tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post2160297532783876317..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: Is All Futurology Superlative Or Is Some of It Simply Silly?Dale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-235449574868994862009-06-23T15:22:21.454-07:002009-06-23T15:22:21.454-07:00your own followers
I have followers? How very ex...<i>your own followers</i><br /><br />I have followers? How very exciting! Bow down, minions! Bring the punch and pie forthwith!Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-66218364489881369212009-06-23T15:20:08.843-07:002009-06-23T15:20:08.843-07:00De Facto Cosmic Engineer's comment might also ...<i>De Facto Cosmic Engineer's comment might also be a joke</i><br /><br />That always is the dilemma, isn't it? Can they really be serious? Is this an elaborate hoax? Can anyone actually be this crazy? Surely, surely they are joking?<br /><br />PS: I will admit that there are few futurologists the whole wide world over who provoke this particular perplexity than you yourself, Giulio Prisco, Holy High Pontifex of the Order of Cosmic Engineers.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-39757590792508010912009-06-23T10:14:49.575-07:002009-06-23T10:14:49.575-07:00> I hope that well-meaning technoscientifically...> I hope that well-meaning technoscientifically-literate<br />> progressive geeks who might otherwise fall for this<br />> sort of futurological moonshine, even if only momentarily,<br />> will be less inclined to waste the time and energy it<br />> takes to work through these hyperbolic facile faith-based<br />> futurological formulations. . .<br /><br />You mean, when DARPA comes a-callin'?<br /><br />DARPA seeking Genesis-style godware capability<br />Self-organising Tetris AIs, smart-vat superlife on cards<br />http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/23/darpa_physical_intelligence/jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-8703386395246055622009-06-23T08:07:52.921-07:002009-06-23T08:07:52.921-07:00"My hat off to him and the folks associated w..."My hat off to him and the folks associated with the OCE for giving us sustained confidence that humanity hasn't lost its long term vision and purpose."<br /><br />So, if I get this right, it's either short-term pedestrian furrow-thinking or full-on futuroglossolalia against the oppressive reign of the "atom"? Because I'd much rather some of that centrist "preoccupied with reality" milkshake if there's any left.Antoninoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-65852641870516717432009-06-23T07:36:03.310-07:002009-06-23T07:36:03.310-07:00From the wording of the text, De Facto Cosmic Engi...From the wording of the text, De Facto Cosmic Engineer's comment might also be a joke meant to mock me and support Dale. But then, not understanding humor, even from his own followers, would be typical of Dale.<br /><br />And what does eugenicism have to do with this? Should I remind you of recent episodes of eugenicism among your own followers? I suggest that you have a beer and try to loosen up.Giulio Priscohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13811681020661409028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-3691287506333764792009-06-23T07:02:39.148-07:002009-06-23T07:02:39.148-07:00A bet it is? What a loon! I propose the following ...<i>A bet it is? What a loon! I propose the following alternative: I call you an idiot...</i><br /><br />Why, you should feel free to call me whatever you like if that makes you happier. I trust you will forgive me if I don't take it seriously.<br /><br />Coming back to the bet: I understand that you would never back your idiocies with actual money, but let me propose an alternative formulation:<br /><br />I hope we are both alive in 2029. These 1000 US $ say that in 2029 at least two of the latest three Nobel laureates in medicine will say that I have a good probability of winning the bet in its original formulation.Giulio Priscohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13811681020661409028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-8988841002099089562009-06-22T20:26:43.147-07:002009-06-22T20:26:43.147-07:00De facto translates, ironically enough, to "c...<i>De facto</i> translates, ironically enough, to "concerning fact." <br /><br />It is perfectly predictable, indeed robotically predictable if I may say so, my l'il Robot Cultist, that you would imagine yourself tapping away there at your laptop about nanobotic treasure caves and scooping up your brain into an immortal shiny robot body somehow to be transformed thereby into some kind of "Cosmic Engineer" as a "matter of fact." <br /><br />Of course, you are nothing of the kind. <br /><br />To be sure, I'm sorry you feel yourself to be "at the mercy of atoms," whatever we are to make of that, and all the rest. Perhaps one of your eugenicist friends could prescribe a pill for this curious state of mind of yours? No doubt it is interfering after all with your optimal efficiency. Can't have that as we goose step into the superlative future, eh? <br /><br />Perhaps it would be kinder after all just to pat you on the head and say "there, there, now there's a good fellow."