I still can’t understand why they didn’t go with the obvious concept that humans were needed for their creativity? That would even give AI a reason for creating the matrix, as opposed to just using clones in induced comas, or perhaps something really sensible like a little more of that fusion power AI had harnessed. The battery idea is so completely ludicrous I can scarcely believe I’m discussing it, and it was one of the only major flaws in a relatively stupendous film.
All words have specific denotations and widely varying connotations, and I think we are dancing around the connotations. My personal connotations:
Training: Being taught to perform a specific task or master a specific set of skills. Being trained means being able to execute an action or chain of actions with a minimum of thought or quasi instinctually.
Education: The ongoing process of learning how to make wise decisions. Being educated means being able to perceive, process perceptions, and formulate a course of action, be it an immediate response or a long term plan. It is an ongoing process because as one becomes more educated, one is able to apply one’s education to increasingly more complex and subtle scenarios. BTW, an educated person is very capable of self-training.
Using these connotations, it’s fair to say that schools do a combination of training and educating, but the exact mix is going to vary from school to school, teacher to teacher, and pupil to pupil (i.e. the same lesson is training to some students and educational to others).
In any case, some schools do a lot more training than educating.
Finally, success is always due to a matrix of factors, not the least of which may be luck. That being said, nerds tend to be intelligent, and that’s probable a more important factor than having been picking on, which I’m not sure is even common to all nerds (though perhaps most)
BTW, we are all social animals whether we are introverts, geeks, nerds, jocks, extrovets, socialites, or what have you. We all learned to speak, eat, type, etc. from our societies; no one here is a feral child.
Its one of those stereotypes which also happens to be true. Contrary to political correctness stupidity, just because its a stereotype doesn't mean its not true. The average American is pretty dumb. At one point in time, there was even an official, unofficial list of words which were to be used for TV and movies; otherwise Americans wouldn't understand it. Even worse, Americans would get angry as they felt like the writers were making them feel stupid.
To be clear, that's the average American, not all Americans. Sadly, the average American is dumber than a bag of hammers; and even worse, proud of it!
Translation: You feel you are smarter than average, and thus average is dumb compared to you.
To whom are we comparing the ‘average American,’ and how would you designate one person or another as an ‘average American?’
My point is that the majority of Americans are probably of average intelligence for an American. They might compare poorly to the majority of citizens of some other country or another (or some past time in America), but put against the ‘average human’ worldwide, I’m sure Americans compare pretty well.
Also keep in mind that IQ ratings are not absolute through time and culture. An IQ of 100 simply means you score an average result in IQ tests as compared to other people in the test group. TBH, I’m not sure what the parameters of the test group are, but there are many know factors that bias the results. An IQ test is not some kind of omniscient, objective ruler against which all people from all historical epochs can be accurately measured for cognitive and computational ability. (The IQ comment isn't directly a comment on the quote of course)
Now I don’t disagree with the sentiment because I agree there is a frightful lack of education and critical thinking skills in many Americans; our educational system is deplorable for a nation of our means; there is a long standing current of anti-intellectualism in America; etc. The point is, however, that the average American isn’t dumb in the strict sense, they are closer to average intelligence (depending of course on what set of people you are measuring).
There is a decent chance we will, as a species, shed our mortal coils before we overcome many of the biological/technological hurdles to long range space travel. Assuming the transfer of human consciousness to a technological substrate is not impossible (or ostensibly impossible) due some heretofore empirically unseen factor such as the ‘spirit’ or higher dimensionality of ‘mind,’ it seems inevitable that humans will evolve into a technological speciesthat is if we survive at all.
Once we are no longer biological, many of the difficulties currently inherent to space travel drop away. We would have virtual worlds in which to live while we travel, we could more easily shield our ‘bodies’ from cosmic radiation, and we would require far fewer hard resources to sustain both our consciousness and our virtual worlds.
Now I don’t believe I will live forever because the technology to download my conscious is just around the corner. I think that technology is some ways out and almost certainly beyond my lifespan. If consciousness is ultimately just data and computational power, however, there doesn’t seem to be any hard reason why it can’t be ported to a different kind of hardware.
I hate to even suggest the idea because I general take great pleasure in dashing the quasi-religious zealotry of friends who are convinced they will partake in a digital-rapture, as it were, and live for some incredible span of time via a technological apotheosis, but the fact remains that we will probably obtain the ability to leave our bodies behind at some point in the next 200 years.
PS I’m not anti-religious, but that’s a whole other discussion.
