Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Friday, January 10, 2014

Incredulity Toward Future Narratives

Upgraded and adapted from the Moot, longtime friend of blog "jollyspaniard" writes about his sense of a change lately in the responses the sort of future-hype I spend so much time lampooning here are getting from the public:
I've relayed in this comment section before that I've observed a much reduced appetite for these kinds of fantasies. That trend has been accelerating since I last mentioned it. I've seen a number of op eds in the guardian lately advancing the kinds of arguments you've been making here in Amor Mundi for years. I've also seen people in meatspace saying these kinds of things too.
I definitely agree with him. For example, I have noticed that the comments sections of mainstream press outlets offering up advertorial tech-reportage these days are often flooded with skepticism and snark where once saucer-eyed enthusiasts seemed to pile on over one another to cheer on the marvelous celebrity tech CEOs and entrepreneurs who were bringing us a techno-paradise app by app out of the goodness of their Randroidal sooper-genius brains. I wonder if other readers are also noticing this sort of pushback -- or, to the contrary, noticing new forms of credulity toward techno-hype emerging ominously in other precincts. 

Of course, I strongly doubt that my own relentlessness over the years in making these sorts of critiques had much if anything of an impact on the greater incredulity toward techno-utopianism "jollyspanaird" mentions, but I must say I find this development enormously gratifying personally. Criticism of and skepticism toward extreme futurological and also more mainstream tech hype undermines unaccountable plutocratic scams and wealth-skimming and also opens the way for more real problem-solving with real harm-reduction policy-making using, among other things, real qualified consensus science. The defense of science requires the exposure of pseudo-science, the work of progress requires the exposure of fraudulent promises of easy progress and distractions of energy and effort from real progress.

(By the way, anyone who wonders at the reference the title of the post is teasing, I never tire of pointing out the portentious but rather neglected conclusive sentence of the very first paragraph of the very first section of the very first chapter of Lyotard's otherwise enormously influential The Postmodern Condition: "At any rate, we know it is unwise to put too much faith in futurology.")

10 comments:

jimf said...

> I have noticed that the comments sections of mainstream press
> outlets offering up advertorial tech-reportage these days are
> often flooded with skepticism and snark where once saucer-eyed
> enthusiasts seemed to pile on over one another to cheer on
> the marvelous celebrity tech CEOs and entrepreneurs who were
> bringing us a techno-paradise app by app out of the goodness
> of their Randroidal sooper-genius brains.

I dunno, maybe the saucers have just moved elsewhere:

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/russian-billionaire-dmitry-itskov-plans-on-becoming-immortal-by-2045
------------------
Dmitry Itskov wants to live forever. The 32-year-old Russian
billionaire and media mogul thinks he can do this by building
himself (and everyone) an android body by the year 2045. . .

Itskov has also gone ahead and registered his own political
party in Russia called “Evolution 2045.” . . .

"The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to
create technologies enabling the transfer of [an] individual’s
personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and
extending life, including to the point of immortality,"
reads his site. . .
( http://2045.com/articles/30869.html )
=====

Esebian said...

If a goateed Carrico had crossed over from the Mirror Universe, his article would read "Luddite declares stage win for Anti-Science, goes back to bed".

Chad Lott said...

As a fan of cage fighting, conspiracy theory and psychedelia, I of course enjoy listening to the Joe Rogan Experience.

From that show, and a few other podcasts there's been a kind of quasi-men's movement developing. It has a macho Libertarian heart, but seems to be doing its best to be inclusive and thoughtful.

It's been interesting to see futurological discourse play out in this kind of psychedelic meathead bro-space (I'm going to have to admit to having sympathies to the culture) there's definitely a technology fandom, but it seems to be kept in check with a certain amount of juvenile silliness.

Sort of Jackass meets the Singularity.

There's been quite a bit of criticism on the forums and podcasts of this scene on the futurological stuff over the last few week where it never existed.

People still talk about how cool it would be to have a robot handjob and then a 3D printed pizza, but "don't hold your breath" and "hey, you know you can just like that stuff now without joining a cult" are gaining steam.

Weird times, for sure.

Dale Carrico said...

Hey Chad. I've actually been contacted sympathetically by producers of JRE, I wasn't up for participating (how public, like a frog), but there definitely seemed to be some critical awareness on offer.

Needless to say, in no universe with mirrors would anybody who looks like me be foolish enough to sport a goatee. But with that proviso, Esebian, very neat.

Chad Lott said...

Damn, I wish you would've done the show.

Did you talk to Matt Staggs? He was at Disinfo for a while and is now the JRE publicist. He seems like a nice dude.

Seth Mooney and I were scheming about trying to get the Rhetoric version of the podcast Partially Examined Life together.



Dale Carrico said...

No, I think the person I talked to was associated with what became Joe Rogan Questions Everything on SyFy, actually. It doesn't matter, though, I don't really take up offers like that. I will leave it to others to decide if that is because I am self-sabotaging or ethically ambitious or both.

jollyspaniard said...

I would have thought being ethically ambitious was self-sabotaging.

Dale Carrico said...

Ethical ambition has its self-bolstering compensations, but yes.

jimf said...

> Chad Lott said...
>
> As a fan of cage fighting, conspiracy theory and psychedelia,
> I of course enjoy listening to the Joe Rogan Experience. . .
>
> > Hey Chad. I've actually been contacted sympathetically
> > by producers of JRE, I wasn't up for participating. . .
>
> Damn, I wish you would've done the show.

I'd never listened to any of these podcasts, but I did so over
the weekend (they're LONG!) -- one each of the Dave Asprey
and Sam Harris conversations (of which there are more than
one of each).

I cannot imagine that Dale would be a good fit for the show,
for at least 3 reasons:

1. It's clear that if Rogan doesn't respect you (as he clearly
does Asprey and Harris), he's gonna be a jerk -- it would be
like a Democrat being interviewd by Bill O'Reilly.

2. Rogan isn't stupid, but he isn't the sharpest blade in
the drawer either. He can barely keep up with the likes of
Asprey and Harris, and I don't think he'd be able to track
Dale's diction.

3. Rogan is clearly most comfortable in the company of other
"macho men". I'm not sure if a gay academic counts as that.
(Harris is an academic and an intellectual, but I was surprised
to find out that he's into martial arts -- he's studying
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu -- so he and Rogan can get mano-a-mano
over that.).

No, I don't think Dale should go there.

Dale Carrico said...

The essence of my anti-futurological critique is that "tech" discourses/ subcultures, both mainstream and marginal, are continuous with the deceptive and deranging hyperbole and fraud of marketing norms and forms. Hence, I simply have to be especially sensitive about participating in public settings that are partake of that marketing/promotional universe. Even assuming a critical position it is quite easy for you to end up legitimizing the discourses you criticize, or even enabling its frames simply in your effort to maintain communication with your interlocutors. I'll admit that even blogging, tweeting, and speaking/publishing in highly circumscribed academic contexts these issues get very sticky for me sometimes. The only remote inducement to do such a show frankly would be some inane fantasy that Rogan might hook me up for a weekend, a night, an hour with Roger Huerta, still the sexiest man on earth even if he's got a bag of hammers in his head -- allegedly!