Futuristics

The following are a collection of aphorisms that have emerged from self-reflection and encounters with various practices and traditions: judo, the Gurdjieff Work, the Temple of Set, and Carl Jung's analytical psychology.

I don't claim any originality for the aphorisms, with apologies to Robert Fripp, Friedrich Nietzsche, Don Webb and others who have played with this approach.

In his science fiction trilogy Foundation (1951-53) author Isaac Asimov uses a deus ex machina called a Seldon Crisis to explore how uncertainty and exogenous shocks can affect long-range planning. Asimov’s series dealt with this at the “macrohistorical” level of galactic empires, civilisations and the attempts by a Toynbee-like “creative minority” to prevent or shorten a new Dark Ages.

Yet the Seldon Crisis can also be applied to the lifecycles of organisations and personal lives.

The new album Year Zero from the US industrial band Nine Inch Nails explores a dystopian future set 15 years beyond the current Bush Administration. Trent Reznor's targets include the military ("The Good Soldier"), politics ("Capital G"), alien contact ("The Warning"), religion ("God Given") and propaganda ("The Greater Good"). For me, the standout tracks are the finale ("In This Twilight" and "Zero-Sum") on the dissipative edge of the chaotic system, as a moment of civilisational Truth and global Armageddon both loom. The album's dominant theme is a dystopian perspective on (the lack of) consequentialist thinking for decision-makers.