Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All
Saturday, March 02, 2013
Realtime Robocult Id and Ick
"Raymond Johnson" links in the Moot to a huge archive of not very nice not very grammatical not very sensible not very impressive virtual smoke-filled backroom cultic caterwauling.
http://hpluselection2013.tumblr.com/post/43477510432/superman-transhumanists-cant-so-much-as-organize-a --------------------- I could not agree with you more about the issue of perceived value, or lack thereof, being a driving factor in H+’s lack of membership. I think part of the issue might also be that people expect H+ to actively design and manufacture actual >H technologies, and might be a bit disappointed when they find that membership doesn’t come with an artificial hippocampus and a years’s supply of proprietary life extension supplements. But a survey is definitely the best way to find out for sure. ---------------------
I've got to say, actually wading into this seething mess of an archive has its flabbergasting moments, even for a critic of two decades standing... I mean, the back and forth over Natasha's and Anissimov's and Haywire's election shenanigans -- allegedly! as Kathy would say -- over various transhumanoid tinpot fiefdoms are pretty (in a not-pretty way) sad/hilarious.
Actually, having skimmed through all the messages in the archive, there isn't very much interesting here.
There's squabbling over a contested H+ board election, and an apparent feud between controversial new H+ board member Rachel "Haywire" Mendelson "Marone" (whom we've heard about and possibly from before) and her apparent ally Michael Anissimov on the one hand, and Natasha Vita-More, Max More, and Ben Goertzel on the other. There's also an apparent feud between Ms. Mendelson and H+ Magazine editor Peter Rothman.
It's clear that there are some fundamental disagreements between the representatives of "old-guard" >Hism (the Mores, Goertzel and Rothman) and Ms. Mendelson over some of the associations that have been imputed to the latter (occultism, fringe political movements perhaps even associated with authoritarian, racist, maybe even neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideologies). I certainly find it dismaying that Anissimov has gotten caught up in this, if the allegations are true.
Beyond the material here, there are broader indications that some of the >Hist organizations as they have been constituted during the past decade or decade and a half are developing rifts and spinning off in strange directions.
For example, I was kind of surprised to hear Max and Natasha Vita-More, in their book interview "Max More and Natasha Vita-More The Transhumanist Reader" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETCOJFTW5Ew say things like:
(27:05 - 29:20)
"A big change is that. . .over time, it's [Transhumanism has] become more about -- I think it's gone excessively the other way [from early aspirational science-fictional Transhumanism] -- it's overly concerned with risks. And now it's all existential risks and 'Oh, we might cause the end of the world!'. Bill Joy has won, basically -- a large part of Transhumanism is focussed on that [i.e., existential risks]" (Max)
"It's gone way too far in existential risk and the Singularity and "Friendly AI", so much so that it's not looking at the fact that the future doesn't happen as we plan it to happen -- there's tipping points, there's curves, there's the unknown, and it's not just one scenario of it, it never has been. . ." (Natasha)
This is something new -- I haven't heard the Mores speak out against the SIAI and FAI crowds, publicly and explicitly, before. They've always, in the past, been more concerned with circling the >Hist wagons and presenting a unified "front". That seems no longer to be the case. Here, we have what looks like a public repudiation of both Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nick Bostrom.
We also have Ben Goertzel publicly repudiating the "Friendly AI" stuff http://multiverseaccordingtoben.blogspot.com/2010/10/singularity-institutes-scary-idea-and.html
And finally we have the spectacle of the group that Yudkowsky has accreted around his blog LessWrong going off on tangents that have been publicly exposed and ridiculed (as in the recent thread on Charlie Stross's blog http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/02/rokos-basilisk-wants-you.html ).
The LessWrong crowd (the erstwhile Singularity Institute's "outer party") seems bent on following the trajectory of Scientology more closely than even I would have presumed to predict -- we've now got a cadre of self-styled "formal rationalists" teaching the wogs how to "think" (not just on the blog, but in classes given by the spin-off "Center for Applied Rationality" [CFAR]), we've got communal houses and candle-lit ritual readings from H. P. Lovecraft, and who knows what else.
