Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Sunday, April 18, 2010

The End of the Conversation

Upgraded from the Moot, my final -- it would seem -- comment to "Mitchell" the transhumanist futurologist:

So, just to be clear, (one) you simply don't think it is a problem that your Robot Cult has always been and still remains mostly a bunch of white guys talking to each other, (two) you actually do agree that you are driven by impulses well-described as infantile and are fine with that, and (three) you really do expect your idiosyncratic pet "then" statements to be taken seriously even when they follow on the heels of completely unreal "if" statements like "if we assume we will eliminate all aging."

Congratulations, you really are a prototypical transhumanist, and silly to the hilt. Glad we have gotten that cleared up and here's hoping all that, er, works out for you.

By way of conclusion, you seem to think just because you think something thinkable it assumes thereby the coloration of the possible. But this is as little true of techno-"immaterialized" minds and techno-"immortalized" lifespans and "post"-politicizing techno-abundance as it is of Aquinas' Wishing Makes It So "proof" of the existence of God. Your superlative aspirations are not High or Big or Super-Confident so much as they are actually incoherent: for those of us who know better, they are confessions on your part of deep confusions about quite fundamental questions concerning of what human intelligence, flourishing, and freedom actually consist. If I may be permitted what will seem an immodest and impertinent suggestion (I mean, another one), while I daresay you are a bright and well-meaning person in at least a quotidian sort of way, in my view you seem truly lost and deluded and in need of the guidance of deeper and more critical thinking. You aren't even right about what you think you think is thinkable. The last place you need to be wasting your time is in a Robot Cult if you want to become a more sensible and useful person in the world. Good luck to you.

No comments: