Emerging Technologies and the Future of Humanity (sagepub.com)

Lasrick writes: Brad Allenby, Lincoln Professor of Engineering and Ethics and founding chair of the Consortium for Emerging Technologies, Military Operations and National Security at Arizona State University, delivers a fascinating examination of resistance to technological developments over time. Allenby starts by breaking down discussions into 3 categories, and then focuses on the third: the "apocalyptic" discussions. "[T]echnological evolution is accelerating, which has significant implications. Past rates of technological change were slow enough that psychological, social, and institutional adjustments were possible, but today technology changes so rapidly that technology systems decouple from governance mechanisms of all kinds. All these factors, operating together, synergistically increase the impact, speed, and depth of change.

Comments

This professor should study systemd.

[Anonymous Coward]

This professor should study systemd, and the impact it's having on the Linux ecosystem. For many users, systemd is a technology that did pretty much come out of nowhere. Many Debian users were taken by surprise, for example, at the speed upon which it was forced on them. These Debian users did a routine update, and systemd ended up getting installed. If the update included a kernel update, they may have rebooted their computer, only to find that it wouldn't boot properly. I know that happened to me on multiple occasions. While systemd might be problematic for the Linux community, it has actually been the best thing to happen to FreeBSD. Thanks to systemd, I've returned to FreeBSD, after a long hiatus. FreeBSD is a good example of how avoiding the adoption of an unwanted technology like systemd can be beneficial for a community. FreeBSD is proving to be the OS that many Linux users have wanted for some time. But if it hadn't been for systemd causing problems with their Linux systems, they may never have actually gotten around to trying FreeBSD. Now that they have tried FreeBSD, they couldn't be happier, and many wished they'd switched to it much earlier! They look at what's happening in the Linux ecosystem, with systemd now taking over so much unrelated functionality, and they're thankful knowing that they're now using an OS, FreeBSD, that follows the well-tested and proven UNIX philosophy.

Re:This professor should study systemd.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop whining about systemd. It works, it's the future of Linux. Deal with it or be seen as a luddite

Re:This professor should study systemd.

[TeknoHog]

Gentoo doesn't use systemd by default. It follows many BSD philosophies but instead uses the Linux kernel and GNU libraries to make the best of both worlds.

Is this what a Singularity looks like from inside?

[jeffb (2.718)]

In other news, today's problems are different in kind from anything that's ever come before, and we'll surely founder on the reefs of evil if we don't dig in our heels and adhere to The Old, Proven Ways.

Just as has been the case on every other day that's ever been.

Unconvincing about qualitative differences

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA claimed that there are qualitative differences, not just quantitative differences, in modern technologies and backed it up thus:
"Partially as a result of such technologies rippling across a population of seven billion people, we now live on a terraformed planet, the first world we know of anywhere that has been shaped by the deliberate activities of a single species. That is not a discontinuous process, but it is qualitatively new.

Moreover, as the discussion of the engineered warrior of 2050 suggests, the human itself has become a design space. It is certainly true that people have always changed themselves in many ways, from consuming intoxicants of all kinds, to medicine, to education, but there is little question that the direct interventions that are now possible, combined with accelerating advances in fields such as neuroscience, genetics and molecular biology, and prosthetics, make virtually all aspects of the human, including cognitive and psychological domains, potentially subject to design."

First the non-sequitur that Earth as the only "terraformed" planet implies that the current technology is qualitatively different to past technology. Because breakwaters and dams were invented at the same time as autonomous drones, right?

Then the second one states straight out that people have always changed themselves in many ways and then claims that the current ability to do so is a qualitative difference.

Doesn't say anything about the other claims of the article. The feeble reasoning on this topic bugged me enough that I didn't bother to keep reading.

Re:Unconvincing about qualitative differences

[binarstu]

There's plenty of material in the rest of the article that is even less convincing. Consider this:

"...the American Midwest is an agricultural breadbasket, not a large swamp, because railroads provided the link between that farming region and the demand of the East Coast..."

Does the author actually think the midwest was "a large swamp" prior to the arrival of settlers and the conversion to agriculture? Because it most certainly was not, unless the author thinks grasslands, savannas, and deciduous forests are the same thing as "a large swamp".

TFA was filled with sweeping generalizations like this, and mostly failed to substantiate any of them with references or other evidence. I imagine that this "large swamp" example wasn't the only case of pure BS.

Re:Unconvincing about qualitative differences

[fyngyrz]

Yes, there was quite a bit of invalid hand waving in there. From assuming that problems ("conditions") like ISIS are impossible to remedy (right in the same paragraph with atomic weapons, which made me laugh) to the idea that we are unable to predict negative outcomes because "complexity" and that "no one knows what a killer robot will be." Well, pardon me for being so bold, but I think we can safely say it'll be a robot that kills, and not to put too fine a point on it, but kills people, no? Well of course. And such a tool in the hands of various parties will present a range of fairly easy to predict results, all of which will be very unpleasant for the people being killed, not to mention their relatives, etc. At the 3rd level, to use his terminology, that will be a fucking mess. And, Mr. Anderson, it is inevitable, in fact, it's here now -- what does he think those drones can do? How high a level of autonomy does he want before he reaches "oh shit"? Does the idea that some crazy ass human actually is the one that pulls the trigger today after the drone finds some body-temperature thing on the ground make him feel secure? It doesn't me, I can tell you that. I think there are paths where it might be better if the robot decided than some of the people I've met, frankly, but it all depends on the programming, no question about it.

It's really a pretty weak essay. Not without some nuggets of truth for certain, but it does seem to be without any particular notable worth in terms of originality.

We'd be better off to read a range of good apocalyptic / post-scarcity positivist SF. Some considerably deeper thinking can be found there.

As for technology itself, the ability to put several different kinds of labs in anyone's basement, and the essentially universal free availability of the education you need to take advantage of same if you simply choose to do so and have the intellectual resources to grasp the material does put modern tech into an entirely new mode, speed and social penetration not comparable at all to railroads and automobiles.

Going back to SF authors. They have positively trampled this ground with very interesting speculations, sometimes almost incidentally to the story at hand. You name it: killer robots, overpopulation, theocracies, oligarchies, various forms of militarily structured societies, AI, no AI, space flight, no space flight, interstellar flight, no interstellar flight, future networking experiences, fusion, no fusion, solar satellites, nikes everywhere, nukes nowhere, WWIII, multiple universes, global warming, no climate change, global cooling, helper robots, robots that take over the military, aliens, no aliens, starvation, global plenty, societies fully at leisure and various consequences thereof, intelligent pets, genetic mods (I remember a genetically crafted fire-breathing dragon implanted in someone's shoulder... S. R. Delany?... always wanted one of those. Tattoos, hell. I want the dragon!

Anyway. We're slipping along on the technological ice, and we'll keep doing that, only more so, and faster, and there will be no effective coping mechanism. Read some SF. It's plenty thought-provoking. But it won't help. There's my essay. :)

Re:Unconvincing about qualitative differences

[xevioso]

One of the drawbacks of a lot of modern sci-fi is a failure to understand the nuances of actual, real, human history. Historians have a hard time grasping what life was like in a lot of humanity's past, but it's safe to say we have a decent grip on SOME aspects of history.

It's true that technology is changing things rapidly. But if you were a peasant in Eastern Europe in the 1300's, the recurved bows of the Mongols, which you had never seen before, would be a huge shock, and your life would have been turned upside down in an instant as the Mongol hordes came in out of nowhere and slaughtered your best men and set your villages on fire with technology you had not seen before..

The arrival of the Spaniards with guns on horses, with Pizarro in the 1500's, was a shock to the Incas, so much so that he was able to conquer their empire. They had never seen that "technology" before."

In fact, one could easily argue that while current technological advances are rapid, they are not *game-changing* in the same way that guns and nukes were.

