written by: Daphne Stanford   Paradigm Shift I: Tech & Sustainability In a recent article for The Conversation, Samuel Alexander argues that many of the technological conveniences we take for granted in the first world are potentially damaging, on a massive scale—that globalizing “Western-style affluence to the world’s expanding population would be catastrophic.” That is if each person on the planet had access to a personal computer and a smartphone, etc.—basically, the amount of energy consumed by the average person in the Western world—the planet would be doomed and headed for