The "New Ecological Paradigm" and Ubiquitous Augmented Reality

This is a short weekly assignment I did for a 4th year TSES class titled "Technology and Society: Forecasting"... a subject I have been interested in my entire life (as a lifelong reader of science fiction and speculative fiction, and as a scientist and technology architect). It is in two parts: the first was to answer a series of questions related to Dunlap and Van Liere's New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Scale, and the second was to comment on the convincing dystopic vision of an augmented reality future in the short (6 minute) film "Hyper-Reality" by Keiichi Matsuda (link below). I apparently could not help myself in critiquing the questions posed (shown in italics).

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On Dunlap and Van Liere's New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Scale. You should have one answer for each question. Possible answers for each question: 1 SA (Strongly Agree) 2 MA (Mildly Agree) 3 MD (Mildly Disagree) 4 SD (Strongly Disagree). If you can't decide between two answers, choose the one that is closest to your opinion.

1. We are approaching the limit of the number of people the earth can support. MA
... with the caveat that I strongly believe we have long ago surpassed that number.

2. Humans have the right to modify the natural environment to suit their needs. MA
... this is a vague question that lacks scope: I moderately agree that some minimal portion of the natural environment can be modified to suit our needs (many animals, plants, and microbes certainly do this), but not all of the natural environment as we are doing, and not disruptively as we are doing.

3. When humans interfere with nature it often produces disastrous consequences. SA
... interfere in what way? This could mean a lot of things, but I am assuming it means to modify major portions of natural systems when I answer strongly agree.

4. Human ingenuity will insure that we do NOT make the earth unlivable. SD

5. Humans are severely abusing the environment. SA

6. The earth has plenty of natural resources if we just learn how to develop them. MD
... long term sustainability is possible, but radical and fundamental (and likely unwelcome or impossible) changes in human society would be required. It has plenty if human needs are rescaled to match availability. Conversely, if the question is asking whether we can survive by being more aggressive about “developing” natural resources, then I would strongly disagree.

7. Plants and animals have as much right as humans to exist. SA
... kind of a silly question ... without plants and animals “existing”, there are no humans.

8. The balance of nature is strong enough to cope with the impacts of modern industrial nations. SD

9. Despite our special abilities humans are still subject to the laws of nature. SA

10. The so-called "ecological crisis” facing humankind has been greatly exaggerated. SD
... I crunch the numbers myself, we’re screwed.

11. The earth is like a spaceship with very limited resources. SA

12. Humans were meant to rule over the rest of nature. Hahaha, no. SD

13. The balance of nature is very delicate and easily upset. SD
... but we’re doing it anyway, way to go humans!

14. Humans will eventually learn enough about how nature works to be able to control it. SD
... when you consider Earth has an extinction-level event every 50 or 60 million years, there are factors in nature that will always be beyond our control (of course, we ARE the extinction event right now... and given that we are a part of nature, and we can’t control OURSELVES, then it’s easy to strongly disagree here).

15. If things continue on their present course, we will soon experience a major ecological catastrophe. SA

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Do you think that the short film "Hyper Reality" represents a plausible future? What are your reasons for this opinion? (a few sentences will do)

Yes, for so many reasons. Firstly, these sorts of technological capabilities are things I have been working with and toward for quite some time now, and have been working with one of the few Canadian pioneers of “virtualized experiential human interaction” from the 1990s on several projects. If it isn’t coming on its own (and I think it is), I am doing my little bit to advance the state of the art in the field. With respect to the vision presented, there were many aspects that I think are entirely plausible. Firstly, why would anyone agree to ubiquitous advertising? The answer is given, I think, in today’s web environment: you have to “pay for play”, and if you don’t subscribe to an ad-free experience, then you pay your way by allowing your eyeballs to be made available to advertisers in exchange for data usage and perhaps even the hardware. Given that the gap between the wealthy and everybody else (the purported 99%), without subsidizing their links/gear by allowing advertising or providing direct services to companies with personal information or even physical action, the vast majority of people will not be able to afford to fully plug in to the Mixed Reality that is inevitable. An excellent example is Uber teaming up with a sub-prime lender to give car loans to poor people in the US in return for driving for Uber to pay their cars (in markets that do not have enough Uber drivers to cover particular territories). As for the social (and commercial transaction) networking immersion/ubiquity presented and the gamification aspects as well, these are also inevitable as people continue to recognize that there is not enough meaningful work or even meaningful things to do for most people. Companies will prey upon this to tie people’s self-worth and what happiness they derive from how well they “play the game”. Human existence will become further abstracted from any reality grounded in our natural world and unless people are constantly bombarded by immersive media through as many senses as we can hook up, they will feel empty and lonely. The notion of a “life reset” as portrayed is quite plausible in this scenario, it would be one more service that people could tap into to survive in such a world. I could go on... Did I mention we are working as best we can to make sure the technology and paradigms we develop are disruptive to the likely future presented in “Hyper Reality”? Wish us luck, we need it...

