Velcro City Tourist Board

velcro city tourist board

a blog by Paul Graham Raven

science fiction / social theory / climate futures / infrastructure / utopian narratology / sometimes cats

a defiant assertion of the individual against its own impermanence

Doug Rushkoff knows the score: Ironically, transhumanism is less about embracing the future than fixing the human experience as it is today. Medical and life extension interventions seek only to preserve the person who is alive right now. Cryonics seeks to freeze the human form in its current state in order to be reanimated in
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Infrastructural Theory 🙜 Social Theory

18 Jul 2020
sittin’ on the dock of the bay

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General

17 Jul 2020
never mind the Baltics

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General

17 Jul 2020
some notes on Martin Parker’s managerial heroisms

There’s a lot of good stuff in this piece by Martin Parker at Aeon—hell, anyone who wrote a book titled Shut Down the Business School has gotta be on my side of the fence, right?—but it takes a problematic turn at the end that I think is worth digging into. Let’s start with the good
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Futures 🙜 Infrastructural Theory 🙜 Social Theory 🙜 Technology

14 Jul 2020
the efficient universe

Synchronicity, serendipity, universal ordering… call it what you want, but sometimes you’re working on something, and out of nowhere a useful bit of info just drops into your lap or, in this case, your inbox. Joanne McNeil’s latest newsletter contains this little aside: I was looking for a quote about efficiency in life…something said by
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Writing

13 Jul 2020

Who is Paul Graham Raven?

“… who, with raving lips uttering things mirthless, unbedizened, and unperfumed, reaches over a thousand years with [his] voice, thanks to the god in [him].”

Paul is consulting writer, researcher, theorist and foresight practitioner, as well as an author and critic of science fiction literature. More details can be found on the About page of this blog.