STTC Will Clean The Air In Silicon Valley

ATTENTION: Please continue to share my article amongst other social networks. Keep in mind that I only have time to respond to comments in LinkedIn. Do not skip the metaphors, these are important, and you will recognize them as such in the context of the book. Thank you. Hector Garcia

July 8th, 2018

What is STTC?

Sistema de Tele-Transporte Colectivo (STTC) in English is Collective Tele-Commuting System. STTC’s main objective is the gradual elimination of the internal combustion engine in our vehicles. This is about supporting new “vehicles” of information such as computers, smart phones, tablets, etc. The highway these new vehicles use is Internet, its avenues are Apps.

I propose the creation of STTC as a solution to the problem of environmental pollution in the Silicon Valley, for contributing to environmental improvement on a global scale.  The creation of STTC is easier said than done. It will create a great quantity of positive and negative unintended consequences. The positive will be welcome, the negative won’t.

To support this writing of mine, I will use five short stories that I have published in LinkedIn. Please click on the corresponding link as you arrive to it.  These short stories are metaphors and were written with a purpose: to stir the imagination and make us think.

The economical investment to create such a system is not very big. Most people in the valley already have at least one of the new “vehicles”. This system will require multiple use modules. These can be small buildings, offices, classrooms, even ours or the neighbor’s homes. From these modules, or from wherever we want for that matter, we will “transport” our images, our voices, our skills. 

There will be no need for our physical presence, since we’ll be able to recreate our virtual presence anywhere in the valley, anywhere in the world. None of this is new since we already do it every day. The only innovation that I’m proposing here is that we use these tools with a different purpose.

It is important that this is collective in the social sense. We are social beings and have need for close interaction, we cannot remain isolated in the comfort of our own homes. In the history of transportation in Silicon Valley, native Americans transported themselves by foot. The Spaniards brought the horse with them, and then at the beginning of the XX century appeared the internal combustion engine. We all know too well the consequences of the engine’s usage in massive scale. It will be very easy to find the guilty parties. All of us must accept responsibility for its use and the consequences it has created in our environment.   The Neighbor Killed My Hummingbird

Unfortunately, every day the record-breaking temperatures reported all over the world remind us of its negative consequences. For the effective implementation of the system I propose, it must be in such a scale that makes an impact, it will require the participation of the federal, state, and city governments. Above all it will require the participation of the hi-tech companies that have their headquarters in this valley and also, those outside the San Francisco Bay Area as well. It will require the active participation of the students and teachers of schools, from grammar to university, private and public. Why Is The Volcano Crying?

Ending the use of the internal combustion engine is an enormous challenge. It implies the creation of a new paradigm. It can be said that the use of the engine is a paradigm in crisis and it requires the creation of a new one. I propose that the paradigm be the digital kind, able to “transport” us with ones and zeros. Here I don’t mention the word paradigm easily, but I would like to support it with the original meaning used by Thomas Kuhn in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions:

“To reject one paradigm without simultaneously substituting another is to reject science itself”. P.79

We have a big problem but it’s also a big opportunity. We can elect to follow the path of greed that has damaged our valley and our world, on a bigger scale. Or a different path, that of human solidarity and love for others. What Color Is Your Unicorn?

It is well known that the internal combustion engine has helped us to communicate in a much faster fashion, it is also well known that it has had enormous negative consequences. We cannot continue to poison our planet! Where Are The Horses?

 Since 1980, Jean-Jacques and Servan-Schreiber said in their book El Desafío Mundial, I translate “In the same way, the energy spent in the transport of people and things is called to be the first one to be substituted for the transmission of information, for the electronics and the telecommunications” P. 234

It’s not difficult to imagine that we’ll gradually figure out that, with this new paradigm, there will be no need to have so many people concentrated in big cities. We have built our civilization around the automobile, but smaller communities appear to be on a human scale. Space and time will acquire a new dimension when all the world is within reach. Our physical movement will be done because we want to, not because we must. We will be able to live wherever we want. We will not spend huge amounts of energy to have our civilization function.

We need to learn from our history and recognize what we have changed for the better or for worse. Jaron Lanier, in his excellent book Who Owns The Future, said it clearly:

“The answer to climate change can’t be halting or reversing events. The earth is not a linear system, like a video clip, that can be played in forward or reverse. After we learn how to survive global climate change, the earth will not be the same place it was before. It will be more artificial, more managed.” p.134

The use of the internal combustion engine has caused us - without mentioning time stuck in traffic - to live comfortably, more or less. Most of us rarely see the negative impact that its massive use has caused to our environment fully. Even with the scorching temperatures all over the world, we still live our lives without much change, but deep down we all know that we need to change. The Happy Frog

The current transportation model, of transporting people and things physically over great distances, is in crisis. We all must imagine new ways of living and relating with one another for all our common good. We owe to our children, and to their children. We cannot continue to stay the current course. If what I’m proposing here seems impossible to you, just think of how the way we live now might have seemed to the first inhabitants of this valley - when there were no cars and no highways.

The history of transportation has seen three types of force. Human force, animal force, and mechanical force. I propose the use of a new force, the mental force.

What do you think? I think that it can be done!

Hector Garcia

NOTE: I will explain more in detail about what I have been writing in my book. It will appear promptly and as soon as I can find a publishing company that is committed to publish the book, simultaneously in English and Spanish. Thank you.