Science...Amazing? Or are we going too far?

Krilons Resa

Krilons Resa

Jerry's married?!
Nov 7, 2002
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Inside dorian's gym bag.
Inspired by Erik's Skype thread.

a paraplegic able to manipulate computers and prosthetics just by thinking about it....

basically they implant a device in the motor cortex of the brain, which reads the electronic pulses that are emitted when he attempts to do something he cannot physically, and interprets what he is trying to do and it makes it happen. like fucking krang sitting in the stomach of his prosthetic body in ninja turtles lol...

this shit is fascinating, although I start to worry about the implications 30-50 years from now and how life will be....if we make it that far. check it

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5167938.stm
 
I read about rats doing this some years back, pretty rad.

I want to will beer from my fridge into my mouth, no glass necessary. Make it happen.
 
Dude, honestly, the Terminator backstory isnt too far fetched. Frank Herbert had the same idea in the Dune Series (which is prolly where the Terminator guy got the idea) where humans basically got lazy and let machines do everything for them. Even going so far as to giving them real AI and "personalities".

Machines have already taken over. Look at us, we couldn't exist without them.

As far as going to far in helping a person live a better life? I say keep going, but make it affordable for all peeps.
 
evolution is now the investment of efforts into technology and no longer takes place upon the human body. its the first sign that yes, eventually AI will dominate.
 
J. said:
Dude, honestly, the Terminator backstory isnt too far fetched. Frank Herbert had the same idea in the Dune Series (which is prolly where the Terminator guy got the idea) where humans basically got lazy and let machines do everything for them. Even going so far as to giving them real AI and "personalities".

Machines have already taken over. Look at us, we couldn't exist without them.

As far as going to far in helping a person live a better life? I say keep going, but make it affordable for all peeps.
Click to expand...

yep, agreed. Machines are fucking scary.
 
None of this is surprising, if you consider technology evolves exponentially. However, the more rapidly it develops, the cheaper it becomes. And it looks like it's just a matter of time until cheap, advanced technology (in the wrong hands) produces grave results. Suffice it to say, I'm glad I don't have children.

Zod
 
We don't need advanced technology to fuck the world, we're already doing so. We'd have to backtrack to say... the dark ages, to have any hope of saving it. that's why I'm not planning on having children, because thats not going to happen.
 
The world will make it with or without us, if there's anything to be fucked, it's ourselves. I don't think we actually need all the machines we use today, nor do I actually think we actually will fuck everything up. We have John Connor.
 
This kind of device is great for the persons who are in need of such things to maintain a life worth living. For any average joe, it's like a step further toward useless comfort and technology dependance.

Think: should we get to write posts just by thinking the words, where would the awesome typos go? eh?
 
Ellestin said:
This kind of device is great for the persons who are in need of such things to maintain a life worth living. For any average joe, it's like a step further toward useless comfort and technology dependance.

Think: should we get to write posts just by thinking the words, where would the awesome typos go? eh?
Click to expand...

then you really could call somebody a dumbfuck over their typos
 
I want a shoulder laser spear thingy to kill stuff with and I want useless info to appear before my eyes such as CAUTION or RGB0B5FAF or maybe APPROXIMATE SCORING POSSIBILITY: 100% (when looking at johanna) and a robot arm that looks real cool and is good for karate
 
The scientific advances scare me since they are utterly unbridled and controlled only by the need to dig ever deeper and penetrae further into existance. The problem as I see it, is that there are no constraints whatsoever and there cannot be one either, since science has no higher goal to strive towards; only more knowledge -- knowledge for knowledge's sake.

As an exmaple of how I look at things: people live longer and supposedly happier lives with the help of technology and advances in science -- but is that really so? Yes, various medicines help people live longer and the west often prides itself upon the great life expectancy of its population, but a longer life does not in any way mean the same as a happy and meaningful one. I currently work at an old folk's home ans 90% of the people livng there would probably be dead if it weren't for modern medicine, a fact some might praise at first thought. But the great problem with these people is that they live beyond the age were they can create a meaningful existance for themselves.
What is preferable? A ninety year old woman sitting in a chair all day waiting for bedtime and supper in an endless circle spanning years, or a seventy year old one, with only a few more years to live, having an active life within a context where she feels integrated and needed?

One hundred years ago or so, when you grew old and could no longer take care of yourself and thus not sustain your own existance, you usually died pretty soon. Nowadays the same people might get ten extra years as incapable individuals in an institution whose sole reason for living exists outside themselves, eg the intake of food or the rare visit of relatives. Are those years really worth something? Certainly not in themselves which would be the tacit argument of Science.

Now I'm not condemning all medicine and science, I just wish to point towards what I see as great problems, eg unbridled thirst for knowledge for its own sake paired with capitalistic strivings. In other words a force without ethics or morals, changing our lives in a way so huge we hardly notice it. The carrige we are all currently riding admits great views and places to go, but it's a downhill ride in the dark, without breaks towards a destination we know noting of.

We are humans and need to live in world of human relations and humans, not technology and automatons ruled by ever higher speed and rationalization :[
 
spaffe said:
I currently work at an old folk's home ans 90% of the people livng there would probably be dead if it weren't for modern medicine, a fact some might praise at first thought. But the great problem with these people is that they live beyond the age were they can create a meaningful existance for themselves.
What is preferable? A ninety year old woman sitting in a chair all day waiting for bedtime and supper in an endless circle spanning years, or a seventy year old one, with only a few more years to live, having an active life within a context where she feels integrated and needed?
Click to expand...
Not everyone on these old folks' homes have a crap life, some quite like it there and I myself can barely wait for the days of molesting juvenile girls and blame dementia, hellthrashing in my wheelchair to MetallicA and playing videogames all night ling. I don't even have to get up to go and piss, I don't have to cook or clean, my grandkids come visit me with regular intervals for fear of losing their heritage (and because grampa fekkin rlz) and I can feel I fuckin earned it all since I worked hard all my life. But if I'm to become a vegetable, off me right away.
 
spaffe said:
As an exmaple of how I look at things: people live longer and supposedly happier lives with the help of technology and advances in science -- but is that really so? Yes, various medicines help people live longer and the west often prides itself upon the great life expectancy of its population, but a longer life does not in any way mean the same as a happy and meaningful one. I currently work at an old folk's home ans 90% of the people livng there would probably be dead if it weren't for modern medicine, a fact some might praise at first thought. But the great problem with these people is that they live beyond the age were they can create a meaningful existance for themselves.
What is preferable? A ninety year old woman sitting in a chair all day waiting for bedtime and supper in an endless circle spanning years, or a seventy year old one, with only a few more years to live, having an active life within a context where she feels integrated and needed?
Click to expand...
The problem here is that people in the modern west are so god damn afraid of death that they can't accept that maybe mom/grandma/dad/whatever would quite literally be better off dead than just wasting away in some old folks' home. People have such a hard time coping with death & loss, and death is always "sad" when actually it's much sadder to see someone completely fade to the point where they hardly resemble their former selves at all and have no real reason to live than to see them die at a point where you'd have only fond memories of them, when they're still a real person worthy of respect/admiration/whatever

I also agree with fotmbmike, obviously if someone feels they live a decent life then there's really no need to go in and pull their medicines so they can die at a "natural" age, but I'm not sure you were advocating anything of the sort.

Coffee time so maybe my next post can be somewhat coherent
 
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