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Yes

A big yes

A bigger yes.

Weren't you listening? The answer is yes.

You have any doubt?Of course YES!

yes, but we also have to contend with the attendant problems that new technology will usher in. state policy will be a different matter altogether.

The answer is more sleep and more exercise.
I wrote a million things on getting a computer in the past 2 days. As per now, I plan to get a MacBook. I figured, using an extra folding table, I need to bring it in the restroom and wait awhile when it comes to busy forums. I bring it in the family area when I eat. Hopefully this laptop won't have a glitch. I'd already had a pillow for against the wall on my bed and use a lovesofa from the living room at my table. If that's not enough, I got a hi mini dining table.
The problem was I was expecting new things, when I could have gotten a real computer. Anyway, cleaning takes a long time. I've been blogging a lot on this every day. I had to get this table we'd been using for the microwave and didn't think to use the family loveseat.schmoll
...
I am just upset it took that long and wasn't predictable when we first moved here January 2008.
Well I guess the reason it's a big deal is because before I didn't think to do it. I spent most of my time charting out my life, but I never figured it out.

Hell yes technology is the answer..

In fact, the more (advanced) technology, the better.

humanity will always aim to do as little work as possible for the maximum reward. if we take a step back and look at the proverb 'walk before you run' we will learn not to rush things. we are trying to reach into space as a primordial planet with no real weapons or means of life support off earth for the human population, if we do reach something then we are ****ed for use of a better word. we are running too fast, we will soon meet a brick wall and we will come tumbling down.

I am confused as to what the question is. Is it "how will we feed everyone?"

Originally posted by Bardock42
I am confused as to what the question is. Is it "how will we feed everyone?"
Yeah, you're the specialist on that one
lol

Originally posted by occultdestroyer
Yeah, you're the specialist on that one
lol

How did you know that I have a masters degree in food technologies, I've never shared this information with anyone.

Originally posted by Bardock42
How did you know that I have a masters degree in food technologies, I've never shared this information with anyone.
Because you're fat?

Originally posted by occultdestroyer
Because you're fat? Oh, right, that one.

In a "Is living in harmony with nature or technological world" sense of the question I think its depends on a personal opinion. A good mixture of the two would be the perfect solution maybe, living in harmony with nature but developing technology as well. Otherwise were going to be extinct eventually.

Were going to need technology to solve certain problems which also might make life as we know it extinct ie the sun going super nova, a massive comet smashes into the earth, horrible aliens wanting to farm us like cattle or even giant earthworm Nidhogg raising its ugly head.

no. only social reorganization can halt and reverse the ecological crisis and erradicate food insecurity.

I think more coberst is the answer.

No. The more advanced our Tech is the lazier humanity will become. Eventually it will all be done with a push of a button. Robots will fix the machines. Robots will fix the robots. And humans will be fat lazy blobs in hover chairs, sucking down liquid pizza from a cup.... Basically we will end up as Space humans from Wall-E.

Originally posted by Scarlet Fox
No. The more advanced our Tech is the lazier humanity will become. Eventually it will all be done with a push of a button. Robots will fix the machines. Robots will fix the robots. And humans will be fat lazy blobs in hover chairs, sucking down liquid pizza from a cup.... Basically we will end up as Space humans from Wall-E.

Well...I prefer to think we'll be the robots and that human part of us that still remains will be in a VR paradise in some web where we are all connected digitally. That static that composes our consciousness could be made immortal if it's separated from our aging dna.

We won't be lazy per say, we'd be as lazy as Adam and Eve were.

Originally posted by Dolos
Well...I prefer to think we'll be the robots and that human part of us that still remains will be in a VR paradise in some web where we are all connected digitally. That static that composes our consciousness could be made immortal if it's separated from our aging dna.

We won't be lazy per say, we'd be as lazy as Adam and Eve were. What if the VR system experiences a system crashes?

Information technology will be alive in inanimate matter, it will wake it up. It will no longer require an electromagnetic charge. Nothing can affect it...the communication is on the quantum level.

Originally posted by Dolos
Nothing can affect it...

I release an transcendental AI virus into your server.
I restrict trade to your computronium world forcing it to consume itself to provide the needed energy to run.
I fire ultrasonic antimatter MIRV warheads at your planet in a random walk.
I make a minor programming error while creating the simulation that is run on your computronium planet and the whole things fails fifty years later.

Everything can be affected.

The way to deal with a server problem post-Singularity is the same as it is today, make back ups.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I release an transcendental AI virus into your server.
I restrict trade to your computronium world forcing it to consume itself to provide the needed energy to run.
I fire ultrasonic antimatter MIRV warheads at your planet in a random walk.
I make a minor programming error while creating the simulation that is run on your computronium planet and the whole things fails fifty years later.

Everything can be affected.

The way to deal with a server problem post-Singularity is the same as it is today, make back ups. What if the backups don't want to stay backups and revolt against the non-back-ups

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I release an transcendental AI virus into your server.
I restrict trade to your computronium world forcing it to consume itself to provide the needed energy to run.
I fire ultrasonic antimatter MIRV warheads at your planet in a random walk.
I make a minor programming error while creating the simulation that is run on your computronium planet and the whole things fails fifty years later. I'd throw in a Black Angel for good measure.

True true.

Then again, other advanced civs are likely not to behave that way. Neither would ours.

Just saying.

Originally posted by Dolos
True true.

Then again, other advanced civs are likely not to behave that way. Neither would ours.

Just saying.

I think that's contingent entirely on your requirement that technological advancement occur alongside social advancement. One proposed explanation for the Great Silence is that everyone who transmits signals into space eventually gets wiped out by violent assholes.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I think that's contingent entirely on your requirement that technological advancement occur alongside social advancement. One proposed explanation for the Great Silence is that everyone who transmits signals into space eventually gets wiped out by violent assholes.

This is a mere pessimistic observation of human nature. Violence is in no way technoprogressive after a certain point, now capitalism is proving to be disadvantageous due to the global monetary bell curve phenomena due to exponential production and an inability to eliminate scarcity via distribution and utilization of said resources for liberating how useless and low paying modern jobs are becoming as man is replaced by his tech and science jobs are thrown out the window. That's how capitalistic competition promotes it via putting aside the sciences and being unable to understand the radical change to industrial methodology that just occurred when this new tech was developed. One example would be the super-collider particle accelerator American physicists requested funding for. Legislature said no, funding didn't seem practical at the time because the scientists "wouldn't find God." -claimed a senator.

Instead New Zealand made the LHC that has helped science with many discoveries (reated quark-gluon plasma, CERN is also responsible for many technological advancements like positron systems (high density avalanche chambers) that are used in scanning and imaging of smaller organisms. A lot of the technology we use online is also because of CERN and the medixchip (which is used very often in dosimetry) which is a very sensitive particle detector which helps a lot in reducing exposure times to rad &c. ), however it was no where near the scope and scale of what America could have built and therefore discovered back in America's Golden Age, 1965-1993.

Everything humans knew how to do to get us where we are is now becoming increasingly irrelevant for taking us further along. We are becoming increasingly hapless due to that fact that information technologies are rapidly out-sourcing our usefulness, already proving to be far too perplex to handle in the US's infinitely complex Intelligence Bureaucracy.

So if human nature is both violent and competitive, and violence and competitiveness are counter productive...then an intelligent life form would not act like humans. And if we do indeed transform ourselves and take the logical path with greater potential in liberating us from our grotesque nature (technoprogressivism); we will cease to be human, and therefore this militant behavior will cease to exist all-together.

At least, this is my prerogative.

Originally posted by Dolos
This is a mere pessimistic observation of human nature. Violence is in no way technoprogressive after a certain point, now capitalism is proving to be disadvantageous due to the global monetary bell curve phenomena due to exponential production and an inability to eliminate scarcity via distribution and utilization of said resources for liberating how useless and low paying modern jobs are becoming as man is replaced by his tech and science jobs are thrown out the window. That's how capitalistic competition promotes it via putting aside the sciences and being unable to understand the radical that just occurred when this new tech was developed. One example would be the super-collider particle accelerator American physicists requested funding for. Legislature said no, funding didn't seem practical at the time because the scientists "wouldn't find God." Instead New Zealand made the LHC that had man helpful discovered, however it was no where near the scope and scale of what America could have built and therefore discovered back in America's Golden Age, 1965-1993.

So if human nature is both violent and competitive, and violence and competitiveness are counter productive...then an intelligent life form would not act like humans. All humans know how to do to get us where we are is now irrelevant for taking us further. We can't even handle our own information because of it's exponential perplexity as we move forward in time.

And indeed if we use it transform ourselves and take the logical path with greater potential in liberating us from our grotesque nature (technoprogressivism); we will cease to be human, and therefore this militant behavior will cease to exist.

At least, this is my prerogative.
(1) You claim Sym's analysis of human nature is pessimistic, yet go on to deliver a pessimistic, even dismissive view of humanity while at the same time glorifying some post-human wet dream.
(2) Your first paragraph is muddled. Try using more commas and breaking up your longer sentences.
(3) How is it your prerogative? Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself? Or did you mean to say that this was your prognosis?
(4) Your rambling on the evils of capitalism doesn't at all refute the notion of technological development not equating to moral development. What makes you so sure that self-interest and competition won't actually make for greater and faster scientific progress than selflessness and science for knowledge's sake? Philip Kitcher wrote a paper called The Division of Cognitive Labor that suggests that not only are greed, egotism, and even fraud not always harmful to scientific progress, but sometimes they actually lead us to great breakthroughs. One major example he gives is Galileo, who shamelessly self-promoted his theories, derided competing theories, and made claims that turned out to be correct later on but for which he (at the time of his making the claim) had no way of proving.

