Download or read book Utopian Confederation From the Mall to the Stars written by Matthew E. Gladden and published by Mnemoclave. This book was released on 2024-02-14 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What would humanity’s future look like, if the isle of Utopia had been real – and had guided the creation of a joyful global civilization free from all selfishness, competition, and discord? Utopian Confederation: From the Mall to the Stars presents such a world. In the 22nd century, human society exists not as an array of rival “states” but as a halcyon confederation of all living persons everywhere that’s voluntarily reaffirmed with each new day. Here it isn’t just material goods that are held in common: even persons’ innermost thoughts are a shared public resource, thanks to advanced neurocybernetics. Written laws and politics no longer play any role in society, as all individuals are raised to embrace a single vision for achieving the greater good – and to live it continually. Scientific inquiry and thaumaturgy go hand in hand, as human beings seek to understand (and shape) their place in the cosmos through both technological and miraculous means. And now the perfection of SQuarM reactors and the SNuP drive has allowed construction of the first vessel capable of completing an interstellar journey in decades rather than centuries. The colonies on the Moon and the “Cinnabar Planet” of Euthyphrar have already expanded the horizons of human experience – but now it’s hoped that a multigenerational voyage to the planets of Arcana Centauri might shed light on the greatest spiritual and intellectual puzzle still facing humankind: namely, is it really possible that our Solar System is home to the only life in the cosmos? Is Earth the focal point of the universe? And if intelligent life is abundant in other star systems, why have we been unable to discover any evidence of it, despite centuries of effort? The Utopian Confederation series is a game of philosophical, theological, scientific, technological, and sociopolitical exploration – and From the Mall to the Stars is the 200-page sourcebook that introduces its hopeful, pacific, and intellectually inquisitive world. In this volume, you’ll discover: • The administrative structure that organizes 21 billion human beings into communities from households and agathanias up through conurbs of millions of residents. • The ingenuity of the 200,000 persons living offworld in colonies, spacebases, and spacevessels. • Technologies like the Wellspring and the SGI Seliadne that make real-time “cognitive publication” possible. • Elements of Utopian Synergeticist thought, including ratiomysticism, thaumaturgy, hypophenomics, Iridic Bubble Theory, and the field of aetheromechany that conceptualizes the natural sciences as “applied angelology.” • The societal spheres of the pragmatic demeyne, metapsychic demeyne, and Ecclesia Peregrinans that operate in natural synchronicity. • Why money and private possessions don’t exist – but “shopping malls” play a pivotal societal role. • Cosmopraxis, axionomy, and the management of fields like housing, transportation, energy, agriculture, education, and healthcare. • Utopian aesthetics, architecture, and fashion. • The stats of the biodimensionary, aretalogue, and propellibrium, through which persons assess their own psychic strengths and failings. • SQuarM reactors, SNuP drives, HERUs, and the basics of starvessel architecture. • The cosmic enigma that is the “Imperceptance”; the nature of the Starflume Collegium; and the aims of the mission to Arcana Centauri. • The historical path from the ancient Utopian Commonwealth to the “reunification” of humanity and the Utopian Confederation of ADI 2175. • Character sheets for a group of four 22nd-century Confederation citizens.
Download or read book Utopian Confederation Conspectus written by Matthew E. Gladden and published by Mnemoclave. This book was released on 2020-02-14 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagining a different world This book offers an introduction to the Utopian Confederation RPG series and the peaceful, prosperous, and high-tech future society that provides the setting for its adventures. In this world, the island-republic of Utopia isn’t an imaginary land; it’s a diplomatic, economic, technological, and cultural trailblazer that has succeeded in unifying the world’s nations under a banner of peaceful collaboration – thanks largely to the Utopian mindset that combines a strong rationality and pursuit of scientific knowledge with a social and political philosophy that’s grounded in a deep spirituality and theological sensitivity. Will we find the answer around other stars? By the 2130s, the Utopian Confederation – and its technologically posthumanized society of human, animal, and artificially intelligent beings – has deftly mended and revitalized the earth and established new footholds throughout our solar system, on bodies including the moon, Mars, several asteroids, Callisto, Europa, Titan, and a number of orbital spacebases. No signs of life have yet been detected from from other worlds; contact with even a single alien civilization would be an epochal event that would rewrite our understanding of the universe. And advances in slower-than-light propulsion have finally brought within reach the dream of undertaking our first journeys to the nearest star systems. The recent perfection of the subluminal nuclear pulse (SNuP) drive by the Utopian Academy of Sciences has at last opened the door to the creation of