<br /><br />I do hope that the <i>marginally</i> more sane futurological types at Oxford and in the Bay Area and elsewhere who fancy organizing Robot Cultists of all people into a futurological Fabian Society take a good long look at the crazy train to which they've hitched their wagons, though. <br /><br />Even more, I hope that well-meaning technoscientifically-literate progressive geeks who might otherwise fall for this sort of futurological moonshine, even if only momentarily, will be less inclined to waste the time and energy it takes to work through these hyperbolic facile faith-based futurological formulations and reconnect to the real work of actually-democratizing actually-consensualizing technodevelopmental social struggle, peer to peer.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-68781641468119732422009-06-22T18:56:13.355-07:002009-06-22T18:56:13.355-07:00Giulio is not an idiot, though he may seem so to t...Giulio is not an idiot, though he may seem so to the less visionary ones. My hat off to him and the folks associated with the OCE for giving us sustained confidence that humanity hasn't lost its long term vision and purpose. You're one of the few but a few is all it takes!<br /><br />I do not believe in the continued preeminence of atoms. We are at their mercy now, but our data for example isn't. It can freely migrate. So shall we, probably sooner than we master complete bodily rejuvenation and repair. Living to 2194 by uploading is something that your 1 kilobuck bet wouldn't cover, right?De Facto Cosmic Engineernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-27204605409364717842009-06-22T16:01:17.735-07:002009-06-22T16:01:17.735-07:00A bet it is? What a loon! I propose the followin...A bet it is? What a loon! I propose the following alternative: I call you an idiot, expose your idiocy in public places over and over again, all the while refusing to collaborate in any way <i>ever</i> in your facile and actually disgusting effort to pretend that gambling on techno-immortalization is a reasonable substitute for actual stakeholder deliberation about actual healthcare issues all the while handwaving with the rest of your Robot Cult about sooperhumanization and immortalization and the rest for the press and the rubes the better to ensure that fewer people talk sense about matters of actual life and death in the actual world. Howzabout that? Here, I'll start. You're an idiot.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-60312165086276477712009-06-22T12:44:32.995-07:002009-06-22T12:44:32.995-07:00OK, a bet it is.
I propose the following bet:
I ...OK, a bet it is.<br /><br />I propose the following bet:<br /><br />I will choose 10 persons born in 1994, and bet 1000 US $ that at least 5 of them are still alive and in reasonably good health in 2194. I am open to any practical arrangement to ensure that the heirs of the loser pay the 1000 $ (corrected for inflation and all that) to the heir of the winner.Giulio Priscohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13811681020661409028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-3559317210165297932009-06-22T12:27:54.739-07:002009-06-22T12:27:54.739-07:00Note to self: Never read Amor Mundi while sipping ...Note to self: Never read Amor Mundi while sipping coffee in a muted library.Antoninnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-50449435435249470832009-06-22T11:06:20.023-07:002009-06-22T11:06:20.023-07:00Yes, yes, yes, you techno-immortalist Robot Cultis...Yes, yes, yes, you techno-immortalist Robot Cultists like to play what you imagine to be clever word games about "indefinite lifespan" and "radical longevism" and all the rest, terms used seriously globally by a number of people who could comfortably fit in a mediocre midwest middle school auditorium -- but nobody but you yourselves is fooled by the facile smoke and mirrors, these terms always mean "close enough to immortality that I can indulge in wish-fulfillment fantasies about immortality but far enough from immortality to pretend I'm not a batshit crazy cultist indulging in wish-fulfillment fantasies about immortality."<br /><br />As for your bet, I'm very impressed of course, and rightly so -- a bet your death insulates you from ever having to pay for is indeed a forceful substitute for trying to make actual sense on this topic. Well played, Robot Cultist, well played.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-59182146252416687162009-06-22T10:07:14.248-07:002009-06-22T10:07:14.248-07:00Your smug declaration that kids 15 years old are g...<i>Your smug declaration that kids 15 years old are going to be immortal is straight-up lunacy in my view</i><br /><br />As we have already discussed many times, "immortal" is a very difficult concept to define. Also, in this case it would be difficult to judge the bet. Does the 15 years old collect the bet when she is 200? 300? 3.000.000?<br /><br />I am using "immortal" as "without a fixed expiration date". You know that.<br /><br />If I were 15, I would be willing to bet a moderate sum (say 1000 bucks, or a dinner for 4 with champagne in a top restaurant)that I am still here to collect the bet at 200. And believe me, many things can happen in 185 years.Giulio Priscohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13811681020661409028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-86165498382358189042009-06-22T08:17:22.399-07:002009-06-22T08:17:22.399-07:00Robot Cultist "Solutionvator" opines:
