If Mort Divine ruled the world

[rms]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/...DB8C29030CA4682BA111BE28595E48BE&gwt=pay&_r=0

some of the quotes are whacky but I guess i'm a republican after reading this?

 

[Dak]

My experience supports my perception (or vice versa!) that most people are self-absorbed assholes. I think women are necessarily doubly so, but they are or at least more refined about it than men. Feminism has disallowed the social refining of this gross self-absorption, while encouraging the natural male acquiescence. These sex based inclinations are natural and necessary for the perpetuation of the species. I also think the original societal developments were, in general, necessary for the improvement of the species. Feminism may have originally been in reaction to excesses in the developments towards improvements, but has long since overstayed its welcome or benefit in its organized format.

 

[rms]

I didn't think of this at first, but the article only talks about one kind of inequality, gender based harassment largely in the workplace. Slight mentions of abortion (body freedom I guess they call it now) and 'catcalls' -- like that's all the difference between the two

zzz

 

[CiG]

It's a dangerous time right now because leftist politics like the things rms mentioned are becoming more and more boring and stale, whereas Trumpian/alt. right politics are looking more and more exciting and edgy.

I've been noticing a lot of switching among people I mingle with, nationalism for example is definitely on the rise here in Australia.

 

[Einherjar86]

These sex based inclinations are natural and necessary for the perpetuation of the species.

I can't with this, haha. It could be argued that feminist efforts and movements contributed indirectly to scientific developments in birth control, alternative fertilization, hormone therapy, stem cell research, etc. Sex-based inclinations, as you describe them, were almost certainly derived from more basic tendencies that at one point were evolutionarily important; but that doesn't make them natural or necessary for the perpetuation of the species.

Additionally, the perpetuation of the species doesn't mean halting evolutionary development at the human moment because now all of the sudden we have values that we're in fear of losing. Humans are just one transit point on the way to something else.

 

[Dak]

I can't with this, haha. It could be argued that feminist efforts and movements contributed indirectly to scientific developments in birth control, alternative fertilization, hormone therapy, stem cell research, etc. Sex-based inclinations, as you describe them, were almost certainly derived from more basic tendencies that at one point were evolutionarily important; but that doesn't make them natural or necessary for the perpetuation of the species.

I fail to see how any of that relates to the perpetuation of the species. If anything some of it works against.

Additionally, the perpetuation of the species doesn't mean halting evolutionary development at the human moment because now all of the sudden we have values that we're in fear of losing. Humans are just one transit point on the way to something else.

And yet we laud the resilience of animals that have shown the ability to persevere and shake our heads at the dinosaurs. I see no reason to prefer some thing in the future purely because it's later along a timeline. There's no guarantee of improvement, only change.

 

[Einherjar86]

I fail to see how any of that relates to the perpetuation of the species. If anything some of it works against.

That's because I don't agree with the way you define "perpetuation of the species." The vast majority of species don't perpetuate. They adapt and evolve, and there's nothing wrong with that.

And yet we laud the resilience of animals that have shown the ability to persevere and shake our heads at the dinosaurs. I see no reason to prefer some thing in the future purely because it's later along a timeline. There's no guarantee of improvement, only change.

I'm not preferring something in the future; but you are preferring something in the past. And it's equally invalid to prefer the past simply because it's earlier on the timeline.

I don't know who this "we" is you're talking about. Who lauds resilient animals like cockroaches or ants? And who shakes their heads at the dinosaurs? What's the point in even framing the issue in this way?

 

[Dak]

That's because I don't agree with the way you define "perpetuation of the species." The vast majority of species don't perpetuate. They adapt and evolve

Or die out.

I'm not preferring something in the future; but you are preferring something in the past. And it's equally invalid to prefer the past simply because it's earlier on the timeline.

I think I was clear that it's not just because of a different point in time.

I don't know who this "we" is you're talking about. Who lauds resilient animals like cockroaches or ants? And who shakes their heads at the dinosaurs? What's the point in even framing the issue in this way?

Um, biologists? Documentaries?

I frame it this way because of my addendum at the beginning. Dying out is the most common future for any given species. Avoiding dying out is mostly luck. We have via consciousness at the least, some ability to avoid that end.

 

[Einherjar86]

Or die out.

When expansive, long-term species die out dramatically, it isn't because they're maladapted to their environment; it's usually because of a radical and disruptive intrusion into their environment - hence the dinosaurs.

But, alternatively, you can also say that the dinosaurs didn't die out, in your very black and white terminology. They evolved into birds.

I think I was clear that it's not just because of a different point in time.

But that's actually all it is. You don't like contemporary developments and want to go back to a "simpler time" when you know things worked. But there's no reason to assume that those things haven't already changed along with the technological developments of the past century or so.

