tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post2304614376674910149..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: James Hughes Flogs for the Robot CultDale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-42861133920445272702012-12-04T14:58:21.146-08:002012-12-04T14:58:21.146-08:00I think people of the sustainable equitable democr...I think people of the sustainable equitable democratic left benefit greatly from being technoscientifically-literate and technodevelopmentally-concerned since technoscience issues and changes are a primary location of social struggle in our historical moment. <br /><br />Strictly speaking, I don't think one needs a special "identity" category or movement or program called "technoprogressive" to identify this need and this tendency, since it has many expressions and mostly plays out at a finer level of detail than is captured by ideological formulations and manifestos and that sort of thing. <br /><br />I would be remiss if I did not point out that in the past I did indeed use that very term in the very way you might mean. I stopped using it when I realized that transhumanists used it in their PR efforts to mainstream their message. <br /><br />But the larger lesson I learned from that prior mistake was the technoprogressive term, in creating a space of supposed identification/ dis-identification, was always vulnerable to such an appropriation precisely because it lends itself to a more abstract and inapt "technology politics" involving subcultural signaling (and crass self-promotion/ marketing moves in its Robot Cultic forms) rather than the concrete political questions of stakeholder cost/ risk/ benefit assessment in the moment, sustainability and democratization issues, stratification of distributional effects by class/ race/ gender/, institutional analysis, and the stuff where the rubber really hits the road.<br /><br />Thanks for a useful exchange. That was more productive than I hoped for.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-38917056641030563882012-12-04T14:39:16.777-08:002012-12-04T14:39:16.777-08:00After reading your 'about me' page and som...After reading your 'about me' page and some other articles, I realized we don't really disagree on anything at all except the definition and implications of transhumanism. It is fair that you associate the word with the more naive, technophilic sorts, as they are the loudest and their cry is the most memorable, and they are arguably the most numerable. As you say, sensible people wouldn't feel the need for the label and ideology.<br /><br />For me, I really liked the idea of a synthesis between secular humanistic views on humanity's priorities and the future relationship between us and forthcoming medical/physiological changes. Even now as I look at the word it does seem a little redundant, with the trans fluff. How do you feel about the term techno-progressive?<br /><br />Do you feel that trying to combine views about technology and politics is too much for one word or context? or is just irrelevant? what do you call yourself? just leftist?<br /><br />I guess the argument is that transhumanists differ so much, as you say above, in political thought that the umbrella of "technology is cool, upload my mind please" isn't at all a practically useful way of deciding on an operating environment as these changes occur. do you think that 'biopolitics' will become important and contentious as a sphere of thought (like issues of abortion, embryonic stem cells, genetic engineering, sometimes are today)? will it split along the 'traditional' left/right boundaries? or do you just not see technological change being important enough as a sole issue to warrant any self-identification on its general trends? <br /><br />i guess what i've learned is transhumanism is a lovely ideology for people who find human enhancement to whatever degree makes them feel fuzzy inside, and they'd like more of it--regardless of what's realistic or possible. which i find infinitely more harmless than good ol' vanilla organized religionBrandon Hnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-76805637389663952352012-12-04T13:57:57.896-08:002012-12-04T13:57:57.896-08:00You can't have it both ways. Nobody has to joi...You can't have it both ways. Nobody has to join a Robot Cult to advocate for healthcare, science education, renewable energy investment, or network security. If enhancement is just healthcare then transhumanism is a vacuity, but if enhancement is what transhumanists actually always talk about when PR flacks aren't sanewashing it, if it's comic book sooper-bodies and holodeck heaven uploads and Robot God singularities then it is crazytown and people who know it is crazytown will keep on calling them on it. Either way, vacuity or crazytown, it's something of a fraud.