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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| The End of the Future |
| 2011-10-11 |
| When tracked against the admittedly lofty hopes of the 1950s and 1960s, technological progress has fallen short in many domains. Consider the most literal instance of non-acceleration: We are no longer moving faster. The centuries-long acceleration of travel speeds — from ever-faster sailing ships in the 16th through 18th centuries, to the advent of ever-faster railroads in the 19th century, and ever-faster cars and airplanes in the 20th century — reversed with the decommissioning of the Concorde in 2003, to say nothing of the nightmarish delays caused by strikingly low-tech post-9/11 airport-security systems. Today’s advocates of space jets, lunar vacations, and the manned exploration of the solar system appear to hail from another planet. A faded 1964 Popular Science cover story — “Who’ll Fly You at 2,000 m.p.h.?” — barely recalls the dreams of a bygone age. Today’s aged hippies no longer understand that there is a difference between the election of a black president and the creation of cheap solar energy; in their minds, the movement towards greater civil rights parallels general progress everywhere. Because of these ideological conflations and commitments, the 1960s Progressive Left cannot ask whether things actually might be getting worse. I wonder whether the endless fake cultural wars around identity politics are the main reason we have been able to ignore the tech slowdown for so long. However that may be, after 40 years of wandering, it is not easy to find a path back to the future. If there is to be a future, we would do well to reflect about it more. The first and the hardest step is to see that we now find ourselves in a desert, and not in an enchanted forest. |
| Posted by:Nimble Spemble |
| #1 Various parts of this Artic reminds me of a lengthy thesis I wrote back in the late 1980's. "Globalism" widout [hard or soft] Imperialism. Lets ask the Teamsters + UAW, etc. AFL-CIO Unions how their Memberships feel about having to learn how to be Aircraft-Spaceship Pilots + Star Sys Operators + Mechanics. First thingys still come first ... To wit, * RENSE > GULF OF MEXICO SEAFLOOR CRACKED, FRACTURED, [still] SPILLING OUT HYDROCARBONS. OWG-NWO = PRE/PROTO-SPACE GOVT, ORDER = GOVT-PERT UNIVERSAL CONSENSUS + ORGANZ ON RESOURCES FOR SAME. E.g OIL-GAS RESERVES IN THE GULF OF MEXICO. Aka Year 2040-2070 to Madonna Fans from Guam, sub-aka the same timeline where the USAF-DOD hopes to extend the lifespan of US B-52's BUFF Bombers to Year 2044. > "Permanent" Global Warming = GWCC. > Gulf of Mexico = cracked seafloor. > Peak Oil + other. > US B-52's. > Post-2012/2020 US-WORLD RECESSION > "GREAT GREATER DEPRESSION"??? ? Post-2020 US Econ Collapse = Srrious Contraction. YOOHOO, US GOVT-DOD, DO I EVEN HAVE TO BRING UP CHINA, + DO I GET MY PAN PIZZA(S) NOW OR IN YEAR 2025? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-10-11 23:11 |