Against Dystopias with Ecological Literacy
Abstract
The longstanding dismissal of the ecological in civilisations that have developed dramatic ecology-altering and planetary boundary crossing technologies is at the crux of contemporary planetary polycrisis. Desirable and even viable futures depend on the design of new ways of living on the planet based on understanding humans in dynamic entanglement with the more-than-human context.
References
Amodai, D. (2023, Jul 21) Hardfork: Dario Amodei, C.E.O. of Anthropic, on the Paradoxes of A.I. Safety and Netflix’s ‘Deep Fake Love. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/21/podcasts/dario-amodei-ceo-of-anthropic-on-the-paradoxes-of-aisafety-and-netflixs-deep-fake-love.html?showTranscript=1
Andreessen, M. (2023, 16 Oct), The Techno-Optimist Manifesto. A16z.com. https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/
Armstrong, R. (2015). Keynote presentation. Urban Ecologies. Toronto, Canada: OCAD, 18 June.
Armstrong, R. (2017). From Hell to Babel: Creating Value in the Ecocene. Journal Of Biourbanism, 1, 2, 187-199.
Bacon, F. (2016). New Atlantis and The Great Instauration (2nd ed.) (J. Weinberger, Ed). New Jersey: Wiley. (Original work published 1627)
Barbrook, R. & Cameron, A. (September 1995) The Californian Ideology, Mute Magazine, https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology
Boehnert, J. & Dewberry E. (2024). Unlearning Unsustainability: A letter to Design Educators on Sustainability Delay. Learn X Design 2023. Education SIG, Design Research Society. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/learnxdesign
Boehnert, J. (2023) Design Politics in the Anthropocene. In Léa Perraudin, L., Winkler, C., Mareis, C. & Held, M. (Eds.) Material Trajectories: Designing With Care? Meson Press, 75-88.
Boehnert J. (2019). Transition Design and Ecological Thought. Cuaderno: Design in perspective - Transition Design 73 (19), pp. 133-148.
Boehnert, J. (2018). Design, ecology, politics: Toward the Ecocene. Bloomsbury Academic.
Boehnert, J. (2012). The Visual Communication of Ecological Literacy: Designing Learning and Emergent Ecological Perception. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Brighton.
Bookchin, M. (2019). Utopia, not futurism: Why doing the impossible is the most rational thing we can do 1978. [Transcript] Uneven Earth. https://unevenearth.org/2019/10/bookchin_doing_the_impossible/ (accessed 11.02.2024)
Bostrom, N. (2014) Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, Oxford University Press.
Brand; S. (1968, Fall). Whole Earth Catalog, 1. https://wholeearth.info/p/whole-earth-catalogfall-1968?format=spreads&index=1
Brinton, C. (1965). Utopia and Democracy, Daedalus, 94(2), 348-366
Brown, J. M. [Godfrey Sweven] (1903). Limanora, The Island of Progress https://archive.org/details/limanoraislandof00browrich/mode/2up (accessed 09.02.2024)
Callenbach, E. (1975). Ecotopia, Berkeley CA: Heydey
Cao, S. (2023, May 25). Sam Altman’s Startup Portfolio: 12 Companies Owned By the OpenAI CEO. Observer.com. https://observer.com/2023/05/openai-sam-altman-startup-portfolio/
Capra F. (1996). The Web of Life. New York. Anchor/ doubleday
Carey, J. (2000). The Faber Book of Utopias, London: Faber & Faber
Cartlidge, E. (2017, Jul 11). Fusion energy pushed back beyond 2050. BBC.com. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40558758
Center for Complexity at the Rhode Island School of Design. https://polycene.design/Project-Origins
Chwałczyk, F (2020). Around the Anthropocene in Eighty Names—Considering the Urbanocene Proposition, Sustainability 12, 11. 4458.
Claeys, G. (Ed.). (1991). A New View of Society and Other Writings, London: Penguin Classics
Claeys, G. (2011). Utopia: The History of an Idea, London: Thames & Hudson.
de Condorcet, A. N. (1795). Sketch for an Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human
Mind (K. M. Baker Trans), (2004). Daedalus 133(3), 65-82 Coops, F., Lockton, D., Gaziulusoy, I., Tonkinwise, C., Boehnert, J., Ortega Pallanez, M., Overdiek, A., Nilstad Pettersen, I., Culén, A.L., and Juri, S. (2024). Editorial: Designing (for) Transitions and Transformations: Imagination, Climate Futures, and Everyday Lives. In Proceedings of DRS 2024.
