6 ms·

I think we should really fix society before we develop that kind of technology. We need a socio-cultural breaktrough of the same magnitude as the technological

I think we should really fix society before we develop that kind of technology. We need a socio-cultural breaktrough of the same magnitude as the technological breakthrough. Something on par with the development of monotheism, enlightenment, capitalism, or democracy. A "communistic" utopia (for lack of a better word) without the flaws of its historical implementations. Then the question is moot. There is no private business, or indeed any other entity, government or private, that you would make such a deal with. There is no second party that wants to withhold technology, or steal your thoughts. Rather it will be "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" - you get the augmentation for free, and you contribute what you feel comfortable sharing back to society. Often, utopia is portrayed as the result of a technolocial breakthrough, sometimes "if we could read each others thoughts there would be no misunderstanding and conflict". I believe it is the other way around - utopia is a precondition for singularity-type technology. At least, if we want it to be beneficial and not hellish. Brain implants are easy, communism is going to be hard.

imron 9y ago
> communism is going to be hard. Not if everyone has brain implants!
- captainmuon 9y ago
  Touché. That's why I'm not getting a brain implant :-D
sillysaurus3 9y ago
I agree. Once we develop the ability to upload and modify brains, it will be easy to morph them. We can extract the primal desire to defend yourself, to become angry, to want to own property. These emotions will be reserved for the founders. It will take time to get there. Many will resist, so we have to keep our goal a secret. But people are gullible. With our morphogenic brain technology, we can give people experiences they've only dreamed of. Think of it. The high of heroin, with none of the downsides. The ability to know instantly when any of your loved ones are in distress. The ability to shape yourself and your children into any form you desire. If we appeal to base emotions, if we appeal to their need to control, to own, to shape, then we can implement our plan.
- lossolo 9y ago
  > Many will resist, so we have to keep our goal a secret. This is not democracy. Every dictatorship begins with "I know better what is good for you than you do". You should watch movie "Equilibrium" with Christian Bale. I don't think you really want that, it only sounds good in theory.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    Well, it was firmly tongue in cheek. :) I've been thinking of trying to write some short stories pulling from various themes in technology. Most ideas have been done to death, but with a bit of skill it might be possible to write something worth reading. A tangent, but: I've been wondering how a novelist builds their skill. They're not born with it. One idea would be to watch a movie and write it like a book, transcribing it scene for scene. I'm not sure whether that'd help, though.
    - hellbanner 9y ago
      Re tangent: Steven King's "on writing" or Ray Bradbury's "en in the art of writing" write 1000 words a day, be crap for decades, eventually you get skilled.
    - SubiculumCode 9y ago
      No ideas about the second, but an aside on the first. 'Most ideas have been done to death' is a central reason I have stopped reading novels that much. Ah its one of those, he will do this. Ah yes, I see the twist. its one of those.
      - bllguo 9y ago
        I highly empathize with this. These days I'm just interested in imagination. I don't care if a book or novel or movie is good. I will most likely never consume it. I'm looking up synopses and scanning them for innovative ideas.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
AndrewKemendo 9y ago
You've got it backwards. Our brains are what is holding society back. We need a socio-cultural breaktrough of the same magnitude as the technological breakthrough That's what transhumanism is. It's a restructuring of the human system around symbiosis with AI.
- captainmuon 9y ago
  We are somewhat offtopic, but: That sounds a bit like the church in the middle ages saying: "your sins are what is holding society back, that is why you can't have nice things". Or like many utopians, who wanted to create a "better man". Or their detractors, who said utopia doesn't work because people are flawed. I don't want to change people, I want to change society.
  - AndrewKemendo 9y ago
    I don't want to change people, I want to change society. Somehow you think those are different things and I'm not sure why. Society only changes when enough people individually change. You can force change through government or coercion, but it's temporary and unsustainable. utopia doesn't work because people are flawed. Right, I'd agree with that.
    - captainmuon 9y ago
      What I mean is, I don't want Utopia for some kind of Adornoian "liberated human" or socialist übermensch, I want an Utopia in which I myself can live. Despite my flawed socialisation and biology. I think we can refactor society, instead of reforming or revolutionizing it. Keep the same people, don't coerce them into anything. Don't wait for future technological improvements, but reap the benefits of centuries of previous improvements. We have been technically able to satisfy the needs of everybody from a purely material point of view for decades now. Now we need to fix the allocation of these goods, and the crisis of political representation (or the lack thereof for many people).
      - AndrewKemendo 9y ago
frenchie4111 9y ago
The other, and much more likely in my opinion, future is that developing this kind of technology will cause us to "fix" our society, or rather society will grow to support the new technology. It is unlikely that private business will relinquish it's control willingly, we must aim for a future that makes private business irrelevant (massive automation removing the need for humans to "pay" for anything)
- WalterBright 9y ago
  I'm curious why you worry about control by business, but not control by the government?
  - thinkfurther 9y ago
    My government, in theory, derives every last bit if its power from my consent and the consent of my peers; and in so far practice diverges from that, that can be corrected or at least discussed. Even foreign governments at least have that relation with someone, even if they don't have it with me. With private enterprises, there isn't even anything to correct or discuss from their perspective. They're "pure tyrannies", as Chomsky put it, while governments are theoretically democratic. The magic free market turning selfish bastards fighting each other instead of entropy into some useful force doesn't seem to be enough just by itself. Though now that I think of it, if people got their shit together in the ways required to kick their own governments in the dick where required, that would also translate to paying attention with how we vote with our wallets (it also would translate to any corp trying just one line of cutesy marketing-speak of sinking to the bottom before you can say iceberg, which would improve the world by orders of magnitude within one week), so in the end maybe "capitalism or communism", or anything of that nature, matters much less than the individuals do... after all you can't polish turds, and you don't need to array gold nicely for it to shine.
    - WalterBright 9y ago
      The rookie cop his first day on the job has more power over you than Bill Gates does.
eberkund 9y ago
"if we could read each others thoughts there would be no misunderstanding and conflict" For that to be true you have to assume that everyone has enough empathy to come to agreement. It isn't really much different from the way things are now (without being able to read each other's thoughts).
SocialEngin33r 9y ago
Communism has nothing to do with technological singularity. Saying that we have to reach communist utopia before we can have Singularity is about as useful as saying that we have to user in a global Caliphate or wait for Jesus to return first.
k_lander 9y ago
i don't think any technology should be put on hold because society isn't perfect especially when said technology has the potential to improve society immensely.
synicalx 9y ago
Mass starvation and large-scale 'cleansings' will probably be a hard sell if the only upside is "Everyone can read your mind".

