tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post2410677416363792950..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: The Unbearable Stasis of "Accelerating Change"Dale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-49776592464582465952012-06-13T10:28:42.537-07:002012-06-13T10:28:42.537-07:00> Before there were Ray Kurzweil and Terry Gros...> Before there were Ray Kurzweil and Terry Gross<br />> selling vitamin pills. . .<br /><br />I meant "Terry Grossman". Terry Gross is the guy on NPR.<br />;->jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-1569487369565950542012-06-13T08:35:38.047-07:002012-06-13T08:35:38.047-07:00Great comments -- strangely enough, probably right...Great comments -- strangely enough, probably right around the time "mclaren" was posting I was recommending Marcuse's <i>One Dimensional Man</i>, in which repressive desublimation is a key formulation, to a student in break. I haven't thought about that book deeply since I read it twenty years ago, and suddenly here it is both coming and going.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-19751760804692291192012-06-13T05:32:21.241-07:002012-06-13T05:32:21.241-07:00> An objective observer might even be tempted t...> An objective observer might even be tempted to conclude that the<br />> elites are...just like everyone else, no smarter, no more competent,<br />> no more knowledgeable, no more skilled. . .<br /><br />But definitely at least an order of magnitude more likely than ordinary<br />folks to be SOBs[*].<br /><br />[*] That's a term of art in the field of clinical psychology.<br /><br />> [T]oo many of the most feted SF authors today preach transhumanism<br />> and glorious interstellar nirvanas at the helms of gleaming starships<br />> in order to shut the rubes up and keep 'em tractable while the selfsame<br />> science fiction authors do "consulting" for criminal corporations<br />> like IBM. . .<br /><br />IBM has been around long enough ("data processing" antedates digital<br />computers) to have some scary skeletons in its closet:<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust<br /><br />> [S]cience fiction authors like Niven and Brin and Pournelle. . .<br />> live in million-dollar mansions and write about futures in which<br />> rigid hierarchies (in Pournelle's case, literal royalty) arranged by<br />> gene manipulation lord it over the bottom 99% of the galaxy. <br /><br />Speaking of Jerry Pournelle, I ran across an amusing clip on<br />YouTube the other day. Before there were Ray Kurzweil and<br />Terry Gross selling vitamin pills to keep you young forever,<br />there were Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw (I had a copy of their<br />book back in 1982<br />http://www.amazon.com/Life-Extension-Durk-Pearson/dp/044651229X )<br /><br />Anyway, the YouTube clip has Durk Pearson and Jerry Pournelle<br />talking to Tom Snyder in 1979 (on his Tomorrow show, presumably<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_%28TV_series%29 )<br />about not just vitamin pills but the future of publishing<br />(and other media). Pournelle breathes out cigarette smoke<br />while describing what you can do with a word processor. ;-><br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ7lHBnlKQMjimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-34706872061079779142012-06-12T18:21:14.598-07:002012-06-12T18:21:14.598-07:00Great stuff. And long overdue.
You need to push i...Great stuff. And long overdue.<br /><br />You need to push it farther, though, I think, and point out that futurism and all too much science fiction has now turned into what Herbert Marcuse identified as "repressive sublimation."<br /><br />Namely, pie-in-the-sky-bye-and-bye-when-you-die to keep the great unwashed majority of the population quiescent while the elites loot and pillage and oppress them. Back in the middle ages, repressive sublimation was wielded by the Church in the form of glowing tales about heaven and the delights therein. Just be a good peasant and toe the line and offer up 2/3 of your harvest to the local baron and let him bang your daughter and go to war to get killed when he asks you too, and you too will experience eternal bliss in heaven as a Good Subject of the King when you die.<br /><br />It was a scam to bamboozle the bottom 99% into accepting the boot of the top 1% stamping into their faces.