tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post5447824307412176481..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: What's "Futurism" Got to Do With Foresight?Dale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-15895426654227264172011-08-16T10:40:55.760-07:002011-08-16T10:40:55.760-07:00I think he must think you think the world is flat
...<i>I think he must think you think the world is flat</i><br /><br />Well, if you're right, that certainly is a reasonable position. <br /><br />After all, he thinks the answer to catastrophic anthropogenic climate change is for hyper-industrial mega-corporations to save the world with non-existing mega-engineering projects intervening into complex ill-understood geophysical dynamics at unprecedented levels for profit, even though the parochial profit-taking of such industrial concerns caused and continues to cause that climate change -- and in order to stay profitable many of these concerns lard PR firms with cash to fund climate change denialism and public misinformation schemes that stand in the way of sane environmental regulation and government education programs and public investments in energy efficiency, mass transit, sustainable agriculture, and renewable energy infrastructure. <br /><br />Of course, all this non-existing mega-profitable mega-technofuturological mega-engineering when it actually does come to exist in a form more palpable than the CGI-renderings of which futurologists are so fond will be regulated by political processes to ensure it is safe, effective, not corrupt, impacts the vulnerable no more harmfully than the powerful and so on... even though geo-engineers always begin by pointing out that such politics has and must utterly fail, which presumably is why they advocate geo-engineering techno-magick instead of the government regulation, education, public programs, and renewable energy investments more conventional environmentalists do in the first place.<br /><br />Raising concerns about such views is exactly like claiming the world is flat. It's only reasonable that Cascio would refuse to provide a forum for such patent inanities.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-34583932058084778992011-08-15T20:48:46.345-07:002011-08-15T20:48:46.345-07:00By the way, I got a warning 4 years ago (I think t...By the way, I got a warning 4 years ago (I think that must have been the only time I ever posted comments on Cascio's blog) when I was insufficiently respectful toward a pal of ours.<br /><br />http://openthefuture.com/2007/07/solving_problems_by_getting_aw.html<br />------------------<br />Michael Anissimov wrote:<br /><br />> Ultimately, my life is my own and I wish that others would respect me<br />> (and other Singularitarians) for our activist choices. . .<br /><br />No can do. This plea sounds like Tom Cruise remonstrating with<br />Matt Lauer that critics of Scientology are exhibiting the same<br />simple religious intolerance that anti-Semites exhibit toward<br />Jews.<br /><br />You guys are out there in the world, touting your wares, using<br />the leverage provided by the Internet the same way an earlier<br />generation of lay preachers used the medium of TV.<br /><br />And you're hankering after a big windfall of money. Maybe<br />from Larry Ellison. Or somebody equally billionairish.<br /><br />> . . .and realize that our overriding motivation is a better world<br />> for all. . .<br /><br />That may really **your** motivation (or at least part of it);<br />I don't know you well enough to say.<br /><br />I **can** say that, in the case of some others, "a better world<br />for all" is only window-dressing (not consciously so, perhaps,<br />but window-dressing nevertheless) for some pretty nasty<br />(and unexamined) stuff.<br /><br />> . . .not fear of death or yearning for an escape. . .<br /><br />Psychologically and historically implausible.<br /><br />> . . .or whatever perverse motivations are unfairly<br />> projected upon us.<br /><br />Not unfairly. Not "projected".<br /><br />Posted by: Jim Fehlinger | July 13, 2007 2:31 PM<br /><br />Hey, hey, let's try not to make this personal. I appreciate the passionate argumentation, but only when it's about ideas, not about the people arguing.<br /><br />No more insults, or I'll have to turn this car around.<br /><br />Posted by: Jamais Cascio | July 13, 2007 2:40 PM<br />------------------<br /><br />But he started it! I'm thirsty. Are we there yet?jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-4258501540027953522011-08-15T20:35:23.995-07:002011-08-15T20:35:23.995-07:00I think he must think you think the world is flat,...I think he must think you think the world is flat, "or similar bits of inanity". **And** he's still in a snit. ;->jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-21212129421417063552011-08-15T19:57:44.075-07:002011-08-15T19:57:44.075-07:00It's interesting. I posted this content as a c...It's interesting. I posted this content as a comment on Cascio's blog and it has yet to appear. He moderates his comments (as do I, there are good reasons to do so!) and he may simply be away from his blog or something, but it may also be that this post fails to "pass muster" according to his moderating criteria. He provides those criteria here: "Comments telling me that global warming isn't real, that evolution isn't real, that I really need to follow [insert religion here], that the world is flat, or similar bits of inanity are more likely to be deleted than approved. Yes, it's unfair. Deal. It's my blog, I make the rules, and I really don't have time to hand-hold people unwilling to face reality." I daresay nothing I say remotely approached the kind of anti-evolutionary, climate-change denialism, or religious proselytizing he derides and wonder if he's still in a snit about my disagreements with him on geo-engineering as a kind of greenwashing. Sometimes I think these think-tank intellectuals really wouldn't last a second in the contentious give-and-take that takes places in the seminars and talks and hallways of the actual Academy!Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-80430580490503409452011-08-15T11:45:51.826-07:002011-08-15T11:45:51.826-07:00> I wonder how many of my own futurological bri...> I wonder how many of my own futurological brickbats Cascio<br />> would end up sympathizing with, and how many he can sympathize<br />> with while still identifying as a futurologist in the first place?<br /><br />Not too many, if he wants to keep getting invited to the<br />usual parties. ;->jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-81777641997637332062011-08-14T18:11:26.553-07:002011-08-14T18:11:26.553-07:00Utopia means nowhere and jamais means never.Utopia means nowhere and jamais means never.Lorrainehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13567383019731167967noreply@blogger.com