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It's time to build: a New World's Fair

cameronwiese.com

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Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair

#101

Post by Fordec »

labster wrote: post #79
Fordec wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this perplexing because the Olympic Games is notorious for draining an urban centers resources for years and the result being a bunch of infrastructure that the majority of the time just slowly decays due to the local community not having the same volume of population to fully utilize the utility. The handling of the 2016 games was an especially bad case. It's overall a nationalistic country level flex at the…

Speak for yourself. Los Angeles ran a profitable Olympics in 1984 and we look forward to doing so again in 2028. And nationalism is at a low ebb here, given our last four years fighting His Nibs on everything. It’s all about competition and entertainment for us. And infrastructure that can be reused for more entertainment.

The 1984 Olympics, considered to be the most financially successful Olympics ever, were ran on the basis of renovating existing infrastructure, not building new stuff in a new city because the previous two Olympics were financial disasters. Also, yes, if you mess up LA the United States will still truck on.

Also Nationalism isn't just flags, hate and hands in the air, it's also an outward expression of ideas and ideals raised on a pedestal to say look how great we are. Such as getting to say "we are all about competition and entertainment" as a story to tell the world as a form of soft power.

Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair

#102

Post by jiofih »

markdown wrote: post #72
thepasswordis wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US seems to have largely decided that any amount of national pride is something to be ashamed of.

Ordinary people hang US flags off the front of their houses. In a bizarre indoctrination ritual, they make their kids pledge allegiance to the state from a young age. They think they're the greatest country in the world. Have you taken a good look at your own country.

I don’t get the fuss with the pledge of alliance (non American here).

> "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Why is it bad to declare your commitment to the country you’re born in and it’s values? It’s not like you can’t leave (except for the IRS) if you don’t like it.

Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair

#103

Post by jhu247 »

klenwell wrote: post #43
ipsum2 wrote: post #29

No mention of Expo 2010, which had representation from 65 different countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expo_2010_pavilions . I didn't go, but the photos of the architecture from the different countries were beautiful. > After the six-month run, the Expo had attracted well over 70 million visitors. The Expo 2010 is also the most expensive fair in the history of World's Fair, with more than 45 billion US dollars…

> I didn't go, but the photos of the architecture from the different countries were beautiful. Apparently, the American pavilion was not among them: Now that the US Pavilion has been open for several days, its reviews, to be generous, are mixed. Visitors, after a two-hour wait, enjoy the upbeat attitude of the student “ambassadors” who greet them in Mandarin — but few are impressed by the three films that constitute…

Not necessarily for lack of effort. I was there and Obama recorded a video specifically for the visitors to the US Pavilion.

Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair

#104

Post by jhu247 »

ipsum2 wrote: post #29

No mention of Expo 2010, which had representation from 65 different countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expo_2010_pavilions . I didn't go, but the photos of the architecture from the different countries were beautiful. > After the six-month run, the Expo had attracted well over 70 million visitors. The Expo 2010 is also the most expensive fair in the history of World's Fair, with more than 45 billion US dollars…

The pavilions were truly incredible (from what I remember, Saudi Arabia comes to mind, just look at that! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expo_2010_pavilions#Saudi_Arab...) but like the article says, it felt more like each country's branding exercise rather than any unified vision of the future.

Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair

#105

Post by UncleOxidant »

I'm not sure we can ever get back to the techno-optimism that characterized much of America in the past. This article seems to suggest that we as a country can become optimistic about the future again by having a World's Fair. That by doing so we'll recapture a shared vision of the future and a shared cultural purpose that we had until it started to fall apart in the 90s. It's a quaint idea, but it doesn't seem likely to succeed in bridging the widening gaps between various tribes. Much of this cultural disintegration was caused by technology.

Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair

#107

Post by [deleted] »

musicale wrote: post #89
Animats wrote: post #73

The last really prophetic world's fair was New York, 1939. That's famous for GM's vision of the future of 1960, the original "Futurerama" . Freeways everywhere. RCA had television. AT&T let you make free long distance calls. All that stuff happened. The 1964 World's Fair had another GM exhibit. Colonization of the Moon. Underwater cities. None of that happened. What could we have in a World's Fair now that looks ahea…

Certainly it's harder to get to Mars, but is the environment more hostile than on the moon? Mars has something of a CO2 atmosphere, and might have more accessible water. The soil may be more usable as well.

[deleted]

Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair

#109

Post by orf »

jiofih wrote: post #102
markdown wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ordinary people hang US flags off the front of their houses. In a bizarre indoctrination ritual, they make their kids pledge allegiance to the state from a young age. They think they're the greatest country in the world. Have you taken a good look at your own country.

I don’t get the fuss with the pledge of alliance (non American here). > "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Why is it bad to declare your commitment to the country you’re born in and it’s values? It’s not like you can’t leave (except for the IRS) if you don’t like it.

Borderline indoctrination. You're not pledging commitment to it's "values" and young children are not at an age to have a nuanced discussion or awareness about what those exactly those values are, and make a decision about if they should be declaring a commitment to them or not.

Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair

#110

Post by jiofih »

CaptArmchair wrote: post #47

I feel the article is, at best, a nostalgic take to a Post-War time between 1945 and 1970. And, at worst, merely an itch to indulge in consuming modern technology. Both takes are missing the mark about what a World Fair is about. Here's why. The 3 decades after 1945 were a time when economies of formerly allied nations were booming. In France, these years äre known as the "Trente Glorieuses". Many more countries had…

Technology and engineering are universal achievements, and a main part of how society as a whole progresses. A sociology focused world fair would just be the words most hated and divisive fair ever, exactly the opposite of what it should set out to achieve.
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