University of Wisconsin-Madison "Utopian" Future sounds like a totalitarian nightmare

Posted by Madanthonywayne 9 years, 10 months ago to Education
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The federal government gave University of Wisconsin-Madison $5 million to come up with it's ideal future. It wounds like something out of George Orwell's 1984.
SOURCE URL: http://freebeacon.com/issues/feds-paid-4-9-million-to-create-hypothetical-utopian-climate-change-future/


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  • Posted by Lucky 9 years, 10 months ago
    Recommend to the NSF 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell.
    Tell them that Orwell was a communist.
    "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".
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    • Posted by eddieh 9 years, 10 months ago
      also must read Anthem by Ayn Rand. Quick read and real close to this storey
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      • Posted by readthebook 9 years, 10 months ago
        An excerpt from Leonard Peikoff's book, Objectivism:The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, contrasting Anthem with Animal Farm:

        "Ayn Rand is more realistic than the panicky anti-communists of the Cold War era, who trembled before the alleged practicality of dictatorship. The best symbol of this issue is the contrast between two projections of a collectivist future: George Orwell's 1984 vs. Ayn Rand's Anthem (which was published more than a decade earlier, in 1938). Orwell regards freedom as a luxury; he believes that one can wipe out every vestige of free thought, yet still maintain an industrial civilization. Whose mind is maintaining it? Blank out. Anthem, by contrast, shows us "social cogs" who have retrogressed, both spiritually and materially, to the condition of primitives. When men lose the freedom to think, Ayn Rand understands, they lose the products of thought as well."
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      Posted by Maphesdus 9 years, 10 months ago
      Actually, George Orwell was a Socialist, not a Communist.
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      • Posted by dbhalling 9 years, 10 months ago
        a distinction without a difference
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        • Posted by Maphesdus 9 years, 10 months ago
          It depends on what definitions you're operating under.
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          • Posted by strugatsky 9 years, 10 months ago
            A person could be a communist, but even communists admit that only socialism is realistic, not communism. In the Soviet Union, the going joke was "we see communism on the horizon..."

            As to the difference between socialists and communists, it is rather minor. Socialists are a bit milder in their methods, leaving eventual enslavement and murder to the communists.
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            • Posted by readthebook 9 years, 10 months ago
              Excerpt from Ayn Rand's 1946 response to an inquiry from Kelsey Guilfoil of the Chicago Tribune's Magazine of Books asking if she would be interested in writing book reviews, quoted in The Letters of Ayn Rand, Michael Berliner, editor:

              "I would have liked to review Animal Farm—though I consider it a very bad book; but it has great historical significance—as an eloquent and frightening revelation of the mind of a modern socialist. (l mean, the author. The book is not anti-Communist, you know. It's merely anti-Stalin, but pro-Communist. This should have been said in reviews, but wasn't.)"

              Orwell was a Fabian socialist.
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            • Posted by readthebook 9 years, 10 months ago
              An interesting 1946 letter on Animal Farm from Ayn Rand to Leonard Read (founder of the Foundation for Economic Education, publishers of The Freeman) quoted in Letters of Ayn Rand, Michael Berliner, editor:

              "As an advance warning, for God's sake DON'T recommend Animal Farm. You have probably heard about it — it's a little booklet that has just come out and is being whooped up as a lesson against Communism, which it is not. I have read it. It made me sick. It is a book against Stalin, not against Communism. In fact, it is the mushiest and most maudlin preachment of Communism (I suppose the author would call it Socialism, but there is no difference), that I have seen in a long time. The moral of the book is not: 'Communism is evil,' but: 'Stalin's Communism is just as evil as Capitalism.' Don't let's help to preach that idea."
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  • Posted by Bobhummel 9 years, 10 months ago
    "In the scenario where Americans “shift our values,” people live in hippie-like communes after “youth culture” convinces the world to give up their cars and eat vegetarian."

    ---How do they get the food stamps too all the non-productive parasites on our current society, or the masses in NYC, Chicago, LA, Detroit, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston. I guess that is why they need to take away all the privately owned guns so they can reduce the population to sustainable levels.

    "The protagonist of the story is Rosa, a “community organizer” for a United Nations youth group “Badgers for Our Future,” who presides over the only holiday celebrated in the community, Earth Day"

    ---How quaint. A community organizer. The masses only need to be properly conditioned. Lucky, you nailed it in your post. Just like Orwell’s “Animal Farm” – everyone is equal, it is just that some pigs are more equal than others.

    "The community shares economic resources, as well as goods and services, such as “vehicles, appliances, equipment, meals, and expertise.” Material wealth is criticized, and the community lives by the slogan “rich in time; sufficient in things.”

    ---Who fixes this stuff when it breaks. Who creates the new machines when the old machines wears out. Or they just revert to slave labor at some point. And “expertise” will be forced to be shared? You cannot force the mind.

    "Rosa celebrates a court decision that forcibly took property from wealthy individuals as a required step to place the community above the individual."

    ---Now this is a novel concept – state ownership of all property – I thought we had a name for that. I don’t recall it being successful as a concept or in the execution of the concept. oops, little Freudian slip there.

