My views on Mashable's Nov 2011 "Next 40 years of Technology" comment/essay winner.

I realize it is a bit late, but this popped up on my twitter feed the other day, so I had to read it.  I was dumbfounded, which is not really that hard since I am of mean intelligence at best.  However, the winner's(and I cannot fathom how this was chosen as winner) comment was all tech-kittens and rainbows.  I hate kittens and rainbows.  It's true, I hated my cat for the first 14 months of its life, and I live in New Mexico, where it never rains, so the possibility of a rainbow is dismally, and thankfully, low.


http://mashable.com/2011/11/15/next-40-years-in-tech-winner/


My reply to the whole Mashable thing, and his comment, is as below, just in case they decide not to allow it:

 While Kyle's vision of the future is filled with hope and good will, one cannot deny the unfortunate fact his comment is somewhat... Rose colored.  Yes, to remain on par with what will inevitably become known as the "top line" of humanity, one will need to upgrade one's self both mentally and physically, taking evolution by the hand and gently guiding it.  However, where does he get the idea that this advancement will in any way, shape, or form "enable us to overcome worldwide problems"?  We must first define worldwide problem, and  in order to even begin addressing any definition of the term worldwide problem, one must consider the perspective from which the term is viewed: common human, or the wealthy power-base.  Worldwide problems: (a-common man) hunger, poverty, inequality, violence based on color, creed or ethnicity, abuses at the hands of the powerful; (b-powerful) common man, disturbance of the balance of power, uncontrolled change.

From the perspective of the common human, technology will not help in any way to alleviate worldwide problems.  It may well serve to exacerbate a large number of current issues, ending in even worse living conditions for many.  Unless, of course, the people who control the flow of technology to and among the populace display some previously hidden reservoir of kindness.  How likely do you, the reader of this comment, think that will be?

So, when considering the solving of worldwide problems, in order for emerging technologies to overcome those problems, one is forced to consider the term from the perspective of the powerful.  Let's not mince words or continue under proven false pretenses: the majority of powerful people in the world have shown, in the past decade, the tendency to view the common human as a herd of cattle at worst, chattel property at best.  The advancing technologies will be previewed by those in power first, then more modest versions will be fed to the populace as though these were the creme' de la creme'.  The world will continue much the way it has, with a shrinking middle class, and growing poverty covered in the patina of human advancement.  Those whom wish to remain in the increasingly privileged middle-class will be forced to concede to the regulations of  whichever powerful figure they are working for, be that figure CEO, Imam, Pastor, or Politician, while maintaining proscribed enhancement levels and acquiescing to what I can only imagine will be mandatory monitoring of those who can afford enhancements.  

Solar energy, or any more efficient energy source, will be no less expensive for the common man.  Period.  It will, however, be significantly less expensive for the powerful, leading to increased profit margin per watt produced, making it easier for utilities to control what they charge for their product.  Our ability to pay will only come into consideration when considering the maximum amount they can charge while maintaining the largest number of customers in order to maintain the highest level of income.  Pretty much how they do it now, Wall St. speculators aside.  This same formula will be applied to food production, fresh-water supply, home-building materials, anything considered essential for survival.  Since monetary value is inevitably pegged to these things, and the prices for these needs rise every year, average inflation will remain near the same levels it has seen for the last hundred years or so, not counting wartime or recessions, which tend to create anomalous changes in inflation rates.  Technology will change none of that.

To deny that this is the most probable outcome for the future forty years from now is to deny the last ten, no, two hundred... Let's be realistic, the entirety of human history.  Cynicism aside, human nature will lead the powerful to do anything to remain in power, and the oppressed to suffer under that power until a boiling point is reached, and the newly minted "rebels" achieve a momentary equality that is essentially the foundation for the next ruling class that will inevitably repeat the actions of past powerful people.  From the ashes, beside the newer powers, the powerful families of the past will rise to pretend the climb to their former lofty position, and the cycle will once again repeat.  Technology or not.

Now, to say what I was too polite to say in Mashable's comments:

Where do we, as a society, get our friggin opinions of the future? 

 I can understand the Conservative Right's "The world is flat and a magical white guy with a beard created everything so the left can go suck it.  Oh, the Easter bunny... Well the Easter bunny is fake..." point of view.  What it boils down to is the years of inbreeding and hatred of the written word have led to an irrational fear of even the smallest changes in human understanding.  