Thank you for making my point. IT workers don't receive the 'recondition' you speak of exactly because we are not special. Don't conflate having specialized knowledge with being special or even uniquely vital. Anyone with a modicum of intellect can be trained to do IT work, as many people can be trained to do farm work or become a teacher. Farmers and teachers get very little reconnection in our world--a lot less on average than IT workers (just look at monetary compensation)--but I'll wager they are a lot more vital to society when it comes down to it.
I'm not trying to dis IT work, or IT workers. I'm just saying keep some perspective; society is a complex beast, and we are simply one part of it.
I wish Information professionals would get over themselves. In the past the forces of supply and demand made life cushy for the majority of us, but that didn't change the fact that we are essentially mechanics and engineers. There are all manner of mechanics and engineers throughout our world and we aren't special in that regard. To be sure, there are a great deal of very intelligent Information professionals, but I tire of the delusional self image that 'geeks' as a whole have crafted for themselves. It is this ethos of self-delusion and self-indulgence that spawns questions similar to that of the original poster.
Yes, I am generalizing and I know sound bitter, but I've lived in several different words (IT, academia, construction work, beach bum, etc.) and I've rarely seen a group that is more self-aggrandizing...well maybe artists.
Though the concept underpinning the question is interesting--that being social interaction in a pluralistic culture--there are better ways to breach the subject. It's pretty ludicrous to pose the original question as a generic yes or no proposition. Don't even get me started on how offensive it is to...well women for example.
Ok that being said, now I can be totally hypocritical and give my two cents. Every individual can choose with whom to associate, in regard to personal relationships, however the please. If one wishes to impose stringent criteria on association (e.g. no white people, no cab drivers, no Christians, no gamers, no lefties, only people born on Tuesday, only democrats, etc.) then that is his or her right, however ignorant or laudable others may find that choice. There are no hard and fast rules governing personal relationships, and I don't think I'd like to live in a society that imposed them, either legally or morally. Keep in mind I am talking about purely personal relationships. Personally I see no reason to foreclose on a relationship without actually knowing the person. I've actually learned a thing or two by interacting with people who think differently than I.
PS: There are probably biological and systemic social ossifications that shape our choices of association, but those kinds of things are a lot harder to 'get at.'
Slashdot Mirror
I still can’t understand why they didn’t go with the obvious concept that humans were needed for their creativity? That would even give AI a reason for creating the matrix, as opposed to just using clones in induced comas, or perhaps something really sensible like a little more of that fusion power AI had harnessed. The battery idea is so completely ludicrous I can scarcely believe I’m discussing it, and it was one of the only major flaws in a relatively stupendous film.
All words have specific denotations and widely varying connotations, and I think we are dancing around the connotations. My personal connotations:
Training: Being taught to perform a specific task or master a specific set of skills. Being trained means being able to execute an action or chain of actions with a minimum of thought or quasi instinctually.
Education: The ongoing process of learning how to make wise decisions. Being educated means being able to perceive, process perceptions, and formulate a course of action, be it an immediate response or a long term plan. It is an ongoing process because as one becomes more educated, one is able to apply one’s education to increasingly more complex and subtle scenarios. BTW, an educated person is very capable of self-training.
Using these connotations, it’s fair to say that schools do a combination of training and educating, but the exact mix is going to vary from school to school, teacher to teacher, and pupil to pupil (i.e. the same lesson is training to some students and educational to others).
In any case, some schools do a lot more training than educating.
Finally, success is always due to a matrix of factors, not the least of which may be luck. That being said, nerds tend to be intelligent, and that’s probable a more important factor than having been picking on, which I’m not sure is even common to all nerds (though perhaps most)
BTW, we are all social animals whether we are introverts, geeks, nerds, jocks, extrovets, socialites, or what have you. We all learned to speak, eat, type, etc. from our societies; no one here is a feral child.
Its one of those stereotypes which also happens to be true. Contrary to political correctness stupidity, just because its a stereotype doesn't mean its not true. The average American is pretty dumb. At one point in time, there was even an official, unofficial list of words which were to be used for TV and movies; otherwise Americans wouldn't understand it. Even worse, Americans would get angry as they felt like the writers were making them feel stupid.
To be clear, that's the average American, not all Americans. Sadly, the average American is dumber than a bag of hammers; and even worse, proud of it!
Translation: You feel you are smarter than average, and thus average is dumb compared to you.
To whom are we comparing the ‘average American,’ and how would you designate one person or another as an ‘average American?’
