Potential developments in human society

Fallible · **#81** by **Fallible** » May 03, 2018 6:54 am

So er...the development of psychosis in a schizophrenic?

Cito di Pense · **#82** by **Cito di Pense** » May 03, 2018 6:56 am

Fallible wrote:So er...the development of psychosis in a schizophrenic?

Res ipsa loquitur.

Fallible · **#83** by **Fallible** » May 03, 2018 7:00 am

You might say that. I couldn't possibly comment.

surreptitious57 · **#84** by **surreptitious57** » May 03, 2018 7:10 am

A devation for sure but no less interesting because of it. Rigidly sticking to the OP is sometimes intellectually
limiting and so not a fan of this particular school of thought. Let us just allow the thread to naturally develop

Fallible · **#85** by **Fallible** » May 03, 2018 7:18 am

Who's talking about rigidly doing anything?

Tell you what though, that's given me an idea. Let's do away with topics and individual threads for them, and just have one massive rambling thread. That could be the whole forum. Just one big mess of comments on anything anyone feels like, because let us just allow the thread to naturally develop.

Keep It Real · **#86** by **Keep It Real** » May 03, 2018 9:02 am

very witty and sharp comment fal

newolder · **#87** by **newolder** » May 03, 2018 10:00 am

Page 5 on day 1? What's occurring here then? :ask:

and why did the topic title get changed? :scratch:

Ahhh - it's a topic split. Talking about SciFi and Dudeism here, I see... carry on... :thumbup:

I'm off to cast a vote...

Thomas Eshuis · **#88** by **Thomas Eshuis** » May 03, 2018 10:23 am

Dynalon wrote:
SafeAsMilk wrote:Don't have much experience with the sort of humanists/secular leftists you describe, so I'll have to take your word for it.

Well you can easily get said experience:

"You want a rational world?"
"Yes!"
"You want a unified world?"
"Yes!"
"How about we use neurotechnology to achieve said outcome?"
"[any number of deflecting responses including 'it would be boring if we were all the same!' and 'uhhh, education!']"

The bolded bit has nothing specifically to do with humanism, much less 'leftism'.

BlackBart · **#89** by **BlackBart** » May 03, 2018 12:53 pm

Fallible wrote:Who's talking about rigidly doing anything?

Tell you what though, that's given me an idea. Let's do away with topics and individual threads for them, and just have one massive rambling thread. That could be the whole forum. Just one big mess of comments on anything anyone feels like, because let us just allow the thread to naturally develop.

You mean like a big thread that assimilates other threads and adds their distinctiveness to it's own? :teef:

newolder · **#90** by **newolder** » May 03, 2018 1:15 pm

^ That would be like some kind of hive mind in operation, wouldn't it? Reads like a terrible plot line. :tehe:

I notice the topic title has reverted. Has there been a re-merge, mind meld or something other?

Dynalon · **#91** by **Dynalon** » May 05, 2018 4:59 am

surreptitious57 wrote:
Dynalon wrote:
surreptitious57 wrote:
Ant colonies are infinitely better organised than human society because they all share the same aim. Also true of bees and wasps. Homo sapiens are less efficient because of the eternal conflict between individualism and collectivism
That is why we can not function as well as our insect friends. Were we ants or bees or wasps then we would be a
much more advanced species simply because we would all be working for the greater good

This is what I aim for and somehow this makes me some kind of big fucking villain even when the people
judging me mouth platitudes about the pale blue dot and how small and petty human thought usually is

I think ego is too powerful in the human psyche to achieve this. It can work in relatively small numbers but not on city scales or above where there are different cultures and belief systems all existing together. And the larger that society becomes the more diversified it becomes and diversity increases individualism rather than diminish it which makes collectivism less likely

Well, that's assuming neurosurgery and the like doesn't come into the picture.

Cito di Pense wrote:That wasn't really my point. Not long prior to this (see quoted material), you were promising a definitive treatment of the notion that US military planners are seeking the development of a hive-mind function. Your comments about the Soviet Venera probe are neither here nor there relative to that. Come up with more, by all means, and qualify it as much as you want with waffle like "to some greater or lesser degree". All I'm detecting is you picking fights with invisible humanists.

