Re: <nettime> Google distorts reality

[h w <misterwarwick@yahoo.com>]

> 
>    1. Re: Google distorts reality (chad scov1lle)

wrote:

>The path to utopia is paved with blood.

The path to utopia leads [nowhere.erehwon]

Utopia assumes a better future. This is a new idea, and perhaps one of
the first "modern" ideas. Utopia invented collapse: as a vision of a
great future implies missing the mark, it also permits dystopia. Buck
Rogers > Blade Runner.

The opposite position is utopia in the past - Eden, Atlantis, "the
Golden Age". In that case, calamity is the order of the day, and one
cannot assume a better tomorrow.

Columbus 1492. Utopia 1514.

Discovery of another world of resources: unlimited prospects of growth
and plunder: it is possible to think of utopia.

Petroleum Discovery Peak 1962. Production flattens 2005. Oil $100
barrel 2007.

A vision of fewer resources, a future of limits and depopulation, a
return to calamity as the order of the day. Utopia is shelved as
wishful thinking, an idle phantasy. 

"Idle Eyes Idolise."
- Pere Ubu  "I Will Wait" _Dub Housing_ 1978

Contraction and efficiency describe the limits of communication
technology. Solidarity and localised community become models of optimal
survival.

Katrina was the preamble, and the first act has Google building its
facilities next to hydroelectric dams in Oregon.

This is not a "doomsday" image. This is transition - something much
worse. With doom, there's an end to the suffering. With transition,
apocalypse becomes a luxury.

HW



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