Cowley, R.M. (2019). A Manifesto for Governing Life on Mars, London: King’s College London
de Vries, A. (2023, Oct 10). The growing energy footprint of artificial intelligence. Joule Journal https://archive.ph/AQhiC#selection-2019.0-2019.55
Dilcot, C. (2020). Tony Fry’s Defuturing: A New Design Philosophy. (pp. x-xxiii)In Fry, T. (2020) Defuturing: A New Design Philosophy. London: Bloomsbury.
Etzler, J. A. (1833). The Paradise Within the Reach of All Men, Without Labour, by Powers of Nature and Machinery https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008676243 (accessed 09.02.2024)
Fry, T. (2009). Design Futuring. Oxford: Berg.
Fry, T. (2020). Defuturing: A New Design Philosophy. London: Bloomsbury.
Future of Life Institute (2024). Jaan Tallinn, Biography https://futureoflife.org/person/jaantallinn/ (accessed 11.02.2024)
Griffiths, J. (2017, February 8). Fire, hatred and speed! Aeon. https://aeon.co/essays/themacho-violent-culture-of-italian-fascism-was-prophetic
Good, I.J. (1965). Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine. Advances in Computers, Volume 6. https://exhibits.stanford.edu/feigenbaum/catalog/gz727rg3869
Goode, L. and Knight, W. (2023, 22 Nov). Sam Altman to Return as CEO of OpenAI. Wired. com. https://www.wired.com/story/sam-altman-openai-back/
Goertzel, B. (2019). The Cosmist Manifesto. Humanity+ Press.
Grossman, T. (2001). The Transhuman Singularity, The Kurzweil Library and Collections https://www.thekurzweillibrary.com/the-transhuman-singularity (accessed 11.02.2024)
Haraway, D. (2015). Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin. Environmental Humanities 6, no. 1: 159–165.
Huxley, J. (1957). New Bottles for New Wine. Chatto & Windus, London
International Energy Agency. (2021) The Role of Critical Minerals in Green Energy Transitions. International Energy Agency. https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/ffd2a83b-8c30-4e9d-980a-52b6d9a86fdc/TheRoleofCriticalMineralsinCleanEnergyTransitions.pdf
Irwin, T., Kossoff, G. & Tonkinwise, C. (2015). Transition Design Provocation, Design Philosophy Papers, (13) 1, 3-11. https://doi.org/10.1080/14487136.2015.1085688
Irwin, T. (2015). Transition Design: A Proposal for a New Area of Design Practice, Study, and Research. UK: Taylor and Francis online. Design and Culture. The Journal of the Design Studies Forum. (7) 2. 229-246. Disponible: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17547075.2015.1051829
IPPC (2022). Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. In Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2022. Pörtner, H.-O., Roberts, D.C., Tignor, M., Poloczanska, E.S., Mintenbeck, K., Alegría, A., Craig, M., Langsdorf, S., Löschke, S., Möller, V., et al. (Eds.) Cambridge University Press.
Jasanoff, S (2015). Future Imperfect: Science, Technology, and the Imaginations of Modernity. In Jasanoff, S., and Sang- H. K., Eds. (2015) Dreamscapes of Modernity: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the Fabrication of Power. University of Chicago Press.
Jasanoff, S., and Sang- H. K., Eds. (2015) Dreamscapes of Modernity: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the Fabrication of Power. University of Chicago Press.
Kelly, K. (2016). The inevitable: Understanding the 12 technological forces that will shape our future, London: Penguin
Kurzweil, R. (2005). The Singularity is Near. Viking. Levy, S. (2013, Apr 25). How Ray Kurzweil Will Help Google Make the Ultimate AI Brain. Wired.com. https://www.wired.com/2013/04/kurzweil-google-ai/
Lawrence, M, Janzwood, S. & Homer-Dixon, T. (2022). What Is a Global Polycrisis? Version 2.0. Discussion Paper 2022-4. Cascade Institute. https://cascadeinstitute.org/technicalpaper/what-is-a-globalpolycrisis/
Margolin, V. (2019). Social Design: From Utopia to the Good Society. In Resnick, E. (Ed.) The Social Design Reader. (pp. 17-30). Bloomsbury.
Maldonado, T. (1971). Design, Nature, & Revolution: Toward a Critical Ecology. University of Minnesota Press.
McGoey, L. (2012). The Logic of Strategic Ignorance. The British Journal of Sociology 63 (3), 553–576.
Mckaskill, W. (2022). What We Owe The Future. One World Publications.
More, T. (2016). Utopia. Verso. (Original work published 1516)
Morris, W. (2003). News From Nowhere, Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1890)
Morrow, R. Bridgens, B & Mackenzie, L. (2023). Bioprotopia: Designing the Built Environment with Living Organisms. Birkhäuser.
