Marcus - > > < I personally expect *practical* post/transhumanism to continue > inevitably at an accelerated rate and see no advantage in trying to > stand in it's way, but DO feel an ethical drive to try to at least > caution against the kinds of technological-outrunning-of-headlights I > believe already lead us to things like Dustbowl, Wildfire, > Infestation, and Inundation disasters, and pointedly Anthropogenic > Climate Change (which contributes to all of the above) and > multigenerational Refugee Crises. > > > We need better headlights: Individuals that are better able to ingest > and synthesize information and to look after themselves as well as > whatever group that remains after the next set of catastrophes that > are surely coming. Plainly, the scientific consensus is a big joke, > e.g. the Paris Agreement. The future is private research for private > interests. Get with it! > We need better headlights.
We can turn up the brightness and narrow the focus to maximize flux, but for many problems, that is not unlike hitting our high beams in a snowstorm or fogbank. One of the things I hope (mostly in vain, but not entirely) for from this list is discussion of how to apply Complex Systems Theory to predicting something more interesting/relevant to the human tragicomedy being played out right. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas%E2%80%93Kanade_method> The second component seems to reflect your bias against collective agency which may merely be in opposition to my own emphasis *for* collective agency. Would you say that you have more confidence or faith in enhancing individual agency than in seeking the synergies and emergent possibilities through enhancing collective agency? > < As an (apparent) proponent of fairly aggressive trans-humanism, can > you elaborate on what you see as the biggest promises/cautions to the > ideas involved? Do you see my "caution" as wrong headed, or just > irrelevant (in practice)? > > > I just see your caution as irrelevant. People of means that see > sufficient promise will go wherever they need to do perform the > procedures that interest them, whether it is for engineering their > kids to be smart and attractive or for high-risk disease intervention > or enhancement for themselves. There’s even an established market > and television programs about it – all the people that go to plastic > surgeons! Sooner or later word will get out about the successes and > failures. > My Molecular Biologist daughter had a business plan for "designer bacteriaphages" which she estimated would take about 2 weeks to turnaround.... a wealthy (or important?) enough person could have these being developed continuously in the background for the more threatening components of their microbiota, to be prepared for the unlikely but still possible chance that one of them might turn out to be "one of the many" or "Yet another" of the constantly mutating/emerging antibiotic resistant bacteria. As she described it, these designer bacteriophages would be slam-dunks for knocking down such an infection compared to any other alternative. For Elon Musk, Warren Buffet, the Trumps, the Gates, etc. it would be a "tiny" (by expense) prophylactic measure whose biggest downside would be that whomever was collecting, identifying, and sequencing samples would know a LOT about the makeup of the subjects entire biota... a new level of "invasion of privacy"? She shelved it because such a business model did not align well with any of her personal values or goals *except* having the financial freedom to do other things with her life. So yes, there are no end of "Gray Goo" and "Nuclear Holocaust" and "Singularity" Attractors on our fore horizon... and my Pollyanna ideas about "refusing to participate" (like my daughter) only slows it down by precisely less than one iota, and given my competence in some things, deferring may actually speed it up if anything! > And with one more term of Trump, there just will be no more `us’, > and no meaningful concept of regulation for the greater good. > > Transhumanism is a quaint term that suggests a collective that is > improving. It won’t be the collective, it will be a select few. > So I *think* I'm parsing (all) this as cynicism and pessimism, with maybe a dose of morbid fascination, not a moral judgement that in some way "it should be the select few"? I believe we may well be about to go through a choke-point in human diversity (genetic or cultural) as severe as the one which gives us all the common "Mitochondrial Eve" ancestral great^n grandmother from (was it 50k years ago on the east coast of South Africa?) but with the difference that the likely survivors will the those who control the highest (or most relevant of the fairly high) tech around genetic manipulation on top of control of more mundane resources (energy, exotic metals, technology, etc.) Will this coincide with some kind of Kurzweilian/Broderick/Vinge Singularity? I don't know. I'll bet THIS message from the future drives you totally bonkers: https://theintercept.com/2019/04/17/green-new-deal-short-film-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/ - Steve
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