{"id":650,"date":"2025-01-10T11:58:03","date_gmt":"2025-01-10T11:58:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brevities.harddfan.net\/blog\/?p=650"},"modified":"2025-03-19T11:58:55","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T11:58:55","slug":"650","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brevities.harddfan.net\/blog\/uncategorized\/650\/","title":{"rendered":"Futures (from Kurt Vonnegut)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">&nbsp;1988: A vision of the future from Kurt Vonnegut:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-mahb wp-block-embed-mahb\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"Hz0EUSiAM0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mahb.stanford.edu\/blog\/kurt-vonneguts-letter-relevant-today\/\">Kurt Vonnegut&#8217;s 1988 Letter to the Future More Relevant Today Than Ever Before<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;Kurt Vonnegut&#8217;s 1988 Letter to the Future More Relevant Today Than Ever Before&#8221; &#8212; MAHB\" src=\"https:\/\/mahb.stanford.edu\/blog\/kurt-vonneguts-letter-relevant-today\/embed\/#?secret=rsBoB2p82f#?secret=Hz0EUSiAM0\" data-secret=\"Hz0EUSiAM0\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Interesting to note that way back in 1909 this was pretty much the same vision as laid out by E.M.Forster in &#8216;The Machine Stops&#8217;. Here are Vonnegut&#8217;s headline bullet points:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>1.&nbsp;Reduce and stabilize your population.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>2.&nbsp;Stop poisoning the air, the water, and the topsoil.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>3.&nbsp;Stop preparing for war and start dealing with your real problems.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>4.&nbsp;Teach your kids, and yourselves, too, while you\u2019re at it, how to inhabit a small planet without helping to kill it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>5.&nbsp;Stop thinking science can fix anything if you give it a trillion dollars.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>6.\u00a0Stop thinking your grandchildren will be OK no matter how wasteful or destructive you may be, since they can go to a nice new planet on a spaceship. That is\u00a0<em>really<\/em>\u00a0mean, and stupid.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>7.&nbsp;And so on. Or else.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>See also:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/blog\/post\/edit\/944366301035945703\/5239153230659080370#\">Benedict Cumberbatch reads Kurt Vonnegut<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>============================<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/blog\/post\/edit\/944366301035945703\/5239153230659080370#\">Futurism (Marinetti) was nuts, in a way we know so well!<\/a><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/blog\/post\/edit\/944366301035945703\/5239153230659080370#\">Big Tech\u2019s Partnership with Authoritarianism<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;1988: A vision of the future from Kurt Vonnegut: Interesting to note that way back in 1909 this was pretty much the same vision as laid out by E.M.Forster in &#8216;The Machine Stops&#8217;. Here are Vonnegut&#8217;s headline bullet points: 1.&nbsp;Reduce and stabilize your population. 2.&nbsp;Stop poisoning the air, the water, and the topsoil. 3.&nbsp;Stop preparing &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brevities.harddfan.net\/blog\/uncategorized\/650\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Futures (from Kurt Vonnegut)&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brevities.harddfan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brevities.harddfan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brevities.harddfan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brevities.harddfan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brevities.harddfan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brevities.harddfan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":655,"href":"https:\/\/brevities.harddfan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions\/655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brevities.harddfan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brevities.harddfan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brevities.harddfan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}