We're heading towards upheaval, not doom
Where we are now, at the advent of the Permaweird, is the beginning of the Ballardian banality phase of the impact of the internet. A world of untamed but civilized horrors, capable of slow-cooking us into a sort of digital somnolence the way the protagonists of Ballard’s own stories are in a state of being slow-cooked by extrapolated late-industri
... See moreVenkatesh Rao • Disturbed Realities
Including, most recently, post-internet, the reality expansion that has been wreaking havoc on the human psyche at an accelerating rate ever since the first pioneers sent a message across the internet in 1969, and which entered its late phase around 2016.
Forget the ancients. Can you put yourself in your own 2015 headspace?
Venkatesh Rao • Disturbed Realities
This reminds me of the concept of “the writers” writing reality and one-upping themselves over and over again, especially going into COVID and beyond.
In 1938 humans were offered three global stories to choose from, in 1968 just two, and in 1998 a single story seemed to prevail. In 2018 we are down to zero. No wonder that the liberal elites, who dominated much of the world in recent decades, are in a state of shock and disorientation. To have one story is the most reassuring situation of all. Eve
... See moreYuval Noah Harari • 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
People have always been good at imagining the end of the world, which is much easier to picture than the strange sidelong paths of change in a world without end.
Rebecca Solnit • Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities
Humanity has never faced anything like the combination of climate change, the rise of a vastly powerful industrialized China, and the “total collapse of the neoliberal paradigm,” he said. “It is a non-repeating pattern; it’s a one-way street into radical unhinging,” he continued. Tooze isn’t a pessimist, per se. “We aren’t on the point of World War... See more
Kyle Chayka • The Terrible Twenties? The Assholocene? What to Call Our Chaotic Era
We are still in the nihilist moment of disillusionment and anger, after people have lost faith in the old stories but before they have embraced a new one. So what next? The first step is to tone down the prophecies of doom and switch from panic mode to bewilderment. Panic is a form of hubris. It comes from the smug feeling that one knows exactly wh
... See moreYuval Noah Harari • 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
Channeling Slouching Towards Bethlehem, there was a time where I felt like we were heading towards some dark, doom-laden future. While parts of the poem still feel accurate (the falcon can’t hear the falconer, the worst are full of passionate intensity), it’s no longer quite so clear to me where we are heading. Perhaps we’re just heading towards a
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