Re: <nettime> Essay-Grading Software

[John Hopkins <jhopkins@neoscenes.net>]

>Such as:
>a. raw domination
>b. rank servitude
>c. outright revolution

LOL Brian! (with significant sighing on the side) -- just finished
a class this morning talking with my students about this very issue
... (c) will occur at the interstice of the human encounter of Self
with Other, so that it is indeed available instantly, all around,
in the classroom, in faculty meetings, on the street. Reminding the
students of this (and helping them establish a lived praxis based
on the vitality of those encounters) is my choice, so that suggests
changing (c) to 'facilitating open encounter and engagement'...

>[Note: You can only tick one of the boxes...]
>
>The only future I can see beyond submission to the economic
>destinies of robotization and outsourcing is some kind of political
>organization, my friends.

...snip...

>accumulate, accumulate, accumulate, until the last ton of coal is
>effectively burnt and we're all reduced to a cinder. Isn't that kinda
>obvious now? What's the next step?

At this point I am quite pessimistic that the evolutionary drive to
guarantee propagation of the species, a drive inseparable from life
itself, and which includes the need for consuming any and all energy
necessary for survival-to-reproduce, can be short-circuited by any
altruistic or even pragmatic socio-political (community, nation-state,
supra-national) agendas, ever. The social concept of 'use less'
(promulgated mostly by the ever-unsatiated ?ber-consumers of the
developed world) cannot trump evolutionary hard-wiring. I believe we
will do exactly as you say at the end of your paragraph.

That question of what to do next, now, is perhaps moot. The question
of what to do, after, will present itself in the immediacy of the
moment. The situation we as a species have made is not of such
extremity to preclude that life in other forms will not continue, and
our species will likely exist in greatly reduced numbers. This may
simply provide the planet with other opportunities to re-evolve after
(solar-sourced) energy has again been accumulated to a level and form
that allows for another burst of life progression.

This will clearly not happen in the short term of (our) human
life-times.

Cheers,
John


-- 


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
Watching the Tao rather than watching the Dow!
http://neoscenes.net/
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++





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