Um, biologists? Documentaries?

I'm not following the rhetorical point of juxtaposing animals that have survived with the dinosaurs. I don't think contemporary biologists lament the passing of the dinosaurs.

I frame it this way because of my addendum at the beginning. Dying out is the most common future for any given species. Avoiding dying out is mostly luck. We have via consciousness at the least, some ability to avoid that end.

And some might argue that consciousness will contribute to that end.

My resistance here is to your cordoning off the human as a stable and consistent biological entity aside from technological and scientific intervention. Technological and scientific interventions can, in and of themselves, be construed as evolutionary developments. It's not logical to assume that archaic sexual tendencies will continue to work when technological interventions are rendering them obsolete; and it's additionally illogical to assume that technological developments and interventions aren't actively changing the parameters for survival. These parameters might not coincide with dated notions of human survival, but then there's also no reason to assume that humanity won't evolve along with these new interventions.

I just don't think your position is realistic or practical.

 

[Dak]

Reliance on technogical substitutions for natural processes increases potential for catastrophic failure and general fragility. Basic physiological functioning and time tested social arrangements are much less vulnerable to various threats than complex technology that demands and energy and infrastructure that cannot be depended on.

 

[Einherjar86]

That is in no way a logical or rational statement. Physiology is as vulnerable to particular conditions as technological enhancements are to others. It's a matter of contingency, nothing more. And if, as you say, consciousness gives us an edge, we can at the very least try to predict those contingencies - one of them being that consciousness itself might be a significant evolutionary hindrance.

Casting all the dice in favor of a more "natural" existence is shortsighted and ultimately unrealistic. Change happens, and that might involve the emergence of new environmental factors that "basic physiological functioning" can't handle. We have to deal with such developments technologically.

 

[Dak]

That is in no way a logical or rational statement. Physiology is as vulnerable to particular conditions as technological enhancements are to others. It's a matter of contingency, nothing more. And if, as you say, consciousness gives us an edge, we can at the very least try to predict those contingencies - one of them being that consciousness itself might be a significant evolutionary hindrance.

Casting all the dice in favor of a more "natural" existence is shortsighted and ultimately unrealistic. Change happens, and that might involve the emergence of new environmental factors that "basic physiological functioning" can't handle. We have to deal with such developments technologically.

I think you're grossly underestimating the fragility of the multilayered, interconnected levels of complexity in modern techbology/existence, with each level at a minimum adding points of critical failure of not multiplying them. You take for granted both the presence and the advance of technology, assumptions that are ever present in the SciFi you like. I do not make those assumptions and I recognize how precarious our infrastructure/knowledge/etc is. Physiology is vulnerable to some things and can be aided by technology, but technology is vulnerable to a wide range of things, because if for no other reason it's vulnerable indirectly to our vulnerabilities (at least until it becomes independent and then a threat) in addition to respective inherent vulnerabilities.

Almost all of the "new environmental" issues that are dangerous to our biology also are dangerous to our technology and the tenuous web of things that supports it.

I'm not saying we need to all live like the Amish(or "cast all the dice in that direction"), I am saying the Amish are probably some of the least vulnerable humans in the world.

 

[Einherjar86]

I think you're grossly underestimating the fragility of the multilayered, interconnected levels of complexity in modern techbology/existence, with each level at a minimum adding points of critical failure of not multiplying them. You take for granted both the presence and the advance of technology, assumptions that are ever present in the SciFi you like. I do not make those assumptions and I recognize how precarious our infrastructure/knowledge/etc is. Physiology is vulnerable to some things and can be aided by technology, but technology is vulnerable to a wide range of things, because if for no other reason it's vulnerable indirectly to our vulnerabilities (at least until it becomes independent and then a threat) in addition to respective inherent vulnerabilities.

Almost all of the "new environmental" issues that are dangerous to our biology also are dangerous to our technology and the tenuous web of things that supports it.

I'm not saying we need to all live like the Amish(or "cast all the dice in that direction"), I am saying the Amish are probably some of the least vulnerable humans in the world.

Okay, we're both making assumptions; but there's no reason why mine regarding technology is somehow less arbitrary than yours regarding physiology. You say that physiology is vulnerable to fewer things than technology is. That is an unsupportable statement. You're just reiterating the same belief over and over, and it's really nothing more than belief.

I also find it amusing that the Amish are somehow less vulnerable than computer engineers in Silicon Valley.

 

[Dak]

I also find it amusing that the Amish are somehow less vulnerable than computer engineers in Silicon Valley.

I know why you find it amusing, and I see it as being due to assumptions which overlook a host of problems. There is nothing that I can think of that threatens the Amish that doesn't also threaten a computer engineer, in general terms. There are quite a few things that threaten the computer engineer that do not threaten the Amish. If you can think of some counters I'm all ears.

