[Stoves] How to conduct research on hardware with a strong social involvement (like stoves)

Thu May 17 11:00:45 CDT 2018

Dear Nikhil,

You probably already know, but it may not be clear to everyone, this article is actually a satire from the New-York Times of 1948, and Paul Jennings was an humorist. Pierre-Marie Ventre never existed, nor the resistentialism theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistentialism 

What is your point Nikhil? That there is little humans can do against the laws of physics and nature, so the mere idea that we can improve human health by lowering air pollution is foolish and pure vanity?

Nature (things) kill humans. And humans kill humans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_disasters_by_death_toll 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll 

Until we have clear evidence that it is volcanos and sandstorms which mostly cause deadly respiratory diseases, I think it still makes some sense to try to mitigate human emissions.

Best,

Xavier

De : Nikhil Desai [mailto:pienergy2008 at gmail.com] 
Envoyé : vendredi 11 mai 2018 19:39
À : Crispin Pemberton-Pigott
Cc : Andrew Heggie; Discussion of biomass cooking stoves; Tami Bond; Cecil Cook; Xavier Brandao; Cookswell Jikos; Anil Rajvanshi
Objet : Re: [Stoves] How to conduct research on hardware with a strong social involvement (like stoves)

Crispin: 

Great reminder of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 

Of note: 

"Our data might also be contemplated through the prism of counterphenomenological resistentialism, which holds that les choses sont contre nous (things are against us). <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1322240/#ref5> 5 Resistentialism is the belief that inanimate objects have a natural antipathy towards humans, and therefore it is not people who control things but things that increasingly control people. Although it seems unreasonable to say that the teaspoons are exerting any influence over the Burnet Institute's employees (with the exception of the authors), their demonstrated ability to migrate and disappear shows that we have little or no control over them."

Sandstorms and volcano eruptions are proof positive that nature kills us, otherwise we'd never have premature deaths. 

That experts' context-free cookstoves show something similar to "high level of dissatisfaction with the level of service provided by teaspoons in terms of their availability" is explainable by resistentialism. 

The reference to 13 June 1948 NYT article "Thingness of Things", filed by Paul F. Jennings from Paris, attached. Resistentialism was called by some "just a transcendental version of modern physics". 

Jennings cites Ventre, the pioneer resistentialist to assert "Things cannot be dominated. Resistentialism is a tragic philosophy. It sees that man is doomed by Things the moment he attempts to achieve anything outside his own "mind" which, like Disney's Flying Mouse, is Not A Thing At All." 

That is, all your claims about designing a perfect stove is vanity behind a facade of science. You want to change things. Things will fight back! 

All this ISO jugglery is vain attempt to create a Stove for the Minds, burning expertise into smoke. 

The same 13 June 1948 NYT had an advertisement (p. 29) for a portable electric washer for a Long Island "summer hideout" (away from Manhattan laundries, I guess) and - get this - a gadget "running hot water from a cold water faucet"! (p .202). Running on AC of DC. Cost $3.98 postpaid. 

I don't know which water boiling test was applied to compute efficiency. 

Nikhil

PS: "Things always win, and man can only be free from them by not doing anything at all." 

Or drop the delusion of doing anything, any thing. 

---
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