<br /><br />Science fiction's dirty little secret is that all too many of the most feted SF authors today preach transhumanism and glorious interstellar nirvanas at the helms of gleaming starships in order to shut the rubes up and keep 'em tractable while the selfsame science fiction authors do "consulting" for criminal corporations like IBM that have offshored most of their workforce overseas. (In IBM's case, the former CEO is <b>literally</b> a criminal -- he was indicted.) All too many science fiction authors get paid by these corporate criminals to slap a happy face on their corporate predation...even as the selfsame sci fi authors boast and strut about how liberal they are and how they support the common man. But in reality, when you look at science fiction authors like Niven and Brin and Pournelle, these guys live in million-dollar mansions and write about futures in which rigid hierarchies (in Pournelle's case, literal royalty) arranged by gene manipulation lord it over the bottom 99% of the galaxy. In any reasonable future history, the "heroes" of all too much contemporary science fiction would qualify as villains when viewed dispassionately. <br /><br />Science fiction today serves a brutally conservative agenda. "You can't win against the elites because you're a scumbag prole" -- disguised as the trope "if you haven't be genetically modified/cybernetically augmented, you can't compete." Again and again, contemporary science fiction tells the reader that the elites are smarter and wiser and better than s/he is. This crap goes back to Heinlein. And then when you look at the <i>actual</i> behavior of the real elites, you see a bunch of ignorant incompetent fools fumbling and bumbling and stumbling and bungling around...as in the latest round of austerity madness in the global economy. The so-called "best and brightest" among the world's leaders can't seem to find their asses in a hall of mirrors. An objective observer might even be tempted to conclude that the elites are...just like everyone else, no smarter, no more competent, no more knowledgeable, no more skilled.mclarennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-56365157269434414502012-06-09T19:05:06.449-07:002012-06-09T19:05:06.449-07:00There is no reason why innovation cannot occur in ...<i>There is no reason why innovation cannot occur in ethical, sustainable, collaborative, decentralized, voluntary/participatory aways.</i><br /><br />But of course I DON'T disagree with that. I am just calling attention to the ways in which what is happening in the name of "progress" "innovation" and "accelerating change" right now is often (and possibly much more often than not) just elite appropriation, cost and risk externalization, PR re-packaging of already-existing crap, and global precarization. That is far from saying things have to be this way, or that if things were not this way real progress wouldn't be possible. Hell, if I didn't believe that I wouldn't be calling out the charlatans and skimmers and scammers so virulently in the first place!Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-56344011491478072332012-06-09T16:33:55.881-07:002012-06-09T16:33:55.881-07:00I agree with this quote almost entirely"
>...I agree with this quote almost entirely"<br /><br />>>I have proposed that the "accelerating change" crowed about for the last two decades by futurologists in pop religious cadences and by more mainstream and academic New Media commentators in pop psychology and pop sociology cadences has never had any substantial reference apart from the increasing precarity produced by neoliberal looting and destabilization of domestic welfare and global economies -- often facilitated, it is true, by the exploitation of digital trading, marketing, and surveillance networks -- a precarity usually seen and experienced from the vantage of privileged people who either benefit from neoliberal destabilization or who (rightly or wrongly) identify with the beneficiaries of that destabilization.<<<br /><br />The current system is based on both exploitation, extraction and destabilization (at best) and destruction. The fact that the Transhumanist crowd in general has never been critical of the underlying enablers of this technology has always irked me to no end. However, I want to argue with you one point. Accelerating change is not wholly dependent on this particular toxic economic model. There is no reason why innovation cannot occur in ethical, sustainable, collaborative, decentralized, voluntary/participatory aways. A good example is Wikispeed, which built the most advanced, modular and efficient car ever, and all in less than 3 months. Wikispeed is the best example of techn-progressivism I've seen, and it's model for how we can improve our way going forward. It's so much better, I frankly don't see how the old guard and their exploitive system can survive.Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08581363305891598784noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-3780321256383022012-06-06T13:25:56.121-07:002012-06-06T13:25:56.121-07:00I do not hope to convince or even productively pro...I do not hope to convince or even productively provoke everybody -- the dull and the deluded are clearly beyond my reach -- but the actually existing and readily available response to the article more than demonstrates the palpable falsity of your assertion. Reading shouldn't always be easy, you know, and that would be true even if many had not found great pleasure in what you found too hard, even if they were not entirely persuaded to my way of thinking on the subject. It is well that you choose to declare your stubborn and defensive stupidity behind the cloak of "Anonymity."Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-36391021325367789502012-06-06T11:23:56.772-07:002012-06-06T11:23:56.772-07:00Brandon is right, you are wrong. The tone and ego ...Brandon is right, you are wrong. The tone and ego flay the intent. It was a hard read. Hopefully you were not trying to convince anybody.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-22457105686993829922012-06-04T12:43:16.613-07:002012-06-04T12:43:16.613-07:00> > [N]ow look at Stanford host[ing] the Sin...> > [N]ow look at Stanford host[ing] the Singularity Summit<br />> > or Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute. . .<br />><br />> To say nothing of the latest issue of _The Economist_. . .<br /><br />Not to mention, of course:<br /><br />http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2009/02/robot-cultists-getting-too-nice-by-half.html<br />----------------------<br />What could be more perfect than an article in the _Financial Times_ informing us that<br /><br />"Google and Nasa are throwing their weight behind a new school for futurists in<br />Silicon Valley to prepare scientists for an era when machines become cleverer<br />than people.<br /><br />The new institution, known as 'Singularity University', is to be headed by<br />Ray Kurzweil, whose predictions about the exponential pace of technological<br />change have made him a controversial figure in technology circles.<br /><br />Google and Nasa's backing demonstrates the growing mainstream acceptance of<br />Mr Kurzweil's views. . .<br />----------------------jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-89142439567147633042012-06-04T12:10:46.353-07:002012-06-04T12:10:46.353-07:00> [W]e have the means and the relative freedom ...> [W]e have the means and the relative freedom from threat at<br />> this stage to make some pertinent criticisms of a movement that<br />> at the moment is as vulnerable to such criticism as "Dianetics"<br />> might have been (if the technology of the Web had existed) in<br />> the 1950s. . .<br /><br />A freedom which did **not** exist with respect to Scientology<br />(né Dianetics) by the time the 1970s rolled around, particularly<br />for the folks involved in its foundation, if the following Usenet<br />post from a decade and a half ago is to be believed:<br /><br />http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/4aec1277d08493c1<br />-----------------------<br />A E Van Vogt and Scientology<br />elbonian <br />Oct 1 1998<br /><br />. . .<br /><br />In about 1972, I had the occasion to meet privately with Van in a bar<br />in Washington DC. One of the things I wanted to talk about was his relationship<br />with Hubbard and Scientology. (Van is the only celebrity I've actually personally<br />spoken with on this subject, but I'll guarantee what I say here is a true<br />and correct recollection of this discussion.)<br /><br />Anyway, by the time I met with Van, he no longer believed in any of the<br />stuff put out by Hubbard. Also, he felt he had to remain silent because<br />of threats against him and his family. Accordingly, he asked me not to<br />broadcast his story since he still lived a bit in fear of Hubbard and<br />his minions.<br /><br />Van had nothing flattering to say about either Hubbard, Dianetics, or<br />Scientology during that meeting. I'd say he was totally disillusioned<br />by his experiences.<br /><br />He had involved himself with Hubbard as part of an exhuberance of youth;<br />a group of people out to "set the world right" and "make a difference."<br />What that group evolved into, we now know. But in the beginning, all<br />of the people involved were filled with idealistic visions of what the<br />world would be like if people were free of the bad motivations inside<br />themselves. . .<br />-----------------------jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-75825599916119608792012-06-04T08:27:17.008-07:002012-06-04T08:27:17.008-07:00> Sure, the Robot Cultists are crazy -- now loo...> Sure, the Robot Cultists are crazy -- now look at Stanford host[ing]<br />> the Singularity Summit or Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute.<br />> They know how to provide splashy sexy or disasterbatory media-ready<br />> frames in support of their agenda. They've already got narcissistic<br />> tech billionaires at their beck and call.<br /><br />To say nothing of the latest issue of _The Economist_.<br />http://www.economist.com/printedition/2012-06-02<br /><br />I haven't bought or browsed in the issue, so I don't know how much<br />of it is explicitly what's known as "Robot Cult" around here.<br /><br />It seems that robots have also invaded film and media courses<br />at The New School in New York City.<br />http://www.peterasaro.org/courses/2012Robots.htmljimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-53375899190395385742012-06-03T20:29:05.627-07:002012-06-03T20:29:05.627-07:00Jim wrote: Still, we have the means and the relati...Jim wrote: <i>Still, we have the means and the relative freedom from threat at this stage to make some pertinent criticisms of a movement that at the moment is as vulnerable to such criticism as "Dianetics" might have been (if the technology of the Web had existed) in the 1950s or Mormonism might have been in the 1820s.</i><br /><br />This is such a good point, I couldn't agree with you more. A closely related one, I think we are just emerging from an era in which a minority of connected corporate-military types spouting the most arrant nonsense imaginable -- the Neoconservatives -- managed to do incomparably more damage to the world than any sensible person would have thought possible (look what Republicans like Eisenhower thought of their brand of crazy back when it began). Sure, the Robot Cultists are crazy -- now look at Stanford hosted the Singularity Summit or Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute. They know how to provide splashy sexy or disasterbatory media-ready frames in support of their agenda. They've already got narcissistic tech billionaires at their beck and call. The technocratic left is just as susceptible to their moonshine as the plutocratic right (just read TPM's IdeaLab gizmo handwaving and you'll see what I mean). It would be foolish in the extreme to underestimate the damage these futurologists can do, not only to their True Believers, but to the level of public discourse on technoscience issues.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-20498969060787719782012-06-03T20:18:03.205-07:002012-06-03T20:18:03.205-07:00Oscar Wilde's The Decay of Lying provides an e...Oscar Wilde's <a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/wilde/decay.html" rel="nofollow">The Decay of Lying</a> provides an exquisite meditation on the connections between fiction and deception. I often teach it in undergraduate criticism courses. For me, the difference between science fiction and pseudo-scientific scam artists couldn't be starker -- science fiction provides an alien lens through which to see the present more clearly than we can in the present (the classic Gertrude Stein definition of art: a lie that tells the truth) -- but the pseudo-scientific scam artists peddling immortality of free nano-abundance or greenwashing geo-engineering scams are actually trying to distract you from seeing the present for what it is. Like all great literature, science fiction makes you see the world better, techno-transcendental futurologists blind you with your own fears and greed to peddle their crap.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-80118794771386760482012-06-03T19:38:13.273-07:002012-06-03T19:38:13.273-07:00> That said, hucksters like Kurtzweil go back t...> That said, hucksters like Kurtzweil go back to the dark ages,<br />> hope and dreams in fiction do, too. So what? Fiction and hucksters<br />> are both parasites on reality.<br /><br />Surely there's a distinction to be made. Fiction is harmless<br />entertainment. Its consumers know what they're getting, and<br />are not tricked out of the money they spend, especially if they've<br />read a few reviews ahead of time.<br /><br />Hucksters are somewhat less benign, don't you think?<br /><br />Look, nobody imagines that writing blog posts, or commenting on<br />them, is going to purge the world of con artists and their marks.<br /><br />Still, we have the means and the relative freedom from threat at<br />this stage to make some pertinent criticisms of a movement that at the moment<br />is as vulnerable to such criticism as "Dianetics" might have<br />been (if the technology of the Web had existed) in the 1950s<br />or Mormonism might have been in the 1820s.<br /><br />It's both satisfying and entertaining to take advantage of such<br />an opportunity to tell the truth as one sees it.