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> What abstractions are we missing today that will be obvious to future generations? The first that comes to mind is rooted in the problem that our concept of

> What abstractions are we missing today that will be obvious to future generations? The first that comes to mind is rooted in the problem that our concept of "tech" is still incredibly mechanistic. Look at Foucault's "technologies of the self" and you realize that technology is not just something we create in teams at work using this or that set of tools. Rather than a "thing" outside of us, tech is very much already a part of us. We are compelled to develop it (externalize it; give it objective manifestation) simply by living. A computer is us, but even the word computer is no longer sufficient; people needlessly mechanize humans when they think in those terms and this creates fear, fear of AI and fear of becoming mere batteries; meanwhile our fault-protection circuits have already accounted for this and we can trust them (while leaving them engaged). We must zoom even farther out from the typical computer model in order to compute at the next level. "Tech" as an industry (in hindsight to be found a ridiculous and temporary construction) has turned too far inward. In fact there is nothing to fear outside, even in the foreign-to-tech irrational world. We can accept that world, live in it, give it the respect it seems now to unfairly demand, and learn it as a technological mode. We can bridge with it, build more technologies to abstract our relationship with it. At that point we become truly powerful, able to spin technology out of limitless resources and into limitless solutions.

Terr_ 8y ago
Regarding externalized systems, a relevant quote from the classic computer game Deus Ex (2000): > Helios: The checks and balances of democratic governments were invented because human beings themselves realized how unfit they were to govern themselves. They needed a system, yes, an industrial-age machine. > JC Denton: Human beings may not be perfect, but a computer program with language synthesis is hardly the answer to the world's problems. > Helios: Without computing machines, they had to arrange themselves in crude structures that formalized decision-making - a highly imperfect, unstable solution.
- themodelplumber 8y ago
  O'Neill likewise skewers the human-condition-social-upgrade-solution (referring to various -isms like Socialism) in his futurism work, _2081_. IMO it's the bipolar casting of the thought process there that is "wrong" if anything is. We are gradually becoming capable of merging and finessing subject and object using various technologies (I count therapeutic-environment-building and institutional life-examination-encouragement as examples of those technologies, but wouldn't exclude something more mechanistic than those) to where the question of "did a computing machine help or was it old fashioned social structuring" will seem pretty uneducated if it doesn't already.
reificator 8y ago
> fear of becoming mere batteries I really wish that the Matrix had stuck with its original concept [0] that the people were being used for their processing power, not as batteries. [0] Or so the rumour goes.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  If that was the original concept, I wish they did. I mean, it's such an obvious one. I must have independently thought of it a dozen times as a teenager. Hell, the movie itself sort of makes use of it - after all, AFAIR, the Matrix is simulated in peoples' heads. Why would they go with this human battery nonsense is beyond me. I guess someone with influence over the movie script must have though people are too dumb for the plot to make sense.
  - woah 8y ago
    It’s not important to the plot at all and they probably didn’t want to get into the task of explaining the processing stuff to the dumber half of the audience. Everyone in the 90’s was familiar with disposable AA batteries, but not everyone had used a computer much.
    - Izkata 8y ago
      I asked the same thing several years ago and got an answer [0]: You're correct, they didn't care so much about that specific detail and let it be changed because it wasn't actually too important to the main plot. [0] https://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/19817/2242 https://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/19817/2242

Terr_ 8y ago

Regarding externalized systems, a relevant quote from the classic computer game Deus Ex (2000): > Helios: The checks and balances of democratic governments were invented because human beings themselves realized how unfit they were to govern themselves. They needed a system, yes, an industrial-age machine. > JC Denton: Human beings may not be perfect, but a computer program with language synthesis is hardly the answer to the world's problems. > Helios: Without computing machines, they had to arrange themselves in crude structures that formalized decision-making - a highly imperfect, unstable solution.

themodelplumber 8y ago
O'Neill likewise skewers the human-condition-social-upgrade-solution (referring to various -isms like Socialism) in his futurism work, _2081_. IMO it's the bipolar casting of the thought process there that is "wrong" if anything is. We are gradually becoming capable of merging and finessing subject and object using various technologies (I count therapeutic-environment-building and institutional life-examination-encouragement as examples of those technologies, but wouldn't exclude something more mechanistic than those) to where the question of "did a computing machine help or was it old fashioned social structuring" will seem pretty uneducated if it doesn't already.

reificator 8y ago

> fear of becoming mere batteries I really wish that the Matrix had stuck with its original concept [0] that the people were being used for their processing power, not as batteries. [0] Or so the rumour goes.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
If that was the original concept, I wish they did. I mean, it's such an obvious one. I must have independently thought of it a dozen times as a teenager. Hell, the movie itself sort of makes use of it - after all, AFAIR, the Matrix is simulated in peoples' heads. Why would they go with this human battery nonsense is beyond me. I guess someone with influence over the movie script must have though people are too dumb for the plot to make sense.
- woah 8y ago
  It’s not important to the plot at all and they probably didn’t want to get into the task of explaining the processing stuff to the dumber half of the audience. Everyone in the 90’s was familiar with disposable AA batteries, but not everyone had used a computer much.
  - Izkata 8y ago
    I asked the same thing several years ago and got an answer [0]: You're correct, they didn't care so much about that specific detail and let it be changed because it wasn't actually too important to the main plot. [0] https://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/19817/2242 https://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/19817/2242