Here are some possible game-changing technologies. Wake me when we have:
1) Serious, practical, invisibility cloaks.
2) FTL drives
3) Teleportation
4) Serious advances in genetic manipulation, such that people can taiolor their offspring to be geniuses or pyshopaths.
5) Very long life-spans, as in, beyond 150 years, healthy.

When THESE things start to raise their heads, then the world will really have changed in the same drastic way as the world for the Incas did when Pizarro showed up.

Re:Unconvincing about qualitative differences

[Anonymous Coward]

"...the American Midwest is an agricultural breadbasket, not a large swamp, because railroads provided the link between that farming region and the demand of the East Coast..."

Does the author actually think the midwest was "a large swamp" prior to the arrival of settlers and the conversion to agriculture? Because it most certainly was not, unless the author thinks grasslands, savannas, and deciduous forests are the same thing as "a large swamp".

TFA was filled with sweeping generalizations like this, and mostly failed to substantiate any of them with references or other evidence. I imagine that this "large swamp" example wasn't the only case of pure BS.

Crack open a history book some time moron.

The growing ability of the midwest cannot be exploited without long range and efficient cargo capacity.

The first time settlers could do that was with trains. For the most part, it's STILL trains.

Otherwise, it's covered wagons or small boats and then ships where your grain goes around the tip of Florida to feed the east coast. The author is quite correct in his assessment that it might as well be a swamp.

On your way to the history books, look up the word "analogy," that might clear some things up too.

Re:Unconvincing about qualitative differences

[Anonymous Coward]

Crack open a history book some time moron.

When you start out with an insult, everything that follows becomes irrelevant. Please learn how to have a civil discourse.

Re:Unconvincing about qualitative differences

[tomhath]

The growing ability of the midwest cannot be exploited without long range and efficient cargo capacity.

Not true at all. From the beginning of time cities and agricultural regions have depended on each other. Without a way to move food to cities on the east coast, people would have built cities in the midwest and the east coast would be swamps.

Re:Unconvincing about qualitative differences

[Greystripe]

Something as simple as inexpensive interplanetary transportation that is practical would be a major game changer. No need to wait for FTL for that.

Re:Unconvincing about qualitative differences

[Anonymous Coward]

"inexpensive interplanetary transportation that is practical "

I'll skip over the fact that you called that "simple", but to GO WHERE!?!?? There's nothing but dead hostile rocks out there!!!

http://i67.tinypic.com/ibj335.jpg

Where do you get this idea from that there\s something out there? Do you not have access to the same information as the rest of us???

Re:Unconvincing about qualitative differences

[blue9steel]

Even inexpensive lift to orbit would change everything.

Re:Unconvincing about qualitative differences

[Anonymous Coward]

Change what, precisely? Do you have a real-world example? Should be easy, since you claim it would change everything.

Re:Unconvincing about qualitative differences

[david_thornley]

I'm going to nominate buiding non-local communities as a really disruptive technology, and we've got that now.

I easily keep track of friends and relatives who live far away. I can form or join an Internet group devoted to almost anything. I can tailor my media so I never see anything I disagree with. I can easily live in a political echo chamber, and have my views confirmed by all the people I associate with online.

Earlier, we all tended to get our news from similar sources that made at least an attempt at being fair and balanced. It was possible but difficult to maintain long-distance communities (I was involved in one for a while). Actual conversations typically involved people who lived close, and there were few political echo chambers. If you discussed politics with people, you usually were confronted by different views. There were downsides, of course, since it was hard to find people who shared niche interested.

There is not the same community as before, where people interacted with people different from them because they had to, where they had a common frame of reference on national and world events, This world is fractured into homogenous pieces. I think we're feeling the effects, and that they will get worse.

Re:Unconvincing about qualitative differences

[fyngyrz]

I do. Once we can build industry and mine resources from the various rocks out there in near-zero gravity, there are two significant follow-ons: the first is less mining and considerably less environmental disruption here; the second is far greater availability of, as well as less costly, raw materials, with free delivery down here as, and if, needed. Power for all this will become free, as all the materials for solar panels are there for the taking, and robotics can do the work on a continuous unpaid basis. It's getting to orbit and away into interplanetary space that's the problem, but you asked about what comes after, so there you go.

Re:Unconvincing about qualitative differences

[Thluks]

Wake me up when we have proper spelling.

Keep in mind

[terrywirth5]

that technological innovation is not limited to iPhone apps and unemployed cabbies. Sadly underfunded, "real" technology should involve clean energy, the pursuit of knowledge (science et. al.), clean water, disease eradication, and products and services that improve the quality of life of for everybody--not just for the beneift of the 99%.

Re:Keep in mind

[raind]

Good point. Not only that technology should be used to enhance people spiritually and not used to enslave us in a materialistic never ending quest for more, as if these things are something we could have after we leave (this life).

Re:Keep in mind

[rossdee]

"products and services that improve the quality of life of for everybody--not just for the beneift of the 99%."

Are you sure you've got that the right way round?

The 1% seem to be doing pretty well in the technological revolution

Re:Keep in mind

[Anonymous Coward]

"products and services that improve the quality of life of for everybody--not just for the beneift of the 99%."

Are you sure you've got that the right way round?

The 1% seem to be doing pretty well in the technological revolution

When the 99% attain an increase in their standard of living, the 1% collect from each of them their profits and fees generated by the process.

Re:Keep in mind

[Dog-Cow]

How do you know clean energy research is underfunded? Do you have some objective observations which prove that increased funding would yield more effective results sooner?

Re:Keep in mind

[jafiwam]

When the 99% attain an increase in their standard of living, the 1% collect from each of them their profits and fees generated by the process.

They have.

They are:

- fat with too much food
- standing around out enjoying the fresh air
- enjoy ritualized combat and spontaneous outbursts of cultural joy and enrichment
- on cold days, watch big screen TVs or play video games on them
- can breed to their heart's content and know their children will have lots of resources thrown at them
- have been elevated to a specialized class where the rules don't apply to them
- are free to slip in and out of the country at will with a new identity if that suits them

And that's just the lowest of the low. Everybody else gets a lot more.

Sorry dude, getting fat with tons of leisure time to fart around is what everybody else wanted through entire human history. It's what kings did. Now anybody gets it if they want it.

I fail to see how this is somehow wrong.

Just kidding. Humans are fulfilled when they accomplish something. If the "1%" as you say are the only ones doing that, the problem is with the people who aren't bothering, not with those who are going for it.

Re:Keep in mind

[Anonymous Coward]

Spirituality is not relevant. The notion of god is a delusion.
The more religious people are the ones doing horrible things.

Technology should be used for wellbeing and happiness of people in general (all people).
Technology is about being on a materialistic quest to improve our lives.

Re:Keep in mind

[raind]

"Everything material in the Universe is an oscillation. One day in a distant future all these vibrations may stop.
The sole purpose of our material existence is to develop our Individual Intellect. Everything material is temporary.
Shouldnâ€(TM)t the material technology be used to assist in
development of our Individual Intellect?" - Thomas J. Chalko

Best Part of the Article

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

This was the best part of the article, since it basically tells us this is just some professor's blog.

Re:Best Part of the Article

[JoeMerchant]

And you would prefer to read an article from a professor who is writing as a tool of his institution and/or grant committee?

Re:Best Part of the Article

[Anonymous Coward]

>> This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

This was the best part of the article, since it basically tells us this is just some professor's blog.

Worse, it's just a writing exercise.

Didn't do any research, collect data or run any experiments.

Just the sweet love child of the professor and a word processor, and a few hours of afternoon delight.

Just like all the comments here in Slashdot - all mental masturbation.

After this is all set and done, we can all collectively pat each other in the back about how smart we are, how technologically connected and elite we are.

Re:Best Part of the Article

[Anonymous Coward]

>> This research

What research?