true “starvessels” and made feasible the next step in our exploration of the cosmos: scientific missions to the extrasolar planets of Alpha Centauri, Barnard’s Star, Epsilon Eridani, Tau Ceti, and Wolf 1061. This endeavor is aimed at shedding light on the Fermi Paradox, which remains the most vexing scientific, technological, philosophical, and theological puzzle confronting humanity: why are we yet to discover any evidence of intelligent life “out there” in space, when all of the best scientific theories and evidence suggest that the galaxy should be teeming with advanced civilizations? Not just “utopian,” but “Utopian” Central to the game is the realm of Utopia. The remarkable history of the Utopian island-state – from its founding in ancient times up through the early 1500s – was described in detail in the eponymous volume published by Thomas More in 1516, which was based on the firsthand accounts of the traveller Raphael Hythloday, a former travelling companion of Amerigo Vespucci and one of the first modern Europeans to visit the island. Within the future gameworld of Utopian Confederation, Utopia is not a “nowhere” (as is suggested by the Greek roots of its name) but a concrete “someplace” that has played a critical role in shaping the course of events in our world – and beyond. The atmosphere of Utopian Confederation At its heart, Utopian Confederation is a game of better worlds. It is an intellectual, emotional, and spiritual exploration not only of the past worlds that might have been, if human beings had made wiser and more compassionate choices, but (more importantly) the future worlds that might yet be, if we manage not to continue destroying one another and our planet. It’s a fundamentally optimistic and hope-filled meditation on the mysteries of theodicy, metaphysics, science, and the depths of the human heart and mind. An gameworld with an “8-bit ethos” The world of Utopian Confederation also possesses a distinct aesthetic and philosophy: it’s lovingly wrapped in an “8-bit ethos” that inspired by classic video games that moves beyond the realm of graphic design to permeate all aspects of its gameplay experience and mechanics. This design philosophy not only lies at the heart not only of the Utopian Confederation computer games that are currently under development; it also serves as the foundation for a series of sourcebooks (to which this volume serves as a brief introduction) that will allow you to adapt the gameworld as a setting for tabletop RPG sessions or campaigns employing your favorite rule systems.
Download or read book Northern Stars written by Glenn Grant and published by Tor Books. This book was released on 2017-03-21 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the earliest days of modern science fiction, Canada has given readers some of the most important authors in the field--and many of the finest stories. World Fantasy Award-winning editor David G. Hartwell has teamed up with Canadian writer and critic Glenn Grant to compile Northern Stars, an anthology of stories by the writers who have built Canada's rich science fiction tradition. Now in paperback for the first time, Northern Stars is the definitive overview of science fiction's northern frontier, a valuable addition to any fan's library. Contributors include: Joel Champetier, Lesley Choyce, Michael G. Coney, Charles de Lint, Candas Jane Dorsey, Dave Duncan, James Alan Gardner, Wiliam Gibson, Phyllis Gotlieb, Glenn Grant, Terence M. Green, Eileen Kernaghan, Donald M. Kingsbury, Judith Merril, Yves Meynard, John Park, Claude-Michel Prevost, Garfield Reeves, Stevens Spider Robinson, Esther Rochon, Robert J. Sawyer, Daniel Sernine, Heather Spears, Jean-Louis Trudel, Elisabeth Vonarburg, Peter Watts, Andrew Weiner, Robert Charles Wilson. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Download or read book No Logo written by Naomi Klein and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2000-01-15 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What corporations fear most are consumers who ask questions. Naomi Klein offers us the arguments with which to take on the superbrands." Billy Bragg from the bookjacket.
Download or read book Stop Thief written by Peter Linebaugh and published by PM Press. This book was released on 2014-03-01 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this majestic tour de force, celebrated historian Peter Linebaugh takes aim at the thieves of land, the polluters of the seas, the ravagers of the forests, the despoilers of rivers, and the removers of mountaintops. Scarcely a society has existed on the face of the earth that has not had commoning at its heart. “Neither the state nor the market,” say the planetary commoners. These essays kindle the embers of memory to ignite our future commons. From Thomas Paine to the Luddites, from Karl Marx—who concluded his great study of capitalism with the enclosure of commons—to the practical dreamer William Morris—who made communism into a verb and advocated communizing industry and agriculture—to the 20th-century communist historian E.P. Thompson, Linebaugh brings to life the vital commonist tradition. He traces the red thread from the great revolt of commoners in 1381 to the enclosures of Ireland, and the American commons, where European immigrants who had been expelled from their commons met the immense commons of the native peoples and the underground African-American urban commons. Illuminating these struggles in this indispensable collection, Linebaugh reignites the ancient cry, “STOP, THIEF!”