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-55588746021570162232012-12-04T13:14:39.193-08:002012-12-04T13:14:39.193-08:00All most transhumanists want is the pathway open t...All most transhumanists want is the pathway open to the use of human-enhancement technologies as they come to the table. All the fluff about assaulting naive singularists and technophiles just seems unnecessary--the major advances they hope for aren't due for 40+ years anyway. Fringe-optimists.<br />Your saying that no "special 'transhumanist' technologies exist" just seems misleading-- we already have technologies that espouse the ideal..organ implantation, stem cell research, cochlear implants, plastic surgery, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, etc. <br /><br />Your scares about a potential mandated 'perfected human' are no more valid to my mind than the 'we shouldn't play god" argument used against genetic engineering. What would this look like in your mind? In mine it looks like eliminating major risk factors for disease and enabling people to take fuller control of their life and condition, with less of the 'roll-of-the-die' biological limitations that help some to live longer than others with a different quality of life. i don't get why you find this so easily dismissed as absolute naivete. humanity has always sought to improve itself and make things easier<br /><br />i did like your criticisms on the lack of awareness of the leftist transhumanist place amongst their own. From what I can tell, libertarianism has a much bigger following than socialism in the US. so we leftists tend to stick to our echo chambers because of political realism. good post overall though, really interesting, and kind of brings us all back to the ground, in a here-and-now kind of wayBrandon Hnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-70802663671642821552012-08-19T15:19:14.299-07:002012-08-19T15:19:14.299-07:00There is no such thing as special "transhuman...There is no such thing as special "transhumanist" technologies. There are actually-existing actually-emerging technoscientific knowledges and techniques and artifacts, and there are technodevelopmental changes with costs, risks, and benefits that can be more or less equitably distributed to the diversity of their stakeholders. All the rest is error, misinformation, deception, self-deception, and some of it is fraud. Very simple. If you really do not envision a "perfected human" you take a hard look at the company you are keeping, because you have gone seriously astray.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-7635831882668260642012-08-19T13:00:59.724-07:002012-08-19T13:00:59.724-07:00And what of the transhumanists, such as myself, wh...And what of the transhumanists, such as myself, who do not invision a 'perfected human' but the use of transhumanist technologies to allow for a more diverse human population?citrakayahhttp://citrakayah.ucoz.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-86252199781201059412009-02-20T18:13:00.000-08:002009-02-20T18:13:00.000-08:00> One of the very reasons I and others might wa...> One of the very reasons I and others might want to become<BR/>> "Homo superior" (I prefer the term Homo novus). . .<BR/><BR/>Or in Italianate Latin, "Homo nomo".jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-83883720368892065472009-02-19T10:49:00.000-08:002009-02-19T10:49:00.000-08:00Hi friends...It's interesting how consumed everyon...Hi friends...<BR/><BR/>It's interesting how consumed everyone is with mentioning/rebutting Singularitarianism nowadays. Has this sect really grown so fast and exerted so much influence over anything to merit such attention? I am doubtful, but you guys keep going on about it, which at least provides interesting reading material. (It's not like I'm going to use my free time to watch TV or anything ridiculous like that.)<BR/><BR/>"wealth-capture" -- oh no! You make it sound like making money is inherently bad. I'm not a libertarian, and I laugh at Ayn Rand, but neo-socialist terms like this are pretty funny. If you were in charge of Obama's campaign strategy, he would have gotten completely owned in the election. Obama's triumph is a triumph for the *centrist* (center-left, really) politics that I adhere to.