[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

I thought you're review could use a soundtrack provided by the Subhumans..

Originally Posted by dead_battery

good would be no war or murder. fair resource distribution, the breaking up of copyright and intellectual property monopolies. peaceful coexistence.

Us Fish Must Swim Together

im supposed to vote for a candidate and if the majority votes for someone else, that person is supposed to "represent" my interests. bullshit.

Do you really wanna vote for the system?

the economic inequality of the present is the greatest in history so far, yet there is absolutely no effective programme to change it!

Businessmen

what NOONE says about global warming is that the best way to reduce your carbon emissions is to die.

I DON'T WANNA DIE!!!!

think the system of economic rationality we're locked into is approaching some weird moment wherein those of us still inhabiting reality are simply sealed into it as units indistinguishable from their environment. we're totally surveilled, mapped, pre plotted entities.

From the Cradle to the Grave..

the fact is that the governments ability to predict when you will die, based on your data, is a process that is increasing in its technical mastery to the point where it will eventually be totally accurate.

so we're progressing towards a system that could solve its environmental issues by simply regulating the production of humans.

British Disease

you see where this is going?

Dehumanization

this is why baudrillard said even death was disappearing.

Dying World

corporations won't just "own" your data and genome, they'll be able to fucking simulate your existence before it even happens! there will be so much data about exactly what your life would be like, it won't even be profitable for you to be born in the first place.

Human Error

[dead_battery]

quite an honour

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

also, agriculture will is becoming obsolete (thankfully because of its co2 emissions).

we dont need to breed animals since we can make synthetic meat in labs. but we dont even need that cos of soylent. our labs are a lot faster and efficient than the soil and sun. smaller too. need to make sure the schematics for these technologies are distributed online

lolololol

science is truly the new opium of the people

or science fantasies anyway

where are those labs?

waiter, i'd like 1/2 lb. of lab steak! here's a bar of gold to pay for it.

soylent is made from rice. an agricultural commodity.

i'm still waiting for my flying car and robot maid

 

the machine messiah ISN'T COMING

there will be no techno-rapture

[dead_battery]

not up to your usual standards at all

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

not up to your usual standards at all

i couldn't argue point by point, it was too much to unpack.

not saying there won't be lab meat down the line. we have shit like quorn or TVP or soy schnitzel, but it doesn't beat the laws of entropy--or politics.

[dead_battery]

it already exists mang

entropy? politics?

do your own googling

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

it already exists mang

entropy? politics?

do your own googling

it exists in a lab that costs more energy to run than it costs to raise a cow from plants that eat the sun. maximum disorder. large costs.

politics rules ownership and distribution.

the labs are not "ours". that's what triggered my laugh originally.

[dead_battery]

i dont know if the costs exceed agriculture, but if they do it won't be for long. also the time the sun and soil etc. takes, and the time involved in breeding is long.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

i dont know if the costs exceed agriculture, but if they do it won't be for long. also the time the sun and soil etc. takes, and the time involved in breeding is long.

growth medium isn't fairy dust conjured up from the void

Meat prices must rise before cultured meat is viable, say researchers
By Nathan Gray+, 28-May-2014
The economic feasibility of sustainably cultured meat compared to that of traditional meat production may be the greatest challenge facing those who support the new technology, warn researchers.
http://www.foodnavigator.com/Market-...ay-researchers

[dead_battery]

progress will change that.

its inevitable.

good article.

[!@#$%!]

progress tomorrow will not feed you today

postmodernism, more than a game of words, is the fundamental suspicion that progress and modernity didn't quite turn out the way they were cracked up to be.

would i love to have my own vat of meat in the kitchen? fuck yeah.

but for now it's a dream-- and it's full of questions

right now i'm just trying to make kimchi. i've fucked up a couple of times.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

progress will change that.

its inevitable.

What fascinates me most about your perspective is that sociologically, ethically, spiritually you are absolutely hopeless nihilist, YET, when it comes to "science" you are indeed as !@#$%! aptly described, an enraptured believer.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

science is truly the new opium of the people



the machine messiah ISN'T COMING

there will be no techno-rapture

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to !@#$%! again.

[dead_battery]

i dont think both of you guys criticism is particulary fair or accurate. projecting christian moralism onto what i'm saying, when it's the exact thing i'm trying to get away from. you're both stuck in a particular perspective and it's not one i share, not even unconsciously, despite what you might think

nowhere did i say any of this stuff would "save us", and the idea that that's even what we should be looking for is the opposite of what i said. i did say we can use it, and we should. i think my attitude is more realistic because im basically saying there are aspects of progress that we can plan ahead for and use for our own ends. we can claw back some freedom if we can accurately allign ourselves with the technical progress that is on the way, because for a moment before it exists it's there in a virtual sense and the field is open for what its ultimate fate will be. if we are always a few steps ahead, we can create new social norms/demands/expectations before the monopolies happen and we get gouged.

there is a certain amount of leverage people have, and the attitude that both of you seem to espouse does not seem like it wants to use it.

ive also never encountered someone who uses the "ah ha, you really DO believe but you dont want to admit it!" line or argument and found them to be convincing.

im not the conservative here, and it seems like the cynicism you both espouse is based on previously ridiculously utopian expectations rather than a realism. that's my main point against xtian people or people unconsciously biased by the surrounding xtian culture.

the argument is like "this nuclear power you speak of, i can come up with so many reasons why it will be misused, why it wont reach absolutely EVERYONE, why horrible things will happen!" therefore im more cynical than you therefore i win.

to me this attitude is totally and utterly redundant because technical progress happens whether we like it or not, and the machines are working on us just as equally as we work on them, so the only sane attitude is to allign yourself not with the utopian or unrealistic aspects of progress, but with a determination to experiment/weaponise/use it because it is happening whether you like it or not.

