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

Friday, December 28, 2012

Beliefs Compatible With Ignorance

Upgraded and adapted from the Moot, "Anonymous" appeallingly snarks:
[M]any futorological claims take the shape of "X is not outlawed by the rules of physics therefore X will happen Any Day Now". I hope they're not holding their sooper-breath.
Notice that indefinitely many individual outcomes may be logically compatible with what we know now, but not logically compatible with one another, and so this rationale is not even really logically sound. Of course, it is a curious kind of "scientific" belief that bases itself on the compatibility of that belief with the current state of ignorance in respect to outcomes that would demand considerable expansions of actual knowledge to be accomplished! It is not surprising that this is a kind of belief that dispenses altogether with practical, political, profitability considerations that are all also indispensable to the actual plausibility of a technodevelopmental outcome. I propose that such futurological "arguments" for superlative outcomes are more than non compelling on their own terms, they also provide compelling evidence that futurologists do not grasp the nature of technoscientific change or technodevelopmental struggle at a fundamental level.

42 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cubierre's "Warp Drive" appears to be possible by the Standard Model of Physics. buuuu uuu t.... it also appears that it would take more energy to operate it than exists in the entirety of the Universe, including the 'sort of real' energy of the empty vacuum. All _kinds_ of things are possible to physics, but require energy and engineering nearly infinite orders of magnitude beyond what even the most advanced imaginary advanced civilization could be capable of, even if it were motivated.

Dale Carrico said...

Quite so. And this objection bedevils faster-than-light travel, GOFAI, Drextech, cryonics, superlongevity meds, immersive virtuality, uploading, Polywell fusion, even Olde Tyme Alchemists... and yet all still have their dead-enders, and note well that one finds Robot Cultists in the ranks of most of them.

Anonymous said...

Keep stupid guys.

http://www.icarusinterstellar.org/daydreaming-beyond-the-solar-system-with-warp-field-mechanics/

Anonymous said...

That fatuous website is utterly deficient in even the basics of the wikipedia article on Cubierre, so... the stupid is all over your mug, pal. You have skimmed the surface, found a facile and detail free article that isn't even up to the dismal standards of a wiki on the subject! Even GIVEN the alleged new lower energy bounds for a Cubierre bubble, there are still about 20 distinct and unrelated issues of impossible difficulty, just _one_ of which is Hawking radiation breaking everything inside the bubble down to gluon plasma! Kid, you got a LOT to learn before slinging around the stupid stick!

Anonymous said...

Right...let us get this now....the famous NASA and ex-Lockheed scientist Sonny WHite that wrote that page knows nothing while Anon on teh Internets knows everything Hawking radiation. No surprise that you are an expert on about "gluon plasmas" though lol

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110023492_2011024705.pdf

Anonymous said...

PLENTY of well educated scientists are completely deluded and/or clinically insane, kid. Grow up and you might experience this yourself.


"Appeal to Authority" is also the worst possible rhetorical tactic you can attempt.

Anonymous said...

Oh an Anon rhetoritician as well as a physicist?

Perhaps you're also a neurosurgeon and an entomologist?

Dale you are the one that stated that only people actually working in the field of interest could possibly have expertise to comment on such technical matters.

Hypocrisy is the greatest luxury especially for a "Piedmont Socialist" like yourself.

Vomit.

Dale Carrico said...

I argue that Robot Cultism is an essentially discursive and not scientific phenomenon, and so one for which a rhetorician obviously would have plenty of relevance. (I have actually conveniently reiterated that argument this very day, do try to keep up soopergenius.) No doubt you disagree with that, but your charge of hypocrisy obviously fails. It pleases me to think I have actually managed to make you vomit simply by talking sense. By all means, do carry on.

Anonymous said...

No longer Anon? How cute. But not "Very Serious".

Do your colleagues at UCB know about the drivel you post here? And your personal and possibly libelous attacks on people you don't agree with?

I wonder.

Anonymous said...

This kid is mighty damn bitter and tantrum angry he isn't getting to join "Star Fleet Academy" and meet Vulcans n shit and bang those Green Bitches Kirk always be getting all up in...

Anonymous said...

Dale the Trekker Very Serious Piedmont Socialist.

Dale Carrico said...

No longer Anon?

