dystopia or utopia

[Guest guest]

, rw2@r... wrote:

>

> *****

> http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=508

> Decolonizing The Revolutionary Imagination: Values Crisis, the Politics of

Reality, and

Why There's Going to Be a Common-Sense Revolution in This Generation

 

 

 

I am not nearly so pessimistic. I think a lot of the problems described in this

article will be

altered irrevocably and positively by modern technology. Which ironically is

somewhat

beholden to the military and corporations for its continued development. I am

going to

assume for the sake of argument that most members of this group would prefer not

to

spend their days ploughing fields. So it comes down to whether the modern world

we

want can be achieved without the consequent harm that seems to accompany its

growth. I

think each succeeding phase of technology has answered that question yes over

and over

again.

 

If it were not for the internet, the all news, media and entertaintainment would

be owned

and filtered through 5 large corporations. That was their plan for many years

and they

never saw the internet coming. All the while, there were those who wrote with

dread of

the upcoming era when we would all be brainwashed by right wing demagogues. Now

ain't that just a pipe dream anymore? Personal technology liberated desktop

publishers in

the 80's and webmaster in the 90s. The internet, a product of the US defense

department,

is beyond governmental control and thus there will never be a time when

information on

this planet can be completely controlled ever again.

 

How about fossil fuels, a major arena for corrupt money, intrigue, war and

pollution. It

may not be soon enough for some of you, but their use will decline dramatically

over the

next 20 years with fuel cells, hybrids, solar (new incentives bill in CA

supported by the

guv), wind, hydrogen and biodiesel. All of this is quite bound up with the

acquisition of

more and more money by the already rich. with that point, I completely agree

with the

author of this article. But if they can't control the media and also can't

control energy, how

will they get your money? By scaring you into funding an endless war, perhaps.

But I

digress.

 

If the information we need for health and other things is freely available and

we live in a

clean environment devoid of fossil fuel emissions, then we are still left with

at least one

pressing basic issue. How do we supply the needs of housing and food? In other

words,

we still need to earn a living. It is in the workplace where we are most

shackled to

powerful employers. However there is a exponentially growing trend in

miniaturization

and increased computing speed that already allows the processing of data and

even the

production of goods on demand in a way not possible before.

 

One can be a software company with a laptop and internet connection. CDs can be

burned

by the hundreds in small countertop devices. One can have a internet broadcast

station or

professional quality video editing studio for few thousand dollars instead of a

few hundred

thousand. Many things now done in factories in huge volumes for economies of

scale will

be able to be done using table top appliances to meet smaller markets and on

demand

orders. This new frontier of personal technology may thwart the last bastion of

corporate

dominance as more and more small companies and individuals unexpectedly replace

large

corporations as the dominant economic force. This is not the plan, of course,

but it keeps

seeming to play out that way.

 

And what will be the end result of all this? It may be that we will finally

emerge in the

world only a technological utopia can yield, one of good health, satisfying

work, little

violent crime, global peace and prosperity. This world certainly never existed

in the past

and as long as the model of scarce resources dominates economic thinking, it

will never

exist in the future. But the difference is that in the past the resources were

indeed scarce.

The ones we speak of today are as unlimited as the life of the earth and the

human race:

wind, sun and information. It is estimated that information already dominates

the value of

most major production goods like computers and cars. The actual value of the

raw

materials is quite small.

 

With such an abundance of wealth and little need to fight over physical things,

is it

possible that the craven drive to dominate will disappear? Or perhaps will it

be that

technology will so liberate the masses on some fundamental level that the

formerly rich

and powerful will no longer have the evolutionary niche they once enjoyed. What

if you

had a machine that turned your garbage into furniture or clothing, for example.

Something that will be dramatically altered by nanotechnology, for example, is

the

recycling of all materials at the molecular level into other things. Waste will

really be a

thing of the past. All things must end. Even the gods of ancient Greece faded.

When the

environment changes, a part of the genome may die out. And the funny part is

that they

are doing it to themselves. We don't need to actively fight them; we just need

to use our

tai ji to use their strength to our advantage at every turn.