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F U T U R I S T O C R A T

Using technology to deepen democracy, using democracy to ensure technology benefits us all.

Technoliberation

Technoliberation is a rainbow coalition that extends beyond the visible spectrum.

We are all champions of democracy here and we are all progressives.

Many of us are post-naturalist Greens and champions of sustainable development. Many of us are secular humanists and post-humanist humanitarians.

Many of us are pro-choice feminists and morphological freedom fighters, defending consensual personal genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive practices of self-creation. Many of us are atheists, aesthetes, and nonjudgmental people of many faiths and spiritual practices. Many of us are transgendered, queer theorists, biopunks, democratic transhumanists, and psychedelic experimentalists.

Many of us are copyfighters, defenders of the creative and genomic commons, enthusiasts of social software tools, free software, open source, peer-to-peer democracy. Many of us are policy wonks, technocrats, world federalists, human rights activists, election reformers, advocates of basic income guarantees and universal health care, leapfroggers, and space enthusiasts.

Many of us are champions of consensus science, of genetic science and evolutionary theory, but none of us are genetic determinists or Social Darwinists. None of us are all of these things, of course, but many of us are many of them, and we are all of us inspired and provoked by the connections we find among these struggles and celebrations. Bioconservatives, market libertarians, religious fundamentalists, and retro-futurists are NOT WELCOME among us.

Published Sunday, September 04, 2005 3:11 PM by russell higgs

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advancedatheist wrote on September 6, 2005 12:03 AM

I read the Wikipedia article about "Retro-futurism," but I don't understand why you lump "retro-futurists," assuming that term has a referent in reality, together with biocons and other movement ideologues on the right. I could make the case that FM-2030 presented a "retro-futurist" view of the future, for example, because he tried to make a bigger deal out of the social "liberations" and "revolutions" of the 1960's than the historical after-effects justify, and I find it hard not to think of Austin Powers now while reading his books and essays. I could say the same about the meretricious speculations coming from dead or moribund psychedelic gurus like Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson, for back in the 1970's, along with FM, they wrote things about "life in the year 2000" or thereabouts that sound ridiculous now. All the talk in my youth about space colonization certainly has a "retro" feel to it in my 40's, considering that in the 21st Century industrial civilization has to bunker down in response to the worsening oil supply situation. We've already had to relinquish supersonic air travel by grounding the Concorde, with no successor technology in sight, and I suspect nothing will come along to replace the Space Shuttle either. Subsonic air travel can struggle along for a few more years, but then that will stop as well when governments requisition the remaining trickle of jet fuel for their purposes. So you can make the case that the jet-setting lifestyle and space colonization also represent infeasible futures.

Maybe someone can explain this to me. Who, for example, represents a "retro-futurist" viewpoint?

dagon wrote on September 6, 2005 7:15 AM

...that the left is gaining momentum. I find myself at odds with many of the people you distance yourself from - and likewise I find myself sympathizing with many of your ideals. I will have a good look at your group and lists and will try and contribute.

I am very happy with this initiative. There are "forces of evil" at work in the world, especially in the plutocratic elites of corporate and governmental ranks, especially of those in the U.S., which must be opposed with all (legal) means.