Download or read book Seneca Possessed written by Matthew Dennis and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2012-02-23 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seneca Possessed examines the ordeal of a Native people in the wake of the American Revolution. As part of the once-formidable Iroquois Six Nations in western New York, Senecas occupied a significant if ambivalent place within the newly established United States. They found themselves the object of missionaries' conversion efforts while also confronting land speculators, poachers, squatters, timber-cutters, and officials from state and federal governments. In response, Seneca communities sought to preserve their territories and culture amid a maelstrom of economic, social, religious, and political change. They succeeded through a remarkable course of cultural innovation and conservation, skillful calculation and luck, and the guidance of both a Native prophet and unusual Quakers. Through the prophecies of Handsome Lake and the message of Quaker missionaries, this process advanced fitfully, incorporating elements of Christianity and white society and economy, along with older Seneca ideas and practices. But cultural reinvention did not come easily. Episodes of Seneca witch-hunting reflected the wider crises the Senecas were experiencing. Ironically, as with so much of their experience in this period, such episodes also allowed for the preservation of Seneca sovereignty, as in the case of Tommy Jemmy, a Seneca chief tried by New York in 1821 for executing a Seneca "witch." Here Senecas improbably but successfully defended their right to self-government. Through the stories of Tommy Jemmy, Handsome Lake, and others, Seneca Possessed explores how the Seneca people and their homeland were "possessed"—culturally, spiritually, materially, and legally—in the era of early American independence.
Download or read book Infantry Attacks written by Erwin Rommel and published by Greenhill Books. This book was released on 2023-11-30 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Legendary German general Erwin Rommel analyzes the tactics that led to his success. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel exerted an almost hypnotic influence not only over his own troops but also over the Allied soldiers of the Eighth Army in the Second World War. Even when the legend surrounding his invincibility was overturned at El Alamein, the aura surrounding Rommel himself remained unsullied. In this classic study of the art of war Rommel analyses the tactics that lay behind his success. First published in 1937 it quickly became a highly regarded military textbook, and also brought its author to the attention of Adolph Hitler. Rommel was to subsequently advance through the ranks to the high command in the Second World War. As a leader of a small unit in the First World War, he proved himself an aggressive and versatile commander with a reputation for using the battleground terrain to his own advantage, for gathering intelligence, and for seeking out and exploiting enemy weaknesses. Rommel graphically describes his own achievements, and those of his units, in the swift-moving battles on the Western Front, in the ensuing trench warfare, in the 1917 campaign in Romania, and in the pursuit across the Tagliamento and Piave rivers. This classic account seeks out the basis of his astonishing leadership skills, providing an indispensable guide to the art of war.
Download or read book Hoosiers and the American Story written by Madison, James H. and published by Indiana Historical Society. This book was released on 2014-10 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A supplemental textbook for middle and high school students, Hoosiers and the American Story provides intimate views of individuals and places in Indiana set within themes from American history. During the frontier days when Americans battled with and exiled native peoples from the East, Indiana was on the leading edge of America’s westward expansion. As waves of immigrants swept across the Appalachians and eastern waterways, Indiana became established as both a crossroads and as a vital part of Middle America. Indiana’s stories illuminate the history of American agriculture, wars, industrialization, ethnic conflicts, technological improvements, political battles, transportation networks, economic shifts, social welfare initiatives, and more. In so doing, they elucidate large national issues so that students can relate personally to the ideas and events that comprise American history. At the same time, the stories shed light on what it means to be a Hoosier, today and in the past.
Download or read book The Pall Mall Budget written by and published by . This book was released on 1869 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Brief History of Neoliberalism written by David Harvey and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2007-01-04 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neoliberalism - the doctrine that market exchange is an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action - has become dominant in both thought and practice throughout much of the world since 1970 or so. Its spread has depended upon a reconstitution of state powers such that privatization, finance, and market processes are emphasized. State interventions in the economy are minimized, while the obligations of the state to provide for the welfare of its citizens are diminished. David Harvey, author of 'The New Imperialism' and 'The Condition of Postmodernity', here tells the political-economic story of where neoliberalization came from and how it proliferated on the world stage. While Thatcher and Reagan are often cited as primary authors of this neoliberal turn, Harvey shows how a complex of forces, from Chile to China and from New York City to Mexico City, have also played their part. In addition he explores the continuities and contrasts between neoliberalism of the Clinton sort and the recent turn towards neoconservative imperialism of George W. Bush. Finally, through critical engagement with this history, Harvey constructs a framework not only for analyzing the political and economic dangers that now surround us, but also for assessing the prospects for the more socially just alternatives being advocated by many oppositional movements.
