Existentialists are sprouting up like weeds

I was listening to KPFT Pacifica radio in Houston today, and there was this speaker from Iran. He was actually an American, but I am pretty sure that you are supposed to say Iranian-American. I'm sort of like a German-Polish-American but not really, because I'm more of a Scandinavian mutt than that moniker affords. But let's not get too involved in discussions about lineage/heritage -- because culture is more important than blood lines or history, etc. So, the culture in Iran is (or at least was) anti-existentialist, but this guy exemplified existentialism and the rewriting of reality so that it conforms to your personal whims. Besides the complete and total subjectivism, he had some good things to say, too.

He talked about building up a certain kind of a "credit score", a political 'credit score', by taking the time to write letters, and send money, to politicians. He said that political power-brokers are keeping track of all personal details about such citizen activity (he mentioned that every sent letter gets transcribed into a computer database). He was basically saying that if you want to be taken seriously and get politicians to serve you, then build up this capital, this special kind of a "credit score" -- so that they will begin to take you seriously. My 2 problems with that are that it's (1) completely subjective and potentially lawless, and (2) it is something which could have unforeseen consequences by being abused (by the central powers who are collecting all of this personal information on you in the first place).

My big stink is that the guy was existentialist. Here is a potentially-unfair restatement of his talk:

If you want to live in a society where pay is equal, or where people of differing skin color are killed, or where rape is legalized if the man is willing to testify that the woman was "asking for it" ... then ... then just ... just start writing letters. If enough people write letters with their subjective desires stated in such bold terms, then politicians will respond by altering the legal structure so that those subjective desires can be met. To hell with the constitutional protection of individual rights. Let's just all yell as loud as we each can in order to get what we want out of "government."

Like I said, that is potentially an unfair restatement of his talk.

Ed

Post 1

Wednesday, November 6, 2013 - 7:30pm

IMO Sending money to politicians is not worthwhile unless you are an elite self made billionaire or an elite bankster.

Sending letters to corrupt politicians is a waste of time. Its like whining to a bully.

And governments are swayed by popular demand and force, not by whether the policy is compatible with capitalism. Government by definition is the most powerful force within a region. For us, only a capitalist government is moral (optimal for goal attainment), but that doesn't change the definition of what government is.

From the career politician's perspective, if he wants to be the man elected then he needs to pander to the desires of his voters. Generally today people who want to produce via honest work don't become politicians because most voters want wealth redistribution. Ron Paul was an exception to the general. Or maybe he was pandering to productive people when he knew the cause was hopeless? I'd think not due to his consistency and work outside of politics.

============

Ed, I think what you hate about "existentialism" is not that it is morally relative, but that it doesn't identify any reason for common goals and strategies and synergy between humans, as if our morals between each other were in practice completely arbitrary. We are living beings, and share a lot of commonalities between design and ability. I think these things are important, but I don't think that existentialism was wrong... its like we are all unique (Existentialism) but at the same time we all have something in common (Objectivism). Integration: Objective Transhumanism. :)

A central proposition of Existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which means that the most important consideration for the individual is the fact that he or she is an individual�an independently acting and responsible, conscious being ("existence")�rather than what labels, roles, stereotypes, definitions, or other preconceived categories the individual fits ("essence"). The actual life of the individual is what constitutes what could be called his or her "true essence" instead of there being an arbitrarily attributed essence used by others to define him or her. Thus, human beings, through their own consciousness, create their own values and determine a meaning to their life.

Ed, how do you disagree with this? Or is it just as I say, that you believe that despite some differences, there are a lot of commonalities between humans->synergy, capitalism, etc?

Hm, but I would say that there are differences between humans including information and abilities which result in conflict in strategy for success and cause a friend/enemy/neutral graph relationship between all humans in reality vs you would say all humans Should be friends. Given the former, a system of capitalism wouldn't necessarily be optimal to whichever group of friends in that graph have the most power, err say, between the friends in the graph, there is capitalism. Capitalism is only enforced over the majority if the most powerful network of friends in that graph are not enemies of the majority.