[T]here isn't very much interesting here. There's squabbling over a contested H+ board election and an apparent feud between controversial new H+ board member Rachel "Haywire" Mendelson "Marone" (whom we've heard about and possibly from before) and her apparent ally Michael Anissimov on the one hand, and Natasha Vita-More, Max More, and Ben Goertzel on the other... there are some fundamental disagreements between the representatives of "old-guard" >Hism (the Mores, Goertzel and Rothman) and Ms. Mendelson over... associations that have been imputed to the latter (occultism, fringe political movements perhaps even associated with authoritarian, racist, maybe even neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideologies). I certainly find it dismaying that Anissimov has gotten caught up in this, if the allegations are true... there are broader indications that some of the >Hist organizations as they have been constituted during the past decade or decade and a half are developing rifts and spinning off in strange directions.
This summary and assessment largely squares with mine, though I daresay some would disagree in reading it that "there isn't very much interesting here." I was intrigued but not at all surprised by the anti-democratic political assumptions that seemed to hover in the background of arguments and justifications swirling around the contested election brouhaha (which, you are right, of itself isn't exactly more interesting than the comparable tempests in a teapot that accompany politics at the PTA and county supervisor level across the USA). As an observer of many years of Robot Cult conduct at the membership organization discussion group level, it is also interesting to remind ourselves that ">Hist orgs... developing rifts and spinning off in strange directions" including "occultism, fringe political movements perhaps even associated with authoritarian, racist, maybe even neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideologies" isn't exactly an unprecedented phenomenon but suggests that >Hist Robotcults are persistent strange attractors for such affinities, however stridently policed by top-tier transhumanoid suits who know serious sanewashing of that horrorshow is a precondition for getting $cratch out of the whole digi-nano-boner pill-cryonics-Holodeck heaven-Robocalypse scam-plex.
You do go on yourself to offer up a broader context that adds more interest still when you elaborate:
I was kind of surprised to hear Max and Natasha Vita-More, in their book interview...: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETCOJFTW5Ew say things like: (27:05 - 29:20) [snip] I haven't heard the Mores speak out against the SIAI and FAI crowds, publicly and explicitly, before. They've always, in the past, been more concerned with circling the >Hist wagons and presenting a unified "front". That seems no longer to be the case. Here, we have what looks like a public repudiation of both Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nick Bostrom.
Yes, it's the tension with Bostrom and the Oxford folks that I find most surprising in this (not that I disagree with them about Bostrom being wrong, I just think they manage to be even more wrong about more than even he manages to be), since there is real money and real institutional heft involved. It's less surprising to fancy them in a crackpot turf war with Yudkowsky at the margins where he dwells. That does become a bit funnier, I suppose, with the long view that recognizes they are re-enacting James Hughes' earlier moves a decade ago against the singularitarians in his bid to build a "democratic transhumanism" via IEET that the Married Mores battled in the name of Ayn Raelian dead-ender extropianism at the time.
And finally we have the spectacle of the group that Yudkowsky has accreted around his blog LessWrong going off on tangents that have been publicly exposed and ridiculed (as in the recent thread on Charlie Stross's blog http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/02/rokos-basilisk-wants-you.html ). The LessWrong crowd (the erstwhile Singularity Institute's "outer party") seems bent on following the trajectory of Scientology more closely than even I would have presumed to predict.
Well, yes, All Wrong has certainly been making a spectacle of itself lately -- they are veering straight into Prisco church of cyberangel immortal-upload level batshit territory these days.
> Yes, it's the tension with Bostrom and the Oxford folks > that I find most surprising in this. . .
Yes, I meant to say, instead of ". . .speak out against the SIAI and FAI crowds. . .", ". . .FHI crowds. . ." as in Bostrom's Future of Humanity Institute.