    "Citizens of Yahara are “much less reliant on cars,” the only ones left on the roads being hybrids or electric, and the roads are full of bike lanes to “accommodate the growing masses of bike commuters.”

    ---Sounds just like the workers paradise in North Korea.

    "The UN youth movement helped usher in this “new world order,” where population growth has declined, use of fossil fuels has largely been deserted in favor or wind and solar, and a cross-country train system has replaced air fare that has become too expensive."

    ---All right! Trains are back. Now we can truly have a Non-fiction version of Atlas Shrugged with real trains. When do they impose Directive 10-289?

    "Americans now engage in the “pursuit of sustainable happiness,” by adopting a global Gross National Happiness (GNH) index as “its official gauge of prosperity,” replacing GDP."

    ---Just like liberal statists. When the misery index gets so high that it pegs the needle, create a new term that you can control to convince the masses that they are happy.

    "However, pockets of “traditionalists” still threaten the “winds of great change.” The so-called traditionalists have “been slower to accept or adopt the newer norms, feel society has not necessarily gotten better with the Transition, since certain conveniences and privacies have disappeared.”

    ---OK, I just have to puke now. Of course all relationships are public now. You can have what ever you want, whom ever you want in any way you want and it is all OK except to those so-called traditionalist who are slow to adopt the new norms. Call me old fashioned and try and take my property or enslave me to your philosophy and I will show you the winds of change as it is discharged at 1600 feet per second in the form of 170 grains of copper-jacketed lead, with a controlled deformation tip of course. See point #2.
    But I digress.
    Cheers
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  • Posted by Temlakos 9 years, 10 months ago
    This reads like We the Living. I expect to read of how someone died trying to crash the border.

    But what do you expect from a university community, Especially in Wisconsin?
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  • Posted by 9 years, 10 months ago
    A quote:

    The protagonist of the story is Rosa, a “community organizer” for a United Nations youth group “Badgers for Our Future,” who presides over the only holiday celebrated in the community, Earth Day.

    “It has become custom for Rosa, the unofficial community matriarch, to give a blessing before the Earth Day meal (although not everyone in the community is religious, they say secular blessings before important community meals to express gratitude for what the Earth provided them),” the story says.

    The community shares economic resources, as well as goods and services, such as “vehicles, appliances, equipment, meals, and expertise.” Material wealth is criticized, and the community lives by the slogan “rich in time; sufficient in things.”

    “Material wealth is not the coefficient of life quality,” the story says. “As such, consumers, overall, consume less.”

    “What individuals don’t share with their communities is purchased primarily out of need.”

    Rosa celebrates a court decision that forcibly took property from wealthy individuals as a required step to place the community above the individual.

    “Even though most Yaharans had become more willing to undertake serious conservation measures, the willingness was not universal, especially when certain sacrifices were required,” she tells her granddaughter in the story. “To create the preserve, Grandpa had to convince several wealthy residents to give up either some of their property or their control of it.”

    When some individuals refused, a coalition took them to court, which unanimously ruled in favor of building a community beach.

    “It was a glorious victory!” Rosa says. “Oh, how we celebrated! It symbolized how far we’d come in putting the good of our communities and our environment before the desires of the individual. The triumph was proof the Great Transition had arrived.”

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    • Posted by Bobhummel 9 years, 10 months ago
      This is NSF funded policy development by idiots with a degree in 13th century finger painting with an emphasis in blue.

      Americans now engage in the “pursuit of sustainable happiness,” by adopting a global Gross National Happiness (GNH) index as “its official gauge of prosperity,” replacing GDP.

      All they need is to build and arena and reap children for their Hunger Games and utopia will be complete. Who the hell do they think will make all the things they need to survive? They had to suck money from productive Americans to pay for this piece of crap Yahara fantasy.
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  • Posted by Theobjectivist-laciar 9 years, 10 months ago
    Why would they use tax money to sustain a project that only supports the views of some? I mean, spending it on the military is justified, but on some kind of commie big-government project? Seriously?
    And I haven't even named that they are trying to make this ACTUALLY happen.
    I hate how the Federal government can use people's money for anything that supports the views of the current governing group
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  • Posted by $ blarman 9 years, 10 months ago
    If the whole thing weren't so utterly laughable, I would be concerned.

    What I want to see is them try to actually LIVE like they say for a couple of years. Have them put their lives where their mouths are. I'd bet less than one in a hundred stays longer than a couple of months.
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 9 years, 10 months ago
    What a mess!
    Politically motivated art, maybe. Science? Not a chance. Time to shut down NSF, and then keep going...
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    • Posted by Hiraghm 9 years, 10 months ago
      "After a few beats, he spoke again. "Is Bruce going to tell the rest of the Con what's going on? I had to teach a thermo class this morning, so I missed whatever you decided at the meeting. The traffic was tied up around the fraternity houses. They're getting ready for some sort of Greekfest."
      "Call in sick, like I did."
      He shook his head. "I owe them."
      "Who, the University?"
      "No, my students. It takes a lot of guts to sign up for a science course these days. To put up with the taunts and harassment. As long as they show up, I'll show up."
      "I'm glad I'm staff, not faculty."
      "The Dean insists that we add creationism and crystal theory and spiritualism to the curriculum."
      "They already have those-—"
      "Not as equal time in the physics and chemistry departments."
      Sherrine whistled low.
      "Yep," Bob said. "The science departments are resisting-—we had a meeting after my class-—but it's a question of marketing and sales. Of putting warm bodies behind desks. We told the Dean that there was no objective evidence for any of that crap. You know what he said?"
      The sky was a slate gray; the cloud deck, low and oppressive. Sherrine stared up into the gloom. "No. What?"
      "He said that the alleged objectivity of materialist science was an invention of heterosexual, white males, so we shouldn't use that as a basis for judgment."
      She looked sharply into his face. For a change, he was not laughing. "What did you tell him?"
      "Nothing.""

