…might be a prudent thing to consider when evaluating transhumanist technological utopias:
When technical capacity is considered in isolation, it becomes possible to do all sorts of things. And indeed, many of those things probably will be done – and some of them will even be completed. But the full scale “rescue of society” strategies become increasingly unlikely, precisely because most of the rescue strategies fail to acknowledge what John Michael Greer correctly calls the whole systems cost of maintaining that infrastructure. Given the degree to which we have put off basic maintenance of our most fundamental infrastructure (bridges, sewers, water pipes, etc… for a national delayed-cost of over $3 trillion), we do have to ask ourselves what would have to happen to make something technically possible real?
…one of the many projects that face us is the transformation of our relationship to our technologies – we have, for the longest time, assumed that because things can be done, they will. We can see with our own eyes that those assumptions have often been incorrect, but many have been blind to that fact. Opening eyes to what is actually viable for us in the future we have created and now inhabit is a vast, but enormously necessary undertaking.
When Technical Feasibility Doesn’t Matter :: Sharon Astyk :: ASPO-USA