Today the elite manipulators are in power and they've got the lazy parasites on their side via wealth redistribution to the poor agreement, and the manipulated producers on their side due to manipulations where the manipulated would otherwise been left to their free will without faith/hope/moral/false flag/duty manipulations they'd choose to enforce capitalism. The middle class and elite produces who are in the know & want capitalism and don't want their wealth redistributed to the elite manipulators & lazy are in the minority.

Potentially the only reason why the elite manipulators are in power is due to the duty manipulations (like Rand identified) as follows: Duty to lazy and needy people. Duty to protect all the people of your homeland. Both of which are done by primarily lazy/needy people and then also marginally I think there are some elite manipulators...

So I see 2 things happening:
1. The lazy/needy people overwhelm the duty manipulated producers out of control of even the elite manipulators, all of the manipulated die to feeling duty to try to keep Everyone alive. Then the lazy/needy people die because they don't have enough producers to leech off of. Elite producers, manipulators, and non-manipulated producers mostly make it through the hard times... and then the Elite producers & non-manipulated producers are the majority and they establish Capitalism
2. Our current system is stable just a terrible way of life. Potentially maybe right now we are just unfortunately swinging towards having more manipulated producers and hence more parasites, but it will eventually swing back the other way like in #1 but not so dramatically.

In reality, #2 sounds pretty likely to me. Its just a question of like what kind of ratio of capitalism/theft is most natural over the long term trend that our society will oscillate around? And then maybe further, will things change due to humans becoming more intellectually capable due to computers, genetic engineering, and the global internet's effect of everybody sharing the best ideas and new discoveries of truth increasing our success?
(Edited by Dean Michael Gores on 11/06, 7:48pm)

Post 2

Thursday, November 7, 2013 - 5:51pm

Good stuff, Dean.

A central proposition of Existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which means that the most important consideration for the individual is the fact that he or she is an individual ...

Where did you get this quote? As to your ("how do you disagree") question, I disagree because essence and existence are not 2 things, but 1 thing, viewed from 2 different angles. On my view, which I call "the enlightened view" (just kidding, I just wrote that because it sounds cool) ... anyway, where was I ... oh, on this view (where existence isn't separate from identity), existence is merely the spatio-temporal expression of identity. It's not anything more than that. It's not anything less than that.

Where Existentialism gets it wrong, is by viewing existence as being something less than that.

Ed

Post 3

Saturday, November 9, 2013 - 10:18am

Dean,

Hm, but I would say that there are differences between humans including information and abilities which result in conflict in strategy for success and cause a friend/enemy/neutral graph relationship between all humans in reality vs you would say all humans Should be friends.

My answer (to the question of the significance of differing abilities in determining proper social systems) would be Rand's answer: Pyramid of Ability

Capitalism is only enforced over the majority if the most powerful network of friends in that graph are not enemies of the majority.

True, but probably not relevant. The existence of a disdainful, artistocratic, ruling elite isn't a contradiction of the benefits of capitalism for all of mankind, in the same way that the existence of birds hovering in the air is not a contradiction of the fact of gravity. You can have apparent contradictions, but always only with crucial (read: deal-breaking) qualifications. Either the contradictions are necessarily temporary (because of being self-limiting) or they are explainable via reference to the very fact in question. Regarding this last, you could say that gravity "requires" that bird wings create "aerodynamic variances". Therefore, the existence of flying birds doesn't contradict the idea of gravity, it actually proves gravity.

So I see 2 things happening:
1. The lazy/needy people overwhelm the duty manipulated producers out of control of even the elite manipulators, all of the manipulated die to feeling duty to try to keep Everyone alive. Then the lazy/needy people die because they don't have enough producers to leech off of. Elite producers, manipulators, and non-manipulated producers mostly make it through the hard times... and then the Elite producers & non-manipulated producers are the majority and they establish Capitalism
2. Our current system is stable just a terrible way of life. Potentially maybe right now we are just unfortunately swinging towards having more manipulated producers and hence more parasites, but it will eventually swing back the other way like in #1 but not so dramatically.

In reality, #2 sounds pretty likely to me. Its just a question of like what kind of ratio of capitalism/theft is most natural over the long term trend that our society will oscillate around?

I'm trying, by examining the results of Game Theory**, to provide the answers to such questions.

