Читать книгу Germany's Freefall - Hermann Dr. Rochholz - Страница 4

How did I come up with the idea for writing this book? It will probably not sell well because people love positive news. A popular saying is: “The bearer of bad news will be shot!” The author must “somehow” be able to evaluate the systems around him and simultaneously be sure of the truth of these claims. That’s arrogance, too, isn’t it?

I evaluate the facts here using the laws of nature (see chapter Physics, Technology and Math) When you try to violate these laws, things will go wrong. It’s therefore not arrogant, but pragmatic to use these. Natural laws, to be specific, don’t care about politics. They hold true for all social systems, democracy and dictatorship alike. Incidentally, many laws, rules and regulations are based on the very laws of nature.

Using electric scooters as an example, which have since been approved for road use, I would like to demonstrate the manner used to evaluate systems: First, these must be examined carefully. The center of gravity of a scooter is high and its wheelbase short. Furthermore, systems should be transferable as well: We know from bicycles that when you pull the front brake – which is most effective – you’ll roll over. This is where geometry and physics play an important role. A concrete evaluation is possible when you calculate things to make them analogous: deceleration is at 3.9 m/s2. A bicycle brakes almost twice as well at 6-7 m/s2. The conclusion is that e-scooters are unsuitable to current traffic conditions.

So it’s of little use that these scooters are regarded as “innovative” and that you want to save the world with them. They were approved for road use despite that fact that they brake much worse than other means of transport and, therefore, do not correspond to the state of the art. By the way, motor-driven scooters existed 100 years ago already. But that’s no argument: Back then the brakes in all means of transport were miserable by today’s standards. Bicycles had “stamp brakes”. Today they have disc brakes, which are partially as good as motorcycle brakes.

In order to evaluate systems (We do this all the time: Is it good? Is it bad?), the ability or art of drawing a plausible conclusion with only limited available information and time is important. It’s called “heuristics”.

All arguments are essential when making an evaluation, especially those that are unpleasant – those are the most important.

They require you to consider how to refute them.²

Even texts without information (these do exist) provide clues: Years ago I stumbled across a newspaper article in which a millionaire reported on an airport and its importance. If you looked for any supporting evidence in the article, you would not discover a single argument on the entire half page. That made me wonder: half a page of text without facts and only assertions. That was an indication of his personal stake in the matter, otherwise he wouldn’t have written the article in the first place. If you did your research, you would’ve discovered how the wind was actually blowing: The author was a pilot and owned a small airline with business jets stationed at a different airport that was scheduled to be closed because Russian oligarchs didn’t want another airport in their vicinity in order to be able to fly more convenient to them.

Many things (unfortunately) you “just” have to know. But if you have to know something, you can’t know that you have to know it: If you don’t know, for example, that things like “pyrophytes” exist and that they are particularly commonplace in Australia, you can’t get the idea of finding out about them on the Internet. More on this later.

If someone tries to make knee pads from carbon-fiber reinforced plastic, you have to know that this material is “impact sensitive”. You also have to know that the argument stating that carbon fibers are “stable” is a nonsensical argument because the colloquial word “stable” is unknown in the world of technology. Definitions like “tensile strength”, “pressure resistance” or “impact resistance” exist, but not “stable”. If someone uses it in an argument, you can thus conclude that this person knows next to nothing about technology.

Millions are being invested in “innovative” aircraft having tiny engines, but the engines in commercial aircraft are becoming bigger and bigger. “Propulsion efficiency” is describing the physics behind it. You don’t need to understand that because to do so you must’ve studied the subject. Stated more simply: Everyone (Boeing and Airbus) has been building larger and larger engines for decades now. Suddenly, someone comes along who uses mini engines and wants to power these electrically. Is somebody smarter than the rest of the world?

Statements made by people have to be seen in context: A German chancellor once declared “one does not spy among friends” when accusing the NSA of espionage. But you have to know: Twenty-three years earlier, they had bought a new (French) telephone system which recorded all the telephone conversations of the German government and the State Department (using a so-called “backdoor”). Chancellor Helmut Kohl freaked out in that meeting on a friday afternoon. The consequence to be drawn from this is that statements like Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “wir schaffen das” (“we can do it”) cause bellyaches because one apparently just wants to sit out the problems and never get to their root cause.

Sometimes one comparison suffices: If two things must look the same but don’t, then an error must be involved.

Nowadays, making assessments is more difficult because everything is international. One of the most difficult questions in this regard is how much sense does it make to do something when all your neighbors don’t do it.

One indication of the validity of arguments is also given by examining how things were done in the past and why things were done this way. Rudolf Steiner, founder of the Waldorf Schools, was consistently against the spraying of pesticides. During his lifetime, selective toxic agents did not exist. Heavy metals were used, which contaminated the soil, as they cannot be broken down chemically. At the same time, vegetables had themselves contained many more natural stomach poisons (cf. Toxins in Food), which have been bred out long since then. Thus, 100 years ago he was correct in rejecting the use of pesticides. The question is to what extent this can be transferred to the present day.

One therefore needs a neutral comparison to evaluate

whether and how progress or even any regression looks like.

The situation is similar when it comes to technical systems: A hydrogen car is good if liquid hydrogen is available. Hydrogen propulsion was propagated 35 years ago. At the time, energy seemed to be readily available in unlimited quantities through nuclear power. But times have changed. Japan is taking the path of nuclear power and is therefore promoting electric propulsion.

Electric cars are a wonderful means of transport in Sweden and Norway. There, traffic is almost CO2-free because plenty of nuclear and hydroelectric power is available. Now the question arises whether these conditions can be transferred onto a German context.

Last but not least, it’s worth examining the sense of reality people apply to cope with their tasks: Someone who is neither able to make frigates swim, airplanes fly nor guns shoot is certainly not suited to master any future challenges.