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

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Can-Do Bigotry… for "The Future"!

Shorter Hank Pellissier:
You know why all them Jews is so smart? All that wholesome culling from pogroms and persecutions, natch. Plus, you know how they're all just crazy for highfalutin occupations like playing chess and the violin instead of all them violent video games the kids like these days? Well, there ya go.
More Very Serious futurology and eugenics from the stealth Robot Cult outfit IEET.

PS: Given the reductive sociobiology of so much futurological discourse and the cheerful affirmation by many so-called transhumanists of the "liberal eugenicist" label outright, it isn't exactly surprising to stumble onto these sorts of bigoted overgeneralizations or to find ambivalently biologized cultural commentaries cropping up here and there even in their better policed public fora. The folks over at the Futurisms blog (who are sponsored by The New Atlantis, a bioconservative bioethics outfit about which I also have my share of reservations), recently noted this sort of ambivalence playing out in transhumanoid Kyle McKuttnick's celebration of a certain plastic surgery procedure. For more on the default eugenics of so much futurological discourse, whether transhumanist or bioconservative, you could read my Eugenics and the Denigration of Consent.

5 comments:

jimf said...

> Kyle McKuttnick's [that's an on-topic
> pun which, I'll admit, I didn't notice until
> I was about to correct the spelling ;-> ]
> celebration of a certain plastic surgery procedure. . .

Come the Singularity, everybody will look good in spandex.

Meanwhile, can't we just have decent weight-reduction therapy?

Quoted at http://www.poe-news.com/forums/sp.php?pi=1002436149
--------------
13 points by Eliezer Topic: What's a problem you'd like to see solved?

Safe liposuction. (Going to be a few self-righteous "just eat less and exercise" replies to this one by metabolically advantaged folks who haven't

got the slightest clue how difficult it can be to lose weight when your body doesn't want to cooperate.)

Alternatively, put some rats on Seth Roberts's set-point diet (aka Shangri-La diet) and figure out the path of action, then develop it in pill

form for those of us where Seth Roberts's diet didn't work / didn't work well enough.

To make a lot of money, ask yourself where people aren't looking. Often the place they're not looking is a place of moral blindness. Plenty of us

would pay just about anything to look normal. The moral blindness part is the people being sanctimonious about fat being a sign of weak willpower

and having no concept of the actual science involved.
--------------

I have to admit, when looking at hardbodies, I sometimes fantasize about the kind of technology in Iain Banks' Culture. Just pick a body, and

then let the nanotech morph you into the desired shape while you go about your business over the next year or so. No need to go to the gym!

"When Eddy's doctor refuses to give her diet pills, best friend Patsy has some simple advice: 'lipo on the stomach and hips, bum lift, boob

job and lose a rib.'"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/abfab/vault/series1/fat.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/abfab/clips/series1/

myst101 said...

Yes, most of his argument is reductionist and based on generalizations (though not as much as your "paraphrase" of his argument). But, like it or not, there is a grain of truth in his argument.

Dale Carrico said...

That grain of truth is in the eye of the beholder and has interfered with his insight.

myst101 said...

Pellissier's argument about heterozygous advantage in Ashkenazi genetic diseases is nothing new. In fact, here is an article about it in the NY Timeshttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/science/03gene.html

Now, people like Murray & Herrnstein of Bell Curve infamy have put a racist twist on this by over-emphasizing genetic versus environmental influences on intelligence. To be fair, Pellissier doesn't do this. In fact, he seems to want to focus on environmental influences and says (direct quote from the article):

"That’s the range of explanations. My opinion is they’re all possibly correct, but what most intrigues me are the “environmental” factors—factors that are accessible to all humanity."

Sometimes we need to ask the hard questions about these environmental factors. Is it such a bad idea for kids to be playing chess and violin instead of playing video games & watching Jackass? Is it really such a bad idea to hold people to higher standards for working up to their potential rather than puffing people up with false self-confidence & preparing them for lifelong careers at Walmart?

Dale Carrico said...

He includes and even begins with eugenicist bio-reductionist bullshit, then turns to cultural stereotyping bullshit. You can give that a pass if you like, but I won't. And I don't think that's because you're being more fair than me.