though cat ears are acceptable, the cultivation of human beauty seems preferable to strange transhuman fashion dynamics, as happened with architecture. The Brutalist human must be prevented at all costs. transhumanism should be human. we should become as the elves are. more ourselves rather than whatever memes and competition want to grind us into. absent a god, we don’t get that though.
The majority of the human population has an astounding desire to be normal, and if they desire anything abnormal, to make it normal. Change is always executed by a small cadre of weirdos who experiment with gila monster spit and advanced math, and when they make something sufficiently useful, the ballast of the species says “thanks, i’ll use this to be more competitive in the eternal ranked competitive attractiveness competition”. Which makes it sound like human nature is immutable but I think in general we’re pretty weird compared to who we were 5,000 years ago.
I don't think transhumanism itself is very transformative. You're basically betting that the future is somewhere along a linear tract from the present. Semiconductors get smaller, software is able to fool rocks into making pretty pictures, but fundamentally little actually advances.
What I "blame" for this lack of progress is the outster of "humanists" from corporations, the people for whom technology itself is a means of transformation. These humanists still exist, they just work for these corporates, they don't run them. And at this rate never will.
Just look at the subcultures around the politics of capitalism. You have a lot of people who've tapped out, who see in capitalism only evils and who want nothing to do with it. People who don't seem to appreciate that capitalism is not immoral, but amoral. It is what you want to make of it. Tapping out means someone else gets to run the thing.
Finally, it's a question of capital itself. I think we all can see it in different ways. Buildings are dilapidated, infrastructure is built for a world that no longer exists, services are congested, and even having money is no guarantee of much. We're living through the final decade of Boomers, after which we will see a level of capital shortage that will rival any felt at any point in our history.
Personally I believe it's only during or after this crisis that we will see meaningful transformation again, and maybe some of it will be useful for transhumanists to self-express. I think most people should try and understand the world of the 1950's and put themselves in the shoes of innovators from that time, watch the progress from there to the 1970's, and from the 1970's again to today. What you'll see is huge transformation followed by now 30 years of stagnation (1990's-present).
I believe companies got too "serious", that "humanists" were pushed out from decision making, and that the world entered a period where everything was defined by iterative improvement. No wonder people like Thiel seem so weird.
A final thought on transhumanism: we did not see meaningful progress in technologies that transhumanists would look to, from transhumanists themselves. I'd argue the critical parts came from completely different fields, from people who were busy solving practical problems, the solutions to which simply were irrationally applicable to many other things. I'd argue for example that surgical robots gave VR its sense of point-of-view, (put a headset on, activate a game, turn 90 degrees, move forward - you now have a new point of view that was not quite so developed prior to surgical robots invented this need.)
though cat ears are acceptable, the cultivation of human beauty seems preferable to strange transhuman fashion dynamics, as happened with architecture. The Brutalist human must be prevented at all costs. transhumanism should be human. we should become as the elves are. more ourselves rather than whatever memes and competition want to grind us into. absent a god, we don’t get that though.
The majority of the human population has an astounding desire to be normal, and if they desire anything abnormal, to make it normal. Change is always executed by a small cadre of weirdos who experiment with gila monster spit and advanced math, and when they make something sufficiently useful, the ballast of the species says “thanks, i’ll use this to be more competitive in the eternal ranked competitive attractiveness competition”. Which makes it sound like human nature is immutable but I think in general we’re pretty weird compared to who we were 5,000 years ago.
stop opining about “most people” & their preferences; start opining about “you & your friends” & what y’all want
I don't think transhumanism itself is very transformative. You're basically betting that the future is somewhere along a linear tract from the present. Semiconductors get smaller, software is able to fool rocks into making pretty pictures, but fundamentally little actually advances.
What I "blame" for this lack of progress is the outster of "humanists" from corporations, the people for whom technology itself is a means of transformation. These humanists still exist, they just work for these corporates, they don't run them. And at this rate never will.
Just look at the subcultures around the politics of capitalism. You have a lot of people who've tapped out, who see in capitalism only evils and who want nothing to do with it. People who don't seem to appreciate that capitalism is not immoral, but amoral. It is what you want to make of it. Tapping out means someone else gets to run the thing.
Finally, it's a question of capital itself. I think we all can see it in different ways. Buildings are dilapidated, infrastructure is built for a world that no longer exists, services are congested, and even having money is no guarantee of much. We're living through the final decade of Boomers, after which we will see a level of capital shortage that will rival any felt at any point in our history.
Personally I believe it's only during or after this crisis that we will see meaningful transformation again, and maybe some of it will be useful for transhumanists to self-express. I think most people should try and understand the world of the 1950's and put themselves in the shoes of innovators from that time, watch the progress from there to the 1970's, and from the 1970's again to today. What you'll see is huge transformation followed by now 30 years of stagnation (1990's-present).
I believe companies got too "serious", that "humanists" were pushed out from decision making, and that the world entered a period where everything was defined by iterative improvement. No wonder people like Thiel seem so weird.
A final thought on transhumanism: we did not see meaningful progress in technologies that transhumanists would look to, from transhumanists themselves. I'd argue the critical parts came from completely different fields, from people who were busy solving practical problems, the solutions to which simply were irrationally applicable to many other things. I'd argue for example that surgical robots gave VR its sense of point-of-view, (put a headset on, activate a game, turn 90 degrees, move forward - you now have a new point of view that was not quite so developed prior to surgical robots invented this need.)