Watch on YouTube

Elisabeth Vonarburg’s Pragmatic Utopia: “In The Mothers’ Land”

I am digging through boxes upon boxes upon boxes looking for where I put my stupid birth certificate (which I need for some paperwork). I had taken it out of my wallet in 2019 because I was traveling overseas and figured that carrying my passport and birth certificate was probably a security risk (doing so domestically was as well, probably more so), and I put it somewhere safe. It's in the house, but it might as well be on Ceres. As I dig through boxes, I am uncovering some essays that I wrote but never posted.

The second one was written for a 4th year Women's and Gender Studies class (which was actually an English course... so... much... reading...) called "Women Travel Writers" with Dr. Roseann O'Reilly Runte. This was an amazing class done in a proper interactive seminar style. My classmates were all top knotch, and the discussions were always challenging and engaging. In addition, given her rank and position, Dr. Runte brought in some pretty amazing guests to the class. For instance, we got to talk to Charlotte Gray, the author of “Sisters in the Wilderness, The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill” (fyi, I was studying Parr Traill for a gallery exhibit I was co-curating). There was an archives specialist who presented work done by Emily Carr. We had an amazing informal chat with Dr. Sharon Johnston (the then "wife of the Governor General") who was all forms of kick-ass and talked about her grandmother who was the inspiration for her novel "Matrons and Madams". And, I got to meet Roberta freakin' Bondar and hear the story of how she got to be an astronaut and then went on to become a professional nature photographer! Anyway, it was a great course, and the essay I had to write was on, gasp, women travel writers. Because one of the books we read in class, Jan Morris' "Last Letters from Hav", was fictional (but written like traditional travel literature), I felt I had permission to similarly use fictional travel writing, and chose this book. I will always remember Elisabeth Vonarburg fondly for attempting to teach me some Simon and Garfunkel songs on guitar one night in the Con Suite at a convention in Montreal. This is an exceptionally good book as well that I have read more than once. I further bring in Ursula K. LeGuin's foundational book The Dispossessed.

Elisabeth Vonarburg’s Pragmatic Utopia: “In The Mothers’ Land”
As long as there are social issues, there will be room and a need for utopian discourses along with, of course, resonant dystopian visions. Both literary genres explore the possible in order to encourage contemplation of the actual – whether through careful consideration by the reader, or by attempting to elicit a visceral response to the depictions they provide. But rather than just telling a story, “writers of utopian and dystopian fiction call for social and political action: in utopias, by describing a world in which we want to live, and in dystopias, by warning us of the consequences of current social and political trends” (Little). With our species’ new-found ability to destroy itself and potentially most life on Earth (or at least permanently cripple our collective ability to thrive), examinations of potentiality have assumed critical importance; and in our current age of postmodernist feminism, the literary and conceptual tools we can bring to bear on these questions offer a sophistication that is also unparalleled in history. To explore some key central contemporary themes and styles, I will examine categories of modern feminist utopian and dystopian stories, then focus on Quebec writer Élisabeth Vonarburg’s novel In The Mothers’ Land (originally Chronique du Pays des Mères, and later published as The Maerlande Chronicles), and discuss American Ursula K. LeGuin’s novel The Dispossessed.

( The rest of the essay is here... )

Where utopian and dystopian stories have a long and venerable history, they have been criticized for being prescriptive and unrealistic. Modern entries into that genre, such as the works examined here, have managed to escape from the limitations and lack of subtlety that characterized so many earlier works. Strong use of allegory and postmodern feminist writing techniques (early postmodernism for The Dispossessed and late postmodernism for In The Mother’s Land) make these works fully critical analyses of society and social structures. These authors are not afraid to problematize their utopias – they do not fear the imperfection of their visions. On the contrary, “what differentiated these new utopias was their attempt to evade the traditional criticisms of the old utopias [...]: that they were static, boring, and unattainable. After all, utopias are not required, by definition, to be perfect. There seemed no reason to believe that all of humanity's problems could be solved through improved social organization; but it seemed possible that some of them might be” (Brians). The novel The Dispossessed was ultimately subtitled “An Ambiguous Utopia” in later editions and built on (and revolutionized) the traditions of American science fiction, tropes of individual exceptionality, and of the travelogue. LeGuin also claims that she was inspired by the anarchist writings of Murray Bookchin (Davis and Stillman), in particular Post-Scarcity Anarchism (Bookchin), in her portrayal of Anarres. Vonarburg is obviously influenced by the same American literatures (including, presumably, LeGuin), but could also draw from the traditions of French experimental and utopian fiction – for example, Hélène Sixous, Madeleine Gagnon, Nicole Brossard, and Jeanne Hyvrard (Santoro). With the tools of ambivalence and ambiguity at their disposal, both authors were able to create believable societies where better ways could be imagined, but could remain solidly grounded in the humanity of their visions. As readers, it is easier to travel along with a writer, and weigh the merits of their interpretations and stories, if the suspension of disbelief we must employ to follow them does not become the dominant tool that we need. In that regard both The Dispossessed and In The Mother’s Land succeed in a way every bit as engaging as the long tradition of non-fiction works by women travel writers.

( And the bibliography is here... )