University of Wisconsin-Madison "Utopian" Future sounds like a totalitarian nightmare
Posted by Madanthonywayne 10 years, 6 months ago to Education
The federal government gave University of Wisconsin-Madison $5 million to come up with it's ideal future. It wounds like something out of George Orwell's 1984.
Tell them that Orwell was a communist.
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".
"Ayn Rand is more realistic than the panicky anti-communists of the Cold War era, who trembled before the alleged practicality of dictatorship. The best symbol of this issue is the contrast between two projections of a collectivist future: George Orwell's 1984 vs. Ayn Rand's Anthem (which was published more than a decade earlier, in 1938). Orwell regards freedom as a luxury; he believes that one can wipe out every vestige of free thought, yet still maintain an industrial civilization. Whose mind is maintaining it? Blank out. Anthem, by contrast, shows us "social cogs" who have retrogressed, both spiritually and materially, to the condition of primitives. When men lose the freedom to think, Ayn Rand understands, they lose the products of thought as well."
As to the difference between socialists and communists, it is rather minor. Socialists are a bit milder in their methods, leaving eventual enslavement and murder to the communists.
"I would have liked to review Animal Farm—though I consider it a very bad book; but it has great historical significance—as an eloquent and frightening revelation of the mind of a modern socialist. (l mean, the author. The book is not anti-Communist, you know. It's merely anti-Stalin, but pro-Communist. This should have been said in reviews, but wasn't.)"
Orwell was a Fabian socialist.
"As an advance warning, for God's sake DON'T recommend Animal Farm. You have probably heard about it — it's a little booklet that has just come out and is being whooped up as a lesson against Communism, which it is not. I have read it. It made me sick. It is a book against Stalin, not against Communism. In fact, it is the mushiest and most maudlin preachment of Communism (I suppose the author would call it Socialism, but there is no difference), that I have seen in a long time. The moral of the book is not: 'Communism is evil,' but: 'Stalin's Communism is just as evil as Capitalism.' Don't let's help to preach that idea."
---How do they get the food stamps too all the non-productive parasites on our current society, or the masses in NYC, Chicago, LA, Detroit, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston. I guess that is why they need to take away all the privately owned guns so they can reduce the population to sustainable levels.
"The protagonist of the story is Rosa, a “community organizer” for a United Nations youth group “Badgers for Our Future,” who presides over the only holiday celebrated in the community, Earth Day"
---How quaint. A community organizer. The masses only need to be properly conditioned. Lucky, you nailed it in your post. Just like Orwell’s “Animal Farm” – everyone is equal, it is just that some pigs are more equal than others.
"The community shares economic resources, as well as goods and services, such as “vehicles, appliances, equipment, meals, and expertise.” Material wealth is criticized, and the community lives by the slogan “rich in time; sufficient in things.”
---Who fixes this stuff when it breaks. Who creates the new machines when the old machines wears out. Or they just revert to slave labor at some point. And “expertise” will be forced to be shared? You cannot force the mind.
"Rosa celebrates a court decision that forcibly took property from wealthy individuals as a required step to place the community above the individual."
---Now this is a novel concept – state ownership of all property – I thought we had a name for that. I don’t recall it being successful as a concept or in the execution of the concept. oops, little Freudian slip there.
"Citizens of Yahara are “much less reliant on cars,” the only ones left on the roads being hybrids or electric, and the roads are full of bike lanes to “accommodate the growing masses of bike commuters.”
---Sounds just like the workers paradise in North Korea.
"The UN youth movement helped usher in this “new world order,” where population growth has declined, use of fossil fuels has largely been deserted in favor or wind and solar, and a cross-country train system has replaced air fare that has become too expensive."
---All right! Trains are back. Now we can truly have a Non-fiction version of Atlas Shrugged with real trains. When do they impose Directive 10-289?
"Americans now engage in the “pursuit of sustainable happiness,” by adopting a global Gross National Happiness (GNH) index as “its official gauge of prosperity,” replacing GDP."
---Just like liberal statists. When the misery index gets so high that it pegs the needle, create a new term that you can control to convince the masses that they are happy.
"However, pockets of “traditionalists” still threaten the “winds of great change.” The so-called traditionalists have “been slower to accept or adopt the newer norms, feel society has not necessarily gotten better with the Transition, since certain conveniences and privacies have disappeared.”
---OK, I just have to puke now. Of course all relationships are public now. You can have what ever you want, whom ever you want in any way you want and it is all OK except to those so-called traditionalist who are slow to adopt the new norms. Call me old fashioned and try and take my property or enslave me to your philosophy and I will show you the winds of change as it is discharged at 1600 feet per second in the form of 170 grains of copper-jacketed lead, with a controlled deformation tip of course. See point #2.
But I digress.
Cheers
But what do you expect from a university community, Especially in Wisconsin?
The protagonist of the story is Rosa, a “community organizer” for a United Nations youth group “Badgers for Our Future,” who presides over the only holiday celebrated in the community, Earth Day.
