We’re addicted to cheap energy.
We once had a global industry hunting whales, to light our houses with candles made from the gunk inside their heads. Ships sailed for years across treacherous oceans.Men risked their lives harpooning 60-foot leviathans. Entire fortunes were made processing blubber into lamp oil.
We didn’t stop because we suddenly cared about whales.
We stopped because someone invented kerosene.
Energy and lighting got simpler, easier, cheaper. And 110 years later we still whales – not because we developed a moral awakening, but because we found a way to get oil out of the ground instead of mammals out of the ocean.
Change doesn’t happen because we want it to, sad as the truth may be. Change doesn’t happen when it’s prudent or pleasant. Change often comes a little too late; when a few too many bodies lie shallow in the ground.
Change happens when a new paradigm becomes obvious, or when people’s hands are forced. And occasionally both.
The Roman Empire didn’t abandon slavery because they recognised its moral bankruptcy. They abandoned it because feudalism became more economically efficient. The printing press didn’t triumph over hand-copied manuscripts because people valued literacy. It triumphed because it was faster and cheaper to produce books.
Henry Ford didn’t revolutionise transportation by convincing people that flogging horses was cruel. He built a car that was more convenient than a horse. Steve Jobs didn’t kill the music industry (as it once was) by arguing that CDs were environmentally wasteful. He created iTunes because it was easier than going to a record store. In the same way that Netflix eventually let you watch movies without getting off the couch.
We tell ourselves stories about moral progress, but the reality is more prosaic: humans change systems when better alternatives become available, not when we’re convinced the current system is wrong.
People will participate in systems they know are problematic as long as those systems remain the most convenient option. We’ll keep buying products made with child labour, eating factory-farmed meat, and using services that violate our privacy—not because we don’t care, but because better alternatives don’t exist or aren’t widely accessible.
So if you want to change a system, don’t just argue against it. Build something better. Or force someone’s hand.
Environmental activists have spent decades trying to convince people that fossil fuels are destroying the planet. They’re right, but the approach has had limited success. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs like Elon Musk made electric cars that were faster, more technologically advanced, and increasingly cost-competitive with traditional vehicles.
People don’t buy Teslas because of the environment. They buy them because they believe Teslas are a superior product.
We can build the world we want to live in. We can create better options.
We can create social platforms that don’t fry children’s brains, and ethical supply chains that don’t kill them on another continent. We can, one day, make lab-grown meat tasty enough to keep me out of Five Guys and Hawksmoor.
The most effective way to kill a bad system isn’t to attack it directly; it’s to make it obsolete.
Change happens when the new way becomes the easy way.
