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watching great preso on post collapse USA

This is an exceedingly erudite essay by futurist Richard Hames. Stylistically echoing JR Saul's critique of Western Rationalism, Hames takes apart the current structure and worldview of the West, demanding nothing less than a re-invention of the way that we envision ourselves as a species with respect for life and Earth. "The Occidental mindset, for example, overwhelmingly sees reality as a logically explicable system of physical artifacts, calibrations and observable phenomena. This mindset has been dominated by scientific rationalism, in spite of the philosophical outcry cautioning us that this viewpoint only illumines a path to perdition. Indeed the German writer Goethe claims in Urfaustus that putting one's faith in Newtonian principles is tantamount to selling one's soul to the devil." It is a beautiful and impassioned essay that is calling forth a new culture for an urgent transformation.

This is a very interesting article by futurist Stuart Candy. He discusses "artifacts of the future" - physical artifacts that have a pre-figurative element, they invoke contemplation of future possibilities. For the purpose of the project, they may be one strategy by which to ramp up the "tactility" or experiential basis of crowdsourced foresight. Ask (or allow) that each contribution have a picture and snap shot or fragment from the future.

thanks Josh Floyd Great overview of personal energy calculus in context of climate change Saul Griffith has done a very detailed analysis of the energy portfolio required to address the problem of climate change inducing carbon emissions. He begins by examining what our maximum output of carbon emissions would be to limit carbon increases to 450 parts per million. He then calculates how much other types of energy (non carbon / fossil fuel based) will be needed. He then distributes this using a global equity system. The result is an overall reduction in energy consumption which is a quarter (25%) of current amounts. It is a useful application of backcasting and it has big applications for eco-innovation and entrepreneurship. For ICT, it implies a huge reduction in current energy consumption and a strong movement toward closed loop engineering.