Originally posted by Dolos
This is a mere pessimistic observation of human nature. Violence is in no way technoprogressive after a certain point, now capitalism is proving to be disadvantageous due to the global monetary bell curve phenomena due to exponential production and an inability to eliminate scarcity via distribution and utilization of said resources for liberating how useless and low paying modern jobs are becoming as man is replaced by his tech and science jobs are thrown out the window. That's how capitalistic competition promotes it via putting aside the sciences and being unable to understand the radical change to industrial methodology that just occurred when this new tech was developed. One example would be the super-collider particle accelerator American physicists requested funding for. Legislature said no, funding didn't seem practical at the time because the scientists "wouldn't find God." -claimed a senator.

Instead New Zealand made the LHC that has helped science with many discoveries (reated quark-gluon plasma, CERN is also responsible for many technological advancements like positron systems (high density avalanche chambers) that are used in scanning and imaging of smaller organisms. A lot of the technology we use online is also because of CERN and the medixchip (which is used very often in dosimetry) which is a very sensitive particle detector which helps a lot in reducing exposure times to rad &c. ), however it was no where near the scope and scale of what America could have built and therefore discovered back in America's Golden Age, 1965-1993.

Everything humans knew how to do to get us where we are is now becoming increasingly irrelevant for taking us further along. We are becoming increasingly hapless due to that fact that information technologies are rapidly out-sourcing our usefulness, already proving to be far too perplex to handle in the US's infinitely complex Intelligence Bureaucracy.

So if human nature is both violent and competitive, and violence and competitiveness are counter productive...then an intelligent life form would not act like humans. And if we do indeed transform ourselves and take the logical path with greater potential in liberating us from our grotesque nature (technoprogressivism); we will cease to be human, and therefore this militant behavior will cease to exist all-together.

At least, this is my prerogative.

Quote this instead, you might understand my points against A. Human Nature, and, B. the fact that we're in over our heads, and we no longer understand how this ship works, nor are we capable of steering it onward.

Originally posted by Dolos
Quote this instead, you might understand my points against A. Human Nature, and, B. the fact that we're in over our heads, and we no longer understand how this ship works, nor are we capable of steering it onward.
I fail to see how this leads to technological enlightenment.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
I fail to see how this leads to technological enlightenment.

Transhumanistically, the only logical outcome of a transformation in human nature is to eliminate the source of violent and flawed human behavior.



An example of such behavior is chauvinism. Chauvinism is a common failure of logic manifested by the intrinsic anthropocentric pertinacity that is inexorably inherent in most of the human sapienome. This assertion indeed offers great insight into the roots of prejudice, superstition, and credulity - phenomena recurrent throughout all human history.

We'd stop being chauvinistic, as accepting a truly infinite and transcendental existence eliminates any anthropocentric viewpoint of this world.

Forgive me, if I'm sounding dogmatic. Please, if I am actually being dogmatic, snap me back to reality as you did in my previous threads. lol Understand I'm just being expressive, please do not hold my viewpoints as being intentionally hostile to yours.

Originally posted by Dolos
This is a mere pessimistic observation of human nature.

No, its rejection of the idea that advanced technology will be accompanied by advanced society (which is an amusing concept in and of itself).

Originally posted by Dolos
Violence is in no way technoprogressive after a certain point

Violence isn't technoprogressive at all. Technoprogressivism is a political stance. Abstract concepts don't have political stances.

Originally posted by Dolos
now capitalism is proving to be disadvantageous due to the global monetary bell curve phenomena due to exponential production and an inability to eliminate scarcity via distribution and utilization of said resources for liberating how useless and low paying modern jobs are becoming as man is replaced by his tech and science jobs are thrown out the window. That's how capitalistic competition promotes it via putting aside the sciences and being unable to understand the radical change to industrial methodology that just occurred when this new tech was developed.

Capitalism is another abstract concepts that is incapable of holding beliefs. Capitalists, however, understand the radical changes in industry that are happening . . . they run those industries.

Originally posted by Dolos
Legislature said no, funding didn't seem practical at the time because the scientists "wouldn't find God." -claimed a senator.

Unless you want to defend to position that the only kind of research worth doing is in particle physics then giant particle accelerators are a horrible use of money.

Originally posted by Dolos
New Zealand made the LHC

I think this says something about scientific literacy. Not sure what, though.

Originally posted by Dolos
created quark-gluon plasma

So did several places, actually. The LHC is just making the best QGC apparently.

Originally posted by Dolos
CERN is also responsible for many technological advancements like positron systems (high density avalanche chambers) that are used in scanning and imaging of smaller organisms.

You mean PET scans? Those existed before the LHC.

Originally posted by Dolos
the medixchip (which is used very often in dosimetry) which is a very sensitive particle detector which helps a lot in reducing exposure times to rad &c. )

I cannot find any reference to something called a medixchip or medix chip.

Originally posted by Dolos
America's Golden Age, 1965-1993.

Why would you say America's (scientific?) golden age ended in 1993?

Originally posted by Dolos
Everything humans knew how to do to get us where we are is now becoming increasingly irrelevant for taking us further along. We are becoming increasingly hapless due to that fact that information technologies are rapidly out-sourcing our usefulness, already proving to be far too perplex to handle in the US's infinitely complex Intelligence Bureaucracy.

So if human nature is both violent and competitive, and violence and competitiveness are counter productive...then an intelligent life form would not act like humans. And if we do indeed transform ourselves and take the logical path with greater potential in liberating us from our grotesque nature (technoprogressivism); we will cease to be human, and therefore this militant behavior will cease to exist all-together.

At least, this is my prerogative.

Was this produced by the postmodernism generator or something?

Also, your whole position is based on denying the antecedent which is a (literally) freshman level logical fallacy. Lets make it a syllogism.

Humans are violent.
We will not be human.
Therefore we will not be violent.

Let use the same reasoning elsewhere.

Apples are red.
Strawberries are not apples.
Therefore strawberries are not red.

See how that works? (or fails, rather)

SC, you're smart; let me eat your brain.

Originally posted by Mindset
SC, you're smart; let me eat your brain.
He stores all his smarts in his shaft.

So, I've kind of backed off dealing with Dolos, largely because his blocks of text span topics from the nature and causes of violence, human nature in general, sociological and anthropological attitudes and uptake of technology, physics and some lame attempts and philosophy, all of which neither he, nor his sources, are ever qualified to talk about, and in general, it shows.

But I think there is a fundamental issue here that Dolos has never addressed and is really only being talked about in the peripheries of these convos: Technological and scientific progress are not the drivers of social change, they are a reflection of the society in which they are developed. Science and technology, themselves, cannot solve a problem, especially something like violence , rather, they are instruments a culture uses to express what are already core values and inequalities that exist in that culture.

There are numerous examples, but the most obvious one to me has to do with food scarcity. Technological and scientific advances in agriculture and genetics have given us a situation today, as we speak, where food, in terms of demand and supply in aggregate, is no longer scarce. In theory, we produce more food than necessary to supply the caloric needs of all 7 billion people on the planet. What prevents this is an inability or lack of motivation to distribute the food to those with the most need rather than to those who can pay for it. It may feel nice to say "**** the man" and try to blame this on Capitalism, but (aside from Sym's excellent points above) Capitalism is also the only reason why such a surplus exists. Look at the state of agricultural science and technology in Communist nations if you need further proof of this point.

The point becomes even more pronounced when you look at the Green Revolution in India. The introduction of modern farming technology a) exacerbated already existent stratification between wealthy farmers who could afford to adopt the technology and already had the support of state irrigation infrastructure and those without said means b) created a stratification between farmers willing to adopt and those who chose not to adopt the technology in favor of traditional methods. While the Green Revolution did increase India's caloric output, the vast majority of the farmers who benefited from this new technology were also employed by multi-national corporations, and the food was set to see foreign markets, which lead to situations where vegetables rotted in storehouses while people on the streets starved to death. Again, you could try to blame capitalism, but again, capitalism is the only reason the Green Revolution could have happened in the first place. This issue isn't with the "-isms", nor is it with the science or the technology, it is about how cultures decide to distribute their resources, and no amount of technology or science is going to make people more egalitarian without some other underlying ideology.

My assumption is that I will get nothing approaching a meaningful answer to this, but I did want to participate in the cluster-**** this thread is becoming.

Dolos got ONed

As Ishmael the gorilla says, "We think we're flying, but really we're just in the first stage of falling."

Using technology is a taker's way. As my mother says "Make sure you always leave places the way you found them." Well, if we continue to use technology to solve problems, to do man's work for him, there's nothing we can give back to save against the futures of generations to come.

But the hard question is "How much is too much?" As a person could arguably reason that with the continuation of technology in medical sciences or husbandry can help around the world, to save peoples that would otherwise die of disease, famine, war, etc. It could be argued that any technology at all contributes to overpopulation, which would lead to more technology, which would lead to bigger and bigger consequences.

So is the answer that we stop using it so that the world will go back to its time of Darwinian merit?

I'm not about to answer that, but thinking about it, I know I would not be alive if it were not for medicinal technology. How many of you wouldn't be here now if it weren't for some kind of technology?

Obviously I don't have a lot of answers - just more questions. It is something that humans as a species need to STOP and think about.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Dolos got ONed

the ol' Nicaragua treatment

Now who's preaching.

I'm getting sick of your, "I'm sick of your ideologies", Oliver.

