Paolo Bacigalupi, The Water Knife. Excellent read, more for background on water and the kinds of things people WILL do to access it, than the story line.
*In the near future, the Colorado River has dwindled to a trickle. Detective, assassin, and spy, Angel Velasquez “cuts” water for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, ensuring that its lush arcology developments can bloom in Las Vegas. When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in Phoenix, Angel is sent south, hunting for answers that seem to evaporate as the heat index soars and the landscape becomes more and more oppressive. There, he encounters Lucy Monroe, a hardened journalist with her own agenda, and Maria Villarosa, a young Texas migrant, who dreams of escaping north. As bodies begin to pile up, the three find themselves pawns in a game far bigger and more corrupt than they could have imagined, and when water is more valuable than gold, alliances shift like sand, and the only truth in the desert is that someone will have to bleed if anyone hopes to drink.* davew On Tue, Jan 25, 2022, at 11:02 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > Glen writes: > > < I don't see how we can prune the combinatorial explosion of [im]possible > outcomes without deciding some kind of objective at the start, even if it's > super vague like a Gaia-ish homeostatic health of the biosphere. > > > One could imagine a sort of Mad Max scenario out in the streets where the > Whole Foods deliveries are intercepted by the street dwelling climate > refugees? Or large compounds where food, water, temperature-controlled > clean air were ensured for a price? Take all the rusting metal sitting > around from Trump's wall and build bigger fences around estates? Green > Zones, like in the Iraq sense? > > Marcus > > > *From:* Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> on behalf of glen > <geprope...@gmail.com> > *Sent:* Tuesday, January 25, 2022 11:50 AM > *To:* friam@redfish.com <friam@redfish.com> > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] health care logistics > > Well, OK. But the question still stands: Necessary for what objective? > > The Siebert & Rees paper talks about shared values like "socially just > ecological sustainability", "salvage civilization", "one-earth living", etc. > And each one of their criticisms in section 3 also assume some values. So, > I'm guessing it's something like their objective that we're assuming as our > objective. And anything that does not target that objective isn't put into > the kitty of things we'll evaluate as possible or impossible. (E.g. the > second-earth idea where we abandon this earth as a husk is not part of the > conversation.) > > I don't see how we can prune the combinatorial explosion of [im]possible > outcomes without deciding some kind of objective at the start, even if it's > super vague like a Gaia-ish homeostatic health of the biosphere. > > > On 1/25/22 06:39, David Eric Smith wrote: > > To say this is a value question is fair, glen, given my shorthands of > > language. > > > > However, I would like to split apart questions of “who wants what” from > > questions of “what can or cannot happen under what conditions, irrespective > > of what anybody wants”. In principle we have ways to get at the latter > > question; we often do worse in getting any resolution out of the former. > > Maybe there is something basic in this? Our notion of truth is that on any > > properly-posed question, there should only be one durable answer. Whereas > > in the area of desires, we think it is either inescapable, or for many also > > desirable (a self-referential value judgment) that different answers > > coexist indefinitely. > > > > Eric > > > > > > > >> On Jan 25, 2022, at 8:02 AM, glen <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> > >> Necessary for what, though? We need the shared value(s) before we can ask > >> what response we'd get from the convergence on something that might be > >> necessary to adhere to that value. Is the shared value that biology on > >> this planet should be preserved and the thing we need to do is impossible? > >> Or perhaps the shared value that all "lower forms of life" were simply > >> stepping stones to the human organism, but to preserve the human organism > >> is impossible? Etc. > >> > >> As Jon likes to ask: What are we optimizing? If we can't agree on that, > >> then the responses to impossibilities will be as diverse as the values > >> that underlie those impossibilities. And, if that's the case, then we're > >> back to the clustering/homogenizing we see in any aspect of pop culture. > >> > >> On 1/24/22 17:21, David Eric Smith wrote: > >>> In a real situation where we decided something was necessary that we > >>> believed there was no way to do, somehow I feel like the same movie > >>> doesn’t become the response. Something else does. What is that? > >> > >> On 1/24/22 17:34, Marcus Daniels wrote: > >>> Before I launch into a diatribe about why the hell we can't agree to > >>> basic, never mind interesting things: > > > -- > glen > Theorem 3. There exists a double master function. > > > .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: > 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > > .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: > 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >
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