Hm. I notice that Dirk Bruere's name comes up in http://hpluselection2013.tumblr.com/post/44103041075/rachel-haywire-mendelson-marone-is-an-out-occultist
Mention is made of:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Praxis-ebook/dp/B008OW138Y ------------------ The Praxis by Dirk Bruere Publication Date: July 24, 2012
Immortality in the multiverse, The Artilect Messiahs, The end of death and suffering, Humans into Gods, The rise of the unreal, Raising the dead, Apocalypse and Judgment Day, The validation of religion, ... and what we must do about it ------------------
( http://telexlr8.net/2013/01/12/dirk-bruere-on-the-praxis-january-12-2013/ ; review by Giulio Prisco at http://turingchurch.com/2012/08/15/the-praxis-by-dirk-bruere/
"Instead of using aseptic modern terms taken from computer science, Dirk prefers to borrow from the world’s religious traditions, of which he demonstrates an encyclopedic knowledge." )
Mr. Bruere's been hovering around the >Hist fringes for a long time.
http://www.sl4.org/archive/0603/14308.html ------------ Dirk Bruere wrote: > Some of you may know me, but for those who don't I'll give you a brief > resume. > My main interests, apart from scitech, are religion and politics, most > especially in connection with Transhumanism. In this context I am the > founder of the world's first Transhumanist political party. It is called > the Consensus ( http://www.theconsensus.org ) and is registered in the > UK. Business-wise I'm a partner in a VR startup in the UK, but that's > all secret until we launch our products later this year (hopefully). I'm > also peripherally involved in bringing to market a brilliant piece of > engineering that really will take the world by storm. Anyway, on with > dishing the dirt... > > Been 'constructively dismissed' from the WTA list by Hughes because he > did not like my political views, and kicked from Natasha's toy the ExI > list without warning for transgressing The Unwritten Rules (religion > this time). Seems like I was on double secret probation or something. > Spike seemed to think that using the word 'cult' anywhere within earshot > might have had something to do with it. > Third time lucky eh? > > Currently wondering whether every such org has Things That Must Not Be > Spoken to such a degree that they are not even mentioned in any rules. I > guess I'll find out:-) ------------
His tenure on LessWrong seems to have been brief: http://lesswrong.com/user/Dirk/overview/
He also seems to have tangled with Charlie Stross:
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/02/rokos-basilisk-wants-you.html#comments ------------ Dirk's transcendence into a Singularity AI was foretold by his sudden ubiquity in the comments section. I suspect if ever dare to look back, we will discover that he had always already comprised half of the mass of this site. The Flounce has disturbed future theologians for centuries hence. How could Dirk suddenly cease to exist? Did he actually evaporate or did he disperse throughout all of human thought like a giant dandelion with little Carl Sagans riding on each seed? If he returns would he favor us or would we be as an amoeba to him? ====
Giulio Prisco [and others] Interviewing Dirk Bruere on The Praxis Book (a video) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/prisco20130113
(I've never heard the voices of these folks before. Bruere's interlocutors are: Giulio Prisco, Lincoln Cannon (who does the bulk of the interlocuting ;-> ), Eugen Leitl, Micah Redding
Transhumanism is useful because it "softens skepticism", sez Cannon. Hm.
There's a Part Two at http://telexlr8.net/2013/02/05/dirk-bruere-on-the-praxis-february-2-2013/
Bruere also seems to be involved with (or a founder of) an "alternative" >Hist organization called Zero State http://zerostate.net/
Another name associated with "Zero State" (perhaps its principal founder) is "Amon Kalkin". http://www.lulu.com/us/en/shop/amon-kalkin-and-bryce-a-lynch-and-dirk-bruere-and-max-rael/zero-state-year-zero/paperback/product-20312991.html
Association with ZS seems to be a cause of some of the controversy among the H+ principals -- Peter Rothman is afraid (quite sensibly, I think) of any H+ "involvement with unusual religious movements, radical politics, etc." Other folks accuse Rothman of overreacting. ( http://hpluselection2013.tumblr.com/post/43977765623/rachel-haywire-calls-for-rothmans-head-wants-more )
The neo-Fascist allegations (primarily against a particular person who has become a prominent member of ZS, and who has long been a frequent poster to the Extropians' mailing list) are discussed in: http://transhumanpraxis.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/transcending-the-politics-of-left-and-right-part-1-of-12/
Peter Rothman is afraid (quite sensibly, I think) of any H+ "involvement with unusual religious movements, radical politics, etc."