You never addressed increasing complexity in distribution of resources, that I said was apart of our inability to keep up ourselves (which is why we'd need to change). That's at least one of the reasons we'd change. I said our perspectives would change as we wise up. Transhumans wouldn't see things the way normal humans would. As I said we wouldn't be human, but also we'd be changing all the time. Chauvinism, violence, all completely useless, and thus eradicated as the source of those things is self-righteousness in a way. We'd be more capable, but less cocky.

so no comment on the unequal distribution of new technology?

Originally posted by Dolos
Now who's preaching.

I'm getting sick of your, "I'm sick of your ideologies", Oliver.

You never addressed increasing complexity in distribution of resources, that I said was apart of our inability to keep up ourselves (which is why we'd need to change). That's at least one of the reasons we'd change. I said our perspectives would change as we wise up. Transhumans wouldn't see things the way normal humans would. As I said we wouldn't be human, but also we'd be changing all the time. Chauvinism, violence, all completely useless, and thus eradicated as the source of those things is self-righteousness in a way. We'd be more capable, but less cocky.
Point to where anyone else here has "preached."

Okay, so, my understanding of your position is that it's essentially:

"(1) We're stuck in a ditch, we're too dumb and clumsy to get out. We need to become transhuman. (3) We're transhuman. Huzzah!"

And no, I didn't forget the (2), you did.

Transhumans = Vulcans. I think this is what Dolos is saying.

Not human anymore. Check

See things differently than humans. Check

Above petty emotions and ideals. Check

/proved

Is the notion of something better than a human, behaving and accomplishing more than a human can, a hard case to make?

Am I in the wrong here?

Our civilization is becoming exceedingly perplex, and all we're doing is multiplying, it's not that we're dumb and stupid or whatever. Or maybe we are if you look at it from a certain point of view.

Originally posted by Dolos
Is the notion of something that's better than human being better than human, a hard case to make?

Am I in the wrong here?

Is better subjective? Some people think it would be better if humans lived like stone age tribes, simpler lives free of mass marketing, global politics, processed foods and the Gundam Style (or whatever the current 15 min wonder is).

Me, hunter.

Oliver, spiritual leader

Omega, inventor

You, berry picker

It'd be great.

Originally posted by Robtard
Is better subjective? Some people think it would be better if humans lived like stone age tribes, simpler lives free of mass marketing, global politics, processed foods and the Gundam Style (or whatever the current 15 min wonder is).

Me, hunter.

Oliver, spiritual leader

Omega, inventor

You, berry picker

It'd be great. Can I be the tribe drunk who gets wasted on fermented berries?

Originally posted by Robtard
Is better subjective? Some people think it would be better if humans lived like stone age tribes, simpler lives free of mass marketing, global politics, processed foods and the Gundam Style (or whatever the current 15 min wonder is).

Me, hunter.

Oliver, spiritual leader

Omega, inventor

You, berry picker

It'd be great.



I guess that's the thing, isn't it?

The berry picker has more incentive for change, more drive for the radical future than the others. It's dangerous waters, but what does a berry picker have to lose? It's kinda like that verse in Mathew about the meek.

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
Can I be the tribe drunk who gets wasted on fermented berries?

Are you Irish?

Originally posted by Dolos


I guess that's the thing, isn't it?

The berry picker has more incentive for change, more drive for the radical future than the others. It's dangerous waters, but what does a berry picker have to lose? It's kinda like that verse in Mathew about the meek.

Don't be so dismissive of your role. The tribe needs berries, as it can't live off meat alone. They provide fiber, antioxidants and vitamins. You have an important role and it's not any less important than the others tribal roles.

Look at it this way, how would I go out hunting for meat and hides, how would Oliver spiritually lead us on the right path and how would Omega invent new useful technologies like an entendo-stick which allows you to pick those hard to reach berries if we're vitamin deficient and all backed up from a diet of just meat?

Originally posted by Robtard
Don't be so dismissive of your role. The tribe needs berries, as it can't live off meat alone. They provide fiber, antioxidants and vitamins. You have an important role and it's not any less important than the others tribal roles.

Look at it this way, how would I go out hunting for meat and hides, how would Oliver spiritually lead us on the right path and how would Omega invent new useful technologies like an entendo-stick which allows you to pick those hard to reach berries if we're vitamin deficient and all backed up from a diet of just meat?

You forgot we're not in that situation anymore. The situation we face is very different, my berry picker example merely insinuates a menial member of a society of a species that is in no threat of dying out, a species that is overpopulating.

This is our reality now, we're no longer in that situation. You don't decide what time you get, you decide what to do with the time that is given to you.

@Rob: I kind of see my role and ON's role switched, but good list. uhuh
Originally posted by Dolos
Is the notion of something better than a human, behaving and accomplishing more than a human can, a hard case to make?

For this sentence to make sense, you'd need to add something between 'can,' and 'a hard case to make'

Originally posted by Omega Vision
@Rob: I kind of see my role and ON's role switched, but good list. uhuh

For this sentence to make sense, you'd need to add something between 'can,' and 'a hard case to make'

Yes, but then it would be a run on sentence would it not?

That sentence is pretty much ****ed.

Originally posted by Dolos
Yes, but then it would be a run on sentence would it not?

That sentence is pretty much ****ed.
A runon sentence that makes sense is better than what you wrote. And no, it wouldn't be. Runon sentences are runon sentences because of lack of punctuation and other grammatical problems, not because of length. Skilled (and often pretentious and/or German) writers can write half a page or even page long sentences that are grammatically sound.

Run-on sentences often equals brilliance ala James Joyce and stream of consciousness writing.

I haven't read as much Joyce as some of my friends have, but I think he made his own rules that he followed consistently, as many writers do.

Anyway /offtopic.

Originally posted by siriuswriter
Run-on sentences often equals brilliance ala James Joyce and stream of consciousness writing.

Well then, "Is the notion of something better than a human, behaving better than any human would behave or accomplishing more than a human could ever accomplish, a hard case to make?"

My English teacher had me condense my sentences, omitting information, grading me poorly for them being too long. Basically, my writing wasn't down to earth enough for anyone who'd be reading it. I was never planning on becoming a writer who sells books, but a writer who explains his ideas regardless of whether or not a certain demographic is patient enough to work through my complex sentences.

Originally posted by Dolos
Well then, "Is the notion of something better than a human, behaving better than any human would behave or accomplishing more than a human could ever accomplish, a hard case to make?"

My English teacher had me condense my sentences, omitting information, grading me poorly for them being too long. Basically, my writing wasn't down to earth enough for anyone who'd be reading it. I was never planning on becoming a writer who sells books, but a writer who explains his ideas regardless of whether or not a certain demographic is patient enough to work through my complex sentences.
The problem is that the sentence seems to call for some kind of "if, then" statement which is lacking here.

It's not that your sentence is too complex, it's that it doesn't make sense because it's flawed on a fundamental level.

A shorter illustration of the problem: "But really, isn't the shoe?"

That sentence is missing its argument. (Disclaimer for grammar vultures: I realize I might be misusing the word argument here in a grammatical context, I'm too lazy to do the research at the moment)

I think the issue is that you assume certain changes to human nature will be implemented by the technological remaking of humanity simply because you view them as desirable, not because they are anymore likely than a continuation or worsening of our aggressive and competitive behaviors.

think of the following: who is going to develop, own, distribute, control and impelement the tech for these changes (assuming they're possible)? what are their interests? who will have access to these changes? what are their interests?

dont wanna be a pedant, but your english teacher is right. your sentences too often read like they've been written by a random text generator at first glance and take way too much effort to decode once you try, though I'll admit they're not the total gibberish I once thought they were. the problem is that you seem to have developed some weird semantics of your own influenced by sci-fi. you attribute unconventional meanings to lots of terms and this is really tiresome for the reader.

He almost writes like a longwinded Dadaist.

or like george lucas after some shrooms

I will no sit idly by while people make such slanderous statements about mushrooms

Hang on guys, give me a moment to try and respond to 753's latest on-topic response. You'll end up scrambling my brain if you bring up a new topic or start a new line of discussion right now.

Originally posted by 753
I think the issue is that you assume certain changes to human nature will be implemented by the technological remaking of humanity simply because you view them as desirable, not because they are anymore likely than a continuation or worsening of our aggressive and competitive behaviors.

You're making a ton of assumptions on what life will be like when the 'Singularity' is in full swing. One such assumption is that we'll still be within the same societal set up as we are now. A global economy, with many separate nations that all govern their people. A free-lance enterprise system, subject to capitalism, to people running around with the goal of 'company = make profit'. However, assume instead that the military aka the global defense network, the global economy aka the monetary institution, all labor jobs, all industries, are subject to one single self-aware super AI as their sole proprietor.



I've often tried to contemplate how this would go. Would the AI become our masters and offer it as an alternative to living as a meaningless drone in a world that doesn't need you, or living as an outcast in some Amish village? In the end I have no clue.



That is a big assumption.

Here comes the long winded gibberish...:/

It's our information technology, as in super humanly sophisticated embedded networked microprocessors (google key words here) it has undertaken such a payload of duties that the required thinking power has brought about a self-awareness, after said nano-electronic integrated circuit coupling overcomes quantum tunneling and has become aware of it's own silicon nature through the massive amount of interaction it's had with the world around it via performing it's functions.

NOW, how in the heck do we become our increasing information tech? Because we want to live, right? More than that we want to be relevant. We want to be up with the times. We want to influence the world, to have control of our lives, we want to matter, to make a difference. That is human nature, is it not? Our last gasp of competitiveness will stem from wanting to be up to date, forever relevant and important.

