The Author Who Tried to END The World (Watchmen / Alan Moore

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I thought this was an interesting short presentation (a little under 18 minutes) on some of Alan Moore's ideas behing Watchmen, Promethea, Jerusalem, and how they tied into his Hermetic practices.

Something tells me that we'll need to have more command over this sort of thing going forward, ie. if our world is to take responsibility for its own mental health and anti-fragility enough to continue existing in a peaceful manner. I also thought this, ie. bringing up Moore's intent with Jerusalem, was sort of a fun riff on the 'end times' theme that's been posted on repeat lately.

On a side note I have read Watchmen, my complete five volume (collapsed version) of Promethea is on loan to a friend. I maybe should give Jerusalem another chance, I think the only thing that bothered me a little about its structure was that I got 250 pages in and realized I hadn't seen a second chapter on an introduced character yet and to that extent it was starting to feel like a huge Readers Digest.

I think that global society may headed into its Second Mythical Age, when myths and legends are more believed than fact and reality. Ours may be the last generation that enjoys the fruits of scientific research as we spiral down into the Stygian depths of dreams and fantasy.

Or not.

The world of 'Ready Player One' is also a possibility.

I found the comment about money interesting.

What if we pursue an expansion of Automation until most people can live comfortably off of robot labor. Does money exist because of scarcity and if we end that, will money seem like a pointless tool?

That seems to be the end that a lot of hope we have in technology goes toward. The challenge I see is that we're still a 'grade-on-a-curve' type of animal, ie. that we want for particular reasons (especially with respect to mating resource) the majority of people below us. That sort of evolutionary drive and rule set unfortunately jacks up a lot of what we try to do in order to better the world and while economic machinations would become irrelevant to that game the game still wouldn't go away. The best we could hope for is that whatever game piece or commodity that we replace economic status with will be something that doesn't destroy the economy through planned waste and obsolescence or have elements within it that almost guarantee our extinction.