Needless to say, Rothman would be more sensible still were he to ponder whether there is something about the adulation of skim-scam celebrity tech CEOs and guru-wannabes in a defensive marginal fandom sub(cult)ure congratulating itself on its superior rationality, coupled with techno-transcendental wish-fulfillment fantasies about immortality, sooper powers, and unimaginable treasure, all wedded to hyperbolic pseudo-scientific beliefs about coding perfectly efficacious sooper-intelligent software, programming and controlling swarms of billions of robust reliable self-replicating room-temperature nanoscale robots, "digitizing" and "uploading" info-souls from biologically incarnated, socially embedded selves, and so on, might indeed be uniquely susceptible to affinity with "unusual religious movements."
Needless to say, Rothman would be more sensible still were he to ponder whether there is something about evo-devo reductionism and eugenic "enhancement" discourse, coupled with hyper-consumer gizmo-fetishism, all wedded to hyperbolic near-paranoid War on Terror "existential risk" discourse involving Robot Gods, engineered pandemics, planet-swallowing runaway goo, asteroid storms, and mega-industrial geo-engineering climate warfare might be uniquely susceptible to affinity with "radical politics," especially of the racist, authoritarian corporate-militarist kinds in question here.
http://hpluselection2013.tumblr.com/post/43477510432/superman-transhumanists-cant-so-much-as-organize-a
ReplyDelete---------------------
I could not agree with you more about the issue of perceived value, or
lack thereof, being a driving factor in H+’s lack of membership. I think
part of the issue might also be that people expect H+ to actively design
and manufacture actual >H technologies, and might be a bit disappointed
when they find that membership doesn’t come with an artificial hippocampus
and a years’s supply of proprietary life extension supplements. But a
survey is definitely the best way to find out for sure.
---------------------
Shall I make popcorn?
> . . .text dump from the private humanityplus.org
ReplyDelete> members only email list aka a vast and epic bitch fight. . .
H+ has its own Wikileaks!
I've got to say, actually wading into this seething mess of an archive has its flabbergasting moments, even for a critic of two decades standing... I mean, the back and forth over Natasha's and Anissimov's and Haywire's election shenanigans -- allegedly! as Kathy would say -- over various transhumanoid tinpot fiefdoms are pretty (in a not-pretty way) sad/hilarious.
ReplyDeleteActually, having skimmed through all the messages in the
ReplyDeletearchive, there isn't very much interesting here.
There's squabbling over a contested H+ board election,
and an apparent feud between controversial new H+ board
member Rachel "Haywire" Mendelson "Marone" (whom we've
heard about and possibly from before) and her apparent
ally Michael Anissimov on the one hand, and
Natasha Vita-More, Max More, and Ben Goertzel on the
other. There's also an apparent feud between
Ms. Mendelson and H+ Magazine editor Peter Rothman.
It's clear that there are some fundamental disagreements
between the representatives of "old-guard" >Hism
(the Mores, Goertzel and Rothman) and Ms. Mendelson
over some of the associations that have been imputed
to the latter (occultism, fringe political movements
perhaps even associated with authoritarian,
racist, maybe even neo-Nazi and white supremacist
ideologies). I certainly find it dismaying that
Anissimov has gotten caught up in this, if the
allegations are true.
Beyond the material here, there are broader indications that
some of the >Hist organizations as they have been
constituted during the past decade or decade and
a half are developing rifts and spinning off in
strange directions.