<BR/><BR/>"cantankerous texts" -- heh. :)<BR/><BR/>"techno-utopian and techno-dystopian nonsense" -- actually, technically -- I would call our beliefs cogno-utopian and cogno-dystopian. The source of the change is the greater intelligence. The technology the greater intelligence produces would technically just be a second-order effect. Human civilization was not caused by technology, it was caused by cognitive improvement. Cognitive improvement will once again transform the planet, this time from human civilization to transhuman civilization. And what an amazing civilization it could be. <BR/><BR/>About helping the poor. Even dismissing all "superlative" discourse, the best way I can think of to help the world's poor is still through technology. Windmills that can be built with common materials (I made a detailed proposal along these lines for the Google 10^100 contest), for instance, or, more usefully, a self-replicating factory like RepRap. Using these methods to help others seems more effective than being a stereotypical far-left Berkeley professor advocating extreme wealth redistribution with less-than-zero political viability, even if it were the greatest idea in the world.<BR/><BR/>How do you propose to deal with the entitlement crisis we have ahead of us? <BR/><BR/>"claims about networked and artificial intelligence "surpassing" conventional personal and social formations of problem-solving and organizational-intelligence"<BR/><BR/>Yes! Thank you for referencing this concept directly. What we are claiming is so different than what Kurzweil argues.<BR/><BR/>"with various projected impacts on questions of public security, deliberation, privacy issues, and so on"<BR/><BR/>This phrasing trivializes the potential hugeness of the rapid evolution of self-improving AI in the human-equivalent and human-surpassing realm of general intelligence. As if Neanderthals would debate the potential technological creation of <I>Homo sapiens</I> by saying it raises "privacy issues"! It actually raises "completely transforming the way the world works" issues.<BR/><BR/>"But whatever else one can say about these notions, it looks to me like an overwhelming majority of transhumanist-identified people affirm some version of them as true, as urgently important, and as abiding preoccupations."<BR/><BR/>I'm not so sure... I'd say that less than half of transhumanists are really concerned about the Singularity.<BR/><BR/>"Hughes offers up in his effort to shore up the credibility of his marginal Robot Cult."<BR/><BR/>But he insults our sub(cult)ure in this very passage! You seem to think that Kurzweil has swallowed Transhumanism whole, when this never happened.<BR/><BR/>I totally agree with your whole paragraph about technology.<BR/><BR/>"would engineer an optimal idealized postulated homo superior"<BR/><BR/>Negative, we just want to make that option available. One of the very reasons I and others might want to become "Homo superior" (I prefer the term <I>Homo novus</I>) would be to protect unenhanced humans from others of that enhanced group. <BR/><BR/>What are the "incumbent interests" that Robot God cultism is helping out, btw?Michael Anissimovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06217926458888484768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-3094069154997502632009-02-18T07:53:00.000-08:002009-02-18T07:53:00.000-08:00The Singularity Summit is an echo chamber for exac...<I>The Singularity Summit is an echo chamber for exactly the type of blue sky libertopian techno-rapturists that Dale is always griping about.</I><BR/><BR/>That's for sure -- and their Singularity U, too -- except maybe we should think of them as <I>stormy sky</I> libertopian techno-rapturists...Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-1074334274362178272009-02-17T23:58:00.000-08:002009-02-17T23:58:00.000-08:00The Singularity Summit is an echo chamber for exac...The Singularity Summit is an echo chamber for exactly the type of blue sky libertopian techno-rapturists that Dale is always griping about.Mike Trederhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10600838775038267938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-61106623861518510802009-02-17T14:20:00.000-08:002009-02-17T14:20:00.000-08:00I gotta say, I'm not sure how Hughes can look at a...I gotta say, I'm not sure how Hughes can look at all the <A HREF="http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/hughes20081027/" REL="nofollow">overwhelmingly anti-government sentiment</A> <A HREF="http://singinst.org/media/singularitysummit2008/marshallbrain" REL="nofollow">Marshall Brain's talk about structural unemployment at the recent Singularity Summit</A> has stirred up, and then say, with a straight face, that singularitarians and transhumanists are mostly progressives. Where was the pushback in the blogosphere (Other than <A HREF="http://natowelch.livejournal.com/307759.html" REL="nofollow">me</A>)?