And then maybe further, will things change due to humans becoming more intellectually capable due to computers, genetic engineering, and the global internet's effect of everybody sharing the best ideas and new discoveries of truth increasing our success?

Interesting.

Ed

**Game Theory empirically tests the limits of variation in repeated human interactions. Perhaps the simplest example is the Laffer Curve, where there is no government revenue at a 0% tax rate, and there is also (eventually) no government revenue at a 100% tax rate.

Post 4

Sunday, November 10, 2013 - 4:18am

Ed asked Dean where he got the quote about existence precedes essence. It is in Wikipedia, which also includes, " In existentialism, the individual's starting point is characterized by what has been called "the existential attitude", or a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world."

When I read stuff by and about Existentialists decades ago, it seemed to me the common thing was fear of something, such as God, freedom, or death. Nietzsche didn't seem to fit that criteria. He doesn't seem to fit the above criteria very well either. Wikipedia even says, "it is unclear whether [he] would have supported the existentialism of the 20th century."

Also decades ago somebody asked if I thought existence precedes essence or vice-versa. I replied neither.

Post 5

Sunday, November 10, 2013 - 7:37am

Thanks, Merlin.

I agree that Existentialism is either rooted in fear, or has fear as a primary component (or corollary). Rand wrote about the fear you get stuck with if you abandon your mind.

Regarding Nietzsche, he wrote as if he had no fear, but that is not a proof of anything (e.g., a proof that he either lived without fear, or lived without untoward oppression of fear). At one point in The Gay Science, he wrote about the idea of a demon who tells you that you have to live your exact same life forever (repeatedly, under perpetual reincarnations), and he appears to be terrified of such a thing. If you had to do it all over again -- all of it, over and over and over again -- then you'd want to make sure to lead an interesting, invigorating, and inspiring life. Even then, that might not be enough to tide you over for all of eternity. I'm pretty sure that Nietzsche, who hid his own ignorance behind a wall of: we're-all-stuck-in-inherent-subjectivism deceit, was terrified of something: of being "normal."

I think it is proper to credit Nietzsche with either the philosophical founding of Existentialism or at least with the philosophic validation of it.** He is the Sphinx guarding the erected pyramid(s) of Existentialism.

Ed

**He didn't actually validate Existentialism, as that is impossible, but nevertheless he appeared to do so.

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 11/10, 7:39am)

Post 6

Sunday, November 10, 2013 - 8:47am

Mirlin,

Thanks I forgot to reply on that source of quote question. Existence vs essence... is this like contrasting what things are vs what things do (character char-ACT-er)? I would say that given what a person is and how they work/act/do/change, that is their existence and essence. A person's existence and essence change over time. Reality in its whole: what exists within it changes, and specific complex processes between large collections of complex extants change... but reality's process of change over time at the smallest simplest fundamental level between the smallest energy/matter quanta does not change.

Cheers,
Dean

Post 7

Sunday, November 10, 2013 - 10:37am

If you want to live in a society where pay is equal, or where people of differing skin color are killed, or where rape is legalized if the man is willing to testify that the woman was "asking for it" ... then ... then just ... just start writing letters.

A...b...c....d...e...f...g...

Post 8

Sunday, November 10, 2013 - 1:03pm

Wah, wah, wah, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh ... badump, bum!

Fred,

You didn't say if it is socialistic equal pay that you want, violently-organizational racism, or merely the anti-female sexism which predominates some societies in the Middle East and in Africa -- yet you wrote some "letters." Perhaps, because your answer is glib, you also believe that the existentialist desire for total equality and/or it's opposite (at the same time) is warrantless in the first place as a model of cultural mores which humans should aspire toward. In the absence of a response from yourself on the matter, I'll accept that as a sufficient and acceptable explanation of your behavior.

If you want to lodge a formal complaint with that, then you can simply write me some letters.

:-)

Ed

Post 9

Sunday, November 10, 2013 - 5:46pm

Dean,

2. Our current system is stable just a terrible way of life. Potentially maybe right now we are just unfortunately swinging towards having more manipulated producers and hence more parasites, but it will eventually swing back the other way like in #1 but not so dramatically.

