Status Updates From The Futurica Trilogy

Well, that's the end of the first book in the trilogy.

The actual intellectual quality of this book is, so far, what I expected, which is to say that it pulls on a lot of worthy and interesting philosophical sources but doesn't seem to understand them or what can be done with them.

Combing this with a botched and overly simple reading of history means that it cannot fully grasp the situation it wants to critique.

The enthusiasm with which Bard seems to speak of the fall of democracy and the hostility of netocracy towards academic institutions is, perhaps, somewhat revealing. Though I'm still not clear whether or not he is pro or anti netocracy, I doubt he will mourn the loss of either of these things. They almost figure as necessary victims. Troubling.

I struggle with this book because there are moments where it lingers on the actually interesting element (networks and information technology) and ends up saying some insightful and prescient things.

But this is altogether too mixed in with a scientistic compulsion to speak about evolution.

There's also an element that ties this to Wark's work — an attempt to overcome Marx only to reinvent him.

There's an anti-intellectual streak to this which is really bizarre given the continued reliance on academic philosophy. Some of these criticisms make sense, others miss the mark or are overly simplistic.

This chapter again presents another reading of the evolutionary (both biological and social) development of civilisation. It's repetitive and just way too simplified to be of much interest.

It is somewhat sad that Bard is taking such a dismissive attitude towards the Marxist tradition, given that what he is trying to articulate has been discussed within this tradition and that it therefore has so many tools that could help him if he were not so committed to misrepresenting it.

Instead, he seems to want to rely on a 'more real' kind of Darwinian account, which just ends up sounding ridiculous.

Weird claim: capitalism wants to realise a Marxist utopia, or claims to want to do so. Odd.

Some prescience comments about changing attitudes towards TV, foreshadowing streaming services and the collapse of certain monopolies?

There's a lot of anger in this book. I can understand it, but it's target is misplaced. Reminder: ethics as first philosophy remains as important as ever.

We're moving closer towards something worthwhile being disclosed. There are some interesting dynamics at play within what is being discussed here, but they do not appear to be taking centre stage. Instead, there is a lot of broad-speak and generalisations about the history of philosophy. The actual details of which are, at best, extremely contestable.

A lot of quotations are seemingly peppered in here. I can vouch that as for the philosophical references, the reading presented trends towards the superficial, abstracting these from the contexts in which they arose and belong.

This causes a few concerns with respect to my trusting the other sources.

More potted history, this exactitude of which I am certainly questioning. A broader narrative is being maintained and almost insisted upon, but there is a far greater degree of nuance that is being omitted, particularly with respect to Christian power structures and Marxism.

I'm still waiting for Netocracy to be defined clearly.

First two chapters have provided a potted history of information. Unsure on the credibility of its details, and one borderline antisemitic comment has raised some worries. But so far, this seems to be a good synthesis of ongoing mythologies of technology.