From: Martin Moore (lethe07@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Jun 15 2002 - 09:30:09 MDT
--- Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com> wrote:
> Yes, his statement "I don't see how we can exist" is
> pretty
> laughable. But it does reveal the angst that a lot
> of futuristic
> issues raise in people, and it should caution us how
> badly our
> intuitions about that are becoming as we immerse
> ourselves year
> in and year out in the most far out stuff we can
> think of.
Great point. And it brings the two threads together
(with Threats to the Singularity).
Kasparov is demonstrating integration problems. Some
of Kuzweil's or Damien's writing would help the guy
out. Not so much in understanding the Singularity, but
what outlook he needs to accept and welcome Change.
Like any small group at the extreme forefront of a
movement that stands to radically impact society and
culture, you guys often forget that the average person
has absolutely no tools to deal with the potential
impact of your technology. Your immersion in this
stuff and all the resulting important discussions I
have read here about FAI, ethics, morals, reality,
life, existence, even fear and hope, have allowed you
to develop a new view of the world. A world which is
on a collision course with a massive spike. And a new
perspective as radical as your technology.
It isn't your responsibility to develop any kind of
philosophy, publish a novel, or write a screenplay.
However, if history tells us anything, the guys doing
those things are filling a vital role.
And I'll lay an added burden at their feet: (As one
example) In the late 1700's the early Roman republic
had caught the imagination of the Enlightenment
reformers around the world. As we've all seen, they
even posed for paintings in togas and built new
structures in the Roman style. It is interesting that
the American Founding Fathers had somehow gotten their
hands on a translation of Addison's 'Cato' which,
aside from being dry, was a relatively moralizing and
virtuous book about the Roman politician. It spread
like wild fire among the literati and Washington,
himself, was basically obsessed with it. On the other
hand, the French were influenced by Jacques-Louis
David's wild paintings of Romans executing traitorous
family members, plotting against each other, and
wreaking general havoc. One author, Richard
Brookhiser, quips, "As they showed them, so they
reaped".
-Martin
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