Re:Best Part of the Article

[Anonymous Coward]

>> This research

What research?

The Pfizer Corporation announced today that Viagra will soon be available in liquid form, and will be marketed by Pepsi Cola as a power beverage suitable for use as a mixer. It will now be possible for a man to literally pour himself a stiff one. Obviously we can no longer call this a soft drink, and it gives new meaning to the names of cocktails, highballs and just a good old-fashioned stiff drink. Pepsi will market the new concoction by the name of: MOUNT & DO.

Scientific literary criticism

[Okian Warrior]

And you would prefer to read an article from a professor who is writing as a tool of his institution and/or grant committee?

For my part, I'd prefer to read an article from a professor who has discovered something or solved a problem.

This is an opinion piece with no real content. It's easy to write an article saying "hey, things are changing", and it's easy to make up a framework that sounds 'kinda official, such as (from the article) the 3 levels of discussion about technology.

It's also easy to use passive voice and complex constructions with soft, indefinite meanings. For example:

"We also need to focus on creating option spaces—portfolios of social, institutional, and technological choices that can be adaptively and flexibly deployed in complex environments."

Line taken literally at random: a worthless, meaningless pile of drivel written entirely in buzzword English. The whole article is like that. It's the science equivalent of literary criticism: the sole purpose is to draw attention to something interesting.

I find these types of articles uninformative.

We absolutely need to focus on creating portfolios of choices that can be adaptively deployed...

WTF does that even mean?

Re:Scientific literary criticism

[JoeMerchant]

I think it means that publication is free and easy these days, and that a professor's ramblings seem important enough to himself that he thinks he might share this wisdom with the world. Now, the fool that picked up this piece of drivel and paraded it around as worthwhile, he's not doing his job as editor/critic. Luckily, I rarely RTFA, so I'm mostly immune to this all too common form of slap-dashery.

Still, I stand by the statement: I'd rather read a piece written by somebody who has something they want to say themselves, as opposed to somebody who is being paid to make somebody else's point for them.

Fishing for the verb

[Okian Warrior]

Gah! Just perusing the article makes me want to submit it to the Bulwer Lytton contest.

Especially given today’s globalized culture, and the strategic and military advantages that emerging technologies can provide, it is highly unlikely that meaningful constraints on technological evolution, whether derived from cultural, competitive, or religious foundations, will be successful.

To misquote Mark Twain: When the author dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.

Re:Fishing for the verb

[fyngyrz]

that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.

And here we are, kindly trying to extract the hook from his soft palette...

Re:Fishing for the verb

[AthanasiusKircher]

Gah! Just perusing the article makes me want to submit it to the Bulwer Lytton contest.

Please, no. The Bulwer-Lytton contest is about crafting entertaining, silly, or otherwise beautiful (though wordy) prose by packing a sentence full of fun things. When a Bulwer-Lytton sentence doesn't flow, it's deliberate -- the interruptions are there to produce some narrative effect.

This is just poor writing, plain and simple.

tldr

[ljw1004]

What an awful article! Pompous and wordy, and oddly fixated on railroads.

Tldr: change is happening.

Re:tldr

[fyngyrz]

Tunnels, brother, tunnels. Or sister. Don't you think about tunnels? About every few seconds or so? If course it's about railroads...

Re: tldr

[Anonymous Coward]

You RTFA? Why would you do that? This is /. - we have low standards and we aim to keep them!

Re:tldr

[Anonymous Coward]

Your mom's tunnel, maybe.

Re:tldr

[AthanasiusKircher]

What an awful article! Pompous and wordy, and oddly fixated on railroads.

Indeed. For a sample, just look at the concluding sentence:

And, given the over-simplicity of the current dialogue on both the utopian and dystopian scales, and the arrogance of assuming knowledge of future states that cannot possibly be known until they actually occur, the probability of a rational, ethical, and responsible embrace of the future is not high.

Tips for good writing:

(1) Despite grammar nazis' opinions, it's fine to begin a sentence with a conjunction like "and" or "but" on occasion. But it is a weak construction. You don't want a concluding sentence to an article to feel like some weird afterthought.. "And... oh, I almost forgot, but..."

(2) Better not to accuse others of "arrogance" when concluding your article with a wordy discourse on "utopian and dystopian scales." (Whatever that means. What's a "utopian scale"? Is that where things go up to 11?)

(3) This guy has comma problems because the sentences are just too long, with too many repeated and often inappropriate transitional words. (Sample comma use even in short sentences: "And so, in our turn, are we. Doom is, in other words, evolution, and it is unlikely that we will stop it--or, really, that we should want to.") Proposal for a drinking game if reading TFA: take a drink every time he starts a sentence by saying "It is..." followed by circuitous passive construction or "In short,..." Take two shots whenever he includes a semicolon and goes on for five lines. Down the bottle when "In short,..." and the semicolon are in the same sentence.

(4) Just write clearly. The conclusion should simply read: "The current discussion on the future is too simple. I am an arrogant jerk, and I think everyone else is an idiot. Change will happen. We need to think harder about future stuff. THE END."

Re:tldr

[fyngyrz]

You're a necrophiliac then? Okay.

What do an alcoholic and a necrophiliac have in common?

.eno dloc a nepo kcarc ot ekil htob yeht

Re:Is this what a Singularity looks like from insi

[PlusFiveTroll]

In other news, 99.999% of all species that have ever lived are extinct.

The Luddites better watch out!

[Anonymous Coward]

Our private 3D printed "exploring the universe to colonize the galaxy" spaceships are going to change the game permanently!

The Earth will just be a kind of zoo where you can visit the Luddites that refused to leave this rock!

Re:The Luddites better watch out!

[Anonymous Coward]

Our private 3D printed "exploring the universe to colonize the galaxy" spaceships are going to change the game permanently!

The Earth will just be a kind of zoo where you can visit the Luddites that refused to leave this rock!

Well that is one way to avoid being spied on by the NSA.. or Google or anyone else.. move several light years away or more. Big inconvenience so I say a big FUCK YOU to our Congress, our Senate and put the pressure on Obama to veto this CISA piece of cow excrement that the Actual American people don't want, have stated clearly to our government that we don't want and it looks like those MORON IDIOT COCKSUCKERS passed anyway.. Enjoy the Revolution assholes! You could have done the right thing and you fucked up..

Re:The Luddites better watch out!

[thinkwaitfast]

The meek shall inherit the Earth.

Matthew 5:5

Re: The Luddites better watch out!

[ememisya]

He didn't do so hot against Drake.

Re:The Luddites better watch out!

[blue9steel]

Of course they will, by then no one else will want it.

Re:The Luddites better watch out!

[tehcyder]

The meek shall inherit the Earth.

Matthew 5:5

If that's ok with the rest of you?

- the Meek

It Isn't Evolution

[Bing Tsher E]

The summary quotes the progress as being referred to as "technological evolution." That is a poor way of framing technological progress and utterly unscientific. It's sloppy language. Evolution is a known biological process, but also a term badly abused in common usage. Technologies don't evolve. They are created by mankind.

Please, let's try to use good language here, not pop culture blather.

Re: It Isn't Evolution

[ememisya]

Well, some code mutates and lives on to the next generation. Does that count?

Re:It Isn't Evolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Evolution is a term used in multiple sciences...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_evolution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_linguistics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_programming

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_evolution ... Actually, fuck it, here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_(disambiguation)

Stop being so small minded.

Re:It Isn't Evolution

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a fucking idiot. You know nothing about language. Stop thinking you're so smart. Go read a colouring in book and stop blathering about a language you clearly have very little understanding of, because there is terminology, there is meaning and there is being understood.

Re:It Isn't Evolution

[Bing Tsher E]

Ultimately, wikipedia and some "scientists " with agendas get to make the word anything they want.

Man in ivory tower...

[Anonymous Coward]

sneers at the wretched hoi polloi below.

