Showing posts with label blogosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogosophy. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 22, 2024

Hello Again, World!

Over a year has passed since our previous post, which is easily the longest hiatus at The Sceptical Futuryst since things got underway at this address, long long ago, in 02006. But the stately peace and quiet that may seem to have settled over this ageing blog, its layers of digital dust, belie the busy and productive times that have been speeding by since early 02023. The signs of life might be sparse, but don't be misled.

So with a ton to catch up on, stretching back to that date and beyond, and especially since Twitter's sad implosion into X, I've been experiencing a mounting writerly constipation that for me comes from doing too much work stuff without making the time to reflect and share. I need to get things out of my head and into the world. That process in itself, quite apart from whatever happens or doesn't in terms of audience response, helps me move on to new thoughts.

What I want to do is ramp things back up here, and alternate for the next little while between posts about collaborations and questions currently taking up my attention, and posts on some completed projects and associated learnings that have been quietly accumulating in the background. I might put some of those on Medium or elsewhere, too. The post right after this one, about spending a month with collaborators in Bristol, England, is in this category of what's happening at the moment. It comes from something I shared today in a largely similar form on LinkedIn. 

Blogs aren't exactly peaking right now, and I don't quite know yet how this platform best serves or makes sense for what I'm up to (let alone what you all out there are doing) in the year of our lord 02024 – and I want to emphasise that working that question out is a distant second in motivation for doing this to just getting some more stuff written – but I'm interested to learn, and grateful for your interest in joining me.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Life in general

This just happened: a few minutes ago, I bumped into my Russian friend Igor in the hallway.

"Igor! How's life?"

[puzzled] "You mean, in general?"

"Yeah."

[shrugging towards our 9th floor view of the Manoa valley] "In general, life is very nice. But, in particular, it's pretty difficult."

(Спасибо, Igor!)

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Towards a Sceptical Futuryst blogosophy, part IV

The best attitude for somebody who's a serious futurist is not pessimism or optimism, but just a deep sense of engagement. It has to mean something to you. You have to find aspects of it that can really compel your interest. You shouldn't get hung up on whether it's "good" or "bad", because those qualities can change their coloration quite rapidly as time continues to pass. What's good for us right now might not be good for us in 20 years; things we should be optimistic about now might not be such good news 50 years from now.
~Bruce Sterling, Massive Change Radio, December 02003

The optimist says the glass is half full. The pessimist says the glass is half empty. I say the glass is refillable.
~The Sceptical Futuryst

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Towards a Sceptical Futuryst blogosophy, part III

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.
~Winston Churchill

The future will be kind to me for I intend to create it.
~The Sceptical Futuryst

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Towards a Sceptical Futuryst blogosophy, part II

sceptical (skěp'tĭ-kəl) adj.
Reluctant to take things at face value.
futurist (fyōō'chə-rĭst) n.
An advocate or practitioner of futures.
futures (fyōō'chəz) n.
The study, invention and design of alternative possibilities.

Y: the shape of possibility: bifurcation, divergence, choice, alternativity.
Y: the hybrid; unique in the alphabet for its dual role as vowel and consonant.
Y: the vertical axis against which variation over time is plotted.
Y: the question driving the sceptical agenda.

Some look at things that are, and ask Y. I dream of things that never were and ask Y not?
~George Bernard Shaw (attrib.)

Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that shit.
~George Carlin

Let's make time.
~The Sceptical Futuryst

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Towards a Sceptical Futuryst blogosophy

"And I should have much stronger Expectations than I dare yet entertain, to see Philosophy solidly establish't, if men would more carefully distinguish those things that they know, from those that they ignore or do but think..."
~Robert Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist, 01661

"We don't know what's coming. We do know we're in it together."
~Stewart Brand, The Clock of the Long Now, 01999

At the time of writing I haven't yet articulated (or posted, anyway) a statement about the purpose and sensibility of this blog, The Sceptical Futuryst. Pending a fuller statement, the two quotations above provide a starting point...