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your header is now my top toot!
"making an enemy of our own future"
"A Grand Challenge
My friends, the simple truth is that we are wasting our precious time, resources, intellect, and passion. As a species we are just as aimless today as when our primitive ancestors first ventured out upon this earth.
Today I am proposing that for the first time in human history, we change that.
Radically.
More than any time in history, humanity needs a grand challenge. Not only to avert its extinction, but also to indelibly etch the common bond of mutual reliance and cooperation on current and future generations.
Fortunately, all of the forces that now seem to conspire against us can quickly be turned to our advantage.
For the first time in human history we actually possess technologies so advanced that any physical problem can potentially be solved.
And yet, I wonder, do we possess the will and wisdom to utilize them for our salvation instead of our destruction?
I propose that we find out.
So today I offer you a radical and stark choice between two future realities.
An aimless future of continued war and conflict, with all its accompanying suffering and death; or a limitless future dedicated to defeating suffering and death itself, with all its accompanying technological advancement and social evolution.
Yes indeed, I have a new plan, for all of you. A plan of hope. A plan of adventure. A plan of such extraordinary magnitude as to take the breath, and challenge the senses, of all who would consider it. A plan to bind our common people in hope, and finally free our conscience for noble purpose.
I propose that in the next three decades we at last end the scourge of human disease upon this Earth, and begin the inevitable adventure of humanity's migration beyond it.
We shall at last unlock the fundamental secrets of our biology so we may conquer any illness or defect at will, and we shall free ourselves from the bonds of our native home so we may evade global calamities, and begin the expansion of our species beyond this world.
No longer shall our survival be dependent upon the random and dispassionate forces of nature. No longer shall we quiver in anguish as we helplessly watch those we love suffer and die in agony from an endless list of human disease and dysfunction. No longer shall our globe be divided in constant turmoil and conflict while the hammer of fate hangs precariously balanced over all we know and love.
We shall at last take control of our future, our fate, and ourselves.
No other endeavor ever attempted by humankind will require more genius, dedication, compassion, and sacrifice.
And no other endeavor ever attempted by humankind will be more vital to the continued existence of our species.
I understand that for many this may initially seem like pure science fiction. This is to be expected since the scales of the threats we face reside within the scope of what we have always considered to be science fiction. However, in reality, all of these goals are well within our technological reach. They are the quickest, and I believe only, way for our species to battle both the physical and societal threats that will continue to confront us."
SearingTruth, A Future of the Brave, 2005
No mention of the climate catastrophe, or the exponential growth in resource consumption and waste?!
If in the next three decades we don't manage to stabilize our ecosystem, which already seems impossibly hard, we will devastate civilization and the planet.
I found these ideas charming if a bit naive in the 1970. Now I think they're actively dangerous.
The absolute belief in technology is just another form of denying reality. 
@SearingTruth @amiserabilist
@TobiWanKenobi @SearingTruth @amiserabilist Bang on.
I have often compared humanity's relationship to technology to an addict's relationship to their drug: no matter what the question is, the answer to it is, "More cocaine!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qp9MCNRtdI
https://genius.com/Sleepytime-gorilla-museum-fc-the-freedom-club-lyrics
I address that in a previous section of the speech fellow citizen Tom Ritchford, titled "Tick, Tick". If you wish to read the whole thing you can go to my old archived website - "http://www.searingtruth.org" (or .com) and read "A Future of the Brave." My bio explains the origins of my writings, and warnings when searching for them.
But for now, here's "Tick, Tick" ...
ST
"Tick, Tick
Fellow citizens, the truth is that our present can only be as stable as our future.
For too long we have hobbled from decade to decade, generation to generation, and millennium to millennium, myopically adhering to superfluous battles that can never be won. Never once as a species forwarding or embracing an all encompassing path towards a certainly better future.
Our excuses have been many, our reasoning mostly incoherent, and our lack of vision as a species, certainly fatal.
For in the meantime, as each tick of the ages has passed, the critical threats posed and ignored by our species discordance have increased exponentially.