In reality, #2 sounds pretty likely to me. Its just a question of like what kind of ratio of capitalism/theft is most natural over the long term trend that our society will oscillate around?

I have some preliminary results on the matter (about the reality-permissible ratios of capitalism-to-theft).

If you benefit from striking deals/trades with others, and if you sometimes pay a cost in striking deals/trades with others, and if the average benefit you get from routinely striking such deals is over 3 times the average cost you incur by striking those same deals ... then the rivers will flow with milk and honey. This is strikingly similar to what my old evolution & ecology college professor (I think his name was Dave Tillman) created, called r* ("r-star"). Basically you can have a society that robs you a third of the time, but you cannot have a human society that robs you more than that. This fact makes aggregate tax rates of 33% (or higher) very dangerous for the long term -- because you need to be benefitting 3 times more than your costs, in order for trade to "work" (and it's difficult if not impossible to squeeze 3 times the profits against costs when government cuts profits by a third like that).

There are some other details and studies I'm purposefully omitting (Shakespeare said to always speak less than you know, and always have more than you show), but I'll leave off there.

Ed

Reference

[The study below involves interacting with others in a sort of deal or trade. It's actually a Prisoner's Dilemma game. You can do right by your neighbor (capitalism) and be called a cooperator. Alternatively, you can renege on the often-unspoken deal (theft), but then you are called a defector. If benefits of cooperation are not at least double the costs of cooperation, then we all turn into rights-violating, thieving bastards (a war of all against all). This means that there is a limit to the ratio of law-enforced, societal benefits to the costs of cooperating with thieves, below which a human society could not sustain itself, and would therefore have to collapse -- though it might try like hell for a few decades (see the mountains of corpses in the collectivist hell-holes of last century for evidence).]

Tit-for-tat or Win-stay, Lose-shift?

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 11/10, 5:59pm)

Post 10

Monday, November 11, 2013 - 6:29am

Ed:

Would you say that some interpretations of 'writing letters' are more effective at bending/shaping reality to my whim than my interpretation of 'writing letters?'

My interpretation clearly doesn't bend/shape reality to my whim. Nor convince a guy holding a gun I helped pay for bend it in my direction.

regards,
Fred

Post 11

Monday, November 11, 2013 - 2:30pm

Ed:

This fact makes aggregate tax rates of 33% (or higher) very dangerous for the long term

That's an interesting result. I can't tell you why, but it just sounds about right. And yet even Jesus only asked for 10%.

So between 10% and 33%, we grin and bear it.

Above 33%, the yelling starts.

Above some higher value, the shooting starts.

DC is like this giant sucking maw that only wants forever one thing: more. So, the yelling is fine, and the game has been, how close the shooting can we push things and still skate by?

And as the the sucking maw sucks even harder, they begin to think of things like how the shooting can be made harder for the shooters...

regards,
Fred

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 11/11, 2:33pm)

Post 12

Monday, November 11, 2013 - 7:11pm

Fred,

It all comes down to the cost of cooperation. This cost is imposed by two kinds of "thieves": regulators and bona fide criminals. Regulation has a business cost to it and so does dealing with bona fide criminals. Dealing with a criminal sucks. Think about it. Think about entering into a contract with someone and having them defect on you. Even though you can take them to court, there are costs to that, too. In the long run, it's the average cost of "effectively" dealing with 'criminals' that determines whether a society collapses or not. I define 'societal collapse' as a 50%+ reduction in economic output. We put out about $13 trillion a year in the private sector. If criminals or hyper-regulation drove up the cost of doing business so high that half the producers left the market (or all the producers stayed, but for half the old profit) ... then that'd be "bad" either way.

The end result would be the same if it was due to actual criminals committing fraud and theft rampantly, or to an arrogant, disdainful, aristocratic, social-engineering, egalitarian elite (ADASEEE) making "rules" rampantly. Cooperation with criminals hurts, and cooperation with the Rule of Law can hurt (if the Rule of Law becomes "excessive"). Those 2 are the costs of human cooperation.

Prisoner's Dilemma as a paradigm of human trade?
--------------------------
S
When you strike a deal with a neighbor and he defects on you then, in scientific Prisoner's Dilemma terms, you are called a Sucker (S), or get a Sucker's payoff. The payoff for S is negative**, often -1. The negative payoff chosen for this outcome is designated as the cost (c) of cooperation (C).