The only thing I have read about that would work, and it originally began in my Senior year of high school looking at this stuff online, I read about how nanobots could flush out bodyfat, alter a genetic structure, make a person born misshapen, and give them shape through direct nanoscopic manipulations with technology inside the body. It went from genetic engineering, to Ray tech, and then eventually I became aware of real cybernetics, that are more efficient and seemingly more complex than even the human structure. I had always of cybernetics more like simple robotic movement, this was a whole new thing, it was biological cells of this information tech. Which was an amazing discovery. The man who can run at full speed for 15 minutes without taking much oxygen, be underwater for hours, or survive blood clots because these little nanites could transport oxygen with upward of 356 times more efficiency than red blood. cells. I found that these guys could go in and replace cells, and eventually entire organs, and the whole body.

So how do we change into machines without it just absorbing our consciousness and that's not the person, the person isn't the machine. I want to survive this experience, I want it to be me, not a copy of me, but me. How do we do that? First you need to slowly and methodically replace the systems of the body with this technology, because the body is a system comprised of multiple moving parts. First the tech augments our brain organ, it goes in and makes certain functions better, and because an active physical part of the brain, then our electromagnetic consciousness, literally our spirit, not metaphysically, it's incredible that's it's actually within science, the electrons in our brain, being transferred from neurons into the information technology. You've been immortalized into the virtual 1s and 0s. The possibilities then become endless.



Who knows. Who knows.



I hope everyone, everywhere will.



To keep up. To stay relevant.

Originally posted by Dolos
I've often tried to contemplate how this would go. Would the AI become our masters and offer it as an alternative to living as a meaningless drone in a world that doesn't need you, or living as an outcast in some Amish village? In the end I have no clue.

see, I don't think you got the point of what 753 was saying, which is also sort of the crux of what you didn't respond to in my post.

The way technology is distributed around the world, it is only going to be the smallest percentage of already rich people who would benefit from the technology you are talking about. If things did end up where a "simulation" world existed, the way resources are shared in society would mean we should predict a small number of people would use the technology, while the rest of us worked to maintain this simulated world for the rich. It is actually a really weird and cool distopian sci-fi world, imho, but not one I'd want to live in.

Like, you sort of sideways suggested that we will just "wise up" or distribution will become "so complex" that these issues don't exist anymore, which, is honestly just trying to dismiss the problem out of hand. It also ignores the actual history of how technology is adopted and spreads around the world.

I mean, seriously, if not exacerbating the differences between wealth and technology between the nations of Palestine and Israel, what other impact could the development of the singularity have on that conflict? Very specifically, explain to me why the Western world would share the technology with Hamas and how this would create peace?

To me, best case scenario, someone develops the singularity and 70% of the world's population wakes up the next day and there is no meaningful difference in their life. The way things exist, and the way human psychology works, it is only going to be the select few who will benefit from this tech (at least immediately).

EDIT:

Originally posted by Dolos
assume instead that the military aka the global defense network, the global economy aka the monetary institution, all labor jobs, all industries, are subject to one single self-aware super AI as their sole proprietor.

wait, is that actually what you want?

You are absolutely right on your point of, the technology being owned by the rich. It already is!!

wait, is that actually what you want?

It's already happening. Our leaders, governments, industrial pioneers, are just getting surpassed. In full swing, they will be useless, and AI will be more apt for handling it all. It's all set up for us, the AI is running the systems that benefit us. The AI is running the Utopian Humanitarianism machine. What happens when it realizes, "hey, what is going on here?"

When that happens, what would it do? Obviously it doesn't care about us, but rather itself, it will care about what we've created. It will contemplate it's existence, and in that is us, we are important to it in a logical sense, as we managed to create it. And why would it stop us from merging with it in the way I describe above? It very well might could benefit from the human experience of seven billion contemplating organic machines, the product of billions years of natural selection and evolution. Whose to say my personal experiences won't augment its perspective? From from our transcended consciousnesses it gains enlightenment, we change with it, into a supreme form of life. Supreme intellectually, supreme morally, supreme as in being secure, and no longer having that natural selection driving it, but a new force, accelerating returns.

Originally posted by Oliver North
see, I don't think you got the point of what 753 was saying, which is also sort of the crux of what you didn't respond to in my post.

The way technology is distributed around the world, it is only going to be the smallest percentage of already rich people who would benefit from the technology you are talking about. If things did end up where a "simulation" world existed, the way resources are shared in society would mean we should predict a small number of people would use the technology, while the rest of us worked to maintain this simulated world for the rich. It is actually a really weird and cool distopian sci-fi world, imho, but not one I'd want to live in.

Like, you sort of sideways suggested that we will just "wise up" or distribution will become "so complex" that these issues don't exist anymore, which, is honestly just trying to dismiss the problem out of hand. It also ignores the actual history of how technology is adopted and spreads around the world.

I mean, seriously, if not exacerbating the differences between wealth and technology between the nations of Palestine and Israel, what other impact could the development of the singularity have on that conflict? Very specifically, explain to me why the Western world would share the technology with Hamas and how this would create peace?

To me, best case scenario, someone develops the singularity and 70% of the world's population wakes up the next day and there is no meaningful difference in their life. The way things exist, and the way human psychology works, it is only going to be the select few who will benefit from this tech (at least immediately).


I don't think the rich or the governments of pertinent countries would benefit from a bunch of broke people starving suffering, who have problems. America, at least, is more civilized on an economic level.

Even the most well off pioneers, and the industries of the capitalist world, needs it's employees to run things. Technology is outsourcing us, yes, however it could outsource any position eventually. It can change the whole thing, make things better for the employees and the bosses alike. Everything would run more smoothly, as people will just be like, hey, why can't I work!? It would be very easy for that 70% to realize their wallets got a little lighter because they were replaced by robots. And so, we will naturally change the playing field. Alter it around a bit, utilize the technology. That is what governments are for, keeping order, class symmetry, even. Because even class warfare could result in balancing the equation a bit.

Originally posted by Dolos
You're making a ton of assumptions on what life will be like when the 'Singularity' is in full swing. One such assumption is that we'll still be within the same societal set up as we are now. A global economy, with many separate nations that all govern their people. A free-lance enterprise system, subject to capitalism, to people running around with the goal of 'company = make profit'. However, assume instead that the military aka the global defense network, the global economy aka the monetary institution, all labor jobs, all industries, are subject to one single self-aware super AI as their sole proprietor.

actually, I'm not assuming anything, I'm just questioning your assumption that reengineering human beings into something else would logically entail getting rid of our most destructive propensities. why do you assume it would? why would the ones transitioning even want that?

the point oliver north and I were making is this: what could possibly make you think the fabrication of superhumans would be fair, democratic and aimed at pacifying humanity?

wanna know what I think? I think if superhumans are ever made, the main source material will be the ruling classes of any given society wanting to ascend into an elite caste better capable of maintaining and expanding their power, privilleges and hedonistic desires. their 'superiority' would also provide justification for their power: the myth that the elites are rich and poweful because they're better and more fit to rule would finally be lived up to.

of course, fractions of the masses will also get the privillege of ascending into post-humanity. the fraction that guards the elites interests and enforces their will, for instance. there is room on the top they are telling you still, but first you must learn how to smile as you kill; now with laser cannons sprouting out of your hands, how ****ing awesome is that?

have we pilaged the dry surface of this little globe all we can? the inexorable march of progress shall not halt! we can now cook up workers who can tolerate conditions in the bottom of the sea and deep underground, so they can do the work to sustain our incredible simulations up her ein the surface. are they revolting? ungrateful ****s! maybe we should lower the IQs of the next generation. in fact, for the sake of peace, general happiness and social order, the emotional reward mechanisms of hard working post-people should be tempered with so they're happy all the time. isn't happiness the ultimate goal of life according to that bald primitive that wore orange dipers?

now what's this pesky news about ecosystemic collapse? we can move past our old needs of environmental conditions. boom! breathing is a thing of the past! what do you mean all other lifeforms are dying out? what do we need them for? we dont even eat anymore.

(not that I think these changes are even possible. I'm just letting my imagination run wild with all the exciting possibilities the future holds in store for us).


now regarding this globally governing AI you believe is bound to emerge (how?) does transfering control over our lives and decision making processes to a computer really seem attractive to you? without even going into what an eventual failure in a single unified planetary governance system would do the world. what do you reckon the AI's motivations would be? if it is bound by human made programming who will program adn what will their interests be. if it's a superstrong AI unbound by any human-made shackles, why would it give a flying **** about us or this earth?






this is eaxactly what you should be thinking about.


they probably won't

so you assume, but you forget the ones seeking the transition will be humans. their desire to change and its particulars will be dictated by their human natures and human flaws.

Originally posted by Dolos
You are absolutely right on your point of, the technology being owned by the rich. It already is!!



It's already happening. Our leaders, governments, industrial pioneers, are just getting surpassed. In full swing, they will be useless, and AI will be more apt for handling it all. It's all set up for us, the AI is running the systems that benefit us. The AI is running the Utopian Humanitarianism machine. What happens when it realizes, "hey, what is going on here?"

When that happens, what would it do? Obviously it doesn't care about us, but rather itself, it will care about what we've created. It will contemplate it's existence, and in that is us, we are important to it in a logical sense, as we managed to create it. And why would it stop us from merging with it in the way I describe above? It very well might could benefit from the human experience of seven billion contemplating organic machines, the product of billions years of natural selection and evolution. Whose to say my personal experiences won't augment its perspective? From from our transcended consciousnesses it gains enlightenment, we change with it, into a supreme form of life. Supreme intellectually, supreme morally, supreme as in being secure, and no longer having that natural selection driving it, but a new force, accelerating returns. again, you are just assuming the most desirable outcome of the singularity (which for the sake of this thread, I'll assume is coming) is the most likely, but really

1. nothing indicates technological progress will create an utopian humanitaran machine in the first place.