You say that physiology is vulnerable to fewer things than technology is. That is an unsupportable statement.

Currently technology also has a dependency on our collective physiology (and more actually, a dependency on the physiology of some more than others). Threats to physiology also threaten technology. Technology has it's own various threats in addition. I don't understand where the lack of support is. Do I need to explain the human element in the provision of resource extraction, direction, transport, and utilization in every case? I think that's unreasonable.

At the point where technology can operate independently of humanity it becomes a threat generally (not saying human can't be a threat to humans, but there's a difference), as is everything that operates independently (obviously at different levels depending on the thing).

 

[Einherjar86]

I know why you find it amusing, and I see it as being due to assumptions which overlook a host of problems. There is nothing that I can think of that threatens the Amish that doesn't also threaten a computer engineer, in general terms. There are quite a few things that threaten the computer engineer that do not threaten the Amish. If you can think of some counters I'm all ears.

Drought threatens the Amish. It doesn't threaten the computer engineer who eats Soylent.

Currently technology also has a dependency on our collective physiology (and more actually, a dependency on the physiology of some more than others). Threats to physiology also threaten technology. Technology has it's own various threats in addition. I don't understand where the lack of support is. Do I need to explain the human element in the provision of resource extraction, direction, transport, and utilization in every case? I think that's unreasonable.

Technology is an evolutionary adaptation, not a new species. If humans die out, sure - the computers stop working. That isn't the point. Computers taking over is a pop culture fantasy. I'm talking about how technology mediates humanity's relationship to the world, how it functions as a kind of adaptation.

Technology has no concern over its own survival - not in the way that animals and humans do. Saying that technology's survival is contingent on humanity's survival is akin to saying that the survival of human vocal cords is contingent on humanity's survival. The adaptation itself doesn't care.

 

[CiG]

More and more I'm seeing people say these kinds of things about higher education, yet certain people still deny that it's going on.

 

[Einherjar86]

More and more I'm seeing people say these kinds of things about higher education, yet certain people still deny that it's going on.

I'm really sorry, I read the comments section. I can't stand these people (i.e. those posting comments).

This is the gulf emerging in the West, but I honestly can't decide if it's better to try and teach people why a toilet can be art, or to say fuck it and here's to the new culture war.

 

[Dak]

Drought threatens the Amish. It doesn't threaten the computer engineer who eats Soylent.

The Amish don't have food reserves to provide in the case of localized drought? They don't make money to provide them the option to buy food from other areas in an extended localized drought situation?

Technology is an evolutionary adaptation, not a new species. If humans die out, sure - the computers stop working. That isn't the point. Computers taking over is a pop culture fantasy. I'm talking about how technology mediates humanity's relationship to the world, how it functions as a kind of adaptation.

Technology has no concern over its own survival - not in the way that animals and humans do. Saying that technology's survival is contingent on humanity's survival is akin to saying that the survival of human vocal cords is contingent on humanity's survival. The adaptation itself doesn't care.

So you believe AI won't occur?

That is rather tangential though. Our modern standard of living and our ability to advance technological breakthroughs depend on some very fragile systems, which depend on currently depleting energy and cultural resources. Furthermore, a variety of cosmic, tectonic, etc. "black swan" events threaten these processes beyond human issues of political instability/nuclear war/etc. The increasingly siloed/specialized nature of knowledge, the digitizing of records, etc. all lend themselves to the possibility of a single catastrophic event, even regionally localized in the right place, erasing the last 100+ or more years of advancement. To wit, knowing how to turn on and basically operate a smartphone has absolutely no connection with the ability to devise the hardware, assemble/produce the hardware or resources, or create the infrastructure necessary to support that and the separate technology and knowledge for writing the code etc.

 

[Einherjar86]

The Amish don't have food reserves to provide in the case of localized drought? They don't make money to provide them the option to buy food from other areas in an extended localized drought situation?

Not if it means a destruction of their way of life - hence, the end of Amish-ness. But as I've already said, survival can mean change.

So you believe AI won't occur?

I believe it can. I prefer not to deal in absolutes.

That is rather tangential though.

And this is probably the end of this conversation.

 

[CiG]

I'm really sorry, I read the comments section. I can't stand these people (i.e. those posting comments).

This is the gulf emerging in the West, but I honestly can't decide if it's better to try and teach people why a toilet can be art, or to say fuck it and here's to the new culture war.

There are only a handful of comments, one of them was this "I took sociology and the first project was essentially why the terrorists aren't so bad" and if true, that's pretty damn bad. How could you possibly have an issue?

Which one specifically made you react?