Thought Experiment - Your Thoughts??

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

Isnt it amazing? I dont believe its good, but it really is amazing. We even have people who know that expensive new shoe is the same damn thing, and they buy it anyway!

Hell, we have automated, AI-like processes that identify individuals that are most susceptible to influence, determined by collected data on everything from consumer products to politics, and then their "internet experience" is catered to it.

Thats a helluva lot worse than just targeting ads according to recent purchases and data gained by eavesdropping through devices. Thats a situation where we have individually curated content based on data-determined weaknesses. And, its not about influencing a spur of the moment purchase, but actually shaping perception to yield more and more predictability in behavior as time goes on. With real time feedback on efficacy..

a reply to: Serdgiam

Once our tools become advanced enough, we are faced with advancing our civilization similarly to meet the responsibility. Or perish.

Well said..

Let me clarify if humans unaided by another species with elements different from ours (like stable higher elements) the path to understanding harnessing enough energy (beyond what any public phycists say is even possible) that gives no waste heat to alter spacetime and gravity, we surely have advanced AI and equipment because our monkey eyes and brains sure as heck aren't there yet. It's one thing to build a couple molecules of non earth elements but this is 200 years ahead stuff. Only AI could help that load of work. Unless they have super coffee too.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

Thats definitely a fair point.

I truly do feel we have not gone beyond the point of no return though. We are damn close, but we havent jumped off the precipice yet. Before we do so, itd probably be prudent to make sure our metaphorical "wings" work, and even if they do, we must be just as wary of flying too close to the Sun.

I do believe a "functional" singularity will seem to happen overnight, or even in a moment, but the whole story is that it was a process of events and decisions that lead to that moment.

Cloning is a good example.. As humans, we are so brilliantly curious that we are stupid. These things will always take place behind closed doors.. At first.

But, when we start to see them pop up in politics, legislation, pop culture.. It is a prelude to institutionalization. For as wary as we should be about these things, the real battle will begin when, say, it is mandated that a child recieve certain modifications "for the good of all." We are already starting to see discussions about designer children...

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

I am a baby boomer and I remember the world before personal
computers came into existence. I am growing old,but I am still
effective and aware.

a reply to: Blue Shift

I will never shut up and my husband has tried!

a reply to: Serdgiam

Hell, we have automated, AI-like processes that identify individuals that are most susceptible to influence, determined by collected data on everything from consumer products to politics, and then their "internet experience" is catered to it.

Ah yes, our own little echo chambers brought to us by the Big Brother of our own choosing.

a reply to: luthier

Humans are as exceptionally clever as we are limited, in my opinion. Who knows, maybe our ability to bring things outside of our understanding into our understanding, no matter how shallow, is unique even among intelligent, sentient life.

What you are talking about may not even require any higher elements at all, stable or otherwise. Its a subject with so, so many shenanigans that even if things are "Disclosed," can we trust any of it beyond it existing (or even that)?

Some of the most amazing things we have created were right under our collective noses for quite some time. Arguably, literally everything we explore in endeavors like physics were right under our noses for the totality of the time our species has existed. But should a hypothetical process such as that be easily accessible and out in the open? I really dont know, but I lean towards no.

In that respect, I can appreciate the secrecy that would inevitably surround it.

Super coffee is pretty damn good though.

originally posted by: mamabeth
a reply to: Blue Shift

I will never shut up and my husband has tried!

Time eventually makes us all take a vow of silence.

a reply to: mamabeth Aluminium foil is only for radio waves.. it acts as a conductor to microwaves so it’s not good idea with all the WiFi 4G about, unless you want to fry your brain... invest in some Orgonite.

Screw that.


I remember how hard it was trying to cop a feel at 14.


You wouldn't even get out of the dugout much less to first base if she could read your thoughts.
It's actually much closer to reality than people are aware of.

I'll pass.


EDIT: I could go with the method in Avatar,,,,,,YOU choose who you share your thoughts with.

a reply to: Serdgiam

As humans, we are so brilliantly curious that we are stupid

I used to be a folky, back in the day. Peter Paul and Mary, Biaz, others. My favorite though was by Pete Seeger. One obscure piece of his struck straight to my late teenage mind. This song has stayed with me my whole life and I suppose still guides some of my thinking though the hopeful ending might be wishful thinking.

