[Paleopsych] Live Journal: The Grim Meathook Future

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The Grim Meathook Future
http://www.livejournal.com/users/jwz/543348.html
[Just some ideas on a new term being batted about. Links removed.]

    jwz wrote
    on September 21st, 2005 at 04:30 pm
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The Grim Meathook Future

    People have been asking about the origin of the phrase "Grim Meathook
    Future" that I've been tagging posts with for a while now; it is the
    creation of one Joshua Ellis, who wrote the following. This isn't on
    his site, and I like it, so I might as well paste it here for
    posterity:

      Feeding poor people is useful tech, but it's not very sexy and it
      won't get you on the cover of Wired. Talk about it too much and you
      sound like an earnest hippie. So nobody wants to do that.

      They want to make cell phones that can scan your personal
      measurements and send them real-time to potential sex partners.
      Because, you know, the fucking Japanese teenagers love it, and
      Japanese teenagers are clearly the smartest people on the planet.

      The upshot of all of this is that the Future gets divided; the
      cute, insulated future that Joi Ito and Cory Doctorow and you and I
      inhabit, and the grim meathook future that most of the world is
      facing, in which they watch their squats and under-developed fields
      get turned into a giant game of Counterstrike between crazy
      faith-ridden jihadist motherfuckers and crazy faith-ridden American
      redneck motherfuckers, each doing their best to turn the entire
      world into one type of fascist nightmare or another.

      Of course, nobody really wants to talk about that future, because
      it's depressing and not fun and doesn't have Fischerspooner doing
      the soundtrack. So everybody pretends they don't know what the
      future holds, when the unfortunate fact is that -- unless we start
      paying very serious attention -- it holds what the past holds: a
      great deal of extreme boredom punctuated by occasional horror and
      the odd moment of grace.

    Tags: grim meathook future
    music: Fluke -- Goodnight Lover
      _________________________________________________________________

    From: final_girl
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 06:32 am
    nicely encapsulated. concise. elegant. like a shiv. thanks. :)

    From: bq_mackintosh
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 06:40 am
    [Holds up lighter in rock-concert tribute]

    From: bq_mackintosh
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 07:14 am
    On cue, from the NYTimes:

      WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 - The House of Representatives rushed through
      a $6.1 billion package of hurricane-related tax breaks today,
      sending the bill to the Senate, whose members also planned to pass
      it quickly.
      [...]
      One cut being considered is a delay in the start of the new
      Medicare prescription drug coverage for one year to save $31
      billion and eliminating $25 billion in projects from the newly
      enacted transportation measure. The list also proposes...ending
      support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

    Because a great way to make it up to the poor folk who got their
    clocks cleaned by the hurricane is to cut Medicaid. And if they hurry
    up with the elimination of public broadcasting, maybe there won't be
    as much bad news following Rita.

    From: wsxyz
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 08:19 pm

      One cut being considered is a delay in the start of the new
      MediCARE prescription drug coverage for one year

      Because a great way to make it up to the poor folk who got their
      clocks cleaned by the hurricane is to cut MediCAID.

    Hopefully the adult reading programs will be fully funded.

    From: bq_mackintosh
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 09:16 pm
    Five of one, half a dozen of the other.

    From: darkengobot
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 09:56 pm
    Actually, the Medicare prescription drug program isn't the same thing
    as Medicaid at all. Medicaid is for the poor--Medicare prescription
    drug is for the richest per-capita section of the population, but who
    also vote regularly and reliably. Vote-buying is vote-buying, and IMO
    it's more heinous to cater to a large voting block with government
    goodies so that you can maintain your power than it is to give tax
    breaks to corporations.
    Corporations at least have payrolls. Old farts just clog up Denny's
    and wield their AARP cards like shurikens.

