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

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Robot Cultism... Now With Rawlsian Sprinkles

Sorry, Martine, it will take more than the occasional superficial nod to Rawls or Spinoza to distract anybody's attention from the fact that you are a Transhumanist Robot Cultist leading a Basement Robot Sub-Cult non-movement you are calling "Terasem" (Founder, President, Secretary, Treasurer, Bouncer, Membership = Martine Rothblatt) publishing "Journals" on made-up bullshit subjects like "geoethical nanotechnology" and "personal cyberconsciousness" (neither of which actually exist), flinging terms around like "Vitalogy" (about how biology is false because it doesn't account for robotic and software "life-forms" that do not exist).

You know, I went for months not writing about futurology here, even though the topic remains this blog's principal draw. It's all so ridiculous and so, well, robotically repetitious and predictable that it gets a little demoralizing tossing my darts at it over and over. And, yet, one can never forget that these futurological frames and arguments are just a clarifying exaggeration of the techno-fetishism, reductive scientism, neolib/neocon corporate-military triumphalist developmentalism, and deceptive hyperbole of marketing and promotion that define and suffuse so much of our actually disastrously prevailing policy discourse as well as the norms and forms of what passes for our public life.

1 comment:

jimf said...

> You know, I went for months not writing about futurology here,
> even though the topic remains this blog's principal draw.
> It's all so ridiculous and so, well, robotically repetitious
> and predictable that it gets a little demoralizing tossing my
> darts at it over and over.

Some morale-builders 4U. ;->

http://www.poe-news.com/forums/sp.php?pi=1001663980
----------------------------
There won't ever be a singularity. Ever.
Xiphias 02/21/08, 15:14

There's only two kinds of people who believe in the possibility
of a singularity: people completely removed from the scientific realm,
and lunatics.

The people in the first category, I can sympathize with. You're out
there and you're only real exposure to this world is Scientific American,
Popular Mechanics, and the odd news article. There's basically only
two kinds of articles in any of these publications: "Amazing New Something
To Change Everything" and "What If This Theory".

The thing about the pop-science magazines is that they know their audience.
They know you care about this stuff because it inspires a sense of wonder
in you. That's their entire product: a sense of wonder. . .
[Y]ou give them a few nice metaphors, make them marvel
at how strange the universe is, and that's all you can really do.
And that's fine.

But the problem is that this paints a very rosy picture. The magazines
and articles are trying to make you feel good, and the scientists behind
the articles are spinning it as best they can to get more funding. . .

And then the lunatics come along. They're the ones who have a very personal
investment in the whole idea of mankind's self-salvation. Maybe they're
just terrified of death, maybe they have god complexes, maybe they're just
clinically optimistic. Who knows.

So they churn out starry-eyed books and editorials and seminars about the
rights of disembodied consciousnesses and they start selling prepaid
legal services for your severed frozen head and the next thing you know
we have an entire Singularity subculture. They grab clueless kids,
basement dorks, would-be cultists who want all the koolaid of Jonestown
but none of the Religion...

I think about all the fat kids eating this shit up - "Don't worry, one day
we'll replace your asthmatic saggy-tittied walking corpse with a
shiny metal body made out of intelligent polymers" when what they really
need to be hearing is "kid if you play outside you'll find out the
world is pretty cool, and you'll lose weight in the process."

There's going to be a generation of obese shut-ins who, at 53, two heart
attacks past their first and one left to go, are still waiting for the
machines to come down from Olympus and save their diabetic asses.
It's such a horrible thing to tell people.
----------------------------

http://www.poe-news.com/forums/sp.php?pi=1002436149
----------------------------
Yudkowsky posts regularly on another forum I read.
Baldr 12/17/10, 23:39

It has an upvote/downvote system which makes it susceptible to
retarded cults of personality like the one surrounding Yudkowsky.
Mostly he just posts links to his narcissistic essays on
Less Wrong, but occasionally he deigns to drop some wisdom. . .

His thoughts on physical health problems. . .

> 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.)
----------------------------

See also:

Absolutely Fabulous - Fat - Part 1/3
http://www.tagtele.com/videos/voir/63667
Absolutely Fabulous - Fat - Part 2/3
http://www.tagtele.com/videos/voir/63666
Absolutely Fabulous - Fat - Part 3/3
http://www.tagtele.com/videos/voir/63664

;->