[dead_battery]

it also is getting to a point where the continued reduction of what i say to my autobiography and some inherent essence of beliefs is just reminding me how futile it is to post these things here at all.

[!@#$%!]

ufff, so much drama.

when we go from debating ideas to debating motivations, nothing can possibly work.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

i dont think both of you guys criticism is particulary fair or accurate. projecting christian moralism onto what i'm saying, when it's the exact thing i'm trying to get away from.

Who brought up Christianity?? I wasn't trying to criticize, more so critique. Its been my observation over these years that you are hopeless (and not in the pejorative sense, rather the literal) about sociological and philosophical matters but head over heals in love with the "progress" of science. It is perhaps the ONE and ONLY thing you ever talk about on this forum in positive terms and I get the impression that your face lights up when you talk about it in person. I wasn't trying to diss you at all, just point out that it is a reflection of your faith in science and modernity, and indeed as !@#$%! mentioned that post-modernism is to view with skepticism and scrutiny the "values" of science and "progress" to alleviate all the ills of the human experience. You may WANT to get away from the emotive idea of faith and belief, but it is the ontological reality of your perspective whether you're aware of it or not. Its a logical conclusion, if you argue that science and progress will "improve" or "solve" critical issues of the human experience, yet this hasn't happened yet, it demonstrates your faith, belief, and possibly even hope in the sciences and technology.

i think my attitude is more realistic because im basically saying there are aspects of progress that we can plan ahead for and use for our own ends.

Yet you've already mentioned how technology is actually starting to further empower the forces of corruption, greed, and ineptitude that are as you've also mentioned the root of our own evils.

we can claw back some freedom if we can accurately allign ourselves with the technical progress that is on the way, because for a moment before it exists it's there in a virtual sense and the field is open for what its ultimate fate will be.

You are very hopeful indeed, I'm a bit more pessimistic about this myself..

to me this attitude is totally and utterly redundant because technical progress happens whether we like it or not, and the machines are working on us just as equally as we work on them, so the only sane attitude is to allign yourself not with the utopian or unrealistic aspects of progress, but with a determination to experiment/weaponise/use it because it is happening whether you like it or not.

By calling it "progress" you've already brought into the world of morality and ethical assessment, not the raw data of science like you'd want to. Technology is what it is. Progress is a relativist, moralist term. Technology can be good, it can bad, it can both at the same time. Also remember its a human creation, so it is as weak, vulnerable, and flawed as the humans who create and operate it. So, to call "progress irrelevant" is a matter of blind faith, not prophecy, because remember if humans use technology to exaggerate our own human fuck ups THAT bad, it can all fall backwards. Our world is a house of cards, you're right, in this era they are very modern, technological cards, but they are fragile as they ever have been. Rome was the most advanced technological civilization and lasted for many centuries, but succumbed to the inevitable progression to the mean. The Muslim empires of the Medieval era were even more modernistic, yet look at the shambles their world is today?? There is an inevitable ebb and flow, true, now we are flowing in an upward direction, but how can you know that nothing can set us back in a future that doesn't even exist yet?

[dead_battery]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

Who brought up Christianity?? I wasn't trying to criticize, more so critique. Its been my observation over these years that you are hopeless (and not in the pejorative sense, rather the literal) about sociological and philosophical matters but head over heals in love with the "progress" of science. It is perhaps the ONE and ONLY thing you ever talk about on this forum in positive terms and I get the impression that your face lights up when you talk about it in person. I wasn't trying to diss you at all, just point out that it is a reflection of your faith in science and modernity, and indeed as !@#$%! mentioned that post-modernism is to view with skepticism and scrutiny the "values" of science and "progress" to alleviate all the ills of the human experience. You may WANT to get away from the emotive idea of faith and belief, but it is the ontological reality of your perspective whether you're aware of it or not. Its a logical conclusion, if you argue that science and progress will "improve" or "solve" critical issues of the human experience, yet this hasn't happened yet, it demonstrates your faith, belief, and possibly even hope in the sciences and technology.

would either of you say it's even possible that it's not?

the rest of what you're saying all rests on me universalizing, which i'm actually not doing if you look closely.

[dead_battery]

my position is that both of you are projecting biases from your own perspectives, and they are what i've encountered over and over again.

i'd say that neither of you want to accept that my perspective could be what it is.

if i was pitching an argument where this little space of progress (and what i mean by that is technical progress which is a real thing (with no ULTIMATE teleology), was immune from the nihilism then you'd both maybe be right.

but this is not what i want to say at all.

i'm pretty happy with this basic position, and i want to work it out further. i understand that it is difficult, but this is due to specific cultural biases. it is possible to have the perspective i have with no theological or ultimate moral compensations. not easy, but possible, that's why its a worthwhile project.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

I may be, but I'm basing it on the consistency in ALL of your posts to mention technology in particular, and science in general, in a very positive light. Further, I don't need to drag up quotes, but you've often mentioned how technology and science and alleviate societal ills, empower people, and help us out. That may be true, but it can in the future be just as much wrong. Hence why its something you believe as a matter of faith. Is it that hard to see that? Further, what is wrong with believing in something? I'm not saying it to you as some kind scathing accusation, even if you want it to be that so badly so as to make yourself a victim in this. You're not victim, and I ain't got nothing against you. Actually, I enjoy your posts in this thread in particular, and I didn't post the Subhumans post to mock you by the way.

[dead_battery]

my perspective is aware of that, but it doesn't get caught in it. there is alteration, there is alleviation, there is experimentation, there is relief and release, and there is possibility of improvement.

but you can always say that "cos we have lightbulbs now life is still as hopeless as it ever was".

nowhere do i advocate faith. what is possible in this world is to predict where technological progress is going. you can allign yourself with it.