Mr. Esfandiary sees the future as an earthly Heaven in which, by the miracle of technology, humans will usurp the role of God — who, it may be recalled, was once thought to be the only maker of manna...
He is berating us, with the fervor of an evangelist because we do not abandon ourselves to machines as people of faith abandon themselves to God. He is berating us, in fact, for not being gods or at least acting as if we were gods.The crucial concept here is that of“limitless” or “infinite”quantity.
From _The Unsettling of America_: Wendell Berry on a 1975 article where F. M. Esfandiary
nytimes.com/1975/08/09/archive…
#WendellBerry #TheUnsettling #FMEsfandiary more #FuturologyBullshit like for Nukes in the 1950s "too cheap to meter" or "AI" (LLM Salami data-center waste) "generative AI" "agentic AI" probability games will save us from the over-use add the wasting of everything..
Homo Sapiens: The Manna Maker
A "bright-sided" article about the wonders of technology on the brink of providing everyone with heaven on earth, from 1975..www.nytimes.com
bsmall2
in reply to Brian Small • • •Wendell Berry's send up of a "techtopia just around the corner" article from 1975 got me looking for an Albert Camus line..
". we offer as an example, the only original rule of life today: t learn to live and to die, and in order to be a man, to refuse to be a god. "
From #TheRebel: #albertcamus
Both writers, Berry and Camus, argue for Moderation, Modesty, and Mercy the 3 treasures from _Lao Tzu_'s chapter 67 ....
#ThreeTreasures #ThreeMs
@bsmall2@nerdica.net
bsmall2
in reply to bsmall2 • • •"In 1950[3?], excess is always a comfort, and sometimes a career. Moderation, on the one hand, is nothing but pure tension. It smiles, no doubt, and our Convulsionists, dedicated to elaborate apocalypses, despise it. But its smile shines brightly at the climax of an interminable effort: it is in itself a supplementary source of strength...."
#CamusOnModeration #ModerationAsTension #Moderation
@bsmall2@nerdica.net
Brian Small
in reply to bsmall2 • •#ModerationAndRebellion #ModerationAndIntelligence in #TheRebel by #AlbertCamus
@bsmall2
bsmall2
in reply to Brian Small • • •1975! Space Dude was Soviet no "richest guy in world"...
> We now have the capability to extract limitless raw materials from recycled wastes, rocks, the earth's interiors, the ocean floors, space.
> Vladimir Shatalov, chief of Soviet astronaut training, envisions atomic power stations in space, fueled by raw materials from the planets. “Would you say this is fantasy?” he asks. “But all space exploits come from fantasies.”
nytimes.com/1975/08/09/archive…
@bsmall2@nerdica.net
#SpaceFantasy #InfiniteEnergy