{"id":1130,"date":"2015-12-26T23:14:03","date_gmt":"2015-12-26T23:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/?p=1130"},"modified":"2015-12-26T23:14:03","modified_gmt":"2015-12-26T23:14:03","slug":"the-future-is-lost-unless-it-gives-gifts-to-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/12\/the-future-is-lost-unless-it-gives-gifts-to-all.html","title":{"rendered":"The future is lost unless it gives gifts to all"},"content":{"rendered":"

Around this Christmas, I received review copies of Visions<\/em> of<\/em> the<\/em> Future<\/em><\/a> and other important Lifeboat Foundation books.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Primarily collections of essays authored by other Lifeboat Foundation members (compare to my own main futurist work, the pocket-size\u00a0Catalyst<\/em> thesis<\/a>\u00a0that you can read in a day) those books can be immense and cover a wide variety of topics. As a result, my reviews will be directed mainly at a smaller selection of authors and essayists who contributed to these books at the Foundation.<\/p>\n

My futurism focuses on the idea that science and technology have a great\u00a0responsibility not just for what they\u00a0do\u00a0but for what they fail to do. They should not be used to the exclusive benefit of one nation-state or a few, but should uplift the entire globe<\/a>. It is an accepted aspect of enlightenment, the highest cosmopolitan virtue, to believe that the lives and pleasures of my neighbour or I are no more important than those of anyone else anywhere else in the world.<\/p>\n

Unless the benefits of science and technology are duly and equally shared among all people, with maximum attention to decentralisation and the equal treatment of all\u00a0states and cultures, these benefits ought not to be recognised at all. I would then offer no futurist vision other than to say the future is lost. In fact, most so-called benefits would only in fact be supporting hegemony, poverty and injustice<\/a> and further bloating the sense of legitimacy\u00a0of a privileged few if they were not adequately or promptly circulated.<\/p>\n

This idea of total equality in human development is central to my Catalyst<\/em> thesis and it is central to my recent post about thermonuclear fusion energy<\/a>. It can be expected to inform my upcoming book reviews of those immense collected works sent to me by the think tank this Christmas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Around this Christmas, I received review copies of Visions of the Future and other important Lifeboat Foundation books. Primarily collections of essays authored by other Lifeboat Foundation members (compare to my own main futurist work, the pocket-size\u00a0Catalyst thesis\u00a0that you can read in a day) those books can be immense and cover a wide variety of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,8,41,63,72,43,61,45],"tags":[104,1326,5,557,65,1488,4,1327],"class_list":["post-1130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alter-globalization","category-antistatism","category-book","category-futurism-2","category-international-relations","category-post-scarcity","category-science","category-techno-progressivism","tag-books","tag-christmas","tag-futurism","tag-lifeboat-foundation","tag-review","tag-science","tag-technology","tag-think-tank"],"yoast_head":"\nThe future is lost unless it gives gifts to all - L'Ordre<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Unless we make sure the gifts of science and technology reach all nations and empower all people, the future is lost to poverty and injustice.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/12\/the-future-is-lost-unless-it-gives-gifts-to-all.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The future is lost unless it gives gifts to all - L'Ordre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Unless we make sure the gifts of science and technology reach all nations and empower all people, the future is lost to poverty and injustice.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/12\/the-future-is-lost-unless-it-gives-gifts-to-all.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"L'Ordre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-12-26T23:14:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Harry J. Bentham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The future is lost unless it gives gifts to all - L'Ordre","description":"Unless we make sure the gifts of science and technology reach all nations and empower all people, the future is lost to poverty and injustice.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/12\/the-future-is-lost-unless-it-gives-gifts-to-all.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The future is lost unless it gives gifts to all - L'Ordre","og_description":"Unless we make sure the gifts of science and technology reach all nations and empower all people, the future is lost to poverty and injustice.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/12\/the-future-is-lost-unless-it-gives-gifts-to-all.html","og_site_name":"L'Ordre","article_published_time":"2015-12-26T23:14:03+00:00","author":"Harry J. 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Bentham","description":"Harry J. Bentham is a British futurist blogger who has been a contributor at a number of think tanks including the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies since 2013. His work at Press TV and the L'Ordre blog featured at the multi-faith Beliefnet website has gained increasing attention and praise, including in the international media. Commentaries on political and ethical controversies by Bentham have been published at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, H+ Magazine, Dissident Voice and numerous other publications. He edits The clubof.info Blog (http:\/\/www.clubof.info\/search\/label\/Harry_J_Bentham).","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Harry-J.-Bentham\/e\/B00D4MSEY0\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/author\/hbentham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/577"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1131,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions\/1131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}