(Warning: contains political content.) I'm with John Michael Greer on this one; I think it's
nihilistic escapism.
Quote:
|
Back of all the gaudy claims of history’s end currently on display – the Rapture, the Singularity, the supposed end of the Mayan calendar in 2012, and all the rest of it – is a frantic insistence that we don’t have to live with the consequences of our collective actions. That’s the common thread that connects the seeming optimism of the claim that Jesus or the Space Brothers or superintelligent computers will fix things, on the one hand, with the seeming pessimism of the claims that we’re all about to be wiped out by solar flares or asteroid bombardment or the evil plans of the Illuminati.
|
In another post,
he points out,
Quote:
|
It’s understandable; science fiction scenarios and apocalyptic fireworks are so much more exciting than the future of mass impoverishment, infrastructure breakdown, sociopolitical disintegration, and ragged population decline that the misguided choices of the last few decades have handed us.
|
He even put out a call for post-apoc stories containing, in his words, "no alien spacebats"--no supertech beyond the ken of modern man, no saviors-from-beyond, no drastic change in the DNA of humanity so we can breathe in space or eat plastic, etc. A post last month mentioned it should be coming out soon; he's got a
title-and-author list for the stories (in the middle of a complex political post):
- Randall S. Ellis’ "Autumn Night"
- E.A. Freeman’s "The Lore Keepers"
- Thijs Goverde’s "Think Like A Tinkerer"
- Susan Harelson’s "Maestra y Aprendiz"
- Harry J. Lerwill’s "Caravan of Hopes"
- Catherine McGuire’s "The Going"
- Avery Morrow’s "The Great Clean-Up"
- Kieran O’Neill’s "Bicycleman Sakhile and the Cell Tower"
- J.D. Smith’s "The Urgent, the Necessary"
- Philip Steiner’s "Traveling Show"
- David Trammel’s "Small Town Justice"