From: Richard Steven Hack (richardhack@pcmagic.net)
Date: Sat Mar 09 2002 - 19:39:27 MST
At 02:12 PM 3/9/02 -0800, you wrote:
>So he creates more misery and tyranny in the guise of saving the
>world? What a maroon!
Well - he IS a villain! He may be the hero of this series of comics, and
the writers may be portraying him a bit more sympathetically than other
writers at Marvel have in the past, but they know what the readers want -
they want Doom to be DOOM!
>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.
I agree, of course - except the part that they CAN be shown - the jury is
very much out on that one.
>>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.
That is part of his "charm" - his flaws are obvious to the reader. If you
knew his origin story, it would be even more obvious.
The Introduction to the trade paperback "The Villainy of Doctor Doom" has
the following comments:
"Doctor Doom is the quintessential, the ultimate, Marvel Comic's
supervillain, bar none. Forget latter-day pikers
like...Magneto. Everything they know about being big-time world-class
menaces they cribbed from Doom in the first place. But Doom is the
original - the real goods."
"But just what is it that sets the Lord of Latveria above all of his
sinister colleagues?...It think it all boils down to complexity, power and
panache."
"Doom had already established his position as the ne plus ultra of the
Marvel super-villain set by the time his origin was revealed in Fantastic
Four Annual no. 2 - but that tale propelled him to even greater
heights. For it peeled away the layers of Doom's psyche, and revealed the
tragedies that made him the man he is today. It events had taken a
different course, he could easily have been a hero, a humanitarian, an
Albert Schweitzer. But, alas, fate had other plans."
"Doom has style, sophistication. He's no simple world-beater... He
possesses a keenly-honed aesthetic."
"All Doom wants to do is rule the world, because he' s sure that he can do
a better job of it than anyone else. And who's to say he isn't right? A
quick look around at our current society shows that we haven't been all
that well up until now..."
"So it's true. Doom has an ego. But let's face it - he has a lot to be
egotistical about. He's a genius-level intellect, adept at both the
science of man and the sorcery of the underworld. He's the undisputed
sovereign of his own personal country. He's walked away from certain death
more times than you can shake a stick at. He's two steps ahead of even his
smartest opponents at all times. And he never, ever really loses. The only
person who's ever defeated Doom is Doom himself. And, as he himself has
said, 'Defeat with honor is merely victory delayed.'"
"Face it, he's better than you. He's better than all of us."
"He's Doom."
>>"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.
Obviously... But as I said, he IS a villain - for reasons of oppression in
his past. If you saw the X-Men, Magneto is very similar to Doom - and like
Doom, over the years, Marvel's writer have changed Magneto from a simple
villain out to browbeat everyone around him to a tortured soul forced by
his history to follow a course that brings him into inevitable conflict
with the rest of the world. But as the Intro above notes, Doom was the
original.
Look at Star Wars - the whole current trilogy replicates the concept on the
big screen - somebody starts out okay, but after the world gets through
with them - they end up Darth Vader - only to save the day at the end (of
the first trilogy, when Vader defeats the Emperor to save his son). And I
am convinced that it is Doom that served as Lucas' model for Vader
somewhere in his subconscious...
>Yes. Now, how will you apply it?
Actually, I only mean to relate it to the current discussion. Clearly the
story mirrors some of what has been discussed on this list - namely, the
possible consequences of political and/or corporate control of nanotech, etc.
>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.
That is where we disagree - I'm not convinced that they can "lock us down"
- remember Drexler's comments on that. Also, you seem to agree with me
that those in power will do so if they see us as competitors - all the more
reason not to attract their attention by trying to make Transhumanism
mainstream. There is an advantage to being considered a kook - no one sees
you coming. As the Chinese say, "Everyone knows the advantage of being
useful. No one knows the advantage of being useless" - i.e., if you are
useful, you'll get used.
The attitude of *those in power* will NOT be changed by any argument - even
if you can convince a significant portion of the rest of the population
that Transhumanism is acceptable. You would have to go much further and
convince the population of the need to radically change government and
social structure - as you have said. Then you would have to actually do
it. Do you really believe that this can be done within the 20-50 years
before Transhuman technology is available? I don't.
>>> 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.
I think they have a chance to survive, if not to change the world. If Doom
were to concentrate on increasing his own security (as indeed he does in
many story lines - so much so that he has had enormous Transhuman power on
occasion far beyond his scientific powers), he would eventually be far more
likely to achieve his goals. As an aside, after his "Presidency" is
overthrown, he uses nanotech to destroy the ones responsible
Remember what Drexler suggested in "Engines" - nanotech in the hands of a
dictator could mean that people are unnecessary (of course, no dictator
would go that way, since a dictator needs people to rule - that is his
basic emotional motivation - to establish himself as above all other people
- flight response). Well, in the hands of a Transhuman, it could mean
invulnerability to coercion from the State - depending on whether it is
used with proper strategy and tactics, of course.
And we may not be alone - even a small group plus nanotech could be very
effective - although it took decades until Bin Laden demonstrated that
terrorists *could* be effective.
>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.
Massive change can grow out of personal efforts. The PC came out of
personal efforts and created massive change after it was "sold broadly
enough" - but the selling was not ideological or philosophical. The
selling was first to the hackers and IT people who could understand it -
and then to the mainstream for purely economic reasons.
>>>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.
I believe it is a *sufficient* part.
>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.
Granted, I wouldn't look to the corporate world for leadership in this
area. As to "open-source", it seems to be a good way to get tech built and
even distributed, but it's not clear that it can defeat closed-source in
the market - yet. Some forecasters are saying it will. I'm not sure. In
any event, I need those billions to control the development of the tech I
need to survive, so for me it is not an issue.
>>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
We need *some* of the "swine" - a future version of Doom once tried to
destroy a significant part of the world population because he wanted
"enough people to serve me but not enough to defy me" (he was destroyed by
his 20th-Century self, BTW). But unless the "swine" wipe themselves out,
it is unlikely we need worry about having them around to use for our
purposes. Our real problem will be keeping them out of our hair...
Richard Steven Hack
richardhack@pcmagic.net
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