&...Robot Cultist "Solutionvator" opines:<br /><br /><i>"Progress" instead of progress, implying there is/can be no genuine progress.</i><br /><br />Commitment to an abstraction called "progress" without content is indeed incoherent. Later today, for example, I will genuinely progress toward the bus stop. Progressive politics directed toward the incremental implementation of universal basic healthcare, lifelong education, access to reliable knowledge, and a universal basic income guarantee would eventually arrive at the end of a legible scene of consent in the midst of equity and diversity -- that is what makes progressivism substantial rather than simply an unmoored rationalization for the privileged to treat their privileges as "natural."<br /><br /><i>There obviously is progress and there obviously is a specified direction of progress: the increasing control of the environment and ourselves as part of it. It's been the goal of humanity, and arguably the Universe itself, of which humanity is a part, as long as it has existed.</i><br /><br />Let's leave to the side your batshit crazy attribution of a goal to the Universe which you feel equal to interpreting for our delight and edification, your idea that the content of progress is ever "increasing control of the environment and ourselves" is a Robot Cult commonplace, but I do indeed consider that to be an incoherent and empty article of faith. Increasing control increasing unto what end? Just "increasing"? The actual assumption you are making is that technodevelopment is progressing (perhaps only asymtotically) toward omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, but with little facile fudges to let you have your god-cake and eat your actually-real cake too.<br /><br />What you are calling strawmanish juxtapositions are my efforts to exposure ways in which terms like innovation, progress, growth, technology are drained of substance and invested with hyperbolic faith by corporate-militarist development narratives at the extreme of which are superlative futurological discourses, in ways that play out in reality to undermine actually substantial variations of these -- my point is not to say that all these terms actually inevitably mean the things facile faith-based futurologists abuse in their name, but quite to the contrary, to try to insist on the conditions under which innovation, progress, growth, technology are terms that actually mean something and clarify actual problems. <br /><br />There is never any reason to describe the effort to solve shared problems as a project of "transcendence." Solving problems is solving problems, transcendence is what religions (very much including Robot Cults) peddle to the rubes.<br /><br />By the way, earlier you declared "I'm not a cultist of any sort, neither do I identify with any technoprogressive group" but that isn't a pretense you are able to long sustain as you arrive a couple responses later at the declaration "the future of that goal is being envisioned by transhumanists, Singularitarians and the Order of Cosmic Engineers in particular." Robot Cult crazy town. There is no reasonable person alive who is not reduced to laugh out loud stitches upon reading the breathless dot-eyed crazy talk on the Order of Cosmic Engineers website.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-11735826676627056022009-06-22T07:46:33.601-07:002009-06-22T07:46:33.601-07:00Pointing out that human beings are mortal is not i...Pointing out that human beings are mortal is not in any conceivable sense a "threat," Giulio. It is a proposition the denial of which is an indication of insanity. Your smug declaration that kids 15 years old are going to be immortal is straight-up lunacy in my view. In just fifty years (and they go fast) 15 year-olds will be 65 and non-negligible numbers of them will, as a cohort, have died and be dying by then, even if the most optimistic hopes of (not batshit-crazy variations) medical researchers are fruitful, as obviously I hope they are and as I will continue to advocate for increased public funding to facilitate.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-67285554737132257382009-06-22T03:04:50.814-07:002009-06-22T03:04:50.814-07:00Everybody reading this is going to die