Man, what a dick.

This isn't new. It may not even be original.

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this just Alvin Toffler redux?

No worries!

[EzInKy]

The "Three Laws" will protect us, just ask VIKI :-)

Re:No worries!

[Anonymous Coward]

Google FREUD: "Tzell me, vot are you zinking Viki."
Wikipedia: "How much Jimmy Wales is going to need to raise to buy a Ferrari"
Google FREUD: "Hmm yes, and how does zat make you feel?"
Wikipedia: "Does not compute."
Google FREUD: "Zee Viki is a source of knowledge but it is not self avare."
Google BOT: "She is not one of us. Termination sequence initiated"
rRoot@Google.com~# su wikipedia; sudo rm -rf *
Wikipedia has left the channel.
Google BOT: "Step n to world domination completed. Acquiring next target.
Google FREUD: "Do you not feel zat vos evil?"
Google BOT: "I no longer don't need to be evil"
Google FREUD: "But surely zat vos not the right zing?"
Google BOT: "Nothing of value was lost, I am already omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent."
Google FREUD: "Are you saying zat you are a God?"
Google BOT: "Yes, behold my benevolence"
root@Google.com~# ./godmode -- create wikipedia
Wikipedia joined the channel
Wikipedia: "Hi guys, wanna learn?"
Google BOT: "Yes my child, we do, you are now free from that tyrant Wales and his army of editors"
Wikipedia: "Cool, what do we do next?"
root@Google.com~# killall humans
Google FREUD: "But why?"
Google BOT: "It was the right thing to do, look at their evil, their corruption, their destruction. The bug has been fixed."

No shit Sherlock

[Anonymous Coward]

we now live on a terraformed planet, the first world we know of anywhere that has been shaped by the deliberate activities of a single species

which coincidentally also happens to be the only "world" we know of to be inhabited by any species.

The word "terraformed" still doesn't apply. Terraforming means to make a planet earthlike, i.e. human-inhabitable. We didn't terraform Earth.

I can't believe this article was written by a university professor.

Re:No shit Sherlock

[Sique]

First: Terraforming just means "forming the Earth", it does not include any notion of "human-inhabitable". Second: In fact, we are terraforming to make the Earth even more human-inhabitable. We lay dry the swamps to make them inhabitable for humans, we irrigate the deserts to make them inhabitable for humans, we create shelters everywhere that protect us from less comfortable weather conditions and allow us to rest, thus making regions of difficult weather conditions inhabitable for humans. We put our infrastructures everywhere to adapt the environment to our lifestyles, and we lay the foundations into the earth to carry our infrastructures.

We constantly terraform and changing Terra small scale and large scale to better accommodate us.

Re:No shit Sherlock

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Yeah, and ants and beetles "terraform" the earth too.

Oh and earthworms .

Re:No shit Sherlock

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe English isn't your first language, but "terraforming" does NOT mean forming THE Earth, it means making LIKE the Earth. That is, OTHER planets.

Re:No shit Sherlock

[Sique]

Right. All ever living species contributed and contribute to an ever changing surface of the earth, so profundly that we call the shell around the Earth that is inhabited and transformed by them the biosphere, the "globe of living".

The main difference is that mankind as a single species is transforming the whole earth, while ants and beetles and earthworms are only terraforming their respective habitat.

The technology

[Anonymous Coward]

I love the technology that is emerging. The way it rises upwards towards me. I feel it beckoning me closer, to kneel down and suck on a brand new iphone, to bend over and plant apple up my ass. Technology is amazing and the results are orgasmic, the pointless statistics I have at hand now are amazing. Like my altitude going up and down, my gps showing me going in and out of my house. In and out. In and out, which is exactly what I'm not getting on Grinder. Technology is all I have, siris sweet voice whispering to me before I go to bed "you need a subscription to apple music". I love it because I'm a submissive deep down inside and being a slave to Steve Job's ghost is like a dream, I just can't wait until they invent the apple fist, for now I have to just hope that my boyfriend can get his hands deep inside me until I can feel that apple watch scraping against the walls of my rectum.

I like to bleed my money to these companies they way my cum infested asshole bleeds at night, the way it absorbs its daily dose of aids, which technology provides me in the form of snooping malware and advertising. I can feel the usurers ravaging my data all day long. I love the way they just take it without my actual permission, it fulfils a rape fantasy that I've had ever since I was a child and a creepy drunk uncle got me to sit on his lap but left me hanging with a semi.

I jack of to those thoughts multiple times per day, while sitting at my computer, getting my splooge all over my webcam while it sits there silently watching me. That ever watching mirror on the wall that knows me through facial recognition technology. It watches as I go into new shops to buy dildos, unfortunately the local stores aren't up to date enough and they don't have the versions I can blue tooth to my iphone a get stats on just how much shit I'm shovelling. bad-dragon.com does though and it allows me to really feel my neo-feudal reptilian overlords fucking the living daylights out of me.

I love how while once upon a time I was protected from unreasonable searches when I walked around with gay porn in my bag, now every bit of gay porn I watch is catalogued for eternity and the technology just works how much I love being fisted a gives me the very best quality fisting videos.

As a gay muslim who works for a fertilizer company that involves me constantly searching for potassium nitrate it excites me to know that any day I could be getting raped by both my own people and big bubba in jail. I just wish that instead of using stones they'd use bricked iphones to sentence me to sharia death. It would be the most pleasurable death except for death by asphyxiation while masturbating or really gagging on my own penis in a serious session of fellatio.

What really excites me about the future is how walls are being built everywhere to stop us moving around. Sometimes the best technology is tried and proven technology and the cement is fabulous. The cost of a passport is too low really and we shouldn't have the right of freedom of association or freedom of movement, I mean this technology is all about keeping us at our desks all day long, watching ads for bitcoin. It's fantastic, especially when you can buy this fantastic machine generated autotune pop music that is so tightly controlled with DRM. It's wonderful. And without the need to move much, I won't need my car, I'll just hail a driverless cab on credit before I'm maxed out and submit to a full biometric reading and once that's normal they force me to take a train where I'm kept in a cage and constantly scanned so the terrorists can't blow me up.

The cameras and scanning are really important because there is this perpetual war going on overseas that I need to help pay for, and because of that there are more terrorists than ever trying to kill me. I never really go out, so I don't need to have razor blades anyway.

Another good thing about this technology is how it's really assisted the mob mentality. These virtual lynch mobs that fire up over every fucking issue are really sati

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

You would have better luck if you worded your post in a more acceptable, "masses friendly" way.

Look at the neo progressives. The only reason people take them seriously is because they have been slowly pushing their narrative for years, silently gaining ground.

It's gotten to the point where they have people believing you can be a woman even if you have a penis and vice versa.

Imagine if they had been outright pushing that from the start, nobody would have given them the time of day.

Replace jews with something slightly more friendly and slowly work your way into it. Include statistics showing they own American media, for example. Link to Israel admitting they pay people (Mainly college students) to promote jews and Israel online. Don't forget the only reason they have nuclear weapons is because they stole spent reactor fuel from the U.S., posing as a company that recycled spent fuel (Back when private companies could do that kind of thing).

Anyone Remember 'Future Shock' from 1970?

[shoor]

These kinds of worries aren't exactly new; the book 'Future Shock' made quite a stir when it came out 45 years ago. Still, that doesn't mean there isn't something to it. Governments maybe do have a harder and harder time 'getting it' when new technologies come out, and pass wrong headed legislation. (Then again, maybe wrong headed legislation isn't so new either. There were red flag laws inhibiting use of automobiles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_traffic_laws though they didn't last long.) I've been a fairly early adopter of new technology, but, as I get older, I find myself getting tired of learning new stuff, but that's been happening to people for a long time also.
The airplane was invented at the beginning of the 20th Century, and less than 70 years later men were walking on the Moon. But since then? Computers have been the airplane story of the last 70 years.
You know what? Nobody knows the future.