My point is that the majority of Americans are probably of average intelligence for an American. They might compare poorly to the majority of citizens of some other country or another (or some past time in America), but put against the ‘average human’ worldwide, I’m sure Americans compare pretty well.
Also keep in mind that IQ ratings are not absolute through time and culture. An IQ of 100 simply means you score an average result in IQ tests as compared to other people in the test group. TBH, I’m not sure what the parameters of the test group are, but there are many know factors that bias the results. An IQ test is not some kind of omniscient, objective ruler against which all people from all historical epochs can be accurately measured for cognitive and computational ability. (The IQ comment isn't directly a comment on the quote of course)
Now I don’t disagree with the sentiment because I agree there is a frightful lack of education and critical thinking skills in many Americans; our educational system is deplorable for a nation of our means; there is a long standing current of anti-intellectualism in America; etc. The point is, however, that the average American isn’t dumb in the strict sense, they are closer to average intelligence (depending of course on what set of people you are measuring).
There is a decent chance we will, as a species, shed our mortal coils before we overcome many of the biological/technological hurdles to long range space travel. Assuming the transfer of human consciousness to a technological substrate is not impossible (or ostensibly impossible) due some heretofore empirically unseen factor such as the ‘spirit’ or higher dimensionality of ‘mind,’ it seems inevitable that humans will evolve into a technological speciesthat is if we survive at all. Once we are no longer biological, many of the difficulties currently inherent to space travel drop away. We would have virtual worlds in which to live while we travel, we could more easily shield our ‘bodies’ from cosmic radiation, and we would require far fewer hard resources to sustain both our consciousness and our virtual worlds. Now I don’t believe I will live forever because the technology to download my conscious is just around the corner. I think that technology is some ways out and almost certainly beyond my lifespan. If consciousness is ultimately just data and computational power, however, there doesn’t seem to be any hard reason why it can’t be ported to a different kind of hardware. I hate to even suggest the idea because I general take great pleasure in dashing the quasi-religious zealotry of friends who are convinced they will partake in a digital-rapture, as it were, and live for some incredible span of time via a technological apotheosis, but the fact remains that we will probably obtain the ability to leave our bodies behind at some point in the next 200 years. PS I’m not anti-religious, but that’s a whole other discussion.
Thank you for making my point. IT workers don't receive the 'recondition' you speak of exactly because we are not special. Don't conflate having specialized knowledge with being special or even uniquely vital. Anyone with a modicum of intellect can be trained to do IT work, as many people can be trained to do farm work or become a teacher. Farmers and teachers get very little reconnection in our world--a lot less on average than IT workers (just look at monetary compensation)--but I'll wager they are a lot more vital to society when it comes down to it. I'm not trying to dis IT work, or IT workers. I'm just saying keep some perspective; society is a complex beast, and we are simply one part of it.
I wish Information professionals would get over themselves. In the past the forces of supply and demand made life cushy for the majority of us, but that didn't change the fact that we are essentially mechanics and engineers. There are all manner of mechanics and engineers throughout our world and we aren't special in that regard. To be sure, there are a great deal of very intelligent Information professionals, but I tire of the delusional self image that 'geeks' as a whole have crafted for themselves. It is this ethos of self-delusion and self-indulgence that spawns questions similar to that of the original poster. Yes, I am generalizing and I know sound bitter, but I've lived in several different words (IT, academia, construction work, beach bum, etc.) and I've rarely seen a group that is more self-aggrandizing...well maybe artists.
Though the concept underpinning the question is interesting--that being social interaction in a pluralistic culture--there are better ways to breach the subject. It's pretty ludicrous to pose the original question as a generic yes or no proposition. Don't even get me started on how offensive it is to...well women for example.
Ok that being said, now I can be totally hypocritical and give my two cents. Every individual can choose with whom to associate, in regard to personal relationships, however the please. If one wishes to impose stringent criteria on association (e.g. no white people, no cab drivers, no Christians, no gamers, no lefties, only people born on Tuesday, only democrats, etc.) then that is his or her right, however ignorant or laudable others may find that choice. There are no hard and fast rules governing personal relationships, and I don't think I'd like to live in a society that imposed them, either legally or morally. Keep in mind I am talking about purely personal relationships. Personally I see no reason to foreclose on a relationship without actually knowing the person. I've actually learned a thing or two by interacting with people who think differently than I.
PS: There are probably biological and systemic social ossifications that shape our choices of association, but those kinds of things are a lot harder to 'get at.'