Oh my, a t...<i>Everybody reading this is going to die</i><br /><br />Oh my, a threat. I am soooo scared.<br /><br />I am 51 and very probably going to die. If I were 15, I would be willing to place a public, notarized bet with Dale.Giulio Priscohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13811681020661409028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-17766210491443568722009-06-22T00:33:13.198-07:002009-06-22T00:33:13.198-07:00How can the same growth that has always meant flou...<i>How can the same growth that has always meant flourishing within limits now be directed into a disavowal of limits? </i><br />Growth has never flourished within limits. It has always transcended limits or (for all practical purposes) removed the limits altogether (such as data storage space - try filling up 1 TB, soon to be 10, 100, 1000). Nobody's claiming the removal of fundamental limits of matter and energy. We've just got a looong way to go to bump into them. We ain't seen nothing yet. Growth doesn't always mean using more, but using it better, more efficiently and effectively. We all have about the same number of neurons. Some are just wired better. That's growth. If every human born started with a neuronal equivalent of the Von Neumanns and Einsteins instead of something nearer to our low-browed ancestors, and got an education that they would have killed for (the low-brows would have killed the educator) (challenging them to the maximum of their capabilities), would that kind of growth be bad?<br /><br /><i>Is a life devoted to accumulating a mountain of skulls to survey from its summit the resulting devastation really a meaningful life? </i> <br />Of course not. But who is devoting life to such goals? You fail to elucidate. Some dictators? Industrialists? Who? Who's skulls are you talking about or is it just a metaphor? If it is a metaphor what does it mean?<br /><br /><i>Is "innovation" in the service of exploitation, parochial profit-taking, buttressing incumbency really emancipatory in any sense worthy of the name? </i> <br />There's a pattern emerging here. You set the question up and one must answer again: of course not. Innovation or invention, is not inherently about exploitation so common in the market economy, it's about being the best one can as a human (or any sentience) be - it's about solving problems, not creating them. Just because some/many/most people do exploit innovation for creating useless discardable-before-purchase stuff - because true innovation, solutions to problems needful of solving are hard to create and very rare, as any technologist who has tried knows - doesn't mean innovation in itself is bad. The term has been appropriated and corrupted by the marketese-spewing dullards not capable of even understanding what the word means, let alone innovating one thing in their lives.<br /><br /><i>Is a "growth" devoted to the denial of death at the cost of death-dealing really a flourishing life or is it a cancer, a growth that destroys growth? </i><br />How does fixing (denying) the problem of death, starting by initially pushing it back as far as we can, as we do through the practice of healthcare, necessitate death-dealing? You answer again, with logic incomprehensibly obscure, that growth, if it denies (fixes the problem of) death, is pathological.Solutionvatornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-27002373302148840542009-06-22T00:32:36.144-07:002009-06-22T00:32:36.144-07:00"Strawmanish juxtaposition", a device yo..."Strawmanish juxtaposition", a device you favor, means you're setting up things on your terms so that they answer what you want the answer to be - A, as defined by B, or having the qualities of B, or seen from the point of B, means, implies, inevitably leads to C. You strawmanishly juxtapose A with B to end up with C, while, by offering no alternatives to either A or B (you've set this thing up for success), implying that A and B can be the only possible factors at play in the exact configurations as you've presented them. By doing so, C becomes the obvious, foregone conclusion. How simple, how convenient. That's not critique, that's opinion, one-sided opinion serving a goal; propaganda.<br /><br /><i>Just where is all this "progress" finally going, how can movement without specified direction or end (and implied omni-predicated "ends," being incoherent, don't properly count as specifications) be meaningful at all? </i><br /><br />"Progress" instead of progress, implying there is/can be no genuine progress. Claim there's no specified direction or even end. Conclude there's obviously no possibility of meaningfulness at all.<br /><br />Wrong, wrong, and wrong. There obviously is progress and there obviously is a specified direction of progress: the increasing control of the environment and ourselves as part of it. It's been the goal of humanity, and arguably the Universe itself, of which humanity is a part, as long as it has existed. Out of that goal science, increasingly conscious self-reflection, and manipulation of the environment have sprung, as if - by the results it sure looks so - the Universe wanted to control itself via its own creations, and through them be increasingly cognizant of itself doing so, resulting in a thing called Technological Civilization we now live in, where processes are feeding back to themselves, as Anissimov points out, tech making it easier to make new tech. That's, obviously, been the goal (that has now been attained to an extent - by the end of this day a step closer), and the future of that goal is being envisioned by transhumanists, Singularitarians and the Order of Cosmic Engineers in particular.Solutionvatornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-16665181393885295212009-06-22T00:30:36.439-07:002009-06-22T00:30:36.439-07:00No, I'm not a cultist of any sort, neither do ...No, I'm not a cultist of any sort, neither do I identify with any technoprogressive group, but I'm fascinated, inspired, and sometimes a little embarrassed by their views. I work on <br /><br />necessary, mundane technologies that have no wishful thinking about them.