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-56171202558826614342009-02-16T20:11:00.000-08:002009-02-16T20:11:00.000-08:00"Reaganama" wrote:> [Y]ou're chan..."Reaganama" wrote:<BR/><BR/>> [Y]ou're changing the subject, but since you ask. . .<BR/><BR/>Thanks for your indulgence in bothering to reply.<BR/>Your insight is. . . interesting.<BR/><BR/>> The main problem with Bidstrup, as you suggest,<BR/>> is that he's gay.<BR/><BR/>I certainly mentioned that he is. I didn't intend to suggest<BR/>it was his "problem", but perhaps you were giving me undue<BR/>credit for something you find so obvious.<BR/><BR/>> I've never known a gay man who wasn't also paranoid. They<BR/>> grow up paranoid.<BR/><BR/>Ah, so. Hadn't heard that particular diagnosis before. A<BR/>similar general diagnosis I once heard, from somebody I didn't<BR/>much care for, was "I am aware that you don't like me. I chalked<BR/>it up to envy. I've never known a gay man who wasn't envious of me<BR/>as a straight man." I was suitably nonplussed at the time.<BR/><BR/>> When you're in the closet your whole life, worried that<BR/>> your dad might find out you've been having one off the<BR/>> wrist with mommy's Playgirls. . .<BR/><BR/>I'm too old for my mommy to have had _Playgirl_s, and Bidstrup<BR/>is a few years older than I am. I had to make do with the Sears catalog,<BR/>and a couple of old issues of daddy's _Strength & Health_.<BR/><BR/>And it was my mommy I had to worry about catching me "having one<BR/>off the wrist", with anything.<BR/><BR/>> Are you also gay?<BR/><BR/>Yes, as a matter of fact.<BR/><BR/>> Because only a fellow gay man would take it that seriously.<BR/><BR/>Ah. I don't know what our esteemed Blog Owner makes of all<BR/>this. (He's also, you know, **that** way.)<BR/><BR/>> The rest of us with vaginas on our mind -- and maybe we're<BR/>> just lucky to be that way. . .<BR/><BR/>I hadn't heretofore made any assumptions about your gender.<BR/>Of course. . . well, nah.<BR/><BR/>> [I]t was a dumb question.<BR/><BR/>One's intellectual limitations are always a burden one<BR/>struggles beneath, for those of us so. . . limited;<BR/>and no doubt a source of great annoyance for those not<BR/>so weighed down.<BR/><BR/>I beg forgiveness.jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-52145847559060534842009-02-16T10:09:00.000-08:002009-02-16T10:09:00.000-08:00But quite beyond all that, to emphasize as [James ...<I>But quite beyond all that, to emphasize as [James Hughes] does in his own account the suggestive utterances of a few Enlightenment figures on questions of "radical longevity, machine intelligence… and the radical evolution of the human form" seems to me to risk a near evacuation of the actual content of Enlightenment discourse in the name of delineating it.</I><BR/><BR/>How can any transhumanist seriously argue that their ideology is rooted in the Enlightenment or any other phase in Western philosophy and cultural life simply because one illustrious figure of the time engaged in futurist wishful thinking?<BR/><BR/>Doesn't it simply prove that, throughout history, smart people have believed and said weird things? Or that being an educated and respected crank is not unique to the late 20th and early 21st century?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-795403908273925092009-02-16T09:11:00.000-08:002009-02-16T09:11:00.000-08:00I've never known a gay man who wasn't also paranoi...<I>I've never known a gay man who wasn't also paranoid. They grow up paranoid.</I><BR/><BR/>Good heavens, have I been deposited via time machine back to the fifties or something? I'd comment further, but I'm off just now to join the Mattachine.