Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All
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Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All
"LOVE LOVE LOVE your futorological brickbats! Love them! You are in fine company with Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary with these." -- Paulina Borsook
"Devoted to highly rhetorical nitpicking, but it is fun to read." -- Chris Mooney
"Rather close but correct reading." -- Evgeny Morozov
"Mean, but true." -- Annalee Newitz
"Dale Carrico's skewering of the salvific pretensions of Silicon Valley's soi disant savior/founders never disappoints." -- Frank Pasquale
"Pretty breathless, but I guess it had to be said." -- Bruce Sterling
"An essential reality check for those who are too entranced by transhumanism to notice the sordid reality behind the curtain." -- Charlie Stross
3 comments:
> No... Mutiny... but much snark. . .
Hey, is Zoltan still running for President? The Web site's
still there:
http://www.transhumanistparty.org/ZoltanIstvan.html
Daddy, I wanna vote for "The Science Candidate".
Can I daddy, please?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt0XHy3ustM
Transhumanist Zoltan Istvan on His Presidential Campaign
Singularity Weblog
Nov 20, 2015
Istvan to Nikola Danaylov: Now I've become a very visible
transhumanist who writes a lot and does a lot of things in
the community and I feel I owe a lot to you because of that.
This is a cheap shot, but it's still worth making:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL2gxb-TcLM
Dude, Where's My Car? (5/5) Movie CLIP - Zoltan Meeting (2000)
Movieclips
Jun 23, 2015
Transhumanists clearly live in one of the really out of the way pocket universes Heinlein couldn't even be bothered to describe in Number of the Beast.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL2gxb-TcLM
> Dude, Where's My Car? (5/5) Movie CLIP - Zoltan Meeting (2000)
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2016/07/23/oh-joy-new-gurus/
----------------
Oh, joy: new gurus
This article by Yvette d’Entremont is a bit discouraging:
http://deadstate.org/why-your-guru-is-bullshit/
she gives a list of the usual dorkadonkulous fraudsters,
like Joseph M[e]rcola and Deepak Chopra and David Avocado Wolfe,
but she also alerts us to the new loonies. . .
I’m. . . learning that being a dishonest fraud is profitable,
and that they are proliferating.
====
Yes, I've been noticing this lately myself. Cf. comments
I made at
http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2016/06/gun-violence-destroys-freedom.html
http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2016/07/so-principled.html
And here's one (the linked video is a news story **about**
a guru, not a sample of his YouTube channel ;-> ) who doesn't
beat around the burning bush!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML2Oa4Oigvo
I actually dared to leave a few longish comments (I never
make any other kind ;-> ) on the channel of one of these
self-styled life coaches the other day. I wasn't trying to
disparage him or needle him or anything; I just thought I had
a couple of worthwhile additions to some content I found interesting
(not that I actually expected to open up a **conversation** or
anything -- that's only marginally more likely on YouTube these
days than talking back to the TV would've been, to establish a
dialog, back in the days of my youth when TV was the premiere form of
visual entertainment in the home). I thought the response
I got was telling. I may be reading too much into it, but
then again. . . The first comment I made got through;
the next two (on unrelated videos) never did. I suspect this
was, in effect, "coach" telling me "there's only one guru on
this channel, pardner, and it ain't you!".
John Horgan once wrote about attending a satsang given by
American "guru" Andrew Cohen, in "The Myth of the Totally Enlightened Guru",
http://www.johnhorgan.org/the_myth_of_the_totally_enlightened_guru_15274.htm
He described how Cohen shut down an overly participatory audience member:
----------------
A burly, hairless man on the opposite side of the room. . .
was learning to embrace uncertainty. He was a CEO,
head of his own company, and everyone expected him to have
all the answers. But lately, when people asked him for advice,
he often answered, "I don’t know," and it was great!
Exhilarating! . . .
As Zorba kept telling us about the fabulousness of his life,
the tension in the room grew. Everyone watched Cohen watch Zorba.
Cohen remained stone-faced throughout Zorba’s monologue.
When Zorba paused to let us appreciate one of his witticisms,
Cohen said abruptly, "Next question," and looked around the room.
Immediately he was back in charge. He was the totally
enlightened guru here, not this bald blow-hard.
====
;->
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