<br /><br />A few people whose interest in the subject is piqued enough,<br />for whatever reason, to do a Google search will likely stumble<br />on this blog in addition to the overwhelming mass of PR and<br />cheerleading. Then they can read our "reviews", if they can<br />be bothered.<br /><br />That's all there is to it. (And? And so why did **you**<br />bother to contribute your comment?)jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-85789581709044644452012-06-03T17:59:31.507-07:002012-06-03T17:59:31.507-07:00If Tim Gross didn't exist, we'd have to in...If Tim Gross didn't exist, we'd have to invent him.<br /><br />That said, hucksters like Kurtzweil go back to the dark ages, hope and dreams in fiction do, too. So what? Fiction and hucksters are both parasites on reality. We all still eat, shit and die (well, perhaps not Tim), as we have since the oral tradition, um, went viral.<br /><br />People still write space opera, and I'm pretty sure that we are too fucked as a species to get off this rock. People also write vampire-sex-drama. And?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-80556806551918168792012-06-03T17:11:13.376-07:002012-06-03T17:11:13.376-07:00> "Satanic selection[]"... recognizes...> "Satanic selection[]"... recognizes no higher moral law except power...<br />> This is Howard Bloom's main point in The Lucifer Principle, which<br />> is in my opinion the one of the most spine-chilling and Satanic works<br />> ever penned.<br /><br />Or, alternatively,<br />http://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-The-Logic-Human-Destiny/dp/0679758941<br /><br />> > I'll take real science (and the real Darwin) over the<br />> > nastier (and more simple-minded) variants of social Darwinism.<br />> > Things usually turn out to be more complicated than<br />> > the ideological Darwinists give the world credit for.<br /><br />BBC Horizon - Nice Guys Finish First (Richard Dawkins, 1987)<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA4dZ6NVNbkjimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-91866276752615661792012-06-01T18:11:02.610-07:002012-06-01T18:11:02.610-07:00> Singularity is. . . the transition of conscio...> Singularity is. . . the transition of consciousness and<br />> intelligence from separate biological organisms to a planetary<br />> cybernetic Cloud/Network - the Singularity requires only and<br />> is only the CONNECTION OF INTELLIGENCE into a singular system-<br />> 'only connect'<br /><br />Jive with the Hive.<br /><br />Touch the light! You will experience the joy of Singularity!<br /><br />http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mpBGa4P5jUo/TT2gygGNBMI/AAAAAAAAGN4/77ZZ9l8tV7Y/s1600/darkskies6.jpg<br /><br />> Cybernetic Dreamtime- where most of humanity drifts deeper<br />> into a solipsistic sleep- fleeing from a world in global<br />> gleitende- into a diaspora of private virtual Idahos<br /><br />Hey, I think this guy **has** been reading J. G. Ballard!<br />(ca. 1965).<br /><br />> YOUR COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT IS IN YOUR HAND - your phone<br />> gives you all the knowledge of Google/Wikipedia/Wolfram Alpha -<br />> you HAVE it- all you need is a BETTER INTERFACE- a way to<br />> make this knowledge stream into your awareness in as many<br />> and as rich and direct ways as possible<br /><br />Sounds like a (new) _Outer Limits_ episode from 15 years ago.<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_of_Consciousness_%28The_Outer_Limits%29<br />http://www.ovguide.com/tv_episode/the-outer-limits-season-3-episode-5-stream-of-consciousness-78006jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-22071188194957015722012-06-01T15:30:54.559-07:002012-06-01T15:30:54.559-07:00I just arrived here so have no right to comment. H...<i>I just arrived here so have no right to comment.</i> Hey, there's no hazing ritual or trial period. So long as you're not a bot or spammer, all are welcome here, even if I will righteously moderate the occasional sociopathic thread hijacker or those who indulge in common or garden variety hate-speech. Even Giulio is welcome again, if he really wants to bring back his clown act without misbehaving too egregiously. I don't suffer fools, but I rarely stay mad very long.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-21004108271391012702012-06-01T15:11:34.643-07:002012-06-01T15:11:34.643-07:00Hello, I just arrived here so have no right to com...Hello, I just arrived here so have no right to comment. But... Surely the point of blogging is that you can write what you like, however prolix. If you want an editor you can pay one or else write books instead of blogs. Clearly this here is a blog and not a book.