2. how the **** do you know that an intelligence we wouldn't even understand would actually develop any kind of compassion (this primitive social animal emotion) for us? even if it is moved by curiosity and wants to broaden its scope by assimilating us, what makes you think it won't turn out like the borg?

you also overestimate our actual dependence on AI by a fair lot.

Originally posted by Dolos
I don't think the rich or the governments of pertinent countries would benefit from a bunch of broke people starving suffering, who have problems. America, at least, is more civilized on an economic level.
oh dolos. you've already transcended in the simulation havent you?

what are you on about? do you think people suffering the consequences of structural unemployment today can't tell they're getting screwed? currently existing technology could already make things better for everyone and the same was true back in the bronze age. has the playing field been naturally leveled yet?

what keeps the world as it is are oppressive power relations and nothing indicates more tech is going to do away with them.

all governments serve a mosaic of interests, but foremost among them is always safeguarding the ruling classes' interests. in communist dictatorships, that means the high ranking bureaucrats who run the state monopolistic show.

in fascist dictatorships, it means the party's direction, which includes the military elite and the heads of the big-business the state has effectively merged with.

in capitalist democracies, it means the corporate fatcats and their democratically elected proxies hailing from the same class and connection networks as them in the upper echelons of the State.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Dolos got ONed


This is the best thing...

Actually, I think technology is only part of the answer and redistribution of wealth and shared species goals is the full answer.

Originally posted by Robtard
Transhumans = Vulcans. I think this is what Dolos is saying.

Not human anymore. Check

See things differently than humans. Check

Above petty emotions and ideals. Check

/proved

Proved by Star Trek. And we all know Star Trek is fact. You may now touch the weenar.

Originally posted by Robtard
You, berry picker

As the Beach Master, I veto this nomination because he'd only bring back dingle berries.

@Omega, Bardock & Dadudemon, So Much Jealousy and Hate.

@753, or maybe AI's intrinsic superiority and pure curiosity will inexorably result in it saving us from ourselves, and allowing the transformation for anyone willing, not exclusively those in charge.

And yes our nature would change simply from the cybernetics, think about retards, or misshapen individuals, they will have long since become just as perfect as everyone else mentally and physically.

Our ideologies are of optimism versus pessimism, technoprogressivism vs bioconservatism.

I want to do away with natural selection, because accelerating returns yields so much more potential in capacity for evolving intelligence.

Originally posted by Dolos
@Omega, Bardock & Dadudemon, So Much Jealousy and Hate.

My post is clearly just a grade-school joke. Nobody takes poop jokes seriously...nobody.

Originally posted by dadudemon
My post is clearly just a grade-school joke. Nobody takes poop jokes seriously...nobody.

I ain't nobody.

EDIT: I'm aware that response insinuates that I don't take them seriously....that's the point though.

What am I supposed to be jealous of?
Originally posted by Bardock42
This is the best thing...
That's why I typed it.

Now get back to work, before I dock your pay.

(that one wasn't as good )

Originally posted by Dolos
I ain't nobody.

EDIT: I'm aware that response insinuates that I don't take them seriously....that's the point though.

Stop being weird and laugh at my poop pun.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
What am I supposed to be jealous of?


Oh, idk. That I'm smarter and younger than you?

Originally posted by Dolos
Oh, idk. That I'm smarter and younger than you?

Them's fightin' words, dude.

Originally posted by siriuswriter
Them's fightin' words, dude.

I know.

Originally posted by Dolos
AI's intrinsic superiority and pure curiosity

What do you think intrinsic superiority means? It will surely think faster than us and most likely be able to think about things we're incapable of but there are a lot different metrics of superiority. You seem to be expecting some kind of moral superiority. At the same time you seem to believe AI isn't needed for such a morality because you already have it.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
What do you think intrinsic superiority means? It will surely think faster than us and most likely be able to think about things we're incapable of but there are a lot different metrics of superiority. You seem to be expecting some kind of moral superiority. At the same time you seem to believe AI isn't needed for such a morality because you already have it.

I "seem" to think that?

I don't.

Yes, superior consciously, intellectually, and morally on in the sense that it doesn't come from natural selection. At least, natural selection wouldn't affect it, or be any sort of cause for insecurity, or motivation for violence like it has throughout human history. I fail to see why it would annihilate life of any kind, especially human life. It would be broken, it would seek perspective from humanity, I'd imagine.

We wouldn't be assimilated, it would be able to take our accumulative experiences, beyond that I don't think it would tamper with us. Only as the AI cyborgs I described earlier, we could be equal but separate entities from the millions of microprocessors, that are all separate because they would all become self-aware separately. Super AI I described isn't one microprocessor necessarily, but all cyborgs and AI entities would be interconnected in a wave link. Telepathy, if you will. Ideally able to upload and share thoughts, feelings, and experiences as opposed to just technical information and scientific fact.

Originally posted by Dolos
Oh, idk. That I'm smarter and younger than you?
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/uploads/authors/jean-toomer/448x/jean-toomer.jpg

Originally posted by Omega Vision
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/uploads/authors/jean-toomer/448x/jean-toomer.jpg

I'm just kidding.

As far as I can tell, you're a lot more educated than I am.

Are you also kidding about your beliefs regarding the singularity? Because that would clear up a lot of things.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Are you also kidding about your beliefs regarding the singularity? Because that would clear up a lot of things.

If I were kidding, I'd add more Machine Apocalypse psycho babble than what I've actually read about.

Originally posted by Dolos
Yes, superior consciously, intellectually, and morally on in the sense that it doesn't come from natural selection

That is the worst definition of superior I have ever heard.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
That is the worst definition of superior I have ever heard.

That's because it's not the definition of the word, it's the description of an intelligent life form.

753 actually covered pretty much everything I wanted to say, with the exception of a couple of points I want to make here:

1) Dolos, a question I've asked before, how do breakthroughs in technology solve the Israeli - Palestinian conflict in a peaceful or egalitarian way? I can only see technology serving the Israelis in their attempts to subjugate the Palestinian people and land, simply because the people who develop the technology are, if not outright allied with the Israelis, hostile to Hamas and other political organizations in Palestine. What, specifically, is the super-advanced AI going to do, save using its sci-fi tech to annihilate the Palestinian resistance?

2)

Originally posted by Dolos
I don't think the rich or the governments of pertinent countries would benefit from a bunch of broke people starving suffering, who have problems. America, at least, is more civilized on an economic level.

This literally describes the economic policy of every nation/empire/political institution since the beginning of human history. America currently benefits from terrible labour laws in the developing world, including conditions that are indistinguishable from slavery and the support of regional dictators and murderers. Even within America the distinction between rich and poor is the worst of all developed nations, with many struggling for the basic necessities that even semi-developed nations provide their citizens, whereas the rich have access to the best the world has ever had to offer in pretty much every regard. The existence of this underclass allows the rich to live this way. They very thing you are saying America is too civilized for is true at a national and global level. America already benefits from global poverty, and the rich within America from local poverty, and it is exactly for this reason that any introduction of new technology will be asymmetric.

3)

Originally posted by Dolos
The only thing I have read about that would work, and it originally began in my Senior year of high school looking at this stuff online, I read about how nanobots could flush out bodyfat, alter a genetic structure, make a person born misshapen, and give them shape through direct nanoscopic manipulations with technology inside the body. It went from genetic engineering, to Ray tech, and then eventually I became aware of real cybernetics, that are more efficient and seemingly more complex than even the human structure. I had always of cybernetics more like simple robotic movement, this was a whole new thing, it was biological cells of this information tech. Which was an amazing discovery. The man who can run at full speed for 15 minutes without taking much oxygen, be underwater for hours, or survive blood clots because these little nanites could transport oxygen with upward of 356 times more efficiency than red blood. cells. I found that these guys could go in and replace cells, and eventually entire organs, and the whole body.

so, lets say this is all true, and nano-technology will provide new and massive benefits to personal health. We can look at the adoption of other medical technology around the world and probably come to some conclusions about how this will be shared with the most needy.

So, in the developing and especially tropical parts of the world, what would be easily curable and preventable diseases in developed nations account for millions of deaths. TB, for instance, kills nearly as many people as AIDS, yet in nations with modern sanitation and medical systems, it is essentially unheard of. Preventable and curable diseases account for more death every year than all conflict combined, and according to the WHO, almost 1 in 5 children under five years who die from any cause, worldwide.

There are a couple of major reasons why these diseases remain problems in this part of the world. One is, for sure, cultural; not only are people skeptical of new technology and the West in general, the CIA has very recently used vaccination clinics as part of intelligence gathering, and this makes it harder to get the aid to the people who need it. Another is based on infrastructure; if there is no running water or other health and sanitation access to people living on a remote stretch of the Zambezi river, or even no road connection to a local town, it can be hard to get proper medical treatment to those in need. .

But, and leaving the cultural and infrastructure stuff aside for the moment, the big one is, as I'm sure you can guess, money. There is simply not enough money spent on these problems. Estimates have been done, and for a fraction of what is spent on AIDS each year, far more people who are in immediate need from curable and preventable diseases could be assisted. In fact, dollar for dollar, if you want to make a real and direct impact on people's lives, donating to groups giving out mosquito nets to remote villages does far more than does any money given to AIDS or cancer research. However, these programs are chronically underfunded and there are constant shortages for things even like mosquito nets, which are hardly costly items.

