The Principles of Simple Technologies

This chapter explores the principles of a low-tech approach that are developed and rooted in the search for simplicity and conviviality, localization, design, and manufacture for true sustainability. It describes paths to be taken and general principles on low-tech based on the conscious rejection of the hope of a successful outcome based on technological breakthroughs still to come. It also elaborates the principle of simplicity as the immense advantage of the pure and simple suppression of need that aims to effectively reduce the rate of consumption of resources. The chapter mentions examples of ways to reduce the non-negotiable standard of living, such as a ban on advertising materials, trainers that flash when walking, or single-use plastic bags. It analyses the main problem of the high-tech world under the pretext of seeking greater effectiveness and technical efficiency.

Is ‘Transition’ Possible?

This chapter addresses the question of whether effecting a transition from a society in peril to a world of low-technology is prudent in its use of resources. It discusses the questioning approach that has made a number of analyses of societal 'crises' in order to shed light on different aspects of a complex grasp to reality. It also recounts the implementation of a monetary policy when the rates of profit declining in the late 1960s deliberately generated unemployment in order to maintain downward pressure on wages and encourage increased household debt to maintain sufficient demand and production. The chapter discusses the decline in purchasing power owed to debt or unemployment, which inevitably slows demand. It describes the efforts of engineers and advertisers to encourage the technical or cultural obsolescence of products.

Daily Life in the Era of Simple Technologies

This chapter investigates what daily life might be like in a low-tech era, including topics on agriculture and food, transport, construction, manufactured products, finance, information technologies, and love and leisure. It speculates the application of the general principles on low-tech without any assumptions about their political, economic, social, or cultural feasibility. It also describes the 'upstream' activities of food production that is needed to feed humanity in decades to come without compromising the capacity to feed for the coming centuries. The chapter looks at the freedom created by motorized individual mobility that came with a high price from the environmental and societal point of view. It probes how the energy issue might be solved in the low-tech world.

Epilogue: A Dream If Ever There Was One

The world has gone crazy. ‘They’ have gone crazy, and if it continues this way, we will eventually go crazy too! This ‘progress’ that we fail to stop takes daft and unexpected forms. Now, in summer, on Pornichet–La Baule beach in France, a small motorized machine cleans the sand to remove pieces of shell in order to prepare the beach for tourists. … Who could have made such a decision? Elected officials afraid of a class action lawsuit by bathers whose feet have been scratched? Consultants who have benchmarked practice in Cannes or Biarritz? And did nobody point out to them that the sand is partly composed of pieces of shell?...