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

Saturday, January 05, 2013

No Star Fleet For You!

Athena Andreadis points out that for those who respect actual science cosmic radiation stops the show (barring unforeseen advances in shielding techniques), and that's before you even get around to the faith-based pseudo-science of FTL, warp drive, traversable worm holes, teleportation via uploads, and the rest of the superlative futurological clown show.

9 comments:

Dale Carrico said...

Funny, I don't love ST one whit less for such realizations. I guess that's one more upside of loving sf as literature, rather than pretending sf is science.

Black guy from the future past said...

I don't give a damn what Arthur C. Clarke said, (for those who don't know what he said, "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"). Besides the fact that the statement is utterly ludicrous, Clarke is wrong. Technology is NOT magic and science is not as simple as waving some dead twig around and speaking nonsensical babble called "spells" or "incantations". Science is hard. Turning those formulas and equations into useful materials and tools is even harder, and getting those tools to work properly is harder still. Suffice to say the projections of "transhumanists" that we will be superluminal gods sometime or somehow in the next hundred years, by any stretch of the imagination is preposterous, and shows a blatant disregard to the difficulties inherent in scientific and engineering research, and the fact that the priorities of what get made and how they are used, are decided by diverse humans throughout the globe, and quite frankly people aren't much concerned with becoming superluminal gods headed to infinity and beyond.

jimf said...

> Funny, I don't love ST one whit less. . .

But are we sure that watching Star Trek doesn't
give you Alzheimer's disease?

jimf said...

> Science is hard.

Yep.

> Turning those formulas and equations into useful materials
> and tools is even harder,

Yep.

> and getting those tools to work properly is harder still.

Yep.

All the above difficulties will supposedly be short-circuited
when greater-than-human Artificial Intelligence (which will
constantly, and at an accelerating rate, being getting
smarter and smarter by designing its own upgrades and replacements)
is doing the science and engineering.

That's the maguffin behind the Singularity.

Unfortunately, it is in itself rather implausible. It contains a
number of difficulties which have not been examined in detail
(by the Singularitarians, at least). Among them:

1. Nobody at the beginning of 2013 has the slightest clue how to
design or build an artificial (which today means digital-computer-based;
in the 18th century all you needed were clockwork springs
and gears ;-> ) version of **any** kind of biological
"machine" (the word "machine" is itself loaded with
unexamined presuppositions and begged questions), let alone
an ant-level or lizard-level or mouse-level or cat-level --
let alone a **human**-level -- brain.

2. **Would** a human-level or slightly-greater-than-human-level
(whatever that might mean exactly) artificial brain
necessarily be able to let loose the runaway train of
an "intelligence explosion"? I suspect that particular
sliding-board might stick to the Singularity's ass a
bit more than some Singularitarians might anticipate.

> Suffice to say the projections of "transhumanists" that
> we will be superluminal gods sometime or somehow in the
> next hundred years, by any stretch of the imagination is
> preposterous, and shows a blatant disregard to the difficulties
> inherent in scientific and engineering research. . .

Yep.

On the other hand, maybe Gene Roddenberry really had
inside information from The Future, and Star Trek canon
is right that -- somehow, we know not how -- warp drive
will be developed by the year 2018 [so said U.S.S. Enterprise
ship's historian Lieutenant Marla McGivers in TOS first season
episode "Space Seed"]. ;->

> . . .and the fact that the priorities of what get made
> and how they are used, are decided by diverse humans throughout
> the globe, and quite frankly people aren't much concerned with
> becoming superluminal gods headed to infinity and beyond.

Careful here. Now you're playing into the hands of
some >Hists who argue that it is **precisely** because
of the big bad (Democrat) government, or the stupidity of the great
mass of mundane folks, that the breakthroughs that will
lead to the Singularity won't get made. (Even supposed
"skeptics" like Michael Shermer seem to believe this.)

That's nonsense too (IMHO), but let's not give them any
additional encouragement here.

Dale Carrico said...

Of Clarke's chestnut, note Futurological Brickbats: LXXXII. Any sufficiently advanced futurology is indistinguishable from con artistry, er, magic.

Black guy from the future past said...

>Careful here. Now you're playing into the hands of
some >Hists who argue that it is **precisely** because
of the big bad (Democrat) government, or the stupidity of the great
mass of mundane folks, that the breakthroughs that will
lead to the Singularity won't get made. (Even supposed
"skeptics" like Michael Shermer seem to believe this.)

@jimf It's quite sad to me that someone as learned as Michael Shermer should fall for such idiocy like libertarianism and transhumanism, even on rational wiki there is a quote saying there is "Shermer the skeptic, and Shermer the libertarian." Anyway these transhumanists simply refuse to understand or acknowledge that the developmental of science and technology is influenced by the historical struggles of diverse populations throughout time, and ARE NOT built according to the fancies and wishes of individual (isolated) beings. Nobody is isolated, nobody is an island. Of course H-ists handwave this "inconvenience" away as you have mentioned by believing certain peoples to be stupid and constantly blaming the "gummint"(it's always the goddamn governments fault!) LOL. These transhumanists disregard the realities of life, yet they fancy that someday they will become gods. They cannot even understand humanity nor themselves yet they want to "transcend limits", which is code for trampling upon people who they perceive to be getting in the way of their fantasies coming to life. How pathetic and cruel.

Athena Andreadis said...

Regarding "women's breasts would distract male astronauts" Clarke and other fanboi godlets, you can read my counterpoint about "hard" SF by non-defaults here: Invisible Ink

Black guy from the future past said...

@ Athena Andreadis As a heterosexual male in love with biological organic bodies (unlike the H-ists who have us become a bundle of wires tethered to a machine), I would very much like to be distracted!

Athena Andreadis said...

I have nothing against eye candy myself. Clarke, however, posited that this was an overwhelming reason to ban women from space exploration (funny yet sad, too, given his own orientation).