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-63536481262066492732009-02-16T06:28:00.000-08:002009-02-16T06:28:00.000-08:00JJMF,Well, you're changing the subject, but since ...JJMF,<BR/><BR/>Well, you're changing the subject, but since you ask: The main problem with Bidstrup, as you suggest, is that he's gay. I've never known a gay man who wasn't also paranoid. They grow up paranoid. When you're in the closet your whole life, worried that your dad might find out you've been having one off the wrist with mommy's Playgirls (and even more worried that he'll find the notion arousing) you learn to look over your shoulder. <BR/><BR/>Are you also gay? Because only a fellow gay man would take it that seriously. The rest of us with vaginas on our mind -- and maybe we're just lucky to be that way -- don't pay much heed to Bidstrups.<BR/><BR/>No desire to offend anyone, but it was a dumb question.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-79713428331190752842009-02-15T22:19:00.000-08:002009-02-15T22:19:00.000-08:00"Reaganama" wrote:> [T]he world is fu..."Reaganama" wrote:<BR/><BR/>> [T]he world is full of a goodly number of baby-eating<BR/>> right-wingers like me.<BR/><BR/>Tell me something, then, because **I'm** curious.<BR/><BR/>Just a few days ago, I came across the Web site of<BR/>a 60-year-old American expatriate gay man named<BR/>Scott Bidstrup. (It was linked to from the site of<BR/>another gay man -- a soc.motss old-timer named<BR/>Jess Anderson.)<BR/><BR/>On Mr. Bidstrup's bio page, beginning with the section<BR/>headed "Adventures In Free Speech"<BR/>http://www.bidstrup.com/bio.htm<BR/>there is a remarkable, not to say flabbergasting, tale about<BR/>how he came to leave the U.S. and take refuge in Costa Rica,<BR/>and certain events he believes to have taken place<BR/>there (the most recent of which only occurred<BR/>a few weeks ago).<BR/><BR/>So tell me, Reaganama, since Straussian neo-cons<BR/>are apparently your kind of people, is this<BR/>Bidstrup guy crazy? Paranoid? Does he have an overactive<BR/>imagination? Is he an outright liar? Is he grandstanding,<BR/>or at best exaggerating, in order to add force to his expressed<BR/>political opinions?<BR/><BR/>Or is it really that easy to get on the CIA's<BR/>(s)hit list?jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-49600482614338480562009-02-15T21:49:00.000-08:002009-02-15T21:49:00.000-08:00I'm sure James Hughes will be well pleased to hear...I'm sure James Hughes will be well pleased to hear that you find his own leftism more congenial than my own, baby eating right-winger or no. It seems to me that he has devoted no small amount of his energies to achieving just that result, after all.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-43263483568601282502009-02-15T21:44:00.000-08:002009-02-15T21:44:00.000-08:00Ha! Jim's definitely right on that score -- but I...Ha! Jim's definitely right on that score -- but I don't think that Mike holds out any more hope for a rapprochement between me and the Robot Cultists at this point, surely, than me or you! <BR/><BR/>I think Mike means to say that progressive minded secular democrats who are technoscientifically literate and also concerned with technodevelopmental politics in a way that might make them pay attention to superlative technocentrics like transhumanists and singularitarians as I do myself, even while recognizing what is rather surreally silly in what they say, might still better benefit from the thinking I've done on these questions if I managed to talk about them in a way that is more congenial to a particular kind of Anglo-American analytic, even positivist mindset. Alas, there is too much Bloomsbury, too much Beat, and too much of the specifically Jamesian strain of pragmatism in me to manage that feat at this point.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-77857253793500533052009-02-15T21:33:00.000-08:002009-02-15T21:33:00.000-08:00Dale,James Hughes comes across as a rather reasona...Dale,<BR/><BR/>James Hughes comes across as a rather reasonable fellow in his comments. And he seems like a true leftist. I can't for the life of me see what you find objectionable about him. I mean, personally, I disagree with almost everything he says, but I also disagree with almost everything you say, too. (I'm so right-wing it would make you puke -- and yes, I do eat babies). <BR/><BR/>But I can't really sense much appreciable difference in your views. One of you likes transhumanism and the other detests it, but - forgive me - so what? He's surely an ally when you consider the world is full of a goodly number of baby-eating right-wingers like me. <BR/><BR/>Just curious.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-3784559769371686932009-02-15T20:34:00.000-08:002009-02-15T20:34:00.000-08:00> As I've tried to tell you before, I suspe...