God knows why I’m posting this. I just happened to stumble across it, in between doing a press release for a speed dating event and emailing around to see who wants to watch V for Vendetta at Video Monster.
Read into that what you will.
Introduction:
Industrial Society and the Future
1. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in “advanced” countries.
2. The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy.
3. If the system breaks down the consequences will still be very painful. But the bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later.
4. We therefore advocate a revolution against the industrial system. This revolution may or may not make use of violence; it may be sudden or it may be a relatively gradual process spanning a few decades. We can’t predict any of that. But we do outline in a very general way the measures that those who hate the industrial system should take in order to prepare the way for a revolution against that form of society. This is not to be a POLITICAL revolution. Its object will be to overthrow not governments but the economic and technological basis of the present society.
5. In this article we give attention to only some of
the negative developments that have grown out of the industrial-technological system. Other such developments we mention only briefly or ignore altogether. This does not mean that we regard these other developments as unimportant. For practical reasons we have to confine our discussion to areas that have received insufficient public attention or in which we have something new to say. For example, since there are well-developed environmental and wilderness movements, we have written very little about environmental degradation or the destruction of wild nature, even though we consider these to be highly important.
raincoaster 
Speed dating??? What has urban society come to when adults become so unfriendly to strangers that boys meeting girls has to be arranged by a third party? This is where the difference between multi-culturalism and cosmopolitanism is most obvious.
I spent three years in Cardiff which is ‘multi-cultural’. There is a big Bangladeshi population, some are more reglious than others, some have to sleep on your sofa after a few beers after work so their parents don’t see they’ve been drinking, some are more liberal. But when you go down the pub, or to a nightclub and chat up a girl you’ve never seen before she talks to you, even if it is just a polite ‘not a chance’.
I’ve worked a total of 20 months in London, there I experienced ‘cosmopolitanism’. People you work with talk to you at work and might have a quick drink with you after work. People you play cricket with talk to you at cricket and have a drink with you after cricket. You can play cricket against West Indian teams, Sri Lankan teams, Bangladeshi teams etc. In Cardiff there is the odd ‘Welsh Asian’ team bit they are mix of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi, proud of being both Asian and Welsh. In Londonwhen you go to a pub or nightclub and chat up a strange girl the usual response if for them to walk away without saying anything, I’ve even had ‘Can you please stop talking to me’. You would never get that in a multi-cultural city, only a cosmopolitan city.
Hence the more speed dating a city has, the less likely you are to get laid. Maybe someone could complile some sore of Index, population of single 21-30 year olds and number of speed dating seats per week? That would sort the Newcastle’s of this world from the Londons.
Steven, what you’re experiencing here isn’t the difference between multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism. What you’re experiencing is the difference between the Big City and everywhere else.
Believe me, Vancouver’s as multi-culti as they come and I’ve asked men to stop talking to me. And I’m not seeing what race has to do with this…
Speed dating is a response to the isolationism of the big city, not a cause. I could do that index for you, Steven, but I’ll charge you $35 an hour to do it. The real way to get laid is to run the events; then everyone has to talk to you.
I pay on the ‘invoice me in 30 days and ill stick your bill with the rest of my bills and not answer the phone when you call me’ rule mind you.
Works for me. I mean, it always has. I’ve got big steel gates here.
Seriously, run a singles event. You’ll get laid every time and it’ll cost you nothing more than a couple of drinks the venue will buy for you anyway.
I don’t need to run a singles event, I live near Newcastle, it’s full of girls that want to get laid and don’t care how rich you are. London is a financial centre and a fashion centre, all girls care about is how much money you’ve got. In Newcastle they care about how you chat them up and whether you are presentable. At 26 I still am.