The future is over

Exhaustion is a cursed word in the frame of modern culture, which is based on the cult of energy and the cult of male aggressivity. But energy is fading in the postmodern world, for many reasons that are easy to detect.

Energy is fading because of the demographic trend: mankind is growing old, as a whole, because of the prolongation of life expectancy, and because of the decreasing birth rate. A sense of exhaustion results from this process of general aging, and what has been considered a blessing – the prolonged life expectancy – may prove to be a misfortune, if the myth of energy is not restrained and replaced with a myth of solidarity and great compassion. Energy is also fading because basic physical resources like oil are doomed to extinction or dramatic reduction. Finally, energy is fading because competition is stupid in the age of the general intellect. The general intellect is not based on juvenile impetus and male aggressivity – on fighting, winning, and appropriation. It is based on cooperation and sharing.

This is why the future is over, and we are living in a space that is beyond the future. If we are able to come to terms with this postfuturistic condition, we'll renounce accumulation and growth, and will be happy in sharing the wealth from our past of industrial labor and from our present of collective intelligence.

If we are not able to do this, we will be doomed to a century of violence, misery, and war.

Franco "Bifo" Berardi, The Uprising (semiotext(e), 2012) pp. 81-82