| Issue |
E3S Web of Conferences
Volume 2, 2014
Science and the Future
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 01001 | |
| Number of page(s) | 16 | |
| Section | Impossible Futures | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/20140201001 | |
| Published online | 26 March 2014 | |
Science and the Future: Introduction
1 Department of Applied Science and Technology, Politecnico di Torino, Corso duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129, Torino, Italy
2 INFN, Via Pietro Giuria 1, 10126, Torino, Italy
a Corresponding author: angelo.tartaglia@polito.it
The contradiction between physical and economical sciences concerning the growth of the production/consumption mechanism is analyzed. It is then shown that if one wishes to keep the security level stable or to enhance it in a growing economy the cost of security grows faster than the gross wealth. The result is a typical evolution in which the net wealth increases up to a maximum, then abruptly collapses. Besides this, any system of relations based on a growing volume of exchanges is bound to go progressively out of control.
The voluntary blindness of the ruling classes toward these facts is leading our societies to a disaster. This fate is not inescapable provided we learn to dismantle the myth of perpetual growth.
© Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2014
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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