<br /><br />Transhumanists often fail to define how "their" technologies will precisely function. If you can't define a technology precisely, it of course has no chance of ever becoming real. It's mere magical thinking. But it's still early days. First you must imagine a (seemingly magical) goal, then you find out if it is logically and physically possible (to see it's not magic after all). If it is, get to work. There's no magic. Don't listen to the naysayers, the can't-won't-never-folk. If it's not impossible, it's possible, but it may be very very, very hard. If you say it's impossible (say, life-extension, AGI), you're a magical thinker yourself, believing that some things can't be possible just because they seem magical to you, because their implementation details (such as those of computer chips) are beyond your (or anyone's) comprehension. <br /><br />I respect and support everyone whose goal is transcending and removing limits we have inherited. All we can do is try to take steps ahead while avoiding taking as many or <br /><br />more back, and pass the light even brighter to the next generation.Solutionvatornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-26908039089750578772009-06-21T19:38:14.232-07:002009-06-21T19:38:14.232-07:00Note that under the heading of "progresses ac...Note that under the heading of "progresses acceleratedly" the poster "Progressive Stagnation" (no politics implied there, you can be sure) has offered up both here and at Michael Anissimov's "Accelerating Future" blog the examples of Moore's Law, the hilariously predictable article of faith of accelerationalists and cybernetic totalists everywhere. And this is supposed to represent a more nuanced futurological viewpoint? Honestly?<br /><br />Another commenter over at Michael's place opines, "I read most of dale’s article. He seems to dislike transhumanism because he fears that too much technology might make us less interdependent, and he still thinks that most transhumanists are libertarians or somehow associated with the military-industrial complex. I.e. he thinks that we’re all far too right wing.... Not that my politics is particularly right-wing, mind you, but I do think I’d rather be have a longer, healthier life than die young so that I can be a 'stakeholder.'" I do want to assure the commenter that however bolstering to his ego it might be I do not happen to disapprove of transhumanism because I find the brilliant he-man leet transhumanists "so skeery" as all that. Whatever your politics, whether you contribute to democratization, consensualization, equitable diversity or their right-wing opposites, I am so sorry to inform you that "the future" won't be spitting out the ponies you desire however fervently you pray to the Robot God or Eric Drexler or Ray Kurzweil or Aubrey de Grey. Everybody reading this is going to die, you won't find your way to Holodek Heaven or to your imperishable Robot Body or to your anarcho-nanoslavebotic Treasure Cave, or anything of the sort. If a longer healthier life is really all that is wanted, I daresay you will discover that joining a Robot Cult has little to recommend it as a way of facilitating the accomplishment of that perfectly sensible and widely shared hope.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-54704381016208048462009-06-21T19:19:42.704-07:002009-06-21T19:19:42.704-07:00"Progressive Stagnation" opines:
Depend..."Progressive Stagnation" opines:<br /><br /><i>Depending on where you look, you can find support for accelerated acceleration...</i><br /><br />Nobody doubts that most anybody can see mostly what they want to see, especially if they are privileged enough to be mostly insulated from the unwanted consequences of their actions. I have often suggested that vaunted "acceleration of acceleration" is little more than the social instability and precarization of neoliberal financialization and externalization of social costs as experienced from the vantage of its comparative beneficiaries (for now).