[ExI] Review of Stewart Brand's new book, Whole Earth Discipline

[Aware]

On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 10:00 AM, Max More <max at maxmore.com> wrote:
> A curious blend of doom and optimism
>
> http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/reviewofbooks_article/8238/

I've long been ambivalent about Brand, admiring his passion, but
disliking some narrow zealotry.

Reading this review, I was immediately struck that for most people,
"ecology" still commonly refers to interactions among plants and
wildlife and their natural habitats, etc.  Just yesterday I'd referred
to the emerging ecological paradigm, superseding the presently popular
computational paradigm, and it registered that very likely I was
misunderstood, possibly perceived as promoting a Green point of view.

It didn't even occur to me, addressing the Extropy list, that thinking
in "ecological" terms, i.e., in terms of complex processes of
evolutionary growth, meaningless in isolation from their environment
of interaction, on all scales including the cosmic, might be
misconstrued as the "ecological" of the environmental conservationist.

Anyone interested in bigger-picture ecological thinking might want to
check out http://evodevouniverse.com/.

- Jef