For example, I was kind of surprised to hear
Max and Natasha Vita-More, in their book interview
"Max More and Natasha Vita-More The Transhumanist Reader"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETCOJFTW5Ew
say things like:
(27:05 - 29:20)
"A big change is that. . .over time, it's
[Transhumanism has] become more about --
I think it's gone excessively the other way [from early
aspirational science-fictional Transhumanism] --
it's overly concerned with risks. And now it's all existential
risks and 'Oh, we might cause the end of the world!'.
Bill Joy has won, basically -- a large part of
Transhumanism is focussed on that [i.e., existential
risks]" (Max)
"It's gone way too far in existential risk and the
Singularity and "Friendly AI", so much so that it's
not looking at the fact that the future doesn't happen
as we plan it to happen -- there's tipping points,
there's curves, there's the unknown, and it's
not just one scenario of it, it never has been. . ."
(Natasha)
This is something new -- I haven't heard the Mores
speak out against the SIAI and FAI crowds, publicly and explicitly,
before. They've always, in the past, been more
concerned with circling the >Hist wagons and presenting
a unified "front". That seems no longer to be
the case. Here, we have what looks like a public
repudiation of both Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nick Bostrom.
We also have Ben Goertzel publicly repudiating the
"Friendly AI" stuff
http://multiverseaccordingtoben.blogspot.com/2010/10/singularity-institutes-scary-idea-and.html
And finally we have the spectacle of the group that Yudkowsky
has accreted around his blog LessWrong going off on
tangents that have been publicly exposed and ridiculed
(as in the recent thread on Charlie Stross's blog
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/02/rokos-basilisk-wants-you.html ).
The LessWrong crowd (the erstwhile Singularity Institute's
"outer party") seems bent on following the trajectory of Scientology
more closely than even I would have presumed to predict -- we've
now got a cadre of self-styled "formal rationalists"
teaching the wogs how to "think" (not just on the blog,
but in classes given by the spin-off "Center for Applied
Rationality" [CFAR]), we've got communal houses
and candle-lit ritual readings from H. P. Lovecraft,
and who knows what else.
[T]here isn't very much interesting here. There's squabbling over a contested H+ board election and an apparent feud between controversial new H+ board member Rachel "Haywire" Mendelson "Marone" (whom we've heard about and possibly from before) and her apparent ally Michael Anissimov on the one hand, and Natasha Vita-More, Max More, and Ben Goertzel on the other... there are some fundamental disagreements between the representatives of "old-guard" >Hism (the Mores, Goertzel and Rothman) and Ms. Mendelson over... associations that have been imputed to the latter (occultism, fringe political movements perhaps even associated with authoritarian, racist, maybe even neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideologies). I certainly find it dismaying that Anissimov has gotten caught up in this, if the allegations are true... there are broader indications that some of the >Hist organizations as they have been constituted during the past decade or decade and a half are developing rifts and spinning off in strange directions.
ReplyDeleteThis summary and assessment largely squares with mine, though I daresay some would disagree in reading it that "there isn't very much interesting here." I was intrigued but not at all surprised by the anti-democratic political assumptions that seemed to hover in the background of arguments and justifications swirling around the contested election brouhaha (which, you are right, of itself isn't exactly more interesting than the comparable tempests in a teapot that accompany politics at the PTA and county supervisor level across the USA). As an observer of many years of Robot Cult conduct at the membership organization discussion group level, it is also interesting to remind ourselves that ">Hist orgs... developing rifts and spinning off in strange directions" including "occultism, fringe political movements perhaps even associated with authoritarian, racist, maybe even neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideologies" isn't exactly an unprecedented phenomenon but suggests that >Hist Robotcults are persistent strange attractors for such affinities, however stridently policed by top-tier transhumanoid suits who know serious sanewashing of that horrorshow is a precondition for getting $cratch out of the whole digi-nano-boner pill-cryonics-Holodeck heaven-Robocalypse scam-plex.
