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

Monday, April 24, 2017

Decelerationist Grumblings

If futurologists were really progressive they would be celebrating struggle not speed.

Social justice is built at the speed of life, not the speed of light.

Beware the one who peddles violence via velocity.

Freedom happens at the speed of consent.

2 comments:

jimf said...

> Beware the one who peddles violence via velocity.

I need to take a pill.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2017/04/25/remember-the-old-days-when-atheism-was-a-philosophy-leading-to-a-bright-rational-future/

jimf said...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/25/the-republican-lawmaker-who-secretly-created-reddit-s-women-hating-red-pill.html
---------------------
The homegrown son of a preacher, 31-year-old Robert Fisher is a
Republican who represents New Hampshire’s Belknap County District 9.
In addition to his legislative duties, Fisher owns a local
computer-repair franchise. . .
====

Probably too young to have ever been an Extropian.

But speaking of New Hampshire, remember this guy?

http://3dblogger.typepad.com/wired_state/2014/09/good-lord-intlibber-mike-lorrey-is-running-for-office-in-new-hampshire-again.html
---------------------
(Catherine Fitzpatrick)

. . .If you don't remember him or know about Second Life,
read up on Intlibber Brautigan. . .

Intlibber isn't just an extreme libertarian, a wing-nut, an extremist,
a believer in various Internet cults like the Singularity, Transhumanism,
Extropianism, Cosmic Engineering and all the rest. He's a nasty,
vindictive griefer. . .

Intlibber first approached me with a conspiracy theory, that
"the government" was "experimenting on people" in this virtual world,
by organizing deliberate griefing, and then testing people's response.
Griefing means hacking, harassing, annoying, crashing sims, bothering,
spamming, etc. . .

I went to check out his claims and found that it was something
different -- college kids screwing around. . . -- the inmates running
the asylum. . . Woodbury. . . had a "digital arts" department.
The old professors there didn't know what that was, so they didn't
supervise it. Meanwhile, all these people were, was a branch of 4chan,
the notorious hacker movement that was always causing havoc. . .

[A] particularly virulent sect of 4chan called "the Patriotic Nigras" --
as you can see from their name, they delighted in racist, hateful,
anti-gay, anti-women, disgusting images, memes, spam, slogans, etc. . .

Linden Lab, the maker of Second Life, banned these people at
least 4-5 times, confiscating their servers each time. . .
They tried to convert this into "academic freedom" but. . . [i]t was
about vandalism, . . . [h]arassment, hacking, griefing. . .

Intlibber's quirky libertarian contribution to this mayhem was to
hire these people and give them money. . . [T]hese people wound up griefing
Intlibber, too.

But along the way, he befriended and colluded with them. Somehow, they
finagled for him a "sports scholarship" at Woodbury University in
California. How could an overweight middleaged smoker get a sports
scholarship, you ask? . . . [In a] virtual world [of course!]. . .

[T]hey were abetted by a professor who should have known better
and set an example instead of pretending that their misdeeds were
caused by them being "at-risk, black, inner-city youth" as he
once falsely claimed (they were actually all white, affluent suburbanites,
and part of their racist 4chan Patriotic Nigras shtick was to dress
up as blacks in Afros and spam people with pictures of Bill Cosby
and jello.). . .

I think publicity is the best weapon. People who would harass you
because you told the truth and chronicled the criminal actions of
a bunch of college kid hackers, who tried to suppress your critical
discussion of Internet topics like the Silicon Valley cults of
"the Singularity" and so on -- what kind of real liberals could they be???
"Libertarian" isn't liberal -- that's the first thing I learned
about Mike Lorrey's brand of libertarianism. . .

Someone like this shouldn't be in government, in my view. . .
====


It's so heart-warming to know that the old gang is still having
fun after all these years.

;->