{"id":20805,"key":"Energy_and_quality_of_life","title":"Energy and quality of life","latest":{"id":1223976,"timestamp":"2026-01-08T23:49:15Z"},"content_model":"wikitext","license":{"url":"https://www.appropedia.org/Appropedia:Copyrights","title":"CC-BY-SA-4.0"},"source":"{{Project data\n| authors = Jeff Vail\n}}\n\nWhat is [[energy]] good for? Simply put, [[energy]] performs work, which underlies all [[economic]] activity. Work (in the physics sense) is relevant because it produces [[quality of life]]. [[Technology]] is nothing more than a design for converting work into a product, which may or may not be associated with quality of life. Finally, the harnessing of concentrated energy - energy that, from a human perspective, produces more directed work output than total human work input (e.g. an EROEI of greater than 1) - facilitates the existence of complex society.\n\nJeff Vail<ref>[http://web.archive.org/web/20161123090920/http://www.jeffvail.net/2007/04/design-imperative.html The Design Imperative], April 08, 2007</ref> suggests a new term, borrowing loosely from Jacques Ellul:{{W|Jacques Ellul}} ''Technics''. While \"technology\" converts work into any product, \"technics\" is a more specific term that can be used to denote the design process of converting work into human quality of life.\n\nIt seems axiomatic that the goal of humanity is to optimize quality of life. There are nearly endless debates that can begin here - how is quality of life defined, do we measure the mean, median, mode, or selfish-individual level, etc. - but IF we can answer the question \"what is quality of life,\" then we all share the goal of optimizing it.\n\nThis leaves us with a simple equation: Quality of Life = Work * Technics\n\nTo optimize quality of life, improve the availability of work (through wider access to the tools and resources needed to perform work), and improve technics.\n\n:''Follow this analysis further at [[Limits of energy availability and efficiency]].''\n\n== See also ==\n\n* [[The limits of energy availability and efficiency]]\n* Quality of life through design and \"technics\"\n\n== Notes ==\n\n<references />\n\n{{Page data\n| license = CC-BY-SA-3.0\n| ported-from = http://web.archive.org/web/20161123090920/http://www.jeffvail.net/2007/04/design-imperative.html\n| keywords = Design, energy, living, quality of life\n| description = Energy and quality of life evolve together. Appropedia examines how technology and work define modern well-being.\n}}\n\n[[Category:Design]]\n[[Category:Energy]]\n[[Category:Living]]\n[[Category:Quality of life]]"}