    From: bq_mackintosh
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 11:02 pm
    Actually, the Medicare prescription drug program isn't the same thing
    as Medicaid at all.
    Yeah, I realized my typo and was apparently too subtle in my self
    deprecation -- 'specially since I didn't do [DEL: poor :DEL] old
    folks.
    Anyway, base point still stands: the Big Help sent by the neo-cons is
    actually a tax-break bonanza and opportunity grab at program killing.
    It's arguably good to give something to small businesses to spark job
    growth in the area, but to me it just smacks of more of the same
    failed trickle-down program.
    (Reply) (Parent)

    From: autodidactic
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 06:40 am

my unasked-for opinion

    "Grim meathook future" sounds a lot like growing up in Anacostia,
    circa 1979-1982.
    And, Fischerspooner sounds like they sniff Giorgio Moroder's jockstrap
    for inspiration. This doesn't mean I don't like them, somewhat, but...
    L.

    From: relaxing
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 08:26 am

Re: my unasked-for opinion

    since Giogio isn't making records anymore I welcome any record
    smelling remotely like his jockstrap.

    From: king_mob
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 09:13 am

Re: my unasked-for opinion

    I believe the point was more "How futuristic is retro disco, exactly?"
    Not that I don't kinda like Fischerspooner too, the little I've heard,
    but I'm really, really not Mr. Dance Music Guy.
    My own tangential observation would be that punk rock clearly failed
    and I have lived far too long.

    From: relaxing
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 09:25 am

Re: my unasked-for opinion

    The point of the article was that at this moment you, I, and Cory
    Doctorow (or some reasonable caricature of that trio) want
    Fischerspooner playing in our future, rather than whatever grim
    meathook folk music undoubtedly awaits.
    My point was that being "retro" does not in itself make music good or
    bad, but anyway fuck it I've got to go do some more cocaine before oil
    prices make it too expensive to import.

    From: 7leaguebootdisk
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 07:04 am
    I'd throw in that Hunter S. Thompson used the phrase "grim meat hook
    reality" in Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, this feels like a
    reasonable extrapolation of the phrase. Nice little essay.

    From: saltdog
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 07:09 am

Holiday in Mogadishu

    Very well put.
    While the rest of the world is distracted by all this middle-east
    hoo-ha, The battle lines for the real opening batttlefields of the
    'grim meathook future', eastern africa, are falling quietly into
    place.

    From: jcterminal
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 07:12 am
    this is excellent. thank you.

    From: ultranurd
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 07:20 am
    Thanks! I googled it, but was confused by hits for different people
    named Ellis. TSOR failed me, but your explanation is great.

    From: jwz
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 07:30 am
    Turkish Society of Rochester?

    From: ultranurd
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 10:24 am
    TSOR = thirty seconds of research. Also known as "glance at the
    summaries on the first page returned by Google". Or possibly a
    Wikipedia search.
    Forgot where I was posting; to my knowledge, the abbreviation was
    coined by a member of a mailing list I'm on.

    From: pavel_lishin
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 07:56 am
    It's scary that I recognize the authors and the band. Makes me feel...
    like... i'm in tune with some sort of culture, God Forbid.

    From: dr_wrebagzhoe
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 08:13 am
    It's... wow.. I mean.. um.. wow.

    From: ultranurd
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 10:25 am
    That icon captures the best scene in the movie.

    From: taffer
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 11:24 pm
    Currently in my browser that icon is punching to the beat of Howard
    Jones - What is Love? and making me snicker.

    From: wetzel
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 09:28 am
    it's pathetic, but every time i see that phrase i think of this
    meathook.

    From: cyn_goth_prog
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 11:21 am

Doomed

    So what's the difference between "grim meathook future" and "doomed"?
    [j]

    From: jwz
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 01:29 pm

Re: Doomed

    Well, the "grim meathook future" is a very specific,
    peak-oil-and-fascism sort of doomed. "Doomed" covers all sorts of
    upsetting eventualities, like man-made black holes, killdozers, and
    our new robot overlords.
    I don't pretend that my categories are the most concise possible.

    From: transgress
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 12:02 pm
    Of course, nobody really wants to talk about that future, because it's
    depressing and not fun and doesn't have Fischerspooner doing the
    soundtrack. So everybody pretends they don't know what the future
    holds, when the unfortunate fact is that -- unless we start paying
    very serious attention -- it holds what the past holds: a great deal
    of extreme boredom punctuated by occasional horror and the odd moment
    of grace.
    I only wish I could write a response that was as graceful, honest, and
    insightful.

