From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sat Mar 09 2002 - 15:12:03 MST
Richard Steven Hack wrote:
> At 04:56 AM 3/9/02 -0800, you wrote:
>
>> Perhaps you could fill that football statement if it really sank in
>> that we could live in a world of great abundance where every person on
>> the planet had primo health, food, clothing, shelter and more
>> educational, computational and entertainment resources than they can
>> imagine for the asking. Or we can once a few more technological steps
>> are taken and once we get over insisting on scarcity, creating the
>> effects of scarcity, just because it is so familar and taken for
>> granted that we can't really grok a world significantly without it.
>> In the treasure room of the gods we argue and act as if we were in a
>> firesale at a Walmarts.
>
Not sure that the comic book is the best answer to this but I
certainly enjoyed it.
> Later, he says: "The greatest threat to this world is America."
>
As currently true, it is the greatest threat or promise.
> After his takes over the White House, it is revealed that one of the
> CEOs of the corporations is actually an alien. He kills the alien, and
> then goes on national television to say the following:
>
> "He - it - has controlled one of this country's largest corporations for
> over a decade. Do you understand? Your lives have been given to a
> THING with hallucinogens for blood! But this doesn't absolve you! No!
> I won't allow you to point your finger at the alien corpse and say: 'It
> was him that did it! America today is not my fault!' You LET him rule
> you! It IS your fault! You ALL HAD A CHOICE! You will ALL make
> restitution for this horror you have perpetrated! Your incomes will be
> tithed to a Federal Restitution Fund in reparation for your IGNORANCE!
> Martial law is increased! More curfews! TO THE DEVIL WITH YOU ALL!'
>
So he creates more misery and tyranny in the guise of saving the
world? What a maroon! The source of our relative misery is not
aliens or the evil transnational corporations. The source is
our own smallness and the limited assumptions that lock-step
most of our thoughts. But this cannot be cured by blaming and
punishing. People cannot be forced into a better way. With
luck and much work they can be shown that better is at hand and
they need only accept it.
> After he is overthrown, Doom ponders why he has failed to change the world:
>
Well, for starters he didn't manage to sufficiently question and
change his own limiting assumptions and psychological patterns.
> "Eventually he was forced to recognize the single terrible thing that
> has brought low all conquerors. He couldn't see everything at once. He
The most "single terrible thing" is the assumptiong that
conquering will actually help.
> couldn't repair the environment, tend to the ruined fabric of American
> society, rebuild the structure of human resources and see every other
> detail of the country. And so corporate secrets remained secrets for
> just a day too long. It is still galling to the man. He knew he could
> dissuade America from making a hell of earth if he offered them HEAVEN.
> It all depends on your perception. Doom has come to the conclusion that
> attempting to see and control every detail of one country may not have
> been the most effective way to save this planet from itself. However,
> he can view a small selection of pertinent details on a planetary
> basis...and by manipulation of information, can affect small, choice
> aspects of world culture.He need only follow the ripples and
> repercussions of ONE act. Or, put another way, what if Doom were to
> take over the world?..."
>
> Now comes the section that struck me as relevant to this discussion.
> Although if you study the above statements, many of them are relevant to
> this discussion as well.
>
> "Doom has a theory about nanotechnology. Its very existence is an
> anomaly on this world - or its lack of exploitation is an anomaly. A
> world of nanotech should be a world without hunger, without illness,
> without want, and perhaps even without GOVERNMENT. Nanotech is the horn
> of plenty, and yet, in 2099, its use is restricted to the occasional
> construction work or computer augmentation. When a smear of nanotech
> could build food from dirt, why do people starve in the slums of
> America? Simple. The corporate mentality that governs much of the
> earth would stand to make no profit from paradise. The people have not
> been told of the potential of nanotechnology. We could have made the
> stars jealous of our magic, thinks Doom. We could have soared through
> life on a sparkling wave of tiny miracles. Instead, we are pressed into
> the gutter by money and fear."