One thing though, about this tech is that this song was lost to me for decades and decades as I could not find that old album nor reference to it anywhere but now with you tube, bingo...
You might like this.

a reply to: Serdgiam

I suppose. I mean that would be a quantum leap. There is no reason technology has to be linear from the steam engine but our advancements now which make the cotton gin seem ridiculous come from the use of AI to do a lot of leg work and simulation. I wouldn't doubt we would risk adventurous pilots lives or could be drones but rewriting thermodynamics under the nose of MIT, Fermilab, CERN erc would be tough. Nerds probably blab a lot less than politicians though.

a reply to: 57ORM1IV

This orgonite is something that Sherry Shriner keeps pushing on to people.
I even heard that this substance attracts UFO's!

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

Some really great comments on this thread by all!!

This is just one example and another piece of the emerging puzzle and its possibilities.

a reply to: mamabeth Its good stuff, all about the vibrations it gives out.
Also remember to turn WiFi off over night on phones, tablets computers , at very least it will improve your sleep.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

One of the things that I find interesting in this kind of thread is how in political threads some of us differ wildly about our situation while in threads like this we can agree on some of the ''real''issues that are confronting us.

originally posted by: TerryMcGuire
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

One of the things that I find interesting in this kind of thread is how in political threads some of us differ wildly about our situation while in threads like this we can agree on some of the ''real''issues that are confronting us.

That's because the big secret is that politics is all nonsense and manipulation, yet there are quite a few people who actually think they personally know the best thing for other people to do. Such ego.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

Thanks for posting that, very apropos and equally as haunting. My favorite may be death metal, but I loves me some Seeger!

Actually just took my first online guitar lesson the other day. I do love what technology enables people like me to do. I think so much is taken for granted as "normal," especially by those who grew up with it, but this stuff can be so amazing.

Im really not feeling so great right now, but I did want to say its refreshing to me to see the difference between a thread like this and a political one as well.

Ive always held to the notion that its "best" to call out our own "side." That doesn't tend to earn me many fans, heh.. Im also incredibly sarcastic and verbose, which doesn't always translate well. But I look at it the same way as any kind of sports match. I mean, if the Jets and Giants were playing and a Jets fan kept calling out the penalties the Giants were making.. Aint nobody gonna listen.

But, these are things that transcend that. The advancement of our tools has mostly led to nothing but progress through accepted/known human history, but I think we are getting to a point that our tools could just as easily lead to decimation as growth, if not total destruction. Even with our best efforts, we may be looking at the worst scenario. And, I certainly dont feel we are giving our best as a society on this one. Im not even sure most have thought about it at all.

Thanks for the talk Terry, I look forward to more.

a reply to: Serdgiam

Though you may not get back to this thread, I would still like to offer my thoughts on this

The advancement of our tools has mostly led to nothing but progress through accepted/known human history, but I think we are getting to a point that our tools could just as easily lead to decimation as growth, if not total destruction

From some of my readings on history I am inclined to believe that much of our technological innovations have been brought about by military application. Warrior kings wanting the better weaponry. The physics that went into the development of the bow and arrow, the catapult and other weapons were motivated by war and those there were invented exclusive of war were soon taken over and adapted to war.

That whole line of ''progress'' of scientific development had a land mark moment, an abrupt sit back and consider where we are going with the atomic bomb. There before our eyes, before almost everyone's eyes was proof that that whole millennia long progress report had ended in failure for all of us unless we changed our age old perceptions of ''better.

Of course we seem not to have learned much from that lesson but still as a template for understanding how so much of our advancement is playing out it still stands as a watershed moment.

a reply to: Blue Shift

yet there are quite a few people who actually think they personally know the best thing for other people to do. Such ego.

Agreed. And it is espeically hard when not only leaders but so many ''normal'' people believe the same way. Especially when they don't understand that it is ME who knows better.