- Even though the UN ’ s 1967 Outer Space Treaty stated that no country could claim the moon, Dennis Hope sold pieces of it anyway. Hope is the owner of the “ Lunar Embassy Corporation ” and has sold plots of moon land to 3.7 million people since 1980. The Nevada entrepreneur believed that he could claim the moon under the guise of a galactic government that he created. This government would technically be exempt from the UN ’ s treaty. Unfortunately for Hope and the other lunar loonies, the UN treaty also exempts private citizens of terrestrial governments from claiming stake in the moon. Victoria Jaggard, “ Who Owns the Moon? The Galactic Government vs the UN, ” National Geographic, July 17, 2009, http:// news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090717-who-owns-moon-real-estate.html. United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, “ Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, ” January 1967, http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/SpaceLaw/outerspt.html.
- McKenzie Wark, Molecular Red: Theory for the Anthropocene (London: Verso, 2015); Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars (New York: Bantam Books; 1993); Kim Stanley Robinson, Green Mars (New York: Bantam Books, 1994); Kim Stanley Robinson, Blue Mars (New York: Bantam Books, 1996).
- Arjun Appadurai, “ Sovereignty without Territoriality: Notes for a Postnational Geography, ” in Geography of Identity, ed. Patricia Yaeger (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), 40 – 58.
- Geodesign is hampered, however, not only by the complexity of its brief but also by the traditions of humanist politics across the spectrum. Moreover, many, if not most, of these traditions are, on more rigorous examination, less about politics than matters of faith and cultural identity, symptomatic responses that may incur catastrophe by their intransigence. Historian of science, Naomi Oreskes, often makes the point about climate change denial that the strength of belief (or disbelief) often has little to do with a conviction about the state of the science, or even necessarily the state of what the science describes. It stems rather from a distrust or fear of the policies that seem most relevant to mitigate against it, especially big, coordinated, infrastructure-level transnational governance. For a rightist libertarian at home on the range in his mind, nothing could be more unwelcome, and so competing conspiracy theories take the place of thinking and knowing. Oreskes, however, makes another point, which is that the longer that decisive action on climate change is delayed, the more draconian and even totalitarian would be any necessary measures to keep civilization afloat. A pinch of governance now saves a pound later, and so the filibustering inaction actually does more to guarantee the arrival of what the right (supposedly) fears most.
Responses like this are by no means confined to the right. Now that The Stack has emerged as a globally hegemonic system, we see on the left an unfortunate knee-jerk antidigital technology politics. When “ the Internet ” was seen as a way to decentralize and distribute power horizontally, disintermediating older institutions, then a “ net politics ” for the multitude was essential, but now that it is seen instead as an architecture for the consolidation and instrumentalization of power in volumetric space, then the Left falls into familiar stances well suited to critique but not to design or to the possession of power. Some discourses have trouble keeping straight whether the chief critique is “ client side ” (that neoliberalism foists all governing responsibility onto atomized individuals who cannot possibly decide on systemic problems) or “ server side ” (that massive state-scale platforms control systems-scale governance, leaving individuals no ability to maneuver autonomously). It is true that in theory, both can be true at the same time, but perhaps another reason for the contradiction is to protect another paradoxical double-wish: the romance of left libertarianism, blending old New Left self-realization with in-pocket supercomputing, and trying to find its footing on ground now given way into the sinkhole of state Keynesianism and its various variations. The latter used to underwrite the former ’ s sense of autonomy, but now the former has helped to decapitate the latter. It should be clear that the interests of the strong geodesign articulated by this book in the interests of a better Stack-to-come are not to be found inside the cultural politics of this First World psychodrama. A late-industrial-era aesthetics of hand tools, grooming, and food (particularly of the white working class) may represent a new pastoral for some urban youth cultures, but a generational fetishization of analog machines does not make for a good theory of technology. And yet it sometimes seems as if that, plus a 4Chan-ofeverything, is where things stand. The end result of this dreary convergence of the artisanal optout with misanthropic populism is that many of the worst Cloud feudal outcomes are far more likely to emerge than they would be if that collective intelligence were guided by another more future-forward cultural politics. Just as for the Right denialists, the Left counterparts sometimes work as if their strongest loyalties are to the protection of their own worst fears.
456
Notes