No Fear of the Future

>"Most impressive were the audience member...

2012-05-20T04:58:06.881-05:00

>"Most impressive were the audience members, who asked some of the most provocative questions on these topics any of us had ever heard."

Oh you tease! Transcribe the questions! =)

Very cool—I had not noticed that until you mention...

2012-05-17T20:42:07.451-05:00

Very cool—I had not noticed that until you mentioned it. They are adding new ones that say "ALMOST AQUI".

Did you notice that the billboard has gradually be...

2012-05-09T14:50:43.609-05:00

Did you notice that the billboard has gradually been changing color? When I first saw it, you could barely see Cuauhtemoc amongst a black background. Now you can plainly see jungle foliage and green. It's a pretty cool effect that has taken about 5 weeks. I've googled ad agencies to see if its been mentioned, but there's nothing out there but this blog.

Pepe— I was trying to make just that point—that *...

2012-05-06T17:57:11.684-05:00

Pepe—

I was trying to make just that point—that *of course* Cinco de Mayo is just an American holiday, when we celebrate the idea of Mexico as a dream place to escape Puritan Capital. But more importantly, do you think we could embark on a project to map the semiotic no-wheres that our selves inhabit? Can cartographic logic describe the interzones?

I had not heard that song by War—very cool! Buen viaje a SLP.

Chris

Hi, Chris. Interesting post, as always. I can'...

2012-05-06T12:43:05.234-05:00

Hi, Chris.
Interesting post, as always. I can't help pointing out that Cinco de mayo is mostly a mexican-american holiday, much more celebrated in the US than in Mexico (although we do get the day off). I know a couple of tijuanenses who celebrate Cinco de mayo going to Old Town, San Diego. Go figure. It's like a celebration of Mexico in its absence. A small victory in a major defeat, where Mexico ended up having its very own austrian emperor. A little like beer today.
I wonder how much of the beer advertising you mention is being made by mexican ad men who were hired by US advertising agencies to address the growing latino market?
The idea of a semiotic dreamworld to escape 21st century Capital is completely accurate. This third word semiotic dream is also peddled to urban mexicans, as the boundaries between first and third world stop being geographic and start being economical (or even ethical, as Yépez likes to point out).
Jeremy Seabrook is quoted in Mike Davis' Planet of Slums saying that some classes in the third word "cease to be citizens of their own country and turn into nomads who belong, and own loyalty, to a supraterrestrial financial topography: they turn into patriots of capital, nationalists of a golden and elusive no-place".
So, a dream world for a no place.
There's an old mexican saying that goes : "sólo borracho o dormido se me olvida lo jodido" (it's only being drunk or asleep when I forget how fucked up I've been).
Looking on the bright side, I find this song a real reason to celebrate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqgsWuVwmTY

Coming soon! info on the return of the big gun sh...

2012-04-12T11:41:23.757-05:00

Coming soon! info on the return of the big gun ship .... see Rail Gun - more bang for the buck than any carrier in the close fight!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1q_rRicAwI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun

To be fair, the last battleships were retired beca...

2012-04-06T17:36:48.129-05:00

To be fair, the last battleships were retired because of operational costs rather than lack of use. The Iowa Class battleships that participated in the original Desert Storm and combat patrols off the coast of Lebanon were extremely effective in demolishing shoreline defenses and launching absurd numbers of Tomahawk cruise missiles at inland targets. Their WWII era armor also made them practically invulnerable to Exocet and Silkworm missiles that posed such a threat to smaller ships. That said, operational costs ultimately won out over such narrow mission specs.

To be perfectly clear, I also cringe when I see the Battleship trailer. I mean, I've gone through it frame-by-frame and see absolutely no indication they've got a cake large enough to fit Erika Eleniak anywhere...

Two points. First, I'm totally guilty of joini...

2012-04-06T15:32:52.313-05:00

Two points. First, I'm totally guilty of joining in the futuristic corvette-class warship gee-whiz fanclub, and I have the military-SF publication to prove it:
http://apodispublishing.com/fusion/pages/17_gyre.htm

Second, there are currently no battleships in service anywhere on the planet. They were all replaced by the aircraft carrier and destroyer escort modality. So every time I see the Battleship trailer I cringe. Might as well make a movie where we fight Saddam with battle-locomotives.

Looks like a fantastic shindig. Wish I had been i...

