From 55542b89e3f87ceb9823d47fe09a1342b114dabe Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Silvio Rhatto Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2017 20:21:02 -0300 Subject: Adds book: sci-fi: four futures --- books/scifi/four-futures.mdwn | 72 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 72 insertions(+) create mode 100644 books/scifi/four-futures.mdwn (limited to 'books') diff --git a/books/scifi/four-futures.mdwn b/books/scifi/four-futures.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8bb8473 --- /dev/null +++ b/books/scifi/four-futures.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,72 @@ +[[!meta title="Four Futures: Life After Capitalism"]] + +## Trechos + + Fictional futures are, in my view, preferable to those works of + “futurism” that attempt to directly predict the future, obscuring + its inherent uncertainty and contingency and thereby stultifying + the reader. Within the areas discussed in this book, a + paradigmatic futurist would be someone like Ray Kurzweil, who + confidently predicts that by 2049, computers will have achieved + humanlike intelligence, with all manner of world-changing consequences. + 24 Such prognostications generally end up unconvincing as prophecy + and unsatisfying as fiction. Science fiction is to futurism what + social theory is to conspiracy theory: an altogether richer, more + honest, and more humble enterprise. Or to put it another way, it + is always more interesting to read an account that derives the general + from the particular (social theory) or the particular from the general + (science fiction), rather than attempting to go from the general + to the general (futurism) or the particular to the particular + (conspiracism). + + -- 16 + + Abundance Scarcity + Equality communism socialism + Hierarchy rentism exterminism + + Exercises like this aren’t unprecedented. A similar typology can be + found in a 1999 article by Robert Costanza in The Futurist. 26 + There are four scenarios: Star Trek, Big Government, Ecotopia, + and Mad Max. For Costanza, however, the two axes are “world view + and policies” and “the real state of the world.” Thus the four + boxes are filled in according to whether human ideological + predilections match reality: in the “Big Government” scenario, for + example, progress is restrained by safety standards because the + “technological skeptics” deny the reality of unlimited resources. My + contribution to this debate is to emphasize the significance of + capitalism and politics. + + [...] + + So for me, sketching out multiple futures is an attempt to + leave a place for the political and the contingent. My + intention is not to claim that one future will automatically + appear through the magical working out of technical and ecological + factors that appear from outside. Instead, it is to insist that where + we end up will be a result of political struggle. The intersection of + science fiction and politics is these days often associated with the + libertarian right and its deterministic techno-utopian fantasies; I + hope to reclaim the long left-wing tradition of mixing imaginative + speculation with political economy. The starting point of the entire + analysis is that capitalism is going to end, and that, as Luxemburg + said, + + -- 17 + + Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel, Player Piano, describes a society that + seems, on the surface, like a postlabor utopia, where machines have + liberated humans from toil. For Vonnegut, however, this isn’t a utopia at + all. He describes a future where production is almost entirely carried + out by machines, overseen by a small technocratic elite. Everyone else + is essentially superfluous from an economic perspective, but the society + is rich enough to provide a comfortable life for all of them. Vonnegut + refers to this condition as a “second childhood” at one point, + and he views it not as an achievement but as a horror. For him, and + for the main protagonists in the novel, the main danger of an automated + society is that it deprives life of all meaning and dignity. If + most people are not engaged directly in producing the necessities + of life, he seems to think, they will inevitably fall into torpor + and despair. + + -- 19 -- cgit v1.2.3