Be welcomed in this session, and thank you very much for joining me. My name is Anthony Foetida, and I say to you that is absolute pleasure to be making this recording, imagining that someone will be listening to it, in this case, you. I'd like to tell you about my setup. I mean, this very quiet, empty room, and it feels quite lonely in a good way, and so join me, let's see where this takes us. Let's start by thinking about how exactly, where exactly are routed. The imaginaries we have today about mobility, where do they come from? Perhaps inevitably, I'm going to talk about private car. As a young adult, one of the things I got for myself was a pretty good car really, and I was very proud of it. I must say that that car had a very important role in my life. Because when I got it, I felt that it had actually magical properties in the sense that I acquired a piece of metal, and suddenly I was a better man. I was a more successful person. I was attracting. It looks like these really crappy new age things about how to attract power and live the good life by means of positive thoughts or summing cars through that to you. If you get the right car and you really get a connection going, and things get really in place, is beautiful. It's beautiful magic. The question is, why does that magic work? Could say because car actually allows you to go places. Can be all those things you feel, all that empowerment, your experience, is much more than just having a mobility means, and the question is why is that symbol so strong? The same could be said about motorbikes. I personally don't have a fascination for motorbikes, but some people do and they talk about very similar things. Having that machine really does something very heap to them. The bit like becoming more than yourself because you can use the machine. Another thing I'd like to mention is when I live by the sea, at that moment, and there is this beach where I can easily go to when I see cargo ships arriving to the port, and you look at those massive, gigantic vessels and you can just feel all those containers on them. It's just incredible. How is it possible that we achieved this level of mastery of the technology that allows us to carry so much tonnage right to the oceans, and is beautiful. I have some binoculars and I look at these machines and all maneuvers that's necessary to make them come into the port and it's just amazing. I'm not the only one, I find myself looking around them, there are always people looking to the ships too, and the question is, why do we feel this fascination looking to those gigantic ships? Just because they're big? I don't think so. Similar stuff happens when you're driving in a motorway and there is this gigantic trucks passing When you have one too near from the tail of your car and you just feels wrong. It's too big, too much over [inaudible] coming from that engine to be near me. A bit scary, a bit impressive. There's something that they make you feel and they passed by gigantic wheels, that kind of stuff, but again, I insist it's just not because they are the machines that you see, there is something more that makes them feel so intense. What is it? And finally, when I don't know if you probably didn't have the experience, I hope not, but I'd actually had experience of being just by military tank, and those machines are scary and really scary. Something incredible, that sense of fear and respect discussed and fascination you have for things like that, which is comparable really to what you feel when you're outdoors and suddenly a jet plane, military fighter planes, passes over your heads in low altitude, and that sounds disrupts the entire landscape, and there are things you feel, and the question is, why do you feel those things? Why are these machines so powerful for us today? Is just because they are actually powerful or it's because there's something that they trigger on us, and I think that to actually get the an accurate, meaningful answer for this question. We need to think about life. This is where we necessarily have to become a little bit philosophical about this. I think there are three fundamental, basic perspectives on life that humans have engaged with across history and geography. The first one is the circular. Circular presupposes that life is a repetition of itself. What it is today, it is as it was and it is also is going to be just more of this endless cycle of life that keeps turning. This gigantic wheel, rotates around itself and repeat things in ways that are apparently different. That if you have the wisdom to understand that, you will see that is no more than a repetition. Conception, that perspective about what is key to understand is that why is individual? Is that the one that can see the repetitive characteristics, the patterns, and can ride on them, and so it's a bit like a surfer, the person learns how to surf this cycle, and that it's a good life, the life of the individual that knows how to surf repetition, to explore the easy expression of something that is meant to be, because it's simply a manifestation of a very fundamental set of principles that are unchangeable. This makes you put your eyes on the past so that you can understand these patterns and you can leave them in the appropriate way. Another conception of life or another perspective on life is the linear life, but with afterlife. The idea is that the present moment, the present life, is essentially a way for you to gather a form of capital, perhaps is that, but that capital is going to be enjoyed in the future, potentially only after you're dead, but in less spiritual perspectives of this same way of thinking about life. What happens is that you believe that the present moment is basically an opportunity for you to save, for free to capitalize so that you can enjoy in the future. When you'll be older, when things will be a bit different, then you will be, and so it assumes that disruption, for example, I'm working and then I enjoy my retirement or I'm living and enjoy when I'm dead, or I'm young and I really enjoy when I marry. There is this important disruption, and it is after that disruption that things will be very meaningful in the sense of I will be gathering, enjoying the experiencing what is important. Well now, I should be austere, I should be strategic, I should be careful, I should be respectful of what is to be. The focus is on the future, and there is always this sense of great respect for the authority that rules what is to come. It can be God. That is also can be your employer or whatever, that whoever has the authority to control what happens to you later. But then there is a third conception, which I think is, clearly, the one that is dominating today, which is the linear life without afterlife. This idea is that you're alive, you are doing your thing and what's going to happen is that there will be a disruption. After that there is nothing, just emptiness. You should pay attention to the present moment, so that you can enjoy the present moment. Enjoying while you can, enjoy while it lasts is this idea. The linear life without afterlife has three ethical imperatives that flow almost immediately from the idea that there is nothing else later, it's all about right now. The first one is, to reach. You should reach as much as you can. Reach