History has an awful track record with the government medicalizing alternate lifestyles, religious activity or political activism. There is very little to say about the habits of hard-line regimes and political systems putting “troublemakers’ in psychiatric institutions solely for the purpose of punishment and deterrence. For political activists the soviet union was a nightmare, as…
BREXIT : The chickens have come home to roost
A lot of people in Europe and the UK will be utterly miserable about the vote yesterday. And with right – this was a particularly self-defeating choice for the Brits, and the whole UK will suffer far worse than the Brits now take for granted by being severed from a common European market. But most…
The Hellish Cauldron
. Inside galaxies there tend to reside really big black holes. These things fascinate me to no end. They range on mass from millions to tens of billions of solar masses. Our milky way’s galactic core black hole is about “about” 3.61 million solar masses, which is only mediocre compared to bigger galaxies. Even so,…
TechnoUtopianism and denial about the future.
Dizzy: My mother always told me that violence doesn’t solve anything. Jean Rasczak: Really? I wonder what the city founders of Hiroshima would have to say about that. [to Carmen] Jean Rasczak: You. Carmen: They wouldn’t say anything. Hiroshima was destroyed. Jean Rasczak: Correct. Naked force has resolved more conflicts throughout history than any other…
Immortal and thus, Accountable.
One of the biggest selling point of religion is (in particular in monotheistic, Abrahamic ones) the implied threat of being judged. In these mythological systems there is a sense of right and wrong, good and evil and hence sin. Sinners are punished, often in quite horrendous and everlasting sentences. This particular idea proved quite infectious….
Erdogan
My most recent Clinton memes
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The next months may prove PRICELESS entertainment.
“Saving” Japan
The country of Japan is becoming older and older on average. There are less children born, and children born are born from increasingly older women. This extremely low fertility rate (1.41) has the result of actively depopulating Japan. Japan has 127.6 million inhabitants in 2016, but is set to half in the next few decades….
Worst case scenario – 2035 and no basic income.
There is now an almost constant stream of articles saying what was politically incorrect to state out loud just 5-8 years ago – Technological Unemployment is certain, it is imminent and ‘something like a basic income’ will be necessary. I have said so much on this societal issue in the last ten years that it…
Andy Stern: There Is a Way to Stop Machines From Making Americans Poorer
My prediction for soon – a new terrorism
A Seneca cliff is an easily understood phenomenon. It is the moment when society, having depleted its commons, suddenly collapses. Decline tends to be historically very sudden. I regard myself nominally a transhumanist, in the same manner a cheerleader is nominally involved with team sports. As a Transhumanist I am supposed to focus on the…
Why The Swiss Vote Switzerland Matters
. The swiss voted on a referendum deciding whether or not basic income would make any sense. They voted no. All told, about 77% of Swiss voters were against the measure, which lost by at least 10 percentage points in all of the country’s 26 districts, and only 23% backed the proposal. The proposal was…
How Jobs Destroy Work (by Extropia DaSilva) – part one, two
. HOW JOBS DESTROY WORK (PART ONE) by EXTROPIA DASILVA INTRODUCTION Original publication Anything that bears the title ‘How Jobs Destroy Work’ is bound to be regarded with disbelief by those who love their jobs. Such people do exist: folks who have found employment that is meaningful to them, which nurtures their skills and provides…
The clear implications of “the spark of life”.
Recently scientists have observed the actual and precise moment of conception, i.e. the very moment a sperm cell encounters an egg cell, enters it and starts the developmental stage where eventually a human being will form. We have long waited on science to give us confirmation and clarity on this particularly troubling question and now…
The Hillary Clinton Presidency Is Over Before It Started.
. I am starting to get the feeling this is actually it. Also note facebook does not index this article. It is uncanny. Try and share it, and be perplexed. I am getting the feeling the Status Quo is in full clamp-down emergency mode. Source Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton cannot, by U.S. law, hold…
“Milksnakers”
Right now the dialogue is run by radical, offensive and hypersensitive statements. The norm is exagerration. People exaggerate, how bad their life is, how “demonic” transgenders are and that “they will kill god”. How much they are under siege from liberal media. How they are coming to take away their guns. How their kids face…
Antibodies
Update * Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a…
FULL CORPORATE AND GOVERNMENT BETRAYAL – OF YOU
Let me remind you why TPP (and CISPA, ISDS, TIPP, et.al.) is not merely bad, it is goddamn awful. In fact – let me remind you a hundred and one times why TPP is bad. . One Hundred Reasons Why TIPP IS UNACCEPTABLE 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,…
PEGIDA
Pegida is a anti Islam, anti-immigration, anti-EU group. From what I’ve seen it’s major part poor white trash, a segment of clear skinhead/hooligan types, older xenophobic men and confused anti-refugees/AZC activists. There was a protest not far from my home, and I shot a video while eating an ice cream. The protest was nominally non-violent,…
The Solipsist Sepulchre
(minor edits may be pending in a few days, depending peer review and feedback. Email me if you have suggestions or wish to express your objections – I will print meaningful discourse below this article. I will submit this article to te IEET in a few days. Reprinted by the IES. ) All this is…
Techno-Idealist Events in the Netherlands
We can use whatever label we want – Transhumanist, Extropian, Singularitarian, Techno-Utopian, whatever – it’s generally the same crowd, the same scene of people. People with an optimist, enterpreneurial mindset and grande deals are in fact coming together in the Netherlands and organizing, however more tentatively than in surrounding countries. Here’s an (incomplete? Email me!)…
The golden opportunity for Transhumanist politics.
Max Planck wrote – science advances one funeral at a time. The same concept features heavily in the work of Thomas Kuhn. The basic idea is that in science there’s a major flaw in terms of progress. The problem is that entrenched stakeholders of the current paradigm stop caring about advancement and – as they…
I Loathe Saudi Arabia and I Loathe Their Version Of Islam
I call for divestment from Saudi Arabia. Do not allow your citizens to travel there, for whatever reason. Immediately confiscate all possessions of Saudi Royals and associated people or groups in every single democratic country world wide. Make investments in Saudi Arabia illegal and punishable with prison sentences. Boycott their products. Disallow all imports from…
The migration from mobile to VR/AR headset
I own a PC from 2008-2009. It was a great era for me, 6 years of PC with a (back then) relatively decent graphics card, but my PC has become outdated – so I intend to spend a good 1000 euro (which I don’t have) come May to obtain a new Desktop personal computer. It’s…