Recent searches
Search options
I don't agree with everything in this article, but "The Long Defeat" is a hell of a framing for fighting the #climateemergency .
https://www.noemamag.com/its-time-to-give-up-hope-for-a-better-climate-get-heroic/
"A Call To The Storytellers"
We should not be surprised that the story of the state of the world and our role in it is being so ineptly told. The activists and academics who have served as the scientists’ main scribes.... are unsuited to tell the story of even the best of times; it is certainly far beyond them to forge a rhetoric for these urgent ones.
....we will need to turn, and soon, to storytellers who can."
solarpunk prompts @alxd@writing.exchange@BrambleBearGrrrauwling @alberto_cottica that's actually great point! I worked with some academics who tried - https://lowcarbon.leeds.ac.uk/dreams-of-a-low-carbon-future/ , or professor Joshua Pearce with https://aditiandslick.tumblr.com/ and https://www.appropedia.org/To_Catch_the_Sun - and I could see how much they want to express something, but don't have the right skillset.
It's up for the storytellers to help them find new symbols and languages to tell their stories. I wrote about it at https://lenses.alxd.org/
@alxd @BrambleBearGrrrauwling with some kindred souls, I have been thinking about a subset of this: using #sciencefiction to unlock more creativity in #economics. We call our conversation, tongue-in-cheek, the Science Fiction Economics Lab. Here is a lecture, read at your peril. 
https://edgeryders.eu/t/designer-economies-how-much-freedom-do-we-really-have-when-imagining-believable-economic-systems/19279?u=alberto
Read at your peril, indeed. You meant a rabbit hole, a firehose, a host of ideas to explore!
Interesting that you bring up Iain M Banks. In one of his non-Culture novels he describes an economy based on "kudos". What's your take on that? Kudos are not fungible or transferable, but is it too close in nature to money?
1/2 @CelloMomOnCars I don't think I have read that one. Anyway I would not use expressions like "too close to money". They imply that there is a right amount of closeness to money, whereas the whole point of sci-fi econ is to do thought experiments.
2/3 @CelloMomOnCars @alxd @BrambleBearGrrrauwling
Many authors have played with the idea of reputation as currency: for example @bruces ("reputation servers"), @r_emrys ("upvoting") and @DanielSuarez ("darknet credits"). All these thought experiments are valuable. My heart goes to Cory Doctorow's (@pluralistic) explanation of why reputation economies are a bad idea, but that's just my own conclusion.
3/3 @CelloMomOnCars @alxd @BrambleBearGrrrauwling Economic analysis of Cory's Walkaway (look into section 3 of part 2): https://edgeryders.eu/t/the-economics-of-cory-doctorows-walkaway/8828?u=alberto
More works of economic sci-fi:
https://edgeryders.eu/t/economic-science-fiction-a-selection-of-works-and-authors/8582?u=alberto
/fin
@alberto_cottica @alxd Cool beans! Will give this some time soon!
@alxd @alberto_cottica Science exucation and training actively curbs expressive language and communication, striving instead for a measured, calm, "rational", dispassionate tone. Which is very useful to most scientific discussion. But we need as much passion, outrage, excitement and heart as we can muster to wake the overwhelmed and capitalism-zombified to action. Unlearning that measured, dispassionate style will be hard scientists. But all that is what storytellers do best!
@alxd @alberto_cottica Ooh! Will have to give thst a look!