opportunities, contexts, places, resources, means, tools, and experience. Leave things intensely because later it's gone. Accumulate is the second ethical imperative. Accumulate experiences, accumulate money, fun, power, skills, credit, sex, friends, property, titles, victories, health, whatever is good, accumulate them. Sometimes even the bad you should accumulate them because that allows you to then reach more and then to accumulate good things more. The third ethical imperative is to control. Control what? Control your life, you control others, control public attention, nature, competitors, the market, and yourself, you should control everything. Universe is to be controlled and this makes a very powerful set of ideas you reach to accumulate, to control, to control, to accumulate, to reach, to accumulate, to reach to control. You just stay in this idea. This is how the idea of the good life without afterlife is to be achieved. Of course, these ideas have their antagonists, their opposites, their dark side. If what you want is to reach, you fear to be left behind. If what you want is to accumulate, you fear dispossession. If you want to control, you really don't want to be dominated. This is how we can go back to mobility because mobility does an amazing thing. Mobility allows us to catch up and to join when we're left behind. Mobility allows us to grow and to empower oneself when one is dispossessed. Mobility allows us to run away and to escape when we are starting to be dominated. In fact, mobility also allows us to control. Think about death, you go there and you control it. You can only control it because you could go there. Let's go back to these representations of contemporary mobility I was mentioning. I think that they are so powerful because they directly relate to the ethical imperatives to reach. If you want to reach as an individual, you should have a car, you should have a motorbike. You should have an individual mean of transport that allows you to free, to go to the places, to meet the people, and to reach the opportunities. But if you are, for example, a company, what you want is to accumulate wealth, money, objects, materials, resources and for that you need to have big ships, you need to have big trucks, and also big planes. If you are a country and you want to control, you need to have tanks, you need to have military planes because that allows you to attack and dominate. I think that we fear and we fear all and we want to have these objects like cars and whatever. It depends on who you are. If you are a person, if you are a company, or if you are a country. You want to have these things because they directly relate to the ethical imperatives of the linear life without afterlife. Think for example, about European Union and its policies. This paper, White Paper Roadmap to Single European Transport Area towards the competitive and resource efficient transport system. This was published in 2011 and they've read like this, "Transport is fundamental to our economy and society. Mobility is vital for internal market and for the quality of life of citizens as they enjoy their freedom to travel. Transport enables economic growth and job creation. It must be sustainable in the light of the new challenges we face." I then interrupt and it continuous a bit later like this, "The future prosperity of our continent will depend on the ability of all of its regions to remain fully and competitively integrated in the world economy. Efficient transport is vital in making this happen." I hope that you see through these words, how much there is this idea of don't allow yourself to be left behind. You need to enjoy your freedom to travel, you must not be left behind. You must keep up with this race that is going on and for that, you need to be mobile of course, that we have some problems to address, sustainability problems but still we must find a way of addressing them because mobilities are vital. Then there is another document that was published seven years later. Also, for your opinion and European commission, the title is transport in European Union current trends and issues and in page 1 you can read this. "Transport is a cornerstone of European integration and is firmly linked to the establishment of the single market which promote jobs and economic growth." You probably notice that jobs and economic growth has already been mentioned in the previous argument and it's all through European policy documents, jobs, and economic growth is very common. Then it goes," However, transport also generates negative social effects such as accidents, greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, noise, and environmental effects", and finally, it says, "The commission has recently taken several policy initiatives which are not helping the EU transport sector to become future-proof, more sustainable, innovative, and remain competitive in a changing global environment." You see that there is mentioning of the future but this is a very precise notion of future. Is the future in which you are supposed to be living as you're living now, but it's basically you. There's not an idea that there will be a disruption, that there'll be something deeply altered, modified and that in the future as if there was a afterlife. You need to prepare for that afterlife, no is a continuation of the right now. This moment of now is what we're talking about and the problem is that it's difficult to remain competitive, it's difficult to maintain mobility, but we need to do it. That's the fundamental idea here and it's interesting to see that to remain competitive is using both cases because it's difficult indeed. Because you see if all of us, individuals, companies, and countries, we are all about to having more, what happens is that as Hudnut Holzer says, and this is one of the authors I recommended in the list of readings. That if all of us are focused on having more, it comes to a point in which having more becomes particularly difficult and so it stops being about having more, and it starts to be about trying not to lose what we have because everybody is competing, everybody is wanting more, and therefore, it's a struggle. It's really a struggle, we're all struggling with this conception of life and so in summary, the dominant imaginary for mobility futures in my view, is defined by our understanding of what is a good life and this good life is formatted at its very root by the idea that life is linear and has no afterlife. There's no sequel, there're just what it is now that you should pay attention to. There's nothing else. There'll be a disruption and then it's gone and so it takes you to these dualities you hope to reach and you fear to be left behind. You hope to accumulate and you fear to be dispossessed. You hope to dominate and you actually probably terrified of being dominated and therefore, it follows at times like competition, growth, market, innovation, efficiency, and remaining are very important in the policy document that countries or European Union's produce informed by the linear life, no afterlife, and by the three ethical imperatives, reaching, accumulating, dominating. If we want to think about alternatives, the alternatives will have to fundamentally challenge a number of these things and it's to that, that I will dedicate the next part. Thank you for listening so far.