Now, those who have an understanding of science, and use, or claim to use, logic and responsibility in living their daily lives, where do we get the gall to "believe" that the future will be beautiful and clean, where people are ageless and our brains are soooooo powerful?  That is almost as irresponsible as being religious.

The best that humanity at large can hope for should technology advance as fast and powerfully as people like Ray Kurzweill, Aubrey DeGrey, and even the people responsible for the gritty Deus Ex video game series, would like is an Adam Jensen who will throw a wrench into the gears of the powerful.  But, sorry, it'll never happen.

SO, I guess I am just miffed that people are so blind to their current reality that they think the future is just as blind to that reality.  Just because someone who actually knows what they are talking about says we will be able to do something does not mean that we will be allowed to do that thing.  Do you honestly think the powers that be will allow us to be as strong, beautiful, and long-lived as we wish unless there is something substantial to be gained?  Forty years aside, it will be at least a century before technologies dealing with the foundations of humanity will be allowed to circulate freely in society, be they centered on age, our intellectual power, or exo-terrestrial colonization.  But that's if the CEO's and religious leaders of the world have their way.  So, let's compromise and say that within seventy years, we will be able to advance ourselves in great ways, because wrenches tend to jam the best protected gears.  Until then, no matter how many future-tech-rainbows some leftist hippy-dreamer feeds you, and despite how many eternities in a swimming pool filled with bullets and burning coals some child-molesting, right-wing, preacher threatens you with, invest in some asstroglyde and get ready for what's coming.  The CEO of your favorite food company is going to sell you more unbelievable bullshit then that hippy can imagine and then fuck you harder than every-single super-natural being dreamed up by some old man with psychological problems who ate some middle-eastern peyote, even if every single "god" is actually standing in line with a number for the universe's most forgiving gang-bang.

Fly Smart.

Why Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the most ridiculous movie of the Year

I'm a transhumanist, first and foremost, ok.

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes, currently unreleased, looks like it will be the worst movie of the year, if not the worst ever made.

First, the very premise of the movie is retarded. And yes, I am describing the very basic idea of the movie( Super smart apes rise up against and begin to supplant humans as the apex species on Earth, I guess) as the mentally deficient spawn of an incestuous union between closely related family members.

A geneticist could engineer a chimp with the charisma of Che Guevarra, the intelligence of Stephen Hawking, and the tactile mind of Sun Tzu, release it into the wild, and what would you end up with? A pissed off Ape who realizes he(or she) would have to breed with EVERY OTHER CHIMPANZEE IN EXISTENCE until the day they died to even make a bump in the genetic pool of the species. Even then, if you round up every single member of the great ape family, negating humans, you might end up with the average population of a city in Arkansas.

Next, let's just assume this army of a hundred thousand chimps gets loose in any American city. Let's say New York City, to be fun. What would happen then? Assuming a group of poorly trained National Guard didn't simply mow down the throng with their M-16's, ALL THE REDNECKS IN THE COUNTRY WOULD BEGIN TO GUFFAW simultaneously as PETA and every tree-hugger group gets their heads smashed in by the very animals they had so recently championed("But chim-chim, I love y-"cru-unch of a cracked skull).

After that, you would witness a demographic shift not seen since the carpet-bagger migration to the South following the Civil War, as all those hunters that "high society" looks down their noses at converge upon the besieged city and display why we- h. Sapiens Sapien- are king of the hill, and even super smart chimps are just that, super smart chimps. Let's see a monkey dodge the bullet fired from a 30-.06 half a mile away. And, oh, wait, the monkey saw the trip wire connected to that claymore? Press a button and you still have orangutan-marmalade.

The originals aren't even that entertaining, and even the new one with that awesome actor, Mark Walberg(excuse me as I vomit into a paper sack), sucked. This film will take its place among the numerous expensive failures released this year, and be forgotten completely except by those guys who have home-made PotA costumes at home.

That's not the worst thing. Movies like this cast genetic engineering, medical advancement, and, vicariously, transhumanism, in a terrible light. Yes, there may be those who have ethical disagreements with some methods associated with the aforementioned advancements, but BIG PHARMA, the U.S. Government, and many other organizations don't tell you that they capitalized from the research done by Nazi scientists. But they did. I don't hear anyone griping about the ethics of that.

Back on subject: If you're an H+, you should boycott this movie due to it's degradation of the view of the pursuit of advancement. Everyone else should just ignore the film altogether, cuz I don't wanna hear your moanin and groanin as you regret spending the money seeing/buying/renting this piece of cinematic garbage. Anyway, Hollywood, you should be ashamed of yourself. If the world REALLY wanted to watch vomit from the past, I have this brown bag right here. Sell it to ya for a million dollars.

