Home > Notes from the Underground
I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it.
All of the ephemera that is far too trivial to be bothered with elsewhere on this site or, depending on your point of view, a meta-commentary on it. This ephemera includes, but is not limited to art, music and literature. Most of the content here will be discussed in terms that are as abstract as possible, reality being a singularly overrated concept.
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
I came across this set of technological and political predictions today. I suspect my view of social development closely follows that of JG Ballard, namely that the future will be very boring; a homogenised and rather bland future, balanced by the occasional terrorist bombing of schools by groups outraged at the presence of lead in pencils. Equally so, the future is also likely to be heavily regulated, as enlightnment models of liberty wane. Freedom, such as it will be, will be a rather uncreatin concept guaranteed intermittently by social and media pressure rather than through political institutions. Regarding geopolitics the EU may increasingly challenge the US in the only sphere where its power is not pre-eminent; the cultural and philosophical one (particularly as the US continues to slide towards an increasingly theocratic worldview); Europe will undoubtedly seek to export its mission civilisatrice of transnational, law-based integration. As Karl Kaiser said "Europeans have done something that no one has ever done before: create a zone of peace where war is ruled out, absolutely out. Europeans are convinced that this model is valid for other parts of the world."
Nonetheless, China would still seem the more sensible bet in the longer term, as its economic power continues to slowly increase (by contrast, one can expect extensive economic regulation and the costs of expansion to drag the EU back).Labels: Futurism
posted by Richard 7:53 pm