You do go on yourself to offer up a broader context that adds more interest still when you elaborate:
ReplyDeleteI was kind of surprised to hear Max and Natasha Vita-More, in their book interview...: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETCOJFTW5Ew say things like: (27:05 - 29:20) [snip] I haven't heard the Mores speak out against the SIAI and FAI crowds, publicly and explicitly, before. They've always, in the past, been more concerned with circling the >Hist wagons and presenting a unified "front". That seems no longer to be the case. Here, we have what looks like a public repudiation of both Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nick Bostrom.
Yes, it's the tension with Bostrom and the Oxford folks that I find most surprising in this (not that I disagree with them about Bostrom being wrong, I just think they manage to be even more wrong about more than even he manages to be), since there is real money and real institutional heft involved. It's less surprising to fancy them in a crackpot turf war with Yudkowsky at the margins where he dwells. That does become a bit funnier, I suppose, with the long view that recognizes they are re-enacting James Hughes' earlier moves a decade ago against the singularitarians in his bid to build a "democratic transhumanism" via IEET that the Married Mores battled in the name of Ayn Raelian dead-ender extropianism at the time.
And finally we have the spectacle of the group that Yudkowsky has accreted around his blog LessWrong going off on tangents that have been publicly exposed and ridiculed (as in the recent thread on Charlie Stross's blog http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/02/rokos-basilisk-wants-you.html ). The LessWrong crowd (the erstwhile Singularity Institute's "outer party") seems bent on following the trajectory of Scientology more closely than even I would have presumed to predict.
Well, yes, All Wrong has certainly been making a spectacle of itself lately -- they are veering straight into Prisco church of cyberangel immortal-upload level batshit territory these days.
> Yes, it's the tension with Bostrom and the Oxford folks
ReplyDelete> that I find most surprising in this. . .
Yes, I meant to say, instead of
". . .speak out against the SIAI and FAI crowds. . .",
". . .FHI crowds. . ." as in Bostrom's
Future of Humanity Institute.
Hm. I notice that Dirk Bruere's name comes up in
ReplyDeletehttp://hpluselection2013.tumblr.com/post/44103041075/rachel-haywire-mendelson-marone-is-an-out-occultist
Mention is made of:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Praxis-ebook/dp/B008OW138Y
------------------
The Praxis
by Dirk Bruere
Publication Date: July 24, 2012
Immortality in the multiverse,
The Artilect Messiahs,
The end of death and suffering,
Humans into Gods,
The rise of the unreal,
Raising the dead,
Apocalypse and Judgment Day,
The validation of religion,
... and what we must do about it
------------------
( http://telexlr8.net/2013/01/12/dirk-bruere-on-the-praxis-january-12-2013/ ;
review by Giulio Prisco at
http://turingchurch.com/2012/08/15/the-praxis-by-dirk-bruere/
"Instead of using aseptic modern terms taken from computer science,
Dirk prefers to borrow from the world’s religious traditions, of
which he demonstrates an encyclopedic knowledge." )
Mr. Bruere's been hovering around the >Hist fringes for a long
time.
http://www.sl4.org/archive/0603/14308.html
------------
Dirk Bruere wrote:
> Some of you may know me, but for those who don't I'll give you a brief
> resume.
> My main interests, apart from scitech, are religion and politics, most
> especially in connection with Transhumanism. In this context I am the
> founder of the world's first Transhumanist political party. It is called
> the Consensus ( http://www.theconsensus.org ) and is registered in the
> UK. Business-wise I'm a partner in a VR startup in the UK, but that's
> all secret until we launch our products later this year (hopefully). I'm
> also peripherally involved in bringing to market a brilliant piece of
> engineering that really will take the world by storm. Anyway, on with
> dishing the dirt...
>
> Been 'constructively dismissed' from the WTA list by Hughes because he
> did not like my political views, and kicked from Natasha's toy the ExI
> list without warning for transgressing The Unwritten Rules (religion
> this time). Seems like I was on double secret probation or something.
> Spike seemed to think that using the word 'cult' anywhere within earshot
> might have had something to do with it.
> Third time lucky eh?