    From: valacosa
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 01:26 pm

      "Feeding poor people is useful tech, but it's not very sexy and it
      won't get you on the cover of Wired. Talk about it too much and you
      sound like an earnest hippie. So nobody wants to do that."

    I would say it's very difficult to make money off of poor people, but
    very easy to make money off of horny Japanese teenagers.
    Very well written piece.

    From: king_mob
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 08:18 pm

      I would say it's very difficult to make money off of poor people,

    Citibank does all right.

    From: raemus
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 09:56 pm

One word

    bum-vertising

    From: darkengobot
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 10:09 pm
    Grameen Bank. Microloans in the Third World can be quite profitable.

    From: ciphergoth
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 02:24 pm
    Also, of course, poor people do not primarily go hungry through lack
    of technology.

    From: cananian
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 10:01 pm

Bullshit

    What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

    The third-world is a technological wasteland. There are *millions* of
    subsistence farmers who can't grow enough to feed their family, but
    could if they had access to, say, modern agricultural techniques
    (which is certainly a form of technology). Millions more die because
    they don't have clean water -- and wells and purification are sure as
    hell technology. Browse through ThinkCycle if you need a ton more
    examples of simple technology which the underprivileged desperately
    need. Of course, you may not think that low cost eyeglasses, better
    sand filters, cheap IV drip controls for cholera treatments, or
    passive incubators are sexy technology, but technology they are, and
    poor people definitely need it. People don't want to invest in it. But
    there is plenty of technology which could help.

    Even if you mean "email and computers" by your use of technology, I
    can assure you that these are used and useful in the third world as
    well. Small farmers can make more money (thus feed their families
    better) if they know the prices of their crops in surrounding
    communities. They can't afford to take a week off from tending their
    crops to walk around and survey the prices. One project here is trying
    to supply extremely low-cost solar-powered email stations to connect
    villages so that farmers can know their markets better. These also
    help get medical aid, etc, to the rural communities when it is needed.
    When your mother is sick, walking three days to the nearest hospital
    and then walking three days back with the medicines for your mother is
    no fun, let me assure you. Most of these projects rely on a
    sneaker-net/pony-express style of message transfer, since there is no
    network infrastructure. But store-and-forward email works just fine as
    long as there are some people making regular rounds of the villages.

    It's easy to say, "oh, technology can't help" but it *can*. As a
    higher-level example, wireless technologies are a godsend to the third
    world, because they can't afford to install wired infrastructure.
    (Heck, even MIT can't afford wired infrastructure: they are giving up
    on trying to upgrade their wires and moving their entire dormitory
    network to wireless.) The third world has really impressive cell-phone
    penetration, because the national telcos are corrupt, incompetent,
    unreliable, and habitually ignore poor areas (because they can't
    afford to bribe their local bureaucrats). Similarly, email is much
    more reliable than the national postal services (although it doesn't
    work so well for packages).

    From: mister_borogove
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 11:00 pm

Re: Bullshit

    I assume ciphergoth's point is that there's already enough food
    calories being produced in the world, it's just that no one in power
    has any particular incentive to distribute the food evenly. Why are
    you responding so angrily?

    From: cananian
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 11:06 pm

Re: Bullshit

    Because it seemed a cheap "well I can't do anything about it" cop-out,
    since I would guess that most of the readers of this blog are
    technologists, not politicians. Even if we can't fix the food
    distribution problem (global politics), we can certainly *do
    something*, and we can even use the *technology* we have/know.

    If the comment was meant as just a cynical aside, then my anger
    stands. If it was making some other point entirely (or was just
    ill-informed) then I'll apologize.

