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Monday, February 06, 2012

Futurologists: Working Hard, Hardly Working

Robot Cultist Alex McGilvery declares, “It is the nature of transhumanism to work to make humans better.”

This “work” that transhumanists are doing apparently involves watching “Six Million Dollar Man” re-runs. That was, as it happens, a television show, Alex, not real life, and none of the writers, actors, producers belonged to your Robot Cult as far as I know. Transhumanoid "work," Alex informs us, also involves “meditation” -- again, not invented in your Robot Cult, Alex, and vanishingly few practitioners of which belong to your Robot Cult. (A pattern seems to be emerging here, does it not?) Also -- I must admit that this is my favorite bit -- the "work" of the Robot Cultists involves “electrical stimulation” which, according to McGilvery, is apparently being “explored to increase intelligence and creativity… [although u]nfortunely we know so little about the brain that we are reduced to almost random stimulation.” Again, I suspect that few of the serious researchers in this area, if there are many in the first place, belong to the Transhumanoidal “we” with which Alex is actually identifying… but, you know what, I think I’ll give this one to the Robot Cultists. You guys can totally have all the credit for the transcendent sooper-intelligence via random electrical stimulation program.

I modestly propose that confusing science fiction with science, confusing promotional hype with thought, and confusing wish-fulfillment fantasizing with progress doesn’t really do a whole hell of a lot to “make humans better,” even if it may provide a modest measure of entertainment. But by all means, keep up the good work, white guys of the future!

5 comments:

jimf said...

> . . .and also involves “electrical stimulation”. . .

Golly, I didn't know the >Hists were officially into e-stim!

;->

jollyspaniard said...

Dale what are your thoughts on collapsitarianism. A lot of singulartarians have done an abrupt U Turn and have proceeded past go directly to We Are All Doomed terriroty, time to abandon all hope. I'm trying to convince a mate that this is the flipside of the same kind of millenialism he just abandonned.

Dale Carrico said...

Comfily kindred hyperbolic denialisms -- from daydreamy techno-transcendant wish-fulfillment fantasizing to nightmare disasterbatory death-wish. A bunch of gooey emotionalism and tired metaphors peddled as slick and scientific and radical, but never much more than lame fraud and white boy navel gazing. It's just a jumped up variation on what Al Gore described as the quick leap so many seem to make from climate-change denialism to climate-change defeatism, all just a way of finding excuses for easy acquiescence (often accompanied by loud barking self-congratulation about fearlessness and cutting-edge intellectual superiority blah blah blah). Perfect, one might say robotic, predictability from our Robot Cult friends, I fear.

jollyspaniard said...

I see where you're coming from. This guy in paticular has always seen climate change as a big problem and has worried himself sick about it for years. He now thinks we've blown our chance to solve it and that we're headed towards collapse and is talking about setting up a commune. He was a singulartian 5+ years ago.

I'm trying to talk him off the ledge as he's getting really depressed. We're organising a swap party using coupon based barter currency (like they used in Argentina during their crash) as an experiment and also for fun- I'll be offering cocktails in exchange for books for example. The goal is to find ways to reduce our consumption while having fun and networking with like minded people in our community. The idea has sparked a lot of interest so far.

Personaly I think we are probably headed for hard times ahead but I don't subscribe to the Peak Oil immiment collapse of civilization crowd. There's too many positive real world examples that the collapsitarians ignore such as Cuba after 80% of their oil imports got cut off that we can learn from. And they seem to ignore our recent history when people got by on a lot less gratuitous consumption without resorting to cannabalism.

There's a bit more to collapsitarians than denialists turned defeatists in my view. Some of them where never denialists but they've become defeatist because of the lack of progress towards a solution. There's also a strain of Peak Oil millenialism mixed up in all of this.

I can't entirely blame them. I'm finding it hard to imagine how we're going to arrest Global Warming before we hit 2+ degrees. And Peak Oil is a legitamite problem.

jimf said...

> This guy in paticular has always seen climate change as
> a big problem and has worried himself sick about it for
> years. . . [He thinks] we're headed towards collapse and is
> talking about setting up a [survivalist, presumably] commune.
> He was a singulartian 5+ years ago.
>
> I'm trying to talk him off the ledge as he's getting really
> depressed.

This is a personality/temperament/mental health problem, not
one of ideology/politics/environmental science per se.

I'm reminded of that scene in _Annie Hall_ in which a young
Alvy is taken to the doctor by his mother because he's
depressed and won't do his homework. "Tell Dr. Flicker. . ."
"The universe is expanding, and one day it will fly apart
and there won't be any life left." "What is that your
business? He won't do his homework. You are in Brooklyn.
Brooklyn is not expanding. . ."

There's also a sad story in Larry Johnson's _Frozen_ about
a familiar figure in the cryonics movement who became
distraught that swine flu might ruin his chance for immortality
and who wouldn't travel or even leave the house until he
was able to lay in a supply of the vaccine. (In contrast,
I don't even think I got a flu shot that year. I've
gotten them a couple of times, usually when somebody else
bullied me into it. ;-> ).

Some people are really just wound up too tight. (You know,
the people who believe in "Indigo Children" think this
is a sign of their superiority. They think kids who have nightmares
over the fact that "the universe is expanding" are
showing signs of their genius. I think kids like
that are showing signs, all right, but probably of something else.)

You know, there's a guy named Ran Prieur (look him up -- he's
a minor celebrity, has published essays on the Web) who was all
collapsitarian a few years ago and who later got over it.
Maybe your friend should read some of Ran Prieur. **And**
get a prescription for antidepressants.