P
When you try to screw your neighbor as your neighbor is trying to screw you then, in scientific Prisoner's Dilemma terms, you get a Penalty (P). The payoff for P -- the payoff for a mutual defection (D) -- in many studies is 0 or even greater than 0, but it has not ever been shown how you can get a greater than 0 payoff from getting screwed over. If nothing else, you wasted potentially-productive time. I might accept a P = 0 payoff for a game in Game Theory to correspond to reality, but I cannot accept a positive pay-off to what amounts to 2 criminals duking it out or bilaterally lying to each other. It just doesn't jive with real life.

R
When you strike a deal with a neighbor and he turns out to be a capitalist (i.e., he respects the contract), then you get a Reward (R). The payoff for R is positive and is thought to include both the benefit (b) and cost (c) of cooperation: R = b - c

T
When you try to screw your neighbor as your neighbor is trying to do right by you (i.e., respecting the contract, trusting you with a cash payment, etc.), then you experience a Temptation (T). In Prisoner's Dilemma, T has the highest payoff, but it remains to be seen that when you act like that that you will reap the most reward out of life. What would happen, for instance, if you accidentally built up a reputation and other people "got wise to you"? If I see a dude screw someone over, I'm not likely to deal with him in the future. It is said that the payoff for T involves the benefit (b) of cooperation without any of the cost (c) of cooperation. T = b. It is unclear whether you can experience the benefit of something without ever paying the cost of that thing. Sooner or later, it seems, you will be paying a cost.
--------------------------

At any rate, if the cost of cooperation is so high that defection is the only way to scratch yourself ahead in the world (for an admittedly short-lived time), then you get something that Game Theorists call: ALLD. You do not want to see ALLD! Trust me. You do not want to attempt to live in a population that evolutionarily selects for ALLD. Hobbes envisioned what that would look like. The film, Mad Max, came close. The film, 28 Days Later, came real close. It doesn't happen naturally -- man is not "wolf to man" (as some really old guy once said) -- but you can accidentally create this dystopic scenario by interjecting a whole lot of collectivism into a society -- which drives up the cost of cooperation.

Ed

**Absent-minded professors, not realizing what they are talking about, have sometimes accidentally stipulated payoffs for S that are 0 or even positive! Science is about real life, so we can ask: What would that look like, in real life? ...

Sally strikes a deal with Suzy and Suzy accepts the offer and signs the contract in apparent good faith.
Suzy takes Sally's money and runs for the border, leaving her high and dry.
Sally is somehow "better off" (has received a positive payoff!)

??

How in the Sam Hell can you be better off from getting 'monetarily raped' like that?? ... Anyone? ... Anyone? ...

[crickets]

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 11/11, 7:24pm)

Post 13

Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - 7:15am

Ed:

There is another factor that can be -- not that it always is -- weighted into that game theory, and it can be weighted in under two opposite paradigms.

a] Paradox of Violence
The balance of civil society has control over the severity of the 'P'enalty. Without that control, we are lied to from birth, because not only does crime 'pay' but it pays damn well-- unless the balance of civil society exacts an -artificial- cost -- the 'P'enalty -- in your game theory. So the interesting dynamic-- the struggle for a civil society to emerge from the clawing jungle tribal mess of all over each of us -- is the political battle to shape those 'P'enalties. We weigh the downside of widespread false Penalties-- a kind of police state fascism-- against the efficacy of effective Penalties as our only defense against complete anarchy. And in that weighing there is plenty of political room to effectively render American civilization defenseless as part of a ratcake political attack on freedom.

b] Paradox of Freedom
An unfettered state throws a jump ball for control over defining and special interest shaping those 'P'enalties. They might not even be 'P'enalties directed at crime. They could be political 'P'enalties directed at success under the 'R'eward model, founded on nothing more fundamental than the eyes rolled into the back of head religious visions of zealots, impatient with the 'Progress' of Jesus' mission here on earth. The Paradox of Freedom is that unfettered, freedom embraces the means and ways of its own destruction.

