Text Patterns: accelerationism and myth-making

Will Truman

Will Truman is the Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. He is also on Twitter.

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14 Responses

  1. LeeEsq says:

    We will push the human race forward no matter how many billions have to die in the process of reaching utopia.Report

    • James K in reply to LeeEsq says:

      @leeesq

      Utopian thinking can certainly be dangerous, but then so can complacency. Every economic, social and political idea we have was a new one at some point, and if you get into the habit of condemning every attempt to change the world for the better you may end up missing something important. I’m sure there were any number of people who thought the Founding Fathers were making a huge mistake by rejecting tried-and-true monarchism for some utopian experiment with democracy.Report

      • LeeEsq in reply to James K says:

        My objection is not to new ideas or their implementation but using people as things to implement said ideas and not stopping to see if your implementation is causing more suffering than necessary. People as groups or individuals should not have to be blood sacrifices on the alter of progress varyingly defined. How you implement the ideas are just as important as what ideas you are implementing.Report

        • Kolohe in reply to LeeEsq says:

          See, they’ll make a conservative out of you yet!

          (I mean, seriously, you sound just like Buckley standing athwart history. And you’re correct)Report

          • LeeEsq in reply to Kolohe says:

            Liberals have their own version of Buckley’s standing athwart history. We usually use it against economic and technological dislocation rather than social dislocation.Report

  2. Mike Schilling says:

    This is exactly like when Harry told Hermione that they needed to use Quidditch tactics against Voldemort.Report

  3. Kolohe says:

    Wait, is he saying that telling stories based on extrapolating technological and cultural trends is some sort a new thing?Report

  4. Jaybird says:

    In the vein of this story, read this one.

    It’s a fun Guardian story wondering if inequality might lead to speciation.

    We’re going to miss the Creationists, when they’re gone…Report

  5. DensityDuck says:

    Ha ha, I’m not at all surprised to see Warren Ellis cited there. He wrote a short novel recently, “Normal”, which is basically about the kind of derangements you get when people think about the future too hard. It’s pretty good, a sort of horror story that Kimmie’s friends would write (although nothing about methane clathrates as far as I could tell.)Report

    • Kimmi in reply to DensityDuck says:

      DD,
      My friend writes quite highly regarded horror stories, yes.
      The lonely assassins should ring a bell, no?
      (Please to draw connections that i Did Not Actually say).

      (Although more relevant is his work on Katawa Shoujo, exploring how disabled children might escape realities through the use of the internet and alternative personas).Report