The Last Chance Of Freedom : The era of disconnected, infinite knowledge production should draw to a close.

Monday, September 5, 2022

Sustainability has become a watchword of 21st century thinking
Investigations range across the humanities, social and natural sciences, engineering, planning, and more
These efforts pursue resilience across the three registers of economic, social, and environmental sustainability
But they also pass over a fourth dimension of concern, what we can call epistemic sustainability

Founded in the late 19th century, the modern research university is built on two linked assumptions: knowledge is flat, no discipline is more fundamental or superior to another, and the production of knowledge is an infinite process.
The smorgasbord approach to knowledge, where its products are treated as a means to whatever ends an individual wants to pursue, assumes a world in which we need not consider the effects of inventions or discoveries when released into society.

There is no epistemic hierarchy to knowledge; the only hierarchy is administrative in nature
The insights and discoveries reached are then thrown over the wall that separates the production of knowledge from its use
This is an arrangement that prioritizes individual freedom-for the academics who can pursue whatever research they want, and for the public which can use the knowledge in whatever ways suit them
Restricting every subject to its own region-including philosophy and the humanities, which had previously sought to offer a view of the whole of life-means that there is no organized discussion of the overall goal of our epistemic efforts
Instead, the research university treats knowledge as a rational means to private and sometimes irrational ends
Transhumanists ask about the overall direction of science and technology, and come to the conclusion that science will eventually deliver us to a condition of infinite human power
However, they differ on how this will be achieved

Elections have consequences, so it is important that voters who want to save our democracy, should v