Conversation

Kevin Kelly’s 70th birthday aphorisms thing is probably the most depressing thing I’ve read so far in this decade 🤔
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Kk’s “out of control” was probably the first bit of “SV lore” lit I ever read. Probably 1998 or so.
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Now that the first generation of sensemakers of the digital era is kinda self-consciously heading into the sunset, kinda interesting to reflect on their net impact. How is this new world different because this cohort was around witnessing and sensemaking and holding up a mirror?
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I think the best thing they did was lend a certain kindness in philosophical outlook to early SV culture. It went neutral by around 2000, and actively unkind by 2012 or so, but the early kindness of outlook has left a lasting impact.
Replying to
I suspect it’s quite rare for early mythic eras of big civilizational vibe shifts to have any kindness to them. Frontiers are usually harsh places that breed harsh outlooks.
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They were all very excited about being acid-tripping trainee gods ushering in technological chaotic abundance, but something oddly Apollonian rather than Dionysian about it.
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Interesting contrast to the generation that came just before them… the Space Age messiah crowd…Vannevar Bush, Wiener, Bucky Fuller, etc. That lot had a sort of high-platonic but oddly Dionysian Worlds Fair style humbuggery going. McLuhan was a bridge figure.
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Todays sensemakers are so grimdark Hobbesian it’s almost funny We are as demons, and might as well get good at it
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