      - Fallen Angels
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    • Posted by Hiraghm 9 years, 10 months ago
      ""Look at that crap," said one of the cops, pointing to the puppeteer.
      And that really was too much. He turned to the policeman. "Crap, sir? Crap? Do you comprehend the creativity and art that went into the fashioning of that artifact? An anatomically correct and self-consistent realization of an imaginary beast." Careful, he told himself. It's a Monster, not an Alien. Fantasy was still marginally acceptable; but just barely so. He hoped the policeman would not read the provenance plaque. Maybe Will had managed to pocket it.
      "Art," the cop grunted. "I don't see no NEA sticker."
      "It was made before-—before NEA approval was necessary. Even today not all art is government subsidized." And the National Endowment for the Arts had never given a grant to fantasy or science fiction art.
      "Some of the stuff you got here glorifies technology," the Green cop insisted. As if Tremont did not already know it. "You don't want to glorify technology, do you?"
      "Maybe he needs some education," another Green said. "Community service."
      "Mr. Fielding is all right," a policeman said. "Good law and order man. Come on, lay off."
      And I should leave it at that-—He couldn't. "Do you dislike all technology? Such as the technology that made the cloth for your uniforms, or developed the electric cars you drove here?"
      The Green looked surprised. "That's appropriate technology," he said.
      "
      - Fallen Angels

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  • Posted by iroseland 9 years, 10 months ago
    Guh! only Madison.. the thing is there is some excellent work being done on the non-hippie side of campus. But its Madison, where they have a weird contempt for the folks who are there to study engineering math and science.. same thing was going on at uw Milwaukee.. despite the part where there were some really top notch brains over in the EMS building and the chemo building. Those departments had to beg for funding while the English department could do pretty much whatever they wanted..
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    • Posted by khalling 9 years, 10 months ago
      Actually Kansas is oil rich. The EPAs new rules on guarding the prairie chicken have meant compnies are abandoning oil rigs. As well, rural areas of most states have been hit hard by the recession. The middle class of these communities have shrunk. People move closer to urban areas for work.
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    • Posted by Bobhummel 9 years, 10 months ago
      Cutting taxes improves life for everyone, every time it is tried - because it reduces the power of the nanny state bureaucrats. They can't sick the alphabets soup agencies on you business or farm when they can't confiscate my wealth first through taxation.
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      • Posted by Robbie53024 9 years, 10 months ago
        Not merely because it reduces the power of the state, but more because it provides a more efficient mechanism for identifying demand so that available resources are allocated to the most demanded needs.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 10 months ago
    I live in the Yahara watershed. The Yahara runs through Madison and connects the "Madison Chain" of lakes. The area is more commonly called the Four Lakes area.

    I don't know if we need funding for this, but I agree with the tenor of what it's saying. Reading the contemptuous summary, I think the study might be indirectly hitting on the issue of what is consumption. If it means items coming from a factory, maybe we want to consume less. If it's phone apps or music, maybe we consume more.

    I do not think these guys are predicting the future. I question if this is real urban planning theory meritting gov't funding, but it is important to think about. I would contribute to this research if my business carries on as it has been so far in 2014 (unlike 2013) and they put my logo/link on their site.

    I really want to see this area grow, increase in density, not develop more farmland than necessary, stay walkable/bikable.
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  • Posted by Hiraghm 9 years, 10 months ago
    aww.. I'm gonna throw up....

    Question:

    Why is there a National Science Foundation? I missed that provision in the Constitution...
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    • Posted by khalling 9 years, 10 months ago
      why is there a department of the interior? what the hell does that even mean?!
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      • Posted by ewv 9 years, 10 months ago
        The original Dept of Interior dealt with public lands and was built around the General Land Office and Indian affairs. Most of the public land was presumed open to settlement by the public, available to be claimed for private ownership as previously unowned land. The beginning of what became the progressive movement in the last part of the 19th century fundamentally changed that to a mission for permanent and expanding government ownership and control through progressively accumulating acts of Congress, without regard for the lack of Constitutional authority. That is how we got today's problems ranging from bureaucratic abuse of western ranchers where private property is not permitted, to the takings of private homes, businesses and land by the National Park Service. There was no legitimate Constitutional original purpose or authority for the National Science Foundation, which was created by Congress in the middle of the 20th century to consolidate and expand government control over science through infrastructure and funding -- in the name of "science".
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