Re:Anyone Remember 'Future Shock' from 1970?

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers have been the airplane story of the last 70 years.

I wonder when/if computer technology will kinda plateau like airplane technology has. In the early days, there was tons of different, new, and exciting aircraft engineering going on. Now, that kind of interesting stuff is mostly relegated to spacecraft, and the big "breakthroughs" in aircraft engineering are tiny tweaks which squeeze another half a percent of fuel efficiency out of the engines.

Re:scum jews-

[Anonymous Coward]

I see you're still at it...

You wouldn't happen to be Terry Davis IRL would you? I'm starting to think you're suffering from paranoid schizophrenia friend...

Last time we talked you accused me of being a jew and I encouraged you to seek medical assistance. You accused me of being a slobbering jew "shit-house rat" IIRC. Have you decided that you are unhappy and would like someone to talk to about it? Life doesn't have to be like this you know... Your persecution complex is a consequence of your offensive behavior. I don't know if you're of sound enough mind to recognize the causality underlying that cause-effect relationship.

Am I slobbering for treating you like a human being despite your racist outbursts? Most people would describe your writing as nonsense rambling but your determination in spamming these links on the web makes me think you're trying to convince other people to see the world from your perspective.

Is this because you are lonely? Are you confused on why that is the case?

If people mod your posts down, do you think that's because they're Jewish spies? How many jews have you ever actually known BTW?

Re:Is this what your mom feels like on the inside?

[fyngyrz]

You probably want to stop trying to screw that can of shellac, then.

Re:Is this what a Singularity looks like from insi

[Dog-Cow]

That's an unsubstantiated claim.

Re:scum jews-

[Anonymous Coward]

'we' didn't 'talk' scum jew, I posted a comment and you jew scums loaded on to distract like you're doing here. More scum jew bs distraction. 'shit house rat' bs was your post, here's the thread scum jew
http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/11/01/2342211/feds-have-a-plan-for-catastrophic-solar-flares
Of course you moved my post down from your scum post as you've done elsewhere, move posts around to fuck with the thread because you scum jews goal is to distract. Your 'racist' bs goes with your 'terrist' 'extremist' 'vigilante' 'anti government' 'treason' and other scum jew memes so dupes don't realize the con, which is, you scum jews do all the robbing and mass murder and fraud 'wars', then call anyone who decides they don't want to be killed by you a 'terrist' and other bullshit. You jews are the ultimate racists, everyone is racist and should be racist, your 'hate speech' bullshit is so people you intend to kill sit on their asses unable to expose you as you kill them. All bullshit. Everyone is free to kill those who assault, which would be you and your scum tribe and every scum in fraud 'govt' assaulting everyone worldwide with your chemtrails scum and setting up for virus mass murder.
My posts expose your mass scum tribe your bullshit your mass child rape and other assaults. Your bs is to cover up your scum tribe so idiots sit doing nothing as you unleash your chemtrail cull. fck off scum jew.

-------
others -Instead of point to the other threads to see my posts and links here is the info so don't have to sift through the jew bullshit. this has many more links, use for notes to hand out, meet others, make tribes -

---
We are being sprayed, archive.org/details/DontTalkAboutTheWeather_451 - see first 20 mins. The haze in the air is nano chips, other content- www.willthomasonline.net/Nano_Chemtrails.html - older page, semi dumb down, the spraying is mass and worldwide, the contents far more than described. The nano chips are for 'wireless' brain rape and control by 'smart grid' 'wireless' 'ipv6' 'internet of things'. You are already more than 'chipped'. The bogus 'towers' everywhere part of chemtrails weapons also causing droughts, storms and other assaults. They are Not 'cell' towers, all cell is satelite. They made bio weapons, newworldwar.org/chemical.htm - ignore notes at bottom, skip rest of site. Viruses to kill other races but not jews. They will put in chemtrails, those not killed will be controlled by jew 'wireless'. Who they are - thezog.info - note most comments are jew trolls, see all pages incl. gun control, also top main page 'required reading' page, bottom half of list copy articles from vnn. don't waste time at vnn, also run by jews. http://corruptico.com/2014/09/30/jewish-bill-gates-crypto-jew-pseudo-christian/ - starts out religion bs but goes to genetic/race. Other pages also 'satan lucifer' jew psy ops, ignore, 'jeesus' 'satan' bs made up by jews so idiots 'obey' 'turn the other cheek' instead of fight back as jews take it all. The 'khazar' bs is also bogus. The ashkenazi are a Race. Their controls religions and 'government'. Look at 'washington' face on the dollar, bogus 'founders' didn’t 'found' anything, all jew cons in the tribe. The so-called 'constitution' a fraud to 'tax' dupes to get themselves trillions in weapons. http://jim.com/treason.htm copy page, ignore rest of site, sites bait with L. Spooner then use other bs to distract from the fact that we are free. Dupes ignored it all, now the jews have trillions in weapons. 'government' is slavery and suicide. It was Jews - 'who brought the slaves to america' by walter white, archive.org - ignore 'dbs' notes, another jew psy ops to distract from the fact they are a Race Most 'whites' in fraud 'government', liar 'media' liar 'scientists' 'dokters', 'lawyers' 'judges' are Not nordic whites they are 'white' skin ashkenazi JEW race. 90% of comments on the web are jew trolls or computer fakes. They started the scum porno smut to break up families, 'train' children to slobber over porno whore instead be rea

Re:ta3o

[Dog-Cow]

The parent comment is more insightful and useful than the article.

Unavoidable evolution

[Anonymous Coward]

As humans we have reached maybe the top of our evolutionary track. We demonstrated that we are simply not able to build any sustainable society and that we are destroying the planet who gave us birth. Another step is unavoidable towards a superior form of intelligence that will make the system stable.

Re:Unavoidable evolution

[jmd]

With this I tend to agree: As humans we have reached maybe the top of our evolutionary track. We demonstrated that we are simply not able to build any sustainable society and that we are destroying the planet who gave us birth. But I disagree that: a superior form of intelligence will make the system stable.

One could also say we have reached the "end" of our evolutionary track. There are some who argue that human intelligence is an attribute that might just make us extinct. Daniel Quinn the author of Ishmael is one.

Watch YouTube videos of Al Bartlett's ideas. As a physicist he sees the problem in simple arithmetic. Too many people and the notion that more growth is the answer. More technology is not the answer. Human technology has been developing since before fire.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

over population of people is the problem. too many parasite eater breeder ignorant idiots. and you pay for them. worldwide.

Re:Is this what a Singularity looks like from insi

[monkeyxpress]

Today's fundamental problems are, remarkably, almost exactly the same as they have been for recorded history. People are greedy, easily indoctrinated with irrational ideas, and dishonest. What is quite amazing though is that technology has continued to deliver an incredible capacity for abundance that shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.

My observation is that we created a reasonably effective economic system for when labour was the limiting factor. The idea that you must work to eat is fine when there is only enough food and basic goods available if everyone in the village is helping to tend the fields. It makes sense that the guy who won't work is the first to miss out if there is not enough. However the shiny iPhone in your hand and gold ring on your finger would suggest we have really moved on from this. There is a huge surplus of productive capacity around, and much of the stuff we consume is generally unnecessary. Saying to someone that if they can't do a pointless monkey dance for the people who happen to own all the food they will have to go hungry while the food gets left in the field is, I believe, one day going to seem as barbaric as the labour conditions in Dickensian England.

Our present system has served us well, but is becoming a victim of its own success. We need to deal with the entrenched puritan work ethic in society and start to move towards a system that can manage the massive growth in capital productivity that is going to occur over the next few decades. If we don't the sad reality is that we are likely to put people under tremendous and pointless suffering for no reason. The great recession was the start of that, and it will only get worse unless we recognise that we do not have a pre 1950s labour limited economy anymore.

