In my first installment, I began with the question - Who, or what, is a person? - using the Hierarchy of Exclusion from Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game novels as a starting point. My purpose in this second section is to expand our circle of inclusion.
Imagine going to the grocery store in 25 years in your sleek new auto-drive car: You hop in, voice the destination and off you go. The quiet, electric-powered vehicle drops you off at the supermarket entrance, then auto-parks itself while you shop. As you exit the store, your car drives to the entrance, picks you up and returns home. You marvel at this incredible car that can also run errands without you on board.
The currents of the internet work in odd ways; this past week the theme seems to be robot sex. Since I have had it on the brain, I figure I will contribute to the trendiness and throw my own 2c in.
In Western cultures, nature is a cosmological, primal ordering force and a terrestrial condition that exists in the absence of human beings. Both meanings are freely implied in everyday conversation. We distinguish ourselves from the natural world by manipulating our environment through technology. In What Technology Wants, Kevin Kelly proposes that technology behaves as a form of meta-nature, which has greater potential for cultural change than the evolutionary powers of the organic world alone.
Despite fashionable twaddle about American decline, America’s cultural influence has never been as dominant as it is now. Indeed, the 21st century promises to be the American Century to an even greater extent than the 20th. The American attitude to life – The American Idea – is now reflected in the universal aspirations of all humanity.
Today I want to talk about three broad categories: Synthetic or engineered medical research or treatments, biological (DNA) research and procedures, and various transplants that have been performed or are being researched.
As we trek into the future, with electronic systems and robots assuming human jobs - will politicians, judges and police one day see their duties taken over by automation?
Did you hear? There’s now cold, hard research confirming what the Dilbert set have long known: meetings make you stupid. What’s more, being ranked or assigned a status within a group can have a particularly pernicious effect on our grey matter. A new study—led by a team of researchers at California Institute of Technology with four other institutions—found that IQs can drop precipitously in group settings.
Recently, a Sri Lankan woman was arrested by Saudi authorities for witchcraft. A man accused this woman of casting a spell on a 13 year old girl during a family shopping trip. He complained to the police that the girl ‘started acting in an abnormal way’ after a close contact with the woman in a shopping mall in the port city of Jeddah. According to news reports, the accused woman is currently in police custody in Saudi Arabia. If pressure is not brought on Saudi authorities to spare the life of this ‘innocent’ woman, she may be executed by beheading any moment from now.
All buildings today have something in common: They are made using Victorian technologies. This involves blueprints, industrial manufacturing and construction using teams of workers. All this effort results in an inert object, which means there is a one–way transfer of energy from our environment into our homes and cities. This is not sustainable.
Since the arrival of the internet innumerable lists have been made of the greatest science fiction films of all time, and reading them has provided a pretty good indication of how diverse and multi-faceted the genre is. As countdowns like these will always be essentially personal and subjective assessments on form, theme, cinematic style and general aesthetic appreciation, it’s an almost foregone conclusion that drawing up such lists entails waiting for the wave of criticism, scorn, refutations, approval and ambivalence which inevitably follow. Well I happily cry ‘bring it on!’
Why doesn’t everyone get excited about transhumanism? Why aren’t all people fascinated by augmented and virtual reality, radical life-extension, brain-uploading, and The Singularity? This essay is the first in a series of articles, entitled “The Casual Transhuman” - it will examine h+ topics from the layman’s perspective and give suggestions on how transhumanists can spread their ideas without looking like crackpots to the world-at-large.
Are humans becoming obsolete in the workforce? Many experts believe the answer is yes. The amazing win for IBM’s Watson computer over humans on the quiz show Jeopardy, proved that automated systems are getting closer to reaching human intelligence levels.
University of Texas at Dallas researchers have designed an imager chip that could one day turn mobile phones into devices that can see through walls, wood, plastics, paper and other objects.
As a staunch supporter of one’s right to elect cryopreservation over traditional cremation or burial, the following represents an ongoing research focus toward minimizing the impedance of an optimal cryopreservation by the medical and/or legal requirements of a forensic autopsy.
At the turn of the millennium, miniaturized canines acquired the cherished status of living, designer handbag ornaments. These teeny tiny photogenic doggies, which had been shrunken from generations of in breeding, were snapped up by fashionistas who pouted alongside them in front of seas of clicking cameras.
In the Western – post-Breivik – world, there appears to be an increasing support for anti-hate speech / “crimethink” legislation. The idea that you can – and should – control people’s minds – and thus behavior – through prohibitive measures, in combination with proper re-education, is taking hold.
Asian economies managed to progress from starvation in the 1960s to the top tier of development and wealth. In 1981 East Asia had the highest poverty rate in the world, higher than Africa. In 2011 two of the top three economies in the world were from East Asia, and very soon they might have three out of four including the number one.
Who, or what, is a person? It sounds like a simple question. For most of humankind, a person is a human being; in a Venn diagram, the circles that include the terms Person and Homo Sapiens Sapiens would be identical and would cover precisely the same area. The main problem with this approach is that it places all beings in one of two groups: Persons or property.
Archaeologists recently found a 2,700-year-old pot stash, so we know humans have been smoking weed for thousands of years. But it was only about 20 years ago that neuroscientists began to understand how it affects our brains.
Although many today might find the idea of romance with a machine repulsive, experts predict that as the technology advances and robots become more human-like, we will view our silicon creations in a much friendlier light.
I am not politically correct. I do not think the death penalty is intrinsically immoral or contrary to basic human rights. I believe organized society, like individuals, has a right to self-defense and that this right is an unconditional absolute that includes the societal prerogative to deprive a human being of his or her life for particular crimes adjudicated according to due process. I am not, therefore, opposed to the death penalty in principle. I am, however, opposed to it in practice.
What if your child’s school explained that in addition to offering classes on a wide range of academic topics designed to support your child’s intellectual development, they also promoted an enrichment activity which involved, among other things, banging your child’s head against a wall? Would you turn tail and run the other direction?
What is the best democratic system for the 21st century? For a world where communication is instantaneous, travel is fast, and search is efficient? A world where people are all connected, are able to read and write and can look up information themselves?
Not all religions are created equal. In past articles I have argued that religion can be a powerful force for the transformation of humans, both individually and collectively. This is not to say that religion is necessarily and always a tool for the improvement of the human species. Religion in many times and places has been anything but helpful. For example; the Roman Catholic Church in the medieval period deliberately suppressed new knowledge, oddly enough, in favour of pagan Greek philosophers.
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