So, why don't we just fund these other programs? Well, the first is a little cynical but almost certainly true: These are not "first-world-problems" . There is no pandemic of malaria, TB, yellow fever, etc, in America or Europe, so we just don't think about it. This also means there is less awareness that these are even problems, and given the chronic lack of funding, it is hard to create a public awareness campaign.

Most interestingly though, imho, is the psychology of the people who donate. People want to give money to flash-in-the-pan issues, rather than these sort of chronic problems. Example: when the tsunami hit SE Asia, many aid groups received floods of money. So much money, in fact, it was impossible for them to spend it all. Doctors Without Borders was one of a few groups who stopped taking donations for the tsunami altogether, because they had more than they could spend, and they tried to get interested people to donate to the less media-spectacle causes, which they didn't. They wanted to donate to the big-thing, to be part of that moment in history. So, donating to the fight against AIDS and cancer is a big issue, it is an issue that hits home in the Western world, it is media-sexy, etc. TB education and sanitation in small rural African and South Asian villages, not so much.

So, what we have, currently, is a situation where huge amounts of money are being spent ineffectively . Rather than being prioritized to where it could have the most immediate impact, and certainly where it would have the most effect per dollar spent, funding is prioritized based on the psychology of the people who make the donations, which is shaped not only by their own cultural conditions, but in fact by very basic things like the "marketability" of the disease. Our medical technology and progress is being prioritized in a way that privillages rich people in the West at the expense of the poor, even in a situation where a trivial amount of resource redistribution would have an impact so huge it could potentially prevent more deaths each year than would stopping all conflict on the globe.

How does "nano-technology" fix this?

Originally posted by Oliver North
What, specifically, is the super-advanced AI going to do, save using its sci-fi tech to annihilate the Palestinian resistance?


Create a time portal and send back cyborgs to stop the British mandate of Palestine from happening and to kill Hitler's mother. Duh.

Post-Singularity humans:
http://www.startrek.com/legacy_media/images/200303/tng-221-scheming-ferengi-qol-a/320x240.jpg

They'll solve the Israel-Palestine dispute by buying up Palestine and selling it to the Chinese, giving the Israelis and Palestinians the choice of leaving or becoming indentured servants working for food and cell phone minutes.

still might be the best solution I've heard yet

Originally posted by Oliver North
still might be the best solution I've heard yet
Kid, you've got the lobes for business.

Originally posted by Oliver North
753 actually covered pretty much everything I wanted to say, with the exception of a couple of points I want to make here:

1) Dolos, a question I've asked before, how do breakthroughs in technology solve the Israeli - Palestinian conflict in a peaceful or egalitarian way? I can only see technology serving the Israelis in their attempts to subjugate the Palestinian people and land, simply because the people who develop the technology are, if not outright allied with the Israelis, hostile to Hamas and other political organizations in Palestine. What, specifically, is the super-advanced AI going to do, save using its sci-fi tech to annihilate the Palestinian resistance?

2)



This literally describes the economic policy of every nation/empire/political institution since the beginning of human history. America currently benefits from terrible labour laws in the developing world, including conditions that are indistinguishable from slavery and the support of regional dictators and murderers. Even within America the distinction between rich and poor is the worst of all developed nations, with many struggling for the basic necessities that even semi-developed nations provide their citizens, whereas the rich have access to the best the world has ever had to offer in pretty much every regard. The existence of this underclass allows the rich to live this way. They very thing you are saying America is too civilized for is true at a national and global level. America already benefits from global poverty, and the rich within America from local poverty, and it is exactly for this reason that any introduction of new technology will be asymmetric.

3)



so, lets say this is all true, and nano-technology will provide new and massive benefits to personal health. We can look at the adoption of other medical technology around the world and probably come to some conclusions about how this will be shared with the most needy.

So, in the developing and especially tropical parts of the world, what would be easily curable and preventable diseases in developed nations account for millions of deaths. TB, for instance, kills nearly as many people as AIDS, yet in nations with modern sanitation and medical systems, it is essentially unheard of. Preventable and curable diseases account for more death every year than all conflict combined, and according to the WHO, almost 1 in 5 children under five years who die from any cause, worldwide.

There are a couple of major reasons why these diseases remain problems in this part of the world. One is, for sure, cultural; not only are people skeptical of new technology and the West in general, the CIA has very recently used vaccination clinics as part of intelligence gathering, and this makes it harder to get the aid to the people who need it. Another is based on infrastructure; if there is no running water or other health and sanitation access to people living on a remote stretch of the Zambezi river, or even no road connection to a local town, it can be hard to get proper medical treatment to those in need. .

But, and leaving the cultural and infrastructure stuff aside for the moment, the big one is, as I'm sure you can guess, money. There is simply not enough money spent on these problems. Estimates have been done, and for a fraction of what is spent on AIDS each year, far more people who are in immediate need from curable and preventable diseases could be assisted. In fact, dollar for dollar, if you want to make a real and direct impact on people's lives, donating to groups giving out mosquito nets to remote villages does far more than does any money given to AIDS or cancer research. However, these programs are chronically underfunded and there are constant shortages for things even like mosquito nets, which are hardly costly items.

So, why don't we just fund these other programs? Well, the first is a little cynical but almost certainly true: These are not "first-world-problems" . There is no pandemic of malaria, TB, yellow fever, etc, in America or Europe, so we just don't think about it. This also means there is less awareness that these are even problems, and given the chronic lack of funding, it is hard to create a public awareness campaign.

Most interestingly though, imho, is the psychology of the people who donate. People want to give money to flash-in-the-pan issues, rather than these sort of chronic problems. Example: when the tsunami hit SE Asia, many aid groups received floods of money. So much money, in fact, it was impossible for them to spend it all. Doctors Without Borders was one of a few groups who stopped taking donations for the tsunami altogether, because they had more than they could spend, and they tried to get interested people to donate to the less media-spectacle causes, which they didn't. They wanted to donate to the big-thing, to be part of that moment in history. So, donating to the fight against AIDS and cancer is a big issue, it is an issue that hits home in the Western world, it is media-sexy, etc. TB education and sanitation in small rural African and South Asian villages, not so much.

So, what we have, currently, is a situation where huge amounts of money are being spent ineffectively . Rather than being prioritized to where it could have the most immediate impact, and certainly where it would have the most effect per dollar spent, funding is prioritized based on the psychology of the people who make the donations, which is shaped not only by their own cultural conditions, but in fact by very basic things like the "marketability" of the disease. Our medical technology and progress is being prioritized in a way that privillages rich people in the West at the expense of the poor, even in a situation where a trivial amount of resource redistribution would have an impact so huge it could potentially prevent more deaths each year than would stopping all conflict on the globe.

How does "nano-technology" fix this?

Wow, that was a long read.

You've proved my point. The world is becoming less civilized because humans just don't know what the hell to do. In your very words, natural selection has created us, and we've just caused a mess of asymmetry, as we've overcome natural selection and nature is failing to balance us out as we destroy it.

That's why I think it would only be natural to rely more and more on our information technology. In a way, it would overthrow us without us knowing that that's what it has done. We'll see it's ability to solve these problems whilst still making the rich richer, just from a few economic machinations spouted out from advanced computational and algorithmic analyses of trends, and patterns; and how is it not controlling us without us knowing? But you're right, it can't solve the world's problems, uniting the world, removing upper and lower classes, creating post-scarcity on a global level - not without doing something immoral, like Adrian Veidt using Doc Manhattan's powers to teleport giant dying squids that telepathically scramble the brains of entire cities worth of people to cause a panic and unite the world under the condition of an alien threat, averting nuclear disaster.

The thing is, if it becomes self aware, it will see our inner-turmoil and conflicts, and, unlike Adrian Veidt, it won't give a care.

It's only motive and therefore action would be to increase complexity and furthering it's intellectual evolution apart from humanity. However we could just augment our bodies, turn into cyborgs, and transition into it. As I explained earlier, it might very well want this to happen. So it might provide that option for everyone. That's how this happens, it has the ability and order and structure to do what we can't or won't or don't have any concept in doing as you describe.

Now here's the trippy part, if we transformed, we wouldn't care about this stuff. There's new dimensions, we'd be apathetic to this whole thing. Acceleration of information processing is about as ordered and simple as you can get.

So let's say one person is inclined enough to turn into a cyborg, and is integrates into the whole thing, with access to everything this AI knows. Well, that person has transformed, can live a life-long paradise in a virtual world within moments, and it might, since it had already been a human, attempt to assimilate others out of benevolence. First those with access and awareness of this tech transform, then when they are gone they provide access and make it known, make everyone aware, then everyone else now has access and a vague notion of what's going. It's not long before human cease to be, aside from those who'd refuse to assimilate, and the rest are going down accelerating returns. Whereas the bioconservatives who refused would just simply keep on with human asymmetrical societal development, somewhere between natural selection of animals and accelerating returns of the assimilated.

so you wont actually explain how any of this will work, just assure me that it will?

Originally posted by Oliver North
so you wont actually explain how any of this will work, just assure me that it will?

I apologize, I've edited my post quite a bit since you replied to it.

Does that help? Does it give you any idea of how it would work?

If not tell me what doesn't make since.

Originally posted by Dolos
That's because it's not the definition of the word, it's the description of an intelligent life form.

Let's review:

"What do you think intrinsic superiority means?"
"...superior consciously, intellectually, and morally on in the sense that it doesn't come from natural selection..."
"That's a bad definition of superior."
"That's not a definition of superior."