<br /><br />"Solutionvator" alludes to, without elucidating, what he takes to be my "list of strawmanish juxtapositions," and then alerts me to the fact that he is a problem-solving engineer. I am pleased to hear it. There are indeed many shared problems that want to be worked on, repairing failing infrastructure and investing in new infrastructure, implementing actually equitable healthcare and supporting research for the amelioration of ever more disease, shifting into a genuinely renewable energy infrastructure compatible with civilization, providing sustainable scalable alternate polyculture and water sources for burgeoning global populations, and so on. Inasmuch as this post was critical of transhumanists and other Robot Cultists, I do want to point out that if "Solutionvator" happens to be a Robot Cultist himself then he is no more an engineer in those particular moments of superlative enthusiasm than is any pious parishioner in his pew, and to the extent that his sense of "problems needful of solving" involves calculating the Robot God odds with other GOFAI dead-enders, wanking about uploading squishy brains into holodek digitopian immortalization, building robust programmable self-replicating room-temperature nanobotic anything for nothing machines, hacking together a Friendly superintelligent Robot God before the baddies inadvertently or deliberately build an Unfriendly one, or similar superlative foolishness he isn't actually solving problems at all, or engaging in legible engineering practice, or championing science against the relativist menace in the English Departments or whatever he might fancy he is doing in such moments, but indulging in fact in utterly delusive wish-fulfillment fantasies or a kind of sf fanwanking that has lost track of the indispensable distinction between science fiction and science altogether. If you're not a Robot Cultist, my apologies, "Solutionvator," but I'm not sure why you would post your response if you are not a Robot Cultist after all.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-47150643566044428412009-06-21T19:14:23.334-07:002009-06-21T19:14:23.334-07:00I'm sort of stuck with the name "Accelera...<i>I'm sort of stuck with the name "Accelerating Future" due to branding reasons.</i><br /><br />No you're not, Michael. You're still a kid and there is literally nothing keeping you in a Robot Cult if you have sensible things to say to sensible people who aren't in Robot Cults. You should give some serious consideration to the metaphor of "branding" you are deploying here, and act accordingly.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-89467806299425040582009-06-21T19:10:03.215-07:002009-06-21T19:10:03.215-07:00I don't believe in any form of acceleration of...I don't believe in any form of acceleration of acceleration whatsoever. MA circa 1999 was 15, so yes, I probably would have made accelerationistic claims. I've gotten more skeptical since then, but I still believe that the tools we create facilitate the creation of new tools at a slightly more efficient and productive rate than in the prior iteration (more on that below). <br /><br />Like a commenter on my blog said, there are some technologies where improvements in performance seem to be accelerating, others where improvement is linear, and others where improvement is stagnant. You can portray techno-development is whatever light you want by cherry-picking which technologies you want to draw attention to.<br /><br />I do believe in a weak accelerating change thesis, however, which is that as our society advances, scientific and tech progress gets slightly easier because we can use all the tools we have so far to pursue new developments or actions. For instance, the Internet is magnifying our ability to communicate. <br /><br />I'm sort of stuck with the name "Accelerating Future" due to branding reasons. Since I do subscribe to a weak accelerating change thesis, it sort of fits, but it fits way less than it used to back in 2002, when I registered the domain. I sort of want to suck in accelerationist readers and get them to evaluate their assumptions, as well.Michael Anissimovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06217926458888484768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-73088309477719832662009-06-21T18:27:33.168-07:002009-06-21T18:27:33.168-07:00In your list of strawmanish juxtapositions
Is &qu...In your list of strawmanish juxtapositions <br /><i>Is "innovation" in the service of exploitation, parochial profit-taking, buttressing incumbency really emancipatory in any sense worthy of the name?</i><br />caught my eye. As an engineer I don't innovate. It's a valid word that has been hijacked and turned into a marketing term. That's why I avoid it. I solve problems, real problems that need solving. Not new problems that need innovation to be found. There are plenty real ones left for everyone to tackle.Solutionvatornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-46989842359313592009-06-21T17:52:16.969-07:002009-06-21T17:52:16.969-07:00We must put tech to different groups
1 Progresses...We must put tech to different groups<br /><br />1 Progresses acceleratedly (electronics density, Moore's Law)<br />2 Progresses at a normal (linear seeming) pace (pretty much everything that does progress at all)<br />3 Progress slow or none (super-hypersonic flight) unless breakthroughs occur<br /><br />Depending on where you look, you can find support for accelerated acceleration and zero progress.Progressive Stagnationnoreply@blogger.com