John Michael Greer: The God Of Technological Progress May Well Be Dead
The stories running our heads influence everything from our beliefs to our values to our actions.
The stories running our heads influence everything from our beliefs to our values to our actions.
How will people cope when some of their most cherished beliefs have to face a cage match with reality, and come out second best?
I want to review here some of the reasons why I expect an era of crisis to arrive sooner rather than later.
In recent years a fundamentally new class of technologies – made possible by developments in hardware, software and networking and informed by social psychology – are enabling the emergence of novel forms of feedback on resource consumption and environmental quality.
In this talk Sophy looks at the four stories, at the psychological reasons why they’re all important, and the overarching process that links them all. Participants will be invited to explore and develop their own future story.
There are times when the deindustrial future seems to whisper in the night like a wind blowing through the trees, sending the easy certainties of the present spinning like dead leaves.
During the time just past, I’ve had several reminders of the power of stories to shape the world of human experience, and the way those stories can get out of step with the facts on the ground.
Forget ultimate truth; forget the consensus view of the future. In the end, it came down to which belief engendered energy, openness and possibility…
I’ve more than once considered writing a fantasy novel about the fall of Atlantis as a way of talking about the crisis of our age.
Float down the remote Kobuk River and you might encounter grizzlies, salmon, bald eagles, and caribou. Oh—and open-pit mines, if Alaska’s governor gets his way.
When you think about it, it’s really rather odd that so many people nowadays should be so hostile to the suggestion that history moves in circles.