Whales, Cars, Law, Technology, and You
I don’t remember exactly where or when, but I came across a fact which boggled my mind.
Why were whales nearly hunted nearly to extinction?
Cars.
Sperm whale oil was particularly useful as an automatic transmission fluid and US was importing around 55 million gallons of oil each year in the 1970s.
After knowing the fact though, I had a realization that I should’ve guessed that there is always an economic incentive which led to such wide-scale hunting of the whales. Indeed, there were several of them.
As of today, Jojoba oil is used as a substitute for sperm oil, but it was known since 1933 that jojoba contained oil that had similar properties to whale oil. But it wasn’t used commercially until the late 1970s. So what changed in 1970?
Whale oil use was banned by the enactment of Endangered Species Act in 1973. Up until then, jojoba was considered “economically unsustainable” to be used as a whale oil substitute. But we now know that that isn’t true, the automotive industry figured out a way to do it once their hand was forced by artificially making whale hunting more economically unsustainable. Those “pesky conservationists” succeeded in passing a law that forced the hand of the companies to start looking for an alternative.
The thing that left me with a strong impression is the fact that a good substitute was known for over 40 years (40 goddamn years!!!!) before it was actually used commercially. It led to lot of implications in general about the role of politics, technology, industry and how they interact and influence each other.
My first thought was on the incentivization of the commercial industry to innovate to look for better ways to do something just because its “better for humanity”. Looking at history and our track record, this is simply a naive outlook on how corporate companies operate. Their sole existence is to make (profitably) what the consumer wants — environment, humanity etc be damned. Time and again its proved with Blood Diamonds, Financial Collapse , Sperm Whale Oil… and the list goes on. Anyone who claims that the free market will solve it because “…once the consumers know what the implications of buying a product are, they wont and the demand will dry up…” is in a pipe dream.
This leads to the conclusion that you need some sort of regulation, especially for things/people who have little to no voice (literally in the case of whales) in positions of power. A government’s job is to ensure that it looks at much larger issues than just what is “economically profitable” and that we do not end up in a direction that kills our species and the planet. In the case of “Endangered Species Act”, it worked wonderfully for the whales. It challenged the status quo and nudged technology in the right direction — two things essential for good innovation.
Technology is a wonderful tool to improve the daily lives of millions of people. But the organizations/individuals that create them often have some circumstances or a reason that prevents them from taking the “right path”. And after deliberating on it, there is never a good enough reason to not do it. Whenever YOU, as a creator, are making something, think about the impact your product is gonna have on the world. Is it worth it? Are there any alternatives out there? Will I feel proud of what I have done when I am on my death bed? Does it even really matter? There are no clear cut answers to many of these, especially when one is creating something new and nobody in the world has seen, let alone used, it. But these questions *should* be a framework and a mould which guides you in your craft.
Finally, as consumers, we need to do our bit and research on what sort of impact we have on this planet and rest of humanity. It takes a lot of work to do so and that’s why I do not believe that this approach will ever reach a critical mass where every consumer in the market is aware about every product they are consuming. It is simply too much for one human being. Very few people thought of whales while buying cars… and very few people are aware about it even today. Thus, it falls back on the government, non profits and those pesky conservationists to be on the lookout for the rest of us.
I will end this post with another fact. As recently as 2008, NASA (of all the organizations) used a solid white wax called Spermaceti as a lubricant for the machines like Hubble Telescope in space.
Since it doesn’t freeze in sub-zero temperatures, spermaceti was used in Nasa’s space missions — no substitute could be found for this natural lubricant.
Will it be another 40 years before we find out that an artificial substitute could have been used all along?
PS: A big thanks to @ptraughber for reviewing the draft.
PPS: Cross posted from http://karankurani.tumblr.com