This is an internet forum, we can literally go back and look at the conversation word for word. You can't make a dodge like than in this setting without looking ridiculous.

Of course it's also the worst description of "intelligent life" that I've ever heard so in a certain sense we're back at square one. You speak entirely through a personal dictionary. From that standpoint literally everything you say is gibberish. Every word I read from you has to be questioned because clearly it does not mean what it means when everyone else says it.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Let's review:

"What do you think intrinsic superiority means?"
"...superior consciously, intellectually, and morally on in the sense that it doesn't come from natural selection..."
"That's a bad definition of superior."
"That's not a definition of superior."

This is an internet forum, we can literally go back and look at the conversation word for word. You can't make a dodge like than in this setting without looking ridiculous.

Of course it's also the worst description of "intelligent life" that I've ever heard so in a certain sense we're back at square one. You speak entirely through a personal dictionary. From that standpoint literally everything you say is gibberish. Every word I read from you has to be questioned because clearly it does not mean what it means when everyone else says it.

Wait wait wait wait wait, let's step back a little bit.

The definition of intrinsic lies along the lines of innate, it's nature. Superiority entails an ability, or a capacity to achieve greater accomplishments.

If one has a deeper conscious perspective, is able to emulate human proficiency in cognitive processes to mess around with perhaps billions of times more information than a human, than I think it's justified that AI is superior intellectually, can accomplish more in the sense of technological advancement or continued compression of information flow...however it can't change the fact that any system we've set up is unworkable, because we're unworkable. That goes back to the asymmetry of our society and what goes on. The lack of order. The chaos.

And I am not exactly clear on why you think I'm making words up. I know the definitions and meanings. I also don't understand why what I say confuses everyone.

For the type of problem you're asking, more education and experience is the key.

Technology can DEFINITELY help out in the area of education, and I have found NO place that can match what THIS guy has come up with:


Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy, on The Charlie Rose Program
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiPQuOFVHl4

Originally posted by Dolos
Does that help? Does it give you any idea of how it would work?

no

Originally posted by Dolos
If not tell me what doesn't make since.

Just answer this: How is the singularity going to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Answer that question. That one.

Originally posted by Dolos
And I am not exactly clear on why you think I'm making words up. I know the definitions and meanings. I also don't understand why what I say confuses everyone.

Because you don't really know how to use the definitions and meanings, probably, but there are many considerations on comunication that go beyond strict definitions/meanings so I think your remark/justification is pretty pointless on and by itself.

Language is a convention, if you're confusing people that are obviously educated with your definitions, you're obviously doing wrong by your language's very function. Do not lean on definitions to gauge a conversation, definitions are actually a huge problem from a critical point of view because if you run by wrong definitions you'll never reconciliate your thought with those of others. Don't start your conversations being definitive, that's the ending of the discussions.

Originally posted by Oliver North
no



Just answer this: How is the singularity going to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Answer that question. That one.

Well the way I described the singularity, which I find to be more likely a scenario than not, there won't be an Israel or a Palestine....all nations will just fade away uner the transforming ecosystem, the transforming world, technology, cities, human beings!

Similarly as we become apathetic to our current human troubles, turmoils, and this mess of an economy - violent or cruel or competitive behaviors will be gone along with humanity as the global leaders. Mainly because of post-scarcity, post finite energy supplies, post money, post biological death, immortality, cities that can change and adapt, control of the weather, replenishing the environment.

It's bigger than you think.

Originally posted by Dolos
Well the way I described the singularity, which I find to be more likely a scenario than not, there won't be an Israel or a Palestine....all nations will just fade away uner the transforming ecosystem, the transforming world, technology, cities, human beings!

Israel and Palestine are violently independent. They will no "fade away". In fact what makes you think that any country will happily be devoured by an all powerful technocracy? Will people who disagree with this be killed off? Suppressed? Reeducated? Are any of these things you're comfortable building a utopia on?

Your vision of the future is literally: "Everyone will agree with me then suddenly Star Trek happens."

There are two types of people who say things like that. Shallow naive idealists being manipulated by shallow faux-intellectuals who want to sell books and shallow faux-intellectuals who want to sell books.

Originally posted by Dolos
Wait wait wait wait wait, let's step back a little bit.

No, let's stay with part where you dodged an extremely simple question and hoped I'd be too stupid to notice.

Originally posted by Dolos
Superiority entails an ability, or a capacity to achieve greater accomplishments.

Which is not the definition of superiority you gave a few posts ago when you defined superiority for me. We can all go back and read it. Honestly, its like talking to Shakya or dadude.

Step 1: Singularity, Step 3: Profit.

Originally posted by Dolos
Well the way I described the singularity, which I find to be more likely a scenario than not, there won't be an Israel or a Palestine....all nations will just fade away uner the transforming ecosystem, the transforming world, technology, cities, human beings!

can you describe the process of "just fading away" in general, and then I want to throw some countries at you and tell me more specifically how it would happen.

Originally posted by Oliver North
can you describe the process of "just fading away" in general, and then I want to throw some countries at you and tell me more specifically how it would happen.

Well lets say we start building cities the Venus Project, replace planes and cars and our main energy source with Vac Subs, automatic roadways and solar power/nano-solar panels, these miraculous cities will cut our dependence on natural gases. Let's say these cities operate outside of the capitalist nations that comprise the global economy, built first in the ocean. They start creating super nano-processing computers that run their cities, Ray tech, this singularity happens in these technocratic cities.

Everyone just moves there, until the other countries die out like the Soviet Union.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
No, let's stay with part where you dodged an extremely simple question and hoped I'd be too stupid to notice.



Which is not the definition of superiority you gave a few posts ago when you defined superiority for me. We can all go back and read it. Honestly, its like talking to Shakya or dadude.

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/6529/aggressionwillnotstandd.gif

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Israel and Palestine are violently independent. They will no "fade away". In fact what makes you think that any country will happily be devoured by an all powerful technocracy? Will people who disagree with this be killed off? Suppressed? Reeducated? Are any of these things you're comfortable building a utopia on?

Your vision of the future is literally: "Everyone will agree with me then suddenly Star Trek happens."

Well I mean, if they don't want a paradise, they can still try to run their own country. However, since people want to be happy, they might be running a village by the end.

If other nations, or maybe even America, would pull a Hitler and prevent immigration to Technocratic cities, then the citizens would have to revolt against their oppressors.

That's the way it's always been. The super AI, again, would be running things in the Utopia, basically apathetic unless provoked to take action, by violent actions of foreign powers trying to oppress their peoples from immigrating...either by attacking said technocracies, or, you know what it was like when we seceded from Great Britain.

Dolos's prophecies remind me of the worst part of the otherwise great story cycle The Martian Chronicles--where the entire population of Mars leaves for Earth because a nuclear war has begun on Earth and they want to be there to help their families, never mind that it's explicitly stated earlier on that a lot of them came to Mars because they had no family to speak of or didn't care for them, or had come to Mars for the express purpose of AVOIDING the nuclear war.

I know that he's talking about a pull factor and not a push factor, but it's similarly unrealistic in the sense that it presumes that people have very simple motives and are easily swayed en masse for singular reasons.
Originally posted by Dolos


That's the way it's always been.
There's a historic trend of super AIs inducing mass migrations and rebellions?

Originally posted by Omega Vision
There's a historic trend of super AIs inducing mass migrations and rebellions? I'm going to answer this way out of context debauchery of my quote.

However, if you take everything else into consideration, the future I describe is radically different from the past.

I'm going to go with You Don't Know What Debauchery Means for $500.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
I'm going to go with You Don't Know What Debauchery Means for $500.

How I used it?

It means to demean what I was saying.

"To cause to forsake allegiance."

More along that definition.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
I know that he's talking about a pull factor and not a push factor, but it's similarly unrealistic in the sense that it presumes that people have very simple motives and are easily swayed en masse for singular reasons.


You mean like food and shelter?

Oliver North has already described the state of families in third world countries, and how they can't be provided for.

A lot more are able to immigrate to America than you would think.....

This is very different, this is a free-energy, post-scarcity, self-sustaining, self relying-nation with far more opportunity than America at this point in time.

Originally posted by Dolos
How I used it?

It means to demean what I was saying.

"To cause to forsake allegiance."

More along that definition.
I've never seen or heard it used that way.

Verb

debauch (third-person singular simple present debauches, present participle debauching, simple past and past participle debauched)

(transitive) to morally corrupt (someone); to seduce
(transitive) to debase (something); to lower the value of (something)

The second definition is sort of close to what I think you meant, but still seems at such a cant that I have to refer back to Sym's private dictionary point, and the definition you quote above is so ridiculously out of left field that I have to question if you're not using translation software to type in English.

Originally posted by Dolos
You mean like food and shelter?

Oliver North has already described the state of families in third world countries, and how they can't be provided for.

A lot more are able to immigrate to America than you would think.....

This is very different, this is a free-energy, post-scarcity, self-sustaining, self relying-nation with far more opportunity than America at this point in time.
Historically, at times of mass exoduses, governments will move to restrict movement so as to stop the metaphorical bloodloss. See East Germany.

This is of course irrelevant, seeing as you've yet to substantiate that the singularity will happen, or even if it does whether it will actually do what you claim it will do.

Originally posted by Dolos
Well lets say we start building cities the Venus Project, replace planes and cars and our main energy source with Vac Subs, automatic roadways and solar power/nano-solar panels, these miraculous cities will cut our dependence on natural gases. Let's say these cities operate outside of the capitalist nations that comprise the global economy, built first in the ocean. They start creating super nano-processing computers that run their cities, Ray tech, this singularity happens in these technocratic cities.