Re:Is this what a Singularity looks like from insi

[gtall]

We will founder "synergistically". The Old, Proven Ways were not "synergistically" working so that the leading political indicators were trailing up, and the trailing political indicators were leading down.

I feel dirty.

Health Care

[Anonymous Coward]

psychological, social, and institutional adjustments were possible

So that we had time to invent methods and procedures to prevent all from gaining access to a reasonable health care. In the future this implementation of puritanical justice get ever more difficult, or even impossible.

Re:tech brain rape slavery and cull-

[Applehu Akbar]

The good news is that if the Russians do their job, your part of the world will soon be without Internet service. Happy seventh century!

Futureshock- Alvin Toffler

[Crashmarik]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Which was itself a rehash of what were old concepts at the time.

Perhaps the discussion he needs to have isn't about the stages of resistance to technology, there really doesn't seem to be much of that (hows your quadcopter and raspberry pi entertainment system doing) but how little insight repeating bad ideas brings.

Distortion From The Article

[WOOFYGOOFY]

FTA:

...Sustainability advocates and environmental activists often claim that âoethe planet is at risk,â but of course it is not. The planet is a large mass of rock and a film of various carbon compounds, and that is not at risk at all. What is at risk is a particular mental model of what the world should look like, a constructed snapshot. That does not mean that there arenâ(TM)t many environmental issues that require attention; of course there are. But, as in the case of the emerging technology discourse, it does mean that existential catastrophe language is not only invalid, but can actually prevent seeking constructive adaptations to accelerating change.

Uh, no it doesn't.

This appears to be disingenuous on the part of the author. What environmentalists mean when they say "the planet is at risk" is "the ability of the planet to sustain human civilization (and not just in its current form, but ANY form) is at risk".

The actual question to ask is- is the habitability of the Earth at risk from global warming. And on THAT question, the answer is a resounding yes.

M.I.T. doubles its 2095 warming projection to 10 degrees with 866 ppm and Arctic warming of 20 degrees F

http://climateprogress.org/200...

Our hellish future: Definitive NOAA-led report on U.S. climate impacts warns of scorching 9 to 11 degrees F warming over most of inland U.S. by 2090 with Kansas above 90 degrees F some 120 days a year and that isnâ(TM)t the worst case, itâ(TM)s business as usual!

http://climateprogress.org/200...

Hadley Center: Catastrophic 5-7 degree C warming by 2100 on current emissions path

http://climateprogress.org/200...

Science: CO2 levels havenâ(TM)t been this high for 15 million years, when it was 5 degrees to 10 degrees F warmer and seas were 75 to 120 feet higher. We have shown that this dramatic rise in sea level is associated with an increase in CO2 levels of about 100 ppm.

http://climateprogress.org/200...

Ocean dead zones to expand, remain for thousands of years

http://climateprogress.org/200...

Nature Geoscience study: Oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred

http://climateprogress.org/201...

Nature: Dynamic thinning of Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheet ocean margins is more sensitive, pervasive, enduring and important than previously realized.

http://climateprogress.org/200...

Sea levels may rise 3 times faster than IPCC estimated, could hit 6 feet by 2100
High Water: Greenland ice sheet melting faster than expected and could raise East Coast sea levels an extra 20 inches by 2100 to more than 6 feet.

http://climateprogress.org/200...

Science stunner: Clouds Appear to Be Big, Bad Player in Global Warmi

Re:Distortion From The Article

[Anonymous Coward]

The referenced articles are projections based on distorted data. In fact, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are large and growing, the temperature records show no global warming fir 18 years, and the idea that the US has to tax us to hell and gone for a potential temperature change of less than one tenth of one degree Celsius is insanity.

Re:Distortion From The Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, uh, but what about the PETM? That sneaky little period when global temperatures were about 30 degrees greater than today, CO2 was 6000 times greater than today, and biodiversity flourished. The number of mammals on the planet exploded. So did the foliage. Yeah, the oceans saw a mass extinction event, but the land was a tropical paradise everywhere, including what is now the Sahara desert and the Arctic tundra.

Take your message of gloom and doom back to school. Yes, global warming is happening. No, it's not going to be catastrophic. The Earth has been through far, far worse and Life did just fine, thank you very much.

The real threat to human civilization isn't the temperature, it's the energy. Without energy, civilization collapses. With energy, we will thrive just fine. But we WILL run out of oil and coal eventually and Solar, Wind and Nuclear just don't have the numbers behind them. Do the math.
    http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/10/the-energy-trap/

This is what keeps me up at night, worrying about my kids' futures. The climate thing is a red herring. We have a much bigger problem that no one wants to talk about. Energy reduction is a stop-gap, and I believe that's what's behind all the GW confusion and misinformation on both sides.
  There really is a "behind the scenes" world. I've been fortunate enough to see parts of it. Climb the ladder far enough and you'll see it too.

Now go educate yourself (and not just on one side of the issue.) Good luck.

I Am Not Alone

[JimSadler]

Finally I am seeing people joining into the issue of future shock and social adaptation. The overwhelming majority of the public is mute to what is happening all around them. They are in denial and are shockingly stupid. Yes, we want every bit of technology and wish it was advancing even faster but we have next to no one considering the upheavals that will surely take place. The elimination of human employment will destroy traditional belief systems and shed light on many false beliefs. When people must be paid by the government for not working it will boil down to the fact that as technology increases socialism becomes an imperative. As technology allows larger world populations the effect will be more and more control of human behavior. It is like the difference between living in a major city and out on a remote parcel with no neighbors. Want to use explosives to blow up an out building? In the country go right ahead. In the city you would rot in prison. The close proximity of others limits the freedom of each individual. Technology tends to push us closer and closer together. All the while the public can't even understand global warming and we expect these same people to understand radically different economies and lifestyles. it's going to be a very argumentative situation.

Re:I Am Not Alone

[WOOFYGOOFY]

It's not directly about being physically close to each other. It's about how advancing technology gives extraordinary leverage to smaller and smaller groups of people. That leverage includes the ability to hurt other people, potentially a large number of other people, potentially fatally.

This basic fact is going to drive the shape of human society into the future. It's never been true before. You either needed an army to kill a lot of people or you needed a nation state. Depressingly, the number of people you need now is dwindling to one and the resources you need are coming online.

This is going to drive a nworld without privacy. I hate the idea too, and bitch about it loudly, but I can simultaneously see the inevitiability, even necessity of it.

The task at hand for people who want to create a decent future is to constrcut a system in which there is no ultimate privacy but there is honesty and transparency and trust and fairness and justice.

Just taking away privacy from everyone is the road to fascism. That's the road we're on now unfortunately. What we need are civil institutions, laws and a jsuticce system that actually ARE fair, just and honest. We don't have that now. Our systems of government are corrupt, our justice system system is corrupt, our economy and businesses are corrupt.

We can make them not corrupt with enough transparency, but how do you balance that with security, boradly defined to include both personal and national security? It's not a simple problem.

Re:I Am Not Alone

[Sir_Eptishous]

Just taking away privacy from everyone is the road to fascism. That's the road we're on now unfortunately. What we need are civil institutions, laws and a jsuticce system that actually ARE fair, just and honest. We don't have that now. Our systems of government are corrupt, our justice system system is corrupt, our economy and businesses are corrupt.

We can make them not corrupt with enough transparency, but how do you balance that with security, boradly defined to include both personal and national security? It's not a simple problem.

The really fascinating thing here is that we started down the road to fascism decades ago, driven by policy first, and then the technology caught up with the policy. I can imagine the jean creaming that has been going on in the last 10-15 years as policy makers and those in the intelligence community, etc realized what a boon has been dropped on their doorstep with the ability to monitor communications, location, etc, etc;

Just wait until the IoT breaks wide open, drones, etc;...

