Category: Uncategorized

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Let me quote back me at Mike Annisimov’s site, in 2006, for your entertainment.

Eventually even the hardcore transhumanists were bound to catch on that this current world isn’t that realistic when it comes to accrediting human beings with any inherent “value”. Of course for the while the old scarcicists keep singing the same tune “the economy the economy entitlements entitlements state debts state debts” – but that’ll help…

Let me paint you a highly simplified picture of energy politics in (especially the second half of) the future of humanity in the 21st century; 1 – Abundant Growth This is the future where we have so much energy we can do amazing things, and have unprecedented economic growth. Yes, I am saying “access to…

The most dangerous conventional wisdom in the world today is the idea that with an older population, people must work longer and retire with less. This idea is being used to rationalize cuts in old-age benefits in numerous advanced countries — most recently in France, and soon in the United States. The cuts are disguised…

The online world of Second Life seemed like the next big thing, only to be largely written off. Neither hypers nor detractors understood it. BY JULIAN DIBBELL Never mind: American Apparel closed a ­virtual store it had in Second Life. If you had to say exactly when the wave of media hype about the online…

For a moment it is difficult to identify the image on the cover of Envisioning Real Utopias. A pause, then realisation: it’s a mountaintop, emerging from thick cloud, below a pale sky. But everything is upside down. Like the idea of real utopias, the image is a paradox, impossible and possible at the same time….

Make it to the year 2045 and you can live forever, the controversial futurist claims. So how’s his personal quest for immortality going? New Scientist FOR Ray Kurzweil, it’s all about patterns. The IT guru and futurist became famous across the US while still in high school by developing a computer program that extracted the…

AlterNet : How America Turned into a Nation of Speedfreaks By Mick Farren, Feral House Posted on December 26, 2010, Printed on December 28, 2010 The following is an excerpt from Mick Farren’s new book, Speed-Speed-Speedfreak: A Fast History of Amphetamine (Feral House, 2010) In the fullness of history, all the different varieties of speed…

Ray predicted stuff, and is doing so at an exponentially more cautious rate. Ray is the spiritual heart of ‘technological expectationism‘; i.e. Ray exemplifies the most optimistic and far reaching expectations about the future. Even the future where we all may live to experience it. That degree of being permitted to anticipate radical change is…

Waves to George A few weeks ago at the Center for Inquiry’s Transforming Humanity Conference, bioethicist Patrick Hopkins warned about the potential for cosmetic enhancements to take precedence over more meaningful morphological and cognitive modifications. Referring to this kind of human form as the “barbie body,” Hopkins dismissed cosmetic enhancements as being merely surface level…

Fifty years to the day from the discovery of the structure of DNA, one of its co-discoverers has caused a storm by suggesting that stupidity is a genetic disease that should be cured. On 28 February 1953 biologists James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA – the chemical code for all life….

Source In this chapter from his new e-book, journalist Carl Zimmer tries to reconcile the visions of techno-immortalists with the exigencies imposed by real-world biology By Carl Zimmer, Wednesday, December 22, 2010 Editor’s Note: Carl Zimmer, author of this month’s article, “100 Trillion Connections,” has just brought out a much-acclaimed e-book, Brain Cuttings: 15 Journeys…

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You seem have no idea what I just wrote and you replied to a ghost article you thought I wrote. You may not have understood my article. Look at an earlier, highly sarcastic, post of mine.. In this post I argue that the world “can’t afford old people anymore”. You might agree that in fact…

By Stephen Dufrechou, News Junkie Post Posted on December 19, 2010, Printed on December 21, 2010 http://www.alternet.org/story/149262/ A recent cognitive study, as reported by the Boston Globe, concluded that: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at…

Extropia DaSilva: Welcome, mortals, to Thinkers! Anna Tretiak: hi Rhiannon Extropia DaSilva: Today, the topic is the oddly titled…WE LOVE DEATH? Extropia DaSilva: Welcome, mortals, to Thinkers! Anna Tretiak: hi Rhiannon Extropia DaSilva: Today, the topic is the oddly titled…WE LOVE DEATH? Gwyneth Llewelyn: snickers Lem Skall: since when do you consider all of us…

“Voting doesn’t change anything — the politicians always win.” ‘Twas not always so, but I’m hearing variations on that theme a lot these days, and not just in the UK. Why do we feel so politically powerless? Why is the world so obviously going to hell in a handbasket? Why can’t anyone fix it? Here’s…

Does the future seem exciting to you? With new technologies, new hopes for human potential, and potentially even new kinds of humans? Or does the future seem challenging? With widening gaps between rich and poor? Species loss and climate change? Authoritarian governments who might prevent the use of enhancement and other technologies? If you’re like…

Written By: Rachel Haywire & Jason Schoenecker Date Published: December 9, 2010 We are a new species. We are not superior. We are a different step in the evolution of thought. Our Human ancestors relied on collectivism and a conscious submission to conformity as was necessary for survival. Culturally and pragmatically they were each other….

I changed the title, but this article is a quote from the guy who wrote Saturn’s Children and Accelerando. It seems to me that one of our besetting problems these days is that there’s a shortage of utopias on offer. Utopia — a fictional country with a perfect socio-political and legal system — is, of…

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