An analogy: absolute 'freedom' in the context of delivering health care would equate administering cancer cells to patients with cutting them out. Cancer -is- yet freely studied in that context-- with the goal of a someday cure.

Absolute 'freedom' in the context of a free America delivering education would equate the selling of Marxism to the selling of freedom. Marxism -should be- freely studied in the context of a free America -- with the goal of a someday cure. Not what happened in this America.

Post 14

Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - 7:27am

There is a kind of kumbayah faith that has been floating around for decades, a belief that the 'strength' of absolute freedom is what will defeat internal attacks upon it by its adversaries. And so, no need to be concerned about 'absolute academic freedom' on our college campuses embracing the active seeds of freedom's destruction, because in the end, the Magic Talisman of Freedom will rush in and plug the holes and save the sinking ship of state from its unfettered self...

And yet, think about it; who has been selling that folksy nonsense all these years, and why?

Moot. That battle was lost a hundred years ago. The attack was successful, the damage was done, the infestation is dug in as fierce as ticks.

Post 15

Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - 6:23pm

Fred,

Ed:

There is another factor that can be -- not that it always is -- weighted into that game theory, and it can be weighted in under two opposite paradigms.

a] Paradox of Violence ...

b] Paradox of Freedom ...

When I look at Game Theory research, there are actually things going on: (1) the empirical investigation (2) the philosophical explanation. Actually, all science works like this, and all scientists who comment on their own or others' science work like this (they're scientists when performing science, but philosophers when discussing results). I got that gem from Mortimer Adler, a Thomist who actually had his own TV series at one point, I believe it was called The Great Ideas. To my knowledge, no other philosopher has ever their own TV series, but that's a tangent. Anyway, my point is that I don't agree, necessarily, that you have to weigh these factors in while performing the science. I could be wrong, and just can't see the connection. Here's an analogy to show where I'm coming from:

Math scientists discover that 2 + 2 = 4, and that applies to real life somehow.
A critic comes by and says that another factor that needs to be weighted in is interest (as in interest on a loan).
Is he right?
No. The scientific discovery that 2 + 2 = 4 is applicable to real life without weighting in things like interest or whatever. In fact, the discovery may be the very thing that is used in order to calculate interest. We weight interest into the scenario as we need it, but the science stands alone as a fact that does not require such qualification.
But if I'm wrong about that, then how would it change things?
If I'm wrong about that, then the Paradox of Violence and the Paradox of Freedom will be discovered to be things that require that the basic science is performed differently.

You could be right (they might matter in a fundamental way). I gave an example -- regarding the utilized payoffs for the outcome "S" -- where the basic science needs to be performed differently in order for the results to be applicable to reality (i.e., in order to be truly scientific). If game theory researchers read Objectivist forums, then perhaps an improvement in the science will be forthcoming. I suppose I could reach out to them, or attempt to publish in one of their journals. I'll think about that. I definitely would incorporate what you have to say in the philosophic explanation of the empirical results of the studies. I was already thinking along those lines myself. As you said, regulation can be set up to benefit mobs (or "the" mob) -- it can be set up so as to provide a payroll for a million shills, yes-men, shake-downers, intimidators, or full-on neck-breakers. You could build up your own private army with something like that.

That's why I only drew a fuzzy line between bona fide criminals and legislators who seek to pass thousands of thousand-page laws. The only reason that a law requires over a thousand pages is because it is non-objective and meant to benefit cronies. There is no issue so inherently muddled that it would require over a thousand pages to properly regulate.

Ed

Post 16

Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - 6:41pm

Fred,

Moot. That battle was lost a hundred years ago. The attack was successful, the damage was done, the infestation is dug in as fierce as ticks.

You make good points but don't necessarily capture the whole story. There could be reason for optimism. For instance, if we stay on track with business-as-usual then yes -- we will go down in flames, and there may be suffering on a scale that the world has never known. But, alternatively, there is a possibility that we will hit Kurzweil's Singularity. Now, if we hit the Singularity before the shit hits the fan, then there is still hope. Think about it. Think about computer-aided thinking with fuzzy logic able to fact-check theories and weight them in an updating fashion so that within an hour or two of beginning a personal search for the objective truth of an issue -- you have become directed to that actual, objective truth of the matter.