Download or read book Toward an Ecological Society written by Murray Bookchin and published by AK Press. This book was released on 2024-03-05 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Visionary essays from a founder of the modern ecology movement. In this collection of essays, Murray Bookchin's vision for an ecological society remains central as he addresses questions of urbanism and city planning, technology, self-management, energy, utopianism, and more. Throughout, he opposes efforts to reduce ecology to a toothless “environmentalism,” a task as vital today as when these essays were first published. Written between 1969 and 1979, the essays in this collection represent a fascinating and fertile period in Bookchin’s life. Coming out of the unfulfilled promise of the sixties and trying to develop a revolutionary critique of social life that avoided the pitfalls of Marxism, he was entering his creative intellectual peak. He was laying the foundations of a truly social ecology: a society based on decentralization, interdependence, democratic self-management, mutual aid, and solidarity. Presented with clarity and fervor, these key works contain the kernels of concerns that would occupy him until his death in 2006. This edition also includes a new foreword by Dan Chodorkoff, someone who was with Bookchin at the founding of his Institute for Social Ecology and who understand his work better than anyone.
Download or read book A History of American Literature and Culture of the First World War written by Tim Dayton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-04 with total page 749 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the years of and around the First World War, American poets, fiction writers, and dramatists came to the forefront of the international movement we call Modernism. At the same time a vast amount of non- and anti-Modernist culture was produced, mostly supporting, but also critical of, the US war effort. A History of American Literature and Culture of the First World War explores this fraught cultural moment, teasing out the multiple and intricate relationships between an insurgent Modernism, a still-powerful traditional culture, and a variety of cultural and social forces that interacted with and influenced them. Including genre studies, focused analyses of important wartime movements and groups, and broad historical assessments of the significance of the war as prosecuted by the United States on the world stage, this book presents original essays defining the state of scholarship on the American culture of the First World War.
Download or read book Neoliberalism written by Alfredo Saad-Filho and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 2005-02-03 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading writer Boris Kagarlitsky offers an ambitious account of 1000 years of Russian history.
Download or read book A Summary Historical and Political of the First Planting Progressive Improvements written by William Douglass and published by Legare Street Press. This book was released on 2023-07-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncover the fascinating history of early British settlement in North America with this comprehensive and engaging overview. Drawing upon a wide range of primary sources, including official documents, personal accounts, and contemporary literature, William Douglass provides a detailed exploration of the political, economic, and social factors that shaped the development of these vital colonies. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Download or read book If The South Had Won The Civil War written by MacKinlay Kantor and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2001-11-07 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If the South Had Won the Civil War originally appeared in the November 22, 1960, issue of Look magazine where it inspired a deluge of correspondence from readers. Published in book form in 1961, the novel is a must-have for Civil War enthusiasts. Out of print for over a decade, MacKinlay Kantor's classic Civil War novel is back, featuring a brand new introduction by Harry Turtledove (author of the bestselling The Guns of the South), new interior art by Dan Nance, and a stunning cover by acclaimed Civil War artist Don Troiani. This new edition also includes a hard-to-find essay by Kantor describing how and why the novel was written, and the nation's reaction to its publication. MacKinlay Kantor was superbly equipped to write this fascinating account of what might have happened, beginning on the fateful afternoon of Tuesday, May 12, 1863, when a deplorable equestrian accident resulted in the death of General Ulysses S. Grant.
Download or read book Fast Food Nation written by Eric Schlosser and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2012 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the fast food industry in the United States, from its roots to its long-term consequences.
Download or read book How to Be Idle written by Tom Hodgkinson and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-07-30 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yearning for a life of leisure? In 24 chapters representing each hour of a typical working day, this book will coax out the loafer in even the most diligent and schedule-obsessed worker. From the founding editor of the celebrated magazine about the freedom and fine art of doing nothing, The Idler, comes not simply a book, but an antidote to our work-obsessed culture. In How to Be Idle, Hodgkinson presents his learned yet whimsical argument for a new, universal standard of living: being happy doing nothing. He covers a whole spectrum of issues affecting the modern idler—sleep, work, pleasure, relationships—bemoaning the cultural skepticism of idleness while reflecting on the writing of such famous apologists for it as Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Johnson, and Nietzsche—all of whom have admitted to doing their very best work in bed. It’s a well-known fact that Europeans spend fewer hours at work a week than Americans. So it’s only befitting that one of them—the very clever, extremely engaging, and quite hilarious Tom Hodgkinson—should have the wittiest and most useful insights into the fun and nature of being idle. Following on the quirky, call-to-arms heels of the bestselling Eat, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss, How to Be Idle rallies us to an equally just and no less worthy cause: reclaiming our right to be idle.