To to be fair, you were trying to flex nuts by contesting the common knowledge claim that the Soviet Union was Marxist-Leninist, something that can easily be demonstrated by reference to, for example, the report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the 20th Party Congress, which explicitly credits Marxism-Leninism as the bedrock of the Soviet state:

https://archive.org/details/ReportOfThe ... ietUnionTo

As far as US military planning is concerned, you are actually bringing up what was a very funny story for me. I was posting in a Facebook group for "thinkers" (though whether it was inhabited by such is not so clear) and someone asked me why I think that the Borg is the future of humanity (although the Borg were not explicitly mentioned at this point). I quoted DARPA researcher Michael Goldblatt:

"Soldiers having no physical, physiological, or cognitive limitation will be key to survival and operational dominance in the future."

At this point, I was told that this quote was unsourced. So I gave the source of the quote:

https://www.theatlantic.com/internation ... ts/406786/

At this next point, there was some backpedaling. So I had given the source, but it was from a "conspiracy article", or so I was told. (The Atlantic is a center-left publication and it's possible that bias can come in because of that, but they are not remotely comparable to anything in Alex Jones territory.) And, my, what an article!

(Obligatory:

)

In any case, to be certain, I conducted a Google search restricted to the darpa.mil domain and quickly found the origin of the quote:

http://archive.darpa.mil/DARPATech2002/ ... LDBLAT.pdf

But even this was not enough and there was yet more backpedaling: simply because high-level military planners desire a thing does not mean it will be achieved, so he said. And there was more back and forth and from here and it ultimately led to the individual I was debating with getting assblasted and blocking me.

But the overall experience did tell me something: people will backpedal almost endlessly until they reach the point of "implementing this technology is difficult and, therefore, these difficulties are insurmountable", which is a conclusion that is not at all warranted. It is true that defense researchers have barked up the wrong tree when it comes to psychic powers in the past, though this paradigm was soon put to rest because evidence warranted its end. But Borg-like technologies are really quite different. They have indeed been achieved in our relatively near kin, lab rats. The demonstrable fact that rats can, with adequate technological intervention, transmit their thoughts to each other means that humans, who have nervous systems not so unlike those of other mammals, can do much the same. The fact that achieving such things is merely difficult does not mean that, for example, another very technologically difficult outcome was not achieved, that digital computers of bygone times didn't fill whole rooms, while current systems, costing less than a night at the local bar with a small appetizer (plus 20% tip), do not exceed the processing power of their predecessors by many orders of magnitude and yet fill up about as much space as a pack of cigarettes:

The conflation of "difficult" with "impossible" is something I see too far often and I suspect it ultimately has far more to do with the desire not to see a technology to come to fruition—as lacking and as baffling in justification as that may be—than genuinely justified belief that it will not.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Dynalon wrote:
SafeAsMilk wrote:Don't have much experience with the sort of humanists/secular leftists you describe, so I'll have to take your word for it.

Well you can easily get said experience:

"You want a rational world?"
"Yes!"
"You want a unified world?"
"Yes!"
"How about we use neurotechnology to achieve said outcome?"
"[any number of deflecting responses including 'it would be boring if we were all the same!' and 'uhhh, education!']"

The bolded bit has nothing specifically to do with humanism, much less 'leftism'.

You're absolutely right, Thomas: humanists and other leftists only ever propose non-answers to the challenges they face.

Hermit · **#92** by **Hermit** » May 05, 2018 8:46 am

Dynalon wrote:...the common knowledge claim that the Soviet Union was Marxist-Leninist, something that can easily be demonstrated by reference to, for example, the report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the 20th Party Congress, which explicitly credits Marxism-Leninism as the bedrock of the Soviet state.

What are you getting at with this? Both Marx and Lenin insisted that socialism is no more than a transitional state between capitalism and communism. When the latter has been reached, so they say, there will be no state apparatus left whatsoever. It will have withered away, leaving every individual unchained from government. That is of course just about the exact opposite to what ensued, thanks mainly to Stalin, but none of this is of any relevance to your advocacy of eusociality.

