4 responses to “Consumption is evil! Limits are good!”

  1. Scott Avatar
    Scott

    Virginia Postrel had a great post on a similar issue a while back (it may have been more than a year ago). She highlighted the concerns of retailers over new building codes that were going to mandate energy-saving flourescent lights and whatnot. The problem is that many retailers rely on high-intensity bulbs to display their wares in the best possible, er, light and attract customers. The new rules were going to eliminate those kinds of fixtures and essentially restrict options in store design.

  2. dustbury.com Avatar

    Save energy or else

    Eric Scheie, riffing on this Thomas Sowell column, suggests that maybe mandatory motion sensors and fluorescents aren’t enough: [W]hy stop with electricity? Couldn’t body temperature sensors be used to determine…

  3. Miss O'Hara Avatar

    You know, I think we’re all missing the point here. By forcing us to wiggle around to get the light back on so we can continue reading, needle-pointing, meditating with our conspiracy friends, et cetera, we’re also *exercising*! Good-bye, obesity epidemic!
    Think big!

  4. Steven Malcolm Anderson (Cato the Elder) the Lesbian-worshipping gun-loving selfish aesthete Avatar

    When I read your reductio ad absurdam of all those timers, shutoff switches, etc., I thought — as I often think when I read satires like this — “oh, no! don’t give them any ideas! please!”
    Today’s reductio ad absurdam becomes tomorrow’s serious proposal. Now, about that segregation by blood type….