On 03/08/2014 10:58 PM, Rob van Kranenburg wrote:

> So yes it is extremely important how we approach these questions of
> magic, agency, a scripted serendipity (internet of things second hand
> ‚magic’) in a database reality of ‚Google Now’ and whether it will be
> possible at all for the younger generations to approach any non-tagged
> or non-micro-processored object thereby losing the very notion that that
> object itself resonates and ‚is’ or ‚acts’, being removed thus twice
> from what we have until perceived as reality. We also have to find a way
> to compensate for that loss and investigate what can be gained and what
> can be won in such a world,
>

Well, the future might end up being less high-tech and more business as
usual in the end.

I'm thinking of the effects of two upcoming changes, climate change and
peak oil.

So far, the evidence points to climate change continuing at a pace
slightly worse than predicted, leading to unstable weather and
disastrous floodings, storms, etc.

At the same time, the economic system is endorsing an unlimited growth
philosophy which seems to take no account at all that the energy supply
is finite and that we can't go on emitting greenhouse gasses. We're
simply not preparing in any meaningful sense of the word, and that means
there's going to be a bill to be paid at some point. This is most likely
going to be when the non-renewable energy supply runs out or the
environmental costs make it infeasible (fracking etc.).

Now, we can compensate for a lot of these things by having less
infrastructure, doing organic production, organizing locally etc., but
the production of computer chips needed for our modern computers will
always require a sophisticated international infrastructure. This means
that computerization might become one of the victims of peak oil and
climate change and people will have to fall back on a "simpler"
civilization model with less tech, or with the electronics we can source
from locally available components and without centralized factories,
which may turn out to be not a lot in the end.

At least we should not take for granted that the centralization needed
for having factories capable of producing integrated circuits can be
upheld. That's one of the things we should have in mind when planning
for the future.

Best
Carsten