Cito di Pense · **#93** by **Cito di Pense** » May 05, 2018 9:17 am

Dynalon wrote:
Cito di Pense wrote:That wasn't really my point. Not long prior to this (see quoted material), you were promising a definitive treatment of the notion that US military planners are seeking the development of a hive-mind function. Your comments about the Soviet Venera probe are neither here nor there relative to that. Come up with more, by all means, and qualify it as much as you want with waffle like "to some greater or lesser degree". All I'm detecting is you picking fights with invisible humanists.

To to be fair, you were trying to flex nuts by contesting the common knowledge claim that the Soviet Union was Marxist-Leninist, something that can easily be demonstrated by reference to, for example, the report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the 20th Party Congress, which explicitly credits Marxism-Leninism as the bedrock of the Soviet state:

https://archive.org/details/ReportOfThe ... ietUnionTo

Don't get yourself all tied up in ontological knots confusing what people have claimed with some state that, er, existed (see the emphasis in bold, above). That's one of the key hazards of the kind of wibbling about political economy you're fidgeting with.This failed tangent to the discussion, a tangent you created, as Hermit points out, is not even germane to eusociality via brain implants, which is what you're ostensibly most inclined to be raving about.

Dynalon wrote:I was posting in a Facebook group for "thinkers" ... And there was more back and forth and from here and it ultimately led to the individual I was debating with getting assblasted and blocking me.

Thanks for giving us all the straight dope, Dynalon. Tell us more (anecdotally!) about how your having gotten blocked by some anonymous Facebook member proves what a genius you are.

Dynalon wrote:The conflation of "difficult" with "impossible" is something I see too far often and I suspect it ultimately has far more to do with the desire not to see a technology to come to fruition—as lacking and as baffling in justification as that may be—than genuinely justified belief that it will not.

By all means, speculate until your fingers are tired about what is not necessarily impossible. This just sounds like more picking fights with invisible humanists, so carry on splendidly.

Thommo · **#94** by **Thommo** » May 05, 2018 1:47 pm

Cito di Pense wrote:...carry on splendidly.

Ooh matron!

Dynalon · **#95** by **Dynalon** » May 05, 2018 10:59 pm

Cito di Pense wrote:
Dynalon wrote:
Cito di Pense wrote:That wasn't really my point. Not long prior to this (see quoted material), you were promising a definitive treatment of the notion that US military planners are seeking the development of a hive-mind function. Your comments about the Soviet Venera probe are neither here nor there relative to that. Come up with more, by all means, and qualify it as much as you want with waffle like "to some greater or lesser degree". All I'm detecting is you picking fights with invisible humanists.

To to be fair, you were trying to flex nuts by contesting the common knowledge claim that the Soviet Union was Marxist-Leninist, something that can easily be demonstrated by reference to, for example, the report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the 20th Party Congress, which explicitly credits Marxism-Leninism as the bedrock of the Soviet state:

https://archive.org/details/ReportOfThe ... ietUnionTo

Don't get yourself all tied up in ontological knots confusing what people have claimed with some state that, er, existed (see the emphasis in bold, above). That's one of the key hazards of the kind of wibbling about political economy you're fidgeting with.This failed tangent to the discussion, a tangent you created, as Hermit points out, is not even germane to eusociality via brain implants, which is what you're ostensibly most inclined to be raving about.

Dynalon wrote:I was posting in a Facebook group for "thinkers" ... And there was more back and forth and from here and it ultimately led to the individual I was debating with getting assblasted and blocking me.

Thanks for giving us all the straight dope, Dynalon. Tell us more (anecdotally!) about how your having gotten blocked by some anonymous Facebook member proves what a genius you are.

Dynalon wrote:The conflation of "difficult" with "impossible" is something I see too far often and I suspect it ultimately has far more to do with the desire not to see a technology to come to fruition—as lacking and as baffling in justification as that may be—than genuinely justified belief that it will not.

By all means, speculate until your fingers are tired about what is not necessarily impossible. This just sounds like more picking fights with invisible humanists, so carry on splendidly.