Are you alleging I am posting comments on my own blog Anonymously? Again, I never do that, I respond to comments under my own name, here and everywhere else. Believe that or not as you will, just saying.

Do your colleagues at UCB know about the drivel you post here? And your personal and possibly libelous attacks on people you don't agree with?

Ah, the ugly face of litigiousness and character assassination that cults usually drift into gently makes its appearance.

Think I'm libeling your cryo scam or your weird cult? Do please sue. I could use the money to pay off my student loans.

Do my colleagues know about my anti-futurological critique? Well, the ones who gave me a Berkeley PhD for a dissertation making many of these claims certainly seemed to be aware of them.

The more widely known my "drivel" is the better in my view. I regard futurology as dangerous and deranging, which is obviously why I critique it, and the more widely read and appropriated the terms of my critique the less dangerous and deranging it will be, I hope. I am hardly worried or ashamed to be publicly associated with this work, obviously.

I publish my work under my own name, I draw attention to my anti-futurological writing on my CV, my anti-futurological critique figures prominently in coursework on science and technology studies, the syllabi are on file, the glowing student reviews are on file, my work is in plain view, and I eagerly invite criticism.

Go ahead, make whatever mischief you like. You have to live with yourself, I am not the least bit afraid of silly boys making silly threats.

Dale Carrico said...

Dale the Trekker Very Serious Piedmont Socialist.

Lifelong geek. Democratic socialist. Hard working teacher of critical thinking and critical theory at the University level. Nothing the least bit incompatible about any of that. What's your problem, anyway?

Dale Carrico said...

Not exactly sure what a "Piedmont Socialist" is, actually...

Anonymous said...

What's yours? Why don't you get a life for yourself instead of trying to build a reputation for simply being a troll and spite filled hater? Ironic that you are palling around with Rachel's stalker here too.

Internet comedy at its finest.

Anonymous said...

A rich privileged hypocrite "socialist" that knows nothing of actual socialism in practice (i.e.in hte actual U.S.S.R.) and is living in Piedmont one of the richest places in the world while pretending to side with the under classes and down trodden of the earth.

Do you drive a BMW, Saab, or Volvo?

Dale Carrico said...

From the About Me link at the top of this blog:

"I am a registered Democrat in the United States of America in the brutal and debasing years of its imperial consummation, and I am still a believer with Michael Harrington that "the best liberalism leads toward socialism. I’m a radical, but... I want to be on the left wing of the possible." I was an activist trained in nonviolence at the King Center with Queer Nation Atlanta in the early nineties, I have been an ethical vegetarian and a cheerful atheist for well over half my life, I am a liberal theoryhead academic of the elite effete aesthete sort, am a big fag and an even bigger geek.

"Eric and I possess no car, no laptop, no cellphone, no clothes dryer, no marriage license (though we fight to make gay marriage legal so that when we disdain it we do so by choice and not by necessity) and we disapprove of them and also of you, at least a little bit, in a friendly sort of way, for thinking you can't live without them yourself despite the fact that they are destroying the planet, diminishing your liberty, giving you cancer, and confusing you into mistaking possession for love."

In case that was too much for you to read: I don't drive a car and have never owned one. Eat your heart out.

Anonymous said...

See also this band who sought law enforcement help as they claim Rachel "Haywire" Mendelson was STALKING... them.

Rachel "Haywire" Mendelson aka Rachel "Marone" threatened with legal action for STALKING a female member of a rival band :

http://tinyurl.com/786aqtw

(in her own words, even)

Anonymous said...

Too bad the King Center didn't train you in right speech as well as non-violence.

Eat my heart out? You are a mean person and I don't envy you at all.

I appreciate the other sentiments however so it seems to be a shame.

Anonymous said...

Dale : from the writing style (such as it is) and the repetitive, well familiar nonsense and horseshit accusations? I am fairly certain your hostile Robot Cultist with the short fuse is Michael "A Nasty Mob" imov his very own self...

Dale Carrico said...

You are a mean person and I don't envy you at all.

I am mean to futurological frauds and reactionary wingnuts. Kiss their asses all you want. And cry me a river.

Anonymous said...

Ah yes of course. I forgot. You sure had her fooled.

Anonymous said...

Dale! You MEANIE! how COULD YOU...

cooly and rationally and charitably try to disabuse this sad, angry child of his precious Cult Dogma?

It is all he is, and all he has.