Musk, E. (2017). Making humans a multi-planetary species New Space, 5(2), 46-61.
Musk, E. [@elonmusk] (2022, Apr, 29). Worth reading. This is a close match for my philosophy. [Post]. X. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1554335028313718784
Nitah, S. (2021, Jul). Indigenous peoples proven to sustain biodiversity and address climate change: Now it’s time to recognize and support this leadership. One Earth Journal. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590332221003572
Orr, D. (1992). Ecological literacy. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Orr, D. (2002). The nature of design. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Owen, J. R., Kemp, D., Lechner, A. M., Harris, J., Zhang, R., Lèbre, É. (2022, 1 Dec). Energy transition minerals and their intersection with land-connected peoples. Nature Sustainability.
Park, K. (2018, Jan 26). Process of Building Nuclear Power Plant. Stanford University. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/park-k2/
Plato. (2007). The Republic (D. Lee, Trans). London: Penguin Classics (3rd ed.) (Original work published c.360 BC).
Rand, A. (1957), Atlas Shrugged, New York: Penguin.
Reuters. (2024, Jan 16). OpenAI CEO Altman says at Davos future AI depends on energy breakthrough. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-ceo-altman-saysdavos-future-ai-depends-energy-breakthrough-2024-01-16/
Rubenstein, M. J. (2022). Astrotopia, University of Chicago Press
Sargent, L. T. (1994). The Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited, Utopian Studies, 5(1) 1-37.
Sargent, L. T. (2016). Colonial Utopias/Dystopias. The Oxford History of the Novel in English: Volume 9: The World Novel in English to 1950 (Crane, R., Stafford, J., and Williams, M., Eds.). Oxford Academic.
Spiers, Elizabeth (2023, Oct 28). Tech Overlord’s Horrifying, Silly Vision for Who Should Rule the World. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/28/opinion/marc-andreessen-manifesto-techno-optimism.html
Sterling, S. (2001). Sustainable Education—Re-visioning Learning and Change, Schumacher Briefing 6. Schumacher Society/Green Books.
Sterling S (2003). Whole Systems Thinking as a Basis for Paradigm Change in Education. [Doctoral dissertation] University of Bath.
Szalai, J. (2022, Dec 9). How Sam Bankman-Fried Put Effective Altruism on the Defensive, The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/09/books/review/effectivealtruism-sam-bankman-fried-crypto.html
Thiel, P. (2013). Keynote Speech, Effective Altruism Summit 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8KkXcBwHec
Tlostanova, M. (2021). Unlearning and Relearning Design. In Fry, T., Nocek, A. (Eds.) Design in Crisis New Worlds, Philosophies and Practices. Routledge.
Tonkinwise, C. (2017). The Structure of Structural Change: Making a habit of being alienated as a designer. In Egenhoefer, R B. Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design. Routledge. Tooze, A. (2022). Welcome to the world of the polycrisis. Financial Times. 28 October 2022.
Torres, E. P. (2023, June 15). The Acronym Behind Our Wildest AI Dreams and Nightmares, Truthdig, https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-acronym-behind-our-wildest-aidreams-and-nightmares/
Torres, E.P. (2023b, August 8). Truthdig Live Event: What’s Behind the Race to Create Artificial General Intelligence? Truthdig. https://www.truthdig.com/articles/truthdiglive-event-whats-behind-the-race-to-create-artificial-general-intelligence/
Torres, E. P. (2021, July 28). The Dangerous Ideas of ‘Longtermism’ and ‘Existential Risk’, Current Affairs. https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/07/the-dangerous-ideas-of-longtermism-and-existential-risk?fbclid=IwAR1zhM1QqoEqF1bhNicGcZ5la7wGp3Q4hU0t9ytfbM2gBGrhOjGhFOl-NC8
Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Vienna). (2024). https://www.materialflows.net/about/
Wahl, D. C. (2016). Designing regenerative culture. Axminster, England: Triarchy Press.
Winstanley, G. (2009). The Law of Freedom in a Platform, Oxford: Benediction Classics (original work published 1652)
Wright, E. O. (2010). Envisioning Real Utopias. Verso. World Nuclear Association (2024, Jan). Plans For New Reactors Worldwide. https://worldnuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/plans-for-new-reactorsworldwide.aspx
Los autores/as que publiquen en esta revista ceden los derechos de autor y de publicación a "Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación", Aceptando el registro de su trabajo bajo una licencia de atribución de Creative Commons, que permite a terceros utilizar lo publicado siempre que de el crédito pertinente a los autores y a esta revista.
