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

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Look, Ma, A Technologist!

When someone declares themselves a "technologist" it is usually safest to assume they are bragging about using language and wearing clothes.

3 comments:

jimf said...

> . . .using language and wearing clothes. . .

Wot, no Rings of Power?

;->

jimf said...

transPBSism:

http://www.dailynews.com/arts-and-entertainment/20151012/questions-about-the-brain-on-david-eaglemans-mind-to-be-explored-on-pbs-series
-----------------
Questions about ‘The Brain’ on David Eagleman’s mind to be explored on PBS series
By Rob Lowman, Los Angeles Daily News
10/12/15, 1:32

In the six-part “The Brain With David Eagleman,” which
begins on many PBS stations Wednesday, the neuroscientist
tries to shed some light on the inner-working of brains,
something few of us have any inkling about even though
it’s perched on our head under our skull.

. . .

“We’re at a moment in human history when the marriage
of our biology and our technology will transcend the
brain’s limitations. We can hack our own hardware to steer
a course into the future,” Eagleman writes in
“The Brain: The Story of You,” the companion book to
the series.

It’s a concept called “transhumanism,” and it’s possible
our decedents[*] in 500 years will have less in common with us
than we have with our Stone Age ancestors from thousands
of years ago.

Changing who we are has been going on for a long time,
notes Eagleman, from putting a cast on a broken bone to
eyeglasses to pacemakers and beyond. . .
====

[*] decedent: noun (Law)
a person who has died.
"to make sure the decedent's property passes to his children"

I suspect that this word was intended to be "descendants"
but was misspelled by the author and auto-corrected
to an unintentionally funny/ironic substitute.


David Eagleman on Possibilianism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS0b4QCpFGc

Dale Carrico said...

A mordant and decadent youth
Said, "Beauty is greater than truth.
But by beauty I mean,
The obscure, the obscene,
The diseased, the decayed, the uncouth."
-- Thomas Thorneley

I like the cut of that youth's jib.