Conversation

We conflate automation (which to me is mainly about routine decision-making) and artificial (non-muscle) powering. You can have passive or muscle powered automation. Eg a tortilla press automates hand rolling or flattening without artificially powering it.
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High-tech ambient or human-power should be more of a thing. Eg. Hand-cranked flashlights and radios. Bonus points for disintermediating electricity entirely. Like long now clock is ambient temperature variation driven iirc.
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Electrify everything… except where you can muscle-power or ambient-power it. 19th/early 20th century was great at this. Eg treadle-powered sewing machine. My mom had one and I’d pump it just to play. Good to electrify for sweatshop workers but for casual, occasional home use?
Replying to
Wonder how much human energy fuels obesity and useless and tedious exercise rather than work. If you eat an average of 100 calories too much/day. Works out to 5W/human. About 0.116 kWh/day. Not much given 50+ kWh/human/day but it might have leveraged effects 🤔
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