Comments on: Where We’re Headed

By: The Speculist » Blog Archive » The Second Amendment and Nanobots

The Speculist » Blog Archive » The Second Amendment and Nanobots — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 18:27:09 +0000

[...] technology enables Moore’s Law for Mad Scientists, but it also enables our rapid ascent to SIBwS status. We can expect 3D printers, the hacker ethic, the maker movement, and eventually [...]

By: Brendan

Brendan — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:55:51 +0000

I believe it was Aristotle who defined happiness as “doing well in relation to ones fellow men.” That may be an incomplete definition of happiness, but I think that no matter how advanced we become there will always be “have-nots” among us (especially in a non-socialistic society with large amounts of personal freedom.) There will always be hierarchies and “pecking orders” of one form or another (human nature!) and there will necessarily always be people at the bottom of said hierarchies (a sure-fire recipe for misery for such people.) Thus I say that there is, has always been, and will always be a fairly constant level of unhappiness in human society, no matter how advanced that society becomes.

By: Jeo

Jeo — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:32:51 +0000

You’re ignoring the “happiness set point.” No matter how our circumstances change, our level of happiness changes only temporarily…after a while we get used to the situation, then we’re back where we were before.

So I don’t think hunter-gatherers are significantly less happy than we are. Whether people will be happier in the future depends on whether they choose to modify their set points.

By: M. Report

M. Report — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 20:35:28 +0000

Yesterday is a memory.
Tomorrow is a dream.
All we have is today.

Dum vivamus, Vivamus:
While we are alive,
let us _Live_ !

for a longer answer, see
Poul Anderson’s story,
“Avatar”.

By: Sally Morem

Sally Morem — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:25:32 +0000

“. . . Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser and subtler; his body will become more harmonized, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will rise.”

-Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution”

Good prognosis from Trotsky, but Marxism was a very bad treatment.

Turns out Trotsky was right for all the wrong reasons.

Marx KNEW technological development was accelerating in the 19th century, but failed miserably by not studying the tech itself and not extrapolating those trends.

Well, that was ONE of his many mistakes.

By: Donald Fagen

Donald Fagen — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:24:21 +0000

A just machine to make big decisions
Programmed by fellas with compassion and vision
We’ll be free when their work is done
We’ll be eternaly free, yes, and eternally young

What a beautiful world this will be!
What a glorious time to be free!

By: Sally Morem

Sally Morem — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:19:42 +0000

Leo: “Until humans know that happiness results from virtuous behavior and that such knowledge informs and directs our own behavior, we will continue to pursue the gratification of our sensory appetites. Such behavior leads to an every increasing level of vice, accelerating one on the downward spiral into the abyss of despair and unhappiness.”

My Answer: Generally, at least for most people, if they spent most of their time on their “vices” they didn’t get important work done, didn’t take care of themselves or their families, etc.

However, the kind of capabilities Singulatarians are projecting for future people and societies allow people to pursue all kinds of fun and take care of their responsibilities and themselves. They want more, more, more, and they get it.

The dissipation of alcohol, sex, drugs noted yesteryear and today are a function of comparatively low level of technological capability as expressed in our amusements rather than punishment for sinners.

By: Sam Hall

Sam Hall — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:37:36 +0000

“sexy immortal billionaires with super powers”

And when humans have achieved that, one of them will write an article just like this one. Humans advance, that is what we do. There is no endpoint.

By: SparcVark

SparcVark — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 14:04:55 +0000

“Man will make it his purpose to master his own feelings, to raise his instincts to the heights of consciousness, to make them transparent, to extend the wires of his will into hidden recesses, and thereby to raise himself to a new plane, to create a higher social biologic type, or, if you please, a superman.

. . . Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser and subtler; his body will become more harmonized, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will rise.”

-Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution

Is the “new transhuman man” just the “new socialist man” with slightly updated wishful thinking?

By: Patrick Carroll

Patrick Carroll — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 13:40:34 +0000

No matter how good things get, humans will find a way to discontent.

God bless ‘em.

Westward the wagons, etc.

By: Jim Causey

Jim Causey — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 13:02:02 +0000

Thou art God.

By: hitnrun

hitnrun — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 12:42:06 +0000

“I think they would laugh at that question. The answer is so obvious. Likewise, if we had even a rough approximation of what life will be like for people in the future, we would be equally amused at the suggestion that those folks might be less happy than we are.”

That’s quite an amazing fallacy. Just because something seems “obvious” to an outsider with no data doesn’t make it true.

By: Mark Warda

Mark Warda — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 11:29:01 +0000

If you extrapolate the evolution from single cell to human (more power, knowledge and longevity) into the future, you eventually get to omnipotence, omniscience and immortality which is a common definition of God. So, perhaps God did not create man, but man’s destiny is to evolve into God.

By: Leo Linbeck, Jr.

Leo Linbeck, Jr. — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 10:31:59 +0000

Until humans know that happiness results from virtuous behavior and that such knowledge informs and directs our own behavior, we will continue to pursue the gratification of our sensory appetites. Such behavior leads to an every increasing level of vice, accelerating one on the downward spiral into the abyss of despair and unhappiness. It is happiness, so understood, that is the basis of the phrase in our Declaration of Independence, “Pursuit of Happiness”.

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 09:23:32 +0000

The Scientology ad that follows this is a nice reminder that no matter what happiness science promises, some people will search for more in the worst possible places, be taken advantage of, and eventually kill themselves when they realize holding a couple of tin cans wishing imaginary demons away doesn’t make you better.

RIP Greg Bashaw