Whoa! The only thing preventing you from arriving at the truth of a matter, then, would be nothing other than simple disinterest (i.e., not looking into the matter in the first place).** Under the Singularity paradigm, at least, humanity will save itself.

Ed

**I admit that mankind could prevent the Singularity by using the Singularity against the Singularity. In the movie, Equilibrium, they use advanced science to create supermen called "Clerics" who do the bidding of a really, really evil dictator. They use science in order to enslave the masses. However, there is something good in the heart of man. Every now and then, someone on the "inside" of a really evil enterprise "cracks" and develops a conscience. It happened in the movie but it also happens in real life. All it would take is for one man to grab ahold of the Singularity and use it for good purposes. After that, it's bye, bye Evil. In other words, of all the things that can be used as a weapon for evil, science is perhaps the most dangerous (because it is inherently enlightening).

Post 17

Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - 6:08am

Ed:

I really found Kurzweil's books intrigueing. He admits to being an imperfect crystal ball gazer when it comes to the details, like all crystal ball gazers, but makes a compelling argument. We're already well into the age of augmented humans, and as he points out, if this is Kitty Hawk then 'the Moon Program' is going to be beyond our dreams. His analysis is as much about the ethical consequences as it is the details; the details will be what they are.

I was reminded this morning by my landlord, who was talking about his new car and its FOB starter gizmo, and all the permutations of when his car can and can't be driven away. One consequence is, lots more choice in design-- to the point that final behaviour is a user setting, changeable in the field. Another consequence is, few can actually work on their cars anymore.

A consequence of digitally augmented humans -- especially connected digitally augmented humans -- is a new means of regulation. We already see it on the in-ter-net.

Will augmented humans be mandated to all contain post crash severity recorders? Black boxes, examinable after a crime? Back in college, I worked on a project that was based on the idea of placing such things in 100% of Detroit's production, to collect crash data. (They were passive fluidic devices that recorded acceleration above threshold on two axes. No power supply, no moving parts...) You're in an accident, and part of the post crash investigation is pulling the data from low cost two axis carash severity recorders. Tens of thousands of participants in the study out collecting real world data. At the time of impact, you were travelling in this direction and experienced these max g levels relative to the axes of the car. Would a driver be compelled to provide such 'testimony' even if it incriminated himself? Of course, such nonsense only happens if it is legislated, and an old college classmate gets you a massive no bid contract paid for by taxpayers to subject your little experiment on the nation at large...

As well...an augmented human, after a crime. Will the 5th Amendment be bent to accomodate that which can be done in the future?

Sort of Kurzweil's point; what can happen, will happen, with little to stop it except ... what? Our common ethos? What common ethos? If it ever really was, it is today fading fast.

regards,
Fred

Post 18

Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - 6:48pm

Fred,

Sort of Kurzweil's point; what can happen, will happen, with little to stop it except ... what? Our common ethos? What common ethos? If it ever really was, it is today fading fast.

Well, we are of two minds on this issue. My "face time" with Dr. Ron Paul left me even more optimistic. He talked about a ground-swell of youthful libertarianism. That kind of a thing -- but of the opposite bent -- has happened before. In fact, for 40 years now, we have been experiencing the results of the ground-swell of feelings-should-trump-logic, hippie existentialists from the 1960's. Now, there is the opposite movement brewing. Yes, 40 years of 'Weimar Republic' existentialism has done a lot of damage and set us back something fierce, but when you say the common ethos is fading fast, I would argue that you are only seeing the delayed effect of prior unanchored, unruddered existentialism.

As a general rule, humans are most powerful in their late 50s and early 60s (or thereabouts). It's that time in a human life where money has been saved up, experience has been gained, and energy has not been dissipated by senescence -- so that there is the most potential for effecting good or evil in the world. It is no coincidence that the 1960s hippies are in their 60s today. You can even predict this kind of stuff (e.g., Rand did). When the kids (actually: young adults) from the 80s are in their late 50s/early 60s, things will change for the better. When the kids (young adults) from today are in their late 50s/early 60s, things will get even better.

At least that is what I predict.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 11/13, 6:51pm)

Post 19

Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - 8:10pm