2012-02-26T08:45:43.314-06:00

Looks like a fantastic shindig. Wish I had been in the area to get to it. Unfortunately, I was in Louisiana.

thanks Jayme. She was always just Aunt Ardath to m...

2012-02-06T18:58:08.080-06:00

thanks Jayme. She was always just Aunt Ardath to me and Becca… but she was definitely the HIgh Court of SF/F too.

Texas, here we come!

2012-01-13T17:39:01.888-06:00

Texas, here we come!

Biting Dog Publications has released Through Darke...

2012-01-01T12:40:17.571-06:00

Biting Dog Publications has released Through Darkest America, and Dawn's Uncertain Light by Neal Barrett Jr in ebook format, available at all major ebook retailers.

Through Darkest America

Post Apocalypse America
Bluevale was about all Howie had seen of the world.
Even his Pa, who knew everything, didn’t know much about the way it was before the war.
Scriptures said all of the unclean animals had been wiped out. Howie didn’t know what that meant exactly. He’d seen horses. And stock of course. Stock looked like humans.
‘Cept stock had no soul. That’s why they was meat.
Howie had a good life for a boy. Then the soldiers came. And what they did to his folks made him grow up right quick. He got his revenge—‘cept now the whole darn army was after him. But he had a huge country to run across…and lots of miles to stay alive.
Includes new bonus chapter!

Dawn's Uncertain Light

*Sequel to Through Darkest America
After The Fall...
America's Great Dream is over. Centuries ago it was devastated by the ultimate war. The effects still linger.
Food is scarce, water even scarcer and human compassion nowhere to be found. Even so, society is slowly rebuilding itself.
But is it a society whose thirst for success is built on an enormous , barbaric lie:

Silver Island
...an almost legendary place to most Americans.
The citadel where the government is building a new and better nation from the ashes of the war-ravaged land. Everyone envies the few children who are chosen to be sent to Silver Island to help realize that dream.

At least, that's what Howie Ryder was told when his little sister became one of the Chosen. And that's what he believed before the soldiers slaughtered his parents.

Six years on, Howie has discovered the horrifying truth about Silver Island. And will do anything -- anything -- to rescue his sister from it's grip...

A Day At The Fair (A free short story)

Off to the south you could see 'em---two big Portugees floatin' high and slow, flat-looking bodies all pearly blue in the sun. They weren't real hungry, or looking for anything special, just drifting along, trailing their stingers like long rags of rain 'gainst the ground..

Available at all major ebook retailers!

I guess dictators rally their own opposition. They...

2011-10-21T16:18:18.167-05:00

I guess dictators rally their own opposition. They need enemies, their promise is that they will defeat the foes of the Revolution, the People, the Volk, etc... Wars need leaders and thus a dictator is logical corollary to permanent conflict.

If our society is founded on a concept of opportunity, what do you do when the Door to Success is locked and the sign says "Back later"?

Wikipedia seems like a perfect case study in decen...

2011-10-08T16:42:27.416-05:00

Wikipedia seems like a perfect case study in decentralization, and the fact that structure (rather than, say, ideology or charisma) is the critical element in networks. One of my favorite quotes is from Anathem "Topology is destiny". The question in my mind is what the structure of a decentralized polity would be; not only how moderators are chosen, but how conflict is resolved, how agendas are set, how efficiency is achieved, what defines the constituency, etc.

I just returned from observing #OccupyAustin and was fascinated by the lack of structure and attendant feeling of aimlesness. I started wondering about how decision-making could possibly take place in an organization with no 'membership', in which people constantly join and leave the organization, and in which there exists no canonical statement of position or even governing process.

I also wonder if government is really worth considering in the context of networked culture; it seems like (as you mention) government is inherently tied to an increasingly obsolete cultural milieu, which would imply that the structures of networked culture will emerge and evolve in parallel (rather than opposition) to existing governmental system. Which makes me wonder where the domains of each begin, end, and overlap.

Thought-provoking post...

Lawrence — Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I ...

2011-10-07T18:32:47.973-05:00

Lawrence — Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I think you are absolutely right about entrenched power elites, and about how perhaps well-intentioned erosion of federalism contributes to that entrenchment. But I don't think it really addresses the question of political disengagement by mass movements that are finding the voice through network-enabled means, be they Tea Partiers or #Occupiers. What do you think about the idea that the constitutional systems of the West are trying to evolve to a more authentically participatory mode, by using the network to achieve something closer to direct democracy? I think the evidence is there that is happening. What do you think the authors of the Federalist Papers would have to say about it?

