Tag: Society

#top100 #scifi Num:92 Holy Fire

http://amzn.to/1jr8FZG
@bruces Plausible near future SciFi. Like all great SciFi the book uses technology and visions of futuristic society as a means of exploring the deeper questions of what it is to be human. Here the tensions between the philosophies of the young and the old; Disruption and status quo.

Bruce Sterling – Holy Fire

Odious Debt

“The rising tide of debt cannot be explained by a rising tide of laziness or irresponsibility. The debt is systemic and inescapable. It isn’t fair, and people know it.”

“Radical proposals such as these bear in common a recognition that money, like property and debt, is a sociopolitical construct. It is a social agreement mediated by symbols: numbers on slips of paper, bits in computers. It is not an immutable feature of reality to which we can but adapt. The agreements that we call money and debt can be changed. To do so, however, will require a movement that contests the immutability of the current system and explores alternatives to it.”

No Country for Men

Women’s jobs safe from robots, Men’s jobs less so:

I worked in Austria years ago on a dairy farm turned hotel. Historically the men had worked the farms while the women had stayed at home running the house. Tourism had upset the status quo. Farming was marginalised, families prospered from the tourist money, women gained status – the men sat in cafes and bars and many took up the popular local hobby of alcoholism.