From: ArtilloZ@aol.com
Date: Mon Nov 20 2000 - 22:19:29 MST
Dear Fellow Extropians,
I think we are all symbiotically linked... I was so fed up with work today, I
wrote a LOOOONG email to myself ranting about so many things just mentioned
in some of these e-mailsl! Just for kicks, I am sending you the unedited,
highly tangled, stream of conciousness version (please excuse the format, I
hope it is at least interesting and resonant)! Once I sort everything I was
talking about into logical sections, maybe I will write a book or
something... I don't want to look like any more of a lunatic than I already
am!
Peace and forward movement,
Brian Shores
---------------------------------
RAGE AGAINST BIOLOGY - PART 1
WHY?!? EVERYTHING we do revolves around supporting this shell! I am not
saying that the human body is not an amazing and wonderful machine, but
GEEZ! The maintenance! Why do we work? To make money to support the
maintenance of our bodies so we don't DIE. Imagine how much more we could
accomplish if we did not have to sleep, (INSOMNIA IS A BLESSING to me) feed
ourselves, keep ourselves warm and dry, and generally maintain our bodily
health. Look at all the money that is there that can be used in so many
better ways! Housing, food, cosmetics, healthcare, and CRIPES! INSURANCE!
Nanotech is the solution. I wish my mind was able to consciously function
24/7. That is not to say that dreams are not important to me, because they
certainly are, but I just wish I could have them any time I wanted. Sure,
the advances we make in healthcare are going to enable us to live longer,
but I am waiting for the total solution. Maybe it will never come. Given the
way things are right now that will be a likely case. I am an optimist, but
the majority of people in the world are bound up by tradition, religious
dogma, stupidity, and lack of knowledge that is a MAJOR obstacle for the
really intelligent people to get the work they need to do done for the good
of humanity. How many wars are fought over property, religion, ideals that
cannot be justified using logic? Maybe it has to do with what is our purpose
here on earth? To me, what makes me is my thoughts and my mind, whatever
that might be definition-wise I leave that up to the experts. I want to work
on things that will directly help humanity get past this shell of biology,
but I am mired in the mundane every day. My mind cannot function fast enough
to absorb all the knowledge I want, and my fingers can't type fast enough to
get the ideas in my head out. There has got to be a faster way. I will be
first in line for a chip implant right into my brain. The more thinking
power I have at my disposal, the more interactions I can have with others,
the richer my life experience becomes. Sharing thoughts, ideas, experiences,
and the creative process are what I crave constantly. Sleep only impedes
that desire. Communications have come a long way but they are still
primative and open to many faults such as misinterpretation and interference
of all kinds. If the data was passed directly there would be far less
interpretation problems, let alone the increase in speed. You dont have to
worry about answering the phone or email being down because the
communication is in the very air we breathe moving the speed of light.
Taking the visions in my head and actually producing them in front of me,
without having to worry about the nuances of the interface to hinder me. A
thought processor/interpreter that can instantly produce the mind's vision
to the last detail, and modifying it at the speed of thought, with all the
corresponding technical details filled in just through the INTENT of the
user's thoughts. Hopefully, life does not get boring enough that we WANT to
die. Always serving the lowest common denominator. People like to feel
good. Drugs, food, sex. Its all a measure of how happy we are with our
lives. Time forces us to do things with a sense of urgency. It is our
biggest enemy versus biology. If we had unlimited time to do things, we could
experience everything... even experiencing multiple things at once. So one
can be lazy and also do computational physics at the same time, sort of like
a computer multitasking. That is assuming that the machines don't do the
hard thinking for us, which in that case I dont think that we will ever make
them powerful enough that human brains become "obsolete" in one sense of the
word (intuition, creative process, true creativity and ingenuity).