imron 9y ago

> communism is going to be hard. Not if everyone has brain implants!

captainmuon 9y ago
Touché. That's why I'm not getting a brain implant :-D

sillysaurus3 9y ago

I agree. Once we develop the ability to upload and modify brains, it will be easy to morph them. We can extract the primal desire to defend yourself, to become angry, to want to own property. These emotions will be reserved for the founders. It will take time to get there. Many will resist, so we have to keep our goal a secret. But people are gullible. With our morphogenic brain technology, we can give people experiences they've only dreamed of. Think of it. The high of heroin, with none of the downsides. The ability to know instantly when any of your loved ones are in distress. The ability to shape yourself and your children into any form you desire. If we appeal to base emotions, if we appeal to their need to control, to own, to shape, then we can implement our plan.

lossolo 9y ago
> Many will resist, so we have to keep our goal a secret. This is not democracy. Every dictatorship begins with "I know better what is good for you than you do". You should watch movie "Equilibrium" with Christian Bale. I don't think you really want that, it only sounds good in theory.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Well, it was firmly tongue in cheek. :) I've been thinking of trying to write some short stories pulling from various themes in technology. Most ideas have been done to death, but with a bit of skill it might be possible to write something worth reading. A tangent, but: I've been wondering how a novelist builds their skill. They're not born with it. One idea would be to watch a movie and write it like a book, transcribing it scene for scene. I'm not sure whether that'd help, though.
  - hellbanner 9y ago
    Re tangent: Steven King's "on writing" or Ray Bradbury's "en in the art of writing" write 1000 words a day, be crap for decades, eventually you get skilled.
  - SubiculumCode 9y ago
    No ideas about the second, but an aside on the first. 'Most ideas have been done to death' is a central reason I have stopped reading novels that much. Ah its one of those, he will do this. Ah yes, I see the twist. its one of those.
    - bllguo 9y ago
      I highly empathize with this. These days I'm just interested in imagination. I don't care if a book or novel or movie is good. I will most likely never consume it. I'm looking up synopses and scanning them for innovative ideas.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

