From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Tue Mar 30 1999 - 17:32:27 MST
Watching MTV might not be the most transhuman activity, but somtimes
there are interesting memes in the overall mess of entropy and broken
hearts.
Pearl Jam: Evolution - a cartoon orgy in violence, destruction and
entropy. But it has an interesting symbol, a leering black-clad woman
representing evolution/destruction (shades of Neil Gaiman's gothic
girl Death?). What struck me is that it is a great way of showing what
is wrong with "natural selection" - it is cruel and pointless, we
really should aim for autoevolution. Maybe we could borrow the
personified Lady Evolution and create her nice sister Lady
Autoevolution?
Apropos evolution, Fatboy Slim's latest video "Right Here, Right Now"
depicts the evolution from simple cell to human, complete with a
countdown of the years (of course, being the academic nitpick I am I
couldn't avoid getting irritated at the factual errors :-). In many
ways it makes a good case for thinking "why stop with a fat human
slob?".
Kashmir's "Mom in love, daddy in space" is really about feeling
isolated and unwanted as a child, but it has some nice architecture
and transhumanist technology. The little boy has two cloned dads, and
mother is cloning Father #3. When she dies the fathers perform a
cryonic suspension on her, complete with a little plastic step-by-step
manual, what looked like roughly the right process (severely
abbreviated) and even the slogan "Freeze - wait - reanimate" on the
freezer. Cute.
Of course, what I'm really waiting for is the day Vacuum makes a video
for "Great Ideas, Grand Vision". Symphonic synth rock with themes
about technology, religion and science. Their latest album (Seance at
the Chaebol) includes celebrations of astrophysics, the Indian nuclear
program, the optimism of south-east asian tiger economies and
individualism. Very extropian.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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