Wage slavery will probably always be with us, but in the USA, it will more likely be health insurance slavery. AI seems an inevitable continuation of our technological progress, which has already caused loss of jobs and careers. My husband was a graphic artist in the days of pasteup and proofreading. His Compugraphic machine was called Uncle Wiggly, a monster bigger than a refrigerator. He was driven out of graphics and in to care giving and house cleaning.
Your life experiences have surely given you an interesting perspective. Thank you for sharing those facts and memories.
It seems that Toffler's "future shock," which morphed into Rushkoff's "present shock," is now morphing into -- what, "past shock"? A world where changes happen so fast that we're not even aware of them until they're already in place and the world has shifted beneath our feet and been transformed around us without our noticing?
Have we already crossed some technological Rubicon in the past 20 years, or 10, or maybe last year -- or maybe five minutes ago -- that profoundly and irrevocably changed everything, including our very selves, but we're still waiting for its effects, and/or for our awareness of them, to manifest? IOW, has the singularity already happened? (Shades of the human inhabitants of the Matrix not knowing their whole world had been upended and supplanted centuries ago.)
Matt, do you have a favorite RAW title? I read Quantum Psychology a few years back but I'm not sure I was ready for it then. Might have to revisit now. Important topic you're writing about. I'm not sure we've evolved to handle change on such a massive level. I recall even as a kid or young adult waking up to the idea that the 90's were subtly different from the 80's which were subtly different from the 70's. That change has only accelerated of course. Have a great day!!
Speaking for both RAW's fiction and nonfiction (a distinction that is of course blurry in the case of his work), my favorite fiction is either The Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy or the Historical Illuminatus Chronicles. In the case of the latter, the second book, The Widow's Son, may be the single best thing he ever wrote in terms of pure literary achievement. Absolutely brilliant.
My favorite nonfiction is Cosmic Trigger, a.k.a. Cosmic Trigger I, since he later wrote two more volumes. You could read that book alone and have a window into his entire vibe, oeuvre, and soul. Very (very) close behind that one is Prometheus Rising.
What you say about the sense of accelerating change from the 80s until now is certainly true in my own experience. Hard to believe it was a revolutionary technological and entertainment event in my household and lifetime when we got our first VCR, circa 1982. And I was listening to 8-track tapes. Quite a leap from there to online digital streaming media. And accompanying social and cultural transformation has been similarly precipitous.
I predict you'll like very much. If you want a brief intro to some of its contents, see my essay/paper "In Search of Higher Intelligence: The Daemonic Muse(s) of Aleister Crowley, Timothy Leary, and Robert Anton Wilson," where I reference it several times. This is included in my WHAT THE DAEMON SAID, and also in the book DAIMONIC IMAGINATION, UNCANNY INTELLIGENCE, but I think it's also available online in various places from its original 2012 publication in the academic journal PARANTHROPOLOGY.
While I think there will be a need for a Universal Basic Income in the not too distant future, I'm very skeptical of putting such a powerful tool of manipulation in the hands of a government - funded by governments perhaps, but implemented with ethical transparency.
I love RAW - I seem to have adopted a practice of reading Prometheus Rising every couple of years - every time I re-read it I find new things.
I agree with you on both counts (skepticism toward putting such a tool in the hands of government, and love of RAW).
Prometheus Rising is one of my core RAW books. If you group it with Cosmic Trigger I, Quantum Psychology, the Schrodinger's Cat trilogy, the Historical Illuminatus Chronicles, and the original Illuminatus! trilogy, you have a large chunk of my own philosophical and esoteric education on a single shelf.
Wage slavery will probably always be with us, but in the USA, it will more likely be health insurance slavery. AI seems an inevitable continuation of our technological progress, which has already caused loss of jobs and careers. My husband was a graphic artist in the days of pasteup and proofreading. His Compugraphic machine was called Uncle Wiggly, a monster bigger than a refrigerator. He was driven out of graphics and in to care giving and house cleaning.
Your life experiences have surely given you an interesting perspective. Thank you for sharing those facts and memories.
It seems that Toffler's "future shock," which morphed into Rushkoff's "present shock," is now morphing into -- what, "past shock"? A world where changes happen so fast that we're not even aware of them until they're already in place and the world has shifted beneath our feet and been transformed around us without our noticing?
Have we already crossed some technological Rubicon in the past 20 years, or 10, or maybe last year -- or maybe five minutes ago -- that profoundly and irrevocably changed everything, including our very selves, but we're still waiting for its effects, and/or for our awareness of them, to manifest? IOW, has the singularity already happened? (Shades of the human inhabitants of the Matrix not knowing their whole world had been upended and supplanted centuries ago.)
Matt, do you have a favorite RAW title? I read Quantum Psychology a few years back but I'm not sure I was ready for it then. Might have to revisit now. Important topic you're writing about. I'm not sure we've evolved to handle change on such a massive level. I recall even as a kid or young adult waking up to the idea that the 90's were subtly different from the 80's which were subtly different from the 70's. That change has only accelerated of course. Have a great day!!
Speaking for both RAW's fiction and nonfiction (a distinction that is of course blurry in the case of his work), my favorite fiction is either The Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy or the Historical Illuminatus Chronicles. In the case of the latter, the second book, The Widow's Son, may be the single best thing he ever wrote in terms of pure literary achievement. Absolutely brilliant.
My favorite nonfiction is Cosmic Trigger, a.k.a. Cosmic Trigger I, since he later wrote two more volumes. You could read that book alone and have a window into his entire vibe, oeuvre, and soul. Very (very) close behind that one is Prometheus Rising.
What you say about the sense of accelerating change from the 80s until now is certainly true in my own experience. Hard to believe it was a revolutionary technological and entertainment event in my household and lifetime when we got our first VCR, circa 1982. And I was listening to 8-track tapes. Quite a leap from there to online digital streaming media. And accompanying social and cultural transformation has been similarly precipitous.
Thanks for the recs! Cosmic Trigger 1 is now in my cart:)
I predict you'll like very much. If you want a brief intro to some of its contents, see my essay/paper "In Search of Higher Intelligence: The Daemonic Muse(s) of Aleister Crowley, Timothy Leary, and Robert Anton Wilson," where I reference it several times. This is included in my WHAT THE DAEMON SAID, and also in the book DAIMONIC IMAGINATION, UNCANNY INTELLIGENCE, but I think it's also available online in various places from its original 2012 publication in the academic journal PARANTHROPOLOGY.
While I think there will be a need for a Universal Basic Income in the not too distant future, I'm very skeptical of putting such a powerful tool of manipulation in the hands of a government - funded by governments perhaps, but implemented with ethical transparency.
I love RAW - I seem to have adopted a practice of reading Prometheus Rising every couple of years - every time I re-read it I find new things.
I agree with you on both counts (skepticism toward putting such a tool in the hands of government, and love of RAW).
Prometheus Rising is one of my core RAW books. If you group it with Cosmic Trigger I, Quantum Psychology, the Schrodinger's Cat trilogy, the Historical Illuminatus Chronicles, and the original Illuminatus! trilogy, you have a large chunk of my own philosophical and esoteric education on a single shelf.