Futurism up for discussion.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

This is in response to the weird shit that we've just witnessed.  Anyone who wants to contribute is more than welcome to do so.

Futurism has boiled itself down into two basic groups (leaving aside the wild-eyed dreamers, "transhumanists", and flat-out charlatans.)

First, you have your urbanists.  This includes urban designers, economists (who never sleep at all), ecologists, process/systems engineers, neurology types, medical doctors, that sort of thing.  They worry about stuff like how many liters of water have to be moved out of a city to keep it from drowning in its own shit.  Hurricane Sandy completely overwhelmed the pumps for all 5 boroughs, but they had the shit flowing in the right direction 13 hours later, because some bright folks had sat down ahead of time and said "what if?" 

Urbanists study cities the same way a good oncologist studies you as a patient.  Look for what's there, but also look for what is inferred to exist by what isn't there.   Urbanists require a huge amount of multi-discipline training to be effective...Looking back to the shit question, you need knowledge of fluid dynamics, mechanical knowledge of pipes and pumps, and also what storm surges you might expect in a given area.  They tend to obsess over data, to the exclusion of what's actually going on.

Strategic forecasters, on the other hand, are the guys who obsess about the newest and best ways to put a hurting on someone.  They come up with things like Swarm/AC drones and stoop targeting, stratelites, and other goodies.  This requires slightly less training, but also requires having a mind full of angry wasps and broken hypodermic needles. 

Swarm/AC.  You have one medium drone that does all kinds of processing, using things like DESI and bog-standard facial recognition software.  It selects, for example, the ring leaders in a protest, mostly by the way they walk (or stand still) in the crowd.  It then sends this info to police, etc.  Or maybe it doesn't.  Maybe it sends it to stoop.

Stoop.  Picture a cloud of drones shaped like 10 penny nails, with a little rotor on the blunt end and a disposable fuel & computer packet on the sharp end.  It receives the signal from Swarm/AT, and aims at the ringleader.  The packet and rotors drop off, and the tiny explosive in the flat end drives the drone down into the head of the victim.  Where it also explodes.

It's worth mentioning that strategic forecasters are absolute solutionists.

It may seem like you can pick out the white hats from the black hats by which form of futurism they embrace, but this isn't the case.  ISIS mostly uses an informal kind of urbanism to get their funnier ideas.  They know that cities are our "safe spaces", so most of what they do is aimed at city dwellers.  Including the beheading thing, which Cain could describe better than I can, in terms of psychological impact.

It's also worth mentioning that these people do not work for free.  They in fact have a huge price tag, because the educational requirements are immense. 

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

I'm not sure you can safely count out the wild eyed dreamers from the futurist camp. Sure, the vast majority of them get fuckall done, but sometimes one of them writes a story or makes a film that sparks something in the minds of the more practical and something that was an idea becomes a paradigm shifting reality. Dreaming has always been our first experience of a future, and the wild eyed ones often come up with the nicer visions.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I'm not sure you can safely count out the wild eyed dreamers from the futurist camp. Sure, the vast majority of them get fuckall done, but sometimes one of them writes a story or makes a film that sparks something in the minds of the more practical and something that was an idea becomes a paradigm shifting reality. Dreaming has always been our first experience of a future, and the wild eyed ones often come up with the nicer visions.

I suppose I should restate that to mean "wild-eyed dreamers with no education in what they are discussing beyond "the free thought project" or something similar."

Example: exoskeletons to let paralyzed people walk translates out to "the cybermen are coming".

Another example:  FB Transhumanists.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Ah, that makes a lot more sense. I was thinking types like Kaku and Rodenberry.

[Junkenstein]

It seems worth looking at why very few 'futurists' will actually try and deal with the world as it is. I know it's the charlatan camp, but most push some likely imminent change or collapse as to why they need your soon to be worthless money.

It's this kind of shit that makes you quite aware that financial crimes occur all the time at every level. The other end is our new friend who probably couldn't even tell you what a shipping container costs yet has extensive plans to make some kind of tourist hostel from a bunch of them. I assume he's aware of other schemes that have actually been built but won't reach out for help and support.

Something else too about futurists generally living in their own imagined bubble where perfect solutions have/can only occur to/with them/their group. Messianic traits, similar to Manson.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

It seems worth looking at why very few 'futurists' will actually try and deal with the world as it is.

On the contrary.  New York recovered from Sandy so quickly (and at all) because Urbanists had spent the prior 10 years having conniption fits about flooding.  The sanitation system was fully-functional again in 72 hours, and the subway had main line service in 7 days, and full service in 21 days.

