Hello there, I’m Damien Williams, or @Wolven many places on the internet.
So look, here’s the thing: For the past nine years, I’ve been making a go at writing, talking, thinking, teaching, and learning about philosophy, comparative religion, magic, artificial intelligence, human physical and mental augmentation, pop culture, and how they all relate. I want to think about, talk about, and work toward, a future worth living in, and I want to do ll of that with you.
I’m talking about a future where we have the option but not the expectation to self-cyborg. A future where, when we’re confronted with the new and unprecedentedly strange kinds of minds we’re likely to meet in this century, we can embrace the new and the strange, and use it to make ourselves even more than we already are. A future where everyone has the data, information, knowledge, and ability to conduct their lives in their communities, the best they know how.
There are all kinds of people working on this, right now, and everyone is living with the possible implications of it.
People like Jamais Cascio, Dr. Joanna Bryson, Dr. David Gunkel, Emily Dare, Mikey Pryvt, Scott Midson, Tommaso Bertolotti, Colin Schmidt, and many more. People like me, and you.
We need, we All need to be taking the changing pace, content, and tone of this conversation very seriously, and working toward a future where we’re not just running to catch up to the vastly changing pace of these realities, but are thinking ahead about their possibilities, and addressing their actualities As they arise. Not after.
I’m doing this, as best as I can, at both AFutureWorthThinkingAbout.com and, now, Technoccult.net, but to do all of this—to write, talk, read, converse, and write some more to, with, and about leading thinkers-and-doers in many fields of philosophy, science, art, technology, magic…so many thing—takes time, and so much of all of our time, these days, is spent trying to make money, and, to be honest, some of the ways we spend our time making our livings can drain the will to live, let alone do the kind of work we love and want to be doing.
That’s where you come in.
If you find yourself to be interested in the kinds of work I’m talking about doing—things in this vein can be found all around the internet—your throwing a dollar or two per month in the bucket can make a HUGE difference. This will be a pay-by-month campaign, so the amount you pledge will be the exact same, every month, regardless of whether I make 1 post or 16. That said, you can always adjust or cancel your donation amount, whenever you see fit. If that still doesn’t work for you, then you can always make a one-time donation by clinging the “Donate” button, below:
And if you know of others who care about these things, I would really appreciate your help in spreading the word about the project. If you want to want to tell your friends, your family, your readership, your listeners, if you want to interview me or write my Patreon address on the surface of the moon with a laser, I’m all for it, and I’m more than happy to help you help me.
As I’ve said, before:
The present looks a great deal like we thought 5-8 years
ago would look like, 18 years ago, but today is…grittier. More scuffed
up. Like the difference between your dream or even nightmare of visiting
a place, and what it actually smells and feels like, when you’re there.
The dreamshimmer is gone from our contemplation of data and systems
theory and the reality presents itself as almost inherently Less.Less hopeful, less meaningful, less potential for bettering
ourselves. Like, somewhere in the path to here, we forgot Why we wanted
to get here (new life and strange civilizations), and only vaguely
remembered what “Here” was supposed to look like.Where are the conscious nanotech swarms, and their acolytes? Where
are the emergent-and-non-human-minds which exist in the ringback
protocols, between two dozen different sites? Where are the network
shamans, able to dive deep and parse the bits the pieces, from the dross
of gross signal loss? Where are the bearshirters, skinning and gutting
the beasts of our technological wilds and stitching their hard-edged
components into softer flesh? These entities, these people, these groups
exist—or Could—but as as curiosities, as freakshows, as fearfully
whispered cautionary tales, when they should be our hope, our aim, our
scratched out salvation from our own cynicism.We’ll refind the quality of awe and investigative wonder and
possibility, we’ll make this world, this context, this mode of life
better, while we’re here. We have to, or we’ll literally die, trying or
not.
And that, my friends, is a future worth thinking about.