> As I've tried to tell you before, I suspect you'd find a lot<BR/>> more agreement with your positions if people could understand<BR/>> the point without having a PhD in Phraseology.<BR/><BR/>If Mr. Treder means there would be "a lot more agreement"<BR/>(with Dale) among people who self-identify as transhumanists<BR/>(if only he would write "more clearly"), then -- not a chance.jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-88484853380773499192009-02-15T19:32:00.000-08:002009-02-15T19:32:00.000-08:00Mike! So good to hear from you! You know, you're a...Mike! So good to hear from you! You know, you're asking more of me than I think you can possibly realize. I truly honestly can't for the life of me imagine what it is like to find that italicized passage a difficult sentence to read. And I have discovered after years of trying to adapt my style to these sorts of perfectly well-meaning demands for clarity that I tend to make things incomparably worse when I try to do what you are asking of me. <BR/><BR/>It's endlessly anticipating imagined objections that gets me into trouble in the first place, well, that and a perverse love of word-play that I couldn't give up without becoming a different person than I am (and am pleased to be). <BR/><BR/>You know, I'm always already responding to the protesting voices in my own head with ramifying qualifications and elaborations and illustrations, once I start worrying about too diverse a congeries of imaginary interlocutors I'm lost. <BR/><BR/>Maybe I'm one of those people who talk best to folks with a PhD in Phraseaology as you say (thank god actually there is no such monstrous thing), and my more general usefulness comes from others who manage to glean enough from my opacities to translate them into terms that are more readily intelligible to others. I think that this is something I am able to do myself in public settings off the cuff when teaching dense difficult theory to earnest undergraduates. <BR/><BR/>But when it comes to my own writing, I guess I'm stumped. I don't disbelieve you at all when you testify to your perplexity at my density, but I hope you won't disbelieve me when I say that some of what I am told is illegibly muddy and thick seems to me honestly clear as glass as clearest glass, every single word saying exactly and precisely the thing it needs to say to say what I mean. <BR/><BR/>I really do appreciate your comment tho' and I am very pleased to think this means you still read me every now and then despite the frustrations that this must cause you. <BR/><BR/>On a final note, I will say that I could never be Obama nor could I write speeches for him, which may be part of the reason I so venerate him as I do. His manifold rhetorical gifts are definitely not my own.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-57649668407652160152009-02-15T18:08:00.000-08:002009-02-15T18:08:00.000-08:00Dammit, Dale, must you write this way?To propose t...Dammit, Dale, must you write this way?<BR/><BR/><I>To propose that one can "advocate" a technology politics indifferent to the definitive differences actual political differences imbue into the constitution of technologies as such is worse than completely misunderstanding the very phenomenon under discussion...</I><BR/><BR/>I think I know what you're saying, although it literally took me about 10 readings to make heads or tails out of that sentence. <BR/><BR/>As I've tried to tell you before, I suspect you'd find a lot more agreement with your positions if people could understand the point without having a PhD in Phraseology.<BR/><BR/>Assuming you write the way you think, I'd suggest you view that as a liability and not a virtue. To get greater traction with your ideas and your criticisms, you might want to take the Lincoln/Obama approach and go with fewer syllables instead of more.Mike Trederhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10600838775038267938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-30130933290730681932009-02-15T17:54:00.000-08:002009-02-15T17:54:00.000-08:00Isn't this evidence of the way transhumanism deran...Isn't this evidence of the way transhumanism deranges sensible discussion? I mean, it is reasonable and not authoritarian for legitimate accountable authorities to regulate in the face of actually inequitable distributions of developmental cost, risk, and benefit. If software development introduces or exacerbates such inequities, then its regulation is perfectly right and proper. <BR/><BR/>Introducing the Turing Police and entitative AI