Alien Invasion!

[David Casseres]

Greg Montalbano sez

>All well and good, kids;  but isn't the real problem the intrinsically
>destructive nature of said modern technology itself?  ...The fact that "we"
>have created a machine with an exponential growth rate (that, indeed,
>DEFINES itself by exponential growth; the main difference between "our"
>lifestyle and that of the "native peoples" cultures) that seems intent on
>fouling and devouring everything and everybody?  
>Or am I just sounding like a "dewey-eyed tree-hugger?"

I think you are confusing modern technology with modern capitalism.  
Historically they have been catastrophically intertwined, and that is 
much of the matter of Pynchon's sermon, but they are not one and the same 
thing.

I would like to be able to envision a future in which the economic system 
is Something Else that isn't an exponentially-booming and 
catastrophically-busting Ponzi scheme, and the technology base allows us 
a lot of the nice material comforts we have gotten used to -- though 
abviously some of them would have to go.  (I'm not positive I *can* 
envision such a future, though....)

And remember, a lot of not-so-modern technology is also hugely 
destructive and we only survived it because populations were so low.  And 
I don't just mean the early industrial revolution, I'm thinking of such 
things as slash-and-burn agriculture, and all irrigation technologies 
since Ur.  Imagine a Pynchon of Ur, writing about Them and their 
ziggurats and ditches....

Cheers,
David