    From: zenmonkeykstop
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 11:41 pm

Re: Bullshit

    It's kindof wallpapering over the cracks though, innit. If you have a
    social problem (unfair distribution of calories, say) then chances are
    a technological solution is just a profitable way to postpone or
    ignore the social solution.
    It's like trying to solve inner-city smog by proposing that SUVs be
    required to use hybrid engines, rather than by restricting downtown
    traffic. It's a great solution from the point of view of the car
    manufacturers, coz they get to make people buy new cars. But it
    doesn't solve the problem. Traffic just keeps scaling up.
    The whole point of the meathook is that technology is not the answer,
    it's the distraction from the question. Obey the meathook.

    From: mark242
    Date: September 23rd, 2005 - 12:08 am
    That response shows why you're (we're) part of the Cory Doctorow side
    of the grim meathook equation. I'm sorry, but coding up novel new uses
    for consuming Flickr photos doesn't mean jack shit to the refugee in
    Darfur. And I'm pretty sure that the woman locked in her attic in New
    Orleans doesn't really care about the DRM in her DVD player.
    As for "we can certainly *do something*" -- yeah, we can, absolutely.
    We give money to organizations that know that the answer is getting
    feet on the ground and meals on (makeshift) tables.

    From: darkengobot
    Date: September 23rd, 2005 - 12:25 am
    Dunno how much we can do. Giving money to organizations is a lot like
    an appeal to sorcery. "Well, I tossed *my* virgin into the volcano--if
    it erupts, it sure won't be *my* fault."
    Whether those organizations can actually do anything or not is often
    dependent on the country in question not being run by corrupt
    sociopath dictators. Getting rid of corrupt sociopath dictators
    requires either A) a long, uncertain process dependent on
    international diplomatic pressure; or B) a short, uncertain process
    dependent on military might. Well, I guess there's always C) God turns
    said sociopath dictator into a donkey, but that hasn't happened since
    Nebuchadnezzar.

    From: cananian
    Date: September 23rd, 2005 - 12:43 am
    Um, I certainly didn't mention Flickr in my post. Wrt DRM -- I would
    say that wikipedia (for instance) is a heck of a lot more useful to
    poor folk than a DRM'ed Brittanica. If you want to prevent pervasive
    DRM from eventually swallowing up wikipedia, more power to you. But
    the refugees in Darfur (or New Orleans, or Galveston) *would* like an
    application to help them locate and contact lost family members. That
    can be done with code, and that does help real people. I refuse to
    lump that together java sex-locators on 3G phones.

    From: saltdog
    Date: September 23rd, 2005 - 12:00 am

Re: Bullshit

    The technology that powers my six hundred and sixteen foot ship, the
    technology that helps us navigate from Galveston or Lake Charles or
    where ever we load our 41,054 short tons of cargo to Africa certianly
    helps distribute the calories.
    And I'm going to generalize here, and most people won't understand
    unless they have seen the way they live through tradition over there,
    but it's rare that folks there want to work, even for subsistance.
    They would take your non-sexy technology and find some way they could
    make a quick buck off of it instead of using it as intended.
    But that's just my thoughts on the matter. I'm just a simple seaman.

    From: lovingboth
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 02:58 pm
    There are other crazies mostly in bits of the world that the US isn't
    interested in, but yeah.
    I always thought Goodnight Lover was Fluke's pitch for doing a Bond
    soundtrack.

    From: baconmonkey
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 06:12 pm

wrong song

    right song:
    The Cure - "Meathook" from "Three Imaginary Boys", 1979

    From: lohphat
    Date: September 22nd, 2005 - 10:45 pm

Yeah, but...

    ...where can you get one of those phones?

    From: susano_otter
    Date: September 23rd, 2005 - 12:57 am

That's It?

    This "grim meathook future" is just shorthand for what has
    consistently been the human experience, in all its ups and downs and
    all its successes and failures, since the dawn of time?
    Sounds like a pretty unrealistic (and pessimistic) view of a process
    that has brought more polio vaccines to more people with every passing
    decade.
    And a greater percentage of people today are part of the wealthy
    elite, by historical standards, than in the middle ages, or in
    slave-powered ancient Egypt? Oh noes! Teh grim meathooke future si
    upon us!!etc.



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