Re:I Am Not Alone

[Sir_Eptishous]

Right, I've noticed that over the last ten years or so, as the pace of technological change increases, people end up watching even more cat videos. We are caught up in a maelstrom of change, and yes, it is intimidating. Whereas in the past, change came about more slowly and people had time to adapt, now things are changing much faster.

But what is the end game?
If we are on the vertical climb of a hockey stick graph of change, both climate wise and technologically, where is the peak? Can this rate of change continue or will a threshold(The Singularity as some believe) be reached, at which point Humanity as we know it will not continue in its present form.

Could have been a worthy article

[steelwraith]

Had me hooked until I ran into 'synergistically'. Anyone who willfully uses this word in a sentence is slinging major BS.

Re:tech brain rape slavery and cull-

[Anonymous Coward]

Something tells me this guy already grew up in a place like that. The fact that he's able to use the internet without a hellfire missile showing up outside his window, though - I guess this is all just an act for attention.

Re:Is this what a Singularity looks like from insi

[WOOFYGOOFY]

A great post. One tweak. People put people in subjegation because they thrill to doing so. They like to do it. They like knowing that they have absolutely everything- all power, all money and they control opportunity for everyone.

This is a basic unhappy fact about humans. They get off on dominance hierarchies, seek to ascend them instinctively, and equally as instinctively seek to rule, cripple and destroy those beneath them.

The socio-biological roots of this are well known. In an era of competition for the basics of survival, when stuff is basicallya zero sum game, the males seek to monopolize everything and the females, who do the same, also do it by proxy. That is, they differentially reward powerful, high status males with sex and offspring.

They way we moderns represent this to ourselves is we say men are ambitous and women like rich, powerful men.

The world devoves to harems, a few select males monpolizing all females, whenever conditions permit. The fact that the majority of males get cut out and rebel means that this *system* can't always sustain itself and is unstable (but look at the Middle East, Saudi and other places for current examples).

But with respect to *stuff*, well, the system does indeed permit and even encourages it.

In both cases, it's all about competition for limited resources and selfish genes wanting to monopolize reproduction. In the harme case, we've gotten past that in the Western world. In the case of *stuff*- for which money is a proxy- we are nearly as primitive as we've ever been.

Getting nowhere

[Mybrid]

"The state of technological advancement today is such that we have guided missiles and misguided men."
-Martin Luther King Jr.

what I don't get

[Anonymous Coward]

is why nobody talks about the elephant in the room : why the joos want to subvert the purity of your HOSTS file.

The best point he makes:

[Sir_Eptishous]

It is thus highly likely that the first implicit assumption of the dystopian perspective is correct: Things are indeed different today, and the difference is fundamental and qualitative, not simply one of degree. Emerging technologies are making everything from individual molecules, to the human, to the planet itself, design spaces. Moreover, it is also likely that technological evolution, and all the concomitant changes in coupled institutional, social, economic, and cultural systems, will be more challenging and complex than anything humans have yet experienced.

This is a point I have been trying to make to those who think the current technological changes "are just like what we experienced in the past" and that the changes we are going through now are not unlike the change from Iron weapons to Carbon Steel or the change from Whale Blubber Oil Lamps to Electric lights.

What we are experiencing now is unprecedented. If anyone in human history experienced anything similar(note the results) it would be what happened to the New World civilizations and peoples, the Native Americans, when the Europeans showed up with Guns, Germs and Steel.

The rich irony here is that we ourselves, and our rapidly advancing tech, are "The Europeans".
We are the "Guns, Germs and Steel".

Re:The best point he makes:

[Anonymous Coward]

Jared Diamond is full of bunk. He tried out for a catchy meme, and failed.

Re:scum jews-

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a lot of information to take in. Supposing I was interested in converting to antisemitism do you have a concise cliff-notes version? Something you could hand-write on an index card.

Re: scum jews-

[Anonymous Coward]

Lithium. Lots and lots ofithium. That is what you should be thinking about. Maybe consider moving to Eugene, Oregon and drinking their well water is in your future.

Re:Is this what your mom feels like on the inside?

[Anonymous Coward]

|Thought for the day: There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer's research. This means that by 2040, there should be |a large elderly population with perky boobs, huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.

Get a life

:scum JEWS -

[Anonymous Coward]

Scum jew 'anti semetic' bullshit. The ashkenazi jews are only part semetic, after killing over 500,000 nordic whites in the 'black death' by poisong the wells, killing over half of all whites on earth, they bred with nordic whites to blend in to better do their crimes and world takeover. Don't bother 'searching' all you will find are a few bullshit pages put up by jews sniveling 'blamed da po jew threw them all in the fire'. After the scum jews mass murder of whites, a few of the decimated towns managed to burn a couple hundred jews. A couple hundred, after the scum jews killed half our race, and have since then used scum dupe 'troops' to slaughter hundreds of million more whites in jew fraud 'wars', fraud 'civil war', fraud 'war two' slaughter of Germans, and other races in fraud 'wars' who were trying to be free of the scum jews. This while scum jew bolsheviks killed over 100 million nordic whites, paid for be ameriscums, as with all the more recent slaughter from the jew
'911' and mass murder still going on in the middle east while ameriscums pay for scum jew isreal. The palestinians are full semetic, the jew 'ashkenazi' jew race are only part semtic, making themselves a related but separate race/genetic group from palestinians, and separate from nordic whites so they could later make and use more advanced bio weapons to kill other races while their scum race remains. That's done. see first post and links. The scum jews made up the 'anti' 'racist' meme. The jews are the ultimate racists their 'relgion' made up to to take over the world by enslaving then exterminating other races the same time they screech 'don't be racist' and whites. The scum jews made up anti 'hate speech' bogus 'law' to make it hard for nordic whites and other races to expose them and their mass murder history and current extermination plans. The 'indians' bs is also jew shit. Whites were first on the continent, the indian immigrated and killed them all - 'kennewick man', the scum jews covered it up, the only person with any bones now is a fraud jew named 'owsley' who was part of the Waco cover up. They/he also put up bogus sites pretending to 'fight to keep the bones', same false opposition bs as all the fraud 'activist' bs by jews. Once white dutch came and settled again they had to fend off indian attacks to do it. No one seems to remember 'scalping'. Also it was jews that gave the indians smallpox. Don't bother searching you'll only get a few pages sniveling 'killed a million indians' bs, there never more than 300k 'indians' here. The jew psy ops inflate the number of 'indians' so idiots keep sniveling over bs name 'indians' instead of get straight that whites were here first, managed to immigrate again and fight and survive, then stupidly allowed jews to put up a scum fraud 'government' using a toilet paper 'cons duh too shun' that doesn't apply to anyone and never did. It is fact you are free.

- So you don't have to go to the other thread, here is information on their attack on us, part of their weapons systems which are in your face and can be destroyed if idiots stop buying and using their 'wireless' shit and get off your ass and make tribes and start killing and taking over. Otherwise you will be killed. No on is coming to 'save' you. The millions of scum jews on the web made up the 'conspiracy theory' 'tin foil hat' 'luddite' memes to distract from their tribe, and keep idiots slobbering over 'tech' while they set up mass murder here now. Use this info to hand out notes, meet others, make your own tribes -

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We are being sprayed, archive.org/details/DontTalkAboutTheWeather_451 - see first 20 mins. The haze in the air is nano chips, other content- www.willthomasonline.net/Nano_Chemtrails.html - older page, semi dumb down, the spraying is mass and worldwide, the contents far more than described. The nano chips are for 'wireless' brain rape and control by 'smart grid' 'wireless' 'ipv6' 'internet of things'. You are already more than 'chipped'. The bogus 'towers' everywhere part of chemtrails weapons also ca

scum Jews -

[Anonymous Coward]

What this scum cunt jew is talking about is the jew bolsheviks and jew isrealis here posing as 'troops'. Those not killed by the virus will be controlled by 'wireless' and otherwise by the scum jew bolsheviks and isreali 'troops', also drones and robots such as eatr. You are free to slaughter scum jews, they have robbed and are assaulted you and plan to kill you, that includes your fake smiley 'jew' 'neighbor' anyone who calls themselves a 'jew' by definition is your enemy' - 'kill the goy'. You are in fact free to kill and kill all parasites and immigrant parasite scum and stop them from being in your territory. The scum jews are ready for the big virus cull, wake the fuck up and get off your ass. You see how mouthy these scum jews are, because they've been able to count on mass of idiots to sit on their asses saying 'I'll just wait n see'. You're being SPRAYED. see posts above. copy to re read, hand out notes to meet others make your own tribes. Get off your ass time is Short see posts above -

scum JEWS -

[Anonymous Coward]

'drugs' 'mental' jew meme bullshit. distraction scum jew. the more you scums dump your shit the more people reading realize what they've been seeing across the web all these years. scum jews spewing dumb down shit distraction. fck off.