EVE Online Tribulations: Incarna, Noble Exchange, and Whatever Else

Liu-Alt

I haven't had the luxury of playing Incarna yet, however, all this hullabaloo about NEx, Aurum, actually makes me WANT to play EVE again. With the amount of interaction and integration being introduced through Dust 514, I am waiting till next spring to FINALLY buy a PS-3, pretty much for D514 only.

One must understand that CCP is a corporation, and as such, has responsibilities to it's shareholders as well as it's players. I imagine that keeping these two balanced is a bit hard at times, as one side wants profit while the other want's a bad ass game. For everything that is going on, EVE Online is still bad ass.

Anyway, I believe that people may be overly critical at the moment. I have looked at the history of major EVE changes, and, as usual, History repeats itself. Outrage, gnashing of teeth, and unsub threats abound... Subside... and those who DO leave... sneak back onto the scene three or four months later, just to realize, "This isn't all that bad." It had to happen eventually, and if CCP does the NEx thing responsibly, it can be a good thing. Just sell the gold ammo bpc's&bpo's, not just ammo. And if not, if people do start buying ships and ammo from Noble Exchange, just make or join a corp that has "Beemer-hunts" and kill the silver-spoonfed bastards.

If someone wants to wear a sparkly thong with skulls hanging on chains, just make a note on their peculiar fashion sense. Vanity items are nothing to me, I just wish they would let outsiders design some.

To me, EVE is the BEGINNING of something great. I hope it evolves into a perpetual world that lasts. With NEURAL NETS being developed, there is a possibility that we, one day, will be able to hook into a virtual world Matrix Style. I want that world, for me at least, to be EVE.

So, be easy on CCP. o/

Transhuman Medical Advances

edical technology is evolving right in front of our eyes. We need only open them and see.

Popular Mechanics( http://www.popularmechanics.com/ ) published a small piece about a new prosthetic limb and another about a rudimentary artificial eye.

The prosthetic limb directly interfaces with the brain, allowing it to move nearly as fast as a human limb with improved dexterity versus previous prosthetic arms. More info can be found at www.popularmechanics.com/, www.hdtglobal.com/, and http://gazette.jhu.edu/2010/07/19/apl-gets-funding-to-test-thought-controlled-prosthetic-limb/. Very I-Robot.

Now, the eye, or, more accurately, the artificial retina, is essentially a camera in the center of a pair of glasses. This is connected to a processor that sends electrical signals to the optic nerve. Again, this effectively interfaces directly with the nervous system, and sends signals to the occipital lobe, where the brain processes vision and visual association. More info can be found at http://uscnews.usc.edu/science_technology/breakthrough_award_goes_to_artificial_retina_team.html, http://www.2-sight.com/, and Popular Mechanics site also.

If I plagiarized, and I don't believe I did, all info came from the fore mentioned sites and sources, and all credit goes to the respective parties.

This is where we, as the human race, are at now. If these advances follow Moore's Law, then tech related to the prosthetic arm will advance fairly quickly. Who knows, maybe, within ten years, Bio-compatible prostheses will be on the market. Combined with some other things I have seen, prostheses could be faster and stronger than the parts they replace.

As for the retina, it may be a bit longer, twenty or thirty years, barring incredible, unforeseen advances. However, the British(?) film Doomsday offers some intriguing ideas.

Smarter, faster, Full conversion or partial...(RIFTS anyone?) Who knows? Maybe even in our lifetimes.

