ABOUT ME
I, futuristguy, am many amongst one:
… Superhero Sidekick to my friends, old and new. I help people identify, validate, amplify, and activate their superpowers. And, hopefully, help them keep from distributing their supercrud upon others. In Jesus’ name, amen.
… CamoClashMan to the unjust and/or unsuspecting. [But don't tell anyone my secret superhero identity!] My superpower is to irritate others by the flagrant use of non-complementary colors to bedazzle and bewilder them into somemission.
… Professor Polymath when blogging. Oh yikes! Ummm … expect my writings to present – perhap – how about: diversity and divergency, eclecticity and eccentricity, with parallax and paradox.
… LitmusTestMan when my paradigm barometer indicators react to something amiss – or at least not acceptable in my paradigm, which incorporates missional, beyond missional, and “post-” this and that.
Yeah … definitely yeah …
ABOUT THIS BLOG
Browse about a bit, and yup, you’ll soon notice that this is definitely designed as a research-oriented blog. I write about a lot of advanced concepts about paradigms, cultures, futures trends, organizational systems, and such like. Plus, a lot of this is in technical language.
I know that most Christians – even those with theological training – have little or no background in this kind of material. And yet, the questions that are most being asked by those dissatisfied with church-as-it-has-been could use a good dose of culturology and futurology to go with the theology that can lead toward better questions and more satisfying answers.
So, I’m doing what I can to make the material as accessible as possible – at least to get across the “big picture” ideas – by providing such resource features as summaries, a glossary, and overviews. Note that there’s sometimes a bit of lag between blogging a post and getting a related summary in the Readers Guide or a definition into the Glossary. It’s a work in progress … and who knows, maybe someday I’ll have the opportunity to produce and add in original media, or the time to edit myself to be less technical – wouldn’t that be cool, as well as fun! (Okay, at least I think it would be …)
For accessibility resources, check these out:
- About page for my superhero aliases and bits about this blog.
- Categories sidebar for brief summaries (average of 30 words) of the kinds of posts you’ll typically find in each category and subcategory. The same summaries that appear there can also be found right after each Category and Subcategory headline in this Reader’s Guide.
- Cultural Curriculum Project page for an index and descriptions to sections in my 15-year “Cultural Interpretation and Ministry Contextualization Curriculum Project.” This also includes background information; components in the project; historical milestones; current status and recent updates; and forthcoming studies, projects, and presentations.
- Films in Futuristguy page for background on my use of films in culturology, reference links to the Internet Movie Database for some key movies, and listings of my posts that mention films.
- Glossary page for terms I frequently use.
- Interpolators page for exposition of a key concept I have developed: the intercultural, interdisciplinary, integrative person who uses a high level of paradoxical thinking, and also typically displays strong cultural fluidity as demonstrated through their culturally wide-ranging kinds of relationships. As “people of peace,” interpolators may hold a key to bridging difficult differences among cultures in conflict – giving them a unique role in such times of drastic cultural changes as these.
- Readers Guide to Futuristguy page for help in navigating the concepts of this entire blog, and a one-paragraph summary for each post. Posts are listed chronologically by date, within their main category section.
All “futuristguy” content (c) Brad Sargent except as noted.
October 28, 2007 at 4:37 am
Welcome back to the blog world Brad.
Please could you explain what you mean by virtual tribe. Is this mindspace, how people define themselves culturally in how they think about themselves? It’s more than just digital representations on the computer screen. I’m doing some research on identity- young peoples experience of faith within the criminal justice system in the UK and some of your ideas on culture are fascinating, as young people are certainly shaped by culture and simultatneously shape culture. I’m looking forward to your article.
October 28, 2007 at 6:55 am
Hi Gary and thanks for your “welcome back.” Every time I re-start blogging, I have to take MANY deep, deep breaths to prepare. I enjoy it, but it’s a lot of responsibility and it sometimes becomes difficult to keep up, due to conditions that force me to live a very narrow life of primarily work, rest, and a bit of outside activity now and again.
Anyway, I will see what I can do in the very near future to post something substantive about “virtual tribes.” I’ve long “preached” that we no longer predict much of anything about people’s CULTURE and VALUES, based on knowing such demographics as their race, gender, generation, nation of origin, first language, zip code, etc. In the mid-90s, I coined the term, “Transvirtual Urban Tribes” to describe such identity tribes, and these days, tribe is based on shared culture, and that can be based on already shared experiences or hoped-for shared experiences.
So … thanks for dropping in, Gary, and keep watching …
October 28, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Sorry I sent the note to Gary. Gary’s welcome to be a recipient, but I was primarily speaking to futuristguy.
Rob M.
October 28, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Hi Gary. Couldn’t find an email address on your blog site, so I’m dropping a note here.
I wonder if you happened to catch the lectures of the Singularity conference recently held at Stanford in the USA? This conference concerns primarily examining the cultural impact of disruptive technologies. The main discipline amongst the panelists are Artificial Intelligence researchers, and the main topic of conversation is the development of an AGI – Artificial General Intelligence, although there are many references to other disruptive technologies such as molecular nanotechnology and life extension methodologies and therapies among others. I’m interested in these as a Christian – the church is generally focused on answering challenges and questions that were raised at least a century ago, and I expect that the discontinuous cultural changes that will come about as a result of disruptive technologies like those discussed at the conference mentioned will catch most of the church off guard. I expect that by the time the changes have already occurred, some in the church will respond by protesting robotics or AGI, but most of the church will still be responding to challenges from the twentieth century.
Nevertheless I am interested in finding other thoughtful Christians who are interested in discussing these sorts of issues (perhaps not discursively but at least blogging about them) because I see that presently most of the participants in conversations about them are overwhelmingly secular progressives. There are many very bright, well-intentioned folks among them, but the few references to matters of faith in these discussions are often pejorative, and I think that there are some of us who are believers and who are interested and informed regarding these sorts of fascinating issues.
I find that the speakers were thoughtful in their approaches – some specifically questioned the naive sanguinity of some who want to see an AGI as soon as possible who have almost techo-millennial messianic expectations. Others are more pessimistic, thinking that AGIs will soon be followed by the Colossus scenario in which AGIs decide to take over the world, having concluded that humans are harmful. Most of the speakers are realistic enough to realize that the likelihood of either of these sorts of scenarios eventuating is low, but that the actuality that obtains is probably both much more similar and much more dissimilar from today than we currently realize.
The Singularity Summit was held in September 2007 at Stanford.
Audio available here: http://www.singinst.org/summit2007/
Thanks for listening — If you have any interest in this sort of thing, please say so, but if it’s not your cup of tea, that’s fine too.
Kindest regards,
Rob Mitchell
Memphis TN
July 22, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Nice site!
Hope you might pop by mine:
“Liturgy”
maybe link?
Blessings
September 10, 2008 at 11:38 am
Hi Brad,
Loving your blog!
Jennifer
September 11, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Hey Jennifer – Good of you to drop on by … and glad you’re likin’ the blog. I kinda like it, too! I’ll be in touch soon! B-