AndrewKemendo 9y ago

You've got it backwards. Our brains are what is holding society back. We need a socio-cultural breaktrough of the same magnitude as the technological breakthrough That's what transhumanism is. It's a restructuring of the human system around symbiosis with AI.

captainmuon 9y ago
We are somewhat offtopic, but: That sounds a bit like the church in the middle ages saying: "your sins are what is holding society back, that is why you can't have nice things". Or like many utopians, who wanted to create a "better man". Or their detractors, who said utopia doesn't work because people are flawed. I don't want to change people, I want to change society.
- AndrewKemendo 9y ago
  I don't want to change people, I want to change society. Somehow you think those are different things and I'm not sure why. Society only changes when enough people individually change. You can force change through government or coercion, but it's temporary and unsustainable. utopia doesn't work because people are flawed. Right, I'd agree with that.
  - captainmuon 9y ago
    What I mean is, I don't want Utopia for some kind of Adornoian "liberated human" or socialist übermensch, I want an Utopia in which I myself can live. Despite my flawed socialisation and biology. I think we can refactor society, instead of reforming or revolutionizing it. Keep the same people, don't coerce them into anything. Don't wait for future technological improvements, but reap the benefits of centuries of previous improvements. We have been technically able to satisfy the needs of everybody from a purely material point of view for decades now. Now we need to fix the allocation of these goods, and the crisis of political representation (or the lack thereof for many people).
    - AndrewKemendo 9y ago

frenchie4111 9y ago

The other, and much more likely in my opinion, future is that developing this kind of technology will cause us to "fix" our society, or rather society will grow to support the new technology. It is unlikely that private business will relinquish it's control willingly, we must aim for a future that makes private business irrelevant (massive automation removing the need for humans to "pay" for anything)

WalterBright 9y ago
I'm curious why you worry about control by business, but not control by the government?
- thinkfurther 9y ago
  My government, in theory, derives every last bit if its power from my consent and the consent of my peers; and in so far practice diverges from that, that can be corrected or at least discussed. Even foreign governments at least have that relation with someone, even if they don't have it with me. With private enterprises, there isn't even anything to correct or discuss from their perspective. They're "pure tyrannies", as Chomsky put it, while governments are theoretically democratic. The magic free market turning selfish bastards fighting each other instead of entropy into some useful force doesn't seem to be enough just by itself. Though now that I think of it, if people got their shit together in the ways required to kick their own governments in the dick where required, that would also translate to paying attention with how we vote with our wallets (it also would translate to any corp trying just one line of cutesy marketing-speak of sinking to the bottom before you can say iceberg, which would improve the world by orders of magnitude within one week), so in the end maybe "capitalism or communism", or anything of that nature, matters much less than the individuals do... after all you can't polish turds, and you don't need to array gold nicely for it to shine.
  - WalterBright 9y ago
    The rookie cop his first day on the job has more power over you than Bill Gates does.

eberkund 9y ago

"if we could read each others thoughts there would be no misunderstanding and conflict" For that to be true you have to assume that everyone has enough empathy to come to agreement. It isn't really much different from the way things are now (without being able to read each other's thoughts).

SocialEngin33r 9y ago

Communism has nothing to do with technological singularity. Saying that we have to reach communist utopia before we can have Singularity is about as useful as saying that we have to user in a global Caliphate or wait for Jesus to return first.

k_lander 9y ago

i don't think any technology should be put on hold because society isn't perfect especially when said technology has the potential to improve society immensely.

synicalx 9y ago

Mass starvation and large-scale 'cleansings' will probably be a hard sell if the only upside is "Everyone can read your mind".