Paleo-Future Update

Interesting website describing some paleo-future(my definition) communities- Unsprawl

(The box in the top left, called "case studies" lets you look at the different communities)

Also some great paleo-Future(real definition) antics on The Dusty Show.

The paleo-futurism starts a bit after minute 19, and like many things on WFMU, it is hilarious, but goes on way to long.

(for the competing definitions of paleo-futurism see my first post)

Conspicuous Unconsumption Example 1

(thanks to Cassandra)

An Idea for a Review of a Non-Existant Story

In both of the previous posts I described how I had invented new terms, only to discover through a Google search that someone else had already coined them. This reminded me of an idea I had for a short story.

One of my favorite writers, Jorge Louis Borges, in his story "The Aleph", imagined a specific spot where one could view every single thing in the world, from every single angle, simultaneously, and comprehend it all instantly. In "The Library of Babel" he imagined a world consisting entirely of an infinite library, containing every combination of letters possible within a book. The world is populated with hopeless librarians, vainly searching for something comprehensible. Both of the stories are ways to imagine the infinite amount of information contained within the universe. They are also both horror stories. One shows the horror of infinite knowledge, the other the horror of being lost in infinite meaninglessness.

After I read these stories, both published in the 1940's, I was struck by how much they predicted certain developments in information instigated by Google. Google Earth would be The Aleph, and Google Books, the Library of Babel. Obviously the analogies are not perfect, Google Earth does not allow you to view every single thing on earth simultaneously in real time, but that does seem to be the direction things are heading. Google Books also intends to digitize every book in the entire world, so an infinite library is not that far fetched. Luckily, though, it will be search-able, so the horror of being lost in infinite meaninglessness seems averted.

What about the horror of infinite knowledge? Well, that's impossible. There is only so much you can comprehend. But instant unlimited access to all knowledge is not impossible. The internet is getting closer and closer to this, and also closer and closer to being an essential part of peoples lives. With the iphone especially, instant information can now be accessed by people at all times(provided they get service, of course.) The iphone can also do this.

So what are the consequences of unlimited access? Two things immediately came to mind for me. First, memorization will become obsolete. If you can access any information at any time, why memorize it? This is why people don't memorize phone numbers or driving directions. I see this as a trend that will continue in other areas of knowledge. Second, originality becomes very difficult. If all information is search-able, its very hard to think something that has never been thought before. Hence, my problems with Paleo-Futurism, and conspicuous unconsumption. Also this. When everything you can say has not only been said before, but can be instantly looked up, it is going to change how people express themselves.

Predictably, I was also not the first one to realize this. It is one of the major ideas of post-modernism. The author Umberto Eco beautifully expresses the post-modern aesthetic,

The postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently. I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows he cannot say to her, "I love you madly," because he knows that she knows (and that she knows that he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still, there is a solution. He can say, "As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly."

The internet has not only made this form of expression inescapable, but also more difficult. He can no longer even say, "As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly." She could instantly search and see that it was taken from an Umberto Eco quote. How insincere!

So all this got my thinking. What would being smart mean in the future, if memorization was obsolete? What purpose would knowledge play in peoples live? How would we express ourselves? This gave me my idea for a story. Although in true Borgesian fashion, I'm to lazy to write it, so I think I'll just write a fake review of it. In the future. If it hasn't been written by someone else already.

Conspicuous Unconsumption

I recently learned about Thorstein Veblen. Besides having an awesome name and enviable facial hair, he did many funny things. Supposedly he once asked a religious student the value that her church had for her in kegs of beer. He also had a lot of extra-marital affairs, which is especially surprising because of how weird looking he is. He is most famous, though, for making up the term "conspicuous consumption." It is the idea that the demand for luxury goods is driven not by the usefulness of the goods, but by the desire to appear incredibly rich. It is why this exists.

This idea is self evident in modern life. Rappers, for example, are basically poster children for conspicuous consumption.
His goblet attains no extra liquid carrying capability by being diamond clad. In fact, I bet wearing a lot of bling all the time actually makes life more difficult. You probably need a lot of neck strength, for instance. In this way conspicuous consumption is kinda like Darwin's sexual selection. This isn't to say I have anything against rappers. They are so unabashed in their desire to cover everything in diamonds, its kind of refreshing. And hilarious.

After I learned about conspicuous consumption I started seeing how this drive, to let people know you are better than others, and therefore a good mate, is being translated by the new environmental ethos. For a lot of people I know, consumption is out (unfortunately I don't know any rappers). But if you can't show others how fit you are to succeed in society by a useless expenditure of wealth, how else are you supposed to do it?

This is the paradox of what I call conspicuous unconsumption. Just like with paleo-futurism, I thought I invented this term, but some other people on the internet have already used it. At first it seems like an oxymoron. How can you conspicuously not do something?

The most obvious example I can find is in fashion. The whole indie, thrift store, hipster look I see as a result of conspicuous unconsumption. In this case you are conspicuously not buying new clothes. Whats silly is that this look, which started as people buying things from thrift stores because they were cheap, has been commercialized by clothing companies to get into the market of conspicuous unconsumption. This gives you silly things like grunge fashion, and pre-ripped jeans.

Another example I can think of is hybrid cars. If you get a hybrid car you are in essence unconsuming petroleum conspicuously. This drive for conspicuous unconsumption, which made the Toyata Prius so successful, was mocked perfectly on South Park, where the people who buy hybrid cars get so smug they like the smell of their own farts.

Personally I'm all for conspicuous unconsumption. The way I see it, people have a natural drive to impress others and attract mates. I would rather it be harnessed against consumption than for it. In fact I think the anti-consumerism and environmental movements will only really succeed where they can make conspicuous unconsumption effective. Everybody can see you driving a hybrid car, but people can't see if your buying carbon offsets. The more people are able to conspicuously not consume , the more they will do it.

A Brief History of Paleo-Futurism

This blog was originally going to be called "The Paleo-Futurist." I wanted to start a blog to document and develop all the ideas I have, questions I wonder about, and weird stuff that interests me. The word futurist seemed to do a good job of summing up the general bent of my interests. But futurist, like almost any -ist word, has all sorts of preexisting associations for people, which I wanted to avoid. There is, for instance, the art movement Futurism, which I think is really, really silly. So silly its awesome. For instance, check out these musicians. Or this quote from the Futurist Manifesto(1909),

We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath—a roaring car that seems to ride on grapeshot is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.

Also there are sci-fi type people who call themselves futurists. Like Isaac Asimov, or people who draw things like this. Also both cool and silly.

What I mean when I think of being a futurist, though, is someone who is thinking about new ideas and looking at how things are changing, and trying to guide that change in some direction, rather than just go along with it. In my case, I want a future that has less cars and engines and speed, and weird boxes with cones coming out of them. I don't really like driving places, pollution, city lights, or industrial noise. Not that I'm against technology. I'm just against how its often used. Anyway, to describe my stance I made up a new term, Paleo-Futurism. This term sounded cool, and had the added bonus of not making any sense. I was very proud of myself.

Unfortunately, I googled the term, and I found that it had already been invented by someone else! In fact someone already made a blog called Paleo-Future! They use the term to describe antique visions of the future. Which are generally awesome and silly(see above on Futurism, or rent Back to the Future II). Also their use of the term makes more sense than mine. So I thought of a different name for the blog.