Frank and Jones -- money and oil

Very impressive -- 2 truly world-systemic analyses back to back!

Fascinating too that in the face of much recent attention to ideology (ie,
religious fundamentalism), and quite justifiably so, in my opinion, Frank
and Jones stick to their preferred Metanarratives.

AGF, though he doth mightily protest, sticks to the true economic faith,
centering his metanarrative on Money, in the tradition of Marx and Milton
Friedman.

Mark Jones takes the "ultra-materialist" path of focusing on natural
resources, treating the "hard-headed materialism" of economics as
epiphenomenal to OIL.  Jones also takes the military and politics to be
more central than AGF, another "ultra-materialist" move.

Both Frank and Jones predict doom and U.S. decline -- Frank's prediction
is deflation and economic catastrophe, while Jones' is "entropic fascism."

All totally plausible, and I am partial to the OIL-based scenario.  (Some
find AGF's 5000-years-macro-to-the-Nth power theory aesthetically
appealing for its extremism -- I plead guilty to the same attraction to
ultra-materialism.  The sin of one-sided purism.)

However, I am NOT attracted to high-Wagnerian Apocalypse the way I once
was, and so I encourage this list to think creatively about TRANSITION
rather than just indulge in sturm-und-drang.

Technology and social organization both must be revolutionized.  However,
thinking about revolution operating through networks is much more
productive than Leninist-style top-down imagery.

Some suggested priorities:

1) a globally coordinated push for photovoltaic solar energy -- bring
about mass production, bring down prices, apply everywhere,

2) foster creativity and initiative, especially on the part of young
people -- create Futurist forums of all kinds, encourage scenario exercises,
such as the military uses but democratic, to get people thinking
about the dead-ends of current practices, and thinking imaginitively but
practically about alternatives, in a global context,

3) more specifically, build Green Futurist networks that attempt to permeate
Society (ie, not just one, but all societies) with positive imagination toward
a Utopian Vision -- something the Left has been lacking for many years now as
it has been thrown onto the defensive.

I realize that this sounds a bit New Agey, a bit daft, but I don't
apologize for that -- it is an intentionally one-sided effect to counter
one-sided apocalyptic projections.

The future is not yet written.

Richard Hutchinson
from remote Utah, in the Intermountain ("Deep") West