What’s so great about futurism?
That it’s slightly better than Afuturism.
I’ve never heard the term Afuturism thrown around before. You don’t mind if I ask that you give a lengthy definition of the term, do you? (I’m very curious.)
Also:
Why is it better?
Theist - Atheist. Futurist - Afuturist. One who holds the belief that there is no future. I suppose the real differential would be better likened to the utopianist/dystopianist divide.
Because it is more useful. If something breaks you can either sit around and bemoan its loss, or get out the spanners. Sure, you might fuck it up even worse, but then there is little real difference between ‘broken’, and ‘more broken’ in terms of the object/system in question, if the eventual outcome of a less-than-perfect functioning results in fatal consequence.
You can only die once.
Hi Joker,
Tab already said it, but I’ll chime in. The very best way to create reasonable stability, either personally or socially, is to get the best information we can, predict the best outcome, and then work toward acheiving that outcome. We can say that it makes no difference, that we’re all doomed, and then go sit in the garden and eat worms, but what is the point of that?
It may be that the species is on its way to extinction, but if possible, let’s do it with as much class as we can muster. Is this supremely philosophical? Probably not. But if we don’t begin coming up with solutions to greater population and less resources, our ability to do philosophy becomes moot.
It is where mankind is going to find its greatest power.
Heed these forums well “Joker”.
I don’t know. What’s so great about pastism?
Futurists deny their inevitable decay into oblivion . . .
Oh wait. Inevitability is about the future. I’ll rephrase.
Futursists did deny the fact that they decayed into oblivion and there was something they would . . . umm, err wait, did by their own theory of what could . . . umm, I mean, did assume as a possible . . . Rather- an alternative history . . .
Only until we get the cloning factories up and running. Then people will be able to die as often as they choose…
“Come get your brain freezed and wake up in the year 3000!!!”
(AP report - in year 25XX, a massive dump of frozen corpses ensued due to storage and energy concerns … some families have already filed lawsuit, but face an uphill battle.)
Do you know about the problems in Naples, largely blamed on the Mafia?
No, tell me!
Google ‘Naples rubbish mafia’. The first page is full of news articles about it. It really is quite a bizarre tale.
I’ll try to get around to it. I’ve got a lot on my plate right now… 
I suppose under that very definition I would be considered a afuturist.
For whom? When people speak about progress they usually never mean to include everyone.
You assume there is a solution to everything.
Perhaps you lack the insight that under some events there exists no solution at all.
( Of course you like many are never willing to admit that.)
Which 95% of time usually happens.
Only if you are a idealist.
Sure.
What kind of power exactly?
Me being the pessimist I’m more akin to believe that the future is where we will find the greatest amount of self destruction. 
Stability for whom? When people speak of progress or stability they never mean to include everyone.
And how would we define such a outcome? What is the best outcome and who decides?
Bitter realism over naive fantasy.
By understanding quantum physics on the subject of cosmic degeneration or spacial entropy everything is doomed to extinction quite inevitably.
There is no escape. It may take a couple hundred trillion years for the destruction of everything and all of existence to happen yet nonetheless it is still coming where all we have is nothing but mere delayment of the inevitable.
There’s nothing great about the past or future yet it is futurism which is so eagerly to deny our past by insisting on a narrow perception of the future.
There is no straight line of evolution or existence.
Often enough one can come to the direct spot that they started from in the past in the direct moment of the future.
Joker,
Just for the sake of agreeing, there is every good chance that our species will die out. So what? After having said it, what are the alternatives? We are here, right now. So we make the best of what we can in the present and our near future. The alternative is to throw our hands in the air and declare it doesn’t make any difference, we’re all gonna die!
If that is your “solution” to life, then it is, but some of us prefer to at least look at making the best of what we have of life.
Where do you get futurism denying the past? What narrow perception of the future? I don’t have either of those views, and with one or two exceptions, I haven’t heard that from anyone else either.
All I can say is that that definition is totally stupid.
I should write my own dictionary and mention that a coathangerist is a person that likes coathangers and also wears pom-poms and also chews hardened tree sap daily. All of this summoned because they called themselves coathangerists.
“Isms” at one time functioned as a useful suffix.
You are correct, Joker, that you found a useful reference to point out the silliness of the prospect. That dictionary is crap, judging from your example. The word isn’t. I’m quite sure that the intent of the billboard was to simply imply with every post a “maybe later” as in “maybe later we could–” or “maybe later there will–” It’s really so arbitrary. The definition you provide is indeed close-minded, narrow-visioned, whatever else.