“It has become custom for Rosa, the unofficial community matriarch, to give a blessing before the Earth Day meal (although not everyone in the community is religious, they say secular blessings before important community meals to express gratitude for what the Earth provided them),” the story says.
The community shares economic resources, as well as goods and services, such as “vehicles, appliances, equipment, meals, and expertise.” Material wealth is criticized, and the community lives by the slogan “rich in time; sufficient in things.”
“Material wealth is not the coefficient of life quality,” the story says. “As such, consumers, overall, consume less.”
“What individuals don’t share with their communities is purchased primarily out of need.”
Rosa celebrates a court decision that forcibly took property from wealthy individuals as a required step to place the community above the individual.
“Even though most Yaharans had become more willing to undertake serious conservation measures, the willingness was not universal, especially when certain sacrifices were required,” she tells her granddaughter in the story. “To create the preserve, Grandpa had to convince several wealthy residents to give up either some of their property or their control of it.”
When some individuals refused, a coalition took them to court, which unanimously ruled in favor of building a community beach.
“It was a glorious victory!” Rosa says. “Oh, how we celebrated! It symbolized how far we’d come in putting the good of our communities and our environment before the desires of the individual. The triumph was proof the Great Transition had arrived.”
Right, like houses, cars, MRIs, food, clothing.
Cheers.
Americans now engage in the “pursuit of sustainable happiness,” by adopting a global Gross National Happiness (GNH) index as “its official gauge of prosperity,” replacing GDP.
All they need is to build and arena and reap children for their Hunger Games and utopia will be complete. Who the hell do they think will make all the things they need to survive? They had to suck money from productive Americans to pay for this piece of crap Yahara fantasy.
And I haven't even named that they are trying to make this ACTUALLY happen.
I hate how the Federal government can use people's money for anything that supports the views of the current governing group
What I want to see is them try to actually LIVE like they say for a couple of years. Have them put their lives where their mouths are. I'd bet less than one in a hundred stays longer than a couple of months.
Politically motivated art, maybe. Science? Not a chance. Time to shut down NSF, and then keep going...
"Call in sick, like I did."
He shook his head. "I owe them."
"Who, the University?"
"No, my students. It takes a lot of guts to sign up for a science course these days. To put up with the taunts and harassment. As long as they show up, I'll show up."
"I'm glad I'm staff, not faculty."
"The Dean insists that we add creationism and crystal theory and spiritualism to the curriculum."
"They already have those-—"
"Not as equal time in the physics and chemistry departments."
Sherrine whistled low.
"Yep," Bob said. "The science departments are resisting-—we had a meeting after my class-—but it's a question of marketing and sales. Of putting warm bodies behind desks. We told the Dean that there was no objective evidence for any of that crap. You know what he said?"
The sky was a slate gray; the cloud deck, low and oppressive. Sherrine stared up into the gloom. "No. What?"
"He said that the alleged objectivity of materialist science was an invention of heterosexual, white males, so we shouldn't use that as a basis for judgment."
She looked sharply into his face. For a change, he was not laughing. "What did you tell him?"
"Nothing.""
- Fallen Angels
And that really was too much. He turned to the policeman. "Crap, sir? Crap? Do you comprehend the creativity and art that went into the fashioning of that artifact? An anatomically correct and self-consistent realization of an imaginary beast." Careful, he told himself. It's a Monster, not an Alien. Fantasy was still marginally acceptable; but just barely so. He hoped the policeman would not read the provenance plaque. Maybe Will had managed to pocket it.
"Art," the cop grunted. "I don't see no NEA sticker."
"It was made before-—before NEA approval was necessary. Even today not all art is government subsidized." And the National Endowment for the Arts had never given a grant to fantasy or science fiction art.
"Some of the stuff you got here glorifies technology," the Green cop insisted. As if Tremont did not already know it. "You don't want to glorify technology, do you?"
"Maybe he needs some education," another Green said. "Community service."
"Mr. Fielding is all right," a policeman said. "Good law and order man. Come on, lay off."
And I should leave it at that-—He couldn't. "Do you dislike all technology? Such as the technology that made the cloth for your uniforms, or developed the electric cars you drove here?"
The Green looked surprised. "That's appropriate technology," he said.
"
- Fallen Angels
I don't know if we need funding for this, but I agree with the tenor of what it's saying. Reading the contemptuous summary, I think the study might be indirectly hitting on the issue of what is consumption. If it means items coming from a factory, maybe we want to consume less. If it's phone apps or music, maybe we consume more.
I do not think these guys are predicting the future. I question if this is real urban planning theory meritting gov't funding, but it is important to think about. I would contribute to this research if my business carries on as it has been so far in 2014 (unlike 2013) and they put my logo/link on their site.
I really want to see this area grow, increase in density, not develop more farmland than necessary, stay walkable/bikable.
Question:
Why is there a National Science Foundation? I missed that provision in the Constitution...