>
> "Doom shall, in increments, bring paradise to the earth. He finds the
> concept charmingly double-edged - it is a gift to his protectorate, the
> people, and a sword in the guts of his enemies. He will begin
> introducing nanotech into small countries. At first, the Americans will
> likely hide the news of their tiny neighbors making food and medicine
> from waste and slurry... But when their cities become wired gardens,
> when their cornucopia homes derive their power from buds and their
> vehicles run on air - what then? The myriad gardens of Eden will become
> weapons pointed at the American way."
>
Unfortunately he still thinks in terms of "enemies" and
"weapons". This likely leads directly to the moral of the story.
> "Doom has always thought LARGE thoughts. This alone is enough to
> distinguish him from his late 21st Century peers, as well as his 20th
> Century opponents. The tiny European state of Latveria from which he
> sprang may well have been ruled with Doom's IRON hand well visible - but
> it was also ruled with deep love and boundless ingenuity. He was the
> greatest mind of the 1900's and is the secret genius of the 2000's. The
> planet will never see his like again and will be poorer for it."
>
> "He is Doom and he will make this world anew. They will hate him for it,
> he knows. For they have never understood why Doom does what he does.
> And so, he turns and whispers his explanation to the new morning. "I
> LOVE YOU. Don't you know that after all these years?"
>
> "'A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never
> overcome them.' - Carl Jung, 'Memories, Dreams, Reflections'". [Quoted
> on the page.]
>
> Now, keep in mind that all this was written for the March, 1996 issue.
> And the use of nanotech in the story line goes back to the first issue
> in January 1993. This was an amazingly prophetic comic book!
>
Yes. Now, how will you apply it?
>> To me this biggest difficulty is envisioning and communicating a very
>> fundamentally different future that goes far beyond hyper-technology
>> by itself.
>
>
> My point exactly - it is an insurmountable difficulty given human
> nature. But you are right - the point of Transhumanism is survival -
> not technology per se. I would become Transhuman by alchemy or occult
> magic or Taoist meditation if I though that would really work.
>
I didn't mean to downplay technology or suggest other means per
se but only to offer thought on what else is needed.
>
>>>> I don't see it as a misallocation of resources to *promote*
>>>> Transhumanism, as long as we realize that the purpose is to attract
>>>> those who *can* understand and who *can* contribute. But trying to
>>>> convince the world that Transhumanism is the future will merely
>>>> relegate us to cult status or worse, wake the states of the world up
>>>> to the threat to their existence and bring down even more oppression.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Without a suitably widespread radical revisioning of the possibilities
>> I am quite pessimistic on humanity surviving.
>
>
> Ah, yes, but it is possible that Transhumans will survive regardless.
> But only if we entertain that possibility.
>
What I was attempting to say is that I don't believe it likely
that there will be any true transhumans without a sufficient
vision embraced by enough people. The world will lock down the
would-be transhumanists and hound us into extinction without
that. They will likely tend to do so if the even see us as the
master-competitors and thus as an immense danger to themselves.
>> We literally will fail to understand how to use our superior
>> technology to actually change and/or meet what most harms and
>> threatens us. Unless we create the uploads or AIs or SI that take
>> over everyting (not necessarily a good idea) then we need to convince
>> enough people to actually create a viable fundamentally different
>> society or societies.
>
>
> How about using the tech that goes into AIs or SIs to change US to
> handle the situation. That is the point of Transhumanism - not to
> create another species to displace us - but to transform US INTO that
> other species. We "displace" ourselves, as it were. People seem to be
> obsessed with the human fear of ANOTHER species being superior to us.
> This is clearly a flight response right in line with my earlier
> comments. The point of Transhumanism is for US - i.e., those of use
> that choose to do so - to become that species.
>
That is why I also mentioned uploads. I should have mentioned
augmented humans. Although in fact I think we need at least AIs
and they will quickly lead to SI.
I understand this point but I don't believe isolated individuals
have much chance alone even if as brilliant (and ruthless) as a
comic book hero-villian like Dr. Doom.