— Chris

But of course the entire idea of the U.S. Constitu...

2011-10-07T17:02:24.314-05:00

But of course the entire idea of the U.S. Constitution is to provide a decentralized power structure, to pit the Executive against the Legislative against the Judicial, the federal government against the states, the states against localities, so that no one power center can override the rest. This worked quite well for a while, until the Supreme Court decided in a series of decisions (of which Wickard vs. Filburn is perhaps the exemplar) that the 10th Amendment did not, in fact, mean anything at all.

This has allowed power to concentrate at the federal level, as well as in the "Deep State," the bureaucracies, joining in their crony capitalist friends in the legislature, public sector unions, lobbyists, and their backers on Wall Street, for an ongoing, permanent regulatory capture. Most classic political theory does not recognize that the staffers of government and their co-enablers are, in fact, their own special interest, a revolving door between each that perpetuates the interests of this class above all others.

I see no reason to believe that a network centric social structure would obviate this class. Indeed, looking at the groupthink in places like Slashdot and Wikipedia, I think it would be more likely to amplify it. We would go from he who counts the votes deciding everything to he who picks the moderators deciding everything.

Moderatores, qui moderari?

I would like to point out that he is NOT a physici...

2011-10-06T16:09:26.910-05:00

I would like to point out that he is NOT a physician.

Thanks, Richard, I checked out Metagovernment (whi...

2011-10-03T06:57:00.796-05:00

Thanks, Richard, I checked out Metagovernment (which I had not come across before)—intriguing and very impressive. I have no doubt there are a lot of people thinking about these issues—perhaps no surprise since this seems such an inevitable direction in which things will develop. One wonders how much of the angst about electronic voting technologies a few years back was really angst of power elites about too much democracy....

I don't think it's too utopian to think th...

2011-09-30T23:46:44.425-05:00

I don't think it's too utopian to think that the concept of the nation state is one which could enter history if enough people will it be done. Have you heard of the metagovernment project? They are a hub for a bunch of development efforts all working towards a common goal of "open source governance".

Typical. Fear of something you refuse to understan...

2011-09-30T13:37:32.215-05:00

Typical. Fear of something you refuse to understand:
www.zombieadvocacy.com

Typical, fear because you refuse to understand. ww...

2011-09-30T13:36:18.874-05:00

Typical, fear because you refuse to understand.
www.zombieadvocacy.com

I had never heard of forensic astronomy until toda...

2011-09-27T10:19:50.612-05:00

I had never heard of forensic astronomy until today. This is something I want to share with my kid, to show her how science and art can intersect to enrich our understanding & enjoyment of both.

Dave — Great point about the Vietnam War subtext o...

2011-09-26T12:11:23.700-05:00

Dave — Great point about the Vietnam War subtext of the television of the 70s. I think 24 and torture porn are how we processed the GWOT. How we process this strange new decade of profound uncertainty and destabilization remains to be seen. -- Chris

I rather like Mad Men, though I always watch it wo...

2011-09-23T10:31:56.671-05:00

I rather like Mad Men, though I always watch it wondering when it'll all end up in Vietnam. The war in SE Asia stands as a cultural beacon, a reply to America's self-image created in WWII. It's the subtext to every macho fantasy of the '70s, KEW's Kane, the Wild Bunch, TV cops & more. I've drifted from MM, but that's just where I go.

I've only seen a bit of Boardwalk Empire & like it so far. I do find tales of sleazy ward-heelers & gangsters a trifle reassuring. It should be disturbing that corruption was so deeply ingrained into American life. But compared to Los Zetas (the kind of guys that leave bagfuls of severed heads in the street), the Prohibition Syndicate seems positively quaint.

American culture reacted to Prohibition, WWII, & Vietnam in certain distinct ways. How will we process Iraq & the Drug Wars?

And now we have "Twitteros terroristas"i...

2011-09-21T12:32:25.110-05:00

And now we have "Twitteros terroristas"in Mexico, citizens who spread the rumour of a narco attack on schools (which never happened) and are now facing imprisionment, a month before 35 bodies were thrown in a freeway in the same city. Networkphobia as a government disease.