Doug Wilson · @frickingruvin
17 followers · 75 posts · Server mastodon.modern-industry.com"Hope begins with the ability to imagine alternatives. And there is always an alternative."
https://doctorow.medium.com/there-is-always-an-alternative-e55fd414d1fd
#Hope #Imagination #HumanRights #Politics #Literature #Polycrisis #ClimateEmergency #Inequality #InfrastructureNeglect #Authoritarianism #ZoonoticPlague #COVID #Thermodynamics #Optimism #Pessimism #Fatalism #Inevitabilism #Realism #HumanAgency #Inevitable #Alternative #Luddite #Technology #Millionaire #Billionaire #ScienceFiction #Predict #Contest #Challenge
#hope #imagination #humanrights #politics #literature #polycrisis #climateemergency #inequality #infrastructureneglect #authoritarianism #zoonoticplague #covid #thermodynamics #optimism #pessimism #fatalism #inevitabilism #realism #humanagency #inevitable #alternative #luddite #technology #millionaire #billionaire #sciencefiction #predict #contest #challenge
Cory Doctorow's linkblog · @pluralistic
40581 followers · 39069 posts · Server mamot.frThis has a lot in common with science fiction, a genre full of thought experiments that ask #Heinlein's famous three questions:
* What if?
* If only, and
* If this goes on...
These contrafactuals are incredibly useful and important. As critical tools, science fiction's parables about the future are the best chance we have for resisting the #inevitabilism that insists that technology *must* be used in a certain way, or must exist at all.
7/
Clara Listensprechen {Mdon} · @ClaraListensprechen
299 followers · 11474 posts · Server universeodon.com
Cory Doctorow's linkblog · @pluralistic
39915 followers · 37431 posts · Server mamot.frThat's why they're so invested in the idea that - as #MargaretThatcher endlessly repeated - "#ThereIsNoAlternative":
https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/08/tina-v-tapas/#its-pronounced-tape-ass
#Inevitabilism is a cheap rhetorical trick. "There is no alternative" is a demand disguised as a truth. It really means "Stop trying to think of an alternative."
26/
#margaretthatcher #thereisnoalternative #inevitabilism
Cory Doctorow's linkblog · @pluralistic
37752 followers · 35211 posts · Server mamot.frCapital's greatest weapon in this battle is #inevitabilism, sometimes called #CapitalistRealism, summed up with #FredericJameson's famous quote "It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism" (often misattributed to #Žižek). A simpler formulation can be found in the doctrine of #MargaretThatcher: "There Is No Alternative," or even #Dante's "#AbandonHope all ye who enter here."
5/
#inevitabilism #capitalistrealism #FredericJameson #zizek #margaretthatcher #dante #abandonhope