Dale Carrico said...

I don't know much about Rachel "Haywire" apart from the fact that she claimed to me that she was fired as editor of h+ for publishing a piece by me. The current editor is following a different policy as readers of the blog today know well, so presumably his job is secure for now. I do think prospective members of the Robot Cult should take note of the kind of character assassination and theats that happen upon excommunication. Any student of cults will find all of this bleakly familiar, of course.

Anonymous said...

one's own words from one's own blog can not be any form of "character assassination" - they are simply facts in the case of Rachel calling dozens of people "stalker" when in her own words she has been accused of just that - stalking. That link leads to the cache of her own blog where she begged the general public for funds as she "feared for her legal safety" (such a phrase!) due to her being contacted by law enforcement over her illegal activities.

Dale Carrico said...

There is a whole lot of Anonymity going on here. Dag, I wish all you folks had the courage of your convictions. It would be truly interesting to have faces to attach to these howls from the peanut gallery.

Anonymous said...

Anyone who criticizes the H+ cult eventually get accused of "stalking", this is most childish and tiresome.

Anonymous said...

Has anyone besides Rachel Haywire done this?

This Anon says no!

Dale Carrico said...

Done what? I must say I'm finding it a bit hard to track all the Robot Cult and Robot Cult Adjacent crazytown boiling up Anonymously in this Moot...

Anonymous said...

http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/04/14/1233254/banned-from-kickstarter-for-being-cyberstalked

Anonymous said...

Anon BS! Read the fine print!

http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2786853&cid=39685595

Dale Carrico said...

At the risk of stepping into a hornet's nest, my preliminary comments are:

One, I am a very public and vociferous critic of transhumanism and I haven't been accused of stalking (at least not yet).

Two, I do think the issues of cyberstalking and stalking are serious ones, even if I'm not completely sure of the applicability in the case you link to.

Three, People who publish on controversial topics should expect criticism and noise, though no individual, however controversial, should face real threats or attacks, spam-driven denial-of-service attacks included (though the latter is arguably a legitimate resistance tactic in certain institutional contexts).

Anonymous said...

Never trust Anon.

http://survivingjason.tumblr.com/

Anonymous said...

http://vanessavanalstynestalksme.tumblr.com/

Anonymous said...

and right here are backers of Rachel "Haywire" Mendelson's original fraudulent Kickstarter scheme for which she got thousands of dollars and delivered nothing that was promised.

http://www.kickstarter.com/profile/machinekuntrecords

here are the quotes from the unhappy backers of that project that did nothing but take money for Rachel's personal use.

"If you’re a backer of this project, please log into read this post.

5of 5View Previous Comments.

Robert Breighneron January 26, 2011.
thanx for posting this update.
we'll hang in there"\.

Erik Roy Tomrenon September 26, 2011.
so when is this coming out? the hard copy version, not the download.

Caton February 24.
It's a year after this posting, almost two years after this was funded, and I have yet to receive my hard copy of this album. Very displeased. :/

Steve Crosson March 15.
Is the hard copy ever going to appear. A further update would be nice. I am not very happy!

Caton April 14.
Apparently this is going on (http://rachelmarone.com/banned-from-kickstarter-for-being-a-stalking-victim.html), but there's no mention of this Kickstarter at all. I highly doubt we'll see anything soon.

Cat on May 27, 2012
Hey guys. It seems we will not be getting our product and we have been swindled out of our money. I have contacted Kickstarter to see what they can do for us, but it's not going to be very promising.
Rachel still has her Facebook and Twitter accounts, but isn't answering to any questions about this project and has pretty much denied its existence by doing so. If you want to try to contact her about it (or getting your money back), please let me know how that goes... I actually ordered things from the MachineKUNT store a while ago and received only half of my order. When I brought it up, it was ignored as well. Hopefully some one else has better luck.

Black guy from the future past said...

These transhumanist types think because something is theoretically possible that it is ACTUALLY possible. Theoretically, I can wake up on Mars tomorrow...but we all know that ACTUALLY aint gonna happen. Science has a peculiar way of running into brick walls of knowledge and many of them have been and still are insurmountable.

