The setup of this article promised insightful consideration of the history and progress of intelligence since the Enlightenment, but after a couple paragraphs o

The setup of this article promised insightful consideration of the history and progress of intelligence since the Enlightenment, but after a couple paragraphs of un-inquisitive ranting about the philosophy of Descartes with a couple of nods to the author's formative-experience regards for a movie and a game, the essay devolves into a simple warning to not trust any prescription from the ambassadors of 21st social-tech culture, because they are soulless and tend institutions of unremitting greed. Thanks and duly noted. But we need only observe the Bay Area, the heartland of social tech, which is a shining beacon on a hill for a grotesquely dysfunctional and stratified high-tech culture that utterly fails— luckily— to deliver on the ambassadors' endless promises of a high-tech utopia. Regarding the invocation of Descartes, the author oversimplifies and misunderstands the significance of Descartes philosophical legacy. The soul (mind) was what was to be demonstrated: "Though I may doubt everything else, I know that I am." To obviate this certainty destroys any possibility of consideration. QED. Descartes "body" was an intellectual remainder, being merely a label for the corporeal self based on mechanical principles. In Descartes' time, machine meant objects interacting by direct contact. Newton showed beyond doubt that the world is not "mechanical" and with his theory of gravity any coherent philosophical notion of "body" was lost. But Descartes' "mind" was left intact. This has never since been contradicted. The mechanical philosophy branched into numerous theories that avoid any attempt to formulate an intelligible world (to quote Chomsky) and quietly make due with intelligible theories about the world. That any idea of "mind-body" dualism persists today is an artifact of trivial common sense, which is notoriously incapable of apprehending the mysteries of the world with any scientific depth or subtlety. Final thought: the author resorts to ranting in post-feminist terms about the historical predisposition of European males to their collective milieu betrays the authors' lack of interest in the history of science, and in turn lack of interest in aspects of the Enlightenment that gave rise to today's ambassadors. Interest in history of science can inform and catalyze ways of thinking about a progressive 21st century commons. The Enlightenment gave rise to classical liberalism: The recognition of the apparently divine human spark of creativity, which is a total mystery, but self-evident since Descartes. The capacity of free thought and action including the ability to freely express one's thoughts. A spark unique to the human species, and an endowment which should be nurtured by any decent society. The author's critique thus comes down to the simple observation that Zuckerberg and Andreessen, and the corporate finance institutions they serve, have no decent regard for the human experience. Well tell us something we don't know! Unfortunately for the commons, these cats insulate themselves from curiosity rather than encourage it. Many those Enlightenment white dudes were a special breed of cat?