And now, for those of you who think that it's 1968 and are astonished by the bull's-eye accuracy of the predictions by the Club of Rome, we present four scenarios of the future city.
I tell a lie. It's actually two scenarios with the second chopped up into three bits. The first one up, above, shows what will happen when people exercise individual freedom and keep thinking for themselves. The city of 2040 is a Bladerunneresque nightmare world where Capitalism causes shortages (what else could ever happen?), physicians can't find jobs (?), petrol is only affordable by billionaires (why is never explained), yet ordinary commuters drive about in armoured Winnebagos, entrepreneurs destroy jobs because they "keep them for their friends", Russia is somehow in a position to impose wheat embargoes and the Chinese economy is imploding. Though how any of this is due to one city having a poor internal transportation system remains to be seen.
The second (we'll just show part one, because the happy-clappy scenario is always the same) claims that the answer to all our problems is aggressively applied Eco-Socialism where only carbon dissidents are unhappy. Well, that's what re-education camps are for. Climate change in this world is as much a given fact as peak oil and as little justified, central planning works flawlessly, command economies are prosperous, public transport runs like a dream, personal transport is restricted to electric scooters and G-Wizes that are fueled by happy thoughts about Blessed Gaia, meat is hardly ever eaten and not missed at all (Soma must be the only unrationed commodity), "green" industries make money hand over fist, Outer Party members are delighted with getting along with less in their restricted and controlled little lives (Especially when their urban prison masquerades as a pocket democracy.), and there are apparently lots and lots of public sector jobs and welfare state benefits paid for by the money fairies. Oh, and war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, and Oceania has always been at war with East Asia.
What does this remind me of? Oh, yes; the promises of Allende's Chile (that control room has to be somewhere) and every other Marxist utopia right before they started blaming the failures on wreckers and saboteurs.
Naturally, the once-sane Scientific American is giddy about the whole idea. As for me, I offer this counter scenario:
Update: I've been looking at their website. It's a crime against decent writing.
3 comments:
We've been fed all that Democracity nonsense for years, it's amazing how otherwise sane people could think that petty bureaucrats could make decisions about how to live life. I don't believe a system based on just telling people what to do can last all that long.
Victor Davis Hanson recently pointed out that the current mindset of liberals is to strictly live in the present with no concept of a future other than "just the way things are now".
Looks like the wealth envy mentality is really getting a workout these days, has there been this much "worker" vs "evil hated rich" used to such political advantage in recent memory?
Disjointed thoughts, but was typing them out as the viditoons were playing
For the life of me, I can't really decide whether the "better" scenario is satire or not…
Global Food Council?
Designated Careers?
Smartphone Calorie Cards?
Actually i just read about a traffic jam in China that could last for days. Plus oils about to hit 4 bucks a gallon this summer so its not exactly looking like gas is the answer to all our promblems.I dont know about the point of the armored cars but they definitly look cool. This scenario is definitly overexagurated but isnt everybody using fear to gain power and scare people nowadays.
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