How do you design a society for the really long term? There are a couple of levels to consider: notably, decision-making and economics. And it doesn’t look as if we’ve got any good solutions to either.
Over on Hacker News, GraffitiTim points out something interesting: “The first civilization started in Mesopotamia around 5000 BCE (more or less), which is 7,000 years ago. If you live until age 80, that’s more than 1% of the history of civilization.” So you can expect to live for more than 1% of the life span of human civilization to this date.
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Charlie’s Wish List
by Charlie Stross
Playing fantasy politics — as opposed to fantasy football — is a mug’s game. However, for what it’s worth (not much), and speaking for those of us who aren’t Americans, here’s my top ten list of things I’d like see from the Obama administration in the first 100 days, and consider to be not-totally-impossible:
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The bumpy ride hits toytown
by Charlie Stross
Okay, hang onto your hats. We’re clearly in for a bumpy ride over the next couple of years; even discounting the worst-case scenarios (I’m a happy pessimist: I always need something to worry about) it looks like we’re in for a recession that will be at least as bad as the 1990-92 one, and possibly much worse.
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Living through Interesting Times
by Charlie Stross
We are living in interesting times; in fact, they’re so interesting that it is not currently possible to write near-future SF.
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Modern day shibboleths
by Charlie Stross
What’s wrong with this sentence: “give me $700Bn with no oversight and I’ll keep your banking system from going down the tubes by buying up the bundles of sub-prime mortgages and other investments they’re elbow deep in”?
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