tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post727286436089324741..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: Shooting BlanksDale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-49104406515749584972014-11-08T17:42:13.817-08:002014-11-08T17:42:13.817-08:00http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAXUVUM-N00
-------...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAXUVUM-N00<br />---------------<br />Festival of Dangerous Ideas: Panel - The End Of The World As We Know It <br />Published on Sep 1, 2014<br /><br />What does the future hold? A reign of world peace with stunning medical<br />breakthroughs? Or a world where human beings have destroyed the web of<br />living things and put our own existence at risk by playing with science<br />we don’t fully understand?<br />====<br /><br />Steven Pinker is the big star. He's an "existential risk" skeptic.<br /><br />Jaan Tallinn[*] is one of the four participants.<br />It's unfortunate that he has the handicap of<br />being a non-native speaker of English.<br /><br />[*] Tallinn is listed as a co-founder of the Future of Life Institute<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Life_Institute<br />(in Cambridge, MA and claiming some MIT professors as co-founders, but<br />not, as far as I can tell, actually **affiliated** with MIT)<br />http://thefutureoflife.org/who<br />Hey -- they've got Alan Alda and Morgan Freeman, too!<br />Bring on the celebs! Celebs for The Future!<br /><br />He's also thrown bucks at the Future of Humanity Institute<br />in Oxford, and is a backer of MetaMed (you know, the doctors<br />who will be Less Wrong for you, if you can afford them. ;-> ).jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-63527783732568194532014-11-08T05:50:01.444-08:002014-11-08T05:50:01.444-08:00http://futurismic.com/2014/10/12/make-technologica...http://futurismic.com/2014/10/12/make-technological-utopia-easier-with-this-one-weird-trick/<br />--------------------<br />Make technological utopia easier with this one weird trick<br />Paul Raven<br />12 Oct 2014<br /><br />Kevin Kelly’s “desirable-future haikus” thing on Medium<br />( https://medium.com/message/a-desirable-future-haiku-ff01d63c93c6 )<br />is a great example of what I believe to be the standard blindspot of<br />I[nformation and]C[communication]T[echnology]-focussed futurists,<br />in that they’ve forgotten that anything other than ICT could possibly<br />matter or make a difference to the way we live. . .<br /><br />What comes as no surprise is that the resulting scenarios (with a few exceptions)<br />are packed full of all the standard transhumanist techno-cornucopian tropes<br />(**immortality! super-abundance! energy too cheap to bother metering!<br />perpetual economic growth from the free-est algorithmically-managed markets EVAR!**)<br />with a few recent additions to the pantheon<br />(**the [{Bitcoin} blockchain/free-energy-device/fusion/Big Data/quantitative analysis] will save us!**),<br />all of which share. . . the belief that, if we can just invent or code up that<br />one perfect bit of technology we’re missing, everything will fall into place. . .<br /><br />[Another]. . . trait is that most of them read as ridiculously naïve. . .<br />Kelly’s problem – the unwritableness of a “plausible technological future” – is<br />implicit in his formulation; it’s impossible to write a believable<br />future where technology has fixed everything because “technology” doesn’t<br />make things better. People make things better – sometimes through the use<br />of new technology, but certainly not exclusively. . .<br /><br />[W]hat bothers me about these scenarios is that they largely remove agency<br />from human subjects, being variations on the Software Salvationism which<br />believes that all obstacles might be overcome through the addition of<br />EVN MOAR ALGOS PLZ, and assumes (falsely, I hope) that people would like<br />less direct control over the way their world works rather than more. . .<br /><br />But it’s easily enough stepped out of; all you need to do is<br />take the “technology” specifier out of the question, and/or avoid<br />asking it of people who identify with technology in either an<br />entrepreneurial or quasi-religious manner (no beer for you, Ray Kurzweil).<br />By way of example, here’s my own late submission to Kelly’s call,<br />a 101-word haiku describing a desirable future:<br /><br />> No one goes hungry. No one sleeps outdoors, unless they choose to.<br />> No one is conscripted as a child-soldier. No one is maimed by land-mines<br />> made on the other side of the world. No one is exploited for the<br />> betterment or gain of another. No one is a second class citizen to anyone.<br />> Nothing is wasted. Things – whether material or digital – are made with<br />> care and thought, and are made to last a long, long time. We appreciate<br />> a plurality of systems of value alongside the legacy cash-money system,<br />> which we keep going as a honey-trap distraction for the instinctively<br />> acquisitive.<br /><br />If that’s not utopian and desirable, I don’t know what it is. And as implausible,<br />unlikely and peacenik-pie-in-the-sky as you might (very reasonably) choose to<br />call it, it is possible — because it doesn’t require us to make a single damned<br />invention or piece of software we don’t already have. . .<br />====jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-85861214629480871992014-11-07T05:55:11.730-08:002014-11-07T05:55:11.730-08:00> Futurology is a form of [religion]. . .
http...> Futurology is a form of [religion]. . .<br /><br />http://www.salon.com/2014/11/04/cosmologist_lawrence_krauss_religion_could_be_largely_gone_in_a_generation/<br />------------------<br />Cosmologist Lawrence Krauss believes that in a generation religion<br />could disappear. . .<br /><br />“Change is always one generation away. So if we can plant the seeds<br />of doubt in our children, religion will go away in a generation, or<br />at least largely go away. And that’s what I think we have an obligation<br />to do.”<br /><br />Krauss also discussed the way that critical thinking should be<br />taught in schools — not teaching logic in the abstract but having<br />children confront their own misconceptions. He also stated that teachers<br />and parents should instill curiosity and doubt in their children, and<br />not what to learn but train them how to think. . .<br />====<br /><br />Hmpf.<br /><br />**Your** religion may be gone in a generation, but **my** --<br />Let's not call it a religion, OK? There's no need to be rude! --<br />coccoon of conveniently-comforting beliefs -- is perfectly reasonable.<br /><br />(Same with my politics, BTW. Only let's not call them politics, either.)<br /><br />"Train them how to think"? My guide-to-applied-rationality<br />("Guru" you say? Shut your mouth!) taught **me** how to think.<br />And he's smarter than all of you!<br /><br />So there.jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.com