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Open Thread – June 5
The is one of these days where one starts to write one piece, for example about Yemen where a well aimed mortar round took Saleh out of business, only to discover after hours of research that the place is so complicate that I has no hunch of the possible outcome there.
Then one starts another piece on another issue, changing opinions in Israel on Iran, just to end up in another dead end with nothing sharp to say.
Luckily there is always a resort for a blogger who finds he has nothing to say. Just post another open thread.
Have at it.
In my experience, which is admittedly slim, the super rich have no interest in fantasy worlds, games, virtual reality, etc. For several reasons.
Most important, they are a minority group who live very much amongst themselves, closed off from the rest of the world. They resemble a sect, whose members interact heavily with each other, and don’t traffic much with information that comes from outside, e.g. education, books, computers, etc. Therefore, part of their distrust and dislike for the ‘internets’, their attempts to uphold royalties, copyrights, point to its dangers, etc. The Queen of England doesn’t send e mails!
Their leisure activities and interests are pointed to concrete things, furniture was mentioned above, see also all luxury items, art, jewels, etc.
When not consuming or being spectators but acting, a few expensive sports are indulged in. They don’t play games after the age of 20, casino only for fun. They are replicating the life of potentates, royals, of old, and that holds more strongly for Western ones than say Chinese or Brazilian ones, for whom ‘modernity’ has more of a grip. Lastly, concerning non-fantasy information processing or computer capacity, it is of no use or interest. Minions obey their commands. They are, however, potty about cell phones.
So, in an odd way, they also resemble the world’s poor who have, or want, first of all, just one thing – a cell phone. if they have that, they can by-pass the computer.
Neither the rich or poor play World of Warcraft or have ever even heard of it – reality is either too gripping or too challenging. Both groups also watch some, or a lot of television (except for those who have no access to it at all.)
I’ve painted with a hugely broad brush, and left out socio-speak about social, financial, educational capital – my point is that the piece by Bookstaber is also very class bound – it is a middle class pov.
When he states:
there is less of a difference between how the super rich and the reasonably well off spend their time hour by hour during their typical days. The point of that post is that in practical terms the income gap is not as large as it might seem; that several orders of magnitude differences in income don’t make all that much difference in what these people do with their time …
he is completely mistaken, or he is not talking about the same super rich as me, and limits himself to the US.
Finally, when he writes we are moving toward preferences and lifestyle where we will simply consume less that may be true ‘par la force des choses’, but it won’t be through choice, nor because we will be slipping further into a cyber-existence.
Bookstaber is indulging in a common technotopic fantasy.
Posted by: Noirette | Jun 7 2011 21:25 utc | 31
I think there’s a reason why that technotopic fantasy is being purveyed. The superwealthy have become fairly unsubtle in their methods of accumulation, and resources are tight enough (and planetary communications rapid enough) that more people are (if they have the attention span) able to connect the dots. Hence, unrest, dissatisfaction, strange redirections of hostility, simmerings of the class resentment and appetite for justice or redistribution that elites fear above all else.
So it’s very important for the elites to continue to preach the dogma of Infinite Growth (you’ll all get yours someday, you don’t need to have any of Mine) plus the joys of a virtual existence (immerse yourself in fantasy, please, while in the real world your masters do whatever they wish in the world of actual physical reality without your interference or resistance). Increasingly people have been trained to forego (or even despise) what is real, authentic, etc in favour of cheaper, ersatz substitutes. Margarine for butter, but on a grand culture-wide scale. We can all live, not like kings, but like some kind of cardboard-cutout play set of kingly living: we can eat meat every day, but it will be chemical and hormone saturated factory beef. We can have dessert with every meal, but it will be made of the reprocessed byproducts of the industrial food system. We can have a huge wardrobe, but it will be cheap clothing that falls apart after a year or two. We can have 24×7 entertainment, but 90 percent of it will be banal crap and almost 100 percent of it will be propaganda for the consumer culture. And so on.
The immortal James Tiptree Jr (nom de plume of Alice Sheldon) wrote about this vicarious/virtual lifestyle marketing in a tragic tale, “The Girl Who Was Plugged In.” Worth a read.
Next: in virtual reality, you’ll be able to furnish your imaginary trophy home with imaginary goods (which given current trends will cost real money to purchase online). You’ll be able to stroll through Googled virtual environments on a virtual vacation any time, any downtown area on earth. You’ll be able to have realistic cybersex with remote or wholly artificial “partners”. You’ll be able to push a button and get instant “sort of” food in any flavour or colour (all of which will be synthetic, of course). You’ll be able to play elaborate war games with remarkably convincing rendering detail, in VR worlds large enough to explore for months or years. Some of them, not coincidentally, will train you on actual weapons systems used by your own military to defend and extend the accumulation of your masters.
What you won’t be able to do, ever again, is go for a walk through a healthy forest or on an open prairie, swim in (let alone drink from) an unpolluted stream, lake, or near-shore waters, eat real food that is anything like fresh or nutritious, perform music in a public space, keep any possession for more than a few months (they will all wear out or become “obsolete” w/in a year), spend even one day without being exposed to advertising, or opt out of the system. You won’t be able to grow your own food (maybe it will be illegal, since by then all food crops will be contaminated with patented genes). You won’t be able to do a whole raft of things. (In Orlando Fla this week, 3 people were arrested for distributing food to the homeless. Earlier this year, several people were arrested for dancing in public (at the Jefferson Memorial). There have been attempts to arrest and detain people for taking photographs in public places; in several states, agribiz is trying to pass laws making it illegal to photograph any aspect of their factory farms. Nibble, nibble, nibble at the scope and nature of actions a citizen is allowed to undertake.) But you won’t care, because in virtual reality (AKA adolescent fantasy) you can be and do anything, no limits, no restraints.
Welcome to Walter Mittyville, or Mittystan, or whatever we want to call it. Fantasy Island.
This is the world that Bookstaber seems to think is good news. Doesn’t look like good news to me… But it could easily become the “new normal” and old fogeys like me could be dismissed as fantasists and sentimentalists when we remember some of the satisfactions of a physical-world life. Ah, those old farts, always on about “outdoors” — rivers and trees and hiking and fresh fruit and veg and BS like that, as if getting cold and wet and bitten by icky bugs could possibly be fun. Dirt? Weather? Food that doesn’t come wrapped in gleaming plastic? Eee-yew! Why ride your bike across town and through the park, when you could just ride your stationary bike with your VR headset on and enjoy far more spectacular scenery in perfect safety?
Sigh.
People used to feel envy of the younger generation because they would grow up to “see wonders” that the old folks were going to miss. I feel increasingly sorry for the younger generation because they seem likely to miss so much of what we once took for granted — they seem so likely to spend their lives like those chimps, endlessly fascinated by the slick texture of plastic, compulsively interacting with pocket devices, never looking up or around. Already I’ve seen hikers in the woods staring at their GPS screen the whole time as they walk, not sparing a glance for tree, lake, meadow, flower, fungus, fauna. Eerie. Scary too — or is it just me that finds this disturbing?
Posted by: DeAnander | Jun 7 2011 22:51 utc | 32
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