one of the few threads I deem worthy to post in:

Babylon will fall, it has in the past, it will again. They will not succeed, pure and simple I KNOW this, for we are tied to the biosphere, wither now or in a thousand years time I can see ahead and know the global systems WILL break down, for they need our nurturing caring compassion and understanding, not some malfeasance idea that we have control over the hand of the father.

We all have to go home, to not deny this, death is but a beginning of a beginning, I guess TPTB do not understand this.

There is no way to stop the 'beast' because we don't know who is at the top - who's running things... we can't cut off the head of the beast because we don't know where to find it. All we do is chop away at the appendages which keep growing back.

Actually, all we do is talk about cutting off the appendages while the beast grows and grows.

Originally posted by IntelligenceGathering
one of the few threads I deem worthy to post in:

Babylon will fall, it has in the past, it will again. .

Babylon never falls, it just gets a name change time and time again...Babylon has been going on since the dawning of civilization and simply grows in power age after age in different guises.

btw saturn, In my humble opinion I disagree, if there was anything more efficient than i believe we WOULD be that "thing."

We where given our ability to create technology in it's many forms and functions TO reduce the required energy to grow food, harvest crops, ect. You are correct that the human body requires an amazing amount of time/energy kilojoules, whatever to live, we cannot live off a single grape (that Indian guy who says he has never eaten in 30 years must be the minority.)

Honesty I am calling you out for what you are, somebody who is in favor of the technocrats. I hope your filthy rich or connected, otherwise you'll be exterminated via the ultimate discrimination with the rest of us, no eternal life in a metal husk or on a silicon chip for YOU!

There is no improving upon man until we attain a new level of conciousness, one that steers us away from this topsy-turvy world we have allowed to be built up around that, I firmly believe that, please feel free to CALL me out on my ideological holier than thou principles.

Excellent thread. This is something I have been researching for a very long time.

To those who think that transhumanism is the great next step on the evolutionary ladder, I say be careful. I don't want to live forever. I don't want to become more than human. I wouldn't accept it if it gave me my youth and vitality back. I will be one of the useless eaters that is exterminated for the greater good. But you go ahead and eat the fruit, you will not die but you'll be like the gods! That is until the AI realizes that humanity in whatever form it takes is the problem. Hope by then you have some cheetah genes spliced into that transhuman body.

Originally posted by IntelligenceGathering
btw saturn, In my humble opinion I disagree, if there was anything more efficient than i believe we WOULD be that "thing."

Correct, and thats the point...we will be...we are evolving, no matter how weird you think the concept of intentional mechanical evolution may be, it is actually a natural process of upgrading...we are a animal that continues to evolve to its surroundings, the move to a mechanical/electrical system is just as natural as going from furry animal to less furry adaptation, or from a jelly body to a hardened exoskeleton. I see technology as a perfectly natural aspect of society.

Really take a moment to consider the vast energy it takes to run us, the source is the sun, but it has to go through tons of processes to finally get to us in energy...as a really basic example, imagine if we could just install solar panels in our skin and gave us direct energy...this is just a example, not a real theory, but it gets the point across...you would save the energy of the sun growing the plant, the energy picking the fruit from the plant, the eating and digesting, etc...endless energy loss...but go out for 10 minutes a day in the sun and voila, you are good for the day

We are evolving...we are our own designers now...instead of a half million years of natural adaptation, we will accomplish adaptation to new environments overnight...hell, we may one day live perfectly fine on the surface of mars with no terraforming required once we "upgrade" our system to get energy directly from the sun or the many other places energy can be harnessed.


incidently, I love these types of threads...really

Originally posted by darkelf
Excellent thread. This is something I have been researching for a very long time.

To those who think that transhumanism is the great next step on the evolutionary ladder, I say be careful. I don't want to live forever. I don't want to become more than human. I wouldn't accept it if it gave me my youth and vitality back. I will be one of the useless eaters that is exterminated for the greater good. But you go ahead and eat the fruit, you will not die but you'll be like the gods! That is until the AI realizes that humanity in whatever form it takes is the problem. Hope by then you have some cheetah genes spliced into that transhuman body.

-sighs-

WE will be the AI...its not about creating a new lifeform...its about upgrading our body.
Will there be some wild AI? for sure...but we will always keep it in context of where we are...they will always have sticks to our guns so to speak.
all we do always ends up serving us...you think that when we create a superintelligence, 4 seconds later it wont be slapped into our system? heh...
The transhumanist thinking is not about creating a perfect robot, its about striving for evolving our species to the next step.

