From: Greg Burch (gregburch@gregburch.net)
Date: Sat Oct 12 2002 - 10:26:35 MDT
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Samantha Tennison
> Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2002 11:53 AM
>
> Unless New Frontiers are opened - the end result will
> be the world becoming a giant hyper-controlled
> microprocessor, with ever minutia of our lives being
> regulated in the name of public safety and
> conservative (muslim and Christian values).
>
> Anyone care to counter any of this?
The scenario you describe -- basically a world-wide descent into
conservative, totalitarian theocracy seems remotely possible, but highly
unlikely. (In fact, it was part of the background of the last science
fiction novel I tried to write -- ten years ago or so ... But that's
another story.) I confess that I sometimes shudder with the thought
that I see signs of such a thing -- the seemingly intractable
religiosity of the United States, the violent energy that seems to be
growing in the Islamic world, etc. But then I realize that there are
many, many factors weighing against these things: Steadily increasing
secularism in Europe and the UK, and the generally non-religious nature
of the vast majority of Chinese people, to name just two important ones.
Sure, these things are themselves subject to being undermined. I think
the general post-modernist culture of most European societies erodes
their ability to resist "Islamicization", but eventually, as J. Corbally
points out, Europeans will realize they are facing the possibility of
cultural aggression and will react. Yes, the huge mass of the Chinese
population has proved itself susceptible to inroads by religious memes,
but the humanistic (if deeply conservative) tradition of Confucianism
seems to be strongly immune to fundamental disruption.
Beyond this, one could focus on very near-term trends in the First World
and become discouraged. The vibrant optimism of the mid- to late-90s in
the "economy of innovation" in the U.S. has certainly been eclipsed by a
mood of nervous anxiety. But this could be and very likely is a
relatively brief interlude. Consider that the decrease in one indicator
-- the Dow -- is in absolute terms far, far larger than in the 1929
stock market crash. Yet we haven't seen the kind of social dislocation
after 18 months of recession that occurred in a similar period after the
1929 crash. The economies of the developed world are far more complex
-- and I would say robust -- than they were then. Thesis: The greater
complexity presents far more options for "local" adjustment than were
available in 1929, and the relative absence of trade barriers compared
to 1929 has allowed those adjustments to flow across national boundaries
much more fluidly. Looking at the "max" time range chart for the Dow
just now, I see that the market's level has returned to the trend line
that one can extend out from the data from 1985 to 1995. I wouldn't
develop any deeper, systemic concerns about the global economy until and
unless I saw a dip below that level for any length of time. See:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=^DJI&d=c&k=c1&a=v&p=s&t=my&l=off&z=m&q=l
Beyond this, although the headline-grabbing business development of
"transhumanistic" technology doesn't seem as vigorous as it was in the
late 1990s, the steady, important scientific and technological work
continues apace. The fact is that the tele-computing advances inherent
in the roll-out of "Internet Phase One" are just about over and the
business community is at a loss to figure out what "the next big thing"
is. Big impacts from AI, robotics and molecular medicine lie ahead, and
the unavoidably close horizon of venture capital hasn't yet encompassed
those developments. But I can think of no reason to believe that these
developments won't happen, and more or less on the schedule I've been
expecting for many years. See:
http://www.gregburch.net/writing/NearTerm.htm
Again, there are relatively short-term causes for concern.
"Anti-transhumanism" has found a first full voice in the work of Rifkin
and, sadly, Fukuyama, and the Bush Administration's short-sighted ban on
stem cell research certainly bears watching. But countervailing factors
are already mobilizing. Nancy Reagan recently came out publicly against
the Bush stem cell policy. Other voices will be added to this response.
As impatient as we naturally are, some of these things are *so big* that
they're going to take time to work their way from imagination to
reality.
I'd rather think of the current brief period as one in which we're
catching our breath, not really ending our progress at all.
Greg Burch
Vice-President, Extropy Institute
http://www.gregburch.net
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