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How is fearing the risks associated with technology similar to believing in a cult? Are people who believe that technology can save their life considered lunat

by pingou 2y ago

How is fearing the risks associated with technology similar to believing in a cult? Are people who believe that technology can save their life considered lunatics? Because it can already do so now, to a point, but it's not hard to believe that even old age could potentially be cured in the future, although perhaps not our generation. As far as I know there is no law of physics that would prevent us from being immortals (except perhaps the heat death of the universe or something). Believing in medicine and its incredibly fast paced progress is believing in something irrational with a "scientific" technological gloss?

JKCalhoun 2y ago
> How is fearing the risks associated with technology similar to believing in a cult? If it is driven by an assumption that tech will always save us because it always has in the past. I would draw the line at things like global climate change though.
- pingou 2y ago
  Well I'd say most transhumanists think that technology can save us from ourselves, not that it would necessarily always do. I don't see how that is similar to believing in the cult in TFA, and how both are unscientific.
empath75 2y ago
It starts to veer into cult-like behavior when people start building their lives around _near-term_ apocalyptic scenarios. Being involved in anti-nuclear war protests, fighting for climate regulation to slow down climate change, worrying about AI safety, etc similar actions are all completely justifiable responses to reasonable concerns. Once you start building a bunker on a remote pacific island, you're starting to get into "doomsday cult"-like mentality. https://www.cbc.ca/news/billionaire-bunkers-doomsday-1.7130152 https://www.cbc.ca/news/billionaire-bunkers-doomsday-1.71301...
- pingou 2y ago
  It seems perfectly reasonable to me to spend a tiny fraction of your fortune on building a bunker to gain an advantage against highly unlikely events. Think a civilisation collapse has a 1 in 1000 chance to happen? Spend 0.1% of your fortune building that bunker. Building your life around _near-term_ apocalyptic scenarios doesn't seem super healthy to me, but it is vastly different from being part of a cult or believing in Santa Claus, as there is indeed some science behind it, although people living that way may imagine those catastrophic events more probable or severe than they really would be.

by pingou 2y ago

JKCalhoun 2y ago

> How is fearing the risks associated with technology similar to believing in a cult? If it is driven by an assumption that tech will always save us because it always has in the past. I would draw the line at things like global climate change though.

pingou 2y ago
Well I'd say most transhumanists think that technology can save us from ourselves, not that it would necessarily always do. I don't see how that is similar to believing in the cult in TFA, and how both are unscientific.

empath75 2y ago

It starts to veer into cult-like behavior when people start building their lives around _near-term_ apocalyptic scenarios. Being involved in anti-nuclear war protests, fighting for climate regulation to slow down climate change, worrying about AI safety, etc similar actions are all completely justifiable responses to reasonable concerns. Once you start building a bunker on a remote pacific island, you're starting to get into "doomsday cult"-like mentality. https://www.cbc.ca/news/billionaire-bunkers-doomsday-1.7130152 https://www.cbc.ca/news/billionaire-bunkers-doomsday-1.71301...

pingou 2y ago
It seems perfectly reasonable to me to spend a tiny fraction of your fortune on building a bunker to gain an advantage against highly unlikely events. Think a civilisation collapse has a 1 in 1000 chance to happen? Spend 0.1% of your fortune building that bunker. Building your life around _near-term_ apocalyptic scenarios doesn't seem super healthy to me, but it is vastly different from being part of a cult or believing in Santa Claus, as there is indeed some science behind it, although people living that way may imagine those catastrophic events more probable or severe than they really would be.