>
> Currently wondering whether every such org has Things That Must Not Be
> Spoken to such a degree that they are not even mentioned in any rules. I
> guess I'll find out:-)
------------
His tenure on LessWrong seems to have been brief:
http://lesswrong.com/user/Dirk/overview/
He also seems to have tangled with Charlie Stross:
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/02/rokos-basilisk-wants-you.html#comments
------------
Dirk's transcendence into a Singularity AI was foretold by his
sudden ubiquity in the comments section. I suspect if ever dare
to look back, we will discover that he had always already comprised
half of the mass of this site. The Flounce has disturbed future
theologians for centuries hence. How could Dirk suddenly cease
to exist? Did he actually evaporate or did he disperse throughout
all of human thought like a giant dandelion with little Carl Sagans
riding on each seed? If he returns would he favor us or would
we be as an amoeba to him?
====
Charlie Stross replied. . .
Dirk Flounced quite spectacularly, as I recall.
I wonder if this will cause him to un-Flounce?
(Please don't answer that.)
====
Giulio Prisco [and others] Interviewing Dirk Bruere on The Praxis Book
ReplyDelete(a video)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/prisco20130113
(I've never heard the voices of these folks before.
Bruere's interlocutors are:
Giulio Prisco, Lincoln Cannon (who does the bulk of
the interlocuting ;-> ), Eugen Leitl, Micah Redding
Transhumanism is useful because it "softens skepticism",
sez Cannon. Hm.
There's a Part Two at
http://telexlr8.net/2013/02/05/dirk-bruere-on-the-praxis-february-2-2013/
Bruere also seems to be involved with (or a founder of)
an "alternative" >Hist organization called Zero State
http://zerostate.net/
Another name associated with "Zero State" (perhaps its
principal founder) is "Amon Kalkin".
http://www.lulu.com/us/en/shop/amon-kalkin-and-bryce-a-lynch-and-dirk-bruere-and-max-rael/zero-state-year-zero/paperback/product-20312991.html
Association with ZS seems to be a cause of some of the controversy
among the H+ principals -- Peter Rothman is afraid (quite sensibly,
I think) of any H+ "involvement with unusual religious movements,
radical politics, etc." Other folks accuse Rothman of
overreacting.
( http://hpluselection2013.tumblr.com/post/43977765623/rachel-haywire-calls-for-rothmans-head-wants-more )
The neo-Fascist allegations (primarily against a particular
person who has become a prominent member of ZS, and who has
long been a frequent poster to the Extropians' mailing list)
are discussed in:
http://transhumanpraxis.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/transcending-the-politics-of-left-and-right-part-1-of-12/
It's all very complicated.
Peter Rothman is afraid (quite sensibly, I think) of any H+ "involvement with unusual religious movements, radical politics, etc."
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say, Rothman would be more sensible still were he to ponder whether there is something about the adulation of skim-scam celebrity tech CEOs and guru-wannabes in a defensive marginal fandom sub(cult)ure congratulating itself on its superior rationality, coupled with techno-transcendental wish-fulfillment fantasies about immortality, sooper powers, and unimaginable treasure, all wedded to hyperbolic pseudo-scientific beliefs about coding perfectly efficacious sooper-intelligent software, programming and controlling swarms of billions of robust reliable self-replicating room-temperature nanoscale robots, "digitizing" and "uploading" info-souls from biologically incarnated, socially embedded selves, and so on, might indeed be uniquely susceptible to affinity with "unusual religious movements."
Needless to say, Rothman would be more sensible still were he to ponder whether there is something about evo-devo reductionism and eugenic "enhancement" discourse, coupled with hyper-consumer gizmo-fetishism, all wedded to hyperbolic near-paranoid War on Terror "existential risk" discourse involving Robot Gods, engineered pandemics, planet-swallowing runaway goo, asteroid storms, and mega-industrial geo-engineering climate warfare might be uniquely susceptible to affinity with "radical politics," especially of the racist, authoritarian corporate-militarist kinds in question here.
All that and still it add's up to less then a fart in a windstorm...
ReplyDeleteThe bitchyness and back biting is hilarious though.