If you have anything to contribute that isn't smug posturing and is actually more along the lines of "p is true/false because q", let me know. Otherwise, carry on without me.

(Incidentally, saying that things are possible after the first concrete steps towards them have already been taken is not mere "speculation". Again, if you have anything of substance to contribute where you come up with evidence that highly sought after, highly funded, plausible neurotechnology projects will inevitably fail—though it's hard to tell what you actually think, given that you've only taken this vague, adversarial stance—let me know.)

Thommo wrote:
Cito di Pense wrote:...carry on splendidly.

Ooh matron!

And you: do you have anything to add besides "sick burn, bro!"?

Hermit wrote:
Dynalon wrote:...the common knowledge claim that the Soviet Union was Marxist-Leninist, something that can easily be demonstrated by reference to, for example, the report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the 20th Party Congress, which explicitly credits Marxism-Leninism as the bedrock of the Soviet state.

What are you getting at with this? Both Marx and Lenin insisted that socialism is no more than a transitional state between capitalism and communism. When the latter has been reached, so they say, there will be no state apparatus left whatsoever. It will have withered away, leaving every individual unchained from government. That is of course just about the exact opposite to what ensued, thanks mainly to Stalin, but none of this is of any relevance to your advocacy of eusociality.

That digression developed well back in what is now another thread and made more sense in the context at that time. As far as staying on topic about achieving eusociality with technology, we can have that, but it will require cooperation from others in not acting as a peanut gallery and contributing nothing but fatuous quips to the thread.

Thommo · **#96** by **Thommo** » May 05, 2018 11:09 pm

Dynalon wrote:
Thommo wrote:
Cito di Pense wrote:...carry on splendidly.

Ooh matron!

And you: do you have anything to add besides "sick burn, bro!"?

That isn't even what that means. It's a pun, relating to this chap:

But no, I don't feel like picking up where I left off as it's quite apparent that there's no point me continuing our attempt at a discussion.

SafeAsMilk · **#97** by **SafeAsMilk** » May 05, 2018 11:13 pm

I take the borg very seriously. Very, very seriously.

Thommo · **#98** by **Thommo** » May 05, 2018 11:19 pm

I almost said exactly the same.

Dynalon · **#99** by **Dynalon** » May 05, 2018 11:26 pm

Thommo wrote:But no, I don't feel like picking up where I left off as it's quite apparent that there's no point me continuing our attempt at a discussion.

You didn't really even try though. I would have appreciated it if you (and, for that matter, others) had tried harder and had more sources than:

Personal incredulity and
"But that's science fiction."

It's obvious why the former is thoroughly irrelevant. The latter is also thoroughly irrelevant because science fiction has inspired real technology many times, including the series in question. I also pointed out to you that The Terminator has in fact been documented to have been an influence on military researchers during the 1980s, something you never responded to. (Said influence appears to have continued.) Given all of this, it is not surprising that science fiction concepts, including the Borg, are actually (especially now) taken quite seriously in academic discussion. Perhaps there is something for you to learn here.

SafeAsMilk wrote:I take the borg very seriously. Very, very seriously.

And here we go with more fatuous quips. You people are hopeless.

Dynalon · **#100** by **Dynalon** » May 05, 2018 11:38 pm

"Let us now assume, for the sake of argument, that these machines are a genuine possibility, and look at the consequences of constructing them. To do so would of course meet with great opposition, unless we have advanced greatly in religious toleration from the days of Galileo. There would be great opposition from the intellectuals who were afraid of being put out of a job. It is probable though that the intellectuals would be mistaken about this. There would be plenty to do, trying to understand what the machines were trying to say, i.e. in trying to keep one’s intelligence up to the standard set by the machines, for it seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers. There would be no question of the machines dying, and they would be able to converse with each other to sharpen their wits. At some stage therefore we should have to expect the machines to take control, in the way that is mentioned in Samuel Butler’s 'Erewhon'."

— Alan Turing, Intelligent Machinery: A Heretical Theory, 1951

But that's science fiction. Erewhon is science fiction. You are taking Erewhon seriously. Very, very seriously. Stop taking science fiction seriously, Alan.

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