Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Justice De Thezier's Declaration of Independence
Friend of Blog Justice De Thezier rather graciously quit the transhumanist "movement" in an announcement earlier today over on Cyborg Democracy. I have been aware of some of his frustrations with the more politically reactionary and cultish elements in the transhumanist movement for some time, and as one of the public critics of transhumanism myself (there would be, no doubt, far more such critics if more people actually ever heard of them) I sympathized with a number of Justice's concerns about that rather techno-utopian sub(cult)ural discourse, but his announcement still came as something of a surprise to me. I am eager to know what's next for him, wish him well, and will continue of course to read his blog and so on.
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3 comments:
Mr. de Thezier wrote (in his Cyborg Democracy post):
> I was spending far more time trying to convert people to
> transhumanism. . . than actually contributing to [anything
> useful]. . .
>
> [H]aving invested so much time and energy in promoting transhumanism. . .
> I came to the awkward realization that I. . . [needed] to quit. . .
Hmm. . . I can't say that I ever spent much time "trying to
convert people to transhumanism", but I must admit that the
folks who did get exposed to those "memes" as a result of my
discovering the on-line Singularitarians and Extropians 10
years ago and then passing along the Good News reacted very sensibly. ;->
E.g., one person said, after having perused some of the links I
provided, "Is this some kind of Scientology front?".
To which my reaction then was "Where did you get that idea?",
but my reaction now would be "There's no direct link, but
plenty of indirect ones, and you're quite right about the
cultish vibes."
That said, I'm certainly looking forward to Kurzweil's upcoming
Singularity movie, and I'm especially looking forward to seeing
it in the company of some of my >Hism-skeptical friends.
The worse it turns out to be, the better will be the camp entertainment
value, maybe up there with _Sins of the Fleshapoids_
(or _Queen of Outer Space_).
BTW, is it my imagination, or is Michael Anissimov growing
up to look like John Horgan?
http://www.frontierchannel.com/gallery/albums/userpics/normal_n10109268_36097678_7364.jpg
http://www.sceptic-ratio.narod.ru/po/sensation/johnhorgan-340-exp-Jh.jpg
:-0
Another defection from trashumanism. Sensible move, de Thezier.
I quit in '06 and have never looked back.
What sad old tossers the old SL4 crowd are growing up into. I can't help constantly thinking back to 2002 on SL4 when Anissimov was dutifully parroting back eveything Yudkowsky said as gospel. What happened guys? Where's the Singularity? Where's the Robot God you promised?
Of course Wilson wisely quit the Sing Inst and now states that his current theories about AI 'have no relation' to his old notes.
Mean time, Yudkowsky dropped this bomb-shell to SL4 in 2004:
Quote:
'I haven't done mathematical logic yet' (Yudkowsky, SL4, 2004).
(even though the fact that programming is a branch of mathematics is the first thing you learn in any programming 101 course).
Kurzweil of course is out making Hollywood movies.... surely if he really thought a Singualrity was near he'd be out coding?
Kurzweil...Hollywood movies... need I say more?
---
2008 rolls around and I'm sitting alone in a computer labs clicking letters slowly on a crappy keyword with a crappy programming language, on crappy hardware and a buggy operating system.
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