Monday, January 16, 2006

I enthusiastically suggest hustling over to John Shirley's blog and checking out his new essay on "constructive megalomania" (see left-hand sidebar; Shirley's not too big on permalinks).

I, too, have been in a somewhat utopian mode lately. Where do we go from here? Even assuming we can somehow change the minds of -- or, more likely, simply outlast -- the fuckwits running the show right now, can we repair the damage and make society tolerable?

Personally, I'm not convinced. So I've been playing with the idea of founding a space colony -- whether a Gerard O'Neill-type orbital station or an extraplanetary refuge I haven't decided -- designed to minimize the possibility that the good parts of the human legacy on Earth aren't irrevocably lost.

Only one problem: I don't have the resources to reach orbit, let alone help spawn a brave new world among the planets. So I suppose I'll continue doing what little I can here, hopefully staying moderately sane in the process.

Don't misunderstand -- I want the world to end. But I want it to end in a conveniently selective sense, retaining all that's just and enlightening and disposing of all the crap that stands firmly in the way of a meaningful human future.

Oh, well. Read John's editorial. It's a start.

2 comments:

Star Larvae said...

Mac, there's much posthuman and weightless and neotenous and technoutopian conveniently out on the starlarvae site, see especially http://www.starlarvae.org/Space_Brains_Space_Migration.html
IZnt it odd that the sci fi people have given so little attention to weightlessness? It's always about how to RETAIN the terrestrial primate form. Ugh. let it go, man. Let it g o

Mac said...

IZnt it odd that the sci fi people have given so little attention to weightlessness? It's always about how to RETAIN the terrestrial primate form.

I agree. A biped form is quite nice for getting around in a gravity well -- if we want to retain our humanoid aesthetic sensibility -- but once we're in space we should feel free -- indeed, feel compelled -- to reinvent ourselves. William Burroughs was hip to this.