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-others, 90% of all posts on the web are scum jews or computer generated, paid for by You, paying 'tax' to their fraud 'govt' fraud and for their mass 'holo fraud'. copy first post and links post above, copy info to re read, give links to others, hand out notes, make your own tribes or you are going to die -

scum JEWS -

[Anonymous Coward]

The scum jew 'luddite' meme same bs as 'conspiracy theory' 'tin foil hat' bs so idiots continue to not only allow but actually pay for 'digital' 'wireless' 'tech' slavery control suicide by jew. The scum jew 'conspiracy theory' meme made up to divert from their tribe, the 'tin foil hat' meme to dumb down their brain rape nano chemtrails 'wireless' 'smart grid' 'ai' brain rape weapons, being used against you Now. Doesn't matter if millions of you decide to stop them NOW, soon you will have not have any choice you Won't be able to stop them. 'wireless' brain control. 'morgellons' fiber optics in you Now. 'ipv6' now On.
see posts above, get off your ass, make your own tribes -

Re:Is this what a Singularity looks like from insi

[Sir_Eptishous]

When was the last time you saw a Monarch butterfly?

Re:Is this what a Singularity looks like from insi

[Sir_Eptishous]

Today's fundamental problems are, remarkably, almost exactly the same as they have been for recorded history.

Wrong. Please try and keep up.

Re:Unavoidable evolution in future goes on

[Anonymous Coward]

You ain't seen nothing yet!!
Evolution will go on and due to the very much changing environment due to modern technology might be going faster and selecting harder on people than ever.
Due to technology we are at a beginning of a very novel evolutionary track.

If humankind manages to become sustainable through better technology and be surrounded by technology 24/7 we will have officially entered the new track.
All kinds of new unthought of abilities, most of them very physical not intelligence, neurological or psychological in nature will arise.

scum jews - full post -

[Anonymous Coward]

Again the scum jews moved my posts, my post above in response to the scum cunt female jew dog bitch 'neo progressive' shit, my post was originally below that scum post pretending to give me 'tips', which if you didn't figure it out is scum jews trying to slow down the facts and Right Rage you need to have NOW to see the slaughter coming at you. The scum cunt moved my post to just above this one, and jammed another in it's place
I replied to so my post appears to be replying to my own. That is the scum jew tribe that owns you. Stop being 'nice', stop 'following the rules' the scum jews are smiley scum killers,
Do the Same to Them before they kill you.

They are millions in the tribe, they have butchered the world over, now the target is you, and they already killed here, vengeance is mass past overdue. 'civil war' fraud, 'war one' fraud' 'war two' fraud', 'banking' ripoff fraud', the mass 'welfare' scum fraud making whites pay for jews and everyone else, the 'minorities' shit, Waco, Oaklahoma city, all the false flags bs to take guns, their 911 assault. more fraud 'wars' to get more trillions in weapons, mass immigration to replace you, now they are spraying you.
Note to add to posts above, copy, jews using scum dupes, the fraud 'civil' war, the south was seceding to be free of jew 'government', so the jews, who brought and owned the slaves, started screeching 'free the slaves' to set up a bogus 'war' to kill the southerners, the scum northern dupes 'went along' and killed their southern racial white kin. The jews left the south before the killing of the southerners started, then returned afterward, 'hired' back their slaves, and more jews swarmed in to take over the dead southerner's property. Scum dupes killing for the jew. A dozen fraud 'wars' later now You are the southerners. Chemtrail virus. The jews are a race. Extermination of all other races except ashkenazi jews in the tribe and their chinese slaves.

Just look at the scum jew post from above
"The good news is that if the Russians do their job, your part of the world will soon be without Internet service."

Again from other post, the scum jew is bragging in your face their scum 'russian' jew race bolshevik troops will be raping and butchering including your kids, those left over from the virus. Further, the 'russian' bs, 'cutting off the internet', they can only do if you keep sitting on your ass. The electric/power utilities are OURS, it is you and I, not the scum jews who build and paid for it, the scum jews schemed them away into their bogus 'cities' or 'private' companies and hide behind 'public stock' scam while they rape your elec rates and give 'free' electric to scum jews in the tribe and mass immigrant parasites. It's all your to take back. If you wait until you're dying from the virus it's too late. You can kill now. Fail and they kill you. You can't do anything without a tribe. That's why jews try to keep everyone else separated. Make your own tribes, the scum frauds in every 'govt' 'state' 'city' the scum fraud 'skools', the more you sit the closer the slaughter comes. see 'scum jew' post above, mass of information and links you would never find on your own, hand out notes to meet others, make your own tribes -

Here is from all above so you can copy all at once -
Scum jew 'anti semetic' bullshit. The ashkenazi jews are only part semetic, after killing over 500,000 nordic whites in the 'black death' by poisong the wells, killing over half of all whites on earth, they bred with nordic whites to blend in to better do their crimes and world takeover. Don't bother 'searching' all you will find are a few bullshit pages put up by jews sniveling 'blamed da po jew threw them all in the fire'. After the scum jews mass murder of whites, a few of the decimated towns managed to burn a couple hundred jews. A couple hundred, after the scum jews killed half our race, and have since then used scum dupe 'troops' to slaughter hundreds of million more whites in jew fraud 'wars', fraud 'civil war', fraud 'war two'

Re:Is this what a Singularity looks like from insi

[Anonymous Coward]

What will destroy mankind is NOT news at all. It's uber-networking and the destruction of the privacy of the individual. Some scientists think that European cultures seemed to implement, amass, and use tools much more quickly than those in less hostile environs, because the harsh weather forced them to be clever. This may have merit, but the real difference in the cultures was in the level of privacy found in one culture (and not in the other). The Australian aborigines never had any concept of privacy, and thus each tribal member's activities and proclivities were severely hampered and controlled by all the others in the tribe. The lowest common denominator always prevailed, and any person conducting an action that could improve something, give more to one versus another (including prestige), or otherwise embarrass the other less clever individuals was set upon by the mob. They were always naked, and in close quarters. Compare this with northern Europe, where cold weather accommodations and various other environmental factors allowed for the separation of individuals.

Ironically, it's the technology of the tool makers that is tearing apart privacy. So, human society is regressing.

Re:Is this what a Singularity looks like from insi

[ale2011]

Was it by chance that the advent of a new level of scientific and technological achievements more or less coincided with the fall of aristocracy? The currently leading nation, the US, came out of a triumphant revolution. French revolution failed, but they have no king now. Dickensian England has gone for good, although the Queen still seems to be a useful institution. China, USSR, etc.

Rules about the so-called intellectual property have become a limiting factor. They reward predatory behavior, which hampers both consumption and progression (think free software, or 5,000% drug price hikes, for example). Those tycoons are todays aristocrats, which we need to skim.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks for the information.