My letter to Dr. Jan Huston, a prolific futures scientist
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For fear of offending him, I did not offer the usual 1000 FTC startup donation to him.
_Dear Dr. Huston,
I am hereby admitting myself as your long-term admirer. Years ago,
as I was searching for anything dealing with the present situation
and our common heading, I found your paper “What are the greatest
challenges for evolutionary theory in our times?”I found your paper unique, giving insights I could find in no other
texts within my reach. I realized that futures studies is a discipline
to be taken seriously, but I also remember being dissatisfied with
work of most other futures scientists that I could reach.Shorter time ago, it was you again who surprised me with an amazing
text “Which way is up” in Journal of Futures Studies published by
Tamkang University, Taiwan. The paper was longer and required more
cognitive resources to read, but was also more concrete and
practically oriented.Today, it is my pleasure to be inviting you to inspect one of attempt
to choose a more desirable future. This atempt may perhaps turn out
to be a failed attempt, or a false attempt, but nevertheless, it points
in a certain direction.This being said, I am sure that you actually know about decentralized
securized currencies such as Bitcoin, and maybe you also know about
Feathercoin itself. It is almost as if by your design that these
attempts to pull ourselves forward from our present “vulture culture”
to something new appeared. But regardless of anything, I am hereby
inviting you to join us as a member of our online community atFeathercoin is no. 3 decentralized securized currency (after Bitcoin
and Litecoin), launched by Peter Bushnell, IT officer at the accounting
office, Brasenose College, Oxford, and it is no. 1 among decentralized
currencies with a reputable BDFL.I chose Feathercoin because of its accessible community. I do not know
if it was indeed your work that directly inspired pseudonymous Satoshi
Nakamoto in his invention of how to decentralize a currency, but I
percieve it as a great shortcoming that you never appear to directly
talk to us. I believe that even transient presence of a great thinker
like you would be a blessing to us and would raise the level of our
community. We would be more than happy to tell you any details you
might want to know about how we approached and modified the parameters
of our decentralized currency.To conclude my invitation, I would like to say that our community offers
some opportunities, but also faces some enmity and it would be great for
us should it please you to choose to analyze our situation and help with
prediction and design of our futures in a more pragmatic sense than you
usually do in your theoretical papers.Sincerely and with admiration,
(signature omitted)_ -
Nice letter, however I know few people who would disagree with this part:
Feathercoin is no. 3 decentralized securized currency (after Bitcoin
and Litecoin), launched by Peter Bushnell, IT officer at the accounting
office, Brasenose College, Oxford, and it is no. 1 among decentralized
currencies with a reputable BDFL. -
I’m sure that Sunny King would. But I got it wrong nevertheless, I should have said “accountable” instead of “reputable”.