Pandemic famine and disease, massively destructive weapons, fatal atmospheric and climate change, super volcanic eruptions, catastrophic space body impacts, Orwellian societies of unparalleled oppression, and many other global catastrophes too numerous to list here, waiting to befall us at any moment."
In fact, one of the most immediate and ominous threats facing America and much of the world today is the utilization of advanced technologies for the implementation of authoritarian control over societies.
My friends, the truth is that if we do not fight for and secure freedom today, the time will very soon come when it will be almost impossible to do so.
In retrospect, when one soberly considers the critical challenges that we must face together to survive as a species, our differences, at times, can become almost imperceptible."
SearingTruth, A Future of the Brave, 2005
So, having acted in the same way for hundreds of thousands of years, living in tiny communities, with nothing having happened to change our way of thinking, all we have to do is globally change our psychology to a global viewpoint..
Yeah, no worries.
@amiserabilist I mean, I'm utterly hopeless but yeah lol
@amiserabilist
To the BPM of a nice drumnbass track 
@amiserabilist cynical optimism #cynopt
, Dream Witch 
@amiserabilist Both are true!
@amiserabilist my spring's broken, guess in which position I remained stuck
@amiserabilist
A better world?
There is this certain idiom here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/better_place 
Is that it? Well, maybe "we're so fucked" isn't so bad after all 
@amiserabilist simplified: action 
grief
koi 
boi :
@amiserabilist it could happen, but it won't
@amiserabilist possible yes, but feasible?
@amiserabilist Single most relatable meme on the internet today.
@amiserabilist
Tempo: Allegro agitato
@amiserabilist @meganmariehart allegro andante
@amiserabilist First we need to define what better world looks like??
@amiserabilist both are true, a better world is possible but we are going in the other direction
@amiserabilist Tic… tac… tic… tac…
@amiserabilist @screambiogenesis both are long term thinking. The world doesn’t end with our generation (although it will be pretty fucked for many generations after ours). The message of “A better world is possible” isn’t supposed to be blind optimism in denial of reality, but it’s supposed to mean that the current system that brought us the climate catastrophe hasn’t always existed and will not always exist. It may seem hard to imagine a world or a society without it, but the same was true for the divine right of kings, and yet that’s not around any more. A better world is possible means that despite everything we should dare to dream of and fight for a better world, not because we can’t see how bad things are but exactly because we can see that, and so we see the necessity of radical change, which starts with reminding ourselves that it’s possible and not letting our imaginations be constrained. That systems of oppression like capitalism are not some kind of force of nature, they’re not inevitable. That, while we can’t change the past and the things set in motion, we can always change the future of our society and learn from past mistakes, and precisely because things are fucked we imagine a better world, because now more than ever we see how capitalism is a death machine and we need to destroy it and build something better (the latter doesn’t have to and shouldn’t come after the first, we can already try to build little pockets of a better society, so that when the system comes crashing down a better society can quickly grow from there to take its place)
@screambiogenesis @amiserabilist or at least that’s the way I see it. Who knows how other people interpret it.
@amiserabilist Mine averaged out into "FUCK IT WE BALL"
My Me-tronone doesn't care...I'm 80, my generation held it together until Obama slithered in, it's somebody else's job now.
@Soyapo11 you dead yet? I'm looking for good news to start the week.
@Beeks No such luck, DNA good to 90 unless a Boeing door hits me.
@Soyapo11 lol this was fun. I looked back, saw I was mean and thought "why was I so mean to this funny old man?" so I kept scrolling, oh yeah, he's a bigot. Womp womp. I should always trust in past me. Thanks for the lesson. 
@amiserabilist @robyn Both are true. A better world is possible, but unlikely. Hence, we're so fucked.
@UrbanEdm @amiserabilist @robyn A better world is possible -- without us!
I advise against that choice. It did not work out too well for me.
well well well if it isn't the consequences of my own actions
Shh.. this information you reference is very occult and secret. We can not have the common folk learning of these things.