So that's more "dealing with the world on it's absolute worst day from which you could possibly recover.

The more I read about this, the more I am convinced that a *serious* terrorist would find a way to incapacitate the settling pond farms.

[Faust]

Facebook and tumblr transhumanists seem to be an aesthetic movement, almost entirely devoid of technical examination and no imagination beyond prostheses.
Most even act confused or dismissive, when you tell them the most significant piece of transhumanist development, has been the Oracle in their pocket.


I want to give this a proper response when I am home next week, I am currently in Argentina, posting to subscribe.

[Junkenstein]

It seems worth looking at why very few 'futurists' will actually try and deal with the world as it is.

On the contrary.  New York recovered from Sandy so quickly (and at all) because Urbanists had spent the prior 10 years having conniption fits about flooding.  The sanitation system was fully-functional again in 72 hours, and the subway had main line service in 7 days, and full service in 21 days.

So that's more "dealing with the world on it's absolute worst day from which you could possibly recover.

The more I read about this, the more I am convinced that a *serious* terrorist would find a way to incapacitate the settling pond farms.

Conceded, not making point well on phone.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Facebook and tumblr transhumanists seem to be an aesthetic movement, almost entirely devoid of technical examination and no imagination beyond prostheses.
Most even act confused or dismissive, when you tell them the most significant piece of transhumanist development, has been the Oracle in their pocket.


I want to give this a proper response when I am home next week, I am currently in Argentina, posting to subscribe.

I will be waiting when you get done chasing ancient Nazis.

[LMNO]

Argentina is an awesome country.  Enjoy it!

[trix]

Well, I for one welcome our new Highest Good Of All overlords.

You know, if that particular one wasn't covered in cultish language and filled with psuedoscience experts and web designers I'd have a lot more hope for it.  They DO have some engineers and science types on board, but they seem rare.

I'm on the fence.  I think I'm going to wait and see and hold out that ray of hope that their plan really comes off as they intend and they get some kind of tourist community going.  I wouldn't live there, as their new-age bent and superstitious leanings and in particular the "expert" they've assigned to calculate dietary requirements, but if they provide a working example and actually get to the level of transparency they claim to seek, and actually produce a positive revenue stream, I could see more of them popping up.  With different ideals.

Hell at that point I might go and try to exploit any and all connections I have to get my own underway.  One based on reality with a strong anti-superstition bent.  Accepted, empirically peer-reviewed science or GTFO, sort of thing.

I think if the focus wasn't just sustainable living, but sustainable living with the highest degree of familiar creature comforts, it could have a real impact.  I know personally a metric fuckton of people that would love to live somewhere they can have the comforts and video games of home, live more cheaply than now, and be able to know they aren't fucking the environment to live that way.  Getting there is the big problem.  Each community would need a positive revenue stream to warrant the level of funding required.  That's my other big problem with the recent one, is they don't seem nearly worried enough about funding when funding is clearly the largest hurdle they're likely to face.

Awhile back I did some math and tried to figure what it would take to build up a large area with alternative energy technology and try to either sell energy into the grid or run a ton of modern bitcoin miners to turn the electricity into currency.  The ROI was way, way longer than can be reasonably predicted to go smoothly.  Basically, to make something like this work, the community would have to include enough of the right people and resources to create streams of income.  The tourism thing might actually work for those guys (or might not) but doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would work for very many of these communities very reliably as a major source of income.  Personally I think that could be handled though.  Some people have skills that are marketable, some people make stuff that can be sold for value, and some income can be made simply by investing in the technology.  For the latter, I'm thinking community Movie Theater, sports events, video gaming events, etc etc etc.  Similar to tourism, just having events people might want to come spend money at.

I've gotten off track though, you seem to want to discuss futurism in general.  Sign me up for wide-eyed dreamer please.  I just want to find the right opportunity to become a wide-eyed do-er.  Maybe we could get a GASM going related to this?  Discordian Futurism?  What would sticking apart in a self-sustaining community look like?

Ugh maybe it's time I go the fuck outside.

--

Yeah, I'm hopeless idealist.  I know.

[LMNO]

Alternatively, we could all just Go Galt.

[trix]

Alternatively, we could all just Go Galt.

[Junkenstein]

Alternatively, we could all just Go Galt.

Who?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I am not interested in transhumanism or any of that infantile shit.  I am, in this thread, asking how things get done in the future to keep the toilets from exploding and the economy from melting faster than the icecaps and. oh yeah, those.

I'm reading some interesting stuff right now on economics as described rather than "as prescribed".  It's a fucking horrorshow.