Development in paralell of human/machine interfaces will happen. New ways of
interacting will become available. Biology is a prison. If we
weren't concerned with SURVIVAL any more, what would we do? Most humans
today would probably sit around and become couch potatoes, VR Junkies,
druggies, whatever. But what if we could channel all that extra energy into
something truly useful and great? Make our mark on the universe, so to
speak. Idle talk never gets anyone anywhere. Where are all the movers and
shakers? The really good stuff is yet to come, and it is going to take a
looong time for it to get realized. Maybe I am just impatient. All that
capital sitting out there in the hands of professional atheletes and
eccentric millionaires... why don't these people do something that will
directly affect their fellow human being's condition? Hell, someone like
Bill Gates could EASILY build and ship pre-fab housing to areas where
needed, and greenhouses, hydroponics, what4ever is needed, but NOOO he would
rather shell out 42 million for a custom built home. That makes me sick when
I hear about human suffering. If I had the money, you couldn't STOP me from
doing something! Show the friggin aborigenes and rain forest tribes what the
rest of the world is up to... break everyone out of this mystical belief
that "god" will make everything ok. That is such an irrational way of
looking at the world it makes me sick. Instead of taking your family to
church, how about doing something meaningful with them? Irrational fear of
death and hell has hampered FAR too many people in this world. It is time
for a real change. We do not live in the middle ages anymore. Instead of
having faith in something you can't see, have faith in people... the here
and now... hope... no... BELIEVE that the future will be bright and the
motivation to help make it that way. We need to embrace our knowledge and
discard the petty. Racisim, bigotry, hatred... we are all soooo far above
that. What is the point in it except to waste valueable and useful resources
(minds). We will never get there if we continue this self-destructive,
ignorant, stupid, childish behavior. The time for humanity to grow up is way
overdue. Our governments have as much to do with this as do each of us
individually. Look at the difference in military spending versus say,
humanitarian programs or space exploration. We are focussing on the WRONG
things! Why the hell can't McDonald's be part of the solutiion instead of
being one of the leaders in our nation's health problems! Once again, human
greed takes over. People prefer convenience over health. People live very
shortsighted lives. Most of us only focus on the here and now, our immediate
situation and environment. We are killing our own environment on the outside
and ouselves from the inside. Is it really so hard to use alternative energy
sources? AGAIN, the almighty buck rules. Oil companies and nations, auto
manufacturers, and others who rely heavily on petrochemicals have the world
in a self-destructive pattern. WHY IS THIS? WHY should we have to stand by
and watch us destroy ourselves? The human race needs an "intervention", just
like a drug addict. We need a wake-up call before it is too late and we
can't go back. Fighting biology, destroying what we are is not the solution.
Finding the keys to how things work is part of the solution, but its
people's attitudes that are the hardest part to change. If everyone had a
bright view of what the future will be, a common vision, maybe it wouldn't
be so hard. But like I said before, people are self-centered. There is no
global human view. War is usually something we read about in the paper.
Everything is trivialized by the media. No wonder we can't agree on
anything! The truth about ourselves is too painful to face or too difficult
to see through all the spin. People don't listen to eachother. Moreover,
they can't filter out the real facts from their own feelings and individual
perceptions. How do we get to that common vision? I don't know. Maybe
science and philosophy has some good ideas about it. The closest I have seen
so far is the Transhumanists and Extropians. We need to switch from passive
to active mode. We need our voices heard and we need people to see the truth
about ourselves. We need to come together and drop all the bullshit and
actually DO something! At the very least, let's take care of our fellow
human beings by combining our resources and making a direct change of things
we see wrong in the world every day. I am all for free speech and
expression, but "god dammit!" enough is enough! Maybe we should just go
around and exterminate all the people we find repulsive (yeah right!). It's
an extreme
view, and I do not condone it at all, but if there was a way to get rid of
the troublemakers, a way to show them the light of humanity and it's
potential, well then what are we waiting for? Stupid people shouldn't breed.
Don't have kids you can't afford just to get a welfare check. It brings us
all down. For most people everything I am saying is stating the obvious. But
then WHY are we so stuck? Sure technology is moving along at a blinding
pace. But what are we going to do with it all besides count our stacks of
greenbacks and fight over who has the patent on the human genome? Is the
human race doomed to bicker forever among itself? Hey, a little bit of
tension is a good thing of course, it helps stimulate ideas. But hell, let's
all at least get on the same page here! Do we REALLY need all those shades of
makeup? Do we REALLY need 2 million dollar SuperBowl commercials? Do we
REALLY need a 50,000 dollar SUV that only gets 15 miles per gallon when there
are cars that will get 300? The worlds most basic and simple problems we
STILL can't fix! WHY??? "Feed the people... who don't have enough to eat,
shoe the children... with no shoes on their feet, house the people living in
the street, ohh there's a
solution." - Steve Miller.
But I digress...
Brian Shores, 20 November 2000
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