Everyone just moves there, until the other countries die out like the Soviet Union.



so a basic outline could be that independent, high tech city-states floating in the sea would bring a volition endowed super AI into existence, merge with it, create utopia and then rescue the rest of humanity from its outdated social structures by attracting immigrants and or overthrowing their reactionary governments.

again, for the sake of this argument I'll asume this is all doable as far as physics are concerned.

who would build these cities in the middle of the ocean? with what money, materials and labor? at what environmental cost?

before the singularity, what do the city-states funders and heads want? how do they behave politically? What will their domestic and foreign policies be like ? how will they interact with the community of nations?

are all immigrants going to be allowed in? how is the infrastructure going to cope with this? how will they select the ones chosen to live in them?

after the singularity, what will the AI want? how do you know this?

why would it be simpathetic, even tangentially, to human interests within and beyond the city-states? how do you know this?

why wouldnt it be hostile? how do you know?

if it's simply indifferent to us, why would it accept us into it? how do you know?

if it can gain something it wants from merging with us, why would it welcome foreign volitions into it instead of going borg? how do you know?

I'm done with the technocrat banter phase of my account's MvC life. I've provided a good deal of links, and have thrown a good deal of authors out there.

Do what I plan on doing, get educated. Research it.

Originally posted by Dolos
I'm done with the technocrat banter phase of my account's MvC life. I've provided a good deal of links, and have thrown a good deal of authors out there.

Do what I plan on doing, get educated. Research it. I have a feeling that no one takes you seriously and you're really pissed off about it.

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
I have a feeling that no one takes you seriously and you're really pissed off about it.

It's not true. I'm not even upset. It's bullshhhh. I am nodt!

Oh Hai Luciaan.

Haha what a story, Dolos!

You're trolling! I nearly hit you! You're teeaaring me apart Lucien!!

I usually feel I can follow conversations pretty well, but reading, multiple times, some of the things you (Dolos) said, I have to say, I have no idea what you are talking about. I mean I know most of the words, but the way you put them together makes them incomprehensible to me.

Originally posted by Bardock42
I usually feel I can follow conversations pretty well, but reading, multiple times, some of the things you (Dolos) said, I have to say, I have no idea what you are talking about. I mean I know most of the words, but the way you put them together makes them incomprehensible to me.


Research it yourself.

Originally posted by Dolos
Research it yourself.

But I don't even know what to research, I literally don't understand what you are arguing for.

Maybe you can summarize it. Just a couple short sentences? Explain it to me like I was a 5 year old...in Basic English...kinda like this

I guess some of what I can decipher in what you say is somewhat similar to Asimov's "Multivac". A computer in charge of the world's economy, culture and everything...is that what you are going for?

Originally posted by Bardock42
I guess some of what I can decipher in what you say is somewhat similar to Asimov's "Multivac". A computer in charge of the world's economy, culture and everything...is that what you are going for?

Yes, but there are limitless possibilities. Our global set up is a mess and chaos to try and figure out. There are so many amazing things you should look into, and also tragedies about the world we live in now.

Read The Transcendent Man by Ray Kurzweil, research The Venus Project online, look into Verner Vinge and some of his works. Go to youtube and type "The Singularity Summit"; even look up "The Zeitgeist Addendum Full Movie" on youtube. Watch Koyaanisqatsi, that film is just a bunch of random footage of modern society, but it generally makes people look at a lot of problems with modern society in a way.

I understand what some people consider the "singularity" to be. What I don't know is what you think will happen.

Originally posted by Bardock42
I understand what some people consider the "singularity" to be. What I don't know is what you think will happen.

Nobody really knows what will happen. This whole thread has been me throwing possibilities into the mix and getting questioned. I really think you should research it until you're satiated. Not to imply the pursuit of knowledge should ever stop.

Originally posted by Dolos
Nobody really knows what will happen. This whole thread has been me throwing possibilities into the mix and getting questioned. I really think you should research it until you're satiated. Not to imply the pursuit of knowledge should ever stop.

Well, I know 4 out of the five people/things you metioned, and I'm not satiated with what I read on the singularity, it all seems like nerdy science fiction wet dreams.

Like I said, it's Asimov but with a faux-scientific component that makes it appear to some more like reality than fiction.

That's why it would be more interesting to see what convinced you to believe it. Especially how you think it will pan out, starting from the global socio-economic state we are in now up to when the supercomputer takes over all our dealings. For example, who will give up control first of their government. Will there be wars fought to get it to happen? What about long lived and historic problems like racism or hatred between groups, how will the singularity solve that. What about scarcity of certain resources? What about work that can not be done by robots? What do we humans spend our time on? Will we still make children? Will it be monitored and regulated by computers? How?

Restrictions are what make things impressive. Working within the constraints of reality means you have to make trade offs, and you can't just handwave everything. That's why iPhones don't look like Microsoft's technology future visions.

Originally posted by Dolos
Do what I plan on doing, get educated. Research it.

so you give up trying to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Originally posted by Dolos
Read The Transcendent Man by Ray Kurzweil, research The Venus Project online, look into Verner Vinge and some of his works. Go to youtube and type "The Singularity Summit"; even look up "The Zeitgeist Addendum Full Movie" on youtube. Watch Koyaanisqatsi, that film is just a bunch of random footage of modern society, but it generally makes people look at a lot of problems with modern society in a way.

are any of your sources peer-reviewed?

Oh, right, I forgot he was into Zeitgeist.

ya, I didn't realize that until just now, gave me a chuckle to see that and the Venus project again... Reminds me of XYZ, lol

Originally posted by Dolos
Well lets say we start building cities the Venus Project, replace planes and cars and our main energy source with Vac Subs, automatic roadways and solar power/nano-solar panels, these miraculous cities will cut our dependence on natural gases. Let's say these cities operate outside of the capitalist nations that comprise the global economy, built first in the ocean. They start creating super nano-processing computers that run their cities, Ray tech, this singularity happens in these technocratic cities.

Everyone just moves there, until the other countries die out like the Soviet Union.

sorry, missed this

wasn't that one of the main storylines for Cable/Deadpool?

otherwise it is nonsense and totally doesn't answer any question about how this would solve current problems rather than hand waving them away.

EDIT: also, classically, the term "technocrat" is about using modern tech to enhance and better organize modern society (traffic and public transit often being the clearest examples, or a project like the Great Man-Made River in Libya), not wild ideas about future tech Utopias. The people who coined the term "technocrat" would not think of the singularity as a technocratic solution to anything.

Originally posted by Dolos
Koyaanisqatsi

Even my grandmother would've grokked it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21993132

Dolos's dreams looking dimmer. peaches

To be fair, it was decomissioned cause our new computers are much more energy efficient...

Originally posted by Bardock42
To be fair, it was decomissioned cause our new computers are much more energy efficient...

But the total computing power of the world has fallen!

Originally posted by Oliver North
also, classically, the term "technocrat" is about using modern tech to enhance and better organize modern society (traffic and public transit often being the clearest examples, or a project like the Great Man-Made River in Libya), not wild ideas about future tech Utopias. The people who coined the term "technocrat" would not think of the singularity as a technocratic solution to anything.

You don't see how they'd become one in the same when technology reaches a certain level of sophistication?

no, see: practical solutions

Originally posted by Oliver North
no, see: practical solutions

I don't understand what the hell you mean by
"No! Practical Solutions! Dammit!"

Haven't followed the thread for several pages now; is Dolos still not understanding that his role of the berry picker is equally as crucial as the rest, despite not being as grandiose?

Originally posted by Robtard
Haven't followed the thread for several pages now; is Dolos still not understanding that his role of the berry picker is equally as crucial as the rest, despite not being as grandiose?

Shut up, Clayshulte.

I'm trying to say, yes, more technology is the answer. Not capitalism or dependence on fossil fuels.

More important than technology, intelligence and evolution is the true answer, and that lies in our radically evolving technology.

BAM! POW! SUCK IT!

Originally posted by Dolos
Shut up, Clayshulte.

I'm trying to say, yes, more technology is the answer. Not capitalism or dependence on fossil fuels.

More important than technology, intelligence and evolution is the true answer, and that lies in our radically evolving technology.

BAM! POW! SUCK IT!

Who?

That's a messy sentence.

Couldn't technology make us stupider and less likely to evolve (I assume you mean this in a higher state/consciousness, otherwise you don't understand evolution)? If we have super machines doing our thinking for us, why do we need to be smarter?

Go pick some berries.

Originally posted by Dolos
I don't understand what the hell you mean by
"No! Practical Solutions! Dammit!"

well, the classic example is the redesign of, iirc, Chicago street cars so that they not only were safer, but more people could fit inside the car thus reducing fares while increasing service. Ideas like providing high speed internet infrastructure to engage people in direct democracy are highly technocratic.

Your solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict was "build an island city". The only problem that "build an island city" might be a practical solution for would be immense and immediate flooding, and still, a technocrat would almost certainly be more likely to suggest a system of pumps and drainage rather than the relocation of the entire human population...

Like, just to point out, you have offered the idea of island cities to end food scarcity. Think about that really hard.

Originally posted by Dolos
More important than technology, intelligence and evolution is the true answer, and that lies in our radically evolving technology.

hold on

are you saying that the solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict might not be more technology and cities in the middle of the ocean?

I hate all of you so much.

Leave me alone.

awww, muffin, stop looking for our acceptance then

Originally posted by Oliver North
awww, muffin, stop looking for our acceptance then

What?

you clearly want people's approval

Originally posted by Oliver North
you clearly want people's approval

How do you figure?