Engineering the Via Negativa

Bruggeman Room, CBIS, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Wed, February 19, 2020 at 12:30 PM

Speaker: Tonatiuh Rodriguez-Nikl, Ph.D., P.E.

The talk begins by examining consumption, a central theme in the Anthropocene, arguing that present patterns of consumption fail to contribute meaningfully to wellbeing. Furthermore, due to over-complexification of technological systems, our patterns of consumption may now be increasing exposure to everyday risk. Thus, reduced consumption may be necessary, not only for ecological reasons, but also for our wellbeing and security.

However, calls for reduced consumption usually fall on deaf ears because they are viewed as untenable returns to a poor standard of living of previous centuries. Thus, there is a need to develop alternative paradigms that challenge this view and that reconceptualize reduced consumption in a positive light. There will not be a single, simple, answer for everybody. Rather, we must reflect personally and societally to generate answers. As a potential way forward that may be compelling to some, a brief presentation is given ancient Greek Stoic concepts to addressing this challenge.

Moving onto the applied realm, the question becomes, “how will engineering handle this challenge?” Usually, environmentally-responsible engineered solutions seek ways to reduce the impacts of consumption without challenging the underlying patterns of consumption. What is needed instead, is a move towards facilitating reduced consumption in a way that promotes improved quality of life (this is the “via negativa” in the title of the talk). What this means will begin to be fleshed out by examples that illustrate and contrast the two paths in personal and professional spaces.

How quickly should we pursue change in this (or any other) direction? Equally convincing arguments will be presented for both slow, careful, deliberate change and quick, drastic, structural change. No solution is offered for this dilemma; rather it is presented as one of the central challenges of the Anthropocene.

About the Speaker...

Tonatiuh Rodriguez-Nikl, Ph.D., P.E., is Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at California State University, Los Angeles. Dr. Rodriguez-Nikl earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, a Ph.D. in Structural Engineering from the University of California, San Diego, and is a licensed Professional Civil Engineer in California. His technical work focuses on earthquake engineering using shake table experiments and computational modeling. He is also the campus coordinator for the University Transportation Center for Underground Transportation Infrastructure. In this role, he oversees research projects in big data, automated damage detection, concrete materials, and sustainability and resilience planning guidance. His broader interests have included the seismic performance of green construction technologies, the ability of practicing engineers to address sustainability, engineering design guidance for sustainability and resilience, systems thinking approaches for addressing complex problems, and applications of Stoic approaches to contemporary societal challenges.

Video of Lecture