Personally in regards to the Alcubierre drive some idiotic Anon posted, it's not gonna work. Even though another scientist has found a method to reduce the energy requirements of the again THEORETICAL drive. The issues such as oh, basically turning the ship into a gamma burst that will obliterate both the ship and the ship's destination, space travel of that sort is not coming anytime soon. And in my opinion, possibly never. Due to the ACTUAL cost, ACTUAL politics and ACTUAL ethical considerations, I feel we will never get beyond this solar system. And that isn't such a bad thing. Considering we've fucked up earth so badly, I wouldn't want us carting off our filth and stupidity to other worlds and terrain.

The prime example of this is when the Europeans encountered the Americas ("the new world"). It was a disaster. Seeing as how we are basically the same Animal lifeforms as those conquerors many years ago, and we still have idiots among the species, It's almost guaranteed we would replicate the atrocity of that magnitude on other worlds.

Anonymous said...

Literary criticism is _not_ stalking!
Writing a bad review of Rachel Haywire's finger painted "book" is _not_ stalking! General criticism of the Robot Cult is _not_ stalking!
Rachel Haywire and co. calling your entire extended family on the phone, and all their workplaces? That IS stalking! They went so far as to call a frail 82 year old woman at 2am. She was told she was speaking to a police officer, and she was told her grandson was dead! This elderly person collapsed and had to be hospitalized for three days. She was never quite the same after that. She didn't live much longer. That IS stalking.

Anonymous said...

Rachel ‘Haywire’ Mendelson is now writing “essays” for Neo Nazi website that also spews hate at LGBT.She says “It’s not hate, just anti-PC”.

Keith Preston is the Neo Nazi homophobe who runs the hate site Rachel “Haywire” Mendelson now exuberantly blogs for : http://goo.gl/25lkc


Rachel Haywire ‏@RachelHaywire 14h
Q. What's worse than being a fascist in Berkeley? A. Being white.
Expand Reply Retweet Favorite

Anonymous said...

hahahaah! That website of the alleged 'famous NASA scientist' has in its bibliography for the 'warp drive q thruster' article ? it references the work of HAL PUTOFF, a "parapsychologist" and notorious whackadoo crackpot and crank of the 1970's!

Anonymous said...

Scientology

Puthoff took an interest in the Church of Scientology in the late 1960s and reached what was then the top OT VII level by 1971. Puthoff wrote up his "wins" for a Scientology publication, claiming to have achieved "remote viewing" abilities.[3] In 1974, Puthoff also wrote a piece for Scientology's Celebrity magazine, stating that Scientology had given him "a feeling of absolute fearlessness".[4] Puthoff severed all connection with Scientology in the late 1970s.[5]

Anonymous said...

http://a1.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/100/86c097b84937453092899d24b6f7b3c7/l.jpg


The "New Voice" of the short lived "Transhuman Milita" movement who never got past facebook squabbles to actually arm themselves and separate into a "New Nation for the New Evolution"

Anonymous said...

http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/09/08/why-i-left-transhuman-separatism/


Toward The Artilect War! Transhumanist Separatist Manifesto Lists Top 5 Reasons For Transhuman Militia!
Saturday, December 11, 2010
By Paul Martin
Written By: Rachel Haywire & Jason Schoenecker
HPlusMagazine.com

We are a new species. We are not superior. We are a different step in the evolution of thought.

Our Human ancestors relied on collectivism and a conscious submission to conformity as was necessary for survival. Culturally and pragmatically they were each other.

We are transhuman, and we are not like our Human ancestors. We have no proclivity to rely on a conscious submission to conformity, and we do not need it for survival. Where freedom of mind was a weakness to our ancestor, it is our strength. Evolution follows the ebb and flow of time. The Human mind was the framework, the foundation of the transhuman one, as the transhuman mind will be for the next when evolution decides it.

It is natural then for us to emerge now. Like all evolved resistance, we will be hated — at first. We will be ignored — at first. We will be ridiculed — at first. In the end, we will merely exist as a new direction in the evolution of thought. We are the one’s who can stand together unified through freedom of thought. Freedom — true freedom of thought — is not the ability to resist all infiltrators of the mind, but the ability to perceive and forsake all those one can manage. We are the one’s who can rely on one another without conscious submission. For that, conscious submission, is choking us, has choked us, and has provoked an acknowledged necessity for disassociation from Human society. Conscious submission, or collectivism, is what a transhuman actively rejects in pursuit of freedom of thought. In the face of conscious submission, we will reject, we will dispute, we will resist.