The greed and stupidity and evil are definitely built in features. Any ideal that doesn’t recognize that, and dream accordingly, does not have a shelf life. Having said that, it has seemed to me recently that the greed and stupidity and evil have become so overwhelming that a very modest ideal (like a world for the humans, by the humans) seems appealing in ways it wouldn’t have even five or ten years ago.
On the climate change example you mentioned, the shift from broad environmentalism—thinking about how to collectively preserve the quality of air, water, land, and life—to a narrower and much more quantitative focus on “decarbonization” was pivotal. It’s all about competing to (someday maybe) hit our CO2 metrics now, so we always see unrealistic line graphs about “net zero scenarios,” “carbon footprint” discourse that individualizes the issues, and the narratives about how X or Y country is “winning” or “being left behind” in addressing climate change. And even if we did reduce CO2 to like 1980s level or “win” at climate change, then what? It all feels like denial that maybe the big collective project should be doing less extraction, respecting the living world more, and not mediating everything through a computer and a spreadsheet.
If turning it into a competition had "worked," I guess I would allow it. But it didn't! And it contributed to the ongoing ruination of everything in just the ways you say!
This style was already long in existence at the time, but I think back to the tublrfication of twitter around 2014 and the spread of what could be called vulgar standpoint theory, the primacy of asserting "I don't feel safe", and wondering what that tool looked like in the hands of one's worst enemies
I'd be really curious to hear your take on Roy Scranton's Impasse.
Not familiar -- I'll put it on the list!
Hear me out: what if humanity was united by the sudden emergence of a Lovecraftian alien threat?
Great literature is news that stays news!
The greed and stupidity and evil are definitely built in features. Any ideal that doesn’t recognize that, and dream accordingly, does not have a shelf life. Having said that, it has seemed to me recently that the greed and stupidity and evil have become so overwhelming that a very modest ideal (like a world for the humans, by the humans) seems appealing in ways it wouldn’t have even five or ten years ago.
On the climate change example you mentioned, the shift from broad environmentalism—thinking about how to collectively preserve the quality of air, water, land, and life—to a narrower and much more quantitative focus on “decarbonization” was pivotal. It’s all about competing to (someday maybe) hit our CO2 metrics now, so we always see unrealistic line graphs about “net zero scenarios,” “carbon footprint” discourse that individualizes the issues, and the narratives about how X or Y country is “winning” or “being left behind” in addressing climate change. And even if we did reduce CO2 to like 1980s level or “win” at climate change, then what? It all feels like denial that maybe the big collective project should be doing less extraction, respecting the living world more, and not mediating everything through a computer and a spreadsheet.
If turning it into a competition had "worked," I guess I would allow it. But it didn't! And it contributed to the ongoing ruination of everything in just the ways you say!
This style was already long in existence at the time, but I think back to the tublrfication of twitter around 2014 and the spread of what could be called vulgar standpoint theory, the primacy of asserting "I don't feel safe", and wondering what that tool looked like in the hands of one's worst enemies
Also "pigeonholing people based on their demographic characteristics is liberatory when we do it"