daydreams/nightmares into the discussion just activates irrational passions without clarifying anything, if you ask me. <BR/><BR/>By the way, I find I'm not sure I even accept the notion of a "nascent left-wing authoritarianism," properly so-called. To the extent that the essence of left-wing politics is democratization and consensualization a left-wing authoritarianism looks to me like a contradiction in terms. <BR/><BR/>Where incumbent interests accrue unaccountable authority or circumvent either consensual self-determination or democratic deliberation it seems to me it matters less whether they chose conventionally left-wing or right-wing authors as the basis for their rationalizations of authoritarianism, than the fact of their would-be authoritarianism itself.<BR/><BR/>I don't personally lose much sleep over Hughes' nightmares about evil AI overlords, of course (the Robot God is total bunkum, so who cares?), I can judge his interventions authoritarian or not without devoting too much attention to the particular paranoid fantasy leads him to compromise his democratic principles and embrace undue or unaccountable authority. <BR/><BR/>I daresay Hughes' seeming overconfidence in his parochial assessment of human "optimality" and willingness to impose it in the name of "healthcare" whether it is wanted or not by informed, competent, free peers is the more pressing real world worry for those of us who prefer (his) more democratic developmental formulations to authoritarian ones.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-83978840891705934142009-02-15T17:26:00.000-08:002009-02-15T17:26:00.000-08:00Dale wrote (quoting James Hughes):> "Anoth...Dale wrote (quoting James Hughes):<BR/><BR/>> "Another dynamic in the 2000s has been a growing focus by transhumanists<BR/>> on the apocalyptic possibilities of emerging technologies. One manifestation<BR/>> of this has been the growth of the millennialist Singularitarian<BR/>> subculture which anticipates the day when machine intelligence<BR/>> surpasses human, and which ranges from naïve technoutopianism to<BR/>> apocalyptic fatalism about the outcome of the “Singularity” and our<BR/>> ability to effect it. Outside of this subculture however many transhumanists<BR/>> have begun to seriously engage with the regulatory and security policies<BR/>> that would reduce threats from technologies of mass destruction, while<BR/>> promoting the use of emerging technologies to making civilization more<BR/>> resilient to catastrophic risks. Engagement with these questions have<BR/>> contributed to the declining influence of the anti-statist right within<BR/>> transhumanism."<BR/><BR/>Dale then goes on to say:<BR/><BR/>> I certainly disapprove as [Hughes] seems to do the hyperbolizing<BR/>> disasterbatory accelerationalizing techno-utopian and techno-dystopian<BR/>> nonsense of the singularitarian nerd-rapturists. . .<BR/>>> <BR/>> That [Hughes] makes this move [advocacy of basic income guarantees] at<BR/>> one and the same time as he disavows the apocalyptic "subculture" of<BR/>> the singularitarians among movement-transhumanism is especially problematic.<BR/><BR/>Your impression that James Hughes "disavows" the apocalyptic (particularly the<BR/>"disasterbatory") preoccupations of folks like Nick Bostrom and the<BR/>"Friendly AI" crowd is one that I do not share.<BR/><BR/>Indeed, from what I can tell, Hughes is just itching to urge the powers that be<BR/>to form the nucleus of what William Gibson fictionally characterized as<BR/>the "Turing Police".<BR/><BR/>I saw a talk at some recent conference or other on YouTube in which<BR/>Hughes, at the podium, and with a slide of "Colossus, the Forbin Project"<BR/>on the screen behind him, says something like "I don't know too much about<BR/>the science behind it, but I've known in my bones since about the age of ten that<BR/>Artificial Intelligence is something that's gonna happen Real Soon." (or<BR/>words to that effect).<BR/><BR/>He's ready to regulate, boys and girls, in spite of the fact that nobody<BR/>really has a clue as to whether AI is even possible in a form that<BR/>has anything much to do with the products of the Intel Corporation and/or<BR/>Microsoft (or IBM, for that matter) in the form in which we currently know<BR/>and love them.<BR/><BR/>This I see as a sort of nascent left-wing authoritarianism, and it<BR/>gives me the willies as much as the free-market fundamentalism of the<BR/>>Hist right-wingers.jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.com