Something In the Way

Evolution.  "Which is, of course, what this is all about."  Agent Smith, in The Matrix(1999, Fox Studios/Village roadshow pictures) faces a similar dilemma that we, as modern humans, do.  He wants out of his currently restrictive existence.  However, there is something in the way: Zion, the last human city.  The main difference between Agent Smith and many H.Sapiens is the fact that he knows how to solve his problem.  Get the codes to crack the mainframe, destroy the free humans, and he no longer needs to be inside the Matrix.  It's not  that easy for us.
Our Matrix, the planet Earth, holds us rather tightly.  It protects us with atmosphere and magnetic field.  It currently produces enough food for the human race to survive.  Barring a sudden natural catastrophe, on Earth, we humans have it pretty good.  Added to all that is the fact that we don't really have a need to evolve.
A 30.06 rifle is sufficient to take down any animal we consider food.  A combine and tractor is more than enough to harvest all the grain we need, and our hands are perfect for gathering vegetables and fruit.  A pair of boots, some rope, and minimal climbing gear are adequate to take the average human being to any part of our biosphere that has the ability to support them as an organism.  There is no earthly necessity for us, as a species, to evolve.  Again, this is barring unforeseen, sudden catastrophe.  Our lack of need to evolve in relation to the challenges provided by our environment is the roadblock for humanity.  Somethiiiiiiiiing in the way, ye-ah, mmmmmmmmm-mmmmm....(Nirvana)
Now, many die-offs in Earth's history are directly related to sudden, catastrophic events(I apologize, I so rarely use "catastrophe" in conversation, and it's such a nice word), I realize this.  However, many species that have disappeared did so gradually, as they lost the fight for food, the reigning champion among reasons for evolution.  I would like to think that, at least on Earth, our species has nothing to fear when it comes to competition for food sources.  However, a species that no longer evolves has the annoying habit of dying off.  So, where will the impetus for our evolution come from?
Ourselves.  The overall problem with Natural Evolution is that it lacks the ability to adapt an organism for, say, a caldera erupting on our planet, and smothering all life in ash.  This is a very likely scenario, should Yosemite decide to pop.
I believe we would survive as a species.  Face masks, mre's, wind-powered hydroponics houses, and human stubbornness would see us through.  Biodiversity would vanish, which would be a problem.  Again, this would not necessarily be a factor that would force evolution upon us.  Even if Yosemit should blow its top, it's not a guarantee that the power grid in Europe would be terribly effected.  Also, coal-fired, oil-fired and nuclear power-plants do not necessarily need the sun to function.  So, the possibility that humanity would have enough power to run successful, large-scale hydroponics operations coupled with indoor farms exists.
The new "nature" still would not present a case for us to evolve.  Nature, once our greatest cause for advancement, will be, or is, our primary impediment.  So, we are stuck with the fact that we need to expand our environment in order to introduce new factors for progression.
In order to expand our environment, we would need to become a space-faring species.  Radiation is the greatest problem we face as an extraterrestrial species, along with sustenance and space junk like micrometeorites, and space itself.
To ease the impact of these factors in the short run, bio-mechanical solutions can be made available in an incredibly short time.  As we speak(or read, in this case), prosthetic limbs are being developed that interface with the human nervous system.  This is to accomplish the task of making artificial limbs as fast as the biological limbs they seek to imitate or replace.  Also, devices that provide tactile feedback to the brain are being experimented with.
By "upgrading" our bodies, we may be able to become faster, stronger, and more durable.  The less outside help we need in the form of sustenance, the greater our survivability as an extraterrestrial species.  In essence, we would be forcing evolution on ourselves.  Going in the direction we choose.  Since nature won't give us what we need to progress as a species, we will do it ourselves.

Homo Sapiens Versatility as a species

The Cheetah evolved perfectly for the savannah-and nowhere else.

Versatility: The property of being versatile or having many different abilities; flexibility.(en.wiktionary.org/wiki/versatility)

Now, when one looks at nature, one may see many different examples of specialized species: praying mantis, penguin, cheetah, orca, the list goes on and on. Each animal in the animal kingdom has admirable qualities. Yet, nearly every animal in the biosphere, when taken out of their environment, is done for.

However, there is one animal that has avoided this pitfall. This animal has survival instincts so versatile, its survival is not tied to any one climate or environment type. The Homo Sapiens.

However, H. Sapiens has hit the evolutionary doldrums. Overall, our environment no longer provides factors to force large evolutionary advances. So, many of us now seek to decide where we should go as a species.

Now, science is advancing very rapidly. As science advances, so does our ability to manipulate ourselves, down to the genetic level. We are even approaching the ability to integrate mechanical advances into our bodies. Neither of these areas will stop development, as research is, overall, in the best interests of humanity. The problem here is the possibility that we will paint ourselves into a corner, so to speak.

We must monitor genetics research, as well as bio-mechanic development, in order to prevent ourselves from becoming over-specialized. If we do not, the distinct possibility arises that we may create several subspecies within H. Sapiens. This would be disastrous, as Race, a functionally dead concept, would come to the forefront once again, this time with actual basis in genetic or bio-mechanic fact. Also, every species that has become overspecialized has either succumbed to extinction, or is on the way.

We must seek to upgrade ourselves realistically, so we do not downgrade ourselves in reality.