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-35280396255280085632012-06-01T14:18:53.847-07:002012-06-01T14:18:53.847-07:00What mehum agitprop could hope to match the steel ...What mehum agitprop could hope to match the steel hard erection of your cyborg chrome dildo?Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-51743809128117958432012-06-01T14:11:33.706-07:002012-06-01T14:11:33.706-07:00but your agit-prop is flaccid- it has no teeth bec...but your agit-prop is flaccid- it has no teeth because you are criticizing old ideas already being culled in the Post-Transhumanist reformation- <br /><br />your railing against old Transhumanist paradigm stuff- physical enhancement of the brain and body by primitive invasive nanotechnologies is a cartoon - we have moved beyond this sort of clunky cybernetic future- the true cybernetic future was set when the iPhone/smartphones exploded in 2006-8 - YOUR COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT IS IN YOUR HAND - your phone gives you all the knowledge of Google/Wikipedia/Wolfram Alpha - you HAVE it- all you need is a BETTER INTERFACE- a way to make this knowledge stream into your awareness in as many and as rich and direct ways as possible -<br /><br />many of us had different ideas and scenarios about how the Singularity would or would not unfold before smartphones- but once we saw Amazonian Indians with them - as well as simply noticing how radically human social behavior has changed - we can SEE the Cybernetic Dreamtime-<br /><br />the human being is NOW a cybernetic organism consisting of Ape connected to Cloud through the mobile- the bandwidth between flesh and mobile is the bottleneck that all the research is trying to widen- driven by the pressure of 7 billion customers<br /><br />not AI> IA we are not building machines that are smarter than us- we are using our machines to make us smarter<br /><br />not nanobots> nanomaterials and nanodrugs- <br /><br />not immortal bodies- but substrate independent minds that make bodies ultimately disposable like clothing- just as with the transition of music from fixed media to software<br /><br />not techno-utopia- but a time of wonder and catastropheTim Grosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02957574739480402326noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-4413589278904652122012-06-01T13:24:44.980-07:002012-06-01T13:24:44.980-07:00Another data-point for the "futurology as wet...Another data-point for the "futurology as wet dream slash reductio-ad-absurdum of neoliberal possessive individualist scam-artist ideology" thesis, there Tim.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-51676276325751024352012-06-01T12:52:07.697-07:002012-06-01T12:52:07.697-07:00asleep? (^___-)
an ironic choice of words- as we ...asleep? (^___-)<br /><br />an ironic choice of words- as we enter what I call the Cybernetic Dreamtime- where most of humanity drifts deeper into a solipsistic sleep- fleeing from a world in global gleitende- into a diaspora of private virtual IdahosTim Grosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02957574739480402326noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-91691662615567147182012-06-01T12:24:36.896-07:002012-06-01T12:24:36.896-07:00Mark Pesce @mpesce RT @wwjimd: The Unbearable Sta...<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/mpesce" rel="nofollow">Mark Pesce @mpesce RT @wwjimd: The Unbearable Stasis of "Accelerating Change" http://vsb.li/b45vPt #future #RAW RECOMMENDED</a>Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-91008243637180626632012-06-01T11:03:16.161-07:002012-06-01T11:03:16.161-07:00"star0" -- you may have the good sense t..."star0" -- you may have the good sense to resist the siren call of the Robot Cult's extreme techno-transcendentalizing superlative futurology (for more on which click on the Condensed Critique of Transhumanism up on the sidebar) but you do seem to be fully ensorceled by mainstream futurological conceits, which I describe in the post above, rightly I think, as a pop-tech journalism fandom with delusions of grandeur. I really disapprove of the description of non-intelligent things as intelligent at all -- even "narrowly" or whatever -- since it inevitably denigrates and often disintegrates the intelligence of actually intelligent beings in a profoundly pernicious way. About in-vitro meat -- you'll find years of comments on that topic under the "Animal Rites, Vegetarian Criticism, Brutal Theory" heading up on the sidebar. You go on to ask if I know Lanier and Pesce. I've been reading them and writing about them for nearly twenty years. Believe me when I tell you that it's not ignorance but knowledge that drives my critique of futurologists.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.com