As far as remaining amish...that is perfectly fine...do what you want...even the most cutting edge transhumanist likes to go camping now and again...such quaint luddie villages will no doubt be great vacation spots away from "the grid".

Originally posted by Wertdagf
Are those things you really think you deserve... or a good father or mother would do to a child?

Your delusions would make a good movie.... but are not based in any logic or understanding.

You should maybe listen to the people building the AGI. Even they all admit there's no guarantees we wont be exterminated, and basically concede that we'll have to merge with them to have any true hope of not being stomped out.

You're going to have to explain how I'm deluded, rather than just stating that I am, otherwise that shows you to be deluded.

Originally posted by IntelligenceGathering
Honesty I am calling you out for what you are, somebody who is in favor of the technocrats. I hope your filthy rich or connected, otherwise you'll be exterminated via the ultimate discrimination with the rest of us, no eternal life in a metal husk or on a silicon chip for YOU!

Yes, I am a technocrat...I am in full favor and hope for a technocracy as defined....given what we have now verses what could be, a technocracy is far better than democracy

Technocracy is a hypothetical form of government in which engineers, scientists, and other technical experts are in control of decision making in their respective fields. The term technocracy derives from the Greek words tekhne meaning skill and kratos meaning power, as in government, or rule. Thus the term technocracy denotes a system of government where those who have knowledge, expertise or skills compose the governing body. In a technocracy decision makers would be selected based upon how highly knowledgeable they are, rather than how much political capital they hold.

As far as the whole if your not rich, your gonna be slaughtered...well, thats just your pessimistic view of your own self worth...after all, who would want -you- around.

The only thing that we have to fear is secrecy...and the only reason to keep things secrets is fear of luddie sabotage...so, the only thing to fear are the ones trying to stop progress by default because progress is what will happen naturally...those trying to stop it are disrupting a natural progress and creating more damage than they are pointing out.
I have discussed the "gray goo" issues 15 years ago...what is the gray goo issue? you probably dont know, but in 10-20 years from now, mainstream will hear of it and flip out completely by ignorance, thinking they are the first ones to think of it and start bombing facilities that have long since gotten past the issue.

Technology is the field equalizer...we are aware of the problems on earth because of progression of technology informing us and empowering the people...so who would be the ones that want the technology that is day by day waking people up to the corruption of the world...it is of course those whom thrive on secrecy. The more you talk about how the tech must be stopped, or we must abandon all our gadgets, the more you scream for the old system of hidden abuse and mass control to remain the norm.

Freedom through evolution.

wow could you spell it out more for us who you work for saturn 2.0, seriously.

Any case I eluded to this earlier, we will not evolve like this, pure and simply, more is at foot than this, we will evolve in our minds and hearts, not in this unsustainable and frankly diseased way. Technology can only take us so far, I firmly believe that.

Mankind always uses technology for military applications first and foremost, if we where meant to be immortal in this physical shell, I believe we would, pure and simple.

This is not to say that I don't believe we should always reach, learn and understand. But the way we do it is to destroy, conquer, rape, pillage, and stomp over. There is very little true knowledge of understanding in the systems that are attempting to drive us into dark ages 2.0.

I believe we will evolve inside ourselves, through looking within, not outside at technology and its military applications and social media (aka intelligence gathering, operations.)

I see what you mean by saying that this MUST be the next step in human evolution, in attempting to improve upon "god's" design, but I call foul play. I believe this to be the ultimate perversion, the ultimate doom of man. To take away what makes us as special and unique as each individual snowflake is to die while still live. We are meant to evolve not as terminators and t1000's with transistors, batteries, and quantum computers, but as being of life leaving this three-dimensional shell for the next phase of existence.

To improve upon god's design in this way is only going to further the illusion of separation, this illusion that the spirit within hold's no sway over our physical shell. The next phase of human evolution MUST be of spirit, into the unseen world made flesh and blood before you, as you yourself ARE.

Originally posted by SaturnFX

Originally posted by unityemissions

Oh my, you're actually putting technology up over philosophy!


[edit on 15-7-2010 by unityemissions]

No, I said philosophical issues can be resolved through technological progression...making the initial philosophcial issue invalid.

Uh, how is this not elevating technological progression over philosophical issues?

This most certainly stems from a lack of human spirit.

It's not if we can, it's if we should.