>> At the door to being able to change ourselves very fundamentally on
>> a physical level we must also be free to change our fundamental
>> assumptions of how human institutions work and how we work. Anything
>> less is simply hypercharging mindsets grossly out of their proper
>> context.
>
>
> Correct. Now apply that insight correctly.
>
>
>> Or we must defang governments from standing in the way. One way is to
>> promise significantly better circuses (to be somewhat crass) than ever
>> before and at ultra-low cost and deliver. Sell a workable beuatiful
>> vision and you will not have trouble getting enough votes (assuming we
>> can't fix it so such things are not subject to an open vote) to defeat
>> anti-technology and anti-future legislation. But present it as mainly
>> an ideological position and not much else and Transhumanism is DOA
>> culturally.
>
>
> Correct. The problem is selling the vision. How much work will that be
> versus devoting the same resources to achieving that vision. Can we not
> produce the reality instead of merely a vision? Visions can be debated
> and rejected on emotional grounds - reality has its own force.
>
>
Well, naturally you need to do both or it is simply a pipe-dream
and more hype. But you need the vision to guide and shape the
efforts and you need to sell it broadly enough to accumulate the
necessary resources and to have the result have sufficient
impact. Reality grows out of vision when you are speaking of
massive change.
I don't believe either step, either vision or creation of the
reality, is optional.
>>>> We need to spread our memes to those who *can* understand and who
>>>> *can* develop what we need. And if necessary we need to find ways
>>>> to get the others to develop what we need - by whatever appeals (to
>>>> greed, or whatever) work.
>>>
>>
>>
>> I agree with some of what you say but it is a partial starting point
>> within a current context. By itself it will not shift the context
>> significantly.
>
>
> Yes, but what they develop will shift that context.
>
>
But not by itself. Technology is only part - an essential part
- of what is needed.
>>> There are some people who agree with transhumanism in positions where
>>> they
>>> can develop useful stuff, and a few who have money. But honestly they
>>> are
>>> not that many - friendly billionaries do not grow on trees.
>>
>
> My point here, Anders, would be that we can become the "friendly
> billionaires" ourselves by developing the tech. Why have a mindset that
> says you can only do research if someone GIVES you money?
>
There is are real problems here imho. Our current business
models suck seriously when it comes to keeping a vision alive
and bringing it into reality without getting pulled too far into
the muck. Also, some of the tech we need, especially in
software and information, needs to be relatively open and "free"
as in freedom to use and adapt it. Seeking to make billions
of that tech by conventional means would fight against its
maximum effectiveness.
> Correct, Anders.
>
>> Sure. So have the "movement" seed the projects and apps and funnel a
>> part of the profits back into the "movement".
>
>
> Correct, Samantha.
>
>> I disagree in part. Technology is not a subset of culture. Its use
>> and limitations are shaped by culture. These are not the same thing.
>> Most of these symbols, rewards, images and so on are rife with
>> cultural assumptions that are part of the problem (some less so than
>> others). For me the aims of software are primarily the transformation
>> of culture and the transcendence of human limitations.
>
>
> Correct.
>
>>>> And the whole thing will be tossed out the minute it conflicts with
>>>> their other basic human drives, such as the fear of death.
>>>
>>
>> What if you show them they need not fear death because it can be
>> postponed indefintely? What then? Will you not then turn this drive
>> in your favor?
>>
>
>
> I would hope so. I would say that is the ONLY likely approach that
> COULD work to changing society to some degree. We have to fight not
> only death, but people's acceptance of death as inevitable (and even
> desirable - the old saw about "I wouldn't want to live forever because
> life is hell now.") But I am not convinced that we can do that on a
> *society-wide* scale UNTIL we can demonstrate that it will actually
> work. But we *can* do it on a one-to-one basis with people open to such
> ideas. (The old "Cast no pearls before swine" notion...)
>
OK. Except that we need a lot of those "swine" and we wish to
open the possibility of being more than they believe they are.
Undoubtedly this will be seen as "horrible" and "hatred of
swinishness".
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:12:53 MST