AtD (for starters): inventing the future

[Joseph Tracy]

Some interesting tidbits. Inventing the Future? The Jewish "prophets" don't count, algebra, lenses, Gutenberg? Still, the Victorians seem a perfect emblem of a society with enough wealth to dream very large dreams and to understand the importance of technology in these dreams, imaginings and actions.   One of the compelling things about Pynchon's interest in the future that is that every future technology and its implications is deeply connected to questions of the past. Questions about intentions, about who inherits control and who will shape the use of technologies.  Every new toy and every new killing machine has strings attached to a past not quite past.  

 
On Dec 12, 2014, at 8:12 AM, Monte Davis wrote:

> Victorians, us, Wells, Tesla, how electricity will bring peace and prosperity, and more -- bearing even on the Web anticipations in IV and BE:
> 
> http://aeon.co/magazine/society/how-the-victorians-imagined-and-invented-the-future/

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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l