> I frankly can't imagine our "species" (Homo faber) surviving our own > short sightedness long enough to make it to posthumanism. I suspect > that Homo sapiens will survive the environmental apocalypse to come, > but that the majority of our highly interdependent society will > quickly fall apart. IMHO. >
Gary - I don't think we disagree. If we don't crash the biosphere beyond the ability to support our "advanced" technological lifestyles, we may crash our socio-political-economic systems to the point that we will have to face a massive phase change in the climate/biosphere *without* the techno-leverage we have become accustomed to... In fact, if we watch the fragility of *other* large mammals and in particular other *apex predators*, it seems likely that the impending changes will simply collapse any biological niche we might be able to adapt into *without* outrageous tech (e.g. genome editing, advanced materials science/nanotech, etc). Our global high-tech capability *appears* to be it's own fragile "ecosystem" (see how COVID and then a wedged ship in the Suez triggered supply chain issues which are still ringing through the system). I used *post* instead of *trans* to talk about a world *after* humans... some utopianist AI/Robotics types seem to think that some kind of manifest destiny will ensure that machine conscousness or uploaded human consciousness will take over where homo-sapiens left off. I can't say this is "impossible" but I sure don't see how aiming for or depending on that is a very good idea... I'm not sure whatever consciousness/intelligence in those contexts will look like. Will it be as different from us as we are from Bonobos, or more likely Slime Mold? I don't know... many of us here will probably not live long enough to see the worst of it, but those with children, grandchildren must be struggling with that very *personal* arc of implications. Today I saw an article stating bluntly that we literally need to *abolish* fossil fuel extraction (or at least combustion) ASAP and we will still suffer a highly disturbed climate and the consequential echoes through the biosphere in our grandchildren's lifetimes. My advice/strategy to my own progeny revolves around developing as much *flexibility* and *general intelligence/problem-solving skills* as possible. I strongly believe that a new near eusocial mode of humanity will be what survives best... that may be very low-tech or very high tech or some odd hybrid (high tech design, low tech implementation?)... Mumble, - Steve .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
