Velcro City Tourist Board

Category: Futures

  • expand our mapping of the space we’re designing for (‘think about the box’, redux)

    The excellent Alexis Lloyd observes that the road to hell has in recent years been paved with “user-centred” design; while well-intended, it’s also pernicious. … in effect, user-centered design ends up being a mirror for both radical individualism and capitalism. It posits the consumer at the center, catering to their needs and privileging their purchasing…

  • defeat the dread

    Good chewy long-read from Cennydd Bowles, starting with a look at the ongoing situation (and a zinger of an opening line), and building out to a measured and respectful but nonetheless pointed dig at the futures industry: For too long we’ve been serving the wrong goals: helping large multinationals and tech giants accrue more power…

  • the monstering

    Almost a decade ago, I reviewed a book at Futurismic written by someone I’d gotten to know via the blog circuit. Ryan Oakley is a pretty singular character, and Technicolor Ultra Mall was a pretty singular book, too—furiously angry and cynical about the world that capital had made for us. With hindsight, I wonder if…

  • the self-isolation of solutionism

    Via Chairman Bruce comes news that various ongoing driverless car experiments are quietly leaving town while everyone’s busy worrying about other things. If such solutionisms are even a temporary casualty of the pandemic, then we’ve already found a silver lining to this particular cloud… as Sterling notes, it’s likely that the circumstances are providing a…

  • a duplicitous priesthood’s superior knowledge of the technology of light and shadow

    Insightful piece on superhero narratives, magic and transhumanism by Iwan Rhys Morus over at Aeon a few weeks back; collides a bunch of my own long-running obsessions in exciting ways. For